CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BELOW
In darkness, under deepest depths of earth,
are creatures far older than humankind.
Descendants of the planet's ancient birth,
they gaze upon our world with jealous eyes.
-Thierry Calde, 'The Underearth'
When Thea and Matthias rode back to Rouentz, it was with twenty-one Soenmen in tow. These were not fearsome warriors for the most part – these were men whom Rorik thought he could do without during his challenge to Ulfar Allshield. People who might slow them down. They were all warriors in Rorik's army, obviously, but most of them weren't professional raiders. They were farmers and craftsmen who hoped to have freeholds in Thea's new jarldom.
One among them was Farn Surestrike, a weaponsmith who was to be one of Thea's five Soenmen yeomen. He spoke for most of the ride back, observing how the Nuflings, which is what the Soenmen called 'wretches' of the north like the people of Rouentz, were weak for the taking, how their metalsmithing was primitive, and how their gods were deaf and dead. Thea took it without much comment, though Matthias was a bit more forthright.
"The mild winters make the Nuflings weak and the hot summers tend them to laziness," Farn observed. He rode beside them on a shaggy-maned horse that was about a year away from being a nag – he was one of three Soenmen who owned their own mounts, while the rest trailed behind on foot.
"Perhaps the mild summers make the Soenmen weak and the cold winters make them sedentary," Matthias replied. "Thea beat your Varga in battle – it seems to me that our people and gods fare favorably..."
Farn laughed. "You're trying to goad me, north-man, but I'm not a brawler at heart. If you want to stew in your misconceptions, you're welcome to do so right up until we beat down your ornamental gates."
“Don’t forget who your jarl is…”
“You’re not her,” Farn said.
So Farn was opinionated, but at least he was good-natured about it. Thea was curious how Farn could qualify as yeomen, given what she understood about the Soenmen – he was approaching fifty and, though he was broad and thick-limbed, he also had a potbelly and the beginnings of a second chin. There was no way he could go toe to toe with a Runed Man in combat and survive. Farn laughed at this notion, as well.
"Fighting's not everything. Master craftsmen, like me..." he thumped on his chest... "we get to accept challenges in our craft rather than in battle. If a man – or woman, I suppose – wants to best me at smithing… well, she's welcome to try. And, if my jarl speaks true under the witness of a sorcerer or priestess and judges my work to be inferior, I might be unseated. But I wouldn't worry about that around here, given the shit iron your people work with."
"We'll be relying upon you to bring your expertise to the jarldom," Thea said. "All of our best fighting people need weapons and armor suiting their skills, and it will be up to you to set up a forge and recruit apprentices."
Farn shrugged. "Depends on the local talent, I suppose. I heard you were farmers and shepherds, that you just let our people walk away with your things."
"Those days are over," Thea said. "We defeated Igna and now we're allied with Rorik. Can I rely upon you to be a good yeoman and a good metalsmith?"
"That's why I'm your first yeoman," Farn said, thumping his chest again. "Not much point in sending five score of warriors without a good smith to arm them. And from the looks of it, you'll need some help with your defenses, too."
This was said as they rounded the last turn in the road and Roentz came into view between the copse on the Potter farm and the hilly cairn at the edge of the Millers' property. Thea could see the tower of the belfry peeking over the sharpened logs of the palisade, a dozen militia-laborers from Nortsair working to get the bell tower back in working condition.
The gate guards watched with interest as they approached – no doubt, the Soenmen who'd approached not two weeks before had looked similar, riding up to the gate with Theo in tow and asking for admittance. Only this time, Thea rode at the front of the group, looking up at Vivian Nessa, who stood guard at the gatehouse. She gestured that Vivian should open the gate for them, but the stable-owner's daughter hesitated.
"I should ask Cano..." she said.
"You don't need to ask Cano," Thea sighed. "I'm telling you it's fine."
"I don't know..."
Farn rode up beside Thea and shouted up to the woman in halting Aurilic: "This woman is your jarl, whelp! Let us in or I beat your hide until it bleeds! Now!"
Vivian gasped. Thea shot Farn an angry look and shook her head. "Well... now she’d be remiss if she didn’t get Cano. Vivian! It's fine, I promise we aren't going to beat you. Go get Cano."
They waited perhaps five minutes for Cano to arrive, and he quickly waved them in, figuring (probably rightly) that he could handle the trouble if the Soenmen decided to go raid-happy on the town. For her part, Thea was just glad to be back after an eventful afternoon of preventing the full-scale destruction of Rouentz, surviving a witch trial, and accidentally anointing Rorik the first-ever woman koenig of the south-men. She wanted a nice meal and a relaxing evening and told Matthias as much.
