117 – Descent into the Underworld

  They started at night, to avoid a long adjustment period for seeing versus not seeing. The cave entrance was large enough to drive a laden caravan wagon into with room to spare. From the outside it was a dark spot in the dim light from the small moon.

  The cave itself stretched into the hill and mountain essentially straight for as far as could be seen from outside in daylight.  Not too far after that, the cave opened into a larger cavern. The road turned to the right, the south, and started down hill in this cavern. The size of the actual cavern was indeterminate without more equipment and time than was had, but the echoes of the sound told of it being reasonably large. Not long after turning the corner Caspian used some magic and lit up his staff. The carved dragon on the head emitted a weak light, enough to see clearly, without flash blindness. The light moved about as the staff did, being a directional beam, which Caspian was careful not to wave around. Rox’s vision had begun to noticeably expand beyond the visual and into the heat spectrum before entering the cave, and was clear even before the light from without failed. For his part, Steven kept his torches aside, but ready, walking behind Caspian, letting his light be sufficient.

  Before long the cavern gave way to a tunnel. In the dim light, it was hard to tell if it was natural, or carved. This passage proved carved from a natural tunnel, as it traveled mostly straight, with a perceptible downward grade, and not quite smooth surface with wagon ruts worn smooth by use. The walls alternated between carved regularity and natural irregularity. There was a slight breeze in their faces as they hiked.

  After what felt like a few hours and several miles of straight travel, they came into a second chamber. This was the first crossroad, and a good rest stop, particularly as all were tired from hiking the most of the day, and now part way into their normal sleep cycle.

  They quickly settled into a side area of the chamber. A brief inspection showed it to be a sort of way-station, similar to the ones they had encountered on the highways above ground. They picked a camp spot and were quickly asleep.

  Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 145

  Filling in from memory. Acclimating to being underground was strange. Before too long my hearing began to tell more information than sight. I did not get real good at it, but confidence soon overcame fear.

  Rox could see just fine, thanks to her awakened ancestral abilities. I think her hearing was better than mine as well.

  I do still wonder who the miners were that carved the tunnels, and what equipment they used. From what I gather from underground mines at home, there is some terrific engineering at work to extract the minerals without having the ceiling give way.

  Where we were, most of it was natural caverns, which I presume were somehow the result of natural geology in action.

  Steven woke first and made a few false starts trying to start a small fire in a protected hole in the pitch blackness with just flint and steel. Cyrril came to help, and got the fire going. This was in a small depression carved into a larger rock about a foot tall, as a sort of cooking stove. Cyrril then disappeared into the dark. Steven then put together breakfast, finding it tricky to do with only the reduced and reflected light source of the fire, and doing his best to keep it as a reflected light, rather than looking directly at the fire and loose what night-vision he had. Rox and Caspian woke in turn, with Cyrril fluttering in from elsewhere not long after. They ate, packed up, and left the remnant of the fire to burn out.

  The cave continued to alternate between improved passages and caverns as it went generally south and down. They continued in the same order as they walked the first set of passages. As they went they talked in hushed tones. Rox and Caspian, and Steven laid out their general plans of the next few days to each other.

  Steven planned to trek down the few days to the cavern with the village of the talents, taking the shorter side route, and walk in and demand Alex, his son. From all Karen had said that was all he needed to do, and then prove his credentials. But that would not be hard for the talents. Then he and Alex would leave via the main passage, heading to a certain large cavern, and hook up with Rox, Caspian, and Diana.

  Caspian and Rox were likewise going to hike through the tunnels to the village of the elves where Diana was supposed to be. They would have the harder time as these elves were reputed to be generally hostile to surface dwellers, let alone humans. Rox had already been planning for this, without knowing exactly why. She and Caspian had only to work out the details. They would then have to evade pursuit and any other trouble. Along the way they would have to scan Diana for anything done to her. Rox figured she would dismiss the spell she had cast on Diana as an infant, at least for a while.

  There was supposed to be a large cavern that the highway connected to, and was near to halfway between the villages they were going to. Karen suggested this as a staging point to regroup before coming back to the surface. Further there was supposed to be a freshwater source. Rox and Caspian then could attend to any magic on Alex as well. Whoever got there first would have to hide for a time to let the other catch up, and be where they could be found by each other without being found by any pursuit.

  They soon arrived at a major crossroad where they were to split up. This was not a large cavern, but a carved crossroad sufficient to turn a large wagon and team in. All the air moved from the three tributary passages and up in the direction they had come from. The left cavern where Rox and Caspian were to take was dry air. The middle one Steven was to take was dry, and the right one was moist, and smelled slightly foul. Also the two dry passages went down, the moist one went up.

  Steven watched Caspian and Cyrril move off into the dark. Rox lingered a bit. They embraced and kissed.

  “Good luck,” Steven whispered.

  “Bring my son back, safe,” Rox responded

  “I will. Bring back my daughter.”

  They let go. Rox turned and walked off, squaring her shoulders under her load. Steven put his thumbs under his shoulder straps and adjusted his load, shrugging his shoulders to resettle it. He was left with just his torches for light, as Caspian’s light did not carry far.

  First, Steven looked at the tracker for Alex. The dot was brighter than it had been on the surface, though that might be because of the difference in the ambient light. Steven turned, and oriented for a bit, then set to other business.

  Normally, Steven would turn on a red or blue filtered flash light, or some night-vision goggles. These all ran on batteries and teleportation apparently drained batteries. He did not have anything that let him see ambient light, either magic or technology. So he got out one of his prepared torches and one of his matches.

  Carefully Steven struck the match and touched it to the oiled cloth wrapped and tied around the end of a good stick. The oil was slow burning, and did not produce much flame, but would be consistent for many hours. He did not want to affect his dark-vision too much, as that would become a liability. Normally he would call it night vision, but for the next few days, he was not going to see any difference between day and night.

