Lon couldn't go much lower and continue to keep air around his head. Yet, he just had to take a closer look. He exhaled and emptied his lungs and shrank his bubble as small as possible. He kept his right hand under his chin and maintained a thin mask that barely covered his face..
Just below the somgor stick-tavern was a cave opening with a protruding front porch, its streamlined design looked very First Age.
The somgors followed Lon. They climbed down the vines that lined the chasm and entered the cave below with many claps and chirps. Lon heard these happy pings through the water and he saw joy on their faces as they trailed beneath his bare feet. Other somgors climbed up from below; their underwater world was deeper yet and there was a white castle made of cubes that glowed at the bottom.
Lon entered the dark cave in the side of the aquifer. He used his left arm to push himself lower and the cavity opened-up before his eyes. He about lost his mind when he saw the sign and read the writing on the wall. Here were two different metal plaques, enormously large, one on either side of the chamber. They glowed with their own light and he could see their metal surfaces were pockmarked with age and the corners were covered in algae, but the words were still visible. The first said Kluth, and the second said Samardina.
The metal signs were the size of the Annabelle and they were cracked and barely readable. Both had the same Varget symbol, a circle inside a diamond. Seeing the words and these icons together shocked Lon to his core. He let his air bubble slip away as he processed the revelation. Instead of making another air-sphere he simply kept the pattern active in his head and stuck his fingers up his nose. He made the symbol glow as he inhaled and that worked too. He'd just hold his breath and make what he needed. He wanted to think this through.
Lon exhaled and a hundred bubbles hurried up around his head. The circle inside the diamond sign fascinated him because he knew without applying his mind that it was the Varget construct for 'life form'. The circle implied a power source and the diamond signaled a consciousness. Together they made life. This was the Samardina. He was here. This was the place that Clyde of Barobell had sought and the place which he'd first spoken-of as being a missing section from the Book of Kluth. Did he know the truth? The lost book wasn't a dusty tome at all. The Samardina was a place and its nameplate carried a symbol that looked very much like the flag of Crol.
Alocer's hateful flag showed the 'ma' in the 'gor' in a box which meant it was infused or controlled. The Varget word for that is 'mor' or 'duma' when plural. But what about 'Caracketa Crol?" Those were the words Horne had spoken to intone the construct on the Wolfspire. Where did the priest learn that? Did he just make it up years ago in his temple? The prophet Alocer must have remade the Crol's flag and added the mighty symbol to their heraldry. He wrote his book to give credence to his lies and persecute the world's mutants. Did he know the power of this basic shape? Of course, he did. Now all Tokal was tormented by his best student, Grand High Minister Surilus Horne. That bent priest used this mark to control the minds of other lifeforms, including animals. Anything he could see he could control, but not the Calbians though, Valari was adamant about that. Probably because they have groundsmilk in their bodies and are not so easily swayed by a foreigner with smilkstone.
The young lad stuck his fingers up his nose and took another breath. He swam forward and saw how the room contained countless algae-covered desks and chairs. People once worked here and sat at those tables and faced these walls, but he couldn't imagine what tasks they'd performed. Now somgors traipsed about below and seemed right at home. The water-people pointed out new attractions. Their helmeted leader raised a cover on a bench and Lon could see a dozen little blocks glowed with coloured lights; most of these were pale orange but one was bright green and another pulsed red. As he watched, the tall somgor with the turtle shell helmet on his head pressed the green button and behold there were suddenly more lights in the ceiling. Whole sections of the roof lit up.
More signs on the wall came alive too and Lon saw how these were cemented right into the rock; the young lad couldn't shake the feeling that this sunken space wasn't made by somgors. This First Age facility was fashioned by Kluth himself, or his children. Was it a theater? Or a temple? A shrine? Or a giant gristmill of time?
One plate showed the Secondsun as clear as day and Lon spotted the foundation sign. The lad knew the line over the circle marked the sun-that-never-rises and here were 'bors' or rods that must channel the groundsmilk away from the misty orb. Saeya had said they were all conduits and the Secondsun is real. He knew that was true; this place felt like it was directly connected to the milky white sphere under the island. The smilk flowed-up through this undersea realm and it coursed through him here in this place. Could the beings who'd once sat in those chairs somehow control the sphere? Maybe they'd somehow managed the flow? Was it somgors who'd worked here? Or was it the Gods themselves?