"That sounds like a fine idea, if you wouldn't mind the company," Matthias said. "And maybe a bath... getting soaked in the lake did the opposite of a cleaning, I'm afraid."
"A bath sounds good," Thea agreed. She turned to Cano. "I suppose Larian's back, too? From your excursion down into the tunnels?"
"Not yet," Cano said. "We went about an hour down through the glowing bit of the tunnels and discovered that we had some followers." He pointed across the commons to Maddie and Svilga, who looked to be leading a group of about a dozen children in some semblance of Soenmen fighting drills, clacking sticks against the ground, sweeping them along, and then bringing them back for a big downward swing, most of them decently in unison. "Those two followed us down, but Larian wasn't about to head up – she found a dozen things down there and thought she might pick enough alchemicals to last the whole town for years. So I took the girls back up and sent Heath down after her – he's got a better sense of direction than anybody I know, so they'll be able to find their way out whenever Larian gets fed up doing, um..." he searched for the word.
"Medicinal mycology," Thea offered – her vocabulary had vaulted from almost-nonexistent to far above average in a very short span of time.
"That sounds right," Cano agreed. "So I showed the girls some fighting games..." he glanced to Matthias... "Safe fighting games that they could do. Safe-ish. We had a bloody lip and a bruised arm a few minutes ago."
"Wonderful. And we'll tell you all about why we've got twenty-one eager freeholders in tow over dinner, if you'd care to accompany."
+++++
Matthias was tired of tavern food from Swill Bill's, so they ate at Ma Coker's who, since her children were grown and had families of their own, had turned her sizable kitchen into the closest thing Rouentz had to a restaurant. She and her daughter-in-law Paisley cooked up two big meals a day and left samples in a little outside stand that was overseen, more often than not, by one of Ma's twenty-eight (and counting) grandchildren. Mostly, the children were there to keep dogs and birds away from the food, as anybody in her right mind knew not to overindulge in samples and risk being banned from the Coker kitchen for life.
The three of them ate at Ma's big table with Aril Boyce and her husband, whose farm had been torched by Lysander Quill's men and who were staying in town until they could get the place fixed up. Maddie and Svilga ate at the children's table with Aril's twins, recounting the creepy glowing cave they'd wandered through earlier in the day. When a small group of Soenmen trundled into the place, Ma and Paisley frantically worked to get more dumplings and meat pies ready to make sure they had enough – and they barely did. Cano ate his whole meal, half of Thea's (after Matthias passed it up), and then shelled out three cupras for another helping. Whether or not he was a growing boy, Cano could definitely eat like one.
Thea recounted the day's events to Cano, with the Soenmen at the next table over frequently butting in to confirm or add their own observations to the story. She left out the bit about Rorik's possibly turning into a woman because, first, she wasn't sure whether her own transformation was the rule or the exception and, second, because she wasn't sure she wanted them to know that. The longer they thought of her as their legitimate leader the less the fallout if Rorik lost his challenge, despite having the sigil tattoos of Astrilla and (soon) various powers of a storm goddess.
Afterward, Cano bid them good evening and Matthias sent the girls back to Swill Bill's... though whether they'd actually go there was anyone's guess – if Thea had to guess, they'd wander around for an hour or so, getting up to petty mischief until it became too dark to see outside. Meanwhile, Thea and Matthias ventured next door to the town's bath. At one time, it had been a well, but the water had an off taste and was slightly cloudy (though, apparently, harmless enough if drunk), so nobody had used it for drinkwater in ages. Clever Clarisse had capitalized on that some years before and set the old well up as a bath, though it was mostly managed by Red Stills because he didn't mind the heat. Not that it was especially hot now.
"Late in the day," he told them. "Water's not like to be very warm."
"We'll manage," Matthias said.
And, indeed, he did. He dipped his finger into the big stone basin of the tub and, finding its lukewarm temperature not to his liking, plunged his whole arm in. As Red looked on in silent awe, Matthias's arm glowed cherry red like hot iron, brightening along its length to a yellow-hot fist. The water frothed and bubbled around him, a great hiss of steam rising up and fogging the room. He removed his arm and, almost immediately, the bathwater sizzled and evaporated from it.
Thea dipped her fingers into the basin. "Just right," she agreed.