  Steven held the torch high, putting it high and behind his head, it was above his eye line and out of his peripheral vision. The air current carried the smoke behind him and up the tunnel, while also slightly fanning the torch to burn a bit brighter. The tunnel itself maintained the same general size and shape to accommodate a laden caravan wagon in its carving that the previous ones had shown, so he had no concern for hitting the top with his torch. He set out down his appointed tunnel.

  As comparatively heavy as the batteries for the light would have been, Steven wished briefly he had one. It would make less heat than the torch, and would not consume the air he needed to breathe. Also with the right lens it would not leave bright spots in his eyes, the way a torch would. He had had enough of that in the catacombs looking for the sword, so he tried to be more careful here.

  Several hours along, his eyes had adjusted to the almost complete absence of light. And he came to his next crossroad. According to Karen, the village he wanted could be reached by several routes. The one he was on at this moment was the most direct and thus most likely to be thoroughly watched, after the main one. As he walked, Steven’s mind wandered back over the last months of his life, and how much had changed. He also watched for the turnoff Karen had told him to look for.

  This led to another line of thought, focusing on her. Just who was she? What was her roll in this drama? She had plenty of advantageous information, but was this a good thing?

  These thoughts rolled through Steven’s mind as he found the turn he was looking for. This led to a parson sized, less direct set of passages, Karen had said. And these still had their own dangers: fewer guards, more natural dangers.

  Aside from being a bit footsore from another week’s worth of hiking, Steven had no real troubles his first day alone, and his second day under ground. He found a side chamber to sleep in when he decided he was tired enough. Evidently this was a common stop on this path, as it had what appeared to be a dung hole. Steven used it as such and did not give it a second thought.

  Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 146

  The Sun does not govern ‘day’ and ‘night’ underground. Sleep-cycle does.

  The next time he was awake, after making and eating breakfast, and relighting his refurbished torch, Steven pushed his coals and trash into the hole after everything else and moved on. Before going very far, he entered a large cavern, so large that he could not gauge its true size. A vague reflection of light seemed to filter in from high above, and to come from far below. Steven knew he was ignorant enough about geology to not bother guessing how deep it could go, as for light sources he had no idea.

  The trail he walked traveled along the wall of this cavern. A few spots opened into flat areas large enough to move around on, but the path had been cut right onto the side of the wall wide enough for one to walk comfortably, or three abreast with one against the wall and the other side right on the edge. Some places the path tunneled through outcroppings, others it was overhung. Were there light, it might have been vertiginous. But generally the path was just flat against the wall. In one place Steven found the wall dropped away underneath, and a metal bridge had been constructed. This was old enough that a glassy, thin layer of rock had formed over most of it by the same process that stalagmites and stalactites form.

  As he stood on the middle of the bridge, Steven realized he was standing in a downdraft of moist almost fresh air. His torch fluttered and flared brighter.

  “Fitch would have loved to explore this area.” Steven spoke, remembering a Marine who loved spelunking. “Wonder how big this really is, like Carlsbad, or that set in the Appalachians, or wherever it really is near there.”

119 – Camping in the dark

  At its maximum depth the water was up to Steven’s waist and he had to crouch-walk in several spots as the tunnel was cleared for shorter people than Steven’s six and a half feet of height. The water soon began to pick up speed, and echo more, and the depth began decreasing. This worried Steven, but Karen had been emphatic that this way would get him there. He picked his footing carefully, but with the flow this was sometimes hard to do.

  The water was going quite fast now, and the lichen was in spots on the floor as well as the walls and ceiling, giving a dull glow to the tunnel. The turbulence of the water was hard enough to scour some of the lichen from the rocks and the tunnel began to noticeably widen. Also there was less water running down the walls, and the mineral water seemed to disappear. At this point it was pushing only his calves, and cold, with white rills as it tumbled along.

  Then the tunnel ended, and the trail almost did as well. Some distance below, the cascade of water splashed across rocks and ran into a pool. Someone had strung a chain across the mouth of the tunnel that Steven caught hold of as the water pushed his feet, and Steven now noticed another chain running back up the tunnel on one side at what would be a comfortable height for people native to this world.

  Steven’s tracking sense told him to get out of the light from the tunnel. The cavern he was entering was of substantial size, with rock formations scattered across it barely visible in the dim light, and colonies of the glowing lichen on many surfaces, making it almost as bright as a moonless night. Steven could not begin to sense the far side. Also from this altitude it, he could sense the bottom. The humidity level suggested there was a lot of water in here, however big here was. As well, the ambient sound was confusing. Wanting to not just wander blind, Steven pulled the second torch handle from the side of his pack and held it as a probe before him.

  The trail went to the right, and looked to be carved. It quickly descended into a small boxed area, where it switched back as it descended. The trail went back crossing under the water fall from the tunnel. As it went down it switched back on itself two more times, crossing under or through the waterfall. It continued to descend, but after the switch backs the trail went in a long clockwise curve around the wall of this large cavern. Steven squished along the descending trail waterlogged from his belt down, looking for somewhere to stop that was clean so he could undress and dry his socks. As he went the pools under the waterfall stepped down into an underground lake that filled a significant portion of the cavern, below a long first step.

  As the trail leveled off, and continued along the wall, Steven noticed a breeze of air, almost fresh. Finally Steven’s stomach compelled him to stop. The trail skirted the edge of the lake as it wound in and out against the wall or away from it among rock pillar gardens. Here and there he stepped in something nasty. The trail seemed to stay about three feet above the water level. Every so often Steven thought he heard a fish jump, and could sense the occasional flutter of insects. The echo’s of the chamber came in a diffused and confused manor for all the rock pillars, and ins and outs of the wall. Steven had several times returned to his memories of searching the tomb for the sword. This expedition was different. Then he had been able to light old torches to provide light beyond what he carried. Here he had no specific light source that he could do anything about, beyond the unlit torch he carried.

