WHEN THE DARK returned, replacing the icy fear, I gasped for breath. The pain returned, not slowly, but all at once. And worse, that crushing feeling, the fundamental isolation of this damned place. The hollowness of the great pit itself, driving in on me from all sides, like the crush of the ocean itself.

“Gods above,” I muttered, doubting they could hear me. My voice was small in the dark of the tunnel, a little, fleeting thing in this prison cut of eternal stone.

I thrust my stolen torch up, splashing light along the rough-hewn ceiling. The tunnel bore through bedrock, it seemed. I caught the retreating edge of distant memories: of mining action, tunneling under a castle somewhere. The sharp bark of picks on stone, and mansweat, and the constant fear of collapse. I did not feel that latter here; to have the rocks above fall and crush the lingering life out of me would be the greatest release.

And I knew it would not come. Death was never so accidental here. Never so relieving.

Naked, with but the torch, I started forward. I made it a few stiff steps before I thought to look behind me. There, pressed against the wall, was a splotch of dull orange light. It looked almost as if the sun were shining through some distant window, casting a spray across the wall. But I knew better. Even as I watched, the light faded, leaving only a stain behind. That was my blood, drawn by the wound cut across my back. On the floor were tiny blossoms of light, like scattered stars. Fading now, even as the light ran out.

I had no bandages. I had no choice. Forward, unto death. That was all I could ask of myself. One hand I kept to the wall, letting my dry hands slide along the stone. I could not say why I did it; perhaps it was the sensation, a sign of life. Perhaps it was to steady me. Bior and all the gods knew I needed steadying.

The tunnel turned upward. Where flat stones had paved the floor, now I was forced to climb a set of stairs. They seemed unsteady, and eager to trip my feet. Sweeping the torch low, I inspected them: worn so smooth by the trod of millions of feet that they were almost organic, more like the polished shells of beetles than steps cut of stone. How old was this place, truly?

The stairs winded me. With each riser, my legs burned, resisting this rebellion against the inevitable. How much easier to give up hope at last, to wither and waste away? But no. I drove my feet into the stairs, lurching forward, shambling like the unsettled dead, refusing to give in to that yawning dark. Refusing to let the wordless wiles of Hell rule me, because the winged creature was right: that which lives has blood. I was alive, or something like it. The light in my chest was proof enough of that, as was the stain on the wall. I would not lie down and die like a whipped dog.

That felt right, like an echo of some truth I’d known. It brought more strength, though a little trail of glowing blood splatter traced my unsteady way up the stairs. It was slowing, now. Hopefully that was a good sign, though I dared not ask it aloud.

At the head of the stairs, the floor again leveled out. The torchlight picked out the edges of pillars lining a much wider tunnel. It was broad, almost ten lengths wide, and as high. It had the look of a road, for the paving was flat and the corridor straight, so far as I could see.

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Here, I paused. Would the torch give me away to any eyes there to see? But without it, how could I proceed?

As with so much in life, the answer was wrested from my hands. While I stood, considering, I heard a weak and reedy voice call a single word: “Hello?”

This was not the harsh tongue of some pit-dwelling beast. It was the death-whisper of a man. So lonely was I, so starved for sight of a fellow, and yes, so terrified, that I spoke without thinking. “Who is that?”

“This way!” came the answer. “I am Dasolese, third vicar of the temple in Vandar.”

Those words had no meaning to me, but I moved toward their origin. With a furtive, useless look left and right across the broad tunnel, I assured myself that nothing was coming in the dark, and then darted out, following the voice. My feet slapped on naked stone, and the voice called to me, encouraging, leading me down the way. Twenty, forty, fifty steps. My torchlight played along the far wall of the tunnel, revealing an irregular shape. Not quite like cut stone, but…

“Where are you?” I hissed. Even that little sound carried far in the suffocating blackness.

“Here,” came the voice from slightly above me. I whirled, startled, and stifled a scream.

A man was embedded in the wall. It was difficult to tell where the stone ended, and his body began. I could see his chest and shoulders, projecting from the stone, as well as his sorry-looking face. He was fat, with puffy cheeks squeezing out his small, piggish eyes. Quivering lips drew back into a shameful smile, trying to mask relief with congeniality. This was a man I disliked on the instant, and yet how could I not pity him? One part of a thigh pressed through the stone, fused in place, and both hands. The rest of him was vanished by some magic I could not fathom. In one hand, he clutched a silver sphere.

“What happened to you?”

He made a low moan. “The same that happened to you, I daresay,” Dasoclese said. “I found my way to this dismal place by the broad black roads.”

I grit my teeth. “Why are you here?”

That brought out a chuckle in him, but he did not answer. “How I’ve longed to speak with you! But you have no idea, I think.” The vicar stared at me for a moment, and then said, “Your manner of speech is different. Your words are strange to my ear, and I traveled the world in my day—I remember that much! What land are you from?”

I gave him the truth: “I do not know.”

Dasoclese, third vicar of Vandar, shook his head pityingly at me. “That is the greatest price we pay. Not the pain,” he said, voice rising as if giving a speech, making each word into a fine point, “but the slow tearing away of who we were. And what does it leave?” His hands made little circles, gesturing the question.

“The damned.”

“Ho, just so,” Dasoclese said. “You were no priest, I can tell you that much! Not enough words in you, I think.”

I scowled at him. “I don’t care what I was. I’m not staying here.”

“I would go with you,” the vicar said, “but alas, I am under the weather.” If it was a joke, it was a poor one. He looked at me, waiting for a laugh, but I gave him nothing. Realizing his error, Dasoclese pursed his fat lips. “Perhaps I spoke out of turn. Death is not the last, destined door, is it? But how much better would it be, were we to remember what we were? If you could, would you snatch back some of those memories?”

I hesitated. The gnawing void within me throbbed. I wondered if Dasoclese felt it too, but how could I even ask? How to put that aching, starving shame into words? And if I fed it with memories… What then?

But of course I would, and you would too, could you but understand an ounce of my pain. Don’t think yourself as any different, any stronger. Men are not made of iron; demons are.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Dascolese smiled broadly, wolfishly. “Then, my friend, I have a bargain for you.”