The Hickory Staff

THE CAVERN

For the next twelve days the travellers aboard the Capina Fair lived and ate well. Although they never spoke of the wraith attack, Mark and Brynne grew strong once again, and any sign they had ever been invaded by the spirits soon faded. Similarly, Garec and Steven quickly recovered from their ordeal at the hand of the homicidal river creature. The staff had saved them both from drowning, and there appeared to be no other lasting physical effects of the attack. Garec swore he would never venture near water again: he would find Renna, return to Estrad and remain comfortably dry among the rolling hills of the forbidden forest for the rest of his days.

Brynne reminded him he was still spending the better part of every day and most nights aboard a raft in the middle of a river, which was decidedly wet.

‘Okay then, after this trip, I’m never going back in the water.’

‘So, you’ll never bathe?’ she teased.

‘Not often, no, and never in water deeper than my ankles,’ Garec shot back.

‘Imagine the stench.’

‘That’s fine,’ he joked, ‘I suppose I won’t have many friends, but then again, I won’t have strangely dressed foreigners dropping through the Fold, or thousand-Twinmoon-old sorcerers dragging me off on wild adventures in which invisible psychic creatures try to drown me before adding my body to their makeshift underwater sculptures, either.’

Steven chuckled and corrected him. ‘I think you mean psychotic,’ he said with a grin. The English words sounded strange, but sometimes there was no local equivalent. In spite of his smile Steven didn’t feel much like laughing. As they poled the Capina Fair downstream, he found himself periodically struck by bouts of insecurity and depression. The others noticed the gloominess that took hold of him whenever he considered the now-familiar length of hickory. Its failure to free them from the river’s grasp was the first time the magic had fallen short of Steven’s needs: the Seron, the grettan, the wraiths – even the almor – they’d fallen easily beneath its apparently endless reserves of power.

Now Steven was worried: he could no longer rely on the hickory staff. The magic might fail again, and next time the dwindling company might not be so lucky. He felt responsible for the others’ survival, and the magic’s failure on the riverbed sent his confidence reeling: what would happen when they came up against the enormous military and magical force awaiting them on the shore of the Ravenian Sea?

Grimacing, he tried to thrust the problem from his mind, telling himself he had never understood how the staff’s magic worked anyway, so he had no right to question or complain if it began to fade now. It had saved their lives several times, so he should just be grateful.

It wasn’t working. He wanted to have the staff’s power with him, to wrap himself in the sense of security it brought him. Defeating the wraith army had given him a sense of invincibility, a self-confidence he had never before experienced; at that moment he had been sure no force in Eldarn could stand against him. He supposed he was lucky that he and Garec had survived their first encounter with a power strong enough to render the staff useless.

Try as he might to push it away, there was something else troubling Steven. He had wielded a power greater than anything he could ever have imagined, and he liked it. He wanted it with him always – and he was certain it wanted him, that it had chosen him that evening in the foothills of the Blackstone Mountains. He was sure it had responded to his needs because it understood that compassion was right: terror and hatred had ruled Eldarn for generations, and the land was teetering on the brink of collapse. Compassion and caring, brotherhood and a sense of unity and understanding could save this beautiful, strange land; Steven was sure of it.

He could feel a memory of the magic, tingling through his arms and legs, as if the staff had read his mind and was responding to his reflections, encouraging him to believe that he was its rightful wielder, and that all would be well if he remained true. The desire to test it grew within him for a moment, but Steven forced the need back within the confines of his mind. It settled there, among his darkest desires, in a place he was certain everyone had but no one discussed: a cordoned-off section of himself where all his ugliest thoughts were trapped: the desire to feel the thrill of robbing a liquor store at gunpoint, to be a voyeur, to have desperate intercourse with a complete stranger, or to crash through mind-numbing rush-hour traffic and watch as rude commuters burned in a fiery conflagration – all lay sublimated in this do-not-enter region of his consciousness. They would be joined now by the desire to wield the world’s most powerful force, to consume it and become indestructible, confident and powerful – and, most of all, free from fear.

Steven fought his almost overwhelming need to embrace the magic, to let it take him and make him into the instrument of Nerak’s destruction. That might be his eventual end, but until he knew that for certain, he would keep it at arm’s length. He didn’t understand the magic, and after his failure on the river bottom he knew he couldn’t always control it, but it was there, lurking patiently until it was needed.

He felt the power run along his forearms and out into his fingertips, prickly and stinging; it flickered briefly and then faded. All at once he was less-than-himself again.