Matthias paid Red an argento to wait outside and not let anybody in until they were finished. Red eyed his jangling money pouch and replied: "I was going to close up soon... could be that, for another argento, I'll trust you enough to close up after yourselves."
It was a steep price to pay for privacy but, as far as either of them could tell, Matthias had infinite money, provided he only used it a few coins at a time. The bigger concern to Thea was whether his wanton spending would cause inflation in Rouentz, given that he couldn’t seem to pluck out any denominations lower than an argento, which was about what most people earned in a week. It was a problem for another time – Thea latched the door as soon as Red left, let her armor clatter to the floor, and approached the tub. Matthias had just disrobed and was dipping into the steaming waters, his broad back muscled and rippling in the dim light. For the first time, Thea noticed two char dark circles just inside his shoulder blades, slightly raised and a shade darker than his coffee-brown skin.
"What happened here?" Thea asked, tracing a finger along one of the circles. It was perhaps two inches across and tough like dry leather.
Matthias shrugged. "If I recall – mind you, these were stories my mother told me, and I scarcely rememer them – I recall that Matu had wings, but he lost them when he betrayed his brother Ghanini, the dancing god of the jungle. The same reason you've got that little shimmer in your hair, I suppose. Stigmata of your patron goddess."
"I suppose," Thea agreed. She slipped into the water next to him, sighing as the heat soaked into her skin. In the dim light of the bath, Matthias's eyes glittered like real gold, and his wet skin had the sheen of dark oil. "Do the stories also say that Matu was very handsome?"
Matthias chuckled. Thea took a sponge and ran it down his chest, little wisps of foam and soap trailing off into the water, already slightly cloudy. Matthias's breaths were slow and deep, and it was obvious that he appreciated the sight of Thea. Whatever he could see of her body had definitely provoked a response. She ran her hand down lower still and grazed against his erection, making a coquettish little gasp and winking to let Matthias know this was in jest.
"It occurs to me," Thea said, "I can breathe underwater."
Matthias made a gasp, not in jest. "You wouldn't..."
Thea pouted. "Do not to presume to tell great Astrilla what to do."
“Not I!”
Then she dipped underwater, her hair radiating out about her, and took a few experimental breaths. For the first two breaths, the strange churning, bubbling admixture of water and air in her lungs was deeply uncomfortable. But, after that, it was just like breathing in thick, humid air... and it smelled strongly of soap. She sought out Matthias under the water and gave him yet another display of her powers, demonstrating that she knew exactly what he liked. As she pleasured him, Thea could feel the little twitches of his body and hear his muted moans from underwater, but she missed the intimacy of his face, so she surfaced after only a minute of gentle attention, spitting out water and laughing as little soap bubbles shot out of her nose.
"Sorry, I was doing a bad job," she giggled.
"You weren't," Matthias insisted with a sigh. "But that's fine. I'm afraid I can't breathe underwater, but I can be handy, myself..." He reached down and caressed between Thea's legs.
To her mild surprise, she found herself pushing his hand away – his attentions felt good enough, but she had something else in mind. In a moment of impulse, she eased over to Matthias, sliding along the slick, taut skin of his lap until his man was conspicuously stiff against her thigh. She basked in the slightly-smokey smell of his musk before looking him in the eyes and whispering,
"I think I'm ready," Thea said.
Matthias was confused for a moment, and then his eyes went wide. "Wh... oh! Ready!" He said. "Um... you aren't going to kill me?"
"I'm not," she said. "I think. I mean... I've figured out the push and the pull of the energy. With Rorik, I was even able to push and pull at the same time... the nexus of my power is down there, but I can control it..."
"Better than I can control my manly bits, I hope," Matthias said. "Because the little fellow won't be denied."
"Not so little," Thea said.
She eased up, spread her legs, and eased herself down as Matthias aligned himself. She felt him sliding into her, warm and smooth and insistent. She'd been penetrated by Igna once before, but just for a moment, and she'd tried to distance herself from everything about that horrible night. But now Thea was present an very much aware of her new anatomy responding to Matthias's, the instincts of her womanhood just as intact as the instincts of Theo's manhood had once been. Something deep in Thea's core... something from deep in her womb felt Matthias's energy, felt the life in him just as surely as the life within her own beating heart, and felt the two of them commingling as he started to ease in and out.
"Oh!" Thea gasped.
Matthias froze. "Does it hurt?"
"No," she said, rolling her own hips to start the feeling of friction again. "I feel full... but really, really good. More please!"
"I cannot deny my goddess," Matthias said.
