The Woad to Wuin Read online

  When we tired, we slept, albeit in shifts. When we hungered, we ate. There was, however, very little talking. I knew that Sharee still carried resentment toward me with the business of the ring. For my part, I couldn’t really think of all that much that I wished to discuss with her. So we passed our time together in silence. Eventually we’d been wandering through Ba’da’boom for so long that I was having trouble remembering a time when the sun had shone upon my face. The one consolation I was able to take in all this was that there was no way the annoyingly loud Lord Beliquose could possibly be following us. Not even a bloodhound could track us now, I reasoned.

  In time, I tired of the silent companionship. It happened during an occasion when we were sitting at a juncture point between two corridors. We were eating some of the rations that I had brought along. Water, fortunately enough, had not been a problem. We had gone through the water in the skins that I had brought, but we’d managed to find enough small rivers and natural water sources around us that we’d filled them as we went. I was beginning to feel somewhat bedraggled. I longed for a warm bath, and to cease feeling dirty and grimy. As I chewed on a tasteless piece of hardtack, a rat came scuttling up, its nasty eyes glittering in the darkness. When the repulsive little things had first encountered us in the caverns, I’d been nauseated and appalled by them. But there were so many other unnerving things I’d had to deal with that, by that point, rats had become almost incidental. The moment the thing was stationary, I swung my staff hard and crushed the creature’s spine with the carved wooden head. The rat flopped about helplessly, screeching its death screams, and I hit it again in order to terminate the ungodly noise.

  Sharee looked at the bloodied pulp of the creature with a face twisted in disgust.

  “Don’t turn your nose up at it, weaver,” I said with more cheerfulness than even I felt. “If we’re down here long enough and we run out of provisions, you’re looking at a typical luncheon.”

  “Do you enjoy making people sick, Apropos?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never given it much thought.”

  The glowworm globe was starting to burn low. She’d replenished it every so often, and I had no idea how many of the things she had squiggling about on her person. Nor did I know what they were eating to survive. Each other, possibly. I just hoped her supply of them didn’t become depleted. The caverns were oppressive enough. Having to face them in utter blackness was more than even I could stomach. She shook a new supply of the worms into the now-open globe and proceeded to mash them down. As the light began to generate once more, she muttered something that I didn’t quite catch. “What was that?”

  “I was just wondering,” she said, “what you have given much thought to.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” and she sounded more sad than anything when she said it, “have you ever given thought to doing something for people other than hurting them?”

  I looked at her contemptuously. “Sharee … I’ve never gone looking for trouble, and I’ve never hurt anyone who didn’t hurt me first. And on those occasions when I have endeavored to help people, it ended in nothing but disaster. So don’t presume to know me, don’t presume to judge me, and certainly don’t presume to lecture me, because you know nothing about me.”

  “And what do you know about you?”

  “All I need to.”

  “Apropos, no one in the world knows all they need to know about themselves. The first step to truly knowing yourself is to realize that you know nothing.”

  I snorted at that.

  She leaned forward, and she seemed genuinely interested. “Tell me, Apropos … are you a good guy, or a bad guy?”

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “I’m the one who’s having it, Apropos … and considering the pure revulsion I feel when I look at you because of what you did to me, you’re fortunate I’m having it with you at all.”

  “To hell with you!” I snapped, standing up abruptly and promptly cracking my head nastily on a low overhanging rock. Unlike earlier when I had refused to rub my slapped cheek, this time I clutched my head with both hands and muttered a string of profanities. Sharee actually laughed, which annoyed the hell out of me, but also made me realize (in my distant, pained way) that I had never actually heard her laugh before. It was a not unpleasant sound. “I’m pleased you’re amused,” I said sourly.

  “Apropos, listen …”

  “No, you listen. You feel I victimized you. I feel I was the one who was victimized. But apparently I need to point out that I provided succor to you and got my hall burned down as a consequence. So however unjustly you feel you were treated, at the very least one would have to say we were even.”

  “You gave me succor because I forced you into it.”

  I grumbled something even I couldn’t comprehend and sat back down, still rubbing my head in irritation.

  Sharee took a quick draught of the water, using it sparingly since we had no idea how long we would be making our way underground, or how long the water supplies we found along the way would hold out. Then she reminded me, “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “It’s a ridiculous question.”

  “Whether you consider yourself good or evil is a ridiculous question?” she asked, looking at me askance.

  “The most evil of men finds the best of reasons for what they do,” I said, “while the most pious of men consume themselves with cleansing themselves of what they believe is evil. It’s a nonsensical notion, a question best left to philosophers and clerics.”

  “And you are neither of those.”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you?”

  I stared at the squashed rat. It was actually starting to look appetizing … certainly more appetizing than this conversation. “What am I?”

  “Yes. What are you?”

  “I was a tavern owner until you came along and wrecked it.”

  “Yes, and before that a knight, and before that a squire, and a thief before that,” she rattled off. “But what … are … you?”

