Before anyone had a chance to catch him, Vidar removed the lock and put it in his coat pocket. There was no way for him to put it back in place after he’d entered, and he didn’t want to yell loud enough for one of the boys to hear him so they could do it for him. With the wind, it was just as likely that the old men or the priest might hear.

Vidar slipped inside.

Light streamed in from a slit window in the stone he hadn’t noticed from the outside. It wasn’t much, barely enough to see by. Despite the poor visibility, it was apparent he hadn’t stepped into a tool shed. A tall cart filled most of the first room and a path opened up on the other side of it, leading into the building.

The cart was a narrow thing, just wide enough to pass through the door Vidar entered through, with two jutting poles to allow someone to pull it from the front.

A person’s foot stuck up above the rim. Those were the ones they were supposed to bury if they ever managed more than a dent in the frozen ground. Vidar suppressed a shudder, deciding not to investigate the cart more thoroughly.

Warmth thawed his frozen limbs. Water dripped from his hair onto the stone floor. Vidar opened his coat and looked around the small, bare room in amazement. Being out of the wind and behind a wall of stone was not enough to account for this change in temperature. No fire blazed in the room, either.

Confused, he rounded the cart and stood in front of the only way out of the room that did not lead to the biting cold. The air coming from the tunnel was no warmer. Vidar leaned against the wall and peered into the darkness, but saw nothing. His eyes went to his hand. It was the stone. The wall itself was warm to the touch.

“How?” he asked, putting his turned face to the wall while pressing the rest of his body against it to draw as much of the heat as possible into his frozen bones.

The warmth couldn’t be natural, and the only answer he could think of was that the priests had somehow embedded runes inside the walls. How they powered them, if that was the case, was another question altogether.

A light flickered somewhere further down the dark tunnel. Vidar peered down it, straining both eyes and ears. As far as he could tell, there were no other people in there but him. He glanced at the door, thinking it might not be the best idea to explore further. Remembering the cold outside and how long it would take them to dig the hole, he decided to risk venturing a little deeper. Whatever was down there in the dark, it wouldn’t be a pickaxe. Of that, he was certain. Still, Vidar couldn’t help it. His curiosity was piqued.

The sound of his careful steps as he entered the tunnel was all that reached his ears. With the tips of the fingers on his left hand touching the wall, sliding across the stone, he guided himself into the darkness.

Patches of stone were colder to the touch, and the heat intensified at regular intervals, giving more support to his idea of runes in the walls themselves.

It soon grew pitch black, and the only thing in his field of vision was the small, flickering flame in the distance. His heart pounded in his chest and he couldn’t help but look back over his shoulder again and again, worrying someone would enter through the door and effectively cut off his escape. Each time he did, the shovel he carried over his shoulder clanked against the stone, making him jump and swear at his own stupidity.

When Vidar finally made it to the flame, he found it was a small lantern standing in the middle of a chamber where the roof was low enough that some taller folk might have to stoop or hit their head.

He picked up the lantern and turned in a circle. This room was small enough that he could cross it in just a few strides. To the left of the tunnel’s opening was a door. It looked sturdy, with metal bands across the aged wood.

It was locked and needed a key. The gap between the side of the door with the lock and the stone wall might be wide enough to force the shovel in there, but breaking it open, even if it was possible, would not be a silent endeavor.

To the right was another door. No padlock or keyhole should mean it couldn’t be locked. The handle was a brass ring that reflected the light from his lantern. Just as he was about to grab it and pull, Vidar stopped himself and leaned in to put his ear to the wood. Sneaking was really not his forte. If he opened the door to a room full of priests or workers, things might get ugly.

Silence reigned on the other side. Satisfied, he awkwardly swapped the shovel from his right hand to carry it, along with the lantern, in the left before pulling on the door. It swung open on silent hinges to reveal a well-lit, much larger chamber.

Vidar didn’t pay attention to the light runes shining on each wall, or the two tunnels leading off into additional tunnels. The floor was painted full of symbols inside a ring that covered the entire surface. Red in color, this circle was not painted with ink. By the smell of the room and the pale, lifeless body in the center of the circle, it was blood. Almost the entire room was painted with symbols he didn’t recognize and lines going from said symbols to the corpse. Small, black-painted ceramic bowls were placed in the corners. Even from where he stood, Vidar could tell they were filled with even more blood.

He swallowed hard, trying to keep himself from gagging, and took a half-step back. The monstrous scene before him was like something out of a nightmare, and the smell permeated the chamber so thickly that he could taste iron on his tongue. The church and its clergy were ritualistic. He knew that much, but this? This could not be what everyone meant when they spoke of cleansing rituals and finding peace through worshipping the fallen angels. This was not it. It couldn’t be. Not this horror.

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Vidar turned to escape the scene before him but stopped after a single step. Voices sounded from behind the heavy, locked door. Trying to hold on to some semblance of calm despite the harrowing sight, he put the lantern on the ground and turned to the tunnel he’d entered through. He almost cried out when he heard light footfalls from that direction, too.

He was trapped.

No! There was one route open to him. One way to escape. Through the room. That horrible room.

Vidar breathed in deep and stepped back into the blood-covered room, closing the door behind him. The two tunnels were not identical. Through one, he saw light runes on the walls continuing its length, but there was no way to tell where it ended. The other one continued straight ahead from where Vidar stood. This one was dark.

