The Pilgrims

53

Their feet did not touch a floor below, nor did struggling shift their positions in the slightest, though it served to ward off numbness in their legs. The charm in his pocket was out of reach.

There was no knowing if night had passed yet or not. Eric managed to doze for a while, dreams unpleasant indeed, until woken by the feeling of something sharp poking his leg down below. He jerked frantically, feet kicking the air. There was, it seemed, much hilarity from the groundmen in a tunnel directly beneath.

‘Cut legs!’ said a gleeful voice below. Someone or something yanked up his pant leg and a sharp object gently traced along the exposed skin. ‘Hear screams! Uprat, screams pretty. Cut slow.’

‘Wait!’ Eric screamed. ‘Toll! I can pay! Toll! Toll!’

‘Toll?’ a voice below nattered. ‘We take toll. Dead soon.’

Another said, ‘Wait, wait. Go up, talk. No harm. Why they here? We ask.’

‘Trick! May trick!’

‘No trick!’ Eric yelled. ‘Believe me, please!’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘Speak our tongue?’ said one of them. Hard to tell with their strange inflections, but it sounded alarmed.

‘Speak your tongue!’ Eric agreed. ‘Yes, yes! So does my companion. We can pay toll! We can sing and dance. Sexual favours, you name it. Will you free us?’

Case groaned. ‘Don’t give em ideas for Chrissakes. If they want sexual favours, you’re their man.’

The voices below gabbled excitedly before fading as the groundmen moved away. Minutes later there was the candle-gleam of their bright yellow eyes as four approached, each holding a small spear. The foremost poked his spear down at the rock floor now and then, and there was a flare of light painful to the eyes as traps were closed off. ‘Can’t reach the gun,’ Case whispered.

‘Shh. Let me talk,’ said Eric. ‘I’ve seen these things before.’

The groundmen positioned themselves on either side of Eric, ignoring Case, and pointing the sharp tips of their weapons close to him.

‘Speak our tongue,’ said one, its face angrily bunched. ‘How? Spy?’

‘I don’t know, exactly. But I come from Otherworld. They call me a Pilgrim.’

A burble of excited chatter. The way they looked at him changed: not more friendly, but certainly more curious. ‘Why here?’ said one.

‘Here … do you mean in your tunnel, or in your world?’

This got him an angry prod by the foremost, the spear point stabbing half an inch into his shoulder. He squirmed and fought not to cry out but the pain was hideous. The other groundmen rushed to hold the angry one in check before it could drive the spear deeper. What Eric had said to offend it he had no notion at all. ‘In world, in woods, in ground,’ another said, holding back the enraged one as it made more lunges at him. ‘Answer all. Why here?’

‘We’re lost, that’s all. We came here to your world, to Levaal, by accident. We were separated from our guides. We moved off the road to avoid guards. And now we’re lost. We came down here to escape something outside, but we don’t know what it is.’

‘Tormentors, Stranger called them,’ Case interjected.

‘Case, please, as per our agreement, keep your fucking mouth shut. Can you help us, tunnel masters? We’re trying to find our way to Elvury.’

Chittering laughter broke out. ‘Want to die?’ one inquired.

‘Not especially.’ More laughter. ‘Is there something in Elvury that’s dangerous?’ said Eric.

‘They want to die!’ cackled the angry one. ‘In bad woods, while things are loose. In tunnel, walk right in trap. Now, if escape, they off to dead town. Uprat, hate life!’

Eric said, ‘Dead town? Elvury? Our friends are going there. Anfen. Do you know him? We were separated-’

‘Dead town, yes! Not yet, soon.’ The others gestured for the speaker to hush, but there seemed great mirth afoot all round.

Eric said, ‘Soon? Why, what will happen?’

‘You go, you see.’

He thought of Siel. ‘Are our friends in danger there?’

More laughter. ‘All uprats dead. We don’t care. Not our work, but we watch. Your friends first. Then you.’

‘Now pay toll,’ said another. ‘Then say why we don’t kill you, take more toll.’

Luckily Eric had a reason — funny how the feel of their spear point had cleared his head. ‘I can teach you Otherworld writing. I can show you how to read what it all says.’

The groundmen tried to hide the fact that this prospect impressed them a great deal, but he could see by the widening of their bright yellow eyes that it did. ‘The toll is in my pocket. I can’t reach it.’ There had to be receipts still in his wallet, maybe old bus tickets, and he knew Sharfy had missed a ten-dollar note, back when he’d rifled through it near the door. His key card, driver’s licence. Would these interest them?

‘Hear close,’ said one of the groundmen after a brief whispered conference with the others. ‘We let up. But! Can still kill. You big. Yes, sure. But, see? Sharp.’ He pointed his spear tip very close to Eric’s eye indeed. ‘See? Sharp.’

‘Sharp,’ Eric could only repeat, pulling his head as far back from it as possible while the spear tip followed. He didn’t see what they did but there was a tapping sound and whatever gripped his waist gradually weakened. With tired arms he pulled himself free, making the pain of the spear wound flare up badly. Blood trickled warmly down his chest. The groundmen spear points waved and jabbed around him as though they feared he’d attack. Slowly he reached for his wallet. Out came the two remaining receipts, their print almost completely faded. His key card — how strange to hand that over, in this world where it was perfectly useless, and still feel an acute sense of loss. The spear tips angled away from him as the groundmen fumbled with the receipts, an old train ticket, their mouths open in wonder, tracing fingers over the lettering. ‘More,’ one said distractedly. They were evidently so fascinated it didn’t occur to them to take the wallet itself.

‘This is for my friend’s safe passage too, OK?’ said Eric.

‘More! Give!’

‘Will you let my friend up too?’

The spear points came back, one jabbing close to his crotch. He gave them all he had left in the wallet, including the ten-dollar note and his driver’s licence. The nearest took this, carefully studied it and looked, amazed, from the licence’s unsmiling picture to Eric’s face. The others did likewise, and all seemed entirely lost for words.

Something had changed here and Eric didn’t know what. The groundmen suddenly backed away, their spears pointed at the ground. ‘Let up my friend, please,’ said Eric.

The groundmen scampered off like animals spooked by a noise. But Case said, ‘It’s going loose around me. Quick, grab me …’ Eric reached down to help him up before he fell through the widening hole. ‘What’d you do to scare em off?’ said Case, once they’d caught their breath.

‘Not sure. Something about my licence. The picture I think. They didn’t know what to make of it.’

Case laughed. ‘Seen some pretty bad licence pictures in my time, too. Let’s get the hell out, what do you say? It has to be day by now.’

Sure enough pale daylight poured through the stick-grid. ‘Why didn’t we buy bandages at that store?’ Eric said, prodding the bleeding cut gouged in his shoulder.

‘Why buy when you can steal?’ said Case, winking. He pulled a white roll of cloth bandages from his backpack and wrapped some around the wound. ‘Not too tight?’

‘No, it’s fine, unless I’m poisoned. Vicious little bastard. Wish I knew what I’d said to piss him off.’

Through the stick-grid’s gaps there was no sign of the creatures he’d seen last night. Only when they went outside and saw the trails of spiked tracks in the ground, and some huge ones very close to the tunnel’s mouth, was he sure it had been real.