by Rob J. Hayes
"Up there is a chance at freedom," I continued. "Maybe we just find more rock. Maybe we find a way out." I found myself becoming more heated as I spoke, anger and passion both slipping out through my voice. "I'm willing to take that chance because I can't stand another day down in this shitting hole waiting for Prig, or Deko, or the overseer or you to decide it's time I die."
I found Yorin nodding. "That's a good point." It's fair to say I was a little surprised. I had misunderstood Yorin. He was a murderer, that much was true, but he was also pragmatic. "So, what now?"
"What is that pig sticker doing here?" Isen's shout announced his presence and made me cringe. A part of me had hoped Hardt would have told his brother. It was foolish wish, really. Hardt has always supported me once I made a decision, but that doesn't mean he takes the hard parts off my hands.
I desperately tried to think of a way to calm Isen. I didn't want him angry at me when we were so close to freedom. A part of me still imagined our escape to be romantic. Once we were out, we would give in to our urges and come together in glorious union. I have mentioned my naivety before. It didn't take long before I was cured of that.
"Maybe she wants a real man along for the trip," Yorin said, still staring up into the crack. I saw Isen bristle.
"Maybe I should rid us all of you here and now." Isen was angry but I knew posturing when I saw it. So did Hardt. The older brother moved past the confrontation with a frustrated look sent my way.
"Take your shot," Yorin continued, still not even glancing towards Isen. "I doubt you'll get a better opportunity."
"HEY!" I stepped in between the two men and shouted so loudly both turned their attention to me. "Good. No one fucking cares. So bury it down here and follow me to freedom."
Yorin just shrugged. Isen deflated and pushed past me. I'd like to say I held my ground, but I was quite a bit smaller than Isen and I stumbled a step. I suppose it was my own fault. I felt I handled it all quite well at the time, but I was ignorant of the pride of men and the cost of disturbing that pride. The truth is, they were both fucking idiots and I should have known it was far from over. I stifled a hiss of pain as Isen jostled me, clutching at my still healing ribs, and he didn't even ask if I was alright.
"You going first then?" Hardt was packing supplies into as few bags as possible and following Tamura's lead by tying them together so he could haul them up after him.
I grinned at Hardt, all teeth and hungry eyes, finally feeling some of the victory I had achieved by pulling this escape together. "You're damned right I am..." Even as I finished saying it Tamura leapt up towards the crack and disappeared into the darkness. A few moments later the bags tied to him started off the floor and slowly rose up out of sight. I just stared after them for a few moments. "Fine. But I'm going second!"
I crawled, climbed, squeezed, and scraped my way up the crevice and breathed a sigh of relief when I finally felt hands reach through the hole in the wall as Tamura helped pull me through. If the climb had taxed him at all, he showed no sign of it despite his advanced years. Tamura's hair might have been greying with age and rock dust, and his skin was wrinkled, yet he possessed the strength and stamina of a much younger man. Though I occasionally caught him nursing an aching back, but then, don't we all?
The room was lit with a single lantern in the centre of the floor. Now there was real light I could see it for all its glory. The rubble on the ground was both stone and even some coloured glass. Bits of crumbling debris near the edges looked like they might once have been wood. It took me a moment to realise that the gemstones, the ones that held light, weren't just spaced randomly on the ceiling and walls. They were arranged into shapes, patterns that couldn't just be chance. Art is a subjective experience and often one better appreciated by age. I saw shapes of light and thought them pretty at the time. Later in my life, I wondered at such depictions and the creatures that made them. What meaning did they hold? Did artists make them or were they predetermined designs? History is often just another word for mystery.
I had little time to explore as I heard a grunt from the wall and moved closer to see a shape clawing its way up. Yorin was no climber, using brute strength where many would opt for skill. He pulled himself up, arm over arm, and ignored the grazes it earned him.
