CHAPTER 7 
CHAPTER 7 The day was cooler than the previous one. White clouds crowded the sky, billowy masses suspended high above the countryside, casting huge shadows over the landscape. The dirt path, much narrower than the one leading up to the castle gate, wound down through an orchard, then along a fence across pasturelands.
Jason moved at a good pace, impelled by the likelihood that the rider spotted from the castle was after him. Rachel remained beside him, matching his pace, stealing occasional glances back at the ruined castle.
“Do you think any of this is really happening?” she asked.
“It’s happening,” Jason replied.
Rachel remained quiet for a moment. “Of course you think it’s happening,” she finally said. “You’re just a character in my dream.”
“You wish.”
“I didn’t mean my love interest,” she replied defensively. “You’d have better hair. You’re the character I dreamed up because the rest of the dream was making me homesick.”
“Maybe you’re the character I dreamed up to scare myself awake.”
“That’s not very nice!”
“You made fun of my hair. I like it this way. Short and simple.”
“I don’t mind short. Mine is short.”
“Then what’s wrong with mine?” Jason challenged.
“Maybe we should talk about something else.”
“Like the guy on a horse coming to kill us?”
“It needs more style,” she muttered.
“The horse?”
“Your hair.”
“I forgot to bring my gel when I got eaten by a hippo.”
“I’m sorry. Your hair is fine. I was trying to be funny.”
“I’ll give you points for trying.” Jason sighed. “This isn’t a dream.”
“I know,” Rachel said heavily. “I just wish it was.”
When the path joined the lane, Jason scanned up and down the length of the road. To the east he could see the rooftops and chimney pots of a small town. In the distance to the west he saw the obelisk marking the crossroads. The lane appeared empty.
Jason and Rachel hurried to the obelisk and turned south. He considered how easily a man on horseback could overtake them. Supposedly their pursuer was accompanied by someone on foot. That might slow him. But what if the horseman rode ahead? Taking his poniard from his pocket, Jason fingered the blossom on the handle that could eject the blade. Hopefully, the Blind King would somehow stall their pursuers.
“You got the cool knife and the ring,” Rachel grumbled.
“So what? You got a grenade.”
“I can only use mine once. And that’s if I don’t blow myself up first. I can tell women aren’t very respected around here.”
“I’m not sure anyone gets much respect around here,” Jason replied. “So the only stuff you had when you crossed over to this world was your canteen and your camera?”
“Yeah,” Rachel said.
“Digital?”
“No, film. We develop our own photographs.”
“I should have guessed.”
“My parents have a lot of land,” Rachel said. “They have some extra houses and workspaces that they lend out to artists and writers and photographers.”
“Wow, and I thought I grew up granola in Colorado. Do you guys have campfires and sing together?”
“It isn’t that weird,” Rachel said. “I do lots of normal stuff too.”
“Like attend school at home? Let me guess, were you most likely to succeed? Best dressed? Class clown? All of the above?”
“Very funny.”
“I bet you’re in a lot of the yearbook pictures.”
She shook her head. “I miss out on having an official yearbook. But we take lots of photos.”
“Don’t you miss having friends?”
“I have friends!”
“Besides your stuffed animals.”
Rachel smacked his shoulder. “I have plenty of friends. Public school isn’t the only way to meet people. I’m part of a group of homeschooled kids who do stuff together. A few are oddballs, but most of them are cool and interesting. Plus all the visiting artists, and the kids on the track team, and my cousins.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Jason admitted. “If I could still play baseball and do school at home, I might be sold. Especially if it involved lots of fancy vacations disguised as learning.” He tried to imagine how that would work. His family had only taken a few vacations together, none very impressive. His brother and sister were quite a bit older, and his mom and dad had always done their fancy trips without kids. His parents had never really shown as much interest in him as they had in his older siblings. He couldn’t imagine them taking the time to homeschool him.
Jason glanced back. “I keep expecting to see enemies attacking from behind.”
