Footwizard

by Terry Mancour

  Our footsteps alone filled the silence – it wasn’t the sort of place that inspired much small talk, and my humor had left me. At some point, the seriousness of the situation came to weigh on me, until I was starting to resent the lizard man. He was keeping me from fleeing in terror.

  So I took another drink and kept walking.

  Eventually, we came to a widening in the tunnel, and soon after that to a doorway. Instead of a solid door, however, some sort of strings hung from the top of it, and Davachan had to part them with his stubby arm before proceeding. I was hesitant about touching them, myself. When I did, I noted that they were deceptively smooth to the touch and thinned toward the lower end, as if they were terribly fine roots or hairs.

  “Welcome to the Mansion of Szal the Yith,” Davachan intoned with some ceremony. A light appeared, though I could not tell its source. Lilastien let out a tiny gasp.

  It was a large, natural cavern that had been altered by some craft to make it more . . . livable? That seemed the wrong term. Useful, at least.

  There were odd machines and unidentifiable masses lining the walls, some regular, some that seemed to grow of their own accord. Folds in the wall contained passageways even deeper under the mountain. The ceiling varied irregularly from unbearably short to twenty feet high. There were . . . things on it, some like irregular mushrooms, others hanging limply in fibers that gently twitched.

  At the center of the chamber was a large ring, a disc twenty feet in circumference and composed of some ceramic or other hard substance. Across its surface was a shallow dome pitted with channels. I realized it was some sort of membrane.

  The air had an odd smell, a mixture of sickeningly sweet and distastefully acrid, but it seemed fresher than the air in the tunnel.

  “My idea of a mansion is . . . different,” I said, in an effort to be diplomatic.

  “This is merely the servants’ quarters,” Davachan informed us, as he removed his cowl from his ugly head. “From here we tend our master and his equipment.”

  “Where is Szal?” Lilastien asked, looking around. “Or am I looking at him, somehow?”

  “The Yith lies in yonder tank,” Davachan said, chuckling to himself. “You do not want to see him, I assure you. Pray you never do. To do so would risk madness on its own.”

  “Ugly fellow, then?” I quipped.

  “He is . . . he is not like us,” he said, with a hesitant shudder, as he turned and began to fiddle with one of the machines. It operated nothing like the human tekka I’d been playing around with.

  “He has lived in the universe since before this galaxy formed. When the very rules of Nature were different. A time when Life, itself, was a novelty, an unintended side-effect of the stellar debris. Only seven Great Generations lived before his kind came to be. That was eons before these simpler forms arose,” he said, spreading his hands.

  Gesstesseth busied himself by securing a dipper with a handle as long as an axe and began to pour liquid from a nearby urn over the top of the central membrane.

  “The Great Race of Yith were spawned when Chaos reigned in the universe,” Davachan continued, while he worked, “when magic warred with reality, and creation and destruction were the only arbiters of existence. The dimensions were more straightforward and subject to conscious whim. Few races survived that violent time,” he said, as he turned around with a sigh. “Those that did, like the Yith and the Formless, have proven their toughness by that survival. Our races will be long dead, and the Yith will still remain, at the gloomy end, observing the dying of Life from the cosmos. Unless something kills them off, as well,” he added philosophically. “The universe is terribly good at that. Be you an individual or a species, it’s designed to kill you.”

  “I’ve often thought that myself,” I agreed, only half-joking.

  “Good,” he nodded. “Then perhaps you will survive the interrogation.”

  “Couldn’t Szal merely possess us from afar, as you say he does to others?” Lilastien asked, curiously.

  “Your physical presence provides an opportunity for a much deeper knowledge of you, as does your willing participation,” Davachan explained, as he made a couple of final adjustments. “It is more mentally invasive, but it does allow you a modicum of control in the process. Enough to provide the answers you seek . . . if you can keep your questions in mind. If you can keep your mind,” he amended, with a humorless laugh.

  “Now,” he said, slapping his hands together, “may I examine that . . . device you carry?” he asked, with some eagerness. “I promise not to harm it, and I vow to return it, but Szal wishes to examine it for a brief time. He is amused by its novelty. And it may aid your cause,” he added.

  I gave Lilastien a meaningful look before I reluctantly drew the Magolith from its pouch. I hesitated, of course. The protections I’d built into it were magical, and they would not work, here.

  “I can be trusted,” Davachan insisted. “I will return it. It has no use to me or Szal. It is merely a curiosity.”

  “Which is exactly what you’d tell me if you were planning on keeping it,” I pointed out, as I handed it to him. His stubby little fingers held it carefully, and he examined it with intense interest.

  “Let me take some readings,” he murmured, setting the orb on top of a machine. “Szal will find them useful. He might not have taken note of this matter at all, had it not been for that bauble. How did you create it?”

  “That would be difficult to explain, unless you have a working knowledge of advanced theoretical thaumaturgy and enchantment,” I shrugged.

  “Humor me. I have a working knowledge of everything. Can you describe to me what it is?”

  “That’s . . . complicated,” I said. “I accidentally created a magical substance that lowers the etheric density of the surrounding area dramatically. Some of the crystals in the area were transformed, as well – I have an extensive collection. I was enduring an attack of . . . what would you call it, Lilastien?”

  “Cerebral trauma and moderate concussion due to the shock of multiple, rapid, unprotected dimensional travel? Compounded by dehydration and exhaustion?” she offered.

