by Clive Barker
"Thought you'd given up," Tesla remarked.
"So did I," he said. He passed the cigarette over to her. She took a lungful, savoring it, then passed it back to Grillo.
"Do we have any idea of how far down we have to go?" Witt asked.
Hotchkiss shook his head.
"But there is a bottom down there somewhere."
"Can't even say that."
Witt went down on his haunches and scrabbled around on the ledge.
"What are you looking for?" Tesla said.
He stood up again with the answer. A piece of rock the size of a tennis ball, which he tossed out into the darkness. There was silence for several seconds, then the sound of it striking the rock face below, shattering, and its pieces rattling away in all directions. It took a long time for the echoes to die, making it near impossible to tell anything about the distance below them.
"Good try," Grillo said. "It works in the movies."
"Wait up," Tesla said, "I hear water."
In the silence that followed her claim was verified. Water was running close by.
"Is that below us, or behind one of those walls?" Witt said. "I can't make it out."
"Could be both," Hotchkiss said. "There's two things that can stop us getting all the way down. A simple blockage, and water. If the system becomes flooded there's no way we can go on."
"Let's not get pessimistic," Tesla said. "Let's just go on."
"We already seem to have been here hours," Witt remarked.
"Time's different down here," Hotchkiss said. "We don't have the usual signals. Sun passing overhead."
"I don't tell the time by the sun."
"Your body does."
Grillo started to light up his second cigarette, but Hotchkiss said: "No time," and started to ease himself over the lip of the shelf. The drop was by no means straight down. Had it been, their lack of experience and equipment would have thrown them down the shaft after a few feet of the descent. But it was steep enough, and got steadily steeper, some stretches offering cracks and handholds that made for relatively easy progress, other stretches sheer, slippery and treacherous. These they descended almost inch by inch, Hotchkiss signalling to Witt where the best opportunities lay, Witt passing the message on to Tesla, and so on to Grillo. They kept such comments terse: breath and concentration were now at a premium.
They were just reaching the end of one such stretch when Hotchkiss called a halt.
"What is it?" Tesla said, looking down at him. The answer was one grim word.
"Vance," he said.
She heard Witt say oh Jesus in the darkness.
"We're at the bottom then," Grillo said.
"No," came the reply, "just another ledge."
"Shit."
"Is there a way around it?" Tesla called.
"Give me time," Hotchkiss snapped back, his voice betraying the shock he felt.
There was what seemed to be several minutes (but was probably less than one) during which they clung to whatever handhold they had while Hotchkiss surveyed the routes available to them. With one selected, he called them to begin the descent afresh.
The lack of light the torches offered had been galling, but now they offered too much. As the other three climbed past the ledge it was impossible not to look its way. There, sprawled on the glistening rock, was a bundle of dead meat. The man's head had cracked on the rock like a dropped egg. His limbs were bent back on themselves every which way, the bones surely broken from joint to joint. One hand was laid on the nape of his neck, palm up. The other was just in front of his face, its fingers a little open, as though he was playing hide and seek.
The sight was a reminder, if one were needed, of what a single slip on the descent might result in. They proceeded even more cautiously thereafter.
The sound of rushing water had diminished for a while but now it began afresh. This time it wasn't muted by the rock wall. It was clearly below them. They continued down towards it, taking time every ten feet or so for Hotchkiss to survey the darkness below them. He had nothing to report until the fourth such halt, when he called back over the din of water that there was good news and bad. The good, that the shaft ended here. The bad, that it was flooded.
"Is there no solid ground down there?" Tesla wanted to know.
"Not much," Hotchkiss replied. "And none of it looks reliable."
"We can't just climb straight back up," Tesla returned.
"No?" came the reply.
"No," she insisted. "We've come all this way."
"He's not down here," Hotchkiss yelled back.
"I want to see that for myself."
He didn't reply, though she pictured him cursing her in the darkness. After a few moments, however, he began the descent again. The din of the water became so loud any further conversation was out of the question, until they were finally gathered at the bottom, and could stand close to each other.
Hotchkiss had reported right. The small platform at the bottom of the shaft was no more than a collection of detritus, which the torrent was rapidly carrying away.
"This is recent," Hotchkiss said. As if to lend force to the observation the wall through which the flood broke crumbled a little more as he spoke, the force of water bearing a sizeable portion of it off into the roaring darkness. The water beat itself against the bank upon which they were standing with renewed gusto.
"If we're not out of here quick," yelled Witt over the din of the flood, "we're going to get washed away."
"I think we should begin back up," Hotchkiss agreed. "We've got a long climb ahead of us. We're all cold and tired."
"Wait!" Tesla protested.
"He's not here!" replied Witt.
"I don't believe that."
"What do you propose, Miss Bombeck?" Hotchkiss yelled.
"Well we can start by giving the Bombeck shit a rest, OK? Isn't it possible this stream's going to trickle out eventually?"
"Maybe. After a few hours. Meanwhile we'll freeze to death while we wait. And even if it stops—"
"Yes?"