  Steven soon found a flat spot on a rock formation a little off the trail, across a gap of about two feet of open space above the water. The flat spot was big enough to stretch out on, and was at about eye level for Steven, so, Steven reasoned, it would be above average eye level for most of the locals. Steven climbed on and looked it over. It dropped to the water on two of its sides, the third he had climbed over, the forth was sided by a higher pillar. He could stand to full height, and stride a full step from the rising pillar and two from edge to edge in the other direction. Content, Steven set about getting to and removing his sodden socks.

  First he removed his pack, vest and harness. True to the promise of the old crone elf, the boots themselves were waterproof. But his trousers were not, and had let water seep in to his feet. After removing his wet trousers and socks Steven dug into his pack and put together a satisfying dinner, and found his dry socks.

  With his feet in dry socks, and his other socks, trousers and boots drying in the breeze, Steven put his second set of trouser on and wrapped his coat around him. His weapons harness at his side, and his pack under his head. Arranged thus, he dozed off.

  Unlike Steven who traveled a side tunnel, Roxanne followed Caspian down the apparent main tunnel. It was wide enough for carts and beasts to travel. It wound slowly down hill in generally the direction parallel to how Rox understood the mountains above to run, north-to-south, with occasional side chambers and tributary tunnels. It also seemed to have carved holes between chambers as it descended.

  As the hours passed, Roxanne’s eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, and she found she could more easily perceive depth by the heat of things, and see that way. The elves had mentioned this, but for whatever reason, she had not remembered until the night with Karen in Skarg, and what she had seen after their swim.

  Now she and Caspian hiked along. For being a main thoroughfare, Roxanne was surprised at the lack of traffic.

  Caspian’s staff glowed, specifically the head of the dragon carved on the top of it, its wings acting partly as reflectors throwing the light forward, depending on how he held it. Fortunately, or incidentally, for Roxanne the light did not put off heat, so it did not hamper her expanded range of sight. Cyrril could obviously see in the dark somehow, as he kept fluttering about.

  Roxanne suddenly realized she was crouching, with her bow out, one of the wooden arrows knocked and ready. Cyrril was stuck to a patch on the wall, pressed flat, and stretched to length, his throat showed a slight rise from normal temperature. Caspian had turned off his staff and disappeared. Roxanne looked down the cavern and road, and trained her hearing that way. Then she heard it: the soft shuffle of several sets of boots coming closer.

  Then the sound took form as several bipeds came around a corner; a male, then a female, and a second male. Roxanne did not quite trust her depth perception with her new vision range, but the three beings were within range, should she choose to shoot. Rox was curious at how the heat patterns if the sexes differed. Also they were dressed in some materials that she guessed were probably leather and some kind of home-spun, though nothing on the unfamiliar costume stood out. She was content to hide as these three did not seem to notice her, or Cyrril yet. So Roxanne continued to watch.

  A blinding flash and deafening concussion knocked Roxanne over and momentarily senseless. She shook her head and blinked to get the spots out of her eyes. When she could see again, she picked her arrow back up and crouched as she reset it, looking around. Her ears rang.

  The three were down, and Caspian was approaching them. His staff was held horizontal, with the dragon shooting light at the ground. His hand-crossbow was in his hand. He prodded each body in turn, as Roxanne noticed spreading pools of warmth around each one.

  Cyrril picked himself up from the ground nearby, disoriented and agitated.       

  “What was that for, and why?” Rox asked when she was sure she would be heard.

  “A trick from your world. A ‘flash-bang.’ At their range, it was fatal. Let’s go.” Caspian put his crossbow away under his coat, and moved on down the cavern.

  Roxanne stepped around the bodies. For a moment Caspian let his light fall across the faces of the elves. She noticed that they had elfin features, but pale gray skin with short hair. They were shorter than anybody else she had met. Also the female might have been pregnant. Roxanne was not sure, and blanched at finding out. It wasn’t the shape of the body, but that a bit more heat emanated from her belly. Either way it did not matter now.

  Roxanne moved on, in considerable thought. In the weeks she had known Caspian, she thought she had a good grasp on him. But this gave her pause. He hadn’t given them a chance to fight back. This was execution, bordering on murder. She caught up to him.

  “Isn’t anybody going to miss them? And what happens when they are found?” She asked.

  “I doubt they will be found. The things that live in the other tunnels will see to that. As for being missed, people go missing all the time. Besides they were traders. They won’t be expected back for a while.” Caspian explained.

  “Do you normally kill everyone you come across?” Rox asked what really concerned her. Steven had said Caspian was capable of being dangerous, and she had seen it, but this seamed different.

  “Of this race of flesh peddlers? Yes. Uht, wait.” He stopped her from interrupting. “Unlike the slaver that had you, these were actual flesh peddlers. They wouldn’t sell you as a slave. They would sell you as dinner.” Caspian tried to dissuade Rox’s argument before it could get momentum.

  Roxanne had to consider this. But came to no real conclusion. While killing was bad, did killing cannibals count? What about battle vs. vigilantism? She decided that beyond family, these would probably not be missed. But she still did not like it.

  They found a side chamber to camp in. A group trooped past disturbing their sleep. This turned out to be a merchant group. Roxanne huddled at the back of the cave, watching and thinking ‘invisible.’ They were soon gone, and Rox went back to sleep. Done sleeping, she and Caspian got out as fast as they could.

  Time became subject to their sleep cycles, that relative afternoon they entered a huge chamber, an unknown height above and widened out as it went in the direction of travel. Steven would travel through this cavern on a different track and altitude, and where he has the wall to his right, Roxanne and Caspian have it to their left. The carved road dropped very fast, switching back where room allowed. At some of the switch backs were watering holes, and dung holes. In a few spots Caspian produced a rope, and they descended the side to the road below. Roxanne almost asked how he knew when to do this, but never got the question out. Finally they came to what seemed to be the bottom. It was warmer than higher up, and the air had a definite dry heat to it.

