Two Renegade Realms (Realm Walkers Book 2) (12 page)

The rock tubes were uniform in width, but varied in height. Cantor and Bridger walked carefully to avoid stubbing toes and falling forward. After a few whacks to their heads, they soon became adept at spotting low-hanging outcrops. Constantly looking down and up made Cantor’s neck hurt.

Neekoh was short enough to charge through.

“Neekoh,” Cantor called down the tunnel. “Slow down.”

In a moment, their guide was back, facing them with a contrite expression. “I am so, so sorry. I’m excited. We’re going into the valley. We’ll see Chomountain. Everything will be different from this day forward.”

“Don’t leave us behind, or it’ll be just you going into the valley.”

Neekoh bobbed his head in eager agreement. Before they actually got to the last tunnel and the archway that led outside the mountain, the poor man had to return many times. He just couldn’t keep his feet moving at a sedate pace.

Bridger stopped when they could see the light from outside. “Check on Bixby and Dukmee, Cantor. I thought I felt them twitching.”

Cantor doubled back and squeezed between the dragon’s side and the rocks. “Bixby looks the same.”

He pushed into the slim space on the other side. “Dukmee has shifted, but he’s still asleep.”

Bridger grumbled and ambled forward. “Neekoh is coming back. I bet that little man has traveled twice as far as we have with all his backtracking.”

“Probably.” The passage widened, and Cantor could walk beside the dragon. He placed a hand on the beast’s shoulder. “We are nearly at the end of this part of the journey. We’ll find Chomountain. He can wake Bixby and Dukmee. We’ll help him out of his trap, get his advice, and move on to the defense against the Lymen.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Bridger made a moue with his scaley dragon lips. “Nothing is likely to go wrong with such an unassuming agenda. No likelihood in that outline of events for mishaps, mischief, misfortune, and miscellaneous mayhem.”

Cantor turned to give Bridger a disapproving stare. “Mmm? Are you quite finished with your sarcasm? It doesn’t suit you, you know?”

“So you’ve said before. Yes, I am finished.”

Neekoh stopped in his return trip and waited for them, his form bouncing and fidgeting in silhouette against the light
from the cave entrance. Cantor couldn’t see his expression, but he could imagine his silly grin.

“I wonder what Neekoh will do now that he no longer has to guard the entrance to the valley.”

Bridger exhaled a puff of smoke. “He’d be free to go to his village. All the Neekohs from here on out will live ordinary lives.” Again Bridger puffed smoke. “I wonder if they know how to do anything practical to support themselves.”

Cantor batted a wispy cloud from in front of his face. “Why are you smoking?”

“I don’t know.” Bridger cleared his throat and touched his neck with his hand. “It feels a bit ticklish.”

“I hope you aren’t coming down with something. This mountain is bad for one’s health. First, Bixby and Dukmee succumb to some sleeping sickness, and now you’re catching cold.”

Bridger dragged his feet, slowing down the pace. “I suppose Chomountain will be able to cure a sore throat.”

“Let’s hope so.” Cantor scratched the dragon under his jaw in a place that Bridger always found comforting.

They came up to Neekoh, who rubbed his hands together as if unable to contain his excited energy. “I can’t get through the archway without you. I tried, but it held me back.”

Cantor scratched his head. “Are you sure that our being with you will allow you to enter?”

“Of course! You broke the ward. You’ll be able to go through, and I’ll just go with you.”

For a fleeting moment, doubt assailed Cantor’s peace of mind. Suppose they couldn’t get through. Suppose Chomountain wasn’t even in the valley. Suppose if he were in the valley, he chose not to help them.

He quickened his stride. When they got to the entrance, he strode straight through onto a large stone shelf jutting from the mouth of the cave. Stopping at the edge, he looked back just as Bridger and Neekoh passed under the arch.

Relieved, Cantor turned and raised his hand to shield his eyes as he surveyed the vast, lush valley before them.

Green trees crowded most of the view. In spotted areas, massive blooms in bright colors stood out clearly against the dark, verdant backdrop. Rivers and streams crisscrossed the terrain. An outcropping of rock poked through the tree line, looking organized enough to be the remnants of a building. The cliffs on the opposite side had a similar appearance.

