Starlighter

  “Now we can see where this tunnel goes.” Jason led the way deeper into the shaft.

  “The fuel on the torch was wet,” Elyssa said as she followed. “It’s been used recently.”

  “So whoever put it here might be coming back. If we knew what time it was, maybe it would make sense to wait.”

  After passing an empty bucket, a pair of old boots, and a hammer, Elyssa called out, “It’s early morning.”

  Jason stopped and looked back. “How do you know?”

  She rubbed her thumb against her fingers. “A feeling in the air. I can tell the time by sensations.”

  “But this world might be different.”

  “True enough.” She picked up a child-sized hat with a wide brim and felt the inside. “Damp salt.”

  “From sweat?”

  She nodded. “Humans have worked here recently. If it is morning, we might have visitors soon.”

  “And that would be perfect. We could talk to them without dragon interference.”

  “Perfect? Maybe. We have no way to prove our story.”

  Jason touched his chest. “I have the litmus finger.”

  “That would probably scare them.”

  He nodded back toward the entrance. “Tibalt’s supposed to open the portal again in an hour. That will be all the proof we need.”

  Jason continued his hunching march deeper into the tunnel. What would happen if the workers arrived just as Tibalt reopened the portal? Imagine their surprise if they walked straight back into the human world. But then they’d have to get upstream safely, and if children were among the workers, that would be no easy task…

  Suddenly, a breeze wafted by. The torch’s flame sparked green and made a snapping noise, like feet tramping on dry twigs.

  Jason wrinkled his brow. “Extane?”

  “Feels like it.” Elyssa rubbed her thumb and fingers again. “It’s oily.”

  Before long, light shone ahead; a sunray streaming across their path. Jason stopped at the edge of the light. Above, a cylindrical channel had been cut to the surface, and below, a circular pit descended into the depths with two ladders leaning against the perimeter.

  As a breeze sucked air from the pit and up into the chimneylike hole, the flame sparked again, this time more fervently. “More extane?” he asked.

  She extended her hand into the flow. “A lot of it, but it’s escaping into the atmosphere. Maybe they don’t know how valuable it is.”

  Jason looked down into the pit. The light from above illuminated several ladder rungs, but it was impossible to tell how deep they went. He checked the flint stones in his pocket, tamped out the torch, and set a foot on the top rung. “Let’s see what we can find.”

  As he descended, he listened for any signs of life, but the scratching of Elyssa’s shoes on the rungs above him ruined any chance of hearing subtle noises. After about thirty steps, his foot landed on something more solid.

  He waited for Elyssa to join him, letting his eyes adjust to the dimmer light. The shaft far above still provided illumination, but much less than on the upper level.

  They stood on a rocky ledge that encircled a larger pit that was so wide, the ledge on the far side of the pit was barely visible—maybe a full stone’s throw away. Using his foot, he nudged a shovel leaning against the outer wall next to a variety of picks and pails standing in a line. He knelt and touched a rope, anchored to an iron bolt. The fibrous line descended into the void, too dark to discern its depth.

  He gave the rope a gentle tug. It compressed slightly, as if it were hollow. Could it be an air tube as well as a climbing rope? A weight, not very heavy, held it in place; maybe a tool attached to the end.

  After letting the rope fall back in place, Jason smacked his lips. The familiar bitter taste of extane coated his tongue, thicker than in the dungeon. Maybe the slaves needed the breathing tubes while working down below where the gas was more concentrated. Although it wasn’t poisonous, it could displace oxygen, making the tubes necessary.

  And what harm might long-term exposure to the gas cause? The dragons probably didn’t care. These slaves likely worked each day until it grew too dark and would return with the morning sun, unable to decide their hours or take days off because of concerns about their health.

  As Jason brooded over the slaves’ lives, something thin and brown caught his attention, a wafer lying near the edge of the pit. He picked it up and examined it. Fibrous and light, it didn’t feel like stone at all, more like plant material.

  Elyssa knelt with him. “What is that?”

