by J. C. Bass
Clawhand plummeted downward, heading straight for the ground.
Her flight was faster than a fall and difficult to follow; her snowy white feathers blended in almost perfectly with the corpse-pale clouds that perpetually lingered in the sky. At the last possible moment she twisted and spread her wings, and with five quick flaps she stopped her descent a mere ten hands from the snowy surface. She glided above the ground for moment and then started climbing. Within seconds she was high enough to do it all over again.
Lor, a small Dwarf girl aged ten, watched from the owlery window. The first time she’d seen Clawhand make that dive, she was sure the beast was trying to kill itself. The exercise seemed to have no purpose other than alleviating the boredom that often afflicted the huge bird, who was one of the more restless of the bunch. Oddly, no one had taught the owl how to do this; it just seemed to have the innate ability. A few of the younger owls tried it, learning from her example, but their results always paled in comparison. They universally dove too slowly and pulled up too early, and even then they still had to flap more times to right themselves than Clawhand did.
There were sixty-four owls in total. Most were out of sight, having taken off looking for prey. The vast majority would come back famished and disappointed. The Long Night had very little game, and most of the creatures that walked this icy hell were not in the slightest bit edible.
Enush waddled in, his fat cheeks ruddy from the wind. His long sandstone colored hair was matted in tangled curls and just beginning to gray, and his old llama wool pants seemed in perpetual danger of falling down despite the fact that he hadn’t lost any weight lately, perhaps ever. “Grayhelm is done, dear.”
“How many did she have?”
“Seven. All going to the cooks.”
“You can’t!”
Enush took his mittens off and put them on a dusty worktable. “Don’t argue with me dear, I’m tired.”
“But she hasn’t had a hatchling since little Onyx.”
“The price of eggs is rising, dear. I’d be a fool not to sell all I can. Besides, Dwarves are going hungry.”
“But you promised she could have one.”
Enush collapsed into a tiny wooden chair that groaned with his weight. “Lor…”
“What if she doesn’t have another clutch? She’s getting old, she doesn’t even fly much anymore. If she doesn’t have one this time then-”
“Oh for the love of the gods…” Enush tapped a barrel of ale in the corner and filled a silver stein. “One egg, but no more. And if it doesn’t hatch, then that’s just your bad luck. Now let your poor father rest.”
Lor ran up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. And Grayhelm thanks you do.”
“I should have never let you name the buggers,” Enush grumbled. “And don’t think this doesn’t come at a price, little one. The troughs need to be refilled tonight. That’ll be a job for you.”
Lor ran over and grabbed a thick fur coat and scarf. “I’ll do it now.”
“Wait until later. And it’s not that cold out.”
“I’m freezing,” Lor said, putting everything on. “And I’d rather do it now than later when it gets even colder.”
Enush finished his drink and tapped the keg for another one. “Poor thing, you’ve got your mother’s southern blood. And speaking of blood, ask Doren to throw in an extra few barrels if he has it. I’d like to see the owls put on a little more weight this year.”
Lor finished bundling up with an extra scarf and two cloth hoods, then opened the hatch and climbed down the stone stairs. Beneath the owlery was a dark and open space lined with old barrels and wheelbarrows. The walls were still decorated with the old engravings from its military days; Lor saw iron-clad warriors battling Goblins and the shambling horrors of the night, along with a few life-sized profiles of the honored dead. Once the caverns had been discovered, the militia group that trained in the tower had been moved there. Her father had the forethought to be the first to request it for a new use. Now it was a full-time owlery, and as far as Lor knew the rusted old gate with its copper mechanisms and chains hadn’t even been opened in her lifetime.
“Goden,” she called. “Goden, where are you?”
There came a chittering from the edge of the room, and a filthy black-haired rat ran over toward her. Her father had not approved of her naming the little pest after the duke, but it was a joke most others seemed to enjoy. Lor picked it up and smiled at it.
“Hello, cutie. You staying warm down here?”
Goden squeaked, and Lor sensed that he was telling her that no, he wasn’t staying warm.
“Neither am I. Here, you can come with me.” She stuffed it in the folds of her coat. It scuttled around for a moment, its claws digging into her as it did, then finally settled into an interior pocket where it found a stale hunk of bread.
