Crawling inside with Mina, he felt something stab into his leg.
Reaching blindly about the room, he felt an arm—Pietro’s—and seized it, dashing the man against the wall. Pietro groaned and fell into a woozy heap as Max reached down to inspect a small wound in his thigh. It was superficial, probably a kitchen knife, and in his current state, it barely registered. Conjuring a glowsphere, Max saw them all—Pietro, the women, and the remaining children—huddled in a fearful clump against the far wall. They recoiled at the light and were evidently shocked at seeing Max once again. But this paled in comparison to the abject horror they exhibited upon seeing Mina.
“Abomination!” cried the old woman. “The child is accursed—she has brought the devil to our door!”
“Shhh!” Max hissed as another resounding thump sounded from downstairs. “Come and help me,” he said. “It’s trying to get in.”
No one moved. He had no time to argue. They might elect to stay behind, but he could not leave Mina with them for fear that they would hurt her in some mad effort to placate the thing outside. Lifting the child up once again, Max limped toward the open door and made for downstairs.
The great room was dark and eerily still. Max scooted Mina under the heavy table and whispered for her to be quiet, to remain silent no matter what happened—even if the creature called for her. Overcoming her terror, the girl nodded obediently and curled into a ball. Once she was safely stowed, Max crept to the center of the room and listened for any sign of the creature.
For a full minute there was nothing, just the sound of rain gushing from the gutters. But then Max heard a muted giggling, a terrible sound as though the monster could not contain its delight at this unexpected game of hide-and-seek. There was a sliding noise along the eastern wall followed by a probing thump against a shuttered window that was far too small to admit the monster. As Max’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he turned about the room, following the monster’s movements as it circled the house. Now and again, it emitted an earsplitting scream, an awful summons to the little girl curled beneath the table.
“Shhh,” hissed Max, holding his finger to his lips.
Mina nodded, her face furious with concentration as the scream subsided into giggles. There was rattling at the back shutters, almost playful. And then, to Max’s infinite revulsion, the monster began to talk. At first, Max thought that it was nonsense, garbled sounds and gulps that happened to approximate words. But there was a definite pattern to them, distinct syllables and intonation, as though the monster were trying to mimic human speech. Was it saying Pietro’s name?
The thumping at the door resumed. The door had been crudely reinforced, mismatched planks hammered into place along with a heavy beam that served as a drawbar. But the door was beginning to give. Max heard a crack and saw rivulets of powder spill from the hinges as they were pried slowly from the wall. Throughout, the monster screamed and giggled, occasionally making a hideous gurgle that sounded like “Pietro.”
As Max watched the door shudder, his limbs trembled. Frightful energies began to build within him, as though his body were a conduit for the very storm that raged outside.
Several furious blows suddenly hammered upon the door. It groaned inward, permitting a pale arm to shoot within the gap and fumble madly at the crossbeam.
Max threw himself against the door, pinning the arm against the jamb and twisting it violently about. There was a howl of pain, a furious thumping as the creature sought to free itself. Leaning against the door, Max gained a firmer hold on the monster’s wrist and elbow. Terrible strength lurked in that limb, and Max strained to maintain his grip while the monster thrashed about. To his horror, he discovered there were feelers on the monster’s sinewy forearm, snakelike tentacles with needle teeth that fastened onto Max’s flesh like hungry lamprey.
For the better part of a minute, the two engaged in a grisly tug-of-war. Max’s arm ran red with blood, but the creature screamed with pain from the iron grip of its assailant. Again and again, Max threw his weight against the door, crushing the creature’s arm within the narrow opening.
As the monster weakened, Max grew stronger. The Old Magic that crested within him was terrifying, electric surges of energy that rocketed through every vein and capillary. With furious determination, he slammed the door and wrenched the monster’s arm backward. There was a pitiable howl as the limb was twisted from its socket. A chilling voice spoke through the door, its gurgling words now perfectly comprehensible.
