trampling roughly on the pure gold. Aside, there was a glaring flash of rainbow-colored sparkles, as though a sunray refracted by a block of Venetian glass. Thomas gasped, squatted helplessly. Among basalt, granite and golden nuggets, there was a diamond of the very first water, the size of a fist! Oleg glanced back with discontent, sighed and, having climbed over the top of the rampart silently, started down the inner side.
Thomas felt struggle inside, but his best friend vanished below, so he had to leave the diamond and other sparkling gems. He gave himself a strong vow to come back sometime and kick them all out from the ants’ rampart.
After the wonderer, he climbed down on the flat trampled ground. Neither a pebble nor a grass blade: everything smoothed and cleaned. The air was impregnated with a strong smell of formic acid. Black ants rush about swiftly, like knights on tourney, colliding in the same way, their armor cracks, but ants run on as though nothing happened. Despite the early hour, some were carrying killed animals. Over the northern side of the rampart, there suddenly came dozens of big ants, each with a saiga, still or feebly fluttering, in jaws: they must have encountered a big herd. Attracted by the exciting smell, scores of ants darted out a huge wide well and rushed swiftly to meet them.
Thomas and Oleg came to the dark gap, felt the cold and dampness of grave from there. Some ants, as black as sin, emerged from the dark. They had big stones, still glistening from the ant saliva used to stick together sand, rocks, and gold nuggets, in jaws. An ant carrying a saiga darted past Thomas, all but knocked him down into the well, crossed the brim deftly, and dashed down with a clatter of claws, like a squirrel on a tree.
“Each has six paws,” Thomas said in a shaky voice, “All hooked!” Oleg, with no word, sat down on the brim of the shaft, turned, and started his descent. Thomas crossed himself and followed his friend. “May you protect me, Our Lady! Though you have a baby to look after — and babies need a constant eye! — may you look at me, your true knight, in times! If I survive, I will bring on your altar some gold from that pile above.”
He climbed down hastily, clinging to ledges, ready to fall down into the fathomless well at every moment. His fingers got numb under the weight of iron armor, sweat poured over his eyes. He seemed to have fallen long ago if not his fear to knock down the wonderer who was climbing below. The clawed legs rustled around, as ants darted by, like massive anvils with iron rods instead of legs, and vanished in the coal-black shade that crossed the well slantwise. Thomas did not dare to shake the biting drops of sweat off his face. A rock flew by, all but threw Thomas down. He listened, but the boulder disappeared in the shadow silently: neither a thud nor a splash nor a squeak there below.
The wonderer vanished in the dark. Thomas felt creepy, hurried up. Fortunately, ants never bothered to smooth the walls of their well, so there were enough ledges and hollows to rest hands and feet on. When he plunged into the shade himself, he saw a bifurcating tunnel in the wall. Surely, the wonderer picked up the worst way.
He was descending for a long while. Probably he would have to crawl down to the very bottom and get on the turtle’s back — some say the Earth stands on three whales or even elephants — but ants must have grown tired of digging straight or they may have mistaken, black fools, but soon Thomas got sliding down a steep slope, sometimes clinging to protruding stones: they were glued in too tightly to be torn out.
The long tunnel was going straight gradually. They were still descending, but Thomas took his hands off the wall: his iron gauntlet slid as though on a mirror! The ant saliva mortared the walls like the strongest glue, some stones protrude, stick out, but no way to take them out, only break a half and only if the stone is not wetted with saliva all over. On his go, Thomas tried to pick them with the point of sword, but it left no scratch on the smooth surface.
Moreover, the saliva shone: not so bright as torches but brighter than the moss that gave light to Agathyrsians. However, if ants were many million years older than people, they had enough time to invent some better lightning. People definitely should have done it in their place…
Thomas stumbled out of the blue, as he suddenly recalled the vague hints by Agathyrsians and even that demon whom he slayed valiantly in Constantinople — hints of his wonderer friend’s having lived very long, almost eight thousand years, and each Christian knows firmly the only one to live eight thousand years on earth was the Devil, as God created him on the First Day, while separating the Light from the Dark…
Oleg glanced over impatiently. “Sir Thomas, wake up!”
