Later that evening, Dick and I stood on the wrap-around veranda of our treehouse.
I sat on the wooden railing made from a sturdy tree branch and leaned back against a support post. Dick bent forward, resting his forearms on the same railing next to me. Both of our gazes were transfixed on the beautiful scene taking place at the lake in the center of the cavern.
Emery called it Last Light, which was apparently a daily phenomenon the entire clan gathered to celebrate. It marked the passage of the day into Red Night for Clan Everwyld. As the ritual gathering commenced, I could see how it got that name.
Orbs of light, some the size of a small marble, others the size of a man’s fist, manifested deep in the lake by the thousands. Slowly, the orbs drifted out of the lake’s surface and into the air, like bubbles rising toward the cavern ceiling.
The orbs drifted on the air currents out of the skylights in the roof and continued to ascend until they were no longer visible. As they did, the Everwylds sang and hummed a joyful tune. I couldn’t understand all the words, but the gist of it had to do with giving thanks for the waters and bidding farewell to the day’s Last Light.
As Rodan’s twilight sky faded to the customary red, the lake did something extraordinary, glowing a deep blue shade as if lit from within. The result pushed back the Red Night, casting the entire cavern in a dim indigo glow.
“That’s quite a light show,” I said, keeping my voice low as to not disturb the reverent atmosphere. “I suppose if I had to live in a cave my entire life, this one wouldn’t be so bad.”
I turned to Dick, and he smiled teasingly. Something about the tranquility of Hidden Spring, the beauty of the floating light show, and homey, harmonious vibes going around had me second guessing my choice to sleep on the couch tonight.
“I literally can’t imagine you living in a cave for your entire life,” Dick remarked, lightly. “Cut off from the stars, pinned down to one place, unable to roam?”
He shook his head and chuckled as I shuddered dramatically.
“You’re right, that sounds terrible, even if this place feels like paradise,” I responded.
“It’s not really my thing either,” Dick added, dropping his tone to a conspiratorial whisper. “Too much goody-goody harmony for me. I like to get in a little trouble sometimes.”
He winked devilishly at me, and I laughed. His face turned serious for a moment as he stared out at the glowing lake. Solar torches were starting to turn on to supplement the lighting in the dimly lit cavern. The lights dotted the trees and bridgeways like strings of luminescent pearls.
“Something about this place, though,” Dick muttered thoughtfully, “it feels so familiar.”
My gaze turned questioning as I inclined my head toward him, urging him to elaborate.
“I mean, I’ve never been in a place like this, nothing even close. Yet, it feels so...” he trailed off, trying to put words to a complicated thought. “It’s like that favorite pair of pants, they just feel right. Does it feel like that to you?”
I thought about what he said for a moment as I took in our picturesque surroundings. Finally, I shook my head.
“Not really,” I said. “This place is very warm and inviting, but I can’t say I feel any type of connection or sense of ‘rightness’ more than normal.”
Dick sighed and looked up at the skylights in the cavern roof. “That’s odd,” he said. “It probably doesn’t sound that odd, but it does to me. I’d never imagine myself describing a place like that. It’s like...”
Absently, he twisted his left hand around his right wrist, as if rubbing an imaginary object there.
“Light?” I asked, curiously, starting to connect some pieces together.
“What? You mean the Last Lights?,” Dick asked, confused.
“No, I mean your surrogate alien child,” I answered
“Oh god!” Dick startled, looking down at his wrist in a moment of panic.
“He’s fine,” I reminded him. “You left him at the ship when we went to the Desert Dryad.”
I could see him visibly relax in relief. “Some surrogate parent I am,” he mused. “I completely forgot about him until you brought it up.”
“Well you’ve only been a parent for a few weeks,” I said. “Cut yourself some slack. But you didn’t answer my question. Does that feeling you get from this place remind you of Light?”
Dick thought quietly for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I think it does, now that you say it. You think that has something to do with it?”
“I was wondering what would make these light orbs emerge from the lake like that, plus what mysterious magic caused these dry, desert stones to produce this much water.”
“An Ancient Relic,” Dick said. “And you think I feel connected to it because I incubated one of them inside me?”
“The ship responds to you, Tria obeys you, so we know Light left some residual trace in you that Ancient technology recognizes,” I pointed out. “Maybe it works both ways. Maybe you can recognize it, too.”
He took a long moment to consider what I was saying before he spoke. “It seems unlikely that we’d run into more Ancient magic at work on this planet.”
“Does it? For all we know, whatever Ancient species Light is related to could have seeded most of the planets in this sect.”
“Then how come nobody seems to know about them or talk about them?” Dick asked.
“Tria mentioned another Ancient, the one the people of Kalo-Mahoi thought of as Maluna. She called him Ancient Fate. Maybe they seeded worlds under pseudonyms.”
