“Na-na-nuh-huh. Something-something-something ...” Rachel hummed the rest. “What is that song?”
Unable to figure out the title or any of the lyrics, she gives up and puts it out of her mind.
Her boredom prevails.
“I should’ve brought my phone along,” she says.
Rachel barks a laugh. The absurdity of wanting her phone to amuse herself with catches her off guard. Surely there are more important things she could’ve dragged along. Perhaps a camping stove. A damn pot, so she could boil water. She grimaces as she lowers her hands to her sides, suddenly livid with herself for not planning this trip better before setting off.
Yes, she likes the outdoors. She’s gone camping in the past, had gone on fishing trips with Greg and Luke when they were kids—when Luke was still alive. She knows the basics of camping, yet she’d dived headfirst into a possible suicide mission in a whole other world without giving it a second thought.
“I am such an idiot.”
She runs through the implications of having not brought along the bare necessities of survival, coming up with bizarre worst-case-scenarios if she doesn’t find Orion soon. Even if she finds him, there’s a good chance that he won’t want to come back. What then?
Rachel stares ahead, toward the growing mountain range, where snowcapped peaks reach to the heavens. Even from her position, she’s able to make out the steep inclines and treacherous cliffs. There’s also some vegetation visible, but the meager selection of bare trees are separated by large, rocky terrains.
There are no obvious cave entries or outcroppings that could act as protection against the elements, though.
Her thoughts turn to wild animals, predators that may roam the mountainous region, prowling in search of their next meal. What types of exotic Fae creatures might try to kill her there? A three-headed beast with glowing red eyes, perhaps? Or maybe she’ll be murdered by something more sinister, something akin to the Night Weaver. She could very well end up like that poor person in the school’s boiler room, completely deboned.
She stops in her tracks, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath.
This negativity won’t help anyone. Get your head straight.
Rachel exhales slowly, opens her eyes again.
Ziggy hovers a few feet away, waiting for her to continue across the desolate landscape.
“Just give me a second.” Inhale, exhale, inhale. “Okay.” She starts walking again, catching up to Ziggy in no time.
When midday arrives, Rachel reaches the three-peaked rock formation. She sits at its base, and takes off her shoes, removes her socks to air her feet, and evaluates the damage. Blisters are already forming from the friction of her socks against her tender heels.
Rachel wrestles her backpack onto her lap and finds another pair of socks and some Band-Aids. It’s the best she can do.
Next, she pulls out some food into the open—an apple and some beef jerky—as she chats with Ziggy about whatever pops into her head. Talking keeps her from dwelling, keeps her sane.
“My water is running out fast,” she says.
One flash.
Rachel only takes a couple of small sips. “Are we near a water source?”
Two flashes.
She sighs and reluctantly closes her water bottle.
As her break comes to an end, Rachel puts on the pair of fresh socks, pulls on her hiking boots, and finds a handful of trail mix to nibble on while she walks.
Rachel continues talking, and Ziggy periodically responds with flashes.
It remains a one-sided conversation for the most part, but it’s better than eerie silence.
The weather changes sometime during the afternoon, revealing a cobalt sky hidden beneath fluffy white dioramic clouds. As the sun’s rays warm the world, the temperature becomes balmy, comfortable even.
“Let’s play a game,” she says. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with an R.”
Ziggy quickly sinks to the ground and lands on a rock.
“Too easy, huh?” Rachel laughs out loud.
The sphere flashes once as it gains altitude again and flies ahead.
“Okay, I spy with my little eye something beginning with a—” Rachel cuts herself off. In the distance, moving parallel to the mountain range at a quick pace, several riders come into view. Surrounded by billowing dust, they seem to be outriding the devil himself as they push their horses to their limits. One of the riders pulls ahead from the rest.
Perhaps those are Nova’s scouts? Maybe he knows she’s in the Fae Realm?
“Hey, Ziggy, should I be worried about those particular Fae?”
The Fae light slows down, as if evaluating the riders moving around the base of the mountain range, before flashing twice.
