The Pleasure of Memory (50 page)

“I’ll never blame you,” she whispered to him, “No matter what you have to do. I promise I’ll never blame you.”

XXV

SANCTUARY, REDUX

’D KISS THE QUEEN OF PENDTS FULL ON THE LIPS FOR A BREATH OF FRESH AIR.”

Chance back at Beam, but said nothing. The man was squatting before the pack, rolling up an uncooperative map and largely ignoring him.

Beam watched him stuff the map into a side pocket. The backpack looked as loose as an oversized pair of britches. It’d lost a hell of a lot of weight since yesterday, an observation that didn’t help Beam’s mood one bit.

A series of howls rolled up from the darkness behind them. Beam looked back toward the sound. Eventually the godless wails echoed off into the identical darkness awaiting them, leaving them once again surrounded by silence broken only by the metallic drips and pings of the unseen water.

It seemed odd to Beam how the creatures’ wails had changed. The sounds felt more honest now, like they were making them a promise of sorts. Or maybe they were unchanged and he was simply hearing them differently, maybe he’d just had his fill of this miserable prison and so everything he saw or touched or heard seemed immeasurably more disheartening for it.

Another outbreak of howls resounded, each slightly staggered from the other as they slowly swelled into a crescendo. Then they once again collapsed into a chaotic brawl of fading yelps. As the silence gradually returned, Beam understood why he felt so much more dread now than before: They sounded like they were communicating. They sounded intelligent. And there were more of them now.

His hand crawled up the sword’s hilt until he found the warmth of the stone at the pommel. Bring the bastards on, he thought. He drummed his fingers against the caeyl, rapping out a tight beat that reflected his growing anxiety. Sometimes the fight itself is less disagreeable than the anticipation of it, like the slow build up to puking after a bad drunk. Sometimes it’s best to just fall on your finger and be done with it.

“Is there a problem, Beam?”

Beam flinched at that. He looked over at Chance. “Problem?” he said, faking a laugh, “Hell no. I’m just sick of the bloody banshees’ whining. I wish they’d bring it on already.”

“I told you, there’s no such thing as banshees.”

“No?” Beam said as he walked over to the waiting mage, “I suppose there’s no water, either.” His sole made a squishy noise as he tapped it against the wet sand.

“Well, I can’t say that,” Chance said, looking down at the moist sand, “There’s definitely water.”

“Damn me, it’s good of you to say so. I thought maybe I was hallucinating.”

As they resumed their walk, he realized this was the closest they’d come to conversation since early that morning when he’d demanded the mage stop probing him about his dreams.

The dream had left him feeling plenty perturbed, and he’d suffered a lingering aggravation since. It was the same dream he’d had the night before, only more fleshed out. To make it worse, he couldn’t understand why it’d stayed with him so long. Most dreams fade into shadows within minutes after waking, leaving one to wonder if there’d been a dream at all. This one didn’t. This one stayed with him like a nagging headache, complete with all the details.

“I warned you the tunnel would go a bit deeper.”

Chance’s voice again shoved him out of his thoughts. Beam wanted to fling a sorry retort his way, but immediately denied the urge. He didn’t have the strength to give the argument his full attention.

“I remember it with perfect clarity,” Chance pressed, “I warned you this morning. I told you we’d have to go a bit deeper into the earth before reaching the next hatch.” He watched Beam a moment, as if he were hoping for a comeback. When none was forthcoming, he turned away and resumed their march.

Beam reluctantly followed him.

“We’ve been walking downhill all day,” he said to the man’s back, “Pretty sure we’ve gone more than a ‘bit’ deeper.”

“We’re directly beneath the Sken te’Fau,” Chance said, “I believe the rationale for the appearance of water beneath the swamp is actually defined by your beloved science. As a matter of fact, there’s a new construct that’s been shared amongst the astronomers and academics in the universities these past few decades. It’s called ‘the gravity principle’. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It explains why water would work its way down through the earth rather than float away into the heavens.”

Beam winced at that, cursing under his breath, but resisting the urge to engage the obvious taunt.

