Atlantis Rising (6 page)

Shadows

You didn’t understand the essence of light, Promi—that it makes not only bright visions, but also dark shadows. Things you can see . . . and things you cannot.

—A passage from her journal

At last you understand! But now, I fear, it’s too late.

—Also from her journal, added later

T
he pain in Promi’s head woke him up. Not the throbbing ache from the clubbing, just above his right temple, though that seemed to swell as soon as he opened his eyes. No, this was a sharper pain in the back of his head.

A rock!
He rolled aside, moving off the pointed stone that had been under his skull for however long. Hours? Days?

Then he felt another sort of pain, this one in his stomach. Hunger! How long had it been since he’d eaten that smackberry pie on the hillside?
Too long, that’s for sure. I’m so hungry I could eat a wagonload of goats.

He reached to grab the rock and throw it away. But he stopped abruptly. Not because he’d changed his mind about throwing it, but because his arm simply couldn’t budge.

What’s this?
Suddenly he realized that both his wrists were tightly bound together. And that rope also wrapped around his waist, leaving his hands dangling useless atop his belly. Just to make sure he couldn’t go anywhere, the rope’s longer end was tied to an iron ring in the stone wall beside him.

“Sizzling snakes, seeping sores, and skulking scourges!” he swore, so angry that he didn’t even bother to finish the curse. “Tied up like a bundle of firewood! And I’m in . . .”

He paused, squinting into the darkness. As his eyes adjusted, he scanned the shadows between the few sputtering torches affixed to the stone walls. Huddled within those shadows were bodies—dead or alive, he couldn’t tell.

A sound like a muffled groan came from somewhere down a distant corridor. And he could also hear something dripping on the stone floor. Otherwise, no sound but his own ragged breathing.

Dead as a tomb. That’s how this place seemed. Where was he?

Except for the flickering light of the torches, he saw no movement anywhere. Then he noticed something large—a rat?—near the opposite wall. It was gnawing on something that looked suspiciously like a detached finger. The rat’s black eyes glistened while it nibbled on a hunk of flesh attached to a fingernail.

“A dungeon,” Promi said in a stunned whisper. “I’m in a dungeon.”

He sighed miserably. Continuing to look around, he noticed, for the first time, that the stones of the walls and floor shone red in the wavering torchlight. At once, he remembered the gory legend of a dungeon that lay hidden, long ago, beneath the City’s outer wall. A place so frightful and poisoned from centuries of torture and death that it had turned the color of blood.

Ekh Raku,
he recalled. The dungeon’s name meant “stones of blood.” And it was rarely spoken, saved for only the most anguished curses.

So it’s real.
The dungeon’s reputation was so thoroughly evil that some Divine Monk ages ago had decreed that it should be abandoned. Sealed up forever. Today, most people believed that it no longer existed. And some insisted that it had never existed in the first place—that it was just another scary story, like so many tales about wrathful immortals, invented to keep people in line.

Yet here it was.

And here,
thought Promi grimly,
am I.

He shook his head in disgust—then ceased, feeling a new explosion of pain. His head was so sore that even the gentle tap of his gold earring against his jaw sent painful tremors through his whole skull.

Wriggling closer to the wall, he slouched against the cold, dank stones. Again he wrestled with the rope around his wrists. Nothing loosened. He tried again, pulling and tugging with all his strength. But he still couldn’t budge.

“Where is my knife when I need it?” he grumbled aloud, his voice echoing around the walls. Across from him, the rat paused for a second, then went back to gnawing flesh.

Promi winced at the putrid smell of rotting bodies that filled the dungeon. His stomach tightened, but he resisted the urge to vomit. Meanwhile, a stream of questions poured into his mind. Did the Divine Monk even know that this dungeon was still being used? Or was this a secret Grukarr and Araggna kept to themselves? Something they saved for their least favorite prisoners?

He grimaced, his head pounding like one of the monk’s sacred drums. How could he have been so stupid to eat that precious pie out in the open, on top of the hill, where Grukarr’s bird could easily spot him? And how could he have set aside all his usual caution when he most needed it?