“I know,” Rachel said. “Kind of hard on the nerves. Do you get the feeling our lives might never be normal again?”
Jason pressed his lips together. She had just voiced the thought that had been nagging him ever since the Blind King explained their mission. “Yeah.”
They picked up the pace, alternating between jogging and walking. Jason was mildly surprised to find that Rachel could match any pace he set. Apparently she hadn’t lied about running track.
They ate lunch and dinner walking, feeding on meat and cheese sandwiches created from provisions in the satchel. While scrabbling through the satchel for his dinner, Jason noticed a drawstring bag. Hefting it, he was surprised to find that the small bag felt fairly heavy. Inside he found little pellets of copper and bronze.
“What are these for?” Jason asked. “Slingshot ammunition?”
“Probably money,” Rachel suggested.
“Could we be that lucky?” Jason asked.
“The Blind King wants us to succeed.”
“Somebody should tell these guys about coins,” Jason muttered, putting the little bag away. “It doesn’t seem very convenient to have your cash rolling around.”
As time wore on, they walked more than they jogged. Jason’s feet felt sore, but Rachel hadn’t complained, so he hadn’t either. They passed no sign of human life but observed plenty of rodents and birds.
As the sun grew fat and red on the horizon, a moist breeze began to blow in Jason’s face. Plodding up a long incline, he debated whether he should fish out his remaining energy berries. Cresting the rise, he finally saw the sea, a blue-gray immensity stretching to the edge of sight, still at least a few miles off down a long slope.
“Low tide won’t hit until noon tomorrow,” Jason said. “Looks like we’ll have more cover up here than we will down there.”
“The woods really thin out on the far side of this ridge,” Rachel agreed. She crouched and studied the hard-packed dirt lane. “I can see traces of our boots. We should walk down the path a ways, maybe leave it a few times, then double back cross-country. In case they’re tracking us.”
“You’re right,” Jason admitted, thinking of Aster’s fate. “We should probably take precautions.”
Jason followed Rachel farther along the path, stomping his feet. She glanced back at him. “Don’t step harder than you were earlier. It might alert them that we’re making a false trail.”
“Have you done this before?”
“Whenever I escaped from juvie.”
Jason chuckled. “Right. You know, we’ll have to trade off keeping watch tonight.”
She nodded. “Weird that we haven’t seen anybody. Nobody using the road, no houses.”
“Yeah, it’s isolated. I’m going to miss my bed at the castle.”
After leaving the path several times, Rachel gingerly followed an improvised route that took them back up the slope into the woods. She selected a spot a good distance from the road, with plenty of trees and bushes to screen their presence. Despite the cover, the location still afforded a view of the lane.
Following a hasty meal, Jason offered to take the first watch. Bundling himself in cloak and blanket, cushioned by flattened weeds, he rested his back against a tree and fought to stay awake. As the light of day faded, the rhythm of Rachel’s breathing, the chirping of the insects, and the sensory deprivation of the darkness overcame his fears, and Jason sagged into a deep slumber.
* * *
Jason jerked awake. He felt damp. Predawn mist shrouded the landscape, intensifying the morning chill. As he uncurled and stood, his shins felt sore, probably from all the jogging done in boots the day before. The noise of his motion disturbed Rachel. Wiping her bleary eyes, she sat up.
“What time is it?” she asked. “What about my watch? Did you fall asleep?”
“No,” Jason lied. “You looked tired. I wanted to let you rest.”
“Then why do you have leaf prints and smudges of soil on your cheek?” Rachel asked. “Were you on guard with your face in a leaf pile?”
“I didn’t try to fall asleep,” Jason apologized. “It got dark and really boring.”
“Boring is the goal,” Rachel said, pulling her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “The opposite of boring might be somebody cutting our throats.”
Jason winced. Back home several of his classes had bored him. He’d spent tons of late nights trying to find something on television. Much of the time his life had felt planned for him, lacking real purpose, and his boredom had emphasized the problem. But Rachel was right. Boredom was now their friend.
