Rik fired a jet of water. Another creature dissolved. But still the rest—six or seven of them—gained on Nadia and Rik. Rik fired another jet of water, but it turned to a feeble trickle.
"Damn," he said. "I've got nothing left."
"Then we'll have to run."
They raced through the narrow passages as the air grew hotter. Rik held a shield around them to keep the worst of the air away, but Nadia felt as if she couldn't get a full breath. They were about to step into one of the larger chambers when more of the fiery creatures came from in front of them, blocking their path.
Rik's face had gone deathly pale. "What're we supposed to do now?"
"I have no idea."
The fiery creatures hovered closer, and the heat became intense. The creatures were only a few feet away. Nadia felt so weak she struggled to stay on her feet.
"I've got an idea," Rik said, "but it's completely insane."
"I don't care. Anything's better than dying like this."
"Stick close to me," he said. "I can still keep a shield going. It's a different kind of magic. Maybe it'll protect us from the heat."
Rik strengthened his shield and grabbed her, and they raced right through the nearest creature. The heat burned against Nadia's skin, so intense it took all her determination to keep going. Without the shield, it would have killed her.
They ran through one creature, then another, then another. With each passing moment, the heat grew more unbearable. Nadia struggled to remain conscious.
Then, at last, they passed through the final creature. Rik let the shield die, but they kept running. Nadia's strength and balance gradually returned. She glanced back every few seconds, watching the creatures' progress. The fiery beings were gaining on them again.
"We survived for now," she said. "But what else can we do?"
"I don't want to think about that right now."
They returned to the chamber containing the symbols, then darted into the passage at its other end. This passage twisted along like all the others. With the fiery creatures so close behind them, Rik didn't need to light his staff.
Nadia's breath came in sharp gasps, and she nearly doubled over in exhaustion. Soon they reached a place where the path branched off in two directions.
"We need to go left," Nadia said. She had no idea why she was so certain.
"Is this one of your strange intuitions?"
"I think so."
"Then let's follow it."
They scrambled into that passage as the heat grew more intense. Nadia glanced back. The creatures were maybe ten feet behind them. The sudden change in direction had surprised them, but only temporarily.
Nadia clung to Rik as they sprinted through the dark passage. A strange rushing sound came from the distance, and Nadia couldn't identify it at first.
When they got closer, though, she identified it. A waterfall.
"Is that what I think it is?" Rik asked, hastening his pace.
Nadia didn't have to answer, for when they rounded the next bend, the waterfall came into view. It covered the entire exit from the passage. Nadia had no idea what lay beyond the waterfall, but she didn't care. All that mattered was that her intuition had been right.
This waterfall would stop the fiery creatures.
She and Rik leaped through the waterfall. There was nothing on the other side, and Nadia's stomach lurched as she plummeted. She screamed and flailed her legs for a few tense moments, and then she hit the cool water beneath.
It took a few moments to swim back to the surface. By the time she emerged, Rik had already made it back to the surface. They both looked up, toward the sound of the waterfall. Their pursuers were no longer in view. In the darkness, Nadia couldn't see anything.
"Well, that was fortunate," Rik said. "What're the chances?"
Nadia pushed against the fast-moving current. "It's not as strange as you might think. Remember. These mountains are right next to the Raging River. Streams like this one must feed into that river."
"Which means we should probably find some dry land," he said.
Nadia swam to her right in the darkness, struggling as the current tried to pull her downstream. The last thing they needed was to end up in the Raging River. Rik and Garet had been lucky to survive it once.
Exhausted as she was, swimming toward the rocky shore was almost impossible. More than once, she thought she'd fall beneath the water and never reemerge. She could only hear Rik splashing next to her. In the darkness, she couldn't see anything.
At last, she felt the shore against her hands. She scrabbled out of the water on her hands and knees, coughing and feeling utterly exhausted. Rik coughed next to her, and they both collapsed a few feet from the water.
"Do you still have your staff?" Nadia asked breathlessly.
"Yeah, I made sure to hold onto it. Give me a second and we'll have some light." A moment later, orange light illuminated the cavern. Rik swiveled the light around. "Not sure where we're supposed to go from here."
"For now, I think we should rest."
Rik offered no argument, so they sat on the rocks, waiting until they felt stronger. At some point, they'd lost their belongings, so they had no food. At least the straps holding Nadia's canteen hadn't given out. She filled it a few times with water from the river.
They rested for maybe half an hour, then moved about the dark chamber, examining their surroundings in the light from Rik's staff. There was nowhere to go in the direction of the waterfall, so they tried the other direction, where they found a narrow passage off to the left. As soon as they stepped into the passage, Nadia felt the same kind of resistance she'd felt before when crossing invisible barriers.
Rik led the way with his staff. "How do we even know we're going the right way?"
"It's the only way we can go," she said, "and I think there might be something really dangerous down this way. I felt an invisible barrier."
Rik groaned. "Not what I wanted to hear."
They continued down the passage, and nothing threatened at first, but then the passage opened into a wider chamber. Deep in the recesses of the chamber, something enormous stirred. Rik made the mistake of shining his light in its eyes.
