Into The Ruins (12 page)

There was no shade, and they simply plopped down in the sand.  Burke set a small bush afire just to satisfy himself that he still could.  As they ate and drank as much water as they could hold, Rigo brought out Ash’urn’s device.  He had checked it just before they lost sight of the small hill and it had read true then.  What he saw now appeared to be consistant with what he expected.  It appeared the device was going to work.

Not wanting to stiffen up, they headed out again within a quarter glass.  Midway through the afternoon they encountered a strange bush with flexible branches that tracked them as they passed.  Tara was who saw one of the bushes eject some kind of projectile at a lizard.

“I’ll bet whatever that thing spat out is poisonous,” she said.

“We better give them a wide berth,” Burke suggested.  “He blasted one of the bushes with
Brightfire
to verify they could eradicate them if needed.  He was also reassured that his magic had not been impaired as they traveled deeper.  He wasn’t sure what to expect out here, but he recalled Rigo telling him that Daim had said there was a reason the wizards of old hadn’t ventured farther.  When he’d asked Rigo a few weeks ago, Rigo hadn’t been able to recall the memory.

By the end of the first day they hadn’t seen anything of any use.  The day had been about as unpleasant as they had expected, and after taking a few moments to lock their current whereabouts into their memories, the four weary travelers happily stepped through the
Bypass
that Tara had created to take them back to the Outpost.

After a few days it became routine if no more fun.  The Ruins was uniformly unfriendly and wearing.  The strange fierce light sapped one’s energy and had they not been as determined as they were, each would have given up the task gratefully.  The team of four, the three regulars and whoever had the rotation, would go out mornings, and return weary in the evenings, usually just before dark, but sometimes a few glass earlier.  They elected to take every eighth day off and stay home.  Rigo doubted he could have gone on without the break.

They saw nothing of value and little of interest.  Without Ash’urn’s device they couldn’t have been certain they were even heading in a consistent direction.  Several large herds of Hoplani were spotted, usually at a distance and generally not acting in a threatening manner.  Only twice had they been required to engage the creatures, and then their
Brightfire
had quickly settled the matter.  A few of the larger Morvane were frequently seen with the herds they observed this far into the Ruins.  Rigo was more convinced than ever that the larger beasts were somehow leading or directing the others.  The Ruins deserved awe if only because of its sheer size and consistency.

The strange shooting plants were not uncommon, but for some reason always existed in clumps.  Days could pass without encountering a single plant, and then they would have to dodge around or burn their way through them all day.  They also frequently encountered fields of sharp crystalline spikes.  Each spike was almost a hand span high, and they grew out of the sands spaced with barely enough room to place a boot between them.  It was nearly impossible to break them and it was obvious right off that they would penetrate a boot without fail.  How they were formed and what their purpose might be was not clear, but given the dangerous nature of everything out here, they either worked their way around the smaller fields of spikes, or used
Brightfire
to burn a clear path through the things.  Surprisingly birds were sighted almost every day, but they never got close enough to learn any more about them.  Rigo wondered where they might be heading, and their existence convinced him that something was out there.

Ash’urn’s predictions about Inge had been correct.  After the first few days as their schedule settled into something predictable, she had begun to soften.  By the end of the first week they sometimes had dinner together, and by the second week they were back to their old routine.  When Inge’s father was out of town, Rigo either spent his nights at the estate, or Inge made her way into the village to the apartments where Rigo lived.  While she still didn’t like his trips into the forsaken lands, the arguments were a thing of the past.  The only question that Inge repeatedly asked was, “How long are you going to keep this up?  You haven’t found anything different so far.”

“Until we learn what we need to know,” Rigo would reply, but even he wondered if they were wasting their time.  He couldn’t help recalling Queen Mos’pera’s warning that the trip would be unproductive.  It was only the birds that kept him convinced there was something to be found.

The first troubles began on their thirty-fifth day in the Ruins.  Burke was the one to realize their magic wasn’t working correctly.

“Rigo, I can’t start a fire,” he said worriedly during their mid-day stop.

“That’s pretty basic magic,” Tara said with a frown.  When she tried, she was no more successful.

