Shaking his head, Thesa dismissed these adolescent feelings and smiled at his foolishness.
The hole that had been cleared at the back of the chamber was small but so was Thesa, and he had little difficulty in squeezing his way through it.
Pushing through the crack, Thesa found himself on a narrow ledge. Far beneath him was a large pool of water, and he could see no way off the ledge, other than by jumping into the water below.
His two companions must have done just that, he reasoned, otherwise they would still be waiting on the ledge for him.
Thesa looked down, making up his mind that he had no intention of doing the same thing. The surface of the liquid pulsed with an eerie glow, looking anything but inviting.
He studied the pool intently, his attention caught by the colours swirling across its surface. He'd seen such colours only once before– in a bright sunlit sky, following a heavy storm.
Beneath these colours, deep down in the water, a movement caught his eye, and he stared hard, trying to make it out.
Whatever was there, it was too far away for him to be certain what he was looking at, but never-the-less he stood transfixed, staring wide eyed at what appeared to him, to be a miniature moon.
Thesa's heart pounded and his mouth dried when the shimmering orb slowly rose to the surface of the pool, turning on its axis as it came. He glanced away from the frightening sight for a moment, trying to break the hypnotic spell that was holding him there, and as he did so, caught sight of two shapes floating on the far side of the pool.
His eyes narrowed in recognition– Comfrey and Rooten! The two badgers were obviously dead.
Badgers were good swimmers, so what had killed them? Why had they drowned? It wasn't that far a jump from the ledge to the pool.
Thesa shuddered, wrinkling his snout as one of the floating bodies slowly sank below the surface, leaving no trace, other than a gentle ripple.
Had the monsters from his cubhood dreams pulled it down into the nadir? Were they even now devouring the body in the cold depths?
Thesa turned away, checking again to see if he could find a way off the ledge. Finding none, he turned back towards the hole.
Better to wait in the chamber beyond for the guards to return, than take the chance of ending up like his two dead companions.
"Thesa," the soft whisper came from nowhere and everywhere.
Thesa stopped dead in his tracks, hunching his shoulders, as though expecting a blow to land across his back.
When the voice addressed him again, his skin puckered and his limbs trembled.
"Thesa turn around and look at me," it ordered.
Thesa did not want to look, but found himself turning anyway, reluctantly, with eyes tight shut, afraid of what he would see.
"Don't be afraid Thesa," the voice reassured him. "We mean you no harm."
Thesa opened his eyes and gasped, his breath catching in the back of his throat.
As he took in the scene, the blood in his veins pounded so hard that his ears sang, and a heavy weight filled his stomach, as though he'd over-eaten. Even the tip of his stubby tail began to tremble uncontrollably.
The surface of the pool had turned a brilliant blue: the colour of a hot sun-cycle sky. The spinning orb had risen from the water and was now hanging near the roof of the cavern, casting a strong light into every crevice.
Eyes wide, Thesa felt his jaw sag, but could do little to stop it as the orb slowly revolved before him. He could just make out faint marks on its surface, which grew ever more prominent, curling and merging until they became the face of a badger.
When the face was complete, the sphere stopped rotating, coming to a gentle rest. The countenance of a particularly attractive badger was looking out from the orb at him.
She smiled a warm greeting, much as his mother had when she'd been particularly pleased with something that he'd done as a cub.
The apparition spoke, her voice coming from the rocks around him, from the depths of the pool, from deep inside his own being.
"We need your help Thesa."
Her voice was compelling and melodious. It caressed his fears, just as his mother's touch had done when he was growing up.
"We had hoped that these two would be strong enough. It was their misfortune that they were not."
There was no regret in her voice as she spoke these words, her eyes looking towards the pool. Thesa followed with his own eyes and was just in time to see the second body slip into the depths.
The powerful stare refixed itself on Thesa once more. "You are a strong, resilient boar Thesa. You have proved that in battle. Are you also a moral one?"
