“I was 7,” Galis answered, “As to the rest of it, that’s a trade secret.”
“Must have been hard.”
“It was brutal,” Galis aggreed, quickening his pace a little, a strange sense of urgency that he knew better then to ignore takeing a seat in his gut. “This will do.” Galis said, finding a ladder, and guideing the boy’s hand from his hsolder to the ladder. Which was precisely when he heard the rustling of something not nearly as far away as he would like, he coudln’t be sure the echoing of the tunnels distorted every. “Hurry up and get up.” Galis said with no small amount of urgency.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, and don’t really want to find out, so get up the ladder. Nothing good hangs out down here.” Galis answered, he was sure the dim almost light he was seeing by was changing color, not to the red of a torch, but a sort of phosperent glow. “Get up,” Galis said, when the boy hesitated, the glow was likely the first thing he’d seen since comeing into the tunnel.
“I want to see what it is…” Ralfon said, his foot hesitateing on a rung of the ladder.
“No you don’t, you want to get up to daylight,” Galis told him, his voice a harsh whisper, the light felt not entirely real, like it was an illusion. Ralfon moved up a couple of rungs, only to puase when the light got brighter, still dim but in the lamost dark they were in it was brilliant. IT didn’t seem to have a source, more like it was leaking from the very stones of the tunnel, invadeing the dark.
But something in it cast a shadow that Galis could see, the contorted shape of some kind of almost humnoid beast shimmering and shifting across the stone towards them like a heat mirage in the shadows the light should have cast but didn’t.
Galis glanced up to the ladder and Ralfon was comeing down, not going up. What did the boy see that he didn’t. Or could he hear something he didn’t, was that even possible, Galis was sure he had better hearing then most humans, but if it wasn’t meant for him, then who knew. “Get up the ladder.” Galis yelled, his voice echoing painfully loud. “Your going the wrong damn way.”
