by Paul Stewart
‘What is it?’ she said.
‘This isn't right,’ said Quint.
‘Not right?’ she said, the cold anger returning to her voice.‘But I thought we were following the track that you'd marked.’
‘We were,’ said Quint, trying to stay calm. ‘The thing is, when I was following your father, the tunnel we took was flat. This tunnel is…’
‘Going upwards,’ said Maris. She sighed.
‘We must have taken a wrong turning,’ said Quint. ‘We'll have to go back.’
‘Oh, great,’ said Maris in a flat voice. She was no longer angry – just weary. ‘You mean we're lost.’ Suddenly her energy seemed gone. She slumped to the tunnel floor. The lantern by her side dimmed as its reserve of tilder-oil ran low.
‘We mustn't give up,’ said Quint. He reached down and, with an immense effort, forced himself to pick up the lantern. His hands shook; the fiery light flickered. ‘Come on, Maris,’ he said. ‘If I can make myself carry this lantern, then you can make yourself carry on.’
Maris said nothing, her face now buried in her hands.
‘Maris, please!’ said Quint. ‘I need you. I can't do this on my own.’
He held out his hand. Slowly Maris looked up. There were tears in her eyes, but also that look which Quint was beginning to know so well, the stubbornness and courage just below the surface. She smiled, took his outstretched hand and let herself be pulled up.
‘Sorry,’ she said once more.
She reached out and took the lantern from his hand. As she did so, the flame sputtered and died, and they were enveloped by the oppressive gloom. Quint peered about him. Although it was not pitch-black in the tunnel, the faintly glowing stonecomb barely produced enough light to see by.
‘The arrows will be even more difficult to find now,’ he said.
‘I was right, then,’ said Maris despondently. ‘We are lost.’
The words echoed sibilantly and faded away. Down the tunnels, little flashing lights glinted in the gloom – now ice-blue, now poison-green.
Quint could see Maris before him, silhouetted against the dull glow. Her head was down again, her shoulders slumped. He gripped her by the arm. ‘We're going to be all right, Maris,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You'll see.’
Out of the corner of his eye, the clusters of flickering, floating lights turned to pastel pinks and yellows.
‘But how, Quint?’ Maris demanded. ‘How? It's too dark to find the arrows now. You said so yourself.‘
‘Difficult, I said,’ he told her. ‘Not impossible. And if we can't see well enough, then … then, we'll feel our way along. So long as we keep going in the same direction, we'll be fine.’
‘Feel our way along where?’ said Maris. ‘We don't know which way anything is. Oh, Quint, this is hopeless!’
Her cry of despair boomed along the dark tunnel. Grains of sand trickled down to the floor, hissing softly as they landed. The flickering lights suddenly glinted brighter than ever. They flashed and sparked – on, off, on, off …
‘Did you see that?’ Quint whispered urgently. ‘What are they?’
Maris nodded uneasily. She clutched at his jerkin and clung on tight. ‘I think they're glisters,’ she whispered. ‘Though I've never seen so many together before.’ She swallowed nervously. ‘I don't like it.’
‘It's almost as though they reacted to what you said,’ said Quint. He paused. ‘Do you think glisters could do that?’
‘I … I'm not sure,’ said Maris. ‘Maybe.’ She pulled away from him and peered back into the gloomy darkness warily. The hovering lights darted this way and that. Low groans resounded ominously from deeper in the tunnel. ‘Welma would say they could,’ she said at last.
‘She would?’ said Quint.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Maris, her eyes looking round anxiously. ‘She's convinced they know how we're feeling – that they react to our moods. For instance, she says that the glisters which are attracted to the Viaduct Steps for the annual March of Fools are warm-coloured, glowing creatures – quite different from the sparking, flashing ones that gather in the Stone Gardens during a funeral.’ She shivered. ‘Mind you, not everyone can see them as well as Welma.’ She paused. ‘She reckons none of them are to be trusted.‘
The lights sparked and flashed.
‘There,’ said Quint. ‘It happened again. Whenever you speak, they go all sparky! Whereas when I speak…’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘From the glimpses you do get, they're really quite beautiful. I wonder what they actually look li—’
‘No, Quint,’ Maris interrupted him sternly. ‘They say you should never try to look at a glister directly.’
