“We’re not following her into that canyon, Gieaun! What if we’re all killed?!” he whispered harshly, though Jahrra could hear his voice clearly from where she stood.
“Then we’re killed together,” Gieaun said rather valiantly. “We’re friends, all three of us, and no matter what happens we can’t forget that. Now, I know Jahrra lied to you Scede, and she has before. But she has lied to me just as many times.” Gieaun paused and then raised her voice as she addressed Jahrra, “And I know Scede said some horrible things to you Jahrra, but even the best of friends have to fight at some point or another.”
Gieaun raised her head and aimed her voice towards the top of the wash once again, “I think we should stick together, because all we have is each other out here. I would never want my friends to let me face the unknown alone, no matter how frightening it may be. We’ll all go into the canyon, that way if we do meet danger, we have a fighting chance. Alright? Now let’s go, and no more arguing!”
Jahrra was very surprised at Gieaun’s speech and even more surprised when she urged Aimhe up the stone embankment and right past her through the stone arch framing the canyon. Scede led Bhun slowly up the steep rubble pile a few moments later and paused beside Jahrra only for a moment.
“No more lies, alright?” he grumbled. “We have to be honest from now on; we can’t act like children forever.” And then he added bashfully, “I’m sorry about what I said. I was just so angry.”
“And I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful,” Jahrra offered, shaking hands with him and feeling her anger and fear melt away. “I’ll make it up to you someday, I promise.”
“Ladies first,” Scede said, flashing his characteristically impish smile.
The two of them encouraged their horses forward, ready to follow Gieaun into the unknown.
-Chapter Seven-
Ehnnit Canyon
Phrym stepped gingerly upon the loose stones and pebbles as he made his way towards the canyon’s entrance. Jahrra was surprised to discover that the archway itself was carved upon the face of a giant boulder that had clogged up the gully’s opening. Curious as to where Gieaun had gone, she stood up in the saddle and peered into the dark tunnel that stretched beyond the arch. Someone had bored a passageway through the solid rock, making it just wide enough to allow horses and their riders to pass through in a single file line. Jahrra was fascinated, and impressed.
“Are you two coming or not?” Gieaun’s echoing voice called from somewhere up ahead.
Jahrra swallowed and looked at Scede. With a nod, he gestured for her to follow. She took a deep breath and clicked Phrym onward.
To distract herself from the suffocating closeness of the cramped passageway, Jahrra strained her eyes against the strange semi-darkness, looking for anything that might be of interest. Her head barely cleared the rough ceiling, and as she peered down at the floor below, she noticed a dry, rocky stream bed. The only sound in the tunnel was the echoing melody of snorting horses and shuffling hooves pressing painfully against her ears. Jahrra shut her eyes tightly, hoping that this would ease the strangeness of the hollow sounds around her.
After several seconds she opened them back up again and gasped. The walls of the passage were bathed in sunlight from what must have been the other end of the tunnel. It wasn’t the bright light that drew Jahrra’s attention, however, but the pattern of markings tattooed upon the smooth granite. All around her, in no particular pattern, ancient drawings and paintings of strange creatures and primitive runes spelled out stories and battles.
Jahrra squinted carefully at some of the markings and gasped. She pulled up her sleeve and held up her wrist, comparing the rune marks on her wood charm bracelet to those on the walls. Some of the marks were identical. She quickly pulled out her journal and frantically began jotting down all that she saw. She’d become so engrossed in the surrounding wall art that she didn’t notice when Phrym’s long neck pushed out into the open air once again. She blinked repeatedly while her eyes tried to adjust to the full sun and then put her journal back into its saddle bag. She looked for Gieaun and spotted her further down the path, waiting on Aimhe.
Jahrra breathed a weary sigh of relief, glad to be out of the confining tunnel. Her enthusiasm dwindled, however, when she realized that she was once again out in the heat of the day.
Gieaun seemed to notice this and commented, “Don’t worry, we won’t be in the sun much longer.”
She nodded towards the path ahead.
Jahrra looked on and gaped in awe. What she saw ahead was something quite amazing, something she had not expected. More boulders, everywhere there were boulders, giant boulders that clogged the canyon from wall to wall. Jahrra couldn’t help but imagine that long ago these colossal stones fell to this very spot, thrown down from the mountains by the gods themselves. The massive stone they had just passed through obviously had no path leading around it, so whoever had discovered this canyon had made their own way long ago, straight through. Now, as Jahrra looked on she saw that the trail wound downward, around a house-sized boulder and then onward, underneath another.
“I scouted ahead,” said Gieaun. “The path goes right under that pile of rocks, and then I think it leads into the canyon itself.”
As the girls stood considering the scene before them, Scede emerged out of the passageway atop Bhun.
“I guess I’d better go first since you two went first last time,” he offered. “I just hope the whole pile doesn’t fall on us.”
Walking the horses through the massive rocks wasn’t as bad as it would have seemed. The space between them was much wider than that of the first tunnel and the air was fairly damp, providing a welcome relief from the outside heat. As the hoof beats of their horses echoed off the walls of this strange cavern, small animals yipped and scuttled in fright, angry for being chased out of their cool sanctuary. This course was a bit longer than the one through the archway, but the cool air caressing their skin more than made up for it.
“Interesting place,” Jahrra commented. “Regardless of the reason for coming here, we can’t say it wasn’t worth the trip.”
She smiled at her friends, hoping they’d caught the note of apology in her voice. They both smiled back, not with smiles of forgiveness but with the smiles of someone trying to make the best of a bad situation.
After several minutes of meandering down and around the curved slope of mountain-sized stones, the three friends emerged from their shady passageway into a strange new world. Jahrra sighed in wonder as the trio followed a path trailing just above the dry, rocky creek bed. Jahrra tilted her head back, searching for the top of the canyon and found that its walls appeared to curve inward as they stretched towards the sky.
The entire floor of the canyon, only seventy to eighty feet across at its widest point, was littered with thousands of smooth rocks of every shape and size. This gully obviously served as a major wash for the snowmelt and heavy rains from the mountains, and probably at some time, supplied the Oorn Plain with most of its silt and rich soil. Very little vegetation was growing near the base of the ravine; only a few wildflowers, some succulents and cacti, and every now and again some type of chaparral bush or sage.
Of all of the new sights surrounding them, Jahrra thought the color of the rock walls and the stones that peppered the creek bed were the most intriguing. She noticed two distinct types of stone: light earthy orange sandstone and a harder looking blue-green rock that she had never seen before. When the group stopped for a break, she dropped down from Phrym’s back and picked up one of the large bluish pebbles.