  “We are near a lava seam. Follow this crack down, and you end up in a subduction fault zone. But it has been inactive for centuries,” Caspian explained.

  They soon entered a kind of natural rock garden, with stalactites and stalagmites, pillars, arches, etceteras scattered about. The road only going around what it had to. Just before making camp among these, they passed the sound of water falling down a far wall. The road branched off that way, but as they did not yet need water they passed it up. Finally after what felt like a full day of walking, Caspian led Roxanne off into the rock garden and picked a place to camp.

  “Tomorrow we should reach the village, and have a look around. So sleep yourself out.” So saying, Caspian handed Roxanne a biscuit, and broth with vegetables in it.

  Those finished, she set her bow where it would not get damaged, and curled up in her cloak.

120 – Meeting more locals

  Roxanne woke with a start, listening. She could see in her extended vision range. Caspian and Cyrril lay across from her, breathing in deep sleep. Then she heard the rattling of pebbles. Anywhere else she might not have noticed it. Here it was the only other sound. Rox slowly reached out and put her hand on her bow grip, pulling out a wooden arrow from her quiver with the other, and finding the end. Now she heard a faint scratching across stone. She looked up and beyond Caspian, but could not spot anything. She looked up the pillars and could see some faint patches of warmer stone on one, as if something had held on at those points. Her fingers rolled the arrow by feel as she looked around.

  As noiselessly as she could she rolled to a crouch, knocking her arrow as she did. She looked at the surrounding pillars but saw and heard nothing. She waited, remembering the times she had been bow hunting. Only then she had stalked or sat up a tree, not crouched looking up. After a few eternal moments of listening, movement attracted her attention.

  Something was crawling down a pillar, head first. Quadruped. A bit larger than a large dog, or maybe a small bear. Its claws held it to the rough stone. It had eyes, and large ears, and its head seemed to have a large nose cavity. It sniffed and listened. One ear swiveled to her, as Roxanne pulled back the bow string, and the compound wheels rolled over. She found herself aiming between its shoulders, trying to count its ribs by the heat of its body.

  At this angle it presented a terrific target but no soft spots for quick kills, except for right there. She aimed and then just as she released she moved her arm slightly, and caught the creature right at the base of its neck as it jumped at the sound of her bow. Instead of catching on to the next pillar, the thing just crashed into it and fell with a dull thud to the dirt floor.

  At the sound of the bow Cyrril had awakened; as the beast tumbled against Caspian he awoke with a start. He jumped sideways without seeming to pass from lying to standing, giving a startled shout.

  “What happened? What was that? What hit me?” Caspian flailed a bit in the dark, until Cyrril landed on his staff, causing the carved dragon to glow.

  Rox stood and toed the creature. “You tell me. It was climbing down the pillar above you.”

  The whole staff brightened, illuminating the thing. It lay on its side, looking vaguely like a piled up rug, with a broken arrow sticking out of it. Caspian picked up the staff, and switched its glowing to the spotlights. He looked the thing over. Its head was a bit smashed, and its legs at odd angles.

  “Some kind of bugbear,” Caspian did not sound certain.

  While its back had course short fur and looked well muscled, its underbody looked almost like an exoskeleton, a rough surface all over its chest with small spikes. It had stout looking jaws and fangs. Caspian showed Roxanne its paw. Talons as long as her fingers, barbs on its knuckles.

  “Is it worth anything?” Rox was wondering about how they might take it with.

  “Not here or now. Best we move.”

  They hiked an hour through the rock garden parallel to the road, and camped again without disturbance.

  Steven dreamed again. But this was a familiar dream. He had had it several times growing up and a few times since, with more and different details each time, as life got closer to the event. In the past, it usually came when he was depressed, and would cheer him up. This time he did not need cheering up, but it still helped.

  He wore some kind of leather armor, and was fighting with a sword in one hand and a knife in the other, against some kind of uniformly armored men. He was fighting these bad guys off. Roxanne is nearby. The kids are also nearby, standing with two trusted strangers, when . . .  the dream ends, at least as far as Steven could ever remember. The setting was always an afterthought. But it seemed they were in a forest, having made camp. And that whatever happens after the dream ends, everything will be all right.

  This dream always renewed his optimism. But he had not had it in some time. Then the armor the elves gave him began to look and feel familiar. As did the old sword. And while he was marching out from Skarg the memory of this dream returned to him. From that point he had looked forward in quiet anticipation for the moment when he would live what he dreamed. And now he could remember and see most of the elements of the event. He still could not see all the elements, but he thought he knew who they all were, and generally where. And it made him happy.

  Steven woke from his sleep feeling refreshed. The humidity was pleasant, as was the sound of the lapping of the water against stone. He cleaned up his camp, and packed everything carefully. He did not want to make anymore noise or mess than he needed, so he secured everything in their pouches. He had pushed himself hard the afternoon and night before, and had rested well. Now, with the village near by according to Karen, he had to scout it out and plan the best way to go about approaching and rescuing his son. His eyes quickly adapted to the dim conditions, as his sense of hearing seemed to give new information. He could hear movement approaching. A party of some kind on the trail coming from the way he wanted to go. They would be looking nearly right at him as they passed this point.

  Quickly Steven repacked his stuff, and slung his pack across his back. He cast about for somewhere to go, and realized he had a shelf to stand on, on the far side of this pillar. Steven lowered himself to stand on the balls of his feet in just his socks, and gripped the lip with his hands. As he looked past his feet and the shelf he could see the water, and the luminescent lichen or moss below going deep into the water.