Quint started back in alarm. ‘Why not?’ he said.
Maris shrugged. ‘It's supposed to bring bad luck,’ she said darkly.
The strange lights, which had been glowing orange and red a moment earlier, abruptly flashed brightly. Some of them started advancing along the tunnel; others filtered through the porous rock and hovered just out of direct view. A soft moaning echoed from the shadowy depths.
Quint and Maris ducked their heads and kept on along the tunnel. They had to keep moving. Quint glanced back over his shoulder.
‘But wh … what are they exactly?’ he said.
Maris shrugged. ‘There are many tales,’ she said. ‘Some say they are the lost souls of those academics who died away from Sanctaphrax, far from the white ravens who would have picked their bones clean and sent their souls soaring up to open sky.’
‘The souls of dead academics,’ Quint murmured, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
‘Some say they are Deepwoods demons,’ Maris went on, ‘nameless ones, from the darkest reaches of the forest. Others, that they are the spirits of the stonecomb itself …’
Quint trembled. The lights flashed menacingly. The ominous groans grew louder.
‘But then, who knows?’ said Maris, a defiant edge coming into her voice as she fumbled her way behind him along the tunnel. ‘Every story told in Sanctaphrax is embellished and exaggerated. Why should these be any different?’
The lights softened and fell back. The air seemed to sigh. Quint reached back for Maris's hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘You're very brave, you know,’ he said simply.
Maris squeezed back. ‘It's not easy,’ she admitted, looking round into the oppressive darkness of the stonecomb. ‘I hate it so much down here.’
‘I know,’ said Quint. He paused, furious with himself for getting them lost in the labyrinthine tunnels. ‘We'll soon come to that junction where we went wrong, I know we will,’ he said at last. ‘Then we can decide which way we want to go – either back to the tunnel entrance or on to the chamber.’
‘Oh, on to the chamber,’ said Maris. ‘Definitely! We can't go back now, not having come so far. Besides, if my father …’ She broke off mid-sentence. ‘Quint, look!’ she exclaimed.
‘What?’ he cried.
‘There,’ said Maris. ‘On the wall by your elbow.’
The tunnel echoed with the rising sound of moaning and groaning. The lights glimmered. Quint turned and his heart leapt as he saw what she was pointing at. This time there could be no doubt that it was one of the black chalk arrows he had made.
‘Thank Sky!’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew we'd find it.’
They headed off in the direction the arrow was pointing towards. The tunnel was wider here and it was possible to walk two abreast. Quint was holding the hooked pikestaff. Maris clutched the lantern, just in case, in the chamber, there were reserves of tilder-oil that they could use to help them find their way back. For the first time since they'd entered the maze of tunnels, they were both feeling optimistic about the task that lay ahead.
‘Soon be there,’ said Quint.
‘Good,’ said Maris. ‘Now that we've come this far, I'm not going back until I've found out what's in that mysterious chamber.’
‘Me, neither,’ said Quint. ‘I—’
‘Ouch!’
Quint stopped in
his tracks and turned to see Maris rubbing the side of her head gingerly. ‘Are you OK?’ he said.
‘I'm fine,’ she said. ‘I just banged my head on that bit of jutting rock there.’
Quint winced. ‘Let me take a look,’ he said.
‘It's nothing,’ said Maris. ‘Really.’
Her hair was glistening with something wet and sticky. Quint was gripped by a sudden, intoxicating fear. ‘Maris!’ he gasped. ‘Maris, you're bleeding!’
His voice echoed. The tunnels groaned. Far in the distance, the lights flashed and sparked.
‘Am I?’ said Maris, unconcerned. She looked at her fingers. ‘So I am,’ she said. ‘Still, it's only a graze…’
‘No, Maris,’ said Quint, his voice low with dread as he remembered the last time he was in the stonecomb. ‘You don't understand. That creature I told you about… the huge, red creature … it follows the smell of blood…’
Already, above the gloomy moans and groans, he could hear a sniffing, snuffling sound. And it was getting closer! In a terrible blind panic, he grabbed Maris's arm.
