Bane

January 2, 1998

She was sooner there than David expected. She did not look up to meet their eyes, and said nothing as Grifford boarded. David helped Karen into the frail looking boat, and boarded after.

Grifford smiled pleasantly at David, and then to Karen. "Don't let the quarry upset you. This may be new to you, Karen... but this is something David is all too familiar."

"Familiar..." David tilted his head. Grifford was right.

Grifford stifled a sneer, David's simple gesture of curiosity was too familiar, too much like Jonathan Walker, or whatever was left of him in the masked monster that took Samael. "All of your questions have answers, David. It's not something I can explain, but I can show you. Once you see, you'll understand."

David frowned. Was there such a need to be cryptic? If so, why? If Sandra Sevilla was a slave to The Order, and feared as much for her life as Grifford suggested, was there a need for secrecy?

Sandra rowed with mechanical precision, digging the oars into the serene looking water toward the adit. They moved fast.

"This could be peaceful if it were slower." Karen sighed, and removed her gloves. She leaned a little overboard her side, dipping her hand into the cold waters.

Grifford's brow creased. "I wouldn't."

"Judge?" Karen glanced at Grifford.

"Pull your hand from the water, that is only if you do not want us all to die a very unpleasant crushing, burning, drowning death."

Karen pulled her hand from the water, staring into her rippled reflection, and the reflective pitch waters below. They were very near the adit now, and soon it would be time to disembark.

✟ ☧ ✟

"What is that, one-hundred-fifty cubits?" David knelt, and placed a gloved hand on the Springer's at the base of the adit.

Grifford looked uneasy. "One-hundred-seventy-one. Do you feel cold?"

David shook his head. "No... but the stones sing."

"...but you do not feel cold?"

"I do." Karen had her duster wrapped tight around her.

Grifford nodded, his expression grim. "Curious, David. Karen, the cold you feel is not any effect of the environment, I assure you. Your coat will not warm you. The cold you feel, or in David's case - do not feel - is a phenomena of this structure itself."

David stood up, running his gloved hands along the springers as he did. "These symbols on the stones?"

"Names. Eight of them. Since my brother uncovered this structure, we've determined them to be names. The true words cannot be pronounced by a human tongue... at least not without serious consequence."

"What names?"

Grifford studied David's expression, finding the young hunter unreadable. It was not an expression from the line of House Walker he was familiar. Clayton, and his even his father Bartholomew, were far easier to read. "In our tongue, we have three so far. Yanshuf, which means Owl. Nakhash, which means snake, or serpent... and Tannin, which means... "

"...Crocodile." David felt a tangible chill crawl up his body from the bottom of his booted feet to the top of his head. He shuddered.

"You look like someone walked over your grave." Grifford's jaw was set, his teeth clenched.

Karen watched the exchange, vague awareness at the judge's discomfort.

"If this is what I had to see, why not a photograph?"