Whimpering.
It was coming from the tunnel in front of him, the one going down, and it was very close.
The children! The children were down there!
“Sophie, Clara! Can you hear me? It’s me, Simon!” he shouted down.
The crying stopped. Instead he could hear Sophie’s voice.
“Is it really you, Simon?”
An immense feeling of relief came over him. At least he had found the children! Perhaps the hangman was already with them? Of course! He had not found anything in the upper chamber, so he had climbed down again and taken the second tunnel. And now he would be standing down there with the children, playing tricks on him.
“Is Kuisl down there with you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Really? Children, you must tell me. This is no longer a game!”
“By the Holy Virgin Mary, no!” Sophie’s voice came from below. “Oh God, I am so scared! I heard steps, but I can’t get away because of Clara…”
Her voice changed into weeping.
“Sophie, you need not be afraid,” Simon tried to calm her. “The steps you heard were certainly ours. We are coming to get you out of there. What’s the matter with Clara?”
“She…she’s sick. She has a fever and can’t walk.”
“We…we’re going to make out all right, Sophie. For sure. I’m coming down now.”
He took the lantern in his teeth and slid down the tunnel. This time he was prepared for the fall. He only fell a couple of feet and landed almost softly in a puddle of ice-cold muddy water.
“Simon?” Sophie’s voice came from the left. He thought he could see her outline in the dark: a spot that looked a little darker and seemed to move slowly back and forth. Simon waved. Then it occurred to him how nonsensical that was in the dark.
“I’m here, Sophie. Where is Clara?” he whispered.
“She’s lying next to me. Who are those men?”
“Which men?” While Simon spoke, he crawled toward the outline. He felt a stone step and on it moss and straw.
“Well, I mean the men I heard above. Are they still there?”
Simon tapped his way up the step. It was as long and as wide as a bed. He felt the body of a child stretched out on it. Cold skin, small toes. Rags covering her legs.
“No,” he answered. “They…they’re gone. It’s safe. You can come out.”
Now Sophie’s outline was very close, right next to him. He reached for it. He felt a dress. A hand reached for him and held him tightly.
“Oh, God, Simon! I am so scared!”
Simon hugged the little body and stroked it.
“All will be well. Now all we have to do is…”
He could hear a scraping sound behind him. Something was slowly pushing through the opening into the chamber.
“Simon!” Sophie cried out. “Something is there! I can see it. Oh, God, I can see it!”
Simon turned around. At a spot not far from them, the blackness was darker than the rest. And this darkness was coming closer.
“Do you have any light down here?” screamed Simon. “A candle? Anything?”
“I have tinder and flint. It must be here somewhere…for heaven’s sakes, Simon! What…what is it?”
“Sophie, where is the tinder? Answer me!”
Sophie started to scream. Simon slapped her face.
“Where is the tinder?” he cried once more into the blackness.
The slap helped. Sophie quieted down instantly. She felt around briefly, then handed him a fibrous piece of sponge and a cool piece of flint. Simon pulled the stiletto from his belt and struck the stone in wild blows against the cold steel. Sparks flew, the tinder started to glow, and a tiny flame flared up in his hand. But just as he was about to light the lantern with the glowing fibers, he felt a draft from behind. The shadow fell over them.
Before the lantern went out a second time, Simon saw a hand swoop down in the fading light. Then darkness overcame him.
In the meantime the hangman had gone through two more chambers without finding any trace of the children. The room he had reached with the ladder had been empty. Shards of an old pitcher and a few rotten barrel staves littered the floor. In the corner alcoves there were recessed stone seats. They were scrubbed smooth and looked as if hundreds of frightened people had squatted in them over the years. Two tunnels led from this chamber into the darkness as well.
Jakob Kuisl cursed. This dwarf’s hole was indeed a damn maze! It quite possibly extended underground all the way to the church walls. Perhaps the priest had been right after all with his ghost stories. What secret rites could have taken place down here? How many hordes of barbarians and soldiers had already passed above, while deep down in the earth, men, women, and children listened fearfully to the conquerors’ steps and voices? Nobody would ever know.
Above the entrance to the tunnel at the left were a few marks that Jakob Kuisl could not figure out. Scratches, arching lines, and crosses that could be of human or natural origin. Here, too, the passage was so narrow that one had to practically push one’s self through. Could there be some truth to the stories that an old midwife had told him almost thirty years earlier? That the passages were built so narrow on purpose so that a body would surrender all that was bad, all sickness, all bad thoughts to Mother Earth?
He forced himself through the narrow hole and found himself in the next chamber. It was the largest so far, a good four paces to the other end, and the hangman was able to stand up straight in it. From there, a narrow passage went on in a straight line. There was another hole directly above Jakob Kuisl. Pale yellow roots, finger thick, were growing out of the narrow shaft, down to him, brushing over his face. Far above, the hangman thought he could see a tiny ray of light. Was it the moon? Or was it only an optical illusion, his eyes longing for the light? He tried to figure out how far he had moved away from the well in the meantime. It was quite possible he was standing directly beneath the linden tree, in the middle of the clearing. Since olden times, the linden tree had been considered a holy tree. The mighty specimen at the building site was certainly a few hundred years old. Had at one time a shaft led down from the trunk of the linden tree to this resting place of souls?
Jakob Kuisl tested the roots by pulling on them; they seemed to be tough and capable of supporting some weight. He briefly thought of pulling himself up on them to check whether they actually belonged to the linden tree. But then he decided after all to take the horizontal tunnel. If he found nothing on the other side he would turn back. Mentally he had continued to count. Soon he reached five hundred, the number he and Simon had agreed on.
He bent down and crawled into the narrow tunnel. This was the narrowest passage so far. Clay and stones scraped his shoulders. His mouth was dry, and he tasted dust and dirt. He had the impression that the tunnel was beginning to taper down like a funnel. A dead end? He was about to crawl back when he saw in the light of the lantern that the passage widened again after a few more feet. With difficulty he pushed forward through the last part of the tunnel. Like a cork being pulled from its bottle he finally landed in yet another chamber.
The space was so low that he had to stoop. It ended just two steps further on, at a moist clay wall. There was no other passage. This was clearly the end of the maze. He would have to turn back.
As he turned again toward the narrow hole he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
On the left side of the chamber, something had been scratched into the clay at chest level. This time they weren’t simple scratches or scribbles as before above the arch. This was an inscription, and it looked as if it had been made pretty recently.
Jakob Kuisl caught his breath.
F.S.…that had to be the abbreviation for Ferdinand Schreevogl! He had been here on the twelfth of October, 1646, and he had obviously wished for posterity to know about it.
