“A cave.”
It was obvious enough by hindsight. The narrow valley, Hell’s Doorway, must have been cut by water, slowly eroded out through the centuries by the small stream. It had no visible outlet because it plunged underground, and it had taken him with it. That meant he wasn’t finished yet. The water had to have an outlet, and if it did he would find it. For a moment he considered the fact that it might sink lower and lower into the rock strata and vanish, but he swiftly rejected this defeatist idea.
“Carry on!” he shouted aloud as he stumbled to his feet, and the echoes called back “On… on… on….”
“Good idea, on, onwards. Just what I shall do.”
He shivered and squelched forward through the fine sand at the edge of the water, and the next thing he saw were the footprints emerging from the stream and going on ahead of him.
Was someone else here?! The footprints were sharp and clear, obviously recently made. There must be an entrance to these caverns that was well known. All he had to do was follow the footprints and he would be out. And as long as he kept walking he would not freeze in his sodden clothing. The cave air was cool, but not so cold as the plateau outside.
When the trail left the sand beside the stream and ventured into an adjoining cavern, it became more difficult to follow, but not impossible. Small stalagmites growing from the limestone floor had been kicked down, and there were occasional marks gouged into the soft stone of the walls. The tunnels branched and one went back to the water where it ended abruptly at a rocky bank. The shone was gone and the water filled the cave here, coming close to the smooth ceiling. Jason retraced his steps and picked up the trail again at the next branch.
It was a long walk.
Jason rested once and fell asleep without realizing it. He awoke, shivering uncontrollably, and forced himself to go on. As far as he knew, the watch concealed in his belt buckle was still operating, but he never looked at it. Somehow the measuring of time could not be considered in these endless, timeless caverns.
Walking down one of them, no different from all the others, he found the man he had been following. He was sleeping on the cave floor ahead, a barbarian, in furs very much like Jason’s.
“Hello,” he called in the in-between tongue, then fell silent as he came closer. The sleep was for eternity and the man had been dead a very long time. Years, centuries perhaps, in these dry, cold, and bacteriafree caverns. There was no way to tell. His flesh and skin were brown and mummified, leather lips shriveled back from yellow teeth. One outstretched hand lay, pointing ahead, a knife just beyond the splayed fingers. When Jason picked it up, he saw that it was tarnished only by the thinnest patina of rust.
What Jason did next was not easy, but it was essential for survival. With careful motions he removed the fur outer garments from the corpse. It crackled and rustled when he was forced to move the stiff limbs, but made no other protest. When he had the furs, he moved farther down the cavern, stripped himself bare and donned the dry clothes. There was no repugnance; this was survival.
He stretched his own clothes out to dry, bunched the fur under his head, turned the light to a dim yellow glow, he could not bear the thought of total darkness, and fell instantly into a troubled sleep.
17
“They say that if everything is the same for a long time, you can’t tell how long the time is because everything is the same. So I wonder how long I have been down here.” He trudged a few steps more and considered it. “A long time, I guess.”
The cavern branched ahead and he made a careful mark with the knife, at shoulder height, before taking the right-hand turning. This tunnel dead-ended at the water, a familiar occurrence, and he knelt and drank his stomach full before turning back. At the junction he scratched the slash that meant “water” and turned down the other branch.
“One thousand eight hundred and three… one thousand eight hundred and four…” He had to count every third step of his left foot now because the number was so large. It was also meaningless, but it gave him something to say and he found the sound of his voice to be less trying than the everlasting silence.
At least his stomach had stopped hurting. The rumblings and cramps had been very annoying in the beginning, but that had passed. There was always enough water to drink, and he should have thought of measuring the time by the number of notches he took in his belt.
“I’ve seen you before, you evil crossway you.” He spat dryly in the direction of the three marks on the wall at the junction. Then he scratched a fourth below them with the knife. He would not be coming back here again. Now he knew the right sequence of turns to take in the maze ahead.
He hoped.
“Cuglio, he only has one sphere…. Fletter has two but very queer. Harmill…” He pondered as he marched. Just what was it that
Harmill had? It escaped him now. He had been singing all the old marching songs that he remembered, but for some reason he was beginning to forget the words.
Some reason! Hah. He laughed dirtily at himself. The reason was obvious. He was getting very hungry and very tired. A human body can live a long time with water and without food. But how long can it go on walking?
“Time to rest?” he asked himself.
“Time to rest,” he answered himself.
In a little while. This tunnel was slanted downward and there was the smell of water ahead. He was getting very good with his nose lately. Many times there was sand next to the water on which he could sleep, and this was far better than the bare rock There was very little flesh over his bones now and they pressed through and hurt.
Good. There was sand here, a luxurious, wide band of it. The water was wider and must be deeper, almost a pool. It still tasted the same. He squirmed out a hollow in the unmarked sand, turned the flashlight out, put it into his pouch and went to sleep.
He used to leave it on when he slept, but this did not seem to make any difference any more.
As always, he slept briefly, woke up, then slept again. But there was
something wrong. With his eyes open he lay staring up into the velvety darkness. Then he turned to look at the water.
Far out. Deep down. Faint, ever so faint, was a shimmer of blue light. For a long time he lay there thinking about it. He was tired and weak, starved, probably feverish. Which meant he was probably imagining it. The dying man’s fantasy, the mirage for the thirsty. He closed his eyes and dozed, yet when he looked again the light was still there. What could it mean?
“I should do something about this,” he said, and turned his flashlight on. In the greater light the glow in the water was gone. He stood the flashlight up in the sand and took out his knife. The tip was still sharp. He raked it along the inside of his arm, drawing a shallow slice that oozed thick drops of blood.
“That hurts!” he said, then, “That’s better.”
The sudden pain had jarred him from his lethargy, released adrenalin into his bloodstream and forced him into unaccustomed alertness.
“If there’s light down there, it must be an exit to the outside. It has to be. And if it is, it may be my only chance to get out of this trap. Now. While I still think I can make it.”
After that, he shut up and took breath after breath, filling his lungs again and again until his head began to swim with hyperventilation. Then, with a last breath, he turned the light to full intensity and put the end in his mouth so that he could direct it forward by tilting his head. One, two, hands together and dive.