Stepping back, I reached out to help pull Yorin through into the room and he shrugged me away, struggling through the gap and flopping onto the floor. He grunted in pain as he fell onto a shard of stone. It was his own damned fault and I hoped it hurt. I was elated to be on the path to freedom, but it made me no more magnanimous.
I heard a curse from inside the crevice, something so inventive it could only be Hardt, and the grunting that followed confirmed it.
"I'm bloody stuck," he said with a lethargic sigh.
I poked my head back through the hole and held two light gems in front of me. I could see Hardt wedged just a few feet below. His shoulders were a just a little too broad and he was struggling to get past the thinnest section of the climb. It was terrifying for him. I could feel the fear, taste it. I giggled, and then burst out laughing. Hardt stared up at me, incredulous, for a few seconds, and then he started to laugh. It shouldn't have been funny. I don't really see the humour in it when I look back, but at the time I couldn't stop laughing. We were so close to freedom and Hardt was stuck because his shoulders were just a finger's width too broad.
It was the laughter that saved us in the end. With both of us giggling so hard, Hardt found the shaking pushed him through the tight space and suddenly he was climbing again, still chuckling as I helped Tamura pull the big man through the hole in the wall. The crazy old man joined in with the laughter. I'm not sure he really knew what we found so funny, but I've noticed many times in my life that Tamura doesn't need to know. He just enjoys laughing, and it's an act that's always more fun with a group.
Only Yorin didn't laugh. He was standing by the doorway, peering out into the darkness, a brooding shadow.
Isen was the last one out of the crevice, hauling the final bag of supplies with him. He sank down against the wall once he was through and let out a sigh. Even covered in muck and rock dust the man was handsome and never more so than when he smiled. I moved closer and sank down next to him. For a moment I think he forgot his damaged pride and we leaned into each other. I don't know if he was breathing heavily from the climb or from being close to me. I like to think, even now, that it was me. Actually, now I'm almost certain it was. A man who hasn't stuck his cock in anything for a while can get aroused by just about anything. I was scarred and dirty, and I wore it both on the inside as well as out, but I was also still pretty. Back then, such a trivial detail seemed so important.
We leaned into each other for a while and I enjoyed the smell of him. There was stale sweat, true enough, but we all boasted that smell. Isen also smelled, of Isen, and that was something I quite liked. I looked up at him and found him looking back. I ached for Isen to lean in and give me my first kiss. I could see nothing but his cracked lips and the blue of his eyes. Then Tamura giggled and we both turned to find the crazy old man squatting on his haunches and staring at us all too close and all too knowingly.
No one can embarrass quite like the young, and I was still very young. I felt my cheeks flush, a strange sensation considering I was still chilled to the bone, and pushed Isen away from me. Launching to my feet I stalked past Tamura and headed to where Yorin and Hardt were peering into the darkness beyond the doorway.
"...probably just rats," Hardt said. I pushed past them both into the dim light beyond.
The corridor connecting to the doorway stretched out into the darkness. A few light gems embedded in the walls nearby gave off a slight illumination, but it appeared they only glowed after being exposed to light and the halls had no doubt sat in complete darkness for more years than any of us had been alive. The air hung heavy, a slight breeze barely perceptible.
I stopped a few paces in and glanced one way, then the other. The corridor extended into darknes
s in both directions with a number of visible doorways. A few stone benches lined the walls along with some pedestals. Whatever had occupied those pedestals was long smashed or rotted. A few benches had been reduced to nothing but rubble. An ancient helmet rested nearby, too small for anything but a child and dented in the forehead. Something seemed off. Something I couldn't quite place at the time. I felt as though I had seen the architecture before.
"It's so dark, I can barely see you. Eska?" Hardt's voice from the doorway.
I am the darkness. Said the voice inside my head and I repeated it out loud.
"All the same, I think we'll light a couple of lanterns." I turned to see Hardt disappearing back inside the doorway. It was odd, but I could see him so clearly despite the dark. Yorin remained, leaning against the wall and squinting towards me.
"Feel the breeze?" I asked. "That means there's a way out."
