Vae Victis: A diary of darkness

Day 15 or so

It is so cold...I would dare to say damnably cold, in fact. I look at my fellow travelers, and many are shivering and sick. This cold is killing us by inches, and yet the leader of this misbegotten expedition will allow only the smallest of fires, hardly large enough to warm one's little toe, let alone an entire body--or many bodies. He seems uncaring, driving us deeper and deeper toward what must surely be our doom.

I sit here on an outcropping of stone and shiver as the others huddle around a minuscule fire that is now allowed to flare here in the eternal darkness. I take out my little notebook and attempt to scratch out a few more words by the feeble light of the fire that we stoke with dried bat guano. What are we doing here? Why have we been brought to this? How could any sane person allow things to come to this...this mad rush into the depths of the earth to escape the consequences of the mistreatment of the earth?

Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself. I should explain more fully, in the unlikely event that someone, sometime may come upon this little epistle.

My name is Adolph Kushner, and I am, by trade, a cab driver. An educated cabbie, to be sure, but nonetheless a purveyor of transportation for exorbitant prices. (I must not be as badly depressed as I thought. It seems I still have a sense of humor.)

It was in July that I was visited for the first time by the terrible nightmares and horrific visions, and also in July that my psychologist referred me to the man who leads us now. It was in July, too, that one nation detonated a bomb in the bustling center of another's capital. I mention no names, for if this is ever read they will have no meaning to the reader, and no blame should be affixed. We are all equally guilty for what followed. If the reader is in anyway similar to mankind, then he will understand why bombs are used. He may not however, be aware of the ecological time bombs mankind set for itself, time bombs that awaited only the right trigger to begin the destruction...

I am out of time for the moment. We are being called to shoulder our packs and begin our journey anew. Only time for a few last thoughts for now.

The bomb was not nuclear. It was biological, and it contained genetically altered "material" within its warhead. It has exploded the myth of man's superiority...forever.

Adolph Kushner
November, or is it December?
Deep beneath Kentucky.

* * * * * * * *

About Day 18

Long, weary, bone-chilling hours we have marched through these interminable caves, until at last most of our group have simply refused to go any further. I cannot say that I blame them. Our leader pushes forward with an irritating single-mindedness that reminds many of the lunacy that brought us here.

I am comforted by the thought that at least we here are not nearly as cold as those who remained on the surface.

In my last entry, I began to explain why we are here, or at least why I am here.

It began with dreams. Disturbing dreams. In May I began to see cities buried in immense snowdrifts and swallowed by glaciers. I saw malnourished, dying people, their flesh sagging on their bones, wasted with diseases I cannot name. They begged me for help, begged me to take them along. They begged in the hopeless, deathly way that the utterly destitute, lost soul pleads and cries out for mercy. I could not even answer them, for I had no idea where it was I was going. When I would say nothing, then the hopeless masses would turn and I could see their hideous open wounds, covered not with flies but with some kind of squirming, vile worm that thrived in the icy cold.

Enough of those. Now that I have truly seen what I have seen in the dead world above, I have no need for night terrors and Lovecraftian visions. Ha! This world here is as dead as that from which we have come.

My dreams drove me to a psychologist whose only advice was that I speak with one Solomon Darrow. I made an appointment to meet the man. He seemed my only hope to regain a restful night's sleep, and a productive day catering to city folk?s transport desires.

Solomon Darrow was a little man, perhaps an inch over 5 feet tall. Yet he was so strongly built, with bulging muscles that bespoke a rigorous training regimen, and charismatic to the point that you did not notice his height. He seemed a much larger man than he was.

His hair was like red gold, and his eyes of the most piercing slate blue. I felt he knew my every thought and worry simply by looking at me, and yet he put me at ease by his considerate, professional manner. He could have been a priest--or a politician.

I described for him my nightly horrors. At his request I allowed myself to be subjected to a battery of tests at his mental health center. Two nights I spent there, two nights without dreams that I recall. But Solomon's face was solemn when I partook of a morning repast with him.

"I want you to stay here now," he urged, "because you need my help and the aid of the hospital staff. You are very disturbed, Mr. Kushner. I can help you with these dreams. I can cure you."

I wanted to stay, but my wife and family needed the money I brought home from gainful employment, and with some trepidation and regret, I declined the offer.

