Extinction (19 page)

“That’s it,” I said.

As we passed over the hills, there were no signs of a battle. In fact, the wide fungal plain seemed empty. The battle had concluded.

Perseus
swooped by the rising Xenolith.

“Where are the
Elekai?”
Julian asked.

No one had an answer for that.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But Anna and I need to get inside the Xenolith.”

“How?” Samuel asked.

“There’s an entrance at its base,” I said, “if it’s anything like the last one.”

“And what are
we
supposed to do in the meantime?” Ashton asked.

“Not sure,” I said. “Lift off, but stay in the area.”

“Radio us when you’re ready to leave,” Samuel said.

At last, Ashton lowered the ship, setting it down on the xenofungal bed. Samuel handed me his radio.

“The channel’s on the right preset,” he said. “Try to hurry.”

“I’ll let you know,” I said.

Julian brought Anna’s wheelchair around. Together, we lifted and settled her in. I took the handles and swiveled the wheelchair around.

I knew it was crazy to take Anna with me, but I also knew she would never forgive me if I left her behind. We probably had to abandon the chair at some point. Anna could walk, albeit in pain. I could only hope that the Wanderer didn’t make us go too far.

Whatever the Wanderer told us, we’d hear it together.

A
nna and I walked onto the glowing xenofungus. The air was warm and humid. Ahead, the Xenolith shot hundreds of feet into the sky. It dwarfed everything else for miles. Thick branches curved from its central trunk, and these branches carried tufts of pink growth. The Xenolith’s trunk radiated silvery light, the illumination intensifying in silver and purple hues upon reaching the upper branches. The low wind sifted through the limbs, making the Xenolith seem to sigh.

Perseus
idled as Anna and I walked down the boarding ramp. Anna was managing, if painfully. I gave her my right arm for support.

I pointed to the base of the trunk, where the Xenolith’s thick roots twisted into the fungal bed. These roots were the size of normal trees, winding around each other in complicated braids. If we were getting inside, those roots would need to untangle, somehow.

I walked forward and touched one of the roots. It reacted instantly, snapping back like a snake. I pulled my hand away as the other roots unraveled as well. They untwisted until a dark opening was revealed. Pinkish, silvery light glowed from within. We peered inside.

“What’s in there?” Anna asked.

“You’ll see,” I said.

As soon as we passed the threshold, the roots behind closed and knotted themselves shut, leaving us in the spiraling corridor glowing pink with bioluminescence.

The tunnel circled down to the right, much like the one in the first Xenolith had, only this tunnel seemed to circle more widely, which made sense if the Xenolith was larger. As we descended, the tunnel widened.

Soon, the tunnel stopped curving, opening into a wide cavern, glittering pink and silver with alien life. A large lake of pink liquid with an almost metallic sheen on its surface lay before us. Anna’s breath caught at the sight, mostly because two dragons were bathing in the lake. Only their angular heads were visible above the surface. Their eyes opened lazily upon our entrance. I felt a strange energy stir the air, now that the dragons were aware of our presence.

The dragons didn’t move, merely settling back into their doze. Something seemed off about them. There was so little I knew about the
Elekai,
or even xenolife in general. Maybe this was how they
ate –
nutrients and calories might enter through the liquid itself, nourishing the dragons.

There was no island in this lake, as with the last Xenolith. And there was no sign of the Wanderer.

“Where is he?” Anna asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We have to find him.”

“How?”

I stepped forward to the liquid. I didn’t even know if I should be calling it that. Liquid sounded too scientific, where this fluid was the very stuff of life.

Ichor
– the blood of gods. That was what it should be called.

Anna joined me on the shoreline. The surface of the lake was still as glass, except around the dragons, where tiny ripples raced outward, only to dwindle to stillness long before reaching the shoreline. The ichor looked almost
solid.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Step in.”

Anna looked at me, as if to be sure, before placing her right boot in the lake. The ichor wrapped around, as if in embrace.

“It’s warm,” she said.

