The Pursual: Book 1 of The Nome Chronicles

by F. F. John

  My breath quickens and I compel myself to keep going. Searching desperately for another foothold. None is close enough for me to reach without risking a painful drop. A stronger tremor jolts my right hand out of its hold and now I’m left swinging with a tuft of grass keeping me in place.

  Chapter Nine

  Neith

  I squeeze my eyes and gasp along with the audience. When my lids open, I’m looking at Father whose lips curl in anticipation of the adventures on the shell’s exterior. Although I know Invier is in a virt construct I can’t watch him topple off the wall. This feeling is illogical, given that he can’t get hurt or die in the virt, but still, I don’t want to see him injured. The camera adjusts to show him from a bird’s perspective, and the drop seems even more hazardous than I originally assumed.

  Grabbing Bel’s arm causes her to mutter, “Ouch, ease up a little.” She carefully removes my grip. “What are you trying to do? Draw blood?” I know she’s pretending to be serious so I don’t hesitate to grab her again. She grumbles but doesn’t free herself this time.

  Now there’s a close up of Invier’s legs swinging. Then, the camera zooms in to show his trembling arms before expanding to show the rest of him, which quivers as well.

  “You’ve got to find your feet, Invier!” Seth yells at him from above and the camera zooms in on his face. Seth’s brows are knit in worry as he leans into the alcove with an arm dangling. Unruly blond curls frame his head and bright, green eyes stare at Invier in fear. “Grab onto me and I’ll help you up. You can do it.”

  My heart pulses wildly in my throat. Although I want to shut my eyes, I can’t take my gaze off the screen. Sweat shines on Invier’s forehead as he struggles to hold on to some grass that looks dry enough to crumble to dust in his hands. Stabbing his foot at the rock, he finally finds a toehold. Half of his other foot is suspended off a crumbling ledge that is already giving way.

  “Doing good!” Seth calls as Invier hurries upwards. As he’s grasping onto the outer rim of the hole, the quake picks up again and his hand slips. Yelps fill the auditorium briefly before dying to an anxious silence. My breath stills in my chest.

  Without warning, the auditorium erupts in cheers. Seth has one of Invier’s arms firmly in his grip and I inhale for the first time in several seconds. Pulling him out, they both scramble to their feet. Realizing I’m still holding onto Bel, I let go and clap slowly, making efforts to regain my composure.

  “Don’t worry,” Bel whispers, “he’s doing fine.”

  The camera pans over the construct’s landscape and there’s nothing but red for miles. No foliage. No wildlife. No structures. Nothing but jagged red rock. Fissures in the ground wriggle into existence and one makes its way between Invier’s feet.

  “Get out of there,” I mutter to myself.

  “Did you say something?” Father’s expression is inscrutable.

  I must have spoken too loud. “No, Father. I didn’t say anything.”

  He lingers on me before turning back to the screen.

  Be smart, Neith, I warn myself. As the hostess, I must appear impartial because failure to do so could be seen as proof of bias. I need to be more careful. My hands grip the armrests of my chair.

  Seth and Invier’s lips move but the microphone doesn’t pick up their conversation.

  The quake ceases with a final jerk and both boys collapse to their knees panting.

  Erhart replaces Invier and Seth on the screen, and I release the armrests. The camera shows him in panorama view, walking across a barren surface full of cracked fissures that spider in every direction. West of him, however, waves slap against the rock’s edge, their crests a brilliant white; what seems like hundreds of miles to the east, the red rock lifts into the sky creating an impenetrable wall of stone that hadn’t existed only seconds prior. The next shot is of Mehrdad, Ika, James and Loic making their way northward down rough steps that lead into an underground cave. Unlike his partners, Ika uses his hands to get down. The white of his uniform stark against his ebony skin.

  The fact is I don’t care about any of the other participants. Only Invier. I get my wish as Invier and Seth come back on the screen, once again engaged in a discussion. Still, there’s no audio and someone in the crowd yells, “We can’t hear them.” Another person cries, “Put the sound back on.” Rather than oblige, the camera pans to their right, showing us the red wall again. This time, however, the camera zooms in on an opening in the middle of the wall.

  There are no obvious obstacles but I’m sure the terrain will manage to give Invier a challenge or two. I wonder what it’s going to take for him to win.

  Chapter Ten

  Invier

  It feels as if every bone in my body liquefied from the shaking. Seth tries to stand but crumbles back to the ground on his hands and knees.

  A wave sprinkles over the rocks to my left. There must be a large body of water that way. I hope the Jaden Spitz isn’t somewhere over there because I don’t want to be anywhere near a cliff’s edge. Straight ahead, Erhart is launching himself across holes, vaulting with all his might. I don’t want to deal with that either. He’s made a lot of progress since he left us in the alcove, but how did he get that far in such a short period of time? He must have been less affected by the quake we experienced. That possibility gives me a glimmer of hope. I send a prayer to the blinding sky that we avoid another quake a long time.

