XXX

“Very quiet now,” the hooded man said to Lorenzo. “We are not alone anymore.” Lorenzo and the hooded stranger had descended deeper and deeper into the tunnels under the city, winding their way along the maze of dark passages that had been built by the ancients. “Tread slowly and silently,” he told Lorenzo. Then he did something to the light he carried and its beam softened so that it barely illuminated a few paces in front of them. “Put a hand on my shoulder,” he then whispered to Lorenzo.

Lorenzo did as he was bid and felt something like chain mail under the man’s cloak, but so thin it was like cloth. More mysteries. The hooded figure led him onwards one step at a time and soon Lorenzo heard moaning coming from ahead of them. “What is it?” he asked in a soft voice.

“Shhh,” cautioned the stranger and kept walking onwards. Soon they entered a wide chamber. There were a few dim lanterns in nooks and Lorenzo could make out more details of the stone work and shapes in the shadows. He had taken several steps into the chamber before he realised that the shapes were men. He froze and let go his grip on the hooded man’s shoulder. Was this a trap? He turned around in a circle and saw the men were were all about them. He nearly shouted before the strong hand clamped over his mouth. Then the hooded man was whispering in his ear, the mouth so close he could feel his breath. “We are safe, but you must be silent. Treat them as sleeping dragons.” He lowered his hand and lifted Lorenzo’s hand to his shoulder once more and led him onwards again.

Lorenzo could see the figures were chained to the walls, like this was some prison, but he could also see those figures who were closest to the lanterns. They were not people. They were creatures of some kind. They were hideous. Hugely deformed heads. Limbs missing. Faces with no eyes. And the stench. It was somehow worse than the river of human waste because it was the mixed with the smell of living creatures.

“Mio Dio,” Lorenzo muttered to himself. “Where have you brought me?”

“Steel yourself,” whispered the hooded man closely again. “It gets worse.”

How could anything be worse than such monstrosities, thought Lorenzo as they stepped from the chamber into one of the tunnels leading from it. But the next chamber was infinitely worse. The figures chained to the walls were children. So many of them. But none a child as he would have described them. They were chimera creatures like existed in the tales of old. Some had the heads of dogs. Others had the features of cats. Some had stumped wings in place of arms. Others had claws for feet. Lorenzo felt he had crossed into a dream, or a nightmare. This could not be real. He stumbled as he walked and nearly fell to the fetid ground. But the hooded figure clasped his hand and pulled him close. “Strength,” he urged softly.

Lorenzo took a deep breath of the putrid air and closed his eyes to block out the horror of it. But even with his eyes shut he could see the creatures before him. The hooded figure pulled his hand and Lorenzo felt himself being guided along as if he were blind. Eventually the stranger said, “We are passed.” And Lorenzo opened his eyes.

“What are those things?” asked Lorenzo.

“I will explain momentarily,” said the hooded figure. “But we have one more chamber to pass through and it is the worst of them all.”

“Worse?” asked Lorenzo.

The hooded man said nothing and led him along the tunnel to the next chamber. Lorenzo wanted to close his eyes again and have the hooded man lead him through blindly, but he had to know what horror could be worse. Once more the hooded man said, “Tread slowly and silently.” Lorenzo felt his insides knotted in fear but nodded his head. The chamber was set out with wooden shelves filled with large jars. And in the jars were the heads and limbs of the children from the last room. They were covered with plague pustules and malformed, but more horrific still, the eyes seemed to follow him as he walked across the chamber. And as he looked at the face of one young girl, her eyes seemed to blink. He felt his blood run cold. It must have been a trick of the dim light. It must have been his imagination. Then he swore she did it again. His legs would no longer obey his will to walk, even though he wanted them to run from this place.

“Look away!” the hooded man hissed sharply. “And keep walking!” Lorenzo did as he was told and soon they had passed from that chamber. “Mio Dio! Mio Dio! Mio Dio!” Lorenzo muttered to himself as the hooded man pulled him along. “This is a place of nightmares. Who are those poor wretches?”

“Experiments,” said the hooded man.

“What do you mean experiments?” Lorenzo asked. Experiments were things conducted with weights and measures and lenses and pendulums to determine a scientific principle. These were something far other.

“The apothecaries of your city have been charged by the City Council with finding a cure to the plague that does not hold them hostage to the two Houses’ spice trade wars. They have been experimenting on plague victims.” His tone was so matter of fact. So heartless.

“Your disgust is written plainly on your face,” the hooded man said. “You judge me as being complicit it this, but it is your people who have done this.”

“They are no people of mine,” said Lorenzo.

The hooded man smiled. “Well spoken.” But then added, “Though strictly speaking the City Council’s desire to find a cure to the plague is driven by their desire to break the control that the two Houses have over them and the city through their control of the spice trade, so anybody in the employ of either of the two Houses is also complicit in this.”

Lorenzo wanted to slump to the ground and he wanted to keep walking further away from these atrocities. He wanted to find an exit that would take him back to the streets. He wanted to have never come down here. And he wanted to go back and see if the face of the young girl had really been alive and had blinked at him. “Are they alive?” he asked. “Those heads?”

“What if I tell you ‘no’?” the hooded man asked.

“I won’t believe you,” he said.

“And what if I tell you ‘yes’?”

“I still won’t believe you.” Then Lorenzo said, “It was an evil thing to have brought me here!”

“Was it?”

Lorenzo did not feel he had to answer, but the hooded man said, “Do you know why I asked you to be so silent? It was not in order to prevent them from harming us. It was to prevent us from harming them. If they see people walking before them it will remind them of what they once were, and that will cause them great pain and sorrow. Their lives are miserable enough without that.”

Lorenzo was taken aback at that. This hooded stranger continued to surprise him. And so many thoughts filled his head. Should they be freed? Would it be kinder still to kill them? Shouldn’t the citizens of the city be made aware? “I can see what you’re thinking,” said the hooded man. “That we should stop these experiments, yes?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And you’re full of anger and grief and all other things, yes?”

“Yes,” said Lorenzo. “We must stop these experiments.”

But the hooded man said, “Did you ever consider that if you believe in a god, or gods, then everyone on this Earth is but an experiment in the nature of the human condition? Every travail and hardship is but a part of the experiment, no more ghastly than this here.”

Lorenzo didn’t like the weight of that idea. It still sat like a great stone upon his shoulders. “And even love,” the hooded man said. “What if even love is a part of the grand experiment being played out upon you by your gods?”

Lorenzo shook his head. “No,” he said. “I feel love in here.” He rapped on his chest. “It is not based on belief. It is a truth that is undeniable.”

“Good,” said the hooded man. “That’s a belief that will hold you in good stead for the next level we are going to descend to.”

“There is more?” asked Lorenzo.

“Oh, so much more,” said the hooded man. “Come.”