The Chronicles of Trellah, Book One: The Perpetual Rain

by T. S. Graham

“Sorry?” Talfore repeated. “You did not attack my people. Because of you, there is a chance we will return to help the injured, and rebuild what has been stolen from us. You gave the Umbyans a reason to stop their attacks. You should not be sorry.”

  “Thanks,” Sophina said, “but where I come from, ‘Sorry’ is something that you say when a friend has experienced a loss. People died when that tower fell. I was just telling you that I feel awful it happened.”

  “Your English is different from our languages,” Talfore said. “All of our words have one meaning.”

  A familiar yelp drew their attention to a crevice in the ice up ahead. Tahra burst out of it, hackles brimming with excitement. He leapt onto Jantu’s shoulder and licked his face. When he was finished reconnecting with his master, he jumped onto Sophina’s shoulder and did the same.

  “How much farther is it to the tunnels?” Mrs. Tanner asked Talfore, bringing Sophina’s mind back to the issue at hand.

  “The cliffs lie beyond that peak,” replied Talfore, nodding to a nearby precipice of ice. “If we had followed the trail behind the mountain, we would not be so close.”

  “You mean being kidnapped by the Umbyans actually helped us?” Sophina asked.

  Talfore sent her a puzzled look. “Being carried to the summit shortened our journey; if you consider that to be ‘help,’ then, yes.”

  Mrs. Tanner leaned over and planted the promised kiss onto Sophina’s cheek, lifting her mood as they arrived at the edge of a rippled glacier. The ice sheet was no more than a quarter-mile across, and the peak Talfore spoke of rose up on the other side, which buoyed Sophina’s spirits even more.

  “This ice is weak from the sun,” Talfore warned. “Follow close—and stop for nothing.” He tested the ice with his javelin as he stepped onto the glacier’s jagged surface. They followed him single file, with Mrs. Tanner at the rear, each stepping into his sizable boot prints.

  As they reached the midpoint of the glacier a sharp crack rang out across the expanse. A boulder of ice had broken free of the static mass and rolled toward the edge of the cliff, jolting the entire world as it went.

  Suddenly, what had been solid footing became a churning river of ice, flowing with frightful speed toward the unforgiving brim.

  “Grab my hand!” Mrs. Tanner yelled to Sophina as they lurched off in different directions. Sophina tried, but their fingers slipped apart as they twirled away on separate rafts of ice.

  Sophina leapt onto a large, slower-moving boulder and searched for her friends. She saw Talfore vaulting his way across the flow, but there was no sign of the others. She bounded from one heaving chunk of ice to another as she made her way toward the far bank, thankful for the miraculous gripping power of the Keeper’s boots.

  Moments later her feet hit the solid embankment at the edge of the glacier. Talfore was there, and before she could turn around, Mrs. Tanner landed at her side.

  “Where are Jantu and Tahra?” Sophina hollered over the clamor.

  “There!” Mrs. Tanner pointed to a massive ice lump, on which Jantu and Tahra were struggling to gain their footing. An even larger boulder smashed into theirs, knocking them down into the tumultuous flow that churned between the larger pieces.

  The next instant Sophina flew over a sea of chaos, having leapt before she could consider the dangers. She landed upon a listing ice shelf and jumped again, slamming flat on her stomach beside Jantu and Tahra.

  “Dak dak!” Jantu yelled in protest as she grabbed his arm. He reached for something that lay at the edge of his frozen life raft: a wooden box, which must have been jarred loose from his cloak when he fell.

  “Leave it!” Sophina implored. “We have to jump—now!”

  But Jantu didn’t listen. Instead, he made one last grab for the box as the edge of the cliff loomed.

  A powerful hand grasped Sophina’s arm and she was yanked up into the air with Jantu in tow beside her. They flew backwards over the danger zone and were dropped onto the embankment as the ice they’d been floating on plunged over the edge.

  Mrs. Tanner tumbled to the ground beyond them as a blur of tan and iridescent green shot past Sophina’s eyes. It was Tahra, who belly-flopped at Jantu’s feet with the box clamped in his jaws. Two feathered darts and a vial filled with green liquid spilled out of it onto the snow.

