Pandora's Box

Chapter 12: Part I

Several large slabs of stone had been torn free of the House of Sunset's floor leaving a gaping pit of black shadow. Pandora stood with the toes of her boots inched to the pit's edge. She stared into the dark and took a cautious breath as though she were afraid to wake the sleeping terror within. She gripped the pair of crystal spellcaster's wands in her hands. The twists of glass slid uneasily in her sweaty palms.

"You don't have to come with me," Pandora said, voice uneasy but not unsure. She understood full well the task awaiting her below.

Donovan yanked the climbing rope taut. "As if that could ever be true." He checked the knot he had cinched around one of the mausoleum's columns. At the pit's edge, he kicked a coil of rope over the side.

"My mother can't force you to come. You haven't even finished your first year at the Citadel, Novi." Pandora's chest tightened. "I've already caused enough trouble. Gods, Novi, people may die because of what I've done. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you down there."

"Hey. Look at me," Donovan said. He placed a hand on Pandora's shoulder and locked eyes. "I'm not going anywhere. You got that? Not anywhere."

And there it was.

A cocktail of hope and confidence ebbed into Pandora. She had never noticed it before, but realized it was how she always felt when Donovan was around. She knew as surely as the moon would always wax and wane that Donovan meant what he had said, that his word was his bond. And that it were unbreakable. He would follow her anywhere. Into blackness. Into fire.

Pandora clasped the hand resting upon her shoulder and smiled. "You better not." She let a sliver of will flower into her wands. A gentle, bluish light grew from a pinprick sized ember within each until they sibling crystals glowed as fierce as torches. Pandora glanced over the pit's edge.

"Shall we?"

Donovan smiled broadly, turned his back to the gaping hole and leaned against the rope. He let the line slide slowly through his gloves until he was set in a rappelling position.

Pandora watched as her closest friend descended slowly into the unseen. Gratitude swelled. She slipped into the same rappelling position, flexed at the knees, and hurried to catch up.

The glowing wands threads into Pandora's belt provided the only light during the descent. Deeper into the hole the air turned musty and foul. The princess felt the weight of dead centuries in the air pulling her down by the shoulders. An eternity passed. Only the sound of the stretching rope scraping against the rocky wall marked their progress. Her heart ticked a notch quicker as she hung there in the still black between the world of the living and domain of the dead.

"Novi..." At the edge of the wand's soft glow, Pandora saw only a faint outline of her companion working his way to the cavern beneath the House of Sunsets.

"Little busy here, Highness," Donovan said, grunting as he lowered himself.

"Just felt like I was a million miles away from everything."

Donovan held his position until the princess was within arm's reach. "Not everything."

The pair touched down ten silent minutes later. Pandora stretched her arms out, extending the wands while Donovan uncinched her climbing line. She sent another parcel of will into the wands, doubling their potency. The twin crystal's shone with the combined power of a bonfire. Donovan mockingly shielded his eyes.

"Be careful where you point those things, Pandi." Donovan shrugged his own rope off and drew a short sword from his belt. He eyed Pandora's wands suspiciously. She shrugged, cutting off the question before he could ask it.

"My mother gave them to me. She said I'd need every bit of power I could get my hands on."

Donovan nodded in agreement, but smirked. "Makes sense. Just make sure I'm behind you when you start with the fireworks."

"Horse's ass," Pandora replied. "Come on. My father has had more than enough of a head start and if we can't stop him before he resurrects the Dawn Splitter, the kingdom will be cinder and ash before anyone can help."

Pandora shuddered at the thought. The Dawn Splitter, the dragon once named Kasaadi, was a magnificent creature legend held was born from the sun itself. She had been instrumental in the defeat of Ahriman the Fallen and at the time of her passing had been laid to rest in a giant tomb above which the House of Sunsets would one day be built. Pandora's stomach turned at the notion that such a being could be corrupted by the same unholy darkness now occupying her father's body.

"This way. I remember, reading about the tomb's layout during lessons at Khamos."