by Glynn James
"They are coming."
Five minutes later and we are all standing in the place where I'd seen the glowing symbol. The portal was easy to open, and no one hesitated to follow me through. I'd had to wait a few minutes whilst Adler and Rudy insisted on dictating a note to leave for Reg and Marie. I wrote it down quickly and left it on the table inside the main building, right where we had eaten breakfast with Cory and his daughter. It had only been a few days ago, but it seemed like years had passed since then. I also took a moment to look at the back yard where I had spoken to Eleanor. Back then I hadn't known that she was my granddaughter. I hadn't known her at all, but she had known me. I couldn't help but think again how strange, confusing and upsetting it must have been for her to see her grandfather acting so distant and unknowing to her.
I will make up for it soon, I thought. I will make up for it, and much more.
And so we went, for the first time, into The Ways. This place was special somehow, at least to Nua'lath and his kin, and maybe others. I didn't know why, but if Ellis had spoken the truth, then this had been the first place that Nua'lath had mentioned to his followers when he had escaped from The Corridor. The very first thing his thoughts went to.
I don't know what I had expected of the place, but what was there when we arrived was certainly not it.
Darkness, I had expected. For a place that Nua'lath wished to return to, I couldn't picture anything but a dark place. It didn't disappoint me there.
I was the first through the portal, and stepped out onto a brick and cobble ground. The place was vast, or at least the first bit of it was. Brick walls with no windows rose around me and into the darkness. I lit my torch, the only one I had remaining, before I went through, and I was glad that I did because there was only a very dim light in the place and no indication of where the pale glow came from. Stairways also made of brick rose from the ground in many places and led into corridors whose destinations were faded into the darkness. The ground was wet and moss covered, and the brick-work cracked and broken. I walked forward to examine the brick wall in front of me, the one that bore the fiery symbol that had burned its image into my mind, the one that had allowed me to open the portal in the first place.
I thought then that it was strange how the portal keys worked. I could open a door to almost anywhere if I could remember the scene vividly enough, or if there was a symbol, one of the fiery symbols, in my memory. When I held the amulet tightly there were a million, or so it seemed, of these symbols in my mind, and many flashes of remembered images of places that I still couldn't identify. I could go anywhere I wanted to, and almost nowhere that I knew, instantly.
After a few minutes my friends and the Black Maw had joined me. The Maw began to spread out around us, creating a perimeter of deadly black fur and teeth. They still made me nervous. Anything as big as a lion, with black fur, and a mouth full of teeth large enough to send any alpha male big cat running in fear, and nearly completely silent, was something to be fearful of. But they were my allies and that gave more comfort than anything else I could think of. An armed division of Resistance Vigilants wouldn't make me feel as courageous as the Maw did.
"Which way did they go, do you think?" asked Rudy.
"I don't know."
"We will find the trail."
I nodded.
"The Maw will track him," I said to Rudy and Adler.
We waited there in the darkness whilst the Maw drifted away, each of them sniffing the ground and darting around in the shadows just outside of the torchlight. I opened my pack and pulled out one of my few remaining tins of food, and sat on the ground eating. I would have to eat the mushrooms soon, there was no doubt about that, but I was going to put that off until it was the last option. During mouthfuls of the drab tasting stuff in the tin I told Rudy and Adler everything that had happened so far - the bunker, Dha'mir's death, finding the train station and the remnants of what I believed to be Nua'lath's home in The Corridor, my journey to Riverfall and the Ash covered ruined world that followed. I told them about the exiles who left Riverfall, and Ellis. I'd just gotten to the part about the bodies of Nua'lath's kinsmen when the growling noises erupted from the darkness. I dropped the food tin and stood up, drawing my blade and my gun in a swifter movement that I thought I was capable of.
Half a dozen of the Maw were backing away from something, heading towards us. Other Maw were rushing across the cobbled ground in the direction of the growling.
"What's happening?" I thought.
"Movement in the tunnels. Something is coming."
GreyFoot appeared from the murky darkness, running as fast as her tiny legs would carry her. DogThing appeared for the briefest of moments, seeming to check that she had reached me, and then he joined the line of Maw - that was now a dozen strong at least and growing as others made their way back to the clearing. A few of them formed a perimeter around me, but most headed straight to the growling line of black fur.
Then I saw what they were growling at as the first creature came into sight.
It was a massive, bristly nightmare.
Long spindly, hairy legs as tall as a man, maybe taller, stuck out from a bulky body, from the centre of which glared a multitude of bright, round eyes. There were hundreds of eyes.
A spider of some sort, but one much, much larger than any that I had ever seen. This thing was the size of a car, and it was not alone. I could see the shadowy movement of several others as they slipped out of the entrances around us. One of the Maw darted forward and gnashed with its teeth, growling louder at the nearest spider, but it jumped back quickly as a cloud of noxious green gas burst from the gaping mouth of the spider. The gas jetted forward maybe ten feet, nearly reaching the line of Maw, but they quickly backed away.
I looked around me, and saw that the massive spiders were already nearly surrounding us as they spread out around the cavern.
