Neverwylde (The Rim of the World Book 4) (18 page)

The ground heaved. The cavern shuddered. She grabbed for something to steady herself, but footing was slippery on the ice-covered rocks and debris. A rolling roar of another landslide approached like a monster galloping toward them. Kelen tried to twist her body to land on the cavern floor, when the ground cracked. A fissure beneath her feet that had been barely a few centimeters wide suddenly shifted, split, and she found herself tumbling into a meter-wide crack.

Kelen scrabbled for a handhold. Panic and fear nearly overwhelmed her as she found herself sliding inexorably downward. Her fingers caught a small piece of rock jutting out of the wall and she clung to it. She heard Kyber scream her name. A moment later, he was on his belly, reaching for her. Anguish painted his face and his eyes were wide with terror.

“Kelen! Grab my hand! Grab my hand!”

She tried, but he was too far away. She scraped the walls with her boots, searching blindly for a toehold. Her feet dangled over open air and she was too frightened to look down. She had no idea what was directly beneath her, or how far she could fall. A mental image of herself plummeting into the vast emptiness of space froze her blood.

“Kyber!”

He scooted forward, trying to reach her. “Grab my hand!” Behind him, Massapa and Kleesod held his legs as he crawled over the edge.

“Hold on! Let me try this! Kelen!” Cooter rolled over and shoved his rifle down the narrow slit. “Grab the gun!”

Taking a deep breath, she swung an arm up, but like Kyber’s arm, the weapon was just beyond reach. Cooter bent over at the waist, pushing the rifle further. Kelen managed to wrap her fingers around the end of the barrel, but she couldn’t keep her grip. Frantic, she pressed her fingers into the rock.

“I can’t!” she gasped. “I can’t hold on!”

“
Kelen!
” Kyber threw himself deeper into the crack. “Kelen, reach for me! Reach up, my one!”

Her strength was gone. Fear and adrenaline were all that prevented her from falling.

She stared up at Kyber, who was shaking from the exertion. Above him, Fullgrath had joined the others to stop him from sliding headfirst down with her.

“Kelen!”

She cried out and threw a hand toward him. Their fingers brushed, then her palm slapped the wall. She began sliding downward.

Desperate, Kyber extended his talons and hooked them into the back of her hand. Kelen shrieked as his claws pierced through her flesh and tendons, but it stopped her slow slide backwards. Hot blood flowed down her arm, and pain exploded through her arm as Kyber tried to draw her up far enough to where he could grasp her other hand or uniform.

The cavern undulated, throwing everyone across the cavern floor. A hard, searing jerk separated his talons from her hand. She lost her only handhold on the narrow ledge, and Kelen found herself falling…falling…falling…

The last thing she saw was Kyber’s stricken face gradually growing smaller and smaller as he screamed her name, his arm still futilely trying to reach for her.

Chapter 26

Choice

            “
Keleeeeen!
”

            He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t do anything but watch his beloved drop away from him until she was a tiny speck catapulting in slow motion into the abyss. He screamed her name again as he tried to launch himself after her, but several pairs of hands grabbed his fur by the handfuls to prevent him from going after her.

            “Kyber. Kyber, come.” It was Sandow, his voice soothing until it cracked from grief.

            He felt himself being pulled away from the fissure, when the ground shook again. Rocks and dirt fell from the ceiling, a chunk nearly a meter in depth barely missed crushing them.

            “Come on!” Fullgrath snatched him by the ruff and gave a hard tug. Pain lanced through him, and he snarled as he whirled around. The big Terran, his face white with shock, nodded. “That’s right, Kyber. She’s gone. Now we gotta get the fuck out of here.”

Someone grabbed his shoulder. He rolled over to see Gaveer and Mellori watching him.

“This place is becoming increasingly unstable. We have to leave this place now,” the engineer urged him.

            He raised a trembling hand to his face and noticed the blood on his talons. Kelen’s blood. He was numb, unable to accept the fact that she was gone. Dead, or worse, still dying. The thought of her struggling to breathe in the vast depths of space tore at his heart. The intense pain made him wince and he clasped his chest. Only his force of will prevented him from whimpering. He had to remain strong. His men, these men, depended on his strength and his leadership. He could not fall apart now.

