Part Sixteen

Hideoshi tapped Nevsky on the shoulder, causing him to jolt.
"You scared me!" He hissed.
"Didn't mean to. Look at the walls."
Nevsky looked absently, then with attention, at the wall of the passageway.
"I see now," he whispered. "Some of the paint's chipped and flaking, though."
"Probably the dampness did that," replied Hideoshi.
"We've been tramping for hours!" Galen interjected.
For a long while the passageway led the Third Company steadily downwards, neither levelling out flat nor diverting in any other direction. Suddenly, out of the darkness the shape of a vast door, outlined by flickering torchlight stood gaping before them. The ground beneath their feet just as abruptly levelled out, transitioning from stairs to a smooth stone floor.
"Follow me," said Illari, whose shrill voice faintly resonated throughout the passageway, as he tiptoed through the door, bearing a lighted torch in his hand.
When Hideoshi and his companions passed through the door, they gasped. The room behind the door was vast, with a vaulted ceiling supported by colums arching far above their heads. Gigantic paintings of an ancient battle outlined in gold and silver were on the four walls of the room. Three vaulted doors stood before and beside the company.
"Boy! Which way!" Shouted the officers and the sergeants at Illari, who was gazing with upturned head at the magnificence surrounding him.
Illari started, then dashed towards the door on the left, his bare feet pattering across the stone floor. The members of the Third Company followed, many frustrated with the length of time they had travelled through the passages, to say nothing of their mission itself.
"I don't understand why," Galen muttered as he shuffled alongside Hideoshi, "why those Fairies said they want to fight evil, then they turn right around and say 'Oh, we'll just care for the sick and wounded'. Sound like inconsistent wimps that don't know what they're up to me."
"I'm not sure about that, but why didn't any Fairies go on this mission with us?" Takashi asked, glancing at his older brother. After several moments of silence, he turned to Nevsky, asking, "What do you think?"
Neither looking to the right or to the left, his eyes glazed in a blank stare, Nevsky said, "What of it?"
"What do you mean, 'What of it'? Do you want to get killed on a stupid, useless, wasteful mission?"
"We're all going to die anyway-I don't see why it should matter how."
Nevsky stiffened his jaw and his face paled, but no other reaction occurred as they tramped through the passageway.
"Why did I ever bother helping him?" Hideoshi pondered. "Now he's just as bad as if I'd done nothing. Nothing! He's hopeless!"
He took a quick glance through the corner of his eye at Nevsky. Nevsky marched as though oblivious to all, as though he were nothing more than a mere walking machine. At once revulsion, frustration, and pity seized Hideoshi at once, each attempting to dominate his will.
"What should I do?" His mind said.