Under Fragile Stone

by Oisin McGann

  ‘I could go in and have a look,’ she said, leaning over the rim.

  ‘No.’ Mirkrin shook his head. ‘We don’t know what’s in there.’

  ‘I’ll get in,’ Noogan said. ‘Just to have a look under the water.’

  ‘If anyone’s going, it’s me,’ Nayalla said. ‘Now keep your eyes peeled.’

  Before anyone could argue, she slid over the side and into the water.

  ‘Damn it!’ Mirkrin clutched the stone rim so hard his knuckles went white.

  He should have gone before she had a chance, but his fear held him back. The tiny black space terrified him and seeing his wife down there brought a cold sweat to his skin. He could see her pushing her way down the wall, working against her own buoyancy, looking to one side and then the other. She was far below the level of the floor when she stopped moving, her face looking towards her feet. Then suddenly she twisted up and kicked for the surface. She kicked, but did not move. Mirkrin leaned closer in. He could see her expression, panic as she struggled for the surface. Nayalla was being pulled down into the depths of the well. He turned, frantically searching for something to use to reach for her. There was nothing long enough. With a roar of desperation, he dived into the water.

  He kicked downwards, reaching out for his wife, but she was dragged away from him, deep into the blackness. He could see the flame on her brow after he lost sight of her and he swam hard to catch up, his own terror forgotten in the fear for his wife. The pressure built up on his ears and he held his nose to clear it. Then he felt it; he was moving faster, caught in a current. It was strong, pulling him down faster and faster. There would be no way back to the surface. The light on his wife’s forehead disappeared ahead of him, but suddenly, as if it had gone around a corner. The pressure of the water squeezed his chest and his lungs burned. He kept pushing out air to relieve the bursting feeling that he had to inhale. The water was crushing him with its weight, the walls closing in on him in the dark. Panic screamed at him to open his mouth and breathe. He could feel the walls either side now; they were closer, the current throwing him against one side and then the other. Twice, he brushed past side openings, but the current flowed in from them, driving him on. The walls narrowed until he was slunching to fit through the increasingly constricted channel. He was in complete darkness now, trapped in the water’s grip. His lungs were going to burst. He had to open his mouth. He had to breathe, he had to open … Light ahead. He could see light. Holding his nose closed, he pushed some breath out and willed himself with all his might to hold the water out until he reached the light. His head spun. He saw pinpoints of light flash in front of his eyes and he started to pass out. If he passed out he was lost. He would drown as his unconscious body breathed in water. The light came towards him, closer … closer … closer … It seemed that it would never reach him. His vision blurred and he shook his head to try and clear it. He felt himself slowing down, rising out of the current’s grasp. Then he saw ripples above him. The surface. He clawed up towards it.

  His head broke the water with a gasp and he sucked in air. A few more coughing breaths later, he saw Nayalla floating motionless in front of him. She stirred, but her movements were weak and caused her head to sink beneath the surface. He swam to her and lifted her chin clear of the water. Mirkrin looked around. They were in a different kind of chamber; the pool was much larger than the mouth of the well and at floor level. He dragged his wife out and she vomited up water and coughed as she flopped down on the floor. They both lay there, shivering for some time.

  8 THE CORPSE AND THE EARTHQUAKE

  Draegar’s hunt for the children was slowed in the dark. The mist was thick and the Reisenicks were cunning, cutting back and forth and sometimes travelling up in the trees. But they had made no real effort to hide their trail and Draegar was able to follow, slowly and methodically, by candlelight. His large frame was a hindrance in the thick brush and he often had to use his short sword to cut his way through. He had escaped from the road with relative ease and was now wary of being tracked himself by the remainder of the hunting party.

  When he heard voices ahead, he snuffed out the candle and crept towards them, taking his time so as to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness. It was a group of three Reisenicks.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ asked a tall, loose-limbed man.

  ‘It’s scrap, is what it is, Moorul,’ a second one stated confidently, his jutting brow wrinkled up in thought. ‘Plain as the nose on yer face.’

