The kurku was almost entirely engulfed in flame now. Though the smoke rose, the heat of the fire was suffocating. I was terrified to go higher as the blue mist continued to draw me up and out of the cold dark cavern below.

If, there had been anyone left alive in the kurku when I slid and fell into the cavern, they were surely dead now - consumed by the fire, the smoke or the intensity of the heat, which could melt the muscle from the bone. I realized the only reason I was not burning alive was because the blue mist shielded me from the fire's affects.

Despite my fears, I was drawn up until I was floating above what remained of the kurku floor. The air was full of toxic smoke, but I was not effected in the least. From my vantage point I could look all around the domed kurku. Was there any life left?

I prayed desperately to Kinabuhi and pleaded with her to help me find every last survivor. Knowing that I could do nothing to save Det, but now empowered by this new will and courage of mine to heal others once more, I didn't want to escape this horrible place without searching it high and low for any signs of life. I didn't want to be the only survivor. Only Kinabuhi could help me find life in this burning inferno.

I scanned the remains of the kurku with great intensity, but when I could not make out anything with my naked eye I almost despaired. How could I possibly find anything in this smoke-filled dungeon littered with fires and charred debris?  It was an impossible task for my natural eye.

If I wanted to see, I was going to have to close my eyes, quiet my heart and trust my instincts. Drawing from the year of teaching given to me by the Monks of Collain, I concentrated my inner most being on detecting a life force.

The quieter I became inside my own head, the more noise I was able to block out until I couldn't hear anything beyond my own heartbeats and the breaths in my lungs. It was then that I sensed a number of faint life forces. My heart soared with hope.

Determined to heal and rescue these souls from an excruciating death, I concentrated on the closest life-force. I wouldn't be the only one to escape death that night if it were at all possible. And, I knew in my heart that Kinabuhi was going to help me. She hadn't brought me out of my internal darkness and misery to abandon me now when I was willing to risk life and limb to save whomever remained. 

The trouble was, with the fires raging and the air toxic, how was I going to keep any soul I saved from being consumed by flames or suffocating from smoke right after? I looked at the blue mist swirling around me and wondered if there was any way to extend that mist beyond me or share it with another. Could I surround those I was able to save in a shroud of blue mist like the one I was in now? I had a strange suspicion that the mist was directly linked to the beautiful silk harka I was now wearing and, unless I cut that harka up, the mist would remain attached just to me.

The mist brought me over to a limp hand I saw protruding from some rubble. Before touching the hand and alerting its owner to the fact that she or he was not alone, I tested the blue mist. With my hands outstretched I tried to extend the mist over the hand that jutted out towards me. However, the moment I drew my hands back the mist receded.

I wanted to cry.

I was on the verge of despair when there was a strange sound overhead. The whole kurku shook and groaned. I thought for sure it was another quake and threw my hands up to protect my head from falling wood, stone and other debris.

But the walls and the floor did not quake. They shuddered. And then there was a peculiar blast of cold, damp, salty air that filled the entire kurku. It blew through so swiftly that it snuffed out the worst of the fires. The whole kurku turned dark and I waited with fear and trepidation. What on earth was coming?

Stones shifted and wood buckled under some great pressure, and then came a sound - a rushing sound - like crashing waves. It was followed by another blast of frigid sea air. Looking toward the entrance of the kurku, which was a dark gaping hole for the most part, I waited in the dimness with my hands clenched to my chest.

The sound of gushing water grew and grew until I had to cover my ears.  A great rush of murky water filled with all kinds of debris and possibly bodies, came flooding down the corridor and into the kurku. I threw up my hands to protect myself from the damp blast, but had nothing to fear. The shroud's mist kept me from this as it had from the flames and toxic smoke just a short while ago.

My heart sank when I realized the only exit out of the kurku was now flooded with rushing sea water. Looking all around and up and down, my brain could not fathom how I or any other survivor was ever going to be free of this death trap?

The water quickly solved some of the fire and fallen debris issues. It swept in through the kurku with a vengeance and wiped out  the small pockets of fire that remained as it washed over the fallen debris. It also drove, with tremendous force, much of the fallen stones, plaster and timber that remained of the kurku floor down into the gaping cavern I had only recently escaped from. There seemed no end to the water. It kept rushing in like a thunderous waterfall.

What soon troubled me, from my perch above it all, was that the cavern was quickly filling with water. I could see lumber, equipment and the ghastly remains of the kurku residents, swirling and sloshing about in the black water as it rose, foot by foot, towards the kurku floor. It looked like we might, me and whatever survivors I found, drown here in this awful place.

At least drowning was preferable to burning alive, I thought darkly as I eyed the hand protruding from the rubble near my dangling feet.

Since the fires were doused and there was no more toxic smoke being pumped into the air, I immediately set about uncovering the body to which the arm belonged. We still had a chance. The water might very well stop before it drowned us.

The arm in the rubble belonged to a security officer. I could not see his face but I did recognize his uniform even in the dim light. Pulling him free from the debris I laid a single hand on his chest and drew on the wealth of healing power that practically begged to stream from my hands like a river now. Brilliant yellow and green-trimmed mist enveloped the man and restored him to full health.

