1.03

Car­nelia Blaze­bright had seen worse.

Once, when she was sev­en, an earth­quake had top­pled the stat­ue perched atop the town hall, and the deaf­en­ing crash it caused echoed back and forth across the cav­ern for more than a minute straight. And on her thir­teenth birth­day, anoth­er earth­quake had rat­tled her birth­day cake straight off the counter it had been cool­ing on, delay­ing the par­ty for anoth­er two whole months while they wait­ed for the replace­ment ingre­di­ents to be deliv­ered. Giv­en those expe­ri­ences, a minute-long tremor with bare­ly enough pow­er to shake a few kitchen uten­sils was noth­ing remark­able.

Still, Car­nelia found it hard not to be unnerved. No mat­ter how far away from the fault lines Down­town had been carved, no mat­ter how calm the desert lands above them usu­al­ly were; a mil­lion tons of earth rum­bling right over one’s head was enough to strike fear into anyone’s heart. The only rea­son Car­nelia didn’t run for cov­er was because she was already in the safest spot in all of Down­town. Right below the Chute, the main entrance and exit to the cav­ern city.

If the cav­ern con­tain­ing Down­town real­ly did col­lapse--which it had­n’t for the count­less mil­len­nia since its cre­ation--Car­nelia had an infin­i­tes­i­mal chance of sur­vival where she cur­rent­ly sat. Which was a con­sid­er­able improve­ment over the nil odds she would have any­where else. For­tu­nate­ly, the earth­quake wound down with­out caus­ing an apoc­a­lyp­tic end to Down­town and things set­tled back down to the way things had always been around this place. Qui­et, and still.

Lay­ing back, Car­nelia watched the last rem­nants of loose dirt and sand shak­en free from the earth­quake drift down the Chute feel­ing filled with strange sense of mer­ry doom. Her smile was a lit­tle bit man­ic as they glint­ed gold against the dis­tant celestite-blue sky, swirling and scat­ter­ing along the air cur­rents of the cav­ern, until fell deep­er and deep­er into its shad­ows, slow­ly los­ing their live­li­ness.

This was her home.

Car­nelia breathed in the faint scent of desert air that had drift­ed in from the out­side. Here, in her home of qui­et, gray stone, the wind didn’t whis­per, the breeze didn’t play. The air sat stag­nant and still, drab as the lives of the elder­ly res­i­dents that lived with­in it.

But her hair wasn’t thin and gray­ing like theirs; it ran a rusty auburn col­or, streaked with vivid strands of cop­per. Her skin didn’t sag or have liv­er spots either; it was fresh and unblem­ished. And her eyes weren’t cloudy and rheumy; they shone with bright fire, like the pol­ished gem­stones of her name­sake.

Car­nelia was young, and with youth came dreams. So, as the dis­tant, mea­ger sun­light warmed her through the stiff bolero jack­et she wore, she squeezed the sil­ver coin neck­lace in her hand and dreamed. Dreamed about her real rea­son for skip­ping class.

The truth was, Car­nelia hadn’t come to this spot to save her­self from the earth­quake. That was a coin­ci­dence. Her real pur­pose today was to cel­e­brate the anniver­sary of her first brush with some­one from beyond the stone lim­its of Down­town; a woman who had res­cued her in the dark, unmapped cave sys­tem sur­round­ing the under­ground vil­lage. What she con­sid­ered her real and true birth­day.

She remem­bered their encounter like it had only hap­pened yes­ter­day.

The pri­mal fear that seized her entire body cap­tive as a cav­ern crawler slopped out of the shad­ows, heav­ing forth its cara­paced body in gross, undu­lat­ing motions.

The rever­ber­at­ing CRACK! as Corun, her res­cuer, sprang for­ward from out of nowhere and pierced the crea­ture’s shell with a swing of her steel rock pick.

The sting in her cheek as, after­ward, the ama­teur Chal­lenger lashed at her with hand and mouth for forc­ing her to kill an inno­cent crea­ture to pro­tect her.

Back then, the expe­ri­ence had sent Car­nelia flee­ing to her room where she spent the rest of the day hud­dled in bed in tears. Now, with time and per­spec­tive, Car­nelia trea­sured the mem­o­ry. It had opened her eyes to the width of the world.

The sil­ver Chal­lenger coin in her hand, with its four mir­rored C’s, served as a memen­to of that spe­cial day. Scratched and scarred by a thou­sand unknown adven­tures, it stood as a promise, for all the adven­ture and glo­ry wait­ing for her in the world above.

Fun­ny thing, though. Despite find­ing it on the same day she had met Corun, Car­nelia had long since fig­ured out that this par­tic­u­lar coin she pos­sessed did­n’t belong to her res­cuer.

Car­nelia dis­tinct­ly remem­bered a pris­tine steel Chal­lenger coin pinned on the woman’s vest, not this aged sil­ver one that she now pos­sessed. Grant­ed, the dif­fer­ence between those two met­als was hard for most peo­ple to spot, espe­cial­ly at a glance, but hav­ing grown up sur­round­ed by all vari­eties of rocks, min­er­als, and ores, Car­nelia was sure she hadn’t misiden­ti­fied them.

A steel Chal­lenger coin found with­out the offi­cial Guild badge was the mark of an ama­teur Chal­lenger. Some­one who had attempt­ed the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge but hadn’t passed. They pos­sessed the coin, but not the offi­cial card meant to hold it.

A sil­ver Chal­lenger coin found with­out the offi­cial Guild badge was… a mys­tery.

Not only did that mean the own­er of the coin was a bonafide Guild-con­tract­ed Chal­lenger, it also meant they were suc­cess­ful enough in their endeav­ors to achieve the sec­ond high­est rank avail­able with­in the Guild. Peo­ple like that didn’t just lose their Chal­lenger coins. Espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the incred­i­ble perks and access they’d be giv­ing up with­out it. They’d be treat­ed as a stan­dard mem­ber for a mis­take like that! So who could have pos­si­bly left some­thing this valu­able behind in a place so remote?

