Young Writers Society

The entrance to the tunnels stared back at Felix, deceptively inviting. The brick archway stood out from the gray natural rock, a lantern hanging from each pillar, and moss crawled up both sides and away toward the cavern ceiling. The cobblestone of the street came to an end at the tunnel’s mouth, but the lights continued, hanging from the wall at regular intervals until the passage twisted out of sight.

Once, gazing into the maw of the tunnels would have filled him with tense excitement—the thought of getting back there, being a part of the caves, surrounded by life. His true home in a way, comfortable and intimate, but full of the unknown, vast and ready to be discovered. But that sense of belonging had been taken from him, twisted against him, and as he stood there, he could barely contain the rats gnawing at his gut. Down that passage, beyond the turn, he could only picture blackness and isolation. Fear and pain and shadow. He clutched the ring he wore on a chain about his neck and closed his eyes.

“Good morning.”

Felix turned. Sofia and Lilly strode up the street, dressed for travel and carrying large packs across their backs. Sofia clinked with every step as an unlit lantern bounced against a pot fastened beside it. Her black guardian’s uniform gave sharp edges to her curves, with the buttoned straps across its front and silver epaulettes, and the metal fastenings of her sword’s sheath glinted in the night lamps. Beside her, Lilly still managed to look soft and affluent, with her surface-import leathers and stainless steel gear. When they drew close, Felix reached up without a word, unhooked the noisy pot from Sofia’s pack, and tied it to a free strap on Lilly’s. A chill fluttered down his hands when he touched the fabric of Lilly’s red coat.

“Shall we?” Sofia asked.

“It’s not quite daybreak.” He nodded toward the square a block away, where a young lamplighter balanced on a ladder, setting off the daylamps. With the shortages, every second lamp was to be left unlit, but the boy had at least two more to go on this street. The large glass globes towered above the buildings, and as each one caught, a flood of brightness extended along the street, amplified by their reflective backing.

“If you want to get pedantic.” Sofia signed something to Lilly, who rolled her eyes and shrugged off her pack. It hit the cobblestone with a dull thud and a clank from the pot.

Felix waved the comment away. “The contract begins on the eleventh day of Ebbe, not the tenth and twenty-three hours.”

In truth, two lamps to go meant two lamps until he had to step back into the tunnels. For almost a year, he’d managed to keep to the rivers and lakes. He tried to remind himself everything that had happened was well in the past. He wasn’t going as deep, and he wasn’t going alone.

But that didn’t keep his hands from shaking.

He busied himself checking his pockets. He never carried a pack, only a few essentials—a knife, matches, twine, a collapsible container for liquids. And his trusty lamp, stiff and dusty after months of disuse, but brighter and sturdier than any other he’d met. He’d been tempted to pack extra rations, not entirely trusting his old foraging skills, but in the end didn’t want to take any food from Mr. and Mrs. Hague.

Beside him, Lilly knelt suddenly. Felix’s stomach lurched and he jumped back, then realized she was only lacing her boot. Perhaps it was foolish to travel with such a woman, having no idea what she was, but he wouldn’t have startled if he’d been in his right mind. Her effect on him was something he could adapt to and plan for, which put it low on his list of priorities.

Sofia tilted her head toward the lamplighter, who was climbing down from his ladder. “The daylamps are all lit.”

Lilly stood back up, and Sofia hefted her employer’s pack alongside her own. “Which is the nearest city?” Lilly asked, careful with her enunciation.

“Hochfall,” Felix said. “Two days away.” He took a deep breath, eying the brick arch. The first step would be the hardest.

“I passed through there on assignment once,” Sofia said. She touched Lilly’s shoulder, drawing her attention, and spoke as she signed. “That’s the city with the waterfalls.” Then, to Felix, “Lead the way.”

Another deep breath. Time to go. But his feet weren’t moving.

The passage ahead was bright and peaceful, with its even floor and hand-cut walls. The light would still be there, around the bend. The lanterns stretched a good half kilometer outside of towns, still lit despite the shortages. Even beyond that, the only company to be found in the larger passages was insects and salamanders.

But out there, somewhere, deep and quiet in the labyrinth, worse things waited.

“At your convenience,” Sofia said from behind.

“Have you both been in the tunnels before?” He realized he was stalling, but couldn’t help himself.

“I have, of course.” Sofia waited as Lilly signed. “She was never allowed. She can’t hear Echoes.”

“Oh.” Now that he looked, her traveling clothes, while sturdy, showed no signs of wear. The fabric still held its luster, the boots wore no scuff marks, and the buckles shone under the daylamps. “In that case, a few rules.” He tried to enunciate clearly so she could read his lips, but he kept a distance from her, far enough to avoid the chill. “Everything I tell you to do is law. Don’t hesitate to wonder why or brainstorm better ideas. Ninety nine percent of the time it’ll be nothing—‘that fungus has a foul smell if you step on it’ or ‘if you look up there you can see a sunling nest’—but one time in a hundred, it’ll be the difference between you living to take another breath or not.”

