“These days,” said Freya, “everyone is educated. People without any money can know as much as kings and queens. Pretty much.”
“Remarkable,” said Ecgbryt. “Yes, that was ?lfred’s dream.”
“So, tell me,” said Swi?gar, “with all of these machines and abilities-are people happy?”
“I think so,” said Freya. “Yes, happier than if they didn’t have all these things.”
“Are they kind? Do they treat each other with honour?”
“Maybe not as much as they could,” Daniel said. “Maybe not much at all, actually.”
“They still fight, then? There are wars? People are hungry?
They hate each other?”
“So what?” Freya said. “Were things any better in your time, whenever that was?”
“Hmm,” Swi?gar grunted. “In faith, no, they were not. There were constant wars and many battles in our lifetime, as well as hunger and hate and hardship. This only serves to prove what none from my time wanted to admit to themselves-that men and women of any type, of any nation, of any advantage, at any time, will always war with, steal from, and take advantage of each other, no matter what is done to try to help them improve their lives. No matter what the advantages-education, riches, comfort-men will still tend towards evil.”
“Do you think there’s anything that can stop that?” Daniel asked.
“It seems not,” said Swi?gar. “It seems that people carry corruption around inside of them wherever they go.”
“You mean we can’t do anything?”
“I mean that we must do everything, but that even that may not be enough.”
They walked in silence for a while, contemplating the pessimism in that statement.
“Is it much farther?” Daniel asked after a time.
“Not at all,” Swi?gar replied, and he was shortly proven to be right. Within a few hundred paces, branching tunnels started to join their own, widening their way, not dividing it. The path they were walking on grew wider and the ceiling gradually rose higher, giving them that odd shrinking sensation again. The echo of their footsteps gradually faded away and then disappeared altogether and the walls around them grew darker as they became more distant.
Swi?gar and Ecgbryt slowed, obviously cautious. They moved from the centre of the tunnel to the side, walking along the righthand wall. Eventually they stopped and lowered their torches.
“What is it?” asked Freya, suddenly fearful again.
“Shh! Liss,” Ecgbryt breathed, motioning them to stop.
Daniel and Freya strained to hear. Coming from the blackness in front of them they heard a faint scrabbling noise.
As they strained to see what might be making this sound, they realised they were staring into nothingness. Looking up, they could just trace the outline of the edge of the natural archway that opened into an unknowably large area. Cold, stale air swept over them in a chilling wave. “Where are we?” Daniel asked in an awed voice.
“At the mouth to one of the entrances to the Ni?erland.”
“Are we still underground?”
“Yes. It is a large plain-mostly flat-supported by large natural pillars. Now, silence.”
As Daniel and Freya squinted, they made out a line of faint, pale-yellow pinpricks of light running straight across their field of vision. The lights were extremely dim and noticeable only if you did not look directly at them. They could hear distant voices arguing and shouting.
Daniel and Freya felt sick with anticipation now. “What’s going on?” Daniel whispered.
It was a few moments before Swi?gar answered in a low voice, “I know not, but now we must move in silence and darkness, not to be seen or heard.” To Ecgbryt he commanded, “We will extinguish the torches here, bro?or.”
They did so, plunging everything into such an empty darkness that Daniel and Freya gave quiet gasps. Then each of them felt one of the knight’s hands on their back, and they were pushed forward.
For a time Daniel and Freya felt as if they were walking in nothingness. It was completely dark except for the fallen starfield of campfire lights. As their eyes adjusted to the almost tangible darkness, they started to distinguish the dim shapes of landscape that lay flat on the top of each other, broken by pillars of stone rising up on either side, reaching up and vanishing towards an unseen ceiling.
In the distance was a dim glow-an arc of faint light like a misty haze. Freya, who had spent some time camping up north, knew that this was the light that cities often gave out at nighttime.
That must be where Ni?ergeard was.
As they went farther, they found that the ground wasn’t as flat as they had thought-there were slight rises and falls and chasms that spewed cold air that had been spanned by bridges.
