Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (41 page)

G’Taklar got to his feet and carefully felt
around the sandy floor and walls of the small crevice. He found two
short tunnel openings about four feet high that ran perpendicular
to the direction of the passage above. The walls of the new passage
were made of a smoother stone, though he stood in fine sand.

“
This is probably a small underground
stream when it rains outside and then run off seeps down into these
passages,”
Jatar guessed.

“But that means this isn’t the river
Halvisun was talking about!”

“
True, but it must lead to that river,
small streams tend to run together to form rivers.”

“Possibly… perhaps I should climb up and
continue down the original passage?” G’Taklar mused.

“
I think we should follow this dry stream
bed and see where it goes. If it gets too narrow to navigate we can
always come back and try the other passage; what do you think?”
Jatar asked to make G’Taklar think he was in on the decision as
well.

“I agree, it could lead to the river,”
G’Taklar acknowledged, and started down the tunnel in a crouch.

“
We would be better off if you headed
downhill
‘Tak,”
Jatar suggested as G’Taklar headed in the wrong direction.

“I was just checking to see if anything was
behind us,” G’Taklar replied as he turned around, trying to cover
his mistake.

Jatar let it pass.

G’Taklar kept one hand along the wall and
the other out in front of him to keep from abruptly running into
something hard. After a
time,
he
said, “Do you hear that?”

“
Yes, it sounds like flowing water, it’s
probably the underground river,”
Jatar answered.
“But don’t
get moving so fast that you fall in, that might be bad.”

“
Believe
me, I’ve had enough of underground water,” G’Taklar said in a
hoarse voice. The constant fear of Ebemoon catching up in the dark
was beginning to wear on his psyche. Jatar could sense his fear
getting stronger.

“
You’ll be fine, just remember that this
leads to the way out. Take your time and keep listening carefully.
The sound of the moving water will keep getting louder so that
should tell you when you’re close,”
Jatar said to reassure his
inexperienced young cousin.

“And hope I don’t fall in, right?” G’Taklar
answered dryly, retreating from his fear by making light of the
situation.

“
Hope has nothing to do with it, you must
learn to rely on your senses and the information they give you.
Just pay attention, you’re doing fine,”
Jatar responded,
knowing that he would have to keep a close watch on G’Taklar’s
fears and emotions if they were to survive the rest of the
journey.

After traveling some distance the sound of
water slowly increased in volume. G’Taklar found his fingers
getting wet from moisture condensing on the walls of the tunnel as
he trailed his fingers along the wall to follow the passage in the
dark.

“
Look ahead carefully,”
Jatar
instructed G’Taklar suddenly.

“What do you mean look, you mean listen
right?” G’Taklar corrected.

“
No, I
meant
look.”

“You’re right, I can sort of make out the
tunnel walls ahead! Light must be coming in from a way out!”
G’Taklar started to move forward at a faster pace.

“
Hold on, there could be a number of
reasons for the light ahead. It could be fire or torch light, so
don’t run,”
Jatar cautioned.

G’Taklar’s initial excitement faded at
Jatar’s logic, so he continued at a more careful speed. The further
they went the better he could see, yet the light was still
extremely dim.

G’Taklar finally spotted a rough shaped
round circle of lighter grayness up ahead at the end of this
tunnel. Upon reaching the exit he stopped at the edge and looked
out.

His small passage opened onto a much larger
tunnel that ran perpendicular to the smaller tributary from which
he had approached. The new tunnel was dominated by a river, which
was about sixty feet across. The rushing water filled the entire
width of the cavern. G’Taklar’s dry tributary
stopped
twenty feet above the water level. When
he looked down he could make out a
three-foot-wide
path cut into the side of the cavern
about fifteen feet below. It followed along the course of the river
as far as the young man’s eyes could see in the dim green glow. The
light seemed to emanate right out of the walls from no one distinct
point.

“What do you think is making this light?”
G’Taklar asked his cousin’s imprint.

“
I’m not sure; it looks like the same dim
glow we saw back in the
souldead’s
cavern. Take a look at the side of the
cavern walls,”
Jatar asked.

Leaning out around the edge of his tunnel
exit, G’Taklar looked at the rough stone that made up the cavern
wall. He touched it and found that some type of moss came off onto
his fingers. When he looked closely at the
moss
it seemed to glow.

“
Some type of light emitting plant, I’ve
never seen anything like it,”
Jatar noted.
“
Of course,
I haven’t spent much
time underground either,”
he added.

“However it works I’m just glad I can see,
even if only barely. That constant darkness was starting to get to
me. What do you think we should do, follow the river downstream?”
G’Taklar asked. His spirits were obviously rising, Jatar could tell
by the lighter tone and quicker pace of his voice.

“
That would be my suggestion,”
Jatar
responded.

G’Taklar carefully slid down the steep slope
to the path below, making sure he had enough friction on the stone
to keep himself from going too fast and ending up in the river. He
had just started down the rough stone path when a loud and deep
voice boomed out from above and behind. The voice echoed through
the vast cavern, even over the sound of the rushing water.

“Ebemoon eat brains, eat you!”

G’Taklar’s head snapped around in surprise
and fear as he looked for the source of Ebemoon’s echoing voice.
Through the dim moss
glow,
he
could barely make out the
souldead's
misshapen humanoid form. It had monstrous
shoulders and long arms, with a smaller bump of a head to the side
of the larger one in the center. The creature
leaped
down from the mouth of the tunnel from
which G'Taklar had just escaped.

“What should I do?” the scared young man
gasped to Jatar in desperation.

“
Jump in the river,”
was Jatar’s
immediate advice.

“I don’t know where it goes, I could be
jumping to my death,” he retorted.

