River Into Darkness

by Sean Russell

  They stood staring up at Erasmus and the others, like poachers caught in the act of trespass.

  “I saw her . . . in a dream,” Hayes said, certain this could be no other, though she was begrimed and exhausted.

  She extended her hand, still looking a bit intimidated, and opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly she looked around her, frightened, and sank toward the floor.

  Hayes felt something deep inside him, something disturbing that he did not recognize, like an internal vibration that gripped his heart. And then the walls before him blurred, and he lost his balance for no reason that he could discern. The woman and man down the slope both reeled as though they’d been struck.

  “Come up!” Erasmus shouted, and then staggered down the steps, falling to his knees and crawling on. A terrible rumbling came through the rock, and Hayes felt himself fall atop someone. He lay there as the world lurched and vibrated around him.

  An earth tremor, he finally realized, and then the world fell into chaos. A deafening roar and the sound of crashing stone seemed to strike him like a blow. And then a choking dust blinded him, filling his lungs and mouth. Light disappeared, and he lay in the pile of his companions, like a frightened animal whose only defense was to remain still and hope to avoid the notice of the terror.

  And then it was still. Still and dark.

  Hayes didn’t move, but lay coughing and fighting for air, as did the others around him, he realized. Not knowing quite why, he began to crawl back into the hallway, or so he hoped.

  “Mr. Flattery?” a small voice managed: Clarendon. “Mr. Flattery?!”

  The fear in Clarendon’s voice was obvious, but Hayes crawled on, his own terror greater. Suddenly his head exploded, and he fell limp and dazed.

  A wall, he thought, I struck a wall.

  He fought for air, trying to breathe through the fabric of his sleeve. And then a dull light began to grow. Dust. The air was filled with dust, which swirled and swept past him as though on a wind.

  Sitting up, Hayes realized he had only crawled diagonally across the hallway, until he had struck his head. The others were spread about him, only Clarendon standing. He was bent over someone, thumping him hard on the back.

  “Breathe, man,” the dwarf was saying. “Breathe!”

  And then the air was clear. Hayes continued to cough, pressing a hand to his scalp where the wound was slowly seeping blood.

  The woman who had appeared at his door, rose to her knees suddenly, turning toward the archway.

  “No . . .” he heard her say, her voice low and filled with anguish and disbelief. “The others . . .”

  “Are we all here?” someone asked. “Are we all in one piece?” It was Deacon Rose, taking charge.

  The priest stood, steadying himself on the wall. “Mr. Flattery? Thank Farrelle. Mr. Kehler? Are you well?” He nodded toward Clarendon, ticking him off mentally. “Mr. Hayes, you are injured.”

  “Not so badly, I think. Just a scratch.”

  A man Hayes had never seen sat up, coughing, and covering his mouth with both hands, but there was no dust left in the air. The light had returned to normal as well, if such a light could be called normal.

  Hayes propped himself against the wall, and realized that he heard crying. The woman was sobbing into the shoulder of the young man who accompanied her. Hayes felt a strange surge of jealousy.

  Clarendon helped Erasmus to his feet, though Erasmus bent over as though in pain, and clutched one hand to his back.

  Scrambling up, Kehler pushed past the others and into the archway. He stared into the darkness for a moment, and then turned back to his companions, a look of utter hopelessness on his face.

  “The tunnel . . .” he said through a dry mouth. “It collapsed. We’re sealed in—utterly.” He looked around a bit wildly. “Do you hear me? Do you hear . . . ?”

  Forty-Two

  Hayes put his hand to one of the smaller rocks and tried rather gingerly to move it.

  “I shouldn’t do that if I were you,” Deacon Rose cautioned.

  Hayes took his hand away. The passage beyond the entrance to the chamber was completely choked with rubble.

  “But has the passage collapsed back ten feet or two hundred? That’s the question,” Kehler said.

  Hayes nodded. It was the question. Was there any hope of them tunneling out?

  Erasmus stood staring at the collapsed section of cave, though his eyes did not seem focused.

