Abyssal (ManxMan)

Cave of Wonders

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Cave of Wonders

That night, the servants retired to their rooms and the guards stationed themselves in front of the East Wing's entrance as usual. Kai lay in his bed in complete darkness and stared up at the jellyfish on the ceiling, waiting.

As he lay waiting for General Ryodan to make an appearance, he replayed his meeting with his uncle, the Regent King in his mind for the tenth time. His words kept repeating in his head;

There are those in my court who covet the Spirit's power for themselves.

The Spirit has dwelled in Astria's royal bloodline for eons, which makes it synonymous with being king. Those who want the power also mean to sit on Astria's throne.

He felt like the Holy Grail. He certainly felt equally-coveted. He wasn't just the red X-mark on the map; he was the map and the treasure.

Siren bells had gone off in his head since the moment Zolban declared him the single most wanted entity in all the oceans, seas, ponds, lakes and puddles.

Inside, he'd feared that, even if he did find a way back home, he and his mother would not be safe. They'd surely come for them. Because why wouldn't they? His life of languishing his days away at the Turkish coast were officially gone. Now that merpeople like Marius knew he existed, he doubted he'd be safe anywhere. And as long as he was a risk, he put his mother at risk too.

Damn it all to Hell. How could he ever sleep again?

Ryodan finally appeared.

He rose from the bed. The General was dressed not in his customary steel-plated armor, but in a dark tunic and robes. Gone were the heavy boots and the less than subtle clinking armor. Clearly, he meant to make their trip as clandestine as possible.

Kai sincerely hoped he'd found an ally -at least temporarily- in the General. He certainly needed all the help he could get.

"Ready?" The General regarded him through unreadable eyes.

"Ready." He nodded. He wasn't just ready, he was also excited.

Ryodan reached into his tunic and extracted a red jewel the size of a grape. He tossed it in the middle of the room. It started crackling the moment it hit the floor, red electricity sizzling out of it into the air, and then the jewel burst and the crackling was gone.

"Was that it?" Kai asked, unable to conceal his disappointment.

"Wait for it."

A swirling portal appeared out of thin air right where the jewel had been. It stood upright facing them like a mirror that did not reflect.

He'd been wondering how they were going to leave the heavily-guarded palace. At some point, he'd imagined that the General knew some secret tunnels and passages that could get them out of it.

"Nice. Can I have some of those jewels?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It requires extensive magical training for you to even activate them. One mistake and you'll find yourself inside a volcano, or in a black hole."

"Something tells me I'm good with magic. Why don't you try me?"

Ryodan smiled. "Not today, my Prince. Let's go."

He followed him into the portal, and closed his eyes as he was about to walk through it.

Kai couldn't help but remember the first time he went through a portal. He hadn't walked through it willingly, for one. Marius had forced him into it, and he'd woken in the cage afterward.

It felt like passing through a sheet of water that didn't give any resistance.

When next he opened his eyes, he was standing inside a cave whose walls were covered in green and blue bioluminescent fungi. It was not an underwater cave, but it did have a waterfall running through it, except...

"Damn, did I fall unconscious when going through the portal again?" Kai grunted, annoyed at his own weakness.

Ryodan looked at him strangely, who had been standing waiting for him on the other side. "What are you talking about?" He arched a questioning eyebrow at him.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

Ryodan frowned in puzzlement.

Kai pointed at the waterfall. "Look, the waterfall is... going in the wrong direction."

Instead of downward, the waterfall was going upward until it touched the cave's ceiling and still it flowed, defying the very laws of physics. Kai stared at his dumbfounded reflection in the stream as it cascaded right above him.

He spotted something moving in the water.

He narrowed his eyes.

It was a variety of blind cave fish he'd seen in one National Geographic documentary or another.

It seemed that the longer he spent in this new world, the more outlandish his dreams became.

"You're awake." Ryodan said, his tone matter-of-factly.

"Well, then." Kai said, eyeing the waterfall with renewed wonder and fascination. "How does that even work? I'm pretty sure gravity exists at the bottom of the ocean as well."

"This cave is special. Your laws of physics do not apply here." Ryodan informed him.

Kai heard the unmistakable note of disdain at the word 'your'. Your, as in humanity's laws of physics. It seemed that Ryodan too was prejudiced against humans, like the rest of his kind.

It irritated Kai, this continuous contempt and scorn. Had Ryodan even met a human -and a full-fledged-human before?

"They're not our laws of physics. They're the world's. We didn't just make them up; they've always been here long before we existed."

"Ah, but you're forgetting that this world is not like the one you lived in."

After a moment of consideration, Kai conceded, "Yeah, you're right. This place is nothing like home."

"This is your home-"

"Yeah, yeah." The young prince said dismissively.

Ryodan considered Kai, noted his reluctance to accept that Astria was his home now, then said, "We will have to do something about this denial phase you're in."

Kai glared at Ryodan. He'd made it sound as if there was something wrong about him that needed fixing. Oh, how he longed to give him a piece of his mind, but he refrained. He'd at least meet this mentor first before his temper went and made an enemy out of Ryodan, seemingly his sole ally. "Let's just concentrate on getting to this mentor first."

Ryodan closed his eyes, looked away and said, "Very well. Follow."

And so Kai followed Ryodan deeper into the cave of wonders.