Into the Dark

by M J W Harrington

  I frowned. “No, there’s a south tunnel?” That explained a lot, the ancient partially translated account that tipped my employer off to a ruin being in this area of the deep contained rumours of this city to the southeast of wherever the author had once lived, so anyone approaching from the south would- “Wait, you’re from the south?” Southerners didn’t go delving, their king, a hereditary title unlike the elected officials of Qalea, was reportedly opposed to the practice. A cynical part of me suspected he probably still used the devices other nations dug up, they just made life too convenient to pass up.

  “Yes,” she replied stiffly, hearing the deeper question in my voice, “our new king has seen fit to send expeditions to ruins detailed in documents residing our archives. As such, anything found here is property of the kingdom of Wusul.”

  I didn’t much like the sound of that, and couldn’t stop myself. “This place isn’t under Wusul, and even if it was, I don’t see a flag anywhere.”

  To my surprise, she didn’t immediately lash back this time, and a sad expression crossed her face. “Bron had it. Lieutenant Bron. He was my commanding officer. My friend. We used to tease him about it, but the moment he saw the city he said he was going to hang a flag from that big palace in the middle before we left even if it killed him…” she trailed off, staring out of the doorway towards the carnage that still lay outside, thankfully far enough that the foul stench was replaced by the usual musty damp of the underground.

  “I’m sorry,” I started hesitantly, moving towards her unconsciously, “I didn’t mean-”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She cut me off, swiping her hand across in front of her as if to sever the apology before it connected, and stepping away towards the last room she hadn’t yet checked. I gave her the space before following. “All that matters now is getting the hells out of here.” I winced as I realised we were probably about to have yet another argument after way too much trauma and far too little sleep.

  “Actually, I was thinking of continuing to the centre.” I braced myself as she wheeled on me once more, shock plain on her face.

  “What the fuck?” Clara’s voice rose rapidly and I waved my hands ineffectually in some kind of vain attempt to calm her down as she advanced on me and I backed away. “You see that… thing… outside, and you think it’s a good idea to stick around? You’re insane!” She let out a guttural growl, “You Qaleans, always thinking with your purses.”

  “Hey!” I protested, “It’s not entirely about that. We have lights that can keep it at bay, I’m guessing it didn’t come out when the city was lit up, right? That means if we hold out til morning, we’ll have a full 12 hours or so to get there, find something good and get out. Maybe even something that can kill that thing,” I lied about expecting that last part, it was entirely about my purse after all, but seeing the soldier in her I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bait her in with the possibility of vengeance. I suspected I needed a second pair of hands and eyes if I was going to find anything good in that time, and to be honest after what I’d seen, the thought of wandering through the city alone left me cold. So I risked it, seeing her eyes widen incredulously but the gears churning behind them made me think I’d hit the mark.

  “Come with me?” I asked.

  “You think it can be killed?” she asked after a moment longer of thought.

  “Only one way to find out,” I replied, despite not really believing it myself, “It seems to be hurt by the light, and if it can be hurt who knows?” I shrugged, my attitude deliberately noncommital despite the more logical part of my brain pointing out that if the people here had a way to kill this thing, it'd probably be dead unless it'd wandered in from the dark.

  She took another beat before sighing. “Fine. But give me a second.” Taking a deep breath she took hold of her light and dashed outside. I stood for a moment in shock before walking slowly back over to the doorway. Before I could get there, she came back, hefting a pack reclaimed from outside. I could see a faint trace of blood on it and tried not to think about it.

  “...I’m the insane one? I was at least thinking of waiting til it got light out there.”

  Clara rolled her eyes and gestured over her shoulder. “If we’re getting out of here we’re going to need supplies, unless you wanted to starve later?” I chose not to inform her that my storage device had enough provisions in it to feed me for another two weeks or so, and it beat sharing what I had so I let her have the victory.

  “Fair enough. I don’t know how long we have left until light, but no way I’m sleeping. Want to check this place out more? The ground floor normally has a few things worth taking.” She seemed uncomfortable when I brought up my looting, presumably because of her country’s supposed claim on the place, but I was glad to see her pragmatism rapidly take over.

  “Let’s go.” Clara strode off towards a corridor on the left hand wall that she’d uncovered earlier, claiming the light globe from the middle of the room. By silent agreement we left the one floating in the doorway in a vain attempt at warding off whatever might still lurk outside.

  “Wait,” I called over to her, “That way probably won’t have much, we should head to the right.” She stopped and looked back curiously.

  “What makes you say that?” she made her way back to me and I led us towards the other side of the chamber.

  “Experience,” I explained, “Whoever built these places loves patterns. 90% of the time if you’re in a large building, you’ll find empty rooms on the left side, normally sleeping quarters, meeting rooms, that sort of thing. Non-essential functional rooms.” Personally I found sleeping essential more than functional, but who am I to question the ancient builders of magical underground cities. “Right wings of buildings, though, that’s where you find whatever the place was built for.” I lectured as we walked, making our way through corridors no less grand than the entryway we’d just left, if much narrower. “This place is probably where they kept devices for use in the surrounding community, so heading right should…” I trailed off as we hit a dead end, the ceiling caved in around a corner. “Damn.”

