“I’m in. Barely. Going to push now. You both ready?”
“Ready,” Sanet responds.
“Ready for you, too.” Bernard’s voice is even more muted.
With that, Ethan takes hold of the lever and pushes. At his hands, he can feel the vibration of the stone walls’ movement as dust showers down on him.
“There’s an opening on my side now,” Bernard says in an eager, excited tone.
“Me too. Going through now.” Sanet pauses a minor before calling out again. “And I’m back where we started.”
“I’m on the other side. There’s another tunnel.” Ethan turns to see a newly revealed opening. He steps over, squeezing through, to find Bernard. Brushing himself off, he yells across the stone toward Sanet. “Anything open over there? Any new doors?”
“No, it looks exactly like it did when we got in here.”
“Shnite. What do you want to do?” Bernard asks.
Sanet continues, “I’ll head back to keep watch. I’m sure those crimson freks will be making their way down here. I can hold them off while you two continue down.”
“I don’t like the idea of us splitting up,” Ethan yells back.
“Unless you want to spend another hour figuring out this puzzle . . .”
He knows she’s right; time isn’t kind to the cause. “Don’t do anything rash, Sanet,” he commands.
“I’m your Green Valor. Who says I’m rash?”
Ethan smiles at her words. Bernard’s face contorts at the comment.
“Long story.”
“Valors.” Bernard huffs with dismissal.
With Sanet gone, the two of them continue forward into the new tunnel, the mood between them turning quiet without Sanet’s connective presence. The new trail descends deeper, to the west, and soon opens into a fresh chamber. Here, they find a thick rope threaded through large metal hooks that stand just under a measure high. They circle out from the center, creating an increasingly larger spiral that ends at the edge of the wall. Bernard steps in over the first line of the rope. Ethan follows.
Bernard looks around and asks, “What do you think this is all about?”
“If the first level tested our monch, I assume this chamber tests the broon.”
At Ethan’s assessment, Bernard nods. Ethan hops over the ropes, making his way to the center, where he finds a carved circular panel. “Looks like this may move.” He brushes aside a bit of soft dirt and traces the rope to a hole in the floor. “Where does the line end?”
Bernard follows the line, stepping over the rope as it curves around and around toward the outer wall. He stops at its end and finds a large knot that is held back by a small metal loop. “It’s here.”
“Should we pull it?” Ethan asks.
Without answering, Bernard takes the knot in his mitts and begins to walk backward with it. His arms tense as he creeps back. The chamber groans as the rope threads through each of the metal hooks. Ethan stands away from the center panel, which begins to slide away and reveal a downward ladder. Bernard at the minor is shaking and at the end of his strength.
Ethan encourages him. “You got this.”
“Not for long. Is it open?”
The panel has slid completely underside. “It’s open.”
“Thumb to fingers.” Bernard lets go, and the panel, with the rope, slams closed.
“No, no, no!” Ethan hurries over and nearly crushes his fingers. He bangs his fist on the closed panel door. “Prosh. I think we’ll have to hold the rope to keep it open.”
“If that’s true, you’re going down there on your own.”
“Maybe I can pull the rope and you can hold the panel when it opens?” Ethan suggests.
“Not to piss on the plan, but I could barely pull it. This may be something designed for three or more to pull. Many people working for the one, perhaps.”
Ethan hates the words. “Absolutely not.”
“Should we turn back? We could try going through that stone chamber again, return to Sanet?” Bernard attempts to soothe the growing agitation at the situation, but Ethan understands the next step.
“I’m going to have to go down there alone, aren’t I?”
“What’s the last level supposed to be again?”
“Soul.”
“That won’t be difficult, will it?”
“Who’s to know?” He rubs the back of his neck and takes a deep breath.
“Are you ready?”
“No?” he says, uncertain.
“You’re ready. Just remember, I’m always there to catch you.”
“Not this time.”
“If it’s for the soul, I will be. We’ll both be there.”
