Before I can find anything to stop me from falling, or even to slow me down a little bit, I slam onto the ground. It’s a hard landing, hard enough to leave me winded for a second, but as I begin to get my breath back, I know I’m not seriously hurt. The ground beneath me is still sand, and although it made for a painful landing, it cushioned my fall in a way concrete couldn’t have.
I gingerly open my eyes and push myself to my feet. The team is scattered around me, and all of them are starting to stir and moan. No one looks to be hurt, and I turn my focus to where I am while I wait for them to get up.
I am standing in a sandy cavern. The floor, walls, and ceiling are all made of tightly packed sand. It’s like being inside of one of the sandcastles I used to make on the beach while on vacation with my parents as a child. The walls here are much higher than a sandcastle’s walls though. In fact, they’re higher than the walls of a room in the average house.
I look around the walls for a door or tunnel entrance or something, but there’s nothing. The cavern is light and airy as though there’s no ceiling, but there is, and I don’t know where the light is coming from. I am aware that the burning sun is no longer beaming down on me, and while it’s a relief in one sense, it feels kind of ominous in another.
There are no gaps anywhere in this cavern. The whole room is about twenty feet by twenty feet, and it’s completely empty and sealed. I hope portals work from in here, because if not, we’re screwed.
“What the hell is this place?” Mel asks from beside me.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Sunday says. “But there’s no weapon here. There’s no anything here.”
“The medallion tricked us,” Ya-Ya adds.
“Or Rye was right and it’s broken,” Aziza says.
“No. It’s not broken. The outline was there in the sand and it opened the chamber,” Rye says.
“Someone beat us to it,” I say quietly.
As soon as I speak, the ground beneath us shakes slightly and I hear a scraping sound, like two concrete slabs being rubbed together.
“There,” Jinx says, pointing.
I look where he’s pointing and see a broken line on the ground at the opposite side of the cavern. A bit of floor a few feet wide and a few feet longer has raised itself ever so slightly from the rest.
“What is it?” I say.
The ground shakes again and the rectangle of floor rises another few inches.
“It’s the weapon,” Mel says.
“Huh?” Sunday says, looking at her like she’s lost the plot.
I have to admit it seems that way. Mel waves away his concern and goes on excitedly.
“It’s under that piece of ground. It’s responding to the Paradox’s voice. Every time Sailor speaks, it moves more. Try it, Sailor,” she says.
“I don’t know what to say,” I say.
The pressure of being told to say something does that to me every time, but even my uncertain uttering works and the rectangle moves up a bit again. I feel my eyes widening in surprise. It looks like Mel is right.
“Don’t stop now.” Mel laughs. “Recite the alphabet or something.”
I do as she says and the rectangle keeps moving. As it gets higher, it thins out and I realize that Mel might have been right about it responding to my voice, but she was wrong about where the weapon would be. This isn’t a trapdoor, it’s a column. I get to Z and there’s still no sign of the weapon, so I start over again.
The column keeps growing. The ground shakes beneath us as the column pushes its way through the ground and rises higher and higher, but not so much as a single grain of sand is dislodged from the walls or the ceiling. Finally, after my fourth run through the alphabet, the column stops growing. It flashes red for a moment, a glow so bright I have to shield my eyes and look away. The glow vanishes and I dare to look again.
“Holy shit,” I breathe when I look back.
On top of the column is a wooden box. It’s thin, but about a foot long. It looks exactly like the sort of box that would hold a spear.
“You did it, Sailor.” Mel smiles.
I rub my throat. “Yeah, and wore my voice out doing it.” I smile.
“It’s a shame it had to be you or Jinx could have done it. He loves the sound of his own voice,” Aziza says.
“I just like to hear the voice of reason, hence I prefer listening to myself over you, Az.” Jinx grins.
“Don’t start, you two,” Rye says in a low, warning voice. He spins around and shakes his head. “I don’t like this. It feels too easy.”
“Too easy? In case you hadn’t noticed the swarm of demons we just fought, I almost died up there,” Jinx says.
“Yes, but they were attracted by the darkness of the weapon. Why is there no safeguard in place? Getting the dagger was damned dangerous, and yet we’re supposed to believe the spear is just sitting here, unguarded?”
I know what he means, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth and start wishing that a pack of demonic creatures will appear. And besides, it’s not like we have a choice. We have to get the weapon. I take a step forward, but Rye puts his hand on my arm and stops me.
“Wait,” he says. “Let’s just exercise a bit of caution here, okay?”
“What do you suggest?” Sunday
