Stillness pressed down with the weight of centuries, death and absence somehow making the silence louder than an active cataclysm. Every tentative step Eirun took felt like it echoed a crack into the fabric of reality, every puff of breath brushed a few more granules of sand from the solidity of that on which he stood. For all the ruins his academic pursuits had led him through, this one felt the emptiest, like the eyes of gods and spirits alike had turned away from this place in an act of rejection after the folly of Karsus. He would never had opted to come here, not for any glimmer of forgotten knowledge, but when had he been able to say no to her?
Eirun dragged his hand down his face with a quiet sigh and did his best to tamp down his anxiety at her continued absence. If anyone could successfully navigate such derelict ruins as these safely, it would be Lyra. They had sunk months of research into every known crumble of knowledge about Selunarra after its fall, though it wasn't much, before they even began planning this foray. He still didn't know exactly what it was Lyra was searching for in this forsaken place. Any questions he asked, she had deftly sidestepped and given a general, generic answer. He was certain she'd been more forthcoming with the Bedine in their negotiations to pass unmolested than she had with him. And yet, here he was anyway. The dunes of Anauroch, sand whispering and stars twinkling above in a mocking way. You'll find nothing here, they seemed to laugh at him. You've wasted more than a year of your life because of her. He brushed that aside, focusing instead of any trace of her footprints. She'd been carefully searching and digging for any bit of remains, and he knew she was vigilant about any signs of phaerimm, so when she missed their set time to check in at sunset, he had been only marginally worried. She was one to lose track of time if she found something fascinating, and she knew how to handle a conflict.
His own search had been fruitless. No artifacts, no new building foundations they hadn't already canvassed together, nothing that would bring that gleam of excitement to Lyra's gaze. Now that the moon stared down at him with unrelenting fervor and the wind bit through his clothes with its chill, , Eirun couldn't tamp down the worry that something had happened. She knew the protocol. A small amount of lateness could be forgiven, but regrouping at the appointed time was nearly sacred. Especially to him. So off he went, stepping carefully through the sand under the moon and the stars, searching for any hint of her footsteps that the wind hadn't already erased. Each minute where no trace could be found despite knowing that she had gone that way added to the panic building behind his emotional control. Her name bubbled up behind his lips, ready to burst out for any answer from her, but he bit it back. Yelling was never a good idea in an area like this.
His silent and increasingly frantic search continued, self-control slowly fraying.
It lasted until the horizon teased him with hints of the coming sun. "Lyra!" Eirun's voice shattered the silence in a frantic cry, centuries of silence crumbling to dust in an instant. The echo of her name faded, no response forthcoming, and a knot formed in his throat, making both breath and sound difficult. His footsteps crunched across the sand, pace increasing until they made a frantic beat as he ran across the dune, evidence of his own passing fading away within moments.
Then he saw it.
The hint of a spire sticking up out of the endless sand. A rope tied to it and disappearing into a crevice next to it. He scrambled to a stop on his knees, leaning down and peering in. "Lyra?" he called again. He held his breath, heart thundering in his ears, every sense straining for any response.
"...stuck. Can't quite–" Lyra's voice floated up from the darkness, a balm to his panicked soul. She was still okay–well, maybe not okay yet, but she was alive, and he could work with that. His thundering heart settled, breaths coming more slowly as he sat back and took stock of the situation. The spire seemed solid enough, Lyra's rope attached with solid knotwork. Sand trickled into the crevice where the rope led, though, and Eirun couldn't tell how deep or how much space Lyra had to work with. He was grateful he wouldn't need to worry about lowering a light for her to see. The mixed heritage that had been a connecting point in the beginning had its benefits.
Leaning his face close to the crevice with careful precision, he spoke again. "What is the situation down there?"
"The sand shifted, and so did the structure. I can't–" a pause and what might have been a grunt–"I can't get past this pillar any more. The rope is just past it." Though he couldn't hear her voice well, the frustration was clear and he knew how her brow must be furrowed.
"How deep?"
A long, sheepish silence before her guilty answer. "Seventy-five feet, give or take." Thrice the distance they had long ago set in their protocol as requiring the other to be present to descend. Eirun set aside his irritation. There would be time later to scold her.
Still, his voice held a note of censure in his next question. "Any company down there?" Her answer in the negative gave a small measure of relief. He would not have enjoyed staging a rescue from both enemies and environment, though he had managed it before. The slowly brightening sky above gave Eirun more light to peer down into the crevice. Still not enough to see all the way down himself. "What kind of structure does it seem to be?"
"A temple! For Selune, no less." Despite being stuck seventy-five feet below the sandy surface, despite knowing he would be giving her a lively scolding after, excitement bubbled up from Lyra's voice, and Eirun's face softened a little bit. "I think it might have been the biggest place here in Selunarra. It's exactly what I was looking for. There isn't much accessible, though. Just this hallway, and a small chamber a little farther, I think. Most everything else collapsed. Now that you've found me, give me just a minute."
