The dark, even when lit by the perpetual presence of a lantern, gives one no solace or comfort on the passing of time. Those who endure days on end in the darkness begin to lose sense of where he is in the day.
While everyone else slept, Sarengerel never quite drifted off, despite trying several different methods to go to sleep such as breathing, counting, and emptying his mind. He practiced kuson-setkel, the ancient Neredunian meditation technique where he traced his energy from the tip of his scalp to the end of his toes, but nothing worked for him in the dark.
“Good morning.”
Sarengerel opened his eyes. Agalric was putting on his coat beside the lantern light. “How did you know was awake?”
“You were talking to yourself, did you know that?” Agalric asked.
“And how do you know it is morning?”
“You learn to know the time through your body,” Esben said, who was also waking. The others began to stir from the sound of their voices.
Sarengerel sat up. “Knowing time through my body?”
“One of the ways men go mad is when they lose sense of both time and place,” Esben said as he gathered equipment to start a small fire to boil water. “When men’s greed keep them down in the mines just a bit more, just a bit more, to fetch just one more jewel, that’s when madness sets in. Madness is a keen bride for a lost soul. It gives him comfort in the dark.”
“And such comforts we shall no joy nor love,” Menquist said, yawning. “Break your fast with dried fruits and biscuits, then we shall continue.”
“I’m assuming you’ll want your tea?” Esben asked.
“Of course,” Menquist said. “It is morning after all.”
After breakfast and tea, they continued on through the tunnels that seemed to go on without end. Winding, descending, climbing, it made little sense. Agalric touched the walls and examined them closely.
“There’s enough coal in these tunnels,” he said. “Why did they dig this deep?”
“Maybe for those gemstones,” Esben answered. “I’ve never gone this deep.”
They came to a broken path carved on the side of a large cavern. Esben pointed out the flooded cavern below and the Ash Men rappelled down to the flooded cavern and swam to where the path resumed and climbed back to the path. When it was safe, they signaled for the others to climb down.
And when they continued, they always followed Menquist through the dark. When they found a fork, Menquist always seemed to know which path. When they reached a dead end, they never backtracked. Instead they worked at digging or tearing down a wall, and another tunnel would appear. They seemed to wander aimlessly from one tunnel that looked like the next, while the air grew thinner. The men were tired and the thinning air brought fever to one of the Neredunians. They decided to make camp again, and again in the morning their fast was broken with more dried fruits and biscuits, but there was no tea this time.
On the third day, the men openly expressed doubt. Agalric admitted that he lost sense of day and night, and found it hard to breathe, but his outlook never changed. Esben however hinted at turning around. The Neredunians would periodically have breathing attacks, but the Song Lord was always there to talk them through the attack.
“What did you say to them to calm them so?” Agalric later asked when there was a quiet moment.
“I reminded them of when they became men,” Sarengerel replied. “When Neredunians are born, they are aligned to one of the three gods. The Foam God leads them to a life of industry. The Cloud God takes them toward the path of knowledge and teaching. The Field God expects them to enter the world ready to ride into war. When Neredunians come of age, we have a ritual where three warriors wear the masks of the gods and fight with the child. The child is always allowed to defeat the two gods he was not aligned to, but the last remaining god always beats the child. The role of the god is played by a grown man who holds nothing back. So the child experiences a grown-up kind of pain, and eventually submits himself to the god. He enters adulthood knowing that the remaining time he has in this world is forfeit except to serve that god. And after the child submits, the last remaining warrior removes his mask and puts it on the child. That is when the child knows he has become a man and has already lost his life to that god.”
“Rather brutal way to celebrate a child’a birthday,” Agalric said. “We have cake.”
“So do we,” Sarengerel said. “But after the beating.”
“I assume you were aligned to the Field God?”
“No,” Sarengerel answered. “The priest was not able to align me to any single god. This happens sometimes, though it is rare. So the priest let the fate of the ritual decide my alignment. In the final fight of my ritual all three warriors fought me in earnest, and the first that submitted me would be my alignment. I beat all three grown men. That is how they knew one day I'd be a Song Lord.”
“So what did you tell your men back there?”
“That they were already dead,” Sarengerel said. “That they make this journey now for the Field God.”
“Wish I could tell my men the same thing,” Agalric said. “They don’t believe in any of this nonsense, about hidden tunnels and ancient beings that could fly. Someone is going to want to turn around. And when that happens, we’re going to have a difficult conversation.”
They continued on, and spoke less to each other the further they descended. The Iron and Ash Mountains were the highest peaks in all of the continent of Lower Gaia. The Iron Mountain got its name from not from the iron ore that was abundant in its mines, but rather from how impenetrable the barren rock was from assaults. The Ash Mountain used to be called the Emerald Mountain due to its overgrowth. Legend has it that when the rebel clans defied the newly founded Aredun kingdom they escaped to the Emerald Mountains. The Aredunian armies burned the growth to starve out the rebels, but the rebels endured. They found solace nestled between the burned mountain and the Iron Mountain. For years they stayed there while the kingdom below succumbed to war, disease, and strife and was unable to control the mountain borders. Eventually the rebels themselves had built a mighty stronghold at the top on the mountain and declared independence from Aredun, naming Graster their first king. Graster renamed the burned mountain to the Ash Mountain, its people the Men of Ash, and the new country the Soot. His clan’s words were: Fire destroys, fire rebuilds.
