by S. M. Boyce
Diesel shrugged, his obnoxious charm creeping back into his face for a second. “There’s much you don’t know about me, my love. I can pull over if you’d like to explore the subject for an hour or two.”
Ah, there’s the old Diesel. Victoria rolled her eyes.
As the minutes passed, the blinking blue arrow grew closer to the orange pin that represented their destination. Eager to be out of the jostling car, Victoria sat on the edge of her seat and peered into the horizon. Heat simmered along the dusty road, and in the distance Victoria thought she could make out something dark gray blocking their path. “What’s that?”
Everyone in the car peered forward, eyes squinting as they studied the object. Heat waves continued to obscure most of it. It wasn’t until they got nearer that they could make out the smooth gleam of asphalt and a sign pointing them to the interstate.
A road. And not just any road—a perfectly smooth road leading from the highway. All along, there had been a much smoother route to take.
In unison, Victoria, Fyrn, and Audrey turned their heads to glare at Diesel for the last hour of torture. He tensed his jaw, but refused to meet their gazes.
“Idiot boy,” Fyrn muttered under his breath.
Once on the asphalt, their little car sputtered as if with gratitude and they turned left, racing toward the destination on the GPS. In a matter of minutes, Diesel parked in an empty lot. Everyone stepped out of the car, stretching and mumbling about the ride as they tried to shake away the soreness.
“I’m driving on the way back,” Victoria said, snatching the keys from Diesel’s hand. This time he rolled his eyes. Victoria smirked. She seemed to be rubbing off on both the wizards in her life.
Arms crossed, Audrey looked around. “Where are we, Fyrn?”
Victoria stared across the empty parking lot at a guard house which sat beside a concrete walkway that cut through the desert underbrush. A metal awning stretched over a picnic table, providing shade and a place for tourists to whip out their picnic baskets. Beige sand covered much of the desert around them, though there were an abundance of short bushes with twisted trunks that cast limited shade from the harsh sun.
Above them stretched a massive hill, so high Victoria couldn’t tell what lay at its peak. The concrete path by the guard station wound toward the peak, dotted with stairs and occasionally decorated with handrails on the steeper parts.
Fyrn set his hands on his hips and stared at the hill. “Montezuma’s Well.”
Victoria quirked an eyebrow. “That sounds ominous.”
Fyrn nodded. “It’s supposed to. This is a spring, one filled with leeches and monsters the likes of which you can’t even imagine.”
Victoria stared at the unassuming hill and whistled. “There’s a spring up there?”
“It’s more of a massive sinkhole, but yes. It’s technically a spring.”
Audrey shielded her eyes with her hands. “We’re not going for a swim, are we?”
“No,” Diesel answered.
Thank goodness. Victoria had enough of watery monsters back in Atlantis. She glanced toward Audrey, who caught her eye and nodded. They had apparently had the same thought.
His staff tapping along the pavement, Fyrn led the way up the path and huffed a bit with the effort of the steep climb. “Sedona is a vast and powerful place rife with magic. Even the humans know that. This isn’t an accident, of course. There was once a kemana below the ground, much like Fairhaven is built within the rock. The Sedona kemana was a place for witches and wizards, a haven for the most powerful of our kind. The massive city sprawled for miles in every direction. In those days we had formidable numbers, and most lived here.”
Diesel nodded and offered Victoria a hand, which she ignored. He didn’t seem fazed. “The old lore says a flood destroyed them, but we all know better. Kemanas are protected by powerful magic, the kind that would never allow a natural disaster to have any effect. No, the flood was a result of something greater. Something attacked the kemana and destroyed it, and it’s been leaking magic ever since. Only one girl escaped the carnage, and she joined a local human tribe aboveground.”
“Do you think it’s true? Or is that just a legend?” Victoria asked.
Diesel shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. If it is true, she left her magical heritage in the past and refused to ever write or speak of what happened.”
“But I think I know,” Fyrn said ominously.
“Care to share with the class?” Victoria asked, puffing as she trotted up several steep steps.