  “I am whatever my next profession is, just as you are a weaver. What sort of …”

  But she shook her head firmly. “No. I am a weaver because that is who I am. It is in my heart and soul. Were I a whore, I would still be a weaver. There are wenches slinging mead who will tell you that they are actors, and kings who would really consider themselves freelance sellswords who just happened to be wearing a crown. You have to decide what you are, Apropos, and once you know that, you truly can determine whether you’re good or evil. Although I can tell you this”—she snorted disdainfully—“a tavern keeper you most certainly are not. That is not fit for you. Whatever you are, it is far greater than that.”

  “Again, this is nonsense. I still do not …” Then I stopped talking, and frowned, and turned the conversation over and around in my mind, and suddenly things seemed a good deal clearer to me.

  “Apropos … ?” she prompted.

  And suddenly I was upon her, grabbing her by the front of her tunic. She let out a gasp of surprise, which was exactly what I wanted, and I shoved her back against the rock wall. Not hard. I wasn’t trying to hurt her. Frankly, if it came down to a serious battle of fists, she could probably have disposed of me rather ably. But I had caught her off guard, and that was all that I was trying to attain.

  “You know something,” I said.

  “Are you mad? Get off—!”

  “You’ve foreseen something somehow. Something that I’m supposed to be doing, something that could affect a sizable number of people. Something that will give me power. But you’re not certain how I’m going to use it, and you’re trying to figure it out now before we reach that point.”

  Her face was flushed, surprised, and she tried to look away from me. I shook her gaze back to my eyes. “That’s it, isn’t it.”

  “It’s none of your concern,” she said, and shoved my arms off her. I stepped
back and her glare was like a shimmering beacon of hostility.

  “Not my concern? This is my life you’re holding up for examination.”

  “I thought you believed in defying whatever destiny has in store.”

  “Yes, I do believe that,” I affirmed, “but you don’t. And on that basis, I’m curious to know what it is that my answer would entail. Let us say that something significant were going to happen to me. Something was going to give me power over—for instance—life and death. Let’s say that I was going to be ‘evil,’ or at least what you would judge evil to be. What of it? What is it to you?”

  “Why, then,” she said, “I would have to stop you.”

  “Stop me?” I scratched at my bearded chin. “Stop me how?”

  “With the power of this,” she said, and reaching into her cloak …

  … she pulled out the gem. It glittered at me mockingly.

  I blinked in surprise. Sharee, for her part, looked insufferably smug. “What, did you think I was unaware that you had removed it from me? Did you truly think me that stupid? If you wanted to carry it around instead of me, that was of no consequence to me. But do not think I couldn’t take it back from you whenever I wished. I may not be a thief on your lofty level, Apropos, but I can hold my own. And this gem is my own. And now I’m holding it.” She smirked and couldn’t resist adding, “So there.”

  It was at that moment that I heard that steady boom, boom sound once more, enabling the underground realm called Ba’da’boom to live up to its name. I had become so accustomed to its on-again/off-again nature that I couldn’t even say at that point how long this most recent pounding had gone on. All I knew, though, was that it was steadily getting on my nerves. As I slung my pack with our provisions over my shoulder, I bellowed in frustration, “Will you cease that infernal booming?”

  Much to my surprise, it stopped.

  Sharee and I exchanged looks of surprise.

  Then it started once more, and it sounded louder. Even more alarming … for the first time it sounded nearer. Not only that, but—although it could have very well been my imagination—the shadows cast in the dim light of the glowworm globe seemed longer, more ominous. They seemed to be … reaching out to us somehow, and I could swear that they were moving in ways that did not remotely reflect what we ourselves were doing.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” Sharee whispered. “I … think we’d better evacuate.”

  At that moment I was so paralyzed with fear that the only thing that was going to be evacuated anytime soon was my bladder, and possibly my bowels. I knew that I needed something that would cause me instinctively to bolt, and with the thought came the deed. I suddenly lunged forward, snatched the glittering diamond from her still-outstretched hand, and ran.

  “Hey!” yelled Sharee in aggravation, and then she was after me. This was, at least, something I could understand. Fear of assault by restless specters was so beyond my ken that it caused me to freeze on the spot. But fear of being apprehended by someone from whom I had stolen something, that was a state of affairs to which I was quite accustomed. Familiarity bred speed, and I moved as quickly as I could. The pack was bouncing up and down on my back against my sheathed sword, and I was balancing myself quite skillfully with my staff as I made my way handily. Sharee was right behind me, still calling out my name, sounding most frustrated about the entire state of affairs. She did not, however, think to stop and try and draw me back to her, which was fortunate, since she was holding the only light source.

  I moved as quickly as I could, cutting left, right, left again with no particular pattern, or even rhyme or reason to my tactics. I tried to keep an eye out for wall markings I might have used to guide us, but it was entirely possible that I missed some since I was moving so quickly. Right, then left, then another left, then right. It was impossible for me to be certain, but I tried to find the routes that seemed to be the easier to navigate. Then again, for all I knew I was heading us straight into the open arms of whatever was coming at us from behind.