The sky was that wan and sickly green that came at high noon. It was as if the sun was unable to penetrate the hazy cloud cover, and the fraction of light that did get through was instantly tainted by the evil of the land. Lor put her hood up and followed the chert walkway, only looking up when she had to. Thankfully it hadn’t snowed in a few days (this spring was mercifully warmer than the last) and the walkway was still clear from the ice that she and her father had shoveled away last week. Though she loved the owls and enjoyed spending her days at the tower, it was ruthlessly cold nine months out of the year, and being forced to push the wheelbarrow to the bear pens when the snow was coming down was something she dreaded year round.
She descended the ramp into the pens. The stone floors here were dry all year thanks to the cleverly designed outcropping, but the reek was terrible. There were always at least four Dwarves on duty whose sole job was to shovel waste out of the pens, but that did very little for the smell.
There came a fierce growl, and Lor turned the corner to see half a dozen Dwarves crowded around a young polar bear cub. A huge stone representation of an ogre had been built, and the Dwarves were exhorting the cub toward it. Lor had seen the exercise before; the bear was supposed to rise on its hind legs and put its weight on the shoulders of the stone, crashing it downward. Nothing else save for its full weight would work, and it would not be given its meal until it accomplished the task.
The cub growled, but not at the stone attacker. One of the Dwarves gave it a poke on the side with a barbed stick, causing the bear to flinch and glare his way.
“Come on, curse you,” Doren said. He was a grizzled old Dwarf with a stump for a hand. Most figured it had been taken by a bear, but actually it was a goblin. Oddly, the bears treated him with something approaching reverence, and unlike some of the other trainers he’d never had so much as a scratch from them. “Give him another one.”
The other Dwarf did, and the bear flinched again at the barbed stick.
“I told you, Mica doesn’t like to fight,” Lor said.
Doren turned around, and smiled. “He may not like it now, but he will.”
“He’s gentle.”
“No polar bear is gentle, girl. I’ve seen cubs his size tear through the hides of cave crocodiles.”
Lor could take one look at the beast and tell that would never be him. His eyes were warmer, more accepting than most of his kind. He would be a loyal pet for someone, but never a warrior.
“Besides, it’s in his pedigree,” Doren said. “Hit him again.”
Lor glanced to the side. In one of the pens (built larger than the others) was Scar, Mica’s mother. Her nose had been cloven in half in some earlier calamity before the hunters had found her, and it only added to her already fearsome aspect. Her eyes held none of the warmth, none of the gentleness of her cub, but Lor understood that it wasn’t because she was a naturally cold-blooded killer. She’d had a hard life before her capture, long winters of starving and fighting off the more aggressive males, trying to keep her little ones alive, failing more often than not…
…Or at least that’s
what Lor sensed. The others often told her that those intuitions were just her imagination at work, but her father was more supportive. Fiction or not, he said, all that matters for a trainer is getting the animals to bond with you and listen, and Lor clearly had a talent for that.
Lor felt Scar’s pain and wanted nothing more than to reach out and reassure her, but she knew she couldn’t. To her, you were either food or family. The old mother was too far gone.
But her son wasn’t.
Mica flinched away from the barbed stick again, trembling. Lor pushed her way forward.
“Move now,” Doren barked. “When he’s cornered like that he’ll take a swipe at anyone.”
“Not me.” Lor squatted down in front of the beast.
Its eyes implored her for rest. It was hurt, scared, and tired. Couldn’t they see that?
Lor calmed it with a touch, stroking the brown-stained fur on its neck. Its breath slowed. Lor walked over to the Ogre statue and stretched (she couldn’t reach the top) as high as she could, pressing her full weight on the thing. “See?”
The cub watched her, enraptured.
Lor stepped back, then pointed.
“Attack.”
Mica looked unsure. He glanced back and forth between her and the statue.
“Attack,” Lor said again. “Do like I did.”
Slowly, Mica walked to the statue. It glanced back at the Dwarf with the barbed stick, then looked at Lor.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Attack.”
Gently, Mica rose up on his hind legs and put its forepaws on the shoulders of the statue.
“Good beast,” Lor said, grinning. She ran over to a bloody bucket with a slab of meat inside and handed it to him. He ate heartily, and she scratched him behind the neck. “You did finely, Mica. Good beast.”
Most of the other trainers looked stunned. Doren only smiled. “He still didn’t tackle it.”
“And he won’t,” Lor said. “I told you, he’s gentle.”
