Mahoo was standing at Tyloren's shoulder and both men felt a chill air to their left. Turning towards it with their light-catchers, they could see that here was a wide opening, but were unable to see deep into it because it went a long way back. The sound of water was louder, and the walls were damp, which suggested also that they were approaching a cascade of water into an underground pool. Tyloren paused and hesitated, not knowing if he should proceed, and trying to feel his way forward. In this dark place, it would be so easy to make a wrong choice and doom them all. Lenora and Loman came up behind the two leaders, and as they were waiting, another sound began to be just audible over the falling water. It was faint, but had the regularity of footfalls moving at quite a pace. Loman's hump began to writhe, and he knew without doubt the identity of the company headed in their direction.
"There are lo's coming," he said, "Get us out of this tunnel, Tyloren. Quick, which way?" The slightly built priest now pushed the light-catcher out in front of him and bent his attention on it. "Light our footsteps, he instructed. Light our way and lead us." As he held the crystal before him, it emitted a single bright beam and Tyloren scanned the emptiness, where the sound of the water came from, and then he pivoted round so that the beam fell on the continuation of the tunnel they were following, but saw and felt nothing. Turning once more towards the large opening, he felt an attraction, as if pulled by some magnet, and he allowed his feet to follow.
"Keep close behind me," he said and slipped into a large cavern, hugging the wall and feeling with his feet for every step he took. The others followed on behind him, and some distance in, was a space behind a tall stalagmite, into which Tyloren squeezed himself, and called to the others in urgent whispers to do the same. They heard the footsteps growing louder, whines and clicks excitedly chattering. Loman's passenger started to emit sounds, and Lenora smothered them with the cloak, hugging the excitedly moving hump. Loman himself was trying to control the thing he bore, but the surroundings and the sound of other lo's acted as a catalyst, and it was taking all his strength.
Mahoo concealed the light-catcher, and the others followed suit, so that it was pitch dark in their hiding place. The lo's were getting closer, and the whines and clicks took on patterns that suggested communication. Mahoo, who was nearest the entrance to the hidden alcove, began to be able to see the first glimmer of a lantern lighting up the tunnel they had recently left behind. As he watched, a lamp appeared, and two bulky shapes were outlined in the cavern entrance. One of the lo's held the leash of a sniffer in its hand, and the animal was showing interest, sniffing the ground and slavering. It strained to enter, and the lo's started to chatter excitedly, but they didn't venture in. One of them, though, started back along the tunnel and left his companion with the sniffer to guard the entrance. They had been detected, that was clear, thought Mahoo, and he ducked back into the alcove to explain what he had seen, whispering so that the sound of the falls covered his voice.
"We haven't got much time, I don't think, and we have to act fast," said Loman. "Lenora, remove my cloak. It's time to test out the theory." Her hands trembling, she kissed him tenderly on the cheek, and uncovered the hump. Immediately, the lo head began to chatter and whine, and Loman bowed his own head to his chest, allowing the lo head freedom. Its agitated clicking reached the lo in the cavern entrance, and the sniffer pulled at the leash of its handler. Loman squeezed his bulk out of the narrow hiding place, and moved towards the lo. Taken off guard, the creature in the doorway was unsure. Loman was approaching, the lo head on his shoulders clicking and whining in happy recognition of both the environment and the presence of another lo. The sniffer could smell that there were others beside Loman and it strained at the leash, but the lo held it fast, uncertain what to do. It clicked in agitation, and Loman's lo-head continued its chatter in reply, as Loman lumbered on. He acted swiftly when in range of the entrance, stood upright, forcing his lo-head behind, him and drew a long sword. On command from the tracker, the sniffer lunged forward with open jaws. In one swoop, Loman sliced at the neck of the sniffer, which snapped at him with razor-sharp teeth and foul smelling breath, and as the animal fell dead, he raised the sword a second time. The lo dropped the lantern in his other hand, but was outlined in its light as it hit the tunnel floor, and Loman caught sight of the once-human face of some poor unfortunate who had been transformed into the lo he now faced. Its lolling useless head was now just an appendage, and the lo-face shone white and deadly in the glimmer of the lamp. Loman wanted to strike the thing dead, but felt compassion for the part of it that used to be human and that made him hesitate.
