“This corridor goes through the living quarters. It would have led outside, once.” Unwyn, quite unperturbed, pointed to a pile of rubble where the wall had collapsed. He skirted around and went to the right.
At the end of the passage they stepped into what had been the kitchens. Even Morgan could see that. The basic framework was still recognizable; benches for preparation, sinks, the remains of a stove. Most of the oven doors had joined the litter on the floor but one hung on still, demonstrating the durability of materials from an earlier time.
Unwyn hesitated. “We’ve done some work here, collecting shards and material. But there’s years of effort left. Tread a little carefully, please?”
She nodded. Strange to think this place had last been used as a kitchen thousands of years ago. It would have been busy with cooks and scullery hands, the clatter of dishes, shouted orders. She trod carefully in Unwyn’s wake. “Was it a technologically advanced society?”
“It depends what you mean. Here in the kitchen they had fireplaces for cooking, but also other devices which must have used some other power source. We think solar power is the most likely explanation. So they certainly had that form of technology.”
Unwyn had crossed the room by now and stood at the top of stairs that led down. “This goes into the cellars. Are you okay?”
“Yes.” As long as she had that light in her hand it kept the dark at bay, and she had Ravindra behind her. Fear hovered just beyond the reach of the lantern, followed her, waiting. “It’s not as dark as space,” she lied.
Stone steps descended into a vaulted chamber, cool and musty. She played her lantern around, motes swirling in the beam of light. Dust lay thick on broken shelves, tarnished containers, round tubs. Something scurried. She shoved down the spurt of adrenalin. Of course there would be insects or rodents here.
“Whatever was in the containers disintegrated long ago.” Unwyn hadn’t paused, strode on purposefully toward the far wall where a pile of bricks and rubble lay at the base of a gap that hardly looked wide enough for her slim form.
He slipped off his pack and handed it to Morgan. “Go easy. This is where we try to disappear if anybody follows us this far.” He pulled himself up the remnants of fallen masonry and squeezed through the gap. A moment later his hand appeared. “Give me the pack. And your lantern.”
Ravindra handed him the pack. “I’ll keep the lantern. Go on. Do you need help?”
“No.” She scrambled through into a narrow passage. Ravindra, bigger but lithe and flexible, followed.
Unwyn’s lantern sent a soft glow down a straight corridor that carried on beyond the reach of the light. “This was walled up.”
“Why?” Ravindra said.
“I don’t know. But not because of beasts or anything. I went down a little way the time I came along here and found no sign of animals. I think it just wasn’t used anymore, so they bricked it up.”
No beasts, eh? So why wasn’t she reassured? The air felt… she wasn’t sure. Not bad, just old and dry. Like a tomb. She brushed that thought away. The walls were unadorned, plain grey stone, cut smooth with some sort of rock cutter. But not smooth enough to deter the lovers of the dark. The lantern lit up fungi or moulds and when she looked carefully, some glowed with their own eerie light, sickly yellow or virulent green. The ground wasn’t dusty beyond the general area around the steps but it felt gritty underfoot.
“Why would the ground feel gritty?” Her voice fell flat, as if the dark had swallowed the words.
“Tremors,” Unwyn said. “A bit of shrapnel falling out of the roof. This whole area is a bit unstable. You shouldn’t let it worry you, Suri. There hasn’t been a major quake for a very long time.”
Tremors? That was all she needed. If she managed to survive the terror beyond the lamplight, she could fall victim to the geology. Panic quivered as the word entombed emblazoned itself on her brain. Easy enough to rationalize. If that’s all that had fallen for five thousand years. It’s not gonna happen. Follow Unwyn.
The roof was lower here, cut as smooth as the tunnel walls, but still a few arm lengths above her head.
Unwyn strode off.
Ravindra put a hand against her back and urged her forward. “Proceed, Suri.”
She scurried in Unwyn’s wake.
It wasn’t too bad. A few times, they skirted around or over rock falls, where the tunnel’s wall had collapsed but Unwyn insisted they were minor.
