XXV. ALWAYS TRAPPED
The deeper they traversed into the cavern, the less time seemed to be of any consequence. No one could say with any certainty if it were the middle of the night, or if dawn had come and gone already. Yet with no real options, Aichlan led them further down the twisted and undulating corridor. Several times he issued a halt to rest, yet the terrain afforded no real opportunities to get even remotely comfortable, let alone to sleep. So they dragged their weary bodies onward in relative silence. The only consolation was that they were no longer at risk of hypothermia.
After what may have been mere hours or days, the group was forced to crawl through another short crack before emptying out into a man-made tunnel of some sort. The soldiers grounded their gear on ancient tile platforms and a paved roadway as several of the mages eagerly began exploring the virgin ruins. Collapsed pillars and a rubble filled archway suggested that the way they entered had not always been the only entrance, yet the mystery remained as to where it all led.
“Did ye know about this lad?” Madden nudged Odell and jerked his thumb towards the ruins, to the disapproving glares of his guard.
“No,” Odell turned a questioning and pleading look to his guardsmen, “the only structure said to be in these mountains is the tomb, right?”
“That is correct, my king…” The captain said cautiously, his eyes wide with wonder and fear. “But ours is an ancient kingdom, and these mountains are scarcely travelled.”
Aichlan knelt down and picked up one of the small brass cylinders at his feet. One end was blackened and hollow, the other had a small indentation in it as well as some small unreadable print. The ground was littered with these cylinders as well as stone and several human remains.
“Any idea what these things are?” Taryn kneeled to examine one of the cylinders.
Aichlan dropped the cylinder and ran his hands across a pockmarked wall. “No idea, we’ll make camp here. No fires, Last thing I need is us suffocating down here.”
* * *
Huddled together for warmth, the king's escort chased a fleeting slumber as they vacillated between staring anxiously at the tunnel ceiling and shivering uncontrollably. Eventually, Aichlan relented and allowed fires to be lit, so long as there was a wind charm to blow the smoke out of the tunnel, but even that did little to alleviate the discomfort. For many, sleep still did not come, only a sinking feeling of despair and strong urge to go back the way they came.
Aichlan lay wrapped in a fur, staring at the ceiling in the harsh silence. The path ahead was not an easy one, and he couldn’t be certain it was the best decision to continue deeper into the mountain. Relics from before the collapse always carried the risk of fallout plague, and where there were ruins, death usually followed those who ventured therein. While he was loath to be swayed by mere superstition, the precedent ran too far back to be simply ignored. And given the light breeze that issued forth from the tunnel, the storm likely still raged outside.
Aichlan abruptly sat up and strained to hear. The indistinct sound of wind whistling in the distance met his ears, along with its faint caress upon his cheek. Aichlan licked his finger and held it up, and sure enough, the wind was moving in the cavern, coming from deeper in.
“You, mage.” Aichlan called out to a passing student. “Did any of you set up a wind charm this way?”
“No, my lord, all of the charms are placed above the fires to blow away from the tunnel.”
Aichlan tied on his belt and fixed his sword to his hip as he stared into the dark abyss that was the tunnel. A cursory glance back at the men showed that all weary eyes were fixed on him.
“No point in lingering, tell the men we’re moving out.”
“Me sir?” The young mage asked incredulously.
“Yes you mage!” Aichlan spat. “Who else is here talking to me? Now carry out my orders.”
The mage scrunched up his face with a mix of fear and indignation as he took several steps back. “Of course, my lord.”
Aichlan fastened his cape as he muttered under his breath. He never really dealt with mages before, but had heard of how casual they could be regarding military structure and bearing. He had previously just attributed Alice’s behaviors to her birth and status, but was beginning to wonder if it were something instilled in prospective mages by that little academy of theirs, hidden away behind their enchanted mountains.
Donough ambled over to stand beside Aichlan with a cigar in his mouth and arms folded across his chest. While his countrymen had long ago taken to dressing for the climate, he remained adamant about not wearing a shirt. It was rather admirable, if not damned foolish.
“What d’ye expect is down there Gen’ral?”
Aichlan shrugged. “More rubbish from a bygone era? Hopefully a way out of this, but I’ll not be getting my hopes up.”
Taryn jogged over followed closely by Madden, carrying a torch and both of their rucks. She was breathless and had an odd expression of excitement and trepidation as she approached.
“Problem?” Aichlan asked as he handed her a canteen.