‘It's coming after us!’ he screamed. ‘Quick, Maris. We've got to get out of here now, while we still can!’
Together, they hurried along the dark corridor. Behind them the flapping and snorting grew louder. This was serious. Something was after them. Something that meant them harm.
‘Faster!’ he urged. ‘Faster! Before …’
‘Whiii-whiii-whiiiiii!’
Quint's heart missed a beat as the terrible high-pitched squealing filled the tunnel. It sounded exactly the same as before. The creature had found Maris's blood – and liked it as much as it had liked his own! He shivered violently as the slavering and slurping grew more frenzied.
‘WHIII-WHIIIIII!’
All at once, there was a rushing, roaring noise close behind them and, for a moment, the tunnel became as bright as day. Quint stumbled, tripped and fell heavily to the ground. The air above his head turned warm and stale. It crackled and howled. It fizzed and sparked.
Then it fell still. Quint looked round anxiously.
The tunnel was once again bathed in the shadowy reddish glow. The creature had gone. And so had Maris!
‘Quint!’ he heard her screaming, her voice echoing back down the long tunnel.
Quint leapt to his feet. The terrible beast had just tasted blood – Maris's blood – and now it had Maris! Quint gripped the hooked pikestaff grimly. His dark eyes blazed. ‘I'm coming!’ he shouted back.
He dashed along the corridor as fast as he could. All around him now, the air was sparking and flashing. Ahead of him he could see the deep-red glow of the retreating creature.
‘Quint!’ Maris cried out. She sounded terrified, desperate, close to the end of her tether.
‘Remember how brave you are!’ Quint yelled back.
The light faded abruptly. Quint kept on till he arrived at a fork in the tunnel. He paused. He cocked his head to one side. From the right-hand tunnel came the faint sound of snuffling and snorting.
‘There you are,’ Quint muttered through clenched teeth, a burning rage suddenly gripping him. ‘I'll get you if it's the last thing I do.’
He ducked his head and hurried into the low, narrow tunnel. The rock hummed and glowed.
‘Quint!’ Maris's voice floated back. The snuffling and snorting grew louder. The air flickered. Far ahead, the red glow came back into view.
Quint sped up, in hot pursuit of the creature which, only the previous day, had been pursuing him. He fumbled and stumbled his way along the cramped tunnel as fast as he could, determined to lose neither sight nor sound of his quarry. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to Maris.
All at once, the light disappeared again. The creature must have turned a corner. Quint scurried to the end of the stretch of tunnel, paused, cocked his head to one side – and dashed off once more after the receding sounds.
‘Hang on, Maris!’ he yelled. ‘I'll get to you!’
He grazed his knuckles on the rough walls, he tripped on the irregular rock below his feet and knocked his head painfully against the low ceiling – but he kept on, the anger burning in his chest as he tracked the snuffling, snorting beast which flapped on relentlessly with Maris. He was going as fast as he could – but all the while, the pair of them were getting farther and farther away.
‘Come on,’ Quint muttered. ‘I mustn't lose them.’
Yet even as he urged himself on, Quint knew that his task was becoming harder with every passing second. The stonecomb was a terrible, treacherous maze. Tiny tunnels gave way to huge ones that suddenly branched into countless smaller passages which zigzagged off in all directions. Had he lost them already? He stopped. Which way should he go now?
‘Maris!’ he bellowed. ‘MARIS!’
‘Quint!’
The voice came from his left. It sounded weary, frail. He turned and ran towards it. The tunnel became wider and higher, and he sprinted along it, trying desperately to catch up.
‘Quint!’
It was louder now. He must be getting closer. ‘I'm coming, Maris!’ he shouted back. ‘Just hold on!’
At the far end of the tunnel, he skidded round the corner – and stopped dead. His jaw dropped. The dimly glowing tunnel ahead was empty. There was no sight of the strange lights: no flickering, no flashing. And though he strained to hear, not a sound.