  “Not sure.” He lifted the wafer close to his nose and sniffed it. “Smells sort of like—”

  “Manna bark?”

  “Good guess again. The gas has to be extane, but they must be mining something else and releasing the gas along the way. If they were really digging for extane, they wouldn’t waste it by letting it leak into the outside air.”

  With her hands on her thighs, she peered down. “I say we wait.”

  “Wait? What do you mean?”

  She looked at him, her green eyes still visible in the low light. “You were going to ask whether or not you should climb down. I think we should wait for the workers to show up. Better to learn from someone who’s been there. And since they’re slaves, they probably start early.”

  “I was thinking that.”

  She gave him a wink. “I know.”

  “You figuring out what’s going on in my brain is starting to scare me.”

  “Good. Now that we’re in the dragon world, a little healthy fear might be the best medicine.”

  For the next few minutes, they sat and talked about what the people here could be mining. Gems? Gold? A mineral unknown in their world? Whatever it was, it had to be of great value to the dragons. Otherwise, why would they bother to keep humans captive and feed them? With the arid breeze circulating, their clothes finally dried to a comfortable level, and, as more light poured in from the rising sun, their eyes fully adjusted.

  At the opposite side of the pit, another hole to the upper level came into view. Something snapped, and a light flashed from the top of the hole, further illuminating the chamber. A male human descended a ladder and settled to the ledge with a thump. With his head and shoulders slumped low, his face stayed out of sight.

  “If his ancestors came from our world,” Elyssa whispered, “he might know our language.”

  “This is what we came for,” Jason said, rising to his feet.

  Jason lifted his hands to show that he carried no weapon and called out, “Excuse me, sir. May I talk to you?”

  The man jerked his head around and stared, saying nothing. A severe burn scarred the side of his face from his eye socket to the bottom of his jaw, so deep the wound may have nearly cost him his life.

  Jason walked toward him, slowing his rate of speech. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

  Nodding, the man edged back toward the ladder. His torn sleeves revealed muscular arms, but the fear in his face contradicted his strength. The breeze swept his curly brown locks back, revealing a receding hairline. With a trembling voice, he offered a weak, “Who are you?”

  Jason stopped several paces away and gave the man a courtly bow. “I am Jason Masters. I have come from Major Four.”

  Half closing one eye, the man mouthed the words Major Four, but said nothing.

  Jason gestured toward Elyssa. She rose and joined him. “Elyssa and I are here to help you escape from the dragons and return to our world…your world. It has taken us many years to find the gateway to this place, but we have finally arrived to rescue you.”

  For a moment, the man scowled, but soon his tight lines loosened. A smile emerged, and he broke into a low chuckle. “A fine jest, indeed! For a moment, I thought you were serious, that one of the lowland humans had gone insane.” Still laughing, he mumbled, “Oh, a fine jest. Harlon will pay for this. Yes, he will.”

  “A jest? What do you—”

  “Who told you to play this pran
k? Was it Harlon?”

  “Harlon? I have no idea who he—”

  “Cassandra, then. She knew about my birthday and wanted to tease me. She promised you a berry pie, didn’t she? And she asked you to dress in those strange outfits, I’ll wager.” The man lowered his head, shaking it. “That little sprite. She is always playing tricks on me.” With a smile and a wag of his finger, he added, “You tell Cassandra for me that Uncle Allender will get her back.”

  “Allender!” Elyssa called in a firm voice, her hand held high. “Stop these thoughts of friendly jests from your niece. Jason and I are not pranksters, nor are we insane. Didn’t your ancestors tell you that they came from another world?”

  “Tales from old women!” Allender picked up a shovel and nodded toward the ladder. “My fellows will be here in a moment. You’d best end this prank now, or you’ll have everyone laughing, and we won’t make quota today.”

  “Quota?” Jason asked. “Are you mining gems?”

