by T. S. Graham
“Sophina, why won’t you answer . . . me?”
Sophina moved aside, allowing Mrs. Tanner to see what stood beyond the bars. The vrahkole saw the being that had spared its life and bowed its head.
“It’s the one you let go at the lake,” Sophina said as she placed her hand onto its scaly palm. “Look at the scar.”
“You’re right,” agreed Mrs. Tanner.
“He doesn’t want to hurt us,” stated Sophina as the vrahkole withdrew his hand and wrapped his sinewy fingers around the bars. “None of them do. Look, they’re not preparing to fight.”
Others had now gathered behind the scar-faced vrahkole, all looking much too tired and haggard to pose a threat.
“I’m going to kick out the bars,” said Sophina.
“Be careful,” Mrs. Tanner warned. “I suspect that you’re right about these vrahkoles, but we can’t see the entire room. We’d best stay on guard.”
“Don’t worry, I’m too freaked out to relax,” Sophina assured her as she looked into the vrahkole’s eyes. In them she saw not a hint of aggression.
“Move back,” she told him, making a pushing motion with her hands. He seemed to understand because he stepped back and spoke to the others in a low, hissing voice. Moments later a wide swath had been cleared in front of the vent.
Sophina rolled onto her back and kicked the bars with all her might. The grate tore free on impact and slammed onto the floor below with a resounding clank!
Sophina and Mrs. Tanner slipped out of the vent and stood before six cloaked vrahkoles. Five were crouched in semi-defensive stances, still suspicious of their uninvited guests. Sophina stepped forward, causing several juveniles in the crowd to squeal and scurry behind their mothers.
“Look—some of them are hurt.” Sophina motioned to several vrahkoles that lay upon raised platforms. Their injuries ranged from minor cuts to larger wounds that were covered with blood-soaked dressings. A baby squirmed in its mother’s arms as she adjusted a splint that supported its fractured leg.
The scar-faced vrahkole motioned for Sophina and Mrs. Tanner to follow him. He led them to a doorway that was blocked by a door constructed of bars that were double the thickness of the ones that blocked the vents.
“They’re prisoners,” Sophina realized. “I don’t understand. Who could do this to them?”
“In this world, it could be a what just as easily as a who,” Mrs. Tanner reminded her. “Either way, things are more complicated than they seemed—as I suspected they would be.”
Confusion gripped Sophina’s mind. She had been sure all along that the vrahkoles were the ones holding the children captive; she had witnessed Eliot’s abduction, after all. But how could they be keeping hostages when they were prisoners themselves? She doubted that the scarred vrahkole would understand her if she spoke to him, but she had to try.
“We’re searching for three children,” she explained, leveling her hand at Eliot’s height. “You took one of them from my family. Please, tell me if you know where he is.”
The vrahkole set his eyes onto the corridor that lay beyond the bars. The gesture sent Sophina’s heart galloping. She was sure that this creature—the one she’d presumed to be a depraved monster—was telling her that the children were here, somewhere down that hallway.
“I think he’s saying that they’re here,” she said with excitement. “Help me break the bars.”
“Hold on a minute,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Whatever waits for us down that corridor was powerful enough to render an entire population of vrahkoles helpless. Let’s not make any more noise than we have to.”
Mrs. Tanner reached through the bars and wrapped her hands around the two-piece locking device of dull, alien metal that secured the door to the outer rock wall. She pulled down on it, putting immense pressure on the points where the halves intertwined to form a bond that was meant to be unbreakable. The lock groaned and broke apart with a muffled snap.
Sophina expected a flood of vrahkoles to rush for the door, but only one stepped through with them to the other side. The rest remained as they were, staring at them with suspicious eyes.
“They still don’t trust us,” Sophina observed as they followed the scar-faced vrahkole down the torchlit corridor.
“Hatred doesn’t dissipate easily,” said Mrs. Tanner. “At least we seem to have found a friend in this one.”