He commenced his slow hip thrusts, bringing his mouth down to nibble at the base of her neck, bringing his palms back to hold her and knead at her plump, firm buttocks and to control the motion. Thea was doing things, too – part of her wanted to just float away and surrender to pure pleasure, but she was committed to keeping in the now, to cataloging every sensation and reaction for posterity. When Matthias thrust just right, muscles within her would clench, and if she could keep them clenched just right, it felt so amazing when he brushed past one little spot deep inside of her. When she rolled in counterpoint to his thrusts, she got little sparks of friction that ratcheted up and up... and Matthias liked that, too. Soon, they were churning up the bathwater, sloshing gallons of the stuff out of the big basin, and making a lot of noise. Thea buried her head into Matthias's shoulder to muffle her keening mewls of orgasm but, even so, they probably could have heard her all the way over at Swill Bill's. Matthias's own grunting moan was a low growl, and his scrunched-up expression looked so ridiculous that Thea laughed at him.
"What?" Matthias asked, recovering his breath.
"Nothing," Thea said, sliding off of him, the memory of his hot bloom deep within her body still fresh in her mind. "I'm really glad I didn't kill you."
"Me, too." He kissed the top of her head. "But if you had, it would've been worth it."
+++++
Afterward, they returned to Matthias's room at Swill Bill's, where they spoke downstairs over drinks for a while, discussing the possibility of more permanent living arrangements. Thea was jarl now, and she'd have to start acting like it if she wanted any semblance of loyalty out of the Soenmen. Matthias and the others were, in theory, Thea's yeomen, also to be afforded some significant measure of property and respect. For now, though, Thea was content to share Matthias's bed in a small room at the tavern, even if it did mean that they had to keep their second foray reasonably slow and quiet – in some ways, Thea liked that more that the tub-churning, water-sloshing vigor at the bathhouse.
Their room didn't have a window, so Thea had no clue what time it was when she was awoken by a faint rapping at their door. All she knew was that it was too early to slide out of a warm bed and plod across the room – but she was jarl now. She had to be responsive and responsible, even when Matthias was warm, his arm draped across her, his fingers set softly upon her abdomen. When the rapping repeated, slightly louder, a short minute later, she sighed, lifted Matthias's arm from her, and padded across the room to open the door.
"Cano? What is it?"
The blue-pale light of early morning shone through the hallway window – earlier than Thea would have liked, but not an ungodly hour. Cano pursed his lips, pondering the nature of his news for a moment before nudging her back into the room and closing the door behind him. He nudged Matthias awake and waited for him to sit up and blink the sleep from his eyes before breaking the news to them:
"Larian and Heath never came back last night. I'm... should we be worried? That's bad, right?"
"It could be," Thea agreed. "Both of them have lots of useful survival skills, but who knows what could happen down there."
"Did they say when they'd be back?" Matthias asked.
Cano shook his head. "No, but Larian never indicated she wanted to do anything beyond taking a quick look around and getting a lie on the tunnels below the main one. I was surprised when she didn't go back with me and the children, actually, but the girl loves her mushrooms and wasn't about to cut the trip short... but still..." He tapped his foot. "I'm worried. Can either of you read Astrillan glyphs?"
Thea laughed. "You mean the language named after my patron goddess? Clarisse has a book on them, so I have a passing understanding, yes."
Cano nodded. "Good. The place is lousy with them, and I figure that'll help for navigating around the place. For all I know, they're directions: here there be monsters and that sort of thing. So... can you help me track them down? One of us three will have to stay behind..."
"Then Thea and I will go down," Matthias said. "I think Rouentz is a lot more likely to need your battle expertise up here than we are to need it fighting off mushrooms and skeletons. I can provide my own light and Thea's the only one of us who can read the language down there."
"But..." Cano sat on the bed, pouting. "You're right," he said eventually. "You'll do it then?"
"Of course," Thea said. She sat next to Cano and hugged him, even broader around the torso than Matthias. "We're their friends, too, and yours. With any luck, they'll pop back up before we can even go down..."
"If you don't return, I'm going down after you at sundown," he said quickly. "So the earlier you get down there the better. I'll oversee the town through the day and you can look for them, but I'm not losing all of you down there..."
"You won't," Thea promised. "Now... if you don't mind, I'm going to get dressed and get some food before I go gallivanting around in the underearth. I suggest that you get packs prepared for us so we can head down as soon as we're clothed and fed."
