The Island on the Edge of Forever (The Epic of Aravinda Book 2) (8 page)

CHAPTER
12

A COLOSSAL WALL OF WATER

When she awoke, Asha found herself lying on a rectangular stone. To her surprise, its surface felt warm to the touch, and she blinked, observing the stone ceiling before she sat up. She felt for her wristcomm, and was relieved to find it still wrapped around her wrist. Yet her resonator pistol was nowhere to be found.

“Where am I?”

She slowly sat up and was consumed by the view spread out before her. Thick windows ran along two of the walls. And when she looked down, she saw that the room was perched on the edge of a small underwater cliff. Farther down, she could see a radiant coral reef filling the valley below, glowing softly in wavering, underwater light in every color she could imagine.

Asha looked up and could scarcely discern how far she was from the surface, before her gaze drifted back to the blocky room around her. It was even smaller than Zahn’s room back on Avani. In one corner was the stone bed, and in opposite corner there were thick windows that met at right angles.

There was only one door. Appearing ancient, it was set against the same wall that the bed was up against, and out of a small porthole set into it, Asha was disappointed to see that a small school of fish was swimming around in the hall beyond it.

“All right, so they removed the water from my room, but the halls are open to the ocean. I guess that’s one way to keep me from escaping.”

On an impulse, she tried looking under the bed to see if there was anything useful, but it was no use. The stone slab reached all the way to the floor. There was no ‘under’ to this bed at all.

A shadow passed over her, and her head jerked up.

Through the window, Asha watched in terror as a monstrous shark, clad in ebony stripes, slid by. It glanced over to her, and for an electric moment, their gazes met, and Asha glimpsed its raw, mindless desire. Reflexively she ducked out of sight, breathing heavily as she waited for it to pass.

After she was sure it was gone, she gradually lifted her head. A dark shadow covered her view now. She stood up more, and a feeling of shock crept into her. It wasn’t a shadow, at all. It was the round, voluminous pupil of a great beast. Its eye was bigger than her head, and Asha could barely breathe as the giant eye blinked, its massive clear lid sliding by.

She could feel her heart racing in her chest.

Please go away. Please go. Just go.

In the distance, she heard a low horn, startling the beast. She watched as the rest of the monstrous form slid by, dark triangular scales on its enormous fins. The sound came again, and she walked over to the door. The hall was only half full with water now, and excitement filled a space in her heart that had only known terror just a moment before. By the third horn, the hall was empty of water.

Now was her chance.

Asha threw all of her weight against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She searched all of her pockets and found them empty. Who had put her here, anyway?

She looked through the small porthole again and waited to see if anyone would come. Those horns had preceded the draining of the hall. There must be a purpose to it.

She watched for some time, but the stony hall faded into haze with the distance.

Yet Asha thought she saw a small outline against the haze. Her eyes fixed on it as it resolved. Soon, she could easily see that it looked like a small jellyfish, floating and bobbing toward her; and she noticed another behind it. And another. And another.

By the time the first one reached the door, dozens of jellyfish filled the hallway. They were a ghostly white, and thin tentacles draped down from their transparent domes.

At last, the door slowly moved, making a grinding sound as it opened, and the jellyfish flooded into the room, surrounding her on all sides. She was frightened, until it hit her: these jellyfish were floating in midair. These were no ordinary jellyfish. They prodded her over to the door and urged her down the hall.

Asha noticed other angular doors along the wall, until the hall came to an end at another door, this one square and even larger. Through its small square window, Asha could see an immense chamber still filled with water. It was so large, that she couldn’t even discern the far wall through the haze.

She looked up at the cluster of jellyfish that still hovered around her.

“Sorry guys, I can’t breathe underwater, and it doesn’t look like that one can drain.”

One of the jellies zapped her head with a small charge.

“Ouch!” Asha exclaimed. “Stop that!”

Another stung her shoulder while a third stung her elbow.

“Hey!” She tried to fight back, but they moved too fast.

A burning sensation filled her chest, and she lost control of her legs and fell to the ground. Carefully, she hobbled up again, a rushing sound filling her ears. The rushing noise grew louder until she realized it wasn’t coming from inside her, at all.

Asha turned around and saw a colossal wall of water heading straight toward her.

Panic threatened to overtake her, but she knew that giving into panic was never the answer. She darted around, looking for an exit, but all of the doors were farther back. By the time she could reach them, the wall of water would hit her.

She was stuck, at a dead end with a wall of water heading directly for her. She closed her eyes, and for the first time since their encounter with the Vakragha, Asha prayed. Zahn had told her that each person was born with unseen guides far beyond her understanding. Asha wasn’t sure if that was true for everyone, but in that moment, it felt right.

When she called out to them from within her mind, a feeling of peace came over her. The rushing sound was mere seconds away. But she thought she heard something else, too. Were they words? Yes. Buried within the rushing torrent she could discern the words ‘All is well. All is well.’

