The winds picked up. Their relentless buffeting made it hard for them to keep their balance and still move in the direction they needed to go. Even worse, they might turn into a storm. Adan knew they would never survive if they got caught in the open. This gave him a renewed burst of energy, but only for a time. He soon began to lapse in and out of consciousness while still on his feet. One moment he was following Will’s footprints, the next his mind floated across the desert, a mote of dust carried on the wind. Somehow though, whenever he came to, he was still upright, plodding on without any recollection of how he had gotten to where he was.
On and on the two solitary figures struggled, up and down the perpetual dunes of sand and ruins. They walked and walked until Adan felt he was covering more distance stumbling from side to side than he was going forward. Will kept having to wait for him to catch up. The cord between them was almost always taut. Will was practically dragging him through the wastes.
Mercifully, at last he heard Will say the words he had been longing to hear, “Let’s rest.” They drifted to him through the mounting winds.
Adan fell in a heap. He was too far-gone to even let out a sigh of relief. Part of him wished he could sink into the fathomless dunes, joining the other relics of the Vast.
Will dropped to one knee. His kaff and his garrick were drenched in sweat.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” he said.
Adan nodded feebly, thinking that if he could rest for just a little while, his strength might somehow return. That was the last thought that went through his mind before exhaustion overtook him completely.
The smell of water brought Adan back. The air was cool and refreshing and, for the first time in a long time, still. He thought at first he must be dreaming, but the longer the sensations lingered, the more real they became.
He opened his eyes to a black gash between two cliffs of dark rock. It took him several moments to realize that he was at the base of a gorge, looking up at the sky, or at least where the sky would have been if he could have seen that far with his lentes. The wind sang above, unable to reach down to where he was.
How had he gotten here? Had Will carried him? Had he fallen down?
A spasm of hunger wrenched his insides and all the reality of the dismal journey came rushing painfully back.
“You’re awake.” Will said, his voice coming from behind.
Adan turned to see him strapping on the pack with the shifter.
“How are you feeling?” Will asked.
“Terrible…I’m sore all over and my legs feel like water.”
“If only we could drink them,” Will joked, causing Adan to let out a little laugh which sent spasms of pain shooting through his ribs.
“I’m serious,” Adan said, grimacing. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep going. But I think I can stand up if you give me a hand.”
Will reached down and helped him to his feet. Adan’s legs shook, threatening to rebel, but after a few moments they quieted down and he managed to steady himself.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“The Viscera. Well, the entrance to it, anyway. We’re almost there, compa. Just hold on a bit more.”
“How did I get here? The last thing I remember was lying down in the sand.”
“You wouldn’t wake up—as usual,” Will teased. “So I had to carry you.”
Adan shook his head, amazed at Will’s ability to keep things light in the midst of their circumstances.
“You carried me?” Adan asked. He looked up at the slopes on either side of the gorge. They were craggy, but steep. It could not have been an easy task carrying him down.
Will smiled. “Don’t act so surprised. You’re all skin and bones anyway. It wasn’t much more difficult than lugging around the shifter.”
Although Will still had the pack, he was no longer wearing his desert outfit. He had stripped down to his plain, dingy tunic.
“What happened to your clothes?” Adan asked.
“We can’t wear desert gear down here. We don’t want to be mistaken for Waymen. You need to take yours off, too.”
Adan did as Will suggested, struggling to extricate himself from the layers of clothing. Every tug sent shots of pain through his spent muscles. It took some time, but somehow he shed the coat and headgear without passing out.
Will stashed their clothes amongst the rubble and they started down the length of the gorge.
At first, Adan had to walk with his hand on Will’s shoulder to keep from falling. Though the ground was solid rock, it was not level or smooth and his wobbly legs slid this way and that. As the gorge narrowed, he was able to use the wall for support, which made things a little easier. He stopped frequently to regain his strength.
The crack overhead disappeared as the gorge narrowed to a thin crevice. It must have been quite dark, but with the lentes, he could see almost as clearly underground as up on the surface. The quality of light was different, though. An eerie, hollow glow clung to the walls. And he couldn’t see very far before everything was sucked into blackness.
“I think there’s something wrong with my lentes,” Adan offered.
“No, their charge is running down, that’s all. Mine are the same way. They’ll last us until we get back to the compound though.”
“How do the Welkin see down here?” Adan asked. “It must be pitch black.”
“There are veins of neophosphorous running all through the rocks further in. It’s a mineral that gives off a bluish light. The Welkin extract it and smear it onto rocks or baubles that they wear.”
“Kind of like lumins?”
“Sort of, only the light isn’t as strong. Once it’s removed from the rock the intensity weakens over time, but only when it’s exposed to the open air. So they keep the lights covered and only use them when they need to.”
Adan imagined the people living here clothed in radiant garments, their faces lit with an inviting glow.
