I remained standing in front of the smooth stone wall behind which Aura had disappeared, unable to decide what I was supposed to do next.
Should I go back up to Willy, who was almost certainly already looking for me?
And if I did, what was I supposed to tell him? That I had fallen down a slope in an inaccessible part of the tunnels, met a woman who claimed to come from somewhere deep underground, and watched a passage close by itself inside solid stone?
He would probably assume it was all the result of the blow to my head.
Perhaps he would even be right.
I touched my temple. It still hurt, and my left shoulder throbbed whenever I moved.
The sensible thing would have been to go back, find a doctor, and try to forget everything I had just seen.
Then the pendant around my neck grew warm.
I pulled it out from beneath my shirt.
The stone my father had given me was glowing faintly.
The light inside it gradually intensified, and one by one the delicate symbols on its surface began to illuminate.
A soft vibration passed through the wall.
Then the thin vertical seam appeared in front of me once again.
The stone panel slid silently aside, revealing a passage filled with bluish light.
Aura stood only a few steps beyond it.
This time, she looked every bit as surprised as I felt.
“How did you open it?”
“I don’t know. I touched the pendant, and the wall opened.”
Her eyes dropped immediately to the stone in my hand.
“Let me see it.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
She shook her head.
“No. Go back to your people. You’re injured, and you have no idea where you’re trying to go.”
“That’s exactly why I need to find out what’s down there.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Suzy and Professor Hall died because of what they found in these tunnels. Someone tried to kill me too. If I go back now, nothing changes. They’ll keep coming after me, and I still won’t know why.”
Aura studied me for a long moment.
“I don’t know the people you’re talking about.”
“But you know this stone.”
Her gaze returned to the pendant.
She reached out and touched it carefully.
The instant her fingers brushed the chain, the stone flared with a stronger light.
Thin lines appeared beneath its surface, forming patterns I had never seen before.
Aura closed her hand around it and shut her eyes.
An almost imperceptible vibration moved through the air.
I felt it inside my chest, as though for a brief moment the pendant were resonating with my entire body.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“My father gave it to me. He brought it back from an expedition to a cave near Medjugorje, in Herzegovina. He said an unknown man he met there had given it to him.”
“And the man never told him what it was?”
“If he did, my father never explained it to me.”
Aura turned the pendant toward the light.
“It’s an Orbium.”
The word meant nothing to me.
“What does that mean?”
“It is a very old information carrier. Some Orbia were also used as access keys. Only a few of them remain in the world.”
“Access keys to what?”
“That depends on the code they contain.”
I took out my headlamp and shone it across the surface of the stone.
I had known those delicate reliefs since childhood and had always assumed they were simple images of animals.
“I thought they were some kind of ancient hunting symbols. This one always looked like a deer to me.”
For the first time, Aura laughed.
The sound was clear and bright, almost strangely out of place in the underground passage.
“That isn’t a deer. It’s a symbol.”
I looked more closely.
In the narrow beam of the headlamp, what I had always taken for an animal seemed to dissolve into a pattern of tiny lines and dots.
“Can you read it?”
Her smile faded.
“Only part of it. The script is much older than the present form of our language. And the stone is locked.”
“But it opened this wall.”
“Because it contains authorization to enter.”
“So someone sent me here?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “The Orbium may have waited for generations until it was carried here by someone it would respond to.”
She reached into a fold of her clothing and drew out an elongated crystal slightly smaller than my pendant.
“I have an access key too. Mine controls the transport sphere we’ll need.”
“Transport sphere?”
“Later.”
She put the crystal away and looked at me again.
“If you come with me, you may never find your way back to the life you had before.”
“I lost that life the moment Suzy died.”
Something changed in her expression.
“All right,” she said after a moment. “But first I need to check your injuries again.”
She passed the glowing device along my head and shoulder.
This time, the colored lines settled into a regular pattern.
“There’s no bleeding in your brain, but you have a mild concussion. Your shoulder is badly bruised. If your vision gets worse or you start feeling nauseous, you tell me immediately.”
From a small case, she took out a translucent strip and placed it against my shoulder.
The material adhered to my skin at once.
First, I felt cold.
Then a deep warmth began spreading through the muscles.
“What does it do?”
“It reduces swelling, relieves pain, and accelerates the repair of damaged fibers. It doesn’t mean you’re healed. It only means you’ll be able to walk.”
She made me sit a little longer and checked my pupils several times.
Only when I was able to stand without the room spinning badly around me did she allow us to continue.
