Into the Second World Read online

  “Pull me back,” I said, my voice edged with panic. Nik put his arm around my waist and pulled me away from the abyss. I took a shuddering breath and turned around, still in his grasp.

  “You’re all right,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

  His eyes looked down at me with sympathy, but small lines between his brows spoke of concern. I spent one long, luxurious moment relishing the feeling of safety—his strong arm, his rich voice, his sapphire eyes.

  Then I pulled away.

  “Why did you let me do that?” I demanded. “Why not tell me it was a trap?”

  “Look,” he said, holding up one hand. “Beso’s waiting. Let’s go and I’ll explain.”

  I followed, nursing my invisible wound. Now he bids me follow. He’ll explain, as if I’m a child. I’d been frightened; I refused to be fair.

  The chasm closed up, the cavern narrowed once more, and before us lay still another featureless tunnel, wide enough for two to walk side by side. The others were already in stride. Nik walked beside me.

  “On my very first expedition,” he said, “to the great Rocky Mountains of Columbiana. I was all of sixteen at the time, in the company of a minor explorer by the name of Anton Welser. He never discovered anything of note, but he was a fine man and a good teacher.

  “He never looked the part of explorer. He was short, fat, and always wore a waistcoat. The natives held him in high regard, not least because he spoke several of their languages. By curious coincidence, he was searching for undiscovered cavern systems.”

  “Do you think,” I said, “your story will come to the point before we come to the end of this tunnel?”

  He chuckled and said, “The odds favor it, but don’t bet your own money.”

  Once again he surprised me with his ability to take my needling without rancor.

  “So, one day we’re tramping along on a high meadow, Anton out ahead. He passes a pile of stones, nods at it, and says, ‘Snake.’

  “Now, travelers to the Rockies are always told to be careful of three things, at the least: mountain lions, grizzly bears, and rattlesnakes. I look, and up rears a huge snake, easily as long as my leg, coiled, rattling its tail. I jumped in the worst possible direction: up. The snake struck, hit me in the shin. I cried out and fell to the ground. The snake slithered off into the tall grass. I felt pain spreading in my leg.

  “Anton Welser came back to me and held out his hand. I swear he was grinning. He told me to get up, that I wasn’t hurt.”

  “Were you?”

  “No, not really.” That chuckle again. “It was what the locals call a bullsnake. It looks and behaves like a rattler, but it doesn’t bite. Foul-tempered beast, though.”

  “Your mentor was playing a joke? Is that what you did to me back there?” My temper rose again.

  “He was teaching me. He had told me how to recognize a rattlesnake and what to do when encountering one, but it was only words. A professor’s lecture, if you please.”

  “I do not please,” Queller said from up ahead. “Kindly tell your story without your usual prejudice.”

  “Sorry, Uncle.” Nik gave me a sly smile.

  “Anton never said anything, but I’m sure he knew I would learn the lesson best through experience, and he was right. I’ve never forgotten, and I can spot the difference between a bullsnake and a rattler in a blink. You want to know a secret?”

  “What?”

  “Stay away from both,” Nik said. “And if you have to jump, don’t jump up.”

  “So,” I said, “you wanted to teach me a lesson. But I’m not sixteen, Herr Thesiger.” I was still exasperated, both by the experience and by this long-winded explanation.

  “We’re not back to titles, are we?” he said. “We’re in a far more dangerous place here. The Rockies were well known when I hiked them, but here we walk through the unknown. There’s no room for mistakes down here. Bessarion told me of the trap. It’s one thing to hear about it, another to experience it, don’t you agree?”

  I had to admit I did. The difference remained with me as a queasy sensation in my stomach and a memory of almost falling. One thing puzzled me, though.

  “It seems too easy a trap,” I said. “I can see a troll or two falling, but the others would pull back. It’s not effective for turning back an army.”

