C13 Chapter 13

Rudi

When they reached Erogat’s cave, he wasn’t anywhere in sight. Dana had called him via the communication crystal in advance, and had told them they were about to stop by. She’d hoped he would be waiting for him.

“Hopefully, he’s not angry with us.” She turned to Gomek. “I’ve tried to tell him that it was our parents fault we couldn’t stop by sooner. Maybe he didn’t understand? I am not sure.”

She looked around. “Well, let’s go look for him. He must be around somewhere.”

After her words, they started searching for Erogat. Naturally, they found him in his library. He seemed distant, and absorbed in one of the thick books Dana had gotten from the blacksmith.

Every time she entered the room, she had to squeeze past the nook that harbored Erogat’s body. The body was bathed in a magical blue light that kept him from deteriorating. Dana thought it looked like Erogat was merely sleeping. Still, they sight sent shivers down her spine every tie. When she had almost reached him, she cleared her throat to get his attention. He flinched in surprise.

“Oh, it’s just you guys! You scared me. I was so wrapped up in this book, I forgot everything around me. That’s the downside of not having to drink or eat – you forget about the time. And what was it you experienced?”

Dana started a detailed report of their adventures. Of course, she didn’t forget to go into every detail of the fight with the snake. Naturally, she emphasized that they had only managed to succeed as a team.

“That would only leave one question…” Dana looked at him expectantly. “Why was the snake that much lighter after the reduction spell? Why didn’t it keep the same weight it had originally? Per her new size, she was rather light. I noticed it when we were taking care of the landslide, where I shrunk the rocks.”

“It’s simple, really. During the shrinking “spell”, you change the gravitational powers of the reduced body. Our planet is administering gravitational powers on every object, which gives them their weight. You change this power when you shrink the objects, and, thus they get lighter. It happens automatically”, Erogat explained to her.

“Ohhhh!”, she mimicked. Dana hadn’t understood it completely, but she let it go. She wanted to learn more about what else was new, if Erogat had found more information that would help them with their impending task.

“Oh, yes. First of all: the crystal on the top of the mountain. He is not from this planet.”

Erogat moved over to the image wall and gestured his hands around, until an image of the mountaintop and the crystal appeared.

“How did you do that? You’ve never been up there with us.” Dana watched the projection with fascination.

“Easy”, Erogat chuckled. “Everything you send to me gets recorded. Either as moved pictures or a still image!”, he proudly explained.

“Very near. And what exactly is it now? What does it do and how can we turn it off?”, Dana inquired.

Erogat thought for a moment.

“Over a hundred years ago, a meteorite must have collided with our mountains.”

He gestured towards the walls of the sinkhole.

“A gigantic thing, going by the size of the crate. It vaporized on impact, and only left its core. The core’s energy tore our mountains apart. If we had a handful of magicians, I think it would be possible to reverse the energy. But just you? … That’s not going to work. We need an alternate source of energy that lifts the influence of the crystal. I have found it – our prisoner. The creature of shadows. He could possibly possess the needed energy to break the power of the crystal. You know this – two counteracting energies balance each other out. That’s how our mountains could return to its right time.”

“And that’s supposed to work?” Dana seemed skeptical.

“That’s my theory. There’s only one tiny problem – the shadow creature is not going to help us on his own free will, and we can’t force him to do it either!”, the ghost said.

Dana mulled it over. “And if we offer him his freedom? I would think that would be a nice incentive.” Erogat was horrified.

“How would you control him after? He would try taking over the kingdom again in the blink of an eye, and that would only mean a continuation of his horrific reign of power.”

She kept thinking, only to answer: “Two powers of the same size balance each other out. Maybe he won’t have any more energy left over afterwards, and he’ll disappear together with the crystal … it’s worth a shot, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. You could be right?” He seemed lost in his own thoughts.

“But how do we manage to get our “friend” up on the mountaintop and close to the crystal?”

That’s when Gomek interrupted. He had silently listened to their talk so far.

“The prisoner was locked into that cave hundreds of years ago. That must have taken place somehow. And we should be able to do it again. Because as far as I know, you can’t capture smoke. So I’m guessing…there must be another way to push smoke and shadow into a matter that we can control.”

Erogat and Dana swapped surprised looks.

“That’s it!” Erogat enthusiastically jumped towards his book, sifted through the pages until he found the last phrases. “Here it is: … the ancient dragon with his knowledge to pressure the ruler into human form, so that one can imprison him without getting oneself into danger…” “So – do we have a plan? Where do we start?” Dana looked from one face to the other.

