The group prepared to bed down for the night. Lukor didn’t seem to care as to what the sleeping arrangements were. David and Debbie and Camron and Leslie bedded down side by side.
“I thought they’d insist that the guys stay on one side of this room and girls on the other,” said David, snuggling up to Debbie.
Debbie enjoyed the closeness more than she could say. She placed her arm around him.
“Whatever happens on this crazy nature hike I wanted to say that I love you, and that you have made my life here worth living,” said David.
Just to hear those words sent a shiver of delight through Debbie’s very soul. “I love you too, more than life itself,” said Debbie. “We’re going to get out of here, you’ll see. We’ll have a real life back on Earth, you and me.”
David hesitated. “You will.”
Debbie seemed confused. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I don’t think I’m getting out of this place,” whispered David. He hesitated. “There was blood in my urine tonight. I know that is a gross thing to talk about. It first started about four days ago, but it’s been getting worse, a lot worse. I nearly passed out a few times today and I’m in a lot of pain right now. I don’t think I’ll make it back, even if we don’t run into some sort of monsters down here. But I want you to go on. You need to go on. I want you to live to get home.”
“No, I don’t want you to talk that way,” said Debbie. “You’re not going to die down here. We’re going to get through this.”
David shook his head. “I’ve seen a lot of people die down here. They died a lot worse deaths than I think I’m going to.”
“I don’t want to hear any more about it because it’s not going to happen,” said Debbie. “You’ve got to have faith.”
David smiled, though slightly. “OK, Debbie, I’ll try.”
Debbie was so tired. Right now she didn’t want to think about what David had told her. For the first time since she’d been here she had something that resembled hope in her heart. She just had to believe that David would make it, that God would see him through to the end. She hung onto him throughout the night.
Lukor and Lemnock took turns keeping watch. The vast cavern beyond echoed with strange noises from time to time but none of those noises sounded particularly close. Apparently they were safe, for the moment.
“Time to get on the move,” said Lukor. His voice was calm yet insistent.
Debbie turned to David who hadn’t moved as yet. “David, time to get up.”
He still didn’t stir. Debbie drew closer. He was breathing but he didn’t respond. She shook him gently; nothing. She touched his forehead, it was very warm.
“Lukor, something’s wrong with David,” said Debbie, fear in her voice.
Lukor knelt down at the youth’s side. He felt for his pulse then gently turned him over on his back. Slowly David came around. His eyes opened just a bit. His mouth moved but he made no sound.
“He can go no further,” deduced Lukor. “He has a high fever. His life is nearly spent.”
“No, he can’t die,” objected Debbie.
“Anyone can die and everyone does,” said Lukor. “He can go no further. We will need to leave him here.”
“We can’t,” insisted Debbie.
“Would you have us carry him along to the crystal cavern?” asked Lukor. “He would slow us down. We will leave him here. We will leave him some food and water. Then we will retrieve him on our way back. If he is still alive when we return, I myself will carry him back with us. This is the only way. Believe me, he will be safer here.”
“Shouldn’t one of us stay with him?” asked Debbie.
“I need all of the rest of you to help carry crystals,” said Lukor. “Believe me, he will face fewer dangers here than we will on the journey ahead. He stays here.”
Lukor’s words were calm but insistent. Debbie realized that there would be no changing his mind. They had a meager meal from their backpacks. Debbie managed to feed David a little bit before Lukor insisted that the group move on again.
“I’ll be OK,” said David, in a weak voice. “You move on and be safe.”
“I love you,” said Debbie in a trembling voice. “Don’t you go anywhere until we get back. You hear?”
“I don’t plan to,” said David, sitting with his back to the wall. “Lukor left me some food and water, plenty until you get back. Then we can plan our future together.”
Debbie kissed David. She hoped that this wouldn’t be the last. Then she departed.
Chapter 15
The group once more slipped from their hiding place and out into the vastness of the cavern. They no longer used their crystals to see their way, they really weren’t needed. Also they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves and the crystals would do just that.
“He’s going to be fine,” said Marci, placing a hand on Debbie’s shoulder. “He’s a strong young man.”
“He is,” confirmed Lukor. “It would not at all surprise me to find that a day’s rest would place him well on the way to recovery. Assuming all goes well we might be back here before the day is through.”
From Debbie’s way of thinking that was a mighty big assumption. She had to get her mind on something else.
“I’ve only seen a ciudache once,” said Debbie, turning to Lukor, who now walked by her side, “How do you kill them? I mean, they can be killed with a sword or spear, can’t they?”
“Anything can be killed,” noted Lukor, “but some things are tougher to kill than others.” Lukor gripped the long spear in his hand. “These beasts are some of the tougher ones. This spear thrown the right way might penetrate their hide, might not. On the last expedition we killed a few of em, but they just kept coming. They killed a whole lot more of us. Their armor is thin at their necks and on their underbellies. A sharp sword will penetrate their armor, make em bleed, but killing em is a task.”
Marci shook her head. “What I wouldn’t give for an M16 with a couple of full clips about now.”
“An M16?” queried Lukor. “Your words mean nothing.”
“No, I don’t suppose they do,” said Marci, who didn’t elaborate further.
