“If you don’t know what it feels like, you’re afraid you’ll miss it?” Auby asked, bringing me back to his initial question. I shook my head, because that wasn’t exactly it. More than anything, it was such a huge thing, it was hard to admit, even to myself. I reached out and rubbed his soft ears. He wriggled against me with a sigh, cute as can be.
“I think,” I said, lifting my head to look at Levant. He’d dropped all pretense that he was working and had turned to look at me. “It won’t be hard at all to fall in love with Levant. I just don’t know if it’s happened yet…” It was the best answer I could give, and he seemed pleased, his mouth tilting into a smile that made my stomach twist with happiness. Oh yeah, it wasn’t going to be long until I’d fallen all the way. How could I not? You’d think being crowded this close with someone would make me see their flaws, but even the weird quirks just made me like him more.
“Naga don’t remember the meaning of the word love,” he said. “At least, not the females, and thus the males have forgotten to say it. It has become a word delegated only to our younglings, and to the loyalty a male feels for his brothers. Humans have brought that back for us. So thank you, Felicia. I will wait, patiently.” Patiently? There was nothing patient about Levant. He was always busy, always eager for the next discovery, or to fix something here or improve something for me. He literallycould not sit still. Even working at the console, his tail had been twitching at the tip.
I smiled at him, because that was just one of those quirks I was learning I liked. I was saved from formulating an answer to those heartfelt words, however, which was a mild relief—but not as big as it would have been a couple days ago. Iwasgetting better at letting myself just be vulnerable, bemearound him.
A noise alerted us that the Burrower was slowing down. “We’re there,” Levant said. Despite having figured out how to slow or increase the Digmaster’s pace as it made its way down the continent to the desert, we still could not control it. All Auby could say about that was that it appeared his previous companion, Sisha, had locked out certain systems to prevent tampering. We didn’t know exactly what the Digmaster was going to do when we reached the source of the energy signature. Much fainter than the one my ship gave off when it was powered, we really weren’t sure what to expect.
The machine came to a halt, and silence, sudden and unexpected, filled the control room. It wasn’t like the Burrowing Revenant had made a lot of noise, but in its absence, it was eerily quiet. No white noise, no soft background hum, just pure silence.
“What now?” I asked, but I was already rolling off the bed to locate my boots. They’d skidded under the edge, so I dropped to my knees to dig them out. In the warmth of the control room, I’d mostly been in the underclothes I’d worn beneath my flight suit. Shorts and a tank top—that was a little too underdressed for an excursion. We did not know what we were getting into, or evenwhat was right outside the hull of this strange, worm-shaped machine.
“The signature is still there, pulsing right beside us,” Levant said. He did not bother getting dressed, but he secured several pouches on a belt at his waist. Then he sheathed a pair of knives and pulled a spear from the discarded backpack stacked in one corner. When I had my flight suit and boots back on, I felt ready to face the outside, if slightly unarmed. At least Auby came equipped with some dangerous parts of his own. Levant reminded him of that as we climbed through the hatch to the outside for the first time. “Protect her, Auby. That’s your job, don’t forget it.”
“I can protect myself if you give me one of those knives,” I said, not offended but a little amused. I knew exactly how Levant meant it, and it was not an attack on my abilities like I’d been used to back on Earth. There, I’d always fought to prove myself worthy, to crawl out from under the shadow of my father’s reputation. Levant didn’t care about any of that; it didn’t mean anything on Serant. The speed with which he handed over one of his knives also proved he did not think I could help.
The passage was as narrow and cramped as I remembered. Just a quick drop down a few ladder rungs, followed by a tunnel only about ten feet long that I could only awkwardly crouch in. It did not look awkward for Levant in there, even though his shoulders filled the entire passage. His tail was coiled in my path, filling up nearly all the space, and Auby complained loudly. “You are much too big, Levant. Very rude. Sisha and Felicia are much better sized.”
I saw only a flash of half-amused, half-annoyed golden eyes in the dark. Levant chose to ignore the statement, focusing instead on why we were here. “My scanner indicates there is a space beyond the hatch. We are underground, at least three hundred feet down, but there is oxygen.” He did not hesitate, touching the control for the outer hatch. It spiraled open, but there was only darkness beyond.
Levant slid out silently, dropping from the hatch and disappearing from sight. I hurried after him, leaning out of the hole to get an idea of what was outside. It was so dark I couldn’t see a thing, and for a brief, terrifying moment, I felt like I was all alone in the dark. Then I felt the nudge of warm fur against my side, Auby’s robotic body perfectly mimicking the warmth of a living being.
“Auby, can you provide some light?” I asked. He instantly began glowing a cool blue light from his eyes—two headlights beaming from his small face—and he turned his head to illuminate the space. A rock wall was not far from the hatch, and a drop down to sandy ground below. Levant was right there, balancing on his tail, already rising to help us down. Without his help, it was a very steep drop, but he could tower on his tail, displaying all the power in that muscle.