“We’ll see how gentle he is when he hits adulthood,” Doren said. “Thank you, girl. Now go get your feed.”
Lor went about the sloppy business of filling her barrels with bloody meat from a stone bin. With sixty owls to feed, she needed no less than ten trips back and forth in order to fill the trough for the day. By the time she was finished, nearly all of them had come back to feed, their feathery white coats stained with dark red.
Lor shivered. She was cold and exhausted from wheeling all that weight back and forth. “Can I go down and get some food?”
Her father was plowing through the greasy remains of a chicken. “Here, eat with me. We’ll talk.”
“I wanna get warm. Can I please?”
Enush gave her a sad smile. “You don’t want to eat with your father?”
Lor felt a pang of guilt. She knew he got lonely now that it was just the two of them minding the owls. “…It’s not that.”
“It’s alright. Go ahead, dear. I don’t mind.”
Lor patted Clawhand on the wing as she fed, her bloody beak dipping up and down for more meat. “…Are you sure?”
“Of course,” he said, his smile warmer now. “Go ahead.”
“Alright,” Lor said. “I’ll be back later.”
Lor liked to fancy that she knew as much about the tunnels and hidden pathways in the fortress as anyone, maybe better. Her father’s friends affectionately referred to her as ‘the tunnel rat’ since she was so often caught using the narrow service tunnels normally reserved for specific workers. They often asked her how she managed to find them all since they were usually trade secrets, but she’d just smile and say nothing.
Her secret was simple: follow the animals.
Firehorn was teeming with pets and strays of all kinds: cats, dogs, hares, capybara, hawks, giant cave bats, toads, rats, aardvarks, badgers, wolves, lizards, mandrills, wolverines, skunks, pythons, kiwi, giant tortoises, and any other thing that could be imported from Marblespire. Accumulating as many pets as possible (the more exotic the better) was a favorite pastime of the Firehorn Dwarves. Every year there was a scramble to the trade depot when the caravans arrived to see what new strange critters they had brought with them, and many Dwarves spent more than they could afford to grab up the latest trendy pet. Last year it was monitor lizards.
Though they all arrived trained, that didn’t mean they did as they were told. If there was one thing Lor had learned while working with the owls, it’s that you can’t change an animal’s inherent temperament. You could smooth the rough edges somewhat, but most creatures would always retain some of their innate wildness. For that reason many ran wild and unchecked throughout the fortress, going wherever they pleased whenever it pleased them. It was true that many lingered in the dining halls or the housing areas, but others were more adventurous and climbed on and through and around everything they could. The unlucky ones were unable to climb stairs and Lor pitied them (why would anyone adopt a pet who couldn’t climb stairs?) and those were often the ones that would wander into the paths of minecart ramps (being forced to use those to get up and down the various levels) that spiraled down throughout the fortress. Nearly every other day someone’s pet python or yak or giant scorpion would be struck by a speeding minecart full of rock or ore and end up wounded or worse. Oftentimes it was Lor herself that found them and nursed them back to health.
Now she was somewhere between the Grand Hall and Cassiterite where she and her father lived. She was heading down to get something to eat when she saw a goat push against a seemingly normal rock wall, only to witness it open before her. Firehorn was filled with secret passages and rumor had it there was an entire network of them reserved for use by the nobles and those serving them. Her father told her that Goden traveled between these because they were often more direct and saved his ailing legs the trouble of climbing too much.
She decided to investigate. The consequences for sneaking through these passageways would be significantly stiffer, though. The nobles liked their secrets kept, especially from the prying eyes of curious children.
Lor followed along half-blindly, for the torches weren’t placed as frequently as in the outer halls. Some pathways were well-lit while others were in complete darkness, and Lor found herself bumbling about over pots and barrels looking for the next door out.
After a few minutes of walking, Lor found a nicely-lit hall, larger and with no less than a dozen smaller hallways stemming off of it. One of them was filled with cobwebs so thick as to render it impassible; Lor knew there were some giant cave spiders that made their homes around the fortress, but hadn’t known where. She decided she’d try and remember this place so she could come back later and see if there were hatchlings.
She heard a commotion ahead and caught sight of a swish of robes. Someone was coming. She ducked down behind a stack of barrels filled with cloth. The goat lifted its head to her, enquiring.
“Shh,” she said.
The goat returned to its cabbage.