I thought about Willy.
I had no signal and no idea how long I would be gone.
He would certainly begin looking for me. Perhaps he would call the guides, the police, or the rescue services.
I should have gone back.
Instead, I followed Aura deeper into the Earth.
The stone panel closed silently behind us.
We began descending a steep staircase carved directly into the rock. Some of the steps were remarkably regular, while others had been worn smooth by time.
Aura moved lightly and confidently, as though she had taken the route countless times before.
I followed more carefully.
My left shoulder still hurt, and the strap of the small backpack I had been carrying since morning pressed uncomfortably against the bruised muscles.
Aura kept glancing back to make sure I was not losing my balance.
“I’m sorry,” I said after a while. “I don’t know why I mistook you for Suzy. Now I can see that you don’t really look that much like her.”
“You saw me in the dark, and you wanted me to be her.”
“I suppose so.”
“Grief sometimes completes an image before the eyes have had time to see it properly.”
The precision of her words surprised me.
The passages through which we moved were illuminated by a muted glow coming directly from the walls. A fine fibrous layer covered the stone, lighting up in irregular waves.
“You said those were microorganisms.”
“Genetically modified microbial colonies,” Aura explained. “They draw energy from chemical reactions with minerals in the walls, and part of that energy is released as light.”
“So it isn’t photosynthesis.”
“Not here. We cultivate photosynthetic organisms in illuminated chambers farther below. Together with the ventilation system, they help replenish oxygen and remove carbon dioxide.”
I could feel only a faint but constant movement of air.
“Where does it come from?”
“Part of it rises from deeper sections, while part enters through ventilation shafts connected to the surface. Differences in temperature and pressure keep the air moving even when the primary system isn’t operating.”
“So you can breathe normally down here.”
“In most passages, yes. Some of the older sections are sealed. Carbon dioxide, methane, or hydrogen sulfide can build up inside them.”
That sounded far less like a fairy tale.
And considerably more dangerous.
After a longer descent, Aura handed me two small balls, each about the size of a walnut.
“Chew them slowly. They contain sugars, proteins, minerals, and a compound that will help you stay alert. But after your injury, you mustn’t eat any more than this.”
They tasted earthy and slightly sweet, like nuts mixed with herbs.
There was no instant miracle, but after several minutes, I no longer felt quite so weak.
“Who are you?” I asked. “You and the people who live down there.”
Aura remained silent for a while before answering.
“We call ourselves Ariani.”
The word immediately brought Suzy’s translation back to me.
“Ariana,” I whispered. “The lower world of Agharta.”
Aura stopped abruptly.
“Where did you hear that?”
“It was written in the golden book Suzy and Professor Hall found.”
“Do you have the book?”
“No. Professor Hall had the original. It disappeared after his death. Suzy had photographs, and she managed to translate part of the text.”
“And where are those photographs?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps someone took them.”
Aura began walking again, but her expression had become noticeably more serious.
“You’ll have to tell me everything about that book later.”
“First, you tell me something.”
After a brief hesitation, she nodded.
“Our ancestors once lived on the surface. According to our oldest records, Earth was attacked by a civilization capable of influencing the climate, the movement of the planet’s crust, and even the human mind. Catastrophes and wars followed. Some people took refuge in underground systems that had existed long before they arrived.”
“Who built them?”
“We don’t know. When our ancestors descended into them, some of the tunnels and devices were already ancient.”
“And those people became the Ariani?”
“One group of them did. They went deep enough to find habitable spaces and gradually restored some of the technologies that had been left behind.”
“Why does nobody on the surface know about you?”
“Some people do. Most consider the stories about us to be legends.”
“Why are you hiding?”
Aura slowed.
“Because your world is still dangerous. You can heal disease, create beautiful things, and help complete strangers. At the same time, you destroy entire countries for power, resources, or belief. Your abilities are growing faster than your sense of responsibility.”
“Our world isn’t only violence,” I objected. “We have families, friendships, art. Doctors save people they’ve never met. Millions of people simply try to live decent lives.”
“I know,” she replied. “That’s exactly why we still watch you.”
“So you don’t condemn all of us.”
“No. We’re simply afraid of you as a whole.”
Her answer left me silent.
After some time, we entered a wider chamber.
Aura suddenly raised one hand.
“Slow down.”
“What is it?”
“We’re not alone.”
At first, I saw no one.
There were only shadows between the outcrops of rock and vague movements at the edge of the bluish light.
