by Tom Hoffman
“Bartholomew, how many Wyrmes of Deth do you think there are? I do know exceptionally large creatures will often stake out their own vast hunting area, and can be quite territorial about it. It is possible there might only be one Wyrme of Deth in this area. It’s all quite nerve-racking, I must say. You saw how the Wyrme demolished the Adventurer II in a matter of seconds. All we have is the one vaporizing gun, and I doubt that is enough to stop something as monstrous as the Wyrme of Deth. Oh dear, I simply have no idea what to do. I’m afraid all my scientific knowledge will not be of much help to us here.”
Bartholomew put on a positive face. “We’ll think of something, my old friend. We always do. You seem to forget I can shape whatever we need to defeat the Wyrme. I can shape ten vape rifles if we need them. In the meantime, how about I shape us a couple of comfortable chairs and a bottle of fine Orvieto Pinot Grigio?”
“Ah, now that is an excellent plan, Bartholomew. One or two éclairs to accompany the pinot would also be quite lovely.” Oliver rubbed his paws together in anticipation.
An hour later Oliver’s mood had improved considerably. Bartholomew set down his empty glass and said, “I’ll shape our camp on top of this hill. We’ll be perfectly safe here. Tomorrow morning I’ll use the Traveling Eye and see what I can find. Things may not be as bleak as they seem now.”
Bartholomew cleared a wide area on the crest of the hill and shaped tents, cots, blankets, and a well equipped cooking area. As he worked he kept a wary eye on the desert for movement, but saw none. If the Wyrme of Deth was out there it wasn’t showing itself.
The five adventurers sat around a blazing campfire that evening eating another of Oliver’s memorable meals. Bartholomew had shaped all manner of fresh fruits and vegetables, and of course Oliver baked the bread and pastries from scratch. “Not to diminish your skills, Bartholomew, but I still argue that shaped bread and pastries are no match for those made the good old fashioned way. There’s really nothing in the world like the smell of baking bread.”
Their conversation continued late into the evening with no mention of the Wyrme of Deth. When Thunder and Lightning began a boisterous competition to determine who could count the most stars in one minute, Bartholomew retreated to his tent where he shaped several earplugs and a glass of white wine before retiring.
Even with the wine and earplugs Bartholomew woke in the middle of the night. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling for several minutes before calling on the Cavern of Silence.
“Cavern, will we survive our confrontation with the Wyrme of Deth?”
“You know I can’t answer that, Bartholomew. I would only tell you that things are not always as they seem to be. This is a complex and delicate web of events you are entangled in. A great many future events are dependent on the outcome of this adventure, many of them having to do with Thunder and Lightning. They are young now, but they will not always be, and their influence will come to affect the entire world of Nirriim. You only have to do what you know is right, no matter how impossible it may seem. Perhaps a pleasant stroll in the moonlight might help you to think more clearly.”
“A stroll in the moonlight?” There was no response from Cavern.
With a sigh, Bartholomew rose from his cot, threw on his clothes and stepped out into the cool night air. Cavern had been right, the two moons were quite spectacular, their shimmering light reflecting off the rolling dunes. The desert was beautiful, mesmerizing. He stood transfixed, his thoughts gradually turning to Clara, and how much he wished she was there with him.
He was jarred from his reverie by a startling movement in the desert. The creature rose up out of the dunes only a hundred yards from him like some gargantuan behemoth roaring up from the ocean depths. It was a magnificent monstrosity, several hundred feet long and at least forty or fifty feet in diameter. It hung for a brief moment above the sand, brilliant gold beams of pulsing light shooting out from its eyes, its tail leaving behind it a glowing violet fog. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, vanishing beneath the dunes, leaving the sands untouched in its wake. Bartholomew could scarcely breathe. This was the most terrifying creature he had ever laid eyes on. The sheer mass of the creature was overwhelming, the power it possessed was staggering. They could not defeat a creature of this magnitude. Why had Cavern shown him this? Certainly not to help him think. The desert was still again, reflecting only the distant light of the two moons drifting across the night sky.
Bartholomew remained motionless for many minutes after the Wyrme of Deth was gone. He had no idea how to defeat this creature and find the lost Seventh Key. He trudged back towards his tent, head down, lost in his dark thoughts. A terrible thought flashed through his mind. If something happened to him, if the Wyrme killed him, who would tell Clara? How would she know? Bartholomew felt sick inside. He didn’t see the glimmering silver figure hidden in the trees scant yards away from him. Edmund the Rabbiton had also been witness to the Wyrme of Deth’s terrifying display.
Chapter 35
City Beneath the Sand
Bartholomew was the first to rise the next morning. He shaped a small breakfast, got dressed, then sat on his cot, legs crossed, paws resting gently on his knees. He closed his eyes and took three slow deep breaths, just as Ennzarr had taught him, visualizing himself on the opposite side of the tent, facing the wall. Once he could see the tent wall clearly in his mind, he turned around quickly and opened his eyes. He saw himself sitting on the bed, eyes still closed, paws still resting on his knees. He drifted over to his body, looking curiously at his own face. It was odd, his face was so familiar and yet it didn’t feel like him, it was like looking at the face of a stranger. As he circled around himself he realized Clara had always been right. His true self was not his physical body, but was this electric awareness he was currently experiencing, this invisible part of him that was now floating above his cot watching his own body. His thoughts began to go deeper, but he stopped himself.
