“Lean on me. Come on.”
“You’re hurt.”
“So are you.”
He hesitated, but did rest a hand on her shoulder, and they walked together, with Catalina ahead of them. The mushrooms continued to multiply and grow in size, the soft glow now coming from the ceiling and the walls.
Catalina stopped abruptly. Noemí almost bumped into her and clutched the lamp harder.
“What is it?”
Catalina raised a hand, pointing ahead. She could see now why her cousin had halted in her steps. The passageway widened and gave way to two massive double doors of a very dark, very thick wood. Upon the doors was an inlaid silver snake, biting its tail in a perfect circle, and two large door-knockers, twin circles of silver hanging from the jaws of amber-eyed matching snake heads.
“It leads to a chamber beneath the crypt,” Francis said. “We must go in there and up.”
Francis pulled one of the door-knockers. The door was heavy, but it yielded after he gave it a harsh tug, and Noemí walked in, her lamp held high. She walked in four paces and lowered the lamp. There was no need for it, no need to light the way.
The chamber was festooned with mushrooms of varying sizes, a living, organic tapestry gracing the walls. They ran up and down the high walls, like barnacles on the hull of an ancient ship run aground, and they glowed, furnishing the large room with an unwavering source of light, stronger than candles or torches. It was the light of a moribund sun.
A metal gate to the right of the chamber had been spared the mushroom growth, and the chandelier above their heads, with its coiling metal snakes and candles reduced to stubs, evidenced no mushrooms either. The stone floor was almost bare of the luxurious mushroom growth, a scant few popping up here and there among loose tiles, and it was easy to see the gigantic mosaic that served as a decoration. It was a black snake, viciously biting its tail, its eyes aglow, and around the reptile there was a curling pattern of vines and flowers. It resembled the ouroboros she’d seen in the greenhouse. This one was larger, more magnificent, and the glow of the mushrooms gave it an ominous appearance.
The chamber was bare, except for a table set upon a stone dais. The table was covered with a yellow cloth, and upon it there sat a silver cup and a silver box. Behind the table a long, flowing drape, also of yellow silk, served as a backdrop. It might be a portiere that would hide a doorway.
“The gate, it leads up to the mausoleum,” Francis said. “We should take it.”
She could indeed see stone steps behind the metal gate, but rather than attempting to open it Noemí walked up to the stone dais, frowning. She set her lamp down on the floor and ran a hand over the table, lifting the lid of the box. Inside she found a knife with a jeweled handle and held it up.
“I’ve seen this,” she said, “in my dreams.”
Francis and Catalina had slowly walked into the chamber and were both looking at her. “He killed children with this,” she continued.
“He did many things,” Francis replied.
“Casual cannibalism.”
“A communion. Our children are born infected with the fungus, and ingesting their flesh means ingesting the fungus; ingesting the fungus makes us stronger and in turn it binds us more closely to the gloom. Binds us to Howard.”
Francis winced suddenly and bent down. Noemí thought he was about to retch, but he stood like that, with his arms wrapped around his belly. Noemí dropped the knife on the table and walked down the dais, back to his side.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s painful,” he said. “She’s in pain.”
“Who?”
“She’s speaking.”
Noemí became aware of a sound. It had been there all along, but she had not paid attention to it. It was very low, almost inaudible, and it would have been easy to think she was imagining it. It was a hum and also very much unlike a hum. The buzzing noise she’d heard on other occasions, only the pitch this time seemed higher.
Don’t look.
Noemí turned around. The hum seemed to be coming from the dais, and she walked up to it. As she moved closer, the hum grew stronger.
It was behind the yellow drape. Noemí raised a hand.
“Don’t,” Catalina said. “You don’t want to see.”
Her fingers touched the drape, and the buzzing became the beating of a thousand frenetic insects against glass, the sound of a swarm caught inside her head, so strong she could almost feel it like a vibration cutting through the air, and she lifted her head.