He looked up at the ceiling, which was dark and shimmering. Another stack of Baeldons slipped past. The faces lately had devolved into gruesome images as the water had its way with them. The mournful eyes gawping down at them were rotted and unsavory, their faces pulpy and bloated.

“I don’t like this,” he said, pulling his eyes away from the hideous faces, “Damn me, I don’t. How long do we have to trudge through this muck?”

“I can’t say. The tunnel was dry last I visited.”

Beam suffered a sinking sensation. “You’re joking,” he said without enthusiasm.

“I am not.”

“I swear to Calina, you’d best not be baiting me. I’m pissed enough without your help.”

“You certainly have managed to figure me out, haven’t you?” Chance said over his shoulder, “I simply continue inventing new ways to irritate you. What else do I have to worry about? Truth is we’ve been able to exit anytime we desired, I’ve merely been holding it back because I get such a hoot watching you stew so.”

“You’re hilarious.”

Chance quickened his pace. “I do my best.”

“How long did you say it was since you were last down here?”

Chance only kept walking.

“Damn it, how long, Chance?”

“I’m thinking about it!” Chance said over his shoulder, “Blood of the gods, you’ve the patience of a taxman.

“You need to think about it?”

“I suspect it may have been thirty years, perhaps more.”

Beam dragged a hand down his face. “Thirty years!” he snapped, “Gods almighty! Why is it every time you open your mouth, I feel more depressed?”

“I don’t—”

“Forget it!” Beam picked up the pace and marched on ahead of him. “You’ll have me hanging myself if you keep talking.”

They walked on in silence. The sound of their footsteps splashing the water barely filled the void.

Beam thought about sun and the air and freedom, about the gold that would soon be his, about women and liquor. Yet, even as he considered the future, he had the nagging suspicion that he could never really escape. He had the sense that even if they got out of here today, the memory of the dream warrior would follow him through his life like a plague. The dreams had left him with the irksome feeling that he’d forgotten something important, like some obscure memory was making ripples at the fringe of his awareness and he couldn’t seem to dredge it to the surface.

The story about him being the beech and the warrior being the pig peeved him to no end. Or was it the other way around? Was he the pig and the warrior the…bah! What did it matter? All that mattered was the point the dream warrior had been trying to make. Or the lack of one.

He looked over at Chance. “You ever hear of a pig beech?"

The mage turned his weary gaze to him. His eyes were like sinking ships. His hollowed face was softened only by the red glow of his beard glimmering eerily in the green torchlight.

Beam immediately regretted the question. “Never mind,” he said quickly, “It’s nothing.”

“Pig beeches? Why on earth would you ask me about that?”

“I don’t know,” Beam lied, “Just curious, I guess.”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re in southern Mendophia?”

Chance shrugged his brow and said, “They’re nowhere. They’re legend.”

Beam thought about that. The words should’ve been good news. They should’ve affirmed the absurdity of his dream. They should’ve shown him that the warrior and his words were simply an irritating nightmare with no more lingering point than his last dump.

So, why this pang of disappointment? He couldn’t shake the sense that the warrior’s words had a purpose. Dream or not, he had the feeling they housed some kind of coded message. Or cryptic warning.

“You’re sure about that?” he asked Chance, “That they’re legend, I mean?”

“Yes. I’m quite sure.”

“And in this legend, do the beeches...assimilate the pigs?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“No reason,” Beam said as he again quickened his pace, “Wandering thoughts, that’s all.”

∞

Beam wondered if maybe he were actually dead. Maybe somewhere in the endless parade of hours, he’d just passed on over and no one had had the courtesy to inform him. Maybe he hadn’t woken up this morning at all. Maybe his soul was still earthbound, wandering through these tunnels oblivious to the fact that it no longer needed to stay here.

He was standing in cold, ankle-deep water at the edge of an underground pond, freezing his bloody ass off. It was too much for a living person to bear. Yes, he had to be dead. There couldn’t be any other logical explanation. He was dead and this was the third hell where he was paying penance for a lifetime of wicked deeds.

“Have you considered that m-maybe we took a wrong turn b-back there?” he asked without looking at Chance. He’d intended more sarcasm, but he was shaking too hard to afford the energy.

