Cavern of Secrets, Page 3

  “If I climb higher,” Raffa said, “maybe it will, I don’t know, widen out or something.” His gestures were growing increasingly frantic.

  Garith shrugged. “You could just wait. He might come back on his own.”

  “But he’s so sick. What if he needs me?”

  No reply.

  Raffa waited a moment longer, then stomped away. He should have known that Garith wouldn’t be any help.

  He began climbing the cliff, doing the best he could to follow the line of the crevice into which Echo had vanished.

  “Kuma!” he bellowed.

  “—ooma—ooma—ooma,” his voice echoed eerily between the cliffs.

  “Up here,” came the faint reply from far above his head.

  Raffa kept as close to the cliff face as he could. At times, finding the next hand- or foothold took him many minutes; he had to move across or even down as often as up. He seemed to be progressing by inches.

  Kuma called out encouragement. After the better part of an hour, he saw her peering down at him, and he hauled himself onto the broad ledge where she stood.

  “It must be important,” she teased, smiling. She knew how he felt about heights.

  “It’s Echo,” he panted as he got to his feet. “He went into the cliff—that crack there—”

  Kuma’s smile vanished into an expression of concern. She looked where he was pointing and scanned the cliff carefully. “Come,” she said.

  She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the wall of limestone. There he saw an opening big enough for Roo to enter. Sure enough, Roo and Twig were inside, prowling around a cave perhaps five paces wide and nearly as deep. Dry and well ventilated, the cave received light and air from the opening and from holes in the walls and ceiling.

  “Look,” Kuma said, and pointed to a rear corner of the space.

  “Look,” Twig said, with a snuffle and a chuff.

  Raffa walked to the corner. It was darker there. He saw another opening, this one just big enough for him to slip into if he ducked his head and turned sidewise.

  “I went in, but only a little way,” Kuma said. “It’s a passage, and it goes toward that crack. Maybe it joins up with . . . wherever Echo went.”

  Raffa was already uncoiling his leather rope. He handed one end to Kuma.

  “We’ll probably be able to hear each other if we shout,” he said, mostly to reassure himself. “Just in case, if I tug three times, it means I want you to start pulling.”

  “And if I tug three times, it means you have to come out. Be careful.”

  He nodded in reply and ducked into the passage.

  After only half a dozen steps, Raffa found that he could stand up straight. The ceiling wasn’t entirely closed; there were cracks and gaps similar to those in the cave. These openings let in enough light to see by, although there wasn’t much to look at, just limestone walls all around.

  The narrow passage sloped gradually downward. Raffa was encouraged by this; it meant that he was getting closer to the point where Echo had entered the cliff face.

  “All steady?” Kuma called, her words reaching him clearly.

  “Steady,” Raffa answered.

  He continued walking forward. Once he had to clamber past a boulder that partially blocked his way. Then something brushed his face, and he let out a startled grunt. He stopped walking and looked around. What was it, a spiderweb?

  The faintest of sounds . . . no, more like a ruffling of the air than a sound.

  And something brushed past him again.

  “Bats!” Raffa exclaimed.

  The winged creatures flew past him in ones and twos, up the passage and then out through the openings overhead. It made sense: Sunfall was coming on, their prime hunting time.

  As he watched, more and more bats joined the exodus. They were small creatures with large ears, just like Echo. Raffa kept trying to spot Echo, but he couldn’t make out one tiny bat among the dozens now streaming past him.

  “Echo! Echo, where are you?”

  The bats continued to fly past, in greater numbers than he ever could have imagined. It was as if the entire cliff were hollow, its interior filled with bats.

  Suddenly it was over, as unexpectedly as it had started. A few last bats fluttered past, and the passage was empty again.

  Empty, and silent.

  Raffa drew in a long breath. As he let it out, he felt a familiar whump on his chest.

  “Ouch!” Echo said, as he missed the perch twig and dug his claws into the wool of Raffa’s tunic.

  Echo peered up at him, his dark eyes glowing with the purple sheen borne by all the animals that had been treated with the scarlet vine from the Forest of Wonders.