She stepped the other boot in, wading a bit into the ichor. I followed her in. The ichor was warm, thick, and tingled a bit as it seeped into my boots and soaked through my clothing. We waded out together until the ichor had covered us to our torsos.

There, Anna paused.

“This...feels weird,” she said, after a moment.

“What’s wrong?”

“It feels...tight. In my chest.”

“Anna, are you...”

Suddenly, her eyes closed, and she fell backward. As if the pool had
pulled
her.

“Anna!”

The ichor claimed her, wrapping itself around the rest of her body until only her head remained above. Her eyes were wide with fear. She managed to scream the first syllable of my name before being completely submerged.

I rushed forward, but the ichor pushed me back, locking me to my spot. I could only watch, helpless, as Anna floated beneath the translucent ichor, eyes opened. Her body suddenly jerked in an unnatural way. I groaned as I pushed against the ichor – but it was useless. Anna’s body jerked twice more, in quick succession. Her eyes were closed, her body still.

I waited, my heart pounding, for at least a full minute. Still, Anna remained under the surface.

I looked toward the dragons. “What are you
doing?
Can’t you see she needs help?”

They stared back with fathomless white eyes, seemingly unconcerned.

“Anna...” I said.

But then, her body rose out of the liquid. I was no longer restrained, so I waded forward to pull her out. Her head appeared above, and I pulled her into my embrace.

“Anna! Anna, can you...”

She started hacking, and some of the ichor shot against my shoulder. She sucked in a sharp breath, coughing more liquid, before clinging to me tightly. Her body shook, and it was only after a long moment that she calmed.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

She gave a weak nod. “Yeah. I think so.”

“We need to get out of here,” I said. “It’s not safe.”

She felt along her ribs, her eyes widening further. “How...” She touched her rib cage, feeling each bone individually. “My ribs are fine!”

The lake hadn’t tried to kill Anna. It had healed her.

I didn’t see how it was possible, but I had seen a lot of things that should have been impossible in the past few months.

“I was scared to death,” I said. “You’d think they’d give us a heads up.”

“There isn’t time to worry about it,” Anna said. She faced the dragons, who watched serenely. Seeing those dragons there made me wonder where Askal was. I saw, looking into the corners of the cavern, that the lake appeared to branch off into other areas.

“Come on,” I said. “We have to keep looking for him.”

We waded out into the cavern. As the lake deepened, our feet could no longer touch the bottom. I’d had experience swimming in Bunker 108’s pool, but Anna was struggling. Her eyes widened in fear.

“This place won’t let you go under,” I said. “If you want, hold onto me.”

This was something that would have never worked in a normal body of water, but Anna grabbed on. As soon as her weight pressed down, the liquid pushed up from beneath, keeping us afloat. I swam forward, but wasn’t making much progress on my own. A current began to push us between the dozing dragons.

Looking through the clear pink ichor of the lake, I could see deep gashes lining their forms. Wounds from the battle. I understood why they were here; the pool was healing them. The extent of their injuries must have been severe; otherwise they would have healed quickly, like Anna.

“They’ve already fought,” I said. “That’s why they haven’t come to help us. They were the ones who needed help.”

Anna watched the wounds along the back of the largest
Elekai
dragon I’d ever seen. The pink liquid of the pool was stained purple from the many deep wounds marring its body. Its wings were settled on the surface of the lake, around which wrapped the healing liquid.

The current pushed us toward the back of the lake. As it curved onward, another cavern opened, much larger than the first, where three dragons bathed in the ichorous substance. On the far side of the lake, a shore of silvery sand rose, meeting a line of xenofungus. From the fungus grew twisted, alien trees, the boughs of which glittering silvery with long, wavy fronds. There were so many trees that it was hard to discern the treetops, and it all seemed to be the same organism. Maybe the trees
were
the same organism. It was an entire underground forest.

“I wonder where this is,” Anna said. “This cavern had to have formed naturally.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not even sure where we’re supposed to be going.”

The current pushed us past a dragon whose right wing was almost ripped in two. His eyes were closed, though his chest rose and fell in short, ragged, breaths. Looking around the cavern, I didn’t see any sign of Askal. Either he was in another part of the lake, or...