They encountered the first set of steps after perhaps half a klick. She trained her lantern down a long flight of risers, each spaced about two paces apart. “How far does this go down?”
“This is as far as I went before. But there’ll have to be a lot of steps to go down to the river.”
At first the walking wasn’t hard; two paces, step down; two paces, step down. Thirty risers later her muscles began to complain, at first subtly, with a niggle here or a jerk there. A few hundred meters without steps afforded some relief but all too soon the next set of stairs appeared before her. Two paces, step down; two paces, step down. Her muscles ached, her legs quivered with fatigue. Don’t think, just move.
At the next straight level Unwyn called a halt. He pulled a bottle of water out of his shoulder pack and handed it to her. “We’ve done well.”
She drank, handed the bottle to Ravindra and sagged to the floor, back against the wall, knees bent. Her legs ached, her feet felt like lumps. They must have been walking for hours. “Any idea what time it is? I’m very, very tired.”
“Very early morning.” Ravindra towered above her, dark and still. He’d said nothing for a long time, just continued on.
“When we get out of here, I’m going to need to sleep. But give me ten minutes, will you? Just to turn off and recover a bit. It’s been a very long day.”
He sat down beside her and slipped his arm around her. When she stiffened he said, “I’m more comfortable than the stone.”
Not necessarily. She sagged against him, aware of the muscles under the shirt, the smell of him, his warmth. He shifted his body so she was against his chest, his heart beating beneath her cheek. He held her to him, safe. Her eyelids closed.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lakshmi tried to ease the crick in her neck, massaging the muscles with stiff fingers. This contraption wasn’t built for comfort and certainly not for sleeping. She would have slept in the tent if the weather had been better. Daylight insinuated itself through fogged-up windows. She rubbed a hole in the moisture and peered outside. At least the rain had stopped. The fellow in the pilot’s seat stirred, shifted and snored. When Lakshmi poked him he jerked awake. “What time is it?”
Scratching at his hair he peered at the chrono on the dashboard. “Oh seven hundred, Hai Suri, more or less.”
The two men in the seats behind began to stir, woken by the movement. She opened the door and stepped out to find the men on duty. One came back from behind a rock, hands fumbling at his pants. The others paced around, stamping their feet against the cold.
“Well?” Lakshmi said. “Any sign of our little friend?”
“No. No one’s been near here. The way sound travels we would have heard a vehicle klicks away.”
“What about Unwyn? Has he popped up from underground?”
“No, Hai Suri. No sign of him, either.”
So Unwyn was still down there. That seemed odd. Very odd. She turned to the other two men, stretching the sleep from their bodies. “What about you fellows? Any sign of anything in your shifts?”
They exchanged a glance and shook their heads. “We’d have told you, Hai Suri.”
“I think we’ll go and take a look, shall we?” They both looked uncomfortable, one shifting from foot to foot. She tossed an impatient head. “Oh, all right. Go and have a pee.” Truth to tell, she could use one herself. On the other side of the tent from the men, of course.
She sent two men down into the pit before she climbed down the ladder herself. Not that she’d admit it to anyone but the pit bothered
her. She wasn’t frightened; not like the Selwood freak, but it wasn’t her choice of places. It reminded her of a tomb. She swallowed her relief when she finally stood on the ancient floor. One hand on the ladder, she gazed around the chamber. Nothing to see here. The figures on the walls that had been changed to suit Asbarthi’s story, their pupils outlined in white, almost mocked her. ‘Asbarth’s’ shopfront caught her eye. Huh. She could almost believe it was true that his history traced so far back as a merchant. She didn’t love him—whatever that meant—but he was rich and getting richer. She had no doubt he would eventually be ruler of all Krystor, something she could admire. And she would be his consort, not the Selwood freak.
“Anything?” she asked the nearer of the two men.
He shook his head, frowning at the sensorpack he carried. “Not in here. We should try the corridor.” He pointed to his left.
“Yes. I’ll come with you.” The lights were on but the shadows beyond were dark.
They walked down the long corridor, clambered around the rock fall and entered a room.
