At the third branch they took the right-hand passage and the floor leveled off, no longer descending. The passage ran straight for many miles, without a turnoff. They dined while on the march, unwilling to rest on these treacherous floors and eager to reach the end of this journey as soon as possible.
In this long, straight hall the travelers felt vulnerable. If danger approached from ahead or behind, there would be no choice of escape route. Besides, the stark walls offered no caverns or niches in which they might take shelter. Often they glanced back over their shoulders, fancying they could hear following footsteps.
“Anything that dwells down here knows exactly where we are,” grunted Diarmid. “Our modest friend made sure of that.” Yet he allowed the bird to ride on his shoulder.
They were beginning to despair of ever finding another branch when they came upon two in rapid succession.
“Four and five! After the seventh, how many until the end, I wonder?”
Discouragingly, the way sloped downward again. The sixth fork appeared, and they entered the tunnel on the left. Everything seemed to be proceeding according to plan until they reached a section of the passage where, high in the right-hand wall, a small opening gaped, large enough for a man to crawl through. Dimly discernible by the glow of the cave-fungi, it was partly concealed by jutting rock. No steps led up to this hole, only several rough-hewn footholds. Perplexed, Diarmid stood scratching at the itchy new growth of his beard. Imrhien tugged at his sleeve and pointed.
<
“I am not so sure. It is not like the others. I suspect it is some exploratory drift, leading to some old stope, or simply a dead end.”
Vehemently she shook her head. <
“No—he would expect us to choose the obvious path. This passage leads straight on.”
<
Diarmid’s jaw tightened. “I do not.”
They had reached an impasse. Presently Imrhien began to scale the wall. She had not climbed more than three feet when Diarmid’s hands seized her around the waist and dragged her down.
“Foolish wench! You will not go that way.” She tried to pull free, but he would not release her. White anger flared in her skull, and she slapped her open palm hard against his cheek. He released his grip abruptly, and she fell back against the wall.
“Go, then.” His clenched hands trembled. They were dark with walnut-dye and mud. “But you will go without the water-bottle or any food.”
Although she guessed he was bluffing, she knew also that he had the upper hand. If she called his bluff, he might easily force her to accompany him, dragging her along by the hair if he so desired. Struggling to cool the boiling of her rage, she pushed past Diarmid and strode down the path he had chosen, hoping against her own conviction that it might be the correct way after all.
The passage inclined downhill. In antipathetic silence they marched for an hour or so. As ire dissipated, Imrhien became aware that she had heard no knockings for quite some time. The only sounds were the echoes of their own footfalls and the occasional melancholy drip-drip of water from the ceiling.
A barrier loomed before them: a rusted gate of thickset iron bars, like a portcullis. It blocked the whole passage.
<
The Ertishman did not reply. With his hands and eyes he searched the crevices of the surrounding walls and floor. He found a lever and hauled hard. Somewhere an ancient mechanism stirred. With a squeaking and creaking of moribund pulleys and springs, the portcullis began to lift. It clanged into place above their heads, leaving the way clear. At this, the rooster balked and set up a tremendous racket, hissing and stretching out its wings. Diarmid regarded it with a baleful stare, as though it were a traitor, and strode forward. Taking a deep breath, Imrhien followed.
Farther along this path, the luminous fungi dwindled and disappeared, to be replaced by small blue lights emanating from a species of glow-worm clinging all over the rock like encrustations of gems. The air thickened and became stuffy. The travelers had for so long trodden upon a firm surface that they had become careless about where they put their feet. This proved a mistake.
Diarmid’s booted foot stepped out into empty air. After that, it seemed time slowed down. A shaft was gaping in the floor in front of them, and the young man was falling into it. He tried to throw his weight backward, teetering on the brink. Imrhien thrust out her hand, so slowly, she thought in terror, too slowly as he wavered there between life and death. She felt as though her hand passed through flowing water instead of air, or as if time’s current moved backward, retarding her actions. He was gone, almost, hovering there in the gelatinous liquid of suspended moments, and all she could reach was an outflung fold of his jacket and his flying hair. Grabbing a handful of both, she braced herself and then jerked back. The force was enough to swing the fragile balance, and the Ertishman fell backward to the floor.
