EPISODE TWENTY-FIVE:
THE UNDERLANDS
“It’s a bit further, farm boy,” Cole said, his shadow blocking the wan yellow light of the alchemical lantern. “Push through the cracks and the vein should be right on the other side.”
Vash scowled, heart hammering in his chest. He had tried to get through the cracks in shaft fourteen a dozen times in the past week. Each time left him scraped raw, tearing his penitent tunic to shreds, and with no silver to show for his efforts. The overseers delighted in sending him into the deep, narrow places, knowing they terrified him.
Cole was the worst. At first, Vash had thought the affable guard was trying to be friends, to guide him back to a better path, which was the stated purpose of Penitent Duty. Over the first few days, Cole had teased out what frightened Vash and what his weaknesses were. Every day since then had been torment.
His first week in the mines, Cole had made him crawl through a shaft that they nicknamed ‘the coffin’. Only the slenderest of miners could even attempt to journey through the narrow, sloping shaft. Vash had gotten stuck several times during the crawl, panic seizing him as the others laughed somewhere far behind him.
Now Cole was sending him into a new series of shafts that were just tall cracks in the rock. He claimed that there was a large vein of silver on the other side. Bringing in more than your quota could lessen your sentence. Vash had learned the hard way that being smaller and weaker meant you never made quota. After the first few beatings, he had learned to separate his finds and set aside a bag for the bigger and more violent penitents as a kind of tithe.
“There’s no way I’m going to fit through that crack,” Vash said. It was thinner than the width of his chest. He wouldn’t be able to take a full breath, even if he fit. “We’ll have to either widen it or find another way.”
“The way, farm boy, is you shut your gob and get moving.” Cole said in a pleasant tone. Vash had heard it enough to know that the friendlier Cole got, the angrier and more dangerous he was. “We’re behind and I’m below quota.”
It wasn’t worth it to protest. Either he would attempt the deed, or he would earn a beating. Attempting the deed at least held the possibility that he would earn enough to avoid the notice of the Athairian monks who ran the Penitent Detail. The monks of Athair, king of the gods, the law-giver, were far more strict than any cleric Vash had ever met. That they disliked the other ‘lesser’ races was common knowledge. Vash had learned to avoid their notice whenever possible.
Taking a few deep breaths, Vash gave a hard exhale, forcing as much air out of his lungs as possible, then squirmed into the widest crack he could find. The jagged rock face scratched and scraped against his body, tearing new rents in his tunic. Vash winced as the stone scraped his face and compressed against his skull.
Vash thought, his lungs beginning to burn with the desire to take a breath.
He knew from experience that if he inhaled now, he wouldn’t get a full breath, and the expansion of his chest would get him stuck. His instinct would be to gasp, which would lead to panic, which would not get him out of there any sooner.
Ignoring the pain and fear, Vash pushed on, forcing his body through the narrow crevice. He could feel his hair being yanked out as it snagged on the rock. Warm blood trickled down his chest, sharp outcroppings digging shallow furrows into his flesh.
Ahead was only darkness, a deeper shadow that drank in the light. Vash pushed forward, panic setting in. The crack was getting narrower. He forced his skull through yet another too-small variation in the rock, only to feel it wedge tight with the next shift.
Vash thought, dread seizing him in the pit of his stomach.
His lungs burned. Skin scraped raw, throbbed and wept blood, soaking his tunic. Vash wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t take a breath, just tiny gasps. His ribs strained to expand, almost breaking themselves in his desperation to breathe.
The light faded. Footsteps retreated behind him, leaving him alone in the crevice.
Vash thought, now in a full panic. He wanted to cry out, but didn’t have the breath to make more noise than a whimper.
In moments, darkness enveloped him completely, making the air feel thick.
His own sobs and whimpers sounded far away, swallowed by the hungry darkness.
“Please…”
Vash awoke with a start. He was in darkness, but not the absolute darkness of the silver mines. Suppressing a shudder, Vash rubbed his eyes.
Blinking, and trying to get his eyes to focus in the deep gloom, Vash struggled to sit up. He could feel his legs pinned beneath something. His legs still had feeling in them, but no pain, so that was a good thing. Shifting, he looked behind him. A large, misshapen lump lay across his knees. Despite his largely depleted core, Vash directed a tiny trickle of energy into his elvish sight. The world brightened and colors were more vibrant; he felt the odd sensation of lenses shifting within his eyes as details leaped out at him.
