Only Yorin didn't laugh. He was standing by the doorway, peering out into the darkness, a brooding shadow.
Isen was the last one out of the crevice, hauling the final bag of supplies with him. He sank down against the wall once he was through and let out a sigh. Even covered in muck and rock dust the man was handsome and never more so than when he smiled. I moved closer and sank down next to him. For a moment I think he forgot his damaged pride and we leaned into each other. I don't know if he was breathing heavily from the climb or from being close to me. I like to think, even now, that it was me. Actually, now I'm almost certain it was. A man who hasn't stuck his cock in anything for a while can get aroused by just about anything. I was scarred and dirty, and I wore it both on the inside as well as out, but I was also still pretty. Back then, such a trivial detail seemed so important.
We leaned into each other for a while and I enjoyed the smell of him. There was stale sweat, true enough, but we all boasted that smell. Isen also smelled, of Isen, and that was something I quite liked. I looked up at him and found him looking back. I ached for Isen to lean in and give me my first kiss. I could see nothing but his cracked lips and the blue of his eyes. Then Tamura giggled and we both turned to find the crazy old man squatting on his haunches and staring at us all too close and all too knowingly.
No one can embarrass quite like the young, and I was still very young. I felt my cheeks flush, a strange sensation considering I was still chilled to the bone, and pushed Isen away from me. Launching to my feet I stalked past Tamura and headed to where Yorin and Hardt were peering into the darkness beyond the doorway.
"...probably just rats," Hardt said. I pushed past them both into the dim light beyond.
The corridor connecting to the doorway stretched out into the darkness. A few light gems embedded in the walls nearby gave off a slight illumination, but it appeared they only glowed after being exposed to light and the halls had no doubt sat in complete darkness for more years than any of us had been alive. The air hung heavy, a slight breeze barely perceptible.
I stopped a few paces in and glanced one way, then the other. The corridor extended into darkness in both directions with a number of visible doorways. A few stone benches lined the walls along with some pedestals. Whatever had occupied those pedestals was long smashed or rotted. A few benches had been reduced to nothing but rubble. An ancient helmet rested nearby, too small for anything but a child and dented in the forehead. Something seemed off. Something I couldn't quite place at the time. I felt as though I had seen the architecture before.
"It's so dark, I can barely see you. Eska?" Hardt's voice from the doorway.
I am the darkness. Said the voice inside my head and I repeated it out loud.
"All the same, I think we'll light a couple of lanterns." I turned to see Hardt disappearing back inside the doorway. It was odd, but I could see him so clearly despite the dark. Yorin remained, leaning against the wall and squinting towards me.
"Feel the breeze?" I asked. "That means there's a way out."
Yorin just nodded.
More likely we've just traded a prison for a tomb.
Chapter 25
We should have tried to collapse the wall behind us, or maybe even the crevice. I'm not sure which would have been easier, but we should have tried to conceal our escape route. That, at least, might have slowed our pursuers. But we foolishly believed we had gotten away with it. I thought my distraction would provide sufficient chaos to cover our disappearance. I thought Deko would have his hands too full to search the Pit for me, and I thought Prig would be too injured to care. I was right about that. The one person I did not count on was the overseer.
After lighting two lanterns and distributing the supplies so we were all carrying our fair share, we set out in the dark corridor. We followed the breeze as best we could and checked in each room we came across. It was slow going but it was fascinating seeing a ruined city long since buried beneath the earth. I wished Josef was with me. He would have been as fascinated as I, wanting to stop and pick through the remains. I have always loved adventure, reading stories of grand quests through buried tombs, but Josef loved history and spent almost as much time reading the annals. But I had left him behind. I had made the choice to leave him behind. Oh, how I wished I could take it back.
The architecture continued to tug at a memory I couldn't quite recall. The walls sloped outward for the first two feet from the ground and then inward at a slighter gradient all the way to a high ceiling. They were patterned, designs carved into the rock from which they were built. Some of the patterns seemed eloquent shapes and nothing more, while others looked like they might be lettering in some foreign language none of us knew. I wasn't sure if any of the others could read any known languages, though I guessed Tamura probably could. Whether or not his addled brain made sense of the words was another matter. I realised then how little I knew about my companions' pasts. But I didn't need to know who they had been or what they had done. I knew who they were, and that was what was important. Well, except for Yorin. I knew nothing about him other than his skill at killing things.
Every now and then, along the walls, an alcove showed remnants of statues. Every one, without fail, was little more than rubble laying around shattered remains. The others didn't seem to think anything of it, but it had me worried. Time laid waste to all things, but some things decayed more swiftly than others. Some of the stone benches were rubble, it was true, but those were far outnumbered by those left mostly intact. I pondered over the question of why stone benches might stand the test of time, yet stone statues did not. The voice in my head, the one I mistook for my own thoughts, suggested time and time again that we might not be alone in those endless halls of darkness. And they did seem endless.
At first, I thought we might have somehow gone in a circle and doubled back upon ourselves. It's hard to judge how straight a corridor is when you can only see a dozen feet in front of you. That first day we walked for hours, checking every room along the way, ignoring stairwells that led up or down. Isen argued we should be going up whenever the opportunity presented itself and it sounded sane enough, but Tamura and I had other ideas. We were following the breeze. The slight taste of fresh air was more certain to lead us to freedom than a stairwell leading to even more darkness. At least, that's what we thought.
We walked in silence for the most part, each of us listening to the sounds echoing around us. Or sometimes we just listened to Tamura humming away to a tune only he could hear. No matter which, there seemed little to say to each other. I think the tension between Isen and Yorin had something to do with the silence. The two had settled into a quiet disdain for each other and I feared any attempt at conversation might bring an argument between them. I doubted Isen would resort to violence, he knew Yorin would win, but if Yorin decided to fight, I wasn't certain any of us could stop him from killing Isen.
That first night we slept in a mostly empty room. I think it might have been a kitchen once, a small stone stove in the corner sat dusty and dead. We were all exhausted, even Yorin was starting to drag his heels, and there was little else to do but clear away patches of rubble and collapse into sleep. I wanted to curl up with Isen. Our impending freedom gave whatever was between us a growing urgency I couldn't ignore. But we were surrounded by the others, all close together in a small room. Of all the things I have done and seen in the world, nothing is quite so confusing as young lust. In the end I curled up with Hardt, as I had for weeks. I think I saw a pang of jealousy on Isen's face before I closed my eyes and dropped off to slumber.