The continuum resumed its normal flow. Diarmid lay, sobbing for breath. After a moment they both crawled to the shaft’s edge. Nothing could be seen down there. It might have been as shallow as a wine vat or as deep as a well.
A ledge ran between the abyss and the wall.
<
“No. The ledge is the path.”
He would heed her signs no longer, would not even look at her. Keeping his back firmly against the wall, he began to negotiate his way past the shaft, sliding his feet sideways along the narrow shelf. The cockerel took to Imrhien’s shoulder. Yet again, she had no choice but to follow the Ertishman.
Once past the shaft, they went on slowly and cautiously. The air grew stuffier, the glow-worms more plentiful. They had traveled some seven hundred yards when they rounded a bend to find themselves confronting a breathtaking scene. Here loomed a mighty cavern hung with fantastic stalactites. The slow erosion of water on limestone had produced shapes of curtains, giant birds’ wings, and organ pipes. Some of the pendant formations had joined with stalagmites to form fluted pillars. Like the interior of some surrealistic palace built by a mad King, the whole scene was pricked out with the jewels of billions of silent glow-worms dreaming sapphire dreams. Imrhien touched her companion’s shoulder.
<
He pointed to the ground.
“See, there is a channel, worn in the floor. From this door it leads across the cave.”
Indeed, a curious groove had been gouged into the cavern’s floor. Measuring perhaps three feet across, it was defined by parallel sides and an inner surface that was perfectly concave, smooth, and polished. Imrhien looked around. They had unwittingly been walking along this arcane incision—it continued back the way they had come. There was something unsettling about it.
However, Diarmid’s mind was made up, and he struck out again. They crossed the coldly glittering limestone cavern, dripping with its sculpted drapery and frozen swans’ wings. The groove led straight into an opening on the opposite side, and soon they found themselves back in a passageway. The stuffy air gave out a prickling feeling and a curious metallic stench.
<
The Ertishman ignored her.
Another cavern opened out before them. Its roof was low, hanging just above their heads. In the center sprawled a great black lake, a sheet of polished obsidian mirroring in its depths the azure stars clinging above. The chamber was like the hollowed interior of a dark crystal shot with flecks of lapis lazuli. Faintly illuminated, the floor-groove ran to the left, curving around the shore. As they pursued it, Imrhien thought she saw a dark shape hump itself out of the oily waters and slowly subside.
Utter horror seized her. What were they doing here? Diarmid was leading them to certain doom—why had she not fought him with greater stubbornness, perhaps somehow stunned him with a rock and fled?
But he was pressing on. She looked back, into the shadows, and it seemed more terrifying to fly that way alone. In a foment of dread, she followed close on his heels.
Past the lake-cave, the bitter-tasting stink intensified. They were both gasping for breath. A low vibration came humming through the rock, a deep, whining drone of pent-up energy punctuated by crackling sizzles and the smell of something charred. The hair stood up on the back of Imrhien’s neck. Iron-clawed spiders tiptoed down her spine. Ahead, from around a corner, issued sudden flashes as brilliant as shards of pure sunlight struck off a glacier. A zigzag bolt of energy hit the wall, gouging a crater of melted slag. Diarmid turned to his companion. His eyes were sunken wells in a face drained of color. His lips parted, and a strangled whisper issued from them:
“This is not the way.”
They began to retrace their steps, running. Yet they had delayed too long.
Beyond that last bend, something large and mailed began to move, something that had gouged the long groove into the rock floor over countless years of passing to and fro.