Sophina certainly hoped that was true. The physical marvel they now trailed didn’t seem like the vicious killers portrayed in the murals of the Great Cathedral, but part of her remained skeptical. What if he was leading them straight to the necrah vrahkole? Having dealt with the dead of her world, she could only imagine how horrific such an entity would be. In fact, she wished she hadn’t imagined it at all.
They entered a second corridor where a series of rectangles and squares were chiseled into the walls. Each one had at least four smaller, interconnected rhombuses within its borders. The sketches caught Mrs. Tanner’s attention instantly.
“These drawings . . . they’re floor plans of houses,” she said quietly. “That one’s your house . . . and there’s the Deerings’ . . . and the Brightons’ . . . . This must be how the vrahkoles knew how to find the children.”
“But who sketched them?” Sophina asked.
“I don’t know. But it means that the kidnappings were planned far more thoroughly than I thought. Whatever group we’re dealing with, they won’t be easily surprised.”
The vrahkole led them down the corridor, which soon emptied into the largest cavern Sophina had seen yet. Dozens of high-rise buildings were chiseled into its soaring walls—an entire cityscape carved out of shimmering stone. Rock walls divided plots between the edifices, forming private yards that were filled with stone benches and sawhorses draped with woolly hides. The magnitude of it all was astonishing.
The cave’s ceiling was rife with green and silver mineral deposits that reflected a pulsing crimson light that streamed through an opening in the cave wall to their left. Sophina didn’t know how much drahtuah was stockpiled beyond that doorway to the sun-drenched world outside, but the intensity of the radiation stream suggested that the volume was substantial.
When Sophina pulled her eyes away from the light, she noticed that the city wrapped around a giant quarry, where dust billowed up from below.
A frenetic ripping sound wafted out of the depths as they moved cautiously toward the brink. As the basin floor opened up before them, a shocking sight was revealed: A boy dressed in shabby pajamas was digging feverishly into the quarry wall, ripping out chunks of rock with his bare hands, while behind him, two vrahkoles clad in bone-plated armor were collecting dozens of drahtuah stones. The boy’s eyes shined red and chalky grime covered his face, but Sophina still knew who he was: Seth Brighton.
Wendy Deering sat upon a heap of stone rubble nearby, tearing at a raw tripod fish with her teeth. Behind her, a frail-looking boy lay motionless among the debris.
“Eliot!”
Sophina left all rational thought behind as she jumped over the edge. She skidded down the quarry wall and tumbled onto the basin floor as the armored vrahkoles galloped toward her, their claws extended to strike.
Before she could react, a dark blur whooshed before her eyes. It was the scar-faced vrahkole, leaping in front of her would-be attackers and stopping them in their tracks. He hissed at them in their harsh language and they stepped aside, providing Sophina a clear path to Eliot.
“I’m here, Eliot,” she said, scooping him up into her arms. “I’ve come to take you home.”
Mrs. Tanner, who had leapt into the pit behind her, reached in and lifted Eliot’s eyelids to find his twitching eyes rolled up toward the back of his head.
“He’s deep in REM sleep,” she explained as she checked his pulse. “He’s worked himself to the point of collapse. Look, his fingerprints have worn off.” She pulled up Eliot’s pajama top, revealing a baseball-sized drahtuah stone hanging from his neck by a worn rope. “Once this was placed aro
und his neck, there was no hope of him remembering who he was. Most children of our world could never build a tolerance to this much radiation; even some adults would be lost forever without intervention.”
Sophina was drawn to the stone. A touch of the organic excitement that she felt over finding Eliot had been pushed aside by that not-so-perfect facsimile triggered by the radiation. At least she was aware of it this time, and so was Mrs. Tanner.
“You haven’t been exposed to this level of radiation since Eliot was taken,” said Mrs. Tanner. “Remember: mind over matter. You can think your way through it.”
Sophina nodded. She had all but banished the false euphoria before Mrs. Tanner had finished speaking. A touch of red had tainted the whites of her teacher’s eyes, though not as profoundly as it had following the radiation storm.
Eliot gasped in his sleep as Mrs. Tanner removed the necklace and tossed it aside.
“I’ll go signal Talfore that it’s time to release the water,” she said. “We have to get off this mountain.”