“Ancient Fate. Does that mean this being is somehow pulling some unknown strings we’re unaware of?” Dick mused. It was a question I’d also given a lot of thought since leaving Kalo-Mahoi.
“Light’s Ancient name isn’t so on the nose. Sure, he does the glowy thing, but he does other things, as well. Healing, resurrection, and that shapeshifting thing, though that could be a by-product from you. The point is, it’s not like he’s the creator of all ‘light’. So, maybe ‘Fate’ is pulling the strings and manipulating us rather than in control of our actual fate.”
“God, I hope so,” Dick said. “As much as I hate feeling manipulated, it’s still always nice to have a choice. And if that’s true, then how far does it go back? Certainly all the way back to me receiving the anonymous tip that a miracle healing object was on a certain transport. But does it go farther back? Is that why my brother is sick?”
“It’s a terrible thought,” I said. “But one that’s not worth worrying over right now. You just have to look at the path ahead and decide what are you going to do next, armed with the knowledge of that possibility?”
Dick stared in quiet contemplation for a while at the tropical twilight all around us.
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“Well,” he said, pushing himself off the banister he was still leaning on. “One thing is for sure. If this place is somehow existing because of one of those Ancient relics, we should keep Light far away from it.”
“And what if he needs them for this evolutionary advancement Tria mentioned?” I asked. “What if it could get us a stardrive in the ship or teleport us home?”
“I’m not so ruthless that I'd purposefully destroy the peaceful existence the Everwylds have just to get home,” Dick said. “Probably shouldn’t tell Cash about it though,” he added, half jokingly.
“That’s fair,” I said, nodding. “We did promise Ryuuk we’d try not to destroy any more civilizations.”
* * *
This is different, I thought, as Dick pressed my back against the treehouse door. He was kissing me passionately as he slowly shed articles of clothing.
Most of my own clothing had also disappeared, I noticed, as his mouth moved to the side of my neck. Only my bra and panties remained, and Dick moved quickly to divest me of even those small articles of clothing.
Despite being caught up in the heat of the moment, a part of my mind felt removed, like it always did in one of these dreams. What wasn’t the same, obviously, was the fact that this wasn’t a memory of something that had happened before.
He tossed me on the bed and covered my body with his, lips finding mine once again. This had never happened before. Not only what was happening in the dream, but my dreams had always been about past memories. Instead, I found myself in a dream-like version of my present surroundings, acting on impulses I had been struggling to push from my mind as I went to sleep.
I paused for a moment, pushing the sexy, horny man on top of me back for a moment. Would it be bad to let it happen? These dreams were so realistic sometimes...
Luckily, I didn’t have to live with whatever decision my weak willpower would have chosen.
Suddenly, the room began to grow brighter, illuminated by a blinding light outside the treehouse. Dream Dick rolled off me as I stood and pulled a blanket from the bed to cover my nakedness. Slowly, I walked toward the treehouse door and opened it.
Outside, the Last Lights were bubbling up from the very ground, not just the lake. It was ten times as many as we had seen the night before, the light so bright, it looked like mid-day. All around me, trees began to shake, and I reached out to grab hold of the banister, only to have it crumble in my hand.
I screamed as I fell, splashing down into water that shouldn’t have been under the treehouse. The lake bubbled so violently it overflowed, flooding the cavern floor like a carbonated beverage that had been shaken. Debris from the flooded stone houses on the cavern floor floated past me, barely missing me as I waded forward to the edge of the overflowing lake.
There were no other people, I noticed. The escaping lights shot out of the skylights like a geyser of illumination. I was about halfway to the lake shore when the churning water suddenly calmed. The last of the lights bubbled out of the lake bed before escaping into the atmosphere outside. The absence of their blinding light made the cavern seem shrouded in darkness.
My eyes were just starting to adjust when I felt the pull of the water. It was all flowing back to the lake like a tidal wave reaching equilibrium. The suction pulled me off my feet, ripping the blanket from my hand and drawing me naked with it toward the lake. I hit one of the stone tables hard and clutched it for leverage against the back current.
The water didn’t just stop at the edge of the lake, however, it continued to recede, swirling in a giant whirlpool in the center. As I clung to the stone table, I watched the water slowly drain out of the lake like a bathtub with the plug pulled.
By the end of it all, only a gaping hole remained in the center of the lake. The waterfalls had run dry as the hole claimed every last drop of water in the cavern. The lake bottom was left a slightly mucky field of mud.
I wasn’t sure why, but I felt compelled to look down the hole in the center. So, I let go of the table I was still clutching tightly and walked cautiously into the muck. When I reached the center of the lake, there was nothing. Just a giant, black hole that fell farther than the eye could see.
