Awoken (20 page)

“Maybe that’s why we can see.” Lina examined the silvery ceiling. “I was wondering why it was so light down here.”

Michael blinked. In all the excitement, he hadn’t even noticed the peculiar lack of darkness in the tunnel. He examined the earthbone more closely. “The earthbone’s not giving off any light that I can see. Maybe it has something to do with our mutations, but I guess it doesn’t matter as long as we can find our way. What I want to know is, what is all this earthbone doing so close to the surface? I thought it was supposed to be locked up in the dollmen city.”

“The Betrayer.” Jericho tossed the silvery chunk away. “The Betrayer draws it to him. He uses the stonesong to call to the earth and bone, and it heeds his cry.”

“Of course,” Michael growled, smacking his fist against the wall. “That explains everything.”

Lina frowned. “What?”

“Don’t you see?” Michael asked, shaking his bruised fingers. “Equinox couldn’t find the dollmen city, so he’s using the stonesong to draw the earthbone to the surface.”

Jericho nodded. “It is why the elders sent the People to find another sleeping to awaken, one who could do battle with the Betrayer and return to us the earth and bone.”

Lina gaped at Michael. “You’re going to fight him?”

Michael laughed. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t know where to begin. Equinox is a lot stronger than me.”

“You are the stronger,” Jericho insisted. “You are the true Awoken.”

Michael rubbed at his temples. “You’re wrong, Jericho. I was only able to close off the mouth of the tunnel by going around Equinox’s power. I surprised him, I think.” The earthbone was loud in his head, making it a struggle just to think. “I was lucky.”

Jericho stomped his pale foot. “The Betrayer is strong, but his power is guided by his waystone.” He motioned to Lina. “Your waystone was taken by little sister, who was the thief. The elders will free it or gift you another. Then shall you know your true strength.”

Lina’s lips pressed into a thin line. “So, Equinox is causing the earthbone to leak into the air? He’s the reason the trees and animals up there are so messed up?”

“Exactly,” Michael said. “He’s probably been drawing on the earthbone for years, pulling it out of the dollmen city. As the earthbone gets closer to the surface, the stonesong gets stronger and so does Equinox.”

The floor trembled. All three looked down the dust-choked tunnel. Cracking sounds like small detonations sounded from the passage. The VEN troops were clearing the entrance.

Jericho dropped to all fours.

Lina crouched low as well, steadying herself with a hand on the floor. “If Equinox can move rock like you, Mike…”

“I think we should get moving.” Michael pushed himself away from the wall.

“Good idea,” Lina agreed.

The tunnel shivered again.

“Come,” said Jericho, loping into the far-left fork in the tunnel. “We must be swift.”

Michael and Lina hurried after Jericho, following the dollman into the unknown depths of the mountain.

They walked on. The way twisted and curled. Corkscrewing passageways ended in dizzying drops or sheer walls; forking turns circled weirdly, leading to dark openings and secret shafts.

After about an hour, Michael called a halt. “Hold up, Jericho.”

“What is it, Awoken?”

“Why are we stopping?” Lina added.

Michael raised his hand for silence. “Do you hear that?”

Lina cocked her head. “I don—”

An eerie howl floated down from the tunnel behind them.

Lina glanced back. “Hounds?”

“Belua,” Michael corrected. He was tired, but there was no time to rest. The howl came again, echoing eerily down the network of tunnels. “I think they’re on our trail.”

“The hunters will not find us easily,” said Jericho. “Scent flows strangely down here. Tunnels will play tricks with the hunters’ noses.”

“They’ll figure it out eventually,” said Michael. “Let’s keep going.”

The grueling journey continued, down tight passages with hidden pitfalls, through vast caves with crystal hanging from the ceiling, or around wide pools of still, black water. The rocky network of tunnels was a spider web of intersections, slippery drops, and dead ends, their twisting ways burrowing ever deeper like the roots of some enormous tree with a trunk as wide as a mountain range.

Michael moved mechanically, paying little attention to the sometimes-breathtaking sights they happened upon as they moved deeper into the rock. His focus was elsewhere. Every step he took, the music of the earthbone grew louder in Michael’s mind. A pressure began to build in his ears, as if he were slowly descending to the bottom of a deep swimming pool. The stonesong fought him for release, but grimly he held it to him as he plodded on. His skull burned and his bones vibrated like a strummed harp string, but he held on. Lina had almost died the last time he lost control. He would die, himself, before letting that happen again.