I recall the day I left the hospital so clearly. It was the day the first biological bomb was detonated. I stood in the lounge at work and watched as the news channels tolled the death knell. The networks, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and so many more. All described the casualty toll with choking voices, invoking memories of 9/11.

I was in New York when the towers fell, and saw the devastation. Yet this new atrocity was beyond me. My mind could still not take in the utter destruction and death in that dry, dusty city halfway around the world. Unable to comprehend it, I turned my back and walked away, thinking that life must go on, even then.

The news was full of the bombing for a month or more, but like many a terrorist act, even one perpetrated by a nation and not by a small group of fanatics, it quickly faded away from the public memory. It was an election year, the economy was not as good as it could be, everyone had their own worries.

Our leader has risen from his sleeping bag. Like a fool, it seems that I have been writing all night long. I hope that I shall return to these pages to finish my tale before I die. In case I do not, suffice to say that before that year's election rolled around, we had bigger problems to deal with.

Adolph Kushner

* * * * * * * *

Twentieth Day?

Another weary, chilling, day in the darkness is past. Actually it is still dark, apart from the lanterns, but at least we are at rest for a while. I must continue with this missive, if only to retain a vestige of my own sanity.

Our leader estimates that we have descended some 5 to 7 miles below the hills and rivers of Kentucky, and traveled some 100 or more miles from our entrance to this seemingly endless series of caves and passageways, ledges and startlingly deep chasm. It is like something out of Tolkien's Mines of Moria. God willing, we shall NOT meet a balrog. When I give some serious thought to it, I think we left the demons on the surface, terrorizing a populace who by now are surely dead from cold, plague, or the mobs.

I cannot comprehend such a small distance traveled when we have walked and climbed and scrambled to such an extent that the leather on my shoes is already beginning to wear out.

Today it was necessary to cross a wide, swift-flowing stream. It was incredibly cold, as if it issued forth from some magic portal that leads to the coldest of locations in Antarctica. It is with great sorrow that I must report that Ellen Densonr and Alexsandr Korotev were swept away by the stream, apparently after succumbing to the piercing cold of the waters. Our numbers have been cut to 23 now.

Our group is showing signs of extreme fatigue. The most afflicted walk in a shuffling, headlong fall, saved from sprawling on their faces by I know not what. I myself am not healthy, for the dip in the river was followed by an hour-long scramble through a tiny chimney lined with mud and somehow filled with a cold breeze. The end result being a fiery fever and terribly stuffed up head as well as a tremendous mass of scrapes and bruises.

While the others prepare the daily meal and make camp for the night, I am allowed to sit by our small fire and warm myself. I am sorry to say that when I have warmed my front, my backside is freezing. That is to say, when I am warmed in one particular, I am frozen in another. I suppose my wife Marina, God rest her soul, is not likely to complain if my particulars solidify and crack off now.

But enough complaining. I return to my purpose: a diary as a record for posterity.

Posterity, I expect that this will be a mass of gibberish to you. You probably can't even read.

The dreams and nightmares returned in full force a week after my stay with Solomon Darrow. I could not go to work, I was incapacitated by them.

They were vivid and frightening. New horrors rose up in the darkness of my sleep: mindless mobs ripping their leaders to shreds, and a final, horrible, shrill wail of hopelessness as a mass of diseased and worm infested people were crushed to death while I watched, helpless to prevent their demise.

I sought to meet with various counselors, therapists, and clergymen. None could aid me, inundated as they were by fearful folk who needed to have their minds eased about the burgeoning world disaster.

I have no idea how a single bomb could wreak such incalculable destruction around the world, but here is what I do know. The scientific and environmental communities, which for years had expressed concern about the growing greenhouse gasses and consequent warming of the planet, suddenly did an about-face. A long-term study had verified global warming, but since the detonation of that weapon, the entire planet was cooling noticeably.

They made a very large fuss about it, though I do not understand why, unless it was the cost of the study itself. After all, this was at a time when it was cooler every morning when you got up, in high summer. The study determined what any idiot could have walked out his door and determined for himself. "It sure is a lot cooler this year than last, Martha."

In spite of the fuss about global cooling, no one gave it much more than passing notice. Too many people in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East were dying. The true killer of the bombing had emerged.