“I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends on the weekend,” noted Camron. “This crazy adventure sort of reminds me of the game.”
“Yeah, but in this game you don’t get a second chance,” said Gwen, who was normally very quiet. “I used to play it too. But if I ever get out of here I’ll never play it again.”
Marci placed her arm around Gwen. “You will get out of here. I just know you will.”
“I have faith that we will,” agreed Debbie. “After all, if God is with us who can be against us?”
“That’s a big if,” noted Camron.
“Not to me,” replied Debbie.
Leslie turned to Camron. “I know where my body is back on Earth. I’m in York, Pennsylvania at the Martin Neurological Institute, room 124. I’m right beside Debbie. I guess we’re sort of inseparable no matter which side of the silver cord we’re on. Where do you think you are, Camron?”
Camron chuckled. “Is this a game? OK, I bet I’m at home in bed, fifteen kilometers north of Glasgow, Scotland. And there is probably some real pretty nurse looking after me day and night.”
“In your dreams,” whispered Leslie.
“No, really,” said Camron. “Laird Timothy Mac Lure would have it no other way.”
“Laird Timothy Mac Lure?” asked Leslie. “What is a laird?”
“A Scottish lord, my family is of Scottish nobility.”
“You’re not kidding are you?” asked Leslie.
“Not in the least,” said Camron.
“You’ve never really talked about your life back on Earth,” noted Debbie.
“I guess I haven’t,” said Camron. “Not much to tell.”
“Do you live in a castle?” asked Leslie.
“No, I live in the cell five down from yours,” replied Camron.
“I live with David.”
“No, you know what I mean, in Scotland,” said Leslie.
“I wouldn’t call it a castle,” replied Camron. “We call it a manor house. It isn’t big as manor houses go, about 8,000 square feet, and it sets on about 1,600 acres. It was built back in the mid 1700s. It’s really pretty nice.”
“I would say,” replied Marci. “I think our house is about 1,600 square feet on about a quarter of an acre, built six years ago.”
“But we’re all here now,” said Camron. “And I find the present company very charming. This is my life now.”
“But we will go home,” said Debbie. “Don’t you look forward to going back to your manor house?”
Camron hesitated. “Yes, I suppose.”
That didn’t sound right to Debbie. “Things are OK at your home, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Camron. “I have wonderful parents. I’m an only child. But then there is my dog, Max. He can be a lot of fun.”
“Do you take Max out running on your 1600 acres?”
Again there was that annoying pause. “No, not really. I didn’t get out much.” Again he paused. “I wasn’t all that well, not like I am here. I’ve experienced a lot of pain here but it was worse on Earth. You see, on Earth I had cancer. I don’t have it here. Sort of ironic, isn’t it.”
“I’m sorry I brought this all up,” said Leslie.
“No, it’s alright, OK. I’d just rather change the subject if you don’t mind.”
Debbie was understanding now why Camron didn’t talk much about home. Whether they got home or not he was going to lose. It seemed so unfair. She looked over at Leslie. She seemed positively crushed. Debbie knew how much she thought of Camron. Now this.
For hours the group continued on. The shoreline slowly curved to the left around the great sea. Debbie could still not get a good idea of its true size. She couldn’t see the far shore for the mists and clouds. Occasionally she saw something break the surface of the water some distance from the shore. It would be there for but a moment then it would be gone. Lukor seemed to notice it too but seemed unconcerned. She took that as a good sign.
This realm of eternal twilight was so disquieting, so alien. The familiar caverns, even with all of the pain and anguish she had suffered through there, were far more inviting than this place. There was a presence here, a sense of evil that she just couldn’t shake. Again she looked out into the sea. Was there a glow out there? There seemed to be, very far out. Marci’s words about this cavern, about it being a physical impossibility came back to her memory. She was starting to get a sense for what she was talking about. It was like a nightmare. You knew that it couldn’t possibly be real but knowing that didn’t help you.
Quite abruptly Lukor came to a halt. He stood there for a good half a minute. Despite the humid heat of this place Debbie felt a sudden chill.
“I thought I saw something,” said Lukor almost under his breath.
He scanned the rocky terrain ahead. It was so difficult to see very far in the dim light. Then Debbie saw it too, something moving beyond a small rocky ridge about a hundred yards ahead. It appeared to move in an undulating yet irregular pattern. It wasn’t moving straight in their direction, not exactly, but it was getting closer.
Lukor motioned to the left, toward the sea, and the group followed closely without question until they reached a pile of boulders that stretched for some twenty or thirty yards. Lukor motioned for the group to get down, they did.
The thing was moving along the great cavern wall about eighty yards away. Debbie was horrified to discover its true form. It was like an enormous centipede, black at the ends brown towards its center. It was over twenty feet long moving upon its hundred or so legs like an army on the march, its three-foot-long black antennas feeling the ground ahead of it.
Debbie was too frightened to speak. The smaller versions of these creatures were frightening enough but this thing was a nightmare.
“A cepheladon,” noted Lukor. “It is a meat eater but we’re not generally part of its diet. It eats cave slugs and the like. We just need to stay out of its way. It won’t attack us so long as we don’t provoke it. We’ll wait here for a few minutes and then move on.”
