Previously on Hidden Fragments…
After surviving the storm, Calen and Magdalena finally spot the hidden island of Lumenreach. Using the lighthouse and an old watch-post as landmarks, they prepare for the dangerous sea journey ahead. Though fear grips him, Calen is encouraged by Magdalena’s unwavering faith that God will guide him.
Meanwhile, Marisa, Vorren, Isola, and Grandfather face disaster when Tobin falls into a deep cavern. Refusing to abandon the boy, Vorren descends into the darkness despite the risks. Strengthened by Marisa’s prayer and wrestling with questions about God, he climbs deeper into the abyss. At last, he hears Tobin’s voice. The boy is alive but injured. Vorren must reach him before it is too late.
Chapter 44
The Way Beneath
Impressive and overwhelming…
The ocean stretched before Calen so vast; it almost hurt his eyes to follow it to the horizon. What lay beyond, he did not know. The God of the Scrolls did, and that was enough. Calen was more than content he did not have to sail that far. Lumenreach did not seem too far away.
From what he had seen the night before, he reckoned they could reach their destination within half an hour of clear sailing.
Thankfully, he was not the one in charge.
That task belonged to Alaric.
The day after the storm, Calen had finished copying the Scroll of Isaiah, while Magdalena went into town to find help among the believers. Alaric had answered the call without hesitation. After a single glance at Magdalena’s small sailboat, he had clicked his tongue and nodded in approval.
“That will do,” he said as he affectionately patted the stern of the Emberwake, the name that was carved into the wood. “Surely, the Emberwake will bring us the Scroll of Genesis.”
“Strange name,” Calen had replied.
“Not so strange,” Alaric said. “She’s carries more than cargo. She’s carries hope.”
Now Alaric sat at the stern, one hand firm on the tiller, his eyes fixed on the shifting water ahead. He had shown Calen a few simple tasks, but as they pushed farther from shore, the work grew more demanding.
The wind intensified.
Salt spray crashed over the bow as the sloop cut through the rising swell.
“Raise the sail!” Alaric shouted.
Calen hurried to obey, fumbling only slightly as he worked the lines, hoping he had understood correctly. A quick glance from Alaric told him, he had.
Before they had set out, Calen had given him their course.
“Draw a line from the lighthouse to the watch-post,” he had said. “Follow that, and we’ll find Lumenreach.”
Alaric had nodded and now held them steady on that unseen path.
As far as Calen could tell, they were making good progress.
Calen looked ahead. Water everywhere. The lighthouse looked very different from here. Small and almost insignificant, but he could imagine what a comfort it would be for ships in a storm or at night.
A concerned cry from Alaric broke through his musings. “There’s a fog rolling in.”
Calen turned to look.
A strange sight it was. A low-hanging cloud, thick and foggy, seemed to be pushed forward as by an invisible hand and slowly drifted over the water toward them. Soon it would overtake them. Alaric would not be able to keep course.
Great, Calen thought. Just what we needed.
They had prayed before sailing out, the three of them: Alaric, Calen and Magdalena. A prayer for protection, but it appeared the prince of the power of the air hadn’t been listening.
“What do I do?” Calen cried out, trying not to panic.
“The anchor!” Alaric shouted back. “Throw it overboard before we lose our way.”
Of course.
Calen spun around and spotted the massive stone he had stubbed his toe against while climbing into the boat. He had meant to ask Alaric what the thing was for, but never had the chance. Thick rope had been wound tightly around it and was fastened to the mast.
Things were rapidly getting worse. The mist had reached them and swallowed the surrounding sea. They could barely see a few yards ahead.
That anchor had to go overboard.
Calen staggered toward the stone. It was the size of a watermelon, yet far heavier. He bent his knees, wrapped both arms around it, and strained.
The thing barely moved.
Alaric rushed to his side. “Together!”
With both of them heaving, the weight finally shifted. A moment later the stone slid over the edge and plunged into the dark water with a tremendous splash.
The rope hissed through Alaric’s hands and then suddenly jerked tight.
Alaric’s expression changed.
“Shallow,” he muttered.
He looked out into the fog, his face tense.
“Too shallow. We’re closer to the rocks of Lumenreach than I thought.”
“But we are… all right,” Calen whispered while rubbing his arms.
Alaric nodded. “For now, we are. But it will be difficult to reach Lumenreach. The water is too shallow. And look at all these rocks… I had not expected this.”
“What do we do now?” Calen asked, his voice unsteady.
Alaric shrugged. “We have to wait until the fog clears. And then…” He hesitated.
“Then what?”
“Then we turn back.”
Calen blinked. “Turn back? We can’t turn back. We have to find the Scroll of Genesis.”
Alaric gave him a doubtful look.
“It’s simple, Calen. It’s far too dangerous to continue. Honestly, it’s nothing short of a small miracle that this fog rolled in when it did. There are rocks here everywhere. I think God Himself has spared us from disaster.”
Alaric’s words sliced through Calen’s soul like a sharpened blade. Alaric knew the sea. He was an experienced sailor. After all, that was exactly why he had come along.
