Chapter 25The Whispering Gallery

I came back to myself, and my face was wet - tears, I realized. I couldn’t even guess how long I'd been out. There was no way to track time. Seriously, nothing like my isolation had ever happened before. I was totally abandoned.

After I fell, I lost a ton of blood. I felt this rush of life flooding through me. My first thought was weird, I guess. Why wasn't I dead? Being alive meant there was still something to do. I tried to shut down my brain, push away any thoughts.

Pain and grief totally overwhelmed me, and I just slumped against the granite wall.

I started to feel faint again, like this was the last fight before everything just...ended. Then, suddenly, this huge noise hit my ears. It sounded like thunder, but longer, and I could hear voices, fading in and out from deep in the gulf.

Where was this coming from? Probably something new happening inside the Earth. Maybe gas exploding, or a chunk of granite or something falling.

I listened really closely. I was dying to hear if the sound would come back! A whole fifteen minutes passed in this super tense wait. It was dead silent - so quiet I could hear my own heart pounding. I waited, kind of hoping.

Suddenly, my ear, which was resting on the wall, seemed to catch the faintest echo. I thought I heard vague, distant voices. I was shaking with excitement and hope!

"No way," I said. "It can’t be! It’s not real!"

Seriously, by really paying attention, I totally convinced myself that I was hearing human voices. But figuring out what they were saying? That was way beyond me. I was too weak to even hear clearly. Still, it was a definite thing - someone was talking. I was super sure of that.

There was this moment of pure panic. A wave of dread hit me, like my own words were bouncing back to me from miles away. Maybe I’d been crying out loud without realizing it. I squeezed my lips shut and pressed my ear against the massive granite wall again.

Yep, for real. It was definitely the sound of human voices.

I forced myself to crawl along the cavern walls, pushing myself until I could hear a little better. But even though I could hear something, the words were still weird, unclear, and didn't make sense. They sounded like they were being whispered, far away.

Finally, I kept hearing the word "forlorad" over and over, and it sounded like whoever was saying it was seriously hurting and sad.

What did that word even mean, and who was talking? It had to be my uncle or the guide Hans! If they could hear me, they had to be able to hear me, right?

"Help!" I yelled as loud as I could; "help, I’m dying!"

I held my breath, listening for anything in the darkness - a shout, a sigh, a question! But it was totally silent. No response! Time just kind of ticked by. A bunch of thoughts flooded my brain.

I started to worry that my voice, weak from being sick and suffering, wasn’t reaching my friends who were looking for me.

"It has to be them," I shouted; "who else could possibly be stuck a hundred miles underground?" The whole idea was just insane.

I started listening again, totally focused. I moved my ears along the wall, and found this spot - like a mathematical point - where the voices were loudest. I heard "forlorad" again, clear as day. Then came that booming sound like thunder, the one that woke me up.

"Okay, I'm starting to get it," I mumbled to myself after thinking about it for a bit.

"The sound isn't coming through the solid rock. My cavern's walls are granite - nothing could blast through them. It has to be traveling along the gallery itself. This place must have some crazy acoustics."

I listened again; and this time - yeah, this time - I heard my name, plain as could be, like it was thrown into the air.

It was my Uncle, the Professor, talking. He was chatting with the guide, and that word I’d heard so many times, "forlorad," was Danish.

Everything clicked. To be heard, I had to speak along the side of the gallery, just like a wire carries electricity.

But no time to waste. If my friends moved just a few feet, the effect would be gone - my Whispering Gallery would be toast. So I crawled toward the wall again and yelled as clearly as I could: "Uncle Hardwigg." I waited for a reply.

Sound doesn’t move that fast. Plus, the air down there, so far from light and movement, wasn’t exactly speeding things up. A few seconds passed - felt like forever to my hyped-up brain - and then I heard these words, which sent my heart racing:

"Harry, my boy, is that you?" A short pause before he answered. "Yeah - yeah." ... "Where are you?" ... "Lost!" ... "And your lamp?" ... "Dead." ... "But the guiding stream?" ... "Gone!" ...

"Hang in there, Harry. We’re doing our best. "...