"Lyra? Lyra!" Leave it to her to stay bound in a dangerous situation to explore a little more, for the sake of discoveries. He took the time (an eternity) to examine the crevice more carefully. His broad shoulders would have a hard time fitting through, although he was confident he could do it. He wasn't sure that digging to widen the crevice would work–it might trigger a sandfall into the crevice and then Lyra would be buried. He couldn't see many options other than those two, however, and carefully brushed sand back from the edge of the crevice. He had cleared a decent space when her voice floated back up with delight.
"Eirun! It wasn't empty, I found something! I can't wait to show you!" Her excitement faded into thoughtfulness. "I think… Can you send something down I can use to make some space around this pillar? I might be able to slide past it with a little more space." Her voice turned sheepish once more. "My knife must have slipped from its holster somewhere along the way."
Eirun's green eyes turned up to brightening heavens in exasperation before he pulled his pack off of his back. This was why he always carried extras of certain things. It never failed that at a critical moment, Lyra would have lost something that might have helped. She was hopeless. He pulled the extra knife out of the pocket he packed exclusively with extras for her. "I'll tie it to the rope and see if I can swing it within your reach."
"You're the best, Eirun."
Maintaining slow and careful movements to avoid upsetting the balance of sand around the crevice, Eirun did as promised. He pulled the rope up, secured the knife in a cloth before tying it to the end, and lowered it back down. Using Lyra as a navigator for which way to swing the rope, he delivered the knife to her. Now her fate was back in her hands. Small clangs and the sound of the knife chipping away at stone echoed up, occasional exchanges made between the two as assurances. Sweat dripped down the back of Eirun's neck, sun blazing down upon him, by the time Lyra's triumphant voice rang up. "Got it. Now I can just–" her voice faded into grunts and indecipherable mutterings before a triumphant laugh. "I made it! Let me get secure, and then I'll be on my way up."
Eirun's mouth split into a grin. "I'll be waiting." Lyra's voice floated up as markers of her progress, and Eirun kept a close eye on the rope at its anchor on the spire and the sand by the crevice. His relief fractured at the sound of a crack and a puff of dust from the spire and a cry of surprise from Lyra, his reflexes roaring to life as he seized the rope in both hands and planted both feet solidly on the more intact base of the spire.
"What happened?"
The rough fiber of the rope burned against his hands with the friction of Lyra's weight, the spire no longer the main support. Eirun grunted with the effort, body straining to keep the rope anchored in place. "Just keep climbing, Lyra." He could feel every movement of hers now, every shift of her weight upward, as it became a fight for the rope between her weight and the grip of his hands. He twisted one hand around it for a more solid grip. "How much further?"
"Twen-twenty feet or so." Her voice became clearer as she came closer, her own labored breaths rising from the efforts of the climb.
Eirun's heel slipped, sand skidding beneath him as he scrambled to find another foothold against the ancient structure. As his body steadied against her weight on the rope, he felt a crack in the side of his hand. Damn. That would be a while in healing. His heart roared against the heat of the sun and the fear that bubbled up in his gut. The closer she came to getting out of there, the greater the danger if she fell. Hurry, hurry, hurry, chanted the thrumming energy in his veins and the burning in his hands. He held on with every fiber of his being, but the sand and the rope and the weight pulling against him all fought, and he wasn't sure he could continue winning much longer. The ragged sound of Lyra's breaths growing louder bolstered him, and he mustered the strength to keep on. "Almost?" He nearly groaned out the word.
"Almost!" came her answering cry. Her movements through the rope became bigger and bigger until he felt he could hold on no longer, and then like a vision from the heavens, her hands crested the crevice until her dusty face rose from the other side of the spire.
With a great heave gathered from every cell in his body, Eirun pulled her up the rest of the way with the help of gravity as he fell backwards. She stumbled forward with a cry of relief to land on her knees beside him, hands planted in the sand beside him. Covered in sandy dust from head to toe, dimming the luster of her hair and the glow of her skin, Lyra's bright blue eyes shimmered with excitement and gratitude as they met his. "Eirun, you'll never guess–"
He seized her with both arms and dragged her close, holding her and feeling the solidity of her body against his, a choked cry of relief finally working itself from the knot that had been stuck in his throat. "Never again. No treasure is worth losing you, Lyra. No more, please."
Lyra stilled before working her arms around his shoulders, giving him the time he needed, waiting until his thundering heartbeat had settled and his breaths were no longer ragged before lifting her head to meet his gaze again, her eyes filled with a mix of guilt, love, excitement, and apology. "I'm sorry, Eirun. Thank you." Her soft kiss conveyed everything her words didn't, resting upon his lips until he softened in return. "I could never have dared without you. Now," a mischievous gleam came to her eyes, "would you like to see the journal and amulet I found? I think they might actually have belonged to Lady Arilain."