She stopped in the doorway while the men shone their lanterns around. “Unwyn?” Her voice fell flat. She’d guess this used to be a kitchen.
Something skittered and she flashed her torch at the source. Nothing visible, at any rate.
“I don’t think he’s down here, Hai Suri,” the second guard said.
She shot him a disgusted look. “He has to be down here. Unless there’s another way out.”
Fairly decorative he might be; intelligent he clearly was not. She snatched the sensorpack from his hands and peered at the layout of the dig. Nothing. No exits except the pit.
“Maybe he had an accident and he’s injured.”
“Well, we’d better find him, then.” Plausible, she had to admit. But somehow… that worm of suspicion still tickled inside her.
“Hai Suri, over here. Stairs to the cellar.”
Ah. The other one seemed a little brighter. She picked her way over the floor to where he stood.
“Someone’s been down here fairly recently. See?” He pointed at a boot mark in dust.
“Very good… what’s your name?” she asked.
“Telmus, Hai Suri.”
“Very good, Telmus. I’m impressed. Well, go on. What’s down there?” Her pulse surged in anticipation. Even so, she let the guards go first, their torches carving a path in the darkness. Telmus checked his sensorpack, Lakshmi leaning over his shoulder. It was set to pick up body heat. Eeerk. Small animals scuttled about behind barrels.
“Can this thing see through walls?” she asked.
“To an extent. But the signal’s degraded.”
“Okay. So you’ve used this while we’ve been looking?”
“Of course, Hai Suri. He’s not here, but someone’s been in this room recently.” He pointed at the floor.
Lakshmi peered. “Where?”
“Here.” He outlined the faint imprint of part of a boot. “Looks small for a man, though. Is he a small man?”
“No. Quite the reverse.” Selwood? Hard to believe. “Where do they go?”
Telmus played his torch over a pile of rubble against the back wall. “They seem to end here.”
“Someone’s climbed here.” Wes played his torch over the rocks. “See? The rubble has shifted.”
He scrambled up, stretching a hand out. “There’s a gap. Not big, but I reckon you could slide through sideways at a squeeze. And look.” He held something between his fingers.
Lakshmi reached up and took the strand from him. One long hair. Selwood. And she’d bet Unwyn was with her. She wouldn’t do this alone. The blood raged to her head. She’d flay him alive; gut him and make Selwood watch.
Telmus climbed up next to Wes and checked the heat sensor. “Nothing. If he went this way, he’s not in range.” He jumped down. “Should we clear this and follow?”
“This is a tunnel?”
“Seems to be. Looks as if it was bricked up,” Telmus said.
She folded her arms. She didn’t fancy barreling off into the bowels of the earth. But then, maybe she didn’t have to. “If it’s a tunnel, it goes somewhere. If we can get an idea where, we can get there quickly in the copter. Maybe even first. Come on, Telmus. Where is this likely to lead?”
Wes took the sanvad from his colleague and pressed a few buttons. “Down to the river, I’d guess.”
The display showed the various mountain streams joining together to form the Kalnesh, which meandered through the jungle to the sea.
“What else is down there? Habitation?”
“Not much. The nearest town is Ullanar.”
Little more than a hamlet, five klicks from the main road to Zaffra Bay. “Nothing else? Zoom it in. Take a close look.”
“We could look here,” Wes said. “Below the waterfall.”
Telmus peered over his shoulder. “Why?”
“Well, if that tunnel has a purpose, they could have brought things up the river and then—”
“Carted it up here,” she finished. “It makes sense. If that tunnel ends there, we’ve got them trapped.” She stared at the map for a moment longer. Ullanar would have been nice, but trapping those two as they came out of that hole in the ground would make up for it.
Before they left, she had the men fasten down the hatch that covered the pit. Anybody down there wouldn’t be coming out this way.