Lor heard two sets of footsteps. “I interviewed Nol’s husband again,” came a female voice. “He swears by the stone gods that Nol would have never gone off into the mist alone on a hunt. She was the one, if you remember, that got lost years before on the trip when Doren found Scar.”
“Get to your point Datan,” came a grumbling voice, breathing heavy. “My lunch is waiting for me.”
“In the first incident Nol and the others were out there in the dark for nearly a fortnight. Her husband says she was so traumatized by the event that it took all the courage she could muster just to go back out on another hunt even years later.”
“So?”
“After four years of not hunting she finally goes back, and then, contrary to all logic, she wanders off yet again never to be found.”
They stopped walking for a moment. Lor could see Datan standing there holding a torch, the light illuminating her polished bronze bangle. The other Dwarf had his bac
k turned, but he was a big man with vivid billowing robes.
“Allow me to present a scenario,” the other voice said. “She thought she was up to the hunt but when the mists came, she became frightened and panicked. Now what is so wrong with that?”
“Nothing. It’s the explanation that has fit for years. No one has ever questioned it, save for Nol’s husband.”
“Then why do you bring it up?”
“My predecessor had the bookkeeper make a record for every death occurring at Firehorn. I’ve gone over nearly all from the past ten years and found that almost a third of all deaths occurring outside the fortress have been disappearances where the bodies were never found.”
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that hunting is an extraordinarily dangerous business.”
“No, you don’t. But in many of the cases, the resulting investigations found that there was no mist and no real explanation for why a single person would get lost and never be found.”
“You know better than anyone what’s out there,” the voice said. “Certainly the unnamable horrors of the Long Night are capable of misleading a weary hunter.”
Datan considered. “I’ve seen nightcreatures do a lot of things; I’ve seen them tear the armor off Dwarves, I’ve seen them fight while full of arrows and broken swords…but I’ve never seen them mislead anyone. The evil of this place turns them into dumb, unthinking monsters. There is no intelligence there, only the insatiable hunger of the fallen. They aren’t capable of misleading anyone, and without the mists the terrain along the hunting grounds is usually quite easy to navigate. There’s something else going on, Goden.”
Lor raised an eyebrow. So the duke did use these halls.
“What are you saying?”
Datan’s voice became quieter. Lor strained to hear.
“I’m saying this fortress has a vampire.”
Lor gasped so hard she had to cover her mouth. She cringed.
“What was that?” Goden asked.
Datan glanced in Lor’s direction. “It’s only a goat.”
Goden sighed. “Be very, very careful how you use that word, Datan. If the citizens think there’s a vampire in the fortress, they’ll panic.”
“That’s why I’m bringing it to you. With no immigrants in the last five years, we know that one has been feeding for at least that long. It stands to reason that many of the disappearances are due to this, and if we can narrow the creature down to the hunting parties-”
“Let’s not talk about this now,” Goden said. He pushed against a seemingly normal wall and it opened, filling the dark hall with torchlight.
Datan followed him. “It needs to be spoken of. If we don’t-”
Her voice trailed off as she followed him into the passage. Lor knew that she should take this as a cue to leave, since any number of the duke’s attendants could come down the secret hall at any moment and find her. If she got caught here the punishment would likely be harsh, especially if it was handed out by the temperamental duke himself.
But she wanted to hear the rest of what they were talking about. A vampire in the fortress was huge news and terrifying. And Datan said it had been here over five years? Could that really be true?
The secret door was closing. She had to act fast.
Lor ran over and tried to hold the door, but it was automatic; heavy stone on a weighted hinge that would crush her fingers if she kept them there. Quickly, she pulled the top off a rock pot and put it in the way of the door. The hinge groaned for a second, then stopped.
With the door partially open, Lor could see through. It was a shockingly opulent room with racks of weapons, suits of armor, gorgeous wall engravings, and a massive metal and wood table. Goden sat at the far end.
“-done very carefully,” Datan was saying. “With research, we may be able to devise a series of tests that can be done in order to-”
“And how would you carry them out without alarming everyone?” Goden said, raising his voice.
“I think there is cause for alarm. A nightcreature is living and working among us and has been for some time. Every moment we wait we’re risking more deaths.”
“If you have inquiries, make them quietly. With everything else going on we can’t afford to give the citizens one more thing to panic about.”
