Tunnels 02, Deeper

cast shadows on those behind, giving the impression that something was lurking in wait. After his close calls with the winged creature and the hungry bug army, he wasn't going to take any more chances with the local fauna.
    But another part of his brain was also whirring away on the images he'd seen in the triptych, trying to make sense of them. He cursed his luck that he hadn't been able to fully decipher the inscription on the center panel in time. At least he had seen the letters that formed the remaining words. Now he was trying his hardest to recall them.
    Using the technique that usually worked, he forced himself to think about something unrelated, hoping this would unlock the images in his memory. He directed all his attention to the Coprolite map, much of which was still an enigma to him.
    All that he'd encountered so far, the chocolate cavern and then the temple, was on the map, clear as day, once he'd examined it again. The problem was, the rather strange icons that represented them were so small as to be almost microscopic, and he'd misplaced his magnifying glass somewhere along the way. It probably wouldn't have made much difference even if he did still have it, because there was no legend on the map to tell him what any of the features were. Interpreting them came down to pure guesswork.
    Nevertheless, at least the Coprolite map gave him some notion of the sheer scale of the Deeps. It had two major features on it: the Great Plain and its surrounding areas to the left, and to the right something that could very well be a huge hole in the ground -- he didn't need a magnifying glass to determine that! The same hole as portrayed in the triptych, he assumed.
    Numerous tracks radiated from the Great Plain, and many of these eventually converged at the hole, as if it was a street map of the center of some large conurbation back up on the earth's surface. And he was on one of those tracks right now.
    Quite a number of routes led off the hole and over to the far right of the map, where they all seemed to terminate in dead ends. Whether this was because the Coprolites never used them, or because they had never explored them, he didn't know. But this race had lived in these parts for how many generations he could only guess, and given that they were master miners, he would have been mighty surprised if they'd left any stone unturned or quarter unexplored. The Coprolites, from what he could gather, were not only master miners but master prospectors -- the two went hand in hand -- so they would have surveyed all the outlying areas in case precious stones or something similar were to be found there.
    Dr. Burrows wondered if his expedition, his "grand tour" of the subterranean lands, was going to culminate in him going up and down a series of these cul-de-sacs. Provided he could find some food and, more crucially, some clean water, his time would be occupied with exploring all the areas marked on the Coprolite map, combing them for ancient settlements and any artifacts of note.
    If this was the case, his journey had a finite end, and there was no way he would be reaching deeper levels in the earth's mantle, where untold archaeological treasures might lie or past civilizations beyond anyone's imagination might have once lived -- or still live.
    He knew he shouldn't be disappointed. Despite all the danger he'd faced, he'd already made some of the most remarkable discoveries of the century, probably of any century. If he ever made it back home, he'd be lauded as one of the greats of the archaeological fraternity.
    When he'd set out from Highfield on that day so long ago, heaving back the shelves in his cellar to begin down the tunnel he'd dug, as if he'd been a character from some farfetched children's story, he'd had absolutely no conception of what he was getting himself into. But he had got this far, and in the course of his journey he'd overcome everything that had been thrown at him, surprising himself in the process.
    And now, as he thought about it, he realized he'd developed a taste for adventure, for taking risks. As he strolled down the dark path, his shoulders straightened and he allowed himself a swagger.
    "Move over, Howard Carter," he declared in a loud voice. "Tutankhamen's tomb is nothing compared to my discoveries!"
    Dr. Burrows could almost hear the thunderous applause, the accolades, and imagine the many television appearances and the...
    His shoulders suddenly slumped again, and the swagger