Stalagmites rose ahead and to either side of them with bases larger than tree trunks and tops that vanished into the darkness.
The curious scrabbling sound grew louder and the individual noises became separate and more distinct. There was a low chattering noise, a dusty scraping, and some intermittent clanking.
The pinpricks of light that ran in a line across the landscape gradually grew larger, but not much brighter, as they approached them.
Freya and Daniel soon discovered they were pale campfires, burning with a dirty flame. The travelers proceeded with slow caution from stalagmite to stalagmite. Crouching close to one column, they saw shapes flicker in front of them-fast, darting shapes, very similar to those that had attacked them in the tunnels. Rasping voices could just be heard. Daniel strained his ears but could make out only a few phrases, but those phrases didn’t make any sense.
“. . . and three more spoon measures make twenty pebbles’ worth for the final measure,” explained a grating voice.
“Eight twenties make one and sixty; from two hundreds and twenty, that leaves sixty,” came a creaky reply. This comment was met with a few grunts of annoyance.
“Between eight,” continued the second voice, straining slightly, “that’s another seven pebbles’ worth each, at least! Too mean, too mean by far!” There was a slap of a palm against the bare ground and a chorus of voices rumbling with indignation. “Weigh again! Weigh again, and rats take your toes! I’m so hungry my teeth tingle!” There were further odd curses and then a rattling clank.
“To my ear and eye,” whispered Ecgbryt, withdrawing slightly, “they are the kith and kind of the creature whose head and hand I have in my belt.”
“Agreed,” said Swi?gar. “And likely as friendly. We need a path through.”
“I fear they have the whole plain surrounded. We could charge them and try to break through the weakest point,” Ecgbryt suggested.
“Even without the lifiendes, I would fear . . .” Swi?gar’s voice drifted off. “No,” he decided, “we should investigate the Neothstream. Its waters run beneath the city. We may gain entry that way.”
Ecgbryt was silent for a time and then replied, “Very well. Be it so.”
“This way, ??elingas,” Swi?gar commanded. “Follow me. Do not talk; the price of an overheard word may be our lives. There might be guards or patrols at any point, especially as we near the water’s head.”
They turned and crept through the dark, hunching low to the ground. Freya wondered what time it was in the real world. How long had they been walking? Was it as dark up there as it was under here?
She doubted it. There were no stars here, no street lamps, no houselights, only the dingy little campfires of those disgusting creatures. Her breath became short and erratic as her emotions were pulled deeper and deeper into a whirlpool of worry. She wasn’t afraid of the dark but couldn’t help wondering what things there were in the darkness that she couldn’t see, or wouldn’t want to see, or couldn’t even imagine. She felt her eyes grow hot. She blinked a couple times, and then tears were flowing.
She kept her sobbing quiet-sometimes choking back her cries, sometimes drawing breath in wide gulps, but always being careful to move forward at the same pace.
After a few minutes, the worst had passed and she was wiping her wet cheeks with the palm of her hand and drawing in deep gasps.
As she swallowed her third deep breath, she realised that there was another sound, a low, subtle sound that she had been hearing for some time without knowing it, a sound that had been growing in the distance. She concentrated on it, trying to tune out the quiet shuffle of their footsteps as they trudged into the darkness.
She spent a fair amount of time guessing before the answer came to her: water. There was no liquid hissing or crashing to the sound, just the gentle, playful gurgle and burble of water sliding along smooth rocks. It was such a pleasant, beautiful sound. She focused her attention on it, letting the sound fill her head and trickle down her spine in a pleasant rush that reminded her of hikes in hills, of bright skies and fresh air.
The sound grew. They were obviously approaching the source.
The knights slowed and proceeded more cautiously. There was the faint glow of two dim campfires up ahead that illuminated a wet patch of rocks where the trickle of water spilled down over a series of large, water-rounded stones to swirl in a deep pool. This pool then drained into a wide and slow-moving river.
