February 2007

(Note:  This is not official version and may be removed in the near future.  This do not reflect what is read in the podcast version, nor any other version you may encounter.  I have preserved the rough form for posterity — or something like that.  This novel has since been rewritten.) James had narrowly escaped death. In his mind he could still see the menacing white eyes of the creature, beast, whatever it was, thirsty for his flesh, thirsty for the sweet comfort he would have created inside its belly. Yet, he had survived. The sword, to his surprise, refused to leave his hand. He tried prying his fingers away, laying there on the beach, but his hand, and the sword, seemed unwilling to let go. The blade itself shimmered faintly as if it were suddenly brand new. He couldn’t quite understand how it had all happened. He remembered thinking desperately about the sword, and then it ripped free and he found himself on the beach, blurry eyed, and exhausted, sword tightly in his hand. Magic, he thought. For some reason he felt as if he were becoming more used to the blurry vision and weakness. He had the energy to stand again; he simply wanted to lay there in the sand for a moment. But Darl refused to allow him more than a few minutes, and before long, he found himself on his feet and hobbling through the open tunnel mouth and up a winding cramped tube. He dragged the sword behind him. Every so often the blade bumped Pea who in return grunted angrily and kicked it away. Darl, not at all to James’ surprise, became grumpier than before, grumbling to himself as they climbed. The journey up seemed far easier than the journey down. At least James thought so. The biggest problem he found was drying off. The process made him tremendously uncomfortable and he started to feel the way a cranberry might feel after being drowned. Still, he prayed and hoped there would be a soft bed in Arnur and that he would be able to sleep. And sleep. And sleep. The tunnel no longer curved in strange winding patterns; rather, it kept relatively straight in a easterly direction. James took this as an advantage. It meant they would have a full understanding of which direction to look when they managed to get out of the tunnel. Slowly the tunnel widened allowing everyone in the group to walk fully upright. James sighed as his spine popped. He stretched as best he could with the sword hanging from his hand. Then a faint light appeared, intensified, and then the end of the tunnel presented itself. Pea quietly put out his torch and placed it in his bag. Darl broke into the outside world first, then James, and Pea shortly after. James breathed in deeply, closed his eyes, and reveled in the moment. He promised himself that should he ever get home he would never go spelunking. Not so long as I have a choice. In the distance massive bangs filled the air like the sound of two enormous boulders crashing against each other, or a tremendous rockslide ripping away from a rock face. James saw Darl look back and for a moment thought to look too. He stopped himself in mid-motion. He wasn’t sure if he could handle it. Darl’s eyes were sunken; Pea, who had turned a moment later, looked on the brink of tears. The sounds continued and James built up the courage. He turned. The sight before him, a sight he had half-expected and yet could never fully prepare for, caused his knees to quiver, nearly buckling beneath his weight. Fires ravaged anything that could burn within Arlin City. Though he couldn’t see the main gates, he could tell that the walls had been crushed. Buildings buckled from car-sized stone missiles. But the fires hadn’t reached the two towers. Instead chains with links the size of human torsos stretched up the height of the structures. The Adul’pur shimmered. Faint black clouds enveloped the bridge. They grew in intensity, becoming like elemental serpents, surrounding the Adul’pur, but held back by an invisible force. Whatever held the clouds a bay lost its strength and in a sharp flash of light the Adul’pur shattered and exploded out into a green mist and disappeared. The black clouds dissipated just as sneakily as they had come. Then, the chains became taut. A stone missile ripped low into Naz’ra. It hung in balance with gravity and the last remaining supports within its structure, and then it fell, toppling down in a maze of dust, slabs of stone and pulverized rock. The sound of it all seemed infinitely greater to him. He winced as it crashed and dropped to his knees. He watched the dust settle and tears began to well in his eyes. Then Al’Dul creaked, a long crack opening like the maw of a stone beast along its midsection. Another stone missile burst through it. Then it crashed, hitting the hilltop in two large pieces, fragmenting, and spilling dust down the hillside. “We must go,” Darl said. James buried his head into the ground and sobbed. “James,” Pea said, “we have to go. There’s no time.” “I-I…” “Fear not. Luthien will pay for this.” But Darl’s words had no affect on him. He broke down completely, feeling as though one of his parents had died. What have I done? What have all these people done to deserve this? He searched for the answers; none came. It’s all my fault. Every last bit of it. If I had never come here, none of this would have ever happened. God help these people. God help me. “We have to move now. If his men see us, then all of this is pointless,” Darl said, then searching for the words, “all those people would have died for nothing. Don’t let that hang on your shoulders. Ammond knew there were great things

