7 – Darkness
The Narayani sunset was a glorious thing to watch. Or so Saavedro seemed to recall, as he stood on the upper platform of the shield unit watching the light fade. The outermost of the ice shields blocked him from seeing the sun setting – all he could see was the light dimming.
As the light faded, Saavedro's uncharacteristic sadness slowly receded, giving way to his usual anger. Twenty years ago – before Sirrus and Achenar – he would be standing outside this shield, with his wife and children, watching the sunset. But now... He clenched his right hand into a fist and cursed Atrus and his sons out loud.
It was cold. The last rays of sunlight disappeared. Saavedro pulled his tapestry around him and went inside.
Rachel shivered and pulled her jacket close to her. When they had first gone to Tomahna several days ago, she hadn't known that she'd be down here, so she had only brought a light jacket. Jordan had, as usual, offered her his, but she knew that, despite his assurances that he would be fine, he would quickly get cold.
By now, the three of them were deeper into the bowels of the Edannese forest than ever, and the path ahead of them was still sloping downwards as they wound their way through the trees. Occasionally a break in the dense foliage would allow a small patch of sunlight through, and they would relish that while they could.
After not all that long, the three of them heard a rustling noise coming from just ahead of them. Jordan, who was in front, stopped dead, and Rachel walked into him. They were silent as they listened to the rustling for a minute, before Maddy spoke in a whisper.
"Jordan," she hissed, "maybe you should go round the corner and see what's making that noise."
"Me?" Jordan whispered back. "What if it's dangerous?"
"I doubt it," muttered Rachel, "Atrus wrote this world to help teach Sirrus and Achenar how to write, didn't he? Surely he wouldn't let them come here if there were dangerous animals around."
"Oh, fine then..." Jordan crept forward as the rustling continued. He tiptoed cautiously around the corner, leaving Rachel and Maddy to stand and wait. Silence fell again, punctured by the rustling, before Jordan called out.
"It's okay, guys!"
They hurried forward and rounded the corner. Jordan was standing next to what appeared to be a massive pitcher plant. The rustling noise was coming from inside. When Rachel and Maddy came closer, they could see that the plant had caught the massive blue bird they had seen flying around earlier. Rachel's love of birds – even slightly vicious looking things like this one – kicked in immediately.
"Ohhh... poor thing. We can't just leave her there."
"I don't know what we can do," replied Jordan. "This plant is pretty tough. We might just have to keep going and see if we can find anything that we can use to pry it open or something."
Reluctantly, Rachel agreed to move on, leaving the struggling bird behind. The three of them followed the ever-descending path down through some thick foliage, until finally it dispersed, depositing them in a small clearing. Lying discarded on the ground in the middle was a small lamp, a plant of some description and a palette with some paint still on it.
"Oh hey, it's another one of these water plant things," said Jordan, seeing the plant. He walked over and pressed in on a small round object protruding from the plant. It gurgled, and water began to flow down one of the roots connected to the plant, filling it and making it a sort of oval shape. As the last of the water flowed in, though, so too did the small stingray that they'd seen up above, still glowing with purple light. The light from it was enough to illuminate the rest of the clearing, including the wall behind the plant. Jordan straightened up and stopped dead.
"Guys..." he said to Rachel and Maddy, who were still waiting by the path. "Come look at this."
On the wall of the clearing was another painting. This one filled the whole wall. On the far left was a group of elderly people, standing to the side of the other people in the painting and looking displeased. The rest of the painting showed eager-looking young people sitting in a circle around Sirrus and Achenar, who were holding up books in an instructive sort of way.
"This must be how they turned the Narayani people against each other," whispered Rachel.
"I know... it's terrible," replied Jordan.
Maddy couldn't speak.
Eventually they gathered themselves together and turned back to the path, which split in two just ahead of them. To the right, it would past three purple plants before ending in a dead end; to the left it sloped down steeply and wound around a shallow, empty basin.
The three of them went to the left, giving themselves a better view of the basin. It was empty, except for a few thick, thorny roots that dangled down into the basin from high above. They looked up; the roots were attached to the pitcher plant that still imprisoned the struggling bird. Also dangling above the basin was another of the water plants like the one above them with the stingray in it. Rachel paused in her stride.
"Hang on... I think I've got an idea."
Atrus looked up. Brittany had adopted her usual thinking position and was staring intently at the board from her seat behind the black army. The position was an intriguing one. For most of this game, Atrus had had the upper hand. But now, he had left his queen exposed to attack. This, however, was all part of his plan – if Brittany captured, as Atrus very much hoped she did, Atrus then had checkmate in two moves. It was an intricate trap which would not work unless Brittany took the very tempting bait of the unprotected queen.
Brittany was thinking furiously. She was losing this game. She still had perfectly sufficient material to win, but Atrus had the material and positional upper hand. And yet... here he was seemingly throwing away his queen. It wasn't like him to do that. Was it a mistake? She wasn't sure – on the one hand, Atrus was a very good player and not likely to make such a mistake; on the other, she was having difficulty seeing the trap (if there was one) and everyone can make mistakes sometimes... Was it worth the risk? Well... what did she have to lose?
Atrus smiled and moved. "Check."
"Oh!" Brittany put her head in her hands. "Now I see the trap."
"Too late, I'm afraid, my friend."
"So remind us again what the plan is?"