Jason squinted into the mist. “I can’t see the lane.”
“If somebody is tracking us, the fog should work in our favor,” Rachel pointed out.
“I wonder when the mist showed up?” Jason mused.
“Hard to say,” Rachel said wryly. “We miss that kind of information when we’re both sleeping.”
“Don’t be that way. At least it worked out. Now we’ll be well rested when we throw ourselves off a cliff into the ocean.” He stretched his arms wide and groaned. “Want some breakfast? We should probably get going while we have extra cover from the mist.”
“Okay. Maybe just a bite before we start.”
Jason sorted through their food, selecting some dried meat and tough bread. When he found that the remnants of the mushrooms the loremaster had given him were beginning to smell funny and had fuzzy patches of mold, he threw them out, wondering whether he would regret the loss once their rations ran out.
Munching on bread and meat, Jason and Rachel tramped through dewy undergrowth back to the road, their cloaks wrapped tightly about them. Jason shivered. The damp cold seemed to seep through all layers of clothing.
“Let’s check for hoofprints,” Rachel suggested.
In the growing light, breathing foggy air, Jason searched inexpertly for fresh signs of a horse. “I don’t see anything,” he finally announced.
“Then let’s be extra ready for our enemies to approach from behind,” Rachel replied.
Briskly they followed the lane toward the ocean. After cresting the rise from the day before, the lane wound down to the coast, snaking back and forth to offset the steeper portions of the slope. The farther they descended along the path, the denser the fog became. Jason threw a stone as far as he could and watched it disappear into grayness long before it thudded against the ground, rustling the brush. Before long he could see only a few paces ahead. At any moment he expected a fearsome horseman to lope out of the murk.
As they approached the cliffs, the view of the ocean returned. Low sunlight spread over the water from off to the left, texturing the surface in striking relief by shadowing the troughs between swells.
“Pretty,” Rachel commented. “But I miss the cover of the fog.”
They reached the point where the road elbowed left, paralleling the cliffs as far as Jason could see. As Galloran had instructed, they abandoned the road, continuing south. They soon reached a gentle trickle of a stream.
The stream flowed toward the cliffs, slurping away into a narrow crack not ten paces from the edge. Unhealthy tufts of scraggly weeds flanked the feeble rivulet.
Jason cautiously approached the rocky brink of the cliff. The view was spectacular. He stood more than seventy feet above the churning surf, at the center of a curving amphitheater of cliffs bordering a wide inlet. At either hand sheer faces of dark stone towered above surging bursts of foamy spray. No reef or shallows slowed the swells as they rose up and flung themselves in frothy explosions against alien formations of rock.
Rachel came up beside him, her stance casual, a hand on one hip. Then she stepped even closer to the edge, leaning forward to gaze straight down. Her proximity to the brink gave Jason chills, but he kept quiet.
“Looks like suicide,” Rachel said, drawing back from the edge.
“Maybe it will look better at low tide,” Jason hoped.
“There will probably just be more rocks poking up,” Rachel said. “You a good swimmer?”
“I’m fine,” Jason said. “I’m no Olympian. How about you?”
“I’m pretty good. I’ve done a fair amount of snorkeling and scuba diving. But no serious cliff diving. This is high.”
Turning, Jason stared back at the slope they had descended, realizing that they commanded a clear view of the lane for miles. At least no manglers or other sinister creatures intent on hacking them into confetti should be able to sneak up on them.
“I guess we wait here for midday,” Jason said, sitting down and settling back against a little wind-warped tree. Hands in his lap, he gazed at the long slope and its serpentine lane.
“Let me guess; you’ll take the first watch? Then we’ll wake up at midnight?”
“I’m not sleepy,” Jason protested.
“Neither am I,” Rachel said, sitting down cross-legged. “So, how do you think we’ll get back up?”
“There must be a way. Maybe the person in the cave knows how.”