The astonished lo bombarded Loman with a high pitch whine, which was loud and penetrating, and deafened his human ears. It raised its own sword, and would have slashed at Loman with its well muscled arm, but another sword came into play, as Lenora, with a leap that put her between the lo and her husband, stabbed upwards into the throat of the human head that hung so sickeningly from the chest, and she pushed the blade home for all she was worth, forcing it into the body of the lo and into the second head at an upward angle. The creature, after several spasms gave a choked cry, and crumpled to the floor, oozing blood and ending its existence there in the darkness of Athrak.
"Quick!" pleaded Lenora, "the other one will be back soon and he won't be alone. Loman! Come on!" She threw the cloak over his ghost-white lo-face, and in doing so, felt the malice of its desperation as it bared its teeth and rolled its shining eyes at her. She shuddered, but smothered it under the folds of the material and then raised her husband's true face to look at her. "Loman! Loman! Come on, we have to get out of here!"
Mahoo and Tyloren had arrived and were standing behind Lenora and Loman.
"Don't slip in the blood," whispered Lenora. "Tyloren, what do we do now?" But it was Mahoo who took charge.
"Lenora, get Loman into the Lo uniform. Keep the cloak." Seeing the logic, Lenora set about undressing the lo lying on the floor of the tunnel, and shouted instructions to Loman.
"Get undressed! Come on, help me!" she insisted. The usually gentle behaviour of the spindly had given way to urgent activity, and Loman, seeing his wife removing the uniform of the Lo lying dead on the passage floor, suddenly came to his senses.
"Tyloren, help me drag this stinking beast into the cavern where it can't be seen," said Mahoo, and the little man bent immediately to the task, dragging the sniffer by its scaly legs into the cavern. Give me some light!" Tyloren picked up the lantern in the doorway, and shone it around him. There was a ledge just behind them and the deep blackness beyond it told him there was a drop of some distance just beyond. He set the lantern down on the floor, and helped Mahoo. Neither of the men was tall nor well built, but they were both strong and wiry and they humped the large beast to the edge and rolled it over. It dropped into the blackness, and they heard a thud over the sound of the water as it landed somewhere lower down.
Wiping his hands on his jerkin, Mahoo now turned to Tyloren.
"I'm going to see if Loman's all right, Tyloren. Use the time to find us a way out of this mess if you can. We need to know which way to go and we need to know now!"
Tyloren had no time to compose himself, to calm his mind and concentrate, and his stomach was sick with the fear that he was going to get them all killed. He was desperate, and in his despair, he found himself back inside the black cabinet, where no light shone, no sound apart from his own heartbeat and breathing could be heard, and no food passed his lips. In that darkness, he had surpassed fear and had become more aware than at any time in his life of his connection with the realm, its crystals and all the elements that had converged to keep him alive against all odds when he had been a prisoner. Maybe he had even wandered the endless tunnels of Athrak in the periods when he drifted dreamlike between sleep and death. The awareness that had constituted his only reality then came back to him now, and as he stood watching the flickering shadows of his companions dragging the dead lo to the edge of the same precipice to join its hound in the d
epths of the cavern, the knowledge came to him.
As if his brain held an internal map, he ‘saw' that the cavern could offer them a way out. Mahoo returned with Lenora looking white and grim, and Loman, now dressed in the uniform of the lo's of Athrak. From the tunnel, the first sounds of pursuit could be heard and three anxious faces stared at Tyloren.
"I think the mountain is starting to get the message, he said with quiet confidence. Follow me," and he set off into the blackness of the cavern with the lamp. "Keep close to the walls! This is a circular ledge, which runs around a very deep hole. If you meet stalagmites or stalactites, stay on their left side." And he was off, the others following on after him into the very heart of the underground kingdom of Ataxios.
