With the house empty, they descended the basement stairs. Thorn had turned on the flash light of his phone. It managed to illuminate the steps beneath his feet, but not much else. May was right behind him. He hoped they’d find some stale sacks of potatoes, and not much more. May needed to be home, get some time to break down and cry. A festering wound wouldn’t scab over, let alone heal. He knew what murder did to a person.
However, at they approached the lower floor, he couldn’t deny the dark was too deep here, promising depths that shouldn’t be hiding between the floorboards. It was all too familiar.
The door at the end of the stairs wasn’t locked. Thorn pushed it open. May’s rhythm in the dark had become faster, nervous. Did she know what they’d find, here? She’d been so dead set on staying; perhaps she had a clue what they might find.
The flash light on his phone didn’t reach very far into the swirling shadows of the basement. He searched the wall for a light switch, unwilling to reach out into this dark, afraid it would refuse to let him go. To his surprise, he found one.
The pale yellow light showed nothing but the cellar Skygge had predicted. There were, indeed, sacks of potatoes; and also cans so old they might have seen a world war or two, and stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes. All but one wall had rickety wooden shelves leaning against them.
‘There’s nothing here,’ May said, in disbelief, pushing past him into the room. ‘You feel that, right?’
He did. The churning of the dark was all around them, now; in the walls and the floor and the ceiling. It worked its way into his throat, merging with his heartbeat, eating away at his confidence.
‘The hallway must be right above here,’ he said. He stepped into the room, and the door fell shut behind them. There was a sense of doom to the atmosphere, floating in the light like flecks of dust. He told himself feelings wouldn’t hurt him.
‘It’s in the walls,’ May said. ‘Help me with these?’
She picked up one of the cardboard boxes piled against the back wall, and Thorn moved over to help. They worked steadily; the first few boxes were full and heavy, but the second row was empty, just filler. There was a second door behind them, old and wooden, matching the doors upstairs. It didn’t surprise him any more. Had the old woman tried to come here? There was no way she’d have been able to move all this, alone, let alone get back upstairs.
‘Skygge doesn’t know about this, does he?’ May said, and Thorn shook his head. Skygge seemed to know just enough to get himself into trouble, and not much more.
May visibly hesitated before turning the doorknob - this door was unlocked, too. She pushed the door open, and from the room behind it spilled out a near-solid darkness, a sludge of shadow and ancient misery.
Thorn stepped back, but the oozing dark disintegrated before his eyes, the way May had only hours earlier. A deeper room lay before them. A slow heartbeat came forth from it, lethargic and threatening on the edge of his mind, but May stepped forward and he followed. The dark engulfed him; it was near liquid here, trickling into his lungs. It took him a moment to realize he could breathe despite the viscosity of it, and then May flicked the light on, and the worst of it was gone.
It wasn’t a room, exactly. Sure, it had a floor and a ceiling and contained ancient-looking furniture, but there was no back wall. The single lamp could only do so much, and its light couldn’t illuminate all of the tunnel, fading into twisting, curling dark. He stared into it, trying to wrap his head around the implications. May stood frozen by his side.
The walls, here, were lined with bookshelves and opened chests; there was a desk with a thick coating of dust, and half-empty folders lay strewn across it. A toppled chair lay in a corner.
May swore. She strode into the room, picked up a folder, read half a page, and tossed it back down in frustration.
‘This was it, Thorn,’ she said, hugging her arms to her chest. ‘This was the archive I was looking for.’
‘So Skygge’s grandma…’
‘Is the one who filtered anything interesting out the bloody archives,’ she said, ‘and someone else figured it out before I did.’
She sounded like she wanted to cry, and Thorn stepped forwards, uncertain what he should do.
‘Are you sure?’ he said, ‘Maybe Skygge’s grandma just moved the entire thing when she couldn’t use the stairs any more?’
‘Look what a mess it is!’ she said, gesturing to the chaos of half-open folders and the few left-behind books. ‘Have you seen the rest of the house? This isn’t a woman that accepts the very concept of clutter.’
‘Fair,’ he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. He looked at the rest of the dark, culminating at the back of the tunnel. He could have sworn…
‘It could’ve told us so much!’ May kicked the wall, sending echoes through the tunnel.
‘Maybe they left something useful behind,’ Thorn said, although he didn’t consider it very likely - the absolute last thing he wanted, however, was May breaking down here. He wasn’t convinced it was safe.
She shook her head, but stomped over to one of the bookcases and picked up a book.
‘Population records of Klipvegen, 1345 -1350,’ she read out loud, ‘Sounds incredibly useful.’
‘Half an hour ago you’d have been glad for it,’ Thorn said, distracted - was that movement, in the dark? He turned to take a better look before reaching out with a tentative tendril of his consciousness. It bounced at the border of the shadows. He swore in frustration, and May turned to look at him.
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‘What is-’ she said, and followed his gaze, ‘There’s something in there.’
Thorn nodded. May slowly put down the book she’d been holding, then walked over to where he was standing. There it was, again; a movement, too solid, too real to be the dark itself.
