The Key of Amatahns

Chapter Eight

  The world still felt as if it was tilting, spinning around her. Janir coughed out sand, smearing it off her face. It was stuck to her like a multitude of tiny, aggravating burs.

  “I hate sand,” Karile whined. “Scratchy, sticky, and grainy. What’s not to hate?”

  Her companion looked as if someone had powdered him with red. Janir was sure she did, too.

  The beast clacked furiously from the top of the hill, able to fit one clawed paw out the hole they had made, but unable to force the rest of its hulk through. Then it occurred to her, she could see it.

  Above them hung a huge orb, bathing the whole chamber in a gentle, bluish glow—it had to be magic. They were inside a soaring, massive cavern with sheer, jagged walls. The ceiling was impossibly far overhead, it felt as if they were within a hollow mountain and for all she knew, they were.

  Cutting down the middle, a river flowed through the subterranean landscape. It was large enough that it must be a tributary of the Zebulun or another one of the great rivers in the lowlands.

  The world had stopped spinning and Janir could see clearly again. She staggered to her feet. Karile was still complaining on the ground behind her. This whole business was his fault, of that she was certain. It brought her a perverse sense of satisfaction to see him miserable.

  Surveying the opposite bank, she spotted what appeared to be a wooden door—drastically out of place in the jagged cavern wall. Under their current circumstances, she wasn’t going to question it overmuch. She dragged Karile to his feet roughly.

  “Help me find a way to cross this river,” Janir commanded. She retrieved her rods from where they had rolled and stuffed them in her boots. After the events of the past hour, she supposed she should have been a great deal less calm than she was, but she was finding it much easier to keep herself together now. Maybe it was still the rods or that she had a focus or perhaps a combination of the two.

  “Oh, it’s shallow,” Karile said, wobbling like a newborn colt. “We can wade across.”

  Janir stared down at the lazily flowing water. It was so clear that she could make out the white pebbles on the bottom and silvery fish swimming about their feet.

  “Come on then,” Janir urged. “We need to cross before that thing breaks through.”

  She dragged Karile to the water’s edge. Not wanting the rods to get wet, she drew them out of her boots and tossed them to the other side of the river.

  “Can you walk now?” she asked, more than a little irritably.

  The enchanter gave a nod and they stepped into the water. It was over their heads an instant later, pushing them along at a frightening pace. Janir thrashed frantically to the surface and Karile flopped up alongside her. She shoved him out of the water on the opposite bank and came up gasping after him—a good fifty paces farther downstream from where they had stepped in.

  “As I was saying,” Karile panted, “it must have been an optical illusion.”

  “I hate you.”

  Karile shrugged and clambered to his feet. “Where to now?” He was asking her for directions, even though this whole idiotic quest had been his idea.

  “That way.” Janir pointed toward the wooden door she had spotted earlier.

  “But there’s no mention of a door on my map!” Karile protested.

  “Double check it,” Janir suggested, her patience wearing thin.

  “I seemed to have…er…lost it,” Karile sheepishly admitted after searching his pockets.

  Tired of arguing, Janir just repeated herself. “Go that way!”

  With a shrug, the enchanter obeyed.

  She snatched up the rods, again stored them in her sloshing boots, and led the way onwards, circling back to make up the distance the river had carried them. The door swung open easily enough when she pulled the handle. Karile obediently plod through, too tired to question their route.

  They stood in a gray stone hall so much like one inside Castle Caersynn, she could have imagined herself there. It sent a stab of homesickness through her chest. Wresting the door closed, they latched it from the inside, whatever good it might do.

  As a precautionary measure, she brandished her rods from their place in her boots. Janir had no inkling what these rods might be nor why the Lord Argetallam had given them to her in the first place, but they could be used against the monsters and that was all she needed to know for now.

  With renewed enthusiasm, Karile took the lead down the hall and toward an orange glow ahead. This place seemed built on the principle of following lights for direction. Janir trailed after the enchanter, giving a second glance to every shadow and odd shape in sight.

  The hall wasn’t nearly as long as it appeared at first. The two of them entered a cramped, domed room within a few moments.

  Arches around the edge of the dome were etched with more meaningless scrawls. The orange glow came from between the arches lacing the inside of the dome and the wall itself.

  Everything was stone—the ceiling, the arches, the floor and the walls, all made of gray rock that was beguilingly normal. Janir noted another hall leading away from the chamber. That could be a way out of this subterranean purgatory or so she hoped.

  Karile was standing in the middle of the room, staring at a slender pillar with a glass box resting precariously on its top. “This is it!” Karile squeaked with delight. “I found it! I, Karile Kerwyn! I did!”

  Janir felt uncertain what to say now and decided that when in doubt with Karile, argue. “We,” she corrected. “We found it.”