“We’re headed to a central area called the Basin,” Will said. “It’s a big reservoir of water and it’s also the central hub connecting all the main passages. The Welkin don’t leave their knits often, but we’ll see if we can meet some there. I still have a few friends left, I hope.”
He came to a halt in front of an empty black opening in the crevice wall.
“This is the first passage. Once we get inside, don’t speak unless it’s absolutely necessary. Sound carries in odd ways down here and we don’t want to alert anyone to our presence, okay?”
Adan nodded. Though his insides were screaming at him to rush down this new passage, a part of him wondered how much of an issue Will’s differences with these people would turn out to be.
There was also the hidden hope—faint though it was—that some fragment of Adan’s past might be buried down here. He studied the rocks as they moved into the passage, but they looked strange and unfamiliar. Whatever secrets they had beneath their smooth dark surfaces they were keeping to themselves.
Eventually, thoughts of his past faded, squashed by that relentless distraction, that need which pressed down and subjugated all others: thirst. More than his past, more than his identity, more than anything else in all the Vast, at that moment he longed for the taste and touch of a simple drink of water.
They wandered through the gray rock tunnels of the Viscera for so long Adan wondered if they’d gotten lost. There were so many passages, Adan didn’t see how Will could tell them apart.
Despite the smoothness of the tunnels, or perhaps because of it, Adan found himself stumbling more and more often. He managed to keep himself from falling completely, but he knew it was only a matter of time before his debilitated legs collapsed beneath him.
All of the passages had been leading downwards until Will made a sharp turn onto the narrowest one yet and this time it headed up. They had not gone far along this new way when they were forced to bend over and eventually crawl in order to keep moving forward. The surface was rough, scraping Adan’s hands and knees
. But the pain was a minor irritation compared to the terrible cramping he felt inside. Just to the end of this passage, then you can rest, he told himself with each agonizing lurch forward.
Though it hardly seemed that way, the passage was not all that long. When they emerged at last out the other side, the sight which greeted them made him forget all about his thirst and weakness, made him think, in fact, that all their suffering had been worth it.
Ten
A Rickety Ride
An enormous cavern of glittering rock yawned before them. Thin, crooked lines of light meandered everywhere along the faces of it. Individually, none of them were very bright, but their combined brightness set the upper reaches aglow. Something about the quality of the light made his skin tingle all over. He never would have believed such beauty existed if he had not seen it with his own eyes.
Further down, the incandescent veins disappeared, consumed by the shadows of a bottomless void that Adan dared not look directly into; just the thought of it forced him to grab hold of Will’s arm to steady himself.
The surfaces of the gigantic shaft were pocked with dozens of openings. Most had makeshift planks or platforms beneath them, fastened to the wall by metal tubes driven into the rock or supported from above through a jumbled framework of interwoven cables and cords. The planks extended towards the center of the cavern to form a network of small, dilapidated connections. Ropes zigzagged up the sides of the cavern and across the gaping middle in a confusing tangle. As if the whole thing weren’t precarious enough, from some of the ropes hung makeshift carts, dangling near the edges of the platforms. Why the whole thing didn’t cave in on itself, Adan couldn’t say, but there was a sort of spontaneous, haphazard charm to it when seen as a whole.
If Adan had been there before he certainly had no recollection of it. But he did not see how he could have failed to remember such a place. He was certain that he would not forget it any time soon.
But his wonder and amazement were cut short when he realized that he and Will were standing on one of those same ramshackle platforms which jutted out from the cavern walls. He shrank back towards the entrance, clutching for anything more solid than the disaster waiting beneath his feet.
Will was oblivious to the danger. He stepped over to the edge and looked down into the dizzying depths. If he lost his balance and slipped, there was nothing to stop him from plummeting below. Adan was about to call out to him to come back when Will saw something which made him double back to where Adan stood.
Without a word of explanation, he reached up and slid his finger along the edge of one of Adan’s lentes. All at once, everything on the other side of the cavern flew up to meet him. The effect was so unexpected and dramatic that, for an instant, Adan thought he had been launched into the middle of the cavern. His arms shot out in front of him to brace for the impact. But everything stopped when Will took his hand off the lens.
Will brought Adan’s hand up to touch the same place. He moved Adan’s finger gently back and forth and Adan gave another start as the far wall grew alternately closer and then further away. After a few more such movements, Adan realized what was happening: the lentes were able to magnify what he was seeing.
The cavern could now be seen in greater detail. The walls were dark with moisture and the radiant lines in the rock were even more beautiful up close. The walkways, however, looked more pathetic than ever. Their planks were little more than long, thin strips of metal in various states of decay. Most of the cables from which they were suspended looked discolored or damaged.
Several shadows flickered on the edge of his vision. He darted his eyes in that direction causing the entire scene to blur past. As his vision stabilized, he found himself staring at an empty section of the cavern wall. He eased his eyes around the edge of the scene, looking for signs of movement, but he couldn’t find any.
