Down.
Into darkness.
Chapter Sixty-Two
He slid down the side of the chasm.
Down and down. He scrabbled for purchase and found none. He kicked at the sheer wall and could find not the slightest toehold. Grey went down deeper and deeper, and in his panic he thought he could hear a chorus of ghostly voices crying his name. Even as he fell he knew that this was no fantasy. He knew that the ghosts who followed him saw him about to escape into an ignoble death in a forgotten hole, and they cried out in joy.
Was Annabelle’s voice among them? Would she — even she — delight at the thought of his bones lying here at the bottom of the Maze for all eternity? Could his betrayal of her have truly turned her to such cruelty? The mind is quick and ruthless at such times. Grey thought he could see her there, at the top of the chasm, leaning over to stare down at him as he fell.
And he did fall.
Down, down, down.
But…
But not…
But not faster and faster.
His gunbelt and hands scraped down the side of the cleft as he dropped, but he felt his body slowing.
Slowing.
Then the toes of his boot met a new angle of the wall and he felt his legs moving outward. Then his whole body bent backward until it was his belly and then his chest that was pressed hardest against the wall. He slowed more and more… until he stopped.
Just like that.
The world and all of its madness spun down like a windup toy that had clicked on its last cog. Grey lay facedown on a curved slope of rock. Panting, sweating. Bleeding. Nearly weeping.
Alive.
Far, far above him the screams of the living dead saber tooth were changing. He heard the hiss of frustration turn into a long wail of agony. He listened to it. He heard the demon inside the cat’s shrieks.
He heard them both die.
Or, maybe it was only the cat that died. Maybe the demon was cast back into Hell.
Grey had no idea which fate was worse. Burning to death or living to burn.
It took a long time to realize what had happened.
The chasm was not a sheer drop after all. Its sides were slopped like the inside of a bowl and the deeper he went the more the bowl curved inward.
His heart lurched as he realized that had he not leaped all the way to the edge of the bowl, then he would have plummeted straight down. Providence turned a failed escape into the only possible pathway to survival.
Grey lay there and pressed his forehead against the ground, closed his eyes, and thanked whatever gods there might be for dealing him a lucky card.
Lucky.
Looks Away.
Oh god.
“Are you dead, white man?” asked a familiar voice.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Grey rolled over. Slowly, painfully.
He saw Looks Away sitting with his back to a boulder. The bioluminescent fungi burned on the walls all around him and the eerie glow made him appear like a ghost from some ancient tale. Jagged lines of fresh blood were painted blackly against the Sioux’s skin.
“Jesus Christ,” breathed Grey.
“Not even close.”
He extended a hand and pulled Grey up as far as a hunched sitting position. It was the best they could each manage. Grey craned his neck to see if a ghost-pale face still looked down at him, but all there was at the top of the chasm was the dying flicker of fire from the burning monster. He hung his head and put his face in his palms.
“Well,” said Looks Away with weary sarcasm, “aren’t we a pair?”
“We’re alive,” said Grey.
“Oh, jolly good, then. All’s right with the world and we can skip tra-la.”
“Fuck you.”
“Well, there’s that. And a cogent argument you make.”
Grey scrubbed his face with his callused hands, and then got to his feet. His whole body trembled from exertion and injury. The slash on his hip felt like a hot poker driven all the way to the bone. His hands, toes, belly, and chest tingled with friction burns. And he doubted that, even should they escape from this hellhole, he would ever sleep soundly again.
“We have to find a way back up,” he said.
“Thank you for that shockingly obvious observation.”
Looks Away also got up, looking every bit as bad as Grey felt. They turned and studied their surroundings. The walls of the chasm rose steeply on either side, and even though there was a slope to each, it would be impossible to climb up the way they’d come down. The sides were far too smooth. No handholds, nothing to give them a chance of getting out. The bottom of the chasm was narrow but mostly flat, and it stretched away to either side of them. The left-hand path wended its way through chunks of fallen quartz and stone. The blue fungi allowed them to see everything as clearly as if a full winter moon hung over them.
“Which direction?” asked Looks Away.
“Hell if I know,” said Grey. “Pick one.”
“Well, I think we more or less came from that way,” said Looks Away, nodding to their right. “Maybe if we make our way along the bottom we’ll find a way up. Not a good plan, I grant you, but it’s—.”
“—better than no plan,” finished Grey. They took a moment to check their weapons. Grey reloaded his Colt and Looks Away slapped his pockets for more shells. And slapped and slapped.
“Oh, bugger that,” he growled as he found a ragged hole in his trousers. “I’ve lost the bleeding shells.”
They did a quick search of the debris at the bottom of the drop and only found one cartridge, but it was crushed and the buckshot spilled out as Looks Away picked it up. There were no other shells in sight. Looks Away considered the shotgun, sighed, and slid it back into its holster. “I feel like tossing this thing as far as I can, but it’s been useful and we might get lucky.”
Grey wasn’t sure what kind of luck his friend was referring to. The only other shells for the weapon were in Queenie’s saddlebags, but he made no comment. It was easier to find ammunition than it was to acquire a new gun.
“What about the doohickey?” he said, nodding to the Kingdom rifle.
After a quick examination, Looks Away nodded. “Seems sound. A trifle dented but the mechanism works and we still have a few rounds left. Let’s hope we don’t need them, what?”
“Sure,” said Grey, “let’s hope.”
“I have a bit of a concern about using it down here, though.”
“Why?”
“Well, the explosive force released when it obliterates the ghost rock in encounters is rather dramatic and we are, after all, in a cavern formed by an earthquake. I don’t know how much we can trust to the stability of the ceiling. A blast of unexpected size in the wrong part of this place could bring the roof down and bury all of us under a billion tons of rock.”
“Jesus. And now you tell me?” demanded Grey.
“Be fair, old boy. It’s not like I had any experience with this, and I’m sure Doctor Saint never tested it under these conditions.”
“So, we can’t use our best weapon, is that it?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that we should exercise prudence.”
Grey closed his eyes. “Jesus H. Christ, Esquire.”
With their expectations running low and their fears bubbling over, they set off along the path, but after three hundred yards of twists and turns the way became impossible. A massive tumble of granite and marble had toppled from the upper walls of the cleft and filled the entire chasm to a height of eighty or ninety feet.
“Maybe we can climb it,” said Grey, stepping back to look upward. The rocks were haphazardly stacked but there were many obvious hand- and footholds.