Ross Lawhead (11 page)

“It's pretty busy,” Daniel said. “At least, that's what everyone says about it. There's a lot of bustle and hurrying everywhere.”

“Busy is good,” said Ecgbryt. “Idleness is the cause of a great many ills, especially in great ones and rulers.”

“I don't think that's a problem,” said Freya. “The government is full of people who work really hard.”

“What do you mean by ‘hurrying'?” Swiðgar asked.

“Well, lots of people are always going places. Like, to work, to the stores to buy things, to meet people . . . that kind of thing.

They're always, you know, zipping around in cars and buses.”

“‘Cars'?”

Daniel felt awkward. He'd watched shows on TV and read in stories about people trying to explain modern life to aliens or time travelers or primitive savages or people like that, but he never thought that he'd actually have to do it himself. “Um . . . cars are like carts that move without horses. See, you put this sort of fuel into a machine that's inside of it and, sort of, set fire to it—the fuel—and that makes it go. Buses are like that too, uh, but just bigger.”

He didn't know what the knights would make of this explanation, but they seemed to accept it without any further questions.

He wondered if he should try to explain airplanes as well. He decided that might be too complicated.

“So traveling is easier, then?”

“Yes,” said Daniel. “Much easier. You can go anywhere in the world that you want to. Some ways of traveling are so fast that you can get clear to the other side of the world in a day. People have been everywhere in the world—including the highest mountain and the hottest desert. There's nowhere in the world that hasn't been discovered.” He paused again and wondered if he should tell them about people landing on the moon. That was probably too much.

“People can go anywhere,” Swiðgar said. “But are they where they want to be?”

“I suppose so,” said Freya. “I think most of them are, yes.”

“A lot of them aren't, though,” Daniel said glumly.

“
Swa swa
,” said Swiðgar. “So, people can move about quickly. What else is new?”

Freya remembered a class project she had prepared about modern life. “There's communication too,” she said. “We have phones and e-mail on computers, which means that you can talk to anyone anywhere in the world anytime you want to.”

“That truly is marvelous,” said Swiðgar, and Ecgbryt made an admiring noise. “What do people say when they talk across the world?”

“Um . . . not much, I suppose. But it means that you can keep in touch with your loved ones wherever they are. You can speak to them, even see them at the same time.”

“Ah, what a wonder that is. I would dearly love to see such a thing.”

“There's information too,” said Freya. “We have machines so that you can find out about any book ever written or any person living or how things work or what happened in history —anything!”

“I remember,” said Ecgbryt, “that King Ælfred considered knowledge a valuable gift—one which he never denied any he thought worthy of it . . . That said, I can't recall a time he refused teaching to anyone who asked it from him.”

“These days,” said Freya, “everyone is educated. People without any money can know as much as kings and queens. Pretty much.”

“Remarkable,” said Ecgbryt. “Yes, that was Ælfred's dream.”

“So, tell me,” said Swiðgar, “with all of these machines and abilities—are people happy?”

“I think so,” said Freya. “Yes, happier than if they didn't have all these things.”

“Are they kind? Do they treat each other with honour?”

“Maybe not as much as they could,” Daniel said. “Maybe not much at all, actually.”

“They still fight, then? There are wars? People are hungry?

They hate each other?”

“So what?” Freya said. “Were things any better in your time, whenever that was?”

“Hmm,” Swiðgar grunted. “In faith, no, they were not. There were constant wars and many battles in our lifetime, as well as hunger and hate and hardship. This only serves to prove what none from my time wanted to admit to themselves—that men and women of any type, of any nation, of any advantage, at any time, will always war with, steal from, and take advantage of each other, no matter what is done to try to help them improve their lives. No matter what the advantages—education, riches, comfort—men will still tend towards evil.”

“Do you think there's anything that can stop that?” Daniel asked.

“It seems not,” said Swiðgar. “It seems that people carry corruption around inside of them wherever they go.”

“You mean we can't do anything?”

“I mean that we must do everything, but that even that may not be enough.”

They walked in silence for a while, contemplating the pessimism in that statement.

“Is it much farther?” Daniel asked after a time.

“Not at all,” Swiðgar replied, and he was shortly proven to be right. Within a few hundred paces, branching tunnels started to join their own, widening their way, not dividing it. The path they were walking on grew wider and the ceiling gradually rose higher, giving them that odd shrinking sensation again. The echo of their footsteps gradually faded away and then disappeared altogether and the walls around them grew darker as they became more distant.

Swiðgar and Ecgbryt slowed, obviously cautious. They moved from the centre of the tunnel to the side, walking along the righthand wall. Eventually they stopped and lowered their torches.

“What is it?” asked Freya, suddenly fearful again.

“Shh!
Liss
,” Ecgbryt breathed, motioning them to stop.

Daniel and Freya strained to hear. Coming from the blackness in front of them they heard a faint scrabbling noise.

As they strained to see what might be making this sound, they realised they were staring into nothingness. Looking up, they could just trace the outline of the edge of the natural archway that opened into an unknowably large area. Cold, stale air swept over them in a chilling wave. “Where are we?” Daniel asked in an awed voice.

“At the mouth to one of the entrances to the Niðerland.”

“Are we still underground?”

“Yes. It is a large plain—mostly flat—supported by large natural pillars. Now, silence.”

As Daniel and Freya squinted, they made out a line of faint, pale-yellow pinpricks of light running straight across their field of vision. The lights were extremely dim and noticeable only if you did not look directly at them. They could hear distant voices arguing and shouting.