  This time, Allender’s finger stiffened as he pointed it. “Now I know you’re playing the fool. I don’t know which Assignment you’re from, but I suggest you return there before your foreman misses you. If my workers don’t make quota, I’ll make sure the stripes they get on their backs are doubled on yours.”

  Elyssa bowed her head before looking him in the eye. “Foreman Allender, it is noble of you to care so much for those you oversee. You must be a good and honorable man. Since this is so, I trust that deliverance from the bondage of slavery would be your highest goal for those in your employ.”

  “Employ? Your Assignment must keep you ignorant of the real world.” As a female child descended the ladder, Allender lifted her to the floor. He turned her around and pulled her collar down, exposing her shoulders and the top ends of three red stripes. “These are our wages. From the littlest and weakest to the biggest and strongest, our masters beat us mercilessly if we come short of quota by even the tare of a pail.”

  After patting the girl on the head, he pushed her along before pointing at Jason again. “Unless you want to be the reason she earns more of those welts, young man, I suggest that you silence your other-world talk. That myth is nothing but fuel for wagging tongues and added fury for dragons’ whips. If you breathe another word of it, I will pump you full of pheterone and use you as a torch.”

  Elyssa leaned toward Jason and whispered, “Pheterone must be their name for extane.”

  Jason matched her whisper. “Right. I guessed that.”

  Smiling and backing away slowly, Jason offered a quick bow. “Give my best to Cassandra…and happy birthday.”

  With that, he took Elyssa’s hand and hurried to the ladder they had descended. After letting her climb first, he looked back at Allender. He was handing pickaxes to men as they dismounted the ladder. The little girl had been joined by a smaller boy, and both clutched pail handles with the pails resting on the ground.

  Jason sighed and followed Elyssa. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What now?”

  “Get outside and explore. Maybe we can find the old women who still tell the tales.”

  Elyssa nodded. “Good idea.” When they reached the top, they hurried back to the portal chamber, not bothering to pick up the torch, and climbed up twenty stairs cut in the stone until they emerged outside.

  The sun shone just above low hills in the distance, more like jutting rocks than the forested hills back home. Although the rays felt hot, a cooling breeze wafted from the cloudless sky and brushed against squatty, oak-like trees and tufts of wiry grass.

  Jason shielded his eyes and scanned the area. Near a creek, a line of people filed into a low opening at the base of a cliff, similar to the one he had just exited. Standing with its back to him, a huge scaly creature with wings and a long neck and tail held a whip in a clawed hand.

  Swallowing hard, he whispered, “It’s a—”

  “A dragon!” Elyssa finished.

  The dragon cracked the whip across a lagging boy’s back, making him flinch, but the boy did nothing more than glare at the cruel beast before tromping back into the line.

  Jason cocked his head. Did that boy have only one eye? For a moment it seemed that the boy had noticed them, a half-second pause, but he didn’t give any further indication.

  Grabbing Elyssa’s hand, Jason pulled her back under the cave’s arched entrance, a yawning mouth big enough for that dragon to fit through. He leaned out and watched the boy disappear into the cliff. “Maybe now that they’re all inside, the dragon will go somewhere else.”

  Elyssa peeked over his shoulder. “I see an old woman with water flasks. She’s probably stationed outside for the carriers.”

  “Carriers?”

  “They’re digging a huge hole, Jason. The rocks have to go somewhere. The men are the strongest, so they probably cut out the rocks and haul them to the top of the pit. The children then carry them in pails to the surface and float them away on rafts.”

  “I didn’t see any rafts.”

  “Or any piles of rocks, either. The rocks have to go somewhere, and I didn’t see any other conveyances, so I just guessed that they have rafts.”

  He stared at her, wide eyed. “Thinking ahead again?”

  She nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  After a few minutes, a little boy emerged from the other cave, carrying a heavy pail. He dumped the contents near the creek and, swinging the empty pail, marched back. He kept his gaze on the ground, apparently not daring to look directly at the dragon that watched his every move.