“First of all, we must activate the monolith in front of the prison cave. That will save us from a lot of walking. And afterwards, you will talk to our shadow. Offer him his freedom, so that he’ll help us. Assuming he’ll agree, we’ll see what to do about him later.”

Erogat’s words seemed serious, but also condescending.

“You should rest and get going tomorrow.” He shot her a hopeful glance.

“It’ll all work out … Oh, Dana. I still need to tell you how to activate the turned-off monolith.”

After he gave her the instructions for activating the monolith, they said their goodbyes. They wanted to get going early the next day. It would be an exhausting trip – of that they were sure.

Dana’s mother woke her extremely early the next morning.

Dana had, after she’d returned from Erogat, informed her parents that she would set out on a quest to find the First Dragon. She had decided not to mention the dangerous details of said trip, since she didn’t want to scare her parents. Despite their protests, she was given the permission to embark on her quest. What were her parents supposed to do when their little hero was needed?

“Wake up, my child. Gomek is here already and wants to get going.”

Dana’s mood had hit rock bottom. She got dressed and trampled into the kitchen, where Gomek was merrily annoying Shari. His happiness and laughter had her forgetting her foul mood quickly, so that the thunderous talking-to she had prepared for him never happened. Only Shari wasn’t influenced at all by Gomek’s cheerfulness – she’d just never be a morning person.

They set out after breakfast. First, they wanted to get to the prison cave to activate the monolith and talk to the creature there. They needed one more week to reach that first destination.

“Luckily, this was our last trip. This path gets more boring the more often you walk it. After today, the portal is activated, and we won’t lose any time in case we have to return here.” While she talked, she walked into the cave to start activating the large rock. When she was standing in front of the structure, she did exactly as Erogat had told her to. Seconds later, the portal opened.

“Well, the monolith is ready to go – now only put in the correct destination-glyphs and we’re ready to go to our next destination.”

“Don’t you wanna try if it actually works?” Gomek seemed anxious.

“Me? Alone? And if it doesn’t work? Then you’ll be left here all by your lonesome. No, we’ll walk through together.” Dana touched the glyphs to reach Erogat’s portal. Afterwards, she took Gomek’s hand and without another word she dragged him with her through the portal. The old plaza appeared in front of them in no time.

“See? One direction is working just fine. Now let’s try to go back.”

Dana touched the keyboard again, putting in new glyphs, took Gomek’s hand again, and pulled him through the opening.

“Happy now?”

Back in the prison cave she let go of his hand and turned around.

“Everything worked out. Now we can take care of the next issue – our prisoner. I need to go alone unfortunately.

You can’t walk through the shield. Maybe you can put up our camp in the meantime?”

Afterwards, she went on her way to see the prisoner. She walked through the large seal and then stepped on the already familiar path until she reached the pedestal. Once there, she slowly moved towards the magical barrier. Where was he? Dana looked around, searching the perimeter.

“…and how can I get in touch with him now?”, she murmured.

Then suddenly a shrill whistle sounded next to her ear and Dana cringed reflexively. Shari had just whistled for the creature.

“Do that one more time and we’ll get in big trouble. I almost had a heart attack.”

“That’s all it takes to scare you? … And still you want to talk to me. That’s courageous.”

Dana heard this voice in her head. She didn’t know where it was coming from. All she knew was that it was him. It had to be him.

“Show your face. I want to speak with you, face to face!”

Nothing happened at first. Then everything behind the barrier went dark and she saw the two gleaming eyes again.

“What do you want?”, the voice in her head barked. It sounded even more threatening now…even more dangerous than the last time she’d heard it.

“Did you come here to die?”, she barked at Dana.

“Hardly. I need your help and would like to make a suggestion for you.”

Her last words were drowned in his bloodcurdling laughter.

“You need…what?! … You can’t be serious. As soon as I’m getting out of here, you’ll find your end. I swore to myself to kill all my tormentors. And you will be the first one.

Dana calmly looked him in the eye.

“Are you done? I’m not scared of you. Especially when the barrier is activated. I am offering you your freedom if you’re willing to help me. After we’ve taken care of things, you will leave me alone and find a new home somewhere else.”

He was silent for a while and his hateful eyes studied her intently.

