Akashi's Will Read online

  Clay’s mind was still partially in shock at the magnitude of his recent revelation, “Briar we need to get out of here. We need to get back to Telenor.”

  Looking into his eyes and seeing the seriousness in his gaze, Briar’s smile at the joke slipped into a frown, “why Clay? What have you seen?”

  Sighing inwardly, he pointed back to the cavern wall that he discovered the markings on. Looking it over Briar remarked, “I don’t see anything. Am I missing something?”

  He realized that the water must have evaporated off because he could barely make out any of the lines that were so clear before, “give me your water skin and stand here and watch.”

  After she handed him her water skin, he repeated the same process as before, wetting his hands and running them over the indentations in the stone. As he worked, Briar sat motionless behind him. When he was almost finished, he knew when Briar finally recognized what he was showing her, “no this cannot be…”

  The warrior finished his work then stepped back to join her, “this is why we need to get back to the village. We have to warn them.”

  “This is- this is the Eye. The Eye, Clay,” she began to mutter furiously, “if this is the Eye, that means this is - no it cannot be. How do we get out of here? We have to leave now,” she said while turning in place, searching for a way out.

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him, seeing the hint of terror and madness in her eyes. Holding her gently he whispered in her ear, “it will be okay Briar. Everything will be fine. We will get back to Telenor and everything will be fine. The elders will know what to do.”

  He felt her relax slightly and nod at his words, “how do we get out?”

  Gesturing to his right, “I noticed this earlier. I think these are steps that spiral up to the top. If they are, it will be a lot faster and easier than trying to climb that rope out of here.”

  Nodding again she pulled another glow potion out of her pouch and tied it to her vest using the strips of leather dangling there for that purpose. Then she pulled out her bow and readied an arrow, “you know as well as I do that finding the Eye means that this is a Dungeon and that the old legends are probably true. Nightmares must walk this place.”

  He pulled his short blade out and readied it in his right hand. Giving his glow potion another shake, the warrior led the way slowly up the path that seemed to wind up to the top of the cavern. Staying close to the wall as he climbed, he strained his ears for any signs of other creatures out in the darkness.

  The sound of a rock tumbling echoed off in the distance and the small party froze like two frightened rabbits. As time slipped by in silence, the warrior slowly let out the breath he was holding before they began inching their way up the path again.

  In the darkness, every heartbeat seemed to be loud enough to sound out a clarion call, summoning every creature within ten miles to come and feast. The small party paused nervously every couple of yards to listen for any sounds of pursuit.

  When the distant clack of another rock tumbling down sounded like it was a lot closer than the last time, the seeds of terror began to rise within them. Their imaginations started filling their minds with pictures of the horrible nightmarish creatures that were surely hunting them.

  Clay reached out and felt for Briar behind him. His hand brushed her arm and she jumped slightly from the touch, “Briar, I think we might be being followed,” he whispered to her.

  “I heard it too,” she said with her eyes wide and dancing over every shadow in the distance, “we have to keep going.”

  Clay nodded and began picking up the pace. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Briar begin walking backwards towards him, always keeping her eyes focused on the distance, looking for whatever was coming their way.

  Rounding what looked like might be an aged column, the light from his glow potion illuminated another Eye on the cavern wall. This one appeared to be in pristine condition, with only a small amount of dirt was caked on the artwork in places.

  Clay shuddered as he looked at it. If the legends were true, the Eye is supposed to be the symbol of a Dungeon so immense that myths have been passed down in his village for generations. The tales spoke of a civilization that formed a bond with the Eye a long time ago. Immortal heroes that served the Dungeon supposedly walked the caverns and for hundreds of years their civilization knew peace and prosperity.

  There were dozens of conflicting legends of how the end of the golden age was brought around. Although no story seemed to agree with how the cataclysm happened, they all have one thing in common – they all agree it was one of the greatest tragedies to ever befall a people.

  One of the more compelling legends say the Dungeon summoned powerful creatures from far and wide to do battle within its depths, as if it was inviting something to kill it. With ever increasing hordes of monsters making their way through the city, eventually the immortal heroes were overrun, and small bands of civilians abandoned the cities in an attempt to save themselves.

  With the discovery of the Eye, he surmised the ruins above might be from the doomed civilization that called this area home long ago. The hunter wondered briefly if his little village might be descendants of any of survivors but remembering the situation they were in, he shook his head to clear it of any distracting thoughts.

  Glancing back at Briar while walking past the design he whispered, “any sign of whatever is out there?”

  “No,” she whispered back at him, “nothing yet but I think I heard something back the way we came from.”

  Just as he was turning back around from asking Briar about whatever was following them, he crashed into something hard and staggered back from it. Getting his bearings, he looked in disbelief at the blank wall he saw in front of him. As he looked the wall up and down, the hunter said in utter bewilderment, “I’m sure this wasn’t here before. The path continued right passed this design.”

  Briar turned around and saw him running his glow potion over the wall looking for some clue as to what just happened. “I know this wasn’t here a couple of seconds before,” Clay uttered, a tinge of panic coloring his voice.