“I just dreamed,” Thomas grumbled. “About the high.” He struggled to take himself in hands, though he had no wish to have filth in them and he felt really filthy after he dared to think those vile things about the man who had not only saved his life more than once — that was nothing! — but also had taken the cup with Christ’s blood in hands more than once, which was allowed to no sinner and should have make Satan burn or at least burnt…
He kept bumping into Oleg’s back, hitting against protruding stones.
Oleg glanced back in vexation. “Sir Thomas!” he said angrily. “It’s not the place to sleep on the go! What if we were in search of your cup?”
Thomas made himself rouse. “But that’s the cup,” he muttered.
“And those are charms! They are no less important to me. At least now.”
Roused, Thomas found himself in a creepy underground passage faced with shining glass. It was sloping downwards and crossed by other holes, full of scary darting shadows, a resonant clatter of claws, a strong smell of formic acid. Thomas grasped that his valiant knightly soul had plunged into deep reflections, so unusual to it, to avoid seeing all that horror: terrible monsters darting past him and his friend, who seemed more and more strange and dangerous, while all of them were in godforsaken hellish depth of earth!
The wonderer would always pick the broadest hole, though they could walk along narrow ones too if they bent, and the way downwards. It seemed to Thomas he also preferred the tunnels with the strongest reek of ants. They waded across a stream that ran out from one wall into the other. For a long while, they walked knee-deep in icy water, clean as crystal and bouncing on the glassy floor. Ants came running to it, always from the same side, took the water in quickly. Astonished and admiring, Thomas caught the glimpse of an ant pressing to the stream: his jaws went into the water, his mouth opened, he started lapping like a big thirsty dog, absorbing the water with force through a thick tube that went into his dry belly. The black rings moved apart, started to slide off each other. As his stomach was filling, a thin unprotected film showed between the rings. Thomas noticed that professionally like an ant’s weak spot but that would only do to injure water carriers: ant soldiers would hardly march into battle with such paunches.
Ants with swollen bellies ran away into the dark, while Thomas followed the wonderer into even more fear: deeper and deeper, where it smelled stronger than any havoc of anthill. Even ants they met there were strange. Above, all of their kin were the same: wiry, sun-tempered, black, fast, and evil. The ants below moved slowly — Thomas was kicked down only twice — had a smaller size and even smelled a bit different.
The tunnel suddenly led into a small cave, with three dark gaping holes on a level with the floor. Near one of them, there were two ants, bigger than any ones Thomas ever saw even on the surface, their long antennae moving. His heart wrung with fear: the wonderer headed for that hole!
Thomas followed his friend trembling and clinging close to him. As the ants saw them, they raised on all the six legs that glittered like metal. They had a menacing air. Sharp jaws moved apart, Thomas saw clearly the small shimmering teeth. Antennae and feelers explored the air, reached for the newcomers, but the ants made no move to come closer: watchful guards to the passage. “May we come back?” Thomas whispered. “Or into those other holes…”
“They are abandoned or empty,” Oleg replied without looking there. “And we need storerooms.”
Supple feelers darted to Oleg from both sides, started feeling, touching, pushing. The wonderer patted those thick antennae with hard brushes on ends, squeezed himself up to the entrance at once, cast a quick glance back, and Thomas saw his whitened face. He rushed after Oleg. There was a screech on his armor, but he broke through, as though it were a wall of shields, spears, and swords, uttered his battle cry habitually, gripped the sword hilt on the go, draw the blade out by half — and found himself running after the wonderer on the glassy floor, inside a broad pipe with no end to it seen.
Oleg jumped aside in time, should any monster attack him, as it looked to Thomas, and the monster, with