Fyrn leaned on his staff as they neared the top of the hill. “They were sabotaged from within. Someone betrayed them.”
Victoria frowned, her mind racing with possibilities of what really happened all those centuries ago.
Fyrn continued, “These were powerful witches and wizards, who would not be taken down by some beast. Many modern members of the Order of the Silver Griffin claim to have bloodlines from this kemana as a point of pride, whether or not it’s true.”
“I have the bloodline, for instance,” Diesel said with a grin.
Fyrn shook his head and ignored the comment. “For such powerful witches and wizards to lose their city, they must have been infiltrated. It’s the only answer that makes sense. Someone either wanted something they had—”
“Or wanted to hide something so it would never be found,” Victoria finished, her lips almost moving on their own. It all clicked into place for her in that moment, and Fyrn gave her a curt nod.
This long-lost magical city had been chosen for its power to hide something deadly. Something dangerous.
The Rhazdon Artifact she was here to find.
She tightened her fist, frowning a bit at the severity of the situation.
The party reached the top, and the stunning vista stole Victoria’s breath. For a moment she could only stand still and mutter a soft, “Wow.”
Fyrn took a deep breath. “Welcome to Montezuma’s Well, entrance to the once-great kemana of Lochrose.”
Victoria’s eyes scanned the impressive scene, not entirely sure where to look first. A massive pool of water lay below them, with only a thin metal rail between solid ground and a fifty-foot fall into the murky depths. Mountains rose into the sky beyond the water-filled sinkhole, and a dusting of short trees with twisted trunks covered the landscape along the rim.
Most impressively, the ruins of a once-great dwelling were built into the rock wall to their left, with the basic structure still standing. A window and doorway were visible in the remnants of the building, but not much else was left.
Audrey pointed to the ancient home. “That’s not where we’re going, is it?”
Diesel shook his head. “That’s an ancient native ruin, one we will respect and avoid. It’s best not to touch the remains of other cultures. What we seek is underground.”
“Here,” Fyrn said, hardly looking at the scenery.
Victoria pried her eyes away from the beautiful spring as he began to descend along the cliff wall. “What are you doing?”
“Walking down the stairs,” he said without looking back. She tiptoed closer to the edge, and sure enough—smooth, steep steps that led to the water had been carved into the cliff wall.
“I thought you said we weren’t going for a swim,” Audrey said dryly.
“Will you three hurry up?” Fyrn snapped, not answering Audrey’s concern.
Frowning, Victoria followed her mentor down the stairs, with Audrey and Diesel hot on her heels. The steps were easy enough to hurry down and open to the public, which suggested they had been added by the park rangers. It was a neat effect, walking into the sinkhole—like descending into something ancient and forbidden. Victoria couldn’t help the childish grin that snuck onto her face as they neared the rocky shore.
Victoria trailed her fingertips along the cliff as they descended, still mesmerized by the magical place. It radiated life and energy, and called to her with a siren song she didn’t fully understand. “Where are we going?�
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“The entrance to the long-lost city,” Fyrn said absently from the bottom of the steps. He meandered along the shoreline, weaving between boulders and the occasional scraggly tree as though searching for something. He tapped his staff on the ground with every step, the dull thunk like a drunk and tired woodpecker stabbing a tree without rhythm or consistency.
“But what are you—”
The staff struck a dent in the rocky ground, and a sharp vibration filled the air. It hummed through the sinkhole like a choir in a cathedral, so loud that Victoria held her ears. She and Audrey cringed, almost kneeling under the intensity of the sound.
Fyrn and Diesel, however, seemed utterly unaffected. Fyrn muttered something under his breath, and a flash of light erupted from the tip of his staff. The overpowering ringing faded.
Diesel helped Victoria to her feet. “Are you all right?”
Victoria nodded. “What the hell was that?”
Fyrn grumbled under his breath. “A defense mechanism to ward off non-wizards. I should have expected it, but I didn’t think it would still be active after all these years. Apologies, girls.”
