by Terah Edun
Ciardis heard the small squeal from Terris's mouth, which prompted her to say, “Don't, Terris Kithwalker. Don't scrape any off. Don't consume any. Don't touch them.”
“Well, I wasn't planning to eat any,” Terris said in a put-out tone.
Ciardis said, “Sorry, poor choice of words…but these tunnels, I can feel them. They may not be sentient, but they are alive. And what's more, they are hungry.”
An uneasy silence descended over the whole group.
Then Tobias said, “What say we let the prince heir get to communing and we get the hell out of here then? I don't know what they eat, but I don't want to be their next meal.”
A chorus of assent met his exclamation.
Ciardis let out a slow breath and turned back to Sebastian.
Together they reached out in synchrony and put their opposite hands back on the crystal walls. Walls that were beginning to glow all around them with the purple aura of a midnight cavern and the bioluminescent life inside of it.
It's quite pretty, Ciardis mused as the light grew and grew.
It was doing so without direction from Ciardis or Sebastian. Sustaining itself of its own volition.
Fortunately, that meant Thanar's request to use mage light was a moot point.
Unfortunately, that meant the crystals were only growing stronger, and Ciardis wasn't sure what exactly would happen when they managed to get to optimum strength, and she wasn't sure she wanted to learn, either.
It was disconcerting enough to stand amidst the pulsing purple light and know that it emitted from minerals and crystals around that were, for all intents and purposes, alive.
More than disconcerting, it was frightening.
Ciardis swallowed a gulp and mentally focused on Sebastian as she sent him a polite, if tense, thought: You ready?
She heard him answer in her mind. I was born ready.
She almost laughed. Which she supposed was his intention. She squeezed his hand slightly in thanks, no words needed. One of them needed to be brave right now, and at that moment, she supposed that necessity fell on the prince heir, who rose to the occasion admirably with his own brand of wry humor.
Ciardis felt her gifts meld with his once more. It got easier and easier with time.
Almost like it was one pool of gift and they just opened gates to unlock it at their leisure.
Her core was only half depleted, which was a pleasant surprise all around.
Ciardis felt Sebastian reach out to the land around them. He was going for beyond the crystals, which she wasn't quite sure he could mentally talk to anyway, and hoping the earth itself would once more respond.
He didn't have any delay for his answer.
Practically the moment he reached out, the land reached back and swamped them both with an almost childish glee.
It had done its job and done it well. What was more, Sebastian was feeding it in thanks, and it couldn't begin to thank them enough.
Feeding it? Ciardis thought back at the land in confusion.
But verbal questions wouldn't work with the land. It didn't understand the string of words she'd put together.
In frustration, Ciardis turned mentally to Sebastian, and he put the words they were both thinking into a wave of feeling. One without conscious analysis or thought. But that would convey their request.
The land thought back at them. Food.
Yes, food, Ciardis thought, puzzled. But from where?
It thought back to her, From the sky.
Ciardis turned her thoughts to Sebastian. “It's making no sense. Let's say our goodbyes and go.”
Sebastian responded to her softly, “If you think about it, it makes perfect sense.”
Around them the tunnels still pulsed with energy…a renewed vigor that grew brighter by the minute.
Ciardis felt the pit of her stomach drop to her knees.
No, she thought in horror.
Yes, thought Sebastian right back, with no little hint of sadness. Oh yes.
Ciardis wanted to curl back into her own mind, but she couldn't ignore this, and she wasn't going to ask the prince heir to do something she could very well do herself.
She mentally turned to the land and sent a wave of feelings back to it. Centered on one thought. Food…humans…food?
The land thought back to her, still with childish glee, Food.
Its tone and voice conveyed enthusiasm and happiness. She finally understood.
She understood, all right. She knew now why the crystals were once more glowing. And what the land was feeding on. It shouldn't have surprised her, but it did.
The desert sands, the earth below, the crystals surrounding them.
They were all feeding on the dissolving humans above them. The thousands of brigands who were caught unaware in a death trap of Rachael's, Thanar's, Sebastian's, and Ciardis's own making.
Their skin was sloughing off.
Their faces were being eaten through.
Their flesh was being riddled with holes.
All the while the acid liquefied their bones into a soup that the desert itself absorbed.
Ciardis thought to Sebastian in panic, Can you finish this?
She didn't have to explain what it was that she wanted him to do alone.
He released his grip on her hand without a word, and she stumbled back from the wall, to the center of the now well-lit underground path with a hand to her stomach and a distressed expression on her face.
To her surprise, it wasn't Thanar or Terris who reached out to her.
It was the shaman Rachael.
The woman stepped forward with an unreadable expression on her face.
“So it's true?” she asked.
Ciardis snapped her head up from where she had bent over to breathe heavily through her nose and try to quell the wave of nausea that threatened to release yesterday's breakfast.
“What is?” the Weathervane asked numbly.
Eyes narrowed and outlined in kohl, the shaman said brusquely, “That the crystals aren't just sentient. But that they…”
Ciardis waited for her to finish her sentence.