“Goden, it would be far easier if I were able to inform just a few key-”
“No. Only you. I won’t risk this getting out.”
“Goden, I really think-”
“I’ve made my decision, captain.”
Datan stood there for a moment then turned toward the door. Lor saw a look sweep across her face, an expression of…what was it?
…Contempt?
There was no time to decide. Datan was heading right for her.
Lor turned to go, but her foot caught on something. She stumbled, only breaking her fall by latching onto one of the barrels.
The pot top! It was still lodged in the door. If Datan saw it, then she’d know someone had been listening.
There was no time. She had to run.
The door swung open as Lor ran headlong for the nearest path out. The captain stopped in the doorway, her shadow cast on the wall by the torchlight. “Who is that? Speak!”
Lor was spotted, but she dare not stop.
She turned the corner, running hard.
With all the twists and turns around the secret passageways and tunnels, Lor made it away fairly easily. Since it had been dark, she was confident that Datan hadn’t been able to identify her.
She and her father normally ate in Mushroom Hall, the dining area owned and operated by the farmer’s guild. The animal trainers were a relatively small lot and were closely associated with the food industry, so they had long-since allied themselves with the farmers. The engravings on the walls were all in tribute to the staple crops of Firehorn, with the longer western wall being devoted entirely to plump helmets.
A shaggy yellow mutt wearing a part tin part leather leg brace limped toward her and sniffed her hand. Lor immediately forgot her close call with the captain of the guard, and scratched behind the pup’s ears. “Hey Golem! How are you boy?”
The mutt licked her face, and Lor hugged him. Golem was one of the strays she’d found hurt in the minecart tunnels. He’d nearly died from infection after the accident, but ever since he got his brace he’d been almost as mobile as any other dog.
Lor got a bowl of plump helmet soup, bread, and a mug of stout ale and looked for a spot to sit.
She ate her meal alone. She did so usually, for there weren’t many kids who would let her sit with them. They said that she smelled like the owls, and they often teased her about spending all day in the tower with her father. She’d rather eat alone than endure that.
But it hadn’t always been that way. When her mother was alive she’d eat with her during work breaks. She and her best friend Mora used to eat together every day, but she had gotten turned by the mists. Lor missed Mora.
The two of them had been in the owlery at the time training a pair of mandrills and hadn’t heard the militia ringing the bell. Lor had gone down into the storeroom for some food when she’d seen the cloud, thick with a wan pulsing light creeping above the walls of the fortress. It seemed almost alive, white but as thick as soup as if you could reach and pull out a chunk with your hand. She’d been almost mesmerized by it.
Her father had reached her just in time. Before she knew what was going on he’d pulled her into the very dark, very small cellar beneath the owlery and closed the hatch. It had been too late for Mora.
Lor didn’t remember much about what happened next. She knew she squirmed away from her father and climbed the tower once the mists had passed. She remembered the militia being there trying to force the door open.
A moment before they rushed in, Lor caught a glimpse of Mora, or something that looked like Mora only the eyes were different, covered in red and crouching over th
e corpse of one of the mandrills.
She blacked out then. Her father told her what she saw was just a dream and that Mora had died cleanly and simply with no pain. But Lor remembered.
And even if she hadn’t, there were the claw marks on the doors…
“Golem, stop.”
Despite his physical limitations, the dog remained quite daring. As they wandered through the service tunnels heading toward the forges, the dog saw a small iguana skitter behind some barrels and tried to root it out. The areas above the forges were warmer than any other place in the fortress and thus attracted many of the more exotic strays that had been imported. Lor saw half a dozen mandrills curled up in an old abandoned minecart, asleep and smiling.
When she had free time, this was where she went. The chill that lived in her bones was only slaked by the billowing steam of the forges. She had found the greatest spot too, an open space at the top of the main forge room that-
Golem bolted after the reptile, his metal brace clattering and squeaking as he did. The lizard ran for its life and slipped into a steam vent.
“Golem, quit!”
Shockingly, the dog managed to squeeze into the vent. Lor ran over and tried to grab him, but it was too late. He had already shimmied down the metal vent and dropped down a level into pitch darkness.
“Golem!” She listened and could still hear him running. She was relieved that he wasn’t hurt, but he could still get stuck if the vents narrowed.
Lor cut through another hall and found a minecart path that headed downward. She ran and followed it. Maybe she could cut him off when he came out the other end.
