Chapter Eight
The acrid smell of the burned building still lingered in the air even though it had been weeks since the fire had burned the Klimnu prison to the ground. An impending storm threatening the sky had made the air feel wet and heavy, seeming to magnify the strong smell of the burned prison.
The Denynso men trudged toward the prison, all of them feeling reluctant to go back to this far corner of the compound, a site that held so many horrific memories for all of them. This had been the site of a brutal battle with the Klimnu, a clash that started when one of the creatures came into the compound disguised as Pyra and kidnapped Elianna, holding her in the prison and torturing her because they knew that her pain would radiate out to her mate, luring the rest of the Denynso to the prison so that they could attack.
The Klimnu hadn't been prepared for the fury that the warriors held that night, or the power and intensity that their actions had inspired in their healer, Ciyrs. Between the two of them, Ciyrs and Elianna had laid waste to more of the slimy creatures than a few of the warriors combined. They had hoped that it would be the end of the conflict, but, of course, it wasn't. Now as they stood only a few yards away from the black, sooty remnants of the prison, each lost in their own thoughts, it was as if they were walking into that battle again.
Bannack felt his muscles tightening as if preparing him in case he needed to attack. Around him the raindrops started to fall, cooling his skin but increasing the solemn, eerie feeling around the prison.
"Come on," he said, starting to walk toward the rubble again, "we're almost to the boundary of the compound."
They all walked toward the prison, going at an angle so that they walked around the perimeter.
"Wait," Pyra said suddenly, "What's that?"
Bannack followed the direction where he was pointing. He saw that the several rainstorms that had occurred over the weeks since their battle with the Klimnu had washed away enough of the ashes to reveal what looked like the edges of a trapdoor in the foundation. Pyra climbed into the remnants of the prison and toward the trapdoor. Bannack followed, watching carefully where he stepped to avoid stepping on something that might injure him if it suddenly gave way, broke, or splintered upwards.
By the time he had gotten to the edge of the trapdoor, Pyra was already on his knees digging with his fingers around the edge.
"Help me," he grunted.
Bannack reached forward to pull on the edge of the door. The heat from the fire seemed to have melted some of the metal, but after a few minutes of pulling, the weakened door broke and the two warriors were able to toss the pieces of door away. They stared down into what looked like a black abyss. It was so dark that they couldn't see the ground and there was no way of determining how far the fall would be between the door and the floor.
"Does anyone have a light?" Pyra asked.
Ty reached into his bag and withdrew a stick loaded with a solar power cell. Bannack took it and activated it so that it sent a wash of light down into the hole. Even with the light there wasn’t anything to see. Pyra took his bag off of his shoulders and handed it to Bannack, then jumped down through the trapdoor.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ero yelled, dropping to his knees beside the open trapdoor and staring down into the darkness.
Bannack swept the light back and forth until it fell on Pyra, crouched on a dark stone floor at least twenty feet down.
"It's a trapdoor," Pyra said, "It had to be close enough to the floor to let people actually get down here. Come on. Jump down."
Bannack went first, followed close by Ero. They stepped out of the way so that most of the other warriors could follow. A few had pulled out their own lights and soon there was enough illumination that they were able to see they were in some kind of dungeon.
"Well, it was close enough that we could get down, but that doesn't make any sense for the Klimnu. They're not anywhere near as big as we are. How would they get down here without breaking themselves?"
Pyra gazed up at the open trapdoor like he was pondering what Ty had just asked.
"I'm not sure. Anyway, let's look around. I didn't even know this place was here when we were here."
The group split off so that they could explore the dungeon more efficiently, breaking up so that everyone had a light with them. They had been exploring the dark, damp hallways for nearly an hour when Ty discovered a door on an otherwise blank wall. Unlike the other doors that looked like they had once belonged to cells, this door was solid. He stepped back and directed a hard kick into the middle of the door, causing it to splinter.
Pushing aside the broken pieces of door, Ty stepped inside the small room and shined his light around. It looked like an office; a large desk on one wall, rows of bookshelves on another, and the back corner filled with what looked like stacks of drawers. Ty approached the drawers cautiously and pulled one open. It was filled with folders of documents and he pulled several out so that he could spread them across the surface of the desk.
"Hey, Pyra," he yelled a few minutes later after going through a few pages of the documents he had found in the folders.
Pyra stepped into the room and shined the light he had borrowed from another warrior after giving Ty back his on the desk.
"What did you find?"
"What do you know about this prison?" Ty asked, flipping through the fragile, aged pages of a book that looked ancient in his hands.
"Not much. I didn't even know it was here until the Klimnu attacked. I'm guessing that they built it so long ago that no one remembers it."
"I don't think they built it at all."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at this."
Pyra came around the side of the desk and Ty turned the book to show him what he was reading.
"Holy shit."
"I know."
"What's going on?" Ero asked, coming into the small room.
"This prison wasn't built by the Klimnu," Pyra told him.
"What do you mean?"
"Ty just found all of these books and papers. It looks like the Klimnu were just about as gracious with this prison as they were with the realm under the compound. Apparently this prison has been here for hundreds of years, which means that it was built before the Denynso were living on the compound."
"How could we not know that?"
"I don't know. Creia said that our kind has never made contact with other species except in battle. If it was there when the Denynso settled the compound, they either didn't notice it, or the species that built it was already gone by the time they came."
"How is that even possible?" Ero asked.
"I don't know."
"Look at this."
Pyra had pulled another, smaller book out from the stack of papers that Ty had taken out of the drawer and held it open to the other warriors. It looked almost like a military log, but was more extensive, like the person keeping it was both tracking the events and journaling about them as his way to express his thoughts and emotions.
"This says that the species that built this prison built it during a war with another species that they had been in conflict with for years. They used this prison to hold people who they captured during battle, but the other species found out and infiltrated the prison, freeing all of the captives and killing many of the Covra."
"The Covra?"
"That's what it says. I've never heard of that species before."
"What happened after that battle?"
"This says that the Covra knew that they weren't strong enough to fight off the rest of what they call the Light Ones, so they locked them."
Pyra stopped and looked up at the other men, a confused look on his face.
"Locked them?" Ty asked.
Pyra turned the page and read for a few seconds before looking up at them again.
"It says that the Covra can lock an entire area in place. It's like the whole place is frozen in time. They at once exist and don't. Time passes around them, but it doesn't impact them. They locked the entire kingdom of the Light Ones in that moment and never made any plans to release them."
Pyra met eyes with Ty, and then with Ero.
"What if they're still there?"