On the morning of the fourth day Esben braved starting a very small fire. “The air is thin, and fire devours whatever air we have left. The men are sick. We need to talk about this expedition.”
“Talk about?” Sarengerel asked.
“We don’t know where we are going,” Esben said. “I don’t even know if it’s morning anymore. This has never happened to me. We need to turn back, else we give madness a pathway to set in.”
“We are not turning back now,” Sarengerel said.
“You don’t have to turn around, but we are,” Esben said. “You should too. I see how the dark has penetrated your mind. How it’s swallowing all of us.”
“We’ve gone through these tunnels for days now, without end,” Agalric said. “We know these mines better than anyone, but if Esben loses faith in these tunnels, then that is worrisome.”
“So you aim to turn around also, Prince of the Soot?” Sarengerel asked.
“We must stay together,” Agalric said. He stood over the fire. “We must vote and decide. Keep going, or turn around.”
“My vote’s already been cast,” Esben said. “My men and I are returning, as soon as our fast is broken. Four days it took to get here, but with the tunnels mapped, we can make haste and return in two.”
The Neredunians looked to Sarengerel, who sat down, facing away from the fire. “I will not vote. My Field Riders will not vote.”
Agalric sighed. “You’re not making this easy.”
Menquist stomped his staff on the ground twice. “I’ll make it easy. That tunnel there is the way. Come along now.”
Sarengerel grabbed his pack and joined Menquist down the tunnel, and the Riders followed.
“What do we do now?” one of the Ash Men asked.
“He gives us little choice,” Agalric said. “Now we must press on.”
“If that is so, then I cannot wait for the madness to come to me. I choose instead to see how far away it is before I fall completely to it,” Esben said. “We shall press faster than before.”
The men grumbled but saw the wisdom in it, to meet their fate head on rather than letting the settling fear bury them alive.
It was that night where they stumbled upon the catacombs that Menquist promised. Rooms and hallways chiseled smooth and square that were eight feet high. Some larger rooms had massive hearths. Most of the pillars were broken and crumbled but a few remained intact.
Though they were deeper into the earth, the air felt fresher. The air erased all doubts and though they continued through the tunnels the next day, they felt less and less like being buried alive. They found themselves climbing as they wound through what felt like an underground city. When they were at risk of running out of food and water, they stumbled upon a giant room with a ceiling over forty feet high. Large steps too high for a man to naturally climb led to a platform. In the middle of the platform was a giant stone seat.
"What could have sat here?" Agalric asked. He climbed the giant seat and sat on its edge. "Four men could fit on this chair."
Esben held the lantern high to get a better view of the seat. It was carved with the faces of gargoyles.
“The High Seat of Lagifor, the demon king of old," Menquist said. "The legend tells us that this is his throne room. We are not far.”
“This can’t be real,” Agalric said, climbing down the seat.
There were several massive pillars in the throne room, carved with intricate detail with gargoyles. The figures at the bottom of the columns were large and muscular and had furious faces with round eyes. The gargoyles climbed on top of each other until the top had carved figures with great bat like wings that wrapped around the pillar. The floors were carved with symbols that were unfamiliar to any of them there. On the side of the room there was what looked like a tall iron weapons rack that had no weapons.
Menquist led them yet again down a wide hallway. Rubble lay on the otherwise smooth floor. He picked up speed and went further than the group, disappearing into the dark. The group followed and when the light caught up, they found Menquist at a dead end, his hands upon a wall.
"We are at last at an end," Agalric said.
"Yes, we are," Menquist said. "Come help me."
Sarengerel went to the wall and felt the wall until he found a large iron ring eight feet high. “It is a door,” he said. He took his rope and threaded it through the iron ring.
Agalric removed his own rope and looked for the ring on the other door. When he found it, he threaded his rope on that ring also.
Sarengerel and Agalric pulled upon the rope but nothing happened. The rest of the men all took hold of the rope and pulled. There was a creak, and it was enough to give them spirit.
With a might that ignored the last five days of darkness, desperation and weariness, the men pulled open the heavy stone door. The light blinded them, and when their eyes adjusted they saw only blue sky.
"The great stone gate that leads to the edge of the world," Menquist said.
They walked to the edge of the hall and looked down. They were at a sheer cliff and below them at what seemed like hundreds of feet away was the end of a river that formed a waterfall to the sea. On the other side of the river was a city on a plateau surrounded by rough hills, and beyond was a dark forest that extended as far as they could see.
"We've reached the other side. That is the Boiling River below us," Agalric laughed in excitement, marveling from the sight.
“The city you see is New Hearth, and the backdrop is the Purged Forest," Menquist said. "Beyond that is the expanse of Aredun.”
The group stood silent at the view, until the obvious challenge lay before them. "What do we do now?" Agalric asked. "We are at a cliff. How did they get down there before?"
"Perhaps they flew," Sarengerel said.
