Belvedor and the Four Corners (Belvedor Saga Book 1) (30 page)

“See here?” She pointed to two red ‘X’s on the parchment. “These mean dead ends. If we exclude these along with the passageways to the Healer’s and Warrior’s Districts, then that still leaves us with three other options. I’ve traveled each one a bit, but I always end up turning around for lack of time.” She paused to steal Arianna’s attention. “You have to understand… there’s no way to know where we’d end up.”

“So what do you suppose we do?” asked Arianna. She curled a strand of hair around her finger to the point of breaking as she considered the implications.

Lessa shrugged. “Take your pick,” she said, waving a hand over the parchment.

“Okay.” Arianna chewed on her lip, racking her brain for the right decision. “Let’s just try this one first and hope we can count ourselves lucky.” She pointed to the tunnel on the far left.

“After you,” said Lessa, rolling up her map and tossing it back into the rucksack.

With Arianna in front, they started down a narrow path. Further and further they traveled, away from their old lives in search for the new. They walked for a long time in silence, the only noise coming from the firebugs as Sano caused uproar in his failed attempts to catch them between his jaws. And then there was the noise inside their heads of course. They each had their own thoughts to keep them occupied.

“So how far do we walk before we’re blind?” asked Arianna, steering her thoughts away from the negative memories so fresh in her mind.

“I’d say we have about twenty minutes before I had to turn back around,” she said. “Right now, everything still looks familiar.”

Their voices echoed, ricocheting back and forth in the tight space as they carried on. Twenty minutes later, Arianna looked back to find Lessa pouring over the map.

“Okay, now we’re blind,” she said, the panic clear on her face. “This is as far as I came.”

Arianna strained her vision to peer further down the tunnel but saw nothing out of the ordinary. “It looks like we can still keep going straight for now.” She put on a fearless face and continued walking, but they both knew ‘for now’ to be an indefinite certainty.

“Ara…” Lessa pulled Sano close to her chest.

“Hmm?”

“I just have this strange feeling that we’re headed downwards. Not up and out.”

Arianna had the same funny feeling. “Let’s just keep going.”

Deeper and deeper they walked, following the twists and turns of the passageway as the funny feeling started turning sour, the lit tunnel turning dim.

“Do you hear that noise?” asked Lessa.

“It’s just the firebugs.”

“No.” She stopped. “No, something’s not right.”

“Don’t worry.” Arianna turned to flash Lessa a reassuring smile, grabbing for her hand as she took another step forward. Her stomach felt like it had lurched up into her throat, and her smile was replaced with a scream as the ground disappeared in front of her. She felt Lessa squeeze both hands around her own, yanking her back as they toppled to the floor.

“Are you okay?” said Lessa, standing to her feet. Arianna nodded, trying to steady her nerves.

Brushing off her robes, Lessa said, “I told you I heard something!” Pointing downwards, she kept one hand on the cavern wall.

Arianna stood, her eyes calculating the new surroundings as they adjusted to the sudden light. Their passageway had come to an abrupt end, and the archway they perched under gave way to a slim cliff which encircled a deep pit. Arianna was reminded of the Pit in Warrior’s District where the bones of her peers littered the bottom.

She stepped back, feeling threatened and vulnerable to a much worse fate than anything the Warrior’s District had to offer. Bones would disintegrate into nothingness here. All traces of a slave’s existence would be wiped away in this vast, merciless pit.

She looked upon a deep bowl filled with thick, rolling lava that steamed and bubbled below. Smoldering steam slapped their faces as their eyes were glued to the waves of fire beneath them, like millions of firebugs fused together to form a lake.

“I definitely don’t remember this,” said Lessa, tucking Sano safely into her robes as he latched onto her.

“This must be how the hot springs formed,” said Arianna. “It’s probably why the firebugs collect here.”

Tearing their eyes from the depths below, they saw firebugs piled high in this part of the cave. Their light trailing upwards for what seemed like a mile-high ceiling.

“Well, we’d better start heading back then,” said Arianna as she moved away from the cliff, the height making her dizzy.

“Wait!” said Lessa. “Look there. On the other side I can see more tunnels. Can you see?” She grabbed a handful of Arianna’s robes and pulled her back to the ledge. “We should try one of those.” She drew out her map and began to make some markings.

When Arianna observed her additions, she saw a striking, fiery resemblance to the magma pit flowing beneath them. “You mean go around the cliffs?” Arianna’s bravery vanished.

Lessa nodded. “If we go back now, we’ll lose so much time, and there’s no knowing if we’ve been followed or where those other entrances could lead us. They could be our only way out.” Without waiting for an answer, she tiptoed forward with Sano snug on her shoulders, dragging Arianna behind her. “Just follow my lead. I’m used to things like this.”

Arianna sniggered as she hugged her body close to the wall, moving ever so slowly. Who could ever be used to something like this?

They crept towards the other side of the cliff, careful not to make any sudden movements that might upset their balance. Lessa was very nimble. Arianna, on the other hand, never once looked down for fear her body might follow her eyes. 

“It looks like there are maybe two or three tunnels to choose from over there too,” said Arianna. “Your turn to pick.” Her voice wavered as she concentrated on her feet.

Lessa mulled over the decision, but before she could make an assessment of their choices, something else caught her attention. They both heard the sound at the same time, their feet freezing in place.

Rippling throughout the cavern, it sounded as if lightening had collided with the mountainside. Arianna looked up, expecting to find boulders tumbling towards her head but saw nothing that met her imagination. Then, her eyes dared to follow Lessa’s to the pit below.

It seemed a rockslide
had
begun after all, but the boulders that fell didn’t fall from the sky. They crumbled beneath their feet as their cliff gave way to the fire-filled lake below.

