Songbirds squawked and scattered at my sudden appearance. Feathers and leaves rained down on me as my friends arrived and sent even more of the birds flying for calmer territory. We all stood still and silent, absorbing the natural beauty that surrounded us, and listened for sounds of danger.
We’d appeared on the side of a steep slope with thick patches of undergrowth tangled around the trunks of trees that towered above us. The air was crisp and cool, not cold, but chilly. Tall, spindly trees rose straight and proud from the rich volcanic soil, their leafy crowns blocking out most of the noonday sun’s rays. The island’s quiet was broken only by the sounds of wildlife going about its business and the distant cough of a diesel engine.
“What time is it here?” Eric asked.
“We’re nineteen hours ahead of the School,” Abi replied. “We left around six, so it must be close to one here.”
“We missed dinner and lunch?” Eric groaned.
“We’ll miss more than that if we don’t get a move on,” Abi replied. He checked the hand-drawn map he’d brought along and compared it to a compass he’d produced from a pouch on the side of his backpack. “It’s up this slope. There should be a cave about midway between the caldera’s floor and the ridgeline.”
My friend took off up the hill, and we followed behind him. It wasn’t a difficult hike, but the number of trees and fallen boulders that littered our path required us to reroute several times. That and the biting mosquitoes that seemed to materialize around our eyes when we stopped to catch a breath were getting on my nerves.
“So, this is a volcanic crater?” Clem asked. “When was the last time it went boom?”
Abi paused to survey the ground ahead of him and brushed sweat from his brow. Despite the cool temperatures, the hike had made us all warmer than comfortable.
“A few hundred years,” he said. “It’s technically still active, though. I suppose it could erupt at any time.”
“That would be just our luck,” Eric piped in as we continued our trek. “We find the cave and then kablooie.”
I chuckled at Eric’s dire prediction. While I didn’t expect the volcano to explode, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did, either. That was about how my luck had been running the past few years. Sometimes I wondered if it would be easier if I just stayed in school and waited for danger to come to me rather than looking for it.
“Hey,” Clem called. “Is that it?”
We all stopped and looked back to where Clem was leaning against a tree and pointing up the hill to our right. We followed her line of sight with our eyes. Something was up there, though I couldn’t tell if it was a cave or a shadow. I shielded my eyes with one hand, squinted, and thought that maybe, just maybe, that was it.
“I think she’s right,” I said. “Let’s check it out.”
This time Clem took the lead. It was harder to keep up with her than it had been with Abi. She moved through the trees with effortless grace, slipping between boles the rest of us had to navigate around. It was difficult to catch her even with a boost of jinsei into my arms and legs to help me along. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before she stopped, hands on her hips, and nodded with satisfaction.
“This is it,” she said.
Clem had found a trail that wound its way out of the forest and up the hillside. While it was easier going than trekking through the woods, there was no handrail, and a very steep drop-off on the downhill side. One wrong step would end in a long, painful tumble down a scree-strewn slope and into the trees beyond. Bruises would be the least you’d come away with from a fall like that, even with a hardened core.
“Move it, slowpokes,” Clem called back to us. “I’m not waiting around all day for you.”
She took off at an easy, loping pace. For this trip, she’d traded her sleek black robes for a more rugged set in the sky blue and gray of her clan’s colors. Her hiking boots kicked up puffs of dust behind her, and I shook my head and scrambled to keep up. The trail carved an S up the side of the hill, and we followed its contours into the wide, dark mouth of a cavern that looked like it hadn’t hosted visitors in a very, very long time.
A thick layer of dust and gravel covered the stone floor. I saw no signs of life in the cave, not even the sticky stains of bat guano or the telltale droppings of mice. I shifted my sight to look for traces of jinsei or aspects, only to find the place cold and sterile.
“Be careful,” I said to my friends. “There’s something weird here.”
Abi took a step into the cavern, his eyes wide. He craned his neck and pointed at the darkness above us.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered, awestruck.
Eric nudged me, and Clem’s gaze flicked between the ceiling and Abi. A dreadful chill crawled up my spine on spider legs and raised my hackles.
“There’s nothing up there,” I said to Abi.
My friend blinked and looked at me like there was something wrong with me. He jabbed his finger at the ceiling and asked, “You don’t see that design?”
“No,” Clem said. She put her hand on Abi’s upraised arm and gently lowered it to his side. “Can you describe what you see?”
“It reminds me of the portal network,” he repeated. “Circles within circles, hundreds, thousands, of lines connecting them. It’s so complex, I can’t describe it better than that.”
The chill on the back of my neck clamped down at Abi’s description. It sounded too much like the Grand Design for comfort. It bothered me that only Abi could see it, but it bothered me even more that it was here at all. Why would someone make a copy