+++++
Thea felt a bit bad and a bit vain for fussing over her clothes. It struck her as the typical and not especially endearing behavior of a beautiful woman - certainly, Theo hadn't particularly worried about clothes (or, for that matter, much of anything), wearing them sweat-stained and mud- spattered and dutifully washing them in the Charnel River when they started to smell. Astrilla wouldn't have her scion condescend to such nonsense, but that didn't mean that Thea had to fuss over clothes when Larian and Heath were missing underground.
"They're probably fine," Matthias said as he laced the back of her jacket up. He chuckled. "Knowing the two of them, one or the other probably got sidetracked, and they spent a nice romantic night under the glowing mushrooms."
"Probably," Thea agreed. But this, she suspected, was simply wishful thinking.
She examined herself in the room's small mirror, a little coppery thing the size of a dinner plate and just reflective enough to be useful. It was reflective, but not especially clear in its display.
Thea's outfit was one she'd picked especially for exploration. It was mostly blue - she decided she liked the color more than black, and a lot more than the browns and tans that Theo had always worn. It consisted of a cerulean blue shirt of satiny sheen and with slightly puffed sleeves. They managed to look dignified even when rolled up past her elbows. That went with a royal blue vest in leather that laced around the back and pushed up about half a foot of cleavage, and pants of a very slightly lighter, slightly grayer blue with a velveteen texture, soft and stretchy enough that they felt absurdly flexible and comfortable despite being as form-fitting as kid gloves. Thea was worried they were too form-fitting.
"You promise it doesn't look lewd?" she asked Matthias, biting her lip, crystal-blue eyes shooting him a look of nervous pathos.
He sat on the bed, his eyes glued to her backside. "It's very eye-catching," he conceded. "Spin, please?"
Thea did so, doing a slow twirl on one foot, as she'd sometimes seen dancers do. "So?"
"Fetching, but not lewd," Matthias concluded. He came up behind her and ran his hand along the velveteen fabric on her flank. "Honestly, the most audacious bit is the neckline. But only because of your, um... your dimensions."
"It's a sacrifice I'm resigned to," Thea sighed, pressing her rear into him. "Hmm... I can tell it gets the Matthias seal of approval."
"We've got places to go, woman!" he laughed. "I open the floodgates once and now you're insatiable!"
"Insatiable, but patient - to be continued. Think of how you'd like to celebrate when we return triumphant."
Thea slung her apothecarial satchel over her shoulder and sheathed a good cutting knife at her side. She'd nicked it from Farn as a sample of his wares - and had to admit that, despite his braggadocio, he actually did good work. Then they made their way to the church basement, which was the fastest way to get to the tunnels. Maddie and Svilga were already there, dressed in what Thea assumed to be some approximation of travel gear, though she couldn't guess at where they'd procured their wardrobes.
"What are you two doing down here?" Thea asked.
"We're here to help," Svilga stated. "We've got tunnel clothes... and protection." She unsheathed a kitchen knife almost as long as her forearm.
"You're not going down with us," Matthias stated. "If it's dangerous for Mister Heath and Miss Larian, it's definitely too dangerous for you."
"But you don't even know which tunnel they went down..."
She had them there. In fact, they had no idea what was even down there, save that their friends had gone down the vertical, mushroom-lined shaft and into whatever caverns lay beneath. Matthias shared a look with Thea, who shrugged. The girls had snuck down before and made it back up safely, so they could do it again.
"You can come as far as the tunnel they took," Matthias agreed. "After that, it might be dangerous, so you've got to promise to turn around and go right back up. Agreed?"
"But..."
"One more word that isn't 'yes, sir' and you're marching right back up those stairs. So... agreed?"
"Yes, sir," Maddie said. She nudged Svilga with her elbow.
"Yes, sir," she said.
The four of them descended down the rough, recently-laid steps down into the tunnel and, heading south-eastward, they arrived at the ghostly, glowing, mushroom-lined chamber a few minutes later. Thea gazed down the greenish-bluish haze of the vertical shaft going down. She wondered how Cano had made it down, as broad as he was - or, for that matter, how Matthias might accomplish it. Or, for that matter, how anybody might accomplish it without plunging straight down.
"There are hand-holds," Maddie explained. "Look!"
With that, she slipped over the lip of the shaft and started down with quick, sure motions. That was convenient, Thea supposed. It also meant the shaft had been deliberately constructed for access, whatever ramifications of that there might be. She followed Maddie's lead and started down.
