by P R Glazier
Chapter 25. Into the Cistern
They strode back down the path that the many passing feet had traversed not an hour before, the sun was high in the sky shining on the grass again, it looked just like nothing had happened apart from the redness upon the now dead and dying grasses immediately around the lake shore. The rest of the valley still looked to Nar’Allia to be the same as the first day they had arrived. But something was obviously different. As they approached the lake they halted, not wanting to step upon the red stained grass. Jonas walked forward and put one foot upon the stain, nothing happened so he stepped upon it.
Amndo said with a cautionary tone, “it’s probably alright to walk upon, but I suggest we try not to touch the stain, at least not with bare skin.”
Nar’Allia had already walked forward, heading towards the lake shore, she expected to see the waters, but she could not see the surface of the lake any longer from where they stood. She expected to see it clearly especially as there were no tents to hide it from view. She pointed this out to the others and they decided to go and take a look at the waters. As they neared they could see the far shore, but no water, there appeared just a rocky cliff face. As they approached closer to the bank of the lake, the water’s surface still could not be seen.
Eventually they stood on the very brink of the shore line, where before a few metres below them had been the surface of the lake, now there was nothing. Instead of the calm waters of the lake, they viewed a massive chasm that appeared to be bottomless, although the sound of fast moving water came up from far below. But this noise subsided after a while and silence fell once more across the valley, it was as if all the water had drained away and taken the red mist with it. They were looking down into a wide vertical tube in the crust of the world.
Now that the waters were gone, great gouges and marks on the rocky inside surface of the tube could be seen, these formed regular patterns, Amndo said, “hmm it looks for all the world like this was carved out of the solid rock by some great machine”
“Or some great clawed beast,” Nar’Allia whispered under her breath as she peered into the depths of the great abyss.
A shout demanded their attention. “Look here all of you!” Unnoticed JDC had started to walk around the lip of the great chasm and he was some distance away and waving his arms, calling for them to come. They strode around the lip to where JDC now stood. “Here. Look. There are stairs set into the rock,” he pointed down to where some twenty metres below them there was a rock ledge and leading from one end of this, rough-hewn stairs led down into the depths of the gaping chasm.
“Well I wonder if that is our best way out of here,” asked Amndo.
“More likely our only way out I suspect,” said Jonas.
“Even more likely our way IN,” said JDC, “I have seen many tantalising glimpses of the vast city that lies below the desert, but this is the first time I have seen a possible safe entrance that seems to actually lead into it proper.”
“What if it goes nowhere, what then, what if the waters refill the chasm?”
“Well there is but one way to find out. Not that we have much choice, for we have little food and water, the water here has gone, not that it would have remained drinkable for much longer anyway.”
So JDC after putting leather gloves on his hands, backed up towards the edge of the great hole and lying upon his belly let his legs go out over the edge. He began to climb down the rock face towards the ledge below. The other three did the same. There were plenty of good hand and foot holds on the face of the rock and soon without incident they all stood upon the rocky ledge they had seen from above. It was about two metres wide, wide enough for them to step upon comfortably. But even so, not the place to be if you suffered from vertigo.
JDC surveyed the steps as they disappeared downwards, “well at least it is mid-morning; we have the greater part of the day to go. Let us hope that this stair goes down quickly and easily to wherever it may lead.” They moved off.
Every three hundred or so steps they came across another ledge much the same as the one they had first stepped upon; this gave them a welcome respite for the muscles in their legs. Nar’Allia looked up occasionally to see an ever-decreasing circle of light above them, but at least the rocks seemed to have a translucent crystalline form and it seemed to tunnel the light down into the depths. But if she looked down she could not see anything least of all an end to the seemingly never ending staircase. It also seemed that the rock face did not have the red poison upon it, that noisome substance seemed to be confined to the rim of the lake above. It almost seemed to her that the red mist was a poison to kill off the grass around the valley, but why? It was becoming increasingly obvious that what they had experienced recently was not a natural phenomenon, of that Nar’Allia was sure. They had started a process that had perhaps not happened in a very long time, perhaps longer than the living memory of the nomads, for none had mentioned this.
Every now and again as they descended Nar’Allia could see vents of some kind cut out of the rock, these vents were circular and had a metal grill covering the mouth of the vent. They disappeared into the rock face but streams of water seemed to run out of every one and cascade down the rock face into the depths. She supposed that the water had progressively disappeared through these and was now stored somewhere else, she considered this and hoped that it wasn’t about to flow back out at any time soon and flood the rock tube they were in once more. Although she guessed that they could all swim and just float up to the surface again, but what state the water would be in worried her. The chemical smell of the polluted water she had witnessed before did not do much to encourage her, although the water that they passed in the vents did not exhibit such a taint. She couldn’t help herself when they passed one of the vents; she removed her glove and touched the damp surface of the rock with the tip of her finger. It felt cool and wet, nothing more. Amndo shouted a warning, but it was too late, Nar’Allia had touched her wet fingertip to her tongue. The water tasted sweet, just like water, she remained standing, no feelings of nausea or stomach cramps. It was ok, just plain water.
Amndo, flustered, remarked that this was an unwise move, she could have poisoned herself, but she smiled at him and said, “no master Amndo, I just knew it was not to be the case, the water was good.”
Amndo frowned at her and they resumed their journey downwards.
A little while later, JDC who was leading the way down said, “well I’ll be a Duagnuats herder, just ye all look there at that.” He pointed down the stairway further into the depths.
