The Chasm of Lights, Part III

he earthquake crack was now hidden behind a big leather screen, and a sound of careful hammering emanated from inside. A guard eyed Zanik sternly as she approached and readied his spear to block her path, but relaxed when she walked past the crack and deeper into the abandoned mines. The older tunnel down to the chasm had no guards, and the bone barrier lay where Zanik had kicked it.

This time, Zanik had brought her best lantern, a high-quality model with a directed beam. It lit up the ledge brilliantly and made her much more sure of her footing, but the way that the beam faded into the dark expanse of the chasm made the space feel even bigger than before.

Juna blinked awake in the white glare of the beam. �You have returned,� she observed. �It is unusual for one of your kind to visit me twice.�

�I know,� said Zanik bitterly.

�You have my interest, Zanik of the Dorgeshuun. But you must do more to prove yourself worthy of entering the cave. How can you show me that you stand out from the rest of your people?�

A brief chill ran through Zanik; she did not remember telling the creature her name. She swallowed nervously. �I can fly.�

Juna made an amused snorting sound, not quite a laugh. �A flying Dorgeshuun? That would certainly be worthy. Please proceed.�

Zanik took a few steps away and placed the lantern in a nook in the wall. She pulled Dorgan's pendant from inside her jacket pocket. It wasn't a bad present, she thought, but it hadn't been right for her; she hoped Dorgan could find some other girl who would appreciate that sort of thing. With only a brief moment of regret, she snapped it from its chain. Using a piece of cloth to protect her hands from the hot metal she unscrewed the lantern lens, and then jammed the pendant in its place. The lantern now cast a dimmer, unfocused beam, but one of pure blue light.

Tucking the lens into her pocket, she picked up the lantern and walked to the edge of the chasm. Juna watched with an expression of patient amusement. Zanik cast the blue beam around, trying to keep it trained on one of the floating lights.

For a while she thought nothing had happened, and she was sure she could feel Juna's mocking gaze on her back. Then she saw one of the light creatures pause in the blue beam and come sliding down it towards her. The beam wobbled; she tried to keep her hands from shaking.

The light creature was right in front of her now. Close up it was even more unreal, an area of diffuse blueness filled with criss-crossing beams and glittering bursts that were hard to focus on. It stretched and squeezed to stay within the narrowing light beam, and then enveloped the lantern in a sudden movement.

Zanik had expected the creature to tug at the lantern. Instead, it felt like the lantern became weightless and started to float away from her of its own accord. She pulled it tightly to her chest. �If you want this, you'll have to take me as well.�

The creature flowed from the lantern and on to the skin of her arms. She felt no sensation at all, but she could see it moving outwards, slowly engulfing her entire body. It reached her head and the whole world was hidden behind a shimmering blue veil.

A feeling of lightness spread through Zanik's body. Then, with no sense of movement, she realised that her feet were no longer on the ground. She looked back and saw the ledge receding and Juna looking on impassively. It was pleasant, but Zanik's heart pounded and she gripped the lantern so tightly that her fingers hurt. Suddenly, she was terrified, and all she could think of was how absurdly dangerous her plan had been. Her legs thrashed involuntarily, trying to run back to Dorgan and all the other cautious, sensible people of the city, to shut herself in and be safe and never leave. She was suspended over an unknown depth by nothing more substantial than light.

The creature was carrying her along the path of her lantern beam; she would be able to direct it by shining the beam where she wanted to go. It took all her willpower to still her flailing limbs and control the movements of the wobbling blue circle on the far wall. There was another cave up there, with a little path running from it back down to Juna. She tried to keep the beam focused on that.

As soon as her feet touched the ground, her legs collapsed under her and she fell flat on her face. The blue beam was now shining straight into the rock, and the light creature withdrew. Still trembling, Zanik picked herself up. Down below she could see Juna and her cave, and the place where she had taken off. She laughed out loud. She had made it!

Zanik swapped the normal lens back into the lantern. Even without the blue filter, the rocks in this cave still had a blue tinge, and she couldn't identify their type. She took her student�s pick from her belt and hacked off a piece as a trophy before scrambling down the ledge back to Juna.

The creature was nodding her head up and down vigorously, as if attempting to applaud without hands. �Very amusing,� she said. �A most entertaining spectacle. I shall require all future visitors to perform the same feat.�

Zanik grinned, slightly out of breath. �So, you'll let me into the cave now?�

Juna nodded. �I will. The stone you retrieved will make an adequate bowl to catch the tears.�

It was a moment's work for Zanik to work the stone into a crude bowl using her pick. Her every blow broke away a brittle shard and revealed tiny cracks that ran right through it, as if the stone was inhabited by miniature tunnelling people. When it was done, Juna lifted her tail and let her into the cave. The sound of trickling water was all around her now, more like music than ever, and the very air of the cave seemed to be filled with a beautiful sadness. Water ran down channels in the wall, green and blue, coming and going in spurts.

Zanik held her bowl up to a stream and watched the water collect, moving from one to another as they appeared and disappeared. After what seemed like only a few moments, Juna shouted for her to come out.

�Now drink the tears,� said Juna. �Let the power of Guthix fill you.�

Zanik wanted to tell the old creature that there was no Guthix, and whatever was special about the tears must be natural, but she thought better of it. She tentatively lifted the bowl to her lips.