(Note:  This is not official version and may be removed in the near future.  This do not reflect what is read in the podcast version, nor any other version you may encounter.  I have preserved the rough form for posterity — or something like that.  This novel has since been rewritten.) The cold black enveloped him in every direction and he soon realized that his inability to breath was the result of being thrust many feet underwater. But with nothing but darkness filling his vision he couldn’t tell which direction led to the surface. He hung there for a moment, feeling the water he had accidentally ingested swimming in the bottom of his lungs and his reflexes telling him to cough. Then, he picked a direction and swam frantically. A few seconds turned to many seconds and he started to wonder if he had chosen wrong and that he would die in the bottom in a watery grave. Quickly he dispelled those thoughts and swam harder and faster. Then, miraculously, he broke the surface. The chill sensation of air tickled his face. He breathed hard and coughed wildly as his lungs begged to be free of their burden. He dispelled the water and phlegm that found its way back into his throat and then breathed a sigh of relief. Looking around he could see nothing. Without the light from Pea’s magical torch every direction left him blind; his eyes could not adjust. To add, his arms were still burning and the only thing that kept him going was the burst of adrenaline injected ever so smoothly into his muscles. James tried to float on his back in order to cool his aching body. He managed it, albeit crudely, and grinned at having remembered something he hadn’t done since he was five. The only thing holding him down was his pack, which he took great effort to keep centered so he didn’t have to flop around too much to keep afloat. What am I going to do, he thought. The echo of voices answered his question. At first he couldn’t make out what was being said as the voices merged into a collage of sounds. Then, as if his hearing suddenly became more accurate, he could hear the faint arguing of Pea and Darl. Despite his fear he chortled. Then the joyful moment was over. “I’m okay,” he said, practically screaming it. A first there was no reply except the continuing debate above. Then, suddenly the echoes stopped. “James?” Pea’s voice came, broken, through the tunnel. “I’m okay. There’s water down here. A lot of water. I can’t see.” He slipped briefly, coughed up the water that ran into his mouth, and righted himself. “We’re on our way!” James waited patiently in the water, floating calmly. He could stand the dark—for a time. He had never been afraid of the dark, not really. His parents had told him he had feared it when he was younger, but he could never remember those days, and in some ways he was grateful not to. He instead fixated on the nights when his parents had told him to go to bed and he had simply remained awake fiddling with his computer. He started to wonder when he would get to use his computer again. He floated there in the dark for what seemed like ages. The sounds of Darl’s work in the tunnel filtered through the air. Shortly after the languid glow of Pea’s torch send a shimmer of light through the end of the tunnel and James could finally make out the dark shapes of his surroundings. The tunnel ended some twenty feet above him, simply cut off by the ceiling of a monumental cavern that stretched farther than the light could reach. We must be under the river, he thought. He wondered how far Arnur was from the river. He guessed a couple miles at least, assuming they didn’t get lost, something he hoped wouldn’t happen. There’s no time for that. A cry of surprise from above forced James to look up just in time to see Darl falling haphazardly through the opening in the tunnel. He tried to move out of the way, but it was too late and Darl came crashing down a few feet from him, landing stomach first, and sending a wave of water over his face. Darl surfaced a moment later. Pea snickered. “Not funny!” Darl said. Then Pea cried out too and fell with a small plop, sending yet another wave of water over both James and Darl. Then Pea surfaced too. “Right, not funny,” Pea said, the torch still held in his tiny hand. The flame hadn’t gone out, in fact, it had sunk an inch below the water and still glowed bright. James admired it for a brief moment. Then Pea said, “Well, what direction should we go.” “I haven’t a clue where we are, let alone which direction is east.” “I think we’re under the river,” James said. “But where under the river I don’t know. The tunnel didn’t exactly stay straight.” “Pick a direction then.” Pea didn’t seem too pleased with the option, but opted for it nonetheless. James hung his head back for a moment and let his ears sink, using his legs to keep him afloat. He floated there, silent and quiet, contemplating the next course of action he would have to take. East could be any direction, he thought. And if we go the wrong way we’ll all be dead. Something gently tugged on his back. At first he ignored it, thinking it little more than the movement of water around him, a current, or perhaps Darl or Pea swishing around. It was only enough to grab his attention, nothing more. But, he soon came to realize that it wasn’t the swishing and movement of his companions that was causing the force on his back. Rather, something inside his pack seemed to be pushing against the side. He