Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set

by P. E. Padilla

  Chapter 44

  Ducking inside the cave first, Sam slowed as he used his rohw to light the end of his staff, causing it to vibrate quickly enough to generate light with which to see his surroundings. Sam found that he was in a large cavern, with walls that were roughly ten feet high and spaced twelve feet apart at the opening, increasing to over fifteen feet and then tapering again as it went deeper into the earth. He rushed toward the back, allowing room for the others to speed into the cave. At least the wasps couldn’t come at them all at once, he thought, even if the party couldn’t find a narrower passage.

  It was the strangest thing, though. The wasps stopped almost mid-flight at the opening, swooping away rather than to enter the cave itself. It was clear the insects had no desire to enter the darkness.

  “Are...they afraid…of the…dark?” Sam gasped, as they all collapsed to the ground breathlessly.

  Dr. Walt took a few deep breaths and answered. “It’s possible that they don’t like the cold. Caves are normally colder than ideal for wasps. But…”

  As he was speaking, Sam noticed too what Dr. Walt just realized. He finished the doctor’s sentence. “…but this cave is warm.” It was true. The cave was comfortably warm, even warmer than it was outside.

  “Fascinating,” Dr. Walt declared. “It must be heated geothermically. I wonder why the wasps wouldn’t enter. I don’t remember ever hearing anything about them not liking darkness.”

  “Perhaps there is something in here that is not worth facing to reach their prey,” Rindu suggested. It was a sobering thought.

  The wasps were buzzing around near the opening of the cave, along with another dozen or two of their kin that had decided to join them. There was no way they could slip out around them.

  After taking a count of everyone, the four humans, four rakkeben, and the hapaki, and making sure none had been stung, they discussed their options. There was no way to make a break through the cave opening without at least one of them, and most probably more than that, being stung. They could wait the wasps out, but that seemed a shaky proposition at best. The third option was going deeper into the cave to try to find another exit.

  When the discussion was over, they had decided that the party would stay in the entrance chamber, well away from the wasps in case one of them became brave enough to venture inside, while two of them searched for another way out.

  Rindu shortened the decision-making process considerably. “Sam, come with me. We will find a way out.” And just like that, before the others had a chance to argue, they were off, Sam holding his lighted staff in front of him.

  The chamber narrowed to a single opening at the back. It was about seven feet high and four feet wide and darker than the blackest night. Before going through, Rindu stopped and looked at Sam. “Release the light,” he commanded.

  Sam did so and they were plunged into darkness. Looking out toward the opening, some thirty feet away, the light coming from outside looked much smaller and weaker than he would have imagined. To the sound of Dr. Walt’s gasp, Rindu assured the others that nothing had happened and dousing the light was intentional.

  “Now, Sam, I want you to close your eyes and breathe, taking in lifegiving breath and rohw along with it.” Sam did so. “Do you remember our blind-folded exercises, the ones in which I suggested that you rely on your aura to see the things around you?”

  “Yes.”

  “We will do the same here. Picture in your mind the aura surrounding your body. Do you see it?”

  “I do.” As he said it, something intruded on his aura, coming close to him. He stepped back.

  “Good.” It had been Rindu, testing him. “Now, I want you to stretch your aura, double its size, and then double it again. Can you do that?”

  Sam concentrated and, picturing himself as the center within his mind, he watched as the glowing field around him grew, stretching out further. Several feet away, he saw a shape. Concentrating on it, it resolved itself into Rindu, but without the detail or color. “Ok, I think I have it.”

  “Do you see me?” Sam nodded before thinking that they were in almost total darkness. He was surprised when Rindu answered. “Good.” Of course the Zouy could see in the dark. “Keep focusing on anything that breaks your aura of vibratory energy. I will go first, but concentrate to make sure I do not miss anything.”

  “Understood.”

  They started off in the pitch blackness, Rindu at the front. They moved systematically, not quickly but not as slowly as Sam would have thought. Or preferred. He was soon growing tired from the constant mental exertion from focusing on his aura.

  “It will get easier with practice. Right now, you are fighting your body’s desire to use its eyes. When you have learned to let go and not fight it, things will be much easier. It takes time and practice. You are doing well.”

  As they went deeper into the passages, Sam soon became disoriented and lost his sense of direction. “Ummm, Master Rindu?” Sam started to say.

  “Do not worry, Sam. I have marked our path with vibratory markers, little spots of stone on the walls that I have…ah…manipulated.”

  “Manipulated?”

  “Yes, I have projected my rohw into them, vibrating and changing their structure slightly so that when I look upon them, I will recognize them as my own work. I put my signature on them.”

  Sam looked behind him with his mind and saw, at evenly spaced intervals, little spots of the rock that gave off a gentle glow. “How long will that last?”

  Rindu stopped suddenly. “You can see them? You see the marks I have made?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Interesting. I hadn’t thought you had developed the sensitivity yet to do so. Very good. To answer your question, the marks could last for years, decades. It depends on how the cave grows or what other vibrations occur, such as quakes. You do not need to worry in any case. They will be there long enough for us to use them to find our way back.”

