Remembering the others didn’t react to light, I brightened the stone and focused on their eyes. They had no eyes. All of the other normal features of a face were present – nose, mouth, ears and hair, but unkempt and lacking in basic symmetry.
Suddenly, they stopped. Their clicking erupted into a chorus of startled clicks and trills.
“YAW! STAY BACK,” I yelled, threatening with the spear.
“Nud! Put that thing down!” said Kabor.
The miners chirred and trilled in heightened tones. They pointed at us, clicking and clacking in rapid bursts. The crooked creatures waved their arms and shook their tools, until one trilled so loud my eardrums nearly burst. Then, for a long moment, there was silence. One among them advanced a few cautious steps. Hairy, bat-like ears angled this way and that. My spear kept the cave dwellers at bay.
“Kabor,” I said, pulling at his arm, “we should go now. They look angry at us.” There was still a good chance we could make it back through the crawlspace and escape down the shaft.
Kabor seemed unsure, but he did not protest. We edged back to the opening. The creatures of the gloom followed in step. When we reached it, their chatter rose alarmingly. They shook their heads and waved their hands frantically.
“Nud, they want us to stay with them,” said Kabor. I stopped, undecided.
“Nud, look at what they’re carrying – work tools,” continued Kabor. “These are the slave sorts, like Clickity-clack. And they’re not armed… nothing to worry about.”
He had a point. Sheer ugliness is not considered a weapon under most circumstances. Even I got the sense they were trying to protect us from entering a dangerous area.
The “slaves” studied us with quizzical looks, incessantly chittering until the same triller let out another ear-piercing blast. The others hushed. All faced us, expectant. I lowered my spear.
Kabor whispered: “Do you think they’re waiting for us to tell them what to do? After all, they are trained slaves.”
“That’s just stupid,” I said.
The creatures stood and waited. Each was badly hunched over, warped in limb and dullish grey in the flesh. Loose, wrinkled skin marked where eyelids, lashes, and eyeballs all should have been – as though grown over. Bristly hair grew over the vacant eye patches. Indeed, they were the epitome of utter gloom, and pitiful to behold. But they were not monsters. They were people.
“Put down your spear,” said Kabor.
“No,” I said.
Kabor raised his voice. “PUT IT DOWN!”
“This better work,” I huffed, and laid down my spear. I took a step back from it.
The gesture excited the gloomy onlookers. They waved us down to a hunched position… to their own crooked height. I’d say “eye to eye” if it made any sense to.
“See,” said Kabor. “They don’t want a fight.” Kabor put on his spectacles.
The loud triller of the lot, who appeared to have status, spoke in a sonorous, guttural voice. He used common words.
“Isotopia?” he said, amidst a series of clicks and ticks.
“Isotopia?” repeated another, sprinkled with the same sounds.
Others joined in, each repeating the same word again and again, louder and louder to be heard above the others. They crowded in closer until we put our hands up to stave them off.
Neither one of us tried to answer, or even knew how to.
Slowly, I reached into my pack and offered up a piece of deepwood as a token of friendship. They went quiet again. The triller reached out and ran his hands along the wood, grasped it, and then tested its sturdiness against his thigh. He nodded his head in approval. I gave out two more pieces and a handful of cave crystals. The offerings seemed to please them.
“Can you lead us out?” I said to the triller, now that they appeared to be somewhat charmed. “We live above the ground… outside… under the sky, the sun and the moon.”
“And clouds,” said Kabor. “And rain and stars.”
“And comets,” I said.
“Comets?
Some of the others chirped attentively. One of them, identifiable by his oddly spotted head, seemed to have acquired some measure of understanding. Another, the smallest, appeared attentive. I focused my efforts on those two and presented them with a close view of the SPARX stone. I lit it up with the thought of cool water from a spring near Fyorn’s cabin. They carried on as if nothing had changed.
“The sun,” I said. There was no reaction.