In that last instant, Asha opened her eyes and ran headfirst into the wall of water. She didn’t want to hit her head on the wall like last time. After all, that’s how she had lost consciousness when they’d crashed.

The wall of water felt like a bunch of bricks hitting her squarely in the face, and she struggled to swim into the raging torrent, her maroon uniform feeling heavy against the water. The current twisted her around and around, and she lost all sense of direction. Yet she didn’t feel she was about to die. Somehow, she knew this wasn’t where her journey ended.

The jellies rushed up to her and stunned her again until she could hold her breath no longer. Bubbles of air escaped her nostrils, and Asha watched in disbelief as a tiny ball of light flew into her mouth, despite it being closed. A feeling of warmth moved down into her lungs, causing her to cough. More air escaped her lungs, and panic threatened to overtake her.

She tried holding her breath again, but could only do it for a few seconds. She inhaled, and the salt water burned in the back of her throat. She wondered how many seconds of consciousness she had left.

Taking in sea water stung her throat again. Yet it also felt good somehow.

She coughed, inhaling sea water once more. And again, breathing in the sea water felt good. Was she delirious?

Asha stopped struggling, and when she did, she discovered something remarkable: she could breathe underwater.

CHAPTER
13

A CRADLE OF LIFE

The realization was at once remarkable and completely natural.

She looked around and noticed that the currents around her had subsided, and above her the last pockets of air were leaving the upper portion of the hall. One jelly nudged her to turn around, and behind her she noticed that the door had been raised, opening up to the immense chamber beyond.

The jellies coaxed her through the doorway, and the sheer immenseness of the chamber was incredible. A walkway wrapped around the edge of the circular room, and Asha noticed that a large opening in the center revealed many levels below, descending into the depths and lit with a cool, eerie light.

The room formed a cylinder which was open to the ocean by a circular skylight far above her, letting in an abundance of wavering light as it filtered down from the ocean’s surface. Strange glowing fish drifted in and out of the chamber, casting faint, colored shadows all around her.

Asha scanned the room and noticed that a series of round tunnels were bored into the polished walls. And through one of these tunnels, she saw a light. The light became brighter and brighter until it shone clearly onto the far wall.

A moment later, Asha could scarcely believe her eyes when a gigantic jellyfish squirted out of the opening and expanded like an inflating balloon. It was easily larger than either Liila or Navika, and as its enormous, grey-purple tentacles draped down, they struck Asha as particularly ominous. Had these been the same arms that had brought their ship down?

A bizarre grinding sound filled her ears, until she could make out words between them. Yet they weren’t words. It felt as if she had just learned the creature’s language in an instant, but Asha knew better. Just as it always did, her wristcomm was now forming a psychic bridge between their minds, allowing Asha to understand everything that the formidable creature was saying.

“Trespass,” it whispered. “Trespass you have. Lessons. Yes.”

“We didn’t mean to trespass,” Asha said. “We’re looking for someone. A friend. He has—” She stopped herself. There was no reason this creature needed to know about their mission. She just needed to deal with him and move on. “I’m looking for my friend. I didn’t mean to trespass.”

“Trespass.” The creature scooped her up with one of its tentacles. She almost screamed as she was hoisted up, but she controlled herself. “You who are like stone, why do you question your sinking?”

Asha held onto the wide end of the tentacle that acted as a pad. “I — I’m not stone! I’m a healer.”

Bubbles escaped from the bottom of the beast, and behind it she noticed that one of the tentacles had a nasty gash. “An amusing lie. But no healer can be stone.” The creature brought her closer to the edge of its mighty domed head, eyeless.

“What do you mean?” Asha struggled to stand up. “I’m not stone. I’m trying to find my friend. His name is Zahn. Have you heard of him? And where is Mira? She was on the ship. What did you do with her?”

“Answers are not given to liars. You have trespassed on a sacred place, a Cradle of Life.” The water became still. “You must choose your fate, you with a heavy heart. You must choose eternal captivity, or death.”

Asha was silent for a while, and the creature continued to hold her steady about a dozen meters over the walkway.

“Does it hurt?” she finally said.

The creature bobbed up and down for a second. “The stone fails to make sense.”

“I see one of your tentacles has been cut. Does it hurt?”

Only a few bubbles escaped the beast this time. “Care not for me, small stone. You could never understand.”

Asha blinked, and she thought she saw a red spark shoot up from the damaged tentacle.

“It’s okay. I can see it; I can heal it.”

“How can you of a heavy heart possibly help me?”

Asha crossed her arms. “Because I’ve helped many others before you. I wasn’t lying. I
am
a healer! Can I just try, please? I can help you.”

For a few moments, nothing moved except tiny particles of debris floating in the haze around them. And slowly, the creature brought the damaged tentacle around to Asha. The gash was about as long as her arm, and she put her hands over it and closed her eyes.