            Later. He promised himself he would grieve later. He would find an empty chamber and allow himself to vent his agony until there was nothing left. But he would always carry her essence within himself. She would never die as long as he drew breath.

            Across the room, Jules waved for them to join him. Kyber caught him searching their midst, and he knew who the man was looking for before Jules asked.

            “Hey, where’s Kel?”

            Kyber had to avert his face as Sandow walked up to inform the navigator of their loss. Over to the side, he spotted Dox. The little man was hunched over, clutching his bundle of objects, his face almost buried in his arms. Stepping over to him, he bent down and drew an arm around Dox. The young man sobbed and turned to Kyber’s embrace. Behind him, Kyber heard Jules break down in tears.

            The rumbling sound came again, sending vibrations through the cavern. Sandow waved for Kyber to join them. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

            He nodded, when he remembered their other fallen comrade. “Wait. We have to give Tojun his burial.”

            Kleesod shook his head. “We lost him. His body fell through a crevasse, but we can still have a ceremony for his life when we reach safety.”

            “We will have a ceremony for both him and Kelen,” Massapa vowed.

            “Uhh, guys?” Cooter’s voice was strained. They glanced over at him, then turned to look at what he was staring at. On the far opposite side of the cavern, two of Hoov’s people were emerging from the tunnel. Seeing the group, one raised an appendage and let out a loud screech. At the same time, more vibrations flooded the cavern floor.

            They hurried over to where Jules stood next to an oddly-shaped boulder. Unlike the other thin slabs of rock where they had found previous panels, the controls and lights were set in a large rock.

            “Let’s go, Jules! Hurry!” Mellori urged.

            “Where?” Jules pointed to the top of the panel. In the far upper right corner was a white light. There was no other white light on the panel. “That has to be the temple, but we all know that panel is iced over.”

            “I thought there was another white light,” Kleesod said.

            The navigator nervously nodded. “Up at the temple, but not down here. So where do we go? Up top? Or do we chance another location?”

            “Just get us the fuck out of this place,” Fullgrath growled. “If we stay in this place, those insects are eventually going to overwhelm us. I say we chance the temple and try to unfreeze that panel.”

            “Hurry up and choose. Let’s move it!” Mellori almost yelled.

            Jules took a stance on the small rock and slapped the white light. Within seconds he disappeared, and Massapa took his place. Kyber placed Dox on the slab next, and Mellori followed.

            One by one, Kyber watched the men vanish from sight. When it came time for him to leave, he turned to face where he’d last seen Kelen, and tears flooded his eyes as the room and the advancing horde of Hoov’s people faded from sight.

            When he appeared at the temple, the freezing wind reminded him of the weather’s bone-numbing ferocity on this side of the planet. He jumped off the rock, and Fullgrath proceeded to warm the panel, hoping to get it to work.

            “Any chance those things will follow us?” Sandow asked.

            “They do not know which light we hit,” Massapa remarked.

            “But we cannot take the chance of them guessing we came to the temple,” Kyber replied and motioned to the panel. “How is it coming, Fullgrath?”

            “Slow and steady. I don’t dare try a stronger setting.”

            “How will we know when it might work?” Kleesod queried.

            Fullgrath took his finger off the trigger, blew on the panel, and gingerly patted the board. “That seems to have done it.” He took a deep breath and faced them. “Well, whaddaya think? Jules was right. This one has two white lights. One here.” He pointed to the far upper right. “And one here.” He showed them one at the far upper left. “Only problem is, is this one on the right to the first temple or the third temple?”

            “Left one,” a soft voice responded.

            Kyber looked over at where Dox was still huddled over his blanket of objects. The young man raised a tear-stained face, his chin quivering. “Take the left one.”

            “And if it takes us back to the first temple?” Gaveer asked.

            Cooter hefted his rifle and took his place on the slab. “Only one way to find out. If I’m not back in ten seconds, you guys know what to do.”

