Chapter 12
Kalani
With the little ax clutched in my fist and my fist pressed to my chest, I stepped out of the shadowy office space in search of Iave.
I didn’t have to go far to locate him, he was right in the center of this entrance hub.
He made an impressive image beneath the slowly fading, flickering light of the overloaded crystals glowing in the high ceiling above us.
He stood right next to the previously empty water fountain thingy at the center of the open waiting area.
His ax balanced over one shoulder as he stared at the clattering, irregular spray of water spurting from inside the fountain.
His head dipped down as if he was lost in deep thought; his long black hair draped around his wide shoulders, and his tail gently undulating at the tip.
“Hey,” I said, approaching across the rubble-strewn floor to stand at his side and peer into the clear flowing water with him.
The fountain was a carved statue of some kind of ancient Naga with a refined face and long flowing robes; preserved well inside this cave.
Though long claw marks were scratched deep into the ancient male’s chest.
The water should have been clattering from the urn the male was holding aloft above his head, but instead, it was spurting from a pipe at the bottom of the circular basin that surrounded him.
I could instantly tell that Iave had wielded his ax with his usual enthusiasm to get the water to work and I had to smother a laugh at the sight.
Iave’s deep gray eyes swung from the water to me, his tail curling around my ankles.
“You found my gift, do you like it?” When I nodded, he shifted his eyes back to the water.
“It looks clean, but then Corin told me the water in the Ancestral caves is filtered by their technologies. Safe to drink.” He held out his waterskin, already bulging again with how full it was.
I shrugged, taking the water and drinking deeply.
Trapped down here, any kind of water was better than nothing.
Dying of thirst right now was worse than possibly getting sick from parasites later.
When we escaped this place, we could always go back to Artek and have his healing machines do a check so I wasn’t worried.
“You’ve explored this place more than me,” I said as I handed the water back to him.
He’d been too restless to sleep, or maybe he just needed less than a human.
“Did you find a way out?” I crossed my fingers at my side, fervently hoping that he had, but he would have probably led with that, not the water if he had.
“No,” he grunted, a deep frown lowering his nubby brows over his eyes. I saw how his arm flexed as he gripped the handle of his ax more tightly. “And I’m starting to think we might not be entirely alone in here.”
My skin broke out in goosebumps at the thought, my hand twitching towards my thigh where I half expected a laser pistol to be strapped.
I’d left the bow with our things in the office where we’d slept, not expecting any danger and I immediately regretted that choice.
“Bitter Storm warriors?” I asked but he shook his head and turned away from the water without another glance.
“No, not Bitter Storm,” he said, and then he added over his shoulder with a sinister look in his eyes, “Something else.” Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.
What the fuck could be in here with us? Flashing back to how vulnerable I’d been when sleeping, I was extremely grateful that Iave hadn’t been so placid.
We didn’t speak as we hurriedly packed our things.
I strapped the sheath of arrows to my hip with a grim feeling, stringing the bow so I could be ready at a moment’s notice.
Once Iave had swung all our supplies onto his back we were ready to go and I didn’t argue when he just picked a hallway at random.
In here, all of them looked the same and none of them seemed like a good choice.
The one Iave had picked still had functioning crystals for some distance, but their fading light dimmed and petered out after only a couple dozen feet.
Doors and plex-glass lined this hallway and when I peered inside, sometimes flicking on my flashlight to help me see, I saw what could only be described as labs.
First, they were somewhat familiar. Benches, airlocks, and banks with computers and viewscreens.
I saw scopes that clearly indicated some type of microscope.
One lab had glowing energy zigzagging like pink and blue lightning inside several metal and glass containers.
Lots of things had degraded too, like the remains of hazmat-type suits, the fabric or plastic all gone but the metal frame and plex glass helmets still dangling from hooks on the wall.
One lab that we passed had many banks of glass cabinets lining a wall and through the plex glass doors, I could see row after row of specimen jars.