“Mercy,” it wheezed. “I will leave.”
Max leaned forward so that he came face to face with the monster.
The gap in the doorway was narrow, a mere six inches, but he could make out several features in the darkness. The first was an eye. As round and protuberant as that of a horse, it stared wide in an expression of astonishment or horror. The face was roughly manlike but looked as though it had been skinned and the skull grotesquely lengthened. That such an abomination should now be talking to him was almost too much to bear. Even as it pleaded, its tentacles continued to gnaw at Max’s arm.
“Mercy?” Max scoffed. “Do you ever show mercy?”
The creature screamed and tried to slip away, but Max held fast. Using all his strength, he gave the arm a terrible, twisting wrench. There was a crack followed by a pulpy squelch as the arm tore clear away at the elbow. Max fell backward, clutching the grisly trophy as the monster gave an earsplitting howl. The door fell inward, framing the monster’s awful silhouette against the night.
As Max clambered to his feet, the monster wheeled away. It raced across the clearing toward the muddy slope that led toward the well. Max dashed after, prying the mouths from his wounds and flinging the severed arm aside. While the monster moved frantically toward its lair, Max hobbled to the storehouse, where he had left his sword. A moment later, he had the gladius in hand.
Just before Max reached the well, the monster disappeared within, its tentacles slipping over the side like a snake plunging into its hole. Max halted abruptly at the dark opening and caught his breath. He had been taught never to blindly pursue anything into its burrow. Staring down into the black aperture, Max could hear nothing above the rain, no slapping of tentacles or gasps from the injured creature. It was as if the monster had simply dropped from the walls and fallen into an abyss.
But this monster was flesh and blood. It was no wrathful spirit that might disappear into the void. There was a bottom to this well and some lair where this monster sought refuge. Max would not give it refuge; he would press his advantage and finish the fight once and for all.
Wrapping the gladius’s strap about his wrist, Max conjured a glowsphere and sent it down into the well. It descended some ten or fifteen feet before it flickered and then disappeared altogether. The darkness almost seemed a tangible thing, a cauldron of ink that permitted no light whatsoever.
But Max had other senses. He would not turn back; he would not allow the monster to escape and nurse its wounds only to terrorize the farmhouse another night. This was why he had labored and trained in the Sidh. Rowan might abandon the people outside its walls, but Max would not. Max would pursue these horrors to the deep places of the world, and no pool of darkness—natural or not—would stop him.
But as he climbed down into the well and sank into that consuming blackness, his certainty wavered. Clinging to the curving wall, he inhaled a fetid reek and endured the eager scuttle of unseen spiders over his bleeding arm. There were air currents from below, nauseating drafts that rose and fell as though the well itself were aspirating. His chief fear was that the monster did not reside at the well’s bottom but had tunneled out a lair at some point along its length. If this was the case, it could wait for him to pass and strike when he was exceedingly vulnerable.
As he descended even farther, another chilling thought occurred to him. He had been assuming that the monster was solitary. But what if there was a mate or even offspring that resided in these awful depths? He envisioned a nest of the creatures,
a writhing mound of tentacles and arms and lidless eyes.
Even before Max reached the tunnel, he felt its presence. The reek was now almost unbearable, an overpowering smell of damp earth and decomposition.
At last Max’s probing foot met an empty space along the wall of the well. Using his toe to feel around the perimeter, Max slid hand over hand until he had inched several feet to his right. Holding his breath, he descended several more feet until his senses told him that he was positioned next to the opening.
For several minutes, Max waited in the blackness, straining to hear anything of the monster’s breathing or motions. But silence prevailed. He could try the Solas spell—a sudden blinding flash of light. He’d never known the measure to fail, but it was risky. This blackness was an unearthly dark. If the spell failed, Max would not have blinded the creature or even illuminated his surroundings, but merely revealed his position.
