by J M D Reid
“This is eerie,” said Fingers as he came up behind them. “Feel like I’m walkin’ through a crypt. Do you smell it? That dry scent of bones?”
“I just smell dust,” Ōbhin said.
“Exactly,” grunted Fingers.
“Come, come,” Dualayn said. “That door should lead out to a street, hopefully.”
Ōbhin reached the collapse in the floor, the cement slab broken. A pile of rubble lay at the bottom along with a pool of dirty water. It had a thick consistency, a soup of dust. He skirted around it, Avena on his heels. He swept more cobwebs out of the way. Rats, or other vermin, scurried through the detritus before them, claws clicking on stone and fur whisking over decay.
Avena squeaked behind him.
He whirled around to see her eyes wide. “What?”
“On your shoulder. There’s . . .” A shudder of revulsion spilled across her expression.
He glanced at his shoulder and flinched. A spider sat perched there, body milky white, eyes black and reflective. It was the size of a child’s hand, legs spindly and hairy. With a bark, he smacked it away, flinging it off into the dark. Revulsion spilled down his skin, every hair on his body rising.
“Elohm’s Colours, that was big,” Fingers groaned. “Spiders shouldn’t grow that big. Ain’t natural.”
“They grow bigger in the Kon’veyth Depression,” said Dualayn. “Hopefully, these are not venomous.”
“Venomous?” groaned Miguil. “Wish I’d brought a prism.”
“Yeah,” Bran said, his voice tight.
“Just a cave spider,” Dajouth said, his voice light and carefree. “Only the rats have to be afraid of ‘em. And Bran, since he’s so small.”
“I don’t want to end up like that,” Bran said, pointing at another rat caught in thick cobwebs. It was the size of Ōbhin’s hand, its black fur looking fresh. Lurking in the shadowed recesses near it was something pale and spindly.
Ōbhin beat down the disgust and animistic fear spilling through his veins. He pressed on, sweeping through more of the cobwebs as they worked past the collapse and through the rotten shelves tumbled around them. He felt a thousand faceted eyes watching him, salivating for his flesh. He could almost hear their legs as they scurried around them.
The deeper in they went, the less sunlight came from the hole. Soon, only their lanterns shed illumination. It was bright and steady but traveled only a few cubits before falling off, swallowed by the darkness around them. Memoirs of those terrible moments plunged into mines beneath Gunya filled him.
True black had a weight. A suffocating pressure that squeezed around you, crushing you as surely as a bug beneath a Ka’voyith elephant. The scant lantern he held before him provided little protection against it, a fragile nimbus straining against the mammoth bulk lurking all around them.
He peered at the umbral portal. His light didn’t seem to penetrate beyond it, like the doorway swallowed everything. A glacial waterfall poured down his spine, the melt chilling him. What if his lantern failed?
You found your way out of the mines, he reminded himself.
Taim didn’t, another voice accused, harsh and cold.
Not because of the dark or spiders.
He felt Avena behind him, her warmth and light spilling around him. He wasn’t alone. He had his friends, even if one was a traitor. He even had Dualayn. He didn’t face the crushing weight of umbral black alone. He wasn’t a single bug beneath the elephant’s massive foot.
He reached the portal. His light spilled through. The room beyond was wide. His light had nothing to reflect upon. No unnatural barrier was swallowing it. The illusion must have been fear’s work. The confusion caused by dread, like a morning fog spilling off the high peaks and transforming the world alien.
He stepped through it. This room held tables and chairs, some rotted to the point of collapse, others gnawed by the hungry teeth of the devouring rats. The ceiling had collapsed on the far side, the floor tilted at a sharp slope to the right.
They advanced to the buckled flooring. He hunched his head, the cracked ceiling descending. Remnants of tarnished wires ran across the concrete, some leaving stains of decayed metal behind. Others vanished into fixtures, perhaps made of silver or some other shiny metal. All were now black with patina.
“There’s a diamond in one,” Dualayn said. “They must have used them for light like we do. The others must be lost in the debris, popped out when the ceiling half-collapsed. Remarkable.”
