by Liv Daniels
“Hmm,” Leina mused. “I wonder how many people still remember it.”
“Are you girls ready yet?” Theo called from down the hall.
Cora’s music ceased, and she was out the door before Leina could move.
***
When Leina crossed the bridge and climbed down the countless rickety ladders for the last time, she marveled at how much of her fear she had lost. At the bottom of the crevice, as she waited for Cora and Theo, she looked up again at the city of the Yurukim, as sophisticated as it was rudimentary, with the Gecko People ceaselessly climbing and making the lights seem to blink on and off as they passed. Their ways didn’t seem so unfamiliar now. The Silence and the nonexistence of time here seemed natural enough, if not the eating habits. Leina was almost sorry to leave, and glad in a strange way that she had come here. Where she had expected only death she had found instead an enigmatic silent sanctuary and a stony hidden princess who could perhaps bring peace to a World long without it.
When Cora and Theo arrived, they set out in silence away from the cliff-city of the Yurukim and down along the uninhabited reaches of the crevice. Theo carried with him a torch, but it barely illuminated the stifling darkness that pressed around them. They kept close together so as not to lose one another.
“Do you ever come this way?” Leina asked Cora.
Cora shook her head. “No one does. I shouldn’t have even been as far away from home as I was when I found you. They say there are evil things beyond the light.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Theo. “I come this way all the time.”
At that moment, Leina became aware of a void-like space in front of them. She could not see it, but its presence was undeniable.
“What is that?” Leina said, her voice faltering.
Theo stopped suddenly, making both girls stumble.
“Sorry,” Theo said. “This is the entrance to our way out.”
When Leina’s eyes adjusted, she was barely able to make out a gaping cave entrance ahead of them. It seemed to spawn a thick darkness like unwholesome mud, even more complete than the one that encircled them now. The darkness muffled the light from the torch in Theo’s hand so that it looked only like a single waning star in an endless black sky.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back?” Leina addressed Cora, but she wasn’t entirely sure who she had meant to ask the question to.
“Yes,” said Cora fiercely, her eyes flickering faintly in the torchlight. She turned her face away and they grew dark. “Are we going in or not?”
“Yes, we are going in,” Leina said firmly, and took a decided step into the black abyss. She felt more than saw the stifling darkness envelop her.
“Great courage and great foolishness bear unto themselves equal vehemence, it is said,” mumbled Theo as he and Cora followed. “Trouble is one can hardly ever tell the difference.”
Chapter 24
The only thing that Leina was clearly aware of was a stifling feeling. Color and breath alike were restricted to the point that Leina felt as though they might both fade away entirely and leave only a void of nothing.
Theo went a little ahead of the two girls, holding his feeble torch aloft in the imposing darkness. Leina guessed that they were in a wide tunnel, but she could see nothing except for the ground directly under her feet. Before long it felt like they were not moving at all, but suspended in their futile motion amidst the darkness. Nonetheless, it was certain that the tunnel was sloping up with increasing steepness, and that gave Leina hope.
“Have you been this way often, Theo?” Leina asked in a nervous effort to keep back the unnerving airless presence that seemed more like it was swallowing them with every silent moment.
“Once,” said Theo. “But that was a long time ago. I reckon things have changed since then. If I had known that you’d grown to be so daft, I wouldn’t have told you about it at all.”
The tunnel suddenly narrowed and levelled out, and Leina could see the faint outlines of stone walls close on either side. Then, suddenly, a jagged shape stabbed into Leina’s vision. She staggered back.
“Steady there,” said Theo. “It’s just a ladder.”
Leina stared at the dark shape, and gradually she realized that Theo was right. The tunnel’s ceiling was low here and there were ancient-looking ladders attached to it above their heads. One of the ladders was broken so that one end remained attached to the ceiling but the other had fallen to the ground, blocking their path. Leina couldn’t imagine why anyone would traverse a tunnel by climbing upside down on the ceiling, but it was easy enough to surmise what enigmatic people had erected these ladders.
“I thought you said no one came here,” Leina said.
“Not anymore, they don’t,” Theo replied. “But in the early days the Yurukim would traverse this way on occasion, to see what was passing above.”
“And I suppose walking was too boring for them, so they climbed upside down to make it more interesting?”
“Hardly,” Theo laughed. “It used to be a steaming underground river ran through here. These ladders were the only way. No second chances if you let go.”
Leina almost choked on her own breath. “Please don’t say that.” She would never understand the Yurukim.
“Come on. We need to keep moving.”
Theo inched past the fallen ladder, and Leina and Cora followed. But just as Leina made it to the other side, she felt a shuddering impact. Before she could make sense of what was happening, she was slammed against a stone wall, and then she was on the ground, struggling to regain her breath. Everything around her was moving, shaking, thundering. Dust obscured what little vision she had and choked her ragged intake of air. Then it was over, and all was still.
Coughing, Leina struggled to get up. The darkness swirled around her, confusing what little sense of direction she had left. She stumbled and felt a sharp impact on her head.
“Theo…?” Leina moaned.
There was a light in her face, and Theo and Cora were before her, their faces caked in dust.
“Alright?” said Theo grimly.