  Sophina stared as Jantu scooped up the items and stuffed them back into the box.

  “You risked our lives for a couple of darts?” Sophina scolded as Talfore and Mrs. Tanner arrived.

  “I did not ask for help,” Jantu snapped back. “I risked my life—you risked yours.”

  “But why did you do it?” Sophina pressed. “You won’t even need those darts!”

  “You do not know that,” countered Jantu as Tahra snarled at Sophina from his shoulder.

  “I do know!” Sophina yelled. “We’ve proven that drahtuah doesn’t make us crazy like those idiots you learned about in your little ‘Protector’ history class!”

  “Stop it, Sophina,” Mrs. Tanner cut in. “We’re here because the Elders allowed us to be. Talfore and Jantu can defend themselves however they wish.”

  “But what he did was stupid!”

  “You have little understanding of the codes they live by,” returned Mrs. Tanner. “And lest you forget, by risking your life to save his, you forced me to save both of you.”

  Talfore muttered something to Jantu, who then looked down in embarrassment.

  “My lady is right,” Jantu acknowledged. “My actions were foolish and almost cost you your lives. For that I am most sorry.”

  “Apology accepted,” said Mrs. Tanner. “Now let’s put this behind us and get moving.”

  Sophina was still furious, but she knew that Mrs. Tanner was right. There was no time to argue.

  * * *

  Compared to their ordeal on the glacier, the ascent up the final slope was downright restful. The slick terrain was no challenge at all for the Keeper’s wonder boots. They even provided traction on ice that had a coating of water on it, which most did on account of the astonishing strength of the sun’s rays.

  When they reached the top, miles of flat snowfields opened up before them. A narrow crevice cut through the snow about a hundred feet ahead, but there was no sign of the cliffs that Talfore had promised.

  “Where are the cliffs?” Sophina asked him.

  A smile creased the corners of Talfore’s eyes as he pointed to the crevice. “Look and you will see.”

  Sophina and Mrs. Tanner walked to the edge of the fissure and peered down. What they saw was impressive indeed.

  Below two lips of overhanging snow, the rock walls of the crevice dropped straight down as far as the eye could see. Its full depth was hidden by a dearth of sunlight.

  Sophina was in awe of the geological marvel that lay at her feet. Warm smoky air caressed her face as she realized that the tunnels Talfore spoke of were hidden beneath the snowy overhangs. “It’s not what I expected,” she said. “When you said ‘cliffs,’ I imagined something that went up.”

  “The cliffs do go up,” said Talfore matter-of-factly, “if you are standing at the bottom.”

  Sophina smiled, even though she knew that Talfore didn’t mean to amuse. She crouched to try and get a glimpse of the vents, but they remained hidden. “How do we get to the tunnels?” she asked. “I feel the warm air coming from them, but I can’t see them.”

  Talfore wedged his javelin between the overhangs. He grasped it with both hands and then slipped over the edge. Before Sophina could blink he let go with one hand, grabbed hold of something beneath the opposite ledge, and swung under the ice.

  “Come,” Talfore’s voice echoed up from below. “It is not far now.”

  “I’ll go next,” offered Mrs. Tanner, exuding the confidence that Sophina wished she had. She then followed Talfore step by step and disappeared into the mysterious beyond.

  “You can do it, Sophina,” Mrs. Tanner called up. “Just don’t look down.”

  Sophin
a knew that what she was about to do wasn’t the most perilous thing she had faced on this journey, but it sure felt like it. The thought of dangling over a bottomless gorge without a safety line was beyond petrifying.

  “I will hold it for you,” offered Jantu, sensing her trepidation. He got down on his stomach and stabilized the white lance with his hands.

  “Thanks,” Sophina said. Feeling a touch more confident, she eased her way down the ice face and took hold of the spear. She slipped over the edge and Talfore and Mrs. Tanner came into view. They stood in a surprisingly spacious tunnel where scores of black vines hung from the ceiling. Sophina snagged a plant with one hand and swung into Mrs. Tanner’s waiting arms.

