An angel’s road to hell

95. Of rabbit holes, tunnels and a little bit of guardians

Cassandra Pendragon

My brother was afraid of heights, or at least of flying on the back of an oversized snake, which made the trip all the more enjoyable. While Reia quickly lost her fear and enjoyed the sensation of riding the wind, he wrung his hands and kept his eyes closed. Lucky for him it didn’t take long to reach the spring on the back of a dragon. When Viyara landed he was the first to jump down. He walked a couple of steps and inhaled deeply, fighting down a bout of nausea. Grinning I followed suite and helped our living carriage back into her clothes once she had transformed.

The place unsurprisingly hadn’t changed but without the strange manifestations it seemed much more welcoming. No eerie silence or otherworldly displays of light haunted us, which I found highly suspect until I remembered that the magic had left Astra in waves. There was probably some kind of buildup necessary before anything could happen and we had stumbled in, during one of the tranquil periods.

“Once my dear brother has caught his breath we should search for some kind of entrance. I saw a pulsing light, right about there,” I pointed below the group of cedars. “And I’d say that’s where we need to go. To me, the small elevation over there looks like the ruins of a tower and the cedars might be growing in what had once been the basement. Maybe there’s a door or something similar that leads further down.”

“Brilliant idea, I’ll get my spade and a couple of buckets…” Mordred grumped crankily.

“Sure, if you want to dig a hole, go ahead. I’m sure Viyara can fly you back to camp to get the necessary equipment,” I replied scathingly. “Or, you could use the thing between your ears to, I don’t know, search with a spell or, if that doesn’t work, search with your gods damned eyes. But hey, why not dig through the mud? I’ll definitely not think that you’re a bloody moron.” My companions stared at me dumbfounded and Mordred even opened his mouth a few times without uttering a word.

“Sorry, it’s been a long day,” I apologised. “That was uncalled for even though you can still shove your comment up your… anyways, except for Ahri and me, you can use your magic. Look for patches with a higher density of energy or simply for a hidden tunnel. “It can’t be too difficult, now, can it?” As it turned out, it was and in the end it was happenstance more than anything else when we finally found something.

We were skimming through the trees and along the elevated stretches, which had turned out to be overgrown walls once we had dug through a couple of centimetres of plants and earth, accumulated over centuries, when Reia suddenly cried out. Fast as my enhanced reflexes were, I still only managed to whirl around in time to see the tip of her tail vanish down a rabbit hole. “Reia,” Ahri and I screamed simultaneously while we rushed for the spot her tail had vanished. I got there instantaneously, I had unfurled my wings before to boost my second vision, but all I could do was stare down a dark, steep tunnel that had apparently swallowed Reia hole.

The entrance had been hidden beneath a huge, green plant with little, blue blossoms and large, fleshy leafs. A sweet fragrance, soothing and somewhat revitalising, wafted around the plant. Reia had probably moved closer to savour the smell and had stepped on the overgrown hole. She was slim enough to simple fall through and glide down the natural slide. If she didn’t have the same form of claws as Ahri, she wouldn’t be able to stop her descent, the tunnel was angled much too steeply, the walls much to slick with decaying leafs and loosely packed earth.

“Oh no,” Ahri breathed behind me while Mordred and Viyara still fought their way through the underbrush. I couldn’t agree more, still I said instead:

“I think we can all fit through. Mordred might have to draw in his shoulders a little but it should work. Ask him to tie one end of his rope around a root close by. Who knows, if we’re lucky it’ll be long enough. See you soon.” I retracted my wings and took a step forward. Immediately I lost my footing, fell on my back and accelerated down the tunnel. The trip down was neither comfortable, quite a lot of poky things punctured the tunnel wall and scraped across my skin when I slithered past, nor scenic. Darkness with a tinge of mould and the wiggling ends of earthworms didn’t make for the best backdrop. On the plus side, it was fast. Fast enough that I was starting to worry about the inevitable collision at the end. Hopefully Reia had had the presence of mind to crawl out of the way.

In preparation I pushed my wings out again but I was afraid to damage the walls around me in case the tunnel might collapse so I didn’t anchor myself in the loose earth. Instead I formed a spherical shield around me and pressed my wings against the air to at least slow down a little. And it worked, to a certain degree. When the walls gave way to a larger cave, I didn’t shoot out of the tunnel like a stone from a sling but I was still fast enough to tumble uncontrollably through the air for several meters before I crashed into cold, hard rock. Of course there wouldn’t be a patch of nice, loose earth or soft vegetation where I landed. “Ouch.” That was an accurate summary of what went through my head for a few moments.