  “Hurry it up, find something,” she hissed at him, “I think I hear whatever is hunting us getting closer.”

  He frantically ran his hand over the wall searching for any sign of something that was out-of-place. Not finding anything, he turned to the design of the Eye in frustration.

  That is when Clay saw the Eye seem to turn and fix on him. For a long moment his mind starkly refused to believe what he was seeing, then it blinked, and his mind was suddenly assaulted by a force of power that set his teeth vibrating in his skull and shook him to his knees. When Briar crumpled next to him a second later, he barely noticed because his world had shrunken to the space that existed between his ears.

  With the force of a mountain coming down on his skull, all he could feel was immense pain. Rolling on the ground clutching his head, he slowly became detached from reality. After his mind was subjected to a certain amount of pain, his consciousness retreated within itself in an act of self-preservation. Everything took on a detached perspective, like it was happening to someone else. That was when he realized the slow changes in the vibrations and began to make out what he was hearing.

  “Suuurrreeennndddeeerrr… yoouurrsseellff… tooo… meee…,” every word, every syllable, was drawn out and blended in with the next to make one large deafening sound. It was like a mountain was trying to talk to him by using the sound of ten landslides all at once.

  Lurching to his feet, the warrior started screaming incoherently as he stumbled his way to the Eye, “no, no, no…I…will…not…” Feeling his bow slip through numb fingers, he clutched desperately onto the arrow in his left hand. When he got within arms distance of the Eye his legs gave out and he crashed to his knees. Throwing his right arm out to brace himself against the wall, he looked right into the pupil of the Eye of Cainan and was overcome by the sudden knowledge that something as old as time was looking back at him.<
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  With the feeling of his mind being rattled to soup, he stabbed the Eye of Cainan with the arrow in his hand as a last gesture of defiance before he collapsed where he knelt, and darkness overtook him.

  ********

  “Hey, get up,” something was brushing his hair back and the ground felt strangely soft, “get up!”

  Opening one eye, he looked up and saw Briar holding his head in her lap. Elated to see her, Clay tried to say, “I am so glad you are alive! You are so beautiful. I am so ready to go back to the village to get married and make babies.” But what he actually said was, “gaaahhh headdd, mmmhhhmmm.”

  Briar, being infinitely wiser than he was, pulled out the medicinal herbs he carried in his pouch and placed some in his mouth, “chew this for a while and it will ease the pain.”

  The pain in his head grew to a crescendo as he sat up, though he kept chewing and the pain gradually eased to the point where he didn’t flinch involuntarily every time he heard himself breathe.

  “What just happened? All I remember is pain,” he asked Briar softly, wincing when the sound of his voice started off drumbeats pounding away in his skull.

  “I have no clue what that was about, but I think I will have a migraine for a year. I do have one question though,” Briar asked while kneading her forehead, “why did you find it necessary to stab the rock wall?”

  Trying to remember back to why he made that decision, brief flashes of what seemed to be a nightmare swam in his mind. Shaking his head in confusion, Clay said, “I’m not sure but I think I thought I saw the Eye blink and stabbed it because…well I thought it was trying to kill us, so why not stab it? Or maybe it was trying to do something else? Everything is hazy now. You didn’t see it blink at us?”

  Briar looked at him with confusion, “no, all I remember is being bombarded by whatever just happened and going unconscious. Then I woke up and you were collapsed next to the Eye with an arrow sticking out of the pupil.”

  Rubbing his head, Clay reached for the small pouch of medicinal herbs that he kept on his belt and realized that Briar was still holding it. Gesturing at her, she handed him the pouch. Pulling some more of the herbs out, Clay put some in his mouth then began to chew again and handed some to Briar, “it will help if you are still in pain.”

  She took the proffered herbs and began to chew on them. After a few more minutes of sitting, the pain in their heads began to ease. When he thought his brain could handle higher functions again, he looked around and saw what Briar had been talking about.

  Somehow his arrow managed to find a crack in the middle of the pupil of the Eye and was sticking out of the stone. The Eye wasn’t showing any signs of being alive though and he wasn’t feeling like he was a bug being watched by a mountain. Shaking his head, that vibration must have affected him and made him imagine things.

  Scanning the path down the way they had come, nothing appeared to be moving, “are you feeling any better Briar? Think you can continue now?”

  “Yeah, I think we can go,” she groaned while getting on her hands and knees before she lurched to her feet.

  Clay stood up a little unsteadily and turned around to face the direction they were headed in. Seeing the way was clear, he picked up his bow and put it around his shoulders. Looking at the arrow embedded in the Eye of Cainan, the hunter in him cringed at the waste of a good arrow but he decided that, whether or not he actually did imagine the whole encounter, he would leave the arrow there. If he wasn’t imagining things, maybe that arrow actually did do something to stop the vibrations from turning them into paste.

  Shrugging, the warrior looked again at the direction they were headed and grabbed Briar before she could pass him, “hold on,” he whispered at her slowly, “something isn’t right here. I remember there was a wall blocking this direction before we got hit with that assault. Where is the wall now?”

