19

Realmular Tunnel

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Rhyparia fought her way through the tangled wasteland of forest that lined the tunnel’s walls, splitting apart tiny trees in order to squeeze through. Everyone else was behind her, staying close enough to remain within her altered gravity. While she may not have been worried about the expanse of area she could cover with her weaving, the others were too scared to fall behind, fearing they’d leave the safe zone.

The forest was lifeless, for Prakriti—the man responsible for giving it life—slept while Atarax carried him over his shoulder. This was his time to rest, but it was coming to an end. Rhyparia and the group’s turn quickly approached. But first, Rhyparia needed to find a comfortable and secure location.

They stepped into a clearing that looked like it used to be a glade. The trees that circled it didn’t lean as far as the rest. Their bases were thick, holding several deep nooks between roots. The crevices were deep enough that they didn’t need to resort to hanging hammocks between trees, for they had natural beds—perfect for safe sleeping under normal gravity.

“We’re good here,” Rhyparia said, dropping her bag into a tangle of roots. “You can find a resting spot in the roots. They should be secure once Prakriti brings life to them. Otherwise, you can resort to hammocks.” She turned to the fox. “Wake him, Atarax.”

As the others situated themselves, Atarax wiggled his shoulder, causing Prakriti to stir. Placing Prakriti on the ground, Atarax said, “Your shift begins.”

Prakriti yawned. “A wholesome three hours of sleep.”

Rhyparia fell on her butt, nestling herself within the roots. Atarax joined her moments later in a nest neighboring her own. They leaned back and watched as the blackened woods morphed into a vibrant forest. The trees gained color, layers of bark peeling back to reveal a lighter undertone. Leaves sprouted from branches and grass rose from the ground. All that was missing was the sun.

Prakriti, who had been standing at the center of the glade as he put his ancient to work, shuffled toward the base of a tree opposite of Rhyparia, disappearing on the other side as he prepared for normal gravity.

“It’s nice to see an ancient that doesn’t focus on destruction,” Atarax noted.

Rhyparia’s eyes fell to her umbrella. Her ancient was capable of destroying almost anything, including mountains. She had made that evident months ago when chasing down Toshik and Jilly in the Archaic Mountains.

She gazed emptily down into the lush grass. “It is beautiful.”

Atarax’s tail reached forward to brush through the grass. “It’s fitting for someone who is the son of Musku—a man who wished no harm on anyone.”

“His ability to forgive is astounding,” Rhyparia mused. “Throughout the two decades I spent with him, he never condemned the Powish elites who continue to thrive off the blood, sweat, and tears of the slaves they loom over.”

Atarax closed his eyes. “He doesn’t forgive them. He simply doesn’t pass judgment. In his eyes, that’s not a decision he deserves to make, for he believed he was a creature of sin just as anyone else. Maybe the severity of his doesn’t amount to that of others, but he’s still flawed. He chose to focus on the slaves and how he could help them. That’s why our mission is to get them out—not to topple the Powish royals. Their time will come. Once they no longer can rely on their slaves in Stratum Zero, they’ll falter—maybe even perish.”

Rhyparia shook her head. “Thinking like that takes extraordinary patience.”

“Like most Archains, Musku Rao was a patient man,” Atarax said. “He suffered through sixty long years with you, training you to become who you are now.”

“Suffered ...” Rhyparia twisted her lips. She didn’t like hearing it described in such a way.

“Yes, the man didn’t see his wife and son for six decades—no fault of your own, mind you. He wanted this more than anyone.”

“I feel terrible.”

Atarax chuckled. “It has nothing on two centuries.”

Rhyparia leaned forward. “Two centuries of what?”

“That’s how long it’s been since I last saw my family.”

“Why?” she asked. “Do they not live in Epinio? Are they ...” she trailed off before finishing the question.

“Dead?” Atarax said. “No. They’re alive, but they live in the Archaic Mountains. I was born an Unboundant. I grew up learning to walk on all fours and hunt any humans foolish enough to enter the mountains. It only took a few years before I met a brave dimiour who left Epinio to scour the mountains and find lost souls like myself.”

Rhyparia noticed Atarax’s eyes drift in a specific direction, so she followed his gaze to Biaza and Moros.

“Biaza?” she asked.

Atarax smirked. “Yes, but Moros accompanied her. He may have not been as fond of her objectives, but even back then, he stuck to her like an extra appendage. I wasn’t an easy project for them, but still, I wasn’t as difficult as Kakos. I don’t know how Biaza persevered with him. He was ... brutal.”

Rhyparia’s gaze veered toward the wolf, who had already fallen asleep. “Kakos was an Unboundant, too?”

“Yep.”

“I guess that’s believable.”

