Seven Into the Bleak (2 page)

At the fifth gods-forsaken hole, the floor tilted forward and down, taking my heart with it. I had hoped that the way forward would also be the way up...and out. I tried to shake the feeling that I was only burying myself deeper in the Bleak, that this was nothing more than a temporary setback and that the path would right itself, but I had trouble convincing myself. The slope leveled off, turning into a field of rocks and ridges filled with glowing fungi and fangs of rock.

As I crawled down the stony ramp, a soft, bell-like humming reached my ears. I froze and the sound grew closer and louder. Pure single notes rang in the air, like a human voice singing but without purpose or structure. A shiver ran down my scalp, a corpse's hand on the back of my neck.

I scrambled to my feet and crouched with both my knives unsheathed. Long moments passed as the sound grew until, in the deep blue glow of the fungi, I saw a movement at the bottom of the slope. It was a person, or something shaped like one, moving with great care among the stalagmites and boulders as though wending its way through a garden. It seemed oblivious to the dangers of the Bleak, which should have been my warning; no one and nothing moved so carelessly in this black hell.

Placing my feet with care, I crept closer. The figure continued to move as though gliding through a field, barely illuminated by the fungi, covered in shadow. It was a person, certainly, though its posture was strange and the head slightly misshapen. When I came within five or six strides, I cried out. Around the neck of the figure was a silver circle, the holy sign of Belal. The figure turned gracefully, pirouetting in place. It was Lilath.

"Lilath," I whispered. "What are you doing? Are you all right?"

Lilath nodded and smiled, gliding toward me. Her arms were spread wide and the fabric of her robe fell like an angel's wings. As she approached, the pure notes I had heard earlier spilled from her open mouth, a mouth I saw now was not formed into a smile, but an idiot's grin. My skin crawled and bile filled my mouth when I saw her face fully. The skin was slack and her eyes dull, the mouth gaping with the insane song. The fingers of her outstretched hands moved independently, like starfish in the sea. I stumbled backwards, then broke into a run. Lilath, or whatever she was now, followed.

I tripped up the slope, casting glances over my shoulder. In but a few strides, I realized I was not going to outrun her and she was only a dozen feet behind me when I turned. Spittle covered her chin, making it gleam in the low light and her song had turned into a high keen. I waited a heartbeat, then leapt forward with my knives.

Both blades took her in the chest, but she ignored the life-ending wounds and tried to embrace me, her hands slapping wetly at my face and arms. I drew the knives back and plunged them into her again, this time aiming for her face. The keening turned into a wail and--suddenly, grotesquely, a vision of insanity--the back of Lilath's head came off like an egg shell broken in half.

Something from a nightmare--dark and scaled, with a dozen tiny legs--released its hold on her and leapt to the ground as Lilath's body collapsed to the ground. It scuttled away from me and back towards the slope leaving a pink trail of liquid and mucous. With a yell, I raced after it and stabbed downward with my knives. They sank through the scales and into the bloated flesh. The small legs scrabbled at my hands, but I twisted the knives until the thing stopped moving. It thrashed, pinned to the ground, and a single pure note escaped from some mouth in the thing's body.

I got to my feet, sweating and shaking, and walked back to Lilath's body. She lay crumpled where she fell, like a pile of clothing. I looked at her for a long moment, sighing and blinking. She lay face up, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, and after a moment, I turned her over. The obscenity I saw made me retch and vomit.

There was no back of her head: her skull was simply missing behind the ears. The thing I had killed had...removed everything but the eyes and skin. There were small indentations along the scalp where its claws had taken hold of her.

I spat to one side, trying to clear my mouth and my mind, then dragged Lilath's corpse to one of the infernal cracks in the earth that we were always in danger of falling into. I tipped her body and that of the monster that had defiled her into the rift. The two fell out of sight, to become food for some other grotesque of the Bleak.

I hurried back to the camp, abandoning silence. I no longer cared if my struggle with Lilath's killer brought every demon in the place down on me, though I had learned there were things worse than death. I stumbled back the way I had come, trying desperately to erase the images in my mind. Some spirit watched over me, as I made it back to the dull glow of our "campfire" safely.