Taryn took a long drink before replying. “I know what this is.”
Aichlan chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah, it’s a cave, what of it?”
Taryn adamantly shook her head. “No, it’s no cave, it’s a tunnel.”
“And where does it go?” Donough asked through doubtful sneer.
“I couldn’t make that out, but it’s a tunnel that crosses the mountains.”
“How did you find this out.” Aichlan asked.
Taryn pointed back towards the collapsed end of the tunnel. “There’s a plaque. It’s in ancient Elysian, but I recognized some of it. The tunnel goes from east to west, with a branch towards the north about halfway through.”
“East to west?” Aichlan asked with a perplexed furrow of the brow. “Why would they build a tunnel that goes from the sea to a forest?”
Taryn shrugged and brushed her hair from her face. “I can’t give ye an’ answer for that, but to the north is a place called Fort Agallloch.”
“What the hell is Agalloch?” Aichlan asked.
“It’s a type o’ wood.” Madden chimed in, eager to contribute. “Smell’s real pretty like, and fetches a nice bit o’ coin ta boot.”
Aichlan stroked his chin as he stared into the darkness. “Hmm…that doesn’t tell us much.”
“Ye worried?” Donough teased.
“No.” Aichlan said with a smirk. “Whatever was down there has been dead for thousands of years, I’m just wondering why they even decided to build such a useless structure.”
“Arrogance likely.” Taryn said with an indifferent shrug. “Same reason they killed ‘emselves, just to show they could.”
Aichlan turned back to see that the company was mostly ready to go. They all looked as tired as before the rest, but he knew more time wouldn’t help. Something about this place caused a sense of unease, and prevented anyone from restful sleep. Perhaps it was being so far underground, or perhaps it was the unsettling ruins, he could not say for certain. Only that he felt it too, and it made him nervous.
“Stay close to the king.” Aichlan advised.
Taryn rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “The boy’s guard won’t let us near ‘im.”
“Then tell them it was an order from me.”
“Expecting trouble?” Madden asked, adjusted the weight of his ruck on his shoulders. “This far down?”
“When have we not run into trouble?” Aichlan with a sardonic chuckle. “Just keep close to him, we’re moving out.”
Aichlan tossed down his pack and hopped down from the platform, and the others followed suit. With a halfhearted wave, he signaled for the company to follow and didn’t bother to wait for them before heading into the tunnel. He struck a torch against the wall and raised it overhead, illuminating more desiccated corpses and brass cylinders strewn about the relatively smooth yet cratered pavement.
The uniforms were relatively still intact, preserved in the tomb so far underground. Aichlan paused and examined a cluster behind a decaying fortification of sand in shredded glossy sacks. They held weapons of black, long and vaguely reminiscent of a crossbow, though without the limb string or flight groove, merely a hollow barrel and odd looking sight glass. Aichlan picked up the weapon and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud click, but nothing else.
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Taryn approached and watched with interest over his shoulder as he attempted to discern the weapons function. Frustrated, he handed it to her, hoping she might be able to glean some insight from the relic. Several mages paused to examine the uniforms and weapons, with a couple excitedly taking notes or sketching emblems and insignia.
Taryn pushed a button on the side, and a curved protrusion ejected from the fore grip and clattered loudly on the pavement. The company halted and waited with bated breath as the sound echoed through the cavern. After several tense moments passed, Taryn gently replaced the ancient weapon with a mumbled apology to both Aichlan and the dead. Aichlan ignored her apology and barked an order to press on.
Several mages groaned and complained about the rare opportunity they were passing by, but Aichlan was having none of it. He quickened his pace until they tired and were forced to fall back in ranks. The feeling of unease persisted, and he wanted desperately to be done with this place, he felt as if he were robbing a tomb or desecrating sanctified ground. While not a man to put much stock into superstition generally, he was unwilling to tempt fate in this instance. He still bore the scars of his previous dalliances.
* * *
The tunnel bore a straight course for miles, and the company's supply of water steadily dwindled. Even if they were to turn back, they would run out before they reached the entrance, and have burned through a good portion of their foodstuffs. Just as the situation seemed hopeless, the path began to curve gently to the right for several miles, only to straighten out for nearly a dozen more.
Days passed, though with no sun to mark the hours passing, they were left to intuit it and let fits of restless sleep substitute the cycle of day and night. Morale was low, and madness began to creep upon them as shadows danced across their periphery and unseen demons cackled at their folly, as only heard by the few.
