Arul and Keeran knelt next to their Guru, anxious faces leaning close. Keeran unstopped his water-skin and wet a strip of cloth from his satchel, wiping his teacher’s face. Eventually, Pari’s stirred and his eyes flickered open. ‘That tower really knocked me about I’m afraid,’ he said with a weak smile.
Keeran brought his water-skin to Guru Pari’s lips. After a few sips Pari began spluttering. ‘Enough,’ he said, coughing in fits. He looked at the boys. ‘Obviously, it hasn’t affected either of you. I must be getting old.’ He lay back, his dusty robes making him look like a beggar lying on the side of a road, his body thin and weak.
Arul watched his Guru, his brow knitted with concern. ‘Can you get up?’
Guru Pari sighed. I’ll be fine, but I can’t go on right now. I’ll give you directions to a certain cavern. I wanted to show you the place.’ Pari caught his breath. ‘I needed to do something vital that will help all the mountain villages, but now you’ll have to do that task.’
‘Cavern? Is it dark?’ Asked Keeran, sitting back on his haunches.
‘Yes, Keeran. Come back here when you’re done. I won’t be going anywhere.’ He reached into his satchel. ‘Oh yes. You’ll need this.’ He handed Arul a curious disc of black metal, unreadable symbols etched into it.
‘What’s this?’ Arul turned it over in his fingers. It was warm and his hands tingled when he touched it.
‘That Arul, is what I meant to use in the cavern.’ Guru Pari pointed. ‘Over that ridge and down the reverse slope. Follow the main corridor until you reach a shaft, then drop the disk in.’
‘Why, what will it do?’
‘I really don’t know. It’s an ancient artefact from the vaults of the Royal Academy. I studied wall carvings in a lost language only a few in the academy could read. They spoke of these disks of energy and when to use them.’ Pari’s face looked even more aged than usual. He grimaced in pain. ‘Now is that time. Go!’
Arul and Keeran began to climb the hill, their faces tense.
‘Don’t forget to cut a branch for a torch! You’ll need it in there!’ Guru Pari called out as the boys re-entered the pine forest, white and dusty from the tower’s collapse. ‘After you drop it in, start running!’
Keeran froze in his tracks and turned around with an incredulous look. ‘What!?’
Arul pulled on Keeran’s arm. ‘Come on! If he says run, we run!’
Following Guru Pari’s directions, they walked away from the remains of the destroyed tower, cresting a ridge before hopping and sliding down a gravelly slope. Arriving at a flat, stony place, they eyed a towering cliff of jet-black stone with some nervousness. It was a desolate place with no greenery, the blue mountain sky contrasting sharply with the black rock. ‘This place is really cheerful, isn’t it?’ Keeran said with a shudder.
Arul paused, listening to every sound.
Even the birds fear this place. It feels like this mountain is the keeper of something long forgotten.
They stood facing the entrance to an enormous artificial cavern, forgotten by all except a handful of wise men. It was framed by massive granite blocks that made up a rectangular entrance, tall as a large tree in the Ancient Forest. Around the yawning entrance, snow drifts higher than a grown man lay heaped against the stone.
There were no carvings or writings of any kind visible on it. Unlike other ancient ruins that Arul had seen, the people that built this seemed uninterested in fanciful decoration. This was no temple. It spoke of practical engineering and an advanced ability to shape hard granite without tools. It was as though something had melted the rock like wax.
Keeran halted, his eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the gate. ‘Where does this lead?’ He croaked
‘I don’t know, but we have to go in.’ Although the air was chilly, Arul broke out in a fear-driven sweat. ‘We’ll build a fire to light this torch,’ Arul said, picking the leaves off a pine branch he had cut in the forest.
Keeran pulled out some pine twigs from his satchel, making a neat pile next to the gate, Arul sparking it to life with his flint and stone. The tiny fire spluttered to life beneath pine-scented smoke, Keeran holding the makeshift torch while Arul wrapped a rag around one end.