It tasted like ordinary water, salty and with a hint of minerals, but unremarkable. But as she lowered the bowl she felt an indescribable sense of being changed. It was a small, subtle thing, but she was sure she had become just a little steadier, a little more sure of herself.

Suddenly, she knew exactly where she was.

There was a look of silent understanding in Juna's dark eyes. Zanik put her bowl down and walked back towards the city.

he leather screen still hung over the crack in the tunnel wall. The sound of hammering was gone; instead, Zanik could hear quiet voices in discussion. The guard barely glanced at her, no doubt assuming her to be on her way back to the city after some childish adventure. She walked in front of him and then quickly darted past his spear and into the crack before he could react.

It was even easier than she had expected. The crack had been enlarged, and the area behind it was brightly lit by oil lamps placed around the wall. There was a level floor of tightly packed stones, artificial and solid. The cave itself was larger than Zanik had remembered, easily big enough for the three people that occupied it.

In the middle of the cave was Ur-lesh, the ancient headwoman of the Council, leaning heavily on an ornate bone cane. She was completely blind, her eyes scrunched up amid the wrinkles of her face, but she had focused unerringly on the sound of Zanik's entrance. Facing her was the city scribe, looking young by comparison, staring at Zanik in astonishment. Behind them, next to one of the little bundles stuck all over the walls, was another old man, with tufts of white hair surrounding an impressive bald dome. Zanik recognised him as Oldak, the city's Council-sponsored wizard; his lectures on natural philosophy were some of the less boring she had had to sit through.

The scribe's startled look changed to one of anger. �Zanik!� he hissed. �You're not allowed here!� The guard was already coming in through the screen; Zanik prepared to dodge.

�No!� Ur-lesh's voice was quiet but had a natural air of command. �Zanik, why have you come here?�

Zanik took a step into the cave. �You lied to us,� she spat. �All of you. You knew the truth about... about up there, about the real shape of the world. There's a whole place up there, that we came from, and you kept it a secret.�

Zanik was standing at the bottom of the rock chimney now. The light was dimmer than before, a circle of deep blue just visible against the black of the shaft walls.

Ur-lesh sighed. �It is not a secret, as such,� she said. �It is just something we do not speak of in front of children. We prefer you to remain innocent.�

�I'm not a child any more!�

Ur-lesh waited for the echoes of Zanik's voice to die away. �No,� she said, �I do not believe that you are.�

�Then what's up there?�

�What you have worked out is correct. Up above us is a place known as the surface, and you are right, it no doubt could be considered a whole world. Our ancestors, who founded the city, came from the surface. Since then we have had no contact.�

�Well we've got contact now!� Zanik said triumphantly. �The shaft is open! You'll have to send an expedition to the top to explore.�

�She's right, you know,� Oldak interjected. �There are ways we could observe with very little risk.�

�Yes!� said Zanik. �And I want to do it.�

�You do not understand,� said Ur-lesh. �And you, Oldak, appear not to remember,� she added pointedly. �Zanik, it is no accident that we have stayed isolated from the surface for all these generations. We keep it that way. Tomorrow we will seal this shaft and make sure that there can be no contact with the surface.�

�Why?� demanded Zanik. �What's so terrible up there?�

�War,� said Ur-lesh, bowing her head, as if remembering back to the day she first learned the secret. �A war so terrible that we cannot even imagine it. Armies many times the size of our population, forced to fight on and on by powers they could not resist.� Ur-lesh's voice had lost its power but had become more earnest, and Zanik realised with a chill that the old woman was genuinely frightened. Ur-lesh continued. �Zanik, the gods are real.�

Ur-lesh stood patiently, waiting for Zanik to digest the information. Zanik's mind reeled. The gods were fairy-tale villains; they represented all that was evil and controlling and unjust. The idea that they were real turned Zanik's world-view on its head even more than the existence of the surface had.

�The war might be over,� said Zanik weakly.

Ur-lesh shook her head. �We cannot take that risk. As long as this shaft remains open, the gods may find us.�

Zanik nodded. She turned to leave, defeated, but took one more look up the shaft at the patch of dimming light. High above, a tiny white speck had appeared, like a quartz crystal catching the light.

he distant explosion echoed up and down the chasm. The light creatures continued their dance, unconcerned. Their whole existence was light; Zanik doubted they could hear anything.

She lay amid Juna's heavy coils, feeling the serpent's breathing carry her gently up and down. Perhaps out of kindness to Zanik, the council had left the old way to the chasm un-blocked, and Juna's cave had become her private hideaway, where she could go to escape the city into which she no longer quite fitted. Juna had become her strangest friend, eagerly devouring any stories she could tell about her life, as if meeting Zanik had awakened in the old serpent a long-dormant hunger for excitement.

Juna had confirmed Ur-lesh's story about the war. Fighting among the lesser gods had nearly destroyed Guthix's creation, and that was why the nature god had wept the tears that still trickled down the cave's walls. According to Juna the war was over, ended at the command of the almighty Guthix, but the council would never risk believing that.

Listening to the soft, sad trickling of the tears, Zanik looked up past the light creatures, trying to make out the roof of the chasm. Up past that rock, perhaps only a few dozen meters thick, was a whole other world, a world of adventure she couldn't begin to imagine; a world with a blue sky that went on forever. Someday, she vowed to herself, she would see it.