“The hell-worm, you called it. At Kestrel Scaur.”
“You saw?” Bran demanded.
“I was there, King Bran,” Liuba laughed strangely. “Be certain that I was there!”
Bran frowned. That cleared up a great part of the mystery concerning the swordswoman’s knowledge of this evil plot. He had thought there was another person present that night-presumably Liuba had spied upon their encounter from the shadow of the rowans.
There remained the enigma of the woman herself’. Bran meant to penetrate the veil of Liuba’s glib evasiveness as soon as the opportunity presented. She played a game, that much was certain. Whose? “I’m going down there,” Bran decided. He was uncertain what he might find there, but if the empty altar bore some tragic evidence of Morgain’s presence… Liuba could play her game alone, for Bran Mak Morn would never return to the heather while one of the serpent-folk still hid from his vengeance in these burrows.
The spiral path that descended to the floor of the pit was narrow and precipitous-footing uncertain over the fringes of the phosphorescent fungus that lapped up the steep walls from the fiery pool below. They made the descent without mishap, clinging close to the sheer rock face as they edged along the path. The iniquitous stench grew worse, making Bran’s head swim dangerously, until his nostrils at last became inured to the foulness.
The floor of the pit was carpeted with the glowing fungus-a thin layer of palpable light that deadened their footfalls and clung eerily to their sandals. The stone beneath was smooth, and tended to slope imperceptibly toward the abyss at the center. Bran fought down the sensation that if he slipped, this shimmering carpet of slime would bear him skidding and slithering into the central abyss…
Truly they now walked on the dread threshhold of some alien hell, festering as an unclean sore for uncounted eons since closed over by the shuddering mountains of Elder Earth.
The altar was an ominous hexagonal slab of basalt, ten feet across, and perilously close to the lip of the abyss. Bran tried not to think of the unnumbered victims who had lain bound and helpless on this black island in a lake of flaming verdigris, waiting for a shape beyond mad nightmare to crawl forth from its buried lair…
Bits of shattered bone lay strewn about the altar, made sinister excrescences beneath the enveloping carpet of glowing mould. Streamers of dried slime like foetid icicles stretched from the altar to the floor, and to the black abyss beyond. The basalt itself had absorbed certain stains that would yet taint its surface when the earth fell into the dead sun and even the mad dreams of the gods were cold dust.
“The Great Old One has not feasted here for some days,” observed Liuba. She gestured toward a fragment half covered with the encroaching fungus. It was a hobnailed Roman sandal, with the decaying bit of a Roman foot still secured within the rotting leather straps. “The hell-worm does not feast so daintily that there would not be traces.”
Bran felt a deadly sickness lift from his heart. “I think you’re right,” he decided, giving up the morbid scrutiny of the altar stone. “We’re in time.”
He risked a closer inspection of the yawning abyss. Even from the vantage of the gallery, it had seemed bottomless. The miasma that clogged his nostrils was exuded from the black circle. No sound reached his hearing from whatever laired in the depths beneath. Bran wished the pit were indeed bottomless, for he knew there was nothing he and Liuba could do against the horror he had glimpsed reared against the stars that night.
The black depths, the foetid breath, made him suddenly lightheaded. Warily Bran retreated from the edge of the abyss.
“We need some concealment,” he meditated. “Some covert from whence we can waylay the serpent-folk when they bring Morgain to this pit of hell.”
“On the ledge above?” Liuba suggested.
“It would be impossible to strike quickly from up there,” Bran countered. “Or to come upon them unawares. What about this lower entrance?”
“It pierces directly through solid rock for more than a mile,” Liuba told him. “Which is why I brought us up by the less direct path. If we encounter nothing in the tunnel, there is a cavern beyond.”
Bran shook his head. “Too far from the altar. They might bring Morgain from above. Is there no place we can hide on the floor of this hole?”
“I see nothing,” Liuba said, her tone implying she cared little for the prospect of staying there.
“Then it must be from the ledge above,” Bran concluded.
“You are relying wholly on the assumption the vermin will bring Morgain here,” Liuba pointed out. “We don’t even know that she lives.”
“If you have a better plan, spit it out!” Bran snapped. “I have nothing more to go on than this, I’ll not blame you if you’d rather not throw your life away in this desperate ploy. I’ve said from the start this is a personal blood-feud.”
Liubas eyes narrowed. “Some day you’ll try my temper beyond recall, King Bran! We have a pact, you and I.”
Bran swallowed his anger, knowing it was only from frustration that he snarled at his only ally in this hellish realm.
“I apologize,” he stated. “If you’re intent on seeing this to an end, I’ve another proposal-one of considerable danger for you.”
“I would scarce describe my present situation as one of ease,” Liuba scoffed. “Go on.”
“I think we should split up,” Bran continued. “And since you seem so adept at finding your way through this maze, you’ll have to be the one who runs the added risk.”
His tone held misgivings. Liuba cursed and assured him, “Of course I’m the one to go, if the other must remain here! What could you accomplish by getting lost in the dark!”
Bran held his temper. “I’ll remain here on the chance that they’ll bring Morgain to the hell-worm, as Ssrhythssaa commanded. If they come before you return, I’ll do what I can. In the interim, your task will be to spy them out-to seek evidence of Morgain’s fate. Report to me what you discover, and we’ll act on it. If there is nothing to report, return here as best you can from time to time. It is barely possible that Morgain may have won free, in which event we’ll try to follow her success.”
“More likely that she’s lost herself someplace where even these serpent-spawn cannot find her,” Liuba suggested grimly. “How long will you wait here?”
“As long as is necessary,” vowed Bran. “I’ll wait along the ledge there. I see a fall of broken rock that will offer concealment from any who chance to pass through, and I doubt their search will include this pit. You’ll be taking most of the risks.”
“That’s my worry,” Liuba snorted. “These vermin are nothing to me.”
“If possible, Liuba,” Bran put forth hesitantly, “it would be useful if you could secure us Roman armor and weapons. So outfitted, I think we would escape casual discovery-and more to the point, it would enable us to descend boldly to the floor of the pit, should the hellspawn appear with Morgain.”
“It shouldn’t be diffcult to lay in wait for stragglers,” Liuba pondered. “But making away with a cartload of equipage presents a problem. Well, then, I shall do whatever I can.”
***
After the girl departed, Bran felt a sudden loneliness. Enigmatic, hot-tempered-nonetheless Liuba in his eyes embodied all the savage courage of the Pictish race. Without her companionship, it was heavily borne upon him how utterly alone he was in this lost realm of ancient evil. Whatever the outcome, Bran hoped he would not have been the cause of her death.