But… going back? So close to Lumenreach? Surely, they could not turn back at the very edge of success.
“But how are we supposed to ever retrieve the Scroll of Genesis?” he blurted out.
Alaric’s answer caught him completely off guard.
“Come on, Calen… how many more Scrolls do we need?”
“We need them all,” Calen argued back.
“Not at the cost of our lives,” Alaric snapped. “Be content with what we have. I’m out.”
Calen felt the strength drain from his legs. All the energy seemed to pour out of his body at once. He sank down onto the wooden bench inside the sloop and stared at Alaric in disbelief.
“But it’s my mission.”
Even to his own ears the words sounded weak and hollow.
“And it’s my mission to stay alive,” Alaric snapped back. “I have a wife and children, and they gain nothing if I drown and end up rotting on the seabed.”
Calen said nothing.
He stared upward through the fog toward the hidden heavens and whispered so softly that Alaric could not hear him.
“Lord, I can’t give up now. Please do something… a miracle. Even a small miracle would be enough.”
But what could God do?
Alaric was right. The water here was too shallow for safe sailing.
If only Marisa was here… or Elior. They would know what to do.
Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, he rejected it just as quickly. Nonsense. Only God could provide an answer, and he could not place his trust in human help, no matter how close Marisa and Elior were to God.
And so, the two men sat in silence for a long while, each lost in his own thoughts. The current tugged at the little boat, rocking it steadily back and forth, but thanks to the anchor, they remained safely in place.
Then the wind began to rise.
A cold breeze swept through Calen’s hair, and the sail flapped loudly overhead with sharp snapping sounds.
Alaric suddenly jumped to his feet.
“The wind,” he said, a spark of hope entering his voice. “The fog will clear quickly now.”
And he was right.
The mist slowly thinned until, before long, they could see ahead of them once more.
Nothing but water.
Miles upon miles of dark sea rolled onward in restless waves. Here and there a screeching seagull skimmed low over the surface, searching for fish, or perhaps hoping to snatch something from the discouraged sailors aboard the Emberwake. These birds could forget about that.
But when Calen looked more carefully, he saw more than the endless sea.
Scattered across the water, nearly invisible at first glance, thin black ridges of rock now broke through the waves.
Was that… Lumenreach?
“We’re turning back!” Alaric shouted. “Come on! Help me raise the anchor!”
As Alaric reached for the rope, Calen kept staring as the sight before him became clearer.
Less than fifty yards ahead, something rose above the waterline. He held his hand above his eyes so that he could see better.
“Come on, Calen,” Alaric hissed impatiently while pulling on the rope to retrieve the anchor. “Help me. What are you staring at?”
“There,” Calen whispered as he pointed into the distance.
Alaric let out a sigh and dropped the rope. “What?”
“Lumenreach,” he said. “It’s right there.”
Alaric followed Calen’s finger and froze. “By the depth of the Spirit…” he murmured. “So… it’s real after all.”
The tide had drawn back just enough to reveal a long, narrow ridge of stone cutting through the sea. Calen recognized the shape from when he had seen the shimmering outline the night before… He turned to Alaric, his heart pounding in his chest. “So close, Alaric. We can’t pass this up.”
Alaric stiffened. “How, Calen? I can’t sail there.”
“I’ll swim over there,” Calen said, hardly able to control his excitement. “Who knows, I might even be able to walk.”
“Swim?” Alaric cast him an incredulous stare.
“Of course,” Calen said. “Can’t you swim?”
Alaric did not answer. He just shook his head and looked down.
“There are treacherous currents here,” he said at last, while pointing at the water nearby. “You’ll be swept away.”
“Not if we tie a rope around my waist. If it goes wrong, you can always pull me back in.”
Alaric shook his head. “You are crazy,” he whispered softly, but Calen could see admiration in his eyes. It didn’t matter though, what Alaric thought or didn’t think. He needed to do this.
Magdalena’s husband had somehow reached Lumenreach too, in an effort to protect these precious words of God. He had done it, so there was no reason Calen could not do the same.
“Let’s do it,” he said with a grand smile. “I am ready.”
***
Vorren knew he was nearing the bottom of the shaft now. Carefully he lowered himself a little farther, searching with one foot for solid ground.
There.
His boot touched earth. Sand, by the feel of it. Relief flooded through him. He let go and dropped the last short distance, landing with a soft thud in loose sand.
It was dark down here too, yet not nearly as pitch-black as he had expected. Perhaps he simply saw unusually well in the darkness, but there was also a faint shimmer somewhere nearby, reflecting softly against the hard rock walls around him. Where the glow came from, he could not tell.
He looked around as best he could and spotted a miserable little heap lying on the ground, not far away.
Was that Tobin?
“Tobin?” he asked quietly. “Is that you?”
A foolish question.
Who else could it be?
Only soft sobbing answered him.
Vorren knelt beside the boy and gently placed a hand on Tobin’s head. “What happened?”