Daniel and Freya stared, trying to take in as much as they could in the poor light. They thought they could see the forms of two yfelgopes sitting slumped against short pikestaffs in a way that reminded Daniel of bored security guards. The knights motioned to Daniel and Freya, and the four of them headed along the river and away from the guards.
There was more activity farther down the river. Shouts and squabbles drifted towards them above the gurgle of the water. The lights grew brighter, the campfires closer together. Foul, burnt smells wafted towards them, accompanied by ugly cackles and squawks.
The knights paused and crouched down; Daniel and Freya drew in close to them. “We must take to the water now,” Swi?gar told them. “Be careful-the river is cold and dark and the bed will be slippery. A short distance along the river there is a rock shelf that divides the waters. It creates an underground stream that feeds many wells of the city. If we dive underneath that opening, and swim on ahead, there will be air on the other side. We will be able to climb into the city through the Western Well. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Daniel.
“I think so,” answered Freya. “But how will you do it in your armour?”
“The river and its underground passage are shallow enough for Ecgbryt and me to stand at any point, though you two may have to swim. Now, I shall go first. Ecgbryt, you will come last.”
“Stay, bro?or. Is it known what awaits us in the city?”
“No, but I do not believe it has fallen. I wist we would have known if that had come to pass.”
“That is much trust without reason.”
“An aye to that. Although I do not think the yfelgop would be entrenched in such a fashion if they had climbed the walls. Judging from their clustered encampments, so close to the wall, this seems a siege.”
“But what of the beacon?” Ecgbryt asked. “If all was well, we would be seeing by its light right now.”
“I know not,” said Swi?gar, a note of anxiety settling into his voice. “We are bound to investigate the city and discover its fate. It is to be hoped that things are not as dark within as without, but to find that we must take the river and enter through the Western Well.”
“Then be it so,” Ecgbryt returned. “I trust your advice.”
3
The water was very cold, but quite shallow, coming up only to Daniel’s and Freya’s knees. The rocks were large and smooth, slowing them down with staggering slips, softened splashes, and swallowed grunts.
The stream wove gently in large curves, some of which took them much closer to the yfelgop encampments than Daniel or Freya would have liked. Most often they heard sounds of squabbling and snatches of arguments, but around one fire the ugly creatures were engaged in chanting a song that the knights later told them was a rune rhyme-a series of blunt, coarse verses describing the yfelgopes’ alphabet and system of numbering. They beat the dirt with dull thuds and recited the words in a ragged chorus:
“Fyr is First, it burns, it thirsts;
it feasts on flesh and fallen foes.
“Urth is dirt, the Second house
we dig the dead, decayed to dust.
“Thorn is Third, it cuts, it carves;
a cold and cruel crown for kings.
“Ald is age it wastes, it wanes;
want walks Forth; when time wreaks wreck.
“Rech is smoke, the smog that smothers
the Fifth sense, smell. It chokes, it chars.
“Claw is Sixth, it snicks, it snatches;
when sharp, it shivs, and dull, it catches.”
The verses went on, chilling Daniel’s and Freya’s hearts just as the icy water chilled their feet. After a time, Daniel’s legs started to go numb. It was an unpleasant feeling. The water deepened until he was wading in it up to his waist. As he struggled to keep up, Daniel could make out the shape of Swi?gar striding confidently ahead of him. Then, startlingly, the knight bobbed swiftly downwards, the water now up to the large knight’s torso.
Daniel braced himself for what was to come. He made his way cautiously to where Swi?gar had sunk farther in and put a twitching foot forward.
He suddenly felt himself sinking. Gasping as the water enveloped him, he sank farther and farther down. Panicking, he thrashed his arms. If mere exertion and prayer could have saved him from going farther under then he would have stopped right there, but he didn’t. With a terrified glub, his head slipped under the surface of the water.
He strained his head upwards as his hands tore away at the ice water. After an age, dry warmth finally bathed his face and he sucked in a huge gasp of air.