One sec, Uncle, I called out; I'm totally drained - can't even answer your questions. But - seriously - keep talking to me, okay! Total silence would be, like, the end.

I felt that absolute quiet would be annihilation.

"Stay strong," my uncle said. "Since you're so weak, don't talk. We've been looking everywhere for you, going up and down the gallery. My dear boy, I was starting to lose hope - you can’t imagine how much I’ve been crying."

Finally, thinking you were still on the road by the Hansbach, we went down again, firing off guns to signal. Now that we’ve found you, and we can hear each other, it might be a while before we actually meet. We’re talking through some crazy sound system in the labyrinth. But don’t freak out, my boy.

Just hearing each other is something. "While he was talking, my brain was working overtime. A weird, undefined hope - vague and blurry - made my heart pound. First things first, I needed to know one thing."

I leaned my head against the wall, almost touching it with my lips, and spoke again. "Uncle." ...

"My boy?" he responded after a bit. ...

"It's super important that we know how far apart we are." ... "Not a big deal." ...

"Do you have your chronometer?" I asked. ... "Totally." ...

"Okay, try saying it out loud. Say my name, and pay attention to exactly when you say it. I’m gonna respond the second I hear you - then you time when my reply hits you. "...

"Perfect. So, the time between my question and your answer is how long it takes my voice to reach you. "...

"That’s totally what you mean, Uncle," I said, really excited. ... "You ready?" ... "Yeah." ...

"Alright, get ready, I’m about to say your name," the Professor said.

I pressed my ear against the walls of the huge gallery, and as soon as I heard "Harry," I turned and put my lips to the wall, repeating the sound. ...

"Forty seconds," my uncle said. " Forty seconds between the words. So the sound takes twenty seconds to go up. Now, if we figure a thousand and twenty feet per second - that’s twenty thousand four hundred feet - a league and a half and a little more. Those words felt like a total gut punch.

"A league and a half," I mumbled, my voice barely a whisper. ...

"We’ll figure it out, kid," my uncle said, sounding upbeat; "trust us." ...

"But do you even know if we should go up or down?" I asked, my voice weak.

"We gotta go down, and let me tell you why. You’re in this huge, open space, like a dead-end crossroads, and tunnels branch off everywhere."

Whatever got you here had to lead you to this spot, because it looks like all these cracks and breaks in the earth’s inside come from this massive cavern we’re in right now. Get up, have some grit, and keep going. Walk if you can, if not, crawl - slide if that’s all you can do.

"The slope’s pretty steep - and you’ll find strong arms waiting for you at the end of your journey. Let’s go, alright?"

Those words kinda gave me a boost.

"Later, Uncle, I'm heading out. As soon as I move, we won’t be able to hear each other. So, bye for now - see ya later." ...

"Catch you later, Harry - until we say Welcome."

That’s what I heard before I started this long, almost hopeless trek.

This crazy, unbelievable conversation that happened through tons of earth, these words exchanged, with the speakers miles apart - ended on a hopeful note.

I sent up one last prayer to Heaven, I sent up words of thanks - believing deep down that He’d led me to the only place where my friends’ voices could reach me.

This wild acoustic thing is pretty simple, really; it’s all about how the rock conducts sound. There are tons of examples of this weird sound traveling like that, but you don’t notice it in smaller spots. You can see it in the interior gallery of St. Paul’s, and in those strange caves in Sicily.

The craziest one is known as the Ear of Dionysius.

These memories of the past, my early reading and studying, popped into my head. Plus, I started thinking - if my uncle and I could talk across such a huge distance, there couldn't be a real barrier between us.

All I had to do was follow where the sound came from; logically speaking, I’d reach him if I didn’t run out of energy.

So, I got to my feet. But I quickly realized I couldn’t walk; I’d have to drag myself. The slope was steep, like I figured it would be, so I just let myself slide down.

The speed of the descent started getting seriously intense - a really scary drop. I grabbed for the sides, latched onto rocks, even tried throwing myself backward. No luck. I was too weak to save myself.

Then, the ground just disappeared.

I was suddenly thrown into a dark, gloomy space. Then I slammed into the rough edges of a vertical shaft - a perfect well. My head hit a sharp rock, and I completely blacked out. As far as I was concerned, it was game over.