But it didn’t attack. The sudden flare of confidence, the sun emerging from behind dark clouds, and Maribel laughed. Reached out, hand slender and pale in the dark, and ran her palm down the side of its head. Isobel had been screaming her name but now had fallen silent. Perhaps she was gone. Its fur was thick, bristled and textured beneath her palm. She moved forward amused by this gross display of fur and fangs, crimson eyes and black pelt. It turned its great head to regard her not with anger or rage or confusion or doubt but rather a sense of simple regard. As if she had passed from one category into another, leaving behind the trappings of prey for something greater.
Moving forward, she half turned so as to slip her left arm over its neck. The Guardian raised its head, snout pointing at the ceiling, and with her right hand she raked her fingers deep into the fur beneath its chin, up and down, spilling out a rich, heavy scent as she did so.
“You’re crazy,” said Isobel. Her voice floated through the gloom. “You’re mad.”
Maribel looked at where the psychic stood, irresolute, still on the verge of fleeing. “Yes, perhaps,” she said.
“How did you..?” asked Isobel, taking a step closer. Stopped, as if she had reached some invisible line. “The phooka,” she said. “It’s here, isn’t it. It’s doing this?”
“It is, but this is me. Isobel, there is nothing to fear. Come forward. The Guardian can only stop you if you allow yourself to be stopped.”
The Guardian seemed smaller. Still massive, to be sure, the size of a lion, a great shouldered bear perhaps on all fours, but no longer did its presence and bulk fill the whole tunnel. It seemed to be subsiding, settling, resolving itself into some new and more comfortable shape. Maribel continued to rake her fingers through its fur, up behind one ear, digging into the hollow there. It closed its left eye, turned its head to grant her better access.
“It was going to kill us,” said Isobel with flat certainty.
“It was,” agreed Maribel. “No doubt about that. But now it won’t. Come on. Let’s keep going.” She pushed past the length of the Guardian, back scraping against the wall, and at where the phooka stood, arms crossed over its narrow chest, beard hanging down just shy of its navel.
“Well done, my queen. Now it becomes interesting,” said the phooka. “Let your friend guide the way, and I shall ensure that all remains open.” Then it bowed and extended its arm, inviting her to proceed before it in a manner most courtly.
Isobel was breathing heavily when she gained Maribel’s side.
“Where to?” asked Maribel. “Where next?” Urgency was descending upon her. Enough of these games.
Isobel squinted, looked left and then right at the blank walls on either side of them, and then pointed down the tunnel. “My super powers tell me that we go straight. I mean, what other option is there?”
They walked ahead, and a fork appeared before them, twin tunnels splitting off in different directions, each identical to the other. “Ah,” said Isobel. “OK. Hold on.” A deep breath, eyes closed, and then she turned to the left. “Here we go.”
Things began to change. No longer was the tunnel an endless repetition of ancient brick, oozing mortar and amber light. Suddenly the walls began to show cracks that yawned alarmingly, became pitted as if splashed with an acid that had eaten away at the bricks. Dust seemed to hang in the air, muffling their footsteps and the tunnel began to grow wider, the ceiling above rougher, surface jagged with protruding blocks.
A moan sounded before them, thin and devoid of hope, the call of something long lost and alone. Isobel’s hand was a clamp on Maribel’s arm. “Oh come on,” she said. “More?”
They moved forward cautiously. A form wafted toward them from out of the gloom, seeming to drift on the point of its toes, gray like a sooty moth, draped in rags and with a face wrenched by pain and sorrow. An old woman, or an old man—it was hard to tell, so wrinkled and agonized was the face, so wispy the hair. Before they could react, it fled from them into a large crack in the wall, seeming to fit impossibly into the small hole.
More moans. Some were sighs, listless and despairing, inconsolable and endless, while others were pained, tormented, growing higher in pitch till they cut off, strangled by grief. Sobbing bruised the darkness about them, but the figures remained out of sight. The very air became a tapestry of groans and cries, textured by pain and loss.
As if walking into a strong wind, the two women forged forward, heads lowered, trying to ignore the sounds. Glimpses of faces peering at them from side tunnels, barely discernible in the gloom. The sense of movement in the wings, of forms brushing past, invisible and inviolate, trapped by their grief.
