The Traitor's Heir

Chapter Ten

Quara stifled a scream as she slid down the smooth, steep tunnel in complete darkness. Her arms were crossed and squeezed tightly against her chest, clutching her bag as she accelerated, faster and faster, feeling the smooth granite walls rushing by, taking her further away from the only home that she'd ever known, with every second that passed. She knew that somewhere, close behind her, Lina was following her down towards this hidden city of hers, but now that she was actually sliding along through the darkness she found herself questioning how she had ever come to agree to go along with her sister's crazy scheme.

This was complete and utter insanity. She was certain of it. How had her sister ever discovered this place? Who would follow a tunnel like this deep into the ground? They were far more likely to end up roasted in a lava pit than walking through the halls of some ancient, long forgotten library. How would they ever climb back up?

Just when she began to believe that they would slide on forever, Quara saw a dim light, barely visible in the darkness far below her. Pressing her feet against the rock she gradually slowed her slide before they reached it. How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten? No, it must have been closer to five. How long had Lina said it would take? She couldn't remember but she knew that in the past she'd come to believe that Lina had no concept of time. She'd been that way her entire life.

For Lina minutes could feel like hours and hours like seconds. Quara sometimes felt as if her youngest sister lived outside of the flow of time as everyone else knew it, and only dipped her toe into the stream now and then to meet up with the outside world when it suited her. Still, how long would it take to climb back up, out of the forgotten city? Quara pushed the thought aside. She didn't want to think about it.

As she neared the light source the tunnel widened and Quara found that she could see the slate grey walls drifting past. She tilted her head back and saw Lina a few lengths behind her, hair blown back away from her face, arms spread out wide as if she were flying. Turning back Quara put her feet down hard as the end of the tunnel came into view, skidding to a stop as her sister managed to squeeze by her on the widening track, passing her on the left hand side before coming to a stop a short distance away.

Quara sat, frozen, as she gazed at the landscape that stretched away as far as she could see in any direction. Her first thought was that they must be beyond the dome altogether, and that the footprint of this city was far larger than the perimeter of the Walemont Dome itself.

They had come to a stop on a wide flat space about ten lengths across. A length was the distance of a full grown man's arm, from his shoulder to his fingertips, and was the common unit of measurement used within the Caverns, along with a half-length and a hand span, which were used to measure smaller objects. The area they stopped on was flat and smooth, made of the same dull grey lava rock of the tube they'd just come down, although it had obviously been worked into an even sculpted half circle with smooth curving edges.

Standing, Quara saw that the half disc that they had stopped upon was actually suspended about twenty feet above the ground. Glancing down she realized that they weren't actually in the city itself. They were above what appeared to be the dry lake bed of a great underground lake. The lake bed extended from the wall of the cavern at their backs, which was the only outer wall of the cavern that they could see, out a few hundred lengths to a place where a great sea wall came down to what must have once been a beach. The lake followed along the granite wall that formed the end of the city's domain, and it was clear that the water had once been captured between the city sea wall and the cavern wall, both of which extended out of sight.

Raising her eyes to the city itself, Quara gasped in wonder. It was every bit as marvelous as Lina had promised that it would be. It was far more enormous than she had ever dared imagine. The city itself was cut from a dazzling white stone that rose in layers from the place where it had once come down to meet the lake. Quara had never seen anything like it. The Caverns that she had grown up in suddenly seemed small and crudely made. These were houses and buildings that had been built, from their foundations upward, that just happened to be entirely underground. There were roofs and balconies and entire streets. And the entire city seemed to be rising up towards a great castle that was perched atop the densely settled kingdom. These people didn't live in caves. They built magnificent structures.