The next graphic was more complex. The sun-that-never-rises was shown again but here were more squiggly lines and shapes. Was this Varget? The signs were so foreign, and too complex for him to ever replicate from memory. He knew he couldn't intone those symbols for he had no idea of the words to speak nor any understanding of their function but still there were secrets to be learned. These billboards reminded him of blueprints for boats. Why else would people sit in chairs at desks and stare at these shapes unless it was to control them?
He studied the schematic and his eyes followed the lines away from the Secondsun on the left-hand side and over to the symbols on the right. The whole rig was a rectangle bisected by two different sized squiggly line breaks in the center. On the righthand side was a bor sign positioned above red and blue right-angle triangles. The three simple shapes set together in the pattern intrigued him. Two right-angle triangles were sandwiched belly to belly to make a square. The red triangle was right-side up and a blue triangle pointed down; it was fire and ice.
Fire and ice is what Clyde had said to him when they'd studied the red ring on the beach. The curio had rolled free of the broken boat to rest on the coast. The bottom flamed but the top was ice cold. What is above so is below, Clyde had said. Lon remembered how the ocean spray hardened to crusty snow on the far side of that circle. This confirmed his belief that smilk could be anything; it could be fire or ice and everything in between.
The rings and the Secondsun were connected, and this plate somehow outlined the relationship. The smilk flowed from the sun-that-never-rises toward the square made by the right-angle triangles. It seemed like an equilibrium; it meant to strike a balance? This perfect proposition suggested that both fire and ice could be made and that was its purpose; the picture produced more questions than answers, but it also sparked new ideas in his rapid-fire brain.
Just as gei + bor made an air rod, then perhaps fei +bor could make a fire rod? But the key seemed to be the shape of the triangle. Perhaps squishing a normal water triangle right or left is how you make either ice or steam? He recalled how this was the shape of the oxidation pattern on the door of the steamer box opposite the carpenter's shop in Atarskal. The Calbian attendant had closed the door and squished the rust mark to the left side with his mind to make it into a right-handed triangle. When he opened that iron door the steam had billowed forth. He'd infused the box with fire, Lon realized. The other side of that plate must blaze to make the water in the steamer boil.
The somgors who'd gathered under his bare feet now chirped and waved to get his attention.
The turtle helmeted group-leader gestured and pointed upwards with his gloved hand. Lon gazed-up at the ceiling and gasped. These beings had summoned an empty cube.
Here was an open square, a white frame in the shape of a cube glowed in water. The perfectly square geometric box that'd appeared above was just an empty frame. The shape had a steel top and bottom that was covered in rusty oxidation, but it had no sides. Lon drifted close to the glowing cube which was the same size as the alabaster block he'd seen in the catacombs. The thing was suspended by two thick cables which disappeared into a dark hole above. What was this? It was a glowing white square with no sides filled with water and surrounded by water? What did that mean? He had to get even closer. A box usually meant control, but what was being controlled?
Lon swam inside the box simply to see if he felt any difference. He wondered how and why the frame glowed? Were the bright white uprights made of smilkstone? Once he'd crossed through the threshold the somgors applauded and made happy gurgles. Some held their bellies and pointed, and others waved him goodbye. Oh no, what have I done?
The turtle helmeted somgor pushed the pulsing red button on the panel and before Lon could react, giant pieces of what appeared to be rusty steel rolled down around him and sealed him into the space. The frame went black and he was contained in total darkness. He inhaled more freshly made air and tried to remain calm. Were the somgors entirely benign?
The young lad felt the water and his body being moved; he had that same queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He considered his options and reckoned he could make a big bubble of air and float about to feel the dimensions on top. There was a hatch above?
Then all-at-once the vertical panels opened. and all four sides of the cube rolled upwards the same way they'd closed, but now the box was no longer underwater and there was a dim light and breathable air outside the cell.
The water that'd enveloped him poured out onto a smooth grey stone floor and Lon was dumped and landed on his sore shoulder. He flopped about like a fresh-caught-fish and gasped for air even though he was now surrounded by muggy atmosphere. It was a bit of a shock. He let his crude construct fade when he was where he was and how the water drained away in small iron grates all around the landing pad.
