The Keep of Ages (The Vault of Dreamers #3)

The man takes one more step and lifts his flashlight high. I wince, but I don’t think he can see me.

“Okay. Whoever you are, you’re going to have to come to us eventually,” Jules says. “Just don’t disturb the dreamers when you do. Come quietly. We’re through the nine o’clock arch. This tunnel leads to the vault through the three o’clock, so we’re directly opposite. And don’t try to get back out again via the stream. If a storm comes, it gets flooded fast. I’ve seen it kill people before, and it isn’t pretty.”

I hold still, barely breathing. I’m not leaving until I have answers, but I don’t trust him for a fat second. I wait, watching, until his figure finally recedes. Only then do I really realize why he’s content to leave me here. I’m trapped. This entire underground complex could go on for miles. The guy’s right. In an endless labyrinth, it would take one wrong turn and I’d be lost for good. If I don’t return to the vault of dreamers, I’m dead.

*

After he’s gone, I keep listening, half expecting him to return with reinforcements, but nobody comes. My suspicion is confirmed: they don’t need to bother. Slowly, quietly, I retrace my steps to the main vault and peek through the archway again. The red lights over the sleep shells have gone off again, and the lids glow with their calm, steady blue. The hush is deep, like a forgotten spell.

What do I do? Much as I want to search inside each sleep shell for Dubbs and my parents, I can’t risk disturbing them again or Jules will definitely come back. I have to come up with another plan.

By the glow from the sleep shells, I take a closer look at how the ancient, natural walls form the big room. The stone bulges and recedes irregularly, and in places, it’s streaked with dark patches as if water has dripped through. The floor is fairly level, and the general shape of the space is semispherical. Only the circular holes in the ceiling and the four carved arches testify to human ingenuity, but they make me wonder what this room was used for in ages past.

Each archway has a few steps and a wooden ramp that lead down to the main floor. I look straight across the vault, to where Jules first appeared. He said his was the nine o’clock archway, and flat fluorescent light glows there. The arches for noon and six, on the other hand, are black and lightless like mine. I glance up again at the dome and the gallery of glassless windows. If I could get up there and look down on the dreamers, I might be able to see some faces.

Quietly, barely daring to breathe, I take a step down into the vault. No red lights go on. I take a step to my right and press back against the wall. I hold still, waiting, and then I take another sideways step to my right. The nearest sleep shell’s light flickers red once, but then stays off.

Okay, I think. Stay calm. It’s almost like they’re a sentient beast that can smell fear, and they won’t react to me as long as I stay calm.

So many. How did they all get here? And when?

I take another soft step to my right, and when the lights all stay off, I keep going, slowly, step by step. I study the dreamers’ faces as I pass, watching in vain for a twitch of a reaction. They’re teens and children, all asleep. They remind me of the ones I saw in Berg’s control, with their systemic functions rebooted, kept suspended on the edge of death, breathing just enough for him to mine and seed their brains.

Why are they here? Who are they? Are they just being preserved, or does someone mine them regularly?

There’s so much I don’t understand. The logistics alone are mind-boggling. Somebody had to set this up. Somebody has to tend all the dreamers. And worse, beyond the scale of it, the pathos presses upon me to my core. Seeing each face compounds the tragedy. It’s like finding a children’s cemetery full of lives cut short and stoppered up at the exact moment they were lost.

It tugs at my soul. How on earth am I going to find my family down here?

Staying with my back to the wall of the vault, I skirt slowly around to my right, counterclockwise, until I’m one-quarter of the way around the room without disturbing the dreamers. At the twelve o’clock arch, I ease up the steps, and a faint breeze touches my face as I look into the next tunnel. No lights or signs of activity beckon ahead, but I have to see if I can find a way up to the gallery.

The floor of this tunnel has two smooth, worn tracks, and I slide my feet forward one at a time, counting my steps. By twenty paces in, the black is a complete, inky emptiness. A plink comes from the darkness ahead of me. I pause to listen, waiting, and then another plink comes, like water dripping into a puddle.

At the next step, my shoe hits sand, wet sand, and I don’t dare to go any farther. I turn on my phone light and cast the beam forward. The tunnel has a puddle of black water six feet across, and on the other side, the floor rises at a steady slope. Someone has dropped a pair of boards across the puddle, and I cross over one. On the other side, the tunnel is rough-hewn and narrow, with a turn ahead. I take a few more steps, doubtful, and at the turn, the tunnel branches in three directions. The one to my left has a staircase leading up, and my hope rises. I start up, counting my steps.

At the sixteenth step, I reach a landing with a circular opening, and smile. I’ve found the gallery in the dome that overlooks the dreamers. I turn off my phone light, set my fingers on the stone ledge, and peer down into the vault. The circular pattern of the sleep shells is even more pronounced from this angle, and the dreamers seem to go on forever. I can’t help wondering if this is the vantage place where the photo I saw was taken from, though as I check now, I don’t see any cameras.

I breathe deeply. Seeing the dreamers’ faces works well from here because I’m not that high up, and the angle is good. Quickly I realize I need a system, or I’ll lose track of which sleep shells I’ve searched. So I start at the outside edge, at the three o’clock archway, and I work my way around and in, row by row, moving carefully around the windows of the gallery.

Even with a bit of distance, even with my determination to search efficiently, it’s painful to see all the still, eerie faces. Almost all of the dreamers are kids, from as young as maybe four years old to twenty, but once in a while I find an older person with a gray beard or silvery hair, and it’s almost a relief. At least that rare person had a longer life. Then the next one will be a preschooler, and I’m wrenched all over again.

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