‘But I was so sure,’ he murmured, his voice low, trembling. ‘Maris!’ he called. ‘MARIS!‘
Apart from his own echoed cries, there was nothing. He shook his head and advanced slowly.
‘She can't just have disappeared. She…’
And then he heard it: a soft, scratching sound. But where was it coming from? Not from in front of him, that much was certain. He turned round, retraced his footsteps and listened intently.
There it was again. Scratching. Scraping. And, unless his imagination was playing cruel tricks, a low slurping sound. His blood ran cold.
Cautiously, he rounded the bend and there, not a dozen strides ahead of him, was a crimson light fanning out from a low hole at the bottom of the tunnel wall like a pool of blood.
‘Sky curse this place!’ he shouted. ‘I must have walked straight past it.’
As his anger echoed round the tunnels, the scratches and slurps fell abruptly silent and the red light disappeared.
Puzzled, Quint walked over to the low hole, crouched down and peered in. His heart pounded loudly. Before him lay a long, narrow tunnel. If Maris had come this way then he had no choice but to continue on his hands and knees to find her. But what if she hadn't? What if it was a trap?
‘Maris?’ he called out, listening nervously for a reply as the echo faded away.
At first there was nothing. Quint waited silently. Still nothing. Then, just as he was about to continue his search elsewhere, the same scratching, slurping sounds resumed from the far end of the winding, tube-like tunnel.
‘Maris?’ Quint called again.
This time a weak, tremulous voice answered him. ‘Qui … i … int,’ it faltered. ‘Help … m … mffllmfff.’
Quint's stomach sank as her cries were abruptly stifled. But she was still alive. That was the important thing. She was still alive! He felt for the hooked pikestaff.
‘I'm coming, Maris,’ he muttered grimly.
Heart hammering in his chest, Quint dropped to his knees and crawled into the tunnel. As the hole through the rock grew narrower, the walls squeezed in at his sides and forced his shoulders down. The rough rock beneath him frayed the knees of his trousers and grazed the palms of his hands.
‘Can't be far now,’ he muttered to himself encouragingly.
His body shook, his face glistened with cold sweat. All round him, the rock was edged with the bright red light which was once again streaming down the tunnel from somewhere up ahead. The scratching was intermittent now, and much less insistent, but the hideous slurping was low and regular.
‘Oh, Maris,’ Quint said. ‘Be bra
ve. I'm coming as fast as I can.’
He craned his neck to see ahead. And there it was – a bright circle of light in front of him. The end of the tunnel.
‘Nearly there,’ Quint murmured.
As he drove himself on those last few strides, head down and teeth clenched, the quality of the air changed. It became cooler, damper, and his ears picked up the
empty, echoing resonance of a great hall. Again, with effort, Quint craned his neck to peer ahead. He was even nearer to the end than he'd dared believe. Just in front of him a wedge-shaped heap of scree fanned out into an opening beyond. He found himself peering into what seemed to be some great cavern.
‘Be on your guard,’ he told himself. ‘Keep your eyes peeled and your ears pricked.’
He edged himself forwards to the very end of the tunnel. All at once, the vile slobbering noises started up again, louder than ever.
‘No,’ he breathed, and tried to draw back – but his hand skidded on the slippery scree, his body lurched forwards and he slid helplessly down out of the tunnel in a noisy flurry of dust and fragments of rock.
The slurping stopped. The red light went out. Quint scrabbled to his feet and looked round him wildly.
He was indeed inside a cavern – a vast, egg-shaped chamber which was dark, chilling and filled with spectral lights and flitting shadows. The walls were pitted and rough to the touch, and – he noted with growing panic – without any means of escape save for the narrow tunnel he had come in by.
‘Sky protect me,’ he murmured, his breath coming in jerky gasps.
Whatever had attacked Maris must be out there in the darkness somewhere. Watching. Listening. Waiting for him…
‘Stay c… calm,’ he told himself. But his heart was thumping fit to burst. How could he stay calm in this terrible place? Everything about it filled him with fear…
And then he heard it: the ominous wet snorting and snuffling so difficult to identify. It was coming from the oppressive shadowy darkness some way to his right. His heart missed a beat. He was shaking from head to foot.