When Forever Ends (Part 1: A Game of Chess)

XXV

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T w e n t y - F i v e

After being dragged through the halls for a few minutes, we eventually came to a small, round chamber that was, for the most part, pretty unimpressive. The red carpet led into it and made a ring around a circular metal plate in the center of the room. Seven, dim lights were spaced evenly around the plate, embedded in the floor and pointing to the ceiling. Directly above the circle, several metal pieces fit together in a spiral with a small hole at the center.

The guards pulled us over to the plate and dumped us in a heap on it, and I groaned in pain. They then stepped onto it themselves. Immediately, the door to the room hissed shut and the spiral above us separated, revealing a tunnel leading straight up. The platform began to rise up into the tunnel, slowly at first, then accelerating until the small red lights that lined the shaft zipped past in a blur.

Several times, my ears popped from the altitude gain. Pretty painfully, I might add, because we were ascending so quickly.

Soon enough, another spiral opened ahead of us and let in the sun's brilliant glare, as well as a few windblown grains of sand. When we reached the opening, the elevator slowed to a stop, the surface of the platform level with the top of the mountain we now found ourselves on. As my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I made out the Endless, stretching on in every direction as far as I could see. On one side of the mountain, I saw small buildings surrounded by a fence. This was the base we had discovered those many days ago, when we had first encountered Tarron. It was the only thing I could see on that side of the mountain, however, other than the desert, and the other side was far more interesting.

From this high point, I could now see within the circle of mountains, and what I saw took my breath away and made my jaw drop in astonishment. I'll just put it this way: It certainly lived up to the name I recalled seeing on the map of the Endless. It was Oasia.

Huge, green trees covered the basin like carpet. Birds sang and flitted through the trees happily. Streams ran from springs high in the mountain wall, chuckling softly as they trickled over stones through the forest. A lake filled with crystal clear water pooled in the center of the basin, filled by the streams. A light mist hung low over the lake and in the forest, diffusing all the forest smells and giving the air a sticky, moist quality. The desert heat seemed less prominent here, as a cool breeze washed over me. It was as it's name suggested: an oasis of beauty in the middle of the harshness of the Endless.

But standing in the middle of the lake, atop a small island, was a towering shape, almost as tall as the mountains surrounding it. It was so overgrown with moss and ivy that it was hard to tell what it was, but I could see that it had a pointy, streamlined shape. Interestingly enough, at the bottom of it was another one of the strange frame-like structures we had seen in the desert, just before meeting Erin. The structure and the tower seemed to go together, because the tower fit perfectly through the gap in the metal frame.

I sat there on the top of the mountain taking it all in, inhaling the cool air, and thinking that this was paradise, when my thoughts were interrupted by a rough yank on the chains around my wrists, accompanied by a sharp stab of pain where Tarron had slammed me against the ground.

"Move it, prisoners!" came the gruff voice of one of the guards. "We're losing daylight!"

At first, I thought that this made no sense, as we were at the bottom of the world and the sun never set there. But then I glanced over at the sun and noticed that it was indeed sinking closer to the horizon. It was already far lower in the sky than I had seen it in a while. Although, of course, I'd been locked in an underground cell for the past month.