“Trying to win back a little favor with the crowd, Henderson?” I asked, shaking my head.
“It is my job to look out for their well-being.”
“Funny,” Rocke said. “I didn’t hear you giving your job much consideration when you were bragging about how much money you were setting yourself up with by keeping this little vein a secret.”
“Little” wasn’t the best choice of words, in my opinion, but that didn’t have to be said. The shaft we were passing through was almost wide enough to drive two full-sized trucks through, and although the ceiling had shown signs of being lower at some point, someone had clearly been at work changing that. We’d been able to walk through as we pleased. I wasn’t an expert on mining, but there had been a serious amount of rock dug out of here.
“Right,” the leader of the workers, who’d introduced himself as “Arc,” said. “So then if we can’t go any farther—”
“Then this is all the farther you need to go,” Rocke said, shaking his head. “Hawke and I can take it from here, as long as it’s a straight shot.”
“It is,” Henderson said. “If not for the sound baffle we’d put up, you’d probably hear the rest of the team now. If you wouldn’t mind, could you send them back?”
“Don’t worry,” Rocke said as he patted something under his jacket. “I think we’ll be able to convince them.”
“You guys might as well wait by the exit for them,” I said, nodding at the four miners who’d come with us. “They’re just as much in the soup over this as your boss.”
“Don’t worry,” one of the miners said, throwing his arm around Henderson’s shoulders and giving him a rather rough shake. “El jefe will be just fine in our care. Isn’t that right, guys?” The rest of the group nodded as he gave Henderson another tug, turning him around and almost pulling him from his feet. I had reservations about how safe he would be, but I really didn’t feel like cutting the guy a break. If he happened to fall a few times while with the miners? Well, I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it.
“Good luck with whatever it is you guys are going to do,” Arc said, pausing just long enough to give us both a nod. “You sure you’ve got everything you need?”
“Yeah,” Rocke said.
I nodded as Arc looked at me, adjusting the equipment we’d borrowed from one of the mine’s emergency boxes. I was wearing what felt like a climbing harness over my shirt, its pockets bulging with flares and survival gear. Both Rocke and I had been issued handheld lanterns as well as hardhats with attached headlamps, though we hadn’t turned those on yet. We would probably need to before long, though, judging by the sparseness of the light.
“Well,” Arc said, giving us one last nod. “Good luck. Hope you make it out.” Then he turned and began to jog back down the tunnel toward his men, footsteps echoing around us even as the darkness swallowed him. For a moment we stood there, listening to the faint echo of his movement. And then even that was gone, distorted by distance into an unrecognizable clatter.
“All right, Hawke,” Rocke said to me at last. “Before we go any further, you know how to fire a pistol, right?”
“I own one or two,” I said, turning and feeling my flashlight tap against the side of my hip where I’d clipped it to my belt. “Why?”
“Because with what we’re getting into, you should be carrying one.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small handgun, the dark metal almost lost in the shadows of the shaft. “Here.”
I reached out as he flipped it in his hands, extending the grip toward me. The polymer was cool against my palm, warmer than the shaft we were in, but still cooler than my hand. I wrapped my fingers around it, tucking my staff under my arm as I ejected the magazine and checked the chamber. It was clean.
“Are these your custom bullets?” I asked, spinning the top round in the mag with my thumb and squinting as I checked for tiny rune-etchings.
“Yeah, all of them,” he said. My eyes widened in surprise as I regarded the magazine with new appreciation. “Nothing fancy,” he said as I slid the magazine back into the pistol with a click. “Just standard disruption rounds. You fire that at anything we see in here, living or dead, and even if the bullet doesn’t touch it, the rune will wreck any energy field it passes through.”
“So don’t shoot my staff with it,” I said as I gave the gun an experimental heft. “Or myself.”
“Probably not, no,” Rocke said, chuckling. “Though it is specifically designed to counter necromantic energy, so if you really wanted to—”
“I’m good, I think,” I said, taking my staff in my other hand again. “Anything else I should know?”
“Standard Glock Seventeen, extended magazine with nineteen rounds,” Rocke said. “I’ve got two more mags, too, although they aren’t runed.”
“I’ll take them anyway,” I said, sliding the Glock into my pocket for the time being and holding out my hand. The magazines he handed me were long and thin, but I managed to slide them into my harness alongside some flares without too much difficulty.
“Remember,” Rocke said as I secured the last one. “You fire in here, and it’s going to be loud. You any good at healing?”
“Not really,” I said, shaking my head and silently berating myself. “My grandfather was, but I’m only passable.”
“You might want these, then,” Rocke said, a pair of bright orange earplugs sitting in his palm. “Or you can spend two weeks with an NSAU nurse working on your ears.”
“Not fun?” I asked as I took the plugs, rolling the small, bright foam shapes between my fingers.
“No.”
Properly outfitted, we moved down the tunnel, playing our flashlights across the ground in front of us as we moved into the dark spaces between each bulb. Overhead, the ceiling began to rise, then drop again, and then rise—like we were inside a carnival fun ride, except that the floor was fairly level beneath us. Every so often we’d pass some sort of bracing, and Rocke and I would glance at it, giving it a nervous eye as we passed. I’d specifically avoided asking the miners exactly how deep we were, but unfortunately they’d helpfully “volunteered” the fact that we were at least five-hundred feet below-ground. A fact I’d been unable to forget—or even get out of my head—once they’d told me.