He coughed and tasted blood on his lips. Wiping it away, he tightened his grip on the stonesong and kept walking.

As they walked, the howls of the belua grew steadily louder behind them.

Eventually, they stepped into an enormous cavern split by a deep chasm two hundred yards wide. Bridging the gap was a huge structure of worked stone, a grand walkway the breadth of a four-lane highway.

On the far side of the bridge stood a tall door of shimmering black metal, covered by arm-thick vines of silver earthbone.

“Behold, the Great Bridge,” Jericho announced, “beyond which lies the third gate, and the land of the People.” He scampered out onto the bridge. “Hurry. We are almost to the city of the People.”

Michael stumbled, catching himself on the waist-high wall of the stone bridge. “I can’t…I can’t make it.”

“Lean on me.” Lina placed Michael’s arm across her shoulders, took his weight, and half-carried him over the bridge.

On the far side of the chasm, Jericho waited with one hand on the shimmering gate. “This is one of the secret ways, shut to all but the Awoken and the elders. It was for him to open.”

Michael swayed drunkenly. The earthbone covered door was a humming fire, tearing at him with bright, greedy claws of need. “I can’t touch that, Jericho.” His whole body ached, pummeled from within by pent-up energy. “I could bring the whole roof down.”

“You need not, Awoken. Little sister carries the key.”

“We made it!” Lina exclaimed, raising her hand. The waystone burst to life, covering the door in soft, silver light. A booming gong sounded in the distance, and the gate split down the middle, swinging open.

Michael’s jaw dropped.

The gate opened onto a gently sloping hillside that overlooked a crystalline forest of trees. Vines of gold hung from the lofty branches, and leaves and flowers of unimaginable design and beauty climbed their glassy trunks. Small, multi-winged things darted among the bizarre foliage while huge moth-like creatures floated in the air among misty clouds of gauzy vapor. A wide river snaked through the strange wood before disappearing into the distance.

“This is a cave?” Michael exclaimed in disbelief. “Where’s the ceiling? I can’t even see the walls.”

“It is the home of the People, Awoken. Behold,” Jericho said, pointing to a massive structure of sparkling stone that rose from the heart of the forest. “The city of the People!”

“We made it.” Lina threw her arms around Michael in a fierce hug, lifting him clear of the ground. “We made it!”

The stonesong jerked.

Oh no
.

“Put me down, Lina,” Michael barked. “Put me down!”

“What’s wrong?” Lina asked, releasing him.

Jericho tensed. “Beware! The VEN have come.”

With a bellowing roar, one of the belua that had crept up behind them sprang toward Lina.

Michael shoved Lina out of the way. A hairy claw swept down, searing lines of fire along his ribs and destroying his shirt.

“Mike! No!” Lina screamed.

Michael screamed with her, and his hold on the stonesong shattered. Bright silver fire burst from his lips and eyes, merging with the floor. The floor shimmered, and suddenly the belua was floundering knee-deep in liquefied rock. The belua clawed at the clinging stone, struggling to free its legs. Michael hardened the rock with a thought, trapping the hybrid’s legs and one of its hands in the floor.

“Mike, look out!”

A battering ram slammed into Michael’s side, knocking the wind from his lungs and sending him tumbling toward the chasm. Scrabbling at the rocky floor, he counted six belua coming down the bridge before he slipped over the edge.

Michael grasped at the slick chasm wall as he dropped into the bottomless throat of open air. A foot below the ledge, his hand caught hold of a thin wafer of rock no wider than his finger. His body swung against the hard rock, ending his short freefall with a painful
thud!
Hanging by his fingertips, he looked for somewhere to place his swinging feet. The top of the chasm was right above him. If he could just find a toehold—

The thin rock in his hands snapped like a dry twig.

Ivory fingers closed on his wrist, halting him with a painful jerk. Lina lay on her stomach on the ledge above, her jade eyes wide and frightened as she clung to him. “Are you well, Awoken?”

Michael let out an explosive breath. “I am now. Nice catch.” A belua roared. “Pull me up. Jericho will need help.”

Rising to her knees, Lina lifted him from the chasm as if he weighed no more than a pillow. “I do not think so,” she disagreed. “The People have come.”

