The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Not far,” said Diocletia kindly. She turned to take hold of the ladder, easing herself onto the rungs. “Follow me. Sister Hilaria will come last.”

Rosvita went second. The rungs were worn smooth by much use. At first, rock scraped against her back, but after six rungs the space opened up and after another seven she set foot on stone. A hand grasped her elbow.

“Stand aside,” said Diocletia. “We must all stand here together before we go on.”

One by one the others descended the ladder, rungs creaking beneath their weight, feet scuffing on stone when they reached the bottom. One by one, they edged cautiously past Rosvita into the blackness. It was so profoundly silent that she could distinguish each person’s breathing: Gerwita’s shallow and moist with tears; Jerome’s quick and nervous; Heriburg’s steady and even. Ruoda coughed wetly, echoed by Jehan’s dry cough. The Eagle shifted, rattling the arrows remaining in her quiver. Aurea probed the floor by tapping it with the staff: rap rap rap.

“Ai!” cursed Fortunatus. “You hit my toe.”

Everyone chuckled anxiously.

Above, Hilaria doused the lamp, so even that whisper of light was lost to them. The rungs creaked again; feet scuffed the ground.

“Are we all here?” It was impossible to mistake Diocletia’s high, raspy voice for the lower tones of her companion. “We are all here,” answered Hilaria.

It was too dark for Rosvita to see her hand in front of her nose. The earth had swallowed them.

“Where are we going?” whispered the Eagle from the right.

“Deeper,” said Hilaria.

“How can we go deeper?” asked Gerwita in a trembling voice. Her fingers brushed Rosvita’s hand and fixed on it, forefinger and thumb wrapping tightly around the older woman’s wrist as a child might cling to its mother.

A scraping rumble shuddered through the room. A kiss of dry air, faintly sulfurous, brushed Rosvita’s face.

“Take hold each to another’s hand,” said Diocletia, “and speak your name, so that we know that we have not left anyone behind.”

Someone giggled nervously, but Rosvita did not recognize the laugh. After some fumbling, each person spoke, some softly, others with more strength. When Hilaria spoke last of all, Rosvita felt a tug on her hand and she followed Diocletia grimly into such blackness as seemed impossible to fathom or endure. Behind her, Gerwita choked back sobs.

“Hush, Daughter,” murmured Rosvita, squeezing her hand. “We are in good company. They will not let us come to harm.”

For an eternity they moved through a darkness that had direction and space only because now and again the flow of air would shift and faint scents or stinks touch them before fading away: rotten eggs, yeast, the sting of an iron forge, lichen and, strangely, salt water. Mercifully the floor remained level. No one tripped or ran into anything, although they could not see their own feet much less any landmark around them.

Soon, a steady, labored wheezing drifted into audibility, like a blacksmith’s bellows or a man stricken by lung fever struggling to breathe.

“So might a sleeping dragon sound,” said Fortunatus out of the darkness, “as some poor deluded treasure hunter crept up on it.”

Hilaria laughed. “So might it, indeed, had we such a creature hidden in this labyrinth. It is no dragon, Brother, but something stranger and more unexpected.”

The faintest brush of color limned the walls, shading blackness into a rainbow of subtle grays. The tunnel down which they walked split at a crossroads, branching off in five directions, but Diocletia led them toward the light, toward the whistling wheeze.

“God save us,” said Gerwita faintly, pressing up behind Rosvita as the tunnel opened into a cavern no larger than a village church, the rock walls marked with odd striations, ribbons of color painted onto the rock.

Here, the nuns had constructed a crude living quarters. Four pallets lay along one wall, three neatly made with feather bedding and one heaped up untidily. At the single table and bench a thin woman wearing tattered nun’s robes sat fretfully twisting her hands; she did not look up as they entered. Three medium-sized chests, enough to store clothing or a small library of scrolls, sat beneath the table. A dozen assorted pots and amphorae lined the far wall, half lost in shadow, although Rosvita found it remarkable that she could see at all. Two oil lamps rested on a rock shelf in the cavern wall, but neither one was lit.

“What is making the light?” Hanna murmured.

“What is making that noise?” asked Fortunatus.

The untidy pallet stirred, like a beast coming alive. “Have they come safely?”

“God be praised!” Rosvita rushed heedlessly across the cavern to kneel beside the pallet. “Mother Obligatia! God is merciful! You are still alive.”

“Sister Rosvita!” A painfully thin hand emerged, shaking, from under a blanket. Rosvita grasped it, careful to hold lightly so that she might not crush those ancient bones. “I had prayed to see you again, but I confess I did not hope that God would bless us so. We are prisoners here, but against what enemy we do not know. Have you come to rescue us?”

Rosvita laughed bitterly. Obligatia looked so ill that it was impossible to understand how someone so frail could still live except through stubbornness, a sense of duty, or the simple inability to give up hope. Age had worn her skin to a dry fragility; a touch might crumble it to dust.

The others ventured cautiously into the cavern, spreading out so they wouldn’t feel cramped, glancing around nervously, looking for the source of the light and that constant wheezing whistle. Sister Diocletia leaned down beside the seated woman and spoke to her in an undertone. It was Sister Petra, the librarian and scribe. She looked so changed, as though half of her soul had fled, leaving the rest behind in a broken vessel.