Chapter 197: Escape
They resumed their journey, sinking into an even narrower tunnel. The air grew even more still, more forgotten. Their steps raised thick, grey dust, like the ash of an ancient world.
It floated slowly, catching the faint glimmer of the oil lamps Julius had ordered them to cover. Only the dimmed night-lights, wrapped in leather pierced with tiny holes, projected flickering streaks of light onto the black stone walls.
Julius advanced in silence, his massive shoulders sometimes brushing against the damp walls. He seemed to navigate this labyrinth by instinct, like a fish in a known current. Dylan followed him, bare feet on the dry, icy floor, his threadbare blanket draped over his shoulders.
The anima gems, nestled against his skin in a fold of the fabric, radiated a dull warmth, a faint but constant pulsing that seemed to chase away the tunnels’ deadly cold. His aching muscles responded a little better, the extreme weakness receding before this energy stolen from corpses.
The three soldiers brought up the rear, their weapons now held firmly, their eyes constantly scanning the darkness behind and to the sides. The silence was a tangible weight, crushing. Only the rustle of their clothes, the occasional scrape of a foot on stone, or the muffled clatter of a weapon hitting a wall broke it. And always, that sensation of being watched by something that did not belong to the world above.
Suddenly, Julius stopped before a crack in the wall, barely wider than a man. It seemed natural, a tear in the rock. He turned to the group, his weathered face etched with shadows in the faint light.
"Here," he murmured, his voice a barely audible rasp. "The Memory Hole. Passage used by the guards in case of... complications." A brief grimace twisted his lips. "Forty-three years of dust. Watch your step."
He slipped into the opening with surprising agility for his build. Dylan took a breath, feeling the warm gems against his chest. Just a little more, he thought, just enough to hold on. He slipped through after him. The crack opened onto a larger space, but one of absolute blackness. The air here was different: drier, but charged with an indefinable smell, acrid and mineral, like stone crushed for centuries. A smell of void.
Julius had pulled out a small dimmed lamp, revealing barely the immediate outline of their feet. The floor was littered with indistinct debris – pieces of rotten wood, shards of pottery, fragments of rusted metal. Giant spiderwebs, thick as grey silk, hung from invisible heights, forming ghostly veils. They advanced with extreme slowness, skirting obstacles, holding their breath. The dust here was so thick it almost muffled the sound of their footsteps.
"Not a word," Julius reminded them, his voice muffled by the darkness. "Not even a louder breath."