Aiyana Brightwater's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The dark inside the cave was total. Aiyana held one hand out and touched wet stone. She took three steps and lost all sense of the walls. Grokmar had warned her before she stepped in. Things lived here. She would not see them until they reached her. She had no torch. She had no fire. She stopped and made herself listen instead. The listening told her enough. Something moved ahead, low and quick, claws ticking on rock. Then a second sound came from her left. She could not run from what she could not see. She pressed her back to the wall so nothing could take her from behind. A voice came from the cave mouth behind her. "Do not run," Grokmar said. His huge shape blocked the last of the daylight. He had not left. "They hunt what runs. They cannot see either. They hear you and they smell you." Aiyana kept her voice low. "Then how do I pass?" "You sing," he said. "Not the wood song. A steady sound. My kind did this. A held note tells them a thing is big and knows the dark. Small things do not make that sound." She almost laughed. She had lost a song at the fork. Now a song was the only thing that might keep her alive. She had no other tool. She trusted him because he had already saved her once. Aiyana opened her mouth and let out one long, low note. She held it steady. The ticking claws stopped. She stepped forward, still singing, one hand on the wall. The note ran out and she pulled in air and sang again. The thing to her left backed off. She heard it retreat into a side passage. She walked like that for a long time. Sing, breathe, step. Her throat went raw. When the note wavered, the claws came closer, so she forced it steady again. Grokmar's heavy steps followed behind her the whole way. He did not pass her. He let her lead. Then her hand found empty air. The wall turned. Ahead, gray light leaked down through a crack in the roof. The passage opened into a wider space, and past it she saw a pale mouth of daylight. The cave had an end. Aiyana let the note die. Nothing rushed her. She had crossed the dark alive. Grokmar stopped at the edge of the gray light. "I go no farther," he said. "Past here is open ground. My kind gets hunted on open ground." She turned to thank him. He was already stepping back into the black. "The center is close now," his voice came. "The house too. Walk soft. The collector knows the marsh should have stopped you." Then he was gone, and Aiyana stood alone at the far mouth. She had beaten the dark. But she had come out where no map led, on ground the collector thought no one could reach.