  “Mr. Flattery?” Kehler asked.

  Erasmus started slightly, as though he’d been wakened. “No amount of effort will allow you to make a tunnel through this. It was not a natural tremor that we felt and was certainly meant to collapse the main passage well beyond this. We weren’t meant to escape.”

  The woman and man who had arrived as the passage collapsed stood near to each other, grief etched on their faces.

  “It was Eldrich, wasn’t it? He meant to murder us?” she said, a building rage kept in check by grief. “All of my people . . . we were lured down here for this.” She put a hand to her face and tears appeared from closed eyes.

  “I fear you’re right,” Erasmus said softly.

  “But why us?” Hayes asked, surprised by the sorrow in his voice.

  “We trespassed in a sacred place,” Deacon Rose said. “As I warned you.” He nodded to the woman. “And these people—followers of Teller—I would not be surprised to find Eldrich had been planning to trap them for years. Everyone had a part: you, Mr. Kehler, with your insatiable curiosity. Even Mr. Flattery. I have no doubt the Tellerites have been watching him for years. Wondering if they should approach him. Now they know.”

  The woman glared at Erasmus.

  “I knew nothing of it,” Erasmus said, “if it is even true. But you see, I am trapped as well. If I am an accomplice, I am an unwilling one.”

  The woman turned her back on the scene of ruin, standing for a moment looking down the long hallway. “It is not nearly so simple,” she said. “You will note that not everyone perished. Some of us have been left alive, at least for the time being, in this place. Seven of us, to be precise. This was no accident.” She began walking slowly down the hallway, staring at the sad stone faces as she passed, her companion in tow.

  “What is she suggesting, Mr. Flattery?” Clarendon asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Erasmus said. “Seven was a number of great significance to the mages.” He hesitated, not wanting to give voice to his thoughts. “I can’t say more than that.”

  But Hayes was afraid that Erasmus could say a great deal more.

  * * *

  * * *

  Hayes followed Erasmus into the chamber, where they found the woman and her companion staring in rapt wonder, their grief temporarily displaced by awe.

  “Is this what you sought?” Erasmus asked quietly.

  The woman glanced at him and then back to the wonders before her. She shook her head, as though the power of language had been temporarily lost.

  The man at her side looked at Erasmus. “Until Anna had a vision, we didn’t know what might lie here. Even then we did not believe it. You are Mr. Flattery, I collect?”

  “Erasmus Flattery, yes.”

  “Josiah Banks. And this is Miss Fielding. Miss Anna Fielding.”

  Hayes saw that Rose had come up and stood staring at the two new arrivals, his manner less than welcoming. “So I finally see you with my own eyes,” he said.

  “And who might you be, sir?” Banks asked.

  “This is Deacon Rose,” Kehler said. “But don’t let this modest title deceive you. He is the Farrellite Church’s Grand Inquisitor.”

  Banks fell very silent, his look and manner changing. Hayes thought that this was the way a man would react when introduced to an infamous murderer. Shock, and then fear, and finally a perverse interest.

  “You must be
terribly disappointed, Deacon,” the woman called Anna said. “It seems Eldrich has done your work for you.” She did not seem at all concerned that this man spent his life seeking to find and eliminate people such as her. In fact, she looked away as though dismissing him from her thoughts.

  “If we are trapped here together, with no hope of escape,” Clarendon said, “then let us put aside our differences.”

  She looked at him sharply. “Differences? Here is a man sworn to discover people such as myself, and then do you know what he is to do, sir? Burn them for heresy. And this is not just some travesty of the past, it has been done in living memory. Perhaps our good Grand Inquisitor has done it himself.” She turned and looked at the priest. “What say you, Deacon? How many have you burned for their alleged sins?”

  Rose met her gaze, and then he slowly shook his head, looking down. “No, Miss Fielding, I have been spared such horrors. But Mr. Clarendon is right. We are trapped here. Why make our last hours a misery? I shall overlook your heresy if you will forgive me my loyalty to the word of Farrelle.”