With a wave of his tail, Atarax turned over. “Bed time.”

Rhyparia scanned the bodies below the trees. Most were asleep or dozing off, so she stopped weaving Archaic chains and allowed the gravity to return to normal. She felt it shift. Suddenly the tree that she was leaning against became the ground. She readjusted herself so that she was leaning against the grass.

She snuck a glance at the tree Prakriti had disappeared behind, only to discover his eyes peeking around its base, watching her from afar. Quickly, his eyes disappeared. This journey must have been lonely for him. To not only keep himself awake while everyone else slept, but to maintain the concentration needed for continuous weaving. His role was important. If he stopped using his ancient, this forest would die, and some of these trees wouldn’t be able to support the weight of a human. Someone could fall into the bottomless hole beneath them, and Rhyparia wouldn’t be awake to shift the gravity in time.

She rolled over and stared at Atarax’s listless tail. It curled around a root and tickled her shin. The miracles of this world were abundant—a bird as big as a mountain, demons that slept underground in the Dev Kingdom, and ghostly wyverns in the Void. The dimiours were just another example of this.

But those miracles only pertained to the kingdoms. It didn’t account for what was in the sky—the sun, moons, stars, empires, and, in the Dark Realm, Earth. Those were real mysteries that nobody seemed to have an answer to, and one of them had caught Rhyparia’s attention as of late. She couldn’t see the sky now, but it was always present in her dreams. And tonight would likely be no different.

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Under the moonlight, Rhyparia lay on her back in the grass, gazing at the world’s natural Intelights—the stars. Musku sat in a foldable chair next to her. He couldn’t position himself on the ground like her, for he was pushing eighty years old. If he had lain down, it would have taken a good few minutes for him to get back up. He wasn’t as limber as he once was.

As Rhyparia’s gaze skated through the stars, she stopped, catching sight of the smaller of two moons. After some thought, she asked, “Why are there two moons, but one sun? Is it because the moon’s light isn’t as bright, so two are needed to achieve similar results?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Musku said. “Most believe they balance the tides. If the two of them were to disappear one day, the world would flood. The Sea of Light or the Dark Sea would expand, swallowing the Realm Rivers and eventually bringing the same fate to the kingdoms.”

“Do you believe that?”

Musku hummed with thought. “Like any theory regarding our sky, I think it’s a lot of guessing. If the two moons were needed to keep dry land dry, why doesn’t the Dark Realm suffer from flooding in certain areas?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, both moons aren’t always visible in their sky,” he explained. “It is believed that the smaller moon belongs to Kuki Sphaira and the larger one belongs to what we now call Earth. Our moon circles our world, so as long as the sun is beyond the horizon, it will always be present in the sky. Earth’s moon, however, circles not only Earth itself, but us, too. The Light Realm always sees both moons, but the Dark Realm has a brief period every day when only our moon can be seen because the other slips behind Earth.”

“Wow,” Rhyparia said. “I’m guessing the sun acts in a similar way. Is that why the Dark Realm has four alternating periods of daylight and night compared to our two? Because the sun slips behind Earth?”

Musku lifted his hand from the arm of his chair and wiggled it slightly. “It’s a theory, but astronomers aren’t confident that the sun behaves like the moons. They aren’t sure if the sun circles us, we circle Earth, or Earth circles us. All that’s certain is that there are complex orbital and rotational movements at work all the time, and that’s why the sun disappears behind Earth every day in the Dark Realm.”

Rhyparia laughed through her nose. “Talk about a headache.”

Musku nodded. “Astronomers are absolutely remarkable.”

A long pause followed, and then Rhyparia asked, “Is there a comparative size of Kuki Sphaira’s moon to Kuki Sphaira itself?”

“It’s not that big,” Musku mused. “It’s roughly twenty-five percent of its friend in the sky.” He gave it some thought before saying, “Probably smaller than a kingdom.”

“So the moon isn’t as important as the sun?”

“One is. I don’t believe that both are.”

Silence swept over them as they mulled through their own thoughts, but she was jarred out of her peace as Musku began shaking her shoulder. Distant shouts echoed throughout the prairie. “Rhyparia! Wake up!”

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Rhyparia’s eyes snapped open to Atarax trying to wake her. His yellow eyes didn’t reflect their typical resolve. Instead it was replaced by a forlorn, wide-eyed expression. She had never seen him like this.

“Your umbrella!” he bellowed, pointing below the tree they were sleeping on.

What was happening? The forest was dead, but how? Had Prakriti fallen asleep? Rayne and Saikatto hung from the trunks of trees across the clearing above her. Biaza and Moros—small, light, and natural tree climbers—scurried across the decrepit branches of the smaller trees. Therapif couldn’t be seen from Rhyparia’s angle. He was directly above her, but she could see his ears poking out from above the tree.

