Griffin
The first part of our descent into the city went uneventfully. I jumped at every shadow, of course—and with three lanterns moving about, there were plenty of them. But for the most part, I could pretend the rooms were simply that—rooms, which just happened to lack any windows. And smelled of dank stone.
The voice grew stronger, but only by increments, thank heavens. The words, if it truly even spoke words, remained incomprehensible.
Was it tied to the umbrae? To my strange dreams of Egypt? It had to be, surely, although in what manner I couldn’t fathom.
When we came to the rift, we all stood for a moment, dazzled by the sight of sprawling buildings, lit with a delicate lace of glowing blue. “Dear God,” Iskander whispered, his eyes showing white in his dark face. “Who—what—built this?”
Jack shook his head. “The question I’m more interested in is, how do we know where Nicholas went? This place is a maze.”
“Down,” I said. Because down was where all the terrible things lived, wasn’t it? Down beneath the earth, beneath the ocean. In the dreams haunting us beneath the surface of sleep.
Down was where the source of the voice waited, like a spider in the center of a web.
No one argued. I started forward, and they followed. We made our way toward the bottom of the rift, occasionally backtracking when either reaching a dead end or when the path seemed to lead the wrong way. I had some idea of what direction to go, but not precisely how to get there. Scarrow had the foresight to bring chalk with him, and we carefully marked the walls as we went. The thought of getting lost in this maze, of wandering forever until we died alone in the dark...God. I couldn’t let myself think about it. Or think about what surely lurked down here somewhere.
An ancient river course ran across the floor of the rift, and we crossed it on a narrow bridge. More bridges spanned the gap higher up, a few intact, most shattered from the passage of time. As we started back into the maze of buildings on the other side, Iskander stopped and held up his hand for silence.
We all froze. My heart pounded in my ears, too loud to hear anything but the insidious whisper that existed only inside my head. Did the umbrae come for us, with their burning feelers and gelatinous wings? Would we be reduced to a pile of charred bones any moment?
“What is it?” Jack murmured when nothing happened.
Iskander shook his head and frowned. “I thought I heard something. A voice, higher up.” He gestured to the levels above us. “I must have mistaken it.”
“Perhaps,” Scarrow said, but his expression remained grim.
A short time later, we reached a room with three corridors branching off. All of them seemed equally level. So much for my suggestion of always going deeper. “Now what?” Jack asked.
Damn it. I didn’t know. I knew we needed to go down, but the voice was like having a compass without a map. If we guessed wrong, we might arrive too late, or not at all, wandering until thirst and hunger compelled us to give up the search. We might—
“Look!” Scarrow said, pointing at the middle passage. “Is that Dr. Whyborne’s scarf?”
I ran to where it lay, the puce color bright against the cool, gray stone of the floor. My hand trembled as I scooped it up, afraid to see it stained with blood or burned through from acid. But it was whole, unmarked except for the ordinary wear of travel. I brought it to my nose and breathed deep, smelling salt and ambergris.
“We’re on the right track,” Iskander said. “I suppose the scarf brought luck after all.”
“We’ll have to let Miss Parkhurst know,” I agreed shakily. I tucked the scarf carefully into my coat, nestling it where the heat of my body would keep it warm until I gave it back to Whyborne.
“Did it?” Jack asked. “Look. Blood.”
We gathered around the stain on the floor. Someone had bled here, badly. I ran my finger over the stain, and it came away red. “Still fresh,” I said.
Iskander’s dark eyes met mine, reflecting my fear back at me. Who did the blood belong to? Christine? Whyborne? The person we each loved most in this world was down here in the dark, maybe hurt. Maybe dying.
Our fear must have shown on our faces, because Jack suggested, “Maybe it isn’t theirs.”
“They tried to break free.” I fought to keep my voice steady as I spoke. “But they failed. Your friend Nicholas hurt one of them.”
Jack shook his head. “You can’t be certain.”
“Do you have some better explanation?”
“Perhaps they hurt him.”
“In that case, someone would have died here.” I rose to my feet. “Christine might be unarmed, but Whyborne isn’t by his very nature. Even if they broke free and ran, he would have set off the powder in one of the guard’s guns, just to even the odds a bit.”
“If he didn’t have time to cast the spell...”
