by Mary Coffin
Loki stepped to the crevice and felt the river of energy carry her through to the outside. She held the small stump of the rod with the gold crystal at the ready, just in case there was a Guardian or Brethren on the mountain. She stuffed the other end into a pocket. She didn’t know what the clear crystal was for anyway. Once outside, she surveyed the immediate vicinity and saw no one.
She glanced down below, to the old lake bed, and saw a strange scene. A gray cloud hung over the area, similar to the fog that Elwyn created to cover the Brethren and the Guardians on her first attempt at the crystal. Oddly, though, this cloud had a couple of holes in it. From above, she observed movement through the openings but couldn’t tell what was there. She cautiously scrambled down the cliff, keeping an eye on the cloud as she searched for the best footholds. When she was almost down, she thought she heard someone say, “Abeo.”
She stopped descending and listened. It was muffled but she heard it again.
“Abeo.”
She watched the cloud. The next time she heard the word, she noticed one of the holes got slightly larger.
“Abeo.” The hole enlarged a bit more.
The same thing was happening with the second hole. The voice sounded familiar.
“Morten? Is that you?”
There was no response, just another abeo. She called louder.
“Morten. Can you hear me?”
“Loki?”
The cry was so faint, it sounded like it was coming from the tail end of an underground rabbit hole. The commands came more quickly and after several moments, a vanishing rod poked through the cloud, held by a wrinkled bony hand that was unmistakably Morten’s. He waved it in the air and then retracted it back into the hole.
His muffled voice followed. “Use the rod on the cloud.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there,” she shouted and finished the climb down.
“Loki?” This time it sounded like Silas’s voice, coming from the second hole.
“Silas. I’m here,” she shouted.
“Be careful. We don’t know who is left.”
“I will.”