Dak And Stell/The Travelers Trilogies

1.23 The Crossing

I pushed Stell forward and yelled, "keep running," to him. Every time I put up a wall, they would crawl up and over. They were coming up the sides of the chasm. If we didn't do something, we would be killed by these spider-like things.

We had made our way to the entrance of the Diamond Divide Chasm pass just before dark. Xalmia didn't think we should be this close to the chasm this close to nightfall, but I told her I just wanted to see what we were working with and how wide the path was. After about 10 minutes of convincing, Xalmia finally yields, saying we would only take a look and not go in very far if I had only listened to her.

Once we got up to the chasm past, I found it hard to believe that she was so scared of the place. Purple and blue crystals rose from the sides of the pass, and we could see more crystals sparkling across the chasm as the fading sunlight caught them. It made colors dance back across the upper walls of the pass, but when I looked down, it was nothing but blackness. We hadn't walked down the path more than 50 feet when Xalmia started pulling on my sleeve.

"Do you hear that," She sent to me. It almost startled me considering how long it had been since we used this way to speak. I stopped and strained my ears to try and hear what she was. It was a low clicking sound, almost like two pieces of glass touching.

I turned left to look down into the chasm and drew in a sharp breath. Up the side of the chasm were what it looked like to be about thirty glass spider-like creatures crawling up the glass like chasm face. They had three legs on each side, and they each looked like two crystals attached at the ends and then attache to a round multifaceted gem. They had six small diamond-like glowing red eyes. Eyes were staring up hungrily as they climbed towards us, crystal mandibles clicking menacingly.

"Go back!" I yelled to them, but as I turned around to go back, I noticed that they had been waiting, and ten more were already blocking our exit. Stell had just thrown a spider off the side, and I could see rock slowly coving his body, swearing he turned to me.

"We have to keep going. We have no choice now, Dak run!" He said as he grabbed Xalmia under his arm with Silk spinning around his head, squealing. Once Stell and the other passed me, his footsteps now crunching any spiders that go in his way, I threw up a wall to block the spiders and followed them. I looked back as we ran, but the spiders had just climbed over the wall and were still pursuing us.

"If we run, how long will it take us?" I asked Xalmia as she bounced up Stell's arm.

"3 to 4 hours at least, it takes a full day to cross when you were careful," she said to me, wincing as Stell landed after jumping clear of the spider in front of him. Behind him, I had created a marble cyclone and tossed it to the right of the spiders ahead of me. Then once I released the sphere, a small twister formed sideways and sent the spiders tumbling down the chasm.

We had already been running for an hour, and it was almost pitch black in the pass. I wasn't sure how much more of the constant running we would be able to do at this rate, and those spiders get smart and get ahead of us, then we are in trouble. Then, we came to an abrupt stop. In front of us, our worst fears came true.

More spiders then I could count lay ahead of us, crawling towards us over top of one another. The raced towards us from all sides, and I looked towards Stell.

"Do you have a plan?" I asked him, and he grunted, motioning towards Xalmia. I could see Silk clutching tightly to his ear, and I through up a wall on each side of us to slow down the advancing spiders. I looked back at Stell, and the color drained from my face.

Stell had backed up tight against the wall and now had Xalmia in a better grip, and she was clutching him the same way Silk was. Oh no, I thought, this doesn't look good, and last time I checked, there were no spells we knew of that made us fly. Stell just smiled at me, shrugged, and ran at me full tilt.

I tried to yell, "stop," but never got the words past my lips before they were forced out of me as Stell came crashing into me, wrapping his other arm around me. We flew out into the chasm, sailing threw the air towards the other side that was way too far away for us ever to hope to reach, and we began to fall. I tried to scream, but I had no air left in my lungs to use, and I couldn't seem to suck any air.

We fell for what seem to be hours, but I'm sure it was only second. Then everything slowed down, and I began to hear a beautiful melody. It felt like something was pushing against us slowing our descent. I opened my eyes to see Xalmia's eye and pendant glowing an ocean blue.

"Honestly thought we were going to die there," I said after catching my breath as we floated done.

Soon we reached to the bottom of the chasm, and it was pitch black, but there were no signs of the spiders that had chased us up top. Silk's wings seemed to light up the area slowly as my eyes got used to the dim light. I looked around and started to hear the clicking sound coming from above. When you think that surviving a 200-foot drop and being swarmed by glass spiders was a remarkable feat, you end up running blindly into more danger. Could this night get any worse?