  Soon two small girls did the same—carrying a pail and dumping rocks—but the smaller of the two stayed at the creek bank. About a minute later, a wooden raft floated from upstream, and the girl waded in and pulled it to shore. Then she loaded the rocks onto the raft one by one.

  “What a waste of time!” Jason said. “Why don’t they dump the pails directly onto the raft?”

  Elyssa nodded slowly. “Strength training. Repetitive exercise with small loads for the youngest children.”

  “You’re just guessing again.”

  “No. Deducing. These dragons are treating them like beasts of burden that they train for manual labor. I’ll bet they even breed them, too.”

  “You mean…”

  “Right. Arranged marriages to produce the fittest. You can bet they forced even young girls to have babies, at least early on when they wanted the population to grow as quickly as possible.”

  Jason grimaced. “That’s disgusting.”

  “True, but it stands to reason. Once the population rose sufficiently, they probably allowed only the strongest to breed, so these girls are tested for strength while they’re very young. The weak or handicapped will never find love.”

  “This isn’t about love.” He drew out his sword. “If the dragon stays in that position, I think I can take him out.”

  She grabbed his sleeve. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “What if there are more dragons around?”

  “Did you see any?”

  She shook her head. “That doesn’t mean—”

  “Look,” Jason said, pointing with his sword, “we know he’s the enemy. We saw him hit the boy with his whip. We came here to rescue the Lost Ones. This isn’t exactly a difficult decision.”

  “I understand, but how many dragons have you fought?”

  He stared at her for a moment. No use answering her question. She already knew the answer—zero, just like with the mountain bear. “Okay, what do you think I should do?”

  “Well, maybe—”

  The whip cracked. Jason spun toward the sound. The little girl tumbled face-first at the river’s edge and spilled her load. The dragon stood over her and whipped her back, snapping up a slice of clothing and a spray of blood.

  Jason boiled inside. Strangling the sword’s hilt, he showed Elyssa its blade. “‘Maybe’ nothing.”

  With his sword extended, he ran on the balls of his feet, trying not to make a sound. He had to ge
t there before the dragon struck again. For now, it just stood over the small slave with the whip raised, as if daring her to move. It spoke, but in a guttural, growling sort of tongue that made no sense at all.

  The girl curled up in the dragon’s shadow, covering her face with her hands and crying. A woman with a water flask stood nearby, but she just let her shoulders sag and shook her head.

  Jason felt no fear, just anger—hot, fuming anger. And why should he fear this monster? He and Adrian had trained to fight dragons. Adrian had set up a furnace and hose combination that spewed fire from the top of a platform mounted on two ladders. It probably wasn’t anything close to the real thing, but the moves Adrian taught helped him understand how to fight an enemy that hurled weapons from above.

  Yet this would be different. Very different. This beast had a brain and a streak of cruelty. A surprise attack would be his only chance.

  As he closed in, Jason eyed the spiked tail. That weapon was another matter. Adrian had mentioned it in passing, but he couldn’t fabricate a reasonable facsimile.

  Taking a deep breath, Jason raised his sword. Maybe the answer would be to eliminate the problem before it could become one.

  With a mighty heave, he hacked down on the tail’s midsection. His razor-sharp blade sliced between two scales and amputated half the tail.

  The dragon roared and spun on its haunches. Jason dashed past it and sliced across its midsection as he ran, striking the precise spot where Adrian had said its skin would be armored with thinner scales.

  Brown blood poured from the sword-length wound. The dragon roared again, this time shooting fire from its mouth and nostrils. Jason dodged. The flames glanced off his arm, but the damp sleeve didn’t ignite.

  With a lunging thrust, Jason drove the blade deep into the dragon’s gut, jerked it back out, and leaped toward the little girl. The dragon coughed. Fire and blood gushed from his mouth, but with no apparent aim. Then, like a falling tree, it toppled to the rocky terrain. A loud thud shook the ground. The dragon wheezed, then breathed no more.

  Jason set his sword down and helped the girl rise to her feet. “Are you all right?”