It was a virulent genetic mishmash that propagated with a rapidity stunning to behold. The virus had been manipulated to create one of two conditions: very quick death in great agony, or lingering death, with horrible sores and pustules, with little distress except the knowledge that you were doomed.

At the peak of my nightly tortures, the plague appeared in the U.S. and Canada. I don't think anyone knew how it had gotten across the oceans. Borne by an infected traveler? Lofted by the winds until it fell on our soil? It doesn't matter. It was simply a fact that our doom had arrived.

My wife succumbed to the quick-death form, for which I am eternally grateful. My daughter was not so lucky, and I had to sit and watch her sink before my eyes, her body a mass of hideous buboes and open sores. I was spared the agony of seeing the ice-worms. They came later. I saw more than enough of them then. I think I should have gone mad if I had had to watch her being slowly eaten by the voracious creatures.

That is when Solomon Darrow called.

"You are still having the dreams," he stated. He did not ask, mind you, he stated it as a fact. He KNEW it was so.

"I was sorry to hear about your wife and daughter," he continued.

"What is it you want, Dr. Darrow?" I was suspicious, perhaps even a bit paranoid. I was mourning, and I was afraid for my life.

"You, Kushner. I want you to join me and some selected others for a journey."

I was appalled. "With millions of people dying each day, you want to take a vacation?! No sir. In fact, HELL no!" I began to hang up.

"Wait, Adolph, please listen. Hear me out," Darrow went on. "The horrors have only just begun, I am sorry to say. Have you not seen in your dreams incredible heights of snow and ice, and foul creatures devouring corpses, and abandoned cities crushed beneath walls of ice?"

With a vehement and very tart expression of disgust, I slammed down the phone. That anyone not my spouse should be able to read my thoughts, fears and dreams so expertly terrified me. I believe that I wept for many hours, for the next thing I remember was Solomon Darrow helping me to sit on the sofa and holding me like a father holds his mortally wounded son; tenderly and sympathetically and sadly.

Once I was more in control of my emotions, Darrow simply turned on my television without saying a word.

No more this night. Or is it morning? No matter. I must sleep if I wish to defeat this fever and sickness that is upon me, and I am drained from this simple, bare bones retelling of my story. More another night.

If there is another night.

Adolph Kushner

* * * * * * * *

Day 23?

It has been three days since I last wrote in this tattered book. Much has happened, but most importantly, I have recovered and am once again able to pull my own weight. It is well that I have done so, for three of our group have collapsed from fatigue and died by the path.

Two crumpled beside the way, and the third wandered off last night into the darkest depths of these endless, winding passages. We called out for her, and explored a small amount, but we could not risk getting lost ourselves. Around noon, according to our "honored" leader's watch, we heard a faint, echoing cry that must have been her, pitching off a precipice or something of that nature, far away.

So now we are 20. I begin to wish I were dead.

Yet I have vowed to finish my tale before doing that, and I shall.

When Solomon Darrow held me like a father, and turned my attention to the television, I was at a spiritual, mental, and emotional low ebb. I could not comprehend what the anchorman was saying.

"...major changes in Earth's ecosystem...the plague has a far more vindictive element within it's genetic structure...tailormade to react with pollutants and toxins to break down portions of the foodchain...to generate more nitrogen than the atmosphere can absorb...to prevent bacteria attacks on garbage that would normally generate substantial heat...though unrelated to the plague, more volcanic activity and clouds of noxious gasses and ash that combine with atmospheric gasses and pollutants from industry to create dense cloud cover...reflective...mean temperatures have dropped almost 15 degrees in the last 12 weeks...seven degrees in the last 5 days alone...heavy snows in mountain regions...moving across not only the U.S. but most of the world..."

I did not hear all this then. Much of it was later explained to me, but I could see the results outside my window. It was snowing, a veritable blizzard. In August.

That was the beginning of the end.

Solomon took me home with him, and I was grateful. I could not bear to stay in the house where my wife and daughter had died. I would have been made to move in any case. At that time the state government impounded homes of plague victims and had them burned and razed along with all their contents. Indeed, I would have been detained by the federal government if it weren't for Solomon who had some kind of political clout.

