Christopher Priest - The Prestige

I returned to the miserable bedroom, but could not bring myself to get back into the chilly bed. I remembered the easy chair beside the log fire in the dining-room, so I put on my clothes quickly, grabbed my stuff and went downstairs. I looked at my watch. It was after 2.00 a.m.

My brother said: all right, now.

Kate was still in the dining room, sitting awake in her chair next to the fire. She was listening to a portable radio balanced on the fire surround beside her. She seemed unsurprised to see me.

"I was cold," I said. "I couldn't get to sleep. Anyway, I've got to go and find him."

"It's much colder out there." She indicated the blackness beyond the windows. "You'll need all this."

On the chair opposite her she had placed several items of warm clothing, including a chunky wool sweater, a thick overcoat, scarf, gloves, a pair of rubber boots. And two large torches.

My brother spoke again. I could not ignore him.

I said to Kate, "You knew I was going to do this."

"Yes. I've been thinking."

"Do you know what's happening to me?"

"I believe so. You'll have to go and find him."

"Will you come with me?"

She shook her head vehemently. "No way on earth."

"So you know where he is?"

"I think I've known all my life, but it's always been easier to put it out of my mind. The difficult thing about meeting you has been realizing that what traumatized me as a child is still down there."

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It had stopped snowing, but the wind was an insistent rush of freezing air, penetrating everything. The snow had piled deep around the edges of the large garden, but in the centre it was shallow enough to allow me to walk through, stumbling on the uneven ground. I slipped several times, without falling.

Kate had switched on the intruder alarm, which flooded the area with brilliant light. It helped me see my way, but when I looked back I could see nothing but the glare.

My brother said: I'm cold, waiting.

I kept going. On the far side of what I supposed must be a lawn, where the ground rose up suddenly and dark trees blocked the view ahead, the light from the torch picked out the brick-built archway where Kate had said it would be. Snow was piled up against the base of it.

The door was not locked, and it moved easily when I pulled at the handle. The door opened outwards, against the drifted snow, but it was made of solid oak and once I got a good hold on it I was able to push the snow far enough out of the way for me to squeeze through.

Kate had given me two large torches, saying I would need as much light as possible. ("Come back to the house for more, if you need them," she had said. "Why won't you come with me and hold one of the torches?" I had asked her. But she shook her head emphatically.) When I had the door open, I peered inside, letting the beam of the bigger of the two torches play ahead of me. There was nothing much to see: a rocky roof slanting down, some rough-hewn steps, and at the bottom a second door.

The word Yes formed, inside my head.

The second door had no lock or hasp, and opened smoothly at my touch. The beams of my torches swung around; one in my hand searched all about, the other tucked under my arm followed my direction of sight.

Then my foot collided with something hard that jutted up from the floor and I stumbled. The torch under my arm broke as I banged against the rocky wall. Crouching on the ground, resting on a knee, I used one torch to examine the other.

There's a light, said my brother.

I swung the single torch beam around again, and this time, close to the inner door, I noticed an insulated electricity cable, neatly tacked to the wooden frame. At shoulder height was an ordinary light switch. I flicked it on. At first nothing happened.

Then, further down in the cavern, deep inside the hill, I heard the sound of an engine. As the generator picked up speed, lights came on for the full length of the cavern. They were only low-power light bulbs, roughly attached to the rocky ceiling, and protected by wire visors, but there was now enough light to see without the torch.

The cavern appeared to be a natural fissure in the rock, with extra tunnelling and hollowing carried out latterly. There were several natural shelves created by jutting rock strata, but these had been supplemented with cavities hollowed out in the tunnel walls. There had also been an attempt to smooth the floor, as it was laid with numerous small chips and chunks of rock. Close to the inner doorway a spring trickled water down the wall, leaving a huge yellow calciferous deposit in its course. Where the water reached the floor, a crude but effective drain had been put together with modern pipes, which conducted the water into a rubble-filled soakaway hole.

The air was surprisingly sweet, and noticeably warmer than outside.

I went several paces down the cavern, balancing myself with my hands against the rocky walls on each side. The floor was uneven and broken, and the light bulbs were weak and widely spaced, so in places it was difficult to find a safe foothold. After a distance of about fifty yards, the floor dropped steeply and turned to the right, while to the left of the main tunnel I noticed a large cavity which to judge by the roundness of the entrance had been hollowed out artificially. The ceiling was about seven feet high, giving plenty of headroom. The opening was not electrically lit, so I shone my remaining torch inside.

I immediately wished I had not. It was full of ancient coffins. Most were stacked horizontally in heaps, although about a dozen were leaning upright against the walls. They were all sizes, but the greater number of these, depressingly, were small ones obviously designed for children. All the coffins were in varying degrees of decay. The horizontal ones were the most decrepit: the wood dark, curled and fractured with age. In many cases the lids had fallen in on the contents, and several of the ones placed on the tops of the piles had sides which had fallen away.

At the base of most of the heaps were piles of brown, broken fragments, presumably of bone. The lids of the vertically stacked coffins were all loose, and standing propped against the box.

I stepped back quickly into the main tunnel and glanced up towards the door by which I had entered. There had been a slight curve, and my way out was now invisible to me. Somewhere deep inside the cavern, the generator continued to run.

I was trembling. I could not help but think; that distant engine, this torch I held, only these lay between me a sudden plunge into darkness.

I could not go back. My brother was here.

Determined to resolve this quickly, I followed the path down and to the right, curving away more steeply from the exit. Another flight of steps followed, and here the lights had been placed closer together because these steps were uneven in height and angled to the side. Supporting myself with my hand on the wall I went down them. The tunnel immediately opened out into a wider cavern.

It was full of modern metal racks, brown-painted, held together with chromium-plated nuts and bolts. Each rack had three broad shelves, one on top of the other, like bunks. A narrow gangway ran next to each rack, and a central aisle ran the whole length of the hall. A light was positioned above every gangway between the shelves, illuminating what they held.

Human bodies lay uncovered on every shelf of the racks. Each one was male, and fully clothed. They all wore evening dress: a close fitting jacket with tails, a white shirt with black bow tie, a modestly patterned waistcoat, narrow trousers with a satin strip along the hems, white socks and patent-leather shoes. The hands wore white cotton gloves.

Each body was identical to all the others. The man had a pale face, an aquiline nose and a thin moustache. His lips were pale. He had a narrow brow and receding hair which was brilliantined back. Some of the faces were staring up at the rack above them, or at the rocky ceiling. Others had their necks turned, so they faced to one side or the other.