Given the darkness, illusions were useless, and Max was hopeless at other enchantments. As he weighed his dwindling options, he found himself hoping that the monster would do something hasty—launch an attack, anything to end this excruciating stalemate.
Long minutes passed before Max decided to crawl within the opening. He felt about the edges and determined that the hole was four or five feet in diameter.
He was confident the monster had come this way. The tunnel was cold and damp, but occasionally Max’s left hand slid across a warm slick—droplets of blood that marked the creature’s retreat. His right hand held the gladius, and he used its sharp point to probe the darkness ahead. But it met only air, so Max inched ahead, blind as a mole.
After some twenty yards, the gladius struck hard rock. Feeling about, Max realized that the tunnel had diverged. This posed a serious dilemma. If one tunnel had become two, then two could become four. The whole area might be a labyrinth of tunnels that harbored one monster or many. Within such impenetrable darkness, Max might become hopelessly lost—he might crawl about forever until weariness, hunger, or the monster overtook him.
It was no good, he decided. The tide had turned and there were too many factors in his opponent’s favor. Better to live and fight another day. From what he could guess, the monster had one food source—the farmhouse—and Max would wait until it emerged again. Backing away from the fork, Max retraced his steps, crawling backward lest the thing catch him unawares.
As Max retreated, he became aware of a grating noise, the unmistakable sound of sliding stone. The sweat on Max’s brow grew icy. This was no good. He had to get out of this place. Abandoning any effort at stealth, Max ceased his backing shuffle and turned around so he could crawl swiftly back toward the well. He no longer cared if he struck his head or tumbled down the well’s remaining depths—anything was better than remaining in this tunnel whose walls seemed to shrink and smother him.
The grating sound filled Max’s ears. No trick of acoustics could mask the origins now; the noise was coming from just ahead. Max’s sword struck a huge block of stone as it was being pushed across the tunnel’s opening. Frantic, he felt for the remaining gap. It was a mere two feet and dwindling. Max hesitated—he might be crushed if he tried to wriggle through.…
Boom.
Max winced as the tunnel opening was sealed. The sound reverberated all around him, a note of paralyzing finality that soon left him in a sickening silence. Exhaling, Max felt blindly about for the block’s edges. Its seal against the tunnel’s opening was tight in most places, but all along the bottom there was a slender gap. Digging his fingers underneath, Max just managed to touch something made of wood—a rod or series of rods that served as rollers to move the barrier. Max strained to push or pull the block out of the way, but it was no use. The stone weighed many tons, and some remote mechanism had secured it into place.
Leaning his back against it, Max stared into the blackness and tried to collect his thoughts. His worst fears had come true—he was entombed. For a second, he found himself wishing for David Menlo. He knew it was a wistful and childish sentiment. David could not come and make it all better—David was not here. Nor was Cooper or Bob or Ms. Richter or Hazel Boon or anyone who could help him. Max was alone. Only he could solve this problem.
And he must do it soon.
Max understood that his constitution was capable of enduring great extremes of heat and cold or even pain and injury. But when it came to such a consuming atmosphere, such a press of surrounding stone, his sanity was as susceptible as any.
“Keep your wits about you,” he whispered.
Crouching in the darkness, Max considered a variety of factors.
The first was the monster itself. It was badly injured but not incapacitated, for it remained healthy enough to flee and had mustered the strength to operate whatever mechanism closed the door.
The mere fact that there was such a door was profoundly disturbing. To move such a mass required intelligence and a sophistication of engineering. Whatever had built these tunnels possessed not only the capacity to delve through rock, but also the foresight and skill to devise a barrier capable of barring intruders or trapping prey. Either it had an accomplice of greater intelligence, or the monster possessed a considerable intellect of its own.
An intelligent creature, Max reasoned, would not seek an open fight against a demonstrably stronger opponent. Such an opponent would be more likely to lurk nearby until its prey wounded itself in some trap or was weakened from a lack of food, water, or will. It was unlikely to attack directly unless an advantageous situation presented itself.