  ‘Scrap don’t up an’ attack ya, Dourtch,’ the third argued. He was a round barrel of a man with a thin bush of hair receding towards the back of his head. They were all standing on the edges of a net, caught up in the middle of which was a bundle of rusted wire, tools and various other bits of waste metal. Draegar was puzzled by the conversation until the bundle suddenly started thrashing around. The Reisenicks grabbed clubs that looked to have been cut recently to deal with the strange intruder and batted at the thing until it stopped moving again.

  ‘Seems to me,’ Dourtch announced. ‘That this is just what that priest fella was talkin’ about. Don’t get much more “not belongin’” than this. We’ve got ourselves a ghost right here.’

  ‘Damnedest ghost I ever saw,’ Moorul grumbled.

  ‘Ghosts come in all shapes and sizes,’ Dourtch told him. ‘Why, just last year, I saw a ghost out Timbermarsh way that was in the shape of a logger toad. But big as a house …’

  ‘That was that blindwater you were drinkin’, Dourtch,’ the balding man said. ‘Now pipe down, so’s I can figure out how we’re goin’ to get this thing back to Ainsdale.’

  ‘Sure, Tupe.’

  Draegar called out to them.

  ‘Pardon me, sirs. Permission to come into the light?’

  The three men were immediately on their guards, but kept their feet on the edges of the net.

  ‘How many out there?’ Tupe shouted back.

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘Come on out then.’

  Draegar stepped out of the trees, and knew immediately that none of these men had ever seen a Parsinor before. They pulled long knives from their belts to supplement the clubs, staring at his twin pairs of legs, his armour and the sheer size of him.

  ‘Holy meat, what manner o’ creature are you, boy?’ Dourtch asked.

  ‘I’m a Parsinor, from the southern deserts.’

  ‘You’re a long way from the desert now, boy.’ Tupe spat a gob of phlegm onto the ground. ‘You’re in Reisenick country.’

  ‘The party I was travelling with paid tribute to be here,’ Draegar told them. ‘But there has been some kind of misunderstanding. Some of your clansmen took two of our people captive, mere children. I am just trying to ensure their safe return. I would like to speak to Ludditch. I have things I can trade.’

  ‘If your people were taken, they’ll stay taken, until Ludditch says otherwise,’ Moorul sneered.

  ‘Seems to me that your party has left you high and dry, Mr Parsnip.’ Tupe rolled some more phlegm around his mouth. ‘You’re out here on your own, and anything we want from you we can take. Seems to me too, that you’re just the kind of thing Ludditch is lookin’ for, seein’ as how you’re unseemly and you don’t belong in these here woods. So we’ll be takin’ you to see the chieftain all right, but first we’re goin’ to take that fine lookin’ skin off of ya. It’ll look right nice in ma kitchen.’

  Draegar sighed. If the Reisenicks were more interested in trophy hunting than trading, then getting the children was going to be even harder than he had expected. He had been hoping that the attack on the trucks had been a mistake, that the clansmen would be open to a peace offering.

  ‘I don’t want a fight,’ he tried again. ‘Please, just let me speak to Ludditch.’

  ‘Ludditch don’t speak to animals,’ Tupe growled and lunged at the Parsinor.

  Draegar deflected the knife with the back of his hand and drove the heel of his palm into the Reisenick’s chest so hard it broke ribs and hurled T
upe to the ground. Moorul was already leaping over him, swinging his club at Draegar’s head. The Parsinor swivelled, the blow bouncing off his armoured shoulder and he slammed the edge of his hand backwards into the other man’s groin. Moorul folded up and crumpled to the mud.

  Dourtch threw himself on Draegar’s shoulders, his blade seeking the Parsinor’s throat. Draegar turned and smashed the smaller man against the trunk of a tree, his hinged shell crushing the spindly Reisenick against the wood. He stepped away and the limp body slid onto the gnarled roots. He turned to find Tupe standing up facing him, breathing painfully. The Reisenick slashed at him with his knife, drawing a line of blood across the Parsinor’s arm. Draegar did not flinch, catching the hand with the knife and using its momentum to swing the arm back around and drive the tip of the blade into the man’s thigh. Tupe screamed and fell to the ground clutching his leg.