  Steven waited there for the party to go by, sneaking peaks over the rocks to watch, hoping they would not notice his boots he had not thought about to grab. Three beings went by. Most of what Steven could see was by pattern-recognition in the very low light.

  They were short, as everybody on this planet was to Steven. But these also looked lightly built. They wore some kind of rough cloth with worked leather of some kind. They did not carry any light source with them, but did have what looked like torches or clubs of some kind, wrapped in bundles on their backs. They all carried short swords and knives on their belts. The sword hung level, rather than down. Also they all wore their hair pulled back and tied into a tail that hung down their backs. They all were probably male, but Steven wasn’t about to worry about it. In the dark, he was surprised to see that much.

  Karen’s voice echoed through his mind ‘When you encounter the locals, think ‘empty;’ not just the word but the concept. These people can sense your mind. There is little you can do to sneak up on them, except distraction.’ Steven found himself thinking of empty space, until they passed.

  He figured he had at least part of one more day of travel before getting to the village. He had better get moving. Once they were past and a bit away, Steven chinned himself back up, grabbed his boots, crossed over to the trail, and proceeded along in the direction the three had come for a bit to put some distance between him and the three before putting his boots on. If they found the ant-pillars down, and the creature beyond missing they might start looking for him. Steven put his boots on, and moved along in hasty stealth. He was several turns of the trail along before realizing that his woodcraft skills from his active duty days had essentially returned. Also the cavern was just light enough he did not need a portable light source.

  Steven though things over as he went. Karen’s implanted memory told him he would skirt this lake for most of the rest of his way, then turn at a tributary stream and follow that up to the village. From there he could exit the main village passage and eventually get back to the large cavern and the main road from there.

  But what still troubles Steven was the tactics of the situation. He was uncomfortable with the idea of just walking into an armed village, and demanding his son. But on his own, there was little else he could do. As he walked, Steven tried to review his situation and what he could do about it. His primary objective was getting Alex, while keeping them both alive. Secondary to this was getting a certain book or scroll. Karen had implanted this, rather than mention it. Steven was not sure why, but would ask about it later. Then was to get them back to the main trail and out.

  About the village he was going to, normally his first concern would be reconnoitering the place. If it was in a cavern, he could not just skirt around its perimeter, without being observed, as he might on the surface. Nor was he in position to get airborne images or maps of the place. So that meant entering it blind to its layout. Add the light limitations, and the apparent psionic abilities, or talents, or these people.

  With the technology and tools he might have had on Terra, Earth, he could have done more planning and felt better about the situation. But none of that was available. Caspian and his magic might have been able to overcome these limitations, but for whatever reason Karen had arranged the plan for a simultaneous retrieval of Alex and Diana.

  In following this plan Karen had surmised and discussed with Steven, this his options were reduced to walking in and introducing himself, or abandoning the project.

  Perhaps it was just as well. A group of three novices attacking a village for a extraction of one person was not necessarily going to work. Particularly if every member of the village could sense the presence of any strangers before the stranger got even into bow-range.

  The memory of the dream intruded into his line of thought. Alex was in the dream. The dream was of future events, and judging by what was becoming reality around him, these were near future events. So best to stick to the plan, and remember that last bit of all battle plans. No plan of attack every completely survived its first encounter with the enemy. Thus be ready to improvise and adapt.

  Steven spent until lunchtime trotting along the trail. In that time, he had still not encountered another person or creature. This was starting to trouble him. Even when walking the mountains with Caspian, they had occasionally passed some sign of life.

  “In most stories,” he mumbled under his breath, “caves are full of things to fight or hide from. All I have found is an oversized badger, and an anthill.”

  Steven stopped in a bright spot for lunch, but only long enough to pull the food out of his pocket, and munch as he went. The taste was nothing to write home about, but it was filling. Then he encountered a problem.

  The cavern had been opening up, and the trail increasingly less on the edge of the lake and more on its shore. From family travels, it was like walking in a variation of Goblin Valley, Utah. With water carved boulders and formations, glowing lichen all over, and the air moist. The problem came as he reached a bend, and quickly ducked back behind it. First the shore stopped, and the cavern looked to close on itself like the shore at Lake Powell, or parts of Lake Mead, and like so many of the bends this morning. The terrain was not the problem.

  Ahead of him stood a hand full of beings. They looked like the three that had passed him this morning; smallish men, maybe a bit shorter on average than the locals on the surface. But these looked to be guarding a post on a waterway.

  Steven ducked behind a pillar to think. Karen’s instructions had got him this far, but did not explicitly cover this. She said he had to hike that river a ways and get back onto a side trail. It looked like the trail went across the river and down a parallel tunnel these guarded.

  Some how he had to get past, but how? Four, or more, on one? Not unless no other way existed. Even then that could get him killed, if they were as skilled, or more skilled, than Karen.

  Climb? Steven looked up, near as he could tell, the way would be next to impossible without proper gear, like a pneumatic drill and a team. And the ceiling sloped away quickly. Not a probable climb.

  Swim? Back track and circle in wide in the water? Possible, as long as his gear didn’t sink him. And any current did not take him too far.

  One other option, and the one that was originally planned, was to walk right in and see what happened. Karen said these were an honorable people. But she also said he needed to get a certain book, or scroll, to take with. She did not say why.

  Steven had gathered from bits of conversation that Karen had let slip that these people had the same skills she did, in being a psi-talent. Steven had a vivid enough imagination to be concerned; and had seen enough, both during his time with the Marines and in the week with Karen that he felt any fight would have to be entirely one sided; either he kill or incapacitate the person quickly, or get killed or incapacitated that quickly.

  The more Steven though about it, the more it seamed diplomacy was his best weapon, but he would need to be very careful, as he suspected these people could read minds. Not necessarily all of them, but enough. He also wondered why his first instinct had been to fight.