Ethan is not one for the spiritual, for religion and things that can’t be backed up with fact and research and reality. The things of the sky, the things unexplained are not things to worship but to investigate and attempt to explain. There is always an explanation.
“If the time is now.”
Bernard doesn’t answer but instead nods, shaking his mitts and cracking his neck. He takes hold of the knot, returned to its place against the hook. In the next minor, he pulls and the room groans once more. The panel creaks open again.
“You’re going to be wisnok, Bernard?”
“Never worry about the life of an old man,” Bernard growls through his teeth.
Ethan smiles to himself and waits, watching the darkness unfold before him. When the panel has slid out of the way, he climbs inside.
The hole curves almost immediately, creating a short slide that dumps him out onto a trail. From behind him comes the sound of the panel slamming shut. Hopefully, Bernard’s able to make his way back through that stone room by himself.
Ethan moves along, pulling a neonlight from his pocket to light the way. The path broadens as it spirals downward, curving this time to the east. After a few majors, he comes to what he hopes is the last chamber.
Circular in shape, it resembles an upside-down cone, with a small sunlit opening at its tip, some two or three hundred measures up. Broken paths with open rails circle the room, spiraling upward. And in the middle of the chamber, a small boy stands, lit by the opening above. At the sight of the boy, Ethan is brought to his knees. “Kevin?”
“Hi, Daddy.”
Creshwillows hang on all sides of the chamber, off the railings and along the floor. They’re in various states of awake and asleep. Ethan knows it’s not Kevin, his son having been sent nearly ten years ago, but the resemblance is uncanny. He appears older than when he was sent, and Ethan’s instinct is to run across the room and embrace his son. To hold him again. But it isn’t Kevin. It is only a trick of the eye. A protnuk’s trick. Kevin walks out of the light and then back into it, this time as a man with wild hair and white eyes.
“You seem tense? You come all this way to harm an unarmed man?” The man raises his hands, palms out, fingers extended.
“I’m looking for something. Don’t mean to be a bother,” Ethan states calmly as his heart beats nearly out of his chest.
“A bit of brass, perhaps?” The wild-haired man pulls from his pocket a small flicker of brass. “I’ve been wondering when someone might come down here to take this from me.” He holds it out as if to hand it to Ethan.
Ethan steps forward. “You’re just going to give it to me? No riddles or foretales?”
“You’d like a riddle? How delightful.” Almost unseen, the man retracts the brass, slipping it back into his pocket. He lifts on his toes and then his heels before walking the inner chamber in a small circle. Ethan counters the movement.
“To think. To think. How about—” He begins by speaking in the old language. “When the orb is reunited, it fulfills the exarmadasis.”
“Exarmadasis?”
The wild-haired man sneers at Ethan. “A smart one, then.” He says another riddle, this one in a language Ethan can’t understand.
When he finishes, Ethan holds up his hand. “You’ve blocked me on that one. Haven’t
studied in that language. So, you’ve won. May I have the brass anyway? It would be much approshed.”
“Did you like my yellow derange? It loves to chomp on all those pleasant souls.”
Ethan recalls the flying frek with its bright-yellow light. The blue-and-red streams from Johan’s sent body. “Oh yes, very much. It welcomed us well. Please . . . the brass?”
“I feel you’re using me. Don’t you want to be a friend, Quemon?” The man’s voice deepens.
“Just hand over the brass. I’ve made it all the way down here, shouldn’t I at least be rewarded with something?”
“Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re someone worthy? Are you part of my Lion? Do you belong to my family?” He starts to circle Ethan, sniffing the air. “You don’t look like what’s foretold. You don’t sound like my Roar.” Ethan sees the man’s fingers begin to lengthen. “Why did you disturb my nest?” The man’s body continues to shift and grow as it squirms and wiggles around Ethan. And then he stops and continues to sniff the air. Ethan stands back.
With a deeper, menacing voice, the old man says, “You’re with that Dark Valor.”
