More Questions than Answers

Trick jerked awake, disoriented. He’d been dreaming about a picnic on a warm, sunny day but he awoke in an underground chamber. The room was dimly lit with an unsettling green tinge, far from the normal look of Harbek, and he wasn’t laying down but seated and leaning against something warm. He glanced down and realized ‘something warm’ was Sari. That kickstarted his brain into gear, bringing up memories of the last few hours. After they’d sat down to wait while Chestin searched his maps he must have drifted off leaning against Sari.

A quick glance around confirmed that their group’s leader was still awake, perched over his map and moving small glass beads about. Trick checked on Sari, who was still asleep, then carefully lowered her head to rest on his supply bag. He quietly slipped over to Chestin and softly said, “You should probably get some rest.”

“I haven’t worked out a route yet.”

He glanced at Chestin’s map and tried to make sense out of it. He recognized the large central chamber they’d just come down and there was a glass bead on a smaller, though still large, diamond shaped room not far from the central one. Half a dozen other beads gleamed in other places on the map. “It looks like you’ve gotten pretty far to me.”

“The problem is getting back up to the surface,” he said. “The great stairs are such a useful path up and down, and so close to the entrance we used, that we never mapped out other ways up or down in this region. I think I can get to another set of stairs we’ve explored but it will take almost four watches. I have the food for it, but not the water.”

Trick watched him out of the corner of his eye. “Why do you make it sound like you’re the only one on this trip?”

A finger tapped the only spot on the map marked with two marbles. “This is where we last heard from the Child Eternal. It’s not a tumbling room so it should still be there, waiting for us. Once we’ve spoken to it I don’t think there’s much need for you to stay.” Chestin gave him a wry look. “And we both know you’re not planning to come back to Harbek after this, are you?”

“No,” he admitted. “I can leave some of my share of the supplies with you and Sari, though.”

“I don’t think she’s planning on coming back with me, either.” Chestin peeked at the sleeping woman and shrugged. “Not my place to say but regardless, if you’re going deeper into the perils to try and get to the sixth sphere and beyond you’re going to need it more than I will.”

“That’s decent of you, Chestin.” Trick looked at the map again and frowned. “Have you ever found food or water you can use down here?”

“Never. Not saying it can’t happen but I’ve never done it nor has anyone I’ve heard of.”

Trick sighed. “Well if the Child Eternal really built this place maybe it can give us a map and find us a faster way for you to get back to the surface. We’ll ask when we find it. Now go get some sleep, we need you alert when we get going again. I can keep watch.”

“You’re right.” Chestin started picking up his marbles and folding the map. As he worked he gave Trick a curious look and said, “Were you dreaming about the Child, by any chance?”

“No… why?”

“You talk in your sleep. Once or twice I thought you mentioned the Star Imperial and the only reason I could think of to do that is because you were dreaming about the Child.”

The two did go together for Casparians. “Sorry, I was just dreaming of home.”

Chestin nodded and finished packing his things away then fluffed his bag into a pillow and laid down on it, dozing off with remarkable speed. That left Trick with his own thoughts.

He certainly had a lot to think about. It felt like he’d spent most of the last three weeks running nonstop, trying to figure out what had become of his life. Some part of him was a little scared that one day he would get an answer and he wouldn’t like it. So far it wasn’t clear he’d be able to find Stan. It wasn’t clear he could go home, or even that there was a good reason he’d been sent to whatever sunless world the seventh sphere was.

Speaking of which, there was the language question. When he’d first learned his poncho was the thing that was translating languages for him he’d been worried about Stan. Without a handy translation tool he had to be feeling pretty lost. Now, he wondered if he was actually the one who was missing details because he didn’t have the full context for everything he was saying or hearing.

More than once the translator had apparently changed languages for him mid conversation. That was impressive and all but it also meant he’d missed very obvious tests the people around him were using to see what he was capable of. That was worrying. Now he wondered if it had perhaps been translating concepts as well, all without his knowing.

Because Trick knew he’d been dreaming about seeing the sun again. If he’d been talking in his sleep and Chestin had heard him mention the mythological Star Imperial instead that was… well, it was weird. Probably important somehow but mostly weird. These and other questions, like what exactly the ninth sphere was and why it was so desperate to get ahold of lumi, chased themselves around in his head for hours.

By the time Sari and Chestin were awake again he wasn’t any closer to an answer for any of them. So he decided he’d just have to do what he’d suggested to Chestin earlier. He would speak to the Child Eternal about it and hope he could finally get some answers.

Walkthroughs weren’t his preferred way to solve problems but in this one case he decided there were more important things to consider. Like finding Stan or staying alive. So once everyone was awake and they’d scarfed down some rations and washed it down with warm water from their canteens they pushed on.

The room with the stairs was largely a waste of time. Trick hadn’t figured out much of a pattern to them but it turned out that Chestin’s previous group had marked the correct staircases to use by painting small, white circles on the top and bottom step of the stairways they wanted. The real issue was climbing up and down the eight or nine flights of stairs they had to take to get to the next room. From there things got a little easier for a while.

They spent another three hours in small rooms and corridors, some of which Chestin identified as tumbling chambers. They ran into a pair of crab creatures the size of a large dog that attacked them with metal pincers. Compared to the wheel of legs or the machine serpent they were easy to deal with. They also found a room that reminded Trick of the violet room in the complex where he’d arrived except there wasn’t a maze of barely visible barriers in it. There was a rack for reservoir crystals in the wall, much larger than the previous one he’d seen. It was also much emptier. There was only one crystal left sitting in it and it didn’t contain any lumi.

Chestin took it anyway, probably planning to give it to Warden Dart when he got back to Harbek. Not long after that they found a stairway down. They managed to use that without running into any trouble, which Trick found the strangest part of it all.

They wound up in a room that looked vaguely familiar. It was well lit, which was a first, but the walls, floor and ceiling were all matte black. For the first time since coming down the pit into the perils the walls had those strange, sound dampening ridges on them that Trick recognized from where he’d arrived. It felt a bit like he was back in that complex rather than in the aging, rusted ruins they’d explored so far. The only thing the room had in common with places up above was the series of holes poked through the door where a pick could be anchored.

Chestin consulted his map once, then said, “Our goal is on this level, not much further from here.”

“That’s good, right?” Trick asked.

“Very good. Unfortunately we have to cross the pillar field to get there.” He pointed towards the door. “Once we go through there we’re going to be in a place full of twenty foot tall pillars spaced about ten feet apart.”

“How big are the pillars?”

“So wide,” Chestin said, holding his hands about two and a half feet apart. “The room is almost as big as half of Harbek, though it’s very flat so it will be easier to cross than the town is. Or, at least, the ground is flat.”

Trick’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re saying there’s something up in the pillars?”

“They’re a roosting place for the great eyes.”

“Oh.” He massaged his forehead. “Well, that’s wonderful.”

“However the center of the pillar field is the Child’s temple and the eyes don’t dare cross its threshold. Even if one of them comes after us we can get away from it if we cross the temple’s threshold.”

Trick looked at the doorway then back at his friend. “Okay, that’s something. Question is, how likely is it that the cobalt eye we saw earlier made it back to the pillar field already?”

“I have no idea, Trick.” Chestin started folding up his map again as he answered the question. “It’s not like we marked the things to keep track of where they were at any given moment. Other than color of lumi there’s no way to tell them apart. We’ll just have to hope it wasn’t on its way here or, if it was, that it’s come and gone.”

“Hope isn’t a great plan, Chestin.”

“I know. It’s all we’ve got right now.”

Trick heaved a sigh and said, “Fine. Hope it is. Let’s go.”