The copter lifted off from Unwyn’s base camp and headed down the gorge where the river leapt and roiled in the tight confines of its bed. She wouldn’t like to admit it but the proximity of the rocky walls on both sides was… not frightening, of course. But the mountain seemed very close. She was relieved when the vista widened into a rocky gully that ended suddenly. Thundering water curled smoothly to disappear into a cauldron of white. The jungle, swathed in mist, steamed, hundreds of meters below.
The pilot turned the copter to face the waterfall. Her heart thudded in her chest, her eyes on the tower of water in front of her. The falls roared like a wild animal. The copter lurched, tossed in the uneven air currents. She held on, knuckles white. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. Spray surrounded the vehicle, misted the windows. She shot a glance at the pilot, tight-lipped, tense. But the copter’s information system would be doing most of the work. At last the machine settled on the riverbank below the torrent. She let out a breath. That was one ride she really didn’t ever want to repeat.
Two hundred meters away, the waterfall thundered down from the heights, a thick silver curtain wreathed in spray. The rocky pool at its base seethed, almost like an enormous cooking pot that overflowed into the river’s bed, surging over rapids. Where she stood the river had carved a gouge where the water appeared calmer. The remains of three pillars leaned with the current, all that remained of the jetty that would once have stood here. Moisture hung like a veil in the air, dripped from plants, gleamed on the rocks. What a nightmare of a place.
“Over here, Hai Suri.” Telmus shouted over the roar of the falls.
Lakshmi jogged over to where the six men had gathered. A porch had been built against the mountainside and beneath its protective roof, lintels defined a wide doorway. Two massive doors hung a little askew, wide enough for a person to wriggle through. So. They’d get here—sometime—and they’d be able to get out.
“How long do you think it will take then to get here on foot?”
“Who knows? At a guess, a day. Maybe more,” Wes said. “If they traveled all night, maybe they wouldn’t be far away.”
Maybe he wasn’t such an idiot, after all. The noon sun lit up the gorge, turning the mist into sparkling diamonds that danced to the music of the torrent. Droplets settled on her cheeks, her eye lashes, her clothing.
“All right. We’ll wait.”
Leaving the men in the semi-protection of the portico, she returned to the copter. It might be cramped and uncomfortable, but at least it was dry.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Morgan’s eyes opened to
Stygian darkness. Panic galloped from her maw, scrambled toward her heart, clutched at her lungs. She jerked and adjusted her vision. A warm arm surrounded her, held her close as the soft glow of a lantern chased away the dark.
“You’re awake, Suri.” Ravindra’s voice was soft and comforting as the hand on her shoulders. The panic drained away.
She steadied herself and sat up beside him. Stupid, stupid. Never, never panic. “Did I sleep long?”
“Half an hour.”
Unwyn rose to his feet and pushed a ration bar into her hand. “Eat this. It will do you good.”
She ate. “It’s so quiet it hurts,” she muttered. The mountain reared into the sky above her head, a looming presence in her mind. The sooner they got out of this hell the better.
Unwyn offered her a hand. “Time to go.”
Ravindra stared at the Professor. Unwyn returned the stare for a long moment, then he looked away and his arm dropped. Ravindra pulled her up himself, holding her hand a little longer than he needed to. A bit more power play between the two men, and no prizes for guessing who was winning. It was almost ‘don’t touch her she’s mine’. That was probably because of the hardware in her head.
She trudged between them, their footfalls a calming presence. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about the lanterns failing. Unwyn said the power packs were new and they lasted for weeks. That was good to know. They’d run out of food and water well before then. Shades of her journey in Curlew, when a failed shift drive left her and Jones lost in space. Until Vidhvansaka turned up.
She wondered whether the fellows left at Unwyn’s dig were aware yet that he wasn’t coming back. What would they do about it? One thing for sure; if it were her, she would simply have risked the Lovely Lakshmi’s wrath, rather than come chasing down into the endless night under the mountain. She’d become a little more accustomed to it but she wasn’t comfortable, no she was not. Certainly if they did come down here, she would hear them long before they reached her. Her implant enhanced every sound but all she heard were Ravindra’s and Unwyn’s footsteps, the swish of material as they moved and the rhythmic double thump of their hearts. She plodded on.
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