A short time later, three messengers thundered past-paying him no heed at all. The drum of horse hoofs was slow to fade, and the clouds of dust left in their wake hung suspended, lit only by starlight.
Venaz the hero, Venaz who followed orders, and if those meant something vicious, even murderous, then that was how it would be. No questions, no qualms. He had returned up top in grim triumph. Another escape thwarted, the message sweetly delivered. Even so, he liked being thorough. In fact, he’d wanted to make sure.
And so, in keeping with his new privileges as head of the moles, when he col-lected a knotted climbing rope and set off back into the tunnels, he was not ac-costed. He could do as he liked now, couldn’t he? And when he returned, carrying whatever proof he could find of the deaths of Bainisk and Harllo, then Gorlas
Vidikas would see just how valuable he was, and Venaz would find a new life for himself,
Good work led to good rewards. A simple enough truth.
Whatever flood had filled part of the passage deep in the Settle had mostly drained away, easing his trek to the crevasse. When he reached it he crouched at the edge, listening carefully-to make certain that no one was still alive, maybe scuffling about in the pitch blackness down below. Satisfied, he worked Bainisk’s rope off the knob of stone and replaced it with his own, then sent the rest of the coil tumbling over the edge.
Venaz set his lantern to its lowest setting and tied half a body-length of twine to the handle, and the other end to one ankle. He let the lantern down, and then followed with his legs. He brought both feet together, the rope in between, and edged further over until they rested on a knot. Now, so long as the twine didn’t get fouled with the rope, he’d be fine.
Moving with great caution, he began his descent.
Broken, bleeding bodies somewhere below, killed by rocks-not by Venaz, since he’d not even cut the rope. Bainisk had done that, the fool. Still, Venaz could still take the credit-nothing wrong with that.
Even with the knots, the slow going was making his arms and shoulders ache. He didn’t really have to do this. But maybe it would be the one deed that made all the difference in the eyes of Gorlas Vidikas. Nobles looked for certain things, mysterious things. They were born with skills and talents. He needed to show the man as much as he could of his own talents and all that.
The lantern clunked below him and he looked down to see the faint blush of dull light playing across dry, jagged stones. A few moments later he was standing, somewhat uneasily as the rocks shifted about beneath him. He untied the lantern and put away the twine, and then twisted the wick up a couple of notches. The circle of light widened.
He saw Bainisk’s feet, the worn soles of the moccasins, the black-spattered shins, both of which were snapped and showing the split ends of bones. But there was no flowing blood. Bainisk was dead as dead come.
He worked his way closer and stared down at the smashed face, slightly startled by the way it seemed fixed in a smile.
Venaz crouched. He would collect Bainisk’s belt-pouch, where he kept all his valuables-the small ivory-handled knife that Venaz so coveted; the half-dozen coppers earned as rewards for special tasks; the one silver coin that Bainisk had cherished the most, as it showed on one face a city skyline beneath a rainbow or some sort of huge moon filling the sky-a coin, someone had said, from Daru-jhistan, but long ago, in the time of the Tyrants. Treasures now belonging to Venaz.
But he could not find the pouch. He rolled the body over, scanned the blood-smeared rocks beneath and to all sides. No pouch. Not even fragments of string.
He must have given it to Harllo. Or maybe he’d lost it somewhere back up the passage-if Venaz didn’t find it down here he could make a careful search on his way back up top.
Now, time to find the other boy, the one he’d hated almost from the first. Al-ways acted like he was smarter than everyone else. It was that look in his eyes, as if he knew he was better, so much better it was easy to be nice to all the stupider people. Easy to smile and say nice things. Easy to be helpful and generous.
Venaz wandered out from Bainisk’s body. Something was missing and not just Harllo’s body. And then, after a moment, he realized what it was. The rest of the damned rope, which should have fallen close to the cliff base, close to Bainisk, The damned rope was gone-and so was Harllo.
He worked his way along the crevasse and after twenty or so steps he reached the edge of the floor, which he discovered wasn’t a floor at all, but a plug, a bridge of fallen rock. The crevasse dropped away an unknown depth, and the air rising from below was hot and dry. Frightened by the realization that he was standing on something that could collapse and fall away at any moment, Venaz hurried back in the other direction.
Harllo was probably badly hurt. He must have been. Unless… maybe he had been already down, standing, holding the damned rope, just waiting for Bainisk to join him. Venaz found his mouth suddenly dry. He’d been careless. That wouldn’t go down well”, would it? This could only work out right if he tracked the runt down and finished him off. The thought sent a cold tremor through him-he’d never actually killed somebody before. Could he even do it? He’d have to, to make everything right.
The plug sloped slightly upward on the other side of Bainisk’s body, and each chunk of stone was bigger, the spaces between them whistling with winds from below. Terrifying grating sounds accompanied his every tender step.
Fifteen paces on, another sudden drop-off. Baffled, Venaz worked his way along the edge. He reached the facing wall-the other side of the crevasse-and held high the lantern. In the light he saw an angular fissure, two shelves of bedrock where one side had shifted faster and farther than the other-he could even see where the broken seams continued between the shelves. The drop had been about a body’s height, and the fissure-barely a forearm wide-angled sharply into a kind of chute.
Bainisk would never have squeezed into that crack. But Harllo could, and did-it was the only way off the plug.
Venaz retied the lantern, and then forced himself into the fissure. A tight fit. He could only draw half-breaths before the cage of his ribs met solid, unyielding stone. Whimpering, he pushed himself deeper, but not so deep as to get stuck-no, to climb he’d need at least one arm free. By crabbing one leg sideways and squirming with his torso, he moved himself into a position whereby he could hitch himself up in increments. The dry, baked feel of the stone began as a salvation. Had it been wet he would simply have slid back down again and again. Before he’d managed two man-heights, however, he was slick with sweat, and finding streaks of the same above him, attesting to Harllo’s own struggles. And he found that the only way he could hold himself in place between forward hitches was to take the deepest breath he could manage, turning his own chest into a wedge, a plug. The rough, worn fabric of his tunic was rubbing his skin raw.
How much time passed? How long this near vertical passage? Venaz lost all sense of such details. He was in darkness, a world of stone walls, dry gusts of air along one flank, a right arm that screamed with fatigue. He bled. He oozed sweat. He was a mass of scrapes and gouges. But then the fissure widened in step fractures, each one providing a blessed ledge on which to finally rest his quivering muscles. Widening, becoming a manageable chute. He was able to draw in deep breaths, and the creaking ache of his ribs slowly faded. He continued on, and before long he reached a new stress fracture, this one cutting straight into the bedrock, perpendicular to the chute.
Venaz hesitated, and then worked his way into it, to see how far it went-and almost instantly he smelled humus, faint and stale, and a little farther in he arrived at an almost horizontal dip where forest detritus had settled. Behind that heady smell there was something else-acrid, fresh. He brightened the lantern and held it out before him. A steep slope of scree rose along the passage, and even as he scanned it there was the clatter of stones bouncing down to patter amidst the dried leaves and dead moss.