“What are you doing Nud?” said Kabor. “It’s obvious they can’t see.”
“Just checking,” I said, wondering exactly how to describe the sun to them.
I held my hands above my head. “Warmth above,” I said. They tracked my moving hands, but otherwise the expressions on their faces were flat. I closed my fist around the stone. In the darkness, I moved the same hand to one side and then unveiled the light. Both of them focused on my hand in its new position, faces still expressionless, and clicking softly amongst themselves.
I turned to Kabor. “They notice how we move – they seem to know something is in my hand – and they can hear, but they can’t ‘see’ brightness or dimness.”
“You’re right,” said Kabor. “They can’t see. But they don’t seem to really need to see either.”
After an exchange of chitter, several of the more outgoing members stepped forward. The triller and the one with the spotted head ever so cautiously grabbed onto my arms. The small one and another grabbed Kabor’s arms as well. They tugged at us gently – to follow. I did not resist wholly, and neither did Kabor. One picked up Sliver and carried it along, another relieved Kabor of the pick. The “Glooms,” as we began to call them, did not appear to have any interest in harming us. In our stretched states, we were simply too exhausted to put up a fuss anyway. I could only hope that they understood we were surface dwellers, and I could only hope that they would lead us to a place where we could find the sun that they had never seen; would never see.
*
The Glooms had much to discuss, but not with us. All attempts to make small talk came up short. And as they shepherded us through the dark maze of cramped mine workings, once again their conversations took on a lively character. Sensing our willingness to follow, they let go their holds and, as a group, simply adjusted their walking speed so that we were always in their midst. Kabor and I openly discussed our predicament.
“They click to talk and they click to see, don’t they?” I said.
“That might be it – something like bats,” said Kabor. “But I don’t know if we can hear all the sounds they make… just look at those ears.”
We stared at the pointed, active ears of the nearest Gloom, angling about.
“That’s sort of like turning sounds into pictures, isn’t it?” I said.
“Maybe,” said Kabor. “And they might be able to mix words and pictures when they talk by imitating the reflected sounds.”
“I don’t know how that would work, really,” I said. “Just because I hear a sound, it doesn’t mean I can imitate it perfectly when I try to tell you about it. So when they ‘hear’ a picture, they still might not be able to convey exactly what they ‘heard.’”
“I didn’t say it was perfect,” he said.
Kabor’s idea got me thinking though. “I wonder if they get mixed up. Like if their words bounce off things and then get twisted into pictures in their minds, muddling up the conversation.”
“Or if sometimes one can’t ‘see’ because the other won’t shut up,” said Kabor. We laughed at the thought of it.
A Gloom passed us a disapproving look. Already, I had learned to read the mouth and brow for signs of emotion, as opposed to the eyes. Not quite sure what we might have done wrong, Kabor and I simply trudged alongside the miners without words for a long while, soaking in the lulling drone of their chatter and examining the passages carefully as we passed.
“What is that ring for?” I said to Kabor, pointing
to a simple iron ring on the wall. He took a close look at it as we passed by.
“It’s meant to support a torch,” he said. “I guess somebody needed light down here, at one time.”
“These are very old workings,” he continued. “Those sconces are from the Hills, but no one makes them like that anymore. I can’t think of any mine that would be quite like this one. I think we’re deep, really deep, and that we’ve strayed north.”
“What makes you think we’re so deep?”
“The rock,” he replied. “I’ve only ever seen anything like it once.”
Kabor went on to describe the geology of the Bearded Hills, and precisely how the rock we were walking through might fit in. I didn’t quite understand what he was saying at the time – his terms and language were all foreign to me. I got the impression though that the layer of rock we were situated in somehow intruded into a layer he’d seen on the deepest level of a Stout mine he use to work in, and that the angle of intrusion told him something about the direction it came from. So, by his reckoning, we were down and north of that part of the mine – towards Harrow.
