into a small tunnel that led deeper into the underground.
“I guess that’s the Yellow Brick Road,” I said.
“The what?” Loor asked.
“The way to Kidik.” Note to self: Stop making clever Second Earth references.
Loor glanced at the map and said, “Here. The first of the strange markings.”
She showed me the map. I could see the big cavern with the monster water-control device. There might as well have been a note saying: you are here. I could also see on the map where the cavern narrowed down to a small tunnel opening, just as it was in front of us. The odd thing was that on the map there were three X’s across the mouth of the smaller tunnel.
“Any idea what it means?” I asked.
Loor shook her head. We kept our weapons ready and began our journey to Kidik, the capital city of the Rokador world. We walked quickly to the far end of the cavern, stopping just short of the opening to the smaller tunnel. After a quick look around I announced, “No X’s here.” I took a step through the opening. The instant I broke the plane, I heard a rumbling sound. I had triggered something.
“C’mon!” I shouted, and leaped through.
Loor didn’t hesitate and jumped after me. Her quick reaction saved her life. The instant she entered the tunnel, a series of steel spikes shot down like spears from above, closing off the opening. If Loor had been a hair slower, she would have been skewered. We stood together, holding each other, breathing hard. The opening to the tunnel was now cut off by the spikes that had become vertical bars.
“Good news-bad news,” I said. “The route to Kidik may be booby-trapped.”
“Booby-trapped?” Loor said, confused.
“Full of dangerous surprises like that,” I said. “If we make a wrong move, it could hurt.”
“And what is the good news?” she asked.
“Bokka’s map will save us,” I answered. “I’ll bet these odd markings on the map show where the traps are.”
We both took another look at the map. Those strange markings now took on a whole new importance…and there were a bunch of them between us and Kidik.
“This may show us where they are, but not what to expect,” she pointed out.
“Yeah,” I said. “This is going to be interesting.”
We weren’t doing any good standing there staring at a map, so we continued on. The map led us through many different-size tunnels and caverns. The more I saw, the more amazed I became at how the Rokador had burrowed out an entire civilization underground.
“Are these tunnels natural?” I asked. “Or did the Rokador dig them?”
“Both,” Loor said. “I believe the larger caverns are natural, but the adjoining tunnels were created by the Rokador.”
“But how? This is, like, solid rock.”
“The history of the Rokador is best told by a Rokador,” Loor said. “But I am familiar with the dygos.”
“The huh?”
“Dygos,” Loor repeated. “Tunneling machines. We will see them on our journey.”
I decided not to ask any more questions until I had a visual aid. Besides, I was too stressed about running into another booby trap. Fear beats out curiosity any day. Walking through this labyrinth of underground tunnels was strange in that it didn’t feel all that claustrophobic. Sure, some of the rocky tunnels were narrow, but they often opened up into caverns where the ceilings were as lofty as a cathedral. And there were lights everywhere. It didn’t feel anything like we were traveling deeper and deeper underground. To be honest, I tried not to think about that. I couldn’t imagine living down here under multiple tons of rock, unless you were an ant.
The thing we didn’t find was people. Not a single living soul. We passed hundreds of different rooms that were full of equipment. Some looked like living spaces with cots and furniture. Others were stacked with boxes and tools. There had been people here once, and not long ago, either. The word that kept coming to mind was “abandoned.”
Every so often the route would take us through a less developed area, where there would be a marking on the map, and another booby trap. One time Loor took a step and felt the ground rumble. She leaped forward and I jumped back a second before the floor caved in, leaving a gaping black hole that dropped down to nowhere. We found ourselves on opposite sides of a hole that went from wall to wall. Unfortunately for me, I was on the wrong side, with no way to get across.
“There,” Loor said, pointing.
I saw a thin lip of stone floor that hadn’t fallen. It was no wider than a brick and sticking out from the wall along one side of the hole.
“You want me to walk across on that?” I asked in horror.
“Unless you can leap over,” Loor said.
I couldn’t. It was a thirty-foot jump. I had to go the lip route. Swell. Facing the wall, I tentatively put my right toe onto it and pressed down to see if it would crumble. It didn’t.
Still, this was going to be tough, even if the lip held. It was only a few inches wide. Gulp. I had to press my chest against the rock wall, with nothing to grab on to, and slide my feet along. It kind of reminded me of the training pit back at Mooraj. Only with this pit, if you fell, you died. I moved my right foot first, then brought my left foot up to it. There was no way I could cross them over. I would have lost my balance for sure. I kept the palms of my hands flat against the rock, carefully feeling for any little crag that I could hang on to with my fingers. My left cheek was pressed flat and I stayed up on my toes-anything to keep my center of gravity forward.
I tried not to think about how my butt was dangling out over oblivion. My entire being was focused on keeping my weight against the wall. I crept along like this, moving slowly, but moving. The lip held, and I was getting closer to safety. It wasn’t until I was almost to the far side that my luck ran out. The wall bowed out ever so slightly. It wasn’t much, but it was enough so that I had to move my center of balance back to get around. Bad move. I felt my weight shift toward oblivion. I grabbed for the wall, but my fingers brushed over the rock face uselessly. I was going down.
I didn’t get far. Something hit me on the back. Hard. I carefully peeked to my right and saw that I was close enough to the far side that Loor was able to reach out with her stave and pin me to the wall.
“Ouch,” I said. I didn’t mean it. She had saved my life. Again.
“Keep moving,” she commanded.
Having her hold me against the wall gave me confidence. I quickly got my feet shuffling again, and a few seconds later I was on the far side.
“Thank you,” I said. That hardly covered it, but what else could I say? Saving each other’s lives was getting pretty common. Loor didn’t need to be thanked. She was already on to the next challenge. How strange is that? I could very easily have died just then. But I didn’t, so we had to move on like it was no biggie. That is what my twisted life has become. I shouldn’t complain. At least I’m still around to write about it.
“It seems as though the Rokador abandoned these tunnels and set these traps to stop those who would follow,” Loor said.
“Yeah, us,” I said.
“Or the attacking Batu,” Loor said. “The Rokador are not warriors. In battle the Ghee will destroy them.”
“What about the Tiggen guards?” I asked.
“Bokka would not agree with me, but they are no match for the Ghee. Even if they were, they do not have the numbers we do. If they hope to win a war against the Batu, they will have to do it with cunning, not force.”
I agreed with her. From what I saw, the Tiggen guards weren’t the fighters that the Ghee were. Heck, even I held my own against them. How pathetic is that?
“These traps are a pain for us,” I said. “But they won’t stop an army.”
“Not from what we have seen so far,” Loor said. “We should continue.”
I was right about the map. It showed the location of every booby trap. Without it, we would have been history. Thank you, Bokka. But the markings only showed us where the booby traps were, not how to prevent them from springing. We were nearly skewered about a dozen times over. Rocks crashed down in miniavalanches. One time the ground started to churn below our feet to reveal the sharp teeth of grinding gears that nearly turned us