When she made it to the next level, she still heard him scrambling through the vents, down yet another level. She followed.
Nothing. The service tunnels were so vast down here that he could be absolutely anywhere, and even if she knew she might not be able to reach him. With nothing else to do, she headed for the northern staircase.
She found that she was on the lowest level before the caverns, well-below the forges. Gods, had she ran that far? No wonder she’d missed him.
As a matter of habit, she glanced out of the windows that gave a glimpse down into the cavern layer. It was only four levels to the surface here, and she could see Hot Lake and its shimmering waters reflected the torchlight below.
The she saw a blur of yellow. Golem was trotting along a minecart path that spiraled around the large rock formation hovering above the lake, supported only by the columns the engineering teams had installed. Lor knew from experience that the path led all the way down to the second level of the caverns, the one not fully secured yet by the militia.
If he made it there…
Lor could already hear the voice of her father echoing in her mind; Never go down there, Lor. The beasts that dwell beneath the ground are ancient and strange and not for little Dwarfettes to tame.
But as she watched Golem limp his way down the path, she knew she couldn’t let him go alone.
She followed.
All was dark. Lor shivered.
It seemed colder on the second level, but she knew that couldn’t be the case; the caverns were the same temperature as all the levels of the fortress above. If anything she should feel warmer, for she knew the engineers and mechanics had found and rerouted a magma pipe somewhere nearby.
But no, she felt a definite chill, and it wasn’t just because of the fear. As she watched, her torch flickered slightly, as if moved by some distant wind.
Lor sniffed the air. What was that stench? She’d heard her father and a few others complain that the first cavern layer had smelled a little odd lately, but she’d been unable to detect it herself. Now that she was deeper she could; this second layer smelled like…she couldn’t place it. Some moist decay like she had never experienced before. Did the second layer always smell this way?
There were only two areas that had any torches set out; the surface-level entrance at the bottom of the stairs where she stood, and the distant minecart path to the east. The rest of the cavern was utterly dark. She had known it would be, for nobody ventured down this way save for the mechanics to tinker with the magma levels and the occasional militia platoon sent to map the caves. Some talk had been made of trying to grow trees and crops and even to place some of the livestock here, but Lor could see that they weren’t even close to beginning the task yet. She couldn’t picture any sheep or chicken living here for long; it was just too frightening.
The ground in front of her was thick red mud with the occasional spore tree and tunnel tube. She’d have to be careful not to get lost.
“Golem?” Her voice sounded tiny and there was hardly any echo. This place was vast, far larger than the first layer.
She listened, but heard nothing. It was deadly silent, without even the drips and trickles of distant water to fill the silence.
“Golem, come. Come here Golem.”
She heard something to her right and gasped. Something was panting and moving in the dark.
Her heart thumped in her ears. She thought of all the horrible things that could out there stalking her at that very moment; troglodytes and rutherers and cave crawlers, jabberers and flesh balls and hungry heads…the stuff of bedtime fright stories and nursery rhymes about curious Dwarven children killed for their foolishness.
She heard a metallic squeak and thought she caught a glimpse of yellow out of the corner of her eye.
“Golem!” It had to be him. She ran after.
The mud was thick and sloppy and slowed her down considerably. Every few minutes or so she would hear another metallic clink as the dog ran further into the caves. She was getting closer, he must be tired. She hoped he wasn’t hurt.
After what felt like a long time, she found dog tracks in the mud. She hoped she’d be able to follow them back to the entrance or at least the minecart path; with all the running she’d lost her sense of direction and could no longer see the distant torches. Hers was the only light. She hoped it wouldn’t burn out before she could find Golem and get back.
She followed the tracks. As she walked she noticed the rock ceiling was getting lower and lower. Had she reached the edge of the cave already?
She gasped. The tracks led to a low small crawlspace in the wall. It was maybe three hands high and twice that wide; just large enough for a dog to crawl through.
Lor groaned. Curse that dog…no wonder he’d gotten hit by that minecart. He was far too adventurous for his own good.
Lor crouched down in the mud. She shoved her torch into the crawlspace and looked.
The darkness swallowed the light, but from what she could tell it went even further down. Hadn’t she been walking downhill all this time already? How much further could it go?
Surely not far. Knowing that her father would cuss her for days if he found out, she got down and crawled on her belly, doing her best to keep the torch in front of her.
