I had never seen a darkness so complete, so solid and enshrouding that I couldn’t see so much as a finger before my face. Enja and I shuffled along, having many minutes ago reached the bottom of that staircase we had found in the room with those … creatures. Those moving shadows. That coldness. We’d passed through a door with a faded inscription we had done our best to piece together.
Spirits of the unburned. Enter in darkness.
Even the memory of it made me shiver, made me wonder if it was why we burned the bodies of the dead. Why we didn’t bury them. Was that what would happen, shadows trapped on earth for eternity? The air around them had been unlike anything I could remember or describe, like I was enveloped in history so old it muddled my brain. Perhaps I was never meant to understand it. The mountains were haunted, and I knew now why we had always left them alone.
Now and then, I could hear the soft padding of Siiva behind or beside us, hear the occasional click of his claws against the stone. It was comforting in a way, knowing that he was so close at hand. He could do precious little to protect us, being as small as he was, but he had senses and an agility that we could never have. And somehow, the way he cared so dearly for Enja made him seem almost like another human in our disparate group.
Our pace was achingly slow, as we had to take each step deliberately and feel around before us. Now and again, I’d strike the flint just for the sake of a few sparks, and we would catch a quick glimpse of the tunnel around us before it was plunged back into darkness. I noticed almost immediately, though, that something was different in this tunnel: it was unrefined, the walls rough and irregular, the distance from the floor to the ceiling frequently changed. This was not like the carefully designed, elegant halls through which we’d been traversing earlier. This felt more … untouched. Forgotten.
Something about that, about the rough-hewn tunnel around us, set me on edge in an entirely new way. I didn’t like how we’d unknowingly stumbled into it, as though it had been lying in wait to swallow us. The stairs had just appeared in that room, as though they fell away from the floor when they knew we’d entered. It wasn’t right. Any of it. I wrapped my arms around myself momentarily, just to feel the comfort, but had to put them out again to feel the air close at hand. It was impossible to tell if there were vast spaces all surrounding us, distant and empty, or if at any moment, my head or hand or shoulder would knock against unforgiving stone. That sort of uncertainty made my stomach sick.
“This is awful,” Enja whispered, though the whisper might as well have been a shout, the way it echoed around us. “It is like if the moon and stars disappeared from the night sky, and we were all left stumbling around in darkness.”
A shiver fluttered up my spine. “But they haven’t,” I said firmly. I looked up, as if I could see the glorious night sky shining beyond the stone. “It’s hard to believe in light in the midst of such darkness, but it’s there.” I was saying it more to myself than to anyone, trying to counter the chill that was settling into my heart, but it did little to warm me. The words felt hollow and unbelievable, yet, that light was still there. I tried to focus on it, to imagine the moon and the stars as we tiptoed through the shadows. I imagined its brilliant crescent lighting up a cold winter’s night. I imagined the constellations all twinkling and vying for our attention on this world far below them. And I imagined the Goddess, dazzling and magnificent where she shone high overhead. Even if we couldn’t see Her, She knew we were here, and that thought alone was enough to at least warm the icy fear that had entombed my mind.
“Strike the flint again,” Enja whispered after a few moments. I hadn’t done it recently and ever since that room upstairs, she had silently taken over as our leader, my nerves burned to bits. I had frozen up, put us in danger because something had … invaded my mind, filling it with misery and devastation. Enja had kept her head, powering on and leading us away. She’d had the quick thinking to throw the torch, and whatever those shadows were had followed it, leaving us alone for long enough to get away.
I fumbled around in my cloak for the flint, and just as I was preparing to strike it, a long, lonely howl split the silence.
We stood perfectly still for a long moment, staring off in the direction we’d been heading. No one spoke.
Siiva let out a low yowl, and I could picture his teeth on display in a snarl.
I thought those wolves had long ago abandoned us. There had been no sign of them in ages, no hints that they were still nearby. We’d just been walking and walking to something, to somewhere. In search of a god, or a river of death. Now, our primary goal was to survive.
And, somehow, to not let the woman die.
