The Hammer - Cor Series Book I

Chapter 19

"Breathe, sir, please breathe. You are the Cor-Van, and you must live to set the Cor free."

Tsarek's voice was hollow and distant. His body was heavy and unresponsive.

"Without you, the Kate will die." The lizard rocked Corvan's body harder and pushed him onto his side.

Water gurgled from the side of his mouth, but he couldn't pull in a breath. His heart fluttered, his body arched, and he coughed out streams of brackish water. Corvan managed to push up off the ground while gasping for air between bouts of retching and gagging.

"Thank you, sir, thank you." Tsarek was patting his head.

Finally, Corvan managed to raise to a sitting position and choke out a few words between coughs. "What ... happened? What ... was that?"

"I think it is an offspring from the great water creature in the Cor, the Volisk. This one's arms were very long but smaller and easy to burn through. Even a fire stick is no match for the body of a large one." He pointed to where a floating fire stick was casting its bubbling glow through the water.

"Was it your stick that I saw under the water?" Corvan fell into another fit of coughing.

"Yes. They burn well under water." He dropped the pair of unlit ones and waded out to retrieve the glowing one in the water.

A long, white tentacle rose to the surface. Tsarek gave it a poke with the burning end of the fire stick. The arm of the creature twitched horribly, and the lizard sprinted for the shore.

Corvan heaved up water until his ribs and stomach ached.

"I burned through many of its arms, but they just kept coming," Tsarek said as he was pushing the glowing fire stick in a crack in the floor. "It was not until we came to this pool that I finally burned through that last one and it let you go." Tsarek looked over his shoulder. "I just wish I knew where we are now."

Corvan hunched over and was suppressing a new coughing fit as he checked out their surroundings. They were in a new cavern, one with a high ceiling and deep black walls. The pool was long and narrow, and there was no water coming in or going out. The surface was as smooth as a mirror. The limp arm of the water monster reflected in the shallows.

Tsarek looked at him. "I believe we are still in the labyrinth, but I am not sure how to locate the next opening or if the Kate is even nearby. I do not even know which level we are on or how many entries we skipped. This is not good, not good at all."

The air was much cooler, and Corvan shivered with cold, and fear. Would the rest of this adventure be this dangerous? They had just started out, and already he had nearly drowned.

"Oh, sir, I forgot you humans cannot tolerate the cold. I heard your mother say you might catch your death of cold." He pressed his smooth, chilly nose up against Corvan's cheek. "Are you dying?"

Corvan tried to answer, but his teeth chattered too much to talk.

"You must not die. I shall get you warm." He jumped over to Corvan's pack and yanked the top open. A clump of soggy clothes came free along with the slingshot. Tsarek tossed them to one side and dug deeper into the pack. "Here is something that is still dry." He shook out the gray cloth from the chest and the fireworks tumbled to the ground.

Tsarek let out a long hiss as he lifted the cloth and stared at it with wide eyes. "Only the master had one of these. He used it, so he could walk undetected through the Cor." He turned to Corvan. "When you wear it, others see it for whatever is in their mind or whatever surrounds you. Did it belong to your past-father?"

"Wear it?" Corvan leaned closer and touched the fabric.

"Of course," Tsarek stated. "That is why it has a hood and buttons, like the yellow rain jacket you sometimes wore."