It was also likely that an intelligent creature would have an alternate means of escape. Max guessed there must be other exits somewhere in the tunnels. At the very least, there must be a lever or contraption that had moved or secured the stone behind him. An alternate exit might be very far away, but the mechanism that had moved the stone was likely to be close by. Where there was a will, there was a way, and Max resolved that no lack of spirit would make him a meal or a prisoner.
While he was determined to search for the mechanism, he still did not know whether the monster was alone or if other hellish things were waiting in the darkness. Aboveground, the monster had displayed a gloating cruelty when it believed it was in control. Now that Max was bottled up like a fly, could it be goaded into doing the same?
“Hello!” he cried into the darkness.
The word shot off, echoing throughout the unseen tunnels.
“Can you hear me?” Max called.
Silence.
“Do you think I care about that stone?” Max shouted. “Do you think I care about the darkness? None of it matters! I’m coming for you all the same.…”
This did elicit a reaction.
The sound was obscured initially by the fading echo of Max’s words. But it grew louder. It was a deep, steady giggling that filled the tunnels and seeped into Max’s soul. The laughter was terrifying, but it also served its purpose. Although he could not pinpoint its precise location, Max had still learned that the monster was relatively close and that it was most likely alone.
Steeling himself, Max began the slow, cautious journey down the tunnel. The blackness yawned before him like the universe. When he reached the spot where the tunnel branched off, he ran his hand over the stone. Like Theseus in the Minotaur’s labyrinth, Max would leave a trail so he could retrace his steps. Taking his pocketknife, Max carved an X in the soft limestone. Despite his anxiety, he exercised patience and retraced the grooves, ensuring the mark would be obvious if he crossed it again.
On and on he went, creeping along the tunnels like a sewer rat, groping blindly in the darkness and listening for any sign of the monster. It was impossible to gauge time—he might have been worming his way for days.
And then Max’s sword struck something soft. He stopped and considered the space before him. There was water, rhythmic dripping into a nearby pool. The acoustics suggested a cavern, some sizable hollow. Fumbling about, Max searched for anything he might throw to better approximate the space. Whe
n his hands slid into cold, rank water, he eased forward, pushing his fingers through grainy silt until he discovered some pebbles among the sludge.
There was something oddly familiar about their shapes. Turning one over in his hand, Max thumbed a pronged end that tapered to a smooth, flat edge. Feeling about the silt once again, Max discovered dozens more and recoiled from the pool.
The objects were not pebbles. They were teeth.
Breathing deep, he tried to overcome his horror with the comfort that he had discovered something important. The cavern must be the monster’s lair or feeding place. Listening carefully, Max concluded that he was alone.
From his initial throws, he learned that the cavern was indeed a very large space and that not all of it was submerged. Several tosses suggested that there was a rim of dry rock that ran along the perimeter, while the plunk from a high toss indicated that the ceiling was high and the water became considerably deeper. Standing, Max threw a handful of teeth directly ahead.
He expected to hear them striking rock and water, but one of the teeth made a sharp ping that resonated throughout the chamber. It had struck something metallic. With several more tosses, Max divined that there were a variety of objects situated upon some sort of island in the pool.
Max had to investigate such a curious development, but it would necessitate crossing the dank water. Gripping his sword tightly, Max edged into the pool, feeling with his toes for any sudden drop-off. The water grew progressively deeper until it reached Max’s chin. Straining to keep his head above the surface, Max slid his feet through a sickening layer of slime. After twenty or thirty feet, the floor gradually rose and he clambered onto the island.
Groping ahead, Max made a most unexpected discovery.
It was a filing cabinet. At least it felt like one—a metal box some three feet tall with a number of thin, flat drawers. Easing past it, Max felt the edges of a large table and a wooden chair. Running his hands over the table’s surface, Max encountered paper and pens … a pad of some kind. Lifting the pad, he felt it knock against something. There was an audible wobbling just before the object slipped off the table.