With torches expended, they relied on the mages to cast hovering orbs of brilliant light, light that eventually became a mocking reminder of the stars they could no longer see. Breaks came and passed without realizing they had stopped, or forgetting how long they’d been there. The passage of time was marked in water, until that too was gone.
Murmurs of mutiny were whispered, and fights became a near constant occurrence. The party quickly broke into camarillas around Aichlan, Odell and an older mage from Thiudoricas. Donough and Enyo flanked Aichlan with weapons drawn and weary eyes searching out invisible threats from the shadows and their allies behind them. While Aichlan knew he should quash such antithetical behaviors, he simply couldn’t muster the words to unify the troupe once more. In truth, he too was distrustful of the mages, and was certain the duvachellian knights were plotting to supplant him.
Just when the cold war seemed destined to tragically and explosively warm, the sound of rushing water reminded them of their purpose and thirst, spurring them on. After several miles through a twisting corridor, surrounded by the echoing timbre of falling water, the company exited the tunnels into a large, nearly virgin cavern.
Metal boxes with long arms protruding at a forty-five-degree angle greeted them first, as well as massive plow carts which seemed far too large and heavy for a beast to pull. The pavement abruptly ended, and rusted implements and oddly familiar looking construction equipment lay in haphazard heaps, frozen in time.
Light filtered in from several holes in the cavern ceiling, with ferns, moss and lichen taking root under the ray’s daily path. Several small waterfalls poured out from the walls, and converged in a central lake below the unfinished remains of a bridge.
Aichlan turned to issue some sort of directive-primarily to refill their casks- but was annoyed to find that his soldiers had already dispersed to slake their thirsts, abandoning their supplies and weapons in their haste. He swore under his breath and hurried to join them, far too parched to issue a reprimand, his mind like half dried cement from their journey.
“Look,” Taryn croaked through cracked lips, “More of those brass things.”
It took Aichlan far too long to comprehend that she was speaking to him, and even longer to follow her finger to the brass cylinders that littered the cave floor. There were also more dried remains, broken and with severed limbs and jaws agape, hinting at the wretched fate they suffered. There were also large metal wagons, many scorched and half melted, others with marks like some massive beast dug its claws or fangs into it.
“What the hell coulda done that ya reckon?” Madden asked as he mopped his brow on a tattered handkerchief.
Aichlan shrugged, still unable to find his voice, and quickened his pace. Several of the men already huddled on the bank of a small creek at the edge of the crevice, jostling one another like dogs at the dinner table to fill their canteens. Uninterested in the trivialities of etiquette, Aichlan not so gently shoved a mage out of the way and put his face to the stream to drink deeply.
His thirst quenched, Aichlan let out an exaggerated sigh of content and refilled his canteen as the empty casks were rolled over. He stood and stretched, his mind still foggy and the beginnings of a headache making itself known. Aichlan waded through the throng of thirsty soldiers and took in the cavern. Large swaths were bathed in shadows, and the ruins of men and machines littered the floor.
A nearby relic caught his attention, and Aichlan lazily ambled his way over for a closer look, taking another drink from his canteen. The rusted contraption could best be described as a bipedal metal frog, with gangly arms, legs and a convex torso wherein the remains of a man sat in a decayed leather seat. Aichlan dusted off the the metal panel, revealing ancient script and some sort of insignia.
“The ancient crest of Marquez,”
Aichlan spun around to find a young mage smiling back at him, notepad in hand. He took a step back and allowed the young woman to eagerly step forward.
“Parts of this emblem carry on to the Dorso family crest,” She traced the emblem with a slender finger, “But…it's different. I can’t really explain it, and this script underneath is most queer.”
Aichlan raked his eyes across the dim cavern, tightening his gauntlets. “Most scripts from that era can be described as such, we still can’t decipher the journals of Renata the Savior.”
The mage shook her head slowly. “Still…it looks to be military whatever it is.”
“That much is fairly obvious.” Aichlan retorted. “But is any of it—“
Before he could finish, a stalagmite shook off eons of dirt and dust, revealing it to be a creature in slumber. Though its shape was unlike anything Aichlan had ever seen nor heard of as he watched it stretch, his mouth agape.
“What the hell?”
The creature resembled the homunculus, its body a thin and decrepit frame that seemed incapable of holding aloft its comically large and misshapen head, its hands and feet were nearly the size of mastiffs, and its enormous cracked lips barely concealed perfect rows of symmetrical brilliant white teeth. The mage stumbled back, falling on her ass with a slight squeak as the creature began to approach.