  Seeing the upwards path unblocked, Briar took a step back before casting a nervous glance around the ledge, “this is really weird.”

  Turning quickly, they both heard a scraping sound reminiscent of a leather boot on stone behind them. The couple shared a glance and seemed to silently agree that while walls appearing and vanishing was alarming, at the moment they had bigger concerns.

  He gestured to her to take up her bow, while he pulled his off his shoulders. They both knocked arrows but didn’t draw. “I’ll go ahead but you keep close to me and if you see anything moving, let me know and we will both take it down,” the warrior whispered to her.

  Nodding she took an extra glow potion out of her pouch, shook it alight and then left it in the middle of the ledge they were resting on, “whatever is following us, it obviously already knows we are here. I’ll leave this potion here so when the light dims, we will know how far back this thing is.”

  He gave her a thumbs up because that was one of the best ideas either of them had had all night and lead the way up the path passed the now still Eye. Their footsteps marred the fine layer of dust that had accumulated on the stone pathway they were following upwards. Little puffs of dust arose from every step and the light from their glow potions showed no signs of other tracks in the dust. Seeing how undisturbed the pathway was, he thought it was unlikely that anything had come this way in a very long time.

  It wasn’t long before he heard Briar hiss at him from behind, “Clay!”

  Turning around, the warrior could make out the faint light behind them dim slightly before brightening again. “So, we aren’t imagining things,” he muttered as his breathing became rapid intakes of breath and his palms started sweating. Drying them off on his cloth shirt, he looked at Briar. By the whiteness showing around her eyes and how tightly she was gripping her bow, he knew, whether she would admit it or not, he wasn’t the only one terrified.

  Seeing her so obviously scared stirred an anger inside of him that he hadn’t known existed. Watching her take a couple of involuntary steps back from whatever horror she was thinking of that was pursuing them, stripped away the last vestiges of fear from his mind and rage slowly rose in its place.

  Clay said “let’s keep going upwards. We have to be nearing the top but if we can’t find a way out in the next couple of minutes, we should find a good place to wait in ambush for whatever is coming.”

  Briar turned to look at him when he started talking but when he got to the part about setting up an ambush for his stalker, her mouth slowly drew into a line and the worry lines around her eyes were replaced with a look of determination. She nodded her acceptance of the plan and they started to move quicker up the path.

  Passing several more small alcoves that were devoid of decoration, they came to a small ledge that was partly illuminated by starlight from above. Moving to the edge of the ledge, Clay looked up and could make out a couple of stars twinkling in the distance. Emboldened that they were nearly there, they practically broke into a run up the path to their perceived salvation.

  The next ledge was slightly larger than the ones previously and had another depiction of the Eye of Cainan on the wall. Since this was the first Eye they had seen since the mysterious encounter earlier, Clay was watching it carefully as they approached to see if it showed any signs of registering their presence. That was why he was caught completely by surprise by the wall that appeared just around the bend in their path.

  Skidding to a stop barely in time to avoid running full tilt into the new obstruction, Briar was forced to dodge around him to avoid crashing into his back. Panting they both just looked at the wall in stunned silence, “what- what do we do now?” she managed to get out while breathing heavily.

  They both started searching the wall and ledge for any signs of a door or another way off the ledge, “I’m not finding anything here,” Briar called to him softly from the other side of the ledge near the Eye.

  “Same,” he called back to her, realizing they had run themselves into a dead-end. He started wondering how long they had until whatever was following them would show up, when he heard scrapes on sto
ne coming up the path they had just run up. Unlike before, the sounds didn’t diminish this time. As they listened, the sounds emanating from the passage below were getting louder every second.

  With the hair starting to rise on the back of his neck, Clay looked around frantically for some way out. Seeing a glint of something out of the corner of his eye, he turned towards the edge of the ledge and looked out into the cavern, searching for whatever it was that he saw.

  He was about to give up when he saw something sway before him. Flinching away from it, his mind took a couple of frantic seconds to realize it wasn’t some snake dangling in front of him. It was the rope he left tied to the tree near the top of the hole.

  Swaying back and forth a little distance from the ledge, it was tantalizingly close, but he knew it was out of his reach. “Briar come here,” he softly called to her and she came jogging when she heard the urgency in his voice.

  “The rope is dangling there,” he gestured out in front of him, “do you see it?”

  “Yes, but that is too far for me to grab,” she said while taking off her pack and beginning to rummage through it for anything she might be able to turn into a makeshift hook. Finding a small spool of spare leather bindings, she set it aside and kept looking.

  The scraping echoing from below them was getting louder, with new definition in the sound. It appeared to be something of stone or metal dragging along the floor. With his breath coming in short quick gasps, the warrior ripped off his pack and pulled out the stone Briar had given him when he came down into the cavern, “I’ve got it, give me the leather.”

  Handing him the leather, he quickly unspooled several yards of it and began winding a portion around the stone. When he had made a cradle for it out of the leather, he tied it off and began spinning the stone on the length of leather around his head.