Chương 49: The First Day Without Them

The lower level had not been dug. It had been discovered. Zayn understood that after the first hundred steps. The galleries of Rhel-Fosse still bore the marks of men: rails, beams, cages, ropes, badly sealed holes, rusted tools, blood spilled where someone had worked, fled, or screamed. Here, none of that. The walls were black, almost smooth, crossed by dark red veins that did not truly glow, yet gave the impression of holding an ancient light beneath the stone. The ground descended in broad natural tiers.

Twisted columns linked ceiling to floor like giant bones melted into the rock. No recent traces. No blue markings. No red markings. No human routes. Only an ancient network beneath the mine. A place men had probably broken into by accident, then neglected to mention on the maps because people who found this sort of place had a historical tendency not to come back up and sign the reports. Zayn moved slowly. Not out of noble caution. Because every part of his body had decided to vote against motion.

His side still bled a little. His left shoulder pulled as if someone had replaced the joint with an unpaid debt. His bandaged palm throbbed. His throat was dry despite the murky water, and his stomach was beginning to understand that black bread was not a meal, but a compacted insult. He stopped behind a column. Listened. Nothing close. A few distant values, blurred. 12. 15. Another, lower, almost motionless: 23. No 47. The weaver had not followed him this far. Or not yet. Zayn did not find that thought reassuring.

In Rhel-Fosse, the absence of a problem often meant it had gone looking for a better entrance. He laid a hand against the black stone. Cold. Not damp. Good news. Then he looked behind him. The collapsed conduit had vanished above a tangle of metal plates, rubble, and dust. Impossible to climb back that way without tools, without time, and without a suicidal determination he preferred to reserve for more profitable investments. He was cut off. Truly. Not just separated by a few beams.

Not simply fallen into a lower level while waiting for Elias, Lena, Mira, or Selka to find a route. Cut off. And once the thought was fully formed, he waited for the emotion. Fear. Panic. Even a clean regret. What he got instead was a cold weariness. Then another thought, more useful: Rules. Fine. If he had to die here, he would at least die with a minimum of organization. Chaos could wait its turn behind method.

Zayn crouched, took out a piece of chalk, and wrote on a flat stone small enough to be turned over if needed. 1. Do not answer voices. 2. Do not follow pleas. 3. Do not save without a price. 4. Do not kill without looking around first. 5. Never believe an exit is an exit. He reread them. Then added: 6. Keep water. He stared at the sixth rule. Basic. Humiliating. Extremely important. In heroic stories, people talked about courage, destiny, sacrifice, and light.

In a mine, true greatness consisted in not drinking all your water just because your throat was dry and your temperament was that of a stray dog. He put the chalk away.

"Magnificent personal growth," he murmured.

"From future enemy of the world to canteen manager." His voice vanished among the columns. No answer. Good. He started walking again. The lower level divided into several broad passages. He chose the one where the air circulated most. Not the one where the values were weakest. Bad temptation. Predators also sometimes avoided areas full of living things, and he had no interest in discovering why. After a while, he found the first sign of ancient occupation. Not human.

A low collapsed structure made of dark stones fitted together with no visible mortar. Too regular to be natural. Too simple to be a true dwelling. Maybe an old post. Maybe a tomb. Maybe an architectural joke left by a civilization that had hated comfortable places as much as anyone else. Inside, there were bones. Not human. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Too long, too thin, some of them almost translucent.

Remains of small creatures, dried out ages ago. Nothing fresh. Zayn searched anyway. He found a broken blade. Not a usable weapon. A curved fragment, closer to a ritual tool than a knife. The edge was still hard enough to cut a rope or scrape stone. He took it. Then a small black metal box wedged under a slab. He had to force it open with his dagger. Inside: gray dust, two split rings, a scrap of dry cloth that crumbled the instant he touched it. Useless. He closed the box slowly.

"Congratulations, you just wasted thirty seconds on a chest containing the historical equivalent of a sneeze." He left the box there. Hunger came back harder. He took a tiny piece of black bread, chewed it slowly, then forced himself to stop. No more. His stomach protested. He ignored it. His internal organs had not yet understood the political situation: their opinion carried little weight. A noise slid to his left. Zayn stopped. A value approached between two columns. 12. Not human.

The creature showed itself a few seconds later. A gaunt quadruped, flat-skulled, gray skin stretched over black plates, with long legs jointed backward. Its eyes were too small. Its mouth too wide. It moved low, sniffing the ground. It had not seen him yet. Or it was pretending. Zayn eased backward behind the collapsed structure. The creature followed the scent of blood. His, probably. He could have avoided it. He chose to wait. Not just for the gain. Also to verify something.

Did the creatures on this level follow the same logic as the ones above? Did they attack directly? Did they flee pain? Did they serve the weaver? Were they tied into the network? A dead beast could answer some questions. A living one, many more. The creature passed near the entrance of the low structure. Zayn tossed a small bone in the opposite direction. The beast turned its head. Fast. Very fast. Not stupid. He threw a second bone, farther away. It did not move. Good. It learned from the first lure. Bad.

He then drew the short blade taken from an Ashes man and scraped it along the stone, producing a light screech. The creature sprang toward the sound. Zayn was waiting on the other side. He struck at its flank. Not deep enough. The beast turned on him with absurd speed, bit his already wounded forearm, and the pain tore a violent breath from him. He brought his knee down on its back, felt something crack, then drove the dagger into its throat. The creature thrashed longer than he expected.

He had to push until the blade hit stone. [Soul Force Absorbed: +1] The warmth entered. Brief. Faint. But real. Current Soul Force: 35 Zayn remained on one knee for a moment. Thirty-five. He breathed slowly. Every point mattered. Every point cost. Every point still felt ridiculous compared to what he had seen in Maelor. He looked at the beast's body. No filaments. No reaction in the walls. No voices. So it was not directly linked to the weaver. Useful information.