“I thought they were long gone,” Enja breathed beside me. Her voice was rife with relief.
“So did I,” I replied, finally striking the flint. The tunnel lit up around us momentarily, nearly identical to the last time we caught a glimpse of it, but this time, a carved statue of what looked like a giant bird of prey with the head of a man stood to our right. We both jumped, taking a step back as it was again shrouded in darkness. A lump in my throat threatened to choke me, so I tried to swallow it back as my shaking hands gripped the flint. “Shall I do it again?” I whispered, as quietly as I could.
“Wait a few moments,” Enja replied, and, taking my elbow, she led me forward. “Let’s get away from that thing.”
I could have hugged her in that moment, if it hadn’t been wildly out of place. The firm way she spoke, how she managed to find confidence even when I was crumbling to pieces. It gave me strength, in a way, at a time when I desperately needed it.
We carried onwards, using our brief glimpse of the tunnel to move at a quicker pace, knowing that nothing stood directly before us. My strength was short lived. My feet felt heavy now, weighed to the floor to the point that it was a struggle to lift them. My body was refusing to cooperate, feeding off the fear in my mind and freezing my muscles. If I did not get control of myself quickly, I would be the kiss of death to this entire journey.
It’s only stone, I told myself reassuringly. It cannot harm you. It cannot move. It has stood here for years, centuries, even, and it will continue to stand here long after you are gone. This darkness is temporary.
It worked. The tension in my muscles eased up and walking became easier. I took in long, calming breaths as we travelled along, repeating over and over again to myself that stone couldn’t move. I wanted desperately to believe it, and some small part of me did, or I would not have calmed down, but a larger part of me knew that in these mountains, anything could happen. The wind had whispered to us, a troll had chased us, shadows had tormented us. It was not so very difficult to believe that that stone statue could come to life.
The past year of trying to be strong had only made me tired. Weak. A growing part of me wanted to lie down on the stone, close my eyes, and give up.
“Strike it again,” Enja said after we’d traversed a good way in silence. Even though we’d seen in the last strike that the tunnel simply carried on, slightly curved downwards, it was so easy to imagine the stone moving and reshaping itself. To imagine that a wall now stood before us, or another statue, blocking the way.
I struck the flint. The tunnel carried onwards, curving even more downhill, and another statue stood tall and imposing to our left. This time it depicted a man’s body and the head of a bear, a tall rod with a pointed end in one hand. I fought back a gasp at the horror of it and shut my eyes, even though the tunnel had already gone dark. Even Enja let out a gasp, a low, breathy sound that spoke to the fear she must have felt. This time it was me who put a hand on her shoulder, calming her even if my own mind was in turmoil.
“It’s nothing,” I whispered, as if the statue would hear us. “It cannot move. It’s just terrible to look at. Come.”
I took a few steps away and heard her follow, trying to keep to the centre of the tunnel to avoid brushing against the walls or any outcroppings. The faster we could move, the faster we could get away from … whatever those things were. I didn’t like the thoughts they encouraged in my mind. Didn’t like the way I couldn’t shake the thought that if those kneeling statues from days ago had been some sort of entryway, some sort of gate, then these seemed a lot like guards. Watchers. The thought made me shudder.
There was a third guard when we next struck the match, a woman melded with a horse, but when the sparks died out a second later, a subtle glow seemed to remain. I blinked a few times, staring around us until my eyes settled on a slight glimmer of orange light much further down the tunnel. It was so faint, yet blinding the more I stared at it: the only source of light in total darkness.
“I see it,” Enja said beside me. Her voice was breathy again, as if she had been running for several minutes straight. But she hadn’t. I looked to study her face, but the distant light wasn’t strong enough to do anything but outline her form. “Let’s go,” she said, moving forward without me. “I miss the light. I’m tired of the darkness.”
She wasn’t whispering any more, as if the sight of the light meant that whatever things we’d feared were listening had been left in the shadows behind us. I glanced around, ensuring that we were, in fact, still alone, and followed her down the tunnel.