At his home, I met a number of others who were living there, and we all seemed to be waiting for Solomon to say something. For three weeks we waited, and each day more people showed up on his doorstep. My psychologist was there, as was my priest.

It seemed all of us had been subject to the terrible dreams, and so Solomon seemed to think we were marked to join him.

During this time the plague spread, and the first of the riots occurred in our city. An angry, butchering mob descended on the research facilities at the state university and tore into it like a tornado. It was demolished, set afire, and stoned--with the scientists locked inside. I remember watching the news coverage of the event. I was appalled to see it played like some circus event. The reporters were almost laughing with delight as they watched those poor people burn.

The next morning, the papers carried front-page editorials condemning not the mob, but the scientists who had "unleashed upon an unwitting world the deadly toxins and the vile plague".

How sad and frightening that man is so quick to look for a scapegoat, rather than accept his own responsibility for the disasters he causes.

Caused perhaps is the better tense.

I am convinced that no one is left alive on the surface. There may well be others like us elsewhere in the world, but not many. When we entered these caves, what was left of the scientific community and the governments were estimating that a scant billion people still lived on the face of the earth. Given the speed with which the plague kills, combined with the rapidly cooling earth, and the inhumanity of maddened man to his brothers, I would be willing to say that in the days we have been here, all the rest have died, for one reason or another.

I am weary. But then, I am always weary now. I should rest. I shall lay down my pencil and --

Dear God in heaven, have mercy on us! Five of us have the plague.

Adolph Kushner

* * * * * * * *

Day 24, I think

Five of us, five of my friends, consigned to death. You know, it was bad, painful, horrible to see my family and friends die on the surface, but this is infinitely worse. It is not because we are such good friends, but because we are the LAST friends.

When we have all died, it will be over. All of it. Over.

I fear that these pages will be stained with my tears. If posterity can comprehend these tattered notes, then I hope posterity will understand the shattering loss this means to those of us who remain.

Elise, our leader's sweetheart, is begging him to kill her so that she will not suffer. He refuses, saying that our goal is not far away.

Which brings up an irksome point for me.

Since the beginning, Solomon Darrow has held out some hidden summit (interesting choice of words, that) for us to attain. Some strange, subterranean Shangri La? I think not. But why must he be so damnably secretive?

When 25 of us were gathered in his decidedly large home, he put forth a proposition to us. He felt that we could all survive the disaster that us rapidly overtaking us by hiding in the great caves under Kentucky.

"There are numerous watercourses, and much stored food put there for just such an occasion as this. We can, and should go there." But why? That was the most prominent question on everyone's lips. No one was allowed to ask it, though. Solomon proceeded immediately, and when he spoke, you listened.

"Every last one of you is wondering why we should do this. It is because I firmly believe that every one of us is marked. Marked by our strange, fantastic dreams that are daily turning into reality. Marked by our own currently unnoticed ability to NOT contract this plague, even though everyone of us has lived with one or more victims and cared for them. You are marked to go with me, because I know what you have dreamed, and I know that there is something special awaiting us in the caves."

He would say no more.

As the mob violence in the country grew worse, scientists and leaders were murdered viciously. More and more people succumbed to the plague which showed no signs of dying out. Let us also not forget the ice ages and the manner in which dangerously beautiful blue-green ice once covered large portions of the globe. It was the start of a new ice age. I saw on TV a live report from the Alaskan mountains near Juneau and I watched in horror as a town of five thousand souls was crushed under the relentless advance, not of a glacier which moves with infinitesimal slowness, but by the attendant avalanches and icefalls. Another horror began to appear as well: people so despondent they would not even try to flee the impending doom.

The city of my birth was in ruins. The city government had been killed, torn to pieces by mobs, most of whom also lay dead, their bodies being consumed by the worst blasphemy of all: large, white, death-headed worms that looked like monstrous maggots. In fact, a brave scientist postulated that they were indeed genetically manipulated maggots--he was hung, mutilated, and cut to pieces for his theorizing.

The worms infected the wounds of the living and to see a person shamble towards you in the relentless driving snow, their clothing swept aside by the wind to reveal the writhing, putrescent masses on their wounds was a nightmare. I know. I had them long before they ever truly happened.