Eirun dragged his hand down his face with a quiet sigh and did his best to tamp down his anxiety at her continued absence. If anyone could successfully navigate such derelict ruins as these safely, it would be Lyra. They had sunk months of research into every known crumble of knowledge about Selunarra after its fall, though it wasn't much, before they even began planning this foray. He still didn't know exactly what it was Lyra was searching for in this forsaken place. Any questions he asked, she had deftly sidestepped and given a general, generic answer. He was certain she'd been more forthcoming with the Bedine in their negotiations to pass unmolested than she had with him. And yet, here he was anyway. The dunes of Anauroch, sand whispering and stars twinkling above in a mocking way. You'll find nothing here, they seemed to laugh at him. You've wasted more than a year of your life because of her. He brushed that aside, focusing instead of any trace of her footprints. She'd been carefully searching and digging for any bit of remains, and he knew she was vigilant about any signs of phaerimm, so when she missed their set time to check in at sunset, he had been only marginally worried. She was one to lose track of time if she found something fascinating, and she knew how to handle a conflict.
His own search had been fruitless. No artifacts, no new building foundations they hadn't already canvassed together, nothing that would bring that gleam of excitement to Lyra's gaze. Now that the moon stared down at him with unrelenting fervor and the wind bit through his clothes with its chill, , Eirun couldn't tamp down the worry that something had happened. She knew the protocol. A small amount of lateness could be forgiven, but regrouping at the appointed time was nearly sacred. Especially to him. So off he went, stepping carefully through the sand under the moon and the stars, searching for any hint of her footsteps that the wind hadn't already erased. Each minute where no trace could be found despite knowing that she had gone that way added to the panic building behind his emotional control. Her name bubbled up behind his lips, ready to burst out for any answer from her, but he bit it back. Yelling was never a good idea in an area like this.
His silent and increasingly frantic search continued, self-control slowly fraying.
It lasted until the horizon teased him with hints of the coming sun. "Lyra!" Eirun's voice shattered the silence in a frantic cry, centuries of silence crumbling to dust in an instant. The echo of her name faded, no response forthcoming, and a knot formed in his throat, making both breath and sound difficult. His footsteps crunched across the sand, pace increasing until they made a frantic beat as he ran across the dune, evidence of his own passing fading away within moments.
Then he saw it.
The hint of a spire sticking up out of the endless sand. A rope tied to it and disappearing into a crevice next to it. He scrambled to a stop on his knees, leaning down and peering in. "Lyra?" he called again. He held his breath, heart thundering in his ears, every sense straining for any response.
"...stuck. Can't quite–" Lyra's voice floated up from the darkness, a balm to his panicked soul. She was still okay–well, maybe not okay yet, but she was alive, and he could work with that. His thundering heart settled, breaths coming more slowly as he sat back and took stock of the situation. The spire seemed solid enough, Lyra's rope attached with solid knotwork. Sand trickled into the crevice where the rope led, though, and Eirun couldn't tell how deep or how much space Lyra had to work with. He was grateful he wouldn't need to worry about lowering a light for her to see. The mixed heritage that had been a connecting point in the beginning had its benefits.
Leaning his face close to the crevice with careful precision, he spoke again. "What is the situation down there?"
"The sand shifted, and so did the structure. I can't–" a pause and what might have been a grunt–"I can't get past this pillar any more. The rope is just past it." Though he couldn't hear her voice well, the frustration was clear and he knew how her brow must be furrowed.
"How deep?"
A long, sheepish silence before her guilty answer. "Seventy-five feet, give or take." Thrice the distance they had long ago set in their protocol as requiring the other to be present to descend. Eirun set aside his irritation. There would be time later to scold her.
Still, his voice held a note of censure in his next question. "Any company down there?" Her answer in the negative gave a small measure of relief. He would not have enjoyed staging a rescue from both enemies and environment, though he had managed it before. The slowly brightening sky above gave Eirun more light to peer down into the crevice. Still not enough to see all the way down himself. "What kind of structure does it seem to be?"
"A temple! For Selune, no less." Despite being stuck seventy-five feet below the sandy surface, despite knowing he would be giving her a lively scolding after, excitement bubbled up from Lyra's voice, and Eirun's face softened a little bit. "I think it might have been the biggest place here in Selunarra. It's exactly what I was looking for. There isn't much accessible, though. Just this hallway, and a small chamber a little farther, I think. Most everything else collapsed. Now that you've found me, give me just a minute."
