D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

Finally I reached the bottom, where Osa stood waiting for me. There was light down here too. Small candles were everywhere. It wasn’t exactly bright, but once my eyes adjusted, I could see just fine. There was one tunnel leading away from the pit, and that’s where Osa went. I followed her obediently. The tunnel was carved out of the rock; I could stand up straight, but Osa had to crouch down a bit. It was a good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic.

“The main shaft was built generations ago,” she explained. “But when they discovered a rich vein of glaze at this level, the miners decided to do things differently.”

“What did they do?” I asked.

Osa didn’t have to answer. After a few more yards the tunnel emptied out into a humongous cavern. The ceiling must have been thirty feet high. It was spectacular. Leading off from the cavern were many other tunnels. It was like we were at the center of a wagon wheel and the tunnels, like spokes, led out from the center in all directions. Down each tunnel was a set of miniature tracks. I had seen pictures of gold mines before and I figured these tracks were for the ore cars.

“Once it was discovered that this was the level to find glaze, the tunneling started to spread out in all directions,” she explained. “There are miles and miles of tunnels. It is so complex that miners have lost their way and wandered for days.”

I had to admit it was pretty impressive, especially because these guys did all of the work by hand. We stood to the side of the cavern and watched the activity. There were no powerful mining machines here, just the strong backs of Milago miners. Some were pushing carts full of dirt, others emptied the carts in the center of the cavern and sifted it for bits of glaze. I also heard the distant sound of pickaxes ringing against stone as the miners labored to stretch the tunnels in their search for more glaze.

“The miners work day and night,” Osa explained. “It is the only way they can possibly meet Kagan’s unreasonable demands.”

She reached down and picked up one of the miners’ tools. It was a metal pickax with a wooden handle. “These tools are forbidden on the surface because they are made of metal,” she told me. “The penalty for using a metal tool on the surface is death.”

Now that she mentioned it, I didn’t remember seeing anything made of metal on the surface. All the tools that were used above were made from wood or from stone. It was like the Bedoowan were trying to keep the Milago back in the stone age, except for when it came to getting their precious glaze, of course.

I began to notice that there was an odd smell to the mine. It wasn’t a horrible smell, in fact it was kind of sweet. “What is that smell?” I asked.

Osa didn’t answer, but motioned for me to follow her. We walked across the large cavern, stepping across the railroad tracks. As we approached the far side I began to make out something that made me shudder. I hadn’t seen it before because the light was so dim, but now that we were here I could see things plainly. To be honest, I wished I still couldn’t see, but I did. Lying on the floor of the cavern were dozens of miners. They looked horrible. Some moaned in pain, others just sat there with blank looks.

“They look sick,” I said.

“They are,” came the sad reply. “The smell is a gas that is released when the glaze is separated from the rock. It is a poison that slowly destroys your ability to breathe.”

“We’re breathing toxic fumes?” I asked, ready to bolt back to the ladders.

“Do not worry,” she said calmly. “You must breathe it for years for it to be of concern.”

I looked at the sick miners and said, “These guys have been breathing it for years?”

Osa nodded sadly. “It is a painful death.”

“Why don’t they go up into the fresh air?” I asked with horror.

“They have no strength left,” was the grim answer. “These poor souls are in the final stages of the disease. They will die here.”

I took a few steps back from the sick miners. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was afraid I might catch this nasty disease from them. Suddenly the huge cavern didn’t seem so huge anymore. The walls felt like they were closing in and I wanted out of there in a bad way. Maybe I had a touch of claustrophobia after all.

“Why did you have to show me this?” I demanded to know.

“Because it is very important that you understand how desperate the situation is for the Milago,” Osa said.

I wanted to scream. Osa was setting me up. She was showing me how bad these guys had it so I’d feel sorry for them and agree to lead their revolution. But why? Osa didn’t seem like a fool. She could see that I wasn’t the kind of guy who could lead a revolution. Her daughter figured it out pretty quick. Why wasn’t Osa with the program? I didn’t want to argue here in front of these poor miners, so I headed for the tunnel that led to the ladders.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Home!” was my simple reply. I hurried across the cavern, hopping over the railroad tracks and dodging the ore cars. Then just as I was about to enter the tunnel that led to the ladders, somebody ran in front of me. It was Figgis. But this time he didn’t stop to try and sell me something. He was in a hurry and I’m not even sure he knew it was me who he cut off. I watched the little guy run down the tunnel toward the ladders and was about to follow him when I felt the ground start to shudder. Uh-oh, was this an earthquake? Or a cave-in? A second later there was a huge explosion! I spun to look where the sound came from and saw black smoke billowing out from one of the tunnels. Many of the miners were looking at the smoking tunnel with confusion.

Now, I’m no expert, but these guys have been doing this mining thing for a long time. Surely they had been through an explosion like this before. You’d think that they would have instantly kicked into emergency gear and either evacuated the mine or started damage control. There could be miners trapped in there who needed to be rescued. But that’s not what happened. The miners just looked to each other with a mixture of fear and confusion. It was like they didn’t know what to do.

Finally Osa called out, “Are there men in there?”

One of the miners shouted out, “Rellin!” This seemed to wake the others up. They quickly came to their senses and headed for the smoking tunnel to rescue their leader. One of the miners tied a rope around his waist, boldly fought the smoke and entered the tunnel. Another few miners held the other end of the rope. I guess the idea was that if he passed out, they could drag him back to safety. Brave guy.

The ground didn’t shake again. Whatever damage the explosion caused was only in that one tunnel. I didn’t feel I was in any danger and I wanted to stay and see if Rellin was okay.

“How often do they have explosions like that?” I asked. Osa kept staring at the smoking tunnel and then said something I never expected to hear.

“What is an explosion?” she asked.

Huh? How could she not know what an explosion was? This woman knew everything there was to know. It couldn’t have been a language thing because Travelers understood all languages.

“You know,” I continued. “Explosion. That big bang. From dynamite or something.”

Osa looked at me with confusion and said, “I have never seen anything like that happen here, nor in my home territory. You are saying that loud noise caused the damage? Like lightning?”

This was deeply weird. Though maybe it explained why the miners reacted the way they did. They probably had no idea what happened either. But then what had caused the explosion? Maybe they tapped into some underground gas pocket.

Before we could talk more about it, the miners holding the rope began to frantically pull on their end. Other miners gathered to watch with concern. They stared into the smoky tunnel, waiting to see what came out. After a few seconds, the miner on the other end emerged from the smoke and in his arms…was Rellin. The chief miner was full of black soot and there were traces of blood around his forehead, but he was okay. Dazed, but okay. He was helped to sit down and brought a leather skin full of water to drink. Rellin took a long drink, swished it in his mouth, and spit.