Audrey rubbed her temples and muttered something about where he could shove his apologies. Victoria smacked her friend’s shoulder, and the Atlantean shrugged unashamedly.
His staff still rooted in the small indent, Fyrn set his hand against the jagged wall nearby. Instead of his palm pressing on the rock, however, his hand disappeared into the cliff. He nodded to himself and gestured to the wall. “In you go.”
“But it’s… Where’s the door? All I see is you missing a hand,” Audrey said.
“Come on, come on,” Fyrn said, waving them through as he eyed the top of the stairs.
Victoria followed his gaze, and a light bulb went off in her head. The shrill vibration would no doubt draw the attention of anyone nearby, and while they hadn’t seen anyone, it didn’t mean their small party was in the clear.
Victoria went first, summoning her sword in case they encountered anything deadly on the other side. Braced for battle, she charged through the gap.
The rock rippled as she passed, and she sucked in a breath as her body trembled with the sensation.
Styx, apparently picking up on her frenzied energy, sailed out of his hiding place in her hair and lifted his tiny hands as though he would karate-chop the first thing he saw into submission.
Victoria skidded to a halt on the other side with her magical blade in her hand and surveyed her surroundings. She was in a silent pitch-black cave. Not even the whisper of a draft or the drop of water on the ground broke the quiet.
She held her breath, body tensed for an attack.
Feet shuffled behind her, and with a burst of light Audrey and Diesel entered. Fyrn jumped in behind them, and their forms vanished into the darkness when the light from outside was cut off.
Audrey’s voice echoed through the dark cave, making Victoria jump. “If it’s just a hidden door, can’t humans stumble in accidentally?”
“A wizard must be present for it to open,” Diesel said with a shrug.
“Elitists,” Audrey said with a chuckle.
Victoria laughed, the tension of the moment broken by her friend’s hypocrisy.
“Ladies, focus,” Fyrn said.
The familiar tap of Fyrn’s staff on hard ground echoed through the space. The crystal in the top of his staff shimmered to life, casting a dim glow on his weathered face. Within seconds, bands of light radiated from the stone like ripples on a pond.
The bands passed through Victoria, tickling a little, and hit the wall. The wall seemed to shiver as it absorbed his magic, the movement like a dog shaking off water. Victoria tensed for battle, unnerved by the almost human movement of the walls around her.
Fyrn, however, looked as bored as if he were surveying a rainy sky.
Humming filled the cave once more, and the walls began to sparkle. One by one, gemstones appeared and glimmered like stars in a night sky. Purple, blue, green, pink—the wall erupted into a rainbow of color. Brilliant light radiated from the crystals around them, eliciting a few stunned gasps.
Fast as lightning, the colorful illumination spread down a tunnel that had been shrouded in darkness.
What had been an impossibly dark cave now glowed with light radiating from the brilliant crystals embedded in the cave wall. Styx muttered his usual gibberish, shoulders slumping as he stared around. Even Victoria relaxed, marveling at the sight. “It’s beautiful.”
Fyrn huffed. “Much of Lochrose is beautiful, designed to capture your attention while something else kills you. Let’s go. Whatever is down here already knows we’re here. The warning signal out front would have alerted it, as will these crystals.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have lit the crystals, then,” Victoria said, hands on her hips.
He eyed her warily. “These tunnels are designed to confuse. To mislead. To kill. Without the light, we would be lost in their depths forever.”
A thought occurred to Victoria. Not long ago, Fyrn had trusted her with the knowledge of a powerful weapon he was building. A secret, one he had told only her and Audrey. He had cursed the tunnels that led to that project cave in a similar way to the Lochrose tunnels, and she wondered how much of his magical protection had been inspired by the once-great city they were going to visit.
Fyrn was a mystery, one she would probably never fully unravel. Every time she thought she knew her mentor, he revealed something else.
If she hadn’t already trusted him with her life, that fact might have unnerved her.
