Deepest, Darkest

by William Ritter

  A piano-sized chunk of stone thundered down the slope not twenty feet from where they were standing and rumbled along the floor until it rolled over the crumbling edge and into the magma below.

  “That’s not important right now,” said Cole. “What’s important is finding Mom and getting everybody out of here.”

  Theolog Feldspar, Low Holy Underminer: second level, emerged from his chambers into the warm light of Delvers’ Deep. They had done it. After countless generations and entire lifetimes of toil, they had finally done it. He was not certain when his sigil stone had ruptured, but he had hoped. Now, looking up to see the central pillar quaking and the floor cracking and crumbling away to reveal the sacred pool of the Ancient One, there was no question. He could not see the Low Priest from where he stood, but surely he must be nearby, basking in the glory of having realized every delver’s destiny.

  “It is time!” Theolog cried out. His brothers and sisters were peeking out from tunnels and caves as well, hoods thrown back to take in the glory of the end days. Some wore expressions of awe and excitement, but more looked wide-eyed and nervous. “Do not fear!” Theolog bellowed. “Remember that we are the chosen few! We alone will be spared by the great serpent in the coming days and rewarded generously for our unwavering devotion!” He beamed at his fellow delvers.

  It was then that the floor shattered and Theolog was dropped unceremoniously into superheated magma. There was no scream. Before the Low Holy Underminer could know what was happening, he was a cinder.

  A rippling arc of scales as broad as mattresses broke the surface beside Theolog’s remains, sliding out of the magma and back in again.

  There was a brief pause while the watching acolytes froze and weighed the options of becoming a faithful smudge on the scales of their god or appearing disloyal from a safe distance. Many of them arrived at the same mental arithmetic at the same moment, and the air filled with their panicked cries.

  Cole squinted into the haze as dozens of figures with leathery ears and smooshed-in noses raced around frantically. Some of them wore humble shirts and trousers, a few had helmets like miners, and still more wore the red robes of the acolytes. The one thing they all shared was a matching expression of fear. They were like ants who had successfully tunneled into a kitchen only to find themselves caught in the baking oven. On the far wall, Cole spotted Tommy pushing his way onto an already overcrowded elevator. Those who could not make it on before the lift began to rise hurried to join the throng already pouring up the stairs to the second level and into a hole in the cavern wall.

  “They are right to run,” said a voice beside the kids. Cole spun. The woman standing there was dressed in gray, her hair pulled back behind her head. “As would you be.”

  “We can’t,” Fable told her, raising her voice over the gurgling crackle of the pool.

  “Sure you can,” said Madam Root. “With me.”

  “We need to get the prisoners out first,” said Cole.

  Madam Root shook her head. “The Low Order have at least a hundred mindless servants, child. I cannot save them all—and you certainly can’t. But I might be able to save you, if you stop dawdling. Come on.”

  “Not without my mama,” said Fable. “Or Annie, or Nudd, or . . . the old cranky one whose name I can’t remember right now. We’re not leaving any of them behind.”

  Madam Root sighed. “Suit yourself. Without me you have only two ways to get out of here.”

  A loud clanging rang across the cavern. Soon after came the piercing squeal of twisting metal, accompanied by a dozen more squeals that sounded decidedly more like voices. Cole turned in time to see a towering steel track tear free from the wall and hit the magma pool with a ruby splash before sinking beneath the fiery surface.

  “Make that one way,” said Madam Root. “It seems the delvers’ lift is out of commission.”

  Cole swallowed.

  “The Cardinal Channel is your last option.” Madam Root pointed to the opening on the landing above them. The last straggling delvers were just disappearing through the mouth of the tunnel. “You have a long climb ahead of you. I sincerely hope it does not collapse before you reach the top.” And with those bracing words of encouragement, she stepped back and sank smoothly into the solid wall of the cavern.

  “Come on,” Cole said. “We can’t stop now. Which way do we go?”

  Joseph looked at him blankly. “Who, me? Why? Where are we going?”