The shaft was perhaps ten yards straight down. Actually, it was at a very slight slant, which somehow made the climbing a lot easier. The chute was a yard wide in total, but made substantially smaller on account of the wreaths of glowing mushrooms circling much of the inside. Most were small things, not much more than an inch long, but some were twice or three times that, and Thea brushed against or bumped into them as she descended. Above her, Matthias was having an even harder job of it, on account of his size, and a host of mushroom bits and entire small mushrooms pattered down onto Thea, little bits of glowing fungus disguising itself among the unnatural glitter of her hair.
After that descent, Thea reached the last of the footholds and was left dangling in the air for a moment, secured only by her hands, up until Matthias tried to continue down and stepped on one of her fingers. She shrieked, released her grip, and tumbled down the remaining four or five feet to a little stoop. Maddie laughed uproariously and helped Thea to her feet, warning her of the low ceiling.
"Cano hit his head a lot," she explained.
Indeed, the ceiling was perhaps five feet high and rough limestone. The chamber about them was speckled with more fungus, glowing mushroom bodies of at least three different types. The warm, earthy air of the place wafted in Thea's face and rushing water echoed in the distance. Matthias touched down behind her, stood, and immediately hit his head.
"Ow! For fuck's sake!" he grumbled.
"It gets higher later on," Svilga promised, dropping down when Matthias moved from the shaft. "Darker, too. The mushrooms only live around where it's wet."
While some parts of the under-tunnel appeared to be natural, carved from natural pockets beneath the earth, perhaps part of some natural cavern system, most of it had been mined by hand, flat and blocky, some of it with rough chisel marks and some so perfectly smooth it might have been the gleaming alabaster of a temple's floor. Most of the cavern underfoot was slightly soft, with an occasional rock and broad patches of mushrooms. Thea bent down to examine the tiny glowing motes flitting between the caps, but they were too small to make out much of – whether they were tiny insects, glowing spores, or perhaps minuscule fae creatures, she couldn't say. She plucked a mushroom that seemed to have especially many of the motes and then stood, Matthias's hand shooting to her shoulder to keep her from banging her head on the rock above.
"Thanks," Thea said.
They continued to an opening, where the ceiling stayed about the same but the floor bowled down into a great depression five or six yards down and fifteen yards wide. A brisk underground aquifer flowed through the middle of it and the whole inside of the place was lit as bright as daylight from the sheer profusion of glowing fungus. Where the walls were visible, they were carved in the intricate Astrillan glyphs of the ancients, and Thea could spot at least three passageways at the opposite side of the depression leading off in various directions.
"That's the one that Miss Larian took," Svilga said, pointing to the left of the three passages visible to Thea.
"The glyph above it says, 'High Temple'," Thea said. "I reckon that's the Barren Bones – where we found the little cache of ancient artifacts that started all of this. It's on a bit of a plateau, and at least four or five ruined temples are up there."
"I know the place," Matthias said. "And, if you go in a more-or-less straight line from there..."
"Nortsair," Thea nodded. "Do you figure that's where they went?"
"If you can read that writing, then I can't help but think that Larian can. If I was her, that's where I would have gone. Did you go further than this, girls?"
Maddie shrugged. "Just a little... five or six minutes down that one tunnel before Cano caught us and took us back up."
Matthias put a hand on her shoulder and knelt so they were face to face. "In that case, I'm going to trust you to honor our agreement. You're to go back up and leave Thea and me to find the others."
"But we can help."
He sighed. "I know you can, but I'll feel a lot better if I don't have to worry about you. Okay?"
"Come on, let's go up," Svilga said. Maddie shot her an angry look but didn't object. The girls went back along the passage, receding into the dim and distant glow.
+++++
Thea and Matthias continued down the High Temple passage for some time, soon reaching passages where no mushrooms grew and it was too dark to see. Her night vision was remarkable, but not so remarkable that she could see in absolute darkness, so Matthias lit his lantern with a flourish of his finger.
The walls were hewn of the same varied marble and limestone that made up most of the area's bedrock, quiet as a tomb and dry as a bone, save for when little underground aquifers and trickles of water made their way across now and again. They passed several exit shafts leading upward, but all but one of these were caved-in, and the sole exception led to an empty chamber six yards up, its only possible exit blocked by a boulder too large for even Cano to lift. More than once, Thea felt that they were being watched, that something was creeping along behind them – but whenever she glanced back, nothing was there.
"You're imagining it," Matthias said. "I hope."
