Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [152]
He looked around desperately. There, just inside the tunnel mouth, stretched a length of rope hanging from the portcullis above. With a mighty swing he brought the Brave’s Sword down on the rope.
There was the slightest bit of resistance, and the rope split cleanly in two. With a great screeching sound, and dust flying everywhere, the steel trap came hurtling down. For an instant, everything went black. It’s falling too fast! I’ll be trapped inside with them!
Another fleshless hand clutched at Wataru’s sleeve. Its strength was ferocious. Wataru screwed his eyes shut and dove, headfirst, for the tunnel entrance.
The portcullis nicked the tip of his toes as it crashed down. The metal bars successfully trapped and crushed the skeletal horde.
Face down on the floor, Wataru crawled farther away before he had the courage to turn and look. Behind the sturdy bars, the skeletons lay in a pile of bones. The force of the impact had shattered them into bits and pieces. But he could see various arms and skulls still struggling to extricate themselves from the debris. Hesitantly, Wataru stood and walked closer to take a look.
Things were moving. Bony fingers twitched, searching for his boots, and jawbones rattled, snapping for his toes. Wataru’s chest seized up with fear, and he had to take a step back.
“Who are you guys?” he asked in a whisper. The bones made no reply. “Why are you here? Were you the believers? Did Cactus Vira shut you up in here? Or did you shut yourselves up?”
Eventually the movements slowed, then stopped altogether. Soon they were nothing more than brittle bones, lying scattered on the cavern floor.
Wataru took a deep breath and let the tension go out of his shoulders. He then turned toward the tunnel on the left. It sloped slightly downward.
How far down does it go, I wonder?
It was more or less straight down, only snaking to the right and left now and again. The further down he went, the brighter the light seemed to grow. It eventually grew so light he could see writing and painting on the damp stone walls.
Here was a man who looked like he had been crucified. Here was a crowd of people kneeling before an altar. Here was a man cutting the head off an animal that looked very much like a darbaba. Beneath these images was text that Wataru couldn’t read, written in ink the color of blood.
Above the praying figures stood a single man—more of a silhouette, really—pitch black, its arms spread wide. On closer examination, it didn’t look human at all. Its body was far too massive, and something like horns grew from its head. Behind it a great disk shone like the sun. It was almost as if the darkened figure was trying to block its light from those who knelt before him.
Was the figure with the horns Cactus Vira?
Wataru noticed something else as he continued his descent into the earth. There were many sconces set in the wall, and torch fragments scattered about on the ground. They were all quite old, but they did not appear to have been simply discarded. Rather, they looked like they had been broken on purpose. He passed a broken lantern that clearly had been smashed against the tunnel’s wall.
It was obvious that many people had come here before Wataru. And wherever they were going, they weren’t allowed to bring light with them. They had to discard their torches and lanterns before they were allowed to proceed any further.
He continued down. The tunnel grew narrower and began to gradually rise and fall until at one point it plummeted in a steep incline. Wataru looked up to see a hole in the rock wall about a foot above his head. The white light was emanating from that hole.
Wataru jumped, catching on to the rim of the window-like hole with his fingers. Straining, he was able to pull himself up and crawl through. The room into which he emerged was so vast, its ceiling so high, that for a moment it was all Wataru could do to stare, gaping in awe.
This chamber was at least twice the size of the hall of worship he had found before. Wataru was standing on top of