“You’re serious. If I help you, you let me go, and then we go our separate ways. What is it I’m supposed to do?”

Dana put down the communication crystal. Once activated, it showed an image of Erogat, who then explained their plan. He also delivered the pictures from the mountain top, so that the creature was informed down to almost every detail. Once the communication was over, Dana pocketed the crystal again.

“Well, what do you say? Are you courageous enough to face the energy of the shining crystal or not?”, she provoked the demon.

“Let me guess. You guys think I’m not going to survive – right?” His voice sounded snobbishly self-assured.

“I believe that the procedure will weaken your magic enough for you not to be a danger to us anymore. But you would be free. That is what you want, is it not?”

Dana looked at him expectantly.

“I’ll have to think about it. Come back tomorrow.”

Without another word, the creature disappeared again and Dana and Shari were left alone. Lost in thought, they left the cave. She had an unsettling feeling. The demon planned something. The only question was – what?

The next day, Dana appeared in front of the barrier again. She was being expected already.

“We have a deal. Where do we go from here?”, she heard the voice in her head again.

“Uh … well, you surely remember how you were captured and controlled. The dragon, who…”

“Ha! So, your people did have help from the dragon to keep the suit of armor…”

“What suit of armor?”, Dana piped up inquisitively.

“Oh, nothing. I’ve only just realized whom I really owe my imprisonment to. Since only that one, the very first dragon, new this…my secret.”

Dana had listened silently. She was embarrassed to ask the next question. After all, by doing so she admitted that she still knew very little about the whole deal.

“Do you know where I can find the dragon?”

And again, he laughed his annoying laugh.

“If you find out how the managed to capture me, and if you solve the secret how they neutralized my powers, then I’m in.”

Once more, the creature disappeared without giving Dana the chance to ask another question. But she had found out something. The demon had slipped up. Apparently, there was a suit of armor, for whatever reason – and only the old dragon still knew of it.

“So, he’s in. If…well…”, she thought.

Thoughtfully, she went back to Gomek. He was already waiting impatiently at the camp. She’d hardly reached the place when she was already reporting to Gomek about the conversation. Until the wee hours of the morning, they discussed how to proceed, without reaching a satisfying conclusion.

The next morning, they went back to Erogat. Using the transporter, the trip was very easy. Dana had already talked to Erogat about the events the night before. Thus, he already knew what to do.

“I’ve worked the whole night and I’ve found an incantation that can help you: “The Seeker”. This incantation helps you find a creature or a person. You create a magic ball. It flies in front of you and shows you the way. It’s not very precise, but the general direction is always right. Try it right now. Gomek hides and you let the seeker lead you to him.”

They tried it all day and half the night, again and again, until she knew how to flawlessly apply the incantation and Dana knew how to tell the direction. It got very late, so they decided to sleepover at Erogat’s place. The next morning, they started their trip early as always, but not before receiving behavioral instructions from Erogat.

Back at the campsite, Dana executed the Seeker incantation right away. She assumed that the path must lead deeper into the mountains. And that would be a problem – because there was still the matter of the landslide, which would stand in the way of moving forward. And as it turned out, the ball actually soared away, through the fallen wall, down to the path, and finally stopping in front of the rubble from the landslide. Dana finished off the incantation first. Gomek, who had followed her, happily clapped his hands.

“Okay then, let’s shrink this stuff.”

Dana shook her head.

“It’s not as easy this tie. If we shrink these, more rubble will fall until the whole cave becomes unstable and might even collapse. We will create one solid block of material and then work a tunnel into it.”

They needed several days until they had reached the end of the destruction. After they had finally left the tunnel on the other side, they were speechless…what a view!

As far as they could see…everything was green and flowers bloomed all the way into the furthest corner. There were tiny creeks and in the distance one could see a ruin. Everything seemed incredibly peaceful. And the air, even though it had long since been trapped in here by the landslide, was fresh and clean. They grabbed their stuff and walked over to inspect the ruined house. Maybe there were some hints there as to what to do next.

“No luck…!”, Dana grumbled thoughtfully.

Neither inside the Ruin nor around it, there were any hints that there had been humans living here in the past hundreds of years. Mice, rats, bunny rabbits – there were even birds here, but that wasn’t something they wondered about anymore. Dana asked some of the animals for directions, but after so much time had passed, none of them remembered a dragon. The animals also didn’t know who had lived here of what the purpose of the building had been. After a long break our friends kept moving, even though they were disappointed. Dana called for the Seeker and then followed it diagonally through the impressive cave.

