When Corvan awoke, the faint scent of lilacs hung in the cool night air and for a moment he thought he was stretched out on the front porch swing at home, his mother’s tabby cat curled up against him. A tickle of hair brushed his cheek and he smiled. Kate was cuddled up against him, her head resting on his forearm.
Kate stirred, then rolled toward him and snuggled into his chest, her hand coming back over his. He released the medallion into her hand and then lay perfectly still, waiting until her breathing fell into a steady rhythm. One thing he knew for certain was that he would never again be bothered by the boys teasing him that he liked Kate. He was no longer afraid to admit it and he hoped she felt the same way.
He dozed again but woke up to cold air flowing over his back. He reached for the cloak, then jumped to his feet. Kate was gone!
“Kate!” he called out, but there was no answer. He stumbled up the passage, but it was too dark for his keen eyesight to pick out any movement. He stopped, glanced back down, and caught a glimpse of green a long way off down the passage from where they had slept. Stumbling toward it, he called again, and this time heard Kate respond in a low voice.
When he reached her, he found Kate standing at the top of a steeper section, the cloak draped over her shoulders and the medallion outstretched in her hand, staring down a group of boulders below.
“What are you doing, Kate?” he asked, wondering if maybe she had been sleepwalking.
She turned her head slowly to him, a quizzical look on her face. “Did you hear him calling?” she asked.
“Who?” Corvan responded, looking below and half expecting the leader of the Rakash to appear from between the large rocks.
“The old man from the secret room,” Kate said. “He wants me to come back.” She held the medallion up between them. “Sometimes, when I hold this, I can hear his voice.”
Corvan frowned. The only old man Kate could be referring was Rayu from when he hid her in the crypt. Somehow, his holding the medallion just before her and then dying entombed in the Cor Shield must be having an effect on her. There was no way to know for certain with all she had been through. “You must have been dreaming,” he said. “Are you ready to walk a bit farther?”
Kate nodded slightly and shivered.
“Let me fasten the cloak for you,” Corvan said, as he buttoned up the front. This time Kate did not resist wearing it and taking her by the arm, he turned her about and guided her back up the slope.
“I’m thirsty,” Kate mumbled.
“If we walk a bit more, we can look for some water,” Corvan replied, but he didn’t have much hope. When they had first left the Cor shield, they had come across a few pools of water in deep pockets at the edges of the old watercourse, but lately there were none to be found. The last one had been more than four rests ago, and the effects of dehydration were setting in. Their food supplies in the cloth bag were running out, but without any water, neither of them wanted to try to choke down the dried-out bread that remained.
As he led the way up the passage, a deep fear seeped into his soul along with the darkness that pressed in around them. He wrapped Tyreth’s scarf closer around his neck. Earlier, when she would not wear the cloak, he had offered the scarf to Kate, but she gave it back saying, “I don’t like how it smells.”
Now he took comfort by pressing Tyreth’s scarf against his face and breathing in her lingering scent. He recalled her words in the prison cell, “be brave and it will be all right.” Was that actually true? Was there any way out of this situation?
Kate stopped, looked ahead, and whispered hoarsely past her cracked lips. “Is it much farther? This night is too long. There are still no stars.”
“We are getting closer,” Corvan replied, giving her hand a squeeze. “How about we count out a thousand steps and see where that takes us.”
Kate nodded and he began to count. At the end of the thousand steps, they rested briefly, then did it again. It helped to have a goal to keep the fears at bay but as the counting wore on it fell to five hundred, then one hundred and finally to twenty-five. Kate collapsed in a heap. “I’m sorry, I can’t, sorry Corvan.” She looked like she would cry but her eyes remained dull and dry.
“It’s okay.” Corvan hardly had enough moisture in his mouth to get the words out. “Rest here. I’ll find water,” he croaked.
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Covering her with the cloak, he waited until her eyes closed and her rasping breaths became regular. When he eased the medallion from her grasp, she did not resist. He did not want to leave her alone in the dark, but needed the light to explore ahead and find water.
Around the next bend, the passage rose even more steeply over stair-like ridges. He started to climb but his strength gave out and he fell to his knees. Had they come all this way just to die of thirst? How was that fair?
His father’s words replied from the recesses of his weary mind. Don’t be looking for this world to be fair to you. Fair is what you do for others, not what you expect to receive.
“You’re right, Dad, I just need to take the next step.” He crawled forward over the next ledge. “Come on, Corvan,” he whispered, “you can do it.”
But he couldn’t.