“What if he isn’t out there?” asked Sophina. “Jantu left us. How do you know Talfore didn’t also?”
“I don’t. But I have to go out there anyway.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No. You came here to find Eliot, and you’ve done that. Now it’s your job to keep him and the others safe.”
“I won’t let you go out there alone,” Sophina said. “I can’t get all three children back by myself if something happens to you. We know that we can trust the vrahkoles now, so there’s no reason for me not to go.”
Before Mrs. Tanner could answer, a chorus of shrill screams resonated through the mouth of the cave, bringing all three of the vrahkoles to wild-eyed attention.
“Those were vrahkole screams,” said Mrs. Tanner uneasily. She looked at their distressed hosts and turned back to Sophina. “If you come with me you have to promise to stay in the sunlight—and that you’ll return the instant I signal Talfore, even if I can’t come with you.”
“I promise.”
Sophina carried Eliot, who was still sound asleep, away from the stone rubble and placed him upon a bed of gravel. The armored vrahkoles crouched at his side. Somehow, they understood that his safety was being entrusted to them.
“I have to leave now,” she whispered into his ear, “but I promise I’ll be back. We’ll be home with Mommy real soon.”
Eliot’s muscles relaxed a bit with the sound of her voice. Seeing this gave Sophina hope that, deep down, he knew she was there for him.
Sophina and Mrs. Tanner then followed the scar-faced vrahkole up a flight of crude steps to the quarry rim. They crept up beside the cave entrance where Mrs. Tanner extended her hand into the radiation that streamed through from outside. She watched the light dance on her skin, and then peeked around the corner until her left eye was exposed.
She inhaled sharply as her entire eye instantly glowed red. Sophina feared that her teacher’s mind had been taken hostage.
“Mrs. Tanner?”
“I’m still with you,” said Mrs. Tanner. Her eye softened as she stepped back from the radiation stream. “I knew that I could overcome it, just as I know you will.”
Sophina knew that it was her turn to expose herself to the drahtuah’s mind-altering forces, so she drew a deep breath and peeked around the corner.
At first, she saw nothing; she only felt. A familiar sensation of being called forth by the glow had enveloped her, tempting her to shed her suffering and embrace the rapturous existence that waited for her within the light. Inside it there were no worries, and no pain. All she had to do was give in.
But Sophina also sensed something else: another hand holding her own. “Fight it, Sophina,” called a distant voice. “You can do this.”
Of course you can, another voice said, and Sophina was pleased to realize that this voice was her own. She turned to Mrs. Tanner and smiled, showing her that she was again—and would forever be—the master of her own thoughts.
Sophina peered around the corner again. This time she looked through the light, down a lengthy stone staircase to a vast outdoor crater that was filled from end to end with hulking stone pillars. Piles of drahtuah stones spilled out from between the nearest columns—a collection larger than she ever could’ve imagined. At the left edge of the crater a plume of mist hovered over the rim, signaling the spot where the underground river gushed from the cliff face below to form Mount Vahkar’s glorious waterfall.
Sophina now sensed another hand touching her, one far bigger than the last. It was the scar-faced vrahkole, beckoning her and Mrs. Tanner to follow him. He led them through a doorway and down into a series of subterranean corridors where the rumble of the river could be felt as profoundly as it was heard. A circle of light appeared up ahead as Sophina licked her cracked lips, unsure of what was about to be revealed.
Minutes later, they emerged onto a ledge that overlooked the raging waterfall. Above the cascade, suspended in the swirling mist over miles of nothingness, was a wooden cage filled with juvenile vrahkoles. They clung to its walls with wild-eyed desperation as it swayed in the powerful drafts created by the gushing water. A thick rope ran from the top of the cage up to a finger of stone that jutted out from the crater rim. The rope looped over the protrusion and descended into the crater, where it disappeared into the pillars near the cache of drahtuah, several hundred yards from where they stood.
Sophina faced their vrahkole companion, who was tortured by the sight of the prisoners. Seeing his expression only bolstered the empathy she had already begun to develop for this once-imposing being.
