by B.J. Keeton
Chapter Twenty-seven
“I'll be damned, Saryn. It worked.”
“Well, yes,” Saryn said. She recalled her nanite sleeve and brushed herself clean of the purple dust she had gathered in her tuck-and-roll landing. “Why did you doubt me?”
“Mainly because you just had me jump into a hole where I couldn't see the ground and expected me to Conjure a parachute on my way down.”
“Details,” she said. “Where do you think Ceril is? See any sign of him?”
“I don't see a whole lot of anything, Saryn.”
The young woman sighed. “Then get out a light, Chuckie.”
“Yeah,” he said and began to dig through his pack. He found a small flashlight and clipped it to his shoulder. “You should have one of these, too.”
She found it in her bag and clipped it on her shoulder. “Now, do you see any sign of him?”
“I’d place my bets on that.” Chuckie pointed to the pile of rubble in the middle of the room.
“What?”
Chuckie continued to point. Saryn saw what he was indicating and rushed toward rubble pile yelling, “Ceril! Can you hear us? Ternia? You there? Are you hurt?”
She was still waiting on an answer when Chuckie moved over to her and began inspecting the rubble itself. It did not take him long to notice a single stone lying a little too far away from the pile. He noticed the opening its absence left in the debris. He dropped to his stomach and shined his light into the opening.
“Ceril!” he shouted into the opening. “Boss?”
Saryn moved to stand over him and asked, “Do you see him?”
Chuckie stood. “Nah,” he said as he dusted himself. “He's not in there, alive or dead. If he was, then he got out and started walking.”
“Why do you say that?” Saryn asked.
“Well, first of all because he’s not here. We saw him fall in that hole.” Chuckie pointed up. “Which means, in my estimation at least, he went somewhere else.”
“Oh,” Saryn said. “Where?”
Chuckie shined his light around. “I don't see any tracks. The dust isn't thick enough here to leave any.” He pointed at the tiled floor. “What do you make of all these symbols on the ground? Where are we, Saryn?”
She knelt to get a closer look. She traced some of the tiles with her fingertips and noted that they were smooth, despite their textured appearance. She shrugged. “Ceril's the one who would know better than I would. I don’t recognize anything from Yagh, though, which may mean they're different than the ones on that tower up there.” She tossed her head upward.
Chuckie nodded and shifted his weight, making sure that his shoulder light was still mounted firmly. “So what's the plan?”
She stood. “I suppose we should find Ceril.”
“But we don't know where he went. Shouldn’t we just wait here for him to come back through?”
“And if he finds a way out instead of doubling back? What then?”
Chuckie looked at her in the harsh light. “Gotcha.” He looked around. “So which way do we go?”
Saryn hesitated. She took a couple of steps in one direction, stopped, and then said, “I don't know. If you say there are no tracks, I don't think there will be any way to know for sure which way Ceril went. So we have to pick one and go with it. And hope we chose the right way.”
“You know this is going to make us miss our audience, right? With that priest guy?”
She closed her eyes. “Yeah. I know. There's nothing we can do about it, though.”
“We can hope the priest is forgiving. That’s kind of what they do, right?”
“On Erlon, at least. I’m not so sure if that’s the case here. I think our best bet is that we convince him that we actually are their messiahs somehow and don't deserve to be killed.”
“There's always that,” Chuckie said. “So which way? You pick.”
Saryn shuffled her light around. “I think there's a wall over there. We can follow it.” She moved toward the wall. “We can follow this and see where it leads us.”
“You got it, New Boss,” Chuckie said and moved in front of Saryn. “I’ll take point. Gotta protect you from any danger out there, you know.”
Saryn rolled her eyes and followed him into the darkness.