  “Raffa good?” Echo asked.

  Raffa gave a shout of laughter. His relief on being reunited with Echo mounted even higher: Echo seemed his old self again!

  “I’m fine, Echo,” he said, trying to speak calmly. “What happened? Where did you go? You were sick, and now you seem so much better—”

  Echo chittered, then fluttered off the perch and flew to the wall. “Echo go, Raffa come,” he said.

  He led Raffa down the passage for several more steps. It grew darker, as light from the cliff top faded. A faint odor curled through the air, slightly sulfurous but not unpleasant. It was warmer, too; Raffa was beginning to perspire under his tunic.

  The passage hooked to the left, back to the right, and once more to the left. Then it seemed to end. But above a chest-high shelf of rock, there was a cleft just wide enough to slip into.

  It took Raffa three tries to hoist himself onto the shelf. As he climbed through the cleft, Echo clicked sharply. Raffa stopped just in time, teetering on his tiptoes.

  An enormous cavern opened out in front of him. It looked to be at least twenty paces across. The ceiling arched high overhead, obscured by clouds of steam wafting through the air.

  And there was no floor, for the cavern held an enormous hot spring.

  Raffa had seen a hot spring before: There was one in the Forest of Wonders not too far from his home. But that one wasn’t much bigger than a bucket. He hadn’t even known that a hot spring could be this large, and he wondered if any human had laid eyes on the cavern before. Maybe he was the first person ever to see it!

  Raffa groped through his rucksack for the lightstick. The rag on the end was soaked in an essence of phosphorescent fungi, invented by Raffa’s mother, Salima. It produced a greenish light, not very strong, but certainly better than nothing.

  The rock on which he stood curved out over the water. At its base, there was a narrow lip barely wide enough for his feet and only if he stood heel-to-toe. Cautiously he lowered himself onto the lip; he had to crouch to keep from hitting his head on the underside of the rock. Then he held the lightstick out as far as he could reach.

  The dark surface of the water was in constant, gentle motion. In a few places around the edge of the spring, bubbles chuckled and popped. Careful to keep his balance, he leaned forward and stuck a tentative finger into the water. It was pleasantly warm.

  To his left, he saw a stream of bubbles. He sidled over, put his hand into the stream—and drew it out with a jerk. The water there was much hotter!

  Raffa guessed that the spring was yet another legacy of the Great Quake. It was surely heated by magma that had made its way to the surface through fissures created during the Quake.

  To Raffa’s surprise, Echo alit on the ledge next to him. The bat almost never landed on the ground. His claws, so perfectly formed for grasping, were nearly useless on a flat surface.

  “Beetle,” Echo said happily. Waddling awkwardly, he began snapping at something on the ground, almost as if he were a bird.

  Raffa brought the lightstick closer. In its dim glow, he could see small insects moving about.

  “Echo no good, eat beetle, Echo good,” the bat explained.

  So it was these insects that had made Echo feel better!

  Although some of the insects seemed to be scurryi
ng aimlessly—doubtless trying to elude Echo’s probing snout—others were crawling with more purpose, in a ragged line toward the edge of the spring. Raffa followed them with his eyes and saw that their destination was a clump of plants.

  Growing in the midst of one of the bubble-streams, the plants didn’t have anything that looked like leaves. Instead they had a network of fine, hairlike stems, almost as if their root balls were above instead of below. Numerous insects were munching away at the stems.

  In the greenish light, Raffa wasn’t sure at first what color the plants were. Certainly they wouldn’t be green themselves, for no sunlight reached the cavern. As he looked more closely, he saw that the stems were colorless, almost translucent.

  Then the bubbles started belching loudly, as a spurt of hot gas pulsed into the spring from deep within the earth. Raffa stared in astonishment.

  The plants had begun to glow. The tip of each tiny stem burned brightly with a clear white light. For the space of a single long breath, the cluster of plants shone like a ball of minuscule stars.

