D. MacHale - The Rivers of Zadaa

“Ido not understand,” Loor said. “Why would they no longer have real guards protecting such a valuable piece of machinery? Did Bokka not say they feared the first attack would be here?”

“I don’t know,”Isaid. “But we can find out.”

I walked up to the large wooden doors. There was a heavy lock on the handle, but it was no match for Osa’s stave. With two quick whacks I knocked it open.

“Let’s see what’s so important in here,” I said as I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. It was heavy. No big surprise since the door had to be twenty feet high and made out of wood that looked to be four inches thick. But it swung easily on its hinges. I was about to peek inside when Loor pulled me back.

“Careful,” she said.

She took the lead. It didn’t hurt my ego. Whatever nastiness might be waiting on the other side, she was better equipped to deal with it than I was. I grabbed my stave, exhaled, and took my first step onto the map, and into the fire.

Whatwe saw beyond the door made no sense. Like Bokka said, there was another one of those water-control machines. And it was awesome. It had tobe four times the size of the one back at the waterfall-that-was-no-longer-a-waterfall. The pipes that passed through this monster had to be six feet wide. There was no doubt that this was a major piece of machinery.

But it was shut down. And the cavern that held it was empty. There wasn’t a Rokador in sight.

“Strange,” I said. “I thought they were all sorts of worried about the Batu getting control of this.”

I walked to the monstrous device to get a better look. The gauges all registered zero. It made no sound. I touched it. It was as still as a rock. Stranger still, there had to be several dozen valve controls, but all of the knobs and levers were gone. All that was left were small stems where the levers used to be. I ran my finger across several of the gauges, wiping a clear path through a thick layer of dust.

“This thing hasn’t been used in a long time,” I said.

“There has not been water in a long time,” Loor commented.

“So why were they guarding it yesterday?” I asked. “And why did Bokka tell you this was such an important piece of machinery?”

Loor didn’t know any more than I did. I took a look past the machine to see that this cavern narrowed down into a small tunnel that led deeper into the underground.

“I guess that’s the Yellow Brick Road,” I said.

“The what?” Loor asked.

“The way to Kidik.” Note to self: Stop making clever Second Earth references.

Loor glanced at the map and said, “Here. The first of the strange markings.”

She showed me the map. I could see the big cavern with the monster water-control device. There might as well have been a note saying: you are here. I could also see on the map where the cavern narrowed down to a small tunnel opening, just as it was in front of us. The odd thing was that on the map there were three X’s across the mouth of the smaller tunnel.

“Any idea what it means?” I asked.

Loor shook her head. We kept our weapons ready and began our journey to Kidik, the capital city of the Rokador world. We walked quickly to the far end of the cavern, stopping just short of the opening to the smaller tunnel. After a quick look around I announced, “No X’s here.” I took a step through the opening. The instant I broke the plane, I heard a rumbling sound. I had triggered something.

“C’mon!” I shouted, and leaped through.

Loor didn’t hesitate and jumped after me. Her quick reaction saved her life. The instant she entered the tunnel, a series of steel spikes shot down like spears from above, closing off the opening. If Loor had been a hair slower, she would have been skewered. We stood together, holding each other, breathing hard. The opening to the tunnel was now cut off by the spikes that had become vertical bars.

“Good news-bad news,” I said. “The route to Kidik may be booby-trapped.”

“Booby-trapped?” Loor said, confused.

“Full of dangerous surprises like that,” I said. “If we make a wrong move, it could hurt.”

“And what is the good news?” she asked.

“Bokka’s map will save us,” I answered. “I’ll bet these odd markings on the map show where the traps are.”

We both took another look at the map. Those strange markings now took on a whole new importance…and there were a bunch of them between us and Kidik.

“This may show us where they are, but not what to expect,” she pointed out.

“Yeah,” I said. “This is going to be interesting.”

We weren’t doing any good standing there staring at a map, so we continued on. The map led us through many different-size tunnels and caverns. The more I saw, the more amazed I became at how the Rokador had burrowed out an entire civilization underground.

“Are these tunnels natural?” I asked. “Or did the Rokador dig them?”

“Both,” Loor said. “I believe the larger caverns are natural, but the adjoining tunnels were created by the Rokador.”

“But how? This is, like, solid rock.”

“The history of the Rokador is best told by a Rokador,” Loor said. “But I am familiar with the dygos.”

“The huh?”

“Dygos,” Loor repeated. “Tunneling machines. We will see them on our journey.”

I decided not to ask any more questions until I had a visual aid. Besides, I was too stressed about running into another booby trap. Fear beats out curiosity any day. Walking through this labyrinth of underground tunnels was strange in that it didn’t feel all that claustrophobic. Sure, some of the rocky tunnels were narrow, but they often opened up into caverns where the ceilings were as lofty as a cathedral. And there were lights everywhere. It didn’t feel anything like we were traveling deeper and deeper underground. To be honest, I tried not to think about that. I couldn’t imagine living down here under multiple tons of rock, unless you were an ant.

The thing we didn’t find was people. Not a single living soul. We passed hundreds of different rooms that were full of equipment. Some looked like living spaces with cots and furniture. Others were stacked with boxes and tools. There had been people here once, and not long ago, either. The word that kept coming to mind was “abandoned.”

Every so often the route would take us through a less developed area, where there would be a marking on the map, and another booby trap. One time Loor took a step and felt the ground rumble. She leaped forward and I jumped back a second before the floor caved in, leaving a gaping black hole that dropped down to nowhere. We found ourselves on opposite sides of a hole that went from wall to wall. Unfortunately for me, I was on the wrong side, with no way to get across.

“There,” Loor said, pointing.

I saw a thin lip of stone floor that hadn’t fallen. It was no wider than a brick and sticking out from the wall along one side of the hole.

“You want me to walk across on that?” I asked in horror.

“Unless you can leap over,” Loor said.

I couldn’t. It was a thirty-foot jump. I had to go the lip route. Swell. Facing the wall, I tentatively put my right toe onto it and pressed down to see if it would crumble. It didn’t.

Still, this was going to be tough, even if the lip held. It was only a few inches wide. Gulp. I had to press my chest against the rock wall, with nothing to grab on to, and slide my feet along. It kind of reminded me of the training pit back at Mooraj. Only with this pit, if you fell, you died. I moved my right foot first, then brought my left foot up to it. There was no way I could cross them over. I would have lost my balance for sure. I kept the palms of my hands flat against the rock, carefully feeling for any little crag that I could hang on to with my fingers. My left cheek was pressed flat and I stayed up on my toes-anything to keep my center of gravity forward.