Torch

Helian Yuan did not pursue the sound of the chain.

He first hammered an iron nail into a crack in the wall to his right, its head facing outward. After descending seven stone steps, he hammered in a second nail, its head facing upward. He tied a length of thin hemp cord between every pair, with the knots always pointing toward the exit.

Torch, escape route, markers.

There was too much in the cave to distract him. He kept only those three things in mind.

Helian Yuan traversed the first hundred paces beyond the cave entrance twice.

On the first pass, he only went down, setting markers, counting steps, and watching which way the flame leaned. He turned back at the second fork and retraced his route. On the second pass, he did not look at the map, finding the exit by the nails and knots alone. Only after he managed to retreat in roughly the same amount of time on both passes did he confirm that he could make a round trip along this stretch, rather than having made one lucky venture inward.

The cold light in the cave could be deceptive. The pieces of ore were nearly identical in brightness, and the steps and walls had been cut into orderly shapes. After walking for a while, every stretch looked like the last. If a person relied on memory alone, they might turn two corners and think the exit was still behind them, when in fact they had circled onto another branch.

At every turn, Helian Yuan also left a charcoal line of a different length: one inch meant a straight path, two meant a right turn, and three pointed toward the exit. Nails could be pulled out and hemp cords cut, but the charcoal lines could serve as a third check.

He did not think of this routine as some complex skill. It was simply that the more dangerous the cave, the more important it was to make each step answer only one question. Should he continue now? Where was the way back? How long would the fire last? What number seven was should not occupy his mind while he still could not find the exit.

When the first torch had burned halfway down, he pressed it out in a stone niche and continued by the cold light. He marked the remaining length of the torch with his knife, ensuring he would have at least one full torch for the return trip. In places inside the cave where smoke did not disperse, light did not mean safety. Instead, it might first tell anyone deeper inside, "Someone's coming."

The "seven" plaque on the iron door had been touched until it shone, yet thick dust had collected beneath the gap. The chain-dragging sound he had heard earlier might not have come from behind the door. It could have traveled along the stone passage from deeper inside.

Helian Yuan pressed his ear to the door.

There was no breathing, no scratching of claws, only the sound of water dripping in the distance.

He did not open the door. Instead, he continued down the narrow passage outside it. A piece of cold-light ore had been set into the wall every dozen or so paces, arranged more neatly than the traps at the old camp. Beneath each piece was a shallow slot, probably once used to hold replaceable record tags.

Half a sheet of damp paper was still caught in the third slot.

Helian Yuan picked it out with the tip of his knife. Three lines were legible on the paper: three, seven, thirteen. Each number was followed by a different short mark, while identical arrows had been drawn on the far right.

The arrows pointed toward the iron door.

He walked another twenty paces, and the narrow passage split in two. Freshly fallen rubble lay on the left, while drag marks scored the ground on the right. The marks were wide and flat, unlike those of a single chain. They looked more like the marks left by someone dragging a wooden frame with an iron bottom.

Helian Yuan drove two iron nails into the wall at the fork, one high and one low. The high nail pointed left, the low nail right. He took the left path first.

An old mechanism soon blocked the left path. A slightly lighter-colored plate lay in the middle of the steps, connected to a spring inside the wall. Helian Yuan did not step on it. He looped a hemp cord around a piece of rubble and dragged it across the plate from a distance.

"Click."

Two rows of rusty iron clamps sprang out from cracks in the walls, snapping shut on either side of the stone.

The clamps still had force behind them.

That meant the mechanism had been maintained, or that the place was unusually dry and had been abandoned for far less time than it appeared.

Helian Yuan jammed the mechanism, crossed it, and found two empty rooms at the end. There were no cages inside, only iron rings densely packed along the walls and rows of drainage channels in the floors. He retrieved two pages of records wedged into a crack in the stone. The paper was the same as that of the records found earlier in the stone house.

One page read "third batch, number three"; the other read "third batch, number thirteen."

It was the first time the word "batch" had appeared before a number.

Three and thirteen were not simply sequential numbers, but demonic beasts belonging to the same batch, transported or observed together. Number seven, however, appeared on neither page.

Helian Yuan tucked the papers close to his body, returned to the fork, and took the right path instead.

The drag marks led all the way to the other side of the iron door. There was another door here, but it had already been forced open from the inside, its hinges bent outward. Several pieces of black armored hide lay scattered on the ground. They did not belong to any demonic beast he had seen, and they had long since dried hard.

Beyond the door was an even narrower passage, and the temperature kept dropping.

The torch began to give off black smoke.

Instead of rising and dispersing, the smoke flowed back along the ceiling. Air did not circulate ahead. If he continued deeper and the flame went out, he would not even have room to turn around.

Helian Yuan stopped, took out a charcoal stick, and drew a horizontal line on the wall. Then he tied the third hemp cord to the door hinge. This was as far as he would go today.

Beside the entrance to the right path was an oil lamp that had not been extinguished long ago. The wick had hardened, but no dust had collected on the oil. Helian Yuan did not light it. He merely picked up a little oil on the tip of his knife and smelled it. It smelled similar to the axle grease used on carriages in Greystone Town, but was not quite the same as the moisture-proofing oil on the old chain from the bear's den.

Someone had recently entered the cave with supplies from the town. That gave the sound of the dragging chain another possible source-not a surviving demonic beast, but someone retrieving old equipment.

Helian Yuan left the lamp where it was and placed a grain of black sand beneath its base. If the grain was gone when he returned, it would mean someone had passed through while he was exploring.

He turned back to check the route he had taken. The grain of black sand was still beneath the lamp base, but the first hemp cord outside the door had loosened by half an inch. The knot had not been cut; it looked more as though someone had touched the wall ring from the other side. Helian Yuan retied the cord and no longer assumed that the way behind him would remain empty.

From that moment on, whenever he opened a door, he first made sure he had a second way out in case someone altered his escape route.

When he returned to the iron door marked "seven," there was a new fine trace in the dust beneath its gap.

Someone or something had moved the door while he was away.

Helian Yuan inserted his short spear into the door ring, but did not push the door directly. First, he attached the old iron chain from the bear's den to the door latch and looped a hemp cord through the wall ring opposite. He retreated to the top of the steps, then pulled little by little.

The iron door scraped with a low sound and opened half a foot.

Nothing lunged out from inside.

Firelight shone through the doorway, revealing two parallel drag marks on the floor, with scraps of paper and a fallen iron tag scattered beside them. The tag was also engraved with a "seven," but it was a size smaller than the one on the door.

Helian Yuan secured the door and entered sideways.

This was a transfer room. Passages opened on three sides, and the drag marks on the floor converged here before continuing into the narrow passage on the north side, where it was coldest. Two sheets of paper lay in the corner, lifted out by the breeze when the door had been dragged open. One recorded number three, and the other number thirteen. Only the entry for number seven had been torn out.

There were fresh scrape marks at the entrance to the northern passage.

The rust had been rubbed away, exposing dark metal beneath. The marks were no more than a few days old.

Helian Yuan brought the torch closer. A cold wind blew from the narrow passage, and the flame suddenly bent backward.

Helian Yuan did not respond, nor did he extend the torch into the narrow passage. The firelight could illuminate only a limited distance, but his exposed position would be visible from farther away. He first retreated to the side of the door, placing himself out of the center of the passage, then set an iron nail on the ground. If whoever was dragging the chain suddenly charged at him, the sound of the nail being stepped on would reach him before the shadow.

The chain sounded again from deep within.

This time, he heard it clearly.

It was not the chain swaying on its own.

Someone was dragging it and had paused a step deeper inside.