Vidar made a snap decision and crossed the room. He tried, and failed, to not disturb the horrible patterns on the floor. A thrumming rose up his feet and into his legs as he hurried over the circle. His legs grew sluggish and his feet even started to tingle. At least he didn’t slip and fall. By the time he was halfway across, just as he was stepping over the dead, naked man, voices rose in the room with the lantern. Though he couldn’t make out the words, they sounded agitated. If they found him down there, Vidar imagined he would be next on the floor.

Abandoning care for speed, he ran into the dark tunnel. Vidar kept the shovel in front of him and did his utmost not to make too much sound, but he couldn’t tell if he was being pursued or not. With tears streaming down his face, he hurried through the darkness until another chamber opened up before him. He got the impression the tunnels were sloping downward, almost like he was running slightly downhill.

Vidar continued straight ahead and into another tunnel. When that one ended and he couldn’t continue forward, he turned left. The darkness was so complete he couldn’t detect any difference between having his eyes open or closed. A sudden stop made his shovel ring out, and he swore, desperately feeling around for a way forward.

A door at the right side of the tunnel barred his way. It was far too narrow a corridor to pull the door open, so he pushed. The old wood groaned, but surprisingly the hinges were silent, like they saw regular care. Perhaps they used this passage after all, despite the lack of light.

When the gap was just wide enough for Vidar to push through, he did so and then pushed, shutting it.

Vidar surveyed the new room and found light streaming in from a door on the opposite wall. The floor was hard-packed mud, and the stone construction of the wall looked shoddier. The ceiling was constructed with wooden planks, he realized, and from the sound coming from above, people were moving about up there.

From listening at the door, he guessed the room beyond was empty. Unfortunately, this one was locked. The shovel fit between the frame and the wall near the locking mechanism, and Vidar heaved with all his might. A slight groan of metal sounded in the empty room, then a pop as something broke, flinging the door open with a crash.

He winced and looked out into what appeared to be a cellar. A rat scurried along the wall, frightened by the sudden noise. It was a cramped space with kegs lining one wall and a set of stairs along the other, with standing barrels beneath the steps. The floor was dirt in here too, and an abundance of sawdust was strewn about. Some of it was colored brown, but he didn’t have time to inspect it any further.

A small window high up on the far wall let in a little light, but he couldn’t make out anything on the other side of the glass.

Gathering himself, Vidar made his way to the stairs and then carefully up them. Each step creaked more than the next, and by the time he made it to the door at the top, he was certain someone must have picked up on him ascending.

This time, he clearly picked up sounds from the other side. No speaking, as far as he could tell, but someone was shuffling about while another groaned.

A few words were suddenly spoken. “Don’t steal anything. I’ll be right back.”

Someone, presumably the one who’d spoken, walked out of the room, his footfalls fainter with each step.

When Vidar didn’t hear them anymore, he tried the door. Miraculously, it opened. He blinked to see what appeared to be the first floor of an inn. A wooden bar inlaid with thin metal bands took up most of the wall to Vidar’s left. Two patrons sat by it, hanging their heads over half-empty glasses of beer, oblivious to their surroundings. The room with its many chairs and tables was otherwise empty.

Directly to Vidar’s right was a set of stairs to the second floor. He considered escaping up it but decided against it. That would just mean getting trapped again, unless he wanted to crawl around on the rooftops. A solution with a high probability of death or at least injury, with all that ice and snow. Instead, he eyed the door out onto the street. That was his way out of this mess.

The man who’d left returned from around the corner near the exit, probably emerging from the kitchen, just as Vidar closed the door behind him. Vidar dove to the floor at the end of the bar, getting out of sight before the proprietor spotted him.

“You’re not stealing anything, are you?” the man asked.

One of the men by the bar grunted but said nothing, and the man disappeared again. The mouthwatering scent of fresh bread baking wafted through the air as Vidar crept closer to the exit, keeping low on the patron side of the bar. As he passed the drunkards, one of them slowly opened one red, little eye to peer down at him. The man scratched at his bulbous nose, then resumed his position without comment.

Vidar breathed a sigh of relief. But it was short-lived. The proprietor returned. He walked behind the bar and then leaned his considerable heft on top of the counter.

“You know I’m happy to take yer money, but don’t you have anywhere to be?”

Neither of the two drunks replied.

Vidar could not make it to the exit without this man noticing. He thought about making a break for it anyway, but was afraid the man would inform the priests. There had to be a reason for the tunnel connecting the two locations. If he did tell the clergy, they’d know it was Vidar, and they knew exactly where to find him. It was an unacceptable risk, and he was not ready to leave his newfound source of food and shelter behind just yet. That might result in an uncomfortable outcome for him. Death.

The only way to escape was by creating a distraction. To that end, Vidar braced himself and kicked the bottom of the nearest drunk’s chair, sending the man tumbling to the floor with a yelp of surprise. Since the man behind the bar was nearer the other end of the room, he went around on the far side, allowing Vidar to sneak around so the bar hid him from view.

Keeping low, he threw himself at the door and out into the cold. The proprietor would surely notice the door opening out of nowhere, but hopefully he would be too busy to follow, thinking it was just some patron who’d opened it from the outside only to then change their mind about getting that morning drink.

He never thought it would feel so good to be back out in the cold.