Tunnels (37 page)

They wandered on for several hours, eventually scrabbling down a steep incline, their feet slipping and sliding in the red sand until they finally reached a level area. Will knew that if he'd been reading the map correctly they should be approaching the end of the Labyrinth. But the tunnel narrowed before them and appeared to end in a blind alley.

Fearing the worst, Will raced ahead, stooping as the roof lowered. To his relief, he found that there was a small passage to one side. He waited until
Cal
caught up, and they looked apprehensively at each other as Bartleby sniffed the air. Will hesitated, looking repeatedly from Tam's map to the opening and back again. Then he met
Cal
's
eyes and smiled broadly as he edged into the narrow passageway. It was bathed in a subdued green light.

"Careful,"
Cal
warned.

But Will was already at the corner. He became aware of a familiar sound: the patter of falling water. He moved his head until just one eye was peering around the edge. He was struck dumb by what he glimpsed, and inched slowly into the open, into the bottle-green glow, to get a better view. From Tam's description, and the pictures his imagination had conjured up, he was expecting something out of the ordinary. But nothing could have prepared him for the sight that met his eyes.

"The
Eternal
City
," he whispered to himself as he began to move down a huge escarpment. As he looked up, his wide eyes scrutinizing the roof of the immense domed space, water splashed onto his upturned face and made him flinch.

"Underground rain?" he muttered, immediately realizing how ridiculous that sounded. He blinked as it dripped into his eyes, stinging them.

"It's seepage from above,"
Cal
said, coming to a halt behind him.

But Will wasn't listening. He was finding it hard to come to terms with the titanic volume of the cavern, so massive that its farthest reaches were hidden by fog and the mists of distance. The drizzle continued to fall in slow, languorous swathes as they set off again down the escarpment.

It was almost too much to take in. Basaltic columns, like windowless skyscrapers, arced down from the mammoth span of the roof into the center of the city. Others speared upward from the outlying ground in mind-bending curves, encasing the city with gigantic undulating buttresses. It dwarfed any of the Colony's caverns with its scale, and brought to Will's mind the image of a gargantuan heart, its chambers crisscrossed by huge
heartstringlike
columns.

He pocketed the light orb and instinctively sought the source of the emerald green glow that gave the scene a dreamlike quality. It was as though he were looking at a lost city in the depths of an ocean. He couldn't be sure, but the light seemed to be coming from the very walls themselves — so subtly that at first he thought they were simply reflecting it.

He crossed over to the side of the escarpment and examined the cavern wall more closely. It was covered in a wild growth of tendrils, dark and glistening with moisture. It was algae of some kind, made up of many trailing shoots and thickly layered, like ivy on an old wall. As he held up the palm of his hand, he could feel the warmth radiating from it and, yes, he could see that there was indeed a dim glow coming from the edges of the curled leaves.

"Bioluminescence," he said aloud.

"
Mmmmmph
?" came the vague response from under
Cal's
canvas hood, which was twitching absurdly from side to side as he kept watch for the Styx Division.

As he continued down the incline, Will switched his attention back to the cavern, focusing on the most wondrous sight of all, the city itself. Even from this distance his eyes hungrily took in the archways, impossible terraces, and curving stone stairways sweeping up into stone balconies. Columns, Doric and Corinthian, sprang up to support dizzying galleries and walkways. His intense excitement was tinged with a sadness that Chester wasn't seeing all this with him as he should rightly have been. And as for Will's father, it would have blown his mind! It was just too much for him to absorb all at once. In every direction Will looked there were the most fantastic structures:
collosseums
and ancient domed cathedrals in beautifully crafted stone.

Then, as he came to the bottom of the escarpment, the smell hit him. It had been deceptively gentle at first, like old pond water, but with each step they'd descended, the more pungent it had become. It was rancid, catching in Will's throat like a mouthful of bile. He cupped a hand over his nose and mouth and looked at
Cal
in desperation.

