Brian Rathbone - The Dawning of Power

Poling and holding the torch up at the same time was hard, but she managed to move along the shoreline, still staying close to the cavern wall. There was no real shoreline this far out, but she did occasionally come across what appeared to have been other passageways leading into the cavern. They were all blocked with fallen rock and debris, and none appeared passable.

As she became more adept at poling, she moved more quickly toward the far end of the cavern. The water grew deeper, and she had to put her entire arm in the water to reach the bottom with her pole. Eventually the water was too deep to reach the bottom, and she pushed off the cavern walls when she could. Occasionally she pushed herself out too far and had to paddle back. Her branch made a poor paddle, and at times she made more progress by setting the branch on the raft and paddling with her free hand.

When she reached the back of the cavern, she came on a collapsed corridor that was larger than all the others. Fallen stone blocked this one too, but the size of the arch intrigued her. As she began to wonder if someone hadn't blocked the tunnels intentionally, a small breeze caressed her cheek. She sniffed the air-a bit dank but not foul.

After pushing the raft closer to the doorway, she latched onto some of the rocks that blocked it. She wedged her torch into a nearby crevice and pulled herself onto the top of a protruding rock, hoping the raft would not drift off. There wasn't much room for her on the small shelf of rock, but she managed to balance as she reached out to the raft. She had to stretch to grasp her rope, which she used to secure the raft to one of the jagged rocks at the bottom of the doorway.

Cooler air continued to seep through the rocks, and Catrin loosened some of the top pieces. It was slow work, but she cleared a hole about the size of her head. She poked her torch into it to see what lay beyond. She could see very little, but it did appear that the corridor was mostly clear beyond the initial blockage. When she pulled her torch back, she noticed a narrow rectangular slit in the stone above the doorway and shivered as she recalled the lessons that spoke of old castles having arrow slits above the entrances, often referred to as death holes. The sight of it was unsettling.

She needed a much larger opening to crawl through, but several large stones were wedged tightly just below the hole she had created. She finally got one of the large rocks to wiggle and rocked it back and forth, moving it a little more with every sweep. She gave it a hard yank and nearly fell from her perch when it jerked free, the stone hitting the water with a loud splash. Catrin leaned back against the rocks and took a couple of deep breaths.

"Are you all right?" Osbourne shouted across the water, and his words echoed loudly in the cavern.

"I'm fine. I've found another passage, and I'm going to see where it goes."

"Don't be gone too long, Cat," he said in a quieter voice. "I don't want to be here alone."

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

The hollow left by the large stone gave her more room to work and made the removal of the next one a bit easier. She soon had a hole she thought she could squeeze through. With her torch held through the hole, she saw the rubble pile sloping down and away on the other side. Dropping the torch onto the rocks on the other side-carefully so as not to extinguish it-she wriggled her way through the hole, getting slightly stuck when her belt knife caught on the stones. After freeing the knife, she slid farther through the hole. A rock broke away and moved out from under her hand, and she began to slide. She landed noisily, her face just inches from the burning torch she had tossed into the space. She wasn't bleeding, but she was a sore in several places.

After gathering her gear, she moved past the rest of the debris. The ceiling and walls were unbroken, and Catrin was convinced these halls had been sealed intentionally. It also occurred to her that whoever had done it had most likely done it in a hurry. Otherwise, the barrier would have been much more substantial. She recalled the arrow slits above the doorway and thought perhaps they had not needed much more of an obstruction.

When she moved her torch closer, she could see how cleanly the stone had been cut. There were no visible seams in the smooth walls, which seemed to be one continuous surface. The floor was also smooth, though covered with a thick layer of dust and dirt.

Walking slowly down the corridor, Catrin felt like an intruder in a place long lost to the living. Ahead she saw a doorway, but there were no tracks in the dust on the floor, so she didn't think she would encounter any wildlife. Still, she crept ahead slowly, half expecting a specter to jump out at her. Instead, she found a short hall with several doorways on either side. She looked into one of the rooms and saw some crumbled pieces of pottery and rotted wood that may have once been a bed frame. In the other rooms, she found similar hints that these had once been sleeping chambers, but the rooms were rather small. She doubted they had been rooms for the wealthy, and she wondered if they had been servants' quarters.

In another she found a washbowl behind the ruins of another bed frame. The bowl was almost perfectly preserved, with the exception of one sizable chip out of the rim. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She bent down and wiped her finger across the surface to find under the dust that the bowl was shiny with elaborate designs below the glaze.

As she bent down to inspect it more closely, a clump of reddish clay caught her attention. It was wedged inside one of the bed frame's wooden joints, as if it had been hidden there when the bed was still whole. Drawn to the clump by some mysterious desire, she pried it away from the disintegrating wood, and a small shape revealed itself.

In the dwindling light of her torch, it appeared to be a carving of a fish, made from some kind of milky crystal, its surface porous and rough. She placed the little carving in her pocket and in that moment saw her torch was not far from burning out. She had been gone a while, and she figured Osbourne was probably worried. She turned back, eager to tell him what she had found.

Though she hoped not to use it, her spare torch was tucked into her belt. When the first torch sputtered out, she had to quickly decide if she wanted to light the spare while the first was still hot enough to ignite it. She decided to save it since she was not far from the opening, and her vision would eventually adjust to the darkness.

Shuffling along the smooth wall, she worked her way back to the pile of stone and poked her head through the hole. The raft waited below, and she was grateful it had not gotten loose. Looking across the water, she saw Osbourne's silhouette leaning against the wall near the cavern entrance. Sliding forward carefully, she was in a very awkward position when shuffling noises and deep voices shouting words she did not understand suddenly echoed in the cavern.

Twisting her neck and body so she could see across the water again, she saw three shadowy forms outlined against the light of the no-longer-shaded entrance. Helplessly, she watched as two large men tackled Osbourne and tied his hands and ankles behind his back. Two more forms entered the cavern, and she knew she needed to escape. Jerking herself back through the hole, she retreated into the dark corridor.

For a brief moment, she stopped to think; there was nothing she could do to help Osbourne, but horrifying visions of Osbourne as a captive tormented her. She was no match for two grown men, let alone four, especially not men as large as those, and she had no idea what her next move would be.

With four redfish in his sack, Strom stood and stretched his legs. A light rain fell, thoroughly soaking him, but at least he was outside. He had never been afraid of confined spaces, but the cavern made him feel like the world was closing in on him. Breathing in the fresh air, he started back toward the cold and dark of the cavern.