Dom Topper's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The salamanders sat warm in Dom's cupped hands. Their light spread green and violet over his fingers. Beside him, Lyra stared at the black trees. "We have the salamanders," Dom said. "Now we find the door." But there was no door. There was only forest, and the forest went on. Dom made himself think. He couldn't map noise. He couldn't map leaves. But he could read ground. He knelt and pressed his palm to the dirt. The slope told him where water ran. He followed it, salamanders on his shoulder, Lyra close behind. The trees opened. Ahead stood a cluster of pale trunks, their leaves glowing blue and rose. A softer light than the dark grove. Under the biggest tree sat a stone, half swallowed by moss. Carved letters marked its face. Dom brushed the moss aside and read words he didn't know. "It's writing," Lyra said. She traced a letter with one finger. "Old. Older than the grove, maybe." She was cunning about such things. She had spent years reading what others walked past. Dom circled the stone. On its back, hidden under a curtain of moss, he found two holes cut into the rock. He leaned close. Each hole had a shape. A body. A tail. Four small legs. "Lyra," he said. "Come see this." She knelt beside him. "Salamanders," she breathed. "Those are salamander shapes." Dom's heart kicked. He lifted the two creatures from his shoulder. They didn't pull away. He held them near the stone. Their light brightened. They wanted this. He felt it in the way they stretched toward the holes. "If I put them in," Dom said, "I might lose them. That's what I came for." "And if you don't," Lyra said, "we die in here. There's no way back the way we came." Dom looked at the salamanders. He thought of the man he used to be, the one who kept every prize with a grin. Then he set the creatures against the holes. They slid in like keys into a lock. Their bodies fit the carved shapes exactly. The stone shook. Light poured from the letters. A grinding sound rose from below the moss, deep and slow. The ground trembled. Roots pulled back. Between the pale trees, a wooden cabin rose from the earth. Flowering vines wrapped its walls. Warm light glowed in its windows. A door stood open, waiting. "A way out," Dom said. His voice shook. But the salamanders stayed locked in the stone. Their light dimmed. Dom reached for them. His fingers met cold rock. They wouldn't come. Lyra put a hand on his arm. "They opened the door for us," she said. "That was the price." Dom stared at the empty shapes in the stone. He had earned his way out. He had lost the very thing he chased. And through the cabin's open door, something new waited in the glow.