The tunnels became a catacombs with numerous little side-paths, most of them leading to small chambers and dead-ends, or else looping back upon themselves. There was an ossuary with the piled bones of tens of thousands of people and a sarcophagus lined crypt, rows of ancient nobles Thea had never heard of that went on for miles: Qintilla Servia, Horus Tactus Equus, Concilio Severian, and so on. Ancient names from a bygone time, a litany of shades from the Astrillan empire.
She ran her finger along the bones, thinking that it would be unsettling to touch an actual human bone, but they were so smooth and solid it was almost like touching polished stone. Human bones were no different from those of animals. The place was empty, untouched for centuries – if it was haunted, she'd presumably be able to see the ghosts, and Matthias definitely would. But the place was so dead there were no ghosts to be found. The shadows were strange, though, making the grinning skulls seem to dance. Thea knew this was only false movement caused by the light. The only sound beyond their footsteps was the whisper of distant wind.
Thea realized with a start that she'd clutched Matthias's hand – neither of them said anything about it. Whether it was a reaction borne of anxiety or simply wanting to be closer to someone living in that long-dead place, she couldn't say. She and Matthias chatted occasionally, always at a near whisper, as if raised voices might wake the dead or otherwise disturb things best left undisturbed. But there was nothing down there. That sense of being watched, of being followed, that was just nerves. Right? She heard something over the sound of distant air – it was almost too faint to make out, but it sounded like a human voice calling out.
"Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Matthias asked. He cocked his head and the sound repeated. "I heard that, he said."
They proceeded forward, with a bit more urgency, ducking beneath a half-collapsed bit of the tunnel and into a damp, cool area rather more like a natural cavern, a slightly-raised path delineated with markers and wending its way along more impassible terrain – boulders, stalagmites, and dark pools rippling with the occasional trickle of water. The sound repeated, closer now.
"Hullll," the faint voice said. "Hullll mhhh..."
Thea tugged at Matthias's arm and jogged forward, her deft feet barely slipping against the wet rock, scrambling up a barrier of rock and into a narrow stretch of cave that she could barely stand in and in which Matthias had to crouch. He wiped the dried mud from his hands and raised the lantern. For an instant, Thea saw the pale form of a human – a woman? Larian? And, almost instantly, it disappeared around the bend in the tunnel.
"Help me! Help me!" She called out to them. "Somebody, please! Help me!"
"Larian? Larian?" Thea cried out, but there was no reply.
She rushed down the narrow passageway, with Matthias and his bulk barely able to keep up. Around the bend, there was a ten-yard stretch, barely visible in the grainy darkness before Matthias and his lantern popped around the corner. She got a momentary glimpse at the pale, plaintive face looking at them before it was dragged around the next bend. It did look like Larian, even if it had none of her usual bronze and copper coloration.
"Wait!" Matthias said. He stumbled after her, splashing down in a puddle and letting their lantern light wink out for a moment.
"Help me! Help! Somebody, please!" The woman called out to them.
"Matthias! Come on!"
Thea tugged at his sleeve and pulled him to his feet. Matthias lit his hand aflame and held it aloft before pushing past Thea.
"Come on," he said.
Thea was a bit annoyed by that - she was the one who'd had to turn back for him. But at least he was taking things seriously now, so she darted along after him, pushing against his back when he slowed down. As she pushed him along, Thea glanced back and spotted something behind them...
"Help me! Please help! Somebody!"
"Matthias, wait..." Thea said. "Shine the light behind us..."
He did, turning about and bringing his hand to bear. He lit the lantern to add to the light, and both of them saw it behind them: something pale shimmering along the cave walls. Thea took a few steps back and examined the things: thousands of little pale rootlets pulsing out from cracks in the cave walls. Thea brought her hand near one, and it reached out, poking at her with a little piercing pain, like being pricked by a needle, She drew her hand away and looked on in horror as the rootlet slurped in the bead of her blood, becoming ruddy for an instant before the blood was drawn away down the tendril. She tried to pass by, and the rootlets splayed out, several tapping against the leather of her vest and boots and one or two of them jabbing into her exposed skin.
"Ow! It's... I think it's a trap!" Thea said.
"Look! There it is again!" Matthias said. He took Thea's hand and pulled her around a corner and to the end of the cave passage, to where it opened in a vault the size of the inside of Young Albard's barn.