In utter exhaustion he fell on his face, his last bit of energy seeping from his body into the cold stone.
A green glow wavered before his eyes. He relaxed his hand and the medallion slipped away and landed with a soft metallic ring on the stone. For a moment it balanced on its points, then rolled slowly out of sight. It the stillness he listened to it drop down the stone steps, sounding like a small bell fading into the distance. The ringing ended with a soft plop.
It took a long time for the last sound to register in his mind. It had to do with wishing or praying or something similar. He could remember having a handful of medallions when he was little, no, they were pennies—and he was dropping them one at a time into a round hole; plop, plop, plop. He recalled wishing that one day he would grow up to be a great hero.
Corvan raised his head. When he was a child, he had visited the wishing well at the park in Fenwood. The sound he had just heard had to be the medallion falling into water. He squinted down the slope to find a green light dancing off the ripples of a small pool.
Crawling back down the stair-like ridges he followed the light to a trickle of water bubbling up into a shallow depression. Dropping on his stomach he drank deeply, then made his way back to kneel beside Kate.
“I found water,” he said.
Kate’s head rolled to one side, but her eyes did not open.
Corvan pulled her toward his chest. He didn’t have the strength to lift her, but if she helped . . . He shook her gently. “Put your arms around my neck, Kate, and I’ll carry you.”
Her eyes remained shut, but her head dipped slightly, and she clasped her hands behind his head. Summoning all his energy, he pushed to his feet and staggered around the corner to the flickering green pool.
They rested by the small spring. Kate revived as she drank and finished off the last of the bread. Corvan let her eat her fill before nibbling on the last small pieces in the cloth bag. Turning it inside out he brushed off the crumbs and rolled up the rim. “Look Kate, it’s a toque to keep your head warm.” Kate smiled as she took it from him and tugged it over her head, her eyes moist and alive again. She leaned in to him and he pulled her close to rest against his chest.
He let Kate doze until she stirred again. “Shall we try another thousand steps?” he asked.
Kate nodded and he helped her to her feet but before long she was stumbling the steep steplike flow, barely able to lift her feet under the gray cloak.
“Your cape is too heavy for me,” she said, fumbling with the buttons. Corvan helped her take it off, then draped it back over his own shoulders. This time Kate took his hand and attempted to lead the way but she tripped on a rocky lip, fell and pulled him down with her to the ground, his knees smacking painfully against the rocks.
“I’m sorry, Corvan, I can’t make it,” she whispered, her shoulders convulsing with dry sobs.
Fear swept over him along with a cool breeze that blew in sharply from around the next corner. Pushing away the feelings of dread away with fierce determination he got to his feet. They weren’t beat yet. “I’m not going to leave you, Kate, ever.” He reached down for the hand that held the medallion and fresh light flowed around their fingers. Taking her other hand, he pulled her to her feet. “We’re not quitting.” He took a step back. “Keep looking in my eyes and follow me. We can do this one step at a time.” He stepped backward and she followed, her eyes looked on his.
The wind grew stronger. Kate broke his gaze and looked past him. She spoke, but the wind whipped her words down the tunnel. Shaking her head she pulled feebly on his hands, but he leaned back and forced her to keep coming. If they quit now, they might never get up again. Just one more step!
His back foot found nothing but empty air.
Kate yanked on his hands; eyes wide with fear as together they toppled into a rushing river down below. Icy water cut through his cloak and the current tore Kate from his grasp. The green glow of the medallion slipped away from him on the darks surface of the water. Kicking furiously Corvan swam after her.
The ceiling swept lower.
The glow drew closer.
His hand brushed Kate’s face, then in a roar of foam, she disappeared as they tumbled over a waterfall.
Coughing up water, Corvan surfaced off to one side of the falls in a shallow pool. He stood on the rocky bottom. “Kate! Where are you?” He saw nothing. He splashed to one side, his hands outstretched. His hand jammed into a rock wall and heard his finger snap. Pain shot up his arm.
“Kate!” he screamed, his throat rasping with the panic that drove her name from his lungs.
He listened carefully over the sound of the water and heard her moan. “Kate? Where are you? Speak to me.” Another moan from the other side of the rock. Falling to his knees in the water, he moved around it until the glow of Kate’s medallion came into view, lying in the water. He lifted the light to find her lying half submerged in a shallow pool, her eyes closed. A gash on her head and a deep cut on her face were turning the water around her pale face deep red. “Are you okay? Say something, Kate.”
Kate didn’t open her eyes but a smile touched her lips.
“I saw the stars, Corvan. We’re home.”