“I don’t really know,” Tobin whispered. “I was running with Pax and suddenly I was down here. My ankle hurts so bad.”
“Only your ankle?”
“Yes,” Tobin cried. “Really bad. My mother’s probably angry with me.”
“No, she isn’t,” Vorren said. “Worried, yes. Angry, no. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Carefully, he let his hands move over Tobin’s body, checking for injuries. As a soldier, he had seen enough broken men to know what to look for. But the moment his fingers brushed Tobin’s ankle, the boy screamed in pain.
“You’re hurting me!” Tobin wailed.
The ankle was badly swollen, thick and round, almost the size of the egg of a grey knobbed goose.
“Sorry,” Vorren muttered. “But as far as I can tell, nothing’s broken.”
“Then why does it hurt so much?” Tobin sniffled.
“You’ve sprained your ankle. Sometimes that hurts even worse than a break. You won’t be walking for a week, but after that you’ll be fine.”
“You really think so?”
“Absolutely,” Vorren replied. “You’re lucky to have escaped this so well. It could have ended far worse.”
Tobin’s voice still shook. “Do you think God helped me?”
The question struck Vorren like a blow.
“God? That… um… maybe you should ask Marisa. I don’t know.”
But Tobin sounded strangely certain now.
“No, I’m sure God protected me.”
“Oh?” Vorren said cautiously. “And how do you know that?”
“That’s just how it was,” Tobin answered simply. “When I fell, it felt like something was with me… like I was being carried. I wasn’t scared at all.”
Vorren frowned. “You still got hurt, though. Couldn’t God have stopped that too?”
“I don’t know,” Tobin replied, “but one thing I do know… I could’ve died. God must have protected me.”
Vorren slowly nodded.
There was little arguing against it.
Tobin looked upward, and Vorren followed his gaze. Far above them, the round opening to the outside world had shrunk to the size of a coin. It truly was miraculous that the boy had not broken anything. Sharp rocks lay everywhere, and somehow Tobin had landed on soft sand instead of jagged stone.
“I think I want to thank God,” Tobin said hesitantly,
“Perhaps,” Vorren said. “But you can do that later.” He pushed the thought of God aside again. Another problem demanded his attention now. “I am grateful you are fine, Tobin. But now we need to get out of here.”
“How?” Tobin asked.
Vorren did not answer. He did not know. Climbing back up while carrying Tobin would be a sheer impossibility.
Should he climb back up alone and fetch a rope?
No. Bad idea.
Climbing upward would be far harder than descending. He had nearly slipped on the way down already. Another mistake might leave him beside Tobin with more than a sprained ankle.
Then he noticed something.
Not far from them, a dim opening disappeared into more darkness.
A tunnel?
Vorren rose to his feet.
“I’m going to take a look around. Stay here.”
Even as he said it, he realized how absurd the words sounded. Tobin could barely move, let alone crawl away through this pit.
“Come back soon,” Tobin said nervously. “I don’t like it here.”
“Just looking,” Vorren replied. “It seems like there’s some sort of passage down here. Maybe there’s another way out.”
A faint current of air drifted from the tunnel.
Fresh air?
With cautious steps he entered the passage, trailing one hand along the cold, damp stone wall to guide himself safely forward.
Almost immediately he noticed that the tunnel sloped gently upward.
A few times his boots slammed painfully against hidden rocks, but otherwise the path proved surprisingly manageable.
Now and then he shouted back to Tobin to let him know he was still nearby. Tobin shouted back each time, his voice hoarse and uncertain, the echoes rattling through the cavern.
After several minutes of walking, Vorren suddenly felt no wall beside him anymore.
He stopped at once and stretched his hands through the darkness.
A crossroads.
Now he truly had to be careful. One wrong turn and he could easily lose himself forever in these underground passages.
At random, he took a few cautious steps straight ahead and soon found the tunnel continuing once more. Best to keep moving in a single direction. That way he would at least remember the path back.
“Everything all right?” he shouted again, though he was no longer certain Tobin could still hear him from this distance.
“I’m hungry!” Tobin’s faint voice echoed back.
Me too, Tobin. But we’ll just have to wait.
Tobin’s complaint sounded terribly far away now. Barely audible.
Still, the tunnel climbed upward.
Then, quite suddenly, the passage ended and opened into a much larger chamber.
Vorren froze.
A faint light shimmered in the distance.
What was that?
As he stepped farther inside, the air grew warmer. He must be nearing an exit now. And somehow it was not nearly as dark here either.
Careful not to lose sight of the tunnel entrance behind him, he moved forward slowly and looked around.
His heart began to pound.
For a moment, he forgot to breathe.
Before him lay a vast underground lake, perfectly still, its glasslike surface glowing with a strange and otherworldly light.
How could such a place exist?
Vorren stepped closer to the water’s edge.
An astonishing silence surrounded him, so complete it almost felt alive. This place felt untouched by the world above.
Then, far to his right, he spotted something else.
A light.
Small, but unmistakable.
An opening to the outside world.
His heart leaped.
The opening was close. Easily reachable.
He had found a way out.