“What about
Brightfire
?” Rigo asked, and released a burst of the magical energy.  “That seems to work,” he said relieved. 
Brightfire
was pretty important if they needed to fight.

Remembering the problems they had found in the caves, Burke attempted a
Bypass
.  Like the magic that created fire, it didn’t appear to be working.  Neither Rigo nor Tara, nor Raya who traveled with them today were able to open a
Bypass
portal.

“This is not good,” Tara said nervously, giving voice to the obvious.  Unlike the caves where the range was limited, they couldn’t open a
Bypass
to a spot a dozen paces away.  Here it simply didn’t work at all.

“We had best head back the way we came,” Rigo suggested. “We know it worked where we started this morning, so the question becomes, where did the Ruins change and start to block us?”

Half a glass walk brought them to a place where their magic was no longer being blocked.  Happily Tara opened a
Bypass
back to the Outpost.  There they informed the Elders of what had been found, and the group spent the rest of the day considering how best to proceed.  Rigo decided not to mention the anomaly to Inge just yet, and the next morning they set out with extra water and food as a precaution.  They wanted to see if the dead zone was continuous, which would totally change their approach, or whether it was a local phenomenon they would be able to walk through.  Burke suggested that they arm themselves.  Even though they had never seen
Brightfire
fail, if all of their magic were blocked out there, they would be defenseless.

Each was equipped with a Kellmore Serang, the lightest yet most durable fighting sword available.  Rigo enhanced each blade with his special metal skill, having learned some time ago to make the strengthening he’d impressed Kaler with a permanent alteration.  The blades wouldn’t be of much use against the Hoplani or Morvane, but everything else they had encountered could be dispatched with the swords.

The dead zone they had encountered the previous day required just over two glass to walk across.  On the far side, their magic was as effective as it had been everywhere else in the Ruins.  Within the dead zone, certain magics failed completely, others were weakened.  Rigo was certain his
Brightfire
was not as strong as it had been elsewhere.

They pressed on, finding no other affected areas that day, and returned back to the Outpost as usual.  Over the next week, they discovered other dead zones, and decided the Ruins were rippled in this region, with large sections where normal magic was corrupted.  They even found places were none of their magic would work, not even
Brightfire
, which had seemed the most resistant. 

On their eight-day, Rigo paid a visit to Queen Mos’pera and reconfirmed her visions.  She verified that nothing she had seen had changed, which convinced Rigo that they were safe enough.  The next day the group set out once again, aware that the danger they faced had grown considerably by the effects of the Ruins on their abilities.

One night when Inge was staying with him, she confessed.  “Rigo, I’m scared.  I have a bad feeling that something is about to happen.”

“It’s okay, Inge.  The Ruins have changed where we are now exploring, but the regions are small.  We have always been able to walk out of the dead zones in a few glass.  If the worst case were to happen, we might have to spend a night and then backtrack to a place where magic worked before.  That hasn’t been necessary as yet.”

“I just wish you wouldn’t go back there anymore.”

“If we stop now, then everything we have done would be for nothing.  The Ruins cannot go on forever.  Somewhere we have to find another boundary.”

Inge hadn’t been mollified, but she had let the matter drop without argument to Rigo’s immense relief.

Two days later they found the canyon.  Immense was barely adequate to describe it.  How in Risos name did the Hoplani cross this thing?  They had seen some of the creatures coming from this general direction the previous day, but now that they were here there was no obvious path they could have followed.  Rigo knew that some of Daim’s contemporaries had ventured deeper into the Ruins than he had, but had eventually stopped their explorations for reasons that Daim’s memories hadn’t explained.  Was this what had stopped them?

As a group they carefully walked to the edge and peered into the darkened depths below.

“How deep is it?’ Tara asked as she timidly backed away from the precipice.

Burke seemed less intimidated by the drop in front of them and made a serious estimate.

“I’d guess at least two thousand large paces,” he said.  “Maybe a bit more.”

Rigo had to agree with his assessment.  It was all of that if not more.  More importantly, the walls were nearly vertical, dropping away with nothing to grab onto.  One slip and one wouldn’t slide, he’d fall to the bottom.

