"Once before and once again," Tamura said.
"Wonderful," Yorin said. He shone the lantern straight at me. "Now what?"
I shrugged. "Now, I guess we find the nearest stairwell and go up." It seemed the most logical course of action. Tamura apparently had other plans.
"Treasure!" the crazy old man shouted and then he was off, running towards a nearby stairwell. I barely had time to react before I saw him vanish into the darkness.
Chapter 26
I've always liked to run. Maybe my training at the academy put that in me, or maybe it was already there before. There is something about a good sprint with legs pumping, carrying me as fast as possible under my own power. It's close to freedom, in a way. Not running from or to anything, but just running for the sheer bloody joy of it. I had fallen out of practice with my time in the Pit, and Tamura was faster than his old bones should have allowed.
I didn't wait for the others to decide what they were doing but took off after him. I could see flickering light fading away down the stairwell and wasted no time in launching myself down the steps. Only Tamura and Yorin carried lanterns, and the stairwell was almost full dark around me, yet I could see. Somehow, I could see the steps outlined in the darkness. I didn't spare it a second thought then. Maybe it was because the darkness inside of me was a shade darker than anything else the world might throw at me.
The steps led down for a while before stopping on a small landing and then doubling back on themselves, always leading further and further down into the bowels of the dead city. I could see Tamura's light bouncing away far below me. The crazy old man was moving faster than I. Youth, apparently, only counts for so much. After every few sets of steps, there was a landing which had a doorway opening out into even deeper darkness. I couldn't see much past those portals, but some had little yellow lights watching me pass.
I lost track of how much deeper Tamura led us into that place. Level after level sped past me in a blur. I heard the others shouting somewhere behind but ignored them. I can't really say why. It might have been wiser just to let the old man run off, disappear into the darkness. Maybe we should have counted him lost and made our way up, looking for a way out. But I couldn't just let Tamura go. I liked him. He spoke in riddles and I'm fairly certain he had fleas, but something about him comforted me. Tamura has always been part friend, part mentor, and more a father to me than any other I can remember.
I wondered how deep into the earth that city went. What secrets it might hold once it was explored fully. It would take a lifetime just to excavate the areas long since buried. I do know that stairwell continued down even after Tamura left it. He was following something, a memory, and it led into a new corridor. I trailed after, breathing heavily as I followed the light that bounced along in his wake. I didn't bother shouting after him, he wouldn't have stopped. For a crazy old man with a splintered reality he can be quite single minded when a compulsion takes him.
I stopped at the doorway to the corridor, partly to catch my breath and partly so the others, still coming behind me, knew we had left the stairwell. No sooner had Isen appeared around the corner, before I was off again, ignoring the burning in my limbs and launching back into a sprint before Tamura's light disappeared and we lost him in the darkness.
It was a strange feeling pushing my body like that. I could feel sweat breaking out all over my skin, yet I still felt cold inside. Cold, and hungry, and lost, but I couldn't share those feelings with anyone. I knew none would understand. Maybe Josef would have. He certainly knew the hunger. I think he knew the feeling of being lost as well. That was something we shared. But he was gone. Behind me. Left to fend for himself against the monsters I abandoned him to. And how I hated myself for abandoning him. No matter what he had done, how he had betrayed me, I missed him so much.
Tamura's light disappeared, stray beams bouncing around to the left of the corridor for a moment and then gone. I skidded to a halt at the doorway he had used. My feet ached as though the bones in my heels were about to shatter from the relentless pounding. My threadbare shoes were disintegrating and I was almost barefoot.
I started through the doorway and stopped, very nearly pitching off a cliff to my death. The sight ahead of me was bloody awe inspiring. A crumbling set of stairs to my left ended after just two steps and opened out into a grand hall so large it put the great cavern of the Pit to shame. Giant pillars stretched from ground to ceiling in columns, each so large it would take two dozen of me to ring it. The walls, much like those of the corridors, sloped outwards before inwards and stretched nearly a hundred feet above me, I found this more than a little amazing, considering the floor was maybe fifty feet below. Oddest of all was how well lit the hall was. Each of the two dozen pillars had spiral veins of glowing blue mineral snaking through it, casting the whole hall in an ethereal hue.
Tamura wasted no time with the view, he was already scrambling down what remained of the staircase, the lantern swinging from his belt. I was still standing there, awestruck, when the others finally caught us up.
"Huh..." Yorin's voice, and for the first time since we had met he sounded cowed. Grandeur on that sort of scale has a way of making even the most egocentric of us realise just how small we are. It was the same sort of reaction people give the first time they see Ro'shan and Do'shan floating through the sky. Or in Do'shan's case floating in the sky, secured firmly in place by massive chains buried deep into the earth.
"Looks just like that underwater city," Hardt said between deep gasping breaths.
"Except... more dead," Isen agreed.
"The other city had a hall just like this?" I asked, unable to take my eyes off the sight in front of me. I hesitate to admit it, but I was acting like a simpleton, staring all around the grand hall and wondering at what could have built it. It is humbling to see such things. To know we walk in the footsteps of giants, and to realise those same giants could crush us without even noticing.
"More than one," Hardt said. I could hear him moving about behind me, scuffing the stone as he leaned out to see Tamura clambering down to the floor. "We saw one completely flooded. Full of mur doing... uh. They said it was where they spawned. The other was dry enough. Had a roaring fire that didn't need any wood to burn, kept the whole place nice and warm. The pahht were using it as a marketplace. Some of the things they sold..."
"Remember the one that offered me a child?" Isen asked. "What would I do with a little cat anyway? Would just be a furry mouth to feed. It would probably just have stolen my purse and run back to its mum."
Yorin snorted and pushed passed towards the edge. It took him only a few moments to lower himself over and then he was following Tamura down to the ground.
"Where are you going?" Isen's voice was a snarl.
"Following the only one of you who has a lick of fucking sense," Yorin said, his voice strained as he concentrated on the climb down. Before long all three of us were scrambling down, side by side, after Yorin.
Tamura was waiting for us at the bottom of the climb. The crazy old man shifted from foot to foot and repeatedly counted the pillars in the giant hall. Yorin was kneeling, poking at something on the ground.
"Nice of you to wait." Isen was breathing hard and scowling. I thought it made him look dark and handsome in a brooding sort of way. I think back now, and he sounded petulant, and if there is a less attractive trait in a person, I don't know it.