Chapter 6: 'Isolation' (3291 words)

Vievel and Halycen have managed to sneak onto a Dwurkn starship unnoticed by their fathers (who told them to stay at home), survive an attack by a frenzied Dwurkn warrior, and now, even with Halycen c

Three times Vievel tried to leave the red chamber. On the first, he found his feet unwilling, snared by invisible tendrils and thoughts of hidden monsters in the darkness. On the second he found his legs unwilling, consumed by a cramping soreness brought about by his experience hiding in the chamber cabinets. The third attempt, on which Vievel managed to actually step across the threshold, was successful, but the triumph lasted only a fleeting moment before he came to face-to-face with his new reality; he opened his eyes to a darkness perhaps even blacker than the backs of his eyelids, lit by nothing, not even his own torch. Vievel had prepared himself for what he imagined to be the worst possible conclusion, prior to even stepping outside of the chamber he’d shut his eyes, grit his teeth and braced his ears, but now it seemed worse than that. Putting a foot across the threshold he had half-expected a wave of Ulmadr Advance flashlights to crash down upon him, and for a snide Sera Odill to reveal that they hadn’t been fooled by his deception, not one bit, but that had turned out not to be the case. A moment spend gazing into the gloom, a gloom that revealed naught but that the Advance had long since departed, and Vievel revised his imagination. He was alone.

Keeping his right hand pressed firmly up against the wall Vievel started to lumber along the red ward’s solitary corridor, his fingers tracing the carved line that he and Halycen had originally followed. He glanced over his shoulder, staring into a darkness that looked much the same as the darkness ahead of him, and he remembered the carved line continued much further into the ward; a pang of regret echoed around his mind as he realised he never managed to follow the line to its destination. Vievel resolved himself, turning back to square his facing with his feet as he marched onward. There were worse things than mysteries.

This is going to take forever. His thoughts quickly turned to his growing fatigue as he made his way through the rusted-red corridor. The soles of his feet felt each and every painful bump on the stone floor, and his legs burned with residual discomfort from being crouched for so long previously. A small part of him ruefully wished that he had taken the opportunity to get caught after all, to save himself the solitary journey, but it was a small part, and Vievel kept to the dark despite a want to dispel the gloom with his flashlight. Doing so would only make him visible to whatever else was hiding in the darkness.

Stopping by the bumpy and coarse corridor wall Vievel unslung his knapsack and set it on the ground.

All of a single minute and you’re resting already. He pushed aside his suit’s mask, making sure to keep it at the top of the bag’s contents, in case he needed it in a hurry, and retrieved a plastic bottle from beneath everything else. Without hesitating Vievel unclipped the bottle’s lid and drank from it, watching through the clear sides of the bottle as the amber liquid sloshed around inside.

Hardly nutritious but- He swallowed some of the drink, causing a burning sensation to strike the back of his throat as the liquid wound its way down. The tenderness lasted for a few seconds thereafter, but it was a good kind of sore. The best kind. Vievel placed the bottle on the ground beside him and held the remainder of the liquid in his throat, fishing out two foil packs of capsules from his bag with his free hand. He pressed a compartment on each of the foil packets so that one capsule from either dropped into his hand, and then swallowed both with the aid of his drink. One for hydration and one in case the air started to thin any more. Vievel dropped the foil packets back into his bag, and then swept the bottle into it as well, drawing the knapsack’s knot tight again.

Setting off down the corridor again, Vievel’s thoughts turned sour.

Halycen’s lie damned us both. The marshall, any member of the ship’s council, was an extension of the patriarch when it came to matters of law and obedience. By lying to Sera Odill about Vievel never leaving the home ship, Halycen had made him responsible for their hides. If he didn’t get back to quarters before someone noticed him missing, or worse, he got caught… Vievel sighed. At least he had the spoils of his knapsack to justify his trip, the Dwurka medicines, but his cousin hadn’t gathered anything of use to the home ship. Perhaps Halycen’s father would go easier on her than his father would have on him, but he couldn’t be sure whether his father would see it as his own duty to issue punishment or not. Halycen would fare little better against the Patriarch’s judgement.

