Silence answered her, but not true silence: the ringing cacophony of the jungle — full of the brushing of broad heavy leaves, the creaking of trunks, the constant keen whirring of an infinity of insects, the piercing songs of unseen birds, and the distant rush of falling water.
‘Hanu!’
She edged forward one step, then another, parted the leafed vines. The path ended at a sheer drop into darkness. Water streamed down in a thin sheen and the hanging vines swung weakly as if slowing from a disturbance. ‘Hanu!’
She waited but no answer emerged from the dark. The evening’s warm deluge now pattered down, slapping her shoulders and hair.
‘Dammit to the Dark King …’ She took hold of the vines and yanked on them to test their strength. The hand-hold seemed solid enough. ‘I’m coming!’ She swung out over the abyss, fought to entwine her legs, and began letting herself down.
She descended into darkness. Immediately, her arms began to ache, her hands to numb. Her vision adjusted until she could make out an immense cavern. What little light remained beamed down as a thin glow illuminating the centre of a heaped pile of overgrown debris. The vines she clung to hung as a curtain halfway out over the gulf. Water streamed all about, hissing as it sliced into hidden pools. Suddenly dizzy, she turned her face away from the height to press it to the waxy leaves of the vines and their sweet stink. She descended by alternately easing the grip of each hand. The woody bark cut her palms and sliced the skin of her fingers but she held on for her life.
Eventually, after the pain became more than she believed she could take, she stumbled down on to uneven rocks. She had to force her hands open to free them from the bunched tangled vine she gripped. ‘Hanu?’ she called, panting. ‘Hanu?’
Where could he … By the restless dead, girl, are you some sort of mage or not? Saeng willed herself to see. In a swirl of colours the dark took on shades of deep crimson and bright yellow. She could see, but not normally: it seemed to depend upon what areas had been in the light — these glowed the brightest — while the depths of the cavern held a deep, almost black carmine. She set out searching among the jumble of fallen rock.
She splashed through pools of standing water. The sheets of falling rain obscured her vision. A sort of slime of rotting vegetation and mud covered the rocks, making her footing treacherous. While she searched through the grotto the crashing of the many streaming waterfalls swelled into a commingled roar.
It occurred to her that the pool she splashed through was rising. She slogged her way to the cavern’s centre, where the last of the light streamed down, and gave one last yelclass="underline" ‘Hanu!’
Her voice returned to her, echoing. Panic rose choking her as the thought came: We’ll drown! Somehow the thought of imminent death calmed her, perhaps because it was something she was so very familiar with. Yes, death. Just two more ghosts, he and I. And thinking of that — aren’t you a damned witch? Saeng pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. Gods, girl! Use these damned magics they showed you!
She took three slow breaths before reaching out with her awareness, trying to sense him. She came up with nothing, which she thought odd. She ought to be able to sense him. Then she remembered all the countless protections and investments she’d layered upon him the many nights he’d accompanied her into the jungle. She reordered her thoughts so that she was reaching out to her brother, Hanu himself, from before he’d been taken from them. And now she sensed him. She sloshed through the rising waters and found him lying insensate, or dead, entangled in a heap of fallen vines.
She tried shaking him. ‘Hanu. Wake up!’ She felt over his stone-like armoured body, his enclosed helm, found no obvious wound, crack, or blood. Water now thundered down from all sides. A current began to push her as the waters flowed past. She had to raise Hanu’s head to keep it out of the rush.
An outlet. There must be some sort of an outlet, an underground stream, or river.
Something bashed into her and she clutched at the vines to support herself: a branch pushed past, carried along by the current. I’m standing in the bed of an underground stream!
The flow deepened and strengthened. She fought it, one arm entwined around a handful of the hanging vines, the other under the armoured chin of her brother. But it pulled at his limp heavy body. And he was far more massive than she. As time passed the cold water drained the strength from her. She came to understand that she would have to choose: it would have to be either the vines or him. But not both.
She held on for as long as she could in the swelling current. Her feet were swept out from beneath her. She locked her elbow under her brother’s chin, wrapped her other arm around the vines, but the water now sometimes overtopped her, choking her. What could she possibly do? What magery could save them? She couldn’t fly! Couldn’t breathe water! One thing only occurred to her, one last possibility should she lose her grip in what was now almost utter darkness.
The time finally came when the pull of the current upon her brother’s body was simply too much for her chilled bones and flagging strength. Screaming her frustration, she let go of the vines to hug the armoured body, striving to keep it on the surface. At the same instant she summoned her powers to work upon the form to keep it afloat, even buoyant, so that she could cling to it to save herself.
The roaring churning flow swept them out from under the cavern’s opening, and glancing ahead, Saeng now realized true blackness awaited them. It sucked them in like a swallowing throat. She took one panicked breath, considered using her magery to give herself some sort of further vision, dismissed the thought as there was nothing she could do, vision or not, and relaxed to allow the swift charging flow to drag her along.
Hanu in his armour crashed into unseen obstacles, scraping in a dragging of his stone armour against rock, and Saeng hoped he wasn’t enduring too much damage, while at the same time she was grateful that he was saving her from these same jagged hazards. At times her vision returned as the flow swept them along beneath similar openings. Through the gaps she glimpsed clouds and sheets of falling rain. They passed beneath a waterfall that pounded them, briefly submerging her. Saeng emerged spluttering and hiked up Hanu’s helm where she gripped his neck. She thought she felt him spasm then, perhaps coughing, and a new fear assaulted her: what if he should truly awake? Wouldn’t his first unthinking reaction be to strike out? To free himself?
‘It’s me,’ she whispered then, next to his helmed head, ‘Saeng.’
But he did not answer; nor did he move again.
A much louder roaring was gathering ahead. It sounded exactly like what she feared it would be: the course was nearing a massive waterfall. She could see no options, no way out. They were being swept along, helpless. Yet her power remained. It seemed to be working in keeping Hanu afloat. She would use it again — somehow — to keep them alive.
Still in complete and utter dark, which was perhaps a mercy in that she could not see the true horror that awaited them, they careered along in the grip of the rushing waters until the thundering engulfed them and, falling, they were airborne for a time. In her moment of greatest panic Saeng threw all her remaining strength and energy into one last effort to protect them, holding back nothing for herself.
Whatever it was she summoned pulled everything from her and the darkness of unconsciousness took her before she knew what their fate would be.
Birdsong awoke her. High sharp calls. She opened her eyes, wincing and blinking, into bright daylight. The crash of a waterfall rumbled nearby — the same one? Probably not. This one coursed in open daylight. She was sodden, chilled, aching all over from countless bruises and bumps, but otherwise seemed whole. She lay in the fall’s shallow rocky pond, perhaps deposited by the weakening current.