River Into Darkness

by Sean Russell

  Hayes fished in a pocket and found his own watch unscathed, though he made note to place it securely in his pack.

  “Two minutes beyond midnight.”

  Kehler nodded. “Six hours we have been at it. Three perhaps in this last section. Our progress is less than I expected.”

  “Perhaps this walking upright has its drawbacks after all. I’m sure our distant relatives, the ape men, would have managed much better than we.”

  Kehler produced the water bottle, and they both drank deeply. The survey was spread out in the lamplight, and the two bent over it.

  “I would venture that we have just passed through the section known as the ‘Slug’s Race Course,’ and I no longer wonder why it was so named. I wonder how far it is to this splitting of the ways?” He tapped the drawing. “Shall we go on, or call it a night?”

  Hayes took a look around. He was feeling decidedly tired, but he was not certain that he could sleep. The claustrophobia of the last hours still touched him.

  “I think we should go on. We have almost emptied the water bottle, and it would be good to be nearer water in the morning.”

  Kehler nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go to the place where the four ways meet. From there it can’t be more than two hours to the resurgence.”

  They clambered on, relieved by the size of the passage, which was ten feet high and roughly round, though it quickly began to vary, and twist as it went. Their spirits rose, as often happens after an ordeal, and they talked as they went, buoyed by a sense of adventure.

  In the world above, people slumbered, secure in their homes and the routine of their lives, while here, far beneath the surface, Hayes and Kehler went seeking secrets long hidden. Hayes thought that he felt more alive at that moment than he had in several years.

  Sooner than expected, they found the Y in the tunnel and, for no particular reason, elected to take the left passage. In twenty minutes the passages joined again and they pressed on. A series of short drops, none more than ten feet, slowed them only a little, and an hour more brought them to the place where the four ways joined. Here they found a small alcove off the side of one passage and, calling it the “sleeping chamber,” threw down their packs.

  Hayes impressed Kehler by using the lantern as a stove. He removed the glass chimney and, using one of their tin cups and the lamp’s handle, managed if not to boil water at least to heat it. Taking a small package from his pack, he brewed something resembling tea and this they shared quietly by the lamplight.

  Kehler produced the survey again and hunched over it, examining it minutely. “If we take the southern passage, we will be forced to use ropes to negotiate some rather large drops, but there are no significant squeezes on this route. The northern way has a long crawl, perhaps longer than the one we have just survived.”

  “Let us go by the south, then, Kehler. I fear heights less than the tight spots.”

  Kehler looked over at him, his gaze resting on his friend with some concern. “I will tell you honestly, Hayes, that we have not really entered a tight passage yet. Some tunnels we might meet are just large enough to let a determined man pass and no more.” Perhaps he saw the distress this caused, and he quickly added. “But I am smaller than you and will do most of the real exploration. Your job will be to pull me out by my ankles should I get stuck.”

  Hayes took the tea from his friend and sipped it. “You said you would tell me the story once we stopped.”

  Kehler laid his head back against the rock and closed his eyes. Hayes thought he would claim exhaustion and put the moment off again, but without opening his eyes Kehler began.

  “In my time at Wooton I managed to gain the trust of a number of the priests who worked in the archives, although I will confess that I planned to abuse that trust right from the beginning. Like many historians in Farrland, I was of the belief that the church hid much of our history in their records. If they had so cheated us, I was prepared to do the same to them. I make no more excuse than that.

  “The archives at Wooton house what is, perhaps, the most important collection in all Farrland. There are some documents there of astonishing age! Many of the priests who do their scholarly work there maintain exhausting hours, appearing to need no more than a few hours’ sleep each day. This is part of the surrender of their will to the church, I think. I came to see it as a form of self-abasement, really. But it meant that the archives were open at all hours. I began to work long hours myself and gained the trust of a number of the priests this way, for I think they were impressed by my monk-like capacity for work. I was not one of them, but I was, at least, like them in habits.

