The Tunnels of Woe

Book 1: A Bounty Like No Other

Chapter 1: The Nameless Thing

The mournful blood curdling wails started on the fourth night of their mapping expedition into the tunnels. The sound froze Tirro’s soul to his spine, and sent his heart so far into his throat he would’ve choked if he could move. Uncle Curroz on the other hand was not half as fazed. At first.

They had camped at the center of a high chamber with open water around their skiff. Crystal clear, and undisturbed but for the wake of their own boat was the lake deep in the passages of the inbetween. The water was like a sheen of glass or crystal ball staring into another world. Sunken stone and steel strutted ruins could be seen deep inside the water with fish, many larger than their thirty foot narrow skiff, with glowing scales and hairy bellies gliding through the many windowed shattered towers.

The city below was captivating, speaking of wonders beyond a mortal’s understanding. Crumbling elevated roads with long metal carriages played a delicate dance through the shattered buildings that still stood. Below the once mighty metropolis stood as an edifice to those dead and lost. A reminder of the mystery of the tunnels, and yet another warning. For if men with such wonders lost theirs in these twisting warrens then anyone could meet a forgotten end in the inbetween. The tunnels in the very fabric of reality as the priests claimed them to be was an inhospitable place.

Tirro didn’t know if the assumption of the Church were correct, but he did know the underground canals of ancient gods and civilizations beyond remembrance was dangerous, strange, and predictably unpredictable. Yet, as Uncle Curroz said as their boat glided into the center of the wondrous city sized cavern laden with flying buttresses and vines climbing the walls,” A man must eat, and a Veni man must sail. Tis his blood and tears. So to the tunnels we delve to face horrors and wonders so as to claim the Doge’s bounty.”

And as Tirro saw the flowing thousands of pinprick lights shining in a hovering boiling black sphere above the ghostly city beneath the waves he answered his uncle with the retort every apprentice has pounded into their mind when they enter the labyrinth of ancient gods,” So what will you be? A horror or a wonder?”

“For be ye terror we will overcome ye whether by escape or metal and claim treasure or bounty.” Uncle Curroz called out in answer his gruff dock speech echoing off the walls of the cathedral as they would come to call the place of rest on the map.

“So be kind, and be a gift of the Father. Be like the godtree and his loving branches for the Veni always get their bounty.” Tirro finished the verse under his breath as the eerie cries pierced his sanity a bit more with each rhythmic scream.

By the fifth night the inhuman moans had changed from a distant echo in the branching passages to a defined screech only a few tunnels back. Far but not far enough. No goodness was in that tortured cry. A long howl like a wolf lost from its pack hungry and desperate, sad and resentful that then changed in pitch to the scratching screech of a furious woman and a lioness’ roar.

Both Uncle and Nephew had agreed without words to not stop that night, and yet despite their efforts the scream was always there. Tirro could swear that no matter where they turned the scream seemed to be coming before them. As if the tunnels were forcing them closer to its rhythmic cry.

Uncle Curroz had stopped checking his red satin watch for time to rest. A Veni knew when a warren’s denizen was better left to the ceaseless mysteries of the abyss, and so all thought was given to escape. They had more than earned their mapping bounty with this expedition, Tirro reasoned. Greed was the end of tunnel rats. No man received the Doge’s favor if the fruit of his labor was left forever on his corpse lost in the labyrinth.

As the magic energy of their boat depleted with every lost mile the tunnels changed. Gone were the path of lights, and glowing red brick tunnels and vaguely luminescent waters which had first drawn them to the rest at the Cathedral. These pathways became dark and claustrophobic. Mere inches from their narrow skiff the tunnel walls crowded. Wet and putrid green with mold and moss that stank of magical decay. No living thing but rot in their decrepit beings.

Now neither Curroz or Tirro felt like Veni songs or chants of poetry to raise their spirits. No attempt to backtrack broke the endless dark. Soon no passage would lead them farther from the growing wails. Only ever toward the resounding madness. But the true danger came not from the dark, but under their feet.

With a grinding moan the skiff crashed into a hidden sandbar that was more a pile of muck clinging to the unseen floor of the musty faded yellow bricked tunnel they were passing through. No sooner had Tirro locked horror filled eyes with his uncle then the wales picked up with alarming closeness. By the good Lord Himself the demonic cretin must be but a passage behind them.

Uncle Curroz didn’t freeze for even that second their peril became evident. Flying to the front of the skiff he grasped a long hook pike strapped to the side of the boat with magical bonds that heeded their master’s frantic will to release. As the chains clanged Tirro found his body moving at a blinding speed. His mind numb to the cries, and fully focused on his task and tutelage under the old man. Training had been slammed into his mind over and over again so that grasping the pole was a mechanical process. His body flowing through the motions even as it left his mind standing at the prow of the ship staring into the dark waiting for their doom.

The deck hand and captain heaved at the pole wrenching the skiff free only to have the muck pile grow and ensnare them a half second later. Angry bubbles churned the water and maddening creaks and groans surrounded them as the tunnel contracted another inch all at once like they were in the throat of a massive yellow snake constricting the life from them second by second. 

Uncle Curroz cursed and picked his nephew up forcefully throwing him toward the low cabin door, and away from a grasping pale hand reaching from within a long crack in the tunnel wall. Even as Tirro fumbled for his feet he could hear fell whispers filtering around the putrid shaft. The air grew cold, humid to frigid in an instant, and though most of the voices were undecipherable every other word was a blasphemy or curse. Worse from out the rear window of their sleeping bunks, mists took the shape of fanged and horrid unnatural crosses of man and beasts snarling in at the shaken deck hand.

As if the pans of glass were portals into nether worlds or a circle of hell itself the demonic creatures some with heads of goats, others of owls, some whose only visible manifestation were their clawed human but freakishly long fingers left scratches on the windows. Sounds of chained and mailed fists striking the hull of the ship erupted to all sides, and as if thrown by invisible hands everything that wasn’t strapped down was thrown in Tirro’s face.

Over all the insanity the wails grew ever closer. The tunnel of the damned churned, and if Tirro cared to strain he could just sense a weezing dusty laugh coming from the walls themselves...

The Story Will Continue Every Wednesday.

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