“Are we really going to do this? Jump off a cliff and swim into a sea cave? We’ll probably die.”
“What else are we going to do?” Jason asked. “If there were any other option I might take it. But it seems clear that if we abandon this quest for the Word, we’re doomed. I’d rather risk my life than lose it for sure.”
“You believe everything the Blind King told you?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah, I think so. It matched what I read in the book, and what I heard from the loremaster.”
“You believe him enough to risk our lives?”
Jason paused. “No. I believe him enough to risk my life. I don’t see why both of us should jump.”
Rachel scratched her arm. “Why do you get to jump? Because you’re the boy?”
“It isn’t a prize; it’s a punishment.”
“It’s something important that needs to be done.”
“Do you just love to argue? If somebody wanted to jump off a cliff instead of me, I’d be relieved.”
“I do want to jump instead of you.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to be nice. And fair. I was the one who read the book. This quest is my fault. Besides, I’m bigger than you, which will give me a better chance of surviving the rough surf.”
The explanation silenced Rachel for a moment. She picked at the small weeds in front of her. “It’s really nice of you to offer,” she finally said. “I can tell you don’t love heights.”
“I don’t like edges,” Jason corrected. “I’m fine if you give me a guardrail or put me in a plane or send me on a roller coaster. Let’s not worry about this for now.” He closed his eyes.
“What exactly is a mangler?” Rachel wondered aloud.
He opened his eyes. “We never really had that explained, did we? I guess something nasty that chops people into sushi. I think we’ll know it when we see it.”
She nodded. “Before we do this, maybe you should tell me the syllable you learned. You know, in case I have to continue alone.”
“Are you trying to jinx us? Thanks for the confidence!”
“There’s nothing wrong with being prepared for worst-case scenarios.”
“You should sell insurance.”
She huffed, standing up. “Fine.”
“Wow, don’t be so touchy.”
“You don’t have to make fun of everything.”
“Maybe we should just enjoy the music of the waves,” Jason placated.
She sat back down.
Jason made himself as comfortable as possible against the contorted tree. “The first syllable is ‘a.’ Just in case.”
“Was that so hard?”
Jason grinned, deciding to quit while he was kind of ahead. Rachel certainly wasn’t a pushover. She had strong opinions, and little fear of sharing them. A good argument could help pass the time, but Jason found himself wondering whether traveling with Rachel would become annoying. If he were going to meet up with somebody from his world, why couldn’t it have been Matt or Tim? They could back him up in a fight, and would be more fun to hang out with. Or if it had to be a girl, why not somebody less obnoxious, like April Knudsen?
The rhythmic crashing of the waves below, like a mighty wind rising and falling with unnatural regularity, lulled him into deep relaxation. Breathing the salt-tinged air, he closed his eyes again.
And woke with a start, Rachel jostling his shoulder. Shadows were small. The sun was high. It was nearly midday. The air was still not warm, though the sun shone brightly.
“Maybe you have narcolepsy,” Rachel suggested as he staggered to his feet.
Jason wiped his eyes. “I just love naps.”
“Well, warn me before you operate heavy machinery.”
Scanning the slope, Jason detected no sign of pursuit. Feeling abashed for having dozed off again, he unlaced his boots and yanked them off.
“What are you doing?” Rachel asked.
“I’m the jumper.” Jason proceeded to disrobe until he wore only his boxers—blue with narrow yellow stripes. He reflected that his boxers and boots were now the only clothes in his possession that he had brought from home.
Rachel had turned away. “Not very shy, are you?”
“I’m wearing boxers. They look like swim trunks.”
She turned and looked at him. “I can do this.”
“You can jump off the next cliff. Don’t be stubborn.”
“You’re the stubborn one,” she shot back.
Jason quietly conceded that she had a point. His parents always accused him of being obstinate. At home he often got his way simply by outlasting everyone else.
“We can flip a coin,” Rachel said.
“Our coins are pellets.”
