Free Aethosphere Chronicles: The Rat Warrens by Jeremiah D. Schmidt Page A

them…how?” he
asked, skeptical.
    Time lowered his head and tilted it to the
side in a sly manner. “I bring them into the know , Gord-O.”
A smirk crawled up from the corner of the man’s mouth.
    “Into the know ,” Fen baulked in
confusion, “what you mean?”
    But Conrad Time held back and gave his
mustache a mischievous twist. “ Ah ah ah , my little friend,
for that you’ll have to come by my Sanctuary in the Barrows.”
    Fen’s face went slack. “The Barrows,” just
saying it brought fear, “like where all the crypts are?”
    Time pivoted on his heels and threw a hand
back over his shoulder dismissively as he walked towards the
counter. “Unless you know of another.”
    “But…”
    “But what…it’s haunted !” Time jumped
around and tossed his arms out wide. “ Boo! ”
    Fen startled, and then immediately clamped
his mouth shut as he felt his temper flare.
    “Easy there, kid. You wear that anger of
yours on your sleeve, and that’s bound to get you in trouble sooner
or later. Now I’ve made my offer, and for me to trust you, you’re
going to have to trust me. You see how we’re in this together? I
scratch your back, you scratch mine, and in the process you might
just discover there’s more to life than scrounging for tokens in
the dark. So you in, or are you out, Gord-O?”
    Time’s directions to the Sanctuary were very
specific; “Take the Suture north, pick up the Shambles, and make
the turns at the landmarks I’ve laid out. Easy as mud pie,” and yet
Fen still quaked as he crept through the narrow concrete passages
of the Barrows, sure he was lost. The side tunnels whispered with a
chill breeze like death’s breath, and the pattering of unseen
things, distant yet altogether unnerving, sent his mind racing.
Even the arc-torch he’d brought with him did little to sooth his
growing fear. Most of the Warren denizens avoided the various slum
barrows, more out of superstition than respect, so Fen didn’t think
it was one of them making the noises that frightened him. With no
other logical solutions, his mind instead drifted towards the
macabre; to scare-stories of vapor wraiths and ghouls, and that
pushed his heart to crashing in his chest. His nerves became
livewires left exposed to the elements. At one point he freaked out
so bad he fell on his butt, and that just turned out to be his own
breath-vapors swirling up into his face after the winds
shifted.
    Despite being alone, the humiliation drove
deep, and Fen managed to gather his wits and steel his resolve, but
more out of a sense of spite than anything else. He wasn’t going to
let the dark get the better of him after all, but then the darkness
of the Barrows tested him to the breaking. Even his torch seemed
powerless, and the light it cast was pale and lacked in substance.
When the scared boy turned a corner the dark slammed down like a
wall behind him, and when he passed at an intersection it reached
to swipe at him. There was only so long Fen could take it, and soon
enough he just wanted his sister to be there, protecting him, and
leading him along.
    Fen was close to turning back when the Avenue
of Remembrance appeared in his path. It was the second to last
marker, and well within the Barrows. Time said once he reached it,
he’d be closer to the Sanctuary than turning back for the exit. I can do this , he encouraged himself while trying to rebuild
what little confidence he had left. So as quiet as a mouse, the
adolescent tiptoed through the old antechamber, where decades ago
people went to tie ribbons on the columns in honor of the dead.
However, as the Barrows expanded, the room became swallowed into
the system, and now the newest of the ribbons were faded and
brittle to the touch and surrounded by human skulls.
    There were so many skulls here, it seemed
enough for every person Fen had ever known, and piled one atop
another into pyramids as tall as he was, with some so old they
looked wooden or made of rock, and they all