Far beneath Doundelding, an ancient secret had lain curled at the root of a rich vertical lode that stretched all the way up through Thunder Mountain to the summit’s surface. High on that summit jutted Burnt Crag, a toothed pinnacle that sucked in the veined flares of lightning from any storm for miles around. The crag was a focal point redirecting the energy down through the conduit of ore, down to a prehistoric sentience that attracted levin-bolts from the atmosphere. Deep beneath the ground it stirred, for it had been disturbed. It moved to seek the source of the disturbance. The body unraveled sinuously. The leading terminus swayed a little, blunt and glowing. It gathered speed.
In its path, two small figures fled. Having reached the worm-lit cave of the lake, they dashed along the water’s edge with a recklessness born of panic. Out of the wet shadows of the subterranean cistern reared an amorphous vitality. It lunged at them in passing. The two figures ran on, one sobbing with terror, the other gasping soundlessly. Their backs were intermittently lit with a blue-white glare. By the time this following light drove past the lake, searing its reflections into the water, the surface was flat, blandly innocent, save for a lattice of ripples.
Through the mortified splendor of the stalactite cave ran Imrhien and Diarmid, along the smooth curve of the serpent’s track. A metallic, slithering rasp roared through the underground halls, the sound of a thousand habergeons of chain mail being dragged rapidly across riveted sheet iron. It was punctuated by crackles and fizzing hisses like hot fat spitting in water. Smoothly their pursuer gained on them.
Almost, they had not remembered the shaft. It seemed to spring open deliberately at their feet, as if to catch them unawares. Now must they slow down and move with agonizing precision. Diarmid thrust the girl in front of him.
“You first.”
He breathed in hoarse gasps.
Holding herself flat against the wall, she sidled across. The flow of minutes and seconds seemed once more to decelerate. Diarmid came after, moving as though in syrup, straining against some invisible pressure that turned his sinews to lead. A whine of energy spiraled down the tunnel. Bluish brilliance brightened on the walls. Mailed coils grated across polished minerals.
Diarmid was halfway across when a bolt sizzled the air, breaking off a chunk of limestone from above the pit. It hurtled past his ears. There was no echoing crack from below to indicate it had reached the base of the shaft. The Ertishman, with a great leap, now cleared the chasm. After landing awkwardly on the other side, he rolled to his feet, then winced and stumbled. As they sped toward the iron portcullis, they finally heard a dim echo of the broken-off rock hitting the pit’s floor.
Any hopes that the pursuer would be hindered by the shaft were soon dashed. The roar and hiss of its passage slowed for a heartbeat, then surged forth afresh, closing in. How they managed that final sprint to the iron gate was later a source of amazement to Imrhien. Their lungs were inflamed bellows, exploding. With every step, Diarmid cried out in agony. As they rounded a bend the gate came into view, hanging high above their heads. It snapped into blue-white relief. Light flashed. The air thrummed and fried. They threw themselves past the gate, and Imrhien reached for the lever. Diarmid flung her aside and grabbed the handle in both hands, bearing down on the mechanism with all his might.
Driven by an engine of rusted cogs forced into action, the portcullis began to descend, squeaking and clamoring with the reluctance of old age. It was halfway to biting the floor when, like an outrageous firework, a force came roaring around the bend and slammed into it. A current surged. Sparks exploded in a blistering snarl, and Diarmid was flung backward up the passage, where he lay motionless.
Rent and twisted, metal screamed. The passageway was described by a jerky sequence of utter darkness and scalding brilliance, each flicker and instant of blindness lasting no more than a heartbeat. An ominous hum of power reverberated through the walls and floor.
By degrees, these phenomena began to fade. Incredibly, the gate had descended and held, according to its age-old purpose. The avenger had been thwarted. With the sound of ten wrecked chariots being hauled over rocks by spans of oxen, it departed.
The girl’s eyes were dazzled by retinal afterimages. She could barely discern the man where he lay. He did not move. But she touched him and discovered a pulse, light and rapid. Now, in the twilight, she could see the dark blood welling from his forehead, the blackened hands, already swelling. She untied the pouches from his belt and ransacked them, careless of the food spilling across the floor. The bandages for the rowers’ hands had been washed and rolled up. After tearing off a length, she wadded it and applied pressure to the head wound, moistened his lips with a couple of drops of water, bandaged his hands.