“There it is.” Neekoh spread his arms out, indicating the view before them. “It’s called Bright Valley, and it’s the resting place of Chomountain.”

Cantor grunted. “Don’t you mean the prison of Chomountain?”

“It’s never looked prisonish to me.”

“It looks vast and full of hiding places to me,” said Bridger. “It’ll take days to cover all that territory. But I suppose you’re going to say again that you just know he’s here but you don’t know where.”

Neekoh looked as cheerful as Bridger looked grumpy. He nodded. “You’re exactly right. I say, you’re clever. I’ve never known a dragon before, but I didn’t expect one to be so smart.”

The young man looked back and forth between Bridger and Cantor. “Let’s make camp. I like sleeping out under the stars, and even though I could, I don’t. I know how to make a good fire too, and how to cook. It will be fun to camp with friends rather than all by myself.”

Cantor nodded, then pointed to the towers of rock. “What
do you know about that, Neekoh? Is it a ruined palace, a temple, a fortress, or just rocks?”

Neekoh shrugged. “We’ll have to go see. I’ve never been past the tunnel entrance.”

Bridger led the way down the sloping valley wall. No trail guided them on their descent, rather the dragon slashed at the heavy underbrush and cleared a path.

Once Cantor’s eyes grew accustomed to the bright light and the endless shades of green that confronted them, he discerned patches of meadowland, acres of bushes, and different varieties of trees. Some foliage clustered with like kind. Others mixed with a wide assortment of plant life.

Bridger stopped at the first clearing on level ground. Neekoh and Cantor freed Bixby and Dukmee and laid them on the thick, soft grass. Cantor gently shook them each in turn, trying to rouse some kind of response, but in vain.

Neekoh hovered behind Cantor. “What do you think is wrong with them? Why aren’t you asleep? You look like them.”

His suspicions that Bixby and Dukmee were cut of the same cloth seemed validated. Bixby, with her remarkable talents, and Dukmee, with his different roles in life, excelled at many tasks. In the ancient times, beings existed with unimaginable gifts. The strain had died out, but occasionally a “throw-back” would surface. He knew Bixby’s mother had astounded her generation with her abilities, and Bixby had surpassed her mother.

How much should he share with Neekoh? He still didn’t trust the young man. “If the toombalians are real and made an effort to end our journey across the lake, then their efforts only partially succeeded. I suspect there’s something in Dukmee and Bixby’s bodies that makes them susceptible. Like some
people are allergic to a particular food. Or those people who always catch a cold twice a year while others never get sick.”

Neekoh rubbed his hands together, a happy gleam in his eye. Obviously, sticky little problems were not as exciting as tackling a monumental search. He grinned at Cantor. “I’ll scout the immediate area.”

Before Cantor could respond, Neekoh had taken off into the thick woods.

Bridger lumbered back into the clearing, carrying an armload of sticks. “I’m thinking that the temperature will drop once the sun goes down behind the rim of the valley. What kind of geological formation do you think this is? It’s so much like a bowl, I first thought it might be a dead volcano. But that can’t be right. There aren’t any volcanoes on our planes, only on ball planets like Ether and Elyn.”

Cantor’s eyes widened. “Have you been to those planes? They’re in another galaxy.”

“No.” Bridger rolled his eyes. “Of course not! But my sister was able to open portals we could see through. She couldn’t overcome the problem of the portal not opening
on
the planets but
above
the planets. So we could see but not touch.”

“Amazing. And what’s a volcano?”

“Ball planets have a core of liquid rock, and it spews out to make cone-shaped mountains. Totobee-Rodolow has been helping scientists examine Ether and Elyn. Yes, my sister is a lot more competent and a lot less flighty than she appears. And those scientists! The things they figure out just by looking. It’s amazing.” He paused in his arrangement of the kindling. “Unless their theories are all wrong. Then it’s just a waste of time.”

He breathed fire on his pile of sticks and set it ablaze. “I’m
starving. And I don’t want to wait for the fire to settle into nice coals. Let’s not cook a dinner. We have enough to snack from your hampers, don’t we?”

