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that part of the otherwise impenetrable rock face. Without another word, Craddock stepped inside.

The smell was instant and all encompassing. It was wet and rotten, the taste of it sucking at their throats and lungs, seeming to cling like cold grease, as though they were drowning in it. As the sickly yellow light hit the rough walls it revealed glistening rivulets running down them, the runoff seeping down through the rocks above, filtered through rotting leaves and dirt, carrying the stench of decay with it.

The walls themselves were grey, about six feet in height and maybe half that apart, causing the man in front to stoop slightly as he walked. The floor sloped down, precariously so at points, giving Tom the feeling that they were descending right into the centre of the world. The rain and wind no longer seemed to exist, cocooned as they now were in the earth.

They walked steadily for a few moments, the only sound that of their laboured breathing and the shuffling of their feet. Then Craddock raised his hand indicating they should stop. A few feet ahead of them Tom could see the tunnel opening out into an area maybe seven or eight feet across and about the same in length. The beam of his torch did little to penetrate the darkness, allowing him only to glimpse the edge of a wooden structure lay across the floor.

"This is it." The comment sounded pointless and hollow, even to Craddock's ears. He looked about to say more, maybe to offer some explanation , some theory, or maybe waiting for reassurance Father Tom couldn't give. Either way, without another word the two men stepped forward and knelt beside the structure. Placing his flashlight onto the ground, Craddock grasped the edge of the platform and pulled it towards him, uncovering what lay beneath.

Even without looking, Tom knew something was wrong. The smell in the small space intensified, cloying at his lungs, making him gag. And, even without the smell, the sick feeling in his stomach made him sure he didn't want to see into the hole that lay a few feet away. It was the last thing in the world he wanted to do in fact. But that fear, the fear of the unknown, was the enemy of knowledge, the thing Tom lived his life in search of. With a silent prayed to a God he was not sure could hear him, he drew his gaze to the ground.

It was a crevice, maybe a foot across, a natural fault in the floor. The first few feet of its sides could be seen dimly in the combined light of the torches before they dropped away

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