When I was convinced that I hadn’t damaged anything important and that the pain was gradually diminishing I finally deemed my surroundings worthy enough to spare them a second thought. A little push and the energy from my core allowed me to see the cavern in all its glory. Maybe my expectations were a little skewed, the last underground chamber I had entered had been the hoard of a dragon after all, but honestly, I somehow had expected a little more than nothing.

Damp, muddy and bare were the words that came to mind. The only remarkable things were the floor which was surprisingly flat with patches of worked stone, like tiles, blinking through the earth here and there and a breach in one of the walls that led further into the darkness. I didn’t spare the time to take a closer look, though, as I quickly discovered Reia, who had come to a halt a few steps further away. She was just scrambling to her knees, confusedly turning her head from left to right. She had a few scratches and the way she moved her left arm made me think she might have broken or sprained her wrist but other than that she seemed fine.

I hurried over to her side and pulled her to her feet gently. “How bad is it? Can you stand on your own?” She blinked a few times to clear her head before she answered:

“I’ll live. But my arm hurts and I’m dizzy. I think I hit my head somewhere along the way. Could you put me back down? Sitting seems like a good idea right about now.” Gingerly I complied. Unfortunately I didn’t know enough to examine her through mundane means and there was nothing wrong with the way her energy moved inside her body, at least nothing I could see.

“Take a few deep breaths and tell me if it gets worse. Don’t close your eyes, though. You might be concussed, falling asleep wouldn’t be the best idea.”

I propped her up against a wall and listened for the noise that whoever came down the slide after me would undoubtedly make while I amateurishly fumbled with her wrist. The pained gasps that escaped Reia from time to time told me exactly how skilfully I handled her injury. The wrist was already swelling and she couldn’t move it in either direction without without a considerable amount of pain. The joint wasn’t broken, I thought, but sprained. It hurt like hell but I was much more worried about her dizziness and shallow breaths.

Heavy cursing reverberated down the tunnel and made me turn around just in time to see Ahri slide through its mouth, elegantly rolling into a crouch. Clumps of earth stuck to her clothes and a couple of brown leaves and broken roots had somehow got entangled in her hair and the fur along her tails. With her disgruntled expression she reminded me of a soldier back home, who had fallen from one of Boseiju’s higher branches and somehow managed to hit so many obstacles on his way down that he had survived with barely an injury. Smiling at the comparison between the brutish fox and the slender vixen as well as the similarities in their language I made my way over to her and pulled her up.

“Nice of you to drop in. Where’s the rest?”

“They should be…” her ears twitched the same moment I heard the grinding sound with which another body came down the chute. Simultaneously we got out of the way when first Viyara and then my brother, the fluttering end of his rope still clasped in his hands, came tumbling into the cave. They crashed into the same spot I had already softened up and collapsed into a mess of flailing limbs. “…right behind me,” Ahri finished.

“Everybody still in one piece?” I asked. An unintelligible mixture of curses and complaints from the tangled heap reassured me that they were indeed fine.

“Good. Reia hit her head quite seriously on the way down, so stop moping. I’m not sure but I think she’s got a concussion. Is there something you can do?” They sobered up immediately.

“Probably… maybe,” was Mordred’s overly confident reply while Viyara slowly shook her head. “I don’t know much about non draconic anatomy nor am I well versed in the arts of healing. I fear I might make it worse if I applied what I have learned from my family,” she explained. My brother was already scampering to Reia’s side and their soft voice filled the cave with murmuring echoes soon after. We stared at them for a moment before I snapped back to reality. I pointed towards the breach and said:

“If she can continue we’ll go through there. I’m going to scout ahead.” I turned to Ahri. “We can use our tattoos to communicate even if something will block Viyara’s telepathy. Stay with them, please. I’ll be back soon.” I leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Call me if something happens.” She nodded and replied: “if you’re not back in ten minutes or if I haven’t heard from you by then I’ll come after you.” “We will,” Viyara added.

“Thanks.” I enjoyed the warmth their words had conjured for a moment and turned away.

