Silent Hall

by NS Dolkart

  Phaedra was just beginning to regret coming here when Bandu’s voice called out, “Over here! Is good over here.”

  They stared down into the blackness. After what seemed like ages, an ambient glow became visible from somewhere down below.

  “There’s a shelf here,” Criton called up to them. “It’s not that far down, but there’s a bit of an overhang between us and you. Can you see well enough to climb?”

  “I think so,” Hunter called back. “It looks like there are plenty of handholds.”

  Phaedra looked down toward the light, and had to quickly look away again. The light from Bandu’s torch only revealed more blackness below. How far down did this cavern go?

  “You’re kidding, right?” Narky asked. “This is a death trap. Besides, I can’t climb down there holding this spear.”

  “Leave it behind then,” Hunter suggested. “I doubt you’ll need it down there. Here, wish me luck.”

  Phaedra watched him go. His progress was fairly smooth, and he soon disappeared under the rock that Criton had called the overhang.

  “That last bit is a little tricky,” he called up, “but we can help you with it when you get here.”

  Phaedra and Narky looked silently at each other. Narky clearly hoped that Phaedra would volunteer to climb down before him, but she didn’t feel ready for that.

  “Do you want to go next?” she asked. “Then you won’t be left up here alone, to go last.”

  Narky shook his head. “No, you go. I need time to, uh, think.”

  Phaedra shrugged, and looked back toward the edge. She did not like to admit it, but she was terrified. The thought of climbing down to the others in the semi-dark made her want to curl up in a ball and hide. Standing there quietly with Narky, she was even beginning to hear things: a sort of constant tip-tap-tap that came from somewhere far below.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked Narky.

  “You know,” Narky said, “I think I’ll just stay up here. I don’t really need to see any more of this dragon’s cave in order to satisfy my curiosity. It’s really you and Criton who wanted to explore down there – I’d be happy to just wait for you up here.”

  “Phaedra?” Criton called out to them. “Narky? Are you coming?”

  Phaedra took a deep breath. “Yes. I’m coming down now.”

  It was foolish to stand here like a frightened child. Three of her friends had made this climb already, and no harm had come to them. This was only a test of her will. She smiled, despite Narky looking at her as though she was mad. Willpower had always been a strength of hers. She was her parents’ daughter.

  She knelt at the edge of the rocks, turned to face Narky, and lowered one foot until she found a solid foothold. She lowered her other foot, her hands still clinging to the ground above. She found that she was making a noise, a little high-pitched squeal at the back of her throat. She made herself stop. She looked down to see how far she had to go, and the distance seemed to stretch out below her. Keep going, she told herself.

  The rocks were surprisingly warm – perhaps there were calardium deposits down here? Phaedra’s foot slipped, and she cried out, but her hands held tight until her foot found purchase again. She breathed, and went on.

  She was at the overhang now, what Hunter had called the tricky part. When she extended her leg, it simply hung out over nothingness. Her chest tightened. Gods, what was she doing?

  She could not do this. She would climb back up to Narky. There was a foothold up by her knee that she could push off in order to reach that handhold up there and then… and then her foot slipped.

  Phaedra had already been reaching for the handhold, and her chest lurched as her hand also missed its destination. She screamed as she fell, past the light where Criton, Hunter and Bandu were standing aghast, past the shelf of rock that they were standing on. Her knee scraped against a jutting rock, and her right hand, wildly grabbing at the air, tore itself upon another. Then she hit bottom on a second shelf, and her legs buckled.

  She lay there for some time, unable to move. The light was dim here, only a faint glimmer from above. The others were calling her name, but she could not answer. She hurt all over. Oh Gods, she hurt all over. Her lungs were burning, and she was sure every limb was broken.

  “Phaedra, are you there?”

  “Yes,” she said, finally finding her voice.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No.”

  She had images of Tana, the princeling of the Gallant Ones, lying with his limbs splayed. “There is no pain,” he had said. She tried moving her right leg. It hurt all right. Her left? Agony. At least they both moved, though. She tried to sit up. Gods above! All right, maybe it was too soon for that.

