CHAPTER * 5
THE TUNNELS OF HOPE, ABARRACH
WHOEVER READS THIS ACCOUNT (IF ANY ONE OF us is LEFT ALIVE TO read it, which I am greatly beginning to doubt), he will note a gap in the time period. When I last put down my pen, we had just entered the first of what the map calls the Tunnels of Hope. You will see that I have scratched out that name and written in another.
The Tunnels of Death.
We have spent twenty cycles in these tunnels, far longer than I had anticipated. The map has proved inaccurate, not so far, I must admit, as to the route, which is essentially the same one that our ancestors traveled to reach Kairn Telest.
Then the tunnels were newly formed, with smooth walls, strong ceilings, level floors. I knew that much would have changed during the past centuries; Abarrach is subject to seismic disturbances that send tremors through the ground, but they do little more than rattle the dishes in the cupboards and set the chandeliers in the palace swaying.
I had assumed that our ancestors would have fortified these tunnels with their magic, as they did our palaces, our city walls, our shops, and our houses. If they did so, the runes have either failed or they need to be reforged, reinstated.. . re-runed, for lack of a better term. Or perhaps the ancients did not bother to protect the tunnels, assuming that what destruction took place could be easily cleared by those possessing the knowledge of the sigla.
Of all the possible disasters those early ancestors of ours feared for us, they obviously didn’t foresee the worst of all. They never imagined that we would lose the magic.
Time and again we have been forced to make costly delays. We found the tunnel ceiling collapsed in many places, our way blocked by immense boulders that took us several cycles to move. Huge cracks gape in the floor, cracks that only the bravest dared jump, sacks that had to be bridged before the people could cross. And we are not out of the tunnels yet. Nor, does it seem, that we are near the end. I cannot judge our location precisely. Several major landmarks are gone, carried away by rock slides, or else have altered so over the years that it is impossible to recognize them. I am not even certain, anymore, that we are following the correct route. I have no way of knowing. According to the map, the ancients inscribed runes on the walls that could guide travelers, but—if so—their magic is now beyond our comprehension and use.
We are in desperate straits. Food rations have been cut in half. The flesh has melted from our bones. Children no longer cry from weariness; they cry from hunger. The carts have fallen by the wayside. Beloved possessions became burdens to arms grown weak from starvation and exhaustion. Only the carts needed to bear the elderly and the infirm remain in use and these carts, too, tragically, are beginning to litter the tunnels. The weak among us are starting to die now. My fellow necromancers have taken up their grim tasks.
The burden of the people’s suffering has fallen, as I knew it would, on the shoulders of their prince. Edmund watches his father fail before his eyes.
The king was, admittedly, an old man, by the standards of our people. His son was born to him late in life. But, when we left the palace, he was hale, hearty, strong as men half his age. I had a dream in which I saw the king’s life as a thread tied back to the golden throne that now stands in the cold darkness of Kairn Telest. As he walked away from the throne, the thread remained tied to it. Slowly, cycle by cycle, the thread is coming unraveled, stretching thinner and thinner the farther he moves from his homeland, until now I fear a harsh or clumsy touch will cause it to snap.
The king takes no interest in anything anymore: what we do, we say, where we are going. Most of the time, I wonder if he even notices the ground beneath his feet. Edmund walks constantly by his father’s side, guiding him like one who has lost the power of sight. No, that is not quite a correct description. The king acts more like a man walking backward, who does not see what lies ahead, only what he is leaving behind.