“Good to know,” Rachel says. “It would’ve sucked if we came all this way just to get stopped by a few male Fae and their pretty ponies.”
Ziggy flashes once. His usual mirth is missing, though. There’s no zigzagging across her path anymore, no playfulness whatsoever. It’s all business.
“I’ll shut up now.”
She’s answered by another single flash.
Rachel watches as the riders disappear in the distance before she relaxes again.
In the silence, her body makes its aches known again. The backpack’s straps cut into her shoulders, the weight she carries settling in her lower back. She reaches up to rub the tension out of her neck and shoulders, groans as she touches the knots in her muscles.
An hour before nightfall, Rachel and Ziggy reach the footfalls of the mountain.
“I think we should get to higher ground, in case those Fae return,” Rachel says, pulling her bottle of water from her backpack. There’s a mouthful left, nothing more. “And we should search for water.”
One flash.
Rachel pulls the compact mirror out of her pocket and studies the image reflecting on the surface. Another rock with an insignia carved into its face. She looks around, but finds nothing that resembles the image.
“Ziggy, come look here,” she says. The Fae light bobs closer. “Can you go ahead and see if this marker is up there somewhere?”
A single flash.
“Don’t go too far, okay? Just do a quick scan and come back.”
Without answering, Ziggy flies off, bypassing the mountain’s treacherous slopes.
Rachel conserves her energy by half-sitting, half-leaning against the rock formation, afraid that if she relaxes too much, she won’t be able to move for the next week. Without water, this is not an option.
Approximately ten minutes pass before Ziggy returns, flashing gold repeatedly.
“Calm down. Did you find the rock?”
One flash.
“Water?”
Another single flash.
“Is it far?” Rachel studies the steep slope she’ll have to take up the mountain.
Ziggy hesitates and grows dimmer. One flash answers her question.
Rachel inhales deeply through her nose, her body begging her to stop for the day. She can’t, though. Her thirst is already becoming unbearable, and she only has a few drops of water left. She needs to move, whether she wants to or not.
“Lead the way.”
She pushes away from the rock formation, and heads to the winding path up the mountains. Her progress is slow, especially with the precarious shifting of loose rocks underneath her feet. Finding any type of traction is nearly impossible in the daylight—risking the ascension at night would be foolish.
They’re able to clear the first flattop mountain, which leads directly into a higher, steeper mountain. She’s ready to stop for the night, but Ziggy is adamant in continuing.
“Really?” Rachel drags her feet as she follows the Fae light. “I’m not going to climb that thing now. We can wait until morning.”
Ziggy flashes brightly, and swerves dangerously close to her head, before shooting ahead. Just as the golden sphere reaches the mountain’s side, Ziggy vanishes into thin air.
“Ziggy?” Rachel walks closer, forgetting her qualms. Losing Ziggy now ... She doesn’t even want to think about it. “This isn’t funny.”
Ziggy half-reappears from the mountain’s side, flashes brightly several times, before slipping into obscurity again.
Rachel exhales in relief and follows Ziggy through the glamor—a carefully constructed image of a roughhewn wall—and into a narrow serpentine passage behind it.
The Fae light bounces in midair a few steps ahead.
“You could’ve been less dramatic about it.”
Ziggy keeps heading down the path, shining brighter as the world grows darker. The passage still has abrupt inclines and treacherous slopes, but at least she doesn’t have to navigate her way across loose rocks. This helps. Not a lot, considering every part of her is in revolt, but the packed ground does make things easier. The darkness is an overpowering force of nature, though, and it threatens to suffocate her in the confined space. The wind moves through the passage, screaming as it erodes the rocks on either side. A gust thrusts her forward, the force of it pushing her onward.
“This wasn’t the best idea,” Rachel says. She squints to see past Ziggy’s glow. The passage is too narrow and twists too often to set up a camp. It would be murder on her already aching body to sleep here. Also, she doubts she’ll get any sleep with the furious wind coming through this place. “You better get me somewhere relatively safe soon, because I’m about to drop dead from exhaustion.”