The creature let out a low growl that shook the cave. Rik got rid of the light from his staff, but the monster had already noticed them.
For a few moments, they stood silently in the dark, but then a great plume of fire illuminated the cave. In the light, Nadia saw the monster for the first time. Though she'd only read about dragons, she knew without a doubt that she was seeing one.
It stood perhaps twenty feet tall, and it unfolded wings that made it just as wide. Giant scales covered every inch of its body, and spikes adorned its back. As it continued to breathe fire, it showed off teeth as long as swords and a mouth that could swallow them whole.
"I thought we were trying to avoid the dragon," Rik said.
Nadia kept her voice low. "We did take a detour."
"Got any ideas?"
"I'm thinking." But Nadia couldn't come up with anything. She could only stand there and stare at the dragon as it watched them. Though it had unfolded its wings, it had not made any aggressive moves. Surely it wouldn't let them violate its domain.
"Maybe if we back away really slowly," Rik said.
"And go where? There's no way back where we came from."
"Damn. Didn't think of that."
The dragon turned its massive snout toward them and opened its mouth, ready to spew flames. Rik raised his staff to cast a shield. The flames surged toward them, and Nadia almost closed her eyes. But, no, she had to see her death coming.
When the flames hit Rik's shield, they spread out, but Rik looked as if he were ready to collapse. He couldn’t hold the shield much longer.
"Let's go back," Nadia said. "We'll think of something else later."
Rik kept the shield going as they retreated, returning to the narrow passage from which they'd entered the dragon's lair. Once they were safely away from th
e flames, Rik let his shield dissipate, and they settled down on the ground, covered in sweat and exhausted.
Though the ground was uncomfortable, they decided to rest. Maybe a good night's sleep would help Rik replenish his magical energy. It took Nadia a long time to drift off to sleep because she spent all her time thinking about how they could elude the dragon.
Or worse, how this delay might cost Markus his life.
When Nadia woke, she had no idea how much time had passed. Here in the caves, there was no way to tell day from night. It felt as if the weight of all those tons of rock had settled over her. She roused Rik from sleep.
He groaned, looking up at her. "What is it?"
"Can you tell if your magic is back?"
He frowned and closed his eyes. "No idea. I won't really know until I try to use it, and I don't want to use it if I don't have to."
"We should see if the dragon's still there. From everything I've read, it spends most of its time flying around the northern side of the mountain. We probably caught it while it was sleeping." Her stomach churned. "Or at least I hope we did."
Rik sighed loudly. "What else is there to do?"
Nadia gave him a stern look. She didn't want Rik to become bitter again.
"Sorry," he said.
They remained silent as they returned to the large chamber. Rik shined his light toward where the dragon had been before, and it wasn't there. Nadia felt as if a weight had left her chest.
"Let's get moving," she said. "There's no telling when it might return."
They crept through the dragon's lair, struggling to find footing amidst the uneven rocks. Soon Rik no longer had to use his staff, for natural light streamed into the cave. Nadia glanced up, hoping they'd left the caves, but they hadn't. Instead, there was a massive opening far above them. That was how the dragon had left its lair, but it wouldn't help them.
"There's gotta be another way," Rik said. "We just haven't found it yet."
Nadia smiled at him. "Now that's the Rik I like to see."
"I do try, you know. It ain't always so easy."
They walked through the dragon's lair, expecting to see the dragon at any moment, and quickly left the light behind. Rik lit his staff again, and by its light, they found a narrow passage leading away from the dragon's lair. When they entered the passage, Nadia felt the barrier.
"Good," she said. "I think this passage is less dangerous."
"Less danger isn't the same thing as no danger."
As if to make his point, the ground quaked. A low rumble echoed through the cavern, and Nadia struggled to stay on her feet.
When the shaking stopped, Rik said, "What the hell was that?"
"Maybe it was an earthquake," Nadia said, giving him a mock glare.
Rik rolled his eyes dramatically. "You don't say?"
"You probably don't want to hear what I really think," she said. "If the mountain's trembling, that's a sign that it might be close to erupting."
"Hmm, I don't think we want to be inside an erupting volcano. Just a feeling I have."
"Good. You're not completely hopeless." Nadia found herself enjoying the sudden banter between them. They couldn't be grave and serious for the entire quest. Yes, Markus was dying, but he wouldn't want them to feel miserable.
The ground trembled again, but only for a few seconds. Nadia steadied herself against the wall until the shaking subsided, and then they continued on their way.
Every few minutes, another earthquake struck the mountain, but they were all weaker than the first one. Nadia and Rik followed the passage, which led them gradually downward. How far under the mountain were they marching?
Soon the air became difficult to breathe. Rik couldn't cast a shield around them because they were still in a dark section of the caves, so they had to keep their heads below the worst of the volcanic gasses. Still, Nadia felt at times that her lungs were on fire.
They emerged in a larger chamber where the glow of lava illuminated everything. The lava was perhaps fifty feet below the large outcropping of rock on which they stood, but its heat radiated through the cavern, almost unbearable. Rik did cast a shield now, and it protected them from the worst of the heat and gave them fresher air to breathe.