She was right about it going even further down. Despite the fact that she was crawling through thick sticky mud (Gods, her father would tan her hide if he knew) she was sliding quickly forward because the incline was so steep. At times she had to stop herself to keep from going too fast.
At last, she reached the end of the crawlspace. The stench she had smelled upon entering the second layer was even more prevalent here. It seemed to soak everything in its grim, decaying, almost fishy stench.
When she stood she noticed the mud gave way to a type rock she didn’t recognize; it was dark gray and looked almost uniform throughout. She thought that odd because her mother had taught her all the different rocks native to the north and Marblespire and even had samples for her to feel and look at, and yet she didn’t recognize this one.
She heard claws scraping rock, gasped, and looked up.
Golem was there, trotting over to her. His coat was soaked in mud but he looked otherwise unharmed. He licked her hand as if all this were a part of a normal day.
“Bad Golem,” Lor said. She brought her face close to his, making sure she had his full attention. “Don’t ever do that again, you hear me? It is dangerous down here.”
The beast gave her a solemn look, as if he understood. He licked her face in apology, then turned and trotted a few paces away.
“Don’t, Golem. You’ve gone far enough as it is.”
He barked, his tail wagging all the while. Knowing by instinct that he was trying to show her something, Lor sighed.
“Fine, but make it quick. My father will sell you for soup if he knows we were here.”
Golem didn’t go far. Just on the other side of a small bluff of the unknown rock, there was a stream of clear, trickling water. Golem beamed with pride, then lapped at it.
Lor stopped. That was odd; it was said that there wasn’t much water in the second layer, only the drippings from the first that served to further soak the muddy ground. But this stream was large, almost like a brook would be on the surface (were it not freezing year round.) Surely if they knew-
Lor gasped. That was just it. Nobody knew because nobody had been here before. Now that she thought of it, there was very little chance that any of the militia would have noticed the tiny crawlspace that led them here, much less gone through it. This was a completely new, completely unsecured place.
She used her torch to look around. It was very close-quarters. The ceiling was no higher than twenty hands high. Maybe this was simply an isolated offshoot of the second layer.
But then she looked closer. The area east (or what she guessed was east) ramped ever downward with each step and disappeared into darkness. All other ways were enclosed by rock.
Content that Golem would stay there and drink for a while, Lor walked to the edge of her vision.
She couldn’t have gone further if she wanted to. She realized she was standing on a bluff of the strange new rock, looking over an area that went even further down. She tried to calculate how far down she was from the entrance to the second layer and couldn’t.
With that realization came complete and total terror. She wasn’t on the second layer any more.
She was on a third.
No one even knew about a third. There were no staircases beyond the second. Once the miners had found the magma pipe on the edge of the second layer, there had been no reason to dig further.
Whatever innate curiosity Lor had was completely and utterly surpassed by the realization that she needed to leave and now. There could be anything in these caves, any horror imaginable.
And of course, those that could not be imagined.
Golem barked, and Lor flinched so hard she nearly dropped her torch.
The dog whimpered as he looked off into the western darkness. His tail pointed straight downward, and he backed up.
“…What is it boy?” Her voice had never sounded so small and so frail. She could barely hear herself.
Something very heavy scraped against the stone to her right. She pointed her torch, but there was nothing, only darkness.
“…Who’s there?” The rational part of her brain realized it was a foolish question. There was nothing this deep in the ground that could speak, and even if it could it would be the voice of madness.
Thump. The entire cavern shook. Golem squealed out a bark, then bolted for the crawlspace. Not even he was loyal enough to stand there and wait for what was coming.
Lor felt detached from her body. She could not move. All she could do was wait, rigid with fear, watching as the darkness was split by a stark white form, something that seemed almost as tall as the ceiling.
And then her vision was filled with leathery white wings spreading from one end of the cave to the other. Though terrified beyond words she could not help but marvel at it. She waited for death to come.
It was beautiful.
About the author
J.C. Bass is a 28 year-old writer from Kentucky. In 2010 he won the Dantzler fiction award for his short story Parking Lot Follies. He's got noisy neighbors, too many bills, and a smart-ass sense of humor. He is the author of three humor novels: Unwise Guys, The Poet and the Bastard, and A Man and his Lawn. He also writes thrillers under the name Dealey Ford, and recently published a novel called Killing Houston.