  Sam sighed his relief. They had already passed more than ten junctions and they didn’t always take the same fork when given a choice. Sam had always heard that to prevent getting lost in caverns, you should simply choose the right fork, or the left, always. That way, you could retrace your steps. Rindu, though, was using some other sense to guide him in choosing which way to go. The little marks comforted Sam.

  No longer distracted with worrying about their direction, or finding their way back, he began to notice that the cavern was growing warmer the further they went. Sam wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was sure it meant something.

  Almost two hours later, Rindu slowed and then stopped. When he suggested that Sam stop focusing on his mental image of his aura and then open his eyes, Sam was surprised to see a spot of light far up ahead of him. They slowly walked toward it and found what they had been looking for. It was another way out. Though some of the passages had required the men to crouch, they were all passable by all members of the party, even the rakkeben. There had been some dead ends and passages that looked dangerous to crawl through, but they had found other ways to get to the exit. Smiling and patting Sam on the back, Rindu headed back toward the party, switching automatically, Sam assumed, to his rohw vision.

  When they returned to the party, in a significantly less amount of time than it took them to find the exit, the wasps still had not left. Gathering his supplies, the Zouy led them back through the tunnels. He allowed the rest of the party to use torches, while he went ahead, reading his marks back to the exit. Sam, whose head was pounding from the rohw vision he used while finding the exit, was happy to use the glow of his staff light.

  In the area of the tunnels where Sam remembered it being the warmest, Rindu stopped abruptly. Before anyone could say anything, he shushed them. Standing stone still, the party waited.

  At first, Sam heard nothing, but then there was a soft scraping noise, as of someone dragging a heavy parcel wrapped in rough paper over the uneven stone floor. Then, he heard the same sound from several directions, alon
g with a soft hiss. It sounded like the slow leak from a tiny hole in a bicycle tire, amplified in the stillness of the underground. The only other sound was the panting, dog-like breathing of the rakkeben.

  He noticed that the narrow passage in which they stood was the convergence of several other passageways, some at foot level and others up higher. Altogether, there were at least ten passages of varying size, most of them intersecting the main passage and continuing out from the other side. The sounds seemed to be coming from them, not the main passage.

  Sam saw a flash of movement from his right, just behind him, and then Rindu was there, batting aside the monstrous head of a snake that was twenty feet long if it was one, if the width of the head was any indication. It spit and hissed as its jaws snapped shut with the force of Rindu’s blow.

  “Go forward, get out of this junction,” he commanded as he scanned the openings along the passageway. As one, the party rushed past Sam, who only stood watching Rindu, too shocked by his close call to react quickly. In just a few seconds, only he and Rindu were still there.

  “Watch for them from the side passages, Sam,” the Zouy said.

  They backed up, facing the hole where the serpent had entered the passage. Sam still heard the paper-on-stone sound of the reptile moving around, and the occasional soft hiss. He couldn’t reconcile the sound from so many directions as belonging to the one snake unless the beast was wrapped entirely around the main passage.

  Backing toward where the party had stopped further down the passage, moving slowly, Sam was sorry that his reasoning was correct. Three of the giant reptiles were emerging from three separate side passages, one much larger than the other two. Sam realized, to his horror, that they had invaded the home of an entire family of giant snakes.

  The heads of the pale beasts bobbed forward as they slithered from their hiding places, the largest in front. The parent had a head that Sam could barely have put his arms all the way around, flat-topped and ridged with rough scales. The blood red eyes with vertical black slits that were barely visible in the light of Sam’s staff seemed to glow in contrast to the pale yellow, almost white, color of the reptile’s scales. It regarded the pair hungrily, mouth open and hissing, fangs that were almost as big as Sam’s forearm dripping venom. The forked tongue flicked out, testing the air, making Sam fear it was the precursor to attack.

  It was obvious that the larger snake would strike soon, and its copies would strike immediately after, if not simultaneously. There was no way they would survive the poison from snakes this size. Just the bite may kill them even without the poison. With a snick, Sam separated Ahimiro, each half with a glowing tip.

  “Be still,” Rindu told him, and raised his hands slowly to the snakes. As he did, Sam felt a pressure build from the monk and he saw Rindu’s hands start to glow softly. The snakes’ pupils didn’t contract further, so Sam knew he was looking at the glow of Rindu’s rohw and not visible light.

  The Zouy started moving his hands, both together, slowly from right to left and then back from left to right. To Sam’s surprise, the heads of all three snakes began to follow the monk’s hands. “Back away,” Rindu whispered to him. “Have the others move down the passage. Read the marks, lead them.”

  “What about you?” Sam whispered back.

  “I will be fine. Leave now.” Rindu put his attention back on the snakes, which were still moving their heads in time with his hands. As he moved slowly back, the pool of his light receded from Rindu until he could only see the glowing red eyes of the largest snake and then nothing. He backed up for several more feet until turning to walk toward the party. He explained to them what Rindu said and, surprisingly, Nalia didn’t say a word, but guided the rakkeben to follow Sam. Dr. Walt was the last one to turn and follow, not wanting to leave his friend.

  “Come, Dr. Walt,” Nalia admonished. “He knows what he is doing. He will be fine. We must get out of the cave before the serpents recover.”