“We are here to find the Seventh Key.” He shot through the tent wall down to the edge of the desert. The sun was rising, the low morning light giving the dunes a surreal magical glow. “There must be ant tunnels here that lead to the Queen’s Treasure Chamber.” Bartholomew zipped down beneath the sand, flying through it like a bird through the sky. It was an astonishing feeling to pass through physical matter, and hard for him to get used to. He found himself flinching each time he sped through one of the massive boulders buried deep beneath the sand, waiting for the impact that never came. The sand was translucent, almost transparent, allowing him to see into the distance, as if he were swimming beneath a clear ocean. The earth surrounding him was illuminated by a new and unfamiliar form of light. It was not possible for sunlight to be here, yet he could clearly see. He had no explanation for this.
He flew on beneath the desert sands seeking out the ant tunnels, but in the end he found none. He had a growing doubt the ants had ever lived beneath the dunes, and yet Lightning’s map showed the Queen’s Treasure Chamber clearly located deep in the desert.
Bartholomew swept straight up out of the sand, catapulting across the sky towards the Timere Forest. He was there instantly, high above the forest near the area where Edmund the Explorer had been killed by the ants. He could see the clearing where the Tree of Eyes stood. A split second later he was under the forest floor, darting through the dense roots of the magnificent old trees. He stopped instantly, finding himself in a dark tunnel. Moments later he could see, the tunnel lit by the strange new ethereal light. The tunnels were circular, about ten or twelve feet in diameter and seemed to be the proper size for the giant ants. He spotted partial remains – mandibles, legs, antennae. The tunnels had most certainly belonged to the ants.
Following the tunnels eastward towards the desert, he crisscrossed beneath the forest floor to make certain he didn’t miss anything, specifically the Queen’s Treasure Chamber. It was possible Lightning’s map was incorrect, or the landscape had changed over the last thousand years, desert and forest s
hifting positions. As he drew closer to the desert, the tunnels began to circle back around the way they came. After nearly an hour of exploring this borderland, Bartholomew was forced to conclude the ants never lived beneath the desert. Whatever the Queen’s Treasure Chamber was, it did not belong to the ants.
“The mystery has deepened. If the ants didn’t take Edmund the Explorer’s pack, then who did? And how did it find its way to this mysterious Queen’s Treasure Chamber in a world where there are no kings or queens?
Bartholomew zipped up out of the forest floor and into the blue sky above. He looked down at the vast desert sprawling out before him. Somewhere out there was the Seventh Key. Once again he sped down beneath the desert sands, flying at ever increasing speeds. His powers of perception were growing stronger, objects which he passed at blurring speeds could be examined as if he were standing still. His mind was unencumbered now by the limits of his physical brain. It was astonishing, and he realized how truly little he understood about the nature of the universe and his own existence.
In a fraction of a second Bartholomew’s speed went from blurringly fast to full stop. He was deep under the desert sands in a colossal cavern. He remembered when he and Oliver had been held captive in King Oberon’s ferillium mine. Oliver was astonished by the size of the mine when he first saw it, at least a mile across in both directions and well over five hundred feet tall. The cavern he was seeing now made the ferillium mine look paltry by comparison. This cavern contained the remains of a sprawling and lifeless ancient city.
Bartholomew was dumbstruck. How was it possible for a city of this magnitude to be hidden beneath the desert? This was a metropolis far larger than any in Lapinor or Grymmore, possibly larger than any on Earth. As he gazed at it the city grew brighter and brighter, filled with the new ethereal light. It was then he realized it was not the light around him which was changing, but it was his ability to perceive light that was changing. Just as his physical eyes adjusted to the dark and let more light in, his awareness was somehow adjusting for the lack of light. This process was well beyond his understanding and beyond anything Oliver had ever discussed.
He floated down to the streets below, which now appeared as bright as a summer day. There were hundreds of buildings, many three and four times as tall as the tallest buildings in Lapinor. There was an organic look to them, none were sharp and square and structured, but they were curved and irregular, almost as if they had grown where they stood. He had never seen anything like this.
He was sweeping down one of the wide main streets when he saw the corpse. More accurately, it was a skeleton. It had walked on two legs and appeared to be eight or nine feet tall, its spine extending out into a tail which was long enough to drag on the ground. Its arms were quite short, but equipped with vicious looking claws. The skull reminded Bartholomew of a snake’s head, its teeth were the stuff of nightmares. The upper and lower jaw had two rows of long curved yellow teeth, the front row much longer than the back row. Nothing would have been able to escape from its bite. There were a few scraps of rotting cloth and some metal objects lying near the creature, remnants of clothing it had once worn. Bartholomew looked at one of objects, which appeared to be a gold button. He had discovered that when he was using the Traveling Eye he could look at an object from a great distance and see even the tiniest detail. He had no idea how this was possible, but it was vastly different from his normal vision. He zoomed his vision in on the small round button lying next to the skeleton. In the center was the image of a spiral with an arrow piercing it. This meant nothing to him, but from past experience he suspected it would hold great significance later on. Whatever the creature was, it had been there for many hundreds of years.