  Was it just her, or was that tapping growing louder? Tip-tap-tap, tip-tap-tap. What sort of creature made that noise? Phaedra had never heard anything quite like it, but she did know one thing: it was definitely coming closer. She struggled to her feet, fighting through the pain. Her knees were wobbly and her right hand had been badly scraped, but she found that she could stand.

  “Help me!” she shouted up at her friends. “Oh Hunter, Criton, help me!”

  “What’s the matter?” Hunter answered her. “What’s going on down there?”

  “Something’s coming,” Phaedra said.

  “Hold on,” said Hunter. “Don’t move. We’ll be right there. Just don’t go anywhere.”

  It was too late for that. Whatever was making that tapping noise, it was almost upon her. It was coming from somewhere to her left. What was that, looming toward her in the dark? She took a step back, stumbled, and screamed. She had stepped onto empty air and was falling again, or sliding, really, down some kind of rough chute. Even as she fell, the ticking was growing louder. It was coming from all sides now. She tried to slow her fall by spreading her limbs to press against the side of the chute, with moderate – if painful – success. The tunnel into which she had fallen was met by others at different points, and now and then her arm or leg would meet empty space, only to get smashed or jolted when a wall reappeared.

  Phaedra’s battered body finally came to a stop on something soft and moist that made a vague squishing sound when she landed on it. The smell down here was overpowering, like hundreds of dead animals rotting. She nearly vomited. What agony! It felt as if her ankle had been shattered, and she was sure she had broken at least one rib as well. There was a stabbing pain in her chest every time she breathed in. It even hurt to sit still. When she looked down, she could dimly see her ankle in the bluish light, swelling before her eyes.

  Phaedra blinked. How was there light down here, so deep below the surface? It was coming from the ground, or rather, from large patches of phosphorescent mushrooms that grew on the lumpy cavern floor. Perhaps these were the blueglows that Psander had asked for. Were they the ones producing that horrible smell? Groaning, she plucked one of them from beside her and brought it to her nose. It was hard to say. The reek didn’t seem to get any worse when she sniffed at the mushroom.

  Phaedra eased her pack off her shoulders and put the mushroom inside. That was when she discovered that her pack had torn during her fall. She sighed – Gods, how that hurt! – and stuffed a few mushrooms in her shirt instead. She hoped these were the ones Psander wanted.

  She looked up at the shaft that had brought her here, and saw nothing but blackness above her. The thought of climbing back up filled her with despair. She tried not to think about it. Somehow, she would survive this. She would survive and return to the surface, and in time she would surely laugh about her ineptness at climbing. They might even come to consider her fall a lucky accident. If she survived.

  Phaedra began to cry, just thinking about having to climb back up to her friends. They were too far up for her to drag herself to them on her broken bones. But she had to try – what else could she do? She put her hands on the ground, so that she could push onto her good foot.

  The ground squelched, and the stench got worse. Phaedra raised her
hands, and found that they were covered in blood, sticky and mostly congealed. O Gods in heaven, she was sitting on a corpse! Or rather, in one. The corpse’s ribs were right there beside her. The skull had mushrooms in its eye sockets.

  Phaedra really did vomit this time, and it felt as though she was being stabbed in the chest each time she heaved. She wiped her mouth on her shoulder as best she could – the thought of bringing her bloody hands anywhere near her mouth was sickening. Then she froze. There was that tapping sound again! It was getting closer. Something was coming.

  Phaedra sat as still as she could, hoping that she would be mistaken for another corpse. The sound was coming from one side, where another dark shaft opened horizontally. There it was! A dark, shiny something, faintly glinting in the light of the mushrooms. Was that a suit of armor?