Arianna couldn’t move. She couldn’t even blink as she watched the floor fall away. Lessa snatched her petrified friend by the arm and set off at a wobbly run. She could feel the old ground crumble from their weight, and she looked behind her to find the cliff deteriorating in a wave, one that was catching up with them fast.

“Faster!” Lessa called as she pushed her legs full speed with Arianna right behind. She felt the floor beneath her feet give way at every step and saw no other option but to leap for the opening in front of her.

“Jump, Ara!” She grabbed hold of Arianna’s outreached hand with Sano clinging to her neck, and they both leaped from the cascading floor without a second thought.

Landing on their stomachs with their feet dangling above thin air, they hung in the mouth of one of the other entrances. As they watched the events play out, the rest of the skirted cliff surged downwards in a waterfall of boulders and rocks. The lava splashed and sputtered at the contact, claiming the rubble to its depths.

“That was too close,” said Lessa, wiping the sweat from her brow as they pushed themselves up to safety. She tried to calm Sano who shivered in her arms, and then she took out her map to record their next path.

Arianna shook out of her daze as she watched the last of the rocks slide to their demise and the lake turn calm as if nothing at all had happened. She couldn’t help but smile at the adventure and at her friend… so resilient in her outlook as she penned the next path on paper. 

“How about we steer clear of anymore cliffs,” said Lessa as she placed Sano safely back on her shoulders.

“I thought you were used to that kind of thing,” said Arianna, wiping her robes of dirt.

Lessa smiled. “No more cliffs.”

Arianna threw her hands to the air. “Well, I’m glad your habits have been swayed!”

Relaxing their spiraling nerves, they traveled away from the lava lake through a tunnel that matched its maker. It was formed of black and red rocks, glowing like smoldering coal in a fire, the walls warm to the touch. Further in, the air began to cool and the tunnel opened up wide as they moved onwards in a straight path, never turning.

After a while, the time came to make another choice. A dead end ahead, they’d have to veer off to the left or right. “I say we go right,” said Lessa. “It seems like it would more likely head us away from where we came. What do you say?”

Arianna shrugged, and they set out for the right, Lessa mapping it on her parchment diligently. This tunnel twisted and turned as the girls snaked along its path. Soon the flaming, coal-like stone turned a bright orange, giving off a subtle sparkle with the firebugs’ added light. Arianna had only seen the sun a few times in her life, but the whole passage seemed to be carved from it. 

“I’ve never seen something so brilliant,” said Lessa as she let her fingers skim the cool stone. “There must be so many secrets under these mountains.”

Arianna laughed, “We’re the secrets under the mountains,” she said. “Did Talis ever happen to mention to you why they call these the Vanishing Tunnels in the first place?” The mention of Talis’ name came thick on her tongue as it stirred up other names she’d rather not dwell on. 

“No, but towards the end I confessed I’d been exploring them for quite some time. I would say he was impressed if he hadn’t turned blue from all the yelling.”

“I wonder if the scrolls he gave us might mention anything,” mused Arianna as she let her fingertips glide over the walls.

“Possibly,” said Lessa as she poured over her map. The orange shimmer of the tunnels flickered between yellow and red as they bore deeper down. “You know, something’s been gnawing at my mind, Ara.”

“Oh?”

“Liam was practically dead on that bed, and then Sano…” She nodded towards her furry friend whose eyes glistened much like the walls of the cave.

“His paws,” said Arianna. “They lit up like a silver lantern.” She shook her head of the disbelief. “I think your friend here saved him. Thanks for that, Sano.” She patted him on the head as she tried to forget Liam’s scarring words.

“But truly, how can that be possible?” she said, rubbing at the scar on the back of her neck. It irritated her sometimes.

Arianna tilted her head, assessing her friend as her fingers played with the silvery spiral on her skin. “After all that has happened, I have a hard time believing that anything isn’t possible now.” She laughed as Lessa let her blonde hair fall back around her neck, hiding away her mark. “Solomon called him an avatar.”

“I saw that word written in one of the scrolls,” said Lessa, fingering her rucksack.

“There’ll be time for all that later,” said Arianna. “Did you bring them all?”

“I hope so.”

“We have so much to learn, but first we need to get out of these tunnels.”

After another hour of walking in silence, they realized the cave to be a glittering dead end. “Now what?” said Arianna.

“I suppose we go back and take the left-hand side?” Lessa shrugged.

Arianna slumped against the wall of the cave, ready to give up. Instead of meeting a hard wall, she fell inward, the stone slab shifting under her weight.

“Are you alright?” cried Lessa, running to her aid.

“Yes,” she said. This wasn’t a first time for her. “I’m fine, but what the—?” She steadied herself, her eyes peeled to the front where the stone slab used to be. “Are those what I think they are?”

“They’re stairs!” Lessa tapped her foot on one to be sure they were real. “But how can this be?”

“Someone had to of built these here,” said Arianna, also testing one with her foot. They were carved from the same sparkling sunstone of the tunnel, leading high up through the mountain from what she could tell. “You suppose it’ll lead us up and out?”

“I say we’d better find out,” replied Lessa, her optimism shining through.

The girls responded to the mystery with the same fervor, both sharing a dangerously curious mind. As they began the long climb upwards, now they really felt as if they traveled through the sun. Warm colors swam all around them, carrying them to what they hoped to be an open sky.

After half an hour of climbing, they reached yet another impasse.

“It’s wooden,” said Arianna, knocking on the door standing tall before them. “Damn, it’s locked.”

“I may have the solution for that,” said Lessa.

She ruffled through the scrolls in her pack, pulling out one that Arianna didn’t recognize.

“Talis told me that people with magical bloodlines could cast charms if they had the right knowledge,” she said. “Well, these are chalk full of it, and apparently we’re those kinds of people.” She scanned the scroll. “Here, have a look.”