Chapter 7 - Connections

The cave twisted and turned, and though it got darker the deeper they went, there were plenty of glowing crystals to light the way. At the end, the cave opened into a massive cavern.

Rayne paused when she saw it. It was like the whole top of the mountain was hollow. The cavern arced up into a jagged point far above their heads, the stone roof held up by spiraling stone pillars.

Rolling hills of gold and jewels filled every square inch of the cavern, their shiny polish reflecting beams of crystal light like a kaleidoscope.

“Holy cow.” David whistled. “Dude, this place is crazy.”

“Think of all the donuts we could buy with this.” Dustbunny gaped.

“That’s a lot of donuts,” David agreed.

As Rayne glanced over the seemingly infinite amount of treasure, something on the wall to her left caught her attention. She adjusted her glasses, and her boots clinked over gold coins as she stepped forward, eyes widening when she realized what it was.

“Come look at this,” Rayne said, gesturing David over.

He and Dust waded toward her, and they fell silent.

Words were scratched into the wall.

WHERE ARE YOU

COME BACK

I’M SORRY

“The heck is this?” David frowned, his fingers tracing the scratched and broken words.

“Who do you think wrote it?” Dustbunny asked, looking up to David.

“I don’t actually know.” David’s frown deepened. He looked around as if he might see someone else, but there was no one there, just them and the towers of treasure.

“Right, well, the way you say it makes it sound like you’re supposed to know everything,” Rayne said with a slight smile.

“I am,” he said with all seriousness.

Rayne rolled her eyes and left the words behind. But what did they mean? Was it possible that those words had been scratched into the wall after the cataclysm?

“So here’s what I do know,” David said, putting his hands on his hips as he surveyed the cavern. “It’s going to be a nightmare finding this little crystal of yours.”

Rayne pushed her glasses up on her nose and swallowed. He was right. The cavern was huge, and the dragon had had decades to accumulate whatever treasure had remained of the city and whatever it might have amassed elsewhere.

They continued weaving through the piles, and Rayne noticed it wasn’t just treasure that had been collected.

There were stone bricks, broken, worn with age, and stained with dead moss. There were pieces of cloth, forks and plates that were made of simple metals—not the things a riches-seeking dragon would ever want.

“Dragons collect what is important to them.” Rayne felt a small twinge of sympathy for the creature, even though it had tried to eat her. She knelt and picked up what looked like a child’s tunic, and underneath was a stuffed animal, nothing more than threads and faded fabric. 

“And Alkania was important to this one.” She dropped the stuffed animal and turned to face the rest of the cavern.

She was searching for a needle in a haystack. One teeny-tiny crystal in a cavern of thousands.

Rayne pressed her thumb to her lips, her mind racing, her eyes scanning the treasure for . . . for anything. 

What could she do? She looked up to the roof of the cavern, where there were several large glowing crystals. Her brow furrowed. She’d made a connection but wasn’t quite sure what it was.

Her eyes landed on David, a golden bowl on top of his head as he laughed with Dustbunny.

Wait. Dustbunny.

Rayne looked at his floating hands and feet, her eyes focusing on the small, almost invisible tether of magic that connected his limbs.

The connection.

“That’s it,” she whispered. “Wait, wait, that’s it, that’s it!” She pumped her fist in the air and began searching the ground around her.

“That’s what?” David asked, looking around with the bowl on his head. “What’s going on?”

Rayne reached down and grabbed a small accumulator. As soon as she touched it, she felt the hum. Her shoulders relaxed, her posture not Mother-approved.

For a moment, her mind went blank. She reveled in feeling her connection to the world around her. She could feel herself letting go.

The mountains of gold seemed to exhale and inhale, like they were breathing. The roof of the cavern started to stretch up and up until it was off into infinity. The smooth stone floor rippled with each step she took.

“Whoa . . .” Rayne shook her head, and she was back to herself, breathing hard, sweat beading her brow.

“You, uh, you okay?” David asked.

“Shut up.” Rayne closed her eyes and focused. She focused as hard as she could, because she knew it would work. It had to work.

She thought about the Oasis, about her grandfather’s sketch, about why she had chosen to go on this adventure in the first place.

That was when she felt it. It was like a tug, a notice in her mind to check her backpack. She felt an invisible tether to her grandfather’s journal.

“Okay, okay, that’s good,” she said to herself. She’d made a connection to the journal. She focused again on the Oasis, on its breaking, on just one tiny piece of it.

It took a moment, but Rayne began to feel a tug, like the pull of a river current. She was bracing against that current, but she needed it to lead her. She opened her eyes and took a step forward, keeping the spark in the forefront of her mind.

The current grew stronger, and Rayne let herself flow with it. She gripped the crystal, squeezing it so tight her knuckles were white. She moved deeper and deeper into the cavern. The guidance occasionally brought her to a wall of gold she couldn’t go around or climb over, so she had to move and refocus until it rerouted and she was back on her invisible path.

The closer she got, the stronger the connection became. Rayne rounded one of the large stone pillars, and then she saw it.

Against the back wall of the cavern was a pile of gold, and at the top was an ancient stone throne inlaid with silver, tattered blue fabric across its high back.

The tether glowed, leading from her hand up to the throne. The magic was so much deeper and stronger than what she held.

She’d found it. The spark was right there.

Rayne gasped out a laugh. Tears brimmed in her eyes, and excitement filled her chest. The laugh was one of relief, of mania, of success, because she’d done it. 

She had actually found the Oasis Spark.

Then the dragon roared.

Rayne had half a second before Robert the Frost Dragon crashed through one of the massive stone pillars. The pillar broke into a hundred boulder-size chunks that began to rain down upon her.

Rayne screamed and sprinted away. The stones smashed down around her, splashing in the gold like it was water and sending waves of treasure right toward her.

One of the pillar chunks crashed right next to her, and it broke into a thousand smaller pieces that pelted her body. She was hit in the arm, the leg, and the torso several times before she fell to the floor.

“Maralyn!” David yelled as he ran into the fray.

Beside him, Robert crouched like a tiger, his eyes and chest glowing that icy-blue color, fog pouring out of his nostrils and washing across the floor. On his shoulders were deep red gashes where the metal of the plane had cut into his scales.