As he talked, the Glooms led us on through many low and dark passages, with wet walls and piles of rubble at every turn. The arched ceilings were high enough for my liking, but full-sized Men or Elderkin would have had to stoop. Three could walk abreast in the widest areas.
Cross-tunnels were common and on occasion, the group steered us into one. At one point, we were forced to crawl past a rubbled section of the mine – a partial cave in. Kabor mentioned that, although we went up and down regularly, it seemed to him there was more up than down lately, and overall we were getting closer to the surface. That simple fact gave me a great feeling of relief, especially after hearing how deep we must be.
For the first time since our flight from the bog queens, I really felt like every step was one step closer to home. I clung to the hope that the Glooms leading us through the black tunnels were wending their way to the surface, where we belonged. I found myself wondering what Paplov was doing back in Webfoot, and how my friends had faired against the hags. I made a wish that they would all be fine and waiting for us when we got there. I could see them in my mind: the trio of Gariff, Bobbin and Holly at the Flipside, along with Pops, the innkeeper and his wife, laughing and cheering as we entered through the great room door; and Paplov in his workshop looking up and smiling when he saw me, relief on his face.
Eventually, we reached an area of the mine where it looked as though the tunnel came to a dead end. On one side, it turned out, was a small, vertical crevice in the rock, which we entered. It was a tight squeeze, but we managed, and worked our way to an opening at the other end. Passing through, we entered a wider and taller section of the mine. I could now hear activity in the distance – metal on stone clanging and the faint clicking voices of what must have been Gloom miners busy at work. We hadn’t heard any activity or seen any other workers up until that point.
Spirits were high between Kabor and me. Finally, an easy task that actually was not a waste of time or precious resources. We didn’t even have to guess which way to turn, or which tunnel to take – our guides through the secret paths of the underground did it all for us. I felt a pang in my stomach in anticipation of fresh air and the warm light of day, or perhaps a crisp starry night lit by a half moon. Either way was fine with me.
Kabor had a noticeable spring in his step. The dream was nice while it lasted.
As we were about to round a corner, our escorts suddenly went silent and dropped flat to the ground, face down. Glooms tugged at our arms and legs, urging us to do likewise, but soon covered their heads with their hands.
“I have a very bad feeling about this,” was all Kabor had time to whisper. We crept towards the wall and shrunk down against it. I sheathed the bog stone.
Chapter IX
Never forget, never forgive
Torchlight filtered from around the bend in the old workings, a host to dark shapes in the shadows it cast. The walkers were silent.
The first to come into view was a tall, hooded figure garbed in black, head to toe. Long, clawed fingers jutted out of his wide-sleeved robe. I recognized him from my dream. He carried a long scythe in one hand, like the Grim Reaper would, with a shaft that rose above his stooped frame. The black metal blade at its tip was long and narrow with a wicked curve. It gleamed in the firelight.
The figure halted when he saw the Glooms, prone and vulnerable. He raised a hand to the others, still shadows on the wall to my eyes. They waited for his signal. Heads turned among them and hissed words passed between them in an unfamiliar tongue. After a long moment, he beckoned one forth – the torchbearer, who lit a second torch and set it on the nearest sconce. Three others glided past him as they entered. An icy sort of presence chilled the hallway.
The grim leader spoke. His voice soaked the air with venomous pleasantries. “Now this is just lucky,” he remarked, surveying the Glooms and us as well, “as I am famished.” He sneered at his companions. “How long since we last feasted?”
The four reveled in the implications of his words. Glooms whimpered and squirmed.
“Too long,” said the torchbearer, his voice hoarse. “Our slaves have been too obedient of late… until now.”
The leader, clearly a slave master, nodded. “Too long indeed,” he said, and then raised his voice to address the Glooms. “Is that what you think, Gropers? I believe it is true, you have all been too obedient.”
He looked to his vile companions. “And my own congregation – you have also served so very well of late, like true masters of vengeance. Where does the balance lie?”