Falling back onto the old routine boosted his confidence. He’d given this speech a hundred times, and he knew it as well as an old pair of boots. Maybe the cavern guide in him wasn’t as dead as he’d thought. He lifted his lantern. “This is my lamp. This is the one we use. Leave all control of light to me.” 

He paused for breath. Lilly’s green eyes bored into him, watching.

“Major tunnels connect the cities. We shouldn’t run into trouble, but if we end up having to take less traveled routes, there’s a much greater potential for hazards and unmarked changes. Otherwise, the principles are the same as by river; stay cautious, stay vigilant.”

He swallowed, chest tight. The tunnel leered back at him through the archway. Memories teased at the edges of his awareness, dormant fears he’d tried unsuccessfully to bury over the past year. The instinctive understanding that once he stepped in there, he might never step back out.

He faced his companions. “Like I said, it’s been a long time. This isn’t my life anymore. It’s not too late to back out.”

“I’m going with or without you,” Lilly said.

No more excuses. Waiting only made it worse. “All right,” Felix said, “let’s go,” and strode forward without giving himself more time to think.

One foot in front of the other. Past the first lantern, then the second, the third. The walls constricted around him, and the ceiling was so low, so close. But it was bright, and the footsteps of the women behind him kept pace with his own, steady and reassuring. He could do this. He’d done it countless times before.

He let out a shaky breath. This was nothing special. A thousand trips through the caves had begun the same way. How many travelers had he led through passages exactly like this one? Scholars with no survival skills, clueless merchants, families with children. People far less capable than a sensitive and her guardian.

It only took a few minutes to reach the end of the lamps. The darkness loomed ahead of them, a black maw that sucked up the last faint flickers of light. Felix slowed as they approached. He didn’t want to stop, but he needed to light his lantern. Better to plunge right in, keep up the momentum from what little courage he’d scraped together, but his hands were shaking again, and as he fumbled with the match his pulse quickened. A gleam on the stone caught his eye and he snapped his head up, breath catching. He scanned the shadows, half expecting to see the flash of claws. He watched for a long moment before dropping his gaze again.

At last, he had a steady flame burning. He lifted the lantern, spilling light farther down the passage. There was nothing different about the tunnel ahead. Same level floor, same carved walls. The light just came from his hands instead of the stationary lamps. He was being such a fool. Even a novice would laugh at his unfounded terror, like a schoolboy who put too much stock in superstition. Lilly, who had never set foot in the tunnels, didn’t look half as anxious as he felt.

Perhaps that was the problem. He knew which stories were exaggeration, and which ones weren’t.

If he were a client, how would he handle himself? Typically, his strategy for nervous newcomers was to distract them with curiosities. Look at the white flower in the moss there. That species only blooms a few days a year. But he’d seen every such curiosity ten times over, and as much as he appreciated them, they didn’t offer more than a few seconds of diversion.

His other tactic had been to get them talking. Not something he’d done much these past months. He heaved a deep breath. Talking it was, then.

He glanced at Sofia, a few paces behind and to the right. “You should teach me some signs.” The sudden noise startled him, his voice close and flat without the broad cavern acoustics. He’d spoken louder than he’d meant to. “In case of emergency.”

“Which ones would you like to know?”

“Start with some essentials. Tunnel.” He thought about where they were going. “Waterfall.”

“Like this.” She showed him.

He tried to copy, but found it difficult while holding his lantern.

Sofia chuckled. “Didn’t think that one through, did you? Lilly can hold it.”

He hesitated. Very rarely had he allowed clients to hold the light. It felt wrong even considering it. Hardly ten minutes into the tunnels, and old habits were surfacing. That boded well for their chance of survival, but he also needed to accommodate for new variables.

Delicately, he handed the lantern to Sofia to give to Lilly. He felt vulnerable as soon as the thing left his grip. Watching it pass between them was like watching a child play along the rocks at the water’s edge, and he had to resist the urge to reach for it like a tense parent.

There was nothing to fear this close to Venderstadt, he reminded himself. No need for split-second reactions and total darkness.

He tried to mimic the signs, and Sofia corrected him. After a few more attempts, she nodded in approval.

“Yes, like that,” she said. “Good. What next?”

“Echoes.”

That one was easy. One of the first words any child learned.

“Penumbra.”

He sensed the falter in her bearing, heard the worry on her face without needing to look. He kept walking, eyes fixed on the far edge of the lamplight.

“Wouldn’t we see Echoes before penumbra?” she asked, voice hesitant.

“Yes,” he said tonelessly. “Usually.”

“They live much deeper, don’t they? We’re not likely to come near any?”