The Seeker always flew the direct way, which turned out to be unpractical, because the small group liked following paths more. Thus, Shari had to fly up again and again, just so they wouldn’t lose the Seeker. At some point, they reached a crack in the wall, so large that it formed a natural pass. When they neared the passageway, the ball disappeared. Gomek turned to Dana: “Where did it go? We can’t be there yet. There’s nothing here.” He desperately pointed at the opening.

“Don’t worry! The Seeker disappears only when there is a possible path. Let’s follow this one.”

After her cheerful words, they all stepped on the path and followed it deep into the earth. It led deeper and deeper into the mountain, and with every kilometer they moved ahead, the temperature dropped a little more. At one point, the passage had turned into a tunnel, which now got shallower with every passing meter, until it finally ended in another cave. Dana started shivering, not just because of the view. Everything was white, full of snow. There was no path anywhere in sight. She had to call the Seeker again, which in turn disappeared again right away.

“How are we supposed to cross this icy desert? I’ve already got frostbite everywhere.”

Dana shook herself and wrapped Shari into her blanket, which she’d wrapped around her shoulders.

“And how are you doing?” Dana saw that Gomek had done the same.”

“My fingers are freezing…all the way down to my knees.”

All three of them laughed at the thought and then kept walking. They forced themselves through the snow masses. Dana tried to warm up the air around them to take the edge off, but she didn’t succeed completely. By now, a snow storm had joined the icy coldness, which made it almost impossible to see. The temperature dropped constantly and the circumstances made it unbelievable tough for them, until they finally fell into the snow due to the exhaustion.

Hours later, Dana was the first to wake up. She carefully raised her head. It took a while for her to find out where she was. Together with her friends, she was inside a comfy living cave. In the middle, there was a fire burning that heated the entire cave. In front of that, a creature decked out in white fur was sitting. Slowly, she turned around and smiled at Dana.

“Hello, little lady – are you finally awake? … My name is Georg…And who are you?”

His voice sounded pleasantly nice and cheerful, and she was calming, too. Dana immediately felt like she could trust the creature.

“I’m Dana. And who, or what, are you, if I may ask? Did you save us?”

“I am a Yeti. Only my kind is living here, and this is also the only place we can survive at all. Some of my kind have retreated to the mountains a while ago to escape the persecution by the humans. They’re not nice at all. They hunt everything they don’t know or understand, everything they’re scared off. And yes, it was me who saved you from the cold.”

“How come you know our language so well? I mean, I could also understand your language, but that’s not the one you’re using right now”, Dana inquired in surprise.

“One of your kind taught me. Countless years ago, he passed through here, and he almost froze to death, like you. The same waves who led me to him back then, also led me to you.”

Dana kept poking right away. “Where did the stranger go, and do you maybe remember what his name was?”

The Yeti thoughtfully scratched his head before he answered: “Rufus…Yes, that’s who he introduced himself as. He told a crazy tale about time travel and that he wanted to go back. The old dragon was supposed to help him. I guess he found him, because he never returned from the Fire fields. Or is he…”

“Let’s not assume the worst.” Dana blocked that part of the conversation immediately.

“Fire fields…? What are those?”, she steered the conversation into a different direction.

“A huge field of lava, right behind this cave. Rufus inspected it before he crossed it.”

Georg poked around the fire before he kept talking.

“He was sure there had been a large city there a long time ago. He even found remains of buildings in the lava. The earth must have opened and the lava then destroyed the city. Only the Fire fields remained. He found out a lot from old scriptures he found in the ruins – about the city and the people who lived there. And he assumed that this ice cave was a way for them to be protected against intruders. Nobody can cross it without freezing to death. We are the only ones who can survive here. What’s also curious is that it has been snowing and storming hear for hundreds of years, only occasionally interrupted by nicer stretches of weather. But the amount of snow has never in- or decreased.”

“That would make sense.” Dana nodded in understanding. “Did Rufus find out anything about the people that created all this?”

“Not much, only that they were worshipping the dragon, who was supposed to live somewhere outside the city in a closed-off cave. The inhabitants had apparently built a temple there. Behind the holy shrine, there was supposed to be a magically sealed portal, which only let chosen ones pass through to the other side.”

The next question was already burning on her lips when Georg was still talking.

“Rufus hasn’t found a hint that the inhabitants of the city were of your kind.”

