The walls were closing in on Echser as he moved ever deeper into the dark, slithering on his belly like some giant worm while pushing ahead the smoke bomb. His heart hammered in his chest; a continuous thump-thump-thump only surpassed by the blood roaring in his ears. It was the hardest thing Echser had ever to do in his life, every fiber of his being screaming at him to crawl back, to get out of here and forget the book. But if he did that, all those people would have died for nothing. Then he really would be a mass-murderer.

"Curse you, Craven," he muttered with more venom than he ever felt for another human being in his life. "The pox on your nethers!"

He inched forward, hardly able to hear anything over his labored breathing as he made his way over the glassy surface of the ghoul tunnel. Now and then, he gagged, tasting sick on his tongue. The foul air in the tunnel was miasmic. It was cold and moist, pregnant with a myriad of smells the alchemist dared not to think about but knew all too well: excrement, rotting meat, wet earth, and death.

"Keep calm... Keep calm..." muttered Echser as panic threatened to overwhelm him. In his flickering candle-flame, the walls seemed to press in on him. Slick and glossy, they made him think of the necrotic bowels of some vast organism that was slowly devouring him. He shook his head angrily. "Not helpful! Keep calm... Keep calm... By Science, keep calm!"

Sweat beaded his face, dripping from his nose, running into his eyes. He longed to wipe it away but dared not to let go of the candle. Its flickering flame was all that stood between him and a darkness so complete it seemed to go on forever, even though the horror of what the flame illuminated gnawed on him. Shirt buttons, the odd silver or gold piece, torn necklaces, a ring here and there, and teeth – all worked into the glassy walls of the tunnel.

"Keep calm... Keep calm... Keep calm... "

Echser shuddered, fighting down nausea for the umpteenth time, wishing that he were blissfully oblivious as to how these things came to be here. The young fool that had discovered this tunnel had thought it to be a relic of the Forgotten Ages, perhaps a part of an old sewer. It was a sewer of sorts but none so old, for ghouls built tunnels from their bodily secretions, especially their feces. Mixed with soil, it created a compound that once hardened was as strong as concrete. The knick-knacks and teeth visible here and there were just – he swallowed hard – indigestible waste.

Echser suppressed a gag as he crawled past a glass eye of all things. It stared at him – all beady and baleful – and he had to fight the urge to ask, "Have you seen my book?"

He giggled. No, he could not ask that. That would be insane! After all, he and the eye had not even been properly introduced! He shook his head to get the crazy out and choked as bile rose to his throat. "Keep calm! Don't vomit, oh please don't vomit. Not here! Not now!"

Somehow, he managed to keep his last meal down. Somehow, he crawled onwards. How far was he in yet? Ten feet? Twenty? A hundred? He couldn't even turn around to see if the light from the tunnel opening was still there. Too little room – and he was too afraid of the darkness creeping up behind him. When the tunnel made a noticeable dip, sinking deeper into the earth, he almost started crying. Was there no end to this torment? How far did he still have to go on? Where was his book? Where the hell was it!?

He sniffed, lifting his head as far as he could. There!

Fifteen feet away, at what seemed to be another tunnel crossing, lay his priceless manuscript. It was also the perfect placement for his bomb, almost as if the damnable Lich hunter had known how far to throw his precious volume. His joy was short-lived, though. He swallowed hard: fifteen feet deeper into the dark, deeper into the cold, wet earth.

Echser let his head fall onto his arm, sobbing, "You can do this... You can do this..."

Somehow, the affirmations helped, for soon, he crawled on, worming his way deeper into the earth, shoulders scraping against the walls, heart hammering, blood rushing in his ears. Every inch he moved forward threatened to snuff out that flickering light that was his sanity, but with his goal in sight, he could bear it. He could do this. He must! Ghouls were night prowlers that slumbered during the day. All he had to do was grab the book, light the fuse, and get out of here as fast as possible. Not easy, but simple.

Crack!

Echser's heart skipped a beat, then another as dust and dirt trickled from a crack above his head. It wasn't much, but the small shower of dirt fell directly onto the candle flame – extinguishing it.

The darkness was absolute.

Thump-thump-thump!

Echser wanted to scream but could not. It was almost as if the tunnel had already collapsed completely, crushing his lungs. His heart hammered in his chest, the rush of blood in his ears drowning out his words. "H... h... help... me..."

Nothing but a whisper in the dark.

Thump-thump-thump!

Nobody came to help. Nobody could help. He was all alone in these ghoul-infested, corpse-shit-created tunnels. And he would remain here. Alone. In the darkness. For all eternity. Echser felt his sanity slip away then, slip like sand through the narrow funnel of a broken hourglass, the grains scattered by the wind to be lost forever.