  ‘You should have traded,’ Draegar grunted.

  He hesitated, knowing that leaving them alive would ensure that the Reisenicks came out in force after him and might take out their grievances on the children. But killing in cold blood had never been in his nature and even with so much at stake, he could not bring himself to sink to it. Turning to see the mesh of metal struggling to free itself from the net, he decided on one more gamble. If this was the ghost Ludditch was looking for, then Draegar would bring it to him. Perhaps then they could work this out without more people getting hurt. Reisenicks mostly. He gathered the thrashing scrap up in the net, the whole bundle about the size and weight of a large pig, and swung it over his shoulder. Then he relit his candle and continued on after the hunting party that had taken the children. The first signs of dawn were probing through the trees. Soon he would have daylight, and then he would find them.

  * * * *

  Mirkrin and Nayalla huddled together, recovering from their ordeal. The room around them was low and rectangular. Corridors led off either end. There was no sign of false windows or the usual carvings of plants and trees, no sculptures of animals. It had a functional feel to it, as if it were here to serve a purpose, but that was all. The large pool took up one entire side of the chamber, with steps leading down into it and plinths around the edges for sitting on. But the light was the first thing they noticed. Oval sections of the walls themselves glowed a dull blue.

  When he had rested for a while, Mirkrin got up and examined one of them, finding a fungus phosphorescing behind panes of aged and dusty glass. Water trickled down the wall inside the glass from somewhere above, obviously feeding the fungus the nutrients it needed. The fact that almost all the glass cabinets had surviving fungus showed that this was no accident, but, like all the other rooms, this one had that chilling, lifeless feel to it.

  Another thing struck him about the room. There were no cobwebs. Dust, but no spiders’ webs.

  ‘Where are the spiders?’ he wondered aloud.

  Nayalla raised her head and looked around. She stood up, frowning. The flames on her head had gone out, the powder washed from her skin, and they had no torches to give them a better light. She peered down one of the corridors. It appeared to be a dead end; the light did not quite extend to the end wall, but she could see it was closed off. The other corridor was the same. She was about to explore further, when a skittering noise made them jump. There was no mistaking it. And this time it was at the bottom of the second corridor. They crept towards it, eyes straining in the poor light to catch sight of the source of the sound. Up near the ceiling, they saw four bunches of bulging eyes staring down at them.

  Suddenly, the creature launched itself out of the shadows at them. It landed on Nayalla’s head and shoulders – hard, pointed feet digging into her flesh and getting tangled in her hair. Nayalla shrieked and tore at it. Mirkrin seized its back legs and hurled it against the wall. It hit the floor with a thud, curled into a ball and started crying like a child. Despite themselves, both Myunans instinctively started hushing it and reassuring it softly. Then, feeling foolish that their parenting instincts had been brought out by a creature that had just attacked them, they stood back and studied it.

  It was hairy, with at least a dozen legs, all sticking out at different angles from its body. In fact, its hairs appeared to be nothing more than legs that had not fully formed. It was small too, the size of a toddler, with four stunted arms that stuck out from around its head, a small hand extending from each. The four sets of eyes surrounded the four mouths, each pale, bulging orb a different size, each with a pale cornea and an X-shaped pupil. It was impossible to tell its colour in the blue light, but by its shape, it appeared as if the creature had no top or bottom. It could stand up just as easily on what was now its back; it could roll sideways and never fail to have at least four feet on the ground.

  ‘What are you?’ Nayalla asked, in obvious fascination.

  ‘We are Scout of the Seneschal,’ the thing answered, in what sounded like four voices. ‘So you Barians have come at last? You’re bigger than we expected. It does not matter. We will defeat your horde and drive you back to the Outside.’

  Mirkrin and Nayalla exchanged looks.

  ‘Are there more of you?’ Nayalla asked.

  ‘More than there are of you,’ the creature said quickly, raising itself up slightly. ‘We will pluck the hair from your heads and fill your mouths with dust!’

  ‘And if you have your way, you’ll lead us outside?’ Mirkrin pressed it.

  ‘We will throw you screaming into the daylight, no quarter asked and none given!’