  “Oh,” Nik said, “that wasn’t the trap, that was the bait. Had Bessarion failed to open the lock in time, the entire room would be sealed, then flooded for an hour, then drained again. The gemstone bait reappears, and the room is ready again. Any trolls on the outside were no doubt discouraged by the screams of those inside as they drowned.”

  I shuddered: at the image, at the memory of the bones, and at thinking our lives had depended on the skill of one disreputable dwarf. I pushed the image away.

  “Your Herr Welser,” I said, trying for a lighter tone, “would perhaps have liked to come with us.”

  “He would have,” Nik said, “but he’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “What happened?”

  “He went into a cave system and never came back.” Nik’s voice had gone flat and cold. He said no more.

  “Welser died in a rockfall,” Professor Queller said. “He was not found until the following spring.” A silence, then: “Niki found him.”

  I tried for long moments to find something consoling to say, but failed. I pictured Nik finding the decayed corpse of his friend and mentor. Then, unavoidably, I pictured myself crushed in a fist of stone, found by no one, until I was no more than a muddle of bones to be kicked aside by some future explorer. The tunnel roof seemed to press down upon me, the weight of a mountain. At the same time it seemed to me fragile as glass, ready to collapse at a tremor.

  Rockfall. What a terrible word.

  The Troll Gates

  I was beginning to believe the Long Dig might be a real thing, even if not quite the legendary construction of dwarf mythology. Why else would there be traps so deep beneath the earth?

  After a period of time, we rested. After another period of time, we ate. I resisted an impulse to check my chronometer. We were moving through a permanent night, bringing our sun with us. What did hours matter? Besides, I’d have to ask Cosmas to fish it out, which would only make everyone wonder why I was anxious about the time.

  At the rest interval after the midday meal—so strange a name in this lightless place!—I ventured to talk to Bessarion, who was engaged in sharpening his hatchet.

  “How much farther to the Troll Gate?” I asked.

  The dwarf spoke without looking up.

  “No time. We are there.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Don’t be.”

  I knew how to talk to each of the other men, but this one remained impenetrable. But I needed material for my story.

  “I mean to say,” I persisted, despite his unfriendly tone and manner, “all I have seen so far is a tunnel. I’ve not seen any gates, troll or otherwise.”

  He gave me a single, quick glance, then returned to sharpening his hatchet. I suspected it was already well honed and that this activity was but another defense in his wall.

  “You call them the Troll Gates,” he said. “We do not.”

  “What do you call them, then?”

  “Letzten und Besten.”

  I cocked my head. “The last and best of what?”

  “Defense.”

  “Against the trolls?”

  He set aside his whetstone and looked at me squarely. Perhaps it was the strange blue light, but his eyes seemed to glow. He did not blink.

  “Trolls, and other things.”

  Niklot chuckled at this. “The old belief, remember,” he said to me.

  “Miss Lauten,” the professor said, “we shall take this opportunity to take a set of measurements. Do not forget to note the date and time.”

  I bit my tongue at his reminding me of the basics. So like the professor; so like a man.

  Cosm
as handed me my notebook, pencil, and a chronometer.

  “The time?”

  “Eight minutes after noon,” I said.

  “Your timepiece is four minutes slow.”

  I frowned. “Or yours is fast. How are we to know?”

  “Because mine is not fast.”

  I grimaced and noted the time. By my watch.

  “The Troll Gates were built some time during the Second Dark Age,” Nik said, “so we don’t have much in the way of records.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “What do we know?”

  “According to the archaeologists, the Gates closed off some passage that once ran right through the mountains, most likely from the Dravus River basin. Most say at a cave near Adelsberg.

  “Our heading remains south-southeast,” Professor Queller said. “Would you care to hear my refutation of the Adelsberg theory?”

  “I would,” I said with a smile, then hastily added, “but perhaps another time. I would like to hear Bessarion’s views on the topic.” I turned to the dwarf. “What do you say is the Long Dig?”

  “It leads to our ancient home.”

