Reunification (16 page)

“
Then what do you
suggest we do?” said Resita, throwing his hands into the air.
“Simply sit here and hope that these 'Old Gods' you speak of wake
up long enough to actually help us?”

“
Nay,” I said, shaking
mine head. “The Old Gods could help us, but they can be capricious
and choosy in how they distribute their aid. Therefore, we are on
our own right now, which means we must rely on our own smarts to
escape this bleak situation.”

“
That would be a bit
more encouraging to me if you had any smarts to begin with,” Resita
said in a tone as sharp as a knife. “Remember how you tried to
fight those monsters earlier? With only an energy
knife?”

“
'Twas better than
fleeing like a frightened chick,” I replied. “Or must I remind you
just who it was that suggested we escape into this garbage pit in
the first place?”

Resita folded his arms over his chest and
looked away. “Why don't we change the subject to something more
constructive? Like finding an escape route?”

“
Oh, so now ye want to
speak kindly and respectfully,” I said. “How
convenient.”

Resita stood up and walked away, still
without looking at me. “Shut up. I'm going to see if I can find a
way out of here on my own. You can just sit there if you want.”

“
Or are you just trying
to avoid facing your own hypocrisy, my friend?” I said. “Because
that is what I sense from ye, which is typical of ye Xeeonites, for
I have never heard a Xeeonite apologize for his failings
before.”

As I expected, Resita did not respond to
that. Nor did I expect him to, much, for the current situation left
me not wanting peace but conflict. Perhaps 'twas the stink of the
concrete pit in which we were trapped, making me surly and
unsociable, or perhaps it was just Resita's own bothersome
attitude. In either case, I found I was more than happy for him to
leave me alone for the moment.

I sat, therefore, with mine arms around my
legs and my chin resting on my knees. I paid little attention to
Resita's attempts to search for a route through which we could
escape. Click, click, click went his clawed feet against the
concrete floor, though I did not look over my shoulder to see him,
for there was no need.

How awful a situation I found myself in. I
had been in some narrow situations before—such as the time I was
arrested by the Knights of Se-Dela when they attacked a Red Ring
Smugglers' hideout—but never one quite as hopeless as this. After
all, that arrest had led to me being offered a position in the
Knights of Se-Dela, where I had some freedom in where I could go
and what I could do.

Here, however, I could go nowhere and do
nothing. The air was impossible to breathe due to the sheer stink
that permeated every inch of this chamber. In my mind's eye, I saw
myself slowly dying from the lack of fresh air and my corpse being
buried by more of that excrement and garbage that had been thrown
down here by the Foundation's members (even though I doubted this
place would ever be used again, considering how those lizard
creatures had apparently thoroughly rid this place of all
Foundation agents).

I shuddered at the thought. Yet I knew not
what I could do to avoid that fate, for it seemed as inevitable as
the rising and setting of the sun each day. The Old Gods did not
seem likely to save us, even though they were the only ones who
could, at this point.

Indeed, perhaps we were not meant to
survive at all. My father had always told me that, when a person is
born, the Old Gods decide on that person's fate as soon as they
leave the womb. Perhaps this was my fate all along: to die in this
narrow, stinky pit of despair with a bird man who hated me. 'Twas
certainly a harsh fate, but none of the Oracles ever said that
every fate was to be sweet and light.

What made all of this even worse was that
I knew I would never see my sister, Kiriah, again. She would not
even know what happened to me. Perhaps a whisper in the wind might
tell her that I came to Xeeon looking for her, only to vanish into
nothing, but that seemed as likely as a dwarf becoming a master
swimmer.

Just as I was about to give up all hope
and simply lie there and wait for death to claim me, Resita
suddenly chirped and said, “Apakerec, I found something.”

I jumped to my feet and turned around
without even thinking about it. “What did ye find, bird? The way
out of here?”

Resita stood in front of the wall behind
me, which looked as solid and thick as any barrier. But then I
noticed that one of his hands had pushed in what looked like a
portion of the wall into a niche that had not been there
before.

“
What is that?” I asked,
walking over to Resita to get a better look at his discovery. “A
secret button?”

“
Looks like it,” said
Resita, his green eyes locked on the panel he pushed into the wall.
“I didn't even know this existed. The blueprints never showed any
secret passageway—”

Resita's words were interrupted by the
sound of thick and heavy concrete scraping across the floor. The
wall before us moved inward, then slid to the side, revealing a
secret passage that was as dark as the moon on a shadowy night.
'Twas impossible to see beyond it; however, I did not sense any
villainy or maliciousness waiting in the dark, so perhaps it was
safe to enter.

“
Walnak's luck is with
us after all,” I said in amazement. “Resita, I thank ye for finding
this. I had thought we would never get out of here
alive.”

“
But it doesn't make any
sense,” said Resita, who did not sound even half as joyous as I. He
scratched the top of his head. “As I was saying, the blueprints for
HQ do not show any sort of secret passageway down here at all.
There's no reason for this.”

“
Perhaps it was added at
a later date by someone else?” I inquired. “For I know that many
old buildings have additions on them that were not part of the
original design, which may be the case here.”

“
No way,” said Resita,
shaking his head. “I saw the blueprints. There is no room for a
secret passageway down here, even for a very small one that you'd
have to crawl through, much less one big enough for both of us to
walk through upright. I have no idea where this could possibly
lead.”

“
Maybe the original
architect purposefully chose to omit this passageway from the
blueprints, so no one could find it,” I said, stroking my chin in
interest. “'Tis a practice I have heard the wind whisper of, though
I do not know for certain how common it is among Xeeonite
architects.”

“
Possibly,” said Resita.
“But why would the original architect omit this passageway from the
blueprints? What was he trying to hide?”