  Feeling my body return to normal, I give Seth a hand and pull him up. “Think you can walk?”

  “Yeah, my legs are getting stronger, but I think I hit my head during all that shaking.” He points to a bruise forming on his left temple.

  “Let’s take a second for you to recover.”

  “Nah, let’s get moving.” He takes a few unsteady steps forward. “Is that Erhart?” He shields his gaze from the bright sun and jerks his chin at our fellow competitor in the distance.

  “Looks like it.”

  “How did he get so far so fast?”

  “I’ve got no idea.”

  Taking a slow spin in place, I scan behind us. The entire landscape is a dusty, sun-beaten red rock with nothing but gaping openings and a lone tree. Something glints in the distance to the east. Whatever it is sits in a wall of stone. I can’t tell how far it is from here, but it may be worth our time to check it out.

  “What’s that?” I tilt my head to the mysterious object and the glinting briefly ends. Fortunately, it soon returns as a cloud shifts.

  “Let’s go find out,” he says. “What have we got to lose?”

  ***

  The sun sinks its boiling fangs into my pores. Every few seconds, I wish there was water in the water bottle on my utility belt. My lips are rough to the touch and I’d bet they resemble the cracked earth we trudge upon.

  It takes a long while but we finally get close enough to the wall. With the heat, sun glare and thirst, we didn’t notice that our journey took us downhill. That lack of attention now means that the glint we’ve been following is encased in a hole several feet above the ground. From our original vantage point, the shining object appeared to be near ground level. But for the nothingness we left behind, I would have suggested we go back the way we came.

  We stare up at the wall, both of us panting loudly. Wiping sweat from his brow, Seth exclaims, “No way! It’s all the way up there? How do we get up?”

  There’s nothing but red ahead of us and above us, the view isn’t much better. Gray, threadbare clouds sit overhead, like an ancient fabric struggling to hold itself together. They do nothing to shield us from the sun.

  My head throbs at the prospect of climbing. No matter where my eyes land on the wall, there’s nothing to latch on to for the journey up. The throbbing in my head spreads down my neck to my shoulders and I take a deep breath to stem the tension growing in me. That turns out to be a bad mistake as my nose fills with the stench I’d noticed in the alcove. The fetid smell makes me dry heave as sweat journeys down my back’s crevice. I shimmy to relieve myself
of the icky feeling.

  The ground lets out a deafening roar and jerks. I drop on all fours in anticipation of the quake but no additional rattling follows. Seth withstands the shaking, remaining on his feet. He smirks at me as I rise and I’m sure my embarrassment is written on my face. I dust my hands off against each other. Red grit floats unto my red-caked boots, which like the rest of my outfit, used to be white.

  Looking back the way we came, I notice a section of the ground lift into the air as if thrust upwards by an invisible hand. That can’t be possible. Did the ground jump? No way. I must be tired and dehydrated. I scrub at my eyes then glance at the same spot and the vast landscape is flat once more.

  “Are you okay, Invier?”

  “I hope so.” Facing our red obstacle once more, I place my hands on its coarse surface. Surprisingly, the rock is cool to the touch. I press my back to it so as to relieve some of the punishing heat.

  Without warning, the jouncing resumes. This time, it’s more aggressive and my teeth crash into each other. Although I want to crouch, my body won’t let me. I’m stuck in place on the wall, praying this will end.

  The quavering picks up and pieces of rock shower upon us. Something tiny bounces off one of my boots while larger rocks smack into the ground at our feet.

  One glimpse at Seth confirms that we’re scared. Virt or not, getting pummeled by falling rocks will hurt. Neither of us can move and as the dropping rocks become larger, all I can do is I blink stinging sweat away.

  A brain-splitting whine joins the rumbling cacophony and something slams into the ground in front of me sending stinging shock waves through my body. It’s a large, red boulder. It leaps up before smacking into the ground once more. Repeating this movement over and over, the boulder jumps a little higher each time. Another boulder of the same size plunges from above and bounces before crashing into the first boulder, smashing it into smaller red pieces. My eyes shut in time to avoid the shrapnel that sprays my face. My heart no longer wants to stay put. It’s pulsing rapidly.

  When I open my eyes, Seth’s mouth is open in a scream I can’t hear.

  Chapter Eleven

  Invier

  I suck in air but the effort requires energy that I don’t have. Still, with each struggling breath, I’m less frantic and feel a measure of calm. My pulse is a strong and steady beat in my ears. There’s nothing I can do but wait out the trembling. I remind myself I’m in the virt, so whatever happens won’t be real.

  This. Isn’t. Real. I mumble to myself. As I repeat this three-word mantra, the ground gives out and gravity sends me hurtling. Flailing with no idea how far I’ve gone, I shriek. The only thing I’m conscious of is the rushing noise in my ears and the increasingly putrid smell.

  “It’s okay, Invier!”