  Clara laid a hand on my shoulder briefly.

  “We should turn around. There were a couple of doorways as we passed, maybe we can get around it?” I was doubtful but let her lead us back the way we came. “How do you know this stuff anyway?” she asked. I started to reply but she interrupted me, “I know, experience, but I mean how do you know how they lived? There aren’t any writings left on the people who lived here.”

  I took a second to think it through, “I just, know, I guess? I’ve been delving for about 6 years now. You spend enough time digging through the wreckage of their lives and you start to understand them. Like this place, for example,” I gestured at the room we’d just walked into. “What do you see? Be descriptive as you can, think everything through.”

  Clara looked around and I considered how it would look to her. A long rectangular room with no windows, but carved along the long wall on our right were scenes of figures running through forests which slowly became stalagmites the further along the wall you looked. On the right were small shelves, and rectangular pedestals of stone filled the room, arrayed in rows of six with a walkway down the middle. She hazarded a guess.

  “A storeroom maybe? These shelves could probably have held a few things. Maybe the rest of it was wood and rotted away?” I smiled. She was getting there, seeing the gaps and trying to work out what was missing, but was still quite a way off.

  “Not quite. How about this?” I walked down the central walkway and raised my hand to the wall, it lit up dimly and Clara startled backwards with an oath. I grinned again. “The people who lived here valued two things. Community,” I started, drawing a stick figure in the light on the wall with my index finger, leaving a much brighter trail which persisted as I passed “and knowledge,” following it up with a crude drawing of a book. I wiped my other hand across the two with a practiced flick of the wrist and they faded. “Get it?”


  “This is a schoolroom,” she breathed, turning to take in the sight with new realisation, “Those are desks and that’s a chalkboard. How did you know it would be there?” she gestured with her hand at the still faintly glowing surface but kept her distance, national mistrust of devices still buried deep now that her life wasn’t in imminent danger.

  “Simple, it’s always there,” I said smugly, internally glad that my theory hadn’t completely blown up in my face and made me look like an idiot. “This building is a central hub for the surrounding area, a sort of combined school, library and official office for the ruling class, as well as where they kept the everyday artifacts like our lights,” I gestured to the orb still following Clara around like a puppy. “This is what I mean when I say you can learn about them just by being here. Important stuff goes on the right, unimportant or utilitarian on the left. Classrooms are on the right, therefore it matters to them. Probably every kid here went through these rooms,” I said somewhat wistfully. I grew up on the streets, so my classroom experience wasn’t exactly first-hand. An old man who was kind to me taught me to read enough to get by, but even the lucky kids who had homes seldom got an education in Qalea, tending to go into trades instead from an early age.

  “Can we take the board with us?” Clara broke me out of my reverie and gestured eagerly to the wall behind me, “I can think of a few of our scholars that would love access to something like that.” I considered it a moment.

  “I don’t think so, look here.” I pointed up to the ceiling where a stone cube protruded down towards us, about half a metre on each side. On the side facing the end wall, a gem was embedded, glimmering with the same light. “I’d be fairly willing to bet that’s the device generating it, and that sort of thing has a tendency to break if you chisel it out. We’d be better off finding something more portable.” Clara begrudgingly bowed to my experience and we made our way back to the corridor to try another door. And another. The place just seemed to keep going, and we must’ve been walking around exploring it for hours before finding anything of real note. Occasionally Clara would ask a question, and I’d explain some dull fact about delving that nobody really wants to hear at far too much length, and I’ll spare you the detail, mostly things like why I’m down alone (expendability), how I found the city (a sketchy map and a lot of walking) and what kind of devices I own (clearly just a light stick and a time keeper, definitely not any others that I definitely shouldn’t have concealed about my person, I didn’t trust her that much yet).

  Eventually we found what we were looking for, some kind of storage room or dispensary, with shelves lining the walls. Many of the shelves sat empty, the contents long lost to thousands of years of the damp air, but a few objects remained. This was what we came for. Clara immediately ran over to the nearest rack with a series of long, thin rods on it and began shoving them into her pack.

  “Wait!” I called to her, and she turned to regard me, “Don’t just pile them in, check what they are!” Clara gave me a puzzled look.

  “Er, how? Our orders were just to bring them back for study.” This time it was my turn to don an expression of sheer disbelief. I sputtered for a moment.

  “But how do… why… oh lord…” My shock may be unjustified, unless you know a bit about basic device theory, which thanks to a few years of having them take my eyebrows off, I do. “Whatever powers these devices comes in two flavours. Scholars have their own names for them, but I call them active and passive because frankly it’s easier to remember.” I could feel a lecture coming again. Back home people occasionally call me the prof, because I can never seem to stop myself from spouting off in the face of ignorance about things I only really pretend to understand. I can only apologise, because I’m not going to stop doing it.