  “I soon learned that there were rooms in the buildings that were not open to any but the most senior priests or scholars, and then only with consent from on high. The keys for most of the rooms were in the possession of the senior archivist, an ancient and kindly priest. I gained his trust by offering my services to him, for he did not get around as he once did. Through this action, I managed to gain occasional access to his keys. The poor man, he trusted me far too much, and I do regret this one betrayal, for I’m sure he has been retired in shame for what happened.

  “I traced his keys one at a time, and then filed duplicates out of brass. It was a laborious process, I can tell you, and it did not always produce results, but eventually I had keys for most of the locked chambers. The first I entered documented the struggle of the church to influence government, and was astonishing enough, I’m sure, but it was not what interested me. I was a while finding what I looked for and, in fact, began to despair of ever discovering what I sought.

  “And then fortune found me. I could only gain access to the rooms at certain times of the night, when those few priests who were in the archives were engaged elsewhere, and during vespers. I was expected to attend though occasionally I did not and was seldom missed, but everyone else attended, leaving the archives protected only by their ancient locks.

  Kehler opened his eyes and fixed them on his friend. “I will tell you truthfully, Hayes, there is an archive at Wooton that deals almost exclusively with the Farrellite Church’s struggle against the mages. It is an astonishing history! I hadn’t time to read it all, of course, or even a hundredth part of it, but even so—the things I found! It was Althons, the mage King, who preserved the vestiges of the Farrellite Church after the war between the church and the mages. And the church leaders did not know why! It was as though the mages had some use for the church, perhaps far in the future, but would say nothing of it. The church fathers suspected that augury had led to this decision. The mages had seen something in one of their visions that had led them to spare the church, and the priests had no idea what it might be.

  “But the information I sought was more elusive and took me months of subterfuge to find. All the while I expected discovery and expulsion—at the very least! And then one day I found a letter from Baumgere himself—a letter to the senior bishop of the Farrellite Church, no less. Although it was written with all apparent deference, and was clearly a response to a letter from the senior bishop, it contained a threat that was only very slightly veiled. ‘I should not want to contemplate the reaction of the mages,’ Baumgere wrote, ‘were they to learn that you concealed their enemy all these years.’”

  Kehler leaned forward and blew out the flame, plunging the chamber into a darkness such as Hayes had never known. There was not a trace of light. No shadow or area darker than another. Uniform blackness, and then odd visions, shades of color, seemed to appear before his eyes, though they were not light but only the eye’s reaction to its absence. He heard his own breath indrawn. And then Kehler’s voice came out of the blackness.

  “I had learned about Teller by then, though at first I didn’t make the connection. It was not until I found a record of an inquisition within the church carried out with utter secrecy that I began to realize what had happened. A hundred and sixty years ago the Farrellites
found that the society the mages believed they had destroyed was still alive, and living like a parasite within the bosom of the church! The society of Teller had somehow survived. And where better to take refuge than within the defeated church? The church that no longer posed a threat to the mages; that did not dare to pose a threat! A priest speaking out from the pulpit against the mages would have been summarily excommunicated for endangering the church. And this was almost without question what Baumgere was referring to. He must have learned of it in his studies.

  “Of course, by Baumgere’s time, the society of Teller had been rooted out, though I was not able to learn what their fate had been. But still, the mages were not known to be just, and the fathers of the church were, with good reason, terrified that the mages might one day learn the truth. What if this had been their sole function, the reason the mages had allowed the church to survive? To destroy the vestiges of Teller’s society? Would the mages have no more use for them if they were to find out? And Baumgere blackmailed them with this information—blackmailed his own church, though for what gain was unclear. No wonder he was denied absolution!