Car­nelia had her guess­es. But rather than waste any more time on point­less spec­u­la­tion, she want­ed to get out there and find answers. Up on the sur­face, where every­thing worth doing was hap­pen­ing with­out her.

There was only one obsta­cle remain­ing. One teen­sy, tiny thing.

She just had to con­vince her grand­fa­ther to let her go.

As she envi­sioned a kalei­do­scope of sce­nar­ios for the inevitable con­fronta­tion, her heart began to race faster than it had dur­ing the earth­quake. Would he shout at her, furi­ous that she had kept her plans from him for so long? Or laugh instead, assum­ing her dec­la­ra­tion was a poor joke? Or turn his shoul­der, deny­ing her his sup­port through silence?

Would he some­how make it so that all her plan­ning, prepa­ra­tion, and patience were going to be for naught?

Car­nelia didn’t know, but she wasn’t about to get cold feet. She couldn’t suf­fer anoth­er year, anoth­er month, anoth­er day, in this stuffy old place. This was a place for a bunch of eccen­tric retirees to frit­ter away their last few decades, not a place for a young girl to spend her best years--

“Aren’t you a lit­tle old to be skip­ping school?”

Much clos­er and clear­er than the dis­tant echoes of her neigh­bors check­ing on each oth­er, a grav­el­ly voice sound­ed behind her. Car­nelia jerked up. She turned to see the deeply creased face of a bald­ing, thick-waist­ed man as he stepped for­ward into the light cast down from the Chute, shield­ing his face with a cal­loused hand. A trail of stone dust streamed from his work apron as he regard­ed her.

The man’s name was Jeorr Agrashi, a semi-retired sculp­tor over sev­en decades old. And although he was tech­ni­cal­ly Carnelia’s legal­ly appoint­ed guardian, she pre­ferred to think of him as her grand­fa­ther.

“Gramps!”

Car­nelia sat up in both sur­prise and delight, but as the old man raised one of his unruly eye­brows, she remem­bered that she was sup­posed to be in class. She smoothed down her hair and adopt­ed a more appro­pri­ate­ly remorse­ful expres­sion.

“Sor­ry. I couldn’t stand being stuck in that tiny room today.”

Jeorr snort­ed agree­ably.

“Only nat­ur­al. Kids aren’t meant to be cooped up in a place like this. Scooch.”

Jeorr grunt­ed as he set­tled down beside her, adjust­ing his keis­ter sev­er­al times, to sit more com­fort­ably on the stone mosa­ic beneath them. Then he gave her a patic­u­lar­ly side­ways side­long glance.

“Still, it’s been a long time since you’ve skipped class like this, Car­nelia.”

“Has it?”

“Mm-hm. Last time must’ve been when you were five or six, remem­ber? Back in those days, we couldn’t keep you in class no mat­ter how hard we tried. You ran off so often those days that you had poor Miss Eleina think­ing she was such a bad teacher. She even came to me cry­ing, ask­ing me to find a replace­ment.”

“Cry­ing?” Car­nelia blinked in sur­prise. If there was one word that came to mind when she thought of her teacher, it was unruf­fled. She’d even thrown a sur­prise pie in her face once, and the woman had­n’t stopped lec­tur­ing. Car­nelia quite admired her unflap­pable com­po­sure.

Jeorr nod­ded seri­ous­ly. “That woman has spent her whole life rais­ing oth­er people’s chil­dren, Car­nelia. For her whole life. But you and your relent­less dis­re­gard for any­thing that wasn’t what you want­ed to do had her con­vinced she’d lost her touch in retire­ment. I’ve told you before, what’s the thing peo­ple in this place fear the most?”

Jeorr’s voice took on a heavy edge, like that of a chis­el. His stern gaze felt like it pierced straight through her. Car­nelia flushed, actu­al­ly feel­ing the remorse instead of just wear­ing it on her face. She dropped her head.

“Well,” Jeorr sighed and looked down at his hand and clenched and unclenched it for sev­er­al sec­onds, “you could do well to con­sid­er how your actions affect oth­ers before you skip class again. Under­stood?”

Car­nelia nod­ded remorse­ful­ly.

“I do. I’m sor­ry.”

“Good. Make sure you apol­o­gize to Miss Eleina lat­er.”

With that bit of par­ent­ing com­plete, Jeorr leaned against her and joined in at gaz­ing up at the lit­tle bit of sky trapped with­in Downtown’s chim­ney of stone. Warm light bathed the washed-out stone of the Chute in tones of chalk and gold, and a topaz blue sky peeked out behind it, scat­tered with wispy crys­talline clouds. It was a palette of lights and col­ors that didn’t exist in the Down­town; the palette of the real, liv­ing world.

The girl and man shared the view for a time, one lov­ing it, the oth­er almost dread­ing it; both aware of the greater con­ver­sa­tion that loomed beyond the hori­zon.

To Jeor­r’s pride, Car­nelia didn’t shy away from what she need­ed to say. Just as he had raised her to, Car­nelia straight­ened her back and faced her guardian head-on.

“Gramps. I have some­thing to tell you.”

Her grand­fa­ther didn’t respond right away, but Car­nelia wait­ed. She would, for a con­ver­sa­tion this impor­tant.

A cloud cast a shade over them both. Jeorr took a breath and met her eyes.

“Well?”

Car­nelia stared right back, with­out a waver.

“Grand­fa­ther. Next month, once I turn fif­teen, I’m leav­ing Down­town to take the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge.”

“I’m going to become a Chal­lenger.”