The journey downstream from Meyers’ Vale through the rolling hills of southern Falkan had been marked by good weather, unlimited fresh fish, wild fruits and nuts, and even a large game bird Garec had brought down, a gansel; it tasted not unlike turkey to the Coloradoans, but Garec’s uncontrollable bellowing laughter when they named it in English was enough to convince them to abandon any further comparisons.

It was too late: throughout the following day, Garec continued trying out the word, as if he were going to perform for an audience. ‘Turkey, tur-key, turk-ey,’ he repeated over and over again, trying different inflections until Brynne was ready to throw him into the river herself. ‘What a strange language you speak. I’m amazed you can understand one another at all.’

‘Sometimes it’s hard,’ Mark said, ‘and other times, we drink.’

‘That always makes communication easier.’

‘No, only sometimes,’ Brynne chimed in.

‘Yes, but those are the best times,’ Garec stated firmly.

‘Listen!’ Steven interrupted.

‘That helps too,’ Garec agreed, ‘but so few of us are any good at it.’

‘No, no,’ Steven chided, ‘ listen.’

As they ceased chattering, they could hear the sound of the river had changed. Ahead in the distance, they could hear a low, grating, hollow roar, as if warning travellers to come no further. The sound, although unfamiliar, was somehow unmistakable: they all understood in a moment that they were fast approaching a stretch of white water, maybe even just beyond the next bend.

Suddenly serious, Garec regained his wits and ordered, ‘Everyone tie down the packs. Use the centre loops.’ He moved to secure his bow and quivers.

‘I thought the centre loops were for us,’ Mark asked. ‘Where will we be?’

‘Here.’ Garec motioned towards the four outer loops, loose coils of rope forming handholds in each corner of the Capina Fair’s upper deck. ‘We’ll be here, holding fast-’ He paused, then continued, ‘Maybe even tied fast, while we pole ourselves away from rocks or dangerous shallows along the way.’

‘Out near the edge? Have you lost your mind?’ Brynne scolded. ‘We should stay here in the middle and hang on to these coils. We’ll be safer.’

‘I wish we could,’ Garec answered, ‘but listen, do you hear that? That roar?’ Again he paused. ‘That’s not just a few rapids; that’s powerfully rough water. There will be rocks large enough to ruin us, not just to capsize good old Capina, but to smash her to splinters.’

‘He’s right,’ Mark agreed tying down his pack, ‘and Steven, you shouldn’t pole with that staff. If it gets torn from your hands as we go we’re stuffed. We’d never find it again.’

Steven hesitated an instant before securing the length of hickory between two packs in the centre of the raft. This left him without a pole, but he gripped the fourth corner line anyway. ‘So I’m just along for the ride.’

‘Be grateful, lad: you’re at least forty-four inches tall, otherwise, my friend, you’d have to sit this one out.’ Garec and Brynne looked at Mark quizzically, but Steven laughed.

Steven felt the familiar pang of insecurity ripple through his stomach and fought the urge to hold the staff close through the coming ordeal.

As the Capina Fair rounded the next bend, Garec exhaled sharply, then stood upright and stared disbelievingly into the distance. ‘Great demonspawn,’ he cried, ‘it’s a rutting canyon!’

It was a canyon, a narrow gorge just a few raft-widths wide, carved deep into the bedrock over countless Ages. The deep water of the river was squeezed into the inadequate space with the force of a cavalry charge. Rocky bluffs loomed above and save for a few stunted pine trees, all they could see in either direction were the towering cliffs and the boisterously turbulent water. The bright hues of Falkan’s countryside faded quickly; their world became stark black granite and foaming white water.

The Capina Fair slammed into the first of thousands of rocky outcroppings awaiting them and they knew they had only one choice: navigate well, or drown.

Throughout the day their sturdy craft was battered and buffeted fiercely by the brute force of the rapids. Back and forth across they jounced, over rocks, down short waterfalls, and in and out of swirling eddies, with no rest for the drenched and weary travellers.

After a while Steven motioned to Brynne and she tossed him her pole. The constant thrusting and jabbing that was necessary to keep them from being run aground or, worse, broken apart on the rocks was exhausting. Brynne collapsed on their packs, looping her arms through the coils of rope that secured their belongings to the deck. With his first few thrusts Steven realised all they had was the illusion of control over the Capina Fair’ s trajectory downstream. At any moment the river might decide it had had enough of being poked with sharp, pointed sticks and cast them effortlessly into the granite wall of the canyon.

Still they fought on.

After a brief rest, Brynne spelled Garec, then Garec relieved Mark, and they fell into a pattern. Despite the incessant pounding, the Capina Fair held together well. Steven and Garec grinned at each other briefly, proud of what they’d built.