Thea gasped – in the dim light, she could see that most of the cavern was swarming with the little rootlets – and that one particularly large mass of them dangled at the center of the cavern, one clump formed into a strange, pale, eerily accurate likeness of Larian. Beyond that, in a far corner, were the actual bodies of Larian and Heath, half-enveloped by a swarm of ruddy rootlets slowly draining their blood. Thea couldn't tell if they were alive or not.
"Matthias!" She pushed him out of the way of some advancing tendrils. They waved through the air right where he'd been, one or two of them poking along Thea's hand and surging in her direction.
They backed away from the walls, backed away from the pale, encroaching tendrils. Thea had her dagger out, and she swiped at one or two of the fanning, hairlike clusters - but she wasn't quite sure what good a knife would do against a million, tiny, blood-seeking foes. It was about as effective as wielding a sword against a swarm of mosquitos.
"Stay behind me," Matthias said. He lit both of his hands aflame, incinerating all of the nearby tendrils...
Behind him didn't seem especially safer... more lurched down from above, unspooling like a bundle of wet noodles. Thea and Matthias backed toward the middle of the room, underneath the lure that looked like Larian, and now it was coming undone into its thousands of component parts, many of them unspooling and reaching down toward them. Matthias grabbed a handful of the things, making them sizzle and pop from the heat, and the whole 'limb' of tendrils withdrew. Matthias wasn't the only one with powers, though. Thea had her own reserve of energy – one that she was slowly coming to understand. It was finite but, given time, could be renewed easily enough when needed.
Arcs of light flitted out from Thea's body, leaping at the seeking rootlets, frying them to crisps as they encroached. She tugged on Matthias and pointed, and the two of them started toward Larian and Heath. She spotted the rise and fall of Heath's chest – it seemed that he was alive, at least, though both of them were unconscious. Thea gasped at the burn of pain – a few of the tendrils had managed to wrap around her forearm and plunge in before she managed to fry them. Matthias was having similar problems – his fire was wonderful for destroying the things, but whichever parts of him weren't on fire were similarly vulnerable. He might light his whole body aflame, incinerating all of the tendrils along with his clothes – but Thea was too close, and she couldn't easily get out of range. She backed up the slope toward Larian, zapping at the largest clusters of the things and slashing at others with her knife – the latter, she realized, would fall to the ground and soon become enveloped and recycled by the creature.
Thea finally reached their friends, for whatever good it would do. There was somebody else up in that little nest, too – mummified, desiccated, and long-dead. She zapped at a few more of the tendrils, but recognized that she was quickly reaching the end of her reserve. She had perhaps another minute of zapping in her and, given how little damage they'd managed thus far, she'd be spent long before they could get Larian and Heath out of harm's way. Or themselves, for that matter...
More pain, this time in her thigh. The little bastards had ripped a hole in her favorite (and only) pants to feast on her. Thea swiped at them, gave them a zap, and took another step back.
"If... if they get me, you have to save yourself," Thea said. "Light the whole fucking place on fire."
"Don't say that. We're getting out of here," Matthias said, though his voice had an edge of uncertainty.
Thea jerked away from another lancing pain, this time in her shoulder. She zapped the things and moved to Matthias's other side, trying to detect a pattern among the millions of tendrils in their thousands of bundles. She glanced around the walls, her eyes flitting up toward the ceiling...
"Daddy!" Maddie shrieked.
"Madeline?" Matthias cried out. "Get the hell out of here!"
It was too late. Maddie and Svilga stumbled into the room, knives drawn, blood streaked down their arms and legs. When a group of tentacles lunged at Svilga, she ghosted around them in a blur of shadow and slashed near their base, sending them writhing to the ground. With their abilities, the girls could avoid most of the rootlets – very nearly all of them, though not quite all. In any instant they were still, they were vulnerable to attack. They ghosted and attacked, ghosted and attacked, ghosted and attacked across the room. And, Thea realized with horror, they were being corralled into a little alcove, in which they would probably be too cornered to escape. It was going to get them, too...
Thea leapt to avoid a mass of rootlets, only to have another wrap around her leg, and another wrap around her arm, a dozen little needles delving into her flesh. She summoned the energy to zap them, realizing she had very few more 'zaps' in her. They were being cornered and methodically worn down - and such predatory tactics indicated some sort of thinking. Copying Larian and crying out in human language required very sophisticated thinking. Her gaze flitted back up toward the ceiling, toward the writhing, bulbous mass that the fake-Larian's form had been dangling out of. Toward the dozens upon dozens of limb-sized bundles of many thousands of rootlets that sprang forth from that person-sized mass. And Thea summoned all of her power and jolted the thing.