  It was an ant. An ant the size of Four-foot. Its six legs tapped against the rock and dirt of the cave floor, and squelched when it reached the bodies. O Gods, don’t let it notice her! Its mandibles would be able to tear through her flesh and bones without any trouble – they could cut off her legs or drag her away by her flailing limbs, to be eaten by the nest. Phaedra dared not breathe. The ant climbed about the corpses, its meandering path coming ever nearer to Phaedra. It was eating the mushrooms, she realized with relief. These ants did not eat people! Or at least, they seemed to prefer the mushrooms. Not that this was all that reassuring, on second thought: the mushrooms were all growing out of human corpses.

  The ant was only two feet away from her when it veered off. Phaedra did not even let out a sigh of relief until she was sure it was gone. There would be others. Lots of others. She had never thought much about ants, but she knew that each nest contained hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. If there were nests like this so near the village, why hadn’t the clansmen said anything about them? These bodies had to have come from somewhere.

  She thought about Thasa, glancing about so nervously. If the mushrooms only grew on corpses, then the ants that gathered those mushrooms were almost like…

  Farmers. The mountain men knew them, feared them, and had deliberately not told Phaedra and her friends about them. Why? Maybe they hated the islanders for worshipping different Gods. Maybe they hated them because their accents were different, or because their skin was black. Maybe they just wanted the packhorse.

  The giant farmer ants would be back to gather more mushrooms, and if they found Phaedra there, she would become just another corpse. She took as deep a breath as her ribs would allow, and rose to her feet. The pain in her ankle brought tears to her eyes, but giving up would mean death. Gruesome death, in an ant’s jaws. The ceilings in this chamber were low; the shaft above her was within reach. It was confiningly narrow in places, but that meant that Phaedra would be able to hold herself up by pressing against the walls. Even here, where the tunnel was wider, there were plenty of handholds.

  Phaedra could not believe she was even going to try this. Her hands were torn and bloody, her ankle shattered, her ribs broken, and probably her tailbone too. She was going to fall, or worse yet, climb right into the waiting jaws of another ant. But what could she do? Nothing. This was her only option, her only hope. I am my parents’ daughter, she thought grimly. I can do anything I set my mind to. She wiped her eyes on what she hoped was the cleanest part of her sleeve, whispered a prayer to Atel, and began to climb.

  22

  Narky

  Narky did not just take the rope, he took the canvas too. He left Thasa standing confused beside a poorly erected tent frame, its few contents completely exposed. As soon as Narky was back at the cave, he called down to let the others know that he had returned.

  “Where the hell were you?” Criton shouted up at him.

  “I brought the rope,” Narky yelled back. “Is Phaedra still there?”

  “No.” That was Hunter’s voice. “There are all these shafts down here. She must have fallen or been dragged down one of them.”

  Narky crept to the edge of the cavern and looked down. Hunter and Criton were visible far below, carrying torches. Bandu was on the ground, sniffing at one of the large holes in the cavern floor.

  “Very bad,” she said. “Very dead things, and other bad things. Phaedra! Can you hear?”

  “Do you want me to throw the rope down to you?” Narky asked.

  “How much do we have? Not much, right?”

  “No,” Narky admitted. “Not much.”

  “The climb is hardest near the top,” Hunter said. “Can you find a place to tie the rope so it reaches past the overhang?”

  Narky doubted it. “I’ll try,” he said.

  It took some time for him to secure the rope. His hands kept fumbling. When he had successfully tied it to an outcropping stone and thrown the other side over the edge, he found that the rope did not stretch nearly far enough. Oh, well. He hadn’t really expected it to. He took out a knife and began to work on the canvas from the tent. He tore it into strips, twisting them together and tying the ends until he had several additional yards of makeshift rope. When he tied these new lengths together, they were long enough to disappear past the overhang.

  Narky was just testing his knots’ strength when he heard shouts from below, and the familiar sound of Hunter’s sword being drawn. Clutching the rope, Narky cautiously eased himself over the rocky edge until he could see what was happening.

  Below, his friends were facing what looked remarkably like a large black ant with its forelegs cut off. It was a little hard to believe that the creature really was an ant, because from this distance, his friends too appeared rather ant-like. An actual ant shouldn’t have been visible at all. Yet the creature’s jerky movements were unmistakable. How large was that thing?