In October, we all agreed to follow Solomon. None of us had grown ill yet, and we had hopes that perhaps he had some inkling of a way out of the horror.

Thus began our travels.

Two weeks just to reach Kentucky. Another week getting to the caves where we found many thousands of corpses piled high before the entrances. Their bodies were awful, though the stench of them was carried away by the strong winds, thank God. They were rotting and covered with ice-worms, and carrion beasts had been gnawing at them. We hurried past them as best we could--and ran into a hail of stones and other, less appetizing things.

Others had come to the caves before us.

The five plague carriers are crying out in agony. They have the quick-death mutationit seems. I wish I could help them, but I cannot. Solomon sits in the shadow of a great boulder. I think he is weeping. I cannot tell.

I have no tears left.

Later...don't know when.

They are dead. So might we all be.

Adolph Kushner

* * * * * * * *

Day 30...Thanksgiving?

I have not written for almost a week. So much had happened, and I am utterly alone.

Six nights ago, the five who had the plague died. Three others discovered the first, white-yellow boils in their armpits and groins. We knew then that we were indeed doomed, that Solomon Darrow's strange ideas were a hoax.

To say that we were stunned is an understatement. We were immobilized.

Solomon tried his hardest to get us on our feet and moving, though where he thought we might go I had no idea.

We ignored him. We built a huge bonfire, and burned the bodies of the dead, along with everything else flammable.

After a few desperate minutes of trying to rouse us, Solomon shook his head and retreated to the far side of the large chamber we were in. I took the chance to update my book, in which I chronicled our flanking action on the mob, which held the mouth of the cave. It wasn't hard. Two of our group had been to the complex before and knew where other, more secret entrances lay. Two days were used scouting the landscape, finding those cave mouths, and when they were discovered, there was no one near them.

We began our descent.

During the first few days, we sometimes came upon the dead bodies of people who had sought refuge in the cavernous, mazelike passages. Most were somewhat composed, as if they had died at peace with their maker. But the odd corpse bore the look of madness, brought on by the darkness and the silence and the worms.

Even here, in the depths of the earth they found a foothold in the putrefying flesh of the dying and dead. Foul creatures! I hate the very thought of them!

After those first days, we saw no one else. There was nothing but the endless echoing halls, the stalactites and the stalagmites, the shapes frozen for eternity in stone. In another time, I might have thought them lovely. I know my dear wife would have. I weep that I never brought her here to enjoy the beauties of the earth.

Thus our days passed with endless walking, climbing, crawling, splashing; ceaseless darkness, broken only the minutest amount by our lanterns and small nightly fires.

Somewhere around the 13th or 14th day I began to keep this diary. I am not sure. I lost track of time here in the deeps. It may be a month since we entered the caves. It may be six months. It feels like a century.

So here we sat, some weeping, some just staring glassy-eyed into space. The fire gives little warmth. I tired of writing and put my things away, and have had no chance (or inclination) to take them up again until now.

For strange things began to happen.

We settled in to await the end. Most dozed off. I sat, not tired, not willing to surrender to sleep when I might have so little waking time left. What foolishness! What had I to do?

Then they started.

The noises. Tapping. Like little hammers deep in the stone. I sat up and looked around. The fire had died down. Someone was snoring.

From the rocks all around came tapping, tapping, tapping, almost like a code.

That's when I noticed Solomon. He had opened the strange pack he had carried all this way. We had all wondered about that pack. He would say nothing about it, not even the cryptic hints he gave about everything else.

Now he had opened it and as I watched, he removed a gleaming, silver coat of some kind, a silver coat that glistened with what could only be jewels! Then he drew out a huge axe that sparked red in the dying firelight. This he slung over his shoulder, and turned to walk to the center of the passage leading deeper into the earth.

I could not repress a chuckle. I thought he looked ridiculous. I called out to him. "What are you, Solomon? Some kind of dwarf king?"

The cold, haughty look in his eyes when he turned to look at me struck terror into my bones. For now he did NOT look ridiculous. He looked deadly.

"Go to sleep, Kushner," he said in a deep, rich voice I had not heard before. "Khamak Dunakh watches over you now."

His hypnotic eyes lulled me to an unwilling, incredulous sleep.

I awoke many times during that strange night. Every time, I could see Solomon silhouetted in the warm red light of the fire, his mail coat and his axe glinting in that light. Whether anyone else woke, I do not know. But I did.