Many were empty, but some were filled with something, one cabinet was even filled to the brim with one out-of-control specimen inside it.
I really hoped Iave hadn’t gone in there in his explorations, that looked like a definite health hazard.
Then our hallway suddenly terminated in one big lab at the end, a dead end.
I shone my light through the doorway, noting the many scratches that marked the frame.
I glanced at Iave and wasn’t at all put at ease when I noticed how tense and grim his expression was.
Did he know something? Did he sense something I couldn’t?
Curiosity still got the better of me and I shone my light inside, startling and dropping the light so I could grab my bow when the first thing I saw was a pair of eyes.
Iave’s tail picked up the dropped light, angling it back into the room while I gripped my bow, arrow notched and ready.
I wasn’t the only one tense, his hands were gripping his ax as he darted light across the room.
There it was, a pair of malevolent red eyes glowing at us from inside a tall glass container.
I gasped, “What the fuck is that?” It looked to me like some ancient mad scientist had stuffed an entire Naga into a specimen jar.
Only this poor creature was lacking any scales, its long, coiled body a pale, sickly green.
Face distorted and jaw gaping open far beyond natural in a kind of grimace, red eyes staring at us without blinking.
Then Iave darted the light across the room and we both cursed.
The entire lab was filled with tall glass containers like the first one.
Some broken, some whole. In several were the remains of failed experiments.
Bodies like the first one, some no more than skeletal remains, some just a piece of tail or a limb.
One jar was just a bunch of floating heads and not all of them were recognizable as Naga.
It was horrifying and left me with a sick taste in my mouth and a roiling stomach. What had they been doing in here?
Glass crunched beneath my boots as the two of us wandered through the room in horrified fascination.
“Nothing good,” Iave grunted, “Something evil.” I had to agree with him that each pair of eyes we saw shone with evil, with malice.
Whatever Iave’s ancestors had tried to create in this hellish lab, it hadn’t been anything good.
“If Bitter Storm has stories of what went on beneath their mountain…” Iave said quietly, his eyes lingering on the one whole specimen at the front of the room, “It’s no wonder they are as fervently against technology as they are. ”
I had to agree that a collapsed civilization like Iave’s might have many horror stories of the past. Most would be exaggerated over time or changed but stories about this place might be very true.
Suddenly, the thought that we might not be alone down here became even more sinister.
My eyes darted from one glass chamber to another, noting the many, many broken ones that were scattered throughout the room.
Things had been in those, but where were they?
When I saw something move from the corner of my eye, I spun around, seeking a target for my bow.
I would have thought I was imagining it, primed to expect movement in this creepy place, but Iave darted our beam of light after it.
A tail, pale and sickly, darting around a bank of machines at the back of the lab.
Lifting my head, Iave and I shared a single, worried look.
By unspoken agreement, I darted from the room, and he was close on my heels as we raced back the way we’d come.
Whatever that was in there, it shouldn’t be alive.
Unless… Unless there was a way out of here and I tried to hold on to that thought as we sped back to the main room.
When the clatter of the water fountain reached our ears, we both slowed down enough to glance over our shoulders.
“Did it follow us?” I whispered, “You saw it too, right?” Now that we were back in the semi-lit central space it felt ridiculous to think that one of those science experiments escaped and was still down here.
Iave shrugged with a grunt, an answer that was absolutely useless.
Did it mean he’d seen it or not? But he was still very focused, his ax in both hands and his tail whipping behind him in agitation.
Oh… He hadn’t understood a word, we weren’t touching.
Damn it, that was inconvenient in a combat situation.
My fingers darted to the little ax carving hanging from a piece of string around my neck.
If we were mated, that wouldn’t be an issue.
I wondered where he’d even gotten the little ax, it was a replica of his own weapon, so I doubted he’d found it down here.
Had he made it? I hadn’t even thought about it yet, but standing here in this dank cave, adrenaline rushing through my system from running from phantoms…
The thoughts suddenly were foremost in my mind.