Jeff's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

The passage behind them was gone, sealed by black water. Ahead, the tunnel narrowed and filled with smoke. Jeff pressed forward with the steel wrapped across his back. Garrick, the runaway apprentice who had drawn them this deep with his stolen map, coughed beside him. The map had promised a clear road. It had not warned of the smoke. Jeff's chest burned. Each breath pulled in more ash than air. The furnace's fumes had nowhere to go now that the flood plugged the way out. "We can't breathe this," Garrick said. He did not raise his voice. "Ten more steps and we drop." Jeff dropped to his knees instead. The air was thinner near the floor, but not thin enough. Then he heard it. Water. Not the flood behind them, but a current below the stone. "There's a river under us," Jeff said. Garrick knelt and pressed his ear to the rock. "Cold air comes off it. If we reach it, we breathe." Jeff found a seam in the floor where a draft leaked up. He drew his hammer and struck. The stone cracked. He struck again. Chips flew. Garrick pulled loose rock away with bare hands, coughing between each pull. The floor gave. A hole opened, and cold clean air rushed up through it. Jeff gulped it down. Below, a dark stream ran fast through a low channel. Then the water bulged. Something rose from it. A serpent lifted its head into the hole. Its scales were layered iron, blue-gray and hard as forged plate. Its eyes caught the furnace light. It was longer than the channel was wide, and it filled the gap they had just opened. Garrick went still. "That's what lives down here." Jeff did not move his hand from the hammer. The serpent watched him. It did not strike. It breathed slow, and each breath cooled the air around them. The creature was their air. It was also blocking the only way through. Jeff made a choice. He set the hammer down on the stone, slow, in plain sight. He kept his eyes on the serpent and lowered himself toward the water. "You'll get us killed," Garrick said. "We're dead up here," Jeff said. "Follow or don't." He slid through the hole into the cold. The serpent coiled aside and let him pass. Its iron scales brushed his arm, smooth and heavy. Garrick came down after him, hammer clutched tight. The stream carried them under the smoke, away from the sealed tunnel. Jeff breathed full breaths at last. The serpent swam ahead, then turned to watch them, as if it meant to see where they went. They had escaped the smoke. But the river ran deeper into the mountain, toward the furnace's roar, and the iron serpent now knew exactly where they were.