Chapter 26
Shock Waves
John was reeling. His eyes opened, but he couldn't focus and he felt he was in motion though the hard rock beneath him and at his back was solid, jagged and immovable. His eyes rolled and his voice emanated from his throat in a low, wordless growl. Vilma placed a series of crystals from the leather pouch she carried on her belt at his crown and on his forehead and throat, and chanted low.
"Back to the land of half-light, come……
To the crystal realm, return…….
In the air of life, breathe……..
With the pain in your flesh, feel…….."and with the utterance of the last phrase, she twisted a sharp crystal point into the palm of John's hand till it let blood. He groaned and tried to remove his hand from the source of the pain, but it was an instinctive jerk, and Vilma held him fast, twisting the crystal deeper and deeper into the wound she had created, chanting the lines over. At some point, through the mist of his confusion and nausea, the pain bit, and he bounced back into consciousness, violently wrenching his hand from Vilma's. He opened his eyes, and let out a yell, his reaction being to strike out and it took all Vilma's strength to keep him at arm's length.
Then realization dawned, and he searched Vilma's eyes for clues as he recalled the events surrounding Jazlyn. There was a distant sleepy echo of her in his mind, but she was neither strong nor aware, and Vilma answered him with a shrug of her shoulders.
"I don't know," was all she said, and she released his hand, "You'd best heal that, you're bleeding." John looked at his left hand and focused mistily, still holding the wand in his right, he raised it unsteadily and touched the gash with the tip. A gentle sensation of warmth flowed into him, the flesh closed and the skin renewed under his gaze till all that was left was the mess.
"It was Nya," he breathed, allowing his hands to drop and his head to loll back on the rocks behind him, "we were fighting Nya, and we had wounded him. He was down and we were about to strike…….and then something stopped us……. Something broke the connection, or someone. We couldn't move our arm. But I didn't see who or what it was. Then I was gone. I couldn't gather myself together, I lost Jazlyn and I was thrown towards Ataxios." Here he paused, and his voice broke from him in despair.
"What in all the heavens am I doing here? This horror can't be real!" An involuntary tear broke from him and closing his eyes he spoke bitterly, "William Stone, your legacy was a curse," he muttered coldly "and I will die in this place and I will not die alone, because when I go down, many others will go with me, and my name will mean death when I am remembered."
The form of William Stone appeared in his head. He stood before John and gazed at him, calmly but seriously. He could not speak to his nephew, but he indicated with his arms left and right, and two doorways were drawn in the background. They both swung open, and through the door on the right was John's old life, images following on one after the other, his flat, his office, the local shops, himself sitting alone in this living room or eating a microwave dinner in the kitchen. The other door showed his life in the Realm, his guardian training, Althea, Nya, Menoneth, scenes from the forest with Jazlyn, Tyloren, Ataxios and the Akryd, and himself wielding the crystal wand. William stone left the two doors open and then drew a dark crystal shape, man-height, with his own wand, and beckoned John to approach. William Stone was giving him a clear choice. He felt he was free of the body lying propped up against the rocks on the high pass and free also of his pain and despair. He walked to the crystal and placed his two hands on its walls, which dissolved into softness and he stepped inside. To his left and to his right were the two doorways and he could clearly see and hear things from each, as though he were standing just outside in the hallway of his home, or watching a film about the Dark Realm. He could take the way back home if he wanted to and leave all this nonsense behind. Images of Ataxios and the Akryd came to the fore in the door on the right, and he knew this was an opportunity to avoid facing their evil. He might be turned into a ‘lo' and become a servant of Ataxios forever. It was obvious which door he should choose. Self-preservation raised its logical head, and he knew what he had to do to ensure his survival. But there was inside him a deep reluctance, which gripped his gut and wouldn't let him relinquish his new identity. It didn't just have to do with his feelings for Jazlyn though they were considerable. His unwillingness to give up his new and extreme lifestyle was much stronger now. William Stone had offered him a way out twice before; the first time he had actually returned to his past life, but chose to come back to the Realm, the second time, he had resisted the temptation, but only just. Now, with this fresh opportunity to escape back to the relative safety of his past existence, he knew, without doubt that he was no longer the same John Stone. He needed to be the Wandmaster, and have all that went with it. He had become one with the power it gave him and the exhilarating thrill that came with being either hunter or hunted. He was hooked on the adrenalin rush of danger. It was, he supposed, like a gambling obsession; Russian Roulette, maybe? John had never understood why anyone would risk blowing his brains out in such a rash act, or for that matter, attempt to climb Everest or walk to the North Pole. There was no answer as to why a man does something so obviously life threatening, and there was no sound, logical reason why he now chose not to take the homeward door. With a strangled cry, he lurched for the portal to Ataxios and the Realm, the crystal wall sealing itself behind him decisively with a finality that made every hair on his body stand to attention. William Stone disappeared.
