Blight

Chapter 3: The Under

I have a secret to tell you.

All the bits and pieces and bulbs I work with were once a Knight of Bask.

I know, it's horrible. Not too long ago I'd have rather been thrown into an oobli than cross a holy Knight, but that was before Eileen. Before the gurgling screams.

Still, I didn't set out to commit heresy. 

The time between Eileen's execution and the night I found the Knight seems like an eternity, though it couldn't have been more than a cycle. I changed during that time. I grew sullen and quiet. I never laughed. I never smiled. And I never left Father's side in the quarry. Father and Mother worried about me. Mother started filling my bowl with her own ration of mushroom soup when my head was turned. Father patted my red hair often, asking me with his eyes what he couldn't -- or wouldn't -- with his mouth. I know what they both thought -- what they feared.

That I had contracted the Waste. 

My brothers Piper and Sam died of the Waste before I was born, and my only sister -- June -- died between my birth and Darrin's, so Mother and Father are always scared we'll be next. The Waste is Bask's punishment to children who don't work hard enough in the quarry. The saying goes, "wasted in work, wasted in health". It takes back everything Bask gives us to serve him, wasted on idleness and laze -- our energy, our voices, and our bodies. Those with the Waste die slowly and quietly, but in the end they all die.

Somewhere in the haze of my mind I wanted to reassure my parents -- let them know I wasn't dying -- but I didn't have it in me to talk. Every time I tried to think about anything, Eileen's screams roared back into my mind, drowning out everything else. 

Like every child in the Under, I'd been brought up to belive that Bask was a tough but ultimately caring god, loving all of His people, wanting only for us to join Him once again in the Over. And that, though nobody had yet attained the level of purity needed to do so, Bask would never harm anyone who was kind, peaceful, hardworking, and obedient.

Eileen had been all of those and more.

Her screams still echoed in my mind three mornings ago as I flitted through Cavern D.

Hitting the ground silently from my family's stoneshack heap, I darted across the narrow space to a crack in the wall -- the only way in or out of our cave. My heart thudded painfully against my chest as I peered into the dark depth of the tunnel beyond. No glowing eyes greeted me.

I hissed a quick breath. 

Good. 

I moved forward.

Cavern D is one of four caverns in the Under, and the lowest. I've never been to the others, though some people have come back with stories. Some even say Bask Himself lives in Cavern A, but I don't believe that. Everyone knows Bask lives in the bright light of the Over, far above us.

My own Cavern consists of six family caves connected to a thin, winding tunnel. This tunnel ends on one side at a stone wall after the final family cave, and on the other side it opens up into the quarry, an enormous cavern where we work every day but Atonement, mining the rock that surrounds us. I don't know what happens to the shiny rocks we dig up -- they're carted away by the few people from Cavern C allowed past the gate -- but Father says that when he was small the quarry itself was smaller, too. Nobody knows why we're making the quarry bigger, but it has been that way for generations, ever since our ancestors destroyed the Over and Bask sent them to the Under as punishment.

Crossing the tight tunnel that connects the family caves is the hardest part of my nightly outings. Inside the caves, I can hide behind stoneshack piles, random chunks of concrete, or misplaced boulders. Long, low and narrow, the tunnel offers no such hiding spots. Though there aren't many Knights patrolling Cavern D, even one is bad enough when you're out past curfew.

My secret spot is across the quarry from the family caves, though not as far as the Knight-patrolled gate that separates Cavern D from the rest of the Under. The quarry itself is a dangerous place in the early morning. During the day, the lightlines embedded along the walls shine their green-tint so that workers moving around can avoid the pitfalls. But at night the lights are snuffed because nobody is supposed to be there to need them. Ooblis open up the floor of the quarry in random places, but they're not the only danger. Here and there, like angry pockmarks on the face of a Knight, lava-filled cracks have opened up over time, their rocky seams stretched wider as I've grown older. Though not as large as the deep Dump Hole in the middle where kids burn the worthless rocks their parents dig up, these are still highly dangerous to fall into. I've seen many trippers turn into human torches before they even hit the bottom of the smallest fissure capable of swallowing a person. Still, though they're dangerous I have grown to appreciate them. Without their red glow, the quarry would be impossible to cross before curfew.

The entrance to my secret spot is nothing more than a crack in the wall, hidden by the uneven rock and other deep cracks surrounding it, but I know it like the kinks of my own hair. I quickly pushed through to the other side, around a narrow corner and another narrow corner until I reached the cave.

As always, I bowed my head at the beautiful sight in honor of Grandfather -- may Bask light the way of his spirit -- before stepping off the rock shelf onto the soft moss floor. I took a deep breath -- and a moment to  drink up the sight -- before beginning my work.

An area half the size of the smallest family cave, my secret spot encompasses the short rock shelf by the entrance, the soft, moss-covered earth floor where sweetshrooms grow in abundance, and a waterfall -- a small trickle of cold, crisp water that feeds through the stone walls from high above.

But the best part of all is the light.

Not green like the glowlines, it shines golden, like the blessing of Bask Himself, from far, far above even the waterfall. It's only a tiny pinprick, but it's enough. Grandfather told me, long ago when he first brought me there, that it's the combination of light, water, and earth that makes it such a great place for moss and sweetshrooms to grow. 

As my eyes adjusted to the golden light, it was the sweetshrooms I focused on. Gathering up my brown robes into a sort of basket at my hip, I picked a nice load of the tiny plants to take back with me. I'd leave some on the doorstep of each stoneshack on my way home, just as Grandfather had done before me. It was in honor of Bask, he'd said, as a thank you for this beautiful place. But nobody else knew where they came from -- Grandfather had been insistent about telling no-one else about this place.

I gathered as many as I could carry and, with a heavy heart, moved back through the crack, around two corners, and into the quarry again. I had just taken my first step into the red-lit expanse when I heard it. An eerie, wrong sound that stopped me cold.

It sounded like a baby in pain.

Ignoring the fearful pounding of my heart, I looked around. The cavern was empty. I took another step.

The cry came again, wailing softly through the air, chilling my bones despite the perpetual heat of the quarry. 

I turned my head in the direction of the sound. It came from a nearby lava fissure.

Dropping the sweetshrooms, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled over to it, careful not to fall in. Eileen's wailing screams roared through my head as I pushed myself to keep going. I didn't know what I would see, but I had no choice. I had to help whoever was trapped down there if I could.

Leaning down, I peered into the glowing depths. The lava at the bottom cast a faint red light up and around a black figure, caught a little higher than mid-way. 

It wasn't a baby.

The trapped Knight looked up at me, its glowy eyes flashing bright.

"Subject D. You will pull me up now."

Even given in a scared, pitiful voice, nobody questions the orders of a Knight. Without a second thought I leaned down and held out my hand. The Knight reached up with its rotting fingers to grasp mine.

What happened next changed everything I ever knew to be true.