122 – Travels in tunnels

  By the time they were another hour along, the tunnel began to darken and the air to be dryer. They had crossed two more agricultural caverns, and the trail had changed direction several times. Steven was ready for lunch, and to get one of his torches out. As he did, he produced the change of clothes for Alex. For his part, Alex was pleased to get into his own underwear, not liking the local underwear anymore than his mother had. He also put on the clothes that the elves had provided. Steven took a moment to fix the sleeves and trouser legs to length. Alex had to keep the moccasins that he had been given.

  After Alex had changed, they took the clothes he had been wearing, ripped them to strips and soaked some of them in the bag of oil that Steven had for maintaining torches, and then wrapped one of the strips around one of the torches that Steven had. Steven lit the torch and gave it to Alex, telling Alex to hold it above his eyes as much as he could and to keep up. At first Alex tried to protest but Steven insisted, so that he could keep track of Alex by the torch. Alex stopped arguing with that.

  As they walked along, Alex began to tell all that had happened to him and Diana. They had first been scared when Mom had been separated from them. Then they simply had to keep walking as long as they could every day. The food was terrible and the people mean. The bugs stung a few times. Soon his shoes wore out and he was given some moccasins. Those also wore out, and he was given a second set. Some of the sights they saw were really neat to see. Then he and Diana were put into a cage on a cart and rolled into a city, where they met some scary people. He was separated from Diana and brought to here. They took his clothes and burned them and gave him the clothes he had worn up to now.

  He had met a few boys and girls here, but none seamed to like him, except to tease. He was taken to the smith and the man cut a small patch of his scalp off and put it into the sword that was given to Alex when it was finished. Once Alex had the sword, he found he could stand up to the teasing, and had used some of the fighting that Mom had taught him to beat up a bully who would not leave him alone.

  When they stopped to eat and rest, Alex curled up in Steven’s lap and dozed off. Steven put out the torch and after getting comfortable, Steven napped holding his son.

  In their next awake time, they ate a bit, and continued traveling the tunnels and caverns. At the approximate mid-afternoon, they came out of a wide tunnel onto the floor of the rift that Steven had left some few days and a bit of altitude earlier. Steven turned to his left and started along the floor, looking for the signs of a used trail. As he went he got the second tracker he had been given out of a vest pocket. The spot glowed a bit dim about half way from the middle to the edge, and off to Steven’s 4-o’clock as he aligned himself to he direction of the rift, 12-o’clock being the direction out.

  Alex watched Steven wave it around like he did when using a compass, then put it away. “Which way do we go?”

  Steven sat for a moment, easing his pack off of his back, and let his coat breath a bit. “We are supposed to meet your mother and sister and a friend here somewhere. But I don’t know for sure where. We have three days of food, and I think it is just over two days to hike out. The question is do we wait, or start out?”

  Alex thought for a moment. “How do they find us? This is not the mall or the store.”

  Steven was well aware of that. “Your mother has a tracker like this one, which she can use to find Diana, and another for finding me. Her guide should know the way out to the surface.”

  Alex did not wait to think long. “I want to see the sky. Mom hikes fast. She can catch up.”

  The main road was similar to what Steven had traveled earlier, wide enough for wagons to pass each other, with the ground beyond unproven and irregular at best. The road mostly went straight along the floor of the rift, following the roll of the ground. They walked up an incline, and at the top of this hill they found a warn path that turned into a tunnel in the side of the rift. It had a carved and enlarged entrance. Steven somehow recognized the writing as of the local elf-script, and immediately dragged Alex away from it. as he mulled why he recognized the characters, he recalled both the various alphabets he had seen in Shalaia, and Karen giving him a warning to avoid the people who made that script.

  “We have to get away from here. These people can see in the dark, and maybe even the heat of where your torch was.” Steven led Alex away from the tunnel opening.

  “So can I, Dad.”

  Steven led them up the road a little to where it went through a rock garden. Steven had been to Goblin Valley in east central Utah a few times, and had promised himself to take the kids there someday. This rock garden reminded him of there.

  Alex was visibly getting tired at this point, Steven had been carrying him on and off and figured this was as good a place to stop as any. Steven moved through it to his left and up to the wall of the rift. There was a spring here, trickling into a pool. Steven touched it and found it was fresh water, if a bit warm. Not a geology expert, Steven figured it was probably from the same general source as the lake that he had been past. He refilled Alex’s water skin from him bladder in his pack, then refilled the bladder through the filter from the spring and pool.

  Steven let the torch burn down low, and out of the way as he worked. Their thrust slaked, they leaned against the wall as Alex again curled up not quite in his lap. The torch went out not long after both father and son sank into sleep. Fortunately the smell of the burnt torch kept the local critters from coming to close to investigate.

  Alex woke at the noise. People were running by on the road. He could not see it from here, so they probably could not see him. This allowed him to relax, and count. He though he heard four people run past, rattling in some kind of gear. As he looked around, he could see the shapes in the heat. The rock garden stretched out around them for as far as he could see. The wall they were against stretched to both sides and a long way up. Above the tops of the close rock pillars, he could see the far wall also going up too far to see.

  Alex had gotten used to the novelty of seeing in the dark the first few nights on planet. So had Diana. But until he had gotten into the village no one had explained it to him. When Dad had given him the torch, Alex knew that it was going to hinder him from seeing that way, if he had the torch in front of him, but had not been able to get his Dad to listen then. As it was the torch was long enough to hold high and behind his head, so it did not effect his sight too much. Now Alex felt and saw that his Dad was soundly asleep and they were for the moment safe. The people had run on, and were gone. Alex lay his head back down and went back to sleep.

*     *     *

  Caspian led by deliberate decision of Roxanne. She did not want his light from his staff interfering with her vision. She had come to see quite clearly with her recently discovered ability. As they hiked the floor of the rift, they left the arches and pillars behind, and quickly found a crossroads, where the path turned to their left and through a carved opening in the rift wall into another tunnel. There was a carved arch in the natural rock, with carved characters in it. Rox could recognize the individual characters as such, but had no idea what the language was or the meaning of the characters.