  “So hearing Erasmus and Clarendon speak of Teller did not surprise me.” Kehler paused a moment. “The priest came to the Caledon Hills seeking something, and he was clearly not doing so at the behest of his church. People would see him out roaming the hills with his deaf-mute servant, silent, as always, about his business. In any number of places there were excavations attributed to Baumgere. Then, when I had begun to lose hope, I found some of Baumgere’s papers. Nothing like I’d hoped—no journal containing all the answers to my questions—but a few odd things that were likely deemed of no importance by whomever had filed Baumgere’s papers away in this forgotten room. A deed to his home. A map of the vicinity to the west of Blue Hawk Lake marked here and there with intriguing circles and lines. A meticulous catalogue of everything he read. In a crate, I even found some of Baumgere’s books—all of which were entered in the catalogue. And something that seemed very odd at the time—a number of cave surveys, all annotated in his wispy hand. It seemed from what he wrote that he had been engaged in carefully eliminating every section of each cave, though by what criteria could not be ascertained. On each survey there was a date and a brief entry; usually something like, ‘nothing here’ or ‘not this one’, but this cave—the Cavern of the Mirror Lake—this one he did not complete his work in. Something stopped him. Stopped him just when his hopes were rising, for on one section of the cave were written the words: ‘Here, the way by darkness into light.’”

  “And that means something to you?” Hayes said, surprised at the weight Kehler seemed to attribute to the inscription.

  “I confess, at the time it meant nothing. But as I studied Baumgere’s effects, these few scraps that proved the man had passed through this world, I was provided an answer. Among the books that Baumgere owned, I found that several contained the same lyric, and each was much underlined and written over, which was very anomalous, for he had not written in his books in any other place. It was an old lyric called the ‘Ballad of Tomas’ that interested him. You’ve likely heard it sung. . . .” Kehler then proceeded to sing, off-key, a line or two.

  “Remarkably, I actually do recognize it, which is saying a great deal as you entirely missed the tune, like a blind carpenter after a nail.”

  “Well, I make no claims as a singer. But the line, ‘the way, by darkness, into light,’ is from the ballad.”

  “I’m waiting for you to enlighten me,” Hayes said.

  “Well, clearly Baumgere had a romantic or poetical nature and a particular affection for that lyric. The way by darkness into light was the tunnel that Tomas used to reach Faery. The one tunnel in a vast cave. So you see, he used this line to mark the spot where he believed lay whatever it was he looked for. It is also a metaphor, obviously. Perhaps, given his religion, he would have interpreted it to mean the way to eternal life through death. Or the way to knowledge through struggle.”

  “Well,” Hayes said, “I’m glad we have come down here on such concrete evidence. ‘The way by darkness into light.’ Why didn’t you just say so earlier? No more explanation would have been necessary. I would have plunged into darkness ready to do battle with all the creatures of the underworld, both real and metaphorical. Farrelle’s flames, Kehler! Is that why we’re crawling along on our bellies through utter darkness? Because Baumgere wrote that particularly edifying line on a cave survey?”

  “There is more, Hayes, if you’ll just bear with me.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that, but just for your information, I’m fixing you with a devastatingly skeptical look at this moment.”

  “I can actually feel it.” Kehler paused only to draw breath. “I kept searching and began to take greater risks, going to the rooms when it was not really safe to do so. But by this time I was obsessed. I felt I was so close to such astonishing secrets. I kept digging, just as Baumgere had.

  “And then I heard from Skye, a rather cryptic note, for he was concerned that my correspondence might be monitored. I gathered, though, that he had found the Peliers, which was news indeed. I assumed they were in the possession of the church. I spoke to one of the monks who was a resident expert on art and, fortunately, a man without a trace of suspicion in his rather narrow character. To my surprise I learned that there were Peliers in Wooton, stored away with a great deal of other art that is not on daily display.

  “I managed to get access to these storage rooms as well, and was more than surprised by what I found, for there, carefully covered and leaning against a wall in a stack of other art, I found one of the Peliers that Skye described, and two other paintings as well.”

  “But if Skye had it, how could it have been found in Wooton as well?”