Then figures began emerging from the darkness.
They were smaller than us, and most stood slightly hunched. Their bodies were thin, some visibly deformed, and their skin was extremely pale, in places almost gray.
Their hair was sparse, while their pupils were so dilated that their eyes appeared almost black.
Their clothing had been stitched together from rough fabric, fibrous materials, and animal skins. They carried wooden staffs and metal rods that seemed to have been fashioned from fragments of much older objects.
I stopped.
“Who are they?” I whispered.
“People,” Aura replied. “The inhabitants of the middle levels.”
“They look…”
I could not finish the sentence.
“Different?” she supplied. “Their ancestors went underground during ancient catastrophes but never reached us. They remained in these regions and adapted over many generations to darkness, limited food, and life in narrow tunnels.”
“They mutated?”
“Not in the way you mean. Some of their traits are hereditary adaptations. Others were caused by nutrition, disease, and their way of life.”
One of the figures approached cautiously.
The end of his staff pointed toward my backpack, then touched the fabric lightly.
It was not an attack.
He seemed to be examining something he had never seen before.
Aura spoke in a strange language composed of short, hard syllables and guttural sounds formed deep in the throat.
The figures answered her.
Their voices echoed from the walls, and the tension inside the chamber seemed to rise with every exchange.
“Do they want to hurt us?” I asked.
“They’re afraid. They don’t know you, and they can smell the surface on you.”
“Smell?”
“Soap. Fuel. Laundry detergents. To them, the scent is very strong.”
Aura raised her empty hands and spoke to them again.
After a while, the nearest figure stopped leaning quite so heavily on his staff.
“I told them you’re under my protection.”
“They understood?”
“They understood. That doesn’t mean they agree.”
I reached toward my backpack.
“I have energy bars. Maybe I could give them some.”
Aura stopped me immediately.
“Show me one first.”
I handed her a wrapped bar.
She passed her device over it and studied the readings.
“A small amount shouldn’t harm them. Break it into pieces.”
I tore open the wrapper and placed several pieces on a clean stone.
Aura explained that it was food and tasted one herself.
The nearest man picked up the rest of the wrapped bar. He stared at it in confusion and then tried to bite into the corner of the packaging.
“You don’t eat the wrapper,” I said automatically.
Aura gave me a questioning look.
“You have to open it.”
I took another bar, unwrapped it slowly, and showed them what to do.
The man copied my movements.
When he tasted a small piece, suspicion gave way to surprise.
The others moved closer.
They divided the food into tiny portions and gave it first to the elderly and to the children.
One child smiled after the first bite.
Then another did the same.
I watched their thin hands and the care with which they ate something so ordinary to me.
My chest tightened.
Such a small thing.
And yet, between our worlds, it represented a difference almost impossible to measure.
“What do they eat?” I asked quietly.
“They grow underground fungi, tuber plants, and microbial cultures. They catch blind fish and small cave animals. They use minerals as supplements, not as food.”
“Is that enough?”
“To survive. Not always to remain healthy.”
“And you don’t help them?”
Aura looked at me.
“We leave nutritional sheets, medicine, and tools at the borders of their territory. Some groups accept them. Others refuse everything. They see us as beings who bring change and misfortune.”
“Can’t you relocate them?”
“Where? Into our environment, against their will? Their bodies aren’t prepared for our microorganisms or our food, and their culture is tied to these places. Helping someone isn’t the same as taking control of their life.”
I looked at the figures standing in the shadows.
“Do they at least have safe drinking water?”
“Clean springs rise in the lower part of their territory. We monitor the water without most of them knowing.”
“Why don’t they return to the surface?”
“Some tried in the past. Bright light damaged their sensitive eyes and skin, and many became ill from infections they had lost resistance to after generations of isolation.”
“They could adapt gradually.”
“Perhaps, if someone gave them time, protection, and medical care. But that isn’t what happened.”
She paused.
“People on the surface were afraid of them. Some were killed. Others were exhibited as curiosities or locked away in institutions. Those who survived eventually returned underground.”
Suddenly, I no longer saw deformed monsters in front of me.
I saw people whose ancestors had become trapped between two worlds and no longer truly belonged to either.
One of the children approached me cautiously.
It touched the sleeve of my jacket and then my hair.
Its fingers were cold and extraordinarily delicate.
Several adults immediately called it back.
Aura spoke to them again, this time for longer.
Gradually, the suspicion in their eyes began to fade.
