Chapter 215 Echo
"So what are you looking for?" The heat of the lamp flame rose along with the black smoke of the bad oil, and the palms of his fingers faintly tingled through the thick calluses. Kupp shrank his hand and raised it above shoulder height with a lifting gesture as far away from the flames as possible. , so that the flames can reach the steps at Kraft's feet in front.
"Frankly, I don't know."
Kraft slowly walked down the spiral corridor. Small stone bricks formed the front half of it, and arches were used to hold up the small space in the soil. Taller people need to stand in the middle and lower their heads to avoid bumping into it.
A slight amount of unavoidable seepage seeps out from between the cracks of the bricks and accumulates into droplets hanging on the wet arc top. The dissolved soil ash gives it a mixed yellow color, which looks like a slowly growing and pulsating egg sac under limited light.
This section of masonry load-bearing structure has a depth of thirty or forty steps. It is so monotonous that it does not have any words or patterns to express its purpose. It is only practical.
At the end of the descent, a large brick with the holy emblem engraved on it was embedded in the wall, polished and polished by moisture and repeated caressing. Afterwards, a wider square passage replaced the brick arch corridor.
It wasn’t because I suddenly understood cement technology that I could directly bond stone bricks. Rather than "building", perhaps "drilling" is more appropriate to describe it. The passage has passed through the deep soil and continues to advance in the rock formation.
The very geometric rock wall retains straight cutting lines, running vertically or horizontally, slightly concave or protruding, and progressing in sections, showing its former identity as a quarry.
Continuing forward, the width of the passage becomes more and more considerable, allowing two people to walk side by side. On both sides, hollowed-out square chambers expand to the sides, which may have been used for transfer and processing of stones.
The need to build a large number of above-ground buildings drove people to continuously extract stone from the ground and expand the space in the rock formations. The stone here seems to be solid, and there is no need to worry about collapse, so you can play freely.
Among the arranged cutting lines, you can also find some shallow patterns carved into the corners, which seem to have been done casually by the stonemason in his spare time at that time.
This underground space is mostly meaningless. The difficult air and light circulation underground severely limits the imagination of the uses of the quarry. After all, anyone with a normal mind would never be willing to stay here for more than a day; the damp environment also destined it to be unsuitable for warehousing. .
But it turns out that nothing in the world is completely useless.
Some strange structures were revealed. They were stone niches parallel to the ground. They were rough long strips with messy and rounded corners. They were completely opposite to the straight traces formed by quarrying. They were directly hewn in a sloppy rush. Only fine waste rock will be produced.
They are arranged like a honeycomb and embedded in the stone wall, with several floors up and down. They are similar to closet shelves for storing items, but they are wider and more numerous. They are not the same size as the sieve holes that have been eaten away by the hardwood. They extend from the range of lighting to the depths of the passage.
Coop followed Kraft into the section of the "closet" and looked curiously at the long stone pits. They were less than an arm's length deep, and it was easy to distinguish the accumulations within them by the light of a lamp.
The shelf is supported by yellowing and decaying strips with a dirty and gray background, covered with some brittle and weathered textile remnants that look like cobwebs. Some of the rot is adsorbed and hung on the ribs that have not been completely scattered, tangled in Loss of padding in joint gaps.
The skull shell without cervical vertebra support rolled inside the broken bones, opening up a dark hole leading to the dark interior. The multi-legged long insect was frightened by the sound and fire, and crawled out of the bone sinus with swaying joints and spongy lesions, and jumped into another area. dark.
Even though the concentration brought by the experience made his heart tighten for a moment and then return to stability, he still subconsciously reached out and rubbed his facial features to drive away the illusory itching.
"Put the lamp over here and light it." Craft waved nonchalantly, straightened his mask and covered his mouth and nose tightly, and got closer to the bones in the stone niche, as if an experienced tomb robber accidentally discovered some rare and precious funerary object.
He pointed to a spread out spine, "Look at this, it should have been there before you were alive, and the location is very typical."
After observing carefully for a while, Kupp realized that what Kraft was referring to was a section of the spine, which had damage that did not look like weathering or collision. It looked like something had spread and eaten away at one side of the vertebrae, forming a defect that penetrated into the intervertebral space. . "A case of bone tuberculosis in the spine is very typical. Most of the people buried here are patients with infectious diseases, and there must be a lot of tuberculosis. This location and shape are basically correct."
"But isn't tuberculosis in the lungs?" It's a bit beyond common understanding. As far as Kupu's limited understanding is concerned, they all come to the doctor because of coughing.
"Mostly, but not necessarily, it can go wherever it wants, but most of the time it stays in the lungs." Kraft rubbed his hands excitedly and fumbled in his pockets, but he didn't bring the tools he needed in his casual clothes.
"Is this what you're looking for?"
"That's not the case." He took his hand out of his pocket in disappointment and controlled the desire to flip through it. "It's just that I haven't seen it before. It's the first time I saw it today."
Then why does it look so familiar? Coop suppressed the question, not intending to pursue the contradiction in his words, "You didn't plan to take it back, right?"
"This is really not what I'm looking for."
Considering that funding the gravekeepers was already suspicious, taking something away just didn't make sense. After making a decision that was not very difficult, Kraft chose to bid farewell to the tuberculosis deceased for the time being and continue his aimless search.
Firelight and knocking sounds came from a stone room passing by. It was the group of people walking in front. They were trying to widen a stone niche so that they could stuff the corpses they brought into it.
When they saw someone passing by, they nervously stopped what they were doing, gripped the Holy Emblem pendant on their collars, and murmured something. They relaxed a little after recognizing the new and bright clothes, but still did not let go of the Holy Emblem.
The attempt to say hello only received a reluctant response. It is probably inevitable to feel a sense of horror when meeting strangers you have never seen before in a place like this. I only made a sound when I saw the two of them continuing to move forward. Be warned not to go too far into the fork.
"Thank you, don't worry, I won't get lost." Kraft responded with a kind smile. This sentence seemed not to have the desired effect, but instead effectively increased the tension.
When he figured out where his speech was inappropriate, he had already walked a long way along the passage.
The niche expanded to occupy the entire cave wall, and the bones were no longer placed in the form of separate tools, but became the building materials themselves.
Relics of the Great Plague.
The strong long bones of the limbs were stacked one by one like firewood in the winter warehouse of the castle, and the neatly embedded skulls were placed on the upper layer. It’s not that the builders didn’t want to pile them up randomly, but it’s just that they couldn’t store such a huge number of bones without using the space as rationally as possible.
The content behind the bones, such as worldly dignity, fear of death, religious beliefs, and humanistic sentiments, are stripped away and dissipated, returning to their material essence, something that is not fundamentally different from anything else in the world.
Use masonry on top of each other. After the initial shock, I entered a state of numbness or some kind of ethereal state.
Kraft, who was leading the way, turned around without warning and held Coop's shoulders. The latter understood and slowed down to listen. That is the echo of footsteps that does not belong to oneself, and it is particularly obvious in the ears of those who have experience paying attention to it.
(End of chapter)