Despite the rests, it was enormously hard work. Their vigilance began to fail, and they took several blows that nearly shook them from their precarious perches on the Capina Fair’ s upper deck. Garec found himself doing less poling and more gripping of lifelines. Several times, lacking the strength to push them away from an underwater boulder, he simply cried out to prepare the others for impact.

By nightfall, they knew they would not survive much longer. Mark, shattered, lay with his back propped against their packs as he tied strips torn from his tunic over the huge blisters that had welled up on both palms. Brynne secured a line about her waist, but she knew if she fell overboard she would not have the strength to pull herself back up; she would most likely be dragged beneath the surface and torn apart on the rocks.

With every twist in the canyon, the group held their collective breath, some in the hope that they would spot the end of the rocky bluffs, the others in fear that a large waterfall lay in wait just out of sight. But each turn brought an audible groan from the disheartened company as nothing changed: time and again their anticipation was for naught. The river careened fiercely onwards through the curving canyon, winding its way inexorably towards the Ravenian Sea, all the while draining their spirits and slowly dismantling their craft.

Darkness came early. Deeper sections of the river that had given a scant few moments’ rest were now giving way to large flat rocks that lay just beneath the surface. Anticipating a gentle touchdown from a short waterfall into the soft well of a deep hollow, Steven’s teeth rattled as the Capina Fair came down hard on a flat boulder he had missed. Rocks and water blurred together and for a moment Steven half expected an all-black world to shroud them, just as the all-white world had blanketed him and Lahp high among the glaciers in the Blackstone Mountains. Pushing hard, he shoved them back into moving water, then suddenly angry, called to Garec.

The bowman turned. His eyes were sunk deep; in the twilight he looked like a lifeless skull; Steven jumped when the skull spoke. ‘What is it?’

‘Take this,’ he said, passing him the pole and moving carefully across to the pile of sodden packs and the hickory staff.

‘What are you going to do?’ Brynne called over the water’s roar.

‘There’s no place to go ashore, and if we’re going to survive, we must have light.’ His fingers, stiff and blistered, were clumsy as he untied the ropes holding the staff safe.

Mark nodded in understanding.

Holding the staff close to his face, Steven drew a deep breath and summoned the magic. No, he thought, it’s different this time, a release not a summons… like that morning in the Blackstones with the pine tree – that was a release, too.

As it had before, the staff’s power flowed through him easily; Steven felt the familiar sensation of time stretching to accommodate him – he wondered once again if time really was slowing, or if he just imagined it. Suddenly, the river seemed manageable, and Steven cursed his wretched insecurity: he should have drawn on the staff’s power much earlier. A little uncertain what he should do next, he placed the end of the staff into the riverbed and envisioned the water slowing, levelling, gently moving downstream at a leisurely, navigable pace. At first nothing happened; Steven could still feel the raft being buffeted violently – then, things calmed. The river still raged, both behind and before them, but the Capina Fair seemed to settle, floating as if adrift on a small pond.

‘Good,’ Steven said, and raised the opposite end of the staff above his head. ‘Now some light.’

He focused his concentration, visualising a torch he had seen hanging in a wall sconce in Estrad. Gilmour had stolen that torch, used it to light their way – and to light his pipe, of course. Almost immediately a small yellow flame burst in the air above the raft. Bigger, Steven commanded in his mind, and as if it had heard him speak out loud, the light grew until the walls of the canyon came into view.

With their path lighted and the Capina Fair floating in a gentle current, Mark commented, ‘That’s better. We could go on like this all night.’

‘Yes, but we really ought to find some place to go ashore,’ Garec said. ‘We need repairs, and if we don’t dry out and warm up, the cold will kill us before the river ever does.’

‘We ought to rest, too,’ Steven added. ‘I could sleep until noon.’ He used the English word.

‘When?’ Brynne looked at him through sodden hair, a tangled frame about her beautiful face.

‘Noon,’ Steven smiled. ‘It means midday with some conviction.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It means lunch,’ Mark added dryly.

‘That I understand,’ Garec said, ‘and if noon means sleeping until midday, with or without conviction, and then eating lunch, you have my complete support.’

‘How can we get ashore, though?’ Brynne asked. ‘We haven’t seen anyplace suitable since we entered this canyon.’

‘We’ll just have to keep going until we find somewhere we can tie up for the night,’ Mark suggested. ‘At least now the going will be easier.’

The raft, as if floating just above the surface of their tiny circle of water, floated surely over rocks, down abrupt cascades and across whirling eddies. They poled to avoid outcroppings of lethally sharp rocks and to maintain their position midstream, but those tasks were no more demanding than paddling across a windless lake. Steven’s flame provided light for their passage as Steven himself continued to imagine a cushioned path for them all the way through the canyon.