The pounding in his head worsened. He wished he could reach his hand high enough to rub his sore skull. But he couldn’t do it. Why, he couldn’t do
anything.
Ever again. For he’d been cast into a dungeon—
the
dungeon.

Listening to the
drip-drip-drip
on the floor, he felt hopelessly trapped. He needed to do something to revive his spirits, to keep from giving up completely.

The song,
he realized.
That will help.

Quieting his mind, he opened himself to the distant memory of that melody, just as he’d done so many times before. He waited . . . and waited some more. Nothing came to him. Not even a single note.

Was the relentless dripping sound getting in the way of his memory? Or was it the oppressive darkness? The blood-soaked stones?

Whatever the reason, he couldn’t hear the song. It had abandoned him—for the first time in his life. Had he lost it forever? The mark over his heart began to throb with heat.

“Nnnooooo,” groaned a voice nearby.

Promi started. It came from one of the bodies in the shadows! He scanned the huddled forms, trying to see which of them was still alive.

Suddenly a leg kicked. The body, wearing a frayed brown robe that might have belonged to a wandering monk, rolled over and wriggled weakly, trying to get away from something.

As the body moved into the torchlight, Promi could see that it belonged to an elderly man. His head, topped by a mass of white curls, lay on the stone floor. Since he, like Promi, was roped to the wall, he couldn’t move any farther from whatever he was trying to escape. So he just lay there, moaning and kicking helplessly.

Promi peered into the darkness, trying to see what could be tormenting the old fellow. Something moved by the man’s foot.

A rat!
Promi winced, watching it try to gnaw on one of the old man’s toes.

“Nnnooooo,” the elder groaned again, this time more weakly.

But the rat just ignored him. Curling its back, it hunched over its prey and sank sharp teeth into the flesh of the man’s big toe.

“Stop!” cried Promi. “Get away from there!”

His voice echoed loudly within the stone walls, but the rat barely even noticed. It merely glanced up at Promi to satisfy itself that the young man couldn’t do any harm. Then it went right back to gnawing—with a gleam in its eyes from the certainty that this new prisoner would supply many future meals.

“I said stop!”

This time, the rat didn’t even bother to look up. It merely kept chewing contentedly at the toe. Not even the old man’s futile twitching disturbed its dining pleasure.

Promi growled in frustration. Ferociously, he tore at his bonds, trying harder than ever to free his hands. But the rope held fast.

“Eeaaaah,” moaned the elder, clearly in anguish. Unable to do anything else, he lifted his head and hit it against the floor, again and again. “Nooooo, please . . .”

The rat continued to tear at the bloody sinews.

Promi’s heart pumped with rage. He wrestled with the rope, ignoring the way its coarse surface scraped his skin.

The old man moaned piteously. “Great Powers . . . save me, please . . .”

Free! Promi wrenched one hand from the bonds. Rolling to the side, he grabbed the rock that had been under his head. With the skilled, fluid motion of a knife thrower, he hurled it straight at the rat.

A perfect shot! The rock struck the rat’s head so hard that the beast shrieked and fell over backward. A broken tooth flew from its mouth, skidding across the stones. Seeing Promi start to crawl closer, it shrieked again and scurried into the shadows.

Kneeling by the man’s side, Promi whispered. “It’s all right, old fellow. You’re safe now.”

Even as he spoke those words, however, he realized their folly. Safe? How could anyone be safe down here in the dungeon of Ekh Raku?

Nevertheless, he tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of his tunic and wrapped it around the man’s bloody toe. Gently, he squeezed the toe, hoping to stop the bleeding. No bones had yet been severed, but muscles and skin were brutally torn. And blood kept pouring from the wound.

The white-haired man gazed up at him, blinking as if he were dazed. “You came . . .” he whispered, “from the Great Powers? The spirit realm?”

“No,” answered Promi. “I just came from over there.” He waved at the dungeon’s opposite wall. “I’m a prisoner, like you.”

The old fellow shook his head. “No, no. By all the years I’ve toiled as a monk . . . I’m certain! You have something . . . special . . . about you.”

Promi shook his head. Removing the blood-soaked bandage, he tore off some more cloth and wrapped the toe again. “Sorry to disappoint you, but the only thing special about me is my ability to throw a knife. Or sometimes a rock.”

