Eyes of the Hidden World by Ryan Kirk

Author:Ryan Kirk [Kirk, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781953692016
Publisher: Waterstone Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

22

The grizzled old man beckoned for them to follow him. He shuffled deeper into the tunnels, and Lyana followed. The prospectors held their bows as she passed. They stood as Tomas walked among them, their blank eyes glaring at him. Tomas’ fingers itched to raise his sword and take heads.

In front of him, Lyana drew her own sword, holding it up like it was a torch.

This place went against all the laws of nature.

Tomas noted the walls of the tunnel. They’d been carved out by hand and reinforced by the pine trees from the camp below.

He knew little about mining. The only holes in the ground he had any familiarity with were graves, and he knew it took a group of men a decent bit of time to dig one of those. Tunneling into a mountain had to be several orders of magnitude more difficult. And there weren’t that many men behind them. How long had they been here?

He almost asked, but he got the sense their host wasn’t much for words.

The tunnel bent and then descended sharply. Stairs had been hewn into the stone, and they stepped down carefully. They came to a hole with a ladder.

The old man ignored the ladder and dropped into the hole. Tomas heard him land a moment later. He and Lyana poked their torches above the hole. The man looked up at them, standing on level ground. He beckoned for them to descend.

“You should let me go first,” Tomas said.

Lyana ignored him and jumped down the hole.

Tomas shook his head. Children these days had no respect. Nor any wisdom.

He sheathed his sword, turned, and took the ladder. Even without Elzeth, the drop probably wouldn’t hurt him, but why take any chances?

Once on the level below, he held the torch above his head and looked around. This new tunnel was quite a bit different than the ones above. There was nothing natural about it. The walls were smooth.

Too smooth, in fact. Tomas ran his hand along one of them and didn’t feel so much as a bump. He couldn’t think of a tool that made such smooth walls.

The head prospector, as Tomas was thinking of him, and Lyana were already twenty paces ahead by the time he followed them.

As he caught up, Tomas’ stomach began to rumble. At first, he thought it was hunger.

But that made no sense. He’d eaten a good breakfast, and they hadn’t been down in the tunnels that long.

“It doesn’t want me here,” Elzeth said.

“Then why hasn’t it tried to stop us?”

“I’m getting the sense it isn’t completely rational,” Elzeth replied. “It’s curious about us, but it considers us a threat. It can’t decide if it wants us close or dead.”

“Comforting.”

Elzeth was silent for a while, then said, “It feels like a child. All emotion, tempered by only the slightest bit of reason.”

“Don’t suppose you have any explanations?”

Elzeth laughed bitterly.

Lyana stumbled as they neared an intersection. She leaned against a wall, then slid down it until she was sitting on the floor.

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