He didn’t answer, focused on his mind instead and finally he slipped a thought into the dark, despite it’s resistance. His spine began to tingle, but his mind did brush at something, someone, leaving fast-
‘There’s someone in there,’ May said, dead certain. She stepped forward, out of the thin circle of light and into the swirling dark. Thorn followed, tearing his mind loose from the shadows. His combat boots connected with the floor, real and solid despite the wrongness of this place. As long as something here was real, they would be fine.
He had to hurry to match May’s pace. Soon, there was nothing but twilight and damp rock around them. The heartbeat of Slakshaven writhed above them, and he tried very hard not to think about the way these tunnels may have come into existence.
Eyes fixed on the near-invisible movement in the dark, May marched forward with the promise of revenge in her step. Whoever had found these archives before her had taken knowledge that should have been hers. She was quite certain what exactly had been done with that knowledge. She had been used, as a carving knife, a tool of sacrifice - she swore to herself it would not happen again.
The whispering voice of doubt at the back of her mind reminded her that perhaps it would not be her choice to make.
Thorn was somewhere beside her, unspeaking, the rhythm of his footsteps matching her own and she wondered when the vocalist had given up on dragging her home. It was cold, here; the damp athmosphere restricted her breath. Water trickled down from the ceiling, into her neck, chilling her spine.
That did not matter. By now, May had had worse.
There, somewhere in front of her - in the twilight was the silhouette of a person. The shadows took no notice of the stranger, swirling away at their own tranquil pace. Whoever it was, they were half running, and May picked up her own pace. Had they noticed the skugabor? May pushed out her thoughts, now willing to deal with the discomfort and how much it felt like when she’d been summoned - but the shadows were thick and sluggish and unyielding. Her mind could not stretch far enough to touch the other person. She tried, pushed further - but she felt faint and sick, perhaps a little further still -
Thorn hand on her arm stalled her. She snapped back into her body, gasped at the sudden realization how thin she’d been spread.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said, ‘You’ll lose yourself.’
It was true - she was breathing, hard, and she wasn’t entirely certain how to think. She inhaled, shaken. May shook her head. They couldn’t stop - she had to know who it was, who’d raided her archive, who had forced to do-
Ahead of them, the tunnel twisted, and she lost sight of the stranger. She forced herself to go faster, although her lungs were telling her the tunnel air lacked what they needed. May nearly lost her footing on the smooth, wet floor. She stumbled back onto her feet, Thorn ahead of her now, and rounded the corner.
She swore - churning shadows obscured her vision, and there was no one in sight. Worse, further down the tunnel, the path divided into two seperated ones. She halted. Then, trying something she hadn’t before, May gathered the churning dark around her and sent it away. For a moment the tunnel was bright - but the other had already entered one of the split-offs.
May pushed the shadows into them, further than she’d have thought possible and it took more strength than she’d ever admit - and nothing. She howled.
‘Fuck’s sake, May,’ Thorn said, three steps further down the tunnel, ‘We’ve got a fifty percent chance of picking the right one, you going to stop now over that?’
‘We could split up,’ she said, but even as the words left her mouth she knew Thorn wouldn’t agree.
Indeed, he shook his head. ‘I still think you should be home, now, but-’
‘Fine,’ she said, and stomped forward.
Left or right? It didn’t matter, so she went right, without a clue where exactly they were going. The tunnels were the same, here, damp and carved into the bedrock beneath Slakshaven. How many generations had smoothed out this path? What had they been used for, once?
She didn’t question why they’d never covered them in college, not any more.
Long, tense moments were filled with nothing but the stomping of their boots and the steady dripping from the ceiling. Then, in the distance - May could hardly believe it - there was the stranger again. They’d slowed down, perhaps out of breath, perhaps in the false belief the skugabor had picked the wrong path.
She forced her feet to go faster once more. May narrowed her eyes. If only she could see more than a silhouette, hell, just see if the other was male or female - but the swirling dark got in the way, still. All she could do was run, now, with Thorn in her wake and the icy shadows spreading into her lungs. She wasn’t used to running, had never been very good at anything physical - even back on Havn…
Focus, she told herself. Thorn was faster, but not by much, and the darkness swirled in their wake. Their footsteps pounded against the floor, echoing through the entire system of twisting caverns, and they must have been heard - ahead of them, the stranger rounded another corner.
She wasn’t thinking straight. Faster, she forced herself, but in her mind’s eye images played that she really did not want to remember. She could feel the hot, crimson blood on her fingers again. From her throat, the taste of blood welled up, coating her tongue in a thick layer of rust-
She rounded the same corner the other had, moments earlier, and swore. There were stairs here, of smooth, worn-down rock; and in the distance May could hear the slamming of a door. The sound vibrated through her bones as she forced her unwilling body towards the faint light that shone from the upstairs. Thorn was two paces ahead of her. She could hear his heavy breathing - the vocalist wasn’t used to running, either. He waited for her, at the top of the stairs, where a heavy wooden door connected the tunnels to the outside world.
Gathering her breath, May pushed it open. Her shoulders sunk, and she tried to swallow, to purge the taste of metal from her mouth.
They were standing at the back of the only church in Slakshaven, and it was empty.