  My howling sputters to a strangled end and I crack open an eyelid. I’m in a crater. The light from the unforgiving sun bounces off pebbles embedded in the stone around us. We’re several feet from the surface and the prospect of climbing out is not an option given that the walls in here are slick. What is it with this competition not giving us walls we can climb?

  Seth rolls his upper body backward and the bones in his back crack.

  “What … what … happened?” I stutter.

  His hands go back and forth over his short blonde curls. The bruise on his temple is now a light purple. It will darken some more.

  “We fell a couple feet and there’s no way to get back up again.”

  How will we get out of this hole? I swallow large gulps of air, my body continuing to shake even though all else is still. An examination of the cavern reveals a cavity in the wall which is big enough for us to enter.

  Seth walks over and unhooks his torchlight. Spreading its light, he says, “Our best bet is to go in. Think you’re up to it?”

  Inhaling deeply, I go to the opening. The space is big enough for us to walk through but what if there’s another tremor … I don’t want to think of what could happen. Virt or not, I stare in dread. Plus, as I sniff the air, that putrid smell intensifies.

  “If we’re going to go, it might as well be now.” Seth steps into the cave’s mouth. At least the air is cool in here and for a few seconds, I forget my fear of being smashed to death in a murky void.

  Moving with tentative steps, we pan our torches to find obstructions. Silver cobweb patterns line the entire passage and we swipe to get them out of the way. Our hair and clothes must be covered with them.

  “I think I hear water,” Seth says, his enthusiasm growing.

  Instinctively, I swallow but it’s agonizing and I cough. My throat and mouth are as dry as the cracked landscape we left behind. Water would be a consolation after my recent mishaps.

  Ahead of us, the cavern narrows. It forces us to trek sideways, jammed between what are now rough walls. We reach a section where the stone has serrated edges jutting out. Seth is in front of me and grunts all the way through. My jumpsuit rips and the rock pierces the skin on my back. At least the stench isn’t as bad in here.

  We step into a wider space but the roof lowers drastically and we’re forced to get on our hands and knees. A bleak hole yawns ahead of us awaiting our entry. Our torchlights show the short passage goes on for a while.

  “Blazes!” says Seth. “We’re going to have to crawl.”

  “I’ll go first,” I say.

  He steps aside and with my light to lead the way, I crawl in.

  ***

  Who would have thought crawling could be this uncomfortable? Babies make it look easy. Spikes of pain shoot through my knees up into my thighs and the balls of my hands are raw. My body screams at me to stop but doing so means spending more time in this bleak tomb.

  “See anything up ahead?”

  Pausing, I beam my light into the expanse. A sound percolates through the darkness.

  “Water!” I perk up and bump my head into the crawl space’s ceiling. Ignoring the stabbing pain, I say, “It sounds closer than before.”

  Several seconds pass as we strain to listen. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!” He says.

  The possibility of a cool drink propels me forward and the cramping in my knees and thighs is gone. We soon arrive in a damp grotto with its moisture-laden walls sparkling under our torchlights and a few small holes on the northernmost wall. The space could do with some fresh air and more light but I’m mostly focused on the settings main attraction. A meandering stream shows itself and I dive into it face first. The cold water is refreshingly sweet and I slurp greedily from cupped palms. The liquid coats my dry throat and I’m soon satiated.

  We’re filling our bottles when voices bounce off the cavern’s walls. Spreading my light, I try to find their source. Seth stands, closing his bottle and I join him, slipping my bottle back onto my belt.

  A blinking light emerges from a cavern ahead, growing brighter as it advances. My hand slips to my knife’s handle.

  I shine my light in the direction of the opening and someone grunts in irritation. “Get that light out of my eyes!” Mehrdad. In consideration, Seth and I lift our torchlight to the cave’s roof. White apparitions drift closer.

  “Oh hey,” Seth says. “How did you guys get here?”

  “Mind your own business,” is Mehrdad’s gruff reply.

  I want to ask him why he’s being rude but my attention switches to Ika and Loic who soon materialize. They’re holding James up between them, his head drooping.

  “What happened to James?” I ask.

  “The baka got hit by a rock.” Loic is irritated as if inconvenienced by his injured friend. Loic and James’s families were all laughs at the reception, so I assumed they were close. Not close enough to care about James’s well-being in the virt. Ika and Loic lower James onto the ground unceremoniously, where he lies unmoving.

  “Shouldn’t you be more careful with him?” I ask and Loic’s shoulders rise in a disinterested shrug before he fills his empty bottle in the stream.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Se
th asks.

  Another light appears from another cave opening and we all freeze in place.

  “Hello, everyone.” It’s Erhart. He goes straight to the water.

  “Is James going to be okay?” Seth repeats.

  “Don’t know! Don’t care!” Ika answers.

  Mehrdad's sharp features betray none of his thoughts.

  “I heard you guys when I was in the tunnel,” Erhart pipes up. “What’s wrong with James? Is he unconscious?” He slides his bottle into his utility belt.