Calil's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The burrow swallowed Calil in cold dark. He dropped down the wooden steps and pulled the trap door shut above him. Stone walls pressed close. The hunters' boots thudded on the grass overhead, then faded. Al had not followed him down. He was alone with the thread he was meant to hunt. Somewhere near this refuge, a shrine had gone silent. Its broken thread would show him the killer's trail—but a thread cut too long ago fades to nothing. He had little time. Calil felt his way along the tunnel. His hand found a broken wagon wedged in the earth, tipped on its side. Cracked bottles littered the dirt. Coins had spilled from a split sack. Some traveler had died down here, or fled and left everything. Calil pushed past the wreck. The air changed. It went dead and still, the way a room feels after a fire dies. He was close. He let the fire rise behind his eyes. Pain flared. Gold poured out and lit the tunnel walls. He looked deeper, the way Al had taught him, past the stone toward the dead place. A thread appeared. It was thin and gray, snapped clean, its cut end curling like burnt hair. "You're rushing." The voice came from beside him. Calil turned. A man stood in the golden glow, see-through as smoke. He wore an old robe marked with the same tribal lines that scarred Calil's own face. His hair hung in long gray curls. His eyes burned yellow, like a mirror aged forty years. Calil's breath caught. He knew the face. It was his own. "Hold the thread before it breaks apart," the spirit said. He raised a faded hand toward the gray line. "Don't stare at the wound. Follow where it bleeds from." Calil's arms shook. The light wanted to scatter. He fixed on the cut end and traced it back, the way water runs to its source. The thread pulled his sight through the earth. It ran under hills, past silent stones, toward a low place far to the east where the ground sank into shadow. "There," the spirit said. "Hold it. Burn the path into your mind." Calil held. The trail flared bright, then began to fade at its far end. He caught the shape of it—a valley, a black doorway in a hillside—before the gray thread crumbled to dust in his sight. The gold died. Calil fell against the wagon. Bottles rattled. His head was clear. He knew the direction now. He knew where the killer's road began. The spirit still hovered, dimmer now. "The trail is yours," he said. "But you glowed again. Down here, the earth hid it. Above, it did not." A heavy thud struck the trap door. Then another. The hunters had seen the light seep through the grass. Calil rose. He had his direction. Now he had to reach it before the door gave way.