Neekoh came into the camp with a handkerchief full of berries. “There’s lots to eat in this valley. I bet Chomountain has been cultivating plants that can be harvested. I saw fruits, vegetables, and grains. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll find him.”

Cantor’s suspicions swirled in his thoughts. “How is it you know about cultivating and harvesting?”

“Books. There are two more libraries in the mountain.”

He handed the berries to Cantor and picked up a stone. Busy with his own thoughts, he worked to put several flat rocks around the blaze. “We can cook with these.”

Cantor stifled a yawn. “Good idea, Neekoh, but we’re skipping cooked food tonight. We need rest more than stew.”

Neekoh’s face fell in disappointment. “I could cook while you rest.”

“You wouldn’t be able to wake us up. Just put it on hold for tomorrow morning. We’ll need nourishment then. This is a huge basin. Our best option is to send Bridger up to look over the valley to pinpoint likely spots. If we’re lucky, maybe even find Chomountain.” He held back a yawn. “I’m going to eat and turn in.”

Cantor looked away from Neekoh’s disappointed face. He was too tired to fuss with a campfire and he’d made a reasonable decision. Neekoh’s sad eyes wouldn’t work on him tonight. He admitted to being a little chagrined and said, “We’ll worry about tomorrow when the sun comes up.”

TROUT

B
ridger’s raspy voice stirred Cantor from a deep sleep. He pried his eyes open. Streaks of sunlight burst from the trees and crossed the clearing with thin stripes. Cantor sat up, shook his head, and rubbed his hand over his face.

Bridger coughed.

“Are you all right, Bridge?”

“Sore throat, deep cough, achy all over.”

“Sounds miserable.”

“I feared you weren’t going to wake up. Bixby and Dukmee have not stirred.”

“Where’s Neekoh?”

“Getting two more buckets of water from the stream.”

A rustling among the bushes announced Neekoh’s return. Soot streaked his face, but his lips stretched in a wide grin. “I’ve put out two fires caused by your dragon’s coughing. He seems to have it under control now. But it was exciting. I like having others around.”

Cantor turned back to Bridger. The dragon sat beneath a tree, and Jesha crouched beside him, tilted ears showing her grouchy mood. The cat’s favorite perch was on Bridger. Apparently, she didn’t like his hacking and sniffling. She stood and strolled with an elegant air to settle down beside Bixby.

Cantor wanted Chomountain found. He looked at Bridger’s red nose and eyes. “Do you feel well enough to scout the area?”

“Sure. I’m hoping Chomountain has a cure for this cold. Neekoh gave me some herb tea, but it tasted like boiled swampweed, and I had a hard time swallowing it.”

Neekoh stirred up the coals from the night before and added wood. “It has to taste bad to do you any good.”

Bridger growled, or maybe he just cleared his throat. “You said that before, Neekoh, and I told you it isn’t true.”

Cantor stood. “I know both Dukmee and Bixby carry medicinal herbs, but I wouldn’t know which ones to give you. Neekoh, could you watch our sleepy friends while I go with Bridger to look for Chomountain?”

“I’d be delighted. Do you want me to try to wake them periodically? It would give me something to do.”

“It wouldn’t hurt.” Cantor pushed aside a pang of reluctance. Neekoh hadn’t been with them long enough to have earned his trust, but Bixby said he had no unpleasant auras. He’d have to give the young man a chance. “Remember, be gentle.”

Bridger rested against the tree. “You’re not ready to go. I’ll take a nap.”

Neekoh shook his head with his ever-present smile in place. “Everyone is sleepy. You people from the outside are peculiar.”

“I’m not tired, and neither is Jesha. The others aren’t
normally so sluggish. Once we find out what’s wrong, and if Chomountain has a cure, we’ll be alert and lively. I promise.”

Cantor washed and shaved. He changed into fresh clothing and checked on Dukmee and Bixby one more time. With a bread and cheese sandwich in his hand, he approached the dragon.

“Let’s go, Bridge, if you’re sure you can make the flight.”