The magic did nothing for their fatigue, though, and the travellers continued scanning the canyon walls, looking for someplace to put ashore for a few avens’ rest. They took turns napping in pairs, but the evening chill coupled with their waterlogged clothing made proper sleep nearly impossible. Mark and Brynne huddled close together, their teeth chattering audibly. Mark brushed Brynne’s hair back from her face and cupped her cheeks in his hands while he told her silly jokes and anecdotes to help them both forget their aches.

At one point, Brynne interrupted him. ‘I don’t want you to go back home,’ she whispered.

Mark leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. This wasn’t the place or the time he’d have chosen for this discussion.

Brynne pulled him closer and kissed him back, hard and long. He shuddered with need as her tongue moved in his mouth; just the taste of her aroused him like no woman ever had.

He pulled back slightly, and looked deep into her eyes. He put a finger on her mouth and whispered, ‘You must know how I feel. But right now, it’s academic, isn’t it? Who knows if we’ll ever find a far portal, let alone be able to use it. I do wish I could somehow let my family know where I am – no, not where I am; they’d think I was completely wacko and have me locked up, or medicated to within an inch of my life! But I want them to at least know that I’m all right, that I’m not murdered, or kidnapped or locked up. They must think we’re both dead by now – people would have come to our house days and days ago: the police, Hannah, my students, the principal at my school, friends, Steven’s boss from the bank…

‘I know people have probably been in and out of the house looking for clues to what happened to us, so I can’t imagine the far portal is still open. If they found it, they’d have detected its power, even if they didn’t know what the hell it was.’

‘You felt it?’

‘It changed the air in the room. It almost shimmered.’ He wagged his fingers to demonstrate for her. ‘If somehow the portal closed, though, they’d think it was just an ugly old rug, or maybe a tapestry.’

‘Steven is convinced that Hannah is in Eldarn.’

‘I know.’ Mark looked down at the log deck, and then back at her. ‘Hannah would have been one of the first to come looking for us. They had plans for the following day, so it may well be true.’

‘There might be others here as well?’

‘I suppose,’ he allowed, ‘although I hope that before too long someone realised that thing was dangerous and closed it up.’

‘If it’s closed, you might end up falling anywhere in your land.’ She tried to remember Gilmour’s explanation of the far portals. ‘So would Nerak.’

‘That’s right – listen to me go on, will you? The truth is I have no idea what happened after we got transported to Eldarn.’ He ran two fingers along her face and across her chin.

She reached up to take his hand. ‘Regardless, I don’t want you to go back.’

Mark looked up and saw Steven illuminated in the stafflight. With his hair cropped close and his shaven face, he looked like an accountant on a weekend rafting trip, the one in the play no one gives a second thought to. ‘A red top in Star Trek,’ he muttered to himself, ‘cannon fodder.’ Then to Brynne, ‘I don’t think he is going back,’ Mark whispered, their faces nearly touching in the darkness. ‘He’ll stay here until this is done, and then…’ His voice trailed off.

‘And then we’ll decide what happens with us.’ Brynne was back to her opening thought. The tough, knife-wielding partisan grinned, and shot him a sexy come-hither look. She ran her hand down his sodden thigh suggestively.

‘What? Here?’ Mark was a little taken aback.

She nodded.

‘Are you crazy?’ he whispered, ‘it’s forty degrees, and I know that doesn’t mean anything to you in Ronan, but where I’m from that means it’s a damn sight too cold to get naked outside on a damp raft in the middle of a bloody freezing river.’

‘We really should get out of these wet clothes,’ she said slyly, starting to peel her top off. ‘There are a few dry blankets in these packs; we can roll one out and use some to cover us.’

Mark protested, ‘But the guys are right here.’

‘Then we’ll have to be quiet. Maybe we can huddle down here between these satchels.’ She reached under his sweater, and he jumped at her frigid touch. ‘Sorry,’ she said insincerely, and blew into her fingers before returning them to his chest.

‘You aren’t going to be denied, are you?’

‘Not tonight, Mark, no.’ She giggled.

Mark had resigned himself to a torrid session of covert sex with one of the sexiest women he’d ever met when Garec shouted, ‘Look! What’s over there?’

‘Rutters,’ Brynne spat, then adjusted her tunic. Mark felt the tiny circles of cold on the flat of his stomach warm slightly as her fingertips drew away.

‘Where?’ Steven asked, trying to follow the line of Garec’s extended finger towards the canyon wall.

‘It looks like a cave,’ Brynne said, ‘a big one, a cavern maybe.’