The rock cavity in which he found himself was another square box, but this space was a hundred feet wide. The chamber was a massive crypt encased in stone and Lon had no doubt he was deep underground. This square-shaped cave was many times larger than Winterhouse and it had a flat ceiling overhead from which there hung a dozen dim spheres that were probably smilkstone lamps. This was the biggest enclosed space the young lad had ever seen in his life save Ephram's shrine. But unlike that tropical cliff cave this place was entirely empty except for the now lifeless cube. Yet there was light. High overhead the spheres thrummed; Lon was very aware the room had a heartbeat because it was the same as his own and he knew that pulse was governed by the Secondsun.
The cube he'd entered had come up through the floor and the cables stretched upwards to disappear overhead. Perhaps this was the proper front door to the Samardina? Maybe this was how the First Age feigorin entered and exited the third kingdom? Maybe it's how they still do? It had seemed like the turtle-helmeted somgor was just doing his job and Lon remembered how he'd waved him onward like it was all very routine. He was the same rank as Tot in the world above; he served a time-honoured function and worked like a doorfeigor, or in this case a doorsomgor. This journey upon which he'd embarked was as ancient and revered as this place in which he now found himself?
Lon inspected the steel frame cube and he saw just how the rusty sides had lowered and retracted. The frame had glowed in the world below but now it was just dull and cold. The surface was pockmarked with tiny holes which is the kind of decay you sometimes see on First Age metals made of super alloys that barely age. This rig was over a thousand years old.
"Hello?" Lon spoke, and he heard the slight echo as the sound bounced around the empty room. He was alone. The place was quiet save for the continuous hum of the lights. The young lad looked around the void. The walls were uniform grey and smooth but there was one obvious doorway. He focused his eyes and could see a little red sign in the keystone. Its surface glowed and the words EXIT appeared in Common. That was a First Age design to be sure. This was Kluth's realm.
Much to his joy, the door opened. There was no handle, just a metal push-bar that somehow worked a latch. But to his dismay, he found the corridor beyond was pitch black. He sniffed dry stale air perfumed with a hint of decay. Unlike the big room behind there were no lights in here. The hallway beyond the door was so dark he couldn't see more than twenty feet.
Lon summoned his courage and entered the tunnel. He'd only taken a few steps when the door swung closed behind him and he was immersed in total darkness. He retreated immediately. He pushed open the barrier and it yielded, thank goodness, but of course the panel would swing closed again as soon as he walked away.
The sea drover looked around the vast empty square and could see no other doors. This was the only opening. That's when he knew he needed to make his own light if he was to explore anymore of this place.
Zed could make his whole-body glow, and Lon had seen Saeya make a flare in the swamp on the first night they'd met. He recalled how Melcart had said she was good at it. They'd both burned their fingers nursing candles and torches in their climb down through the catacombs. How did she do it? He couldn't help but wonder if he'd already seen the answer somewhere and just hadn't sorted the clues. The stables are brightest in the winter, Atar had said. That didn't help as he'd hadn't removed the dung to see the mark he'd imagined was chiseled on the floor. So Saeya was right. He wasn't ready for this journey, and now he'd die down here, wherever here was, in the dim light of this room or in total darkness beyond.
The young lad recalled the white metal plates he'd just viewed and he remembered how the red right-angle triangle had sat with the blue right-angle triangle inverted beside it; the two shapes had been set together to make a square with a bor sign on top.
This was all part of a much larger schematic that had the Secondsun sign at the opposite end. It wouldn't work like that, he knew. The enigma was a just a proposition as Valari had called the symbols on the cube in the goose pond. But something about these shapes made a lot of sense. If that First Age relic could make fire and ice in the sand on the beach, then he could too.
When he'd tumbled down Atar's Falls, Lon had moved water in front of his body and held it there to cushion his fall. He hadn't made water; he'd simply moved it. The fluid was all around him of course and the glyph had gathered it into barn-sized bubble that he'd set in front of his falling form. He'd had to think quick and so he'd inverted the air-pull-water construct and thrown away the air part. It was just water and he knew it would work because he'd felt the same glyph stir the depths in the goose pond.
