CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jepaul slid down the smooth surface of the rock to the earth, where he expected his feet would meet solid resistance. They didn't. Crying out, he sank, the soil closing over his head as he clawed at it. He felt suffocated. Just as he felt he couldn't endure any more pressure he felt a hand. Turning with difficulty and with soil particles falling from him, he saw Saracen beside him, the little man's face impassive. Jepaul gave a convulsive sob and clung to the strong supporting hand.
“You took so long, Jepaul. I've waited and waited. Come now, lad, with me.”
Jepaul's gasped response was one of relief. He was led forward. Saracen went most of the way with him through what seemed layers and layers of earth, the pair always steadily climbing upwards on stairs cut deeply in the ground. They ascended in silence. They went for so long Jepaul again lost all sense of time.
Saracen strode unerringly. In the pitch blackness, only relieved by a natural bluish glow cast by the rocks that pressed in on all sides, Jepaul frequently stumbled. And then, unexpectedly, Saracen stopped.
“This is where I leave you, Jepaul,” he said very quietly. He stretched up to pat the white, strained face. “Go on alone now and believe in yourself - Quon does and he waits for you, lad.”
“I know,” whispered Jepaul, painfully short of breath and with a parched throat. Saracen had walked very, very fast for such a small man.
Choking back a sob, Jepaul went on. The ground grew denser and hotter. There was no light now of any sort. Old fears from his childhood resurfaced in Jepaul's mind, especially the thought of mine boys and those enslaved in airless factories. He began to hyperventilate and felt giddy. He fell often on the steps too, grazing knees where his pants had been torn long before.
He stopped. When he did the walls closed in on him relentlessly. He couldn't bear it. Maddened by fright and driven by a fear of being trapped he struggled on, every breath laboured. Sweat poured from him as, with each flight of steps, the heat intensified. He felt he'd burst into flames. His throat was now agonisingly parched and his tongue swollen, and his hands, every so often brushing the walls for guidance or support, felt singed. He panted.
He was crying in earnest now, the tears drying on his face immediately. The nightmare seemed endless. He'd ceased to think. An instinct for survival drove him. He never knew how he managed to put one foot in front of the other before he literally fell into Belika's arms outstretched to pull him close. He saw tears in her eyes but she said nothing to him, because he was now barely conscious and completely unaware who held him so tenderly. When he felt a cup at his mouth and cool liquid trickled down his throat, his wits and bearings returned. With enormous relief he drank as softly bidden. He felt only heat.
His eyes cleared. He regarded Belika fixedly.
“Belika?” he croaked in disbelief.
“Drink again, Jepaul,” she whispered, her words a caress.
He obeyed. The cup was withdrawn and he was drawn to his feet. He was led to the edge of a vast red pulsating gulf. Fear gripped him again. Before he could articulate anything, Belika stepped carefully onto a narrow ledge above the seething gulf and indicated, by a tug on his hand, that Jepaul was to follow. His eyes dilated in sheer terror. It held him rigid. Geysers of molten lava vomited upwards below him and flames danced all about the belching, seething mass. Vertigo caught Jepaul. He swayed, ominously near the edge.
“No, Jepaul,” came the soft voice. “No, Jepaul. Look only at my back and follow. Come now and keep away from the very edge.”
His tongue cleaving to his palate and his body trembling as though he had a palsy, Jepaul obeyed. He kept his gaze fixed to the figure in front of him, which was his one comfort as they literally inched their way about the enormous gulf, Belika’s hand reassuringly touching his.
It was a cruel nightmare for Jepaul. His heart felt it would explode. Half-way round the gulf, Belika came to a halt, her hand guiding Jepaul as close to her as possible. As Jepaul tremblingly clung to her with every ounce of his spent strength, he saw a bridge appear before them and caught his breath at the fragility of it as it swung lightly above the turbulence. He didn't believe anything so insubstantial could be walked on.
He stared numbly at it. Suddenly he was conscious Belika's hand was no longer in his. As he tried to see where she'd gone, Jepaul wobbled precariously on the edge, then, to his horror, he saw she beckoned him from the very entrance to the bridge. He gaped with fear.
He now realised the bridge was of fire. It had a life of its own. Helpless and paralysed he just stood there. As he dithered he saw Belika grow faint as she walked onto the bridge, her image becoming more transparent with each step. This galvanised him. Imploring her to wait he went on all fours, hands and knees burning as he crawled and almost overbalanced onto the bridge. Flames licked caressingly around him.