"So where do we go from here?" Rik asked.
Up ahead, there was a broken path of rocky islands, but they didn't look stable. Some of the jumps were also quite long, and Nadia felt exhausted. She wiped sweat from her forehead.
"That's the only path we have," she said, pointing toward the islands, which jutted above the lava like giant stalagmites.
"This place just gets better and better," Rik said.
Nadia stepped to the edge of the rocky platform, judged the distance she had to jump, then took a deep breath and made the jump. She reached the next platform and said, "See? It's not that hard."
Rik shook his head as if he wasn't convinced. She ignored him and jumped to the next platform, then the next, then the next. After a while, it became easy. The adrenaline she felt propelled her to make these jumps more easily than she'd expected. After a while, she relied on instinct to determine how much she had to put into each jump.
Behind her, Rik made each jump with ease. Soon she reached a larger platform at the other end of the cavern. Rik was a few islands behind her.
He made the second-to-last jump, and it was a long one. When he landed, the rock crumbled beneath his weight. He groped frantically, but the rock kept giving way. Nadia's stomach lurched, and before she knew it, she was racing toward him, heedless of her own danger. She made a couple of jumps, reaching the crumbling island.
Rik was barely holding on now, his eyes wide. She fell to her stomach and held out a hand for him to grab. When he tried to clutch it, his hand slipped.
Nadia reached out for him, but it was too late. Rik was falling.
Chapter 21: Separate Paths
Rik's stomach lurched as he plummeted. He looked down toward the lava below, certain he was going to die. The lava grew closer, and he thought of closing his eyes and waiting for the searing heat to kill him. But, no, he couldn't do that.
A sudden idea hit him. It was insane, but it might work. He pulled the staff from his back and pointed it down. If he could propel a boat with wind from the staff, then maybe he could slow his descent.
Hot air rushed by him. He focused on generating wind, and it came to life moments later. It didn't stop his descent, but it did slow him.
Below, there was a small outcropping of black rock perhaps ten feet above the lava. That seemed too close, and Rik feared the heat would kill him even if the fall didn't.
He hit the ground hard, rolling as he landed. His staff flew from his hands, but at least he didn't feel as if he'd suffered any serious injuries—only a few scrapes and bruises. He knew, from his time on the river all those weeks ago, that his wind abilities were strong. Now he knew just how strong they were. That could prove very useful.
Gingerly, he got to his feet and looked for his staff. To his relief, it lay near the edge of the rock on which he'd landed. He collected it, then glanced up more than a hundred feet to where Nadia had to be. He couldn't see her, though.
It didn't feel hot enough where he stood, and he wondered if there was a shield preventing some of the heat from reaching him. In truth, the temperatures throughout these caves had not been as hot as he'd expected. It wouldn't surprise him if Warrick had created barriers here.
"Nadia!" he shouted. "Can you hear me?"
Her response echoed through the cavern. "Rik! You're alive!"
"Yeah, I used some wind magic to slow me down."
"Is there anywhere to go down there?"
Rik saw nothing but lava surrounding him. "No, but I'll think of something."
"No, I'll find a way down there to help you."
"Don't bother," Rik said. "You need to go on without me. If I'm gonna die down here, you still need to cure Markus. I mean, if I die, it's just me. If you die, too, then all three of us are dead. Let me find
my own way out of this."
"I can't leave you here."
"Yes, you can. It's the right thing to do." Rik wasn't sure where this sudden conviction had come from. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have found it so easy to say these words, but he'd changed a lot, learned a lot. Sometimes the hardest lesson was learning to let go. He wasn't sure Nadia had mastered that one.
"I'll come back for you," she said. "Once I have the cure."
"I'll find you before then."
If only Rik had any idea how to make that happen.
* * * * *
Nadia lay on the rocky platform, her stomach pressed flat to the ground. Rik was so far down she could barely see him, but there had to be some way to get back to him. It was more than the fear of losing him. It was the fact that she couldn't get through this place without him.
Too many times already, she would have died without his help. How was she supposed to face more challenges without him at her side?
She'd have to find a way. She couldn't fail Markus.
Trembling, she got to her feet and peered toward the nearest cavern. She didn't see any other paths to take, so she started into the passage, and realized how much she needed Rik. She hadn't thought of bringing a torch because she'd expected the aid of his staff.
Stupid. How could she have been so shortsighted?
Soon she traveled in complete darkness, feeling her way through the tunnel with her hands. The darkness felt suffocating, reminding her of the trek through the Forest of Darkness. She felt on the verge of tears as panic coursed through her.
The path led her gradually downward, twisting in a spiral. She could barely breathe through the volcanic gasses, and the hot air assaulted her skin. Sweat drenched every inch of her body. The passage continued forever. She didn't run across any monsters, but the darkness was terrifying on its own. When she finally saw some light, it was a great relief.
She hastened her pace, emerging in a large chamber open to the sky above. At first, she almost let out a cheer, but then she thought better of it. There was a faint scuttling sound. She peered into the distance, praying the monster wouldn't be too large.
World in Chains- The Complete Series Page 67