“That isn’t how it works for him.” I swallowed back my fear for Whyborne’s safety and concentrated on my words. “He’s used sigils and words in the past, but they’re just a crutch, honestly.”
“Fascinating,” Scarrow said. “I’ve never met anyone with ketoi blood before, let alone a sorcerer with such an unusual heritage. Once this is over, I must speak with him about his approach to magic.”
I rather thought he was being terribly optimistic, given we might all die down here. But I kept the sentiment to myself.
We moved with greater speed now, goaded by the knowledge one of our friends was likely hurt. Fortunately, the corridor failed to either branch or end in a maze. Rather, it transformed into a steep ramp, leading us down once again. At the base of the ramp lay an enormous room with a gigantic doorway cut into it. Two great slabs of rock formed doors, now standing open.
The air blowing from the short corridor beyond reeked with a familiar stench. My gut turned sour, and bile rose into my throat. I’d first smelled it wafting up from a trapdoor in a Chicago basement. Glenn and I had exchanged a grim look before we ventured in. Neither of us knew only one of us would ever leave again.
The second time was in Egypt, when the daemon of the night chased us through the lowest levels of the lightless pyramid, until driven back by the sun. The pursuit that still haunted my dreams.
No sun had ever fallen in these lightless depths. No sun even awaited outside, should we somehow escape.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm my pounding heart. Every instinct screamed we were in terrible danger, but I couldn’t let the fear overwhelm me. Ival was down here somewhere, possibly hurt. I couldn’t just leave him to die in the dark.
Iskander knelt near the base of one of the doors and ran a hand over the stone. “Look. These scrapes on the floor are fresh. This was opened recently.”
“See the carving on the doors?” Scarrow asked. “I wonder...could this be what the aboriginal legends meant about a great worm? Did some hunter find his way down here, then turn back, realizing that something lived beyond these doors he had no desire to face?”
“It seems likely,” Iskander agreed, studying the carving himself. For an instant, a look of mingled fondness and terror crossed his face. “I wonder what Christine made of it.”
“We’ll get her back,” I said. “And she’ll tell you herself.”
“And probably berate me for not photographing every inch of the place on the way to find her,” he added with a pale smile.
“We’ll come upon her and Whyborne standing atop a pile of dead umbrae, arguing about the correct interpretation of one of the murals.”
He laughed, then looked away. “God, I hope so.”
Scarrow stepped up to the doors and examined them carefully. “The magical seals are here, most likely.” He passed a hand through the empty air above the lintel. “They won’t react to us, of course, not being umbrae. Still, given the size of the doors and the image on them, I suspect this room is the last we can count as remotely safe.”
Fear wanted to turn my guts to water, but I refused to let it. I couldn’t think about the piles of melted bones in Egypt, the screams of the dying. “Jack, put out your lantern for the moment and ready the oil. Reverend Scarrow, I assume you can light it off at a distance?”
“I shall do my best,” he said.
Jack put out his lantern and took a can of kerosene from his pack. His skin was pale as milk, but determination firmed his jaw.
Scarrow went first, followed by Iskander and Jack. Steeling myself against whatever lay ahead, I stepped through the doors after them.
“Thieves! Stealers of children!”
I cried out in shock as the distant voice became a howl, clamping my hands to my ears and nearly striking myself with my burning lantern.
“Griffin?” Jack called, his voice nearly lost beneath the shriek of rage and pain. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“My daughter is gone, taken, stolen, why? Evil, greedy, monstrous thieves!”
My knees hit the stone floor, but the pain seemed very far away, drowned by the agonized cry. Jack knelt beside me. His hand hovered in the air, as if he feared his touch might do some harm. “What’s happening?”
They couldn’t hear it. The cry wasn’t in my ears. It was in my head, and it was more than just a scream of pain. I could feel the grief and rage behind it, the blind terror of a parent whose child has been stolen by those who meant her only harm. My head threatened to split open, and I tasted blood, felt warmth trickle over my lips.
“Stop!” I shouted. “For the love of God, please, stop!”
There came a shift, as if I’d caught the attention of something that hadn’t even realized I existed before. In my mind, I saw a great, burning eye punctured by a three-lobed pupil—then it rushed toward me, into me, and everything else fell away.