  Caspian looked the arch over. “This is probably it. Check you r tracker.”

  Rox got the tracker for Diana out, and looked it over. The point of light was a forward and to her right from center, and a bit over half way down the curve of the surface.

  Caspian stood by and looked at it, and nodded. “That is promising. She is a day away, give or take, in that general direction.”

  He started forward into the darkness of the tunnel. Rox put the tracker back under her jacket a followed after.

  This road was a bit more than one wagon wide, having been carved to that width. In prior conversation about it, Caspian had joined the Caplan’s speculation that these tunnels were not fully carved from solid rock, but rather existing tunnels and cracks that had been enlarged.

  The tunnel did not branch, but it did twist some. Soon they came out into a cavern. This cavern was humid and sticky feeling. Rox could see all sorts of crystals lining almost every surface. Water seamed to pool and puddle in the low spots of the carved road. The crystals and water glowed with whatever light struck them. They exited the far side of this chamber through a hole surrounded by crystal. There were no natural bio-luminescent sources, even with Caspian’s staff giving off light. Rox could see just fine with her expanded visual range.

  Karen came to Roxanne’s mind saying they would have to travel through three caverns like this, and then the elf village of Chigoria would be in a large series of caverns after that. Rox found to the road now went uphill as she went.

  Within the second chamber, Rox realized that they were inside what might be a large geode, of similar type of cavern. As they left the third, the humidity of the previous area seamed to end abruptly as if a door prevents its passage. The road was still a wagon width, and the passage was carved and decorated.

  The next chamber was also lined with crystal, but this was being sculpted and cut, rather than left natural. There was no one here at the moment, but the chamber looked like it was being cleared for use.

  Rox was ready for lunch, and Caspian agreed.

  They crossed this chamber into a natural rock tunnel and were quickly into a maze of regular carved tunnels, some road sized, some walkways. Caspian led in a left-handed direction through the tunnels, looking for a place to rest for a bit.

  Caspian was on edge, and Rox could see he was a bit stressed. They found a chamber that was organic in its scent. As Rox looked it over, it was like a large green house with some strange kind of leafless trees growing from the ceiling, and orderly rows of indeterminate crops arrayed across the large chamber.

  “This is a garden of some sort. I don’t see anyone here.”

  Caspian agreed as he moved off to his left against the wall, then stopped at a curve of the wall. He leaned against the wall and took a deep breath, then sat down.

  “Time to do some setup, and reconnoitering. Cyrril is out buzzing around testing for any standing magic fields. I haven’t felt any active magic yet. We may have managed to sneak in without detection, so far.”

  Rox nodded as she took her bag off.

123 – Where are we going and what are we doing

  Caspian’s plan at this point was to get as good a map as he could through magic, then plan how to get in to where Diana was and back out. Rox’s job was to hide their presence for the moment, and shield Caspian’s magic from detection.

  Rox set up her shields as small and unobtrusive as she could, and set then to camouflage by blending in to the ambient energy. Caspian put his staff down, the light from the carved head at the top pointing into a spot on the floor. He tested her setup, and then cast a spell that began to map the area via the air currents. This fed into an image spell to form a visual map in front of him. First the chamber they were in was shown, then the five passages connected to it began to show. These quickly showed more chambers and passages, as the spell split at every intersection. As the map expanded, the scale of the overall image changed to keep the whole image about a cubic cubit. Caspian kept a sense of the expanding mapping spell, and whenever a passage seamed to be beyond the general boundaries of the community he would cease its expansion.

  After the spell completed, they had a floating map with several large blobby caverns as central structures connected by knots of smaller tunnels, with smaller caverns interspersed, and several arrays of satellite caverns like the ones they were currently in.

  “Can the magic of the map and of this tracker interact and tell us where in the place Diana is?” Rox held the tracker ready.

  “No,” Caspian answered, looking the map over. “The tracker’s spell is not designed to interact with any other magic.”

  Rox looked over the floating image, careful to keep her own magic going. “I see three main caverns.”

  She ran her hands across one long cavern that curved up and around like a long misshapen bean, a second above half of and rotated a bit from the first that looked like a splattered pancake, and a third that went away from the first two that also looked a bit bean shaped. This third one had a constellation of smaller caverns closely around it at assorted altitudes, connected by a series of orderly tunnels. The interconnecting tunnels between the main ones looked like roads connecting three towns, a few main roads through the shortest available intervening space, and longer ones at almost random. There were a handful of medium sized and dozens of smaller caverns along and among the tunnels. Several passages seamed to circle the whole community at assorted altitudes and angels with larger chambers strung along them like pearls. These were interconnected by more knots of smaller passages and chambers. The chamber that Rox and Caspian were currently in was on one of these external passages. Five separate larger roads led out of the community, each in a different direction, each starting from a medium sized cavern that had a myriad of smaller tunnels attached. The way they had come from was identifiable by three medium sized chambers along that road.

  Caspian just stared at the image. “Ideas?”

  Rox looked it over, beginning to spot a pattern. “We know the tracker runs on straight lines. You said it will not interact with this map. I expect she will be in one of the larger caverns, as those would be better for housing. They need space for growing food, this upper cavern almost looks like a mining operation, or at least that they are clearing the rock out to expand the available volume. They need a water source, but that could be anywhere. We have seen plenty of springs, and I suppose we are deep enough to be under the first layer of aquifer. We don’t want to spend long here, and avoid capture.”

  Rox traced a few peripheral tunnels to the main caverns. “With some disguise, we could scout a few of these, and see which way the tracker says she is. That will eliminate which of the rest we have to risk.”