"Lyra? Lyra!" Leave it to her to stay bound in a dangerous situation to explore a little more, for the sake of discoveries. He took the time (an eternity) to examine the crevice more carefully. His broad shoulders would have a hard time fitting through, although he was confident he could do it. He wasn't sure that digging to widen the crevice would work–it might trigger a sandfall into the crevice and then Lyra would be buried. He couldn't see many options other than those two, however, and carefully brushed sand back from the edge of the crevice. He had cleared a decent space when her voice floated back up with delight.
"Eirun! It wasn't empty, I found something! I can't wait to show you!" Her excitement faded into thoughtfulness. "I think… Can you send something down I can use to make some space around this pillar? I might be able to slide past it with a little more space." Her voice turned sheepish once more. "My knife must have slipped from its holster somewhere along the way."
Eirun's green eyes turned up to brightening heavens in exasperation before he pulled his pack off of his back. This was why he always carried extras of certain things. It never failed that at a critical moment, Lyra would have lost something that might have helped. She was hopeless. He pulled the extra knife out of the pocket he packed exclusively with extras for her. "I'll tie it to the rope and see if I can swing it within your reach."
"You're the best, Eirun."
Maintaining slow and careful movements to avoid upsetting the balance of sand around the crevice, Eirun did as promised. He pulled the rope up, secured the knife in a cloth before tying it to the end, and lowered it back down. Using Lyra as a navigator for which way to swing the rope, he delivered the knife to her. Now her fate was back in her hands. Small clangs and the sound of the knife chipping away at stone echoed up, occasional exchanges made between the two as assurances. Sweat dripped down the back of Eirun's neck, sun blazing down upon him, by the time Lyra's triumphant voice rang up. "Got it. Now I can just–" her voice faded into grunts and indecipherable mutterings before a triumphant laugh. "I made it! Let me get secure, and then I'll be on my way up."
Eirun's mouth split into a grin. "I'll be waiting." Lyra's voice floated up as markers of her progress, and Eirun kept a close eye on the rope at its anchor on the spire and the sand by the crevice. His relief fractured at the sound of a crack and a puff of dust from the spire and a cry of surprise from Lyra, his reflexes roaring to life as he seized the rope in both hands and planted both feet solidly on the more intact base of the spire.
"What happened?"
The rough fiber of the rope burned against his hands with the friction of Lyra's weight, the spire no longer the main support. Eirun grunted with the effort, body straining to keep the rope anchored in place. "Just keep climbing, Lyra." He could feel every movement of hers now, every shift of her weight upward, as it became a fight for the rope between her weight and the grip of his hands. He twisted one hand around it for a more solid grip. "How much further?"
"Twen-twenty feet or so." Her voice became clearer as she came closer, her own labored breaths rising from the efforts of the climb.
Eirun's heel slipped, sand skidding beneath him as he scrambled to find another foothold against the ancient structure. As his body steadied against her weight on the rope, he felt a crack in the side of his hand. Damn. That would be a while in healing. His heart roared against the heat of the sun and the fear that bubbled up in his gut. The closer she came to getting out of there, the greater the danger if she fell. Hurry, hurry, hurry, chanted the thrumming energy in his veins and the burning in his hands. He held on with every fiber of his being, but the sand and the rope and the weight pulling against him all fought, and he wasn't sure he could continue winning much longer. The ragged sound of Lyra's breaths growing louder bolstered him, and he mustered the strength to keep on. "Almost?" He nearly groaned out the word.
"Almost!" came her answering cry. Her movements through the rope became bigger and bigger until he felt he could hold on no longer, and then like a vision from the heavens, her hands crested the crevice until her dusty face rose from the other side of the spire.
With a great heave gathered from every cell in his body, Eirun pulled her up the rest of the way with the help of gravity as he fell backwards. She stumbled forward with a cry of relief to land on her knees beside him, hands planted in the sand beside him. Covered in sandy dust from head to toe, dimming the luster of her hair and the glow of her skin, Lyra's bright blue eyes shimmered with excitement and gratitude as they met his. "Eirun, you'll never guess–"
He seized her with both arms and dragged her close, holding her and feeling the solidity of her body against his, a choked cry of relief finally working itself from the knot that had been stuck in his throat. "Never again. No treasure is worth losing you, Lyra. No more, please."
Lyra stilled before working her arms around his shoulders, giving him the time he needed, waiting until his thundering heartbeat had settled and his breaths were no longer ragged before lifting her head to meet his gaze again, her eyes filled with a mix of guilt, love, excitement, and apology. "I'm sorry, Eirun. Thank you." Her soft kiss conveyed everything her words didn't, resting upon his lips until he softened in return. "I could never have dared without you. Now," a mischievous gleam came to her eyes, "would you like to see the journal and amulet I found? I think they might actually have belonged to Lady Arilain."