16: How Deep Do These Tunnels Go?

The lantern was going to go out soon, and leave her in pitch darkness.

Pye had escaped the destruction of the keep, still wearing her court gown, by plunging deep into the dun-geons. Underground, she would be safe from the falling stones and debris. The first couple of levels had still been unsafe. The earth shook and she had narrowly escaped a ceiling collapse, so whenever she found a descend-ing stair, she took it. Despite her nighttime excursions, she had no idea of the layout of the dungeons, so she took a chance, and now she had no idea where she was.

On about the fourth or fifth level down, there were no longer torches burning in the wall sconces, so she found an oil-filled lantern and kept moving. A great crash shook the earth around her, so when she came across a trap door in the floor of an old storeroom, she hauled it open and dropped through it without even looking.

She had no idea the dungeons even went this deep. It was an old castle – almost a thousand years old, ac-cording to the scholars. That would mean that it had been built soon after the Cataclysm. So it made sense, in a way, for there to be extensive underworks, but by the look of them few people today realised quite how extensive they were.

The tunnels were stone-walled and paved, with vaulted ceilings. A thick layer of dust covered the floor and the air smelled stale and slightly of the sea. But at least there were no falling rocks, so it was better than being closer to the surface.

The light from her lantern glinted off something metallic ahead. There was no other way to go from here, so Pye cautiously made her way towards it. At the very edge of her light, the floor appeared to be raised as it met the wall. Closer still, and she realised that it was a dust-covered skeleton. Nervously, she looked around.

Behind her, making no noise at all, was the biggest rat she had ever seen. She didn’t know which one of them squealed louder when she saw it – her or the rat.

She stumbled backwards, tripping on the skeleton’s leg and landing on her backside. She heard a crash and a tinkling sound, and felt a sharp pain in the palm of her hand.

Breathlessly, she grabbed the dagger and held it in front of her as the huge rat leaped at her face. The dagger sunk up to its hilt in the beast’s neck, and it landed right on top of her. It struggled for a few minutes, its claws raking scratches in her arms and shredding the outer layers of her gown. She shoved it off, and its struggles slowed, and ceased. There was very little blood.

She struggled to her feet, brushing her hair from her face. At lunchtime, it had been perfectly coiffured for court. Now she must look a mess. And her gown had been badly torn, threatening her modesty. But she was fair-ly sure there would be nowhere down here where she might find new clothes, so she would need to make do and hope it didn’t fall off.

She looked down at the rat. It must have been at least two feet long, not including its scaly tail. She crouched, and gritting her teeth rolled the disgusting corpse over so that she could retrieve the dagger. She knew that where there was one rat, there were certain to be others. And she had no idea what they might be eating. She was determined that it wouldn’t be her.

It appeared to be an exceptionally fine dagger, and as she used it to cut away the hem of her skirt to just above her knees, she noticed that it was also extremely sharp. She used some of the offcuts to bind her hand where she had cut it, and it was while she was doing this that she realised that she could see.

The lantern had been shattered – that was the crash she had heard as she fell – and there seemed to be no oth-er sources of light in the tunnel. She should have been completely blind, but she could see.

Astounded, she cast her gaze around her. The tunnel she was in stretched in both directions to the limit of her vision, which appeared to be around forty or fifty feet, and everything was limned in the same strange not-light that had illuminated the crystal cavern. She could clearly see the dead rat at her feet, and the pool of blood that was now slowly leaking from the wound in its throat, and the ancient and dusty skeleton. Whatever clothing that ancient person had been wearing had long since rotted away to dust, she noticed with disappointment.

Grasping the dagger, she decided that it was time to move on. She hitched her dress back up onto her shoul-der and headed in the direction that she had been going before the rat attacked.

After a while she came to a door. A plain wooden door set into the stonework of the wall. She looked in both directions, but saw nothing out of the ordinary, nor any reason why there might be a door set into the wall of this ancient and dusty corridor.

The door was unadorned except for a brass knob – she assumed it was brass, but it was hard to tell colours in this strange not-light – and the hinges were on this side. And it had a keyhole.

She slipped her hand into her bodice – and this time her modesty was definitely compromised, through there was no-one to see it and therefore no reason to be embarrassed about it – and drew forth the small leather pouch that contained her keys. She had taken to wearing it at all times on a thong around her neck. She selected one and knelt in front of the keyhole, keeping the dagger ready in her other hand.

She held her breath as she pressed her ear against the wall. She heard nothing. She looked through the key-hole. She saw a room beyond, shrouded in dust like the corridor, with several pieces of wooden furniture scat-tered about. She couldn’t tell what the room might have been used for. For that, she would need to get inside.

Taking one last glance around her, she inserted her chosen key and twisted. The lock clicked open immedi-ately, and she quickly opened the door and stepped inside. To her surprise, there was a dim light in here, which was slowly getting brighter. The entire ceiling seemed to be glowing.

It looked like the room might once have been a dormitory of some kind. The walls were lined with ruined beds, there was a long bench or table in the middle of the room, and nearby there was a cabinet against one wall. It looked rickety, but it was still standing. An archway led to another chamber, but there was no light there.

Pye tried opening the cabinet, but it seemed to be locked. She could probably simply have broken it open, but instead she used her keys again. The smallest one fit perfectly, and the cabinet clicked open. Inside were a set of dusty shelves, holding a variety of oddly shaped metallic instruments, all pristine and shiny. She stared at them for a few seconds before she realised that they were surgical instruments. This wasn’t a dormitory – it was an infirmary!

She looked about the room with a new understanding. There were beds for the sick and wounded, a desk for record-keeping, and the bench in the middle of the room for treatment. None of it had been used, clearly, for hundreds of years. It might even date to before the Cataclysm.

Reverently she took one of the instruments in her hand and inspected it closely. It was a blade of some sort, probably too small to be useful as a weapon, but good for making incisions in flesh. Another appeared to be similar to blacksmith’s tongs, but much smaller.

She turned, and made for the archway to the next chamber. There were undoubtedly further wonders there. The lights came up as she moved through the archway.

And a spider the size of a calf leapt upon her, lightning-fast.

She managed to bury her dagger into its head, but she felt sharp pain as it plunged its fangs into her shoul-der. She felt its poison gush into her body as she withdrew her dagger and stab it again.

She threw it off her, and its legs started to curl. But she was starting to feel dizzy, and the fire under her skin was spreading from her shoulder to the rest of her body. It was difficult to breathe.

Her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor. The last thing she saw was a bright yellow light, moving across the room towards her. She felt a sharp pain in her chest, then nothing.