Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

stout door of graniteoak barred the way at the foot of the stairs, but as they approached, they saw that it had been left ajar, its barring planks set carefully aside. Once they passed through – with no small amount of trepidation on Nira’s part – the roof over their head was earth and rock instead of quarried stone, and rough timbers supported the tunnel. She had never been underground before and did not much care for the sensation. The thick, rich scent of earth was overpowering, and she kept imagining the tunnel collapsing on their heads. Renna, of course, showed no signs of unease. Nira kept close to the Hand’s heels. She didn’t like being too far away from the light.

Time passed strangely underground. Some minutes later, either five or else at least twenty, a different smell crept into Nira’s awareness – a stale, flat scent that spoke of age and decay. She was about to mention it to Renna when the older woman tripped and fell, the glowpod skittering from her hand. “Rot and ruin,” she cursed, rubbing at her knees. Her breeches were scuffed and torn at the knee. Nira took a step forward to aid the fallen woman and tripped on a divot in the floor. She fell forward, almost landing in Renna’s lap. “Careful, idiot!” the priestess snarled, fending her off with a push. Nira landed on all fours, her hands and knees burning with sudden pain.

Scooping up the glowpod, Nira inspected the surface beneath them. “It’s cobblestones or something,” she said, surprised. The dirt from the earthen tunnel had drifted over the rough, uneven stones, making the transition hard to see – but their feet had found it easily enough. Looking up and around, she saw that the tunnel here was built in a circular shape, with stones of all sizes packed into a thick, flaky mortar. “Somebody made this tunnel,” she mused.

Renna picked herself up and favored her with a withering look. “Of course somebody made it. Did you think tunnels just happen?”

Nira blushed. “No, I mean, it’s all rocked in like a building or something. Never seen anyone use all sorts of different rocks to build like that before.” Some of the stones were as big as her head, rounded and bulging out of the wall, but most of them were small and varied, packed tightly but haphazardly into the mortar. “It looks old.”

Renna took the light from her and held it up, inspecting the construction. “It is old. Nobody has built this way in centuries.” She picked at the mortar with a fingernail, and it flaked away. “This tunnel could be a thousand years old, for all I know.”

Nira cocked her head at the older woman. “But… Far East was only built fifty years ago, wasn’t it?” Establishing the city on the frontiers of the Naga wilderness had been the first great human expansion on the Mainland in living memory. The old folks at home still talked about it, even if they’d never seen it themselves. It was proof of progress, of human dominion of their world.

“More like seventy-five,” murmured the Weaver, “but close enough.” She stroked the stones. “It’s no surprise that someone was here before that, though. Things come and go, even great things like cities.”

Nira scoffed. “You mean to tell me there was some city here forever ago, and it just… what? Vanished? Sank?”

The older woman turned to her, eyes inscrutable in the dim light. “I have seen the ruins of ancient cities in the process of being swallowed by the Earth Goddess. Greenery covers the stone, vines crack through the mortar, birds and monkeys steal whatever they can, and at some point, it all just comes down. It’s a beautiful process.” She turned away, picking her footing more carefully now.

“But how were there even people in this place hundreds of years ago? How could they have survived?” Nira asked.

Renna didn’t look back. “I never said this was built by humans.”

That brought Nira up short. Are these Naga tunnels? Shivering at the thought, she hurried to catch up. Better to be stuck with a humorless witch who was using her for her own ends than left in the dark to be snatched by snake people.

They walked in silence for a time. Nira’s mind played out scenarios of being caught and eaten by the Naga. She’d never seen one, of course, but she’d heard the same stories that everyone did: impossibly beautiful women glimpsed naked in the wild, luring soldiers and explorers into the trackless depths of the jungle, only to be revealed in the end as monsters with snake bodies below the waist and fangs as long as your finger. They were lustful, evil, and they ate wicked children who didn’t do as they were told. Naga hid in closets, under beds, and in swamps, and if they wanted to catch you there was no escape. She looked at Renna. She’s not thinking about getting eaten. She’s probably busy figuring out how to get crowned Queen of Everything. If her vision told true, that might not be far from the truth. My vision. I have visions, and now I’m seeing what happened to things when I touch them. What has my life turned into?

Suddenly the older woman stopped in her tracks, tilting her head. Then she waved frantically at Nira. It took a moment to realize that she wanted Nira to be still. Once she did, she heard distant sounds, rising and falling in familiar cadences. Speech. Someone’s up there. Her heart started to race. It had to be the Governor. Who else would be down here? Suddenly terrified, Nira turned to go back the way they had come, but Renna crossed to her and took her by the arm, claw-like fingers pinching.

“Shut up and stay still,” she hissed very quietly. She slipped the glowpod into her pouch and they were plunged into darkness.

Thank you, Honored Mistress, that makes me feel ever so much better. Bit by bit