"I'm going to regret that bit of decision making," he muttered to himself as he shook his head. Would William ever offer John another chance to get out? If he did, would he be in a position to take it?
"What?" questioned Vilma. John looked at her puzzled face and realized that she had no idea what had just happened. He decided to keep it to himself.
"Nothing. I was just considering options."
"I can't see that there are any."
"No, not any more."
"What does that mean? You're being very cryptic. I don't begin to understand what just happened and I was blocked from your mind for a time," she mused thoughtfully, "but I know that my daughter is still alive and that is what we should hold onto." John searched for Jazlyn and felt her weary and asleep. That was going to have to be enough for now.
With renewed resolve, John got to his feet and started out across the remainder of the narrow pass to where the rest of the company was waiting nervously and talking in low whispers. Vilma was taken by surprise by his sudden burst of activity, and hurried after him.
"Slowly, take it slowly! You've been through a lot!" But John felt strong, as though he had been given a new lease of life. He felt powerful, certain of his capabilities using the wand, his direction and his task. He had become newly energized and fired up, like a battery recharged. He cut through the silence around Jazlyn and encompassed her in a soothing embrace, knowing that she felt it. There was a flicker of response. He would try again later. Then he paid Ataxios a visit, effortlessly making himself appear high above the Athrak plain above the assembled hosts. He floated, enclosed in a glowing crystalline bubble, emitting shards of light, which flew out like arrows, shattering into splinters just inches from his insect-headed foe. John wa
s at this moment vengeful and fearless. He felt powerful and threw back his head and laughed, shattering the shell of the crystal around him and sending it flying off into Ataxios's face. All around him, panic reigned among the spindlies, lo's and sniffers alike, but the huge Akryd just wagged her heavy head from side to side unaffected. John, himself, withdrew, disappearing bit by bit as though he had been sucked back by a powerful vacuum, and Ataxios was left shaken with his hands instinctively defending his masked eyes, cursing and unhappy with the new turn of events. This was not how it was supposed to be!
"Wandmaster, you will bow to me yet!"
The assembled Guardians, Jet and Menoneth were lounging listlessly against the rocks on the far side of the pass or sitting where they could comfortably find a flat enough slab. As John came bounding into their midst, with a flustered Vilma fast on his heels, they could have been forgiven for thinking their Wandmaster had lost his faculties.
"We must press on!" he shouted in an overloud voice, which startled them all. "This thing has got to end."
"Are you all right?" asked Menoneth, with doubt ringing in his voice and written all over his face.
"Yes," replied John "I'm better than all right. I'm perfectly well, thank you. Now, having got the pleasantries out of the way, shall we get ourselves on the move again?"
The uncomfortable silence was only broken by the rumbling falls in the background behind them.
"You haven't hit your head or anything, have you?" asked Jet "only, I saw you back there and you were out cold. Are you sure you have recovered so quickly."
"Call it crystal magic, Jet, and leave it alone. A Wandmaster has certain privileges, you know. The crystals in this Realm want me well and they made me well." Vilma was staring at him from under heavy brows with a deep frown.
"And Jazlyn? What of her? Do the crystals in the realm want her well too?" John stared into her eyes and replied in a softer voice.
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