A flicker of light on a rivulet of quartz made him snap his gaze to the side. The glint of an eye in the dark, the flash of claws…

“No,” he said. “But Echoes only mean the creature has killed, not that the creature is gone. I need to know the sign as a precaution.” He glanced at Sofia, her dark skin even darker in the shifting shadows, the two packs she carried big and bulky behind her.

“Yes, of course.” She made the sign.

He understood her fear. Penumbra were always a difficult topic to broach with clients, even those who had been through the tunnels more than once. He used to reassure them. A cavern guide lived and breathed the darkness. A cavern guide knew how to find and avoid penumbra. He supposed that was still true. Yet, it felt inappropriate to suggest Lilly and Sofia were safe with him.

They continued reviewing words as they walked, mostly objects and simple instructions. Lilly ignored them, quiet, watching the ground in front of her. To Felix’s relief, she held the lantern with a steady hand, and something about her posture seemed to respect its importance. He itched to take it back, but resolved not to until he could sign well enough to ask her himself.

The minor road from Venderstadt ran straight and open for several hours before connecting to another major tunnel. The few side tunnels they passed connected to small caverns and ponds frequented by Venderstadt locals. Felix found himself settling into the routine, pointing out landmarks and naming the critters that skittered by. Perhaps he needn’t have stayed away so long. Perhaps the monsters had grown in his mind more than the reality.

Eventually, the passage broadened and ended at a set of wide stone steps leading up to a much larger tunnel. The light spilled away in both directions, revealing a chiseled walkway and curved arches that supported the ceiling every few hundred meters. Cool air drifted in lazy currents. They stopped there, Sofia dropping the packs and rifling through a pocket while Lilly sipped at a water canteen.

Water? Lilly offered. Felix recognized the sign easily now.

He shook his head. Leaving the lantern on the ground between the two women, he stepped into the edge of the shadows where a patch of pale fungi clung to one wall. He picked a handful and brought them back.

“Dewbuds,” he said, laying them out on his palm. “They collect moisture from the air and trickles on the wall.” He broke one apart, and clear liquid ran out from a pocket at its center. “Don’t waste supplies in big tunnels like this. Other sources are easy to find. The path takes a bridge over a creek ten minutes that way, if you need to refill.”

He handed the dewbuds to Sofia and picked up the lantern. The others shouldered their packs and he led them down the tunnel, but he hadn’t gone ten steps when their footfalls ceased. When he glanced back, Lilly was bent over, hands on her knees, face white, Sofia at her side.

“What’s wrong?” he trotted back to them, but stopped short as a tingling spread over his skin.

Lilly took several deep breaths and straightened slowly. Sofia signed to her, but Lilly waved her off. She took another step, then doubled over again, and the tingling intensified.

“What is it is?” Felix repeated. “If don’t you tell me, I can’t help you.”

Lilly kept her eyes on the ground, unfocused. Sofia waited in tense silence. As Felix stood there, the foreign sensation crawled up his arm like spiders, tickling his neck, running down his back. The scars on his side ached with half-remembered pain. He took a step back.

After a few sips of water, Lilly seemed to regain her composure. She made signs with shaky hands, but he couldn’t follow. He looked to Sofia.

“We can’t go that way,” Sofia said. She paused between each sentence, watching Lilly. “The dead are nearby. Something in the tunnels.”

His heart fluttered. “Penumbra?” He made the gesture he’d learned as he spoke the word. They would never come to such a well-traveled road, would they?

Lilly shook her head.

“She’s never been near penumbra,” Sofia said, “so I don’t know if she can be sure. But this is very strong, she says. Strong, and silent. No cries or screams…” She trailed off, looking worried. After a moment of watching Lilly, she glanced to Felix. “The men on the ships died the same way.”

No sensitive would pick up such a thing. Sensitives could only feel the living. Felix kept his expression unreadable.

“That’s the way to Hochfall,” he said.

“We should find a different route.”

Maybe the tunnels around Venderstadt had the same curse as the river. Maybe there was no safe route. “The other way is the completely wrong direction.”

“How long would a different path take?”

He shook his head. “Three… four days? Using smaller passages to cut back around. Hochfall would still be closer than Strahlenblume, which could take up to a week.”

Sofia turned to Lilly, signing as she spoke. “How long have they been dead?”

She wrinkled her face, gestures hesitant. She made the symbol for a week, then shook her head and changed it to a month, then a year. Finally, she waved her answers away and said, I don’t know. There are many.

Felix’s stomach sank. Having never traveled with a sensitive before—or whatever Lilly was—for all he knew, maybe the tunnel had always been that way, tainted by ghosts from long ago. But his gut told him that wasn’t true.

He raised the lantern above his head and peered into the darkness. The passage continued on, wide and empty, sturdy arches breaking the smooth, chiseled stone as far as the eye could see. No differences stood out from one direction or the other, but as he gazed down the road to Hochfall, unease tickled his neck. He lowered the lantern and turned around, stepping past the women. “We’ll find another way.”