Once again, Will placed his finger along the rim of the lentes and slid it down. Adan’s field of vision expanded back to a wider view. All of a sudden, there, huddled together near the edge of one of the platforms, he made out three human figures nestled among the shadows. The details of their faces were obscured, but they had long manes of hair and wore tunics even more ragged-looking than Will’s. The tallest of them was working steadily, pulling down on a line of rope which was looped around the rims of several wheels above his head. As he pulled down, another rope came up alongside it. The other two figures leaned over the edge and watched to see what was going on below.
Adan studied them for a moment before remembering about the lentes. He slid his finger slowly upwards until all he could see were the three people on the platform.
They were not all the same height, but all of them looked short. Their eyes and heads seemed slightly out of proportion with the rest of their bodies, especially the smallest one. Somehow, though, this did not seem odd, but endearing.
Will leaned close and whispered in Adan’s ear, breaking their long silence, “I know those children. We’ve come at a good time. Follow me.”
Children? That was another new word. Adan was expecting Will to tell him that these were Welkin. He wanted to ask what the word meant, but could already hear Will walking along the creaking planks towards the edge of the platform. Adan slipped his finger down the lentes so he could see what was happening close by.
Will spun around and threw one leg over the edge.
“Will, no!” Adan shouted. The words reverberated across the cavern, startling both of them.
Will gave him a stern look and hopped back onto the platform. As the echoes died down, he marched back over to where Adan stood.
“You can’t talk that loud,” Will admonished. “There may be other Welkin nearby in the tunnels. Now come down the ladder.”
Adan froze where he was. “Down there?” he asked, remembering to speak in hushed tones this time.
“Don’t you think you can make it?” Will asked, still looking upset.
Adan hesitated. He didn’t want to be a burden, but the thought of going near the edge of the platform sent his insides spinning.
“No,” he said weakly.
Will stiffened, but then shrugged.
“Okay, I’ll take you on my back, then. When we get to the edge, hold on as tight as you can,” he said resolutely, as if that had been his plan all along.
Adan surrendered with a nervous nod.
He allowed Will to lead him patiently to the edge of the platform. Every step he had to resist the urge to dig in his heels and go no further. Once he finally got there, he worked up his courage and grabbed onto Will from behind. Then Will swung the both of them over the edge.
Overwhelmed with vertigo, Adan only caught a brief glimpse of what lay below. He had expected to see the unending hollow of the shaft, but all he saw was another platform. It wasn’t even that far down. Despite this, his heart did not stop racing until his feet touched the floor again.
On the edge of the new platform, swaying uncertainly from the ad hoc rigging, rested a cart that looked like it was held together by nothing more than wishful thinking. Though there was a stout-looking pole in the center of it, the rest was made from treacherously thin sheets of metal, flaked with decay and cobbled together with crumbling globs of grayish paste. Adan doubted such a contraption would hold the weight of the shifter, much less carry the two of them all the way across the gaping chasm. But clearly, that was what Will had in mind as he bravely stepped into it.
With one hand, Will grabbed hold of a metal ring which ran around the center pole. With the other, he reached out towards Adan, beckoning him to step in. A sickening wash gagged Adan’s throat as he took Will’s hand. Before he could back out, Will yanked him onto the cart and slapped his hand onto the center ring. Adan gripped it fiercely, his knuckles turning white.
Will reached above their heads to a dingy-looking set of wheels near the top of the pole and pulled down on a crank attached to it. With a lurch, the cart sank into the depths. Adan’s stomach performed an inverse maneuver, s
hooting up into his chest. He thought for a moment they were in a free fall. The contraption dipped dangerously low before the cables finally yanked it back upwards and onto a set of sagging lines, quivering out into the emptiness.
Adan held his breath and tried not to think about the impossible heights above which they were suspended, but his hands began to tremble all the same. This made the cart shake even more.
“It’s all right,” Will whispered, “We’ll be across before you know it.”
Adan glanced at Will, but the look of confidence in his eyes wasn’t enough this time. Desperate for anything to take his mind off his fears, he turned his attention to the other side of the cavern and the three small figures assembled in the distance. They had stopped what they were doing and stood staring at the shuddering death trap as it approached. Adan imagined they were in as much disbelief as he was that the cart had not yet plunged into the pit.
Their whispered voices drifted towards him. One of them pointed his way. Had they spotted some danger in the overhead cabling? Was it about to snap or was it slipping off the rigging somehow? He dared not look up to find out. Instead he closed his eyes, hugged the pole tighter than ever, and braced himself for the sudden drop into the infinite depths.
But the next startling motion that came was when the cart banged against something and came to a halt. Adan opened his eyes in time to see the children rushing towards them. Will moved onto the platform and reached down to embrace them, pulling them close. Hushed murmuring issued from both sides, but in words Adan could not understand. Whatever they were saying, though, it was clearly a happy meeting.
Will straddled the narrow gap and reached back to pull Adan onto the platform. Adan was more than ready to get off and abandoned the pole he had so desperately clung to a moment before.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 7