  When the light vanished, the cavern was so dark that Raffa wondered if he had imagined the plants’ illumination. He blinked a few times to clear his vision and his thoughts.

  The fungi distilled for his lightstick emitted a pale green light that glowed steadily. Cracklefruits sparked when you crunched down hard on them, and some botanicals produced dull gleams when they were being ground in the mortar. But this was different: The plant’s intense light was like nothing he had ever seen before.

  Raffa frowned. That wasn’t quite true. He had seen that kind of brilliance produced by a botanical: by the scarlet vine, whenever he pounded it into a paste.

  He sat very still, thinking hard.

  Every plant he knew of needed sunlight to survive. Even the fungi found in dark or shadowy places drew nourishment from rotting plant matter that had itself grown in the sun. This cavern plant was living entirely without sunlight. It seemed to be using the gases that percolated through the spring as a replacement for the sun’s rays.

  As if in confirmation, the water roiled more energetically, and the plants again flashed their dazzling display.

  Raffa felt his heartbeat speeding up. It was beyond astonishing: Not even Uncle Ansel, with all his adventuring and exploring, had ever mentioned such a possibility!

  Another thought struck him. True enough that the plant’s mere existence was an amazement, but it was also highly likely that it possessed apothecary qualities. Echo had apparently cured himself by eating insects that fed on this plant.

  His excitement mounting, Raffa began to gather part of the plant nearest him, automatically following the time-honored apothecary rules: Never take more than a quarter of the plant, and do as little damage as possible to that which remained. He worked with his hands underwater, teasing out the roots.

  Another spurt of hot gas bubbled up, almost scalding him.

  “Ouch!” he exclaimed as he jerked his hand out of the water.

  “Ouch?” Echo repeated. “No ouch now. Ouch later. Eat beetle now.”

  Raffa laughed. When the bat was first learning to talk, he had flown to Raffa but missed the perch and grabbed skin instead. Raffa had said “Ouch!” and ever since, Echo had used the word to mean something like “Landing!”

  “That’s fine, Echo. Go ahead, keep eating.”

  Raffa finished his work on the plant and put it carefully into his rucksack, then scanned the cavern. At least a dozen more clumps of the plant were spaced unevenly around the edge of the spring. He should try to harvest as much as he could. If the plant proved useful, there was no telling when he’d be able to return to the cavern to gather more.

  Several craggy outcrops protruded from the cavern wall. Was there a way he could use them to reach the plants? If he could climb the wall, maybe he could hang from one of the crags. . . .

  Raffa stood and retraced his steps partway up the passage, to the boulder he’d climbed past on his way down. He craned his head around it.

  “Kuma!” he shouted. “I need the rope—leave go the end!”

  “Are you sure?” Her voice was faint, but he could hear the words plainly.

  “Yes, I’m fine. And Echo’s fine, too! I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Well, if you’re okay, then I’m going to take Twig down to the river—she’s thirsty. I’ll come back to check on you.”

  “Fine. I’ll probably be a while, so take your time.” He pulled on the rope and hauled in its loose end.

  It did not take long for Raffa to realize that his plan wouldn’t work. The cavern walls were slippery with condensation, and all the crags were well out of reach. He tried several times to throw a noose over the nearest one, but he didn’t even come close. Disappointed, he stared across the cavern at the plants he would be unable to harvest.

  There was one clump to his right that might just be within reach. Raffa propped the lightstick against the cavern wall. He squatted down on the lip of rock and extended his arm out as far as he could. His fingertips brushed the tops of the nearest stems.

  If he could shift his weight, and stretch . . . just a little . . . bit . . . more—

  SPLASH!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FOR the second time that day, Raffa found himself underwater.

  At least this time it’s warm, he thought as he kicked his way to the surface. He had no idea how deep the spring was; he knew only that he hadn’t touched bottom when he’d fallen in.

  Raffa saw that he wouldn’t be able to haul himself from the water to the lip on which he had been standing. It was much too narrow, with the curved rock rising behind it. He would have to find somewhere else to climb out.