“What is this place?” I asked as he pulled me into his arms, with Auby piling on top. We lowered slowly, and I discovered that the rock wall we were right beside was made up of giant blocks. This wasn’t some layer of dirt, of rock, strata that showed the history of the world. No, this was a wall made by hands and tools. I touched the cool stone and shivered when my fingers came away slick with moisture.
“I believe the Burrower has brought us to the outer wall of an underground structure. We’re going to have to find a way in.” Levant set me down on my feet, and I dipped to put Auby down. Now, most of what I could see was one long wall and a narrow gap between it and the body of the Digmaster. A massive, mind-boggling machine. Having lived inside that tiny control room for nearly five days, I had forgotten how truly humongous it was.
It had dug a passage along the wall, and in the distance, we could see that the tunnel it had dug was curving up toward light. It had not removed enough dirt to lay bare the wall entirely, and a combination of loose sand and rough dirt made walking hard. I followed Auby and Levant, my Shaman with his nose aimed toward his scanner as he tried to find us away in.
“I think we’re going to have to dig ourselves a way in,” Levant said. So that’s what we did, finding a space just beyond the massive Digmaster where the wall seemed a bit cracked, and Levant’s scanner indicated there was space beyond. Auby proved most useful then, opening his little mouth to beam out a laser to cut through the rock. Then, armed with knives and lights, we stepped into an ancient structure beneath a desert I had not even seen yet, searching for an answer to a food problem for people I did not even know.
An adventure, a way to help and be useful. I kind of liked that; I felt in my element. The darkness was creepy, the unknown that lay beyond much like flying into space and hoping to find aliens. I didn’t know what we’d discover, and that was half the fun. Somehow, that feeling of confidence that we’d come out on top was back. A coping mechanism for the extreme things I’d done in my life.
Levant’s golden eyes glowed as he looked over his shoulder at me. “Let’s fix this, shall we?” I realized he was feeling the same way, and in that we matched so well. Fated, I was beginning to believe it.
“Lead the way,” I said.
Chapter 16
Levant
The Burrowing Revenant had not taken us as close to the energy signature as I would have liked. It was going to take us a while to travel that far, and I wondered if there wasn’t something in the walls of this underground complex that had kept it from penetrating further. With Felicia’s ship, there had been only a dozen or so feet to spare between the tunnel it had dug and the ship itself.
The hole Auby had carved made for a strange entry point into the labyrinthine tunnels. We’d started out in a narrow chamber, empty except for piles of dust. Now we were wandering through tunnels lined with doors that would not open. Those that did opened into simple, empty rooms. Perhaps there had once been furniture in them, but it had all decayed and left only a fine layer of dust and debris on the floor. A more historically minded Shaman would find even that dust interesting, but I was only focused on finding the energy source. If that was the answer to Serqethos’s problem, it was worth this strange detour, and I was incredibly grateful Felicia agreed with me.
I could see on my sensors that we were closing in. Energy signatures sparked beneath us, so we needed to find a way down. “This is not getting us anywhere, is it?” Felicia asked from behind me. She had tucked her knife into her belt and was calmly walking through the dark. Human eyes were supposed to be bad in the darkness, and I’d been told it made them uneasy. Felicia displayed no such issues. She definitely couldn’t see without the aid of Auby’s light, but she did not seem to letthat hinder her. It definitely did not seem to spook her to be so helpless—or potentially helpless if Auby’s lights went out.
“There is no power to any of the lights or devices still in here,” I said, “and none of the doors work.” I rolled a shoulder. “Everything down here is solar-powered; perhaps it’s night out?” I had not paid proper attention, and with how little I’d slept since finding Felicia, I could not be certain my day-night rhythm was correct.
Felicia shook her head. “No, there was light coming from the distance when we were in the hole the Digmaster dug. It was day. So there has to be another reason there is no power down here.” I could think of one right away. For as long as Serqethos had existed by the lake, they had used the dragons to clean the roofs of the city ruins. Then, twenty years ago, after a terrible outcast raid had nearly destroyed the Clan, that task had become unimportant in the face of survival.
Only recently had we learned how important that task truly was, and resumed doing it. It was not difficult to assume that when famine struck, wiping roofs free of sand fell by the wayside. The dragons and their riders might all have fled for greener pastures. The entire Clan might have been forced to relocate.
“I have been searching my database for a blueprint of this facility,” Auby suddenly announced. “I believe I have found something that, if not correct, might come close.” Might come close? I didn’t know what that meant, but Felicia eagerly urged the little Revenant to guide the way. He trotted daintily ahead of us, six hooves clattering against the stone floor. “This way. There is a flight of stairs and a bank of lifts.”
I did not have faith that he was right, but when we rounded yet another identical-looking corner, there they were: a doorway with stairs going down and up. Those leading up had partially collapsed and were covered with sand. There was also a pair of metal doors set into a carved stone doorway, and a statue sat in the middle of the hallway. It looked suspiciously like a fish, and my heart leaped at the sight. That could be it! Surely that was an indication we were indeed inside or near one of the fisheries that supplied Serqethos Lake.