Thump-thump-thump!

He started giggling then, a quiet, lunatic's laugh that once it got momentum would never end. He was almost ready to give in to the darkness when he remembered. The tinderbox! Craven had given him a tinderbox just for such an occasion.

Thump-thump-thump!

With groping hands, he searched for the small metal box inside his breast pocket. His hands were shaking so bad, the fling and firesteel inside the small container rattled, their noise obscenely loud in the quiet. He had a hard time opening the box in his panic, his fingers slick with sweat.

Scratch.

He froze.

Thump-thump-thump.

Did... did that noise come from before him? From above? Behind?

No... No! Get a hold of yourself. You can't die here. Not with so much work undone. Not so short before your goal. He took a deep breath – or tried to – half gagging on the odiferous air. Had the smell of rotten meat become worse?

"No-no-no-no," he whispered, his overactive mind conjuring up the image of a ghoul dragging himself towards him with his sucker-lined hands. So perfectly suited to crawl through these glassy tunnels without making a sound, so perfectly suited to rip the flesh from a man's face. Or perhaps it would just eat his face straight from the bone? Latch onto it with that lamprey-like nightmare-orifice a ghoul had for a mouth, its hundreds of teeth worrying and working on his—

"No. No!" hissed Echser. "Keep calm! Keep calm! There is nothing in the dark. Nothing."

Shaking fingers felt for the contents of the box: Flint, firesteel, charcloth. It was all there. He set to work, using the steel to scratch along the flintstone's length. A moment later, a bright shower of sparks pushed back the darkness for an instant, and he saw... nothing. No ghoul, no gnashing teeth, nothing but the tunnel. It was like a gulp of air for a drowning man. The blackened cloth did not catch fire, though. He tried again. Then again. The damnable fabric just wouldn't catch!

Then he saw it...

Just for an instant of light when sparks shot from steel and stone, he saw it: two beady black eyes staring at him from beyond the darkness beyond his smoke bomb.

Thump... ... ...

Echser squawked, the firesteel flying from his sweat-slick hands towards the thing – which squeaked and scuttled away as the metal rod clattered to the ground. Not quite what he expected how a ghoul would sound – then understanding dawned. The alchemist let his head sink onto his lower arms. A rat. Just a rat. He made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh, and once his heart had calmed down somewhat, he groped around for the firesteel.

He couldn't find it.

"No... No-no-no-no-no."

He sobbed then, a hairbreadth away from giving up, then almost laughed. He was not without tools of his own after all, had he not The Gift? Granted, he was a feeble magus at best, probably the worst in the Scarred Empire. On his best days, he could manage simple stuff such as moving a coin, casting a sleeping spell on his verminous test subjects... or lighting a candle.

Lighting a candle!

Echser took the candle in both hands and closed his eyes. He tried to control his breathing, envisioning it lit, pushing away the darkness. That was what magic was all about, after all, to impose one's will over that of reality itself. He began murmuring an incantation, the strange words coming over his lips like a prayer – which in a way, it was. He envisioned the light, its warmth, and its glow, fueling the thought with his very life energy. Casting spells always took a lot out of him. This time was no exception, was even worse. Sweat started to pour down his face, his breathing coming more and more ragged. Such a simple spell, child's play for any adequate magus, yet for Echser it was almost too much.

Almost.

Then, just as if it had always been there, there was light.

Echser opened his eyes to it and almost started weeping. Light. Such a simple thing, rarely appreciated, but in a place such as this, it was as comforting as the darkness was endless. He lay his head down, waiting until the fatigue he felt had somewhat abated. With his strength returned, he began belly-crawling again, pushing the bomb ahead of him. Pushing and crawling. Pushing and crawling. It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually, all that separated him from the junction and his book was a mere yard.

Almost there. Almost—

A bony hand, crusted in dirt and filth, reached from the darkness of the left tunnel, grabbed his book, and then was gone again.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

"G... G... G..." stammered Echser, sure his heart would explode any second. Pushing himself back, his book and the bomb forgotten. He hissed, "G... G... Ghoul..." then he shouted, "Ghoul. Ghoul! GHOUL!" Crawling backward was even harder, gravity and the tunnel walls working against him, his sweat-silk hands sliding of the glassy material. "Ghoul! Ghoul! Ghoul!"

Then something grabbed him by the ankle, wrenching his leg with enough force that the candle flew from his hand, rolling into the dark, extinguishing. Once again, the darkness swallowed him like a tidal wave, and Echser felt himself sink into it.