The Pilgrims

heavy pressing down its feet, very close, just overhead, but he couldn’t see it.

Had it come lured by their human scent, their footprints? Eric crawled backwards through the tunnel, his whole body shaking. The tiniest sound of his knees and hands sliding across the stone floor seemed hugely magnified. He shook Case’s shoulder. Case murmured, annoyed to be woken. ‘What is it?’

‘Shhh! Don’t make a fucking sound. Let’s move. They’re up there above us, right now. Go.’

Case cocked his head, listening, and heard it close by: creak, creak … He looked uneasily at the tunnel’s curve behind them. ‘You sure?’

‘Yes I’m sure for fuck’s sake: go!’ Case hustled down the tunnel on hands and knees, around its curve to where it ran deeper and wider, so that they no longer needed to stoop their heads. Case turned to speak, and in fact he was about to say this: Hold on a minute, if this tunnel is supposed to keep those monsters out, maybe there’s a chance of those traps the gang kept talking about, when, with a crumbling sound, the ground seemed to drop out beneath them. They both fell for just a heartbeat, till they were lodged in the floor waist deep and painfully winded.

When Eric could speak again, he muttered: ‘Groundmen traps. Beautiful.’

‘I’m thinking we should have chanced those roadblocks,’ said Case.

Eric shut his eyes and breathed deeply. ‘I am going to agree with you on that, for the first and final time. OK? Now please. Drop it. Please.’

‘Just saying, is all.’

I am probably going to kill him, sooner or later, Eric thought. There wasn’t much to do but wait out the slow hours.

53

Their feet did not touch a floor below, nor did struggling shift their positions in the slightest, though it served to ward off numbness in their legs. The charm in his pocket was out of reach.

There was no knowing if night had passed yet or not. Eric managed to doze for a while, dreams unpleasant indeed, until woken by the feeling of something sharp poking his leg down below. He jerked frantically, feet kicking the air. There was, it seemed, much hilarity from the groundmen in a tunnel directly beneath.

‘Cut legs!’ said a gleeful voice below. Someone or something yanked up his pant leg and a sharp object gently traced along the exposed skin. ‘Hear screams! Uprat, screams pretty. Cut slow.’

‘Wait!’ Eric screamed. ‘Toll! I can pay! Toll! Toll!’

‘Toll?’ a voice below nattered. ‘We take toll. Dead soon.’

Another said, ‘Wait, wait. Go up, talk. No harm. Why they here? We ask.’

‘Trick! May trick!’

‘No trick!’ Eric yelled. ‘Believe me, please!’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘Speak our tongue?’ said one of them. Hard to tell with their strange inflections, but it sounded alarmed.

‘Speak your tongue!’ Eric agreed. ‘Yes, yes! So does my companion. We can pay toll! We can sing and dance. Sexual favours, you name it. Will you free us?’

Case groaned. ‘Don’t give em ideas for Chrissakes. If they want sexual favours, you’re their man.’

The voices below gabbled excitedly before fading as the groundmen moved away. Minutes later there was the candle-gleam of their bright yellow eyes as four approached, each holding a small spear. The foremost poked his spear down at the rock floor now and then, and there was a flare of light painful to the eyes as traps were closed off. ‘Can’t reach the gun,’ Case whispered.

‘Shh. Let me talk,’ said Eric. ‘I’ve seen these things before.’

The groundmen positioned themselves on either side of Eric, ignoring Case, and pointing the sharp tips of their weapons close to him.

‘Speak our tongue,’ said one, its face angrily bunched. ‘How? Spy?’

‘I don’t know, exactly. But I come from Otherworld. They call me a Pilgrim.’

A burble of excited chatter. The way they looked at him changed: not more friendly, but certainly more curious. ‘Why here?’ said one.

‘Here … do you mean in your tunnel, or in your world?’

This got him an angry prod by the foremost, the spear point stabbing half an inch into his shoulder. He squirmed and fought not to cry out but the pain was hideous. The other groundmen rushed to hold the angry one in check before it could drive the spear deeper. What Eric had said to offend it he had no notion at all. ‘In world, in woods, in ground,’ another said, holding back the enraged one as it made more lunges at him. ‘Answer all. Why here?’

‘We’re lost, that’s all. We came here to your world, to Levaal, by accident. We were separated from our guides. We moved off the road to avoid guards. And now we’re lost. We came down here to escape something outside, but we don’t know what it is.’

‘Tormentors, Stranger called them,’ Case interjected.

‘Case, please, as per our agreement, keep your fucking mouth shut. Can you help us, tunnel masters? We’re trying to find our way to Elvury.’

Chittering laughter broke out. ‘Want to die?’ one inquired.

‘Not especially.’ More laughter. ‘Is there something in Elvury that’s dangerous?’ said Eric.

‘They want to die!’ cackled the angry one. ‘In bad woods, while things are loose. In tunnel, walk right in trap. Now, if escape, they off to dead town. Uprat, hate life!’

Eric said, ‘Dead town? Elvury? Our friends are going there. Anfen. Do you know him? We were separated-’

‘Dead town, yes! Not yet, soon.’ The others gestured for the speaker to hush, but there seemed great mirth afoot all round.

Eric said, ‘Soon? Why, what will happen?’

‘You go, you see.’

He thought of Siel. ‘Are our friends in danger there?’

More laughter. ‘All uprats dead. We don’t care. Not our work, but we watch. Your friends first. Then you.’

‘Now pay toll,’ said another. ‘Then say why we don’t kill you, take more toll.’

Luckily Eric had a reason — funny how the feel of their spear point had cleared his head. ‘I can teach you Otherworld writing. I can show you how to read what it all says.’

The groundmen tried to hide the fact that this prospect impressed them a great deal, but he could see by the widening of their bright yellow eyes that it did. ‘The toll is in my pocket. I can’t reach it.’ There had to be receipts still in his wallet, maybe old bus tickets, and he knew Sharfy had missed a ten-dollar note, back when he’d rifled through it near the door. His key card, driver’s licence. Would these interest them?

‘Hear close,’ said one of the groundmen after a brief whispered conference with the others. ‘We let up. But! Can still kill. You big. Yes, sure. But, see? Sharp.’ He pointed his spear tip very close to Eric’s eye indeed. ‘See? Sharp.’

‘Sharp,’ Eric could only repeat, pulling his head as far back from it as possible while the spear tip followed. He didn’t see what they did but there was a tapping sound and whatever gripped his waist gradually weakened. With tired arms he pulled himself free, making the pain of the spear wound flare up badly. Blood trickled warmly down his chest. The groundmen spear points waved and jabbed around him as though they feared he’d attack. Slowly he reached for his wallet. Out came the two remaining receipts, their print almost completely faded. His key card — how strange to hand that over, in this world where it was perfectly useless, and still feel an acute sense of loss. The spear tips angled away from him as the groundmen fumbled with the receipts, an old train ticket, their mouths open in wonder, tracing fingers over the lettering. ‘More,’ one said distractedly. They were evidently so fascinated it didn’t occur to them to take the wallet itself.