Michael came up from the chasm and gaped at the battle unfolding in the cavern behind her.

Eight belua were in the cavern, terrible beasts with frightening jaws and razor talons, more than enough to kill Jericho. But Jericho did not fight alone. Scores of silver-eyed dollmen swarmed over the belua, stabbing with short spears of blue crystal or ravaging them with tooth and claw.

Michael watched, dumbstruck, as a spear-wielding dollman dropped from the ceiling, landing on a belua’s shoulders and, with a savage war cry, ramming his weapon into the hybrid’s neck. Clutching its wound, the belua went down, and a wave of growling dollmen buried him.

Another belua shook his small assailants away with a mighty heave and sprinted for the bridge. He died a moment later, his great body pin-cushioned by a hundred crystal spears.

The other hybrids fared no better. One by one, they fell to the dollmen’s fury. In minutes, only a single belua remained alive. It was the first belua, the one Michael’s stonesong had sealed in the rock.

Spears raised, the dollmen formed a circle around the helpless VEN. The hybrid howled, swinging its one free arm wildly, but the dollmen stayed well out of range.

Jericho emerged from his brethren and trotted over. “Are you well, little sister? Is the Awoken safe? This one saw the Fallen strike him.”

“The Awoken is unharmed, brother. The stonesong protected him from the Fallen’s claws,” Lina said. “And this one is well.”

Michael opened his shredded shirt. Four thin bruises creased his ribs and stomach. The marks were tender to the touch, but the skin was unbroken. “So the stonesong can make my skin harder to cut. Be nice if I knew how to turn that on and off. Now, if you don’t mind, Lina, could you please stop calling me ‘Awoken’. You’re starting to freak me out.”

“What are you talking about, Awo…?” Lina raised a trembling hand to her lips. “Oh no. It’s already happened, hasn’t it? I’m one of them.”

“You are not a dollman,” Michael insisted. “Tell her, Jericho.”

Jericho looked away. “The little sister is correct, Awoken. The little sister is become. We are too late.”

A cold fist tightened on Michael’s heart. Lina had “become.” It was too late to save her.

“You’re wrong, Jericho,” Michael growled. “Never mind him, Lina. It’s just the earthbone working on your brain. You can’t feel it, but trust me, I can barely think with all the music it’s got buzzing in my skull.” He forced a smile. “Once we get that thing out of your hand, you’ll be the same irritating jerk I met in the park. You’ll be back to normal.”

“Back to normal,” Lina repeated softly. She smiled weakly in return, but her eyes were without hope. “I hope you’re right.”

A dollman stepped from the crowd to stand before the trapped belua. The little man was wrinkled and thin, appearing much older than the other dollmen. The ancient one held a staff of black metal. At the staff’s tip, a claw of silver earthbone gripped a tear-shaped jewel that glimmered with its own inner light.

“That’s a waystone,” Michael exclaimed. He took Lina’s hand. “That dollman has to be an elder. He can fix you. Come on!”

Jericho moved quickly to block their way. “Wait, Michael. It is not permitted when the elder must judge.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Fallen have come to the city of the People,” Jericho said. “The People must defend these halls. It is for the elder to protect us from the Fallen.”

Michael brow furrowed. “But that belua’s already beaten. He can’t hurt anyone when he’s stuck in the floor.”

Jericho nodded. “And that is why the elder must judge.”

The elder raised his staff, and the dollmen behind him drew back their spears.

The belua’s green and brown eyes widened. Covering his head with his free arm, he crouched down and began to whimper pitiably.

“Stop!” The cry erupted from Michael’s lips before he realized he was speaking.

For a second, no one moved. Then a hundred pairs of silver eyes, and a forest of spears, shifted from the hybrid to Michael.

The old dollman lowered his staff. “Who speaks while this elder judges?”

“He is the Awoken,” Jericho announced loudly. “This one has led him to the city of the People. Lower your spears, my brothers. The Awoken is friend to the People.”

Murmuring broke out among the dollmen and many spears drooped. The little men in front pressed closer, while those in the rear stood up on their toes or climbed right up the wall to get a better look at Michael.

The wrinkled elder tapped the butt of his staff loudly on the floor. The murmuring died instantly, and the dollmen on the wall dropped back down amongst their brethren.