‘Let me get my oil flask,’ Arul murmured, reaching into his bag. He poured oil onto the torch, then dipped it into the fire, watching it ignite with a whoosh. ‘A Forester never leaves home without fire-oil,’ he said with a wide grin, pausing in front of the entrance, holding the torch above his head before stepping forward. ‘Now stay close!’
Keeran didn’t need convincing, following Arul so closely that he ran into him more than once. They made their way down a vast square tunnel that sloped straight down into the mountain, the granite walls smooth and featureless like black glass. They ignored the smaller side tunnels just as Guru Pari instructed, always descending,
After some time, Arul glanced back over his shoulder and saw the entranceway was now a tiny bright rectangle in the distance. He fought down a rising wave of panic when he thought about how far into the bowels of the earth they had walked.
Then Arul suddenly stopped and Keeran crashed into him with a grunt. They peered down a pitch-black shaft nearly twenty feet across, precise and smooth, obviously made by humans. Arul peered at the torchlight flickering off the shaft walls.
Who can make something like this? What did they use to pierce solid rock?
The pit vanished into the inky black of an everlasting night. Except it wasn’t dark at the very bottom. Some kind of glow was coming from the very base of the pit, silvery blue, like pulses of moonlight.
There’s light down there.
Arul stepped back in fear. ‘It smells of burnt air. Some kind of fire?’ Keeran whispered.
Arul shrugged, recovering his nerve and peering down hundreds of feet to the silvery glow. A river of light appeared to be flowing under the mountains, though for what purpose, Arul could only guess. ‘It’s moving from south to north, along the Meeru Ranges. It’s source has to be in the south,’ Arul said.
At that moment the light cut off, plunging the shaft into pitch darkness. ‘Oh my! Ganesh! Vishnu! Shiva! Help us!’ Keeran cried out.
‘Any other Gods you want to call on?’ Arul’s said.
It doesn’t hurt to ask for help,’ Keeran said, a little hurt. ‘I wonder if everything was once powered by this light?’
‘You mean cities and whatever was up in these mountains?’
Keeran nodded, his face eerie in the flickering torchlight. ‘Maybe that tower needed this light energy and went crazy when it began cutting out. Began humming.’ He exhaled sharply. ‘Let’s throw that disk in and get out of this creepy place!’
Arul pulled out the black disc that his Guru had given him. ‘Okay then, here it goes…’ Arul held his breath and tossed it into the shaft.
They waited.
Nothing happened.
‘It didn’t work!’ Keeran breathed.
‘I suppose it must be too old,’ Arul sighed and turned away. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw a disturbance over the river of light. It began as a ripple, rapidly growing into bolts of pale blue lightning, racing up the shaft, pushing a blast of hot air into the boy’s faces.
‘Run,’ Arul said.
‘What?’
‘RUN!’
They dashed towards the entrance just as the lightning exploded from the shaft, filling the corridor with a terrifying blue glow. Running as fast as they could, the bright outline of the entrance seemed impossibly far. Arul felt the heat of the blast on his back, ready to turn them to ash.
We’re not going to make it.
Yelling, they tumbled out of the cavern and rolled to the ground, gasping like half-drowned men. Keeran recovered first, pulling Arul away from the gateway and across the stony ground. They flung themselves behind a boulder, cowering with their hands over their heads. The entrance to the cavern glowed with an unnatural flickering light. ‘Something’s happening!’ Arul shouted. The hair on his arms stood up as though a lightning storm approached, the odour of burnt earth filling his nostrils.
As Keeran prayed, wild-eyed with fear, a nearby pine tree exploded into flames.
Then just as quickly as it arose, the lightning receded into the depths, leaving the cavern dark once more. ‘I hope that was worth it,’ Arul muttered, his voice shaky.
‘Worth it? We don’t even know what we’ve done! Said Keeran, biting his knuckles nervously.
Under his vest, Arul’s amulet pulsed to life with a flickering glow that matched the river of light far below.