They all gathered around behind him and saw below them and across the other side, another ledge, but this one was far bigger than any they had come across so far, in fact it was massive. This ledge, semi-circular in shape protruded out from the edge of the chasm, it covered an area roughly half the diameter of the chasm. It would have been large enough to house all the tents of Vaughnal’s encampment easily. The ledge shone with wetness, many large puddles of water still lay upon its surface. They made their way around and down towards this ledge or landing and eventually they stepped out onto it and stood in wonder, for leading from the platform was a wide cavern or doorway that extended part way around the chasm, around the wide landing on which they stood. The cavernous entrance now lay open before them.
Amndo, had walked over to one side of the great cavern entrance, he was obviously looking at something that had caught his eye. He pointed and said, “now there’s a curious thing?”
They all walked over to join him. There set into the wall just to the left of the great doorway was the Dolan that had been thrown into the water.
Nar’Allia clapped her hands and laughed, some of her humour was driven by amusement, some by relief that they were back once more on Minervar’s trail. So she said, “well, it seems that Daffid’s brother found us an answer after all, the key that fits the lock no less.”
They all strode back over to the doorway and looked inside, it was dark and not much co
uld be seen in the gloom.
Amndo was inspecting the Dolan where it sat in a little receptacle in the wall, it was obviously a perfect fit, they had inadvertently found the exact spot in all the world where this Dolan was made to go, Nar’Allia felt amazed at their good fortune. Perhaps things were turning out for the best at last. Amndo was trying to work out what had set it in there, he fingered it and it moved, so grasping its rim he pulled, the Dolan came easily out from the wall. Nothing seemed to happen for a while, but after a minute or so Nar’Allia felt water dripping onto her arm and looking up saw that water was dripping faster and faster from all of the vents that she could see from where she stood. Then suddenly with a great roar massive spouts of water shot out from all the vents they had passed on their way down. Water cascaded down upon them, it poured down into the depths far below them, for the platform on which they stood was not at the bottom of this deep chasm it seemed. One vent however discharged its water down onto the platform, the weight of this water knocked Nar’Allia to the ground and everyone seemed to start shouting at once, Amndo and JDC grasped Nar’Allia and dragged her out from beneath the crushing cascade. Then through the deafening noise of the water they could hear another noise, this was a noise of grinding rock. Looking at the cavern mouth they could see the door which had risen up into the top portion of the doorway was now dropping again, Amndo grabbed Nar’Allia and half dragged half carried her through the doorway into the tunnel beyond, the other two quickly followed. Jonas ducked low to enable him to get beneath the rapidly closing door. Almost immediately he was through, the door shut with a cracking, grinding noise and all went pitch black and silent, not even the roaring of the falls of water outside could be heard within, the only thing they heard was the sounds of their own breathing and Nar’Allia coughing and spluttering. At least the air seemed reasonably sweet in here if not with a slight musty tang to it.
“Is everyone ok?” Asked Jonas, each of them answered yes in turn.
“Wish we had some light though,” said JDC.
“Ah, yes, forgive me, just one moment,” it was Amndo that spoke.
Suddenly they all cried out as blinding light shot forth into the tunnel and forced them all to shield their eyes.
“Oh, sorry,” said Amndo, “let me adjust it down a little.”
Once the light had subsided to a level where they could comfortably see, they stood in awe as they saw that Amndo’s staff was glowing with a bright white light. He smiled and indicated the tip of the staff where the light shone forth and said. “I discovered it could do this a while ago, but I forgot until you just mentioned that we needed light.”
Nar’Allia’s attention was immediately taken up with her surroundings. She found herself looking down a long tunnel, only a glimpse of which they had perceived before the great doors had thundered shut cutting off all the light from the world outside. The tunnel though was massive, at least two hundred metres across and probably the same in height. Amndo’s lighted staff just about shone across and up to enable the distances to be gauged. She looked down the length of the place but the light dissipated and was lost to the gloom before any far end to the tunnel could be seen. She marvelled at the place. Surely no one would create such a large passage for people to walk down, so whatever it was designed to allow passage for must be enormous too. It felt like the tunnel seemed to go on forever, at least it went straight without any bends as far as the light from the staff shone out. Amndo was back over by the closed door he was fingering something on the wall. Nar’Allia then saw that he was trying to insert the Dolan into a little receptacle identical to the one in which they found the Dolan outside. But even though it seemed to fit, it did not have any effect upon the door.
Amndo said as if coming to a conclusion, “Well this explains a lot. We have the Dolan that takes us ‘into’, but not the one that takes us ‘out of’. As it says we have the second gate seal not the first.” He sighed and then said as he looked down the length of the tunnel ahead of them, “let’s be off then, we can’t go back, the cistern is now presumably full of water again and we can’t drain the cistern and reopen the door from here.” So they started to move forward down the tunnel, which promised at least to stay dry and reasonably warm. But Nar’Allia stopped them; she was peering into the gloom beyond the light that shone forth from Amndo’s staff. She had spied several sets of lights, small pinpoints of reflected light in fact and all in pairs.
“What do you see milady?”
Nar’Allia remained quiet, for the pinpoints seemed to have disappeared now. “I, I thought I saw pairs of eyes.” She carried on looking. “But they have gone, et least I thought I saw them.” She felt slightly embarrassed now, like a small child imagining things in the dark. “Come on let’s go, not that we have a choice anyway.”