One of the larger corridors, maybe forty feet wide, was still visible, but the spiders were edging their way around, closing even that last gap. Very soon they would have us in a trap.
At my feet, huddled against me and staring at the same gap as I was, was GreyFoot. She made a soft whining noise and then looked up at me. She was still a frightened child.
"DogThing. To me. Now. And tell your kin to be ready to follow me when I fire," I thought.
"Yes."
"Stay right by my side, little one," I whispered, kneeling for a moment so that GreyFoot could nuzzle my elbow.
A moment later and DogThing was by my side.
"We're going to break out that way," I said out loud.
Rudy and Adler nodded.
I began walking forward towards the gap, just as two of the large spiders started to close it. I raised my gun and fired. The sharp crack of the gun echoed with such a loud force that nearly everything and everyone in the huge hall jumped back. Even the Maw were startled, but more importantly, the spider that I had aimed at shrank back into the shadows, screeching from the burning wounds on at least two of its legs.
"Go. Now," I shouted, running forward. I kept the gun in front of me, frantically aiming shot after shot at the creatures as they swarmed in the darkness. We were approaching the open corridor fast, and I could feel, more than see, the dark presence of the Maw rushing around me. None of them blocked the way in front, or got in the way of the gun that was sending bright flashes of deadly energy out into the shadows and the swarm of massive spiders every couple of seconds.
One of the spiders leapt just as I was about to run into the passageway, and landed in front of me. I staggered back for just a moment before firing the gun almost blindly into the massive, black body that was looming over me, a few feet away. There was a loud scream, and then I felt the gas erupt around me. I ducked down and tried not to breathe in, firing again, sending the creature rolling away and scuttling back to the shadows, and ran through the green mist that was spreading out around me.
Another spider landed nearby, but before I could spin around and fire,
a group of Maw jumped it, gnashing with their teeth and tearing at the creature's legs. It jumped again and vanished from sight, above us. They weren't just coming from the tunnels. I had no idea how tall the cavern was and what was up there.
Then I was in the tunnel, and expected it to be dark, but the light was still with me. I had left the torch on the ground in the middle of the great cavern, but it was no longer there. Standing just a few feet away, gripping the torch in her teeth but keeping the flame away from her fur, was GreyFoot. Adler and Rudy rushed into the tunnel, closely followed by DogThing and a mass of Black Maw. A dozen of them rushed past us and into the darkness ahead as I turned and began firing back into the hall.
"We don't know which way he went," shouted Rudy.
"I know. We'll have to find the trail, somehow."
But the spiders hadn't given up.
Half a dozen of the Maw held the passageway, and I stood behind them as we backed away slowly. The passage was only wide enough for one of the spiders to move into, so we were spared being attacked from many directions, but it seemed that every time I shot one of the creatures another would push its way over the wriggling body of its injured ally. And they weren't being as timid as they had been in the cavern. In this long corridor, that seemed to just keep going and going, they threw themselves at us with fury.
As we moved further and further along the passageway the attacks from the spiders became less frequent, and after about fifteen minutes they stopped altogether. It gave me time to look at my surroundings and become even more puzzled. The massive cavern that we had arrived in had been strange enough, with its winding walkways, bridges and the arched entrances dotted randomly along the walls, all leading into darkness. Everything was built from bricks, and it all looked very old. They weren't even a type of brick that suggested that they had been made in ancient times; instead they were the same as any of the small dark bricks that you could find all over the city of London, way back when I last visited it. What made the place strange was that the bricks did look old, as though they had been here for centuries, maybe millennia. In many places the walls were crumbling, and I could see behind the facade to smooth, hard, grey rock.
The tunnels didn't even run straight; they twisted and turned and split at strange angles. Stairways went down, or up, into yet more darkness that the light from my now fading torch barely cut into, and always the passageways were nearly ten feet tall, and just as wide, and arched high in the middle. There were metal brackets placed at twenty-foot intervals, but no torches.
It was an endless maze of twisting passages.
Sometimes over the following hours the passageway would break out into another cavern, and each time only the different shape of the vast opening gave us some clue that it was a different room and that we hadn't just walked back on ourselves.
I knew we wouldn't anyway. DogThing was at the front of the Maw, and had been the whole time, sniffing the ground and stopping at every intersection to decide which direction Nua'lath had taken.
Then there were the symbol walls in each cavern. These were the strangest of all. They were built dead in the centre of each cavern, up on a dais that was raised maybe two feet. The walls themselves were roughly ten feet tall and the same width, and always in the centre of the wall, identical on both sides, a symbol was carved into the rough brick-work. Even though a lot of the walls and passageways had crumbled in places, these jet-black coloured bricks were in perfect condition.
Eventually I called for everyone to stop. I was exhausted and needed to rest for a few minutes before we carried on. I sat down on the step of the dais and watched as Adler attempted to examine the symbol wall, which wasn't very easy now that the light was gone. Of course, with the two ghosts - Rudy and Adler - glowing as brightly as they did, we weren't short of light, but it wasn't bright enough to see very far.
"It looks like some kind of obsidian," Adler said, as he peered at the brick-work from a few inches away.