“Get your ancient!” Atarax shouted, his tail pointing down the tunnel’s wall below them. “I have to help Kakos get Prakriti!”

The fox leapt to the side, plummeting out of sight. She got on her knees and took a peek below. Atarax was carefully maneuvering the trees, but they were still bending under his weight. The same went for Kakos. And because the wolf’s movements weren’t as nimble, one tree snapped beneath him, causing him to falter and fumble with a nearby branch. Was Prakriti down there somewhere?

She grabbed her torch, and Rayne ignited it from a distance. Carefully, Rhyparia followed the direction in which Atarax had pointed just moments before, sliding off of trees and nearly losing her footing on others as she tried to land. The worst part was hearing the trees groan as the wood gave way beneath her.

Heart racing, she spotted her tattered umbrella tangled in some weak branches. She dropped onto the tree’s base and crouched low, wrapping her legs around the trunk. The farther she slid across the length of the tree, the more it bent, causing the tangle of branches that trapped her umbrella to dangle at a dangerous angle. She stopped; she couldn’t risk it falling. If she lost her umbrella, their group would be stuck here forever.

Climbing out of her straddled position, she rose to her feet with caution and dropped her torch into the abyss. Bending her knees, she took a deep breath and leapt forward into the branches, reaching out for her umbrella only to grab a fistful of twigs. She panicked, quickly thrusting out her other hand just in time, her palm making contact with the wooden handle. As soon as she grabbed hold, she began to weave Archaic chains, not realizing how difficult it would be while tumbling into an infinite chasm.

Thankfully, she felt gravity shift. Her descent switched directions, sending her toward the tunnel’s wall—or the forest’s floor. It was still a bewildering concept. Just as she was about to crash into the ground, she caught herself mid-air, where she hovered inches above the surface before landing lightly.

There wasn’t time for cathartic breaths. She backtracked through the woods, using the little stamina that remained to sprint. She had altered the gravity for dozens of miles in every direction as a precaution; someone could have fallen a considerable distance. Even then, there was a chance she wasn’t executing it properly.

Nearing the clearing of trees, she found mostly everyone on the ground unharmed. But Atarax, Kakos, and Prakriti were nowhere to be found. Rayne pointed in the direction of where Atarax had chased Prakriti earlier. Rhyparia ran that way and found the two dimiours on their knees, leaning over a motionless body. Rushing forward, she knelt next to Prakriti. Despite closed eyes, he was breathing.

“A broken rib or two,” Kakos said.

Therapif hopped over and dropped a bag of his medical supplies. “Based off the pattern of his breathing, it’s likely a punctured lung,” the rabbit said while digging through his purse. “Straighten his head for me.”

Rhyparia gently placed her hands against Prakriti’s cheeks and adjusted his head. A gash sat on his temple, a considerable amount of blood already having poured down his face. His shirt was gone—likely torn off from plunging through the trees—and his body was littered in cuts and bruises.

“Significant blood loss,” Therapif said as he began rubbing ointment on Prakriti’s head. “Concussion, too.”

Rhyparia shook her head. “How did this happen?”

“I was awake for the past two hours because I couldn’t fall asleep,” Kakos explained. “Suddenly the color of the forest disappeared as its life withered away. Prakriti had fallen asleep and was about to fall off the side of his tree. With the gravitational situation, I couldn’t get to him. I tried waking Atarax, but, by that time, Prakriti had already fallen. He plummeted past me and smacked a tree below us, and that’s when everything spiraled.”

Fury ignited in Rhyparia’s chest. “He fell asleep? He’s gotten more sleep than most of us throughout this journey. We almost died because of that lapse.”

As Therapif opened Prakriti’s mouth and inserted a gloved finger, he said, “Sleep stemmed from energy exhaustion. I believe his canals have dried up; they need time to restore.”

“But he doesn’t do anything,” she rebuked, not thinking about the insensitivity of her comment—even if it was valid. She and Prakriti had already altered their cycles in a way that catered to him. He barely used his ancient for this very reason while hers was in constant use.

Atarax looked up from the young man’s body and stared at the Jestivan. “You are an anomaly, Rhyparia. Don’t expect others to do what you do. Even Rayne and Saikatto have limits.” He looked back at Prakriti. “We’ll make this work. Therapif, how long before he can make use of his energy again?”

As Therapif wrapped Prakriti’s chest, he said, “A week.”

Kakos sat down, his eyes focused on Rhyparia with intrigue. “I guess we’ll find out just how important your training with Musku was. It all falls on you until Prakriti is up and running again.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said.