A pang of guilt announced itself, prodding at the back of his mind and daring him to indulge it.

It wasn’t my fault she got caught, Vievel thought tersely. Scowling he pushed his fingers up against the rock face, dragging them against it until he felt the prickly crags pressing up against the surface of his gloves; a pressure began to build as the metillion layering bent beneath the sharp rocks, the pain rising until it overpowered his frustrations and he drew his hand back. Halycen would be okay. She always got away with everything. Vievel had no such fortune, every mistake was always punished; his father always held him to an image that he had no hope of meeting. As a child, he’d always wished Halycen’s father, easy-going Vost’, would somehow turn out to be his own father. The memory surprised him. He hadn’t imagined such a thing in years, hadn’t even recalled it, but once it had been a hope so frequent he had thought of little else. The pang of guilt swelled up in size.

Vievel found his already-sluggish pace beginning to slow even further. His calves ached, each step a modest misery. Already the pain had grown, his legs begging to stop no matter how often he beckoned them forward, and he wondered how he could possibly make it back to the home ship before the companies of the Ulmadr returned. The journey into the ward had not taken him as long as he had already been travelling, and his perception of time felt clouded and hazy in the face of his constant cramping. He needed to rest, Aælfir weren’t built to keep moving forever. The thought lit a light at the front of his mind as he imagined stopping to sit, to spread out his legs and stretch his muscles. Perhaps another drink… A dull pulse exploded in his shoulder as a shrill scraping sound struck his ears, the sound of his metillion hauberk grinding against stone as Vievel collided with the rock wall. The pain continued to radiate down his bicep and forearm and he grunted in the dark of the corridor, for the first time glad that no-one had been around to see his preoccupation drive him so off-path.

The impact drew Vievel back to reality.

“Ow…” he moaned. The soft cry pierced through the vacant darkness, punctuating his solitude. His hand rubbed at his shoulder, inspecting for any sign that his hauberk had been punctured. The armour was still intact. Vievel squeezed his shoulder, hoping to dull the pain, and then slowed his previously rapid breaths. He held himself as still as he could for a moment, listening out to the darkness in case something unseen was lurking and listening to his noises. When no such assailant materialised, and once he was convinced that the darkness was devoid of hidden foes, Vievel drew himself away from the wall. The corridor was a straight walk, he didn’t need the carvings to guide himself; better to travel through the gloom even in the absence of markers, the shadow could hide him as well.

Without knowing for sure where the Advance was, Vievel didn’t dare turn his flashlight on. If a member of the war company caught him he could at least pretend he had ventured onto the ship alone, and save Halycen from getting caught in her own lie. If a member of the Advance caught him then they’d surely work out that he’d been with her. The light wasn’t an option so Vievel walked forward blindly, his arms outstretched in case he finally left the ward and met the wall of another passage. Several times he nearly fell, catching an uneven dip in the floor with his toe or almost tripping over a rock outcropping; whenever his feet him his pace slowed further, giving way to tentative steps in lieu of steady strides before his confidence fully returned. Eventually, Vievel’s muscular pains were replaced by countless stubbed toes and twisted ankles; he felt his foot grow a garden of weals and bruises from the repeated impacts, envisioning a discordant painting of blue and red beneath his metillion boot.

Vievel forced himself to stay alert despite the growing pain, stifling every instinct he had to yell in pain. His ears listened out for any sound of movement, but to his great frustration, he could only hear the constant soft clanging and shifting of his boots. Without his revolver his hand was empty, a useless vestige; it gripped the air fruitlessly and the space between his fingers felt hollow. With his flashlight doused his already-strained eyes became prone to playing wicked tricks, imagining every strange shape as a Dwurkn marauder ready to kill and every unfamiliar sound the Advance returning to discover him. His thoughts were so dominated by fears of being caught that the possibility of a second Dwurkn attack became an afterthought; Vievel didn’t know what he would do should he come across a Dwurkn again, and pushing the vision to the back of his mind was the most he could do to combat it.