"This is just gross!" he said, gagging on the stench. "No wonder you need to wear one of those things!"

"I know,"
Cal
said flatly, his expression hidden by the breathing mask as he pointed to the gully by the foot of the escarpment. "Come over here."

"What for?" Will asked as he joined his brother. He was astonished to see him thrust his hands into the molasses-like slurry that lay stagnating there.
Cal
lifted out two handfuls of the black algae and rubbed it over his mask and his clothes. Then he grabbed Bartleby by the scruff of the neck. The cat let out a low howl and tried to get away, but
Cal
streaked him from head to tail. As the filth dripped over his naked skin, Bartleby arched his back and trembled, looking at his master balefully.

"But the stink is worse that ever now! What the heck are you doing?" Will demanded, thinking his brother had taken leave of his senses.

"The Division uses stalker dogs — bloodhounds — around here. Any whiff of Colony on us and we're as good as dead. This slime will help cover our scent," he said, scooping up fresh handfuls of the brackish vegetation. "Your turn." Will braced himself as
Cal
doused the fetid weed over his hair, chest, and shoulders and then down each of his legs.

"How can you smell anything over this?" Will asked irately, looking at the oily patches on his clothes. The reek was overpowering. "Those dogs must have
some
sense of smell!" It was all he could do to stop himself from being sick.

"Oh, they do,"
Cal
said as he shook his hands to rid them of the tendrils, then wiped them on his jacket. "We need to get out of sight."

Crossing one by one, they passed swiftly over a stretch of boggy ground and into the city. They went under a tall stone arch with two malevolent gargoyle faces glaring down contemptuously at them, and then into an alley with high walls on either side. The dimensions of the buildings, the gaping windows, arches, and doorways, were huge, as if they'd been built for incredibly tall beings. At
Cal
's
suggestion, they slipped through one of these openings, at the base of a square tower.

Now out of the green light, Will needed his orb to study the map. As he pulled it out from under his coat, it illuminated the room, a stone chamber with a high ceiling and several inches of water on the floor. Bartleby scampered into one corner and, finding a heap of something rotten, he investigated it briefly before lifting a leg over it.

"Hey,"
Cal
said abruptly. "Just look at the walls."

They saw skulls — row upon row of carved death's heads covered the walls, all with toothy grins and hollow, shadowy eyes. As Will moved the orb, the shadows shifted and the skulls appeared to be turning to face them.

"My dad would've loved this. I bet this was a—"

"It's grisly,"
Cal
interrupted, shivering.

"These people were pretty spooky, weren't they?" Will said, unable to suppress a wide grin.

"The ancestors of the Styx."

"What?" Will looked at him questioningly.

"Their forebears. People believe a group escaped from this city at the time of the Plague."

"Where to?"

"Topsoil,"
Cal
replied. "They formed some sort of secret society there. It's said that the Styx gave Sir Gabriel the idea for the Colony."

Will didn't have the chance to question
Cal
any further because suddenly Bartleby's ears pricked up and his unblinking eyes fixed on the doorway. Although neither of the boys had heard anything,
Cal
became agitated.

"Come on, quick, check the map, Will."

They left the chamber, cautiously picking their way through the ancient streets. It gave Will an opportunity to inspect the buildings at close range. Everywhere around them the stone was decorated with carvings and inscriptions. And he saw the decay; the masonry was crumbling and fractured. It cried out with abandonment and neglect. Yet the buildings still sat proudly in all their magnificence — they had an aura of immense power to them. Power, and something else — an ancient and decadent menace. Will was relieved that the city's inhabitants weren't still in residence.

As they jogged down lanes of ancient stone, their boots scattered the murky water on the ground and churned up the algae, leaving faintly glowing blotches in their wake like luminous stepping stones. Bartleby was agitated by the water and pranced through it with the precision of a performing pony, trying not to splash himself.