“No, I have one from our world.” She started searching her pockets. “Winner picks who jumps.”
“Fine.” Shivering, Jason stepped carefully to the edge of the cliff. The sea breeze feathered his cheeks, ruffled his hair. Goose pimples rose all over his body. He folded his arms, rubbing his palms against his sides for warmth.
Far below, the water level had receded. Two rocks shaped like arrowheads stood out clearly now, pointing at each other. To land right between them, he would have to jump outward a good distance.
“Found it,” Rachel said behind him. “Heads or tails?”
“Heads.” He looked back as she flipped the quarter and caught it.
“Tails,” she proclaimed, holding it up with a triumphant grin.
“I lose,” Jason said, turning away from her.
“No, wait!”
Swinging his arms forward, he sprang out into empty space, viscera rising within him as his body plummeted downward in a wild acceleration through chill, salty air. The wind of his fall swept over him as the greenish, foamy water came up fast. With his elbow tucked against his chest, he held his nose, straightened his body, and tore through the surface of the water between the two giant arrowheads, his feet barely touching the rocky bottom at the low point of his submergence.
The gentle sting of seawater bothered his vision. He was in a long, narrow pit in the coastal floor, well beneath the churning surface. A couple of nearby sea fans swayed with the current. Vivid anemones clung to the rocks. He swam up out of the trench, angling inward toward the base of the cliff. The closer he got to the surface, the more turbulent the currents became.
His head broke the surface, and he gasped for breath. A half-submerged cave yawned directly before him. A curling swell heaved him in that direction, scraping his shoulder against a rough wall of stone. He stroked madly, bumping a knee against an unyielding face of unseen rock.
The ocean drew him away from the mouth of the cave; then the frothy mass of a breaker heaved him forward out of control. He tucked his head, turning helpless somersaults inside the tumbling rush of water, grimly anticipating the moment his skull would burst against a jagged corner of stone.
When the wave was spent, Jason found himself at the mouth of the cave. He clutched a jutting knob of rock to resist being drawn away as the water withdrew. A fresh influx of roiling spume pushed him beyond the mouth into the cave itself. He could not touch bottom, so he swam fiercely, fading back almost to the mouth before a new breaker shoved him in even deeper.
The cave narrowed. The enclosed space magnified the sounds of the surging sea. He scrabbled for handholds to resist the tide and haul himself farther inward. After he traversed a section so narrow he could almost reach from wall to wall, the cave widened into a spacious grotto. Not much light filtered in from the entrance. In the dimness Jason perceived a still, wiry man seated upon a ledge against the far wall, a good ten feet above the water level.
Finding he could now stand, Jason waded over to the far wall, cautious not to slice his bare soles on the rocky ground. Waist-deep water became ankle-deep. Behind him the ocean roared.
Jason stepped out of the water, too close to the ledge to see the man on top. Regular handholds had been chiseled into the rock. “Hello,” Jason called.
No answer. Perhaps the man was asleep. Or dead.
Jason climbed the handholds leading up the sheer face below the ledge. Scents of seawater and stone mingled in his nostrils.
His head cleared the top. The ledge was fairly broad, spanning the entire rear wall of the grotto. The man sat nearby, back to the wall, legs crossed at the ankles, staring at Jason. Tangled gray hair covered his head and face, dangling to his narrow waist. He held a rubbery length of seaweed in his hands.
Jason boosted himself onto the ledge, returning the silent stare.
The man squeezed the seaweed, using both hands to twist it in opposite directions. The action triggered a bioluminescent reaction, bathing the ledge in pale green light.
“Nice cave,” Jason said.
The man grunted.
Jason decided to have a staring contest. His eyes began to burn. The man showed no sign of strain. Jason lost.
The man still did not blink. The grave gaze was disconcerting. “I need help finding a word,” Jason said.
The man nodded fractionally.
“My name is Jason.”
“I am Jugard.”
“So you can speak.”
The man grunted.