“No,” Chance said, corking up the vial of elixir, “This is the correct path.”

“Well, tell me if I’m wrong, b-but the tunnel seems to be a b-bit...how should I put it? Flooded?”

“Brilliant observation, Beam. Thank you for that. Most helpful.”

“I mean, I could b-be wrong, but I’ve seen a lot of w-water in my life, and d-damn me if this doesn’t look and feel just like it.”

Chance was ignoring him.

The mage had given him a slug of elixir, and much as he hated to admit it, it was beginning to work. The potion had infused him with a strange sense of warmth that didn’t seem exactly real, but was still effectively washing the cold from his limbs. Sadly, it’d done nothing to improve his mood.

“Yep, I’ve drank plenty of water,” he kept pushing, “Why, I’ve b-bathed in it, I’ve swam in it, I’ve even used it to clean clothes, and I swear to gods, this appears to be the real thing.”

“I warned you there could be flooding in this part of the tunnel, Beam. The good news is the rungs to the hatch are only a few hundred yards ahead.”

The words had a shadow. “Great,” he said, not at all sure he wanted to know, “What’s the bad news, then? I know it’s coming, so just put it out there already.”

“The bad news is the water’s going to get a bit deeper before we reach it.”

“Deeper?”

“Significantly.”

“Significantly?” Beam growled. “You’re telling me we left a perfectly dry oasis back there where the tunnels forked for this? For a midnight swim? Lovely. Thanks for this. I hope one day to repay the favor.”

Beam glanced behind them and thought about the other tunnel at the fork a half hour back, the one they
hadn’t
taken. That one lifted up out of the water and led to drier and happier land. In spite of his pleads, however, Chance refused to go that way. It was as if he thought he knew better or something.

“The hatch ahead will have us out of the tunnels tonight,” Chance said as if reading his mind, “The other way will cost us two more days underground. But if being dry is more important than getting to the surface, feel free to go back.”

Beam wanted out of the tunnels so badly, he’d have gladly walked barefoot across a mile of steel shavings to get there. And though the elixir had taken the edge off the cold, he still felt like a vessel overfull of despair. His choices all kept coming back to an essential lack of choices.

“Fine,” he said at last, “Let’s just do it already.”

With that, he pushed forward into the water. The water felt like an ice bath as it washed up his legs and over his crotch. The first rush of pain was nearly unbearable, though the sensation quickly dulled to a level just tolerable.

It was only a few hundred yards, the man had said. He just had to buck up and push forward. He could suffer the cold long enough to make it that far. At least, he hoped he could.

∞

Beam bobbed through the neck-deep water, moving from tiptoe to tiptoe with one arm holding the torch above the water line and the sliding along the slimy tunnel wall. It was all he could do to keep his head above the surface. He could barely breathe. He was frozen through to the bone and felt on the brink of exhaustion. He was only able to keep moving forward by the force of sheer pride; he refused to show defeat before the mage.

Being taller, Chance had less difficulty and often had to stop and wait for him, a fact that added the burden of embarrassment to Beam’s physical complaints. As he forced himself forward through the water, he passed the time fantasizing about the revenge he’d exact from the man responsible for this trip once they made it topside. If they made it topside.

Chance’s voice shattered the silence of the tunnel like the Horn of Acolaemed announcing Calina’s return. “The shaft!” he yelled back at Beam, “I see it! It’s just there!”

Beam managed to lift his shaking torch high enough above the water to see the wavering outlines of iron rungs climbing like two-legged spiders against the dark stone. The steps ascended up from the water like the stairway to the First Circle of Heaven. It was as beautiful a view as he’d ever laid eyes on.

Wasting no time on courtesies, Beam forced himself past Chance. He scrambled eagerly forward through the water. Moments later, he grabbed the first thick rung and hoisted himself up from the quicksand-like drag of the water. The water poured from his clothes as he climbed free, roaring back to its source with the thunder of a waterfall. The corroded iron of the rungs bit into his soggy, ice-numbed hands, but it didn’t slow him down.