  “Ugh!” Cole groaned. “The prisoners! We’re freeing the prisoners!”

  “Are we?” Joseph brightened. “Good for us! Believe it or not, I was a prisoner here for just a little while, but I got away.”

  “Which way?” Cole snapped.

  “Right. Sorry. The prisoners’ barracks are just ahead.”

  Debris rained down around them as they raced toward a cave opening along the wall of the cavern.

  “Are you sure?” called Evie. “There are no bars or locks or anything.”

  “Why would they need locks?” Joseph answered.

  Cole poked his head through the door.

  The woman in gray had been right: at least a hundred people lay within—trolls, gnomes, hobs, and a motley assortment of other captive workers waited within the barracks, their bodies resting on spartan slabs of stone. Cole might have thought he had entered a morgue, except he could see their chests rising and falling. Many of them had their eyes open, staring blankly at the ceiling.

  Tinn pushed in beside him. “Mom?” Tinn called. “Are you in here?”

  No response.

  Fable made her way into the chamber, her eyes sweeping from bed to bed.

  “Uncle Jim!” Evie cried. She hurried to the side of one of the slabs. “Uncle Jim, it’s me!” The old man was lying prone. His eyes half opened at the sound of her voice, but he gave no further sign of recognition.

  “Give him some bitterwort!” called Cole.

  Evie patted her vest, but her fingers froze on the tattered fabric where a pocket used to be. She shook her head. “No good. All my herbs were on the side that got sand­papered along a cavern wall.”

  “You’re all free now!” Tinn yelled. “You can go!”

  One or two of the slumped figures turned their heads lazily to stare in the twins’ general direction. None of them made any indication that they might care to move.

  “Why are you all just lying here? You’re in danger!” Tinn yelled. “The cavern is collapsing, and there’s a giant lava snake about to flood this whole place!”

  None of them moved.

  “Annie!” As one, Tinn and Cole turned to see Joseph standing over their mother. His hand shook as he brushed a hair out of her face. “Can you hear me?”

  Annie did not react.

  “I know you’re in there.” Joseph gave her hand a gentle squeeze. When he let go, her hand slid lifelessly back to the slab.

  Cole felt a cold lump growing in his stomach. His mother’s chest rose and fell, but she wasn’t showing any signs of stirring.

  “We’re running out of time,” said Tinn.

  Joseph leaned down—and for a moment Cole was reminded of Sleeping Beauty waking to true love’s kiss. His father pressed his temple tenderly against his mother’s, his lips close to her ear. “We need you,” he whispered. “Your boys need you. Come on. Wake up.”

  Annie Burton sat up.

  Cole’s heart lurched.

  Joseph nearly fell over backward. He steadied himself and looked his wife in the eyes. “Annie?”

  Her gaze remained unfocused, and she swayed slightly where she sat. She was upright and technically conscious—but if she recognized the man in front of her, she gave no indication.

  Cole could remember what it felt like, pulling himself out of the trance. Everything had been so muddy and confusing. It had been so much easier to simply do as he was told. “That fog,” he said. “It’s got Oddmire water and finfolk weed in it. She can’t think for herself. None of them c
an. Try giving her clear, simple directions.”

  Joseph nodded. “Right,” he said. “Stand up!”

  Annie Burton swung her feet to the side and stood.

  Joseph clapped his hands in excitement. “It’s working! She’s listening!”

  The cavern shuddered, and a chunk of stone clattered from the ceiling.

  “Let’s see if we can get it working faster,” said Cole. He climbed up on top of an empty bed and cupped his hands on either side of his mouth. “Hey, everybody! Walk out that door and up the stairs! Right now! Go!”

  As one, the huge crowd of prisoners stood and shambled like zombies toward the door and out into the heat of the main cavern. Satyrs and gnomes and trolls bumped and bumbled their way to the stony stairs and began to climb.

  Tinn spotted Nudd and patted him on the shoulder as he passed. It was hard to see the indomitable High Chief of the horde looking so lifeless and docile. Near the middle of the procession, a woman draped in a bearskin cloak shuffled past.