He gasped for breath, shot up into a sitting position, looked around with panicked eyes, and then burst into tears when he realized he was alive. 

"Thank you, Dhuuni," he sobbed as he looked over his body in the light of the healing mist, which still enveloped him.

He took hold of my hands and kissed my knuckles while he laughed and cried with relief. I'd never encountered anyone so happy to be healed in all my life.

"Let me go," I told him nervously. "There are others who need saving," I explained afraid he would be insulted by my audacity to speak to him so boldly. I might very well be a healer but I was still just a slave and knew freeborns were easily offended by slaves who asserted themselves in any way. 

He did not seem the least bit phased though. Instead, he scrambled to his feet and surprised me outright by asking in his next breath, "How can I assist you Dhuuni?"

I was shocked at the deference in his voice. He spoke to me like he would the Master. He spoke to me as if I were freeborn, as if I were someone of importance. I'd never been spoken to that way in all my life and wondered if being nearly burned alive in an earthquake had turned him mad. I was, after all, still a salve. The earthquake, the fires and the flooding hadn't changed that.

My bewilderment was interrupted when I felt the pulse of another faint life force. I didn't have time to marvel at the guard.

Instead, I commanded him gently, "Come with me."

He gave a swift nod, wiped the tears from his blackened face and followed me eagerly as I went in search of the next life force. The blue mist took me wherever I desired to go, but the guard had to scramble over all kinds of debris to follow me. I worried that he might get injured. However, he never made a single complaint as I locked on to the next life force and forged ahead without him.

With a huge grin plastered on his face, he helped me pull a middle-aged man from under a scorched beam. As the unconscious man was engulfed in yellow and green mist, the guard leaned in toward me, still being respectful and said, "My name is Takai, but you can call me Kai. Everyone does."

I ignored him. This was not the time for introductions. I was busy saving this prisoner's life, and there was no doubt in my mind he was a prisoner. One only had to look at the rags he wore.

This second survivor coughed and lay in the rubble with his eyes wide open. He was in shock.  Whether he was shocked he was still alive or that a guard and myself hovered over him I could not say. For a moment, he did nothing at all - not even blinkd.

"Is he alright, Dhuuni?" Kai whispered close to my ear.

I didn't know so I didn't answer. I just observed the man. After another moment he sat up with ease and then tested his limbs to see if they worked. Finding nothing wrong with them he quickly got to his feet.

Kai and I stood back as he stomped one leg and then the other. Seeing that they were in fine working order he turned with vicious intent in his eyes and shoved Kai to the ground with all his new found might. Kai let out a cry of surprise as he tripped and fell backwards. I reached out as quickly as I could to catch one of his limbs for fear he might tumbled back into the great gaping cavern.

Kai laughed as he lay in a heap of wet, soot covered rubble. I had a hold of his right hand and was trying to get him up while turning my head and searching the kurku for the other survivor. He was sprinting for the water-clogged exit.

"Don't worry about him," Kai said to me kindly as he got up. "If I were a prisoner like him, I'd be running up the walls to get out of here too."

Kai was right. I couldn't expect this torture survivor to stick around. But, I feared he might drown if he tried to find a way up the flooded exit. However, even as I watched him struggle to get to the corridor, I could feel the pull of other faint life forces. I prayed Kinabuhi would care for him as I turned all my attention back on the remaining life in the kurku.

That night, as Kai and I anxiously watched the cavern below fill with water, I managed to find four more survivors - another male prison guard and three prisoners (one women and two men).  They were all grateful to be restored and they all seemed to forget, in the darkness of the broken and flooding kurku, that I was just a slave and that they were previously prison guards and torture victims. An instant kind of camaraderie seemed to override all previous prejudices and we were all just survivors of a grand earthquake that threatened to bury us alive in this dark dungeon. 

"What now?" Kai asked me as he and the others gathered around.

I looked at him with unconcealed alarm.

He let out a jolly laugh and grinned wide at me. "Come on now," he began to lecture me, "you single handedly survived the earthquake and saved all our lives Dhuuni." Pausing, perhaps for effect, he stared down at me intently and then opened wide his arms and turned a little to the right and then to the left as he said, half laughing, "If not you, our very own savior, who else are we going to ask for help in this empty place?"

The others nodded and murmured their agreement.

How on earth had I gone from slave to savior in just a few short hours? And was I even capable of coming up with a plan to rescue us from this death trap? It was such a great responsibility that I felt instantly overwhelmed and unprepared. Still, something deep inside me urged me to try. Kinabuhi had saved us all and it would dishonour her if I just gave in to my fear.

"For now, lets climb to higher ground," I told them quietly.

Kai nodded his head with confidence and ushered the others up the crumbling slopes of charred debris that lined the walls of the burnt and broken kurku. While they climbed, the blue mist drew me upward with them. I took this time to close my eyes tight and pray to Kinabuhi for a miracle because that was what it would take to get us all out of here alive.