“I was sent by Galloran.”
Jugard’s bushy eyebrows twitched upward.
“He said you helped him long ago.”
A slight nod.
“Will you help me learn the Word to unmake Maldor?”
The man stared. Jason lost the contest a second time.
“You heard me, right?”
The stare persisted. Jugard had obviously heard.
Jason scooted around so his back was against the wall as well. He had asked his question. He would look like a jerk if he kept pushing. Apparently the other man needed time to think about his response. Or perhaps he was crazy. Either way, waiting seemed preferable to coercion. Jason shivered, finally recognizing how cold he was.
Minutes passed. Jason stared at his hands, listened to the echoes of surging waves. He quietly wondered if, somewhere high above, Rachel was worried.
Jason glanced sideways at Jugard. The man had set down his seaweed and was busy untangling his matted beard. Muscles danced in his thin, sinuous arms. Jason returned to contemplating his hands. More time passed. He took the silence as a contest. This time he would not blink. Closing his eyes, he began reviewing the bones of the leg and foot. He had a big anatomy test Friday. No, he had already missed it.
“You are wise for one so young,” Jugard said at last. “Most men cannot abide silence. Some fly into a rage. Some become clowns. Some confess all they know. Silence reveals much. I will assist you, Jason, friend of Galloran.”
“How can you help me?”
“What do you know?”
“The first syllable. And I know not to say the Word unless I’m with Maldor.”
Jugard stopped picking at his beard and started rubbing his ankles. He did not look at Jason. “You are just beginning your search. The Word has six syllables. The fourth is ‘en.’ I do not know the location of the other syllables, but I know of a man in Trensicourt who might be able to help. If he remains alive, Nicholas should be able to advise you. He once worked closely with Galloran, creating engines of war.”
“Okay, ‘en.’ And Nicholas. Is that all you know?”
“I have dwelled in this cave longer than I can reckon. Most of what I know derives from others who have journeyed here. You are the first in some time. I hope my information remains valid.”
Jason nodded. He already had a third of the Word! And he had a new lead to follow. He had worried that the sea cave might represent a dead end. He visualized the portion of the Word he knew.
A EN
Jason repeated the name of the contact in Trensicourt.
“That is right,” Jugard confirmed.
“Do you know what a Beyonder is?” Jason asked.
“Of course.”
“I’m a Beyonder.”
The bushy eyebrows twitched again.
“Do you know how I can get home?”
Jugard stared. “I do not. Keep asking your question. There are some who might have answers.”
Jason looked around the chamber of stone. He turned to Jugard with a puzzled expression.
“You wish to know how to get back atop the cliffs.”
Jason nodded.
“Once, the task was not difficult. Beyond a neighboring chamber, long ago, a colleague of Nicholas helped me construct a means for ascending to a point near the cliff tops. Sometime later, not long after Galloran visited me, the neighboring chamber became inhabited by a titan crab. Since that day five men and one woman have visited me. Two tried to swim out. I know they failed because their corpses washed back into my chamber. The other four attempted to dodge past the crab. I beheld their demise.”
“Did any try to kill the crab?”
“Three made an effort to slay the crab once it became clear they would not outrun her. None came close.”
Jason silently lamented not bringing the explosive stone. He had nothing to fight with. “What do you suggest?”
Jugard shrugged. “To better understand, you should view Macroid.”
“Is that the crab?”
“The name I gave her.”
“You can tell it’s a she?”
“I know crabs.”
They climbed down off the shelf. Jugard, clutching the luminous length of seaweed, led Jason to a long vertical crack in the wall on one side of the chamber. It was just wide enough for a man to walk through without turning sideways. “Why doesn’t the crab come through into here?”
Jugard faced Jason, the green seaweed casting strange shadows and highlights across his furry countenance. “She is much too big.”
Jason’s mouth felt dry.
