*5*

The rounded tunnel had darkened considerably since the openings to the street stopped.  But in the dripping stone roof were small dim waterproof lights at regular intervals and a thin concrete walkway had been made above the water level.  He was thankful at least that they were no longer wading through the water and that there was actually some light.  At regular intervals smaller tunnels connected to the flow of water, adding to the overall mass.  The tunnel stretched out ahead of them in a lazy curve.

Walking around the curve they came to a T intersection and stopped to look in both directions up the huge circular pipes.

“Which way now, Father?”  Tae asked, his tiredness unintentionally seeping into his voice.
“It doesn’t matter.  The water here flows left as well as right and all the water flows to the central drain.  Though, following this,” Father Owen pointed to the narrow concrete band on the right hand side of the tunnel where they stood.  “Will more likely help us avoid the bigger hazards such as waterfalls.”
“Ok.”  Tae nodded warily and started walking again.  “Do you know how far it is?”
“Not too much further now the open drains stop about a kilometer before the central drain.”
“And what will we find when we get there?”
“The main drain section has a sealed maintenance area and off this is an access route to the catacombs below the Cathedral.”

Tae looked at the priest in surprise.  “Catacombs?  I didn’t know there were catacombs.”
“Yes, the Cathedral was originally built on top of a temple.  In ancient times the temples often had adjacent catacombs or grave plots.  To the ancient ancestors Death and Divine worship were sacred and irretrievably linked.”
“You sure are a fountain of knowledge about odd things, Father.”
The priest looked back over his shoulder flashing a sliver of vivid blue at him.  Tae sensed amusement.  “Thank you.”

A prickly static feeling slowly filled the air around them.  Tae stopped and turned to look behind him with a frown.  The father, Jodan, started to ask him what was wrong and Tae put a hand up to quiet him.  “Shhh.”

The prickly feeling around them was mirrored inside him in a deep sense of unrest and tension.  He couldn’t sense anything telepathically or empathically.  He couldn’t hear anything either, but he stood listening intently to the dripping silence for several breaths.

The feeling of static lowered and disappeared but his inner tension increased.
“Something is wrong.”  His voice was low and firm.  “We run.  Now.”

His body was tired and he certainly didn’t want to run with the girl still in his aching arms but he had to trust his instinct.  It was always better to be wrong and alive instead of right and dead.

They ran along a straight part for a few hundred meters.  The tunnel around them was wider now and a larger body of murky drain water flowed swiftly below them.  Ahead the concrete path led directly up to some rough metal stairs and a sealed door.

Pulling hard on the wheel handle he found the metal was rusty and had obviously been there for a long time, but with a little encouragement from him slowly the wheel started to turn under his hands.  There was a very loud clang as the wheel unlocked the seal and allowed the door to open.  Everyone filed into the dark space quickly and Tae turned to step inside.

A gunshot echoed down the tunnel the way they’d come and a bullet ricocheted off the metal door.  He didn’t even bother to look back at whoever was firing at them he simply jumped in through the doorway and out of range of their weapons.  There didn’t seem to be a way to lock the door from the inside other than just sealing the door again with the wheel.  He gave it a firm yank and ran to follow the others.

The circular corridor led to a large antechamber.  The entire space was made of rusting metal and seemed very much like it belonged in a submarine.  There were many oval doors, doorways and narrow corridors off this large room, there were even ladders bolted to the walls leading up to gangways and other doors.

When he got into the square high roofed space he found Father Owen pulling at another door.  The second door seemed to open much quicker than the first one and they all ran through it into a long dark corridor.  Tae went to close the door behind them but Father Owen stopped him with a hand to his elbow.
“No, Tae.  There are others who live down here and those men will kill them.”
The priest turned away and Tae frowned and called after him.  “But what about us?”
The priest replied over his shoulder.  “There are plenty of secret places to hide in the catacombs.”

There was a banging clank sound nearby, it echoed down the narrow dark passage and everyone started to run again.  There were steps up to the next doorway, which was a simple unsealed metal door.  It opened easily with very little sound.  As he pulled the door he heard voices, the door clicked closed and a weapon fired behind them with a corresponding metallic bullet ricochet sound.  There wasn’t any way of locking the door so they had no choice but to just keep running.

Dim light filtered from a source he couldn’t immediately find and reflected through the narrow tunnel off roughly cut light-colored bedrock.
A few meters into the tunnel the creamy rock walls began to be interrupted by lines of old dark brick, only to be swallowed again by bedrock.

Ahead of him on the right Father Owen called for a stop in front of a section of brick.  By the time Tae ran up to the huddled group a dark hole had opened up in the brick under the priest’s hand.  “Everyone get in!”
The gap was only just big enough for the adults to crawl into but they filed into the darkness fairly quickly.  Last to go in to the dark space, Tae put his leg into the hole and crouched down.  Back the way they’d come he heard footsteps and he looked up to see the bald bouncer striding towards him down the tunnel, another younger man walked behind him and both of them held their guns up at him.  Tae ducked quickly and pushed himself quickly into the hole as gunfire sounded.

“Soth’en!”  He swore loudly, falling back and down a little from the hole in his haste to get out of their weapon range.  It was stupidly dark inside and the ground felt cold and dirty underneath his hands.

He felt someone pass near him and the small amount of light coming through the hole faded and sealed them up into darkness.  As he stood, blindly feeling around him he heard the sound of a flint being scraped and sparks of light revealed tiny bits of the room around him.  The room was wider than the sparks could show but he could see that there were dark square objects looming nearby.

The sparks flared brightly and firelight opened out the room.  Next to him Father Owen held a long old fashioned fire torch in one hand.

They stood in a dark oblong room, four long stone coffins stood in each corner.  The fire light flickered off various small pools of water that filled indents in the floor.  At the two long ends of the room large black stone thrones were carved out of the rock walls on raised stages.  “Maara!”

Turning around in his surprise and awe at the amazing room of stone he looked at the wall above their heads some kind of text was carved in huge unreadable shapes into the stone.  He just stared up at it his mouth open in his surprise.

Father Owen stepped next to him permeating a deep blue calm around and over Tae like pulsing ocean waves.  “It says: ‘Let us bury and mourn the dead, but lest the grief take from us our very life, let us also celebrate that we are living.’”  His voice was quiet, nearly a whisper.  “It’s thought to be the words of the Founder.”

A dim banging on the wall nearby reminded Tae suddenly that they were still in peril.  He pointed at the noise.  “How easy is that to get through?”
“Unless they get lucky and find the catch, it’s solid rock.”
“Well, then let’s get out of here.”