  “I cannot forgive you your prejudice, sir, for we have no quarrel with your church, and yet you burned my brethren out of cowardice and jealousy. Afraid of the mages, and even more afraid that we might rise up one day and challenge the church, though this had never been our intention. I am surprised that you will so easily let me live even though we are trapped and doomed to die here. Is this not dereliction of duty, Deacon? And more important, how can you deprive yourself of such pleasure?”

  “You do not know me, child,” Rose said, his voice trembling just a little, “so you do not realize what injustice you do me. But my offer stands. We cannot live long in this place. Starvation awaits us all. There might be some comfort, yet, in the word of Farrelle. For any who wish it, I will offer what comfort this knowledge will bring.”

  Anna had drawn herself up, her manner hard and imperious. “I will die with a curse for Farrelle on my lips,” she said. “Farrelle and his church. That will be comfort enough for me.”

  The priest looked at her and then turned away. He retreated back into the hallway, and a moment later they heard a musical chant begin. A rite for the dead, Hayes was certain. For some reason the singing touched him—its warmth and strange sadness oddly uplifting.

  A look of horror crossed the face of the woman called Anna, but her companion drew her on into the chamber. “It will do no harm,” he said to her soothingly, and she let herself be led away.

  As they walked slowly along the length of the hall, all the others watched their reactions with great interest. Neither of the newcomers spoke, but occasionally they shook their heads, and both seemed overwhelmed by what had been discovered.

  The terrace, with its font and sculpture, stopped them for several moments. They circled it at a distance, as though fearing to set foot there.

  “The nance,” she whispered.

  “What?” Kehler asked.

  “The nance,” she said, but offered no more.

  They stepped over the stream and continued down the hall.

  “Do you know what this place was?” Clarendon asked after a moment. “Does it have a purpose?”

  The newcomers gazed at the small man, a look like alarm on their faces, neither of them offering an answer.

  “There is no point to secrecy now,” Kehler said, his curiosity clearly driving him. “We will take anything you tell us to the grave, there is no doubt of that.”

  “You really don’t know what you’ve discovered?” the young man asked.

  “Mr. Flattery can make some sense of the writing, though not all of it. That is all we know.”

  The woman nodded. “I need some time to read and think,” she said.

  “But is it really Landor’s Gate?” Kehler said, though Hayes was certain his friend asked the question just to see their reaction to the name.

  Both the man and woman looked utterly unsettled to hear the name of Landor. “We . . . we need time,” she said again.

  They moved on, turning their backs to the others. Occasionally the two would share a look, as though they had both noticed something of significance, but they continued in their silence.

  Finally they came to the crypt, and at the door they paused.

  Anna stared up at the symbol inscribed above the archway and then put her hands to her face. She glanced once at her companion, who seemed as moved as she. And then Anna made an odd motion with her hand before her face and then over her heart. She mumbled something that Hayes could not catch, though he was certain that the words were from no language that he knew. She made a fluid bowing motion and then crossed the arch into the crypt. Banks did the same, and followed.

  A soft light grew in the small chamber as she stepped inside, which had not happened on any occasion when the others had entered. Kehler began to follow her, but she looked at him so sharply that he drew back. Everyone stood in the opening, watching.

  She made the same bowing motion before the crypt itself, mumbling again. She gazed at the face carved there for a long time, as though she memorized every feature. Once she reached out her hand to touch the stone of the crypt, but it looked to Hayes that she lost her nerve, and her hand fell limply to her side.

  For a few moments she paused, apparently reading the text, and then began to move slowly to the left. The unfinished face of the woman drew her attention for some time, and she and Banks whispered together as they examined it.

  They moved on, passing the text, and then stopped at the second face cut from stone. They both glanced back at Erasmus, and then spoke quietly to each other.

  “Can you read what it says?” Kehler asked.

  The woman turned to him and put a finger to her lips, and he fell silent.