An opening to their left, not a brick lined tunnel but simply a natural gap large enough for them to walk comfortably down, a bored hole that sank away into the darkness. And in it danced a woman, old and filthy, dressed in rags and with an iron collar around her neck and chains upon her hands and feet, eyes rolling about as she grinned at them with broken teeth, capering and laughing in silence. Both women hurried forward, eyes locked on the manic figure, and then she was behind them, but they kept glancing over their shoulders, dreading the possibility of her following, creeping up from behind to wrap her hands about their throats.
Hurrying on, Maribel saw that the tunnel was losing all semblance of being manmade. Rough daggers of stone hung from the ceiling, and the ground beneath their feet was growing pitted and shattered, causing them to stumble as they went.
“Isobel,” whispered a voice, and they turned to see a woman approaching from the gloom to their right. A young woman, tall and athletic, her blonde hair folded into a thick braid that fell between her shoulder blades, her face strong, striking, her eyes blank and black like river pebbles. Blood flowed from her slashed wrists only to disappear in the air. Isobel froze, both hands slipping up to cover her mouth.
“Isobel,” said the woman, stopping but a few yards shy of them. She said nothing more, simply stared, hands stirring restlessly by her side as if she wished to reach for the psychic but dared not, refused to seek contact with her. Maribel stared at her friend’s face; it was twisted with absolute shock, horror. Grabbing Isobel’s hand, she pulled her forward, away, leading her down the tunnel at a stumbling trot, leaving the woman behind to be engulfed by the shadows.
Isobel ran alongside for a minute and then simply collapsed, fell into a ball and landed hard on the ground, her legs gone from under her. Her grip on Maribel’s own hand held firm, however, and yanked her almost off her own feet. She was shaking her head and murmuring frantically to herself, blinking rapidly and not focusing on anything.
“Who was that?” asked Maribel, crouching before her. “Isobel, who was that?”
“That was Jen,” said Isobel, her voice a dry croak. “Oh my god that was Jen.”
“Hey,” said Maribel, reaching out awkwardly to pull Isobel into a hug. The gesture felt unnatural, as if she were playing a role. She wanted to pull Isobel back up onto her feet, force her onwards. But no. “It’s okay. If it’s your friend, let’s go back to her.”
“We can’t go back,” said Isobel, raising her face with a look of such naked vulnerability on it that Maribel wanted to avert her eyes. “She’s dead. She died nine years ago. Killed herself.”
“Killed herself,” said Maribel. The words were things in her palm, rocks that had no significance. “That was her ghost?”
Isobel nodded, and turned her face away. Her shoulders hitched once, twice, then stilled. “Her spirit. We must be dead. Or in the realm of the dead. The damned. Oh, Jen.”
“Shh,” said Maribel, pulling Isobel into her arms and cradling her. “It’s okay. It makes sense. We’re in Kubu’s realm. That’s all.” Her words rang in her ears, made her want to laugh. Hysteria was beginning to lurk on the far edges of her mind. Her strength was becoming brittle, her calm, hollow. Strain was making her jumpy. “Come on. We can’t stop. We have to keep moving.”
“Jen,” said Isobel, allowing Maribel to haul her to her feet, looking back down the tunnel. Something was tearing its way up from her core, causing tears to flood Isobel’s face as she looked away into the darkness, making her shiver, making her shake. “Jen!” She cried, “Jen, I love you!” Her voice rang in the darkness, and for a moment the moans and sighs stopped, silenced by the ringing pain and loss and love in those words. The tears were coming freely now, and as the moans began again, something went from Isobel, some light in her eyes, and her shoulders slumped. “I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left you alone.” There was no response.
“Come on,” said Maribel, placing an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go.” Together they began to walk on, and somehow the moans and shuddering sighs were no longer so terrible, so frightening, but only sad, sad and endlessly heartbreaking.
The world lost all rhyme and reason. The tunnel would swell up into large caverns and then narrow back down so that they had to walk single file. It would split up into a maze of interweaving paths through shattered rocks, or occasionally show evidence of brickwork once more, broken and shattered and fixed into the walls in random patterns. Always, the phooka walked behind, its dead eyed presence never quite as comforting as Maribel would have thought. Still, it seemed apart, not with them, watching and not really guiding.
Isobel directed their path, choosing which fork to take, what corner of the cavern to strike toward, weaving their way through the cries and calls of the invisible hordes that ringed them, followed them through this underworld. Walked with a numb certainty, focused now on their objective and not allowing anything to distract her, pierce her grief. Figures approached them occasionally, dressed strangely, gazing at them with hunger and desire but not eliciting further memories. The two women ignored them, stumbled on. The light grew ever dimmer, until finally they were simply staggering forward in the darkness, barely able to make each other out, heart beats loud in their own ears.
