Ernie was waiting at the top. Squatting down just inside the new doorway, as soon as they climbed near enough, he grabbed their hands and helped them up in turn. When Joseph's head popped up over the ledge, he expected to see Chantale still sitting in the middle of the room. Since Eliska arrived first, he had hoped to stop any confrontation there would no doubt be between them.
Neither one was there in that room.
Ernie held onto the threshold and peered over the edge. "That is a looooong way down."
Joseph stood where Chantale had sat before. "You've never seen it?" he asked, looking through the opening to the left. The third room was also vacant, save for his floating ideas.
"We've been a lot of places," Ernie said, "but as deep as we've gotten, it looks like we just can't get deep enough."
Joseph looked to the right, peering into the first room, but still he saw no one.
Ernie appeared along his right side. "She went that way." He nodded toward the first room. Then he looked at Joseph. "Both of them did."
Joseph headed for the opening, and Ernie trailed behind him, muttering to himself, "I mean, it makes sense. That's the only other way to go. Heh."
Before Joseph exited his building altogether, he paused a moment to study the interior walls. They were still nothing more than faded representations of what was in the physical world, but he no longer saw the black veins. There was no more corruption, it seemed.
So, did that mean Calarapan was gone?
As soon as he stepped out onto his lawn, he was forced to pause again. Squinting into the light, the first thing he noticed was the sky. The giant slab roof was gone. What replaced it was a blanket of gray clouds. They were higher than where the slab had sat along the top of Calarapan's stronghold.
They were drifting away from him. He followed them with his eyes until he found the darker ones. Centered over the village, they churned in a circle. Parts of them flashed with growling lightening, but they were moving too slow to birth a tornado. Still, because they were spinning, the motion shaped the mass into a shallow funnel. One that threatened to drop, but Joseph spotted something else.
From a point below, a crimson sash was curving upwards to disappear inside the clouds. The sash should have been spiraling along with the clouds' motion, but somehow it was anchored in place.
Joseph couldn't see who might have been holding the other end of the sash, because Calarapan's structure was still standing in the way.
Or rather, what was left of the structure.
The slab roof was gone, so Joseph could see the top portion of the mountain on the other side. Calarapan's structure had lost most of its height. The back wall still stood in place, but the top edge was cut so that it curved upward heading upstream, ending with a dull point.
"Like a wave." Joseph whispered.
Ernie appeared at his side again. "Totally remodeled it, huh?" He nodded toward the churning mass of clouds, "That what's left of him?"
"Is it?" Joseph asked.
Ernie pointed his elbow at a point across the lawn, "Think she knows?"
Joseph dropped his gaze and spotted her to the left. Several yards away, Eliska stood. This was the first time he had noticed the clothes she was wearing. Last time he saw her was in Chantale's vision, and she was naked. Now she wore a yellow top and a matching sarong in the style of the women of the village.
He and Ernie approached her. She was staring up at the churning cloud. Joseph noticed she held her hands down at her sides. They were shaped into fists. When he was at her side, she spoke.
"He still here."
Joseph studied her face, wondering if he would see some type of longing there. What he found was a subtle scowl. He hoped he understood what she was feeling.
Calarapan was an enemy to everyone here.
"I'll finish it," he said, watching the clouds turn, waiting to see if she would respond. She didn't, but he thought he noticed her shoulders relax out of the corner of his eye.
Saying nothing more, he started to step forward when she whispered.
"I catch up."
Pausing to register her words, he then left her there. Ernie followed him along the path Chantale provided beside Calarapan's structure.