Lon walked across the wet floor to stand beside the box frame of the empty cube that'd brought him here. Could he gather water now? Was there water suspended in the muggy atmosphere around him? Yes. There was. He could still see water puddled around his feet and more dripped from the ceiling above to ripple the wet floor.
Water was the opposite of fire; it was an upside-down triangle. Lon brought the sign to his mind and studied it for a moment before he dropped it on the smulcrum. It seemed to matter that there was just one point of contact as it took a moment longer to fill with smilk. The Varget command was just one syllable. He raised his forearms and inverted his palms.
"Som," Lon said aloud and the word boomed in the huge empty room. In his view frame he saw the triangle split off and stay lit. A clear sphere of pure water formed in the air above his wrists. The glyph held and the watery spheroid slowly expanded. He felt its weight depress his arm as it grew larger in the air.
The globe soon became the size of a melon, but the muggy atmosphere down here only had so much moisture to give. The same command that'd created a barn-sized bubble when he'd bounced down the falls now made only a quarter-barrel because there wasn't as much water to wield. Still, he'd gathered a sizable amount. Could he move the blob? No. The construct failed and the bubble burst and splashed down at his feet.
His next notion was to try again with fire. Of course. This was a simple experiment he should have done much sooner. Was there fire in the air too?
Lon dried his hands and brought the glyph to his mind. It was just a normal triangle. He set it on the smulcrum and watched it quickly drink-up the smilk until it glowed.
"Fei," Lon said. The word popped and the glyph broke free and floated in the moist air. But instead of making flames it choked miserably and nothing more than tiny puffs of smoke appeared above his upturned palm.
He didn't expect to see a melon-sized fireball, but the smoking fizzle that resulted surprised him all the same. Instead of being disappointed however, he smiled because he knew why it didn't work. There needed to be fire in the air, or somewhere in proximity that the glyph could gather. The water-sigil had worked well down here because there was moisture in the atmosphere. The fei sign failed however because this subterranean chamber was damp and there was no heat or flame available to collect. That was his theory.
But something still didn't add up. In about every story, the deepcombers used fireballs down in Oub. The writers never mentioned how the Varget speakers needed to be near fire or have torches in their hands. The words, Gladragos spoke and fire appeared in the air were his favourite parts of each story. He knew Gladragos could direct the fire with his eyes was how the writer had described the action. When Giglo killed the Icegor, he didn't have to light a bonfire beforehand. So, there must be a way to burn smilk.
Then he remembered gum. He recalled how that mark had let him pull air from water. What if he could use something similar here to gum the fei from gei? In other words, to pull or make fire from air. When he was submerged yesterday with Valari he'd tried to gather air in his hand while underwater and he'd failed of course. The one single air triangle could gather no atmosphere down there, but once he'd added the gum intonation that crude construct, he'd made had let him pull air from water. This was of course how he breathed underwater and how'd made it this far. Now could a similar mark pull fire from air.
It would be two triangles: the air sign below the fire sign.
The young lad struggled to push the two shapes together and that's when another thought occurred. The Doubling gave him the strength to make this sign because the two elements repelled each other same as before. After some struggle he found the pointy end of the air triangle could be jammed up into the bottom of fire mark with some exertion. He doubted he could have done that before today. Yanus had given him his gift form Atar and now he was mentally brawny enough to push these sigils together in his brain. Once they were joined, he didn't have to work too hard to keep them together. He was proud of his accomplishment and he admired the sign that he set it on his smulcrum. He watched it fill with smilk.
"Fei Gum Gei" Lon said aloud and he was surprised when it worked. A thimble of flames flickered and hissed above his smooth right wrist. Palm up or down it didn't matter; the flame nugget burned six inches over his hand. Then he found he could increase its size by feeding his homemade rune more smilk; he watched it burn and felt the heat on his face as he fed the blaze in his mantle. He made a campfire the size of a bull's head but then let it go. He wiped his frame clean and the combustion faded from existence. In truth the fire's sudden intensity had frightened him. It was hot, and he'd become worried he might set his hair or shirt alight.
Then he laughed at his fear. That was a success. Now one question remained; there was one thing left to test. Could he make a fireball by adding the bor? He thought of Melcart, 'Fireballs bah that's all he ever talks about.' It was true. He was obsessed, but only because it was a storied weapon that he knew could be used to defeat Horne.
