"Nobody else is going to say it, so I will," Yorin started. "What happened here?" He stood up and was holding an old sword in his hand, rusted beyond use. The blade was already disintegrating into a red brown mist of dust. "There's weapons like this scattered all around; all old and crap, but used. Helms too."
"Not to mention the scarring," Hardt agreed. "Walls with rents slashed through them. Benches caved in. Statues defaced."
Isen snorted. "It's just time. These places are old..."
"Older than old," Tamura said.
"Right," Isen said. "Older than old. You know that, Hardt. We saw it in the other one. The creatures there said they'd been there hundreds of years if not more.
"This..." Isen picked up another rusted old sword and slapped it against the nearby wall. The blade burst into dust. "This is what happens when good metal is left to rot for that long. What I wouldn't give for a real sword in my hand." The look he gave Yorin was vicious, and I knew then that their fight was far from over.
Tamura giggled and we all looked his way. "This is what happens when magic and monsters..." He clapped his hands together so fast and hard that the slap echoed around the emptiness of the hall.
We all stood there for a while in silence, listening to the clap echo and straining to hear anything else. Thankfully, the world around us fell silent once again and I let out a sigh of relief.
Tamura was still grinning as he turned and struck off towards one of the pillars. I watched him go for a moment and then followed, ignoring the battered and broken swords and armour that littered the ground along with other bits of rubble and debris. We should have listened to Yorin.
Tamura stopped at the first pillar and started poking it, walking all around it and running his hands over the seams in the rock. I moved in for a closer look at the glowing blue mineral. It looked almost crystalline. It twisted and snaked through the pillar in strange designs. I reached out, scratching against the seam with a fingernail but it was as hard as the rock it was sunk into.
"It's warm," I said idly as I lay a palm against the pillar. "What is it?"
"Blood of the earth." Tamura was still moving around the pillar, tapping at bits and running his hands over the rock. Hardt and Isen had retrieved a third lantern and moved off to the side of the hall, checking inside one of the many doorways. Yorin wandered off, and I turned away as he pulled out his cock to piss against one of the pillars.
"I thought people called lava blood of the earth?" As soon as the words were out of my mouth Tamura stopped searching the pillar and reached out, grabbing my left hand. I tried to pull away but the old man's grip was iron. He turned my hand over and traced a fingernail along one of my veins. I think I was caught between anger, shock, and indignation. Despite the look on my face Tamura just stared at me with a smile. "Blood is red, and blood is blue." He let go of my arm and went back to the pillar.
I am no Biomancer, but all students at the academy were taught some rudimentary physiology. The Orran Academy did a lot of bad in its time, but it also gave me an excellent education.
"Blood is only red when exposed to air," I said slowly. "Are you saying this is lava without air?"
Tamura laughed, blowing out air in a snort. "No. Foolish girl."
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't fairly angry at being called a fool. I felt my cheeks flush red and my hands clenched into fists. Despite the anger coming from me, and the heat coming from the pillar, I still felt cold inside. I fought to master my frustration and managed to push it down.
"That's what you get for expecting wisdom from a crazy old man," Yorin said from nearby.
"So, you think my question was stupid?" I asked.
"No such thing as a stupid question," Tamura answered from the other side of the pillar.
"What about stupid people?" I asked with a savage grin at Yorin.
"Oh yes." Tamura's head poked around the side of the pillar and he nodded at me, then glanced at Yorin. "There are most certainly those. They are usually the ones who don't ask questions for fear of them being stupid."
The old man sighed and shook his head emphatically. "This. Is the wrong one." With that Tamura left the pillar and struck off towards the next one before circling it, searching with eyes and hands.
I glanced at Yorin and found him staring at me. "Crazy old man," he said.
I ground my teeth in annoyance and leapt to Tamura's defence. "That crazy old man is the only reason we're free. He found our escape route."
"We're not free," Yorin said. "This isn't free. It's all just another part of the Pit. It's the illusion of freedom. Chances are, we die down here. You and me. Probably not the old fool. The brothers definitely will. Either we starve before we find a way out, or those things get bored of waiting and eat us." He said it so matter of factly, I almost missed it.
"What things?" I asked.
"Eyes in the dark," Yorin said with a grimace. "Like the little light gems in the walls. But they're not. They watched us sleep last night. All night."
"You saw them too?" I asked. I was more than a little glad it wasn't just me. At the same time, I realised that meant there really were things down in the dark with us.
Yorin nodded at me. His face was so impassive, as though he didn't care one way or another.
"Fuck them! They won't follow us out and there is a way out." I said with force. I wanted Yorin to believe me. I think, perhaps, if I could have convinced the most sceptical of our group then maybe I could have started believing it myself. "There is, and we'll find it."
Yorin sniffed and shrugged. "The old man has found something." He pointed to where Tamura had his face pressed up against one of the pillars.
"Treasure!" Tamura grinned at us as we drew near. The way the blue light lit his face and the rows of hair on his head made him look manic.
I looked at the pillar. Unlike the others, this one had a white X scraped across it, each line as big as my arm. Some of the more fanciful books I read back at the academy, tales of adventure and peril and buried treasure often mentioned a similar mark. Between bard stories and real life, I find it is truly worrying how many times X marks the spot.
"Looks just like all the others to me," Yorin said.
Tamura set to scraping at the stone pillar with his fingers. "One and the same, all the same. Just like all the others. On the outside. All boxes look the same. Cases. Bags. A closed fist."
Tamura turned to us and held out both his hands as fists. He turned his hands over and opened the first. It was empty. He opened his second fist and on the palm of his hand was small sphere, no larger than a marble. "But inside..." he said.
Yorin looked at the open hand and sighed. "Another gem. We're surrounded by fucking gems, old man. Worth a fortune on the surface, no doubt. But down here I'd rather have a bowl of gruel."
Tamura ignored Yorin, his eyes locked on my own.
"It's not a gemstone," I said slowly, almost reverently. Already, I could feel my stomach rumbling and I ached to snatch it from Tamura's hand. "It's a Source."
Chapter 27