After a few minutes the beast faded into the distance and the group continued on. They were all shaken up, especially Gwen. The look of pure terror in her eyes really grabbed at Debbie’s heart. No one her age should be subjected to such horrors. A righteous anger was building up in her, an anger focused at the drells.
“How much further?” was all that Debbie could ask.
“Not far,” said Lukor. “It is but a couple hours’ journey from here up a huge side tunnel and into the crystal cavern. This was where we ran into trouble during da last trip. This shall be the most dangerous leg of our journey.”
Debbie nodded.
It was several more hours before the shoreline terminated at a sheer cliff. They could go no further. Lukor directed the group’s attention to a cavern that led up and away from the great sea. It was surely over fifty feet in diameter, a circular tunnel with an uncanny symmetry. It somehow didn’t look natural. Its walls glowed shades of green and yellow here and there, yet it was substantially darker than the cavern around it. To Debbie it just didn’t feel right, not that anything else here felt right, but this was far worse. There was a part of Debbie, deep within that screamed out a warning. She prayed quietly as they drew ever closer. There was great evil down that tunnel but there was also something else; hope.
It grew ever darker as they proceeded into the abyss. She wasn’t here to become the victim of the darkness. She was here to vanquish it. She told herself that with every step, and she believed it.
The group proceeded through the wide dark tunnel mindful of any sounds around them. Yet all they heard beyond the tapping of their feet upon the cavern floor and the beating of their hearts was a far off. Here and there they saw traces of the glowing green monnites clinging from the walls but not many. They were compelled to see their way using their crystals and that was clearly not what they would have preferred. It made them too obvious, too vulnerable.
“It doesn’t make sense that the tunnel that leads to the place where there are so many glowing crystals should contain so few,” said Leslie.
“I cannot explain it,” replied Lukor. “Perhaps whatever formed these caverns concentrated all of the stuff that goes into the crystals in one place.”
“Makes sense,” said Marci. “That’s sort of how placer deposits form.”
“Your words mean nothing to me,” said Lukor.
“No, I wouldn’t suppose they would,” replied Marci.
“Can one of these ciudaches see in the dark?” asked Debbie.
“No, but they really don’t need to,” said Lukor. “They can find their way through the caverns using their other senses. I suppose that they can smell ya. The way I have it figured is that we’re probably an unfamiliar scent to them. I’m pretty sure that most of the ciudaches in these tunnels haven’t much dealt with wulvers or humans. We’re not really a normal part of their diet. I figured that out from my last trip here. But once they get a taste of our flesh and blood they develop a liking fer us. Then they’ll follow ya for days just ta get another piece of ya. They did that to us.”
“Good thing you had some humans along to slow them down, satisfy their hunger,” grumbled Camron.
Lukor scowled. “I am not proud of what we did, boy. But it bought the rest of us time, saved most of the warriors and many of the humans.”
“And those you and yours left behind paid the price,” said Camron, defiance in his voice.
The others almost expected Lukor to strike the offending youth. They were surprised when he refrained.
“You judge me too harshly Camron,” said Lukor, his demeanor calm. “It was not I who made that decision, it was my captain. I hope that you are never faced with such a decision.”
Only a few seconds later Lukor came to an abrupt halt
. The rest of the party followed his lead.
“What is wrong?” asked Lemnock.
“I heard something,” was the reply. “I fear we might be in trouble. Move slowly to the wall of the tunnel. I want a more defensible position. I don’t want them to be able to flank us.”
All moved at Lukor’s command. Twenty seconds found them in a semicircular defense position at the right wall. They waited in total silence. Something was coming alright, they could hear it; a scratching sort of noise and it was growing louder by the second.
Debbie looked over at Gwen. She was shaking, and there were tears in her eyes. She had her small sword in hand but she could hardly lift it. She stood by Marci who stood prepared, sword in hand.
A minute later a lumbering cepheladon, considerably larger than the one they had seen by the shores of the salt sea, made its way down the middle of the tunnel. With it were four considerably smaller ones, perhaps its young. This time Debbie had a much closer look at these centipede-like nightmares. It was a closer look than she might have liked. They made a strange clicking noise as they moved along. There was a smell too, not a very pleasant one. It was a smell of rot and decay, disgusting. They apparently took no notice of the group as they continued on into the darkness.
“Bloody disgusting creature,” whispered Camron.
“Quiet,” warned Lukor. “That is a female with her young. She will be particularly aggressive if she feels that we are a threat.”
The others remained silent, looking about nervously. Something was wrong, they all could feel it. Though the danger had apparently passed them by, Lukor still looked troubled.
“That wasn’t what I was hearing, there was something else,” Lukor finally whispered.
They waited in silence for several minutes. Lukor scanned their surroundings carefully.
“It’s gone now,” he announced. “We are almost there.”
They moved on. In the distance they could see a faint glow reflecting from the walls of the cavern. As they continued that glow grew. Here and there they noticed small glowing crystals imbedded in the cavern walls, ceiling, and floor. As they moved on the crystals grew in both number and size.
The Realm of the Drells Page 22