  As Narky watched, Hunter raised his sword with both hands and brought it down on the ant’s head. The ant collapsed, and dark bluish liquid sprayed from its broken head. Hunter jerked out his sword and looked around warily, expecting another.

  Bandu knelt and put both her hands on the ground. “More coming,” she said. “Over there! Criton, behind you!”

  She was pointing in two separate directions, but Hunter at least was ready. He leapt toward one of the holes in the ground that Bandu had indicated, and plunged his sword downward just as another ant was crawling out. His blade slipped between the insect’s mandibles and stuck for a moment before he pulled it back.

  Criton was less ready. The ants moved so quickly! By the time he had turned around, another pair was mere feet away. Criton was still holding both torches, but he did not bother to drop them. Instead he breathed a steady stream of flame, and Narky watched in relief as the ants writhed for a moment and fell onto their sides, their legs curling.

  Narky stepped away from the edge and took up his spear. Did he dare climb down with it to join his friends? Would he be of any use down there? What if more ants were outside the cave, foraging? If the others survived and tried to climb back up, any ants here at the top could make short work of them as they climbed. It was best to stand guard, he thought.

  Poor Phaedra! She had fallen right into the ants’ nest. It was unlikely she had survived. Even if she had, how could she ever make it back up alive? The tunnels would be simply crawling with the gigantic insects, and if any of these chanced upon Phaedra during her climb, that would be the end. It would take a miracle for Phaedra to come back to them. A miracle.

  Narky knelt and prayed. Ravennis had taken an interest in him once; maybe He was still watching.

  Please, he thought, let Phaedra come back to us. If I have ever deserved Your mercy, she definitely deserves it more. What’s she done to deserve this death and burial in a nest of ants? She’s far more devoted to wisdom than I am, and she’s kinder and more caring, and much more worthy than I ever was. O Ravennis, let Phaedra come back to us!

  Narky finished his prayer and opened his eyes. If he was going to be a rearguard, he had best do some actual guarding. He went to the mouth of the cave and looked out to see if he could spot any more ants. H
e did not see any just now, but something else caught his eye: Thasa had gone. The filthy clansman had fled back homewards, useless runt that he was. He probably knew about the ants, and had led the islanders here anyway. Had this cave even belonged to a dragon? Or was it simply a trap?

  A sudden noise made Narky look up. One of the giant ants had just entered the cave from above, and was crawling upside-down on the ceiling. For a moment, Narky hesitated. Would poking at this thing just make it angry?

  Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself, they’re fighting a whole nest down there. The least you can do is to make it safe for them to come up.

  Narky took a quick breath and lifted his spear high – and found to his dismay that it still didn’t reach far enough. He knelt for a stone and threw it, but it only bounced off the ant’s thick carapace and skittered to the ground. This was enough to irritate the ant, though. It searched left and right for its attacker, and not finding one on the ceiling, stopped there for a moment with antennae waving. Narky threw another stone. The ant craned its body toward the source of the projectiles, and fell suddenly to the ground. It bounced once and turned over, completely unharmed. Then it charged him.

  Narky knelt and planted his spear on the ground the way Hearthman Tachil of the Gallant Ones had taught him. The ant was so fast. His spear’s point was too low, and the ant ran over it toward him. Narky panicked and leapt back, though he knew the ant was faster than him. He nearly tripped over a knee-high rock, but managed not to fall as he backed around it. Oh, he was going to die. The ant was about to reach him, and then…

  With a sudden spark of genius Narky leapt forward, kicking off the rock to sail over the ant’s head. He landed on the other side and scrambled to retrieve his spear. The ant’s vision was poor, but it had felt the tremors in the ground as he fell. It wheeled around almost immediately. Its mandibles clicked in irritation as it rushed him a second time, but this time Narky’s aim was true. His spear’s point found the mouth between the mandibles and the charging ant impaled itself, pushing farther and farther up the spear until Narky had to let go and leap back again for fear of losing his hands. The ant convulsed for a moment and then lay still.