Belika was gone. Appalled, Jepaul licked his lips. Such a sight would daunt the hardiest spirit and Jepaul was only a boy. He became aware he choked on smoke and gases. The fumes caught in his throat and clogged his lungs. He was on his feet, running wildly. He had no thought but to escape the hellish inferno, the crackling flames behind him helping his flight. And at the point he began his run across the bridge, it was gone. He was in clear air, with no trace of smoke or burns. He floated close to someone. He felt quite comfortable. He looked beside him to see the reassuring bulk of the Varen. It was Knellen who buoyed him, his hands and voice surprisingly gentle.
“Breathe deeply, little boy,” he advised calmly.
Willingly, Jepaul did as instructed. He was watched quite critically. When he stopped gulping like a stranded fish and his heart rate quietened from the dreadful hammering that made his head ache, Jepaul was released. He floated down and down to where Knellen now awaited him. The Varen crossed to him and looked deeply into the large, dark-ringed eyes.
“Do you feel more comfortable now?”
“Yes, Master,” nodded Jepaul.
“Then follow me, boy, as best you can.”
Jepaul watched Knellen move effortlessly away and without thought followed him, buoyed by the currents and up draughts. Unconsciously, like the Varen, he simply flew. The air stayed clear. Jepaul had no sense of colour or smell but he did begin to feel creeping fatigue. Knellen never looked back to see if the boy kept with him. He didn't speak again nor did he slacken a punishing, gruelling pace.
They flew through nothingness. Though Jepaul could breathe quite easily, he noticeably tired and it became a struggle to keep pace with the Varen, the distance between them starting to increase. Then he noticed that as Knellen pulled ahead, so he continually placed crystal markers. Jepaul called to him. The Varen either didn't hear him or ignored him.
Jepaul felt his weight. The sensation of lightness passed. He became acutely conscious of his body mass, a mass that required more and more effort to keep moving. Buoyancy was gone. After what seemed hours, Knellen faded from view and Jepaul was alone again. He was drained. He felt his bulk become heavier, until he sank lower and lower, the crystal markers momentarily lost. He could sink no lower. Even so, he couldn't feel anything solid under him which he thought was strange. He moved his feet. He found he could walk, wherever he was.
So he did, straining to peer ahead where he thought he sighted a marker in what was become murky, denser light. He struck out for it, very slowly. He felt as if he waded through glue. From one marker to another took an inordinately long time and a tremendous amount of effort, so long in fact that Jepaul had to keep talking to himself to encourage him to force himself forward.
Finally, he got to a crystal and could see no other. Puzzled and concerned, he stayed put, his feet feeling the sensation they congealed in solid clay, though there was no earth about him. While he waited he looked about him, and as he did, a yawning chasm opened right at his feet. He was mesmerised by it. He stared at it, stunned. He tried to back from it at the same time as his eyes took in its truly massive proportions. The gulf of fire was nothing to this. It seemed endless. It
was so deep Jepaul felt sick just looking down into it and so wide it spread beyond sight. Jepaul trembled.
And he found he couldn't go backwards. He lifted a foot forward experimentally and experienced no difficulty with that. The problem was retreating. His feet held fast. Dispirited, Jepaul again looked into the chasm, where there was no fire, no earth, nothing, just empty space. To be marooned in such a place would, reflected Jepaul with a deep shudder, be like a living death, something he suddenly acknowledged was a profound fear he'd always had. To be swallowed by nothing was unthinkable for him.
He didn't like the odds. There was no bridge, no guiding light and no crystal marker. He thought of the phrase Sapphire sometimes used and its aptness now startled him - the Dom had spoken of taking a leap of faith. Faith in what, Jepaul asked himself nervously. It dawned, with horrifying clarity, that if he was to get through this he would have to do exactly what Sapphire spoke of - he'd have to jump. He'd have to go against his every instinct to survive. His mind baulked in refusal. Again he peered into the chasm of nothingness. He closed his eyes. He teetered on the brink until Quon, distraught, could no longer bear it and had to lean on Wind Dancer for support. The sight of the tormented boy, frail and vulnerable, with big, frightened and traumatised eyes, was too much for him. He wept silently.
“Jepaul, child, Jepaul, believe. Believe,” he finally whispered, the words wrenched from him in anguish. “Jepaul, I'm with you. Believe!”