Leina nodded. Theo held up his torch, shining a scarce bit of light amid the settling dust. Behind the fallen ladder, unnervingly close, was a packed wall of stone that hadn’t been there before.
“What happened?” Cora murmured.
“Earthquake,” grumbled Theo. “Now it’s forward or nothing. I hope nothing’s changed up ahead since I was here last. There is no way back.”
***
They pressed on. There was a dull apprehension that hung in the darkness now, and Leina felt sweat forming on her forehead. Their footsteps formed a constant rhythm that seemed to drone Theo’s last words. There is no way back. There is no way back.
Leina did not know what was ahead, but she could not make herself believe that the way would be as Theo hoped. She only hoped that they would be able to manage it.
The tunnel went on much the same as before, as if tangibly mocking Leina’s fear. Soon it began to slope upward again, quickly becoming even steeper than it had been before. The longer it went on, and the steeper it grew, the greater Leina’s apprehension became.
Suddenly the slope of the tunnel speared up vertical before them, and drew them to a halt.
“What now?” said Leina, nervousness undisguised in her voice.
Theo’s laugh rang out even in the stifling darkness. “The time to ask that question has not yet come.”
Theo motioned upward with the torch, and Leina looked. Only a few feet above her head she saw a dark space that marked an opening in the sheer vertical wall. It was small, but Leina judged that they could fit into it well enough.
“Oh,” said Leina, and she laughed too. Cora was as stony as ever, like the silence, but it was easy enough to see the relief on her face as the torchlight flickered upon it.
Theo held out his hands to give Cora a lift, and Leina followed. She pulled herself into a vacuous dark space, and her previous definition of stifling wa
s immediately obliterated. The air here was so heavy that she felt as if it was crushing her from every direction at once. The blackness was so complete that she suddenly doubted her own existence.
“Are you there, Cora?” she whispered, wondering if the voice was truly coming from herself or if it was only a chance figment of the air that formed some sound alike to faint intangible speech.
“Mmmhm,” Cora responded mutely, another bodiless voice in the blackness.
Then Theo’s torch leapt into view as he hoisted himself up. Leina thought for a moment that the sheer contrast had blinded her, and her existence returned to her in a brilliant flash. The vision faded, and Leina found that the torchlight was still faint, though magnified a little.
“Onward then,” said Theo, and onward they went. The tunnel was so low here that sometimes they had to crawl on the ground. The air grew heavier and hotter as they went.
Cora coughed. “Why is there so much water in the air?”
“I don’t know,” said Theo, “and I don’t like it.”
Leina realized for the first time that she was soaked; whether with water or sweat she did not know. Her cloak clung to her, saturated and heavy.
Suddenly, up ahead, Theo groaned.
Leina hurried to catch up. “What is it?”
Theo held the torch aloft, revealing the dim outline of a jagged wall of stone that blocked their path.
“That was our way out.”
Chapter 25
Franticness overcame them, and they grappled at the massive stones with their bare hands. But the way was blocked, and it was clear that it would take much more than their own futile strength to change that.
Exhausted, Leina sunk to the ground. Now there was no way forward and no way back. She had not thought that her journey would end like this.
But when she looked up, her eyes met a dark space, a crack in the side of the tunnel that enclosed them.
“Theo?” she said. “Look! What is that?”
Theo turned. “Well. That wasn’t there before.”
“When was before?” Cora asked.
“When the Yurukim were still using the tunnel,” Theo grunted. “Look, girls, don’t get your hopes up. I don’t know if this will lead us to the surface or not.”
Theo handed the torch to Leina and proceeded to squeeze through the crack. It was a tight fit, but he made it. After Cora was through, Leina handed the torch in to her companions and went through herself. It was immediately clear that this was where the water came from. The sides of the crack were hot and damp.
When Leina emerged, a great wet billow of heat met her face. She coughed, swallowing the water that had accumulated in her mouth. “Theo? Cora? Are you okay?”
There was a roar in the air like a great wind, but Leina heard Theo yelling nearby. “Yeah, but my torch got blown out.”
“Oh, no,” Leina began to say, but she stopped abruptly. “Why can I still see, then?” Her vision was faint, but she could see white billows of steam mushrooming and dissipating in the air all around her. One giant cloud swelled forth and engulfed her with powerful force. She hugged the wall, struggling to keep her balance.
“I don’t know,” Theo’s voice came faintly over the din. “That might mean that we are near the surface.”
As Theo talked, Leina groped her way toward the sound of his voice, spluttering against the assault of the scalding steam on her face. Suddenly she emerged from the cloud, and crashed into Theo. He steadied her.
“Leina, look,” said Cora.
Leina lifted her head and gasped at the sight before her. The ground fell away a couple of yards distant, creating a massive chasm. Billows of steam rose from the depths of the gaping pit, which stretched as far as she could see. She could glimpse stony outcroppings here and there between puffs of steam, islands in a vaporous sea. The nearest one was clearly too far away to jump to.
“Well then,” Leina said, laughing nervously. “That’s interesting.” She bitterly wanted to feel some kind of devastation. She knew very well, after all, what this meant. But all she could manage to feel was some kind of numb wash of cheerfulness that futilely insisted that all was not lost.
