Coming to a stop, they both dismount. He has Jiron stay close to him as he attempts to create a barrier around them to keep the storm out. Suddenly, all is calm as the dome springs into being, the sand and wind continue pelting the outer side of the dome. The dome extends fifteen feet in diameter and ten feet high.
“How long can you hold it?” Jiron asks, retaining tight hold of the frightened horses’ reins.
Considering it, James replies, “It was the initial construction that used the most magic. It’s drawing what I call maintenance magic now, just enough to keep it stable. Probably for quite a while.”
Jiron says, “Good.”
The horses are restless, but appear they’ll be okay. Jiron looks out at the swirling mass of sand and stones in awe. “Just what did you do?” he asks as he turns back to James.
“I thought I would make a dust storm to hide us in so we could escape,” he explains. “But when I cancelled the spell, it continued. It seems I inadvertently triggered something that was on the verge of happening anyway, though maybe not to this degree.” Indicating the storm outside, he says, “It’s probably situations like these that make people hate mages, or at least distrust them.”
Jiron nods his head and is about to reply when they hear a scream and turn to look as a man, at least they think it is, hits the side of the invisible dome. Most of the skin has been flayed from his bones by the storm. A ghastly appearance, they can see its skeletal mouth opening and closing and then it’s picked up again by the wind and disappears.
They look to each other, James feeling very bad about the whole thing. “I guess we’re not going to have to worry about pursuit when this is over,” Jiron states.
Trying to fight back nausea, James replies, “You’re probably right.” He looks out to the storm again and then says, “Maybe you should try to get some sleep, I don’t know how long this will last.”
“What about you?” he asks.
“I dare not fall asleep,” he replies. “The barrier might end.”
Jiron unconsciously looks out at the storm and nods his head. “Alright,” he says as he makes to lie down. “Though how I’m going to sleep in this is beyond me,” he states.
James sits there as the storm rages outside the dome. He realizes after a while that Jiron has finally managed to fall asleep and hears soft snores coming from him. As the day progresses, the storm continues in its intensity and as night comes, the light begins to fade.
Casting his glowing orb for light, he keeps it soft so as not to awaken Jiron. The horses finally settle down as they become use to the roar outside the dome. Sitting there with nothing to do as he maintains the domes integrity, he becomes bored and tired. He’s beginning to find it hard to stay awake. The events of the last few days and the continual draw of magic to keep the barrier up are starting to take its toll on him.
Getting to his feet, he paces around to keep himself awake and begins to sing songs from home. Some he knows in their entirety and others he gets through the first couple of verses before losing it. All through the night he stays on his feet, refusing to give in to the tiredness that’s making his eyes droop and voice start to slur.
Sometime near dawn, the storm finally begins to subside and quiet down. Jiron comes awake and sees James sitting there, head drooped down to his chest, asleep. Startled, he gets up and begins to go over and wake him up when he realizes the dome hadn’t collapsed with him falling asleep. It was covered completely with sand, light from the morning sun dimly filtering through.
Calming down, he sits back down and allows James time to sleep, knowing he has to be extremely tired after all he’s done the last couple of days. He only has to wait a short time before James awakens. He begins to panic when he realizes that he fell asleep. “Relax,” Jiron tells him reassuringly, “you’re spell didn’t fail.”
“Yes, it did,” he corrects him. “I no longer feel any drain used to maintain it.”
Gesturing to the dome around them, he asks, “Then how?”
Going over to the side of the dome, James examines it and says, “The storm has packed sand and dirt around us so tightly, that it held together when the dome failed.”
“You mean we’re buried under the sand?” Jiron asks incredulously.
“It would seem that way,” replies James.
“Incredible!” Jiron exclaims as he moves over to the dirt packed in around them. He touches the side and a small portion of the dirt comes loose. Then suddenly more begins to cascade down until the integrity of the entire dome fails and collapses down upon them, burying them in a foot of dirt and sand.
The horses panic as the dirt hits them and James cries out but quickly realizes that there’s really not that much dirt covering them.
When the dust clears, they see the morning sun just cresting the horizon. Looking around, James doesn’t find any sign of the man who had crashed into the side of the dome the night before, nor anyone else for that matter. From horizon to horizon, the land is barren, most of the plants are gone as well as a few of the trees. Of the trees that do remain, most are bent and broken.
Getting the horses out of the dirt and sand, they take stock of the situation. “I doubt if we’ll need to worry about encountering anyone for a while,” Jiron announces.
“Let’s hope not,” James agrees. “I’m getting worn out and need to lay off the magic for a day or two if possible.”
Jiron pats him on the back and smiles, “If we encounter anyone, we’ll ask them if we can fight tomorrow so you can rest, okay?”
“Very funny,” replies James as he gives him an annoyed look before breaking into a smile himself.
“We better get going,” Jiron says as he climbs into the saddle. “Even though the enemy we encountered yesterday may be scattered to the winds, there still could be others on their way, hunting for us.”
Mounting, James says, “I agree.”
“Should we go south for awhile?” suggests Jiron.
“Probably,” he agrees. “I’ll try to find him tomorrow, let’s just put some distance behind us for now.” With that, he kicks his horse into a gallop and they head off toward the south.
Chapter Twenty Four
As they follow the road leading down into the pit, they pass several wagons on their way back up. Miko and the others have to press close to the inner wall in order for the wagons to be able to make it by. He looks into the wagons as they pass and sees they’re filled with rocks. Once the wagons have passed, they resume their march down into the pit.
When they’ve descended to the point where they pass the point of direct sunlight, a sound of hammering comes to them from the depths. They continue down and begin passing by the mouths of other passages branching off into the rock from the road. At the third such branching Miko looks down and sees a group of slaves using pickaxes and hammers as they pound away at the rock.
It’s a mine!
The slaves then pick up and carry the rocks they remove from the wall over to a wagon standing nearby. Is this my fate? Am I to spend the rest of my life underground? Worse fates than this has coursed through his mind at various times since the fall of the City of Light.
They pass by many other branching passages as they continue to make their way down, most have groups of slaves working at removing the rock from the walls as had the earlier one. When they finally reach the bottom, they enter a long, wide tunnel leading off into the distance.
This tunnel looks more a continuation of the road than another offshoot, it’s wider than the others have been and has many tunnels branching off like veins from an artery. Spaced periodically along the tunnel are lanterns hanging from pegs in the wall to light the way. Empty wagons are spaced throughout the tunnel waiting to take the place of ones currently being filled. The horses of the empty wagon are removed and then hitched to the full one which is taken out of the pit.