Rigo looked to the right and left. He could see nothing in either direction as far as he could see that suggested it was any less steep that way.  Then he studied the bottom, at least what they could see of it.  He guessed it would take the better part of three days to walk from this side to the far edge they could barely see in the distance, and that would be true if the bottom had been more or less flat like the land they had been crossing for weeks.  In fact, it was anything but flat down there, and much of what looked like small ripples and bumps were almost certainly large hills with steep walls not unlike the side of the over all chasm.

Even though he wasn’t ready to go down there, he attempted to open a
Bypass
to the closest spot he could see that looked somewhat flat.  Nothing.  The portal wouldn’t open.  He would have believed they were in a dead zone if it weren’t for the
Bypass
opening that suddenly appeared off to his left.

“Where does that go?” he asked.

Tara pointed into the distance off to her left.  “Over there.  I thought it would be interesting to see if it remained like this.”

Deciding it was worth a look, Rigo joined the others as they stepped over to the spot that would have been a horseback ride almost a half glass in duration.  When they stepped out from the
Bypass
, which opened well back from the lip of the abyss Rigo noted, they were greeted with a view not unlike the one they had just left behind. 

“Pretty much the same,” Koess noted as he peered farther in the direction they had just traveled.

Rigo had come to the same conclusion. The walls were just as steep here, and there seemed no way down short of simply jumping off the edge, which, of course, would have been fatal.

A couple of more jumps in the same direction, then a return to where they had started followed by similar exploration in the opposite direction made it clear that there was no way down anywhere nearby.  That meant no way back out either.

“Somewhere there has to be a cave that leads down there,” Rigo said.  “I can’t think of any other way the Hoplani could cross this.”

“Maybe they don’t,” Tara suggested.  “Maybe we passed where they come from.  We could go back and look.”

Burke shook his head.  He pointed across the canyon to the far side almost lost in the distance.  “They come from over there somewhere,” he said.

“How can you know that?” Tara asked.

“I sense it. I’m absolutely certain of it.”

Rigo was too, but he couldn’t have explained why.

“So, do we go back and start looking for how they get down there?” Tara asked.  “It could take a long time.”

Indeed it could.  Rigo remembered how long it had taken a large group of mounted riders to seek out the single tunnel that had allowed the Hoplani to escape under the barrier last year.  They could spend months looking.  Without a doubt they would have to bring horses here, with all the complications that would entail.

Given the extent of the chasm and how many days back from the edge the caves could conceivably discharge the beasts, it could literally take years to try and locate the tunnel openings.  Even then, Rigo’s instincts warned him that they wouldn’t be able to use the tunnels to cross the chasm anyway. 

Burke was shaking his head.  “No, we’ve got to go across.”

“What do you mean?” Tara asked.

“I mean, I don’t want to go in any more caves or underground tunnels.  I don’t like having all that dirt over my head. I feel like I’m buried.  Besides, if we can’t open a
Bypass
to the bottom, there must be a reason.  I don’t think it would be healthy for us down there even if we could find a way down.”

“So what do you suggest?” Koess asked.

“We cross it.  We can see the far side.  We can make a
Bypass
to a point over there that we can see.”

“Just jump over there and gamble we aren’t going to end up in trouble?” Tara asked.  “Can we even do that?”

“It can be done,” Rigo said doubtfully.  “I’ve made
Bypass
portals to places I could see that were more distant that this.  It was in the mountains, and more importantly it wasn’t in the Ruins.  What if we get over there and can’t come back.  There may be a dead zone over there.”

“We’ve seen that the dead zones don’t extend that far.  If there’s one near the edge, we just keep moving until we work our way out of it.  Then we can come back if we want.  Distance doesn’t matter for portals, remember.”

“It does sometimes in the Ruins,” Rigo reminded him.  “Remember down in the Hoplani caves?  We could only make limited range jumps when we were there.”

“That was different,” Burke said confidently.  “We haven’t seen that kind of restriction in all the weeks we have been in the Ruins.  We have seen those problems don’t exist above ground.  After so many weeks out here, we know just what to expect.  I vote we go.”