She didn't.
Neither did she have to. They understood each other perfectly well, standing with their eyes locked on one another.
Underneath the makeup that gave her fair skin a rosy glow, the shaman paled.
Ciardis gave her a tremulous smile. They knew the secret now.
Terris, however, wouldn't be left out. With an impatient toss of her braids, she said, “Would someone like to clue the rest of us in?”
Ciardis turned to her friend, and whatever was on her face made Terris blanch.
Terris lifted a placating hand, but Sebastian spoke with the voice of one hundred weary men.
“They eat people,” he said numbly. “And it's time that we go, before they eat us.”
Ciardis felt a heavy pall extend over all of them as, without a word, the prince heir moved forward and weaved around the group.
He whispered a thanks as he went and took his place at the head of the tunnel.
Before their eyes, what had once been a blank wall of glowing purple crystals dissolved, and inside the newly formed tunnel stood a newly human koreschie that Ciardis would have been glad to see, had their circumstances been any less trying.
She took comfort in the smile Christian gave them all, as he stepped aside for Sebastian to stand where he previously stood.
“Prince heir,” said the koreschie in a conversational tone, “shall we proceed?”
Sebastian looked up at him and raised a hand to squeeze him on the shoulder. He didn't bother saying “glad you're alive”; his gesture said it all.
“We shall.”
And the prince heir walked forward into the darkness.
With each step, the crystals began to glow the same eerie purple as the tunnels that had previously surrounded them.
They were lighting his way.
10
They followed Sebastian forward into the darkness like lambs
follow shepherds into a slaughter.
Ciardis tried to not let the imagery bother her, but it was almost impossible to dismiss.
They had no idea where they were going, and her connection to the land was gone as if it had never been there after the prince heir took his place in the lead.
Ciardis noted that neither of the two soldiers tried to shoulder their way into the front and lead into whatever came next.
She didn't consider them cowards for that small consideration, merely practical.
They all may have been able to see now that the walls were glowing, but the light only extended so far ahead of them into the darkness.
Mere feet in front of Sebastian, black space reigned as surely as if they stood under a night sky without stars.
Ciardis risked peeking over her shoulder, wondering what she'd see.
Over the ridge of Thanar's folded wings was only more darkness, and she shivered that he seemed to be almost enveloped it.
Thanar was the last in line. Only one step ahead of the tunnel's reclamation of the light. It was just a tiny bit more eerie than the absence of sound. No shifting rocks or dripping water. Only the sound of the fall of their footsteps in a harsh echo surrounding them.
Ciardis turned back around before she sought to catch the daemoni prince's eyes. She wasn't sure what she would find, but at this moment there was only one lurking evil that she could swallow, and that was the land around them.
It's not really evil, per se, she counseled herself.
Not that thinking it seemed to lessen the fraying of her nerves any more than it had a few seconds before.
Finally Terris broke the silence and asked, “Are we heading northwest?”
Sebastian mumbled an affirmative.
“What's in the northwest?” Ciardis queried.
“The gates of Kifar,” the Muareg said.
Once more Ciardis felt like jumping out her skin. It was too easy to forget that their silent companion was among them.
She knew without looking, though, that Thanar had him bound in front of him as prisoner.
It made sense from a dark perspective to have the daemoni watching the Muareg.
Darkness watching darkness was generally a good choice, as Thanar could anticipate his moves and work before anyone else could.
As long as Thanar remembers whose side he's on, Ciardis thought.
The whisper of “himself” in her mind gave her the shivers, but she was determined to pay it no mind. They had work to do and a quest to accomplish. Thanar had proved himself an adept ally time and again, and, quite frankly, she had almost no time to waste prodding a sore point that seemed to have no discernible beginning and end.
They walked for miles and what felt like hours, the tunnels ever changing around them.
To Ciardis's surprise, as they moved through different sections of the tunnels, the colors of the crystals changed. As did their shapes.
What was once a purple that reminded her of the scales of a particularly venomous viper changed to a bright red that was reminiscent of the crested robins of the northern forests.
She had to wonder what other colors she would see as the crystals jutted from the tunnel walls, at one point even bisecting the tunnel itself and forcing the group to climb over and around the jagged edges.
Ciardis folded her arms into her body and wrapped her cloak around herself as tightly as she could as they continued their winding path, she hoped to their ultimate destination.
Her eyes sought out Sebastian's back in the distance. It was straight and firm. The stern lines of a man who had no doubts.
He also had the dirty visage of an individual who had been in quite a few scuffles this voyage…yet still he retained an imperial air.
Ciardis sighed. “I hope that air is enough to get us through those gates.”
“What was that?” Terris asked.
“Nothing,” Ciardis was quick to say.
Everything hinged on them getting inside the gates of Kifar. There was no use sowing doubt and discord before they even arrived.
She shrugged a sore shoulder as Terris looked over her own shoulder at her with a curious look pasted on her face.