“
Then run,”
Jatar said, not wishing
to waste valuable time arguing
, “that thing will be on you in
moments and it doesn’t sound like Halvisun has any control of him
right now.”

G’Taklar followed
the path downriver
as fast as he could manage in the dim
light. With a deep
bellow,
Ebemoon
ran along the path and after his fleeing quarry.

G’Taklar fled precariously down the thin
winding path while attempting to keep his balance and footing on
the rough stone that he could barely see in the dim light.

“Is he catching up?” the terrified young man
asked in a
panic
. He was trying to
spot a long enough level section of path, so he could use that
moment to glance back over his shoulder to find out how close the
horrid souldead creature had come.

“Food now!” Ebemoon screamed from right
behind G’Taklar, which pretty much answered G’Taklar’s
question.

The voice was so loud and close that
G’Taklar nearly
leaped
out of his
skin as he tried to spin around to face the creature and keep his
footing on the path. He lost the battle for his balance and waved
his arms widely as he fell
backward
into the flowing river. As he fell
backward
he glimpsed two thick grasping hands,
with long nasty looking claws, as they just missed his falling
body. A moment later he hit the cold water with a mighty
splash.

He surfaced a couple of heartbeats later and
spit out a mouthful of the river water. Through the dim light and
water,
he made out the inhuman
Ebemoon pacing him along the shore. The arms of the souldead were
nearly long enough to drag on the path. G’Taklar could hear the
voices of Ebemoon and Halvisun screaming from the shore, though the
sounds of the water kept him from understanding what either of the
heads was trying to say.

G’Taklar saw Halvisun’s small head yelling
into Ebemoon’s ear, and figured that he was attempting to distract
his companion head. Then a strong current pulled G’Taklar under
again and he was fighting for his life as he tried to get back up
for air. When he finally surfaced Ebemoon was behind him and losing
ground to the swift flow of the river. G’Taklar
tread
water as best he could and turned to look
forward. Downriver he could see the cavern ceiling getting lower.
He took one last look back and saw the souldead creature following
doggedly behind his escaping meal.

“What now” G’Taklar gasped to Jatar.

“
When the ceiling starts to get too low
to get air, take three deep breaths, hold the last one and kick
underwater with the current until we get to the next air
pocket.”

“What if there aren't any air pockets?”
G’Taklar asked, worried.

“
Keep kicking until there is,”
Jatar
answered.

G’Taklar would have continued to argue, but
the cavern ceiling was getting too low, he took Jatar’s advice and
started his three breaths. He took the third as the ceiling nearly
hit him and dove under the water. Kicking along with the current,
he went as far as he could, until his lungs ached and hurt, calling
for air. He felt along the ceiling, nearly passing out from the
effort of holding his breath when he suddenly found air. He gasped,
pulling lungs full of musty cavern air into his chest; he thought
it was the sweetest tasting air he had ever breathed.

The swimming boy had barely caught his
breath when the ceiling started to close in again. G’Taklar quickly
gasped in three more breaths and went down. He found three more air
pockets the same way. As he dove from the third, he instantly felt
a massive acceleration as some mighty current sucked him down. He
was sure this was the end as all light faded and he felt the water
pulling him further and further down some vast chute.

“
Protect your head, curl into a
ball,”
Jatar yelled in his mind.

Just in time he did as instructed and his
body struck the side of the cavern once, hard, then he was back
into the main flow.

His breath began to run low when he felt the
water sweep upwards swiftly and suddenly he was in the
air
, completely, but only briefly. He plunged
back into the river, but
this
time,
the ceiling was far above and it was brighter.
G’Taklar looked back and saw a giant fountain of water erupting
straight up towards the ceiling of the cavern.

He realized he must have been spewed up into
the air by the exiting water. Treading water he gasped in sweet
breaths of air. When he finally looked up towards the cavern
ceiling he saw a strange sight; little points of light dotting the
darkness.

“
What do you think those are?”
he
asked Jatar.

“
Stars, we’re out! This is the exit of
the river, you're free of the caverns!”
Jatar exclaimed,
thrilled at their sudden escape.

“I can’t believe it, I made it!” G’Taklar
joined Jatar in jubilant excitement.

A moment later the water current had taken
them out of the canyon to where he could swim to a small sand
beach. He could not see the surroundings very well, so Jatar
suggested they climb up the side of the nearby hill where they
could wait for the sun to rise and give them a view of the
surroundings.

G’Taklar climbed upwards and soon passed
over a dirt wagon road. He continued to climb upslope until the
road was out of sight. Utterly exhausted the young man curled up
and went to sleep behind some boulders.

Rachael was serving three Tchulian soldiers
kier
when Fats the innkeeper
spotted her. He had been counting the round in a box he hid behind
the counter under a loose brick. There wasn’t enough there to buy
him the horse he had taken a liking to the day before, and he was
angrily looking for a reasonable justification for his poverty when
his squinty eyes fell on the new girl, Rachael.

“
She’s a good looking wench, even if she
is a bit small,”
the rotund man thought for the hundredth time,
“She must be taking in lots of metal with looks like that,”
he figured.

He decided to see if she had any round,
especially since he had already warned her about giving him his
ninety percent of her earned coinage from the men she serviced in
her room. "
A room I'm giving her without charge!
” he
rationalized.

He moved back and waited inside the kitchen
door for the young girl to come in to fill an order.

She came through the door a moment later
with her tray held in her left hand, balancing four empty mugs.

Fats grabbed her by the right arm which
caused her to drop the four mugs off the jolted tray. They crashed
to the ground and broke on the bricks into shards of dark brown
pottery.

“You’ll be paying for those out of your
tips, you clumsy idiot!” Fats yelled at the cowering girl, “Or you
can pay
with
the round you’ve been
taking in
upstairs
after you pay
me my ninety percent right now!” he demanded.