He pondered the thought for a long moment, until the answer came to him.
“Gentlemen, you must show restraint nonetheless,” he said.
A wave of relief-laden chitter spread among the Glooms. But in tandem, a subtle kind of anticipation began to grow among the leader’s ghastly crew.
The torchbearer raised a single, dagger-length claw, and added to the gesture an approval-seeking nod.
“Oh very well then,” said the slave master. “Each may take ONE for their pleasure and sustenance. But leave the tag-alongs for me.” He looked to my Stout companion, and then to me. But before our eyes could meet, I turned away.
“Yes, little ones… I have noticed you there. You cannot meld into the wall.”
“Who are they?” hissed one of the four.
“So sweeet,” said another.
One Gloom responded with a flurry of clicks – the smallest of them. He frantically waved a stick of deepwood above his head.
“Curious,” said the torchbearer, “This one is trying to tell us something. He’s being… helpful. Yes, very helpful indeed. These items were found on the Outlanders, weren’t they, Groper?… I’ll bet they stole them.”
But we are not Outlanders, I felt like saying. Instead, I said nothing, and kept my head down and my eyes low.
The Gloom responded with more clicks and chirrs, accompanied with nods of his head.
“Yes… they might know something important,” said the leader.
The creatures proved themselves truly evil and merciless; for what happened next was that and more – undeniably despicable. I never fully recovered from the events that transpired, or understood their connection to my darkest dreams. It started when the torchbearer set his torch on a second sconce. The leader then raised his viperous voice to the Glooms, smooth and penetrating.
“Slaves! Mongrels! Listen up! Those whom I spare shall take these prisoners to Taeglin at once, or suffer the fate of those whom I do not spare. You must take ALL of the items along with them – I have made note of that old pick, the makeshift spear, and the stolen crystals bulging out of the Outlander’s pack. Let Taradin know of your insolence as well. Any disobedience will mean a feast – ten of your brothers to every one of you that crosses me!”
Although I could not see his face, by his voice I imagined a wicked smile creeping across it.
“In return for your obedient service,” the leader continued, “we promise to take no more of you than we absolutely need this day.”
Why don’t they run? Scatter? I thought. But I knew in my heart that the Glooms were too slow on their feet, and that at least one for each of the shadowy beasts would be caught. Although it sounded like Kabor and I would be spared, I did not wholly trust their intentions.
The four nodded in agreement before sizing up their prey. One immediately turned its head towards me. And although the creature’s grim visage remained veiled in the darkness of its cowled hood, I still felt the presence of its probing eyes visually gorging on my flesh. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight on end. Ice filled my veins, and my pounding heart sent the chill to every part of my body. I looked away for a moment, in the same way you might look away from an animal so as not to raise its aggression. But I could still feel the biting gaze. Slowly, the figure began to sway left and right in a rhythmic, fluid motion. The body swayed, but the head remained fixed, as though floating above it. My heart stopped when it took a step towards me, just as the others began to close in on their chosen game.
I heard the whisper. “Sweeet,” said the shadowy form, nearly under its breath.
The slave master responded in a calm, but firm, tone. “Not that one.”
“So sweeet,” repeated the aggressor, “so tenn-der, so sweeet.”
The dark figure took another step in my direction. Kabor glanced over, pity in his eyes for I’m sure he thought I was doomed. But the grim master would not stand to be disrespected. He raised his black metal blade in warning.
“NOT THAT ONE!” he screeched.
His voice was murder, torture and defilement all in consonance. Angered, he turned back to the cowering Glooms, who redoubled their cowering. They shrunk into small, quivering mounds.
The shadowy, insubordinate figure backed off, but his torturous desires could not be quelled. He immediately turned to glare at another would-be victim – the closest Gloom to where I was crouched.
SPARX Incarnation: Order of the Undying (SPARX Series I Book 2) Page 9