All of this for few boxes of Dwurka medication. The thought sat sourly as he made his way blindly through the dark corridor. So much for my first salvage trip. He even envied Halycen’s ridiculous serrated scissors, briefly imagining the reactions of his friends. Eaden would be delighted, of course, and would surely ask if he could pull them apart and put them back together. Ria might not sure the same interest in the scissors themselves, but she would nonetheless be impressed by Halycen’s exploits. Or maybe she’ll think the whole thing foolish. Of the four of them, Ria was definitely the most sensible. It didn’t bother Vievel to admit it; Ria was wonderful that way, reliable. He shook his head, trying to shake clean his imagination, but at the same moment his feet suddenly caught beneath him, hooked on a shallow dip in the floor, and he stumbled forward. Raising his hands out to catch his fall he instead stopped suddenly, colliding with a firm and cool surface.

His fingers ached, stubbed against the smooth wall he’d struck with both hands, but he still stretched them out, exploring the surface. His fingers pried their way around the stone until they met a series of shallow dents, familiar indentations. Vievel turned, scanning the darkness futilely for anyone nearby, and then turned back to the new wall. He swallowed, apprehensive of what he was about to do. Gripping the neck of his flashlight he twisted the studded activation band; light spread out around him instantaneously, touching every part of the passage and illuminating his figure just as surely as it revealed the etchings in front of him. He’d reached the central corridor.

Vievel glanced around again. He was alone. Good. Turning on his light, even for a moment, was a risk he probably shouldn’t have taken, but Vievel was thankful to be able to see again. Behind him the red rusted passage stretched infinitely, the ward continuing long past where he could see, but nearby stood charcoal-black smooth floors and walls, the same that decorated most of the Dwurkn frigate; without so much as the slightest imperfection they stood in stark contrast to the raw and coarse surfaces of the red ward. Vievel smiled, allowing himself a short-lived moment to enjoy the light. He found his spirits lifted to be at least part way home; the etchings in front of him were a landmark he could use to navigate the rest of the way. Vievel oriented himself in the direction that he and Halycen had arrived from and twisted his flashlight, shutting it off once more regretfully. With a careful hand on the wall to follow the markings, Vievel began the second stage of his journey home.

Walking in the darkness a second time brought little of the apprehension that it had the first time. His hand still curled around the torch, ready to turn it back on at a moment’s notice, but the gloom had begun to cultivate a familiar quality. He followed the wall without hesitation until eventually it broke and gave way to an intersection; one of the many that honeycombed the central corridor. Vievel had been expecting it since he’d started walking, and strode confidently across the gap until he felt the parallel wall. As he continued he began to get a sense of the etchings, his fingers tracing the pattern as it repeated. The Dwurka runes were orderly and consistent, but that was not at all reassuring. As Vievel began to picture the etchings in his head he realised they were different to the ones that he had studied on his trip into the ship. Sighing, Vievel turned on his flashlight again, averting his eyes as to not be blinded by it. As he looked at the etchings he realised he was correct. They were different - somehow he’d ended up in a different corridor.

The light in front of him flickered, dimming suddenly then brightening again. Vievel glanced down at his hand and spotted a slender crack in the flashlight’s casing.

This one’s damaged too. Was it going to die before he needed it again? Vievel turned quickly and walked over to the opposite wall, studying the etchings whilst he could. They were different too, but closer to the ones he remembered. Perhaps they change gradually he thought. Deciding to follow the opposite markings Vievel twisted the neck of his torch again, dousing the light. He walked straight for a time, crossing over several intersections whenever the wall fell away, following the etchings for as long as he travelled. The pattern beneath his fingers began to shift and change, but it seemed just as unfamiliar.