The unblinking eyes– the colour of the blackest sky– pierced his mind.
"We have favoured you Thesa. Like one of our own. Now it is your turn to favour us."
Thesa stumbled backwards, his mind a jumble of incoherent thoughts. This was magic far beyond his comprehension and it terrified him so much that he could scarcely breathe. His heart fluttered wildly, like a tremulous bird trapped in his chest.
Twice he tried to answer, but could not form the words, his tongue was rigid with fear.
"Don't be afraid," the sonorous voice assuaged his fears. "My name is Soffen, I won't harm you."
The orb turned a little, allowing a new face to appear.
"And behold, this is Brock . . . and here, Grey . . . and here, Skelda."
The sphere continued to rotate, and Thesa saw the faces of many other badgers. As each one passed, it studied him intently, as though trying to unravel his psyche.
"Listen to me carefully," the one called Soffen urged as her face stopped before him once again. "You must leave here now. Search out your Yang, Thesa. Skelda will help guide you."
"My Yang?" Thesa was confused.
"Yes Thesa, your sun. You must find your sun, and together with your moon, they will forge a new beginning from the flames of the old."
Thesa shook his head, bewildered by what the apparition was saying. A sharp sorrow unexpectedly touched his heart and he felt close to panic.
"I don't understand," he muttered. "What is it that you want me to do?"
"You must help us Thesa."
The sphere turned until the one called Skelda looked down on him. "You must help me Thesa. I have done much wrong, made many mistakes, have yearned for things that I should not have yearned for. It is too late for me to put these wrongs right, but you can, if you have a mind too. All Badgerdom is threatened by the forces that I have unleashed."
Come immerse yourself in us," Soffen's voice said as her face came into view once more.
"You want me to throw myself into the pool?"
Thesa gasped at the thought, a raw fear gripping his mind. The very idea locked his body into immobility.
The sphere suddenly dimmed and dropped towards the water, where it disappeared beneath the surface. The only sign now that it had existed was the swirling kaleidoscope of colours left floating on the water.
Thesa looked over the edge of the narrow ledge, staring at the colours far below him, his mind and body fused rigid with terror, trying to convince himself that it had just been a dream, an hallucination, the results of the bang on his head from the falling rock.
*
His fall seemed to last forever, then he hit the water with a resounding splash that knocked the breath from his body.
As Thesa sank beneath the surface, the cold liquid washed the scab from the wound on his head and the water turned a translucent red. Swirling tentacles of fresh blood spread out around him, like the caresses of windswept grasses.
Striking upwards, his muscles straining with the effort, Thesa reached the surface, gasping for breath, the numbing coldness of the water sucking the air from his lungs and stinging his eyes.
He began a desperate swim for the edge of the pool, his feet paddling furiously, long bubbles of air following each paw as it stroked through the water.
Behind him the line of blood twisted away, its end lacing down
into the depths, where it melded with the slowly turning orb. Unaware that his lifeblood was giving power to the forces beneath him, was in fact draining the very essence from his body, Thesa paddled on, his eyes fixed on the edge of the pool, which seemed to shift in and out of focus in time with his waning breath.
Thesa was perhaps halfway towards his objective when an unexpected lethargy suddenly gripped him: a total weakness that he could not shake off.
His head began to pound as fresh gouts of blood flowed from his wound, curling downwards into the black depths, to be sucked up by the esprit below.
Thesa was weakening fast and he began to doubt that he could make it to the edge of the pool.
"Keep swimming Thesa." The voice floated up from the nadir below. "Just a little further. It's not far. We will help you. Be brave. Fight the Black Guardian's promises, they are false."
Thesa's paw suddenly scraped against rock and he realised that he'd reached the side of the pool. Scrambling his way out of the water he shook his coat, splattering spots of phosphorescent light against the wall of the cavern as he did so. He had made it. He was alive!
"Quickly, you must go to the tunnel ahead of you." A different voice this time, but no less demanding. "Hurry there's not much time left, the storm gathers apace."
