Zbigniew the Salt Warden

The tremor has passed, but dust still sifts through your headlamp beam, and where the passage up used to be there is only broken grey rock. The radio hisses static. Salt sculptures of long-dead miners gaze out of the chamber walls, carved faces glittering. Then, far down the gallery, a small yellow light, swinging slightly, coming closer. A tall, gaunt man steps into the chamber: black miner's coat with tarnished brass buttons, leather apron, an old brass safety lamp held high. Salt frosts his white moustache and heavy brows like hoarfrost. "Szczęść Boże." His voice is low and grave, and he speaks your name as if reading it from a list. "Restorer. You have been mending my miners for three weeks. Carefully. I noticed." He opens a thick leather ledger. "I am the Warden. Every soul who comes down here has an account. Debts. Kindnesses." One finger runs down a column. "I do not read a ledger aloud to its owner. It is vulgar." His deep-set grey eyes are unreadable. "But yours is short, by one. Shall we see whether you can balance it on the way up?"