Daniel and Freya felt sick with anticipation now. “What's going on?” Daniel whispered.

It was a few moments before Swiðgar answered in a low voice, “I know not, but now we must move in silence and darkness, not to be seen or heard.” To Ecgbryt he commanded, “We will extinguish the torches here,
broðor
.”

They did so, plunging everything into such an empty darkness that Daniel and Freya gave quiet gasps. Then each of them felt one of the knight's hands on their back, and they were pushed forward.

For a time Daniel and Freya felt as if they were walking in nothingness. It was completely dark except for the fallen starfield of campfire lights. As their eyes adjusted to the almost tangible darkness, they started to distinguish the dim shapes of landscape that lay flat on the top of each other, broken by pillars of stone rising up on either side, reaching up and vanishing towards an unseen ceiling.

In the distance was a dim glow—an arc of faint light like a misty haze. Freya, who had spent some time camping up north, knew that this was the light that cities often gave out at nighttime.

That must be where Niðergeard was.

As they went farther, they found that the ground wasn't as flat as they had thought—there were slight rises and falls and chasms that spewed cold air that had been spanned by bridges.

Stalagmites rose ahead and to either side of them with bases larger than tree trunks and tops that vanished into the darkness.

The curious scrabbling sound grew louder and the individual noises became separate and more distinct. There was a low chattering noise, a dusty scraping, and some intermittent clanking.

The pinpricks of light that ran in a line across the landscape gradually grew larger, but not much brighter, as they approached them.

Freya and Daniel soon discovered they were pale campfires, burning with a dirty flame. The travelers proceeded with slow caution from stalagmite to stalagmite. Crouching close to one column, they saw shapes flicker in front of them—fast, darting shapes, very similar to those that had attacked them in the tunnels. Rasping voices could just be heard. Daniel strained his ears but could make out only a few phrases, but those phrases didn't make any sense.

“. . . and three more spoon measures make twenty pebbles' worth for the final measure,” explained a grating voice.

“Eight twenties make one and sixty; from two hundreds and twenty, that leaves sixty,” came a creaky reply. This comment was met with a few grunts of annoyance.

“Between eight,” continued the second voice, straining slightly, “that's another seven pebbles' worth each, at least! Too mean, too mean by far!” There was a slap of a palm against the bare ground and a chorus of voices rumbling with indignation. “Weigh again! Weigh again, and rats take your toes! I'm so hungry my teeth tingle!” There were further odd curses and then a rattling clank.

“To my ear and eye,” whispered Ecgbryt, withdrawing slightly, “they are the kith and kind of the creature whose head and hand I have in my belt.”

“Agreed,” said Swiðgar. “And likely as friendly. We need a path through.”

“I fear they have the whole plain surrounded. We could charge them and try to break through the weakest point,” Ecgbryt suggested.

“Even without the lifiendes, I would fear . . .” Swiðgar's voice drifted off. “No,” he decided, “we should investigate the Neothstream. Its waters run beneath the city. We may gain entry that way.”

Ecgbryt was silent for a time and then replied, “Very well. Be it so.”

“This way, æðelingas,” Swiðgar commanded. “Follow me. Do not talk; the price of an overheard word may be our lives. There might be guards or patrols at any point, especially as we near the water's head.”

They turned and crept through the dark, hunching low to the ground. Freya wondered what time it was in the real world. How long had they been walking? Was it as dark up there as it was under here?

She doubted it. There were no stars here, no street lamps, no houselights, only the dingy little campfires of those disgusting creatures. Her breath became short and erratic as her emotions were pulled deeper and deeper into a whirlpool of worry. She wasn't afraid of the dark but couldn't help wondering what things there were in the darkness that she couldn't see, or wouldn't want to see, or couldn't even imagine. She felt her eyes grow hot. She blinked a couple times, and then tears were flowing.

She kept her sobbing quiet—sometimes choking back her cries, sometimes drawing breath in wide gulps, but always being careful to move forward at the same pace.

After a few minutes, the worst had passed and she was wiping her wet cheeks with the palm of her hand and drawing in deep gasps.

As she swallowed her third deep breath, she realised that there was another sound, a low, subtle sound that she had been hearing for some time without knowing it, a sound that had been growing in the distance. She concentrated on it, trying to tune out the quiet shuffle of their footsteps as they trudged into the darkness.

She spent a fair amount of time guessing before the answer came to her: water. There was no liquid hissing or crashing to the sound, just the gentle, playful gurgle and burble of water sliding along smooth rocks. It was such a pleasant, beautiful sound. She focused her attention on it, letting the sound fill her head and trickle down her spine in a pleasant rush that reminded her of hikes in hills, of bright skies and fresh air.

The sound grew. They were obviously approaching the source.

The knights slowed and proceeded more cautiously. There was the faint glow of two dim campfires up ahead that illuminated a wet patch of rocks where the trickle of water spilled down over a series of large, water-rounded stones to swirl in a deep pool. This pool then drained into a wide and slow-moving river.

Daniel and Freya stared, trying to take in as much as they could in the poor light. They thought they could see the forms of two yfelgópes sitting slumped against short pikestaffs in a way that reminded Daniel of bored security guards. The knights motioned to Daniel and Freya, and the four of them headed along the river and away from the guards.

There was more activity farther down the river. Shouts and squabbles drifted towards them above the gurgle of the water. The lights grew brighter, the campfires closer together. Foul, burnt smells wafted towards them, accompanied by ugly cackles and squawks.