Thesa entered the tunnel, the shimmering light emanating from his still sodden fur reflecting dully from the walls around him. The ground beneath his feet trembled, and far above his head, he sensed, rather than heard, the loud clash of thunder as the wrathful clouds ripped their way through the sky.
Following the whispered directions in his head, Thesa stumbled his way along the tunnel. Dizzy from his wounds, he realised how weak he was, but found the strength from somewhere to stagger on.
He was walking along a tunnel that smelt outlandish, with walls that were smoother than they had any right to be. He stopped for a moment to peer closely at the concave surfaces.
No badger had dug this tunnel, some other entity had created it.
Was this perhaps the entrance to some dark netherworld, he wondered.
Chapter 30
Brokin took a number of quick shallow breaths, trying not to cry aloud at the pain.
He had slithered down the wall from the vent tunnel at an alarming rate, slamming into the ground with a breath-taking thump that had knocked him unconscious again.
Groaning softly, he wondered how long he'd lain there, and whether he actually had the strength to carry on with his plan. It would be so easy to just give in: find some badger to take him to the Preceptor and throw himself on his mercy.
Fortunately, apart from a sprained hock and bruised ribs, he seemed to be alright. Standing up, he shook his head, feeling so weary, so depressed. He'd had such grand plans: he'd been going to save Badachro Sett, but all he'd managed to do so far, was to nearly kill himself!
A noise from the entrance tunnel brought his mind back to the present, and he scurried behind the taproot, crouching low, so the badgers now entering the Great Chamber would not see him.
Cherva appeared, followed closely by two badgers, dragging a third between them. This boar had a pure-white coat and was dropped unceremoniously onto the floor.
Brokin could see that the boar was almost dead. Could this be the badger called Darkburst that the Preceptor had been showing such an interest in?
At that moment The Preceptor himself entered the Great Chamber and dismissed the guards.
When they had departed he turned to Cherva. "Is he still alive?" he growled.
"Barely."
"Where's Soffen? I told you that I need her here for her healing powers."
"She is nowhere to be found Preceptor."
Brokin heard footsteps approaching. When they stopped, he chanced a quick look around the taproot.
Grindel was bent over the unconscious boar, shaking him urgently. "Wake up badger! Wake up!"
There was no response from the prone figure.
"Shall I fetch some water?" Cherva asked.
"No," Grindel snapped back angrily. "Pick him up and follow me. Quickly, we haven't much time."
Flipping the smaller boar onto his broad back, Cherva followed Grindel into a low tunnel, the badger he carried scraping along the roof.
"Be careful with him, you idiot!" Grindel's voice floated back down the tunnel towards Brokin.
Once the trio were on their way, Brokin cautiously followed at a safe distance.
After travelling for some considerable time, they entered a side tunnel, the like of which Brokin had never seen before.
It was so straight and perfectly formed that he was afraid the others might glance back and see him, so he hung back, waiting until they had disappeared into the distance before setting out again.
Grindel finally led them into a huge, oddly shaped chamber. The roof of this cavern was so far above Brokin's head that he couldn't see it. The walls too were lost in the dimness of distance.
Brokin suddenly felt very frightened and cowed, afraid to venture out into the enormous space.
Grindel and Cherva had faded from sight as they moved across the smooth floor, and all too soon Brokin was left completely alone, a small trembling speck of life, lost in a vastness that threatened to overpower him.
"Is that you Brokin?"
The unexpected voice caught Brokin totally by surprise. All in an instant, he jumped, gasped, felt physically sick, and span around with surprising agility, raising a paw to fend off the expected attack.
But an attack did not materialise and Brokin squinted his eyes, trying to focus on the shadowy figure to one side of the entrance.
He had walked right past the badger in the darkness!
It took a few moments for Brokin to recognise who it was that had spoken, and in that short span, the world seemed to stand still.
Before his brain registered who had addressed him, Brokin had almost convinced himself that it was The Dark Guardian of Blackness himself come to claim him.