  Jantu then landed beside them with Tahra on his shoulder and Talfore’s versatile weapon in his hands. Without another word, they headed off down the drahtuah-lit passageway.

  “This tunnel leads to many more,” Talfore explained. “Some are warmed by the vrahkoles’ fires. If one is cold, do not follow it.”

  “You talk like you aren’t going with us,” said Sophina, thinking she was just being paranoid. But when she looked into Talfore’s eyes she realized that this was exactly his intention. “That’s because you’re leaving us, aren’t you?”

  “Jantu will stay with you as you search for your children,” Talfore assured her. “I must follow a different path.”

  “But you’re the only one who’s been here before,” Sophina pointed out. “We’ll get lost without you!”

  “Talfore’s right,” Mrs. Tanner cut in. “We’ll improve our chances if we split up. Once we locate the children, you’ll stay with them while Jantu and I move on and distract the necrah so that Talfore can make it through the crater unnoticed.”

  Talfore pulled what looked like a wooden whistle from his cloak and handed it to Mrs. Tanner. “When you draw the necrah to the edge of the shadows, signal me with this. If fate is kind, I will reach the other side before it knows of my presence.”

  “But how will they distract the necrah without letting the vrahkoles know that we’re here?” asked Sophina.

  “If I set the water free it will not matter,” explained Talfore. “The vrahkoles will be destroyed if they leave their lair to attack.”

  “But what if the children are near the crater when the water hits the drahtuah?” Sophina asked. “They’ll be killed too.” She had begun to think that she was the only one who was concerned with all the things that could go wrong—very wrong.

  “Then I won’t sound the signal, of course,” Mrs. Tanner answered before Talfore could speak. “We all agree that the children are our top priority.”

  “Sorry. I’m just nervous, I guess.”

  “I’m nervous, too,” said Mrs. Tanner. “I just think we’ll be better off if we trust each other.”

  Sophina nodded in agreement as a horrible stench reached her nose.

  “What’s that smell?” she asked.

  “It comes from there,” said Talfore, pointing up ahead, “and it is of no concern.”

  A blue glow was now coming up the tunnel, overpowering the soft light of the drahtuah flecks in the stone. A minute later they stood at the edge of a mammoth cavern. Its walls were honeycombed with passages that led off in every direction, and everything was awash in a deadened blue light. A soft chirping noise filled the room.

  Sophina stared at the closest wall, her mouth agape. A carpet of bioluminescent insectoids covered it from floor to ceiling, all crawling around and over each other as they jostled for position.

  The offensive smell came from a thick layer of glowbug excrement that covered the floor. Thousands of albino insectoids with spoon-shaped abdomens swarmed the sludge, which was speckled with undigested pieces of glowing exoskeleton. They rolled the goo into grape-sized balls with their hind legs and plopped them onto their concave backs to be carried off to points unknown.

  “I see that nothing goes to waste here,” Mrs. Tanner observed. “There’s always a niche to be filled.”

  They followed Talfore across the semi-solid muck to one of the larger passages.

  “Remember—follow the warmth of the fires and you will find your way,” he said. “I pray that fate is kind to you.” Then, he disappeared into the corridor.

  “I suppose we should choose a different tunnel,” Mrs. Tanner reasoned as a sparrow-sized insectoid droned past Sophina’s face, sucking the vibrant juices from the abdomen of a smaller bug as it went. “Jantu, which way do you think we should go—?”

  Her voice faltered as she turned to face Jantu, for he was gone. She called out his name several more times, but no answer came.

  “Where is he?” asked Sophina. “Did a necrah take him?”

  “No,” Mrs. Tanner said. “A necrah would have turned on us as soon as it was done with him. He was taken by something else, or he left us by choice.”

  “Why would he leave us?” Sophina asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Tanner, “but I’m afraid we have no choice but to go on without him.”

  They walked to the first tunnel that emitted a trace of smoke and stepped inside.

  “Hold onto my cloak,” Mrs. Tanner instructed. “If something is stalking us, we’ll be safer if we stay together.”

  Conflicting emotions gripped Sophina as they trudged forward. She was sickened by the thought that Jantu may have been taken by a creature so powerful that it overcame him before he could utter a whimper. Yet, at the same time, she was enraged by the possibility that he had abandoned them at such a critical time. If that were true, his actions were unforgivable.