The tapping was always there as well.

Someone wore a digital watch and it filled the cavern with a raucous buzz at what the watch said was 7 am. Almost everyone awoke, though two of the three infected had died in the night. I was oddly happy to see the smiles of peaceful expiration on their faces.

The tapping was still there, but everyone else seemed to be oblivious to it.

Solomon was oblivious to us. Nearly all approached him and spoke to him. He made no sign that he even heard them. He only stood, hard-faced and silent, facing down the passageway that led away from the cavern.

Around noon by the watch, there was a sudden increase in the intensity and speed of the tapping. Solomon seemed to wake then. He drew the axe off his shoulder and planted its butt firmly on the floor, the blade facing across the plane of his body. What he did next had us wide-eyed and speechless.

He opened his mouth and began to speak and sing at same time! It was a style I can only equate to "sprechstimme", the speech-song of a few noted 20th century composers. The language was entirely unfamiliar, but oddly beautiful in a harsh sort of way.

We gathered together behind Solomon, huddling very close to each other. I found myself expecting goblins, or trolls, or something worse to come issuing forth from that dark passage.

It was none of these. It was Five Dwarves.

Trust me when I say I use the capital letters advisedly. I have read enough of fantastic literature in my time to recognize creatures of fantasy when I seem them.

These were classic, Tolkeinesque Dwarves, from their stern, imposing, craggy faces to the shining mail they wore, right down to their broad, muscular legs. They were dressed even more elaborately than Solomon, if that was possible, and they carried axes even larger and more impressive than his.

Their spokesman seemed to be an older, white bearded dwarf who stepped forward from their united front. He began to speak in the musical sprechstimme, but Solomon raised a hand and spoke coolly to him.

"In English, Fathers, if you please. I have kept too much from my long-suffering friends, and I wish them to understand all that passes here."

The Five Dwarves looked at each other, saying nothing. The tapping in the walls, which had abated somewhat, was renewed. It sounded angry. For some moments no words were spoken, then the old dwarf said, "As you wish, Khamak Dunakh."

Again silence. A man next to me began to speak, but I recognize protocol when I see it and I shushed him.

"I have returned," said Solomon/Khamakh.

"So we see," replied the old one. "With numbers."

Now one of the other, apparently younger dwarves leapt into the fray.

"Your arrogance in returning is unbelievable, Khamakh Dunakh! Do you think to destroy us with this human rabble?"

The old one turned and with appalling swiftness struck the impertinent broacher of protocol with the butt of his axe.

"You will return to the Haven, Khoradh Makhan. As punishment you will go to the cave of Andorakh and remain in seclusion until I send for you."

There was silence again as the reprimanded one strode angrily away, then a longer silence as the tapping swelled up, and finally died away once more. The old one continued.

"You should not have returned, Khamakh."

"I had to, Lord Khamadur,? Solomon replied with a convincing show of humility.

"For what reason, Khamakh?"

"To save these few humans from their folly." There was yet another long silence. "They have destroyed themselves, Lord, as you can see from the ones here who have a terrible disease."

The old one, Lord Khamadur, came beyond Solomon, who stepped aside deferentially. He glanced into the eyes of each of us. He stopped and touched my forehead, an electric tingle snapping between us. His eyes softened as he gazed at me. Friendship? Camaraderie? Sadness? Pity? How could I tell? This dwarf lord was alien to me, I thought.

He returned to stand in front of Solomon. When he spoke again, I knew it was in the language of the dwarves, but I could understand!

"These are all doomed to fall before the plague they have created," he said. "All but that one." He pointed at me, and my face must have shown my great surprise at being able to understand his words. "You see, Khamakh, he comprehends what I say. He has the Blood in him."

"Then he is the one." Solomon?s voice broke as he spoke the words.

"It would appear so, Khamakh. But that is for the Council to decide."

"Then you will take them in? Grant them sanctuary?"

"We will take them in, for the moment. Again, it is for the Council to decide." There was silence again for long moments. "And I shall put in a word for you, Khamakh. I wish you to remain here until I send word to you."

"As you wish, Lord Khamadur," Solomon replied.

