It wasn’t long before Aniya approached the camp that morning, flanked by her Mana Beast, a falcon the size of a vending machine with wings that faded into trails of gray-blue mist. It landed beside her and snapped its beak in irritation, the lightning bolt patterns shooting back from its eyes crackling. Kellen hurried to catch up as Tama, Hannup and Nokom approached the Goroshu Beastcaller.

“You Gray Dawn are nothing but trouble,” Aniya said. “Have you not been told that the Elders select who is allowed into the totem?”

A sinking feeling hit Kellen. Of course Shani or Inferi would have attempted to enter the Great Storm Horse.

“What are you speaking of?” Tama asked.

“Your daughter,” Aniya said, hissing the words out. “She and her Mana Beast attacked one of the guards and ran inside the cavern.”

“It sounds like Shani is back with Inferi,” Kellen whispered to Vex.

“Yeah and they’re such great influences on each other,” Vex replied. “This isn’t good.”

“My daughter received no word from me to enter the Great Horse,” Tama said. “But I will accept full responsibility for her actions. Where are you keeping her?”

“Keeping her?” Aniya’s falcon said. “We have not found them.”

“How is that possible?” Nokom asked. “We were told the lowest levels of the totem are clear of any mana workings and wild Mana Beasts.”

“They are larger than you would think,” Aniya said. “And the Goroshu do not have the Beastcallers to spare to search for your wayward child.” She pointed to Kellen and Kiypu. “You two will come with me to search for Shani and her Mana Beast.”

Despite the situation, a rush of shared excitement passed between Kellen and Vex. They were finally entering the totem.

He’d already been dressed and ready for the day, expecting to spend it searching for Shani among the camps. Soon enough, they were following Aniya toward the Great Horse Totem while her Mana Beast flew overhead.

“One of the climbing parties has discovered a chamber the Elders think could be of great benefit to our people,” Aniya explained. She walked at a brisk, striding pace that forced Kellen to almost speed walk to match. “They are in there already this morning, studying this place. The sooner we find her before she can interrupt their work, the better it will be for all of us. Watanee does not wish for the other tribes to know this has happened or soon everyone will try to force their way inside. It will not go well for anyone if they get themselves into trouble, especially Gray Dawn.”

They soon approached the yawning cavern mouth. In the heat of the moment, Kellen hadn’t paid much attention to the features of the cavern, worried more about getting away and staying alive. The cavern mouth had expanded for days from the aftershocks that followed the initial event. Now it was almost as wide as half a football field, a wide, stretching black hole. Glowing mana crystal stalactites and stalagmites of all colors ringed the ceiling and floor like rows of fangs.

Kellen held his breath when they stepped across the threshold onto the stone. Nothing happened. They continued across the rocky expanse toward the entrance, several guards watching them as they went. It seemed they’d bumped up security since Shani crashed the party.

As they neared the cavern itself, the ground sloped downward at a decline just steep enough Kellen worried about slipping and falling on his butt in front of Aniya. Her Mana Beast swooped down and weaved between the jutting rocks with the precision of a fighter pilot before disappearing somewhere ahead in the gloom. The light from the crystals gave enough of a dim glow to navigate several paces ahead but that was about it.

“Why the Storm Horse would make the entrance of her totem underground, I do not know,” Aniya grumbled. “This cavern is fit for Earth Badger people, not people of the sky and open plains.”

“Where are we going to look?” Kellen asked. He felt like he should call her ma’am or something as a sign of respect but had no idea what the correct term was and didn’t want to offend the already grumpy Beastcaller.

“When we reach the bottom of this cursed hole, we will speak with Raiqo,” Aniya said. “He has already been looking this morning and may have found her if we have any luck.”

Beside Kellen, Kiypu stopped in his tracks. Kellen froze, worried the mummy might be sinking into another one of his trances similar to the unexplained circumstances during the totem shaking that opened the cavern. Before he could ask Kiypu if anything was wrong, Aniya turned to face both of them.

“Don’t waste any more of my time,” she began, then saw Kiypu, who stood stock still, hands out as if he were in the pitch black and feeling out a path around him. She was instantly on her guard. “What is it?”

“There is something here that should not be,” Kiypu said after a long pause. He clacked his gilded, bejeweled teeth together in thought. “I have felt it before, since waking though I cannot put a finger on it.”

“Strange!” Shakraa said. “Disturbance!”

“Yes, but what?” Aniya asked. Her falcon wheeled around and landed beside her, none too happy about flying through the low ceiling of the cave.

“What’s wrong?” the falcon asked.

“It is gone now,” Kiypu said with a shudder.

Aniya gave him a long, searching look and for a moment, Kellen thought she might send them back out of the cavern. “You go in front,” she said at last. “And tell me at once if you get that feeling again.”

They started off once more, Kellen feeling a tingling down his spine as he realized how much dirt and stone was between them and the surface. He’d never been claustrophobic but walking around with Kiypu felt like carrying a bundle of wet dynamite in his arms into the cavern. He had no way of knowing if or when it might go off on its own and bury them.

“Anything else?” Kellen asked after about five more minutes had passed. They were still traveling at a downward slope and he felt as if he could feel the weight of the earth squeezing in around them.