  For nearly an hour they followed the warm, smoky breeze through a sharply descending network of barren, claustrophobic corridors. Just when Sophina was sure they would have to turn back for lack of space to move through, the tunnel they were in emptied into a large, unnaturally square room.

  Her heart raced as she spied a rectangular opening in the far wall. The hole was blocked by a row of stout metal bars, through which orange firelight flickered. She ran to it and peered through the bars but was disappointed by what she saw. Instead of leading to the vrahkoles’ lair, the vent stretched on for several yards before ending at yet another set of bars. Its stone walls were riddled with holes, making them look more like dusty Swiss cheese than rock.

  “I see another room,” said Sophina, stepping back to let Mrs. Tanner look inside. “I have to go inside there and look.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Mrs. Tanner. “If anyone goes in, it will be me.”

  “But you’re too big to turn around at the other end,” Sophina pointed out. “If you have to come back, you’ll need to do it backwards. It makes more sense for me to go.”

  Mrs. Tanner sighed as she peered through the bars. “Maybe you’re right,” she conceded. “But promise me that you’ll turn back at the first sign of danger. There are other passages we can take.”

  “I promise.”

  Mrs. Tanner wrapped her hands around the two center bars and ripped the entire grid from the surrounding rock with a muffled crunch. She then helped Sophina crawl headfirst into the vent.

  Sophina used the edges of the holes in the stone to drag herself up to the second set of bars, where a huge torchlit room opened up before her. Hundreds of vrahkoles hunkered on the floor in groups of a dozen or more. Some wore the cloaks of slain Protectors, but most did not.

  Each group was comprised of a female and her young, plus several older adults. The cloaked males stood at attention, forming protective circles around the family clusters. Seeing this, a question formed in Sophina’s mind: Why were these vrahkoles on guard within the confines of their own domain?

  “What do you see?” Mrs. Tanner whispered into the vent.

  “We have to find another way,” Sophina answered. “The room is full of vrahkoles.”

  Something touched the side of Sophina’s leg as she braced herself to turn around, and it sent her heart lurching into her throat.

  “Don’t move,” Mrs. Tanner whispere
d as something heavy crept up onto the back of Sophina’s leg. “Don’t provoke it. Its fangs look venomous.”

  Sophina had never felt more helpless, lying there with her face pressed against the vent floor, hoping that the last thing she felt wasn’t the sting of teeth piercing her skin.

  Four pairs of spiny legs moved up her back, and she stopped breathing as a set of downy feelers began to caress her ear. It’s testing you, she agonized. It’s checking the chemicals in your skin to see if you’re nutritious enough to feed on. That’s what feelers do.

  The feelers patted their way to the corner of her left eye, and the creature came into view. The sensors waggled like hairy worms as they investigated her pursed lips; milky membranes covered its tiny eyes, hinting that the slow process of evolution was replacing its sight with tools that were better suited for life underground. Each leg ended in four pincers that gripped her skin like tweezers. And its fangs—two inches long and dripping clear venom—were poised to strike.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t hold her breath any longer, the arachnoid hopped off her face and squeezed its plump body through a hole in the vent wall. Her sharp exhalation was amplified by the stone walls as she lifted her head up off the floor—and froze.

  The blazing eyes of a vrahkole glared at her through the bars. Its massive head blocked the light of the torches, leaving its face obscured within the shadow of its own cloak hood.

  “Sophina, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Tanner called into the vent.

  Sophina couldn’t answer, for every fiber of her being had seized with fear. A reptilian hand reached through the bars, its filthy claws poised to slash her face.

  “—Sophina—”

  Again, Sophina didn’t answer. But this time her silence was brought on by an astonishing development. The vrahkole had turned its hand palm-up, inviting her to place her own hand into it. But why would it do such a thing?

  And that’s when she saw the scar on its face. This was the same monster that Mrs. Tanner had set free back at the lake. Her dazed state was broken when another hand grabbed her foot. Mrs. Tanner had entered the vent behind her.