"Obsidian?" asked Rudy. "What's that?"
"Well, volcanic rock is the best description," replied Adler. "It's formed over a long period of time under extreme heat, and it's no small task to have collected enough for just one of these walls, let alone the many we have seen, let alone to have carved it into bricks and then carved these symbols in it. Truly an advanced culture must have done this."
"Not advanced enough that they could use something other than bricks to build this place with," I said.
Adler stepped away from the symbol wall. "Yes, good point, but whoever built these passageways and these caverns produced the bricks by the millions, maybe even billions. Have you noticed that we have walked maybe five miles or more through these corridors, and there have been a dozen caverns in that time?"
"It's an amazing place," said Rudy. "Just think. It must have taken years. And where is it even? I mean, where are we? Are we under the ground somewhere? We haven't seen any ways out."
"Good question, my friend," said Adler. "We've walked five miles or more, through endless passageways and twists and turns, through many large caverns, and in each were countless other exits to what I can only presume is more caverns and more passageways. Yet no doors, and no way out. What was it you called this place James?"
"The Ways. That was what Ellis said Nua'lath had called the place when he overheard him talking to his minions," I said, and for a moment I wondered where Ellis had gone to, and whether he was still alive. Had he wandered out of the ruins and found how dead that world really was? And the Exiles. Had they also?
"The Ways," said Adler. "A strange name."
"Are the symbols for opening portals?" asked Rudy.
I nodded.
"They seem that way," I replied. "Whenever I look at one of them I can feel it trying to burn into my mind and stay there, like some sort of bookmark. It's an odd feeling. I think if I tried I could open a portal using one of them."
"Hmm. Almost like they want you to open them?" asked Adler.
"Like they have a will of their own," added Rudy.
Day 63
I don't remember the rest of Rudy and Adler's conversation. One moment I was sitting on the dais and the next I was in a dream.
I was stumbling through darkness, a pain in my head. No, the pain was burning in my eyeballs. All around me I saw glowing shapes, but nothing else. It was like seeing ghosts of blood red, with swirling wisps of vapour of some kind trailing behind them. Every few moments I would feel a burning pain in the back of my head and everything would flash with a bright light. For that briefest slice of time I could see everything clearly. Zombies and other creatures stumbled ahead of me, all heading in the same direction that I was moving. Other creatures that I didn't recognise also stumbled forward, their backs to me. In the distance I would see something moving fast, and the flashes of what might be gunfire. Then the pain would go and one of those fast-moving figures would fall to the ground.
After each time this happened I would feel the dull ache in my eyes, and the pain would begin to rise again.
I awoke, sweating, and breathing heavily, to find DogThing standing next to me. I sat up. GreyFoot was still huddled at my feet, and as I arose she also sat up, a puzzled expression on her tiny face.
I almost felt her ask.
Time to leave?
Before I'd fallen asleep I'd seen DogThing darting into the different exits from the cavern and then coming back a few moments later.
"I have found the trail. It is up there."
He was looking up into the void above us.
"It is not far but the path is broken in places. The scent is stronger. I think we are catching them up."
I rubbed my eyes and struggled to my feet, my whole body aching.
Time to move on.
We found the first of the bodies about three hours later.
The climb up the stairwell was a lot more dangerous than I had expected. The stairs were solid enough for a while, and I could see clearly enough with Rudy and Adler staying close to me, th
eir unearthly glow providing enough light to see a few feet ahead. But a short while into the climb, and maybe ten flights of stairs later, the stairs just disappeared completely, leaving a gap of maybe four or five feet between the last step and where the stairs began again. At some point this section must have just fallen away, aged and weakened until its own weight was too much. The Maw had no trouble jumping the gap, and even GreyFoot leaped across almost effortlessly, but I had to take a few steps back and will myself to jump.
I don't remember ever having a fear of heights, but this unnerved me. I think it may have been the dim light and my inability to see to the stairs that were obviously only twenty or so feet below the gap that made it daunting.
Eventually I just jumped, and was relieved to land easily on the other side, but the first few steps immediately began to crumble under the impact and I jumped forward again just a moment before the loud cracking sound echoed around the walls of the cavern and the brick-work fell into the darkness below. Less than two seconds later and a loud crash erupted from the darkness below as the falling rubble hit the ground.
This was how it went for the next two hours as we climbed further and further up the stairs. At least a dozen times I had to either jump a gap or climb round a small ledge that remained, jutting out of the wall like blackened teeth. Every time my stomach lurched as I imagined it giving way and sending me falling into the darkness. I knew that even if I was injured I would heal, or at least I thought that I would. I'd not yet had to heal from an injury that actually broke my neck or smashed my skull, so I couldn't account for that.
I don't think it was the thought of injury that made me nervous, though. I think it was the idea of falling into darkness. It made me panic slightly, just as I had when I'd dropped into the sewers back in The City.
The dark unknown scared me even when I knew it wasn't really unknown.
Also if I was injured then my journey would be hugely delayed, even to the point where we wouldn't ever catch up with Nua'lath; maybe he would open another portal and it would close before I was able to heal and catch up.
