“Judging me, are you? I have the lives of thousands of people dependent upon me,” Marban growled. “There are not any easy choices with that.”
“No, there aren’t,” Wally agreed. “That’s why I had to get out.”
“The pressure of it got to you?” Marban sounded interested and not judgmental.
“The choices I made were. The choices that seemed easiest. The fact that it didn’t bother me anymore,” Wally admitted.
“You cannot bear the weight of the world on your shoulders or it will crush you,” Marban said softly.
“Maybe I was a coward. Didn’t like who I was becoming and so I left. Left everyone to fend for themselves. Find other dark Spirits to follow,” Wally admitted. “But, then again, I knew myself. I knew I couldn’t fight what I was becoming by staying in power like that.”
“But you’re now in a great position of influence, like you said in the beginning of this interesting conversation,” Marban pointed out.
Wally could picture the drooping mustache and overgrown eyebrows on Marban’s face as he curled forward, looking like a frail monk.
“Yes, that is a danger,” Wally admitted. It worried him. It worried him greatly. “It is something I must be aware of. But I know myself quite a bit better now. I hope that will be enough. And Caden’s good sense. Not to mention Rose’s.”
He paused for a moment as he entered the darkest part of the passage. He went still once more. His own breathing sounded incredibly loud in his ears. He sniffed the air. There was something different. Something cold and bitter like metal and water, stone and ice. The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. The urge to turn around and flee was so strong--his sixth sense working overtime--that Wally felt his breath pushed out of his body. Adrenaline pounded in his veins.
“How close am I?” Wally whispered.
“Not far. Just about fifty more feet and then the broken open wall should be on your right,” Marban told him. “Is anything wrong?”
“This is a bad place,” Wally said simply.
Marban did not answer that.
Wally forced himself to go on. One step after the other. He kept his ears and eyes open. He felt the weight of the small cameras in his pockets that his rat forms would put up at various locations along the wall’s length.
“There is no way that the Behemoth could be getting in and out of here other than in human form,” Wally stated. “I think this plan is a good one.”
“So long as this wall is still being used,” Marban pointed out. “It was blocked up long ago. With the one in the Gray Mountains, perhaps it did not need this one.”
“Come on, Marban,” Wally snorted, “you just want to pretend that your territory hasn’t been infiltrated all this time.”
“It was bricked up,” Marban articulated each word.
“It passes through one wall, but you think it can’t pass through another? Interesting,” Wally replied dryly.
Again, Marban was silent.
Wally crept forward again, knowing he should keep silent, but somehow unable to do so as the oppressive sense grew upon him. He swore he felt the weight of the mountain itself upon him. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a creaking or rumbling and the ceiling to come crashing down after a moment’s notice. He would be smashed flat. This whole place would be destroyed and maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“So now that you’re breathing in the rarified air you’ve dreamed of, Marban, will it be enough?” Wally asked.
Marban said archly, “Why should I be satisfied until I have all I desire? You make it seem like a failing that I want more.”
“No, just that you never feel you have enough. It’s always more and more and more,” Wally stated. “Trying to fill that hole the lack of respect you’ve had for so long has dug.”
“I am content… for now,” Marban sounded amused.
Wally sighed. “You talk about having thousands of people’s lives in your hands in the Below, now you have the world’s population. You’re a Councillor to Valerius.”
“You sound so very virtuous, Wally--”
“Yes,” Wally hissed. He swallowed as a wave of icy chill flowed over him and his breath frosted the air. “We have to be better than we’ve ever been, Marban. We can’t be doing this for us.”
“Rise above our natures? I don’t know if that is possible,” Marban almost sounded sad again.