“We are here,” said the phooka, his voice quiet and still by Maribel’s ear. “We have reached that where Kubu can be found.”
Maribel stopped walking. She couldn’t see. The moans and cries had faded away a while ago, and now all that she could hear was Isobel and her own harsh breaths. They were walking arm in arm, each clutching the other to her side, their steps having grown shorter and more cautious as the darkness had descended upon them. Isobel stopped as well, turned her face blindly to Maribel’s.
“I don’t think we can go any further.” Her voice was flat, numb, shocked now past emotion.
“I know,” said Maribel. She tried to spot the phooka, couldn’t. “Where is it? Where is Kubu?”
“It is around you,” said the phooka.
“It’s here with us,” said Isobel at the same time, their voices interweaving strangely. “We’re in it. Somehow.”
“Kubu!” cried Maribel suddenly, back straightening, her voice an arrow shot into the dark. “Where are you?”
“I am here to open all doors,” said the phooka, his voice little more than an ashen whisper. “This is the last door that I can open.” And then there was light, crepuscular and faint, and a roaring sounded about them, the rushing thrum of great currents of air being abused and tearing around them, something being pulled, woven into a central point, and Maribel saw Kubu.
It was small. Little more than two feet tall, its pallid skin almost glowing in the dark, pale not like a white man or child but like a cavern dwelling creature, the color of the belly of a fish accustomed to living below ground for so long it had lost the use of its eyes. Small and wizened, forehead bulging and protruding, face tiny like that of a child, swaddled in darkness as if it had reached out to wrap itself in shadows. It was seated on the floor, little legs kicked out before it. Even as Maribel stared at Kubu, it lifted its head artlessly and stared at her.
Like a hammer. Her heart stopped, squeezed. Her breath curdled in her throat, grew leaden in her chest. A vise tightened about her. Those eyes, such pain and loss that even her own was dwarfed, her own insatiable need made impossibly small by the hunger in Kubu’s eyes. There was nothing within him but this need, this hunger, he was hunger made manifest, a hunger so raw and terrible and old that she felt close to falling, legs grown loose beneath her. Isobel let out a cry and turned away. Maribel released her hand, lost her to the darkness.
“Kubu,” whispered the phooka, its voice seeming to come to her from a great distance, carried fortuitously by some wind. “Kubu, Edamukku, Kirsu, Nid Libbi. Younger than rock but older than stone. Kubu, Edamukku, Kirsu, Nid Libbi. Youngest, eldest, outside my compassing, and yours. The little one who never saw the sun, never knew its own name, who never suckled warm milk from a mother’s breast. Called Kubu by man, for it has no name of its own. Kubu.” And then, somehow, Maribel knew that the phooka was gone. She was alone.
Maya descended. The rungs were crude iron, rough. Down into the dark, hand under hand, feet probing for the next rung. Which grew successively smoother, taking on an increasingly polished feel, each becoming identical to the next. Then something strange began to happen to her weight. Was she growing lightheaded, woozy? No. She was actually growing lighter. Soon she felt close to floating, having to push herself down to the next rung, weightless. A mad desire to push away from the wall seized her, but the thought of floating out into the darkness was terrifying. Instead, she gripped the rungs harder and continued down.
Soon she began to feel something tugging her up. Her hair fell away from her face, fell up, and then her body began to sag up as well. Blinking, she realized that it felt as if she were holding onto the rungs from an upside down position. A few rungs further and the effect was so strong she had to strain to hold on. Heart racing, eyes wide, not giving herself time to think about it, she turned around on the rungs, allowed her down to become up, and began to climb headfirst the way she had been going.
Arms trembling, fingers stiff, she blanked her mind. Don’t think, just climb. Up, down, it didn’t matter. Just get to where you’re going, and get out. So thinking, she climbed until her hand hit a cold, metal surface. End of the line. Blinking, she saw that the darkness had changed. No longer absolute, it now had texture, depth. A circle of wan light was above her, thin and wavering. Smell, too; rich, ripe, rotten. Not a smell—a stench. Sewage. Suddenly gagging, she placed the flat of her hand against the metal, pushed, strained, and then sunlight was streaming down upon her. With a surge, she was up and out, manhole pushed open to roll onto a road, an impression of two lanes, both shoulders lined with parked cars. Trees rising up from the broad sidewalks, bare branches against the iron sky. The manhole next to her, the way down a black crescent along it.