Aichlan drew his sword and rushed forward, placing himself between the young woman and the monster. The creature paused and took several ragged breaths, but took no further action. Its eyes were like a star field, and held the same infinite emptiness.
“Fey child who bears steel against me, how is it that thou hath come to be so far from home?”
The creature's voice was like gravel crushed beneath a glacier marching methodically down a mountainside. Its dialect was also strange; it spoke a form of Elysian more proper than even the most formal iterations as to be almost unintelligible.
“Could it be that impure blood doth course through thy veins?”
Aichlan steadied himself and motioned for the mage to stand, responding in Aes Sidhean. “Bit rude don’t ya think? To hurl racial insults at one you’ve only just met. Who are you?”
The creature recoiled and curled its lips in disgust. “Rude? Says the cur speaking that bastard’s tongue. Leave here fool mortal, this is my domain.”
Aichlan glanced back to the mage and Taryn, who only shrugged in response, their eyes wide with terror.
“We’d gladly be on our way if you could point us to the summit.”
The creature uttered a guttural chortle, though its face remained set in stone, both figuratively and literally. “Go back from whence you came and sharply turn right.”
“Cute.” Aichlan kicked at a stone, sending it skittering across the cavern floor. “Listen, whatever you are, we don’t want trouble.”
“Then leave.” the creature’s eyes barely flickered as Taryn approached, nearly bumping into it. “There is naught here for you.”
Aichlan gently pulled Taryn towards him as she cursed and placed a hand over her heart. “We’d be glad too, but we aren’t just gonna turn around cuz some dusk born tells us too. Now you’re one of the few I’ve seen speak, so I’m giving you a benefit of the doubt; for in case you haven’t noticed, we have you quite outnumbered.” Aichlan pointed off into the darkness, not breaking eye contact with the demon. “Can we get through that way?”
The creature laughed aloud, a high-pitched cackle most unbefitting of its size and composition. “If you’d like.”
“Well, tha’ was ominous…” Taryn muttered under her breath.
Before Aichlan could respond, the sound of ruble shifting and falling in the distance caught his attention. He whipped around and aimed his sword into the darkness, and the rest of the company followed suit. After several tense moments of near silence, the distinct sound of breathing echoed through the cavern from the darkness.
“The fuck is that?” Taryn breathed wide eyed.
Aichlan quickly shushed her and cast a furtive eye into the gloom, staring his ears to listen, but to no avail. The gently bobbing orbs of mage light overhead could not pierce the veil of darkness more than a couple meters around them. The homunculus laughed again and retreated into shadows, morphing into the stone of the cavern walls, vanishing completely.
“I daen’t think it prudent to heed that abominations advice.” Donough spoke slowly and deliberately, a hint of worry in his voice, traits Aichlan did not think the man possessed. “The air smells fresher somehow, I say we press oon.”
Donough’s face was like carved stone, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts and feelings, something of a tell that he was indeed worried about something. Aichlan lowered his blade and peered vainly into the darkness once more. The elves were well known for their posturing at this point, Donough especially, but he had come to trust their intuition. A cursory glance of the men showed three-fourths quaking with fear, and several of the mages openly sobbing, whatever lay hidden in darkness had them rightfully terrified.
“I agree with colonel Stone-wood.” Odell squeaked. “We’ve lost enough time as is, we can’t afford to turn back.”
“So, the choice is losing time or losing lives eh?” Aichlan muttered under his breath, lips curled in a sardonic grin. “Lives it is then…”
Aichlan whistled and waved his arm overhead in a circular motion, signaling for the group to form up. His shrill call echoed through the chambers, and was promptly answered with a low guttural grumble, akin to when a dog defends his bone or a favored spot before the hearth.
Maddens broad shoulders sagged as a branch after heavy snow. “Aw hell, that don’ sound too friendly…”
The ground shook as sediments fell from the cavern ceiling. Aichlan cursed himself and adjusted his gear in anticipation of a fight. The ground shook again as a mighty roar echoed in the chamber, prehistoric and enraged, the sound of a forgotten terror. A cry which was known by every fiber in his being as that which is to be feared.
“What the hell is that?” Aichlan demanded over the ear splitting shriek.
Donough, ashen faced and slack jawed, stepped forward in a fear induced stupor. “Sounds like a dragon…”