Mark stood beside her and peered across the water. The river crashed violently against an enormous opening that jutted upwards through the granite like a jagged flaw in the cliff. There was nothing at all comforting or inviting about the cavern’s mouth. As they drew closer, he could see that the gaping crack reached nearly halfway up the canyon wall to the precipice above.

‘It’s huge,’ Steven said.

‘Yes, but we’ve no idea how far in it goes, or if there’s a decent place for us to make camp once we get inside,’ Garec said negatively.

‘True,’ Steven agreed, ‘but if we don’t take a look, we’ll never know, will we?’

Garec nodded grimly, giving in, and the two of them steered the raft towards the entrance.

As they passed from the river into the cavern, the four travellers were struck by the sudden silence. The deafening roar of the rapids had provided a steady backdrop of noise all day, and the echoes rang in their ears as they passed beneath the natural archway. As the cacophony faded, they were overwhelmed by the heavy quiet. They’d been shouting at each other all day; now the travellers spoke in hushed whispers, as if they had broken into a vast stone tomb and feared waking its residents. Steven’s flame pierced the darkness, illuminating a thin passageway ahead.

Mark stared up towards the cavern’s ceiling, invisible beyond the stafflight, and said sarcastically, ‘Oh, yes, this is much better.’

Steven chuckled. ‘We do need a bit more light don’t we?’ He raised the staff, closed his eyes and motioned; the flame doubled then tripled in size and intensity until the cavern was dimly lit from end to end. He opened his eyes and grinned.

‘Your wish is my command, amigo,’ he said, clapping Mark on the shoulder. Around the Capina Fair, the walls of the canyon dropped straight down into the water. It looked horribly forbidding: as if no place were safe for travellers, but especially not this place. Far above, a crooked stone ceiling loomed over them impassively. Following the river’s current to the far end of the cave, Steven could see that the ceiling dropped down towards the water’s surface. There was a low, narrow passageway, through which the water disappeared into the dark reaches of the canyon wall. They would have to duck, or maybe even kneel if Capina was going to take them further into the cavern.

‘Well, there doesn’t seem to be anyplace to put ashore in here, so let’s go back outside,’ Mark suggested.

Brynne shook her head. ‘No. Let’s push ahead. The current isn’t bad, and we can always pole our way out if we need to.’

Mark felt the blood drain from his face; he was glad it was too dark for Brynne to see how frightened he was. He hated enclosed spaces. ‘It probably just narrows down to nothing back there. It’ll be a complete waste of time.’

‘So then we’ll pole our way out,’ she replied. ‘Steven? Garec? What do you think?’

‘Let’s go ahead,’ Garec agreed, ‘what can it hurt? And if we find someplace to go ashore, we’ll have shelter for the night.’ His voice cracked as he spoke and he realised his trepidation was now evident. He cursed to himself and began untying the rope securing his bow and quivers.

‘What’s wrong?’ Brynne asked. ‘There’s nothing here to harm us. We haven’t seen a thing all day.’

‘True,’ Garec replied, ‘but you didn’t get to meet the last charming inhabitant of this miserable waterway.’

Steven laughed; it bounced from the walls in a quickly moving echo that filled the cavern from top to bottom. ‘Ready?’

‘Fine,’ Mark agreed, drawing the battle-axe from his belt.

The current quickened as they entered the narrow passage at the rear of the cavern, and Brynne realised she had spoken too soon. There was no way they would be able to pole their way back out. Looking over at Steven, she searched his face for signs of insecurity. He looked calm and confident, and she relaxed a little. The staff-wielding foreigner would find some way to propel them back against the current if necessary.

The rock faces closed down around them until the pathway was little more than two raft-lengths across. They didn’t have to kneel down, but periodically Mark and Garec were forced to duck beneath a particularly low drop in the stone ceiling. Steven’s flame, now unable to float above the raft, moved out ahead to light the roughly hewn tunnel. Despite the luminance and warmth accompanying the fireball, a cold darkness settled about them and no one spoke as they wound their way deeper and deeper into the cavern.

Finally Garec broke the silence. His face was formless in the murky firelight as he said quietly, ‘That’s it. I can’t reach the bottom any longer.’

‘Neither can I.’ Steven stretched low over the side of the Capina Fair, but he still failed to find solid ground. ‘Use the poles against the walls to keep us midstream. The current here is strong but deep. We won’t need to worry about unexpected rapids.’

‘Where are we going?’ Mark asked. ‘Unless this pops out in an Orindale tavern, we’re going to have to get back out to the river tomorrow. How much further should we let this carry us?’

‘A bit further, that’s all,’ Steven suggested. ‘If we can’t find someplace soon to tie her off and dry things out, we’ll head back.’