Harlan and Filki had beaten me back to camp and the four were crowded together, speaking in whispers. They looked up as I came near, their faces hopeful, but something in my look must have warned them. Harlan turned away and Galdur sighed, dropping his head.

"Did you find her?" Karn asked. I felt my guts twist when I saw his expression. Karn the Axe, Karn the Killer, who had split apart men and beasts for half his life, close to weeping over a priestess of Belal. "Tamik?"

"She's gone," I said. I tried to go to my bedroll, but he grabbed my arm. His grip was like an iron band.

"Gone? Or dead?" he demanded.

I looked into his eyes. "Just gone, Karn."

No more was said and we ate a cold meal before sleeping in shifts, as if it were our first night in this hell.

. . .

We five continued on, poorer for having lost our companions and lovers and friends. Deeper we pushed, seeing mysteries and wonders that the good folk on the surface never dreamed existed. Pulsing orange rivers of molten rock and diamond-studded cliffs became commonplace. We encountered creatures so strange that they made the fiends of the upper Bleak seem normal. And the horror that came with fighting them became accepted, as well. We survived, but mere existence is not life.

A new danger threatened us, though this challenge was from within. With time, I had hoped we would regain our cohesion as a group, but the Bleak seemed to invade each of our souls, driving wedges between us. Each of the small flaws that had been laughable in a tavern a year before now became insurmountable differences.

A simple choice of paths made this clear. For once, we had come across a split in the linked caverns and corridors: one crooked path going up in a gentle rise, the other plummeting steeply down. With something like euphoria, we chose the first, snatching at any possibility that we had found the beginning of our way to the surface. We had nearly gone out of sight of the fork when Galdur turned around.

"Harlan?" the old man called. We stopped and looked back. Harlan, his thumbs hooked in his sword belt, was looking into the hole where it disappeared into the pitch black of the Bleak. "Catch up, boy. You'll be lost."

The knight-errant swayed in place, but continued to stare down into the darkness. I hurried back, my mind still racing at the thought that we might have found our path to the surface. To home.

As I reached his side, I scowled suspiciously down into the blackness, afraid he had seen some new demon ready to trail us to our deaths. When I saw nothing, I turned my scowl on Harlan. "What is the matter, squire?"

He didn't answer. I felt a tingle along my spine and took a step back, putting a hand to my dagger. Death had worn many faces in the Bleak and I had lived this long through nothing but luck and suspicion. If Harlan's mind had been taken by something none of us had noticed, I was not going to be the next victim.

But the knight to-be simply shook himself and looked at me. His gaunt face had an earnest expression and his eyes were bright. "Tamik. This is the path for me."

"What are you talking about, boy?" Galdur said, as the others reached us.

Still speaking to me, Harlan continued. "My fate, Tamik. It's not merely to crawl out of the darkness to the world above. I was sent--commanded--to battle the evil that afflicts the Bleak."

"We've
been
battling it, Harlan," Filki said.

"No, Filki," he said, turning to the elf. "We've been surviving. Holding on. This is not the same thing as fighting. Evil has won because we've been complacent, allowing it to hound us. It is time to face the evil and denounce it."

"You're mad," Karn said with a grunt.

"No, Karn. I'm seeing things aright for the first time," Harlan said, his voice almost ringing. "Join me, friends. Let us triumph over this evil place by attacking it, for once, instead of allowing it to decide the time and place of our demise."

I have to admit, some sliver of the knight-errant's madness infected me. I am a thief and a liar, a skulker and an assassin. But I had grown tired of being hunted, of dying by pieces. What it would feel like, I wondered for a brief moment, to charge headlong into the Bleak and demand satisfaction? To either face my end bravely or taste victory against the bastard creations of the deep?

But the answer, of course, was...against whom would we battle? What single fight could we possibly have that would cripple the evils that had haunted us? None. There was no more "vanquishing" the Bleak than there was pulling down the sky or drinking all the oceans. The Bleak's wickedness was total and forever.

 "Harlan, leave this plan," I said. "There are tourneys to be won and villains to be slain on the surface. Let the Bleak rot."

He smiled, a gentle smile, and shook his head. "I cannot, Tamik Two-Knives. This is my destiny."

