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| "A light appeared around a corner, wavering and flickering uncertainly." |
The darkness and silence did not scare the boy. He had been coming here for as long as he could remember, down to his sanctuary, far from the noise and bustle of the crowded halls above. It was peaceful here, peace being a rare commodity where he was from. He liked to come and just sit in some abandoned store-room, imagining himself to be somewhere else, somewhere far away where no-one knew him and no-one could reach him.
But not today. Today he was not alone. Today he was scared.
“Worm!” His brother’s voice boomed down the corridors, the echoes surrounding him so that he could not tell where it was coming from. “Worm, I know you’re down here! Come out and face me like a man!”
He did not reply, but huddled further into the dirt and prayed that his luck would hold. He was a slight boy, not old enough to be bearded, his dark hair falling in tight curls about his narrow shoulders. A childhood of leisure had made his hands soft like a woman’s, and these coupled with his long hair had often caused others to mistake him for a girl. His brother took offence at this, but rather than take revenge on those who made the comment he would often take it into his head to “beat some manhood” into him, as he put it. The beatings were more frequent when his brother was drunk, and today he was more drunk than usual.
“Worm!”
The boy could hear footsteps now, scraping through the dirt as his brother staggered nearer to his hiding-place. He was near enough to hear any movement, so the boy held his breath and clenched his hands together to stop them from shaking, and pleaded with Iescwd to keep him hidden.
A light appeared around a corner, wavering and flickering uncertainly. His brother followed close behind it, sweeping a flaming brand back and forth as he peered into doorways and down passages. He was muttering through his beard, oaths and curses against all boys, and in his free hand he carried a drawn sword.
At the sight of the steel the boy went cold. He had felt its blows before, always the flat of the blade, blows that raised ugly welts on his legs and back which his parents refused to see. They considered the beatings to be part of his education.
He began to edge away along the wall, ignoring the dirt that smeared itself on the back of his emboidered jerkin. When he considered himself to be far enough away not to be noticed he turned and broke into a run.
It was a mistake. Immediately there came a bellowing roar from behind him, and heavy footsteps pounding.
“Come here, you brat! I’ll teach you to creep around like a chambermaid! Come here, I say!”
The boy hardly heard him. All his attention was given to running, darting this way and that down barely-glimpsed passageways, scraping his knuckles and banging his elbows in his haste.
His brother was drunk, but he was still fast, and it was soon clear that the boy would not be able to outrun him. A quick glance confirmed his fears: his brother was closing on him steadily.
Panic took over, and without thinking he darted into the next doorway he saw, grabbed a length of wood standing against the wall, stepped back into the corridor, and swung it as hard as he could at his brother’s head. There was a loud smack as the wood connected with bone; the force of the impact wrenched the plank from the boy’s hands; his brother tumbled to the floor, instantly unconscious, as his firebrand skittered away into a corner.
Silence descended. The boy did not move. His hands stung, but he did not rub them. He was numb with the shock of what he had just done. His brother lay unmoving at his feet. The firebrand guttered and wavered in the corner, but he did not move to pick it up.
His heartbeat slowed, and he gathered the presence of mind to bend down and feel his brother’s chest. It was moving, though slightly. The relief that rushed through him was palpable. He did not stand, but remained crouched by his brother’s prone form for a long time, his mind racing with thoughts of what to do. Leave him? He certainly deserved it. But he could not. It went against his nature. On the other hand he could not wait here for him to wake. That would mean an even worse beating than usual.
He looked around, as if an idea would present itself to him, but none did. The flame still flickered in the corner, and for want of anything else to do he rose to his feet and stumbled over to retreive it. He was bending down to to pick it up when he stopped. There was something here, hidden in the shadows — he raised the torch — a curtain, ragged and dusty, hanging limply across a doorway set into the cellar wall, stone posts and lintel and a heavy wooden door closed fast. The curtain crumbled away in his hands as he pulled it back. He dropped the remains, his eyes flickering over the door. Symbols were carved into the lintel, strange to his eyes. He shivered, but he did not back away. He was afraid, yes, but also curious. What was this place? He knew there were many parts of the cellar he had not yet explored — this was a place where things were brought to be forgotten — but even so the doorway seemed out of place, as though it had never been intended to be left here.
He had already forgotten about his brother. He was too filled with curiosity. He reached out with his free hand and laid it on the door, and to his surprise it was warm. He pushed. The door did not move. He pushed again, harder, and this time it scraped back a fraction. He laid the torch on the floor behind him and set his shoulder to the wood, heaving at it with as much force as he could muster. At first it resisted him, as if it was a living entity that did not want to be disturbed, but gradually it yielded, inch by inch, until it had opened wide enough for a young boy to slip through.
He hesitated, but only for a moment, before he picked up the torch and edged his way through the gap, leaving his brother unconscious in the dark.
Beyond the door was not a passageway, but rather a tunnel, its walls not brick-lined but hewn straight into the rock itself, carved by ancient tools in some long-forgotten age. It descended gradually, twisting and turning so that the boy could not see further than a few feet before or behind him. At times he had to duck his head to avoid jagged protuberances, or else he had to clamber over piles of fallen earth, but never once did he think about turning back. Something drew on him onwards, something that had begun as curiosity but was now much stronger.
The passageway ended in a round portal, beyond which was darkness so dense the torchlight could not penetrate it. Here, at last, the boy stopped. He still felt the compulsion to continue, to venture deeper into the dark; but now the compulsion was tempered by fear. He did not know what lay beyond the doorway; the darkness seemed to suck at the torchlight, making it flicker uncertainly. It felt like a mouth gaping wide, ready to swallow him. An unfamiliar sensation was building inside his head: a slow and steady pressure, constricting his skull so that he found it hard to concentrate. A thousand terrible thoughts flashed through his mind, grotesque images from children’s tales, nightmares dredged up from the depths of slumber. He knew he should not step through that doorway, that to do so would be to seal his own fate.
He took a deep breath, then stepped through.
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