The tunnel wound its way in lazy curves back and forth and ever deeper into the gloom. The crisply moving current suggested their passageway stretched onwards, perhaps to the other side of the cliff, but Mark feared the ceiling would drop down suddenly, leaving this branch of the river to continue its flow underground. He wasn’t looking forward to feeling the overhead stone close down upon them, or having the walls of their already cosy tunnel narrowing to trap the Capina Fair between ponderous granite bookends for ever. He imagined them being slowly swallowed by a great stone god so beset by the general lassitude of the ages that it would not even realise it had eaten them whole, raft and all. Garec had placed his pole beside him on the deck and now held his bow loosely in one hand. Mark wasn’t sure what Garec planned to shoot, but he wouldn’t deny it was comforting to know he was armed and at the ready.

Mark had never been one for nostalgia. He sometimes found it a bit worrying that important events, even entire years in his past, somehow collapsed down to just a few moments in his memory. Months of preparation had gone into the state swimming championships, which was probably the most anticipated event in his life thus far. He swam brilliantly, winning three events and shattering two school records – but now, ten years on, the memory of that time had been reduced to just a few glimpses. He could see his coach shouting at him from above the water; he could feel the cold winter air on his still-damp hair as he waited for his ride home. And, most often, he could remember a few seconds of underwater confusion while he reached for the finish wall, looked around and felt the elation well up. Four months of work and anticipation, the greatest single moment of his youth, represented by ten or twelve seconds of colour, sound and feeling.

But thinking back over the time he and Steven had been in Eldarn, he thought that perhaps things here were different. There was almost nothing that he could not recall in vivid detail: the feel of the stones as they rubbed against his knuckles at Riverend, the smell of lodge pines burning above him as he slowly faded to sleep in the falling snow, the touch of Brynne’s body against his as they lay together in the forest cabin, each having thought the other dead: these and a thousand other incidents, he could still feel them, whole, in his memory. Right now, he was dreading the recollection he would carry of this cavern: he was pretty sure he would have to swim back out of this tunnel, and he knew he no longer had the strength.

Soon they were forced to kneel. ‘Turn us around, Steven,’ Mark commanded. ‘This is getting too tight.’ The passageway closed further, and the raft bumped between stone walls as it pressed ever forward.

‘All right,’ Steven agreed. ‘I hoped we might find something, but you’re right. We should go back.’ He was reaching for the staff when his eye caught the faint glimmer of something up ahead. ‘What’s that?’

‘Where?’ Garec was down onto all fours now, trying to avoid striking his head on the granite ceiling. Mark and Brynne soon joined him.

‘There, out beyond the stafflight. Something flickered, like another light.’

‘Steven,’ Mark interrupted, ‘we’re running out of room here.’

Steven was about to lie flat on the Capina Fair’ s deck when he heard Garec shout, ‘Ah, demonpiss!’

‘What happened?’

‘The ceiling, Steven, I hit my head on the ceiling-’ Garec shut up as the stafflight suddenly went out and they were plunged into a cruel and forbidding darkness, depthless, blacker than any of them could have imagined. The space ahead had grown too narrow for Steven’s fireball and it had extinguished itself in the river.

Mark lay flat on his back, holding out his hands. An especially low section of ceiling scraped across his forehead and he felt a warm trickle of blood run down his temple. He tried to push against the rock, an impossible bench press, to force the raft down into the water and make room for his body to pass beneath the granite just scant inches above his face. Terrified, he held his breath and waited for Steven to summon the staff’s magic and carry them back upstream.

A mantra ran through his mind: What if it didn’t work? It had failed that day on the riverbed; what if that happened again? Why was Steven hesitating – was he trying to summon the magic now, and was it ignoring him? He had agreed to take them back to the cavern mouth, but he hadn’t said a word since, and still they were inching their way forward. Where was he? Mark could hear the river rushing by beneath them; he wondered why the current was suddenly moving so quickly. ‘Steven,’ he cried, a muffled plea, ‘are you still there?’

Get overboard. That was Mark’s only option. He had to get overboard and maybe find a hand or foothold in the wall so he could stop the raft’s progress long enough for the others to roll off into the water as well. Push and slide. That’s it. Push and slide. One leg down. Push and slide. Both legs.

Mark relaxed the pressure he had been putting against the ceiling with his arms for a moment to adjust his grip, and in that instant, the Capina Fair buoyed upward forcing the granite down on his chest. Get a breath in. Get a breath in, shit. He tried to roll to one side, to inch one hand, one finger up between his chest and the rock ceiling, but he couldn’t. Desperate, he tried to push with his forehead. Not much, I don’t need much, just enough to get a breath in. Breathe. Get a breath in.