The connection suddenly hit me. Darrow! A word very close to an old English word for Dwarf, ?dwarrow?! I was willing to wager that Solomon and Khamakh had similar meanings as well.

Solomon turning to the others and beginning to speak interrupted my musing. He told them that they were to be granted sanctuary, and if they were fated to die, they would be well cared for. Some began a ragged cheer, but it faded rapidly when the tapping, which had almost ceased while the two dwarves spoke, was renewed with a recognizable fury..

At the same time, from far down the dark passage came the pounding of many feet, and a scream of hideous, hate-filled rage.

Into the light ran Khoradh Mhakan, and he bore a spear, tipped with the same bright silver as Solomon?s mail coat. With an angry grunt, he rammed the spear deep into Solomon's chest. Screams filled the air as the mortally wounded dwarf collapsed, and old Lord Khamadur interposed himself between the enraged Khoradh and Solomon, who lay gasping on the ground.

"What do you mean by this madness?" he demanded, in Dwarvish, and his sprechstimme conveyed an unbelievable amount of pain, anguish, love and grief.

The wild-eyed murderer turned to his Lord.

"Fool! Fool of a Dunakh! Fool like all your kin! Fool like your son who lies dying there!" He motioned into the darkness. "Come forward, oh lamentable dwarves! Come forward and show your king his folly in allowing these diseased ones to enter our domains!"

Into the light came dwarves, dwarves who were clearly stricken with a plague mutated and made incredibly deadly for their race.

As we horrified humans watched, the secret race which had lived out many thousands of years safely hidden from destructive mankind, died. The plague took them with astonishing swiftness and fury. It seemed that the simplest contact with the infected pus and swollen buboes of the dying dwarves was enough to infect.

They grew sick, withered, and died before our very eyes.

The humans had backed away from the ghastly scene, taking refuge beneath an outcropping of stalactites that arched beautifully toward the ground.

Khoradh stood, laughing hideously as he reviled his king. From what I could gather of his babbling, I was indeed some kind of fulfillment of prophecy, but that prophecy spoke not of the rebirth of the dwarven race but of its doom. The things Khoradh swore at his king were terrible, vile oaths, and finally Khamadur heard enough vilification.

The old Lord scooped up Solomon?s axe and with one fell sweep decapitated the demented Khoradh, but not before his spear was plunged into the king's chest. Amidst the tortured wailing of the dying dwarves, the slimy, obnoxious squirming noises of the ice-worms devouring them, and the terrified screams of the humans, Khamadhur stumbled to the side of his son, and fell.

But Khoradh's revenge was not finished. Soundlessly at first, then with a rush of tumbling stone and high pitched shrieks of terror, the entire wall and outcropping beneath which the remainder of my party had taken refuge tumbled forward and down, sweeping all and sundry under their grinding, deadly path.

I screamed in rage, and grasped the first weapon at hand. It was Solomon's axe, now fallen from the lifeless grasp of his father Khamadur's hand.

I am not sure how I did it. I swept down the darkened passage in a berserk fury. The few dwarves I met died quickly and gracelessly. I ran on down the long hall, not noting at that point how the walls went from rough stone to elaborately carved friezes and frescos. I stumbled to a stop at the head of a staircase.

Below me was the most incredibly opulent great hall I had ever seen, rich and luxuriant and lovely. Gilded with gold and silver, encrusted with jewels and precious metals, even great potted plants brought from god knows where.

It was filled with hundreds of dead dwarves, all covered with the scabrous, vile ice-worms.

* * * * * * * *

We killed them. All of them. Not satisfied with the destruction of our surface world and ourselves, we invaded the realm of the hidden dwarves and consumed them.

I spent an eternity searching the halls and chambers of the dwarven haven for life. There was none, only corpses, being slowly devoured by the worms. I eventually was able to find my way back to the outer cavern where all my race but I had died.

I found Solomon/Khamakh, looking very pained and weary, propped against a wall, his father's head in his lap.

"Well, my friend," he whispered huskily, and coughed blood, "it has not ended at all as I had hoped."

I urged him not to speak. He ignored me.

"You have many questions, and it is only right that I try to answer them before I expire." Another cough. More blood. "You were my hope for my people."

I laughed humorlessly. "I was death for your people, Solomon."

