Dirge Danorum

Chapter 18

The road through was not as long as the road up. There was an endless shaft to the surface, stairs running up each wall, around and around, more flights than I could count. They were metal and rusted, each feeling as though it would give beneath our feet, but we had to run, because there were soldiers below shooting at us. We couldn't hear the shooting – just a dull thudding that we could feel, and we could see the sparks flying from the walls and the railings.

There were bodies on the stairs. This clearly wasn't the optimal way in or out of the facility, but if some of the people who worked here had chosen it, it must have an outlet. And it did. A pair of rusting double doors led into a garage with a gravel floor. Wooden spars were piled around the threshold, as though the door had at one time been barricaded. Something had broken through.

Sunlight streamed in through a raised shutter, rusted in place. The remains of a stalker long dead were in the corner. I couldn't hear the click of my Geiger counter, but I could see the needle jumping.

"We have to get out," I shouted to Ever, who saw my gestures and motioned the others outside. We didn't know what was out there or where we were, but we couldn't hang around with radiation levels that high.

I checked my counter again, finding the situation much more reasonable. After a tense moment in which we all looked around sharply, fearing immediate danger, everyone paused just to breathe in the fresh air.

The sun was out. We were in a small glade that had to be near the Channel. I could see buildings through the trees, but not many. This wasn't an industrial sector. Probably one of the farms, which meant we were farther south than I realized. Those tunnels must not have been as twisty as I thought.

We couldn't stay. That installation down there, whatever it was – the Americans didn't want anybody knowing about it. What soldiers were left would have to come up and look for us. They wouldn't follow far, but they'd come into the daylight. Velvet knew it too. She consulted her compass only briefly; we all knew which way we had to go.

North.

The ringing was dying down. Sound was returning. We were battered and bloody, exhausted beyond logic or reason, but I was the only one who wasn't smiling. And when I realized that, I smiled too. It felt good to be in the open.

We had to hope that those Americans had been up to no good, because we'd sure messed up whatever they'd been doing. Blowing their electrical system had also blown their security measures. Now half of them were dead, and the other half were in big trouble. It wasn't their fault; I doubt the Ukrainian scientists who'd originally occupied that facility had known what it was built over. No one could have predicted any of it.

Well, from what little I'd seen, and what I'd read between the lines, those Americans and the fish people deserved each other. And they were lucky at that; the fish people certainly weren't the strangest things living underneath the Zone, unknown to the world at large. As Velvet's favorite wizard said, there are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world. It was true then, and it was arguably even more true now.

We could warn people, but the warnings would become rumors. Rumors would become stories, stories would become legends, and legends would become myths. It had taken me a while to understand how things worked here, but I finally did.

Five people walking through the trees in the Ukraine. It's stranger than it sounds. We weren't actually all that far from Kevorich; we'd overshot it when we were underground, and that only made it all harder to swallow. Who would believe anything like this could happen so close to home?

Clear Sky hid in their bogs. The Bar at Rostov was only beginning to rebuild. The Rookie village was failing. Duty was hostile to everyone. The Bandits were scattered and disorganized, even more so than before. Something had driven them from their underground hiding place, and they'd returned to the Zone in such small numbers that many questions circulated about whether the others were hiding or dead.

There weren't many places left where a stalker could lay his head without fear of losing it in the night. Kevorich was high on that short list of sanctuaries. Indeed, it might be better not to say anything about what lurked beneath; maybe it was better to just let the status quo ride. No one had ever heard of fish people bothering anyone on the surface, after all.

The time had come. We were at the edge of the trees; we would follow the road along the Channel the rest of the way to Kevorich. But not all of us.

Ever checked the magazine of the pistol he'd appropriated underground, and grimaced. He started to thumb the rounds out of the magazine, and load them into one of his spares for his own CZ 100.

"I'll just be on my way, then."

Velvet sighed. "We owe you."

He shook his head. "Patches don't mean anything." He holstered his gun, and threw the freshly emptied one to Grigor. "We're all brothers here."

"I wish that were true," Velvet replied. They were speaking Russian, and I didn't want to miss anything, so I cut in using English.

"Do you have to go back?" I didn't have to like Ever to recognize his value.

"Oh, yes." He turned to Velvet. "You know nothing can ever be the same if you do this."

"Change is coming no matter any of us do," Velvet replied. "We just have to make a case for the future we prefer."

"Well said." Grigor was seated against a tree. His eyes were closed. Poor old man – he needed rest, but we didn't dare stop before reaching Kevorich. No one wanted to see Ever go, except possibly me, but he couldn't be talked out of it. The prospect of traveling halfway across the Zone by himself? Didn't seem to bother him. In fact, the ordeal hadn't appeared to phase him at all, but he wasn't fooling anyone. I didn't think I'd ever met a prouder man more fixated on his ego and vanity in my life. Would it really be so hard for him to just admit he was as tired and scared as the rest of us?

Of course, as a man openly serving Duty, he probably wouldn't be too welcome at Kevorich. Maybe going his own way was for the best. I stayed out of it, but there was something I needed from him before he left. I told the others I'd catch up. That got me some questioning looks, but as a rule, stalkers aren't nosy people.

Grigor looked like he was walking underwater, and Velvet was moving gingerly. Venge actually seemed all right in terms of injuries, but he was worn down. I watched them head for the water, then turned back to Ever, taking the folded letter from my pocket.

"Can you see this?" I asked.

"Why wouldn't I be able to?"

Because I'd picked it up in the Valley, and I wasn't sure it really existed, that was why. "You're German, aren't you?"

He smiled. "Yes."

"Then you can read this, right?" I ignored the look he gave me as I handed it over.

"Is this Norwegian?"

"I think so. Can't you tell?"

"I suppose. Did I forget to mention that I'm German, not Norwegian?"

"It's not similar enough to tell? Like Spanish and Portuguese?"

Ever sighed, rubbed at his eyes, and scanned the letter. "I can't read it, not really. But I know what it is."

"Really? How?"

"Because I've got one. Or I had one. I don't know what my wife's done with my files." He handed it back to me. "It's a letter of acceptance to Cambridge. See? Of course I'm an Oxford man, myself." He pointed at the emblem in the corner. Like I was supposed to know what the Cambridge thing looked like. Except it did say Cambridge there, didn't it? I should've looked closer at it.

"What?"

"I don't need to read Norwegian to know that much."

"Huh." I looked down at it.

"Linguistics, I think." I looked up at him.

"Really?"

"I think so. You know, you could ask Velvet to read it for you."

"Yeah, no. Did I just accidentally show you her real name?"

"I already knew her name," Ever said, yawning.

I gave him a look, then I figured it out. "You've seen the painting," I said.

"She can enjoy a little anonymity here. Don't ruin it for her."

As if I would. It hurt to say it. "Thanks," I grumbled, stuffing the letter back into my pocket.

"I live to serve," Ever said, gave me a salute, and strolled off into the trees. I looked at the Channel, then I looked back after him. He wasn't alone. There was someone there with him, and I didn't recognize him – but I did. I'd seen this guy before, in the ship, when I'd been suspended with Sagaris by the cultists. He'd been following the Biker back then. He couldn't be real; he couldn't be. I still had at least a little capacity for telling the difference between reality and illusion. Didn't I? I looked at my hand, then at Ever, who appeared to be alone again.