Chapter 10
The tunnel went on forever, and Audrey didn’t like it one bit. This place set her nerves on fire and made her want to bolt. Every fiber in her being screamed at her to escape and go somewhere else.
Victoria and Styx may have gaped at the glowing jewels embedded in the rock walls and ceiling, but Audrey kept one hand on her sword hilt. The powerful Atlantean crystals she had been given pressed against her palm, their energy sparking in her body even as she kept it at bay.
This place freaked her out, and she couldn’t say why.
Maybe it was the sensation of going deep underground. Now and then her ears popped, even though the tunnel didn’t seem to slope much, if at all. They walked for what felt like ages, yet her body wasn’t tired. She had no sense of time, no concept of where they were or whether she should be hungry.
“Fyrn, how long have we been walking?” Audrey finally asked.
The old wizard sighed. “Time has no meaning down here, Audrey. You and Victoria will never tire or get hungry. You will have no sense of what time it is or where we are until we get to Lochrose. It’s another charm meant to disrupt and disorient those who shouldn’t be here.”
“You guys have a lot of those nasty little charms down here, huh?”
He nodded. “We’re wizards. There’s a reason you don’t see many of our kind in big cities.”
“We don’t trust easily,” Diesel elaborated, shoulders squared and an uncharacteristic frown on his face.
Shit! If even Diesel was uneasy, this was more serious than Audrey had originally thought. He hadn’t tried to hit on Victoria once since they had entered the cave, and that meant he was alert for trouble.
Audrey huffed, grip tightening on her sword’s hilt for comfort.
They went around a bend and the glowing crystals ended in a pool of blackness, as if the world simply stopped existing at the end of this tunnel. There was no light, no sense of distance, nothing. Only the dark.
Audrey tensed. “Watch out.”
“It’s a cave-in,” Diesel said, patting Audrey’s shoulder.
“You’re certainly wound tight,” Victoria said softly, eyeing Audrey with concern as Diesel quickened his pace to reach the cave-in first.
“This place freaks me out,” Audrey said with a broad gesture to the walls around her.
“It reminds me of a slightly darker Atlantis, actually,” Victoria said with a cheeky smile.
Victoria’s smile faded a bit, the difference so subtle that it was barely noticeable in the rainbow of light streaming from the crystals around them. “There’s beauty here too, Audrey. You were at home in Atlantis, even in the caves. Diesel and I were not. It’s good to be alert, but you’re going to stress yourself and maybe even burn out if you’re this tense the entire time we’re down here. Try to find a happy place between ‘daydreaming’ and ‘about to blow a hole in the wall,’ okay?”
Audrey nodded, but she didn’t mean it. It was merely a hunch, but she figured only getting the hell out of this place would calm her nerves. The Lochrose tunnels just didn’t sit right with her.
The witches and wizards never liked your kind, the koi said in her mind.
This caught Audrey’s attention. “Wizards don’t like Atlanteans?”
It used to be so. There are wards here just for you, Audrey. Spells your friends will not feel. Wars were fought in centuries past between your peoples. There were times when a wizard would kill an Atlantean without pausing to consider if the Atlantean deserved it. They were locked in a bloody struggle for eons.
Audrey glanced at Fyrn and Diesel, whose respective staffs were raised and glowing as they sifted through the rubble blocking the path. “Good thing times change, huh?”
Indeed, the koi answered.
“What?” Victoria asked from a few paces ahead.
“Nothing. Just muttering to myself,” Audrey said.
Victoria eyed her suspiciously, but Audrey smiled. She didn’t want to further complicate things. If the legends were true, then no wizards or witches still lived here anyway. These were old enchantments. Racist ones, sure, but old and forgotten.
Besides, she had two wizards on her side. What could happen?
Fyrn grumbled, “Audrey, if you could use your crystal to—”
The ground shook and pebbles began to fall from the ceiling, interrupting him. A hollow roar blasted through the cave like a ghost screaming through the veil between worlds. It came from everywhere and nowhere, through the rock and through the floor. It was all Audrey could do to stay on her feet as the mighty sound rattled her bones.