  “Active devices,” I continued, “do something on command. The ones you had in that sack, our lights, those are active. They’re the ones people use the most because they do a thing instantly. Passive devices are… more complicated.” I frowned for a moment, trying to find the words to explain something I’d never been taught myself. “A passive device does its thing automatically, when something triggers it. The big light outside, that turns on and off with the day and night cycle. That’s a passive device. That neat little orb light you’ve got following you is actually two devices, one active that turns the light on, and a passive device that checks whether the light is on and starts floating after whoever activated it.”

  Clara’s eyes had glazed over a bit and I could tell I needed to get to the point before she lost consciousness. “Look, what I’m saying is, if those are passive devices and they’re designed to… I don’t know, something ridiculous like explode when tied in a bundle after 60 seconds…” I looked pointedly at the bundle of devices tied with a cord in Clara’s hands and she quickly dropped them back onto the shelf and jumped back. “Yup. We could be dead right now. Thanks.” Maybe I was laying it on a bit thick, but some of these devices did some weird stuff when combined with random objects that I wouldn’t like to have happen to me again. I once spent a week purple. Why these ancient people needed a device that turns you purple when you accidentally touch it with a feather is beyond me to this day.

  Clara glared at me as there was no ensuing explosion and turned to me in a huff.

  “So how do we tell what they do first?”

  “Easy,” I said with completely unfounded confidence, “we guess based on how it looks.” Clara raised an eyebrow but I pushed on anyway. “In this case each rod has a grip, so it’s probably active. It’s a rod, so whatever happens probably happens from the other end of the rod, and this seems to be a button, so…” Without any further warning I pointed the rod away from both of us and pressed the button. A small spout of water began spraying from the far end and I whistled. “A water maker, that’s a pretty expensive one.”

  “Drinkable?” Clara asked immediately, licking parched lips. I suddenly realised we’d been wandering around for a while now, and Clara didn’t have a waterskin. I looked down at mine at my hip with no small guilt.

  “Let’s find out.” I pointed the water maker at my mouth and pressed the button. The water came out with much more force than I’d anticipated and I coughed and spluttered. I was dimly aware of Clara bent over laughing at me, but was a bit preoccupied. With a little fiddling (it turns out the end of the rod rotated to regulate its output) I got the water level down to a manageable stream and drank my fill. It tasted crisp and sweet, probably the purest water I’d ever tasted. Passing it over to Clara, I subtly gave the handle a small twist back the other way. What? I’m petty sometimes.

  After she’d finished drowning and I showed her how to control the rod, a task which took longer due to having to convince her to talk to me again, Clara drank her fill and we packed the other rods securely into her backpack. I took the one we’d just used and stowed it in a long inside pocket of my jacket I had for specifically this sort of thing, I had separated pockets for just about every shape and size. If there was one thing I owned, it was the jacket. Clara observed with interest.

  “Why so many different little pockets instead of a pack?” she asked aloud.

  “Short version?” I asked, and Clara nodded gratefully, I know my weaknesses. “Pockets keep things separate. Let’s say we find a passive device later that automatically inflates on contact with water, seems harmless, but then you realise it’s packed up next to the water rods. One bump and your pack fills with water, the inflatable does its thing, suddenly you’ve got no backpack. The squeezing triggers something else, which triggers something else, suddenly you’re a smoking crater. Pockets are still relatively risky, if I fall on this side I’m going to get damp, but I can compartmentalise things a lot better.”

  Clara nodded her understanding and we searched the rest of the room. Nothing quite as fancy as the water makers, mostly just things like basic tools and writing implements, but we did find a time keeper for Clara, and I pocketed a particularly interesting looking small box that I suspected
was a recording device. The boss would pay me pretty penny for that one, secrets captured on device could be damning in the right hands. I neglected to mention it to Clara, she was oddly possessive of most of the other devices we found, probably seeing it as her duty to complete the mission for her squad.

  Chapter 4

  As we finished up looting the room, I was about to suggest we go back to the main lobby when a deep, resonating roar shook through us to our bones. We froze and quickly drew our blades (for what good they could do us if that thing came back), but there was no further sound. We stayed put like that for a while, scarcely daring to breathe. Maybe ten minutes passed like that before Clara braved sticking her head out of the door. She turned to me and whispered softly.

  “I don’t think it’s coming.”

  I swallowed and let out a shuddering breath. “Alright, let’s go.” Cautiously we made our way into the corridor, and I directed us back towards the main lobby. There was little point in spending yet more of our precious time in searching through the rest of the building, comparatively we’d gotten a phenomenal haul from just that one storage room being intact, but I was now absolutely convinced that the central building would have something that could set me up for life, if I could get it out without Clara claiming it for her king.