Ziggy flashes once.
Not long thereafter, her eyelids become lead. She actively works on blinking less frequently, afraid if she shuts her eyes too long she’ll fall asleep while walking. The passage grows narrower, as if the mountains themselves have decided to move closer together to make the journey more difficult. Around one bend, her backpack gets stuck, forcing her to take it off and carry it sideways in her already-weary arms. The farther they walk, the more impatient she becomes. Then, to make matters worse, the passage becomes an even tighter squeeze. The backpack doesn’t fit through anymore. She takes her bag off and leaves it dangling between the rocks, hoping to return to it as soon as she gets to wherever Ziggy needs her to be.
Rachel turns sideways to inch through the opening, praying all the while that she won’t get stuck. Just as she’s ready to throw the fit of a lifetime, the passage suddenly opens up into a large cavern, brightened by moonlight reflecting off the surface of a moderately sized pond. There is vegetation here, too. Green grass surrounds the pond, along with some flowers she’s seen in Orion’s greenhouse. And there, just to the side of the cavern, the rock with the insignia stands.
“Thank goodness.”
She’s about to step forward, towards the semi-subterranean oasis, a slice of heaven after trudging two days through a wasteland, when Ziggy blocks her way. Rachel motions around the ball of light, but Ziggy doesn’t let her pass.
“What the actual—?” her outburst is cut off when the pretty picture suddenly shimmers at the edges.
She pauses, confusion causing her to reevaluate the image. The picture flickers, as if she’s reached the glitch in a looped video recording, and reveals what truly lies beneath the scenic view. Instead of a clear, inviting pond, a pool of yellowish water bubbles in the center of the cavern, emitting a distinctive smell of rotting eggs. She suspects the fluid to be sulfur, or a similar Fae chemical. Instead of vegetation surrounding the pond, there are jagged rocks with dangerously sharp edges waiting.
“It’s a security glamor, isn’t it?”
Ziggy flashes once in answer.
Without a word, Rachel inches back through the narrow passage, intent on retrieving her backpack. She’s ready to make several trips if she has to, prepared to carry every individual item through if she must.
When she arrives at her destination, she quickly unhooks the blanket and tosses it over her shoulder, and pulls out her toiletry bag.
Rachel holds it in one hand and makes her way back to the cavern’s opening, where she sets her belongings in a heap beside the entrance. She makes a second trip to retrieve the food she’s brought along. The third trip is easier. After Rachel repositions the remaining contents, she’s able to fold the bag in half and squeeze it through the tunnel.
Rachel rushes to stuff everything back into the backpack and somehow closes the bulging thing without issue. She straightens, breathless after the exercise.
“I need water, Ziggy,” Rachel says.
Ziggy floats around the side of the cavern, no more than a foot away, and keeping close to the wall.
“If I die here, you tell Mercia I’ll see her in her nightmares.”
Rachel presses her back against the wall, holding her backpack in her hand, and follows Ziggy around the cavern. She tests the surface with the tip of her hiking boot before putting her full weight on the ground. Now and then, the glamor shimmers or flickers around her, giving her an idea of where the most treacherous parts of the cavern are located. Still, she doesn’t want to take any unnecessary chances by rushing.
At the opposite side of the cavern, Ziggy ascends diagonally, as if signaling a rise in the floor. She takes baby steps behind the Fae light. Rachel feels, rather than see, the gradual rise beneath her feet, thighs, and calves. Her muscles strain as she climbs the slope. Subtle changes in the cavern walls become visible as she makes her way higher.
She glances down.
“Oh. Bad idea. Bad freaking idea.”
Rachel swiftly averts her gaze from staring at the ground, which seems miles beneath her feet. Her pulse races. Flashbacks of how the Akrah Cloak dropped her to distract Orion fill her thoughts. Her stomach does a few somersaults. Overcome with a bout of vertigo, she squeezes her eyes shut and forces herself to take the next step forward, even if her mind screams for her to stop. The first step is the hardest. The second step is better.