Behind him he heard Brynne scream; beside him he could feel Garec kicking violently to free himself from the bone-crushing pressure.

Suddenly everything erupted in a blinding flash. Water splashed over the sides of the Capina Fair, and Mark felt his lungs fill with welcome air. His hands free, he reached upwards for the granite ceiling, but found nothing there. He tried to roll, expecting the stone to hold his shoulders down, but a moment later he tumbled from the deck into the frigid water.

The cold cleared his head and as he kicked towards the surface, he saw light once again, a bright light that sliced through the darkness.

Mark broke the surface of the water in a rage. ‘Steven, you stupid sonofabitch! What in the seven shades of Hell were you waiting for?’ His voice echoed back in huge, swollen waves, the inane mimicry of an irritating lesser god. Stunned silent by the din, Mark took in their surroundings. The Capina Fair, now about twenty yards ahead of him, drifted on an underground lake. Garec and Steven stood staring into the distance while Brynne reached out to him with one of the poles. He swam towards the raft. Behind them, he could see the impossibly narrow opening through which Steven had forced the raft only seconds before. There would be no going back that way. The river pushed through a hairline crack in the granite wall with tremendous force, and Mark marvelled at how they had managed to get through without losing their packs or supplies – or one another – in the narrow passage.

In the air above the raft hovered an enormous ball of fire – no, as Mark peered upwards at it, he realised that it was somehow more than fire. It was blinding, a brighter, more intense flame, like something that might have come from a chemistry set, or maybe a magic stick.

Around them, the lake stretched out to fill the gigantic cavern. Mark could still hear his voice, booming back from what felt like miles away: Sonofabitch… Sonofabitch… Sonofabitch…

High above, the granite ceiling had retreated to its original position. It looked different now, flecked with iridescent minerals; odd colours sparkling in the magical light. Getting chilly now the fear had worn off, Mark drew his lungs full of air and dropped beneath the surface, allowing the cold to sink in and further clear his mind.

He felt better. They were still alive. Steven’s fire could ensure they were warm and dry, and after a good night’s sleep, they could put their minds to finding a way out.

When Mark resurfaced, he caught sight of Brynne, who was still holding the wooden pole out to him and staring grimly.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, more quietly this time.

She pointed towards the shoreline, and the grotesque discovery that had his friends silenced.

Bones. Thousands – no, millions of bones. Human bones: skulls, femurs, ribs, some still held together in partial cage shapes by strands of rotten cartilage, radii, jawbones, and an apparently endless array of tiny hand and foot bones scattered about: a charnel-house to rival the largest mass grave ever by ten thousand times.

‘Good Christ,’ he whispered.

‘Mark,’ Steven called, ‘you’d better get up here.’

The shoreline sloped gradually down to the water; as far as Mark could see the angle and depth remained the same in any direction. The only break in the shore was the forbidding edifice that rose up behind them, a huge granite monolith. Mark wondered if that wall was devoid of a shoreline because the river that burst from it had washed the shore away eons ago. Instead of sand, the shore was made up of small round pebbles mixed with the ubiquitous bone fragments; the way the light glinted from the stones made it look as if they were diamonds. Mark dreaded the moment when he would have to step ashore, for there would be no way to avoid feeling the bones crunch and shatter underfoot.

He pulled himself up onto the deck and stood beside Steven. Clapping his friend on the back, he said, ‘What a lovely place you have here. How are you getting along with the neighbours?’

‘Mark, be serious,’ Brynne scolded.

‘Serious? I’m not the one who wanted to go into the cavern in the first place, let me remind you.’

Steven shushed him. ‘Listen, I really did see something.’

‘Something?’

‘A light. It flickered for a moment, and then it went out. There’s someone down here.’

Mark stared at him incredulously. ‘Someone down here? Have you not noticed that the entire population of Uruguay appears to have their bones stacked against that wall? Of course there’s someone down here, but I’m not certain he’s setting out a warm welcome and a nice dinner for us right now.’

Steven ignored him. ‘What do you suppose it was? A plague? A war?’

‘It couldn’t have been,’ Garec replied.

‘Why not?’ Brynne asked.

‘Look at the bones. They’re not jumbled together like they would be in a mass grave.’

Mark exhaled. ‘Holy mother, he’s right.’

Garec summed up what each of them was thinking. ‘Those bones were collected here, organised carefully into similar stacks, skulls here, legs there, arms across the way.’

Brynne looked like she was about to dive into the water and risk the swim back upstream. ‘Who could have done this?’

