Shaun and Matthew paced impatiently up and down the tunnel, wondering what was keeping the others and looking in on Gulda from time to time to make sure he was in no danger of escaping. Time stood still in the dark and dingy dungeons, and they soon lost track of how long they’d been gone. Had it been minutes or hours? Were the others on their way back even now, or had they been found out and caught? Perhaps a troop of guards was already on its way to lock them back up in their cells and punish them for their defiance.

     Finally, Shaun could stand it no longer. “Here,” he said, giving Gulda’s sword to Matthew. “I’m going to see what’s down that tunnel, see where it goes. All this waiting is driving me crazy.”

     “I’ll come with you,” said Matthew.

     Shaun stopped him. “You’ve got to stay here and keep an eye on him,” he said, indicating the guard. “And if the others get back before I do, you can tell them where I’ve gone. I won’t be long.” He then set off down the tunnel and was soon lost in the darkness.

     The sparse glowing globes of marble that provided the dungeon’s dim illumination stopped just around the corner, and the tunnel beyond that point was in almost complete darkness. He stopped for a few minutes to let his eyes adjust, but it didn’t help much and when he started forward again he had to grope his way along the wall like a blind man. Fortunately the floor of the tunnel was flat and level, with nothing to trip over or stub his toe against, and after a while he grew more confident, walking along at almost normal speed. He allowed the fingers of his left hand to brush against the slimy tunnel wall while he reached out ahead of him with the other, feeling for the sudden end of the tunnel that he prayed would never come.

     Something hard and sharp crunched under his feet, and he stopped to see what it was. He picked up something small and hard with sharp, spiny bits sticking out at odd angles, but it had broken open to reveal a soft centre which was sticky between his fingers. He brought it up to his face to sniff it, and threw it away in disgust when he recognised the acrid smell of beetle. He wiped his hand on his clothes before continuing on.

     As he went the beetles became more numerous and his bare feet began to throb painfully from treading on their hard, spiny exoskeletons. One ran up his body inside his clothes, its legs tickling his bare skin, and he reached his hand inside to grab it and throw it away. Annoying as the insects were, though, they gave him hope that the tunnel did indeed lead somewhere, since they couldn’t live on bare rock. They had to have some food source, and since he hadn’t passed it yet it had to be somewhere up ahead. He carried on with new hope, therefore.

     After he’d gone about a hundred yards the tunnel grew narrower, something he became aware of for the first time when he bumped his shoulder on a lump of rock jutting out from the opposite wall. The tunnel was now growing more irregular, twisting and turning and with lumps and bumps on the floor that forced him to slow down in case he twisted an ankle or stubbed a toe. The roof got lower as well, forcing him to stoop a little as he went, and he began to fear that it would just keep on getting narrower until he could go no further.

     A few yards further on, though, it widened out again, and by groping his way blindly around its roughly oval wall he found that he was in a small cave about twenty paces long by ten paces wide, with a roof so high that he couldn’t touch it with both hands stretched to their limit above his head. It was alive with the rustling sound of beetles and other insects, some of which bit and stung his feet as he trod on them, and he guessed that he was close to their food source, whatever it was. There was only one way out of the cave, so he continued on down the tunnel, which was now sloping downwards at a noticeable angle.

     Twenty yards further on, though, he came to a crushing disappointment. Groping his way slowly along the rough and uneven tunnel, he suddenly came to a place where the floor was smooth and level once more and the walls straight and upright. His heart leapt with excitement, thinking he’d reached his destination, and he stepped forward confidently and hopefully, only to painfully bang his forward reaching hand into a solid metal obstruction blocking the way ahead of him.

     A quick examination revealed it to be an airlock door, almost identical to the ones they’d encountered before in Kronosia. It refused to open, though. Both wheels remained stubbornly immobile no matter how much he pulled them, and when he stepped back in frustration he saw why. There was a very faint luminescent glow coming from a spot on the door at about eye level, so faint that he hadn’t noticed it at first even in the total darkness, and by looking at it closely he saw that it came from the flag in the window. It was in the raised position, indicating the presence of vacuum on the other side.

     “And the other door must have been left open,” muttered the soldier to himself, “so we couldn’t get through even if we still had our Necklaces of Vacuum Breathing.” Frustration welled up in him, making him want to punch the door as hard as he could in sheer anger. He restrained himself with an effort. Breaking all the fingers in his hand wouldn’t help the situation. He turned his back on the door, therefore, and headed back the way he’d come with a heavy heart.

     So black were his thoughts that he didn’t at first notice how much more scarce the beetles had become until he was back among them again, but then he came to a sudden halt, his thoughts racing. I was right the first time, he thought. Beetles can’t live on rock and air. They need food of some kind, but so far I haven’t found anything which means I’ve missed something. I’ve missed something! The tunnel forks somewhere. It must, and I missed it! The beetles were thickest in the cave, so that must be where it is. He hurried back to the cave as fast as he dared.

     Reaching the cave, we went all over it again, much more carefully this time, looking for the other way that he was sure must exist. He found it, but it wasn’t the side tunnel he’d been hoping for, praying for. Down on his knees, running the tips of his fingers along the base of the wall where it curved into the floor, he felt a crack in the rock. About an inch wide and running two feet up the wall and three feet along the floor. It was alive with insects, scurrying in and out and running all over his hands and up his arms, and he jumped up in disgust and renewed despair, frantically trying to brush them all off.

     Without doubt this was where the beetles were coming from, he thought in black despair. A crack, probably several little cracks, leading down to another cavern where food was plentiful. Easily wide enough for insects to get through but far too narrow for a man. He briefly toyed with the idea of breaking through the rock wall onto the next chamber, but he had no idea how much rock lay between the two caverns. The cracks could run for dozens of yards, and even if it was less they had nothing to dig with.

     He wished with all his heart that Angus and Douglas were still with them. They’d have been able to tell at a glance how much rock they were dealing with, and with the huge, heavy picks they carried everywhere they went, they’d have been able to dig their way through in no time. There was no point wishing for what couldn’t be had, though. The two trogs were back on Tharia somewhere, and all the wishing in the world wouldn’t bring them up to the smallest moon.

     Tears of frustration ran from his eyes and he brushed them away angrily before making his way back to the cells. When the tunnel widened again he ran his fingers along the opposite wall to the one he'd followed on the way out, still certain that the tunnel must fork somewhere. There was no fork, though, and the expression on his face when he arrived back told Matthew everything he needed to know.

     "No luck?” he asked anyway. Hope was a hard thing to let go of.

     Shaun shook his head. “Dead end,” he said glumly. He felt a tickling in the middle of his back, telling him that he was still carrying beetles, and took off his clothes to shake them out. A dozen insects fell onto the floor, and Matthew helped to remove others that were still clinging to the soldier’s body. “Found another airlock,” he added. “Vacuum on the other side, so there’s no way out.”

     “So we’re going to die,” said Matthew flatly. “As soon as they find out we’re out of our cells, they’ll kill us.”

     Shaun nodded. “Yep,” he agreed. “But Tom was right. It’s better to die fighting than like an animal in a cage. Let’s give thanks to the Gods that we’ve been given the chance to die like men.”

     Matthew nodded soberly, and the two men sat down on the hard rock to await the return of their friends.