He punched the white light on the upper left and disappeared. They waited in silent anticipation, when the security chief unexpectedly returned. His face was flushed and his eyes were bright.

“Ho-lee crap! You are not going to believe what’s over there!”

“Is it the third temple?” Kyber inquired.

The man nodded. “Just watch that first step when you get off the platform. It’s a lulu.”

Before they could ask any further questions, Cooter hit the button again and vanished. They took their turns leaving in the same order as they had when they’d left the orange room. When Kyber climbed upon the transportation slab, he paused for a moment as a huge weight settled in his chest. It had been difficult to leave the orange room where Kelen had lost her life. It was harder to leave here. The further he removed himself from where she’d died, the tougher it became to separate himself from her. Every step he took that widened the distance between them was agonizing.

He hit the button and waited. The freezing wind ceased. The world around him grew dark…and the smell of something burning filled the air. The temperature rose to almost unbearable heat. When the third temple came into view, there were no stone columns, no rock walls, and no maze.

Kyber blinked as he faced a river of oozing, flowing lava coming straight toward them.

Chapter 27

Yellow

            Reality gradually, painfully, returned to her.

            She was cold and stiff…but she was alive.

            Kelen slowly opened her eyes to find herself partly buried in a pile of loose dirt and snow. Moving carefully, she checked her limbs. Other than the damage done to her hand, she believed she was intact. No bones appeared to be broken.

            She tried to get to her feet and instantly regretted it. Fire burned through her leg. Gritting her teeth to keep from crying out, she managed to ride through the pain. It was then she discovered her right ankle was swollen. Tentatively, she probed the purplish-green flesh with her right hand to see if it was broken. Hopefully she’d only twisted it.

            Worse, she couldn’t move the fingers of her left hand. The puncture marks left by Kyber’s talons appeared to have stopped bleeding, but any movement to open and close it was impossible.

            She glanced around. The last thing she remembered was falling through the huge crack in the floor of the orange cavern. A check above her revealed an enormous crack in the ceiling. She had been so sure she was tumbling through space, to inevitably die from lack of oxygen. Maybe she had fallen through it, which could explain why she’d passed out.

            She shivered. Wherever she’d landed, she was still on the frozen side of the planet. A glance around left her more confused. She was in another cavern, but the place didn’t look like any cavern she’d seen before. The floor appeared to be covered with blocks. Yellow blocks.
No, all shades of yellow.
Besides the variations of yellow coloring, the blocks were all cube-shaped, but different sizes. Some were as small as her fist, while the larger ones were the size of a ship’s cabin. They looked to be randomly spaced. At least, she could see no pattern to the placement. Not from ground level, anyway.

            She shivered again. The far wall of the cavern was gone, destroyed by ice quakes like the orange room. At the thought of the orange room, the vision of Kyber’s face as she fell away from him returned to haunt her. Her face grew warm as tears rose in her eyes.

            “He thinks I’m dead,” she murmured to herself. “He thinks he watched me die. Oh, God. Kyber. I have to get back to him. I have to—”

            She tried once more to get to her feet, but it was too painful. A glance around the room didn’t reveal anything she could use as a crutch. Other than the cubes, the place was eerily devoid of debris, except for this section where the damage was located.

            Her eyes settled on the nearest cube. It was one of the medium-sized ones. She guessed it to be two meters squared.

            “What is your purpose?” she whispered. “Are you adhered to the floor? Or can you be walked?”

            It was impossible to see where the tunnel openings were leading to and from the cavern. The only thing she was certain about was the fact that she had gone deeper into this part of the world. She was below the orange room, but she had no idea how far she’d fallen.

            Her temple itched. She reached up to scratch it and when she drew her hand away, there was blood on her fingertips. She must have hit her head on a piece of rock. It was a miracle she’d survived the fall.

            By scooting across the floor, she managed to reach the cube and use it to lift herself. Leaning on it for support, she located two separate tunnel entrances. “Two, eh? Then there has to be a panel somewhere in here. That would be the third exit. So where is it?”