  “An interesting question. I assume one or the other is a copy. Be that as it may, I found the painting of the crypt that you saw above Castlebough, the same painting that was owned by Baumgere, and a second painting of a man in priestly robes standing in a grape arbor. But his hair was too long, and he held a book that at first I thought was scripture, but upon closer examination turned out to be a book of the arcane, for it had upon it strange symbols and writing that I could not read—a book of the arts.

  “Flames, Kehler! Pelier knew that Teller’s people hid within the church?!” Hayes exclaimed increduously.

  “I don’t think you can say that he knew, but he had a vision that this was so. Perhaps he predicted it. Either way the church was forewarned, for Pelier lived before the discovery of the Tellerites within the church. The third painting was even more obscure. . . . It shows a gate pushed open, leading into what might be a courtyard or perhaps a garden. Inside stands a man, smiling oddly, almost gloating, and like the figure in the other painting, he holds a book inscribed with arcane symbols and a strange script. He also holds a leafed stem bearing a pair of small white blossoms. The background is difficult to discern, but the odd thing about this painting is that the man bears an uncanny resemblance to Erasmus.”

  “You aren’t serious?! Erasmus Flattery?”

  “None other.”

  “Martyr’s balls, Kehler! Erasmus? Does the church know this? Do they realize it is Erasmus?”

  “I would think they must, now. Deacon Rose will not have missed that when he visited Erasmus, and I am almost certain he will have known of the painting.”

  “But what does it mean?” Hayes asked, still trying to grasp the idea that someone had painted his friend, Erasmus, hundreds of years before he was born!

  “I am not sure. As I said, the figure bears a striking resemblance to Erasmus—too near for it to be coincidence, I’m sure. I think it means that Erasmus knows more of the mages than he claims, or at least so I would surmise. So you see, it began with Baumgere being called to Compton Heath to listen to the Stranger’s peculiar tongue. I don’t know how he came across the Pelier that showed the stranger crossing the br
idge, but he did, and from there a growing interest in the work of the artist would explain how he came across the Pelier that showed the crypt in Castlebough—and then the last painting that shows Erasmus.”

  “But that can have meant nothing to him. Erasmus was not even born when Baumgere was alive.”

  “No, that’s true, but there is writing on the book that Erasmus held, and I haven’t even the slightest idea of what it might mean. But then we’re forgetting something. . . . We don’t know that Baumgere knew anything about this last Pelier.”

  “But this still does not explain why we are here. What is it we hope to find?”

  Kehler did not answer for a long moment, and Hayes was about to repeat his question when his friend finally spoke. “We are here because Baumgere searched for something in this cave. Something that had some connection to Teller and the remains of his society that was destroyed by the church. If you ask me to theorize, I will tell you this. I think the crypt Baumgere uncovered might have been the burying place of Teller himself, laid to rest by his followers, who then concealed the place. I think the painting of Erasmus indicates hidden knowledge—that is what Baumgere was looking for. Why he believed it to be here is not clear, but you must remember that Baumgere was a very accomplished scholar. He would not have been searching here if he did not have reason. I think he was seeking knowledge of the arts—knowledge that was hidden long ago, by the followers of Teller.”

  “But why was Erasmus the subject of a painting? What has he to do with this?”

  Hayes could hear Kehler shake his head. “I don’t know, Hayes. I don’t know. Unless Erasmus was meant to find this knowledge . . . and somehow it has fallen to us. Or perhaps it meant that Erasmus would be the guardian of the arts, in some way. I can’t say. All I know is that Baumgere believed what he sought was here.”

  They fell silent in the darkness. From somewhere Hayes could hear the slow drip of water punctuating the silence. Hayes’ mind was racing to take in the story—a terribly incomplete story. What was Kehler keeping back? Something, Hayes was sure. Kehler would hardly have made such an expedition because of an obscure line of poetry scribbled on a survey. He was too thorough a scholar for that.