“Hang on!” Hadrian shouted back.
They felt a rushing movement, like an eruption that issued from below, as the world filled with the fluttering of endless wings and high-pitched squeals. Hadrian braced himself, holding tight to the rope, as Arista screamed once more and the shaft filled with a cloud of bats that swirled with the force of a cyclone.
With his head down, Hadrian clutched the rope, wrapping it tight around his forearm. Mauvin and Royce grabbed hold of him. Arista was not going anywhere.
In less than a minute the hurricane of bats passed by.
“Lower me down!” Arista called. “Before something else happens.”
He felt her touch down, and as he reeled up the harness, Hadrian looked up. The small patch of mauve sky was filled with a dark swirling line. A cloud of bats snaked like the tail of a serpent, twisting, looping, circling. Like a magic plume of smoke, they were mesmerizing to watch. Hadrian guessed there had to be millions.
Looking back down, he noticed there was a light below, a bright light that filled the shaft, revealing the glistening walls.
“What’s going on down there?” he called.
“I’m tired of not being able to see,” Arista yelled back.
“She’s got her robe glowing,” Alric said uncomfortably.
When Hadrian got down, he saw the princess perched on an outcropping of rock. Her legs dangled over the edge, scissoring in the air, her robe glowing white. Whenever she moved, the shadows shifted. Everyone stole repeated glances, as if it might be impolite to stare. Gaunt had no such reservation as he gaped, openly horrified.
On they went, following the same order, all of them doing their job with a rhythm. They traveled in silence except for the necessary calls of “down” and “clear.” It took five more descents before he heard Wyatt call up, “Stop! I’m at the bottom!”
“You’re still on the rope,” Hadrian shouted back, confused. “You haven’t touched down yet? You need more slack?”
“ No! No slack! I would prefer not to touch down.”
“River?” Arista asked.
“Nope, but it’s moving.”
“What is?”
“Can’t really tell. It’s too dark down here. Give me a minute to find a place to land.”
In time, they all descended to an island of rock that jutted up from the floor of the cavern. Even with Arista beside him, it was too dark for Hadrian to see clearly what lay around them. All he knew was that they stood on an island within a sea of dark movement. He smelled a foul odor and heard a soft chattering coming from the floor. The smell was very much like an old chicken coop. “What is it, Royce?”
“I really think you need to see this for yourself,” Royce replied. “Arista, can you turn that thing up?”
Before he finished his sentence, Esrahaddon’s robe increased in brilliance, a phosphorous light illuminating the entire base of the shaft. What they saw left them speechless. They were not actually at the bottom. They stood on the tip of an up-thrusted rock, tall enough to breach the surface of a monolithic pile of bat droppings. The cone-shaped mound of guano stood easily three hundred feet high. Every inch of it moved, as across its surface scurried hundreds of thousands of cockroaches.
“By Mar!” Mauvin exclaimed.
“That’s disgusting,” Alric said.
There was more there than cockroaches. Hadrian spotted something white and spidery darting across the surface-a crab, and there was not just one, but hundreds all scuttling along. There was a faint squeal lower down and he saw a rat. The rodent was scrambling to escape the pile as a horde of beetles swarmed it. The rat toppled and was pulled onto its back, where it floundered, struggling in the soft guano. It squealed again. Its feet, tail, and head quivered and thrashed above the surface as an endless mob of beetles pulled it down, until only the trembling, hairless tail was visible, and then it too vanished.
“ ‘Crawling, crawling, crawling. They eat everything,’ ” Myron quoted.
“Anyone want to try walking across that?” Royce asked.
Wyatt replied with an uncomfortable laugh, then said, “No, seriously, how do we get down?”
“What if we jump and run real fast?” Mauvin offered.
This idea garnered several grimaces.
“What if it’s not solid? Can you imagine it being so soft that you went under, like water?” Magnus muttered.
“You’re thinking something,” Hadrian said to Royce. “You saw this from above. You wouldn’t have come down if you didn’t have some kind of plan.”
He shook his head. “Not me, but I was hoping she would.” He gestured at Arista.
All eyes turned to the princess and she returned the looks with an expression of surprise and self-doubt.
“You need to provide us with a path or something,” Royce told her. “Some means of getting down the slope of this pile. There’s an opening over there, a crack in the wall-see it?” He pointed. “It will be tight, but I think we can get through. Of course, we’ll have to crawl, possibly even dig our way out. So really, anything you can do to distract the meat-eating beetles would be nice.”
She nodded and sighed. “I really don’t have a lot of experience at this.”
“You do what you can,” Hadrian told her.
“The only other alternative is Mauvin’s idea-we run for it and hope to get out before we’re completely eaten.”
Arista made a face and nodded again. “Everyone should stand behind me. I don’t know exactly what will happen.”
“What’s she gonna do?” Gaunt asked. “What’s going on?”
“Just do as she says,” Royce told him.
The princess took a position on the edge of the rock and faced the mound. The rest gathered behind her, shifting their feet so as not to fall. Arista stood with her arms at her sides, rotating her palms out toward the mound, and slowly, softly, she began to hum. Then the light of her robe went out.
Darkness swallowed them.
Their only reference point was the tiny circle of starlit sky that lingered overhead, and in the absence of sight, the chattering sounds of a million roaches echoed. They all stood close to each other, huddled against the black, when tiny lights began appearing. Pinpricks flashed and died in the air before them. While the sparks lived, they swirled and drifted, riding currents of spinning air. More appeared, until Hadrian felt he was seeing the top of a giant campfire. There was no flame, only the swarm of sparks that rose high into the air, carried up as if the shaft were an enormous chimney.
In addition to the sparks, there was heat. It felt as if Hadrian stood before his father’s forge. He could feel it baking his clothes and flushing his skin. With the heat came a new smell; far worse than the musty ammonia scent, this was thick and overpowering-the gagging stench of burning hair. As they watched, the pile before them began to radiate light, a faint red glow, like embers in a neglected fireplace. Then spontaneously flames caught, flaring here and there, throwing tall demonic shadows dancing on the walls.
“All right! All right!” Alric shouted. “That’s enough! That’s enough! You’re burning my face off!”
The flames subsided, the red glow faded, and the soaring sparks died. Arista’s robe once more glowed, but fainter and with a bluish tint. Her shoulders slumped and her legs wavered. Hadrian grabbed hold of her by the elbow and waist.
“Are you all right?”
“Did it work? Is anyone hurt?” she asked, turning to look.
“A little seared, perhaps,” he said.
Royce ventured a foot out onto the pile. There was an audible crunch, as if he were stepping on eggshells. The surface of the mound looked dark and glassy. Nothing moved anymore.
Royce took two steps, then returned promptly to the island. “Still a tad warm. We might want to wait a bit.”
“How did you do that?” Degan asked, astonished, while at the same time shifting away from her as far as the tiny perch allowed.
“She’s a witch,” Magnus said.
“She’s not a witch!” In the otherwise silent cave, the volume of his own voice embarrassed Hadrian. It echoed twice. He noticed Alric looking at him, surprised, and he felt suddenly crowded. He stepped off and started walking.