Lon brought the fire-from-air mark he'd just made back to the forge and he added a crooked-line bor. Now the intonation would have four words. The sea drover raised and pointed his hand at the far side of the vast empty room. He imagined Atar standing beside him. Here goes.
"Fei Gum Gei Bor," Lon said and each syllable cracked with power as he spoke the three separate glyphs plus the action word in the construct came alive one by one. The intonation made three separate pops as each part became active. On his wrist there appeared a fiery shell, no bigger than a Woodwold squirrel at first but it grew into a vicious snapping badger when the glyph broke off the smulcrum. There was no holding back the beast. The red orange bolt broke forth and arced out across the open room. The ball struck the far wall and exploded in a fiery shower of flames. The wall smoked and was charred black afterwards.
"Ho ho," Lon crowed with delight the same way Atar would have done. That was magnificent! "Lon spoke and fire appeared in the air!" He said aloud and laughed to himself. Then he peaked inside at his smulcrum and saw how the mark had drained him, and how the four-part construct had taken-up so much of his smilk reserve. He'd best not do it again or he'd drain his well entirely before finding a way out of this place.
"Fei Gum Gei" Lon brought the flame-apple back to life above his wrist again, and he wondered at the ideal size of the flame for exploring dark corridors...
-
He'd done it. Lon had made a fireball, the object of his great desire, and now there appeared in his mind a path to victory over Minister Horne. Everyone said that fire cannot be blocked.
If only he knew where he was, and how to escape from this sunken prison. Then he could quench the priest and bring peace to the people of Atarskal. Time was precious and here he was locked away somewhere under a mountain.
The hallway beyond the heavy door was empty save for hundreds of shiny metallic shavings that sometimes caught the reflection of his flames. They crunched like dry leaves under his bare feet and broke apart into even smaller little bits. Was there a metal tree that shed these wafer-thin slivers somewhere? Or was this debris just the remains of something even bigger? Whatever it was had been shredded so completely it was now just dust on the floor.
The hall was long and empty but other doors promised more options. Lon didn't know which to go, but he soon grew annoyed with the low ceiling in the hall; this was because it's hard to walk and look about when you have to hold a ball of fire in front of your body. The young lad was still barefoot and so he wanted to see the ground on which he tread but when he raised the ball, he baked the roof of the passage over his head. The ceiling had a flaky surface which crackled and smoked when heat was applied.
Not all the rooms were so low and indeed there were some spectacular sights to behold. There were whole auditoriums filled with metal tables on wheels and myriad locked cabinets and boxes and chest and on room had racks and racks of dusty orange suits handing from a metal track. Shiny steel cabinets with glass fronts held all manner of assorted treasures. Lon saw First Age instruments for unknown trades, glass beakers and crystal flasks and myriad gadgets and toys and queer furniture made of metal alloys that do not rust. He came across room partitions made of spongy translucent gauze that was a material he'd never seen before. But it was in another empty hall with a low ceiling that he found the puzzle.
After being careful not to set a spongy curtain on fire, he spied a black obsidian stone panel which contained a vertical challenge.
It was six symbol totem with Daoda's Gift on top; the line under the circle instead of above the ring signaled the rune represented the-sun-that-rises. That icon was at the very top, and next was gei, the air triangle. This was the first kingdom and that was placed over fei and then som for water and finally tok or rock. Underneath it all was the sun-that-never-rises. The six-symbol challenge contained a slider bar which represented the bridge. Lon knew he was trapped in the third kingdom and he needed to get back to the second realm. He pulled the bar down to the exact middle of the array and slide it across. Click.
Lon heard the scraping of stone on stone and the black panel opened downwards to reveal a stairway-up. He saw how each step was perfectly fashioned with ridges for traction and then he saw the stainless-steel handrail.
Lon's heart stopped when he saw that steel line. Flawless in design and appearance and it was clearly fashioned by First Age smiths and now he knew where he was in the world. He was on the bottom of that dark stairway down he'd seen with Melcart. This was likely that very same set of stairs that haunted his dreams, and that meant he'd have to climb up from the catacombs by himself, with bare feet, and with no ladder, and no torch, and among all the blood rats. And there was the guardian.