Jordan was standing a long way above the valley where the basin was, on a small ledge containing two flowers – a sunflower-like plant with a magnifying lens in it, similar to one they'd seen earlier, and another of the purple plants which they had discovered had mirror-like lenses in them allowing them to redirect light. He called down over the valley to Maddy, who was standing near the water plant hanging over the basin, and Rachel, who was standing in the sun near the furthest purple plant.
"It's very simple," called back Rachel, "Maddy pushes her plant to fill it with water and that stingray. I point my plant at that plant," she indicated the first purple plant, "which points the light at your plant. You point your plant at the sunflower plant which points the light onto my plant. Maddy's plant bursts, water and stingray go into the basin, stingray bites roots, the big plant up there opens, free bird. Got that?"
"Almost," replied Jordan. "Could you go over the bit after 'It's very simple' again?"
"Come on, Jordan, don't be difficult," called Rachel. "Right, Maddy, let's see what we can do."
Maddy pressed in on the small protruding bulb on her plant. It gurgled loudly and began sucking water down from the plant above. When it had finished, and the stingray was casting its eerie purple light over the basin, Maddy turned and gave Rachel the thumbs-up. Still enjoying the warmth of the sunlight on her back, she bent down to the purple plant and moved it so that it pointed at the plant she had indicated earlier. She waved at Jordan, who went over to his purple plant and pointed it at the sunflower. For a moment, nothing happened.
"Bugger," muttered Rachel under her breath. Maddy turned back to Rachel.
"What do we do now, Rach?"
"Well, I -"
The water plant burst with a sudden pop and splash. Maddy shrieked and leapt forward, hit by some of the splashback as the water and the stingray cascaded into the basin. As the three of them looked on, the stingray drifted over to the thorny roots and bit into them. Electricity crackled up the roots into the pitcher plant; it shuddered violently and the lid lifted. The bird heaved herself out of the plant and leapt off into the air, her massive wings beating as she swept off through the foliage and out to sea.
"Told you."
Atrus couldn't sleep. Despite having played a lot of chess with Brittany over the last few days, he was still worried about Releeshahn and his three friends. After all, Jordan, Rachel and Maddy were three of his closest friends, and the age of Releeshahn currently held everything that was left of the D'ni civilisation – everything that he, Catherine, the Averonese and all the survivors had worked for over the last ten years. Losing all that – all that work – was inconceivable. He swung out of bed, trying not to disturb Catherine, and went outside.
Catherine couldn't sleep. She was worried about Atrus. About half an hour ago he had got up and gone upstairs to the observatory. She could tell that despite her, his and Brittany's best efforts, he was still worried deeply about Releeshahn and their three friends. She sat up and switched on the light, getting up and going over to the bookshelf.
Brittany couldn't sleep. After all, who knew where Jordan, Rachel and Maddy were now? The book that they had used had been destroyed in the fire, along with basically everything else. And with that madman there as well... It couldn't be safe. Plus, they needed to get Atrus' book back. It was just like Myst all over again – except this time, they were in danger of getting killed by a madman.
Jane slept – she was exhausted.
Jordan squeezed himself into the tunnel-like root. It was a tight fit, but it was the only way that any of them could see to move forward. With a bit of agile wriggling, he managed to move a little further down, where the root became a bit wider.
Rachel followed him in, followed by Maddy. The three of them moved slowly, in single file, through the tunnel until they emerged into the interior of a large, bulbous plant.
"Where are we?"
"I have no idea." Jordan looked around. "What's that?"
Just behind where they had emerged from the root was a large bowl-like structure with cage-like ribs covering it and some purple fruit hanging inside it.
"I dunno..."
The three of them pulled themselves up into the bowl. As well as the fruit, hanging from the cage-like ribs at the very top was some sort of handle. Rachel, who hadn't noticed it was there, grabbed it and pulled herself up. The handle slid down by a few inches.
"Help me up, Jordan..."
Jordan pulled Rachel up and she let go of the handle. As it snapped back into position, some glowing purple dust shot out of the top of the cage. At the same time, a massive bellowing noise filled the air. The three of them clapped their hands to their ears until the noise stopped.
"What on earth was that?" breathed Maddy.
Before either of the other two could answer, they heard another noise – this time, a slightly more familiar one. The blue bird that they had saved from the pitcher plant swooped in and grabbed the cage, lifting the bowl and the three of them with it up into the air and out of the plant, swooping out over the sea. Jordan and Rachel gasped; Maddy groaned and covered her eyes.
The bird swooped out over the sea before turning sharply, giving them a perfect view of the massive tree protruding from the ocean. It took them a moment to realise that the bird was now swooping back towards the tree – and then they landed, the impact jolting them, in the nest with the bird's young chicks. The bird herself swooped around and landed in the nest, not two feet from where they sat, not sure what to think. The bird looked directly at them with her head cocked on the side, then started to flap her wings and squawk – and not in a friendly way.
"We should probably get out of here..." muttered Maddy, and slid out of the cage and down the side, out of sight. Jordan looked at Rachel, shrugged, and followed Maddy.
At the bottom of their little slide, Jordan and Rachel picked themselves up and brushed themselves off. Maddy was already standing, with a smile on her face.
"Look," she said, and pointed. They were standing in a fairly spacious enclosed area, right next to where they had linked in, on a root about halfway up the platform that they stood on. Down below, where Maddy was pointing, was an intricate pattern of leaves.
Jordan, needing no prompting, pulled out his journal and quickly drew the symbol on the next blank page. He straightened up and smiled.
"So... two out of three. We're doing well." He gestured to the J'nanin linking book resting on a small wooden pedestal just near them. "After you?"