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When no sounds come, I hope that we’re going to finally sit down and rest. I really wouldn’t mind it after the experience we just had. But Lo’zar gestures for me to follow him. His face isn’t scared anymore so much as curious, even a little excited. I wonder what we’ve found that I don’t understand.
He continues into the next hallway, lighting the torch again, and I walk after him, taking the edge of his shirt in my hand. We can’t get separated. I won’t be in the dark, all alone, ever again.
More and more, Lo’zar is becoming my rock. He’s all I have in this horrendous world, and I can’t let him go.
Chapter8
Lo’zar
Ree-mee holds onto me as we descend deeper into the pyramid, and I feel a rush of pride. She trusts me to keep her safe, to make sure nothing bad happens to her.
How does this small human make me feel so many things?
Now that I’ve seen the room upstairs, I want to know what else lies down here. And the T-intersection gave me hope that perhaps we could throw the hunters off our trail once they reach the pyramid. Maybe we can lose them in here.
I make sure to build a mental map as we go. First there was the three-way stop, and then the big room with the sunlight and the strange writing. Then we took a right, and now we’re headed down again. I have to be careful, and make sure that we turn around in time to get back to the top before the torch burns down.
In the meantime, I hope we can find somewhere dark to hide down here where the hunters won’t find us.
We reach another intersection, this time a path branching off of the main one. I decide to continue straight, and Ree-mee follows dutifully behind me, trusting me to lead us. I don’t know exactly where we’re going, but I get the sense these hallways are designed to be confusing, as if this pyramid is hiding something precious, something that outsiders aren’t meant to find. I keep my map in my head, looking for patterns, and hoping our trail is twisting enough our pursuers will have a hard time following it.
Soon we stumble into another room with sunlight coming in, but even less can make it this far through the moss and vines growing inside the channels. This encourages me. I think these sunlit rooms are a sign that we’re going the right way.
When I study the writing again, something inside me responds to it. I feel the overwhelming need to godown. I turn around to see if perhaps Ree-mee said something, but she’s looking up at me with her big grey eyes, waiting for me to decide what we do next.
Maybe it was just my intuition. Though consciously this all feels like a bad idea, I know to listen to my gut—it’s gotten me out of a lot of tight spots before—so we continue on, even though the torch is getting lower. Could we really feel our way back if it ran out?
And then...
There’s light, but it’s a different kind of light. Up ahead, a purplish glow fills the tunnel. Ree-mee stops behind me, pulling on my shirt. She points at the light and shakes her head, her eyebrows drawn with concern at this new development. It is an eerie color, and certainly not natural.
But some light can’t possibly hurt us. Besides, she doesn’t need to be afraid while she’s with me. I hold out my hand to her, palm up, and look at her small face. I take in her tiny nose, the way Kugara’s tunic hangs loose off her wee body, then I give an encouraging smile. When her five-fingered hand falls into mine, I squeeze it tight.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I tell her in my quietest, softest voice. She stares into my eyes for a long time, giving me that same look she did the first time I saw her inside the cage, where it felt like she was seeing right into my soul.
I never realized how much I wanted someone to see me until this moment, now that she does.
As I turn back toward the light and start walking, Ree-mee follows me, her hand still tucked inside mine. The light grows brighter, until we reach a set of stairs leading down to the bottom.
Only a few steps in, I get a glimpse of what lies ahead of us.
It’s a vast, sprawling stone room, and we’re standing high up above it. Our path extends down and diverges, both sides continuing along the wall of the vaulted space to another set of stairs. At the bottom lies an immense, strangely-shaped rock, covered in glowing strands—which are emanating the purple light that drew us down here. It casts everything in a strange, bright glow, illuminating the mostly empty floor.
I decide to head to the right this time, and Ree-mee follows me. I extinguish the torch because the purple light is bright enough to see by, and then we can use it to leave again later. We make our way around the edge of the room to the next set of stairs and descend, drawing closer and closer to the stone. There are designs carved into the walls all around us, and again, they feel deeply familiar to me, though I can’t make out their meaning. Some look like troll heads, others like human ones. There are hands meeting in the center on both sides of the room, almost like they’re embracing the stone.
Ree-mee runs her hands along the carvings as we pass by them, and I wonder if she’s feeling what I’m feeling—like we’ve stumbled across something strange and otherworldly, just like her.
As we near the bottom, I can finally make out where the light is coming from: worms.
There are glowing worms spread all across the surface of the stone, burrowing into it and emerging again in other places. When we get close, the light is almost blinding in the darkness.
Ree-mee surges ahead of me, running right up to the rock. I reach out to stop her, because we don’t know what these worms are yet or what they do, but she already has one in her hand, squirming and wriggling. She has a bright, white smile on her face and she gestures at the worm with enthusiasm.
“Yes, I see it,” I say placatingly. It creeps me out, and I don’t like her touching it. I urge her to put the worm back, but she thinks I want to hold it, so she reaches out and presses it into my hand. My fingers wrap around hers, the worm tucked between them. She says something hurriedly in her language, but I can’t make sense of it.
I wish I could understand you,I think, looking down into her small features.Even for just a moment.How much could I learn, how many mysteries could I solve, if I could talk to her?
What a strange thing, I hear a voice say as Ree-mee stares down at the worm, trying to get me to take it from her.What is it?