  The dwarf was not exactly brimming over with explanations.

  “If the archaeologists are right,” Nik said, “then we shall either hit a dead end, or we find ourselves emerging in Carniola or Styria. If the Old Way dwarves are right, then past the Troll Gates we will find a route to the very center of the earth.”

  “The dwarves are right,” Queller declared firmly.

  “The dwarves cannot have dug their way through thousands of miles of stone,” I said, as firmly as the professor. “They could not, to name but one of a dozen reasons, have fed themselves over that distance.”

  “I agree,” Queller said. “Therefore, they did not. Yet, here they are. That is an indisputable fact.”

  “Then how?”

  “By some other means. Must every point be demonstrated before you will entertain a hypothesis?”

  “No,” I said, “but I’d like to test the thread of the theory before suspending my very life from it.”

  “And yet, like the dwarves, here you are.”

  I had to smile at that. “Indisputably,” I said. “But the explanation for me is simple. It’s my job.”

  The professor snorted and showed he was done with the topic.

  Nik only shrugged when I turned to him, so I tried again with the dwarf.

  “Bessarion, if it pleases you, will you not explain the Troll Gates? My readers are sure to wonder.” I was trying to be as polite as I knew how.

  By way of an answer, the dwarf stood and put away his whetstone. He affixed the ax to his belt once more. Only then did he oblige me with a reply.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  So much for politeness.

  I tried again to learn more about our strange guide.

  “Niklot says you’re a Firster,” I said, trying the direct approach once again. A journalist must be persistent.

  “I do not like that word,” Beso said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “What’s the correct word?”

  Beso’s look assessed me.

  “I follow the True Reverence,” he said.

  “True Reverence,” I repeated the phrase to fix it in my mind. I very much wished we could stop so I could make notes.

  I waited for twenty steps or so, but Beso added nothing more. The leather of his pants scraped with every step. It sounded like whispers.

  “Is the Long Dig part of your faith?”

  “No,” the dwarf said. “The Long Dig is history.”

  I didn’t much care to be interviewing his back, but kept at it.

  “Are we following the Long Dig right now?” I asked, trying to steer away from religion.

  “Yes.”

  “How can you tell? We’ve passed a score of branches and intersections, not to mention plain old cracks or holes big enough to squeeze through.”

  “I’ve been here before,” Beso said. “By myself, and with Temur.”

  “Temur? You mean the guide for the Fournier Expedition? Nik mentioned him.”

  “Yes. We were friends, as children. We played here. When we were older, we explored.”

  “So, you’re sure Fournier went this way because Temur led him.”

  “Yes.”

  “You realize that’s not entirely comforting, right?” I said. The dwarf’s head came to the level of my shoulders. I was speaking to his woolen hat.

  Beso shrugged a reply.

  “I mean, Fournier is lost, presumed dead. Oh.” I stumbled over my own words. “Oh. Sorry. About your friend.”

  “He’s not my friend,” Beso said, “not for several years.”

  A falling out. Better to leave that alone for now.

  “I got farther than Temur,” Beso added. “I got through the Tangle.”

  I heard the note of pride from under the wool.

  “What’s the Tangle?”

  “You’ll see.” Again he shrugged.

  I let another thirty paces go by, then another thirty, but he added nothing more.

  “I have to ask one more question,” I said.

  “Only one?”

  “Was that dwarf humor?” I asked. I smiled, but only the back of his head saw it.

  “Down here.”

  Beso turned and went into a side tunnel that sloped downward sharply, then ended at a drop. Beso halted at the edge.

  “Wait for me,” he said, then hopped down. He grunted when he landed. “Come to the edge,” he called up loudly. “Jump only where I did.”

  “What are you doing there? Where have you gone?” Professor Queller’s voice came from the other tunnel.

  “Following Bessarion,” I answered.

