Undefined - The Zephyr Book 1 ? (completed)(#Wattys2016)

Chapter 34 - Syianne

Author's Note: Into the rabbit-hole we go!

34 - Syianne

Imagine outer space, except the stars are every possible colour. I'm as light as wind, drifting down and down in a gentle dream. It's too beautiful to understand. I want to take the earphone out of my ear and listen to the utter silence. I smile behind the Lightsilver mask.

"If you drift down like that you'll only get there tomorrow," Sagastus materialises next to me looking impatient. "I haven't got all day. Hurry down."

I feel puzzled, I look at him, but with his face covered and his goggles on, he's not as threatening as he usually is, "How?" I ask.

"Will it," he says, plummeting down like a rocket. I look after him, still floating gently and enjoying every moment. But I shake my head, I can't allow myself to dilly-dally while I'm supposed to be doing something else.

I guess this isn't quite the Zephyr yet. I imagine I'm a stone, falling through swampy water, I look down and see nothing but colourful lights on a black background, as I begin speeding towards them. I imagine I'm an arrow, going straight and directly towards Sagastus. I feel the pull of the wire attached to the front of my body; I try to will more speed, thinking I'm a rail-car, thinking I'm a train.

My feet meet something firm, but not hard. The lights are bigger now, the size of people's heads, and they huff and hum all about me, floating everywhere. I look down and see nothing but black.

"Come, this way." Sagastus says. Which way? There are no ways, no paths, just these lights. I reach out to a nearby light, but it slips away keeping just outside my reach.

"Those are wraiths, just echoes of power — this is the Observation layer, it teaches us of things underneath."

"Are we going deeper?"

"Yes, but not from here, it will be difficult for you to pass to the next layer from here. Follow me."

Suddenly, there is a path, he walks and the lights move aside. It feels strange to walk on something that isn't even a floor. "What are we stepping on?"

"We're walking on top of the layer under us," he says this as if it should have been obvious to me.

"Is it like oil on water?" I try to sound smart.

"Yes, the bigger the power, the heavier it is, the lower it sinks. We do not know how deep the Zephyr goes, no one has ever seen the end of it. Many have tried, never to return."

I think that maybe somewhere down there the people taken by the Zephyr are still alive. I know better than to mention the missing people now. We were already warned that the biggest superstition around this place is to talk about the Zephyr taking people while within the Zephyr.

As we walk, the wraiths become more and more scarce. They become bigger and are shaped differently, until finally we're walking mostly in the velvety blackness, passing the occasional solitary wraith that spins on its spot and is as large as a human being. There are long expanses of darkness between wraiths, but even though there is no source of light, I can see clearly before me.

I suddenly notice a large cluster of wraiths, of all sizes and shapes. They're crowding around two Jewels in silvery suits walking ahead of us. "Why are the wraiths acting that way?"

"Power is attracted to irregularities; they brought in something that is usually not brought in."

One of them turns his head to look at the other; I recognise the profile, "Cello!" I call.