Ciardis said in a whisper, “I'm just ready. Ready to get there. Ready see what Kifar holds for us.”
“Aren't we all?” she heard Christian comment in a low voice. It wasn't said in a censorious tone. Merely a measured one.
Ciardis didn't have much to say after that, and fortunately for them, Sebastian called a halt to their march soon after.
“We're here,” he announced.
“Here where?” the shaman asked without pausing.
“In front of the gates of Kifar,” Sebastian said in a thoughtful voice.
No one moved. They couldn't go very far anyway.
They were stuck in a tunnel a few meters beneath the surface, after all.
Finally Christian spoke. “So how do we get from here to there?”
Ciardis heard a tired resignation in Sebastian's voice. “By asking the land for passage again.”
To be fair, she'd been resigned to. She had no desire to commune with the carnivorous land again, but it was the only way in or out of the tunnels that both protected and entrapped them.
She just hoped that this time the price would not be as high. Her power stores were at middling level at best now, and they still needed to be on their guard in case their reception into Kifar wasn't so welcoming.
Ciardis shouldered her way past Terris, Samuel, and Tobias, with whispered “excuse me’s” and “thank you’s” along the way.
When she came to stand by Sebastian, she said, “I'm here.”
Just in case he hadn't heard her progress to his station.
He turned to her but didn't take her hand. “I think this time…I should do this alone.”
Ciardis frowned. “I don't think that's a good idea. The land took a lot out of you the last time. Out of both us.”
“Precisely,” Sebastian said in a short, clipped voice. “This time it will only take from me.”
“This is no time to stand on ceremony,” Ciardis snapped as she pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation.
“I'm not,” he snapped back. “I'm planning ahead.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” she said while trying not to raise her voice. It wasn't like the others couldn't hear every word that was said, but they at least were trying to give the two individuals fighting at the head of their line the illusion that they had some privacy.
Sebastian groaned and ran fingers through his dirty hair.
“The power that it'll take to get us through to the top of the earth is great, but won't be overwhelming. After all, the first time the land was concentrating its magic in two different spots, and it was weak. This time it has fed and only needs to bring one group to the surface.”
“I understand that,” Ciardis said—realizing that he at least was trying to be diplomatic about the situation. “What I don't understand is why you must do this alone.”
“Because,” Sebastian replied, “knowing a plan and implementing said plan are two different things. I know that the land will take from me this time around, but I cannot say for sure how much until it happens.”
Ciardis nodded, waiting for the actual point.
“I don't want both of us to be incapacitated,” he said patiently, “in case something goes wrong. If only one of us communes with the land, then there's a good chance that we can get out of here with no more than one person possibly ill.”
Ciardis said, “All right.”
“All right?” Sebastian said. “Well, good, I'm glad you agree.”
“Not really.”
“Wait, what?” said Sebastian, clearly confused.
“I see your plan and I understand it,” Ciardis said in a low tone, “but I think there is one major change that needs to take place.”
“And what's that?” Sebastian asked.
Ciardis shrugged. “Well, I need to take your pl
ace, of course.”
“What?” Sebastian asked.
“Never mind the fact that putting your life at risk could compromise our entire mission,” Ciardis said in a reasonable tone. “Did you forget that you are the only one who can open the gates of Kifar?”
“Well,” spluttered Sebastian.
“It is tied to your bloodline, after all,” Ciardis continued.
“I know that, but I doubt I'll be incapacitated, so it's not much of a risk. I can still get us through the gates,” Sebastian said hurriedly.
Ciardis replied, “Well, in that case, there's not much of a risk of me communicating directly with the land, then.”
“That's not what I meant!” Sebastian said. “Besides, you don't have a connection to the land, I do.”
“I do too, through you,” she said. “It worked well enough when were in the midst of the brigands.”
Sebastian grumbled and then turned to the group members behind him in appeal. “Tell her she's wrong.”
“Nope,” said Christian, “I think she has a point.”
“We…need you where you are, prince,” Terris said reluctantly.
“The Weathervane isn't wrong,” the shaman added.
“I'm sorry, sir, but it's my duty to protect your person, and if this is how…” Samuel said in an apologetic tone.
Sebastian, for his part, just looked completely disgusted at all of them.
“Backstabbers, all of you,” he said in a voice verging on anger.
“We're just being practical,” cooed Thanar.
Sebastian glared daggers at him. “I would think you above all would think this a foolish idea.”
Thanar shrugged. “Well, I'm not a fool in love, so why would I?”
Sebastian opened his mouth to counter with something—what, Ciardis didn't know, and she didn't want to know.
Instead she stepped forward. “Majority rules. We go with this. Yes?”
A chorus of assent rang out around her.
She turned to Sebastian. “All right, prince heir. It's time for you to step back—it's my turn.”
Sebastian folded his arms and gave her an irritated look. “It's not as easy as it looks.”
“I know that.”
“The land might not answer to you.”
“I know that too.”
“Aren't you the least bit worried about what's to come?”