“Can you read minds? That’s what I just wanted to ask!”, she burst out.

“No, it was just easy to guess. Your people could never make this kind of magic work…or could they?”

Dana thought about it. “Maybe, maybe not. I haven’t done this whole thing for long. But tell me the rest of the story.”

By now, Gomek and Shari had joined them. Shari had immediately sat down on Georg’s shoulder without any hesitation. She had made herself comfortable in his warm fur, had rolled herself into a ball, and was obviously sleeping, which was sort of strange for her.

“After months of research, Rufus finally set out to find his dragon after all. I wanted to make him stay – but hardheaded as he was, he left us. I have never seen him again.”

Georg seemed sad after he’d ended his story. They had become great friends.

Suddenly, Miss Hurry appeared in front of Dana. She was always surprised how the weasel managed to find her way, and which paths she was using. Her parents had written to her, asking how they were doing. Dana wrote a few lines back, but she was of course carefully avoiding the scarier episodes. Then she sent the weasel on her way again, but not before making sure there was also a quick message in the letter for Gomek’s parents. She knew that Gomek didn’t have the best relationship with his parents, but if they were worried, the letter could hopefully soothe them.

The next day, the snowstorm had died down a little. Georg had many visitors in his cave. Everyone wanted to see the newbies, wanted to ask questions or offer their help. Many of them remembered Rufus. He really had been a true friend of the Yetis.

Another day later, the terrible weather had passed completely. Sadly, they weren’t able to make it outside yet. Even now that the weather had calmed down, only the living cave offered them the necessary protection against the biting cold. Outside, they would have frozen to death in a matter of seconds. Dana was wondering by now how Rufus had reached the Fire cave, because he would have been killed by the cold as well. She asked Georg about it and he shot her a meaningful smile.

“…my cave has a tunnel that is directly connected with the Fire cave. Rufus and my brothers made that possible. Once you’ve rested up, I’ll show you the way.”

While he was talking, he shoved a piece of fur into her hand.

“And this is a copy of the map Rufus used to find the dragon’s cave. Have fun with that.”

Dana copiously thanked him and then hurried to find Gomek, who was, as always, sitting glumly by the fire. The cold was getting to him.

“Look what I’ve got, Gomek.” She beamed at him ecstatically. “Now we even own a map of the area that’s ahead of us.”

Dana held the map under his nose.

“Then let’s get going as soon as we can, or I’m going to freeze to death. I hate this cold!”, he moaned and then went back to moodily staring into the fire.

They enjoyed the protection Georg and his living cave provided them, because that made it possible to rest up from the exertion of the excursion so far, and gave them a chance to recharge their energies. But every break, if long or short, comes to an end at some point, and so, a few days later, they set off to inspect the lava cave. Georg led them up to where the Fire fields began, just like he’d promised. There was plenty of room to sit. Apparently, they had been made by the inhabitants of the cave. Dana looked at Georg in surprise.

“What? Even us Yetis need warmth every now and again. And since the tunnel is there, we use it. The old path is too fat. We love to take sweat baths.”

Georg laughed, then he said goodbye to them. He had to get back because there were other tasks waiting for him. Dana and her friends were left alone, watching the scenery. They already knew a similar cave. Only that this one was much larger and that the lava and volcanoes here were much more active.

“What now? Are you sending out the Seeker to find our way for us again?”, Gomek turned to Dana.

“No, why? We’re going there!”

While she was speaking, she pointed in the direction of the lava field that homed the remains of what had once been a city.

“That’s our next destination. Let’s see what else is there to discover.”

It took them several hours until they had reached their destination. The “closeness” of the city had been something they had gotten totally wrong. Sadly, they couldn’t get there on a straight path as they had secretly hoped, but instead had to take plenty of detours. In the face of adversity, they made it in the end. There wasn’t a lot left over. The search of the buildings went quickly and didn’t turn up any new evidence.

“Rufus was very precise.”

Dana looked at Gomek.

“Let’s walk over to the dragon’s temple.”

Dana unfolded the map and searched for the path to the temple. After studying the map for a while, she had found out the correct way.

“Let’s go, we’re almost there!”

One path led out of the city. He led upwards in a continuous pattern, and drew up the hill in small curves. It took them another hour until they had reached the temple. Behind the building, they saw a mightily impressive, steep wall of rock that stretched all the way up to the ceiling of the cave.