For a long time, all that the three of them could do was stare. The steam rose and billowed and assaulted them with its searing spray, and that was all that Leina could clearly register. Never had she seen anything so magnificent, or terrible, or awe-inspiring, and never had she been so totally unable to distinguish between those concepts.
“Is there any other way out?” Cora muttered, regaining her unbreakable composure.
“There must be. There’s light here. We are near the surface,” Leina rattled out with mechanical franticness.
Theo shook himself and returned from the dark well of thought that had possessed them all. “All we can do is look around. Stay close.”
And so they looked, but their search did not yield anything but despair. The great steaming sea stretched for the length of the massive space, and the walls on either side were sheer. There was no way forward, and no way back.
***
Leina didn’t know how much time had passed. She now found herself on the ground in the dark, leaning against the walls of the tunnel outside, staring blankly at the bleak faces of her companions.
“So,” Cora said, her voice unexpectedly breaking the silence like a sharp knife, “are we giving up?”
“So it would appear,” said Leina hollowly.
Cora turned to Theo, and in the dimness Leina saw him give a little shrug.
Cora frowned disapprovingly. “Well, if you two are both set on dying here, then I won’t bother to tell you how we can get out.”
“What?” Leina jumped.
“Theo,” Cora said, after flashing Leina a quick frown, “do you think there’s a way out past the steam?”
“I don’t know,” said Theo, narrowing his eyes. “It’s pretty likely, I guess. The light has to be coming from somewhere.”
“Then it would be better to try to cross it than to sit here, agreed?”
“Cora,” Theo said, his voice strained. “There’s no way.”
“Yes there is. Didn’t you see the ladders back in the tunnel? If we can get one off of the ceiling, we can use it like a bridge.”
Sensation returned to Leina in a flood. “No! We can’t do that!”
Cora glared at her. “Why not?”
“Because…” Leina shuddered and her voice trailed off. All the fear that had come after her last fall returned to her tenfold. Now she knew why she had felt no fear at being trapped. Because simply being trapped was too easy. “Don’t you think that’s too risky?”
“I think we should try it, Leina,” Theo said gently. “It’s our only chance.”
Leina chided herself inwardly, taking a deep breath. “I know. Of course it is.”
Theo rose. “No use in all three of us stumbling back there in the dark. I’ll go alone. Stay here, and if all goes well I’ll return with a ladder.”
Leina watched despondently as Theo disappeared into the dark reaches of the tunnel.
“Okay, what is it?” Cora hissed, fire in her voice.
Leina’s eyes fell. “You’re brilliant, Cora. I always knew you were. And this is our only chance. I know that.” She tried to push aside the nagging thought that Cora’s ideas, however brilliant, didn’t always work. She tried to push aside the images of ladders and bridges, and most of all, falling, that threatened to engulf her memory. “I just don’t know why I’m so afraid, that’s all. Part of me would rather stay here and starve than attempt… that.”
Cora’s eyes flickered visibly, even in the dark of this deep place. “Leina. Breathe. Feel the air. You’re alive. Don’t you want to stay that way?”
Leina laughed. “Since when have you been like that?”
Cora shrugged demurely and murmured something unintelligible.
Leina sighed. “I’m sorry that you’re stuck here with me. You shouldn’t be. Neither of you should. This is my
journey, even should it end in such a strange manner.”
“It’s not going to end here, okay? Theo told me what you’re like. You’re a legend, and perfectly capable of overcoming trials much worse.”
“That’s what scares me most—when I hear people talk about me like that. I can’t make myself believe it.”
“I believe it,” said Cora quickly. Then she turned and started rummaging through the bag of food and supplies that Theo had brought. She produced a coil of rope and tossed it to Leina. “Here. We’ll need this.”
***
Cora was asleep when Theo returned, but Leina’s eyes were wide open, staring into the darkness. She saw Theo carrying an ancient groaning ladder on his shoulders, and something in her went cold.
Theo laid the ladder on the ground and came to sit beside her. “Well, I’m back,” he said. “Everything alright?”
Leina nodded. “Yes, fine.” There was a long silence. “Are we really doing this?”
“Of course, and it’s going to be fine. I know that that steaming abyss shocked us all, but Cora is right. It’s nothing we can’t overcome. You’ve done things like this before, I’ve done things like this before, and Cora has lived among the Yurukim long enough to do things like this in her sleep.”
Leina couldn’t find it in her to laugh. “I know I should be glad that we have a chance. But all I feel now is dread, and stifling. I think Cora was right about this place. There’s something unnatural about it.”
Theo was silent for a long while. “I don’t know how you’ve done it, Leina, but you’ve given people a hope that they didn’t even know they needed. We need you. Don’t give up on us before you’ve even begun. If it is in my power, I will get you out of here.”
“Theo… I’ve often wondered how this legend of mine made it out of Estlebey and spread everywhere else. It seems that you are one of the few people who travels around much. You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?”
Theo chuckled silently. “Maybe I did. But it was already spreading like oil outpoured. It just needed a match to set it on fire. And in the end it was you who went running with it. I really didn’t expect you to do a thing like that.”