I scrambled up and out, followed right behind by Spader. Once he was out, I threw the trapdoor shut and saw that carved on the top of it was the star that showed this was a gate.
So far, so familiar.
We found ourselves in what looked to be a storage room. The walls were made of the same sandy stone as below, but there were large wooden storage bins that were filled with what looked like metal machine parts. The floor was covered with sand, which made me realize the trapdoor was normally buried. So I quickly covered it over with a few inches of sand.
Spader watched me but didn’t say anything. I’m sure he was trying to process all this new information. His questions would come later.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s find Loor.”
A wooden door led out of this storage room and as soon as I reached to open it, it hit me that I had no clue what to expect on Zadaa. All I knew was that Loor was a warrior. Obviously that meant that Zadaa wasn’t exactly a futuristic society. I could only hope that it wasn’t like the Wild West and that we wouldn’t have to fight for our lives every step of the way. That would suck.
As soon as we opened the door we heard a loud, steady sound. It was a constant, unwavering roar.
“It’s water,” Spader said.
That’s exactly what it sounded like. Rushing water. But the sound was huge, so if it were rushing water, then there was a lot of it. We left the storage room and made our way through a labyrinth of tunnels cut into the rock. It reminded me of the mines of Denduron, but these passageways were more like corridors than wide mine shafts. Every few feet was another wooden door. We didn’t bother to look inside any of them. This wasn’t about exploration, this was about getting out and finding Loor.
The farther along the rocky corridor we walked, the louder the roaring water became. Finally we reached the mouth of the tunnel and stepped out into an awesome scene. We found ourselves on the bank of an underground river. It was about twenty yards across and moving fast. The cavern we were in was huge, with a high ceiling. To our left, about fifty yards downstream, the river split into three smaller rivers. Each new river disappeared into its own separate tunnel.
Upriver to our right was a waterfall. The water shot into the fast-moving river from a tunnel in the rock face about four stories above us. Mental note to self: Do not fall into this river. Swimming would be impossible because the water was moving so fast. There was no telling where the split rivers led.
“What are you doing here?” came a stern voice.
We both spun around to see a man wearing a similar white robe to the ones we wore. He was a small guy who wore a round gray hat that looked like a baseball cap without the brim. It looked hard, like it was for protection. In his arms were a bunch of rolled-up papers that could have been plans. He had come from the same tunnel we had, which meant he must have been behind one of the doors we passed. He was light skinned, which surprised me because both Loor and her mother, Osa, were very dark.
“I’ve never seen you two here,” he said suspiciously. “What do you want?”
He seemed to be in a hurry and was all sorts of agitated as if our surprise appearance had thrown off his schedule. This was going to be tricky. I had no idea what kind of explanation to give the guy except to tell him the truth — sort of.
“We, uh, we’re looking for a friend,” I said. “Her name is Loor.”
The guy’s eyes widened further. Uh-oh. I must have said the wrong thing.
“Loor?” he said in surprise. “That is a Batu name. Why would you be looking for a Batu down here?”
Good question. Too bad I didn’t have a good answer. Forget the truth. It was time to start lying.
“She, uh, she told me she might be coming down here,” I said.
“Ridiculous!” the guy snapped. “No Batu would miss that barbaric tournament of theirs. If she told you she was coming here, she was lying. But they are all liars, no?”
With that the man hurried off, clutching his rolls of paper. Spader touched me on the shoulder and I saw that he had a look of total confusion on his face. Welcome to the club.
“What did he say?” he asked.
“You heard him,” I answered. “Loor isn’t down here.”
“But how did you understand him? He was talking all gibberish.”
At first I didn’t know what Spader meant, but then it hit me: He was new to the Traveler game. He hadn’t gotten to the point where he could understand all languages, yet.
“Long story,” I said, and ran after the man with the scrolls. Spader followed dutifully. I caught up to the guy and walked alongside him.
“I’m embarrassed to say this, but my friend and I are lost. You know, all these tunnels and whatnot. Could you show us the way to the surface?”
The man stared at me suspiciously. This was a critical moment. If he started questioning me on who we were, we’d be sunk.
“You work in the manufacturing sector, don’t you?” he asked.
“Uhhh, yes! Manufacturing. That’s where we work.”
“Let me give you a piece of advice,” he said. “Do not make friends with a Batu. They cannot be trusted.”
“Yes, good advice,” I shot back. I figured I’d better agree with whatever this guy said if we wanted to get his help. “When I see Loor I’m going to just… call off our friendship.
No more lies! But I have to find her first, so how do we get out of here?”
“Follow me,” he said, and walked off quickly.
Yes! We were on our way out. He led us along the river-bank and right up to the waterfall. As we got closer I saw that it was possible to walk behind the falling water. We climbed a few stone steps and passed right behind the wall of water. Very cool. We then saw that cut into the stone wall behind the falling water, was a tunnel. The man led us inside and after a few steps we came upon a room that had the coolest, strangest gizmo I think I had ever seen.
The best thing I can liken it to is one of those big pipe organs you see in church, but it was ten times the size. One whole wall was covered with pipes of every different size, ranging from about an inch in diameter to as wide as about ten inches. They ran from the ground, all the way up to the stone ceiling.
The guy put his rolls of paper down and stepped up onto a stone platform that faced a vast array of levers, switches, valves, and knobs. There must have been a couple hundred of these controls. I had no clue how he could tell one from another because none seemed to be marked. He walked back and forth on the platform, expertly flipping switches, tightening valves and loosening others. At one point he picked up one of the scrolls, unrolled it to check something, then tossed it down again and went right for a few more valves and opened them up. Whatever he was doing, it seemed very important. At least to him anyway.
Spader gave me a questioning look. I could only shrug. I had no idea what the guy was doing. I didn’t want to ask him either or it would give away the fact that we didn’t belong here.
“Uhhh,” I interrupted. “Excuse me but, you were going to show us the way out?”
The guy kept working on his levers, but looked back over his shoulder at us. I could tell we were bothering him, but too bad.
“That way,” he said, nodding toward an opening cut into the rock on the far side of the room. “Keep making rights, and remember what I said. Do not trust the Batu. Stay with the Rokador.”
Ohhh-kay, whateverthatmeant. I didn’t ask. “Thank you!” I said, and motioned for Spader to follow me. The man went right back to his work and we got the heck out of there.
We walked quickly through the doorway and, as instructed, kept making rights until we found a spiraling ramp that led up. We climbed and every so often we’d reach a new level and saw corridors that led off to places unknown. But, we didn’t need to explore any more of this underground world. We needed to climb out.