"Even if it stops we haven't got any clue which direction the Jaff went." Hotchkiss played his torch-beam around the shaft. It was only just strong enough to strike the four walls, but it was clear there were several tunnels leading off from this spot. "Want to make a guess?" Hotchkiss hollered.
The prospect of failure rose up and took a good long look at Tesla. She ignored it as best she could, but it was tough. She'd been too hopeful, thinking the Jaff would be simply sitting—like a frog in a well—waiting for them. He could have taken any one of the tunnels on the other side of the torrent. Some were probably cul-de-sacs; others led off to dry caverns. But even if they could walk on water (and she was out of practice) which would they choose? She put on her torch in order to scan the tunnels herself, but her fingers were numb with cold, and as she fumbled to turn the torch on it slid from her grasp, hitting the rock and rolling towards the water. She reached down to keep from losing it, and almost lost her balance with it, her foot—perched on the eroding edge of the platform—sliding across the wet rock. Grillo reached for her, snatching hold of her belt, and pulling her upright. The torch went into the water. She watched it go, then turned to thank him, but the look of alarm on his face diverted her eyes to the ground beneath her and her thanks to a shout of alarm. Even that never came, as the flood had its way with their little beach of rocks, finding a keystone that, once washed away, brought the capitulation of the rest.
She saw Hotchkiss fling himself at the shaft wall to find a purchase before the water took them. But he wasn't quick enough. The ground went from under him, under them all, and they were pitched into the brutally cold water. It was as violent as it was cold, seizing them in an instant and carrying them away, throwing them back and forth in a dark blur of hard water and harder rock.
Tesla managed to grab hold of somebody's arm in the torrent, Grillo's she thought. She managed to hold on for fully two seconds—no mean achievement—then a curve in the passage threw
the torrent into fresh fits, and they were pulled apart. There was a passage of total confusion, the water a frenzy, then—suddenly—it became still, as it broke out into a wide, shallow place, its speed slowing sufficiently for Tesla to lay her arms out to either side of her and steady herself. There was no light whatsoever, but she felt the weight of the other bodies on the rope, and heard Grillo gasping behind her.
"Still alive?" she said.
"Just."
"Witt? Hotchkiss? You there?"
There was a moan from Witt, and from Hotchkiss an answering holler.
"I dreamed this . . ." she heard Witt say. "I dreamed I swam."
She didn't want to think about what it might mean for them all if Witt had dreamed of swimming—of Quiddity— but the thought was there anyhow. Three times to the dream-sea: at birth, in love, and on death's door.
"I dreamed this . . ." he said again, more softly now.
Before she could hush his prophecies she realized the speed of the water had picked up again, and there was a growing roar from the darkness ahead.
"Oh shit," she said.
"What?" Grillo yelled.
The water was really moving now, the din louder and louder.
"Waterfall," she said.
There was a tug on the rope, and a yell from Hotchkiss, not of warning but of horror. She had time to think pretend it's Disneyland then the tug became a hard pull and her black world tipped. The water encased her, a straitjacket of ice which pressed breath and consciousness out of her. When she came to Hotchkiss was hauling her face clear of the water. The cataract they'd ridden down was roaring beside them, its fury turning the water white. It didn't register that she could see, not until Grillo surfaced beside them, spluttering, and said: "Light!"
"Where's Witt?" Hotchkiss gasped. "Where's Witt?"
They scanned the surface of the pool they'd been delivered into. There was no sign of him. There was, however, solid ground. They swam for it as best they could; ragged, desperate strokes which brought them to dry rock. Hotchkiss was first out, and dragged her out after him. The rope between them had snapped somewhere on the ride. Her body was a numb, shuddering weight, and she could barely move it.
"Anything broken?" Hotchkiss said.
"I don't know," she said.
"We're done for now," Grillo murmured. "Jesus, we're in the bowels of the fucking earth."
"There's light coming from somewhere," Tesla gasped. She mustered what scraps of muscle-power she had to raise her head from the rock and look for the source of the light. The motion told her things weren't well with her. There was a spasm in her neck, which ran down to her shoulder. She yelped.
"Hurt?" Hotchkiss said.
She sat up gingerly. "All over," she said. Pain was getting through numbness in a dozen places: head, neck, arms, belly. To judge by the way Hotchkiss moaned as he began to stand up, he had the same problem. Grillo was simply staring at the water that had claimed Witt, his teeth chattering.
"It's behind us," Hotchkiss said.
"What is?"
"The light. It's coming from behind us."
She turned, the aches in her side becoming short stabbing pains. She tried to keep her complaints to herself, but Hotchkiss caught her intake of breath.
"Can you walk?" he said.
"Can you?" she returned.
"Competition?" he said.
"Yeah."
She made a small sideways glance at him. There was blood coming from the region of his right ear, and he was nursing his left arm with his right.
"You look like shit," she said.
"So do you."
"Grillo? Are you coming?"
There was no reply; only chattering teeth.
"Grillo?" she said.
He had turned his eyes from the water and was looking up at the roof of the cavern.
"It's on top of us," she heard him murmur. "All that earth. On top of us."
"It's not going to fall," Tesla said. "We're going to get out."
"No we're not. We're fucking buried alive! We're buried alive!"