Jepaul turned his head uncertainly to words that came in faint whispers like far echoes, but one word reverberated in his mind. He caught it and listened. It was “Believe”.
“Quon!” he called desperately. “Quon!”
There was no reply. Driven against his instincts, worn out and expecting that this would be the end of the entity known as Jepaul, Jepaul simply thought of his love and trust of Quon, took courage and launched himself with a loud cry of utter despair. He plunged down, until suddenly he was like a feather, the boy floating across the chasm with effortless grace.
And the chasm was gone. In its place was a pillared entrance. Jepaul felt firm ground. He tried it uncertainly. It was solid. He sighed with relief and eyed the entrance with some trepidation. He'd gone through air, fire and earth, so he suspected that what lay beyond the pillars was the trial of water.
He approached the entrance. It was gone and he fell headlong into deep water that swirled round him and spun him with it. He struggled to surface. Gasping and spluttering he shook the wet from sodden ringlets that covered his face and trod water as Sapphire once taught him to do. Jepaul thought of that wistfully because that now seemed such a long time ago, almost another age or lifetime.
He saw nothing but water everywhere, no sky either. This world was water. Again he thought of Sapphire, the person who'd taught him to feel spiritually at home in water where he could feel an odd sense of security. He splashed about for a while and luxuriated in the sensation of water all about him, then he thought about where he was and what he'd have to do to move beyond this point.
As he could see nothing on the surface he decided his energies should be directed below in the truest water world. Taking a breath, he dived. Sapphire, watching him intently, smiled. Jepaul saw a marker that was the same as Knellen's and knew he had to hold or follow it, wherever it led him, so he kicked to go lower and nearer it.
The crystal retreated. Jepaul followed. As he got closer to the crystal, so it continued to fall deeper and deeper, until Jepaul had to repeatedly return to the surface to get air. Then, when he dived again, not only was the crystal that little bit further down, it had shifted position slightly as well. It was enervating and confusing. Jepaul began to get disoriented. He found the crystal's unpredictable behaviour perplexing. He spent some time treading water while he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do.
As he splashed about he felt a tug at his legs. He flailed wildly, peering through the agitated water to see if he could locate what pulled at him. The tug came again. In obedience to what Sapphire had repeatedly taught him, Jepaul breathed deeply and dived steeply.
He found that Javen watched him, the slaver's eyes open and curious. He beckoned Jepaul. The boy followed. He could breathe quite naturally as he swam, the necessity to rush up for air to the surface gone. Javen held the crystal. He was always that distance ahead, but, unlike Knellen, he didn't pull away and go further and further in front. Jepaul stayed close to Javen's feet, but far enough back not to suffer from the turbulence. The silent companionship heartened Jepaul. He felt unaccountably comforted, just grateful for another presence in this world he'd been pitch-forked into.
They passed natural beauty, an underwater world of waterfalls, mountain torrents, deep flowing rivers, water passages long and wide, or shallow and narrow, burbling streams and brooks, all seemingly timeless and endless, their forms stretching into an infinite distance. As before, with Knellen, the pace was constant and quite fast. Again, Jepaul began to tire over time and he slowed, his swimming more erratic and no longer effortless. He wanted so much to rest but knew he couldn't. Then he reached the point he knew would come. He recognised exhaustion that meant he was unable to go much further and accepted, with sad resignation, that he'd come so far but had run his course. His limbs trembled with fatigue. His muscles seized. He gave a wrenching moan.
Javen stopped, turned and spoke sharply.
“Now, Jepaul, now!!”
Tiredly, almost unable to respond, Jepaul watched Javen lift the crystal and drop it.
“Now, child, now!”
The urgency in the voice brought the boy from simply watching the crystal begin a lazy spiral, to an instinctive response that took him beyond what he believed he could do. He went past exhaustion and pain. He automatically took as deep a breath as he could, before he turned in a plunging dive.
Necessity drove him down and down. He felt his lungs compress and feared they'd burst. Still the crystal sank, Jepaul with it. He thought he knew what it was to drown. And now Jepaul fought for his very life. A surge of energy shook him. He refused, at the end of the trials, to fail. Eking out almost his last breath Jepaul gave a final kick, sighted the crystal and stretched out fingers that curled round it, just as it sank out of sight. On a last gasp, Jepaul sank into oblivion.