She began softly, but her chant grew to a resonating pitch. Asha found singing underwater to be difficult at first. None of the consonants were audible, but the round vowels of the song opened her up. The songs that the Amithyans had taught her brought warmth to every situation, and soon she felt an undeniable tingling where her hands touched its wound. With each verse, she relaxed, and opened her heart more and more to the creature, showering it with love.

At last, the song ended, and she removed her hands and opened her eyes. The cut was gone, and she saw a golden light percolate down to the tentacle she had been working on.

Without saying a word, the colossal jellyfish floated upward, and Asha watched as the circular walkway diminished in the distance. They reached another level, similar to the first, and zipped by. After five levels, they reached a new type of hall with rows of emerald columns supporting curving corridors. Swimming within these corridors in an excited frenzy were hundreds of rockturtles, darting off in all directions.

Asha looked around and noticed that the emerald columns were inlaid with golden shapes. And just as she was about to ask the colossal creature what this place was for, it spoke.

“In gratitude for what you have done, you may ascend.”

A verdant rockturtle swam up to her, indicating for her to jump on. Asha noticed that there were four main corridors, each heading off in a cardinal direction.

“Your talent is true, but heart is not yet fully open, dear healer. Perhaps what awaits you will provide the catalyst you desire.” The creature lifted its tentacle to dump her off, but before it could, she jumped down and onto the rockturtle below.

Within seconds they were zipping past a rainbow of fish, down the corridors at terrific speed. Asha looked back at the ominous jellyfish she had healed, and it merely floated there in silence, watching her as it diminished in the distance.

I wonder what it’s thinking.

Yet her mind soon turned to the stunning oceanscape that was passing below her. The vibrant colors of the coral reef filled her eyes, holding a tapestry of life that she could scarcely describe. Rainbows of color washed under her as they passed over the reef, until it gave way to a field of lifeless black rock. The rock was filled with little holes, sharp and wild.

Ahead, the water grew more shallow, and Asha could see sparkling waves twisting high above her head. The higher the turtle rose, the more she could feel the force of the waves, reminding her of the storm that had greeted them upon arrival.

They popped above the surface, and Asha coughed out a mass of water, clearing her lungs as her vision adjusted. Her eyes were overwhelmed by the brightness at first, and she had trouble focusing them.

The turtle’s eyes locked with hers for the first time, and she realized that it had larger pupils than any rockturtles she’d seen on Avani.

Although she couldn’t hear anything, she felt the link of meaning that the wristcomm had created between them.

“Now go,” the turtle said, “and join this Cradle of Life. May it open your heart, but only if you are ready.”

Just ahead, the water met with a collection of flat, black rocks that led up an incline. The rockturtle swam up to one of the rocks and stopped, holding a steady distance so that she could get off. Asha hesitated, and one of its large pupils studied her.

“Would you have happened to see anyone in a violet uniform down there? She’s my friend.”

The turtle only blinked, and Asha sensed that time was short between them. If she waited too long, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the turtle just dumped her right there.

“All right, I’ll get off. Thanks for bringing me up.”

She gingerly grabbed a hold of one of the rocks jutting up from the surface and stepped onto solid ground.

The turtle only stared back at her, before abruptly disappearing under the water’s surface.

Asha blinked again. All she could see ahead was a steep incline made of crumbling black rock that led upward. Everything was more vivid up here on the surface, even the sound of the water lapping on the flat stone she was standing on. Above, a layer of clouds were bathed in magenta and golden light, but it was difficult to tell if the day was just beginning or if it was about to end.

She trudged up the incline, sending tiny pebbles tumbling down; and when she reached the top, several curious sights came to her at once. Ahead, a flame was burning atop a narrow tower, and just beyond it was a thick wall of lush trees that had the same coloration as Avani’s forests: a radiant blue. Asha wondered if they might be related to Avani’s forests somehow, but concluded it could also be convergent adaptation. She noticed the golden hue had left the clouds, replaced by a darker magenta.

As she continued on, night descended upon the wilderness, making the flame’s light more obvious. Asha considered the tower. She would have liked to climb it to survey the land, but it felt too risky. Sonic barriers were difficult to detect without proper tools, and that wasn’t a lesson she ever wanted to repeat.

She approached the azure wilderness and reached for her resonator before remembering that it had been taken from her by whoever had put her in that cell. Evidence pointed to the king jellyfish she’d met, but part of her had trouble believing it. Why separate her from Mira, yet give her the ability to breathe underwater? It didn’t make sense.

Without any obvious path, Asha pushed her way through the wide, bluish leaves and thick purple vines. Most of the trees here looked like the palm trees she had learned about from her father’s archives, their leaves rustling at the slightest provocation. She ducked under a few of the fallen ones and noticed moss growing on the fallen logs, glimmering in an indigo-blue.

Behind her, she heard an odd rumbling noise that sent a chill up her spine. The sound came again, and she recognized it for what it was: a slow, deliberate growl.