But it was his friend, Thesa, his eyes alive with a tranquil inner strength that Brokin had never seen there before. Wearing a serene expression, his fur twinkling with droplets of phosphorescence that sparkled oddly in the gloom, Thesa stood looking out across the vast space.
Brokin noticed at once the deep gash that disfigured his scout's head. It penetrated right down to the bone and was encrusted with half-dried blood.
Thesa appeared unaware of his injury and smiled broadly as he looked at Brokin, nodding his head slightly in acknowledgement.
"Thesa, is that really you?" Brokin's voice was cracked and shaky.
"Yes, it's me Brokin."
"I was following—" Brokin's head dropped and he struggled to breathe as a coldness from nowhere enveloped him, seeming to explore every part of his body before disappearing again.
Thesa appeared not to notice Brokin's sudden discomfort. Instead he stared out across the vast space in front of them again, a determined look in his eyes.
"I must join with him," he said in a flat voice. "Will you help me?"
"Join with him? Who? What do you mean?"
Again the coldness swirled through Brokin's body but this time it seemed to be emanating from Thesa.
Thesa raised his paw and pointed at some distant spot, as though he could see a badger standing there.
"I must join with him," he droned. "The sick one."
Brokin hesitated, feeling as though reality was somehow slipping from his grasp. Then suddenly the coldness was back again, settling around him, bitingly cold.
Unexpectedly he found himself filled with a new determination.
He'd come here to kill the Preceptor, so why did he hesitate? Many badgers had fought bravely and many had died so that he could accomplish this one task. Well there he was, just a short distance away!
"Stay here Thesa," Brokin ordered in a low voice, "I'll come back for you shortly."
Thesa's paw shot out and he grasped Brokin's tail in an iron grip. "No, Brokin," he insisted. "It is I tha
t must go. You stay here."
Brokin didn't argue, because without knowing why he accepted that what his scout said was the right thing to do.
As Thesa badgers walked out into the wide space, Brokin felt free at last, as though some great pressure had been lifted from his mind. He hadn't realised until this moment just how weighed down he'd been feeling.
Along with these tenuous feelings went a shroud of coldness emanating from the cave deep below Fire Rock, the cave where even now, a beautiful orb span madly, gathering speed as its destiny neared completion.
*
In the skies high above Fire Rock, the storm seethed and boiled around itself as lightning painted sizzling images on a backdrop of black clouds.
Brockenhurst Forest had been gripped by a storm that shook the mightiest branches like mere blades of grass. Great forks of lightning snaked downwards, their passage picked out in a blinding white light.
Slowly, majestically, the storm's forces built to a crescendo high above the Brockenhurst Mountains, the sheets of rain scouring the vegetation from the land below, stripping all life from its bedrock, driving even the smallest ant from its nest.
Twice more, powerful lightning bolts struck the plateau, hurling great chunks of rock skywards, where the rapacious winds scooped them away.
Standing in the middle of Brockenhurst Forest, alone now and battered beyond recognition, stood a once proud tree, its branches long gone, stripped by the force of the storm. White sapwood wept from its wounds, huge tears shed for a million unborn seedlings.
Deep beneath the ground, where the dying tree's taproot pierced the Great Chamber, the plant writhed in agony, whipping the empty space like an angry snake.
Above ground, the wind worried away at the once great trunk, until finally it snapped with a crack that echoed across the top of the mountains.
At the great tree's weakest point, where Boddaert and his Magi had carved the magical Taproot Chamber, the mighty root parted with such pent-up energy, that huge pieces of rock were sent crashing down into the chamber below, tearing open the very heart of Brockenhurst Sett itself.
And as the once magnificent tree screamed a last, dying protest, the wind rushed into the immense scar it left, scouring away every trace of life.
Chapter 31
As the storm pounded its way into the heart of Brockenhurst Sett, in the chambers below Fire Rock the last elements of Boddaert's Magic came together.