Page 78 of Ring of Ruin

“Happy to be of service to you, dear Bethany, although I’m thinking said ass isn’t all that impressive in this gear.”

“Well, it’s better than looking at my brother’s ass, and far more appropriate.”

“Concentrate, people,” Lugh said, voice dry. “Otherwise we’re going to be down here all fucking day.”

Cynwrig’s smile flashed briefly, bright in the gloom behind the headlamp’s light. He tugged off his gloves, then placed a hand against the stone and closed his eyes. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then a very gentle vibration ran around the surrounding walls before leaping down our two tunnel choices. I watched him, half wondering if reading the earth and the stone gave him the same sort of feeling of oneness that reading wood gave me.

After several minutes he drew in a deep breath and opened his eyes. “The left tunnel leads to some sort of underground lake, but it’s a fair way down. It’s also the most degraded. I’m not actually sure Lugh or I will make it all the way to the bottom—it’s very narrow toward the lake end.”

I frowned. “Can’t you strengthen and widen those bits of the tunnel?”

“I can, but it takes time and strength, and against seriously compromised earth, there’s no guarantee of success. I’d rather save my strength for when—if—the tunnel collapses.”

“Let’s just get as far as we can, and decide what to do then,” Lugh said.

Once we were roped together, we headed in. The tunnel’s entrance was low enough that we had to squeeze through on hands and knees, and it didn’t get any better, the crawl space becoming tight enough to scrape shoulders in several places. We finally reached a lower chamber, and with a sigh of relief, I stood and looked around. There were multiple passages and rifts leading off this chamber, but everyone one of them was blocked by earth and rockfill—deliberately so, I suspected, to prevent the unwary and unprepared from going any further.

Cynwrig walked across the chamber and pressed his hands either side of a rather crooked-looking crevice. After several seconds, the gentle vibration started anew, and the rocks and earth filling the entrance vibrated free, running past Cynwrig’s feet like water and pooling close to the middle of the cavern.

Once the crevice was free of muck, he glanced around. “This first bit we’ll be able to traverse upright, but further down we’ll be on hands and knees again.”

Lugh nodded and motioned him to continue on. The tunnel was small, dark, and wet, the air thick and unpleasant. It took us forever to go what seemed like inches, and I was sweating profusely by the time we came out of the tunnel into a third, much smaller chamber. Unlike the others, this wasn’t natural—there were what looked to be pick marks on the walls and the rusty remains of mining tools on the floor.

“Well,” Lugh said. “It looks like the theory about a breakthrough were right.”

“Why the hell would anyone be mining this far down?” I flicked the bead of sweat dribbling down my face away with a grimy gloved finger. “Aside from the fact it would be damnably difficult to take anything back up to the surface, weren’t they mining limestone around this area rather than precious metals?”

Lugh shrugged. “The known lack of valuable substances in an area has never stopped someone from looking for them.”

“And,” Cynwrig added, amusement evident in his voice if not his expression, “there’re plenty of gold rushes started by people digging in areas most claimed would be a desolate waste of time.”

He walked over to what looked to be a largish foxhole and squatted down. I walked over and then did the same.

“Please don’t tell me this is our next tunnel.”

“I’m afraid so.” He glanced at me, one eyebrow raised and eyes bright in my headlamp’s light. “You want the good news or the bad news?”

“Definitely good news. I’ve had more than enough bad recently.”

“Well then, this tunnel is short even if it’s steep, and it comes out at a shelf above an underground lake.”

“I’m guessing the bad will be the fact neither Cynwrig nor I will be getting down it,” Lugh said.

Cynwrig glanced up. “Indeed. There is one other major concern though—the pulse of the earth dies about twelve feet this side of the tunnel’s exit point.”

I frowned. “Is that usual?”

He shrugged. “It can happen in industrial regions, where the earth is so fouled, we cannot retrieve it, but it’s rare in a region like this, despite its mining past.”

“Could it be caused by magic?” I asked. “You not being able to read it, I mean.”

My knives weren’t reacting to anything, but maybe that was because we weren’t close enough. If theydidreact, I was going to be in trouble, because I’d stupidly kept them strapped onunderthe caving suit rather than over.

Of course, if I could call them into my hands from an underground cavern miles away from where they were, I could certainly do so when they were strapped to my legs.

He hesitated. “Possibly. Either way, you’ll have to tread warily, because I’m not going to be able to feel the indications of a collapseorrespond to it.”

“Unless there’s an island in the middle of that lake, I won’t be journeying more than a foot away from the exit, trust me on that.”

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