In its place appeared a sadness I could not understand.
“What did you tell them?” I asked.
“That you’re running from the violence of the upper world and looking for answers about the deaths of people you cared about.”
“And they believe you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because escape is the only form of freedom their stories have ever known.”
The figures slowly stepped aside and opened a path for us.
As we passed, the oldest man placed a hand on my shoulder.
Not the injured one.
The other.
He said something brief.
“What did that mean?” I asked after we had moved farther away.
“He wished that you would find a place where you would never have to run again.”
I looked back.
The figures were already disappearing into the darkness.
“That was… powerful.”
Aura smiled faintly.
“Welcome to the true depths of the world.”
We continued down a staircase that descended in broad spirals.
The steps had been carved with a precision I would never have expected from something so ancient.
“Did your ancestors build this entire route?”
“No. These tunnels, shafts, and some of the equipment were already here long before they arrived.”
“Who built them?”
“We don’t know. The oldest records speak of the First Ones, but even we have no idea who they truly were or where they came from.”
“How much farther down are we going?”
“Not much farther on foot. We’re approaching the transport sphere.”
“Your elevator?”
“More like a portal.”
“You mean teleportation?”
“That’s probably the closest word you use.”
I stopped.
“Our physics can transmit quantum information. Not a human body.”
“Our device doesn’t disassemble the body either,” Aura explained. “For a brief time, it connects two fixed locations. The transport sphere creates a protective field around the passengers and passes through a stabilized spatial link.”
“You’re saying it bends space?”
“Very roughly speaking.”
“And it’s safe?”
“The sphere has been operating for thousands of years.”
“That wasn’t an answer to my question.”
Aura looked at me.
“So far, everyone who entered it has survived the journey.”
“That’s very reassuring.”
A hint of amusement appeared on her lips, though it disappeared almost immediately.
By then, I had no idea how much time we had spent underground.
It might have been three hours.
Perhaps much longer.
Without sunlight or a watch, my sense of time was slowly beginning to dissolve.
I barely used my headlamp anymore. The bluish walls provided enough light, and I wanted to preserve the battery.
The passage gradually became colder.
Dampness seeped through my clothing, while fatigue began returning to my legs and injured shoulder.
Aura stopped several times to listen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I need to be careful which route I take with you. Ever since we left the upper tunnels, I’ve had the feeling that someone is following our trail.”
I immediately remembered the man in the dark jacket.
“There was someone following us above. We saw him near the pyramid and again inside the tunnels.”
“What did he look like?”
I described him.
Aura said nothing, but her pace quickened.
“Do you think he followed us?”
“Maybe.”
“Who could he be?”
She hesitated before answering.
“There are beings underground who are not like the people of the middle levels.”
“Worse?”
“Much worse.”
“Who?”
“We call them Archons.”
I had heard the word somewhere before.
In ancient religious texts, it referred to rulers or powers standing between humanity and a higher world.
“Are they descendants of the invaders your ancestors escaped from?”
“Perhaps descendants. Perhaps only tools left behind by them. Our oldest records contradict one another.”
“Are they human?”
“No.”
“Aliens?”
“Their origin may lie beyond this planet. But some records suggest that they did not come from another place at all, but from another layer of reality.”
I frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Not everything that exists has to be accessible to your senses.”
“You said they can change their appearance.”
“Not exactly. They influence the nervous system and the way the observer’s brain perceives them. Two people can look at the same being and each see something different.”
“So they cause hallucinations?”
“Something similar. They can amplify the image you fear—or the appearance you trust.”
The silhouette of Suzy flashed through my mind once again.
“Was it really you?” I asked.
Aura stopped.
“What do you mean?”
“When I first saw you. Could you have looked like Suzy only because someone was influencing my mind?”
“I wasn’t running from you to lure you anywhere.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I don’t know what you saw, Johann. But if there was an Archon in the upper tunnels, it could have used your grief to make you follow me.”
“Why?”
“Perhaps it wanted you to open the way.”
The pendant against my chest suddenly grew warm.
Aura raised a finger to her lips.
“Quiet.”
She switched off her device and pulled me close to the wall.
Ahead of us, the passage curved into complete darkness.
At first, I saw nothing.
Then two greenish points appeared in the distance.
A moment later, another pair appeared beside them.
Two sets of eyes.
They watched us without moving.
Then both pairs vanished at exactly the same moment.
A faint scraping sound came from somewhere in the darkness.
And then we heard footsteps.