Yorin just nodded.
More likely we've just traded a prison for a tomb.
Chapter 25
We should have tried to collapse the wall behind us, or maybe even the crevice. I'm not sure which would have been easier, but we should have tried to conceal our escape route. That, at least, might have slowed our pursuers. But we foolishly believed we had gotten away with it. I thought my distraction would provide sufficient chaos to cover our disappearance. I thought Deko would have his hands too full to search the Pit for me, and I thought Prig would be too injured to care. I was right about that. The one person I did not count on was the overseer.
After lighting two lanterns and distributing the supplies so we were all carrying our fair share, we set out in the dark corridor. We followed the breeze as best we could and checked in each room we came across. It was slow going but it was fascinating seeing a ruined city long since buried beneath the earth. I wished Josef was with me. He would have been as fascinated as I, wanting to stop and pick through the remains. I have always loved adventure, reading stories of grand quests through buried tombs, but Josef loved history and spent almost as much time reading the annals. But I had left him behind. I had made the choice to leave him behind. Oh, how I wished I could take it back.
The architecture continued to tug at a memory I couldn't quite recall. The walls sloped outward for the first two feet from the ground and then inward at a slighter gradient all the way to a high ceiling. They were patterned, designs carved into the rock from which they were built. Some of the patterns seemed eloquent shapes and nothing more, while others looked like they might be lettering in some foreign language none of us knew. I wasn't sure if any of the others could read any known languages, though I guessed Tamura probably could. Whether or not his addled brain made sense of the words was another matter. I realised then how little I knew about my companions' pasts. But I didn't need to know who they had been or what they had done. I knew who they were, and that was what was important. Well, except for Yorin. I knew nothing about him other than his skill at killing things.
Every now and then, along the walls, an alcove showed remnants of statues. Every one, without fail, was little more than rubble laying around shattered remains. The others didn't seem to think anything of it, but it had me worried. Time laid waste to all things, but some things decayed more swiftly than others. Some of the stone benches were rubble, it was true, but those were far outnumbered by those left mostly intact. I pondered over the question of why stone benches might stand the test of time, yet stone statues did not. The voice in my head, the one I mistook for my own thoughts, suggested time and time again that we might not be alone in those endless halls of darkness. And they did seem endless.
At first, I thought we might have somehow gone in a circle and doubled back upon ourselves. It's hard to judge how straight a corridor is when you can only see a dozen feet in front of you. That first day we walked for hours, checking every room along the way, ignoring stairwells that led up or down. Isen argued we should be going up whenever the opportunity presented itself and it sounded sane enough, but Tamura and I had other ideas. We were following the breeze. The slight taste of fresh air was more certain to lead us to freedom than a stairwell leading to even more darkness. At least, that's what we thought.
We walked in silence for the most part, each of us listening to the sounds echoing around us. Or sometimes we just listened to Tamura humming away to a tune only he could hear. No matter which, there seemed little to say to each other. I think the tension between Isen and Yorin had something to do with the silence. The two had settled into a quiet disdain for each other and I feared any attempt at conversation might bring an argument between them. I doubted Isen would resort to violence, he knew Yorin would win, but if Yorin decided to fight, I wasn't certain any of us could stop him from killing Isen.
That first night we slept in a mostly empty room. I think it might have been a kitchen once, a small stone stove in the corner sat dusty and dead. We were all exhausted, even Yorin was starting to drag his heels, and there was little else to do but clear away patches of rubble and collapse into sleep. I wanted to curl up with Isen. Our impending freedom gave whatever was between us a growing urgency I couldn't ignore. But we were surrounded by the others, all close together in a small room. Of all the things I have done and seen in the world, nothing is quite so confusing as young lust. In the end I curled up with Hardt, as I had for weeks. I think I saw a pang of jealousy on Isen's face before I closed my eyes and dropped off to slumber.