  They stayed in the crypt, reluctant to leave, for some time, and when they finally did emerge they came only a few paces into the main chamber, before Anna sat down on the stone, as though what she had seen had taken away her strength.

  For some moments she leaned her forehead against Bank’s shoulder, but finally she straightened up, composing herself purposefully.

  “What is this place?” Kehler asked, voicing the question for all present. Everyone stood a few paces off, their body language odd, Hayes thought, for they were all turned slightly away, as though not to intrude on their privacy.

  She glanced at Banks.

  “It is a chamber in memorium,” she said, clearing her throat. “A historical archive. A chamber of great power located at a nexus of the world’s forces. It is a solemn place, almost a shrine. And it is a gate as well. A gate to places no man has traveled in . . . a very long time. It is a commemorative monument—to those who first opened the way, and ventured here as explorers. A monument to Landor—to the seven who made the gate and its key. And it is a place of arcane rites and sacrifice. And that is why we are here,” she said, forcing her voice to be very even. “We are a sacrifice.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The newcomers to the dungeon, as Hayes thought of it, explored every corner of their subterranean cell, but even when they were done they offered no explanation. Hayes found he did not really care so much what the purpose of the chamber was unless this knowledge would help them escape.

  Hayes also realized that he did not yet believe that they were trapped here. It was probably nothing more than a refusal of the mind to accept the horror of their situation, but he could not believe it. He was utterly sure that the stairway that led nowhere was significant. Why had it been built? Surely because it once opened to the world, or at least was intended to be opened. There could be no other explanation. Perhaps there were only a few feet of rock separating the head of the stairs from the light and air beyond. Perhaps there was only a foot. Hayes believed this was their best chance—use some of the fallen rock and try to batter their way through.

  * * *

  * * *

>   Hayes and Kehler sat on the stairs of the terrace, what Anna had called the nance, defying the superstition that the others were developing, which seemed foolish to them.

  Anna and Banks emerged into the main chamber. They’d been up the stair for a second time. Hayes had been half afraid that they would perform some spell that would open a doorway and let them escape, so he was a little relieved to see them—and a bit embarrassed that he would worry about such a thing.

  Noticing them on the stairs, Banks came forward. “Mr. Hayes, Mr. Kehler: you must not set foot on the nance. One must perform certain ablutions when venturing there.”

  Hayes rose immediately, stepping down to the floor, but Kehler remained on the stair.

  “Then you must teach me,” Kehler said, rising but showing no signs of moving away, “or I will go on defiling your sacred nance.” He half-turned as though he would step up onto the terrace proper.

  Banks held up his hand. “No . . .” But he stopped. It was clear that he was not about to teach Kehler the proper rites.

  Banks almost turned away, but then reconsidered. “Mr. Kehler, you might be letting yourself in for some bad fortune by acting with such disrespect. This chamber is bespelled in a manner that we cannot even begin to comprehend. That is hallowed ground you stand upon. It is neither prudent nor wise to treat it with disrespect.”

  Anna turned back to watch this confrontation, her gaze rather hard, as though she did not much care if Kehler brought disaster upon himself—if there could be a greater disaster than being trapped here.

  Kehler continued to stare at Banks. “You want me to cooperate, Mr. Banks, yet we have no cooperation from you. Enlighten me. Tell me what you know about this chamber, and you will find that I am a most convivial companion. As was said earlier, we all lie in the same grave. There is no reason to keep secrets now.”

  “There are oaths that have been taken,” Banks said.

  Some of the others had drawn closer to hear this conversation. “I have taken oaths as well,” Deacon Rose said, “but as it seems I will live out my last few days here, I would have my curiosity satisfied. I will answer your questions, Mr. Banks, if you will answer mine. In fact, I will go further. . . . I will tell you my story first if you will reciprocate by telling yours. Perhaps we all have a story to tell. Mr. Flattery certainly has a tale we would all like to hear. And Mr. Clarendon is a most interesting individual. I would even like to hear what Kehler found in the archives, though I suspect I know. What say you?” he asked, turning to the others.