I didn’t want to think of the other possibility.

As we neared the shoreline, I made myself stand. My feet found the lakebed, and I pushed myself up and walked onshore. We stood on the sand, the pink liquid rushing from our clothes and skin to rejoin the lake. Anna felt along her ribcage, still unbelieving of what had happened. My own body felt reinvigorated.

I reached for my radio to call everyone else above. But when I pressed the
talk
button, the line was completely dead. The radio had been so drenched in liquid, and we were so deep underground, that it wasn’t surprising that it didn’t work.

Anna stared into the trees. The land sloped downward into a narrow valley with sheer sides, in which the trees grew more thickly. The forested valley opened about one hundred feet from the shoreline. I looked upward at the sparkling ceiling of the cavern, which cast bioluminescent light. It was hard to believe this place existed; it was more magnificent than even the first
Elekai
home.

Somehow, I had a feeling that we’d find the Wanderer in the forest ahead. I thought it was strange that he wouldn’t have come out to meet us, and it gave me a bad feeling. My Beretta was still strapped to my belt; hopefully, it still functioned, even though it was soaked. If nothing else, Anna had brought her katana – now healed, she would have no problem in using it.

We started walking. As we did, Anna placed a hand on the hilt of her katana, sheathed on her back. We entered the first of the trees, finding ourselves on a narrow path. Pink limbs overhung the path, forming a glowing tunnel. Alien blossoms spiraled from above, their scent sweet and sharp in the air. I could feel the trees’ collective sentience bearing down on us as we walked, as if they were watching us. Anna’s shoulders hunched. She could feel that weight, too.

The air was heavy with...
something.
I wanted to speak, but found my voice caught in my throat. The path twisted and turned, delving deeper into the cavern, deeper into the trees. The thickness of the xenoforest blocked any view of how deep this valley actually went.

The path snaked back and forth, plunging further and further down. The vegetation became more alien, more magnificent. Among the pink branches were now blazes of orange, of deep crimson, of yellow, of silver. The colors were incredibly bright, almost unreal in hue. Thin tree trunks rose in perfect spirals high toward the ceiling, forming arches before descending somewhere far distant in the xenoforest. Some tree trunks even fused together, two or three at a time, before forming an enormous, multicolored treetop.

Just when I was wondered if we should turn back, the path made a final bend, going from there in a straight line. Before us a massive tree grew from the fungus in a wide meadow, hemmed in by trees. The meadow was a near-perfect circle, and the trees on its rim leaned forward, as if bowing to the central tree. This tree had silver bark, and was probably larger than any tree that had ever existed on Earth. Its colossal trunk shot upward in a straight line – even at my distance, I had to crane my neck to see its height. Its treetop billowed near the cavern’s ceiling, casting silvery shade onto the meadow below. Sparkles lit the air, blossoms falling thick as rain.

Though beautiful, something about the scene just
felt
wrong. Again, the Wanderer wouldn’t have made us walk all this way just to see him.

And in the shadow of the tree, right against the bark, a small shape sat hunched. Anna drew her katana, its metallic ring violent in the still, blossom-strewn air. Time stood still as the trees waited, like a whip about to snap.

The form turned from the tree, slowly, revealing a monstrous face, long spindly limbs, and a drooping chin. I didn’t know
what
to call it, but I knew it was nothing like the
Elekai
. It wasn’t a crawler either, but I knew only Askala could have made a monster so hideous.

The monster’s mouth opened; from it emanated a long, high wail, which pierced the air, my skin, my bones. It was the most horrible sound I’d ever heard, paralyzing me to my spot. The thing advanced, its hideous call never abating. Its six scythed legs clawed into the xenofungus, piercing it like knives. From its long mouth shot twin fangs, dripping silvery liquid. Perhaps the sap from the tree. Or poison.

As if emerging from a dream, Anna changed her stance, holding her blade aloft and bracing herself with her back foot while the left leaned forward. I took out my gun.