Just then, an aftershock hit. Camille let out a scream as another one of the statues in the room toppled toward us. I grabbed her and ran, pulling her along with me by the wrist. Seconds later, the marble figurine landed right where we’d been standing, smashing into huge chunks and shaking the room.
“We have to get out of here. How are we going to get that fucking door open?” We skirted debris until we were at the door.
Camille stared at the huge gray obstacle. “I can get us out.”
Her voice grim, she reached into her cloak and brought out her unicorn horn. A powerful artifact, given to her by the Dahns unicorns, it was one of eight in existence. The Black Unicorn, the father of the Dahns race, shed his body every few thousand years, and in return for playing the fire to his phoenix, Camille had been gifted with his hide and horn. It was an incredibly powerful weapon, with limited usage, and it needed to be recharged every month under the dark of the moon.
I backed away. “Get to cracking, then, because I doubt that will be the only aftershock we’re going to feel.”
Her gaze narrowed as she gauged the door. “I just hope I don’t bring on the next one.” She closed her eyes, sliding into trance.
I didn’t understand the full mechanics of the horn, but I knew that there was a spirit inside of it, and that she’d caused havoc with it before.
A moment later, she raised the horn into the air, aiming it at the door. A wind seemed to rise in the room, growing steadily stronger. Another moment, and the floor began to shake again, though I didn’t know if it was from another aftershock, or the powers from the unicorn horn.
Camille’s hair rose in the wind, streaming back as if she were facing a giant fan, and as the tiles beneath the door began to collapse, creating an opening of about two inches below the door, the wind increased until it became a howling gale. I made sure I wasn’t in the path of anything that might blow over on me, and crouched to the ground, holding on for dear life. How Camille managed to stand in the force of the winds she was raising was a mystery to me, but stand she did.
The doors creaked and shifted, groaning as they began to open. Slowly the winds pushed them inward. Inch by inch they moved, and with a hurricane gust, they slammed open so hard that the walls cracked, and a shiver of fractures ran through the gray stone, shattering the gates. Another huge cloud of dust swept into the air, blowing past us, from the rubble that cascaded to the ground.
As the winds began to die, Camille motioned to me. She looked dark, a dour expression on her face, and I wasn’t sure what was running through her mind, but there was no time to sit around and chat. We headed through the broken remnants of the doorway, just in time for another aftershock.
This one was bad, perhaps as bad as the first one. I tripped, slamming against a wall. Camille went tumbling in the opposite direction as the world shifted. She landed hard and I heard her shout “Fuck!” but then we were plunged into darkness as all of the eye catchers faded and there was no more light.
The shaking continued, and all around us the sound of crashing stonework continued to reverberate through the air. I scrambled to get on my hands and knees, trying to regain some of my equilibrium, but up was down and left was right and it was one big blur of motion and sound.
“Camille? Can you hear me?” I held my breath, praying to Bastus that she would answer.
“Yes, I’m over . . . I’m here, trying to dodge the rubble.” She sounded petrified, but at least she was alive.
“We need to get up to ground level. If this continues we’re going to be buried alive. Which way did we come? Do you know where we are?”
After a moment, she answered. “When we first arrived, the room was to our right. So we need to make sure to head left if it’s behind us.” A pause, “Am I right?”
“Right? I don’t—Oh! I know what you mean.” I thought for a moment. We’d barely exited the room when this aftershock hit. I flailed around in the darkness, and found the wall. Following it, a few crawls forward gave me the opening to the room on my right. Okay, then, I had to turn around so the entrance was on my left. Then I’d be aiming on target. I positioned myself as best as I could, with the wall to my left shoulder, and then waited.
“Camille? Follow my voice. I’m pointing in the right direction. If you can find me, we can try to crawl out of here. Once the shaking stops, get the fuck up on your feet and we hurry as far as we can till the next one.”
“Continue talking so I can follow your voice.”
I didn’t know what to say, so instead I began singing “Godzilla,” by Blue Oyster Cult.
“Oh Kitten, can’t you pick something else?” But there was an edge of a smile in her voice and the next moment, she was beside me. I got her positioned in back, just as the shaking stopped.
“Fuck, how long did that go on?” Camille’s voice rose, and I realized she was standing up.
I followed suit. “Come on, keep your left hand against the wall at all times. We need to make certain we’re not headed in the wrong direction.” Without further chitchat, I started out.
“Delilah, be careful—if you go too fast, you might run into debris and hurt yourself—”
She had no sooner spoken when I hit my foot against a piece of what felt like marble that had lifted up from the floor.
“Fuck, oh fuck! Geez, I may have just broken my big toe!” I wanted to hop up and down as the pain raced through my foot, but I also realized that a broken toe was nothing compared to being buried under tons of rubble, so I sucked it up. “Be careful, there’s a big block of marble right in front of you—well, as soon as I skirt it. It’s. . . .” I paced it out until I was able to stand flush against the wall again. “It’s five paces long. Six of yours, probably.”
“One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . .” Camille counted them off and then grunted. “Yeah, that’s about right. You okay? How’s your toe?”
“Hurts like hell but forget about it.” I tried to remember how long it had taken for us to get to this area. “Damn it, I forgot we came through so many turns . . .” I paused. There was an opening to my left. “Stay here for a moment. Don’t move.”
I turned, still keeping my hand against the wall. I distinctly felt the floor begin to slope upward. It made sense. There
“I think we should go this way. Make a left, turn at the corner,” I called back.
“Done.” Another moment and Camille was behind me. We headed on, trudging up the incline that was steeper than the one we’d originally descended to reach the seers’ quarters. As we journeyed in silence, my thoughts ran to Shade. He’d be all right—I was sure of it. He could shift into the Ionyc Sea if necessary. But what about Trillian? And Chase and Sharah? Sharah was pregnant. What if she went into labor due to this, in the dark and the mayhem? And Menolly . . . well . . . not much could affect her unless a beam struck her through the heart. She could be hurt but she would heal.
“You’re thinking of them too, aren’t you?” Camille’s voice softly echoed through the darkness.
“Yeah. Do you think . . . Never mind.” I didn’t want to ask. I might not want to hear what she had to say.
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
It was hard to gauge time, but after a while, the floor began to shake. “Drop! We don’t want to be standing if there’s another big one.” I slid down the wall, keeping it to my left, and pressed against it. I could hear Camille’s breath coming in soft puffs, as if she were trying to control her fear. Neither one of us spoke as the rumbling started again, but this time it lasted only for a little while—probably twenty seconds. Too long, but less than the first two shocks. The moment it subsided, I pushed to my feet again.
“Let’s go. We’ve been lucky but who knows how much time that’s going to continue?” And on we went, Camille murmuring a soft prayer for protection as we worked our way through the darkness. I hit my toes several times, but my boots were thicker and better able to handle the damage than Camille’s sandals. Luckily I was able to warn her about the dangers.
And then, I seemed to see something like a light ahead. It was glowing brighter as we neared it. At first I thought it might be the moon, or a hanging chandelier that had been spared, but I suddenly found myself out of the hallway and in the middle of a large court, and I realized it was nothing of the sort. We were back to the main level of the palace. There were gaping holes in the roof—huge and yawning, but no moon shone down to light the
