How? I asked myself. The attack on the clans had failed. They would be on guard now. Instead of driving them out of the valley, the attack probably made them realize how precious the grain fields were. They might well have decided by now to stay in the valley year-round, to protect the grain against marauders.
But Ahriman is no fool, I told myself. He would have foreseen that.
Then the true purpose of the attack must have been to entice the clans into staying in the valley. But that did not make sense — unless Ahriman planned to destroy the clans and the valley itself, together!
How? Earthquake? Could the Dark One control tectonic forces? I didn’t know. But the answer came to me soon enough, as I lay there in my lightless prison of rock. I heard a loud, slapping, sloshing noise from far below me. A wave was surging through the underground river that flowed down there in the darkness.
“A flood,” I said aloud, my voice strangely hoarse and muffled against the close confines of rock. My thoughts raced. Underground heat to melt the underground ice. The stream that runs through the valley will burst out of the mountainside in an uncontrollable flood. The clans will never have a chance of getting out. The valley will be drowned, together with everyone in it.
Even as I lay there, it was beginning to happen. The water was lapping noisily below me, getting closer, rising to where I lay trapped in this prison of stone. I would be the first one to drown. Ahriman had planned well.
Going through death and being reborn does not make you eager to face death again. Ormazd was in control of my destiny, I knew, but the more I learned about the Golden One and his powers, the more I became aware of his limitations. If he had the power, he would have dealt with Ahriman directly, without need of me or any intermediary. He had power enough to pull me through death and project me into another time and place — at least twice. But what assurance did I have that he could do it again, or would do it again, or even that he knew where I was and what I was facing? I felt totally alone, facing the choice of waiting for the water to rise up and drown me or plunging down into it and trying to find a way back out to daylight. Time was vital. If I survived at all, it was crucial that I get to Dal and Ava in time to warn them of the flood.
I made up my mind, took a deep breath, and rolled over the edge of the rock and dropped like one of my tossed stones down toward the water. There was plenty of time for me to be frightened; the fall was a long one. I oriented my body feet downward, the best way to take such a dive. I found myself wondering how deep the water was; I might break my neck before I drowned.
The water felt like cement when I finally hit it, and then I was plummeting deep, deep down in icy black water, every nerve shocked numb, no sensory input except a painful bubbling in my ears.
I bobbed to the surface at last, took a deep, happy breath, and half swam, half rode the current wherever it was leading me. I had the feeling it was in the direction opposite to the one in which I had been crawling.
After what seemed like hours, I banged my flailing arms against solid rock. The river swirled and surged against a blank wall, but I could feel from the undertow that it dipped into a deeper tunnel and kept flowing on. There was no airspace in that tunnel, I realized, but I had no choice except to follow it. I filled my lungs and then dove under, letting the current carry me along.
The oxygen in my lungs was soon exhausted; yet the river still flowed in its natural tunnel. I began to squeeze oxygen from the spare cells of my body, consciously shutting down whole muscle systems and organs that I didn’t need, taking their stored oxygen to feed to my heart and brain and limbs. I began to die, bit by bit, like the lights of a city winking out in a power failure, one section after another. Desperate, I slowed down my heartbeat and brought myself into a virtual catatonic trance, passively flowing along the underground river, starving for oxygen, not knowing if I would ever see the light of day again.
It seemed like months went by, but finally the darkness around me began to brighten and I floated to the surface of the river.
Air! Real, breathable air. It tasted wonderful as my body returned to life and I gulped in huge lungfuls of the most precious substance on Earth.
The river was emptying itself into a huge cave, turning it into a vast underground cistern. I dragged myself up onto dry, rocky ground, every part of my body jangling from lack of blood circulation. Sunlight filtered from an opening in the vast cave, far overhead. I was much too weak even to try to reach it.
CHAPTER 31
For hours there was nothing I could do but lie there on the rock-strewn dirt and try to recover my strength. But every moment of that time, the water behind me rose higher, splashing and gurgling as it filled this natural underground cistern. Soon enough it began lapping at my feet as I lay stretched prone on the damp ground.
I forced myself to stand and began scrabbling up the sloping wall of the huge cave, toward the opening where the sun’s light streamed in. The bare earth was loose and pebbly, difficult to climb. With each step forward I was in danger of sliding all the way back. But I struggled upward and finally pushed myself through the narrow fissure of rock and out into the daylight.
Looking back, I saw that the underground river was filling up the cave. When it reached the rock ceiling, the water would have nowhere to go but outward, exploding through the rock that held it back, gushing down into the valley below with the force of a tidal wave that would sweep everything before it.
I staggered down the steep slope of the valley wall, my legs weak and rubbery from exertion. Through blurring eyes I could see the valley spread out below me in the late afternoon sun, beautiful, peaceful, vulnerable. I had to get down to Ava and Dal and warn the people.
Tottering with exhaustion, I made my way toward the grain fields. People were at work there, cutting down the long golden stalks with their flint knives. I made my way to them.
“Look!” came a shout from one of the men. “It’s Orion!”
“He’s come back from the dead!”
They dropped their work and gathered around me, keeping a respectful distance.
I raised my hand in greeting, but before I could utter a word to them, exhaustion and hunger took their inexorable toll. I blacked out.
Ava’s taut, lovely face was staring at me when I opened my eyes again.
“You are alive,” she said gravely.
“Yes,” I croaked. “And starving.”
Looking around, I saw that I was in my own hut, lying on the matted grass that we used for a pallet. I could see a crowd of clanspeople pressing at the doorway, peering in. Food of every description was piled high in the middle of the room — gifts from the people, I supposed.
Ava turned from me momentarily. Within seconds one of the other women had pushed her way into the hut, bearing a gourd of steaming broth. I sipped at it, burning my tongue. But it felt good and strengthening as it slid down my innards.
“Where’s Dal?” I asked, my voice more normal. “We’ve got to get the people out…”
“Eat first,” Ava crooned. “Get your strength back.”
I put the gourd to my lips and gulped down all of the broth. She tried to get me to lie back again, but I gently pushed her hands away.
“I’ve got to see Dal.”
“Were you in the land of the dead?” asked the woman who had brought the gourd.
I shook my head, but her eyes were round with awe. “What was it like? Did you see my son there? His name is Mikka, and he was four summers old when he died of a fever.”
Ava shooed her away, then came back to me.
“You were in the land of the dead, weren’t you?” she asked softly.