Jugard handed him the seaweed. “Peer cautiously through the crack before you enter the room. The crab is most likely in the water, but make certain. If she is out of sight, pass through the crack and go two steps beyond. You will notice a small gap on the far side of the room. Beyond that gap lies my ascender. Do not attempt to cross. Macroid will emerge from the water. Be ready. Her speed will astonish you. Retreat when she charges. You should witness her capabilities before you choose your course.”
Jason slunk into the crack, shoulders brushing the walls of the narrow way as he crept forward. The cleft ran about six paces before ending abruptly.
Hanging back from the opening, Jason held the seaweed forward, dispelling the darkness in the room beyond. It looked empty. Slowly he eased his head forward, imagining a huge crab waiting at one side of the opening, an enormous claw poised to snap shut on his head as soon as he stuck it out. He peeked quickly and immediately withdrew. Nothing was in sight.
Jason stepped into the chamber. It was maybe twenty yards across. Like the previous chamber, a large portion was submerged in water. On the far side Jason saw the gap Jugard had described. He realized why Jugard had warned him not to make a break for it. With no giant crab in sight it appeared temptingly close. The intervening floor was smooth and largely free of obstacles. It was tempting even with the warning. Maybe the crab was asleep.
At his second step into the chamber the crab erupted out of the salty pool in a single tremendous leap. A geyser of brackish water splashed against the ceiling, spraying the entire length and breadth of the room. In his shock Jason dropped the seaweed, taking an involuntary step backward as he wiped brine from his face.
He gaped in awe at the titan crab. The massive creature was the size of a car, not including a huge pair of claws bigger than public mailboxes. The shiny black armor of its carapace gleamed wetly, reflecting the green luminance of the seaweed. The creature stood at the edge of the water, great claws upraised, snipping open and closed with a harsh shearing sound.
Without warning the crab scuttled toward Jason in a horrifying burst of speed. He lunged back into the crack as the nimble creature sprang, hurtling through the air, black claws flashing. Jason fled through the cleft back to Jugard, pursued by the grating scrape of shell against stone and the shearing snip of eager claws.
Jugard caught hold of Jason’s shoulders, steadying him as he tried to stop hyperventilating. “Now you comprehend your peril,” Jugard said. “Come.”
Without the seaweed the chamber was once again lit only by daylight filtering in from outside. Jason followed Jugard back up to the ledge, where the wiry man squeezed a fresh length of seaweed. This one had a more bluish tint.
“Is there a way to kill the crab?”
“Probably not even with an army. Those claws are razor keen. I watched an excellent sword shatter against the shell.”
“I can’t imagine surviving a swim out of here.”
“You would have to swim a great distance. Those who have tried did not get far.”
Jason considered the turbulent coastal waters. He had only survived because the waves had pushed him into the cave. Swimming against them would be suicide. Could he at least shout the syllable up to Rachel? He doubted she could hear him over the roar of the ocean. It might be worth a try. Then she could continue the quest on her own. It wouldn’t be fair to leave her stranded and exposed with the horseman after her.
“How do you survive in here?” Jason wondered.
“The sea provides. Fish, shellfish, urchins, kelp. They can all be eaten uncooked. And a trickle of fresh water runs into that basin over there.” Jason walked over to where Jugard indicated. At one end of the shelf, water tinkled into a natural basin, slowly overflowing off the shelf into the sea. The fresh trickle had to be a byproduct of the little stream atop the cliff. Unfortunately, the water emerged from a split in the rock the width of his finger—there would be no climbing up that way.
“What should I do?”
“I have no right to say. You are welcome to remain here as long as you choose. The variety is limited, but food and water exist in abundance.”
“None of the others stayed.”
Jugard shrugged his bony shoulders. “I presented them with similar cautions. They were heroes on important quests. They believed that where others had failed, they would succeed.”
Jason returned to the wiry, grizzled man and sat beside him, back against the wall. He rubbed his cheeks, looking for stubble. He hardly had any facial hair. He wondered how long it would take for him and Jugard to look alike.