Chapter 86: The Lit Underworld

Mara looked at Vanessa with considerably less sympathy than before.

The vice-captain’s ability sounded useful until one considered the other half of it. She could locate Abominations across several miles, determine their general direction and sometimes estimate their Rank, but activating the Death Imprint announced her presence across the same distance.

Every creature she found would know something had found it.

"How many Abominations can detect you when you use it?" Mara asked.

Vanessa released Mara’s arm and considered the question. "All of them, probably."

"Probably?"

"I’ve never had the opportunity to ask."

Rook adjusted one of the straps across his coffin. "The ones that do tend to come looking for her. That gives us a fairly convincing answer."

Vanessa raised both hands. "I wasn’t planning to use it unless we actually needed it."

Frederick turned toward the eastern gate. "You were selected because you know the Dark Hollow Road. Keep the Imprint dormant until I authorize it."

"I know how my own ability works."

"You activated it inside the Bastion last month."

"I thought something had followed the patrol home."

"Every Abomination within three miles gathered outside the walls."

"And none entered."

"Because we spent six hours killing them."

Vanessa smiled as if the outcome supported her decision. "Then the walls worked."

Frederick appeared ready to continue arguing, but the Reapers waiting near the gate had already begun listening. He looked over the group and decided against giving them another reason to question the expedition before it began.

"The Dark Hollow Road is safer than its reputation suggests," he said. "Most Abominations avoid the path because patrols from the Forty-Second use it regularly. The area has become a hunting ground for Reapers, and the weaker creatures have learned what happens when they remain close to it."

Mara glanced toward the black road beyond the gate. "Then what happens if Vanessa detects something?"

"It will likely be young, mindless or too weak to understand the danger," Frederick replied. "The other possibility is that it knows exactly where it is and no longer considers Reapers a threat."

Rook looked toward Vanessa. "Which is why you keep the ability to yourself."

"I said I would."

Frederick stepped through the gate and motioned for the others to follow. "Her assignment came from higher authority. None of us are changing it here, so we deal with the risk and continue the search."

The four accompanying Reapers fell into place around him. The woman with the anchor walked near the front, dragging several links of chain across the ground until Frederick ordered her to wrap them more securely. The swordsman and the man carrying bladed tonfas remained behind her, while the whip wielder took the rear of their loose formation.

Rook and Mara moved along the left side, far enough from the others to see the ground between them. Vanessa followed Rook.

She followed him very closely.

Her shoulder pressed against his arm whenever the road narrowed, and she occasionally leaned around the coffin to speak to him from the opposite side. When Rook shifted away, she crossed the distance without appearing to notice.

"You have the entire road," he said. "Use some of it."

"I am."

"You’re using the part I’m standing on."

"It’s safer here."

"For whom?"

"For me."

Rook pushed her away by the forehead. Vanessa allowed herself to lean back until his arm extended, then stepped close again the instant he released her.

Mara watched this happen twice before her patience began thinning.

"You should give him some space," she said. "He needs to move if anything attacks."

Vanessa looked past Rook’s shoulder. "Are you worried about him?"

"I’m worried about the person carrying half our equipment being unable to draw a weapon because you’re wrapped around his arm."

"You could have said yes."

"I’m not jealous."

"I didn’t say you were."

"You were about to."

Vanessa’s smile widened. "Now I don’t need to."

Mara tightened the strap of her pack. "Stand wherever you want."

"I planned to."

Rook released a long breath and looked toward Frederick. "You could order her to move."

"I’m considering ordering both of you to walk farther behind us."

"I haven’t done anything," Mara said.

"That hasn’t protected anyone else so far."

The remaining light from the Forty-Second weakened as the group travelled east. At first, the Soul Beacon remained visible behind them as a pale tower rising beyond the walls. Its glow spread across the road, drawing long shadows from every stone and twisted root. The shadows thickened with every step until the light became a narrow grey band at their backs.

Eventually, even that disappeared.

The Reapers opened their blue lanterns.

Pale flames emerged behind dark glass, illuminating the ground without carrying far into the surrounding wasteland. The light allowed the group to see one another and the section of road immediately ahead, while remaining invisible to the Abominations wandering beyond it. That concealment offered no protection from sound, scent or anything already aware of their presence, but it prevented the lanterns from becoming moving signals in the darkness.

Mara lifted hers higher. The blue light reached several paces before dissolving into blackness.

"This place would be much easier to cross if anything was properly lit."

Rook walked beside her, his attention moving between the road and the dim shapes beyond it. Vanessa had finally placed half a pace between them, though only because Frederick ordered everyone to spread out.

"It used to be brighter," Rook said.

Mara looked at him. "The Underworld?"

"That’s what I’ve heard."

"From whom?"

"People old enough to remember more than I do."

The road passed through a stretch of low, broken ground where the remains of ancient structures rose from the earth. Some appeared to have been walls. Others resembled the foundations of towers, though nothing remained above knee height.

"A calamity destroyed a large number of Bastions," Rook continued. "No one agrees upon when it happened or what caused it. Some claim an Abomination reached a Rank that no longer exists. Others say the Bastions fought one another and shattered their own Beacons. There are also people who believe the Underworld simply changed."

"How many were destroyed?"

"Enough to leave most of this."

He gestured toward the darkness surrounding them.

"In the oldest accounts, Bastions stood close enough for the light of one Beacon to overlap with the next. Their glow covered most of the known Underworld. The darkness existed in isolated regions between them, and those were the places where Abominations gathered because the Beacon light made the rest uncomfortable."

Mara tried to imagine the landscape illuminated. Roads connecting one Bastion to another, settlements built between them, and enough light for travelers to see what approached before it reached them. The world surrounding her offered no evidence that such a place had ever existed.

"What happened after the Bastions fell?"

"The remaining Beacons spread their light across larger distances, but it weakened. The gaps grew. Abominations moved into them, and the darkness kept spreading as more Bastions were lost."

"Couldn’t people rebuild the destroyed ones?"

"The walls can be rebuilt. The gates, towers and houses can be replaced. No one knows how to create a Soul Beacon."

"What about repairing one?"

"People have tried. Once the central core breaks, the light stops responding. Every Bastion is built around something no one dead remembers how to make."

Vanessa joined the conversation from Rook’s other side. "Some Beacons still burn beneath ruined Bastions. Weak enough that you need to stand beside them to see the light, but they’re there."

"Has anyone tried moving the cores?" Mara asked.

"They usually stop the moment they’re removed," Vanessa replied. "Or explode."

Rook glanced at her. "You left out the screaming."

"I was getting to that."

Mara looked between them. "The cores scream?"

"The people close to them do," Rook said.

That ended her interest in relocating one.

The terrain narrowed around the expedition. Trees began appearing along both sides of the road, scattered at first and then close enough for their branches to overlap above it. Their trunks were black and unusually straight, rising beyond the lantern light before dividing into thin limbs. No leaves grew upon them, yet the branches formed a dense roof that swallowed even the faint grey glow hanging over the Underworld.

Frederick raised one fist.

The group stopped.

He looked back at them. "We’ve entered the Dark Hollow Road. Keep your voices low and watch both sides."