“Do you hear that?” I asked as we passed another lightbulb. Rocke stopped, his body freezing, the faint echoes of our footsteps fading away. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since we’d parted ways with Henderson and the miners, but we’d passed at least twenty lightbulbs.
“Hear what?” Rocke asked.
“That rumble,” I said, reaching out and splaying my fingers on the wall. Nothing. But I could still hear it—a faint, low-pitched groan, like someone snoring, or maybe … “I think it’s an engine.”
“I don’t hear it,” Rocke said after a moment.
“It’s there,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“We must be getting close to the cavern Henderson was talking about, then.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his own gun. The faint, metallic click of a chambered round echoed through the tunnel as he pulled the slide back, and he looked at me. “Ready?” I nodded and tightened my grip on my staff. If possible, I wanted to leave most of the shooting to Rocke.
We moved forward again, but it wasn’t long before Rocke heard the growling rumble as well and gave me a small nod. I nodded in return, and we continued forward, the sound growing louder as we passed lightbulb after lightbulb. Before long I could feel the dull, vibrating roar underfoot, seeping through my boots and resonating up my legs. Whatever it was, it was huge.
Up ahead the mineshaft seemed to stop, and Rocke raised one hand, his flashlight playing across what looked like a heavy piece of reinforced cloth. The roar was louder now, loud enough that Rocke’s voice no longer seemed to echo as he spoke.
“This must be the baffle Henderson was talking about,” he said, his voice raised.
“Probably,” I called, stepping up to the wall and placing
my hand on it. It felt warm, like thick wool. “I don’t know what else it could be.” I ran my hand to the edge, noted the rags pressed into the gaps along the edges. “Did they just take it down every time they needed to get by?”
“Maybe,” Rocke said. A beam of light splashed past me, illuminating the grey surface, and Rocke stepped up alongside me, his headlamp beaming as he began to run his hands over the baffle.
“There’s definitely wood underneath it,” I said, pressing my fingers against the surface and feeling a firm resistance somewhere underneath.
“Probably plywood,” Rocke said as he ran his hand down the center. “With a brace or two. They probably just wedge it in wherever they can before they start to keep the noise down.” He rapped his knuckles against the padded surface and frowned as the sound was swallowed up.
“Let me,” I said, stepping up to the massive wall. “It must take them at least two or three people to wedge this thing in place.” I balled my hand into a fist and slammed it down against the baffle once, twice, then three times. Dull, echoing thumps rebounded across the mineshaft as the barrier shook under my fist, the last hit actually forcing it to shift slightly. Dust trickled down from above as one of the corners scraped across the stone.
“Think they heard that?” Rocke asked. I answered with a shrug. If they hadn’t, there wasn’t much more we could do besides make the dramatic entrance. I raised my fist and gave the wall another few good hits, more dust sifting down as the baffle shook.
“Well?” I said as I looked back at Rocke. “Should we take that as an invitation to let ourselves in?” I pulled the earplugs he’d given me from my pocket and began to roll them between my fingers, compressing the foam into a shape that would more readily slip into my ears. Rocke nodded and did the same, pulling out his own pair of plugs and slipping them in. It was a little tricky to get my large fingers around the lower lip of my hard hat, but after loosening the chin strap a little, I was able to get the earplugs in easily enough. The sounds of the world around me faded, first growing quieter and then drifting into a sort of muffled mix, where everything seemed to lack direction or pitch. The faint roar of the engine became even fainter still, reduced to a distant buzz that seemed to itch from all sides.
“You good?” Rocke called, his voice oddly faint, some of the inflection gone.
“Yeah,” I said, grinning at the strange sound of my own voice. It sounded flat, like I was listening to a recording with all the higher tones cut out. “You ready?”
Rocke nodded, and I gave him a thumbs-up before motioning him away from the door. “All right,” I said, though since I was facing the baffle rather than Rocke, I wasn’t sure he would hear it. Not that it mattered. “Knock, knock.”
My boot slammed into the center of the baffle with a splintering-crack that I could hear through my earplugs. The top of the baffle slid backwards, dust and pebbles raining from the ceiling in its wake. I lifted my leg again and gave the baffle another kick, this one stronger than the first, and the baffle popped free with a faint crack that sounded like something inside had broken.
The faint drone we had heard before swept into prominence, the low rumble turning into a roar. Ahead of us, the tunnel stretched away into darkness, and I lit my headlamp as Rocke walked up beside me, his own beam shining into the darkness.
“This must be the cavern that Henderson mentioned,” Rocke said, his face contorting as he shouted. I nodded. Our beams illuminated a ceiling that stretched up twenty or thirty feet, a curved dome of rock that gave me the impression we’d stepped into a giant bubble. The ground sloped downward, although we could see it rising again on the far side of the chamber, where a faint light shone from another tunnel, much like the one we’d just come out of.
