John continued his descent into the kingdom below, letting a mental image of his surroundings unfold gradually in his mind. “Civilized” men of the city, sheltered, mewling children that had never had to worry where the next meal were coming from, would have shuddered at the thought of descending into such absolute darkness.
This was a fear of the mind, though, and it was easily conquered. All darkness was absolute. It was no darker in the sloping drain than it would have been beneath the subway platform if the lights had gone out. It would be no darker there than in the jungle on a cloudy night, with the foliage overhead blocking out the feeble light of the stars.
The darkness that was found beneath the earth was not of any greater quality than the darkness of sleep, and unlike that darkness it left his other four senses untouched. It was not dissolution. It was not death. He did not fear it.
The drainage passage turned twice before he reached the bottom, where the first sentries were. Past this point was where the architecture of the subterranean realm first began to depart significantly from the paper plans which were locked away in a drawer somewhere, not having been so much as glanced at in decades.
He could hear the guards’ breath. One of them even had a bit of a sniffle. He could even smell their sour sweat, along with a faint scent of plastic and copper coil. He knew that would be from their flashlights.
The lights were turned off now, and had been for a while. The guards would not waste the batteries or bulbs while standing, ostensibly still. They were counting on hearing somebody stumbling through the tunnel, or seeing the intruder’s own light before they revealed themselves.
John did not bother to stop and identify himself to these poor blind fools. He slipped between them, darkness moving through the darkness, and was not detected.
One of them sneezed.
“Gesundheit.”
9 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
The darkness that was found beneath the earth was not of any greater quality than the darkness of sleep, and unlike that darkness it left his other four senses untouched. It was not dissolution. It was not death. He did not fear it.
That…that’s got to be one of the COOLEST passages I’ve ever read.
Wonder if john was the one that said Gesundheit
I’m with Wocket. That darkness passage was awesome.
“Civilized” men of the city, sheltered, mewling animals that had never had to worry where the next meal were coming from,
It struck me as kind of odd that John is using ‘animalistic’ as a negative quality here. We haven’t seen a lot of him, but he’s always seemed to respect animals before.
Great story as always!
I predict there is something more related to the witches than is being told here. Or at least I’d like to see the witches’ take on the proceedings.. see what they have to say about this issue…
OOK!
Awesome stuff. John is super cool.
@Cruxador: I think John is using “animal” more like “pet” than something that lives in the wild.
Tribe just keeps getting better and better. There’s a slow opressive feeling that pervades the writing, but seems to just wash past John.
I wonder how he would fare against Mr. Pratchett’s ‘Summoning Dark’?
I think you’re mixing up your Johns – the other one (-ny Appleseed, maybe) is the animal one, no?
Althouh presumable no one checks for responses two weeks after they commented. oops!