Crossing a narrow stone bridge, Will stopped briefly and looked over the eroded marble balustrade at the slow-moving river below. Slick and greasy, it snaked lazily through the city, crossed here and there with other small bridges, its waters lapping turgidly against the massive sections of masonry that formed its banks. On these, classical statues stood watch like water sentinels; old men with wavy hair and impossibly long beards, and women in flowing gowns, held out shells and orbs — or just the broken stumps of their arms — toward the water, as if offering up sacrifices to gods that no longer existed.

They came to a large square surrounded by towering buildings but held back from entering it, taking refuge behind a low parapet.

"What is that?" Will whispered. In the middle of the square was a raised platform supported by an array of thick columns. On top of the platform were human forms: chalky statues in twisted postures of frozen agony, some with their features obliterated and others with limbs missing. Rusting chains wound around the contorted figures and the posts next to them. It looked like a sculpture of some long-forgotten atrocity.

"The Prisoners' Platform. That's where they were punished."

"Gruesome statues," Will said, unable to take his eyes off it.

"They're not statues, they're real people. Tam said the bodies have been calcified."

"No!" Will said, staring even more intently at the figures and wishing he had time to document the scene.

"
Shhhh
,"
Cal
warned. He grabbed Bartleby and pulled him to his chest. The cat kicked out, but
Cal
wouldn't let go.

Will looked at him inquiringly.

"Get down,"
Cal
whispered. Ducking behind the parapet, he cupped his hand over the cat's eyes and clasped the animal even more tightly.

As he followed suit, Will caught sight of them. At the far end of the square, as silent as ghosts, four figures appeared to float on the surface of the waterlogged ground. They wore breathing masks over their mouths, and goggles with large, circular eyepieces, making them appear like nightmarish man-insects. Will could tell from their outlines that they were Styx. They wore leather skullcaps and long coats. Not the lustrous black ones Will had seen in the Colony; these were matte, and camouflaged with streaky green and gray blocks of dark and light hues.

With easy military efficiency, they were advancing in a line, as one controlled an immense dog straining on a leash. Vapor was blowing from the muzzle of the inconceivably large and ferocious animal — it was unlike any dog Will had ever seen before.

The boys cowered behind the parapet, acutely aware that they had nowhere to run if the Styx came their way. The hoarse panting and snorting of the dog was growing louder — Will and Cal looked at each other, both thinking that at any moment the Styx would appear from around the edge of the parapet. They angled their heads, straining to catch the least sound of the Styx approaching, but there was only the hushed gurgle of running water and the unbroken patter of cavern rain.

Will's and
Cal's
eyes met. All the signs were that the Styx had gone, but what should they do?
Had the patrol moved on or was it lying in ambush for them?
They waited and, after what seemed like an age, Will tapped his brother on the arm and pointed upward, indicating he was going to take a look.

Cal
shook his head violently, his eyes flaring with alarm behind the half-fogged glass; they pleaded with Will to stay put. But Will ignored him and raised his head a fraction over the parapet. The Styx had vanished. He gave the thumbs-up, and
Cal
rose slowly to see for himself. Satisfied the patrol had moved on,
Cal
let go of Bartleby and he sprang away, shaking himself down and then glowering resentfully at both of them.

They skirted cautiously around the side of the square and chose a lane in the opposite direction from the one they assumed the Styx had taken. Will was feeling increasingly tired, and it was getting harder for him to catch his breath. His lungs were rattling like an asthmatic's, and a dull ache gripped his chest and rib cage. He summoned up all his energy, and they darted from shadow to shadow until the buildings ran out and the cavern wall was in front of them. They ran alongside it for several minutes until they came to a huge stone staircase cut into the rock.

"That was too close by half," Will panted, glancing behind them.

"You can say that again,"
Cal
agreed, then peered at the staircase. "Is this the one?"

"I think so." Will shrugged. At that point, he didn’t much care; he just wanted to put as much distance between them and the Styx as possible.