  The party had only been at the cave exit for a few minutes when Rindu came jogging out of the passage. “Let us leave this place. The beasts will not be happy when they realize their meal has eluded them.” The party wasted no time in picking their way down from the cave opening to what appeared to be a trail through the underbrush. Within moments, they had put enough distance between the cave and themselves that they felt safe from pursuit.

  Rindu comforted them as they stopped to drink and eat a light snack. “It is cooler outside. The snakes will not be comfortable if they emerge. The temperature will make them sluggish. They will not follow us, knowing they would be at a disadvantage in the cooler temperatures. That is why they have their abode in the heated sections of the cavern.”

  After checking on Skitter and Shonyb to make sure they were all right and had not been injured in any way, Sam sat down next to Rindu. “What did you do to those snakes? Did you control their minds?”

  Rindu looked impassively at Sam. “Control their minds? Sam, I am no magician, no witch. How would I control their minds? Do not be ridiculous.”

  “Then how did you do what you did?”

  “It is my knowledge that allowed me to soothe the reptiles. As a boy, I would often catch the poisonous water snakes in the rivers that emptied into the ocean near my village. An old man in the village used to train the snakes, playing a simple instrument he blew into, making the snakes sway and sleep. To me, it was magic, and I followed the old man around, hoping I would learn to do magic, too. Alas, when he finally explained it to me, I realized that it was not magic. It was something better. It was knowledge, knowledge of how a creature thinks, how it works.

  “You see, serpents do not see as well as some creatures. Much of their information comes to them through other senses. They are very sensitive to vibrations. When they flick their tongues, they are “tasting” vibrations. They are actually tasting rohw. What the old man explained to me is that the snakes were not soothed because of the sound of the music, but because of the vibrations that the music represented. So, in the cavern, I simply found a vibration the monsters enjoyed, and I generated it. Along with that, I gave them something to focus on, my hands, and moved them in time with the vibration. They had no choice but to join in, swaying and entering a trance of their own. It was simply using knowledge of themselves against them. Not magic at all, but just as good, I think.”

  “Definitely just as good,” Sam agreed.

  After their short break, the small group followed the trail, which was looking more and more like an animal trail as they went along, until it dead-ended in a small box canyon. Too late, they realized what they had done.

  “Now just relax and put all your weapons in a pile over near the far wall,” a voice boomed out from one of the cliff walls, “and we won’t have to have any messy deaths today.” As the echo of the voice faded, three dozen bandits with bows and crossbows stood up along the ridgeline on all three sides, razor sharp projectiles aimed at the party.

  Chapter 45

  Rindu looked at the man who was speaking, high up on one of the walls. In his peripheral vision, though, he saw the other men lining the walls. There were close to forty of them, all with bows or crossbows. He and the rest of the members of the little party were in a clearing, with no cover and only sheer walls a dozen feet away. The walls provided no shielding from falling arrows.

  Quickly, he ran through the options in his head. He might be able to survive that many men firing projectiles at him, perhaps even long enough to escape, though he would most likely be injured. Even he could not count on being able to dodge or deflect that many arrows and bolts. Nalia, too, may survive, using her shrapezi, which were already in her hands, to deflect the missiles.

  The rest of the party could not do so, however. Sam was becoming more skilled and could probably deflect or dodge an arrow or two, but not this many. Dr. Walt could do nothing. If he could signal the others, let them know to take cover behind the rakkeben, they may survive at the expense of the big wolves, but no, that was unthinkabl
e. He could not sacrifice the beasts who had all but become part of their family. Besides, there was no way to be shielded from all three sides. There was no other option.

  “Do as he says,” Rindu said. Not having weapons of his own, he simply raised his arms and, with a look, admonished the others to put down their weapons. Nalia looked as if she would challenge him at first, but she quickly realized what he already knew: there was no way out of this situation with all of them alive unless they surrendered. They would probably be killed after giving up, but there may be a better chance to escape before that happened. They had to do what the bandits wanted now; they had no chance to survive if they didn’t.

  The others dropped their weapons where the voice had told them and stepped back, arms raised to show they were unarmed.

  The voice sounded again. “Do not allow the rakkeben to cause problems. Even as formidable as they are, a dozen arrows in each will stop them. I’ll come down and talk to you.”

  Rindu put his hand on his rakkeban’s head, speaking soothingly to him. The others did the same with their mounts. The wolves seemed to understand and their hackles lowered and their growls subsided, for the most part. There was the occasional growl and Shonyb, Sam’s magnificent rakkeban, grunted questioningly to her bond-mate. Sam whispered something in the big wolf’s ear and she settled down, lying on the ground, placated for the moment. Immediately after, the other rakkeben followed her lead and laid down.

  Rindu detected movement from the side of the little box canyon on which the voice was being projected. There was apparently some sort of hidden path to the top of the cliff there because six men were on the ground level and making their way toward the party. Five of the men were huge, dressed in some sort of leather armor with metal plates at crucial areas, and bristling with weapons. Two of them carried bows with arrows nocked but not yet drawn, while the other three carried close-quarter weapons.