Whyborne
Up seemed the direction most likely to get us away from the umbrae and back to the world of air and light. Accordingly, when we returned to the first room beyond the door, we chose the ramp angled toward the heights rather than the depths. Workers moved about us, ignoring our presence, and once a larger soldier slid past, as if patrolling for intruders. I tucked Christine behind me, but it paid us no more attention than the workers.
“At least these don’t seem as violent as the one we encountered in Egypt,” Christine said when it had left.
“The one in Egypt was taken from its own kind to guard and kill,” I pointed out. “Presumably its natural behavior would be somewhat different.”
She nodded. “True. How many do you think there are, stolen from places like this? I know Griffin encountered one beneath Chicago, but surely there couldn’t be that many, could there?”
“I certainly hope not.” I stepped carefully over a worker lying in my path. “We know from the one in Egypt they can live unfathomably long lives. I have no trouble imagining men like my father, or sorcerers like Blackbyrne, passing them from hand to hand over the centuries.”
“Let’s hope you’re correct. And let’s hope whatever ancient cities they came from are now long destroyed, or else very, very remote indeed. Can you imagine someone digging a subway or a sewer and coming across this?”
“All too well, given what happened with the Eltdown Shards,” I said grimly. “Assuming the blasted Endicotts didn’t do away with the villagers themselves.”
I stopped long enough to dig out my canteen and take a drink. Not enough water remained to sustain us for long. Was there any source of fresh water down here? There must be, surely, even if only a seep of some kind. Unless the umbrae didn’t need to drink, in which case our situation would become dire rather quickly. “I wonder who sealed the umbrae in here, and why? Did they invade the city and drive out the original inhabitants? Or was the place already deserted when the umbrae moved in? Either way, who cast the spells? Given the door seemed the same antiquity as the rest of the construction, to have created a magical seal powerful enough to last eons...it’s very impressive. More than impressive, really.”
“The Pnakotic Manuscripts didn’t say?”
“No, although from what Turner said, there are hints in other books.” I’d been trying not to think about my scholarly failure. “If only I’d looked harder, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” Christine touched the smoothly carved surface of the nearest wall with her good hand, then drew back as a worker slid past. “You can’t blame yourself for not having read every book in the library, on the off chance you might have found some scrap of information. Assuming the museum even has the pertinent tomes. If you’re looking for someone to blame, it’s that damned liar Jack Hogue.”
I ground my teeth together at the memory of the look of betrayal on Griffin’s face. If I did manage to escape this place, I’d make Jack pay for hurting Griffin. “I should have let him tumble over the waterfall.”
“Hindsight is always perfect.”
The ramp ended in another of the large, hexagonal rooms. Clearly, whoever built the city had been unusually fond of the shape. Smaller rooms budded off from it, all filled with what looked like some sort of strange fungus. The flabby, white shelves grew in an almost column-like formation, creating a veritable thicket of living matter. The black bodies of workers moved about the pallid fungi, breaking off pieces here and there, then slithering away with them still clutched in their feelers. Others appeared to tend the fungi, inspecting their surfaces or the thin mycelium spread across floor and wall.
“I believe we’ve found their garden,” Christine said, leaning against the doorway for support.
I touched the nearest fungal body. It gave nauseatingly under my fingers, and I snatched my hand back. I’d never view mushrooms the same way again. “Agreed. Do you think they subsist on this? And where do they get the organic matter to feed the fungus?”
“Their dead?” Christine suggested, a bit morbidly in my opinion. “Whatever the case, this room didn’t begin as a garden. Look at the carvings on the wall.”
Although hard to make out between the thick ropes of fungus, the murals in this room appeared less decorative and more purposeful. “Astronomical charts?” I guessed.
“And maps. A shame we can’t make out more of them.” She stepped carefully over the seething workers and peered into a side room. “And no exit save the aperture we entered through, curse the luck.”
We retreated and took the only remaining corridor we’d not yet tried, which at least ran level if not up. But before long, it angled down, and we once again reached a room with no other exit.
“We’re going to have to go back through the nursery,” Christine said, staring at the carvings on the blind end, as if they might tell us how to leave this hellish place. And for all I knew, they did, had we the ability to read them.
I shuddered, remembering the soldier and its vast wings and burning feelers. “Do you think it’s safe?”
“As long as we don’t disturb the chrysalises.” She shrugged at my skeptical look. “What other choice have we?”
The workers in the nursery were still agitated, swarming about the cocoons as if carefully inspecting each one to make certain it remained undamaged. Some they lifted in their feelers and moved about, rearranging the young to a purpose only they understood. Even so, we made our way carefully through them, and I kept a tight grip on the lantern. I wasn’t certain I could call down lightning here beneath the ground—even if I did, it would be no titanic strike like the one that killed the umbra in Egypt and left my arm laced with scars. Meaning fire remained our best weapon, should we have to use it.
“Whyborne, look,” Christine hissed, and pointed to one of the corners.
A soldier lurked there, curled up in a large ball for the moment, but obviously ready to move should the need arise. Fear trickled down my spine like cold water, but I only said, “Let’s be certain not to bump any of the chrysalises, shall we?”
We moved slowly. Workers swarmed about, and I stepped over them when necessary, or else waited for them to pass by. The nursery was full, and picking a path between the cocoons proved difficult.
“The carvings,” Christine said. Her good hand closed around my shoulder, halting me. “On the southern wall. Do you see?”
I’d been paying attention to the floor, not the walls. To my surprise, the murals of this room showed undersea scenes: great fish, whales, seaweed twining in fantastic arabesques, and...
“Ketoi.” Whatever I expected from my conjectures, I’d not imagined to be confronted with proof of the link between whatever had lived in these halls, and my cousins beneath the sea. “And look—the city of the dweller. And the dweller itself.”
I felt her shudder. “I’d forgotten how awful it was.”
“Was it?” Possessed by it, our minds sliding into one another, I’d not been able to judge such things.
“Yes.” She swayed against me abruptly, and I caught her. “Blast—sorry, old fellow. Got a little light-headed for a moment.”
Her skin was terribly pale, and her grip weak. Blood trickled from beneath the fur-lined cuff of her parka, onto her pale fingers. Even as I reached for her arm, single drop of blood fell from her hand and splashed directly on top of a passing worker.