“So there’s a small fortune buried beneath the dust,” Fingers said.
“Not why we’re here,” Ōbhin said as he stepped onto the sloped floor, his boot’s sole gripping the concrete. “Once we find the antenna, feel free to loot this place all you want.”
“Maybe I will,” Fingers said.
“Imagine what else we’ll find down here!” exclaimed Bran, his voice echoing back a moment later.
“ . . . down here . . .”
“ . . . ere . . .”
“And keep your voices down,” Ōbhin hissed, glaring behind him at the boy. “Whisper.”
Bran winced. In hushed conciliation, he said, “Sorry. I forgot.”
Ōbhin ducked his head lower. He scrunched down, half-crouching on the slanted surface. The collapsed ceiling was held up by some sort of crushed plinth that may have once held a bust. A doorway lay in the wall. He placed his free hand on the stone floor, his body a low angle. He almost had to slide across the slanted floor.
“Why couldn’t the floor and the ceiling be slanted in the same direction?” muttered Dajouth.
Bran gasped. Boots scrambled. The youth floundered, his feet struggling to find purchase as he slid on his side. His hand had grabbed a crack in the floor. Dust spilled down towards the dark shadows at the bottom of the collapse.
He held tight and managed to get his foot beneath him. His dust-streaked face burst with relief. “Didn’t want to find out wot’s down there.”
“Spiders,” Fingers said, low voice rumbling. “Nest of ‘em. I can feel ‘em watching us, Black-cursed bastards.”
“Don’t say that,” Avena said, her voice faint.
The last few cubits, Ōbhin had to travel lying on his left side, his feet struggling to hold his position as he scooted along. The collapsed ceiling brushed his right shoulder. His chest tightened. If that plinth collapsed, the massive stone would pin him. He’d be trapped for what remained of his life, howling in pain. Worse, Avena would be caught up in it. And his friends, too.
The floor leveled out the last cubit. He slid onto his belly and crawled forward. He shoved his arms through the doorway and hauled himself through into a small antechamber of some sort. The ceiling here had panels set in it, some missing. The tiles appeared to be made of talcum stone and had periodic recesses for lights that were spaced among them. Shards of glass lay shattered amid the layer of dust coating the floor.
He took a step forward.
SNAP!
He flinched back to see a rib bone shattered beneath his foot. More lay scattered through the room, peeking through the dust. The rounded joint of a femur. The smooth plate of a skull. A few finger bones piled in the corner. It looked like a scavenger’s kill site, the body pulled apart and feasted upon thousands of years ago then left to lie here undisturbed until now.
“Elohm’s Colours,” Avena said. She joined him, staring around. “Fingers was right.”
“They’ve been dead a long time,” Ōbhin said.
“A dead city,” Dualayn said. Dust streaked his rotund face. He wiped it off with his heavy cotton shirt then slapped at the canvas pants covering his thighs. Clouds of gray burst from him. “I think the city was still inhabited when the darklings came and the Warding was sealed. The event appeared to have been . . . cataclysmic.”
*
Cataclysmic . . .
The dream Avena had witnessed the last time she’d lost all control over her body filled her mind as she and the others stepped out of the library through a wider portal. The m
emory of the world melting away, walls torn apart by darkness. The strange demons reaching through from a black void. The darklings who had spilled through the world.
I really witnessed the Shattering, Avena thought. I dreamed about it. The moment it happened. Something in that room, what they were doing with the gems, invited it. Did they sin against Elohm? Did they accidentally awaken the Black? They had been using forbidden obsidian.
She shuddered, feeling that cursed jewel in her mind. What did that mean for her? She would live the rest of her life with an obsidian mind, a proxy for her brain they’d left behind in her tent. It was too fragile to bring on their exploration. She gripped her lantern tight in her left hand, the bite of the metal handle digging into her palm. She clenched until it almost hurt.
She could still sense it. She was still in control of her body.
“I think the top of a building’s fallen over us,” Ōbhin said, holding his lantern up.