  “Mama!” Fable pushed through the shambling bodies to get to her mother. Raina’s eyes were half-lidded, and she did not even turn to acknowledge her daughter. “It’s okay, Mama,” Fable said. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

  “That’s the last of them!” Cole called out a minute later from the back of the world’s most lackluster parade.

  The end of the procession was halfway up the stairs when a flash of orange light and a wave of heat washed over them. In the middle of the cavern, what was left of the floor was giving way; baseball field–sized pieces of ground were breaking off and sinking into the heat of the glowing magma. Beneath the red-hot surface, the great serpent slid and swam, its scales glowing yellow-hot where they neared the open air.

  “I don’t have it in me to wrestle with lava again,” said Fable. “We need to get out of here fast.”

  Tinn couldn’t tell if the lone pillar in the center of the cavern was trembling again or if it was merely his vision dancing in the haze of heat. Either way, he didn’t like to think about what was going to happen as soon as that enormous snake decided to grind its lava body directly against the column.

  The ground shuddered, and Tinn nearly lost his balance. The head of the procession had almost reached the exit. They would be out soon—but too many shakes like that before they made it, and they were sure to lose somebody over the edge and into the lava below. In the back of his mind he heard a noise like the distant rumble of thunder. He glanced up.

  The quake had knocked loose a pair of boulders as big as tool sheds, and they were now rolling and rumbling down the incline and headed straight toward them.

  “Fable!” he yelled. “Do something!”

  Fable’s eyes were wide. She drew a deep breath of dry, scorching air and poured all of her energy into the spell. “Gale!” The hot air rising off of the magma pool blasted upward with the force of a giant’s punch. Several of the prisoners stumbled off their feet as the gust collided with the boulders, blasting them off course to the left and right.

  Fable’s knees buckled and her eyes rolled back. She hit the ground with a thump so soft it could not possibly have been heard over the crash of the stairway being smashed into pebbles.

  The whole landing shuddered, and Annie, still shuffling near the back of the crowd, lost her footing. The crumbling stair she was standing on fell away, and she tipped backward. Cole screamed, and Joseph dove toward the ledge, hands outstretched.

  Tinn spun his head to see what was happening, but a gaggle of brain-dead former prisoners blocked his view. He edged his way, as quickly as he dared, back through the crowd just as Joseph and Cole together hauled Annie up the last of the unbroken stairs and onto the even landing.

  “Thanks, kid,” Joseph said to Cole. “If you happen to mention any of my dashing heroics to your mother when she comes out of it, feel free to leave out the part where I rattled her head against the stairs and almost dropped her twice.”

  “Given that the alternative was a fiery death,” said Cole, “I think she’d probably let it slide this time.”

  “Hey,” Evie called from up ahead. “We’ve got another problem.”

  Tinn leaned around the masses to see what she was talking about. Up ahead, the parade had stopped. Although the other boulder had missed the front of the procession, it had slammed onto the landing ahead of them, wedging itself squarely in front of the cave mouth. Their one escape—the Cardinal Channel—was completely blocked.

  Twenty-Seven

  Even with Joseph, the twins, and Evie all pushing together, the boulder did not wobble. As they struggled, a strange, deep hum reverberated through the cavern. It carried with it emotions: a mournful sense of isolation and intense loneliness. Cole stopped pushing, and his eyes met his father’s. He saw, behind the welling sadness, a growing glimmer of real recognition.

  “Do you remember who I am?” said Cole.

  “I think so,” said Joseph. He took a deep breath and reached a hand up to rub his chin. He seemed startled for a second to find a matted beard there, but then looked back at Cole. “You got real big,” he said. “But . . . you’re my son, aren’t you?”

  “One of them,” said Cole.

  Joseph looked confused, and Cole nodded to Tinn. Joseph turned, then looked from Tinn to Cole and back again.

  “She kept it,” he mumbled. “Right.”

