The Sword of Retribution

The Underworld - Part 5

     After a few miles the grassland gave way to forest and the height of the trees gave them another indication of the size of the Underworld cavern. “I wonder what holds the roof up,” said Matthew suddenly as he gazed at a huge tree whose branches must have brushed against the underside of the overhead rock. “Why doesn’t it all collapse down on top of us? I mean, I'm no expert, but those pillars look like they're spaced way too widely."

     "I am an expert, and you're right," agreed Douglas. "The weight of the five miles o' rock above us should crush those pillars like toothpicks."

     “Charlie told me they contain rods of some incredibly strong stuff that reaches almost all the way up to the surface," said Thomas. "Cables of the same stuff reach out and down through the rock, anchoring in the ceiling, so that the ceiling's hanging from them like a drawbridge from its chains. Most of the connections up to the surface go through the pillars. Great spiral staircases carved out of the living rock.”

     “Staircases!” exclaimed the young soldier. “Staircases going five miles up! By the Gods, imagine the state you’d be in by the time you got to the top!”

     “Yeah,” agreed the wizard. “Charlie told me that, once, there were elevators up to the surface as well, like the ones in Battleaxe tower, but they all stopped working ages ago. Most of the staircases are blocked up now as well, which is why we had to take the long route down. He said that there are only half a dozen routes up to the surface that he knows of, and only one of them was made by the Underworld’s creators.”

     “The Underworld’s creators,” breathed Lirenna. “It’s hard to believe that this place was actually created. Imagine the power of such people!”

     “Such power in the hands of such evil creatures,” mused Diana. “How lucky we are that they can't live on the surface.”

     “Well, we’ve only got the slaver’s word for it that they’re evil,” pointed out Shaun. “Don’t forget that their definitions of good and evil are a little different from ours.”

     “What I don't understand,” broke in Angus, “is what in the name o' Hell they did with all the spoil.”

     “The what?” asked Matthew.

     “The spoil, all the rock they had to dig out to make this place. By my calculations, there must have been about twenty five or fifty thousand cubic miles o’ the stuff.”

     Matthew whistled in surprise, and Thomas realised the trog was right. Fifty thousand cubic miles would make a pile as big as an average sized mountain range.

     “Maybe they just disintegrated it, like a disintegration spell does,” suggested Jerry.

     “Disintegration spells don’t make things just go away,” pointed out Thomas. “They just break them down into invisibly fine dust, or something, which floats around in the air for a while before settling out. If this amount of rock had been disintegrated, it would eventually have settled out into a layer of silt and dust on the ground. How thick, Angus?”

     The trog was scribbling on his writing pad. “Well, nobody's really sure just how large the Underworld is,” he said. “The best estimate is five hundred miles across. If that's accurate, then it would be about six inches thick. That's all over the world. Land, sea, mountains, deserts, everywhere.”

     “And if that thickness on the ground is opaque,” continued the wizard, “then that amount of dust suspended up in the air must also have been opaque, like when a layer of silt on the bottom of a pond is stirred up to make it all cloudy. I've no idea how long it would have taken to settle out…”