“Just keep moving forward.” Rachel takes a chance to open her eyes again and focuses on Ziggy.
A few feet higher, Ziggy disappears into the cavern wall, before he reappears a heartbeat later to reveal another glamor.
“Overkill much?”
She presses her hand against the wall to feel the actual opening. Rachel steps closer to the half-visible Fae light, and the cavern wall gives way beneath her palm, vanishing behind the glamor.
Disregarding the illusion completely, she turns on her heels and walks through.
Ziggy’s soft glow illuminates the tunnel, zigging ahead.
“Hold up,” Rachel hisses. She hunches to avoid hitting the low ceiling. Soon, the tunnel opens into a wide chamber, the ceiling now high enough for her to stand upright without worrying about hitting her head. “Thanks for waiting,” she mumbles.
Only then does she see Ziggy bobbing above a dark pool, his light revealing a shimmering trickle of water running down the roughly hewed wall.
Rachel falls to her knees in front of the pool, eyes stinging with gratitude as she submerges her hand.
Ziggy dips lower.
Her haggard reflection stares back, emotion and exhaustion clear beneath the dirt embedded in her skin. She leans down and splashes the cool water on her face and neck, washing away the accumulated grime and sweat. She cups her hand and bows closer to the pool, lapping up the water in a desperate attempt to soothe her dry throat.
Once her thirst has been quenched, Rachel removes her backpack, unhooks the blanket, and rummages around inside for her bottle. Rachel fills the bottle, and places it on the uneven floor beside her before she pulls out her toiletries bag.
“One more day, then we’ll hopefully find Orion.”
Ziggy flashes once, and moves toward the blanket, ready to rest for the night.
Ten
Brittle But Not Broken
Sometime the next morning, as she’s packing up her belongings, a scuffle manages to catch her attention. Confused by the sound, she looks to where Ziggy is bobbing near the entrance.
“Ziggy?”
Ziggy flies back to her side, flashing golden lig
ht in her face.
“What is it?”
Something moves outside the cave, somewhere in the death trap they’d traveled through to get here.
Rachel waits, listens. How many have stumbled into this place and will she be able to fight them off if the need arise? There’s no way to tell from her position. She gets to her feet and puts her backpack on.
“There’s a way out, right?” she whispers.
One flash.
“Okay, stay close.”
Ziggy leads her deeper into the narrowing cave, where the ceiling lowers drastically. Soon, she needs to go on her hands and knees to crawl through the passage.
She doesn’t know if she’s on the right path anymore, having neglected to check Mercia’s mirror for the next landmark. If Ziggy’s haste is anything to go on, getting to Orion is the least of her concern.
Her knees and palms ache as she moves as fast as she can through the winding cave.
The passage opens up a smidge, just enough for her to get back on her feet.
A frustrated shriek rebounds off the walls, originating from somewhere behind her.
Panicking, she presses her hand against the wall to navigate the twisting passage through the mountain. The ceiling becomes higher again, but the walls close in on her, making it difficult to put distance between herself and the owner of the scream.
Every squeeze through the passage, every inch forward, brings her closer to an escape from the mountain and the pursuer.
“Is it far?” Rachel asks.
Ziggy doesn’t answer.
Rachel looks back into the darkness, unable to make out much of anything, but her imagination is more than willing to create monstrous creatures rushing after her.
Her slow progress pays off when the passage opens and sunlight becomes visible from the cave’s entrance.
Relief. She’s overcome with gratitude from getting out of the claustrophobic situation in one piece.
“Thank heavens.” Rachel steps into the early morning sunlight, raising her head and closing her eyes. She basks in the warmth shining down on her.
A large hand suddenly clamps down over her mouth, muffling her scream. An arm wraps around her waist, pulling her back against a large body. Thick fingers dig into her prone flesh and tired muscles.
The Bone Carver Page 10