She lifted her gaze. The facade of a red building, its walls made of bricks mortared together, not poured cement, ran at an angle over their heads from its base ten or so cubits before them. Some of the windows set in it were still intact, the glass smeared in dust.
In one, a skull grinned, peering out at them.
“The rest of the street’s collapsed,” said Fingers. He stood to her right before a wall of crumbled brick. “We need to go this way, right?”
“Regrettably,” said Dualayn. “I was afraid of this. I do not know how far we can get into the city via this method but excavating to find the Hall of Communications could take years.”
Avena shivered. She didn’t want to spend years worrying about when she’d next lose control of her body. How could she live? She could never go out alone. Never do anything dangerous. If she were to ride a horse and pass out, she could break her neck from the fall. To fix her, she was risking all their lives. Ōbhin, Fingers, Bran, Miguil, Dajouth, and even Dualayn. The collapsed buildings and crushed rubble around them reminded her of the danger. She shuddered, feeling the weight of the forest above them. There were twenty or thirty cubits of soil burying the city.
“There’s a door into the building,” Ōbhin said. “Let’s see where it goes. Maybe we can get out on the other side.”
“The building’s collapsed,” Avena said. “Is it safe?”
“Nothing we’ll do down here will be safe,” he said. He grabbed the mangled edge of the metal door, bent and warped in its rusting frame. He grunted and pulled. The steel squealed as he dragged it a cubit open, revealing black beyond.
“Maybe I should go on alone,” Avena said. “I can find the . . .” Her words trailed off as Ōbhin stared at her. Warmth flushed her cheeks. “Right. I’d be a hypocrite to ask you to go back and stay safe. Still, I don’t want anyone to get hurt trying to help me.”
“No one does,” Ōbhin said. “You can’t control people. Trying to do that only destroys them. It’s like telling a miner, who knows his earth and rocks better than you, where to dig. You can guide him, advise him, but if you try to dictate where he drives his shaft, he’ll run into weak rocks, fault lines, and unstable caverns. That could collapse the entire mine, creating sinkholes above. The devastation can ripple.”
“He might still find that bad rock on his own,” Avena said.
Ōbhin nodded. “Then you just need to be there to help dig him out.” He took her hand. “You’re not changing where we’re driving our mine shaft.”
“We’re here to make you as right as possible,” Fingers said, his voice a deep rumble. It reverberated through the confined space. His lantern spilled light across his face in strange ways, highlighting chin and cheekbones but shadowing his eyes.
“Even I am, Avena,” Dualayn said. “I hope that I can earn your forgiveness.”
Avena sighed. “Let’s continue on. We only have so much food.”
She shifted her pack on her back, reminded of its weight, then she went forward. She pushed the door farther open with her earthen gauntlet with ease. Her shoulder joint ached from the increased strain.
Dualayn tied a cloth to the door as she peered around inside. Decay had ravished the room. It looked like water had once flowed through here, staining the floors with a waving pattern of grime covered in a growing layer of dust. A pile of furniture lay piled against an opening, more bones wrapped up in the remains along with strangely shaped crystals covered in the tarnish of ages. They were narrow and long, twisted in the same manner of the Recorder and made of the same two stones.
They cleared the rubble out of the way, throwing wood to the side. Many pieces broke apart. Strange worms burst out of one, writhing and wiggling in the sodden pulp. Avena grimaced. Sweat trickled down her face. Ōbhin heaved a large plank to the side, throwing it over the pile. It snapped in half with a loud clatter. Something scurried from the wreckage.
She hated the sounds. As they penetrated deeper into the building, she could hear creaking above. Groaning protests of stone grinding on stone. Fine dust sifted down from the ceiling, landing on her face. Her skin itched. She felt like a thousand centipedes crawled over her body, their little legs prickling her.
They moved down a hallway with doors leading off into small rooms. In one, a half-collapsed bed held a nearly intact skeleton draped in cobwebs. Bony arms clutched something which had long decayed away to spindly bones. Things slithered just out of sight. Insects and spiders and other nasty things fled their light. Bones littered the hallways or thrust out of the buckled doorway of the apartments they moved through. Skulls grinned at them from amid piles of rot and filth. A large pool of water flooded one room, the floor sagging and buckling from the weight. The water rippled as something wormed beneath the surface.