  Rox paused. Her spells were still going, properly. “Can you recall the image of this map, once you dispel it, or is it dependent?”

  Caspian thought, then got a bit of paper from a pouch. He held the paper flat in his palm, sprinkled some dirt on the paper and cast another spell. The dirt started organizing on the paper, into lines and smears. The excess dirt ran off the side, leaving an image on the paper that looked like a scribble done by an enthusiastic child with a crayon.

  Rox could see that it was a two dimensional image of the three dimensional map. There was residual magic on the map, not just holding the dirt on.

  “I can now recall the map from this at need.” Caspian put the map aside. “In the mean time, I agree. We need to go along this tunnel here,” he ran his finger through the image. “It goes between the two larger areas, while pointing at the third. There the tracker should tell us which one. Then we can scout things further. I just hope these elves are not a militant as the last group of this race I encountered.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I got my crossbow, and a few scars. They got a cave in.”

  Rox almost asked how big a cave in but let it go, not really wanting to know. “I haven’t sensed any magic yet. But I can’t say that I would know for sure.” Rox rechecked her spells. They were humming along just fine.

  “I haven’t ether. You would have noticed. And you don’t need to keep checking yours so much, unless you set them wrong or deliberately unstable.” Caspian answered, then got an unfocused look. “There he is.”

  Caspian stayed that way for a moment.

  Rox waited, figuring correctly that Caspian was communicating with his familiar elsewhere in the complex.

  Caspian’s awareness returned to here. “Cyrril finds a standing field at the entrances to each of the main caverns. He is not sure what kind or how large the magic field is. Also the third cavern is being slowly enlarged, but there are people living in it as well. Near as I can figure from what Cyrril reports, they are between their lunch and dinner time.”

  Rox’s stomach growled. “So are we.”

  She was splitting her attention, tracing the floating image before her, maintaining her spells, and listening to Caspian. She traced the floating map.

  “Looking at this, we can get to the tunnel we want by going out this one, up at this node, and then along this one, and into this main tunnel. Then about what, halfway, and check things. Question is, how much traffic is there to avoid, and how.”

  “We won’t find out about the traffic, until we start moving. If I cast any magic to tell us more than I have, it will let every magic user in the area know where I am. The next question is whether they will pay attention.”

  Rox was at a bit of a loss, yet several ideas mostly out of fiction were floating around her head for how to sneak about and not be noticed. “How much traffic does Cyrril see, or have to dodge?”

  Caspian went unfocused again. “Some. They are not paying him attention just yet. That might be because of the time of day.”

  Rox nodded. “Then let’s go. Tell Cyrril to keep watch for traffic in this main passage., and we will try to meet him there.”

  “Right. That dampening spell I taught you? Now is the time to use it.”

  Caspian let his spells go, and cast a quick spell around himself and his equipment.

  Rox relaxed and dispelled her shielding and camouflage spells. Then she followed Caspian’s example and cast a spell over herself and her equipment. The most noticeable result was that Caspian’s staff stopped buzzing in Rox’s senses and instead only continued to visibly put off light from the dragon’s head.

  Caspian had been teaching and helping Rox practice this spell since Shalaia. It essentially blended the presence of whatever object or group it was cast on into the background, insofar as magical sense went, regardless of the actual magical presence of the object or being.

  As Rox took time to look the rest of the garden room over, she noticed could see that the living things put off a heat sufficient to navigate around. The leafless trees or wooden roots or whatever hanging from the ceiling were arranged almost random, but actually in general rows. The plants on the floor of the chamber were also in rows. Rox could neither see nor hear anybody else in this chamber. Remembering from the map, she started toward the exit she had proposed.

  “I though you wanted to eat.”

  Rox paused. “I do, but . . .”

  Caspian understood. “You are focused on the task at hand. Eat first. Then we will go look. It will be easier to deal with things if you are not hungry.”

  Caspian got out his own food, from his bag as Rox turned to her pack and got hers. They ate quietly and quickly. Rox knew she was eating a sandwich, but was not aware of what it consisted of or tasted like, her mind working over what she would do if and when she encountered anyone between her and Diana.

  Caspian finished first, and contemplated his staff for a moment. “I can’t just walk around with this light going, If I do I may as well walk around with a big banner saying ‘shoot me’ on it.”

  Rox watched as he prepared another spell. He cast it on himself, and then extinguished the light from his staff.

  “Now you can see in the dark?” Rox asked.

  “Yeah. Unlike your visual gifts, this is only seeing in grays; it’s really uncomfortable, and prone to flash-blindness. That’s why I haven’t done it before now. Once we are clear of this place I will shut it off.”

  Once the food was consumed and trash packed away, they stood, put their gear back in order and on, and started out. Rox led to the passage, carefully looking around, and not seeing anybody. They also listened, and did not hear anybody. The slight breeze that flowed through the caverns they were in gave everything a barely perceptible whistle. The passage went into was typical of the previous ones they had followed to get here, being carved from the natural rock, and wide enough for a several people to pass along it. This passage went generally straight and emptied into a crossroad/chamber with a larger passage going to either side. The air could be felt passing from their right to their left. Just past the edge of the side passages, a shaft ascended and descended to other levels. Rox wanted to go up. She could see the bracing that had been constructed to support the sides of the shaft, tracks for a lift built onto the braces, and a second set on the left side as she faced it for the counterweight. Cables of some kind ran down in the middle of the counterweight’s frame. A ramp spiraled in a right-hand spiral around the outside of the shaft that would allow the defender to stand above and swing right handed with the wall to his left. She looked down and up the shaft briefly, then back to Caspian.

  “No traffic, and if there is a lift, it is above us.”

  Caspian looked around quickly, then back to Rox. “Do you know what you are doing?”

  “Yeah. I’m sneaking around potentially hostile territory to find and retrieve my kidnapped daughter.”