The misshapen lump was the corpse of the Hollowmound Queen. A huge rent ran down the middle of her body from where he had stabbed her. The fall mangled and twisted her humanoid form. Small puddles of sticky greenish fluid gathered under the bulk of her body.
Vash shoved at the creature’s abdomen, pushing it off his legs enough to pull them out from beneath. He stretched his legs and feet. Aside from some bruising, he couldn’t feel anything wrong, which was a relief.
His left hand, however, felt strange. Vash remembered he had clutched the soulstone with that hand, used it to connect to the dungeon heart and the heartstones. He could still feel the strange, pulsating lake of mana, just beyond his reach. Shaking his head, Vash tried to concentrate on his hand, to see what damage had been done.
Even with his enhanced sight, Vash couldn’t make out any details. The only difference he could tell was that his left hand felt more distant, like a ghost of a limb rather than an actual part of his body. It was disconcerting, and he knew there likely was some damage, but he couldn’t dwell on it now.
Vash thought.
Broadly speaking, the first part was obvious. Any dungeon grew out of one place, and that was the Underlands. The vast world beneath the world that was simply known as ‘the Underlands’ was a complex ecosystem of creatures who adapted to and embraced the shadow. Most adventurers only had the most fleeting experience with the Underlands, since their jobs were to seal off any places where the Underlands broke through into the world above. Tracking down and sealing these “eruptions” occupied most of a Wayfarer’s time.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Vash thought, straining to see where he and the Queen had fallen.
A long, steeply sloping ridge stretched up several hundred feet into the gloom above. Vash could barely make out a few muted patches of glowmoss on the cavern ceiling. The destruction of the dungeon heart had likely sapped the area of its ambient mana, dimming the glowmoss. Mana was seeping back into the area. Vash could see patches of glowmoss starting giving off weak blue and purple illumination here and there.
“Corwin!” Vash called. “Jabez!”
His voice bounced and echoed around the cavern, sounding strange and weak in the darkness.
“Either they can’t answer,” Vash muttered. “Or they can’t hear me. Neither are good options.”
Grunting, Vash pulled himself to his feet. A wave of unsteadiness passed through him, as well as weakness and hunger.
Luckily, his pack was still fastened securely to his back and the straps on his belt. Reaching into one pouch, he found a hard, square piece of travel bread. Vash gnawed on a corner of the hard, flavorless biscuit as he thought about his situation.
Vash thought, scanning the area around where he fell while the glowmoss steadily grew in brightness.
Vash tested the waterskin hooked in easy reach on his pack. They’d filled up that morning before setting out for the ruin, but the hard traveling and fighting in the ruin itself had been thirsty work. He had drained it nearly by half. I’ll have to find a water supply soon.
Luck was apparently on his side, for once, because on the edge of hearing he could just make out the sound of running water. It was hard to pinpoint with the echoes of the surrounding cavern, but Vash figured that the sound was coming from somewhere to his right.
Vash turned back to the body of the Hollowmound Queen and searched the ground nearby for his dropped weapons. He found his dagger still lodged in the abdomen of the Queen. Sticky ichor covered the blade. Wiping it down as best he could, Vash then sheathed it, resolving to give everything a good cleaning once he made camp.
A few minutes of searching amid the rubble turned up Vash’s short sword. A bad nick marred one edge, and Vash’s use of the sword as an improvised piton scratched and dulled the tip.
Vash thought.
He sighed. It was another complication to add to the list. Vash turned away from the body of the Queen. “No use putting it off any further. Time to get moving.”
Carefully picking his way through the broken stones and uneven ground, Vash slowly made his way towards the sound of the water. It was slow going at first, finding his way through all the loose stones in the deep darkness. Surviving the ruin and the fall would be pointless if he sprained or broke his ankle down here, far away from any help.
The disruption of the local mana was stabilizing itself. Glowmoss gradually brightened until the cavern had a dim, twilight illumination. Large patches on the rocks above cast pale blue light onto to the cave floor. Vash could now see more than a few feet in front of him. The destruction of the dungeon heart had done more damage than he’d thought.
Large sections of worked stone had slid down the steep slope, leaving a gaping hole in the rock above. Parts of the ruin had smashed through stone outcroppings and paths that once lead down to the cavern floor. Chunks of stone work and fallen rocks turned a flat section of the cavern into a kind of twisting maze of unstable piles of rubble.
