The stone slab was completely bare, and no trace of the lich remained. Bone and sinew, garments and accoutrements-all had disintegrated into impalpable dust. Bran felt a twinge of pity for the unknown king whose grieving people had built for him a tomb that had outlasted both bones and memory.
Intruders had violated the crypt, and recently-so Bran observed from the disrupted carpet of debris and decay that covered the floor. Sword in hand, the Pict scowled suspiciously into the palpable gloom. A blurred trail marked the passage of many feet from the tunnel opening and into the barrow crypt.
In Dagon’s Barrow the stone floor had been constructed of six regularly-shaped slabs of stone, grouped about a seventh, hexagonal central stone. That six-sided slab Bran had pried forth to disclose a passage of worn steps, leading down, down…
Here the blanket of sifted decay obscured the stone flags, so that Bran could not discern any especial regularity or pattern. And here, the center of the chamber was taken up by this massive stone table. There was a space beneath the huge slab and its block supports. Bran squatted and peered underneath.
Beneath the stone table the paving slab had been thrust away. A pit of deeper blackness fell away below.
Bran would have given much for a torch, but while he carried flint and tinder, he disdained to show a light unless as final recourse. Very probably the way would be guarded. A torch in this sunless realm would reveal his presence instantly to whatever eyes were watching. This stygian darkness was the abode of the Children of the Night. If he would seek to stealthily invade their hidden realm, then whatever infernal luminescence served their slanted yellow eyes must also suffice for Bran Mak Morn.
There was loose earth around the edge of the pit. Bran dropped a bit of gravel into the well of darkness. Immediately he caught the clatter as it struck against stone only a short distance below.
Grimly the Pict glanced toward the rectangle of daylight that called from beyond the barrow entrance. But Bran Mak Morn had no thought of turning back. Indeed, it seemed his steps had been turned toward this path ever since in an unhallowed lust for vengeance he had sought and found the Door to the Black Stone and those who worshipped it.
The opening of the pit was not wide-not much more than shoulder-width for a man. Gripping the edges firmly, Bran tensed his muscles and cautiously lowered himself into the black well.
At a depth of perhaps six feet his toes touched solid stone. Gingerly Bran released his hold, putting full weight on the slippery rock beneath. Again taking sword in hand, he probed the sides of the well. At an angle of the bottom, his blade poked into emptiness.
Bran closed his eyes tightly for a moment. When he reopened them, the blackness was somewhat less absolute. Vaguely he could see the darker blotch at the base of the well. About him the walls of the shaft showed freshly gouged clay. Recently dug, Bran mused, the dirt dragged away from below.
Stooping, he peered into the opening below. The rock ledge on which he squatted pitched sharply away in the direction of the aperture. From below, a vague reptilian scent lingered. Groping forward, the Pict pushed his sword before him and crawled headfirst into the cramped burrow.
The burrow-for it was little more than a crawl-space-sloped downward at an increasing angle. Like the well beneath the stone table, this tunnel seemed to have been only recently dug through the earth. The stone beneath Bran’s knees and elbows was slick with clinging clay, and he sensed that the burrowers had followed the slope of a rising shelf of rock.
Down. Down, and deeper still. A timeless interval of crawling through claustrophobic blackness. Sweat and mud smeared Bran’s flesh and garments. His joints ached from unwonted confinement and usage, the rough stone gashed and chaffed his bare arms, and in the close burrow his breath came in hard gasps. The rock ledge pitched more steeply still, and Bran had to grip at the slippery clay to impede what otherwise would become a headlong plunge downward.
Again it was borne upon him the alien degeneracy into which the People of the Dark had fallen. It would have been far easier to traverse this cramped burrow by flopping limblessly forward and wriggling on one’s belly.
His out-thrust blade again met emptiness, and Bran abruptly halted his descent. His fingers groped blindly. The burrow came to an end, evidently opening onto another passage.
Cautiously the Pict probed with his sword. Its point scraped across stone only a few feet below the lip of the aperture. Bran warily emerged head and shoulders, felt about beneath him. Here the blackness was absolute. Moving by touch, Bran hauled himself from the sloping burrow and rose to his feet.
Stygian darkness enveloped him like a palpable shroud. He thrust out his arms, found he could touch a wall opposite, and, by straining, graze the unseen ceiling overhead. Taking stock, it was apparent he had emerged into some sort of narrow cavern or artificial passageway far beneath the surface.
It came to him that he now stood within the hidden realm of the Worms of the Earth-that the burrow down which he had crawled had been only recently dug to furnish a secret egress to the world of men. It was not pleasant to ponder that the mouth of this crawl space was but a few feet from the floor of this cavern.
Which way now?
Bran had set forth on his mad venture with no more thought than to trail his enemies to their lair-there to wrest away from them Morgain, as fortune favored him, or reap a gory vengeance. The passage here ran in either direction; he had no way of knowing which way might bring him to his sister.
Uneasily he remembered that the land was honeycombed with caverns and interconnecting passages. He might wander for days without encountering those whom he sought. He might quickly become lost beneath the earth-eventually to perish dismally from hunger and fatigue. And in the darkness-a sudden fall might cripple him-leave him to wait in helpless pain…
Bran growled a curse. Such worries and doubts availed him nothing. He would find Morgain-though fate and the gods waged against him. Angrily he started off along the passageway to his left.
The passage continued to incline downward. Keeping his left hand against the wall, Bran made his way as best he could. The stone of the wall and the floor beneath his sandals was irregular to his touch, but not so uneven as to cause him to stumble. Gradually Bran became convinced that he followed some natural passageway that had been reshaped for improved thoroughfare.
This awareness emboldened him, and the Pict increased his pace with growing confidence that a misstep would not bring him up against a fang of rock, or precipitate him into a sudden deep pit. The floor seemed littered with dust and loose bits of stone that snagged at his toes. Bran reflected that this passageway apparently was not heavily traversed-not surprising considering the vast maze of caverns and burrows whose terrifying extent the Pict was only beginning to grasp.
From time to time Bran paused to attempt to orient himself The passage seemed to extend forever downward. In the choking blackness, the rough stone wall where his left hand pressed was his only contact with reality. For all else, he might well be walking through infinite and starless night. His thrusting blade at times scraped rock overhead or on the wall opposite. As often it touched nothing at all. The left-hand wall of the passage frequently made sharp angles and barely perceptible bends, yet the blackness was so intense Bran could not be certain whether the passage merely curved or if it made some unseen branching. Sometimes the right-hand wall pressed against his shoulder; other times the mute echo of his footfalls suggested he traversed some greater cavern whose far walls stretched endlessly away into the earth’s secret recesses.