I dreamed that night. Vivid dreams of eyes watching us in the dark, dozens of them. Beady little yellow lights that never blinked, staring at me while I lay there, paralysed. I still don't know if that dream was real or a product of Ssserakis playing with my subconscious to feed on my fear.
I woke in a cold sweat to find the lantern had gone out and darkness had settled in. A few of the light gems still glowed with a dim yellow hue, just enough for me to roll away from Hardt and refill the lantern. I was already gnawing at a heel of stale bread when the others started to rouse.
Our supplies were limited and we had no idea how long it would be before we found a way to the surface, so we ate sparingly. All of us were used to small rations but I wished my stomach would stop growling. It seemed like forever since I had properly sated my hunger.
When we started walking again, I decided I could no longer take the silence. "Does anyone have any idea what this place is?" I asked. "We've been walking for... I don't know, a long fucking time, and it's just one corridor with rooms either side."
"And stairwells," Yorin pointed out. He was fairly vocal on the desire to start heading up.
"Old," said Hardt.
"Older than old," said Tamura. I heard Hardt let out a weary sigh. Some men did not like riddles and that was all Tamura spoke in.
"The crazy old man is right," Isen said before his brother could round on Tamura. "Look at the walls, Hardt. We've seen this before. It's a Djinn city."
I honestly couldn't say what surprised me more; that we were walking through the corridors of a dead city that had once belonged to a Djinn, or that, of all the people in our little group, Isen was the one to realise it first.
Hardt let out a bitter sigh. "Not again."
"It might not be like last time." Isen said. He was ever quick to forget anger and with Yorin walking behind us all and not speaking, it seemed his sour mood evaporated.
"What happened last time?" Someone had to ask, and I thought it might as well be me. Especially as Tamura would likely spout some riddle that would frustrate Hardt, and Yorin's very presence annoyed Isen.
The brothers shared a quick look and then Isen launched into the story. "Before we were thrown in the Pit, we were gentlemen of fortune."
I admit it was a term I had not heard before. Yorin clearly had, by the merry laugh he let loose. "You were brigands," the pit fighter said. Like it or not, Yorin always had a way of cutting to the heart of the matter.
"Buccaneers," Hardt said with a shrug. I tried to step between Isen and Yorin and the younger brother's scowl faded a li
ttle.
"That's why you were down in the Pit?" I was eager to learn as much about Isen as possible. Infatuation has a way of making every little detail fascinating, and pirates were fascinating enough already.
Yorin laughed again. "You don't get thrown in the Pit for pirating," he said. "You get hanged."
I was tempted to ask then why the brothers were down in the Pit, but both lapsed into a sullen silence and I doubted I would get an answer though I longed to know the truth. Curiosity and all that. "So, about this other city." I said. "It was like this?"
"Not quite," Isen said with a snort. "For a start it was underwater."
I have since been to the city the brothers talked about. Everything they told me was true. What Ro'shan and Do'shan are to the sky, Ol'shen is to the seas. An underwater city that dwarfs any the terrans have ever built, but it does not float on rock. Ol'shen sits inside the largest jellyfish the world has ever known. A true wonder designed by the Gods, or at least by the Rand and Djinn, and they certainly liked to portray themselves as gods.
"We weren't just pirates," Hardt started the story, his deep voice echoing in the empty tunnel around us. "We were commissioned by the Terrelan navy to harry merchant vessels across the Sea of Whispers."
Yorin laughed. "And you call me a bloody monster."
I didn't understand at the time. My life had been the academy and the Pit. I knew nothing of the wider world. I didn't understand that the Terrelans were hiring pirates to attack the other peoples of Ovaeris. I had never seen a pahht or a garn. I think most of the other races came to hate us because of the Terrelans. It turns out prejudice breeds more prejudice. I hope I have done some small part in my life to healing the wounds the Terrelan Empire caused.
"You are a monster," Isen growled. "How many people have you murdered?"
"None," Yorin said. "I've killed hundreds. Never murdered anyone."
"Little fucking difference," Isen argued.