  The enchanter ignored her. “Look at this, Janir!” he beamed. “The Key of Amatahns!”

  Despite everything, she couldn’t deny her curiosity. Janir peered over his shoulder to behold a silver object the size and shape of a large goose egg resting on a tiny stand inside the glass. The egg was engraved with twisting runes and scrolls of exquisite craftsmanship, but Janir couldn’t see why it would be worth guarding, or how it could lead to almost limitless power. She was not sure what she had been expecting when she envisioned Karile’s prize, but certainly not this dainty gilt affair.

  Janir was about to say as much to Karile when pounding on the wooden door interrupted her thoughts. The beast had broken free and was trying to break in. Its furious clacking echoed through the passage.

  “We need to run!” she screamed

  Karile nodded fearfully and began surveying the glass box from different angles. “Now, there is a trick to opening this,” he hurriedly explained, fumbling for another scroll in his soaked robe.

  Even after all this, it felt wrong to leave Karile and he wouldn’t leave without the Key. Janir smashed one of her rods into the glass and it shattered into a multitude of shards.

  Karile jumped a good three feet and gave a shout of surprise. “I suppose…” He cleared his throat. “I suppose that would work, too.”

  Not waiting for him to pick it up, Janir dashed for the next corridor. Karile squawked for her to wait, but she had no intention of waiting for anything.

  That monster was coming and she didn’t want to be around when it did. She tore through the darkness, making her way by touch as much as sight, hoping that there was nothing blocking the way. The tunnel twisted and turned like a serpent through the mountain, changing direction every few strides.

  She was closely followed by Karile’s frantic footsteps and the loud clicking of the beast as it tried to wriggle its massive hulk into the tunnel. All this running was taking its toll and there was a stich in her side, but she kept going, through the black depths of mountain, onto whatever awaited them at the end.

  Janir spotted light growing ahead. With renewed purpose, she charged toward the faint glow. Around every turn the lights grew brighter, stronger. She had to keep going, she just had to or she would die at the hands—or claws—of that beast behind them. As she reached the end of the hall and the source of the light, Janir halted suddenly. They had apparently run upward, because now she was overlooking the same river t
hey had forded earlier.

  How deep had it been? Three sword lengths? Perhaps more?

  Karile panted up beside her, followed closely by a clacking echo. “What do we do?” he shrieked.

  “Jump!” was the first word out her mouth. She shoved Karile, tossed her rods across the river to the bank, and leapt. As the water rushed to meet her, she was struck with a moment of terror. What if it wasn’t deep as she remembered?

  With a splash, the water was up her nose and in her mouth. Janir paddled evenly, reminding herself that she always rose to the surface after diving. She burst out of the current gasping and Karile popped up next to her. They floundered and battled to reach the red sand shore before the river slammed them into the rocky cavern wall where it drained.

  They slogged onto solid ground, having safely escaped the monster one more time, but who knew how long it would last? Janir stumbled to gather up her rods. They were her one hope of defense and she didn’t dare lose them.

  “Well, we—” Karile didn’t finish his sentence because at that moment he noticed several scaled bodies floating in the river. The monsters raised their heads and hissed with rage. Janir brandished her rods again and Karile took up his battle station behind her.

  “Just stay calm,” Janir whispered, even though her heart was beating like a wardrum.

  The beasts rose out of the water like ghouls, snorting and clacking their displeasure. The monsters came deliberately closer and the pair of companions retreated. Two more beasts leapt down from overhead, surrounding them on all sides.

  The clacking grew louder, more furious. The large mazag they had hoped to have lost burst out of the rock and bounded to join the smaller monsters, crossing the river in a single leap. It flicked its tongue and purred as if already tasting their flesh.

  “I am impressed, Invulnerable,” the biggest mazag clicked. “Cunning hatchling. But not cunning enough. Give us back the egg. It is ours. Return it and we will spare your life and the life of the enchanter.”

  Tempting as the offer was, she had a feeling there was nothing holding the creatures to their word. “Stay back!” she ordered. “Stay back or we’ll crush it!”

  “You would be hard pressed to achieve that,” the mazag hissed, but its gaze flickered to the egg. It was worried.

  Karile gulped and hovered close against her back.

  The mazag hissed and clicked unintelligibly. “Although it is a grim business to destroy hatchlings, you have chosen death.”

  The pair was trapped with the river to their right, the cavern at their backs, and the beasts of nightmares hemming them in.

  Karile whispered, “I have a plan.”

  Considering where following his directions had gotten her last time, she would have dismissed the idea of Karile having a plan, but was out of ideas herself. There was no better option.

  “What is it?”

  “We could jump in the river,” he suggested.

  “Why? Would you rather be eaten in the water? If so, I’ll watch from here.”