  Suddenly the light dimmed out. “Sharee!” I called out, whirling to face her, wondering if she had somehow dropped the globe or some such, and was on the floor scrambling about, trying to retrieve it.

  There was no sign of her.

  I spat out a curse and shouted her name again, but oddly enough, profanities did very little to bring her to hand. To be specific, they didn’t accomplish a damned thing, for curse as I might, she did not magically appear in response.

  “Apropos!” I heard her call, and for a heartbeat I thought that somehow she had been rendered invisible. But then my budding hysteria quelled that perception as I realized she was calling me from somewhere, but it was distant. Or perhaps it was nearby. It was really impossible for me to tell, because the way her voice was echoing, she could be just about anywhere. Obviously I had done too good a job running from her, for I had managed to lose her. Now we both had a problem, but it was too late to rectify it. Fortunately enough, it was never too late to panic.

  It’s moments such as this that I would love to dazzle you with some previously unsuspected supply of bravery that I might have produced at that moment. But I think you very likely know me well enough by now to predict that my response to the peril of the situation was to scream Sharee’s name over and over while sweating profusely and feeling that darkness was about to overwhelm me. My breath was coming in faster, more frantic gasps, and I was completely disoriented.

  And, worst of all, I was in the dark.

  Now the human ability to adapt to various environments has always been quite phenomenal. Along those lines my eyes had adjusted rather nicely over our extended stay in the cave to the meager light that the glowworms provided for us. But even that was gone now, and although I was able to discern the vaguest of shapes, that was the extent of it. Furthermore, it seemed as if every one of those shapes was moving ever so slightly, plus the constant and consistent boom boom boom had not eased up. I felt as if it was entering every aspect of my being, physical, mental, and spiritual. I was living and breathing the boom. I was becoming one with the boom. The poison of the crimes that had occurred here in the depths of Ba’da’boom was infecting me, and I had no way of flushing the toxins from me.

  I heard other sounds then, aside from the incessant boom, turned and stumbled down another passageway, and then the blackness became absolute.

  Absolute.

  It is a cliché, I suppose, to say that one cannot see one’s hand in front of one’s face. And because it is such an overused statement, it diminishes the true horror of genuinely not being able to see one’s hand in front of one’s face. It’s like being struck blind all at once. I knew I was waving my hand before my eyes, waggling my fingers, but they might as well have been totally disconnected from my body for all that my eyes assured me of their presence.

  My legs trembled frantically, and I leaned blindly forward, hoping that I would come in contact with something to guide me. I would have used my walking stick as a cane the way that the blind do, but I needed that to lean on, for my right leg had not miraculously become whole. And with the ground uneven and invisible to me, I required everything I could get my hands on to prevent stumbling.

  I reached out, out, and my questing palm found a wall. There seemed to be some sort of carving in it, letters. I had no idea what they said, nor did I wish to know.

  I made my way haltingly along, with the constant boom near to driving me mad, and that was when I felt something sliding off the wall beneath my very hands. At first I thought that somehow my hand had slipped across some sort of … of slime growing on the rocky surface. But then I realized that there was no wetness at all. That the wall was dry to the touch … but cold, so very cold …

  … and the wall was moving again, or part of the wall, the surface of the wall …

  My mind began to splinter as I yanked my hand away with a shriek. Somewhere, far in the distance, I thought I heard Sharee call to me in response to my cry, but she might as well have been l
eagues away, a lifetime away.

  Those other sounds I’d heard earlier came to me again, and I hadn’t been able to identify them earlier, but now I could, even though they seemed incomprehensible. The darkness itself was moving. Those sounds I heard, underscored by the ceaseless boom, were the sounds of the shadows peeling themselves from the very walls.

  I know it sounds insane, I know it is easier to say that these were the fevered imaginings of a terrified mind, but I knew at that moment with utter clarity that that was what was happening.

  I ran. I no longer cared about trying to make my way carefully. Instead I simply began a mad dash, in a direction I did not know, to a destination I could not possibly find.

  Naturally I fell almost immediately. My toe hit a rise and I went sprawling, managing to hold on to my staff only through a miracle of desperation. I fell heavily, smashing one of my elbows, and pain shot through it and up and into the roots of my teeth, it felt like. The darkness was actually undulating around me, and I staggered to my feet, each step agony. I didn’t have to see or even feel my knees to know that they were bleeding. I sobbed pitifully, cursed the fates that had brought me to this hellish place, and the gods who had turned their backs on me, if they had ever cared about me in the first place.

  And still I ran, and then I heard other noises, whispers, coming from all over, in front and behind and sideways. There was a whoosh through the air, and something that sounded as if it was being propelled by great wings, and something went through me. It was as if I were naked and being pounded by a chill north wind. It cut to my marrow and I cried out, because it was so painful and yet morbidly fascinating, all at the same time. And then it was gone, and something else came through, and there were voices in my head from everywhere, whispering to me, crying out to me in words I could not comprehend: Gedowdaheer, Gedowdaheer!