“
How am I supposed to
know?” I said with a shrug. “I barely understand the minds of
Delanian architects; the minds of Xeeonite architects are a puzzle
I do not wish to put together.”

“
Once we get out of
here, I am going to find those blueprints and look at them again,”
said Resita. “Assuming, of course, that those lizard monsters
didn't completely trash all of our computers, though I know we have
several backup servers that hold that same information
off-site.”

“
A goodly decision, I
dare say,” I said, nodding. “But enough talking. Let us enter this
passageway and see where it leads us; at the very least, I doubt it
will take us anywhere much worse than this gods-forsaken
place.”

And thus, we plunged into the darkness,
though with our weapons out, in case we discovered something wicked
lurking within.

***

Chapter
Eight

P
raise be to the Old Gods! This
passageway—while hardly as fresh smelling as a field of strawberry
flowers—did not smell nearly as raw and smelly as the disposal pit
we had been in. It smelled old, however, as if it had not been
exposed to fresh air in decades, but the air was much more
breathable and not nearly as lethal as the stink—not air, for that
was an insult to actual air—back in that pit. Of course, our own
stink filled up the hall, but it was not quite as bad as the
earlier chamber had been.

Yet, while this air was indeed far more
breathable, the passageway itself was even narrower than that
place. Not only that, but metal pipes ran along the walls and
ceiling, pipes which appeared as though they had not been used in
years. 'Twas hard to tell their exact age, however, because there
was so little light to see by, and mine energy knife did not glow
quite so much to let me see.

Though it mattered little to me how old
this place was or who had built it. To I, this place was merely a
possible path to freedom, perhaps even a path to my sister, who was
still somewhere in Xeeon. Granted, once I left, I would probably
need to return to Dela first and report back to Sir Lockfried, but
I was already planning another trip back to Xeeon, even though I
did not yet know when that trip would be.

Resita, on the other hand, was running his
sticky, stinky fingers along the pipes, as if by feeling them they
might reveal their secrets. He behaved much like a little child who
is told that the Gift Man is not really real but was unsure whether
to believe that or not, which somewhat concerned me, as I did not
want him to be unaware of our environment in case this place turned
out to be more dangerous than it appeared.

“
This place …” Resita
sounded mystified. “I don't understand.”

“
What is there to
understand?” I asked, annoyed by his confusion. “'Tis a mysterious
passageway, true, but as it will likely lead us to freedom, I care
not to uncover its secrets. Nor do I believe in questioning the
luck of Walnak, not when it is so freely given like
this.”

“
You don't find this
strange at all?” said Resita. “I can't even tell what this place
was supposed to be used for. It looks like a maintenance tunnel to
me, but why is it abandoned and how come no one in the Foundation
ever told me about it?”

“
Perhaps no one ever
knew about it,” I said. “After all, if ye did not know of this
place's existence, then I consider it likely that your allies did
not, either.”

“
I guess so, but it just
seems strange that no one discovered this before us,” said Resita.
“It's not like we don't explore HQ. We have security cameras and
robots constantly combing the place at all times. Not to mention we
handle any and all repairs ourselves; while it would be nice to
hire someone, that would compromise our secrecy, so we never
do.”

“
I find it a pointless
mystery to ponder right now,” I said. “After all, how likely are we
to run into someone who might know what this tunnel was originally
built for? 'Tis better for us to keep walking until we find the
end, which will hopefully be an exit that will take us outside of
this infernal hole in the ground once and for all.”

“
I know, I know,” said
Resita, nodding. “But still, I don't like it. Walking into an
unknown place like this … it doesn't feel right. Especially since I
didn't even know this place existed until just now.”

“
If there are indeed any
vile villains lurking in the dark, we shall be able to take care of
them valiantly,” I said, holding up mine energy knife. “They will
not stand a chance against our righteous, combined
might.”

“
Speak for yourself,”
said Resita. He patted the laser gun at his side. “I barely even
know how to operate these damn things.”

“
Ye can learn, and
quickly, I imagine,” I said, “for urgency is often the mother of
learning. 'Tis how I learned to communicate with mine elvish
brothers in arms, though I admit to not being very fluent in Elvish
Delan.”

Resita did not answer that; perhaps he did
not believe me. Or perhaps he was simply too distracted by this
place and the questions it aroused in his mind to listen to what I
said.

Either way, I kept mine eyes and ears as
wide open as possible. I still did not sense any danger here, but I
knew that sometimes danger could—and often did—appear when ye least
expected it. I was determined not to be taken by surprise,
especially when I was so certain that freedom was close at
hand.

The tunnel turned to the left slightly,
then inclined upwards. When it inclined, we were forced to walk up
a small stairway, which felt rough and dirty under my bare feet,
though considering I had just spent the last ten minutes standing
in only the Old Gods knew what, it did not bother me much.

Of course, the stairs ended after only a
few steps, at which point the tunnel leveled out again. Only this
time, the ceiling was much lower, which was clearly an intentional
part of the design. It was not low enough for me to scrape mine
head against; however, it was low enough that I began to worry that
we would be crushed under tons of rock, or whatever was above the
ceiling, as I noticed cracks in the ceiling that made me
nervous.

There was not much light in this place at
all; indeed, the only light that we had was the glow of mine energy
knife. The purple glow did not extend deeply into the shadows or
show us much, however. Hence, 'twas like walking into the darkness,
without any idea of what might lie ahead, only that it was likely
dangerous.

We heard scurryings in the shadows, but it
was impossible to tell what was making those noises. It might have
been rats, or perhaps spiders, but we could not see them. I did
consider asking Resita if he might know what they were, but every
time I looked at the bird, I saw that he was clearly busily
thinking about the strangeness of this place, and so I did not
interrupt him. Instead, I focused on the path we traveled upon, in
case any threats were lurking ahead, waiting to kill us when we
least expected it.