He was suddenly on his feet, and the chattering had become ringing sobs. "Get me out of here! Get me out of here!"
"Shut up, Grillo," Hotchkiss said, but Tesla knew no words were going to stop the panic running its course. She let him sob, and started towards the crack in the wall through which the light was coming.
It's the Jaff, she thought as she went. It can't be daylight, so it must be the Jaff. She'd planned what she was going to say to him, but the persuasions had been sluiced out of her head. All she could do was wing it. Confront the man and hope her tongue would do the rest.
Behind her, she heard Grillo's sobs stop, and Hotchkiss say:
"That's Witt."
She looked around. Witt's body had come to the surface of the pool, and was lying face down in the water, some way from the shore. She didn't stare, but turned back towards the crack and headed on, her pace painfully slow. She had a distinct sense of being drawn to the light, that sense stronger the closer she got, as though her cells, touched by the Nuncio, sensed the proximity of someone similarly touched. It gave her weary body the necessary momentum to cross to the crack. She leaned against the stone, and peered in. The cavern beyond was smaller than the one she was leaving. In the middle was what on first viewing she took to be a fire, but it was only a distant relation. The light it gave off was cold, and its flickering was far from steady. There was no sign of its maker.
She stepped inside, announcing her presence to be certain he didn't misread her approach and attack.
"Anyone here?" she said. "I want to speak with . . . with Randolph Jaffe."
She chose to call him by that name in the hope of appealing to the man he'd been rather than the Artist he'd aspired to being. It worked. From a fissure in the furthest corner of the chamber a voice as fatigued as her own emerged.
"Who are you?"
"Tesla Bombeck."
She started towards the fire, using it as an excuse to enter. "Don't mind do you?" she said, stripping off her sodden gloves and extending her palms to the joyless flames.
"There's no heat," Jaffe said. "It's not a real fire."
"So I see," she said. The fuel looked to be rotted matter of some kind. Terata. The smoky glow which she'd taken for flame was the last vestiges of their decay.
"Looks like we're on our own," she said.
"No," he said. "I'm on my own. You've brought people."
"Yes. I have. You know one of them. Nathan Grillo?"
The name brought Jaffe out of hiding.
Twice she'd seen insanity in his eyes. Once at the Mall, pointed out by Howie. The second time when he'd stumbled out of the Vance house, leaving the schism he'd opened roaring behind him. Now she saw it a third time, but intensified.
"Grillo is here?" he said.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are you here?"
"To find you," she explained. "We need . . . we need your help."
The lunatic eyes swivelled in Tesla's direction. There was, she thought, some vague other form hovering around him, like a shadow thrown through smoke. A head swollen to grotesque proportions. She tried not to think too hard about what it was, or what its appearance signified. There was only one issue here: getting this madman to unburden himself of his secrets. Best perhaps that she volunteered one of her own first.
"We've got something in common," she said. "Quite a few things in fact, but one in particular."
"The Nuncio," he said. "Fletcher sent you for it, and you couldn't resist it."
"That's true," she said, preferring to agree with him rather than argue and lose his attention. "But that's not the important thing."
"What is?"
"Kissoon," she said.
His eyes flickered.
"He sent you," he said.
Shit, she thought, that's blown it.
"No," she said quickly. "Absolutely not."
"What does he want fr
om me?"
"Nothing. I'm not his go-between. He got me into the Loop for the same reason he got you in, all those years ago. You remember that?"
"Oh yes," he said, his voice totally devoid of color. "Difficult to forget."
"But do you know why he wanted you in the Loop?"
"He needed an acolyte."
"No. He needed a body. "
"Oh yes. He wanted that too."
"He's a prisoner there, Jaffe. The only way he could ever get out was by stealing a body."
"Why are you telling me this?" he said. "Haven't we got better things to do, before the end?"
"The end?"
"Of the world," he said. He put his back against the wall and allowed gravity to take him down on to his haunches. "That's what's going to happen, isn't it?"
"What makes you think that?"
Jaffe raised his hands in front of his face. They hadn't healed at all. The flesh had been bitten off down to the bone in several places. Two fingers and the thumb of his right hand had gone entirely.
"I get glimpses," he said, "of things Tommy-Ray is seeing. There's something coming . . ."
"Can you see what?" she asked him, eager for any clue, however small, as to the Iad's nature. Did they come bearing baubles or bombs?
"No. Just a terrible night. An everlasting night. I don't want to see it."
"You have to look," Tesla said. "Isn't that what Artists are supposed to do? To look and keep looking, even when the thing you're looking at is too much to bear. You're an Artist, Randolph—"
"No. I'm not."
"You opened the schism didn't you?" she said. "I'm not saying I agree with your methods, I don't, but you did what nobody else dared do. Maybe could ever do."
"Kissoon planned it all this way," Jaffe said. "I see that now. He made me his acolyte even though I didn't know it. He used me."
"I don't think so," Tesla said. "I don't think even he could have plotted something so byzantine. How could he know you and Fletcher would discover the Nuncio? No. What happened to you wasn't planned . . . you were your own agent in this, not Kissoon's. The power's yours. And so's the responsibility."