“Quietly, quietly,” cautioned Ecgbryt, his mouth pressed close to Daniel’s ear. “Place your feet on the ground.” Daniel stretched his legs underneath him as the knight lowered him back into the water. “I-I can’t feel the bottom.” His voice was an urgent whimper. “It’s too deep.”
“It is not. Be calm. Put your legs down straight. Unbend your back.”
Daniel found this hard since the chill had started making him shiver uncontrollably. His feet kicked in vain for a time and then struck against something. He pointed his toes and found that solid ground was, in fact, beneath him. He put his feet down and found that the water only just covered his shoulders. “I-I-I can’t . . . ,” he stammered.
“Worry not,” said the even voice of Ecgbryt. “I am here beside you.”
Daniel gulped and started to move forward again. Swi?gar stood ahead a little distance, stopped, apparently waiting. Freya was swimming quietly and confidently a short distance off to his right.
It was slow, hard work for Daniel, who was finding trying to stay afloat in his clothes almost impossible. He paddled along as best as he could, but moved faster with his toes fumbling along the rocky bed.
Swi?gar, up ahead, motioned to them. He pointed to the spot where he was standing and ducked under the water. He didn’t come up.
Daniel approached the area where Swi?gar had disappeared, Ecgbryt behind him. Freya was paddling around the area. She went down once and bobbed back up again, took a very deep breath, went back down, and didn’t come up again.
Daniel could feel with his feet where the ground fell sharply away. He stopped, paralysed, trying to find enough breath and courage to move forward.
“It is well,” said a voice behind him. “Swim as you can and push yourself along the rocks. It’s not far.”
Daniel swallowed and took a deep breath. He bobbed up and down in the water and then plunged his head under. He tried to pull himself forward and felt a strong hand on his back giving him a push that sent him surging forward faster than he liked.
He put his hands out in front of him and felt them scrape hard on the floor of the underwater stream. The pain made his face clench. He wanted to let out a scream but d
idn’t dare open his mouth. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air in his lungs. He made a mistake-this was wrong. He didn’t have enough air. Should he go back, or was he already there? He tilted his body upwards, thinking or hoping he must be there, but banged his head against a rocky ceiling instead. He saw red and white lights before his closed eyes. Throwing his hands outwards, he tried to push, claw, or scrape himself along. He gained a little momentum but not a lot. He kicked his feet, but they felt heavy and slow in his waterfilled shoes. His lungs burned. This must be what dying is like, he thought.
He felt a large hand grab his back and he was once again lifted out of the water. His breath exploded outwards. He sucked air deep into his lungs, marveling at its taste and warmth. He had survived.
“It is done, lad.” It was Swi?gar this time. “You made it. Stand.”
Daniel put his legs down. The water was shallower here but moved much faster. He stood coughing and sputtering in the absolute darkness. “Freya?” he said when he found his breath.
“Yes,” came a reply in what, to him, seemed a very calm and collected voice, though shivering slightly with cold. “I’m here. Are you okay?”
“I think so,” he said, grinning. “I wish I had tried harder in swimming class.”
Ecgbryt surfaced behind them, his metal armour jangling as he struggled for a footing on the wet rocks. “It gets the blood flowing,” he said, laughing, “does a good dip like that.”
“I’ll say,” Daniel said.
“Let us press onwards,” Swi?gar said. “Freya, hold on to my shoulder; Daniel, take Ecgbryt’s. We will lead you.”
With Daniel and Freya shivering uncontrollably, the four moved through the near-total darkness. Time had become abstract since entering the tunnels, and now didn’t seem to touch them at all.
They had just begun to think they would wander around in the dark forever when a quivering outline could be made out on the surface of the water up ahead. “It is here,” said Swi?gar. He stepped beneath a dim halo of light that fell from the well’s shaft above them. A soft luminescence cascaded down his face and shoulders, throwing his high-browed features into sharp relief. It was the first clear image that Daniel and Freya had seen for some time, and it stung their eyes.
The Realms Thereunder aet-1 Page 8