Survive, she begged in her mind. Sianadh, Liam, and Muirne are gone. Do not go, too—you are the last of Ethlinn’s kin. The last of my people.
Lovingly, the dark chill of underground embraced them. Diarmid would not waken—she was alone. The scattered food had already disappeared; not a nut remained. Where was the rooster? Had it been left behind? As if in reply, a slightly singed bundle of feathers jumped from its perch on a high shelf to her knee. She held it close. Its small company would be welcome during the long hours of vigil.
And long they were, those hours, sitting beside Diarmid, hoping for a word or a sign. His face was flushed. She applied wet cloths to it. He was burning. His breath came in shallow gasps.
Imrhien had forgotten how loud was the dawn call of the faithful cockerel. In the end, it was that which woke Diarmid. He sat up, muttering, dazed. The last reverberations of the bird’s clamor sent bits of gravel scurrying down the walls.
A rumbling began. Somewhere, some delicate balance, dependent on bits of gravel, had shifted. The walls and floor began to shake. Imrhien seized Diarmid’s arm and tried to pull him to his feet. Pebbles were falling. The ground muttered as she led him up the tunnel, he limping badly. Where had it been, the little opening high in the wall? Had she gone past without noticing it?
But there it was, the seventh branch. Or possibly not.
<
Torment showed in every line of the man’s body, every twitching muscle of his face. He did not speak, but clambered up the rough ledges to the aperture, which was not tall enough to allow him to stand. With a pitiful cry, he forced himself in, headfirst. As the girl and the cockerel scrambled in to join him, the ceiling of the passage below collapsed with a roar. Dust puffed in at them. Coughing, they crawled away on hands and knees.
This will be aptly named, should it turn out to be a dead end.
The passage went on, however, with a purposeful air, rising on a shallow gradient. Soon the walls fell back, the ceiling flew up, and they were able to stand. By the soft light of glow-fungi, Imrhien saw that Diarmid’s bandages were soaking red. The Ertishman had crawled over stony ground on burned and blackened hands.
His fortitude was impressive.
He propped himself against a wall, allowed her to hold the nearly empty water-bottle to his mouth, and shook his head when she asked if he wanted to rest. He was resolute. They shared the last drops of water and marched on.
It was a relief to hear the knockings again; the girl felt certain now that they had regained the right path. Diarmid’s ankle had been injured, and he could put very little weight on it. They were forced to halt several times, but they had covered a surprising amount of ground by the time they reached the freshet. Clear water sprang out of the walls, ran noisily down a narrow gutter beside the floor, and disappeared through a chink in the rock. Gratefully the travelers and their bird drank of it. They bathed and refilled the water-bottle.
“Unlace my shirt for me, said Diarmid, “please. ’Tis so hot here.” The air was chill, but he was aflame. Carefully, so as not to touch his wounded hands, she helped him remove his mercenary’s jacket. She rinsed his hair with cool water. The roots were growing out red.
“You are kind.” His eyes were bright, feverish. They seemed unfocused.
She put on his jacket—it was easier to carry it that way, and the rooster seemed to like perching on the epaulets. There had been refreshment but no relief for Diarmid at this stop. Stubbornly he pulled himself to his feet, and they continued on their way.
To Imrhien it felt like late afternoon, a time when aboveground the sun’s rays would be lying in long bars of bullion across the meadows and woods, and the rooks would be flying home to roost. Down here there was no reason to feel this, no indication of the sun’s invisible journey in the outside world.
The knockings amplified in volume and number, and as the travelers climbed the rising floor, they came to where the walls of the passageway were no longer featureless and unbroken. Small caves and diggings honeycombed them. Hope burgeoned in Imrhien, for she detected the sounds of miners hard at work in drifts nearby, separated perhaps only by a thin partition of rock. Yet she could not call out to them, and Diarmid was almost past speech.
The Bitterbynde Trilogy Page 43