Bartholomew soared above the buildings for a better view of the cityscape. At the far end of the cavern he spotted a singular building which stood out from all the rest. It was magnificent, fluid and organic, covered with complex and detailed architectural forms. Bartholomew was in front of it instantly. The entrance to the building was through three sets of ornately carved doors created from an unknown gleaming metallic substance. The central set of doors was far taller and more elaborate than the others. Bartholomew zipped through the massive doors into the building.
Dozens of skeletons were scattered about the foyer, all similar to the one he had seen on the street, clumped together in groups of two or three. Something very bad had happened here, more than likely the event which caused the demise of the city. This was not like the city beneath the Fortress of Elders, with its gravitator trains and food synthesizers and Rabbitons. This was different, strangely alien. It was as though the buildings had grown to their final shapes, but were composed of a metallic substance. Bartholomew had no idea how this could be done, but it didn’t feel like shaping.
He flitted through the building from room to room, finding more and more remains of the snake creatures. Reaching a formidable set of ornate red doors, he sailed through them into a lavishly decorated room with forty foot tall ceilings. This was the central room of the largest building in the city, undoubtedly where the leaders worked and lived. He studied the front area of the room, not yet fully grasping the significance of what he was seeing.
There were two intricately carved, rather grandiose white marble chairs on a raised platform facing outward towards the main floor. Behind the huge chairs was a colossal set of golden doors. There could be no doubt about it – he was looking at a throne room. “And who sits on thrones? Kings and queens sit on thrones. If there was a queen, more than likely there is a Queen’s Treasure Chamber.”
Those last three words were echoing in his thoughts when something grabbed his shoulder from behind. Before he realized he didn’t have a shoulder to grab, he was back in his tent sitting on the cot. Lightning was shaking him, trying to rouse him from the Traveling Eye.
“Bartholomew! Wake up! Edmund is gone – we can’t find him anywhere, and Oliver found footprints leading out to the sand dunes. He thinks the Wyrme of Deth got Edmund!”
Chapter 36
In the Belly of the Beast
Edmund was leaning back against a tree contemplating the two Nirriimian moons as they drifted across a clear night sky. “They travel a good deal faster than the Earth’s moon. I wonder if that’s why the–” He stopped, his ears perking up at the sound of rustling tent flaps. Peering around the tree he spotted Bartholomew, who was now also gazing up at the luminous moons. Edmund did not call out to Bartholomew. Clara had told him sometimes rabbits needed to be alone with their thoughts, and this looked like one of those times.
He wondered what Bartholomew was thinking about. Perhaps he was attempting to quantify the relationship between the varying elliptical orbits of the two Nirriimian moons. Probably not – Oliver would be the one to do that. Bartholomew was more likely thinking about Clara. Edmund thought, “It must be nice to have someone who misses you when you’re gone and is excited to see you when you return. I did like it when Clara and Bartholomew and Oliver said they had missed me. Other Rabbitons don’t care about that sort of thing, but to me it meant a lot. I know I’m different from the other Rabbitons. I suppose it could be something as simple as a programming error.” It was at that moment the Wyrme of Deth made its dramatic appearance, leaping out of the desert sand and plunging back into the depths again.
Edmund found it fascinating, and was especially intrigued by the golden and violet lights emanating from the beast. “Perhaps it’s some sort of natural organic illumination. There are a number of books in the Central Information Repository mentioning creatures who live deep beneath the ocean that possess such bioluminescent abilities. It could also be a means of communication between Wyrmes.”
Another outcome of witnessing the Wyrme of Deth’s startling appearance was Edmund now realized Bartholomew could not defeat it. It was simply impossible. He watched as Bartholomew trudged back to his tent. It was clear to Edmund what he must do. “I can’t let anything happen to Bartholomew. I can’t lose another friend and
I can’t take him away from Clara, not after everything they’ve been through. I couldn’t prevent Edmund the Explorer’s death, but I can prevent Bartholomew’s. As much as I would like to be him, I know I am not Edmund the Explorer. I am Edmund the Rabbiton, and I am the one who must defeat the Wyrme of Deth. I owe it to Edmund the Explorer and to dear Emma.”
Edmund walked to the edge of the desert and knelt in the sand. As the two moons made their way across the sky he formulated what he thought to be a suitable plan, given what little he knew about the Wyrme of Deth. He strode back to his tent, emerging several minutes later with the vape gun slung over his shoulder. He adjusted his cherished adventurer’s hat as he walked down to the desert’s edge, wondering if Edmund the Explorer was watching him from some distant realm. He imagined what Edmund the Explorer would say right about now. “Strap and roll, rabs! We’ll be having worm stew for dinner tonight!”
Edmund stepped out onto the sand, moving tentatively at first, then breaking into a run. When he was several hundred yards out he halted at the top of a dune, pausing to take in the stark beauty of the desert. The moonlight surprised him with its almost magical quality, the sand around him sparkling like the glimmering stars above.