“Please, I mean you no harm. I’m just here for the brass,” Ethan states plainly. Calmly.
“You think he’s been called by the Land?” The man’s size nearly doubles, and he hunches over, crawling on long hands and feet, with two other limbs emerging from his clothing, which rips at the seams. He seems enamored with Ethan, and sneers and growls.
“Please, I’ve no weapons against you,” Ethan stammers.
The protnuk’s head grows, and it’s no more than a minor before he, now an it, is a hulking orange frek. Its voice is modulated and reverberates in a deep wail. “You think he must protect the Land, this Dark Valor. Protect it from me!” Its mouth snaps at Ethan, saliva dripping and flinging on him.
Ethan attempts to remain calm. I’m absolute mad to stand here. Move. As the protnuk continues to transform, it drops the brass, its attention and focus exclusively on Ethan. And then, out of the corner of Ethan’s eye, he spies Brute, which seizes the brass fragment as the protnuk’s back is turned. The other creshwillows eye the new frek as it disappears into a small alcove.
Ethan, considering it time to leave, steps backward toward the tunnel he entered from, keeping his focus on the protnuk’s movement. Every passing minor, the protnuk grows more and more agitated but hesitates to attack. As soon as Ethan turns his head, the protnuk roars, filling the chamber with a great thunder, before giving chase. It swipes with one of its massive underclaws, by inches missing Ethan, who slams himself against the tunnel wall. He picks himself up and runs again along the narrowing path. After a few strides, the protnuk is unable to reach him and crams its body into the upward tunnel, its broad shoulders held back by either side. Its mouth chomps, spittle flinging into the air.
Ethan runs as fast as he can, upward and around the bends of the path. In the shadows and darkness, the protnuk’s voice echoes: “You can’t protect the Land from me.”
Without stopping, Ethan finds his way back to the area he dropped down into and bends over, hands on knees, exhausted and breathing heavily. He looks around in the darkness, realizing he lost the neonlight back in the protnuk’s chamber. He then hears scratching above him. Cowering, covering his head, he freezes before seeing Brute pop out of a small hole.
“Where’d you come from?” Ethan stutters, out of breath. Brute disappears into the hole and then reappears, yelping out a quiet whimper, likely as loud as it can. “You want me to follow you?” It then dips back inside. Without another option at the ready, he follows Brute, pulling himself up into the hole.
Inside, it is dark and cramped, forcing Ethan to crawl. The small tunnel winds around and around until a dim light appears ahead of him. He hurries toward it and finds it drops down into another tunnel. The light grows. Relieved, he climbs faster toward it and discovers he’s near the other hole that exits into the cathedral. A proshing shortcut. He crawls with haste and hops down, causing a great stomping echo to bounce across the cathedral’s nave. Sitting in one of the pews, Bernard and Sanet turn and stand, then hurry over and embrace him.
“Ethan, you brave madman, you’re alive.”
“Can you believe it? Brute just came out here and handed this to us.” Bernard holds the protnuk’s piece of brass. “Funny thing, we probably didn’t need to go in there at all. Seems Brute found a whole tiny tunnel system. It led me out from the rope room. I bet those other creshwillows dug them out over the years.”
Ethan grins at the thought, still shuddering at what he encountered below.
“What did you find down there?” Sanet asks.
“As you both say, long story.”
At this, they turn the corner toward the exit and find the front entrance door cracked open—and a severely injured crimson man pointing his gun at them.
He shoots.
The three take cover behind a pew. Sanet loads a bolt and moves to send the man left before Ethan stops her. “Don’t. We need someone who can sail Johan’s kleep.”
“Come out. Don’t hide you shnite bastards,” the man yells across the nave before blasting another round of fire.
“I don’t do well with these friends. You’ll need to negotiate,” Bernard says to Ethan, who nods.
“Wisnok.” Ethan raises his hands, and instantly a gunshot explodes behind him. He lowers them. “Please, stop shooting.”
