Chapter 3 - Into The Maw

"Who's there?" Renald asked in a cold sweat. The room was completely devoid of light.

"Don't come any closer, for your own safety," the voice cooed in a wide echo that spanned the ebony emptiness.

"I'm looking for an old man."

Renald's voice reverberated into vacuum silence. A slight wind seemed to dance across his body from the east. Clearly this wasn't any ordinary custodian's office.

"Well, it was nice meeting you, but I have to go," Renald anxiously muttered to the void.

"NO!" the voice boomed.

The hairs on Renald's body spiked as the warm liquid voice suddenly turned cold and hostile. He slowly backed against the door and tried to turn the knob. It was locked from the outside.

"Please don't go yet," the voice continued. "There's a reason why you're here." The warmth slowly returned to the voice.

"Why am I here?" Renald asked as his pulse continued to rush while his muscles slowly relaxed.

"There is something I want to show you, but I can only do so slowly. Otherwise, you would probably die of fright."

Renald's heart began to pound in his chest once again as he imagined all of the horrible things that were in store for him. It seemed as though the voice could either be coming from an angel or a beast. It sounded like an angel, but Renald realized that there must have been some good reason why the voice was bathed in darkness.

"Why is it so dark in here?" he asked while wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"It is dark because it needs to be dark."

"What needs to be dark?"

"When I tell you to walk, walk exactly where I say."

Renald took a heavy gulp and shook his head. This is the end, he thought. This is really it. While he waited for an axe to drop on his head, a spear to lance his chest, or a trap door to open beneath him, all Renald could hear was the sound of breathing inching towards him slowly. He all but fell unconscious when the voice said,

"You may enter. Walk slowly in a straight line, but stop when I say so."

Renald clenched his fists and began to step forward. He imagined a hundred different cruel fates awaiting him; instead, he felt a curious warmth envelope his body as his feet opposed a viscous, gravely substance.

"Don't think. Just keep walking," the voice instructed.

Renald nodded and continued ambling in as straight a line as possible.

"Stop," the voice commanded. "Start turning slightly to your right and then walk again."

Feeling stranger and stranger with each passing moment, Renald censured the urge to turn back as quickly as he could since he knew the path would no longer be linear from here on in. Once again, he let fear guide him into following the disembodied voice's instructions, walking at a slight angle until further commanded.

After walking and listening to the voice for what felt like an hour or more, Renald's parched throat and growling stomach began to overcome his normal sense of propriety. He tried to ignore these sensorial urges, but a spark of boredom combined with his need for sustenance invoked a slightly rebellious reaction from him.

"How much further?" Renald asked.

"All will be revealed in its proper time. Keep walking," the voice sternly advised.

Renald continued to trudge along the squishy flooring, turning in accordance with the dictates of the guiding voice, until the voice once again boomed,

"STOP!"

Renald's blood froze in his veins and all hairs stood on end once again as the spectral evocation disturbed the settled pattern his body hitherto accustomed itself.

"Turn around and start walking."

Renald had to think for a second before the confusion he felt turned to anger. Was he just going to walk back and forth in some dark tunnel for no reason? He then realized that it wouldn't be so bad going back to the entrance; then the voice might let him go home and all would be well again.

After what seemed to be another hour or so of following the voice back to the beginning of the tunnel, Renald saw something he hadn't seen in what felt like ages: a speck of white light straight ahead. He felt like running toward the source of illumination, but he knew better than to risk invoking the anger of whatever it was that controlled the voice that guided him through the pitch-black darkness.

As the light grew closer, Renald began to realize that he wasn't traveling toward the entrance of the cave. How could it be? Instead, once he stood at the end of the corridor, he was standing about a mile above the city.

"I thought we were underground," he uttered in disbelief.

"We were," the voice replied. "As you can see, you are in no ordinary tunnel."

Renald's heart began pounding once he looked down from the cliff he stood on and saw a long, cylindrical dirt shaft that extended up from the ground and ended beneath his feet. Something felt very wrong.

"I don't understand," Renald gasped. "How did we go from beneath the ground to above the city?"

"Simple," the voice replied ominously. "I'll show you."