  Tinn’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah,” he managed. “She kept me.” He plodded away, not that there was very far for him to go. He sat, despondent, on the edge of the landing. Thirty feet below, the magma bulged and crackled.

  After a few moments, Joseph Burton sat down beside him.

  “Hey, kid,” said the man.

  Tinn didn’t look at him. “You remember who I am?”

  “I remember,” said Joseph.

  They sat in silence for a moment. Behind them, Cole scrabbled at the top of the boulder, trying in vain to figure out a way over it. Evie had gone to sit with Fable’s head in her lap, fanning her friend in an effort to revive her. Everything had fallen apart, and Tinn wanted nothing more than to hear his mother’s comforting voice, to feel her fingers ruffle his hair. His mother would know what to say to make him feel better. She always did.

  “So,” said Joseph. “What’s it like, being a changeling?”

  “It’s not something you really think about,” grumbled Tinn.

  “Stupid question. It’s all strange to me. Just trying to wrap my head around it.” Joseph flicked a bit of debris into the fiery pit below. “Do you remember impersonating Thomas for the first time?”

  “His name is Cole—and I was a baby.”

  “Right. Of course. But you kept up the act all this time? Why?”

  Tinn looked up at the man. He was watching Tinn closely, like an appraiser taking in the detailed brush strokes of a forgery. “It wasn’t an act,” Tinn answered. “It was my life. It was the only life I knew. I couldn’t even control it until recently.”

  “Sorry. That was rude, wasn’t it? I’m just curious. I don’t know anything about you. Not really.”

  Tinn shrugged. “I get it. It’s weird.”

  “I’m not sure how much you know about me, but if you’d like—”

  “I know you wanted to get rid of me.” Tinn hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but once it was out there, he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.

  Joseph sighed. “It’s true,” he said. “I did. We didn’t know what you were. We didn’t even know which one you were. The fact that there were two of you was new and odd, and I didn’t know what to do. I was worried for my son. I wanted to protect my family from a scary . . . from what I thought was a scary creature. I didn’t know any better.”

  Tinn stared at the ground. His chest felt tight.

  “But you know what? For a goblin, you seem like a pretty good kid after all.”

  Tinn’s stomach turned. “Don’t do that,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean any—
”

  “Being a goblin doesn’t define me. Neither does being a human. I am who I am because of the people who were always there for me—there for us.” His ears felt hot and he clenched his hands into fists. “When you weren’t.”

  Joseph looked Tinn in the eyes. “I can see that,” he said, softly. “You have a lot of your mother in you. You kids were lucky to have her. And she was lucky to have you. Both of you.”

  Tinn turned his face away. He hated how Joseph looked at him. It still felt like the man was searching for the flaw in Tinn’s disguise—for the seam in his mask. Tinn stood on the edge of the rocks, looking down over the desolate, boiling scene below.

  Through the haze of heat, he could make out the magma serpent’s golden scales sliding through the liquid rock. Chunks of solid stone had broken off and were drifting around it on the surface of the burning lake like wretched little islands. A flutter of movement caught his eye—a feeble patch of darkness in the sea of orange light.

  “I’m doing this all wrong,” Joseph said behind him. “But for what it’s worth, kid, I don’t wish that I had gotten rid of you,” said Joseph. “I wish that I had gotten . . . to be one of those somebodies who was always there for you.”

  Tinn swallowed hard. He nodded. “You want to be there for some scary creature you used to think was your enemy?” He turned and met Joseph’s eyes.

  “I really do,” said Joseph.

  Tinn took a deep breath. “Well then,” he said, “I guess I am like you a little bit after all.”

  And then Tinn leapt off the ledge.

  The Thing dug itself as deeply as it could into its last wilting scrap of a shadow like a shrew cowering under a leaf, but there was no escaping the heat. The Thing had given everything it had to help the witchy child, and still the cavern trembled and the magma crept steadily over the side of the rocky island. It wouldn’t be long now. And it was going to hurt.