  He swam a slow circuit around the edge of the spring. Helpfully, the plants lit up at irregular intervals, enabling him to see for moments at a time.

  There was no place suitable. Raffa swam around again, hoping that he had missed a spot in the dark. This time, he trailed one hand along the edge as he paddled.

  No ledge anywhere.

  He tried twice to boost himself onto the narrow lip from which he had fallen, but the rock curved out above it—exactly enough for him to bash his head on, which happened on his second attempt.

  Let’s not do that again, he thought ruefully as he treaded water.

  Even though he knew it was probably futile, he tried yelling.

  “Kuma!” he hollered.

  Silence, except for the sound of bubbles popping.

  “Kuma? KUMA!”

  To his dismay, the water seemed to absorb the sound of his voice. He realized, too, that his shouts were likely blocked by the zigzag in the passage and probably by the boulder as well.

  Echo seemed to sense his distress, for he chittered anxiously as he swooped nearby. At the sight of the little bat, Raffa slapped himself on the head. How quake-brained could a person be?

  “Echo! Echo, will you fly out and find Kuma and tell her I need her help? She’s down near the river.”

  He realized that it would be difficult for Kuma to pull him out of the water, but he was sure that together they could figure out a way.

  He floated on his back, waiting. Whenever the plants lit up, he surveyed the cavern’s walls and ceiling. He noticed that there was very little guano on the walls. Bats didn’t roost in this cavern; the hot spring probably made it too warm for them.

  It seemed a long time before Echo returned and alit on the cavern wall.

  “Friend Kuma not river,” the bat reported.

  Not there? Then where could she be?

  It was no use sending Echo to Garith. He wouldn’t be able to hear Echo’s words, nor read the bat’s tiny lips. Besides, given the mood he’d been in lately, he would probably just ignore Echo.

  Raffa felt a prickle of panic. He quashed it by forcing himself to think one thought at a time.

  The water’s warm.

  I can float on my back if I get tired.

  Sooner or later, Kuma will wonder what I’m about.


  But would he be able to keep himself afloat that long? Raffa groaned, recalling his own words to her: I’ll probably be a while, so take your time.

  Twice more, he sent Echo on unsuccessful searches for Kuma.

  Where is she? Raffa tried to smother his frustration, which had begun to border on anger. It wasn’t Kuma’s fault, and he knew that the anger was spurred by his growing fear.

  At least he wasn’t alone. Echo circled once overhead, then flew to a crag that jutted out over the cleft. As Raffa watched him, an idea came to him. He reached up and grabbed the rope from the ledge, uncoiled its full length, and held one end overhead.

  “Echo! Can you come get the rope, please?”

  The bat flew to him willingly. On the second try, Echo was able to grasp the end of the rope in his tiny claws. Still damp from having been in the river, the rope was heavy for the little bat. He flapped his wings hard to stay airborne.

  “Echo, that crag where you just were—will you take the rope up there and drop the end over it?”

  Echo struggled through the air and reached the crag. He opened his claws and the rope fell over the crag.

  “Echo good!” Raffa cheered.

  But the hardest part was still to come. Echo would have to take the end of the rope and circle the crag so the rope would be looped around it.

  They tried dozens of times.

  “No, not that way, Echo. Down first—go under and then back up . . .”

  “That was good, Echo! Now can you do it again, but this time holding the rope?”

  “Left—go left now! Left, I said!”

  Echo finally squealed in frustration. “Left? What left? WHAT LEFT?”

  Raffa floated on his back, panting. Of course Echo wouldn’t know what left was. In the past Raffa had always used the sun’s position—daybirth or sunpeak or sunfall—when he wanted to direct the bat’s flight. Here in the cavern, there was no way of knowing where the sun was.

  He looked at his fingertips, wrinkled and sodden. He had been in the water for a long time, and he could feel his body beginning to tire.

  The water bubbled; the plants emitted their brilliant light. Overhead, Raffa saw the end of the rope dangling uselessly from the crag. It wasn’t Echo’s fault; what he’d already managed to do with the rope was heroic enough. The rest was just too complicated.