Nyx Evenfall's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

The dry channel swallowed Nyx by mid-afternoon. Marina's line was fast, but it forked. Every hundred steps the walls split, and each branch looked the same. Marina had traced one path. She had not warned Nyx how many false ones crossed it. Nyx stood at a three-way split and knew a single wrong turn meant walking into dead rock, far from any water. Nyx picked the widest branch and followed it. The walls closed in. The floor rose. After an hour the channel ended at a wall of stone. A dead end. Nyx turned back, jaw tight, and lost the count of turns behind them. The half-day route was already gone. A scrape of boots came from a side cut. Nyx spun with a hand on the pack strap. A man climbed down, gray-streaked hair pulled back, a string of small bones tied at his chest. He carried a shovel, not a weapon. He stopped when he saw Nyx and studied their face like a page. "You're lost," the man said. Plain, no worry in it. "This channel eats people. I've found their bones in the branches." He touched the string at his chest. "I put names to them when I can." Nyx knew the look. This was the digger who worked alone, chasing the dead nobody else would claim. "Marcus," Nyx said, guessing from the bones. He nodded once. "I need the branch that runs south-southwest," Nyx said. "To the far water hole. A wheeled house went that way." Marcus Holloway set the shovel down. "I've mapped every dead end in here. Learned them from the bodies." He crouched and drew lines in the dust with one finger. "You took the wide cut. Everybody does. It kills them." He tapped a narrow scratch. "The live branch is small. You'd walk past it. There's a mango tree at the mouth. Only green thing down here." "A tree," Nyx said. "Roots found water. That's how I knew the branch was safe." He stood. "Follow it and don't turn again. It opens on the flats near the hole." Nyx thanked him and moved fast. Two turns on, the leaves showed first, a burst of green against the tan walls. Gold fruit hung heavy in the branches. Past it the narrow cut ran straight and true. Nyx marked the tree on the map and pushed through. By dusk the walls fell away. The flats opened wide. Below, near a stone well, sat a small house on wheels. Yellow light glowed in its windows. Smoke curled from a pipe on the roof. The trail was no longer a guess. The benefactor was there, close enough to reach on foot. Nyx crouched behind a rock and watched the lit windows. Half a day of chasing was over. Now came the harder question. Whoever waited inside had known Nyx was coming for weeks. Nyx did not know if the door would open to a friend or a trap.