He cleaned the blade, then hesitated before the corpse. Not for long. He could not carry it. Too heavy. He only cut two strips of hard hide from its flank, thick enough to serve as makeshift reinforcement around his bitten forearm. The smell was horrific, but the material held better than his torn cloth. Survival, he was discovering, mostly consisted in having ideas that the civilized version of yourself would have found revolting three days earlier. Or three hours. Time was becoming blurred.

He fastened the strips with a piece of rope, gritted his teeth, and moved on. The level kept descending. Always. He eventually found a more open area. A kind of low cavern crossed by an ancient dry canal. In the center, remains of stone walkways formed a partially collapsed network above a black hollow. No water visible. But the air was cooler there. At the far end, a wall bore markings. Not blue. Not red. White. Cut into the stone in straight lines. Zayn approached. They were not words he could read.

More like directional or warning signs. Some had been scored through by old claws. Others were covered in mineral deposits. He chose not to touch them. An intelligent man respected unknown writing in a hostile underground network. Especially when the writing was carved beside a chasm. He went around the dry canal and at last found a possible shelter: a narrow alcove, elevated, reachable by a single broken incline. One could watch the entrance from inside. The ceiling was low, but stable. No visible cracks.

No nearby values. Good. Not safe. But good. He arranged what he had: the canteen against the wall, both blades within reach, the rope under his left hand, the Ashes plaque against his chest, the rest of the bread in the satchel, the chalk near his knee. He also set three small stones in a line before the entrance. A ridiculous trap. If something came through, the stones might move. The defensive level was that of a very paranoid child. But in his current state, he accepted modest investments. Then he sat down.

And for the first time in a while, he stopped walking. Silence fell. Not total silence. There were still distant drips, creaks, mineral sounds hard to distinguish from breathing. But compared to the weaver's voices, the tapping in the walls, the screams of survivors, it was almost luxury. A dirty luxury. He closed his eyes. Not to sleep. Mistake. He opened them again almost at once. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he had seen numbers. 107. 75. 74. 80. 312. Then his own. 35. Still low. Still forced to take.

He clenched his jaw. Elias had grown by preventing deaths. He had grown by causing them, letting them happen, using them. The difference was not merely moral. It was structural. The world had given Elias a road that made him greater each time he did what everyone expected of a hero. Zayn, meanwhile, had been given a road that made each step harder to explain in front of Lena. Or easier, perhaps, if he stopped wanting to explain. He took the Ashes plaque and read it again. Recovery alive if readable and obedient.

The word obedient made him smile. Not for long. He imagined Selka reading that plaque. Not pleased. No. Selka would probably have hanged someone upside down, demanded a report, then hanged a second person for the sake of symmetry. That was perhaps what local administration meant. Mira, on the other hand, would understand too fast. Lena would be hurt. Elias... Elias would still try to find a road where Zayn could come back. That was maybe what made him most hateful. Not his light.

His endurance in believing that someone could still choose otherwise. Zayn closed his eyes one second too long. This time, sleep took him in pieces. Not real rest. Falls. He dreamed of the Gallery of the Glass Sun, but all the nobles had numbers instead of faces. Elias stood at the center, 107, while the other values revolved around him like prayers. Lena held a thread out toward Zayn, but the thread became an Ashes rope. Mira cut the thread.

Jonah said something absurd, but the voice came out of the weaver's mouth. Then Maelor appeared. 312. The number filled the entire hall. Zayn raised his dagger. Ridiculous. The number did not even move. He woke in silence, his hand clenched around the blade. No nearby values. The stones had not moved. His side hurt more. The bite in his forearm too. He drank a mouthful of water. Too much. He realized it afterward.

"Excellent," he whispered.

"Death by poor canteen management. The funeral song will be short but humiliating." His own voice sounded strange to him. Too loud in the alcove. He fell silent. That was when he heard it. Not a knock. Not a scratching. A voice. At the bottom of the incline.

"Zayn." Elias. Zayn did not move. The voice was perfect. Not the weaver's crude imitation when it played hero. Not the version too clean, too expected. This one had the fatigue. The control. The restrained tension of a man who did not want to frighten someone already in danger.

"Don't answer," Elias's voice said. Zayn felt his fingers tighten around the dagger. Very good. Far too good. The voice continued:"I know you have no reason to believe any voice down here. So just listen." Silence. No value at the bottom of the slope. Nothing. No body. No presence. Only sound.

"Mira found the maintenance marks. Maelor is trying to force a route. Lena is alive. Jonah too." Zayn remained still. That was exactly what he would have wanted to know. Which meant exactly that he should not believe it. Elias's voice resumed, lower:"You do not have to become worse to hold on until we reach you." Zayn almost laughed. Not because it was false. Because it was perfectly chosen. Almost too perfectly. He stared at the entrance to the alcove.

"You're not Elias," he murmured. The voice stopped. Then answered:"No." Zayn stopped breathing for a second. False voices lied. This one had just admitted it. The silence changed. At the bottom of the slope, the darkness seemed identical. No value. No silhouette. No movement. But Elias's voice came again. Closer.

"But you almost took his hand." Cold climbed all the way into Zayn's neck. That was not information the weaver should have gotten from a stolen voice. That was not a sentence ever spoken aloud. It was an instant. A movement inside him. A hesitation at the edge of the fall. The voice continued, soft, exact, unbearable:"And for one second, you were afraid of being saved." Zayn slowly raised his dagger. In the dark at the bottom of the alcove, something with no visible value began to smile with a hero's voice.