The boys spent the next twenty-four hours taking it easy, sometimes sleeping on the library table, sometimes roving through the large house. As Will looked around the other rooms, it made him uncomfortable to think the Styx had once lived here, even though it had been a long time ago. However, despite his searching, he didn't find any further evidence of his father and was becoming impatient to get going again — fired up by the notion that Dr. Burrows might still be in the area and desperate to catch up with him. With every hour, Will grew more restless, until he could bear it no longer. He rallied Chester and Cal together, telling them to pack their things, and then left the library to wait out in the hallway.
"I don't know what it is, but there's something about this place," Will said as Chester joined him by the front door. Will had opened it a fraction, and they were shining the focused beams of their lanterns at the dismal forms of the squat huts as they waited for Cal. After his outburst about Will's father, he'd been moody and uncommunicative, and both Will and Chester had largely left him to his own devices.
"It makes me feel… feel kind of uneasy," Will continued. "It's all those little huts out there and the thought that the Styx made the Coprolites live in them, like slaves. I bet they were treated so badly."
"The Styx are the worst type of scum," Chester said, then hissed sharply through his teeth and shook his head. "No, Will, I don't like it here, either. It's strange that…" he pondered.
"What?"
"Well, it's just that this building's been empty for years, maybe centuries, until your dad broke in. Just locked up, like nobody's dared to put a foot in it."
"Yes, that's right," Will said thoughtfully.
"Do you think people stay away because things were once so awful here?" Chester asked him.
"Well, the bats are definitely carnivorous — I saw them attacking an injured one — but I don't think they're too much of a danger," Will replied.
"Huh?" Chester said apprehensively, his face draining. "We're made of meat."
"Yeah, but I would guess they're more interested in the insects," Will began. "Or animals that can't fight back." He shook his head. "You're right — I'm sure it isn't just the bats that have kept people away from this place," he agreed.
As Will had been talking, Cal had stomped sullenly through the dust, thrown down his rucksack and sat himself on top of it.
"Yeah, the bats," he butted in sulkily. "How are we going to get past them?"
"There's no sign of them at the moment," Will said.
"Wonderful," Cal snarled. "So you don't have a plan at all."
Will responded evenly, refusing to be ruffled by his brother's criticism. "Right, then: This time we dim our lights, we don't make any noise, or shout — got that, Cal? And, as a precaution, I've got some firecrackers ready if they do come. Should scare off the freaky things." Will tugged open the side pocket of his pack, in which there were a couple of Roman candles left over from the batch he'd set off in the Eternal City.
"That's it? That's the plan?" Cal demanded aggressively.
"Yes," Will said, still trying to keep his cool.
"Foolproof!" Cal grunted.
Will gave him a look that could kill and warily pulled the door farther open.
Cal and Chester both edged out, with Will bringing up the rear, a pair of firecrackers in one hand and a lighter poised in the other. Every so often they heard the screeches of the bats, but they came from far enough away not to cause any real alarm. The boys moved silently and quickly, using the minimum of light to show them the way. In the shadows around their feet the tiny scuttlings and scrabblings tested the limits of their resolve, their imaginations running riot with thoughts of what was there.
They had left the gateway behind them and then backtracked a good distance down the main tunnel when Cal stopped and pointed at a side passage. True to form, he had wandered ahead by himself, and now did not say anything as he continued to point.
"Is the midget trying to tell us something?" Chester asked Will sarcastically as they approached the resentful boy. Will stepped closer, until his face was inches from Cal's.
"For goodness' sake, grow up, will you? We're all in this together."
"A sign," Cal merely said.
"From heaven?" Chester asked.
Unspeaking, Cal moved aside to allow them to see a wooden post that rose a few feet from the ground. It was ebony-black, with the surface cracked as if it had been badly charred, and at the top it had a curved arrow pointing into the passage. They hadn't spotted it on the way down because it was tucked just inside the mouth of the passage.
"I reckon this could be a good way to get through to the Great Plain," Cal told Will, studiously avoiding Chester's belligerent glare.
"But why would we want to go there?" Will asked him. "What's so special about it?"
"It's probably where your dad went next," Cal replied.
"Then we follow it," Will said, and turned away from his brother, entering the passage without a further word.
Their journey through the passage was relatively easy — it was quite sizable, and its floor level, but the heat grew stronger with every step. Following Chester's and Cal's example, Will had removed his jacket, but he still felt the sweat soaking his back under his rucksack.
"We are going in the right direction, aren't we?" he said to Cal, who for once was not straying ahead of them.
"I hope so, don't you?" the boy replied insolently, then spat on the ground.
The change was immediate. There was a flash of illumination, far brighter than the glow issuing from the lanterns all three boys had hooked on their shirt pockets. It was as if all the faces of the rocks, and even the very ground itself, were radiating a clean yellow light. And it wasn't just limited to where they stood, but surging in pulses along the passage in both directions and illuminating everything as surely as if a switch had been flicked on, lighting the way for them.
They were stunned.
"I don't like this, Will," Chester gibbered.
Will pulled his jacket from where it was draped over the top of his rucksack and rummaged in it for his gloves.
"What are you doing?" Cal asked.
"Just a hunch," Will replied, stooping to pick up a brightly glowing rock the size of a golf ball. He closed his gloved hand over it, the creamy efflorescence shining through the gaps between his fingers. Then, balancing the rock on his open palm, he examined it carefully.
"Look at this," he said. "See that it's covered with a growth of some sort, like lichen?" Then he spat on it.
"Will?" Chester exclaimed.
The rock shone even more brightly. Will's mind was working overtime. "It feels warm. So moisture activates whatever this organism is — possibly bacteria — and it gives off light. Except for the stuff you find in some oceans, I've never heard of anything quite like this." He spat again, but this time on the wall of the passage.
Sure enough, where spots of his saliva had landed, the wall glowed that much more fiercely, as if luminous paint had been flicked at it.
"C'mon already, Will!" Chester said urgently, his voice low with fear. "It could be dangerous!"
Will ignored him. "You can see what water does to it. It's like a seed that's dormant… until it gets wet." He turned to the other two boys. "Better not get any on your skin — wouldn't like to think what it might do to it. Might suck up all the moisture…"
"Thank you, Professor Smarty-Pants. Now let's get out of here ASAP, shall we?" Chester said, exasperated.
"Yep, I'm done," Will agreed, tossing the rock aside.