“Hang on,” Rocke said, raising one arm across my chest as I moved to take a step forward. “Not yet.” He closed his eyes, his chest moving in and out, and I felt a faint brush against the edges of my other senses.
Right, I thought as he opened his eyes again and removed his hand. Checking for things. I should have thought of that. I opened my own senses as we stepped into the cavern. I felt the world open up around me, pushed myself outward and—I came to a stop, opening my eyes wide in shock.
“What?” Rocke asked, his gun coming up as he noticed my abrupt shift.
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean—there’s nothing. I just checked.”
“Your life-sense?” Rocke asked. I nodded.
“It just was a bit of a surprise,” I said, shaking my head as I pushed out a little further. “It’s like a void. There’s just you, me, and that’s about it.”
“A bit empty?”
“It’s more like going deaf after leaving a symphony,” I said, pulling my sense back before I burned too much energy. “It’s just … jarring.” We resumed our forward pace, the roar of the engine getting louder. I could recognize the type now: A diesel. Even with the earplugs, I could still hear the deep-rooted thrum that reminded me of the heavy equipment I’d been around as a kid. Up ahead, the light from the tunnel got brighter, more lights coming into view further back. It looked and sounded like we were getting closer to the mining operation itself, which meant that we’d be able to—
This time it was me who stopped, my arm coming up in front of Rocke and bringing him to an abrupt halt. “Rocke? Do your little thing again,” I said as I glanced down the brightly lit tunnel.
He nodded and closed his eyes. Again I felt a faint oddness as the fringes of his talent made a brief push past mine, like an echo originating inside of me. I wasn’t sure if I was okay with it or outright bothered. It was like someone was tapping my chest from the inside.
“Nothing,” he said, although there was some hesitation in his words. “It did feel a bit … muted, though?” He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know how to describe it. Like I was pushing through a wet blanket, maybe.”
“But you didn’t pick up anyone?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said with a shake of his head. Then he paused, the implication of my words sinking in. “Nobody but you.”
“Neither did I,” I said, looking back at the lights up ahead. “And I definitely should have at this range.” I opened my senses a second time, frowning as I felt a slight pressure, like something was pushing back. Still, whatever it was, it wasn’t enough of a bother to keep me from realizing that there was definitely, absolutely, no one around but Rocke and me. And that could only mean one thing.
“Henderson might not have to worry about anyone else selling him out after all,” I said, resuming my walk down the tunnel at a more hesitant pace. “I’m not picking up anyone.” A chill ran down my spine as I said it, icy needles that had nothing to do with the cool tunnel air. “How many people did he say were down here?”
“Nine,” Rocke said. He held his gun low, finger resting on the trigger guard as we made our way towards the growing light in front of us.
The tunnel opened up into another cavern, much larger than the dome we’d passed through earlier. Lights were scattered all around the perimeter and around the bases of several large stalagmites, brilliant beacons of pure, white light that illuminated the whole cavern. The domed ceiling stretched by overhead, so far above us that I could have comfortably stacked my home on top of itself several times without issue. In fact, I couldn’t even guess exactly how far above us the ceiling was; the light all around us made judging the distance somewhat tricky.
“There!” Rocke called, pointing across the open space. A large piece of equipment sat idling against the far wall, the source of the diesel sound we’d been hearing. It was still a good distance away—maybe a hundred, hundred and twenty-five feet by my best guess—but that was still well within my range for sensing life.
The floor of the cavern was rough, natural, but Henderson’s crew had carved a path into it, a straight shot across the floor that did its best to ignore anything but the largest obstacles. Even then, there were signs that some of those had been torn apa
rt, probably reduced to the rough rock we were walking on.
I’d made it about halfway across the cavern, switching my focus between the rock ceiling above us and the rapidly approaching mining equipment ahead of us, when the first twinges of nausea began to move through my stomach. I slowed, nostrils flaring as I sniffed at the air. There were a lot of competing scents to pick from; the oily, smoky scent of the diesel, the chalk-like scent of powdered rock, but I could still pick up a faint, acrid undercurrent.
Magic. Rocke tapped his nose, and I nodded, clenching my stomach muscles and forcing my insides to quiet as drew closer to the equipment. Fortunately, it didn’t take much. There was still the same oily, slimy feel to the atmosphere, but after my encounter that morning, it wasn’t quite as shocking anymore.
It was still enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck rise as we stepped up to the massive, still-running machine. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, though the massive drill-like protrusion at the front gave me a pretty good idea of the general concept. It was mounted on four large tires, with a pivot point in its middle like a front-end loader and a heavily reinforced cab near the front tires. It had probably been a brilliant red at some point in the past, but years of dust and grime had reduced it to a sort of half-faded, pink-red mix.
“Hello?” I called out as I peered over the assorted equipment scattered around us, my staff at the ready. Piles of rock lay scattered on the ground or in the back of what looked like heavy-duty service carts. I ran my eyes over equipment I could only guess at the function of, over tools that were lying on the ground as if abandoned. Then I glanced at the wall of the cavern. There were definite marks in it, huge gouges in the stone that looked like they’d been pulled free by a giant. But there was no further space we could walk down. This was the end of the line, the final stop. And it was completely, totally, deserted.
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