‘Or what?’ Mark looked puzzled, as if trying to remember something. Grimacing, he turned to Steven. ‘Can you move the stafflight nearer the ceiling?’

‘Why?’

‘I hope it’s nothing, but send it up anyway.’

Mark’s fears were confirmed: through the hazy, half-light they could see the ceiling had been decorated with bones. Some dangled downwards from the rocky roof while others lay flat, displayed against the dark surface of the stone, as if to enhance their ivory colour with a black backdrop. These bones were obviously prized. Skulls were hanging everywhere, ogling the trespassers through long-empty eye sockets.

His mouth agape, Steven stared solemnly upwards, mute with stupefaction. His mind raced, but the image of what might have committed such a gruesome act made him close his eyes; he pictured some creature, nefarious, and crafty, with an almost human capacity for understanding, but with spindly legs like a spider’s, or perhaps thick membranous wings and wickedly clawed talons.

He spoke as if to himself. ‘What is keeping them up there?’

Mark surprised him by answering, ‘Glue, nails, John the Baptist? Who knows? It’s probably some secretion that comes out of an orifice I don’t like imagining in a creature I don’t like imagining that hardens like epoxy and holds them fast for ever.’

‘But why?’

‘To comfort little baby epoxy-secreting monsters as they go to sleep in their cribs? Again, who knows? Let’s focus on getting ourselves out of here before it – or they – return.’ Mark swallowed hard and began poling towards shore. The Capina Fair had held together so far, but she was badly in need of repair, and they were all in desperate need of food and rest.

‘We can use the light to explore along the shoreline. With that much water coming in here, there has to be an outlet – or maybe we can find a tunnel to the surface.’ He cringed when a sickly crunch resounded from below as their raft struck the shore.

Two avens later, they had eaten, changed into dry clothing and used the stafflight to dry out the rest of their belongings. They explored a little along the shoreline; Mark and Brynne walked while Garec and Steven poled the Capina Fair through the shallows. It took them nearly half an aven to reach the end of the great charnel-house, and each was visibly relieved when they no longer heard the breaking of tiny hand and foot bones with every footfall.

Finally they found a recessed area in the stone wall, small but dry, and they agreed to take turns sleeping and standing guard in pairs. There was no wood to make a fire, so Steven brought the stafflight down to the ground, weakened its intensity and left it to burn like a campfire. As soon as he fell asleep, however, the flame went out.

‘Well, this is a pain,’ Garec grumbled. ‘Steven, wake up.’

Steven sat up with a start. ‘What? What is it?’

‘The fire’s out.’

‘Oh, hell and damnation. Okay. So that’s not going to work, is it? Let me think a minute.’ He stared down at the space between them and moments later a pleasant campfire, devoid of fuel, was burning brightly on the pebbly shore. He lay back down and rolled over in his blanket.

‘Just a moment, Steven,’ Garec warned. ‘It went out when you went to sleep, and since we can’t have you up all night – or day, or whatever it is now, we’ll need some wood.’ His voiced trailed off as he searched around them. ‘Mark, help me with this.’

The two men, not without difficulty, pulled a log from the Capina Fair ’s middle deck and placed it in the fire. Garec smiled at Steven. ‘Just stay awake long enough for this thing to dry out a bit on this end.’

‘I’ll do you one better, Garec,’ Steven replied and inhaled deeply as he stared at the saturated pine log. Steam began to rise from the trunk in great clouds as Steven heated it from within.

‘Hey, that’s hot,’ Garec yelped and dropped the log to rub his burned fingers on his tunic. Moments later the log was dry throughout, and one end was crackling sharply in the fire. Garec pondered the length of pine then shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll just slide more of it into the campfire as that end burns down. Thanks, Steven.’

Beside him, Mark said nothing as his exhausted friend fell back. Steven was asleep almost immediately.

Noticing Mark’s stare, Garec cast him an inquisitive look. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

‘You didn’t see that?’ Mark was not confident he could believe his own eyes. He needed Garec to confirm his suspicions.

‘See what?’

Mark answered, more to himself, ‘A neon sign… OIL CHANGE, twenty-six dollars and ninety-nine cents.’

‘What?’

‘It happened that morning when he knocked that tree down as well – the morning you two almost killed each other.’

Garec’s face flushed. ‘I don’t understand. It’s magic; we’ve seen him use it before… many times.’

Mark didn’t respond, but instead motioned towards the far wall of their recessed camp.

‘So what?’ Garec was still confused. Finally something clicked and he realised what the foreigner was trying to tell him.

The hickory staff leaned against the wall. In his fatigue, Steven had dried the log and ignited the fire unaided.