Slowly, Vash wound his way through the crumbling detritus, and the sound of running water grew louder.
Skirting the corner of what had probably once been a room in the ruin above, Vash stopped and quickly took cover in the shadows. He had heard the indistinct murmur of voices up ahead.
Vash crept towards the sound of the voices, careful to keep to the shadows and move as silently as possible. A few more yards and he could see the pale yellow glow of an alchemical lantern, like the ones that Zakarias’ servants had been carrying. He held back.
“I swear I heard him over there somewhere.” Came a familiar voice.
“I heard something, too. Doesn’t mean it’s Vash.” answered the gruff voice of Jabez. “The echoes play tricks on your ears. Also, there are things down here that like to lure you out into the dark. Don’t be so quick to charge off.”
Vash risked a peek around the side of the rock. An empty stretch of rock stood between his hiding place and a crevasse carved in the stone. A good-sized river flowed through the channel in the rock, the sound of its rushing waters muted by the large conical stones that rose here and there on the edge of the crevasse. They looked like trees made of stone.
On the far side of the crevasse, fifty or sixty feet from where Vash stood, were Corwin and Jabez. Corwin stood on the edge of the drop off, holding a beat-up alchemical lantern. He had torn and dirty clothes, scratched armor, and bruises and blood marred his face, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. Jabez sat on a nearby stone, left arm trussed up in a sling, his shoulder bandaged and dark with blood.
Vash was about to call out to them when a thought struck him.
The thought was tantalizing. He could find his way to the surface somehow. Then he could find one of the other Eth Mitaan cells. They operated in several major cities in Galadon. Make up a new identity, then track down Iona and then…
Vash thought.
The bronze medallion on his chest thrummed slightly, echoing a pulse of mana.
“Vash!” Corwin called, looking in his direction. “Can you hear me?”
. Vash sighed and stepped out from behind the rocks.
“I’m here!” He called, crossing the open stone to the edge of the crevasse, opposite Corwin.
Corwin lit up with a bright smile of relief. “Thank the gods you’re all right!”
“More or less.” Vash said, flexing his left hand. The numb strangeness had intensified during his walk to the river. He had avoided looking at it in the growing light, afraid of what he might see. “What happened?”
“You tell me.” Corwin said, shrugging. “I came to when the whole damn floor collapsed. Luckily, the pit was over an entry slope, so the drop wasn’t too bad. But the ruin came down with us, smashed everything up pretty good. No way we’re getting up that slope without climbing gear.”
“Wouldn’t do us any good, anyway.” Jabez said, limping to the river’s edge. “That was an old ruin, primed to destroy itself when the dungeon heart was…slain, I guess. There will be nothing up there but collapsed tunnels and random rocks.”
“That’s comforting.” Vash said. “So now what do we do? How do I get over there?”
Corwin shook his head. “I don’t think you can. This crevasse is wider than you think. The light plays tricks on you down here. Somewhere between sixty and a hundred feet. No way to jump it.”
“Ropes?” Vash asked.
“With the beating we all took, I don’t want to risk any stunts like that if we don’t have to.” Jabez said, face grimacing in pain as he shifted his shoulder. “However, I think I know where we are, which is a lucky thing down here.”
“I’m all ears.” Vash said.
“If I’m right, then this is Deeprush River.” Jabez said, looking down at the rushing water somewhere in the dark below. “About three days’ travel upriver is the waterfall that is its source. The falls come through a breach in the Thunder Hills, a breach at the Wayfarer stronghold of Amical Falls. If we can follow the river, we’ll come up right under the strongest Wayfarer Lodge in Galadon.”
Vash looked down at the darkness below, turning left to see if he could gauge where the river ran. Small blotches of glowmoss illuminated islands in the sea of darkness. He could see that somewhere close, the crevasse widened, which would force him further away from Corwin and Jabez.
“Three days.” Vash said. “I’d be on my own, in the Underlands, for three days.”
Vash could barely make out Jabez’s nod from this distance. “Keep close to the river. Only stop when you absolutely have to. Still got your ?”
“I do.”
“Good. There’s some good information in the delving chapters.” Jabez said. “Rule of thumb, anything that looks strange: avoid it at all costs. Understand?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
Vash took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Three days.”
“We’ll meet you at the falls.” Corwin called across the divide. “I promise.”