He glanced around the corridor, looking past the flickering torches into the darkest shadows. No sign of that rat. Grimly, he turned back to the monk.

“Let’s get you untied.” He quickly loosened the rope from the elder’s emaciated wrists. Carefully, he moved the old fellow over to the wall so that he could sit up.

The monk’s wrinkled face shimmered in the torchlight as he stared at Promi. “You may not know it, my good lad, but you truly have the grace of the spirits.”

“Right,” scoffed Promi. “Well, grace might be nice, but I’d much rather have something
useful
from the spirits—like wings. They can fly, can’t they? At least in all the stories. Then maybe I could fly us out of here.” Wistfully, he added, “And get us some food.” He licked his lips, hoping to catch even the slightest hint of those smackberries. But he tasted nothing except sweat and grime. “I’m awfully hungry.”

The monk nodded. “Yes, lad, so am I.” He lifted his weathered hand and placed it on the young man’s shoulder. “My name is Bonlo. And yours?”

“Promi.”

“Well then, Promi . . .” The old fellow smiled so genuinely that no one, seeing his face, could have guessed the painful experience he’d just endured. “I thank you.”

Even in the flickering light, it was easy to see Promi’s blush. “So,” he asked, “how did a monk like you ever end up down here?”

“I wasn’t just any old monk, my good lad. The Divine One himself promoted me, after many years, to Priest Sage.”

Promi cocked his head quizzically. “No idea what that is. A high rank?”

“The highest.” The monk sighed. “Or at least it was. Until recently.”

He gazed at Promi. “The Priest Sage is a kind of teacher, a mentor to younger monks and priestesses across the country. Someone who helps them deepen their bonds with the Great Powers—both those who dwell in the spirit realm above and those who live in the mortal world.”

His jaw tightened. “And more. For thousands of years, the Priest Sage has also been a valued adviser to the Divine Monk. But alas . . . that, too, has changed.”

Promi glanced at the bloody bandage. Moving closer to the old man, he asked, “What happened, Bonlo? How did you get thrown into this pit?”

The monk lowered his gaze. “Well . . . it comes down to this. Certain people in the priesthood started to listen less to the wisdom of the spirits and more to their own ambitions. They traded humility for arrogance, generosity for greed. Why, they even changed our religion’s name from the Faith of All Spirits to . . .” He almost choked, saying the new name. “The True Religion.”

“Hmmm,” said Promi. “That sure has a ring of humility.”

“Yes,” Bonlo agreed bitterly.

“So you spoke your mind to somebody powerful—and wound up in the dungeon?”

“You see . . .” A new light, not quite humor and not quite sorrow, came into the elder’s eyes. “I couldn’t stop myself from trying to teach that person. Even when he was my superior. Alas, he had a temper that erupted like the volcano Ell Shangro.”

Liking this fellow more by the minute, Promi nodded. “I’ve met a few bakers like that.”

Bonlo managed a grin. “Good lad. I wish I could have been your teacher.”

Promi grinned back. “Well, if I had been
your
teacher, I could have shown you some really important things. Like how to steal cinnamon buns.”

The elder peered at him. “And more, I’m sure.”

“Maybe. Anyway, who was this superior with the bad temper?”

“He was, long ago, my student. Both his parents died from a terrible disease when he was very young, so I took him in. Raised him for many years, almost as a son. But . . .” He winced at a memory more painful than his mangled toe. “I failed him, Promi. Failed to teach him how to rise above his desire to control everything and everyone around him, to gain that power he never had as a child.”

Bonlo looked up at the ceiling. “I prayed to the Powers on high to help him—especially to Sammelvar, the great spirit of wisdom, and to fair Escholia, the spirit of grace. But it did no good! Even the spirits cannot help someone who doesn’t want to help himself.”

“What was his name?”

“Grukarr.”

Promi shuddered. “That madman? He’s horrible!”

“So . . . you’ve met him?”

Promi rubbed his sore temple. “Once or twice.” He grimaced. “And I can tell you, it wasn’t your fault he didn’t respond to your teaching. That man is like a moldy, rotten fruit—all bad, through and through.”

The old monk shook his head. “No one is all bad. I never gave up trying to help him.”