"No, we were death only to ourselves, living hidden and inbred for so many thousands of years. We had great stamina in arms, but no immunities from disease. I feared it might be so. I also feared that what I knew of the prophecy concerning you, or rather concerning the Dawnbringer, was incorrect. It appears I was wrong. Doom and dawn are very close in our ancient language."

It was silent for a long while before thinking of a question. Not an important question, but I was curious. When you are down to the last two intelligent bipeds on earth, you may be forgiven indulging your curiosity. "Why did you live on the surface, Solomon?"

He coughed in response, and brought up blood. "I was banished, with much pain and ceremony and protocol, by my father."

A time passed, it might have been long or short. Solomon coughed again. When he spoke this time, his voice was very weak. "My friend, when I die, please burn my body. It is our custom."

I nodded, but whether he saw me in the growing dark I do not know. Some time later, when morning should have arrived, I turned to ask him another question.

He was dead.

I was spared the sight of him being eaten by the worms. I built a fire and a bier and burned his corpse upon it. In fact, over the next few centuries?or so it seemed--I burned all the remaining dwarves. Over the rockslide covering the last of my race, I erected a cross, and a Star of David, and I found a Koran in an abandoned pack. There was even a small rock that bore a vague resemblance to Buddha.

And now I sit in the almost-dark (for all my matches are gone, and all my lantern fuel expended), scratching out my tale by the fading light of a final pile of bat guano, and I wait for the end.

There is no tapping now in the stone. There is nothing but darkness and silence. I have lived an eternity here in the dark.

Vae victis.

I speak these words to the stone, and hear them echo in the impenetrable blackness.

I do believe that I have gone completely mad.

Posterity, forgive me.

Adolph Kushner
Madman

-------------------------------------------------

Therapist's Report, 12/1

Subject has retreated fully into himself, will not acknowledge the presence any person. Almost fully catatonic. Until this withdrawal, complained much of coldness and darkness, though his cell is well-lit and often has an ambient temperature of 75 to 85 degrees. Subject also raved repeatedly about "hidden races" and "destruction of all". Tried many different therapies, but none seemed to work. See attached reports. One odd incident: just before going completely catatonic, subject embraced me, called me an odd name, and wept, wailing that I was dead. He then said a phrase in Latin which I have looked up: "Vae victis". It means "Woe to the vanquished."

I do not feel there is anything that can be done for this patient at this time.

There was found under his bed a mass of rapidly scrawled and almost unreadable notes which I shall take home and study.

* * * * * * * *

Dearest Elsie,

Adolph Kushner has finally retreated fully from the world, and I am heartsick that I cannot help him. I wish to God I could reach the man. Please pray for me, and for him. I feel a failure to him.

Vacation plans are proceeding nicely, I take it? Your parents called me last pm, seemed very excited by our upcoming visit. I feel, though, I must ask you: What do you think of the situation in the Middle East? It cannot get much worse, I think. I hope your mother and father will be safe in Tel Aviv. Perhaps we should put off traveling there until after this storm has passed. It may be safest.

By the way, Kushner has left some very interesting notes about the things he was hallucinating. It reads like some kind of terrifying science fiction novel! Biological weapons that introduce a mutated plague that kills off almost everyone, and horrible genetic beasties released that combine with the toxins in the ecosystem to pretty much destroy earth's climate. Then a long trudging journey into the earth through Mammoth Cave and some wild pyrotechnics at the end, and if you can believe it, I'm in a major role! Pretty good reading actually, though his understanding of disease is a bit lacking. Still, I wish I'd known about it before he went catatonic...I might have been able to help him more.

Say, have you ever been to Mammoth Caves? I hear they are lovely, and they are incredibly extensive. Perhaps a trip there for the summer would be nice.

Dearest, I do hope you're keeping warm with all this unseasonable chilliness! Why, I had to bring the plants in from the balcony today, or they would have died. Can you believe 25 degrees in July?!

Well, I've really only time for this short note. Do take care. I can hardly wait to see you again!
Why shouldn't we go to the Holy Land after all? It's lovely this time of year. And nothing will happen. And listen to Brokaw now--he says that some terrorist group is threatening Jerusalem with a stolen ICBM! No one would be that crazy!

Must run, love!

Yours, Sol D.