  “Because, the river must flow under the mountain and back out into the valley,” Karile meekly explained.

  Janir hadn’t thought of that. “But you saw what good swimmers they are—not to mention we don’t know how far that river flows underground. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “Do we stand a chance now?” Karile bluntly put it. “Anyway, I’d rather be drowned than ripped to pieces.

  Come to think of it, drowning did have a certain appeal when compared to the alternative. “On the count of three,” she whispered. “One—”

  Karile threw himself at the water. Janir shouted angrily, took a quick gulp of air, and dove after him.

  They were swept under by the current, dragged down like river debris. Janir clenched her rods tightly, determined not to lose them.

  Her head scraped against the top of the rocks, as they were shoved along by the powerful current. The stones had barely grazed her, but she was certain she was bleeding.

  Her head hurt, but she forced herself to keep from screaming and losing air. Her chest burned, she wanted to breathe so badly. A sharp ache spread through her whole body. She needed to breathe. She needed air now.

  The water surged, flowing under the jagged rocks, whisking her on. Faster, faster, they went, swirling in circles as they knocked into submerged boulders that spun them off balance. After what seemed like an eternity, the mountain ended and Janir was propelled into a rushing open river. She was dragged back under by the current almost immediately. Several pounding heartbeats later, she was shot over a waterfall and landed in a pool of water under a cloudy sky. The river branched off and flowed in what she presumed was the direction of the lowlands, moving at a much less brutal pace.

  Janir came up gasping desperately for air. She didn’t remember Karile until she had flopped onto the bank, breathing like a beached fish.

  Realizing that the enchanter could very well be drowning, Janir struggled to rise. It seemed to take a superhuman effort, but she forced herself to release her grip on the rods. Staggering back into the water, she fished out the bobbing mass of robe that was Karile. Once on the bank, Janir shoved roughly on the enchanter’s chest.

  “Karile!” she shouted. “Can you hear me? Are you dead?”

  The boy coughed, a hard, racking cough. She rolled him onto his side as he gasped and gagged. “It hurt, it hurt so much.” The enchanter was still gripping the Key, much the same way Janir had gripped her rods.

  Clacking came from above the waterfall.

  “Karile, we have to go, now!” Cramming her rods into her boots, Janir slung one of Karile’s arms around her shoulders and stumbled into the forest with the enchanter sagging beside her.

  “It hurt, it hurt so much,” Karile whispered again. Apparently, his journey through the water had been even more unpleasant than hers.

  Janir ignored him and continued their flight into the trees, tripping over stones and roots. The mountainous terrain was even harder on foot than it had been on horseback. She thought about Kalbo, wondering if he would hear her if she were to call him. When she would shout to him in the pastures, he would usually come galloping.

  But it was wishful thinking. Nothing about this area looked familiar. They were probably miles away from where they had started, but she had more immediate problems. The monster could still be heard, crashing through the trees after them, clicking its anger.

  Glancing down, Janir confirmed that Karile was still gripping the egg-shaped Key in his other hand. After all this trouble, she thought, they had better not lose it. She stumbled on, dragging Karile through the tangled greenery.

  Now she could hear the beast coming closer, ever closer as they blundered through the gnarled forest. Janir lost her balance, tripped, and sprawled on the ground.

  The beast was upon them. It flicked out its tongue, hissing spitefully. “You are the embodiment of all we loved and loathed in the soft skins—their stubbornness and strong will. Return the Egg to my people and this will be the end of it.”

  The creature extended its tongue to receive the egg. Janir defiantly whipped out one of her rods and struck the tongue. There was a droning shriek and the yellow eyes went wide with pain. The monster screeched its ear splitting scream and recoiled.

  “Come on!” Janir cried, grabbing Karile and charging off. To her surprise, he was still holding the egg.

  The musky stench of the beast seemed to waken Karile. He stumbled groggily beside Janir, deeper into the forest. The creature writhed in pain behind them, screaming its displeasure as loudly as possible. Did the rods really hurt it that much?

  Janir wasn’t sure where they were going, but they couldn’t stop. Her feet slid on rocks and tangled in brambles. Her chest wasn’t expanding as it should, but she pressed on, towing Karile like a wagon. The pair burst into another clearing just as the beast caught up with them and flicked its tail to trip them both.

  They tumbled to the ground. Janir landed flat on her stoma
ch, losing hold of her rods. Karile landed on his back, staring at the Key contemplatively. Was it really worth all this to him?

  The monster reared its ugly head above them, roaring angrily. “I tried to show you mercy. I tried to show you reason. But you spit upon my offers and now you will die!” This time, the beast raised a clawed, webbed foot above them, about to crush these little pests once and for all.

  Then Janir heard something she remembered quite well—the hiss of arrows ripping through the air.