I checked on Reia before I left but she had her eyes closed while Mordred kneeled in front of her,  his hands lightly touching her temples. It probably wasn’t the best time to interrupt so I snuck past without disturbing them. Thanks to my second vision I saw everything clear as day despite the utter lack of light and I could easily navigate my way towards the gaping hole in the wall, opposite the tunnel mouth that had spewed us out, without crashing into every obstacle on the way. I only had to bite my tongue once when my foot broke through a damaged tile and I slammed, face first, into the ground. Maybe I cursed a little bit I didn’t cry out.

As it turned out the hole was actually a rotten and deformed doorway. From the looks of it, once an impressively thick door had blocked the way but now nothing remained but rusted bands of steel and a few slivers of decayed wood on the ground. This place had to be ancient.

Behind the doorway a flight of surprisingly sturdy looking steps with remarkably clean stone walls led downwards, inky darkness obscuring even my vision after a couple of metres. A chilly gust of air blew a few strands of my hair into my eyes but it didn’t carry any form of smell, with the exception of the faintest trace of ozone. Hopefully it’d stay that way and we wouldn’t have to live through another fluctuation while we were down here, but somehow I didn’t expect us to be that lucky.

If I had had to guess I’d have said we probably had fallen down a natural tunnel, animals, water and time having gnawed their way through meters of earth and the ruins of an ancient tower. The more or less intact part below us had been sealed off with an impressive gate in ages past. Additionally the tiles and stairs were still somewhat sturdy, with a few exceptions, which made me think that they had been constructed with much more care than the rest of the place. All in all I was probably staring down towards the more secure floors of an the gods-may-know-how-old tower. It was time to find out how many traps the previous owners had deemed necessary to ensure uninvited guests, like us, didn’t get out in one piece.

I wasn’t overly worried about the way down, I could glide slowly without touching anything, the corridor was wide enough to use my wings, and possible enchantments or magical traps shouldn’t trigger due to my immunities. How I’d get the rest of my crew through here if there were enchantments in the walls, I didn’t know, but it also seemed like a problem best saved for later. Like a miniature lightning storm I flew down the stairs, my wings extending my vision to about thirty meters. A few times I saw streams of energy run through the walls in symmetrical formations and I tried my best to ingrain the precise spots in my memory. Unfortunately there wasn’t a handy set of glyphs or mosaics to mark them and one stretch of rock walls and stone steps pretty much looked like the next so I wasn’t too sure if I got it right. I should have counted the steps…

It didn’t take me long to reach the bottom, I guessed I had covered about 100 metres, and find my way blocked by another gigantic door, completely intact his time. About 3 meters in hight and at least the same in width it was made of a dark, gleaming wood and even though I couldn’t perceive colours very well with my second vision I was fairly certain that it had a bloody sheen to it. Somewhere in the back of my head a memory stirred: I was most likely looking at a door made of Blood Oak, a rare tree which had the curious property that its wood could contain energy nearly indefinitely. Several softly glowing gemstones had been placed in a circle around the centre but other than that I didn’t see a knob, a keyhole or even hinges for that matter. The only thing to interact with were the 12 crystals, each of which shone in a different colour. A magical lock with a presumably predefined sequence of colours that would open the door. That, or…

I pushed enough energy into my wings to provide me with some real light as I went to work, slicing through the enchanted door. The crystals immediately glowed with an ominous red and 12 streaks of light slammed into my chest. A net of crackling power traveled over my body, singed my clothes, flared brightly and … disappeared without leaving a mark on my skin. The impact on the other hand had been powerful enough to crush the air from my lungs and make me stumble even though my wings were tightly anchored to the door. I winced when I gingerly drew air into my lungs and my bruised rips stretched and groaned but I didn’t cease my assault. Instead I shoved even more energy into my wings, ignoring my injuries, until I cut through the door like a hot knife through butter. A second later the smoking pieces rained to the ground, none of them larger than my arm. The gems had gone dark after the first few moments and now they shattered on the ground like glass, tiny fragments of colour mingling with the clouds of dust cause by my violent outburst. I suppressed the urge to sneeze while I withdrew most of the energy from my wings to patch up my ribs. A satisfied moan escaped me when the pain disappeared and I carefully took a few steps forward and pushed my wings through the setting dust.

A hallway led further into the darkness than I could see, granite statues, each of them depicting the same man, larger than life, were erected on the side every few metres, their lifeless eyes focusing on me with a spark of greenish fire and a deadly intensity.