They came to a metal door at the end of the hallway after several bends and twists. The ceiling groaned over their heads. Long shafts of diamonds were inserted into the metal frames. Each jewel had a wire running through them lengthwise, the ends corroded and damaged.
Dualayn muttered as he pried one from the ceiling, turning it in his hand while Ōbhin wrenched at the door. It was painted entirely black and pitted in places. He threw his shoulder into it. Metal resounded. The door held.
“Come on,” he grunted and slammed his shoulder into it again.
“Frame’s buckled,” said Dualayn, his voice distant. “It’s seized the door in place.” Then he let out a groan of awe. “To be able to grow crystals. They created this with the wire running through it. I imagine this must shine with a remarkable amount of light. And look at the shape, designated to spread it over a wider area, I suppose.”
“Does that matter?” Avena asked, irritation bubbling through her fear.
A distant moan reverberated from above, rocks shifting. The top of this building had collapsed. The walls weren’t straight. Many were bowed in places, the ceiling sagging. The weight of the forest above pressed down on them.
“Let me try,” Avena said after Ōbhin’s third shoulder slam.
He glanced at her earth gauntlet and stepped aside. She pressed her hand against the exit, fingers spread wide. The emeralds shone across the dull surface of the door. In spots, Ōbhin’s impacts had smudged the patina, revealing a silvery-gray metal beneath.
She pushed. Her shoulder joint ached from the strain, not enhanced by the glove’s strength. Only her arm has increased power. Her boots slid on the filthy floor. The metal groaned. She gritted her teeth, facial muscles tensing. Sweat broke across her face. Stones moaned above.
“Wot’s that?” Bran asked, his voice squeaky with fear.
“Just the earth settling,” Dajouth said. “It’s fine. Happens underground. Or in buildings. I wouldn’t worry.”
“No, those thuds. They sounded like footsteps.”
“What would be walkin’ down here?” asked Fingers. “Everything’s dead.”
“Rats ain’t,” Dajouth said. “And I’ve seen some big spiders.”
“Saw a roach the size of my hand,” Bran said.
Avena sh
ivered. She hated disgusting roaches. Brown bodies crawling through dark spaces, surprising you when opening cabinets with their flat bodies and beady eyes. She pressed harder on the door, the throbbing in her shoulder joint increasing.
“It’s not budging,” Ōbhin said.
“Maybe we can backtrack and check out the rooms,” Fingers said. “They gotta have windows. Someone of ‘em might lead somewhere.”
Ōbhin drew his sword. Emerald flared bright from it. Avena gasped and stepped back. He swung, the humming pitch of his blade rising and falling. He cut through the door in four quick, practiced slashes. The lines appeared, flakes of corrosion falling away from his slices. The metal stayed lodged in place.
Until he kicked it.
The large section he’d cut out popped through and crashed to the floor on the other side. The clang reverberated around. Avena winced at the clatter, half-expecting the ceiling to collapse on them. Ōbhin muttered beneath his breath about being an idiot.
Nothing caved in on them. Stress relaxing, she raised her diamond lantern and peered through the dark portal. A stench rippled out, putrid, worse than the smell of offal from an abattoir.
“Elohm’s Colours,” cursed Fingers.
Avena’s eyes stung from the strength of the rot. She breathed through her mouth and tasted the foul aroma. It clung to her tongue. Dajouth spat beside her. Dualayn groaned and clapped a hand over his mouth and nose.
Ōbhin stepped through the opening he cut and cursed in his musical tongue.
“What do you see?” Avena asked, holding her free hand over her mouth and nose, struggling to hold down her breakfast. She stepped through after him.
Her boot step on something squishy and wet. Humid air wafted about her, the room significantly warmer. A finger’s width of brackish liquid rippled about her boots, the floor beneath soft like she’d stepped into a swamp. The lantern light fell on shiny forms rising out of the foul water, piles of bloated rot wrapped around bones.