“That’s why he helped us,” she shouted over the roar of the water. “Their children are hostages, too. We need to help him rescue them!”
“Yes,” Mrs. Tanner agreed. “But why would a necrah imprison its own descendants?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Sophina hollered. “We have to save them!”
Mrs. Tanner studied the cage, trying to formulate a plan. But her mind wasn’t the only one hard at work.
“Give me the whistle!” Sophina yelled.
“Why?”
“I have to signal Talfore. You need to stay and make sure that cage doesn’t fall!”
“No! I won’t send you into that crater without knowing what’s down there!”
“We don’t have a choice,” Sophina countered. “One of us has to catch that rope if it’s cut.”
“Then it’s you who should stay!”
“No! I know you’re worried about me, but climbing onto that rock is way more dangerous than going down there. The necrah can’t hurt me if I stay in the sunlight. When I see it, I’ll blow the whistle and go straight back to Eliot—I swear!”
But Mrs. Tanner didn’t look at all convinced.
“Please—you have to let me do this,” pressed Sophina. “We can save our children and theirs—I know we can!”
Mrs. Tanner took the whistle from her cloak and placed it into Sophina’s hand. “You are the most stubborn person I’ve ever known, Sophina Murray!” she scolded. “Arguing with you is pointless.” She then turned and scaled the rock face that led to the finger of stone.
“She’ll keep your children safe,” Sophina yelled to the vrahkole. “I promise!”
Sophina then jumped off the ledge and made her way down to the brink of the ancient pillars. She peered between each perfectly aligned row as she crept toward the accumulated drahtuah, terrified of what might be lurking there. But all she saw was a repeating checkerboard pattern of light and shadow that stretched clear to the far side of the crater, formed by the sun as it shone down the aisles that paralleled her course.
The pattern of light and shadow ended when she arrived at a place where the pillars were no longer aligned. They were now staggered, creating an environment of total darkness. What had been a restrictive setting for a necrah to exist in was now quite the opposite. From this point on the enemy could be anywhere, making her task of locating it even more daunting.
The mass of drahtuah was close now. Sophina could feel the waves of radiation pulsing out from its core.
Whummm . . . whummm . . . whummm . . .
It surged through her body and mind, stimulating her senses to beyond razor-sharp, making her aware of things she’d never dreamed possible. She felt her blood surge through her veins and arteries, and her nose was sensitive to countless new odors, including the unsavory stench of rotting tripod fish that drifted out of the shadows. And her vision was so sharp that she could see Talfore peering down at her from behind a rock, high above the vrahkole’s lair, without having to look directly his way.
Sophina’s control of her emotions remained absolute, evidenced by the fact that she was relieved to see that Talfore was ready to receive her signal—just as he’d said he would be.
She gripped the whistle as she strode back to the place where the sun still shone down the aisles. If the necrah wasn’t going to show itself, then she had to draw it out—and there was no point in being subtle about it.
“Hey, you stupid necrah!” she shouted as she stepped between two pillars. “Come here so I can see how ugly you are!”
She turned right down the first sun-drenched aisle, knowing that the necrah couldn’t touch her if even a sliver of light remained between them. Still, she was far from confident as she looked around the corner into the first darkened aisle that she came to. All she saw within the gloom was a few scattered drahtuah stones and the broken skeleton of a tripod fish.
She moved to the next alleyway and peered around the corner.
Suddenly a dark figure exploded across her field of vision, vanishing into an adjacent aisle as she jumped back and slammed against the pillar behind her. It was a fleeting glimpse, but she knew what she’d seen. The yellow-fanged jawbones jutting from the torn cloak hood left no doubt that the necrah vrahkole had revealed itself—and that was all she needed to act.
Sophina brought the whistle to her lips but faltered when something else whooshed by in the dark ahead. The rope that secured the cage had been released.
She leapt forward, but the rope fell slack. In an instant of panic she forgot that Mrs. Tanner was poised to secure it, and had almost entered the necrah’s realm. Luckily, she had landed just shy of the shadow-line.