  ‘Then we surrender to your superior forces,’ Mirkrin told it. ‘And we’ll surrender our “horde” too if you can help us get to them.’

  ‘Tell us where they are. We shall watch them wither beneath our gaze!’

  A sudden hammering resounded down the corridor. The creature dashed back into the shadows. The wall at the end of the corridor was in fact a solid metal door, the very door that the miners were now trying to break through. Mirkrin strode down to it, pressing his hands against it.

  ‘Paternasse?’

  ‘Is that you Myunans?’ the old miner called back, his voice barely audible through the slab of metal. ‘How’d you get out there? Can you open the door?’

  Mirkrin found a counterbalance mechanism set into an alcove in the wall. It was ancient, but still in working order. He released the brake and cranked a winch that unwound a chain. A stone weight dropped through the floor, lifting the door straight up along greased rails – more signs of recent maintenance.

  The miners stood poised and wary on the other side.

  ‘We thought you’d drowned down there,’ Paternasse said.

  ‘Close as I’d like to get,’ Mirkrin smiled wearily. ‘Come on through. It seems we’ve found a native. It … they say they know the way out.’

  * * * *

  Lorkrin and Taya were left in a small room off the main hall, with some gooseberry tea and a meal of potatoes and gristly meat in some kind of stew. They were both famished and they gobbled down the steaming hot grub, nearly burning their mouths in their haste. Once they had eaten, they went to the door and tried to listen in on what was being said outside. They could not hear much, the murmur of voices and the occasional exclamation, but nothing that told them what was going to happen to them.

  ‘How long do you think it will be before Uncle Emos comes for us?’ Lorkrin asked.

  ‘I hope he hurries up,’ his sister replied. ‘The longer it takes, the worse it is for Ma and Pa.’

  ‘And the miners.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  They sat glumly on the floor, their backs against the wall. It was a relief to know that the Reisenicks had kidnapped them by mistake. But time was not on their side and every delay could cost their parents their lives. And besides, sitting still did not come easy to them.

  Lorkrin looked up at the ceiling. There was a hatch in it that had to lead into the space below the roof. Taya read his mind.

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt to know what they’re talking about,’ she thought ou
t loud.

  ‘They didn’t say we couldn’t go up into the roof,’ Lorkrin reasoned.

  They took out the tools that Emos had made for them and began sculpting. The implements were crude and unfinished, but useable. They scooped the sides of their heads out into plate-like discs to form huge ears and then lengthened their fingers and toes, whittling the tips into claws. Lorkrin cupped his hands and Taya launched herself off them, caught the rafter beside the trapdoor and pushed it open. Then she swung up and into the attic space. She stretched out her legs to give her the extra length she needed to grip a nearby strut, and dangled down to catch her brother’s hand when he jumped and helped him climb up.

  The attic extended the full length of the hall. It was dark, lit only by light coming up through cracks in the floor. That made what they saw before them even eerier. The room was filled with objects covered with sheets of fabric. Whatever the objects were, they had the appearance of a large group of people draped in thin blankets. Lorkrin stepped carefully across the floor, checking for creaks in the floorboards and lifted the edge of one of the sheets. He gaped in shock and froze, a look of horror on his face. Taya thought her brother was trying to play a trick on her and went over to see what he was staring at. When she ducked her head under his arm and peeked in, she had to jam her fist into her mouth to stifle a shriek.

  It was a Reisenick. A very old, very dead Reisenick – but somehow preserved. Its skin was dry and leathery, brown and even black in places, but not rotten. The flesh had a thin, sunken quality, suggesting there was no muscle or fat beneath. The eyes were glass, clumsy copies of real eyeballs, with bubbles and imperfections in the cloudy glass itself and small coins set in as corneas, each with a hole drilled through the centre for a pupil. This was the body of an old man, strands of grey moustache hanging down each side of his mouth and sprouting thinly from his head. He was dressed in Reisenick splendour, a rich fur around his shoulders, fine leather jerkin and trousers and tall, well-heeled boots. Chains hung around his neck and there were bulky rings on his clawed fingers.