  I held my lantern over the edge and saw the ground below was covered in rocks that ranged from the size of a melon up to a few the size of a hogshead. A perfect selection for wrenching an ankle. Beso stood in a small clearing only a few feet wide. He stepped back to give me room.

  “What is your last question?” he said after I’d landed. “Hold your lamp up so the others can see.”

  “After the Tangle,” I said, “what then?”

  “Then we go on.”

  “I mean, what will we see? Where do we go? And yes, I do know that’s more than one question. Answer whichever you like.”

  Nik landed lightly, followed by a heavy thud from Professor Queller. We all moved back to give room for Cosmas, who managed to land more lightly than did Queller.

  “Not much of a trap,” Nik said to Beso.

  “Not a trap. Just a rockfall. There’s always been a clearing.”

  That word.

  “Wait, it was cleared when you first came here?” I said. “That means others have come this way, years ago.”

  “It does,” Beso said. His lips thinned and widened, which is as close to a smile as dwarves get. They can laugh uproariously, but smiles are rare.

  “Many others,” he added, still smiling, “and many, many years.”

  Thus went my interview with the dwarf Bessarion. Nik later told me he was surprised I’d gotten even that much.

  After another day of steady marching we came at last to a metal door, rather square in shape, with a rounded top about the height of Cosmas.

  The tunnel here had widened out, as if to make room for people to congregate.

  “Is that iron?” I asked.

  “Appears to be,” Niklot said, tapping on it. The door rang faintly, like an iron bell.

  It showed reddish in color. I should have said it was rust, but there was no flaking. Ordinary iron would have rusted in the damp air long ago. The metal did show a few scars, long scratches, not very deep, mostly near the edges. The stone around the outside had been attacked more vigorously, with gouges in many places.

  The door was set into a metal frame a handspan in width. This frame encased the door on all four sides, so it must have to open inward. I pictured previous explorers pushing, banging, pounding with axes, a
ll futilely. There was no handle, no keyhole, only the heavy incongruous metal. On the floor lay broken pick heads, a shattered handle of wood, and a few shards of metal and stone.

  “Look here,” Bessarion said. “It is as is written. ‘They cry at the door but know not how to enter.’”

  “Is that a quote from something?”

  “Yes,” the dwarf said.

  I looked to Niklot for explanation. He shrugged.

  “Beso has some knowledge, but he won’t say from where.”

  “Ancient,” Bessarion said.

  “And now,” Nik said, smiling ruefully, “you know as much as I. Beso here is close-mouthed on anything touching the First Dwarves.”

  I groaned inwardly but kept my expression neutral. People with secret, sacred knowledge can be quite tiresome after a while.

  “Do you believe in this stuff?” I said to Nik.

  “Does it make a difference?”

  I thought this over and had to admit it didn’t. I don’t like fanatics of any sort, but this job was too important to let such a prejudice get in the way. I would travel with pixies to Paris for this story. But I wasn’t required to like it.

  “Just so his superstitions don’t interfere with the expedition,” I said.

  “Interfere?” Queller interjected. “Far from it. This expedition relies on what you call superstitions.”

  “I’m not the only one who calls them that. Secret books? A genealogy that goes across two thousand years? The Long Dig?” I ladled derision onto those last words, for I was feeling self-righteous. After all, we were supposed to be scientists!

  “Nor,” the professor replied with irritating calm, “am I the only one who believes. Monsieur Fournier came this way, led by another of those who hold the True Reverence.”

  “You can’t know that,” I said.

  “I can. So could you, if you would look at your own feet.”

  Almost involuntarily, I looked down.

  “A broken pick,” I said. I swept an arm wide. “One among several we’ve seen.”

  “Is there a mark on the handle?”

  “Be thorough,” Nik advised. “When I try to get a jump on my uncle, I often find him already on the other side waiting for me to catch up.”

  I picked up the handle, which had broken just under the head, leaving only a stick with a splintered end. At the base, the letters ETF had been burned in with an iron.