Overcome with vertigo, I took an involuntary step back. Just then a long, half-decomposed arm reached up from the mud to grab my arm and pull me back toward the hole. I screamed as it tossed me into the dark nothingness.
* * *
“Skye!” Dick shouted as I thrashed awake. “Stop screaming before someone thinks I'm in here murdering you, gods damn it!”
He was sitting on the edge of the couch I had been sleeping on, clutching my shoulders tightly to shake me awake. My face must have looked as stricken as I felt because he stopped his tirade as his expression changed to concern.
“Good god, what happened, this time?” he murmured and pulled me close to his chest, wrapping me in a comforting hug.
He rocked me back and forth for a moment. It was only then that I realized I was shaking uncontrollably. After a while, the shaking subsided and my heart no longer felt like it would beat its way out of my chest. Still, we said nothing.
A soft knock on the door heralded Emery’s voice asking if everything was okay. Dick walked to the door and let her in.
“Skye had a nightmare or something,” he said. “Sorry if we woke someone.”
“My place is close by but I didn’t hear anything,” Emery said. “Kiara sensed something and insisted I come.”
The giant lion in question lumbered through the door and plopped itself on the floor near the couch. She nuzzled me sympathetically, comfortingly.
“Skye has these dreams sometimes,” Dick explained, since I had still yet to find my voice. He looked over at me curiously. “Bad memory this time, Skye?”
I shook my head. “Not a memory at all,” I said softly, tentatively testing my voice. “It was this place. It was falling apart.”
Emery was halfway out the door, having decided that everything was fine, when she heard my statement and stopped in her tracks.
“What do you mean, falling apart?” she asked, shutting the door again.
“It was like all the light left at one time and then the water just drained into this bottomless hole,” I said, deciding not to go too much into detail, especially about the part involving Dick.
“The water...dried up?” Emery continued to question.
“Not really, more like it was sucked all at once into a giant abyss,” I clarified.
“Why are you asking?” Dick questioned Emery. “Sometimes Skye’s dreams have...real-world implications. Are you worried it might be true?”
Emery sighed, pulled a chair from a nearby table, and sat down, looking speculative.
“Worried that all the water is being drained from Hidden Spring? In a sense, yes.”
“Your people are in trouble?” I asked. I tried to focus on this news, but was more interested in what this implied about my dreaming.
This was the second time my dreams had warned me of some underlying issue that could lead to present danger and disaster. The first was when my memory morphed into the nightmare of Dick becoming a Lycan. As advantageous as I found my dreams, I was starting to resent the nightmare aspect of them.
“We don’t talk about it,” Emery said, “but this place is dying.”
“For how long?” Dick asked.
“Millenia?” Emery guessed. “It’s hard to say because whatever ancient mysteries created the waterflow here has been breaking down slowly for as long as anyone can remember. It’s something we all know will happen eventually, but are powerless to stop.”
Emery stood and walked to a window, gazing out at the picturesque Hidden Spring.
“There were once dozens of caverns like this,” she said. “Now there are barely a handful.”
“What happened to the rest?” I asked.
“The water slowly stopped until they were no longer suitable for everyday life. The most recent ones can be used for farming. The soil is still fertile from the past abundance and what remains of the rivers can be dispersed using modern technology.”
“What about the older ones?” Dick wondered.
“They’re only suitable for storage. Barren rocky caverns. Most are just empty.”
“And there’s nothing you could do?” I asked. “Find out what source started the springs in the first place and fix it?”
“My people don’t have the knowledge, or quite frankly, the foresight to try,” she said. “It’s just a reality each generation lives with and prays they won’t be the last generation to see the lights. They don’t really think about the generations to come. It's why so many are complacent about making headway with the colonists. They like to push it from their mind, the thought that our people will one day be beholden to the desert once again.”
I shared a long look with Dick, debating how much to say to Emery about our Ancient theories. For now, we both chose to remain silent. Emery and Kiara departed a moment later, bidding me better sleep.
“You didn’t mention the Ancients,” Dick pointed out.
“There is no point giving false hope to a seemingly hopeless situation,” I said shaking my head. “If the power that created the springs is fading, it doesn’t seem like the Ancient relics we have encountered. Why didn’t you mention it?”
“Because I don’t trust her enough to tell her about Light,” he said, sitting on the end of the bed. “Not that she doesn’t seem trustworthy, but I have no intention of telling random people about the powerful Ancient being I’m pseudo parenting.”
He stopped as he noticed me smirking.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said, goading him. “It’s just nice to see you finally accepting your role as dear ole’ dad.”
Dick groaned in mock frustration and tossed a pillow from the bed at my face.
“Go back to sleep.”