Thomas Reid - The Fractured Sky

The choice came to her suddenly and clearly.

Aliisza opened her eyes just as Kael said, "It's that one." He was pointing to her own choice.

"Yes," Kaanyr agreed, and Tauran nodded beside him.

"Let's go," the angel said, and they boarded the boat together.

The boatman untied the moorings and pushed the craft away from the dock. The boat moved into the open water and began to pick up speed on its own. The archon stood silently at the stern, occasionally dipping a single paddle into the water to adjust the heading slightly, but he did not row or pole the craft forward.

"Where are we going?" Kaanyr asked. "Or must we choose that, too?"

"I think we do," Kael said.

Aliisza filled her mind with images of Zasian again. She pictured him planning, plotting, scheming. As she did so, subtle hints came to her about the way to follow. The course the boat set seemed to acknowledge her thoughts.

Or maybe Tauran's, or all of us, she thought.

Whatever the circumstances, whenever she glanced at her companions, they all were just as keenly observant of where the craft was taking them, and they all seemed equally as content.

The boat glided along the black water, leaving the docks far behind, until Aliisza could not remember which set of torch lights indicated its location. She peered all around, studying the various points of light. Most seemed to lie along the shores of the subterranean lake, but many more sat up high, perhaps on shelves of cave wall or hanging from the ceiling. She was never certain, for they didn't illuminate much. They simply hovered, distant pinpricks of light against a tapestry of night.

The alu stared down into the water. It was as black as the very depths of the earth, and she could see nothing there-until without warning, they passed over a point where faint light shone up from far, far, below. At first she thought it was just a trick of her mind, a reflection from overhead, but when she looked up and saw dozens of other pinpoints of light there, she knew the water somehow did not mirror them.

Whatever was down there was real, and deep.

"That way," Tauran blurted after they had been traveling for some time. "We need to go over there." He pointed to a set of lights slightly up from the water level.

Aliisza frowned. It did not feel right to her. "Are you sure?" she asked, sensing that they should keep going straight.

"No," Kael said, "I don't think that's right."

Tauran looked at them. "Concentrate," he said. "I know that's where we ought to go."

Aliisza focused her attention once more on Zasian and his impending actions, but the sense that they should continue straight grew stronger. Before she could express her disagreement, though, Kaanyr spoke up.

"No, you're leading us astray, angel," he said. "We need to visit those lights over there."

Aliisza opened her eyes to look where the cambion pointed and felt just as confused. "Both of you are wrong," she said. "We need to keep going forward."

"I agree with Aliisza," Kael said. "It's somewhere ahead, not to either side."

"No," Tauran argued, adamant. "I can feel this. It's right."

"And I say you're all wrong," Kaanyr countered. "I am certain we must go this way over here."

Aliisza frowned. "Boatman," she said, "what are we doing wrong?"

The archon bowed his head slightly at being addressed. "It is said that sometimes, different beings seeking the same knowledge must visit different points of the same path. Perhaps each of you is right, in his or her own way."

The four companions looked at one another.

"I know that what I seek is over there," Tauran said, pointing in the direction he had desired before. "I don't know what each of you is imagining, but if we want to stop Zasian, we will find the answers there."

Aliisza knew she felt just as strongly that she would only find what she was looking for if she headed the way she wanted to go. "Boatman," she said, "must we travel within your craft to reach our goals?"

The archon frowned. "I know of no one who has left a boat before," he said, "but then, I have only been serving as a guide for eleven hundred years; not long at all. I am not aware that it is forbidden or impossible."

"Then I propose we each take our own way," Aliisza said. "We each believe we will find Truth where our imaginations are taking us. Let's go our separate ways and find what we seek. We can meet back at the dock when we're finished."

"I don't like it," Tauran said. "It could prove disastrous."

"Or," Kaanyr countered, "it could give us four times as much information."

"The cambion is right," Kael said. "If we each seek our own way and return with a more complete picture, won't that improve our chances of finding and stopping the priest?"

Tauran thought for a few moments more then nodded. "If each of you is even half as certain of your paths as I am of this one, then I can't see preventing you from chasing it. Go." He motioned to them. "Find what we seek, and I will see you on the dock."

Aliisza smiled and stood. "I will be the first one back." She took to the air.

As she left the boat behind, she got an even greater sense of the vastness of the cavern. It grew absolutely quiet around her, without the gentle lapping of the water against the sides of the craft. All she could hear was the faint beating of her wings. It reminded her a great deal of her time back in Amarindar, when she and Kaanyr ruled over the armies of tanarruks in that fallen dwarven city. There were quiet places in the abandoned halls there, places where she could almost hear time creeping forward.

The Eye felt like that, but there was something more there, within those caverns. A buzz pervaded everything. It was no physical sound, but rather a soft undercurrent of… something. An expectation, perhaps. Aliisza came to realize it was the connection between her own expectations and the knowledge the vast cavern had to offer.

As she flew, that buzz grew stronger.

The alu let that sensation guide her. She followed it like a trail, somehow sensing that she needed to travel to a small set of lights ahead and slightly above herself. It did not take her long to reach them, and when she did, she hesitated.

A great stalagmite jutted forth from the water, a towering edifice of natural stone larger than any wizard's tower. Caves riddled its surface, some very natural in shape, others looking freshly dug. A pair of torches flanked each entrance. The flames flickered and danced, but none had burned out, as far as she could tell. An idle thought swept through her about the insanity of trying to keep so many lit.

They must be magical, she decided. Perhaps they burn forever.

Shrugging off the nonsensical notion, Aliisza focused her mind once more on the quarry of knowledge. Her sense guided her to a particular cavern-one up high, near the tip of the stalagmite. She landed upon the small shelf jutting out from the cave entrance and stood there, listening.

Her wariness increased as her innate sense of danger tickled the back of her mind.

Unlike before, when she had known something threatening would be coming through the door, her sense was different, more vague. It also wasn't quite so imminent. Something about it told her that the threat came from within, a weakness of herself, rather than from some external source.

I have too many questions, she realized. About Tauran, and Kaanyr, and Kael, and how I fit into each of their lives. Put them out of your mind, Aliisza, she told herself. Don't let them distract you from finding Zasian. If you don't, you might never get out of here.

Heeding that warning, she stepped forward cautiously, still trying to detect some noise or other evidence of something beyond. When she failed to discern anything, Aliisza took a steadying breath and stepped across the threshold.