His flashlight clasped in his hand, Vievel decided to risk turning it on a third time. The light snaked its way around him and dazzled him, striking his eyes even though he had looked away as before. He grimaced and blinked repeatedly as his vision slowly returned, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and then opening them to a reflection of him, light in hand, staring back.

The hatch. The metal door shone brilliantly in the glare, reflecting a mirror image of the young Aelfr; the likeness of his narrow shoulders and slight paunch briefly disheartened him until it was replaced by the dawning realisation that he’d completed the second leg of his journey. He was going to do it! The Advance couldn’t have possibly found the war company and returned home by now; Vievel was confident he’d make it to the home ship before anyone noticed him missing.

He gripped the nearest hatch handle firmly and pulled, expecting the door to open quickly. When it didn’t he glanced at the other two handles and noticed one was still in the locked position.

Did Halycen latch it? Vievel couldn’t recall seeing his cousin close the hatch, yet she obviously had. He swiftly unlocked the remaining handle and pulled it free, wincing as the small door creaked and shuddered at his demand. Sucking in his stomach Vievel slid past the hatch door and squeezed himself into the cramped passage behind. His shoulders pressed up against both the walls simultaneously; try as he might to inhale and force himself into a smaller space, he still found himself uncomfortably wedged. Vievel wrenched his shoulders forward, working his way past the passage opening and into the tunnel, which thankfully drew broader as he shuffled into it.

The dark gave way to his flashlight as he twisted its activation switch, no longer frightened that anything might be lurking close by enough to witness it. The intersection lay ahead of him, still some distance away but close enough that VIevel’s light lit it up; in the distance the corner of the wall stood out sharp and pointed, the gloom swallowing any light that made it further. It beckoned him forward, and he felt a slight smile break out on his face. Soon he’d be home. The thought lifting his spirits, and free of the tightness at the hatch opening, Vievel broke into a jog. Before long he rounded the intersection corner and stopped, staring ahead of him.

After the intersection the passage became long and crooked, weaving gently as it stretched onward. A slight breeze was blowing; the air gently caressed his face and wrapped itself around his ankles. Glancing at his feet Vievel noticed a thin mesh vent running the length of the tunnel, from which the air was both originating and being drawn back into. As he looked down Vievel felt the faintest unease, as if he’d stumbled into a drawing in which a single thing had been changed, making it not at all the same as before; he didn’t remember the mesh vents. As he stared at them the worry grew, and he began to notice different things about the passage that seemed wrong somehow. The stone of the walls was chipped, not at all as smooth as he remembered. The tunnel meandered so sharply that he couldn’t make out the end of it, whereas he had been sure the original had been a straight walk. He then sniffed the air, realising that something about the passage smelled amiss as well. A faint smell of fuel permeated the softly-flowing draft in the vent, an unfamiliar odour. Doubt began to coalesce in Vievel’s gut, forming a solid rock of concern. He dropped his knapsack down, the contents of the bag rattling and clanking together as it struck the floor, and drew open its drawstring; fishing around inside the bag for a moment he retrieved his fibreweave cloth, still reeking of the smell from the red ward. He didn’t even have to bring the cloth to his nose before he recoiled from it.

Burnt, charred, meat. Vievel moved the cloth away from his nose and smelt the stone maintenance passage again. Fuel, and only a faint smell of it at that. He brought the cloth back to his nose, and then pulled it away again - only the cloth held the burnt smell. The air here was free of it. The original tunnel had stunk of the same smell that had hung on the air of the red ward, and that now permeated his cloth. He kept the cloth in hand but drew the bag’s drawstring shut, his thumb rubbing anxiously against his forefinger as he did. Was he in the wrong passage, a different maintenance passage? Shaking his head Vievel tried to reassure himself, speaking aloud.

“The smell is just gone, that’s all. Smells can move-”

It had to be the same, he couldn’t be lost-

“Hey,” an unseen voice called out. “Someone there?”