“What’d you say?” the man yells back.
Calling out from behind the pew, Ethan says, “Let’s talk. Obviously, there’re three of us; no way you’d survive if we try to send each other left.”
“What’s there to talk about? Why don’t you give me that brass, and I’ll let you live alone on this island?”
“Why don’t you sail us back to Yikshir, and we can bargain with the brass when we’re back?” Ethan squints. A real negotiator.
“You think I’m flam? You think Cadwellion would want me to let you bodies off this island without consequence?”
“We have Sanet. I know Cadwellion doesn’t want you to harm her.”
The man fires another shot, stomping toward them.
“I’ve heard enough,” Sanet says exasperatedly. She stands and shoots.
The man screams. Ethan turns around and sees the man lying on the ground, grabbing at his knee.
“You like doing that, don’t you?” Bernard says, sprinting toward the crimson man.
Sanet’s words are cold. “I’d aim for his heart if he had one.”
“I was getting there. We didn’t have to shoot the man,” Ethan stammers.
Neither respond, and Sanet assists Bernard in propping the man up as he yells and curses at them.
“Now now, no reason to shout,” Bernard tells him, his mitt holding the man by the back of his collar with a grip that keeps him motionless. “This is good for all of us.”
Pushing the injured man ahead, they leave the cathedral stonetin. Outside, the village below lies quiet.
“What happened to that yellow derange?” Ethan asks the man.
Still held by Bernard, the man seems angry, if not saddened by the event. “The what? That flying frek didn’t recover from being knocked out, but not before it shot that light at my brothers. It slithered back into the jungle.” The crimson man spits, pointing to the empty trees.
Sanet hurries ahead of them toward Johan’s body and flips him over.
Ethan follows her and catches a look at the sailor’s corpse, now covered in moss. His cheeks are sallow and sunken. “No time for the left here, is there?” he murmurs.
“He was a good man. Greasy, but good.” Sanet stands up, wistful.
Ethan takes a last glance behind him at the silent stonetin on the hill. The fleeting image of Kevin and the creeping presence of the orange protnuk are still with him. Below him lies Johan’s corpse. How could I have ever protected Mercet here?
The three take turns carrying the whimpering crimson man through the jungle and
eventually to the beach, where two small kleeps are roped and anchored.
“You think you can sail that one?” Sanet asks, pointing to Johan’s kleep.
“It’s all the same to me,” the man says, defeated.
“Great, we’re sailing back to Yikshir,” Ethan says, his words a demand.
“Whatever you want, friends,” the man says through snarling teeth, glowering at Bernard.
Part Five SANET
Chapter 29
CADWELLION'S POWER
Once Ethan leaves for the evening with his wife and child, Sanet slips off to her sleeping room. The heavy duskmeal of barmeal pies settles comfortably over her like a thick blanket. Lying contentedly, with eyes closed and kiptales trickling in, she stirs when a knock comes at the door. At first, she disregards the visitor, rolling over and clasping a pillow over her head. But with hesitant impatience, the knock comes again in three rugged raps.
She gets up, staring across the quiet room at the half-dim and faded neonlights and the window overlooking a moonlit and placid sea. With her robe on, she steps to the door to find Nico standing on the other side, sheepish and quiet. He’s a garish guard who labors as Sanet’s personal acolyte. He taught her the ways of crossbows and stonetin etiquette and has accompanied her on a few treks beyond Salsman and the Yikshir borders. Though Ethan takes on a role as the usual liaison between her and Wellion, Nico gives her outside details, things that Wellion most likely doesn’t want her to know.
“Apory to wake you, Sur Wells, but I was asked to bring you up to Cadwellion’s.”
Sanet closes her robe as a breeze seeps in from outside. “Did he say why? I was hoping to get a night’s rest before I leave in the morn.”
“He did not, Sur, only that I was to find you once Ethan returned to haynest.”
Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1) Page 33