“Flickers,” Kiypu murmured without breaking his stride. “It is almost as if…” he trailed off and shook his head. “Bah! Ignore my ramblings.”

“So far they haven’t led us astray,” Kellen said. He’d meant to cheer Kiypu up with the words. Instead they came out ominous.

“Yeah, that makes me feel completely better,” Vex said. “This is about the last place on Oras where I want something bad to happen.”

The rest of the trip passed in silence. It wasn’t long before they reached Raiqo. He stood to the side of a broad doorway that was flanked on either side by rearing horses. Another horse’s head stuck out like a gargoyle over the center of the arching exit. Peering beyond, Kellen thought he saw a flight of wide stairs carved into the stone and ascending out of sight.

“Greetings, freinds,” Raiqo said. Skystrike gave a nicker and nodded his head in greeting. It was the first time they’d seen Raiqo since he’d defeated the rhinoceros they’d enraged. Since then, Kellen had heard he’d led several parties into the totem and emerged victorious from a number of fierce battles. The young Chieftain Beastcaller looked no worse for the wear, even if the stories of his battles were true.

“Hey man,” Vex said in a voice trying too hard to be laid back. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Have you found her?” Aniya asked, cutting through the greetings and pleasantries.

“No,” Skystrike said. “Though this cavern is wide and it is not easy to search it when we must all grope about on foot in the dark, like moles.”

“Do not speak unkindly of the moles,” Kiypu said, holding a hand up to his ear. “They are always listening. Always.”

Raiqo, Aniya, and their Mana Beasts looked at him, bewildered.

“Yeah, he does that sometimes,” Vex said. “We don’t get it either.”

“Beware!” Shakraa cautioned.

“Could she have made her way through to the higher levels?” Aniya asked. “I do not want to go back to your grandmother empty-handed and without answers.”

“It is possible,” Raiqo said. “This chamber is vast. We have cleared it of wild Mana Beasts but that does not mean there are not other secrets we have yet to discover. Perhaps even other entrances? If the totem is indeed hollow, there should be a passage down to or up through the other leg of the Storm Horse.”

“Did she speak of entering the totem to you?” Aniya asked Kellen. “From what I am told, you two are close.”

Kellen wasn’t sure he’d say he was close with anyone who’d threatened to kill him if he ever touched her again. He decided that didn’t really matter to Aniya, though.

Shani spoke of entering the totem multiple times every day since the first Storm Horse Beastcallers had ventured into the depths. That had never sounded like a plan, just someone who wanted a chance to challenge themselves and reap the potential rewards within.

“The last time I saw her, she’d just been in a fight with her Mana Beast,” Kellen said, fudging the details of what the fight had really been about and who it was between. He didn’t want to get Shani in any more trouble than she already was if Iokunish’s family hadn’t raised the matter.

“A fight?” Aniya asked, her brow creasing. “She does not get along with her Mana Beast?”

“They are… a lot alike,” Kellen said, after settling on an answer.

“She does seem stubborn at times,” Raiqo agreed.

Vex snorted. “You have no clue.”

“Well, something must have changed between them, because the guard’s account clearly included her Mana Beast,” Aniya said. “He saw them approaching from a distance and then next thing he knew, he came to when another guard found him lying on the ground.”

“But that doesn’t mean Shani or Inferi attacked him,” Kellen said. The last thing he wanted to do was make Aniya angrier, yet there was a gaping hole in the guard’s testimony.

Aniya shrugged. “The last thing he saw could have only been Shani and her Mana Beast. Who knows what kind of powers the beast has from its shadow mana?”

This gave Kellen pause. Inferi had the ability to appear out of shadow. It wasn’t something she’d mastered yet, however. And as mad as Shani was, he couldn’t imagine her attacking a guard to get into the totem. Something wasn’t adding up. If he could convince Aniya that Shani and Inferi hadn’t attacked a guard, she would be much better off when they finally found her.

“Until we find her, we don’t know for certain if she attacked the guard,” Kellen said.

Aniya gave him a cool look. “Whatever the case, she needs to be found. I do not know what punishment awaits her for this, but the sooner we keep her from getting into more trouble, the better.”

“That’s it!” Kellen flinched at Kiypu’s sudden triumphant announcement. “I know where I have sensed that mana before,” he continued, oblivious to their stares. “It was when we were in the ritual chambers within the mountain.”

“What mana?” Aniya asked. Kellen saw her hand drift to the saber at her belt. Raiqo did the same before closing his eyes and letting out a long breath. “Do you sense anything?” she asked him.

Raiqo paused for a long moment before shaking his head. “The mana down here is strange at times and always shifting. Even so, I do not notice anything amiss.”

“Snakes!” Shakraa shrieked, flapping her bony wings. “Cultists!”

And then Kellen felt it, a wave of foreign mana rolling down through the cavern like a cloying, nauseous wave. He’d been too untrained to sense mana aura when they’d fought the Snake cultists but he had felt this mana once before, when a possessed Shakraa had attacked Gray Dawn on the plains.

It hovered around them, a noxious smog that muted everything else.

“Get out,” Aniya commanded them, drawing her saber. “All the Elders are deeper within. You must raise the alarm!”