I grimaced at the fool's choice of words and Karn said flatly, "Need you that gold and those gems, then, squire?"

Harlan handed over his share of loot happily. The bars and coins and jewels seemed like so much deadweight now, but Karn grinned wide enough when he put the knight-errant's share in his own pack and marched back up our original path. Seeing that arguments were futile, I grasped Harlan's hand and mumbled farewell. Galdur and Filki entreated him to come with us, but I knew their pleas would be ignored. Harlan had been looking for a noble way to die since we had met.

We watched as tightened his belt, flung his frayed cloak over his shoulders, and marched deeper into the Bleak to follow his heart.

. . .

For days after, we listened for Harlan. Galdur and Filki hoped he had changed his mind while Karn, the cynic, wished aloud that he'd lure the fiends away. For my part, I wondered if Harlan had actually stumbled upon the true way to the surface, as our path--though it had climbed steadily for many hours of marching--returned to a twisting, winding trail into the depths, taking our spirits with it.

A week after Harlan's departure, we were camped by the muddy light of Filki's fire, eating a meal of rock fungus and plate beetle. Galdur was lecturing Filki on the technologies and cultures of the Delven, the ancient race that had supposedly ruled the World Under the World. We had come across their outposts and small shrines--or so Galdur had claimed--but we had yet to see the Delven cities that the sage had promised, with their golden halls and marble columns.

"Admit it, old man," Karn said with rough humor from his bed roll, propping himself up on one elbow. "You wouldn't know a Delven if it bit you in the arse. We've been in the gods-damned Bleak for three seasons or more and we haven't seen more than a Delven piss-pot, never mind a gold throne or a chest filled with rubies."

Galdur was not a physical man and was usually careful to avoid disagreeing with Karn, but he drew himself up, his face pale with anger. "You grunt like a rutting boar. It is
my
learning that has kept us alive this long,
my
research that has made this expedition possible--"

"Thank the gods for that," Karn said, grinning, amused by the old man's fury.

"Ridiculous man, obsessed with gold when the secrets of the Delven might be in the very next cavern. It is only by the worst of luck that we didn't find their deepest vaults. If it hadn't been for me, you would've been back in that reeking tavern where I found you, lacking even the few riches you did unearth."

I sat up and looked over at Karn. The amusement drained from his face as Filki frowned and said, "What do you mean if it hadn't been for you, Galdur?"

The sage, wise in so many ways, allowed his mouth to wander. He looked at Filki with contempt. "Do you think the rockfall happened by itself, idiot? You brainless band of children. Skipping and dancing into the Bleak, happy to pry the tin off a Delven tombstone when a world of power and wealth were an arm's length away."

"What did you do, old man?" Karn said, rising to his feet.

Sensing he'd made a mistake, Galdur scowled and said, "I did what I had to insure that you would make good on your promise to help me find the cities of the Delven."

"And?" I asked.

Stubborn and defensive, Galdur looked at me, then back to Karn. "I needed assurances--"

"What did you do, sage?" I said.

"I…I collapsed the cavern behind us as you slept off the wine you'd brought. The Delven were engineers with a mind for defense. Ancient texts I had studied showed it was easy enough to remove the pins and bolts from any of the supports. And so I did."

 "Gods damn you, old man," Karn said, his voice low and seething. "We would've been home months ago but for you. Lilath amd Meki would be
alive
, but for you."

"I had nothing to do with--" Galdur started to say, but was cut off with a squeak as Karn leapt across the tiny camp and picked him up by the throat.

I scrambled to my feet, though whether to help Karn or stop him, I don't know. Filki, faster and more aware, began chanting, weaving a spell of sleep or some other effect to keep Karn from breaking the old man's neck.

Karn's arm felt like a tree trunk as I wrapped both hands around his bicep, trying to pull him away. Galdur turned red, then a dark purple, as the Axe cursed and spat while he squeezed the life from the sage. Only as Filki finished his spell did I feel the muscles in my comrade's arm begin to relax. I was reaching up to pry his hands away from Galdur’s throat when the old man, taking advantage of the respite, brought his hands up in an arcane gesture of his own. There was a clap as though the rock itself split around us and I was thrown across the cavern like a carcass.