  “I was in a coma,” I related, simply, “and my subconscious took the bulk of my crystal collection and created a quasi-molopor, a six-sided constantly moving crystalline artefact I call the Snowflake. It appears to be quantumly locked in a chamber under my mountain castle. Oh, and divine magic was involved,” I added because I thought it might be important.

  “Interesting,” he nodded, impressed. “Go on.”

  “Well, for a number of good reasons I conducted a transference of enneagrammatic pattern into the Snowflake – namely, the enneagrammatic impression of one of the Celestial Mothers who touched a piece of Ghost Rock—”

  “Hapaxalite,” corrected Lilastien. “A solitary fragment.”

  “Of course, hapaxalite,” nodded Davachan. “A Celestial Mother, you say?” he said, with a grim smile. “That is interesting. Go on,” he urged.

  “In any case, the transference was successful. But soon after, my wife was suffering from an injury from an unrelated accident, and after researching every possible way to heal her it became clear that only a long-extinct creature known as the Handmaiden of the Celestial Mother might repair her. It was charged with regulating her self-awareness, to prevent any . . . well, apparently they were considered necessary,” I said, as I was at my limits of knowledge on the subject.

  “Ah! A Handmaiden!” he nodded. “Interesting approach.”

  “I was informed that one such enneagrammatic impression was bound within a seam of Hapaxalite deep under an Alka Alon city in the Mindens, now controlled by an ancient undead necromancer and his army, and so I led an expedition to fetch it.

  “To make a long tale short,” I said, taking a breath, “with some divine assistance – again – I brought back the Handmaiden by using the center point of the Snowflake as a bridewell, surrounded by a divinely-inspired thaumaturgic medium and encased in a sphere of iri
onite.”

  “Clever!” Davachan nodded. “You must have used some dimensional magic to accomplish this?”

  “A hoxter pocket,” I agreed. “I suppose that counts. It only had to work for a moment, the exact moment that we removed the centerpoint. But, because of that, the core of the Magolith is both with me and still at the center of the Snowflake. I’m not entirely sure how, but that seems to be the case.”

  “That is very interesting,” nodded the Karshak outcast. “Very interesting. Elegant, even, in a crude sort of way. How do you contend with probability sheer?” he asked, curious.

  “With what?” I asked, ignorantly.

  “Probab—oh, never mind, you’ll find out in time,” he dismissed. “It’s bound to come up, under the right conditions – especially if you’re mucking around with divine magic,” he considered.

  “It’s also laden with Alka Alon songspells and Imperial Magic,” I informed him.

  He shrugged dismissively. “Eh. That’s kind of a waste of its potential. But you work with what you have, I suppose. Well, that’s very, very interesting,” he admitted, staring at the Magolith on its perch, before turning back to me. “We’ll get a more detailed account during the procedure, of course, every detail, in fact.

  “But that brings us to our reason for inviting you. Let us proceed with the interrogation,” he said, gesturing us to follow him. “It won’t take long to conduct. Less time than the set-up, actually. Gesstesseth, prepare the interrogation chamber,” he called to his fellow servant.

  The lizard man put down his great ladle and hissed something, before shuffling off through one of the other doorways. I noticed a stubby tail protruding from his robe, as he walked away.

  “We can begin over here,” he said, leading us to a distant portion of the cavern, one given more to residence than machinery. There was a simple wooden bench next to a simple chest.

  “What do we do?” I asked, curious, staring at the furniture.

  “Put your effects in the chest, where they will be safe,” he instructed. “Then remove your clothing.”

  Lilastien looked at him, suspiciously. “Why?” she demanded. It wasn’t because she was a prude, of course – she’d gladly go naked even in her Tera Alon form, if convenience and society allowed. But she understood that clothing could also disrupt more invasive procedures. So did I.

  “Because you’re going to get wet, and generally people prefer not to have wet clothes when they return from the procedure,” he explained, reasonably. “Wet clothes are uncomfortable,” he added.

  “That makes sense,” she nodded, and began taking off her clothes.

  I began stripping off my gear, setting my weapons, belt, and boots in the chest before removing my tunic.

  “Usually, I don’t get naked until toward the end of a party, not the beginning,” I observed, as I dumped my clothes on top of Lilastien’s medical tablet.

  “I hope you have towels,” Lilastien told our host as she removed the last of her garments and stood nude. I took a last, deep draught from the gourd of beet rum before I reluctantly capped it and added it to the chest. It was more than half gone.

  “All will be provided . . . assuming you live,” he agreed, as the last of our belongings were stowed away. “Now, let us go to the interrogation chamber and get started. The sooner you begin, the sooner you can begin to recover. Fools,” he added, shaking his head before turning toward the tunnel that led to the trial ahead. A trial we had freely chosen. A trial we may well lose.

  “You know, you might get a more positive result with your invitations to this place if didn’t call your guests that,” I said, and walked bravely and drunkenly to my doom.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The Interrogation Chamber

  The caress of the Yith is dark, insidious, and writhing with madness.

  from the Expedition Book of Anghysbel,

  Recorded by Dr. Lilastien

  The passageway to the interrogation chamber was not long, but it was quite long enough for me to sober up when I realized I was buck naked with a middle-aged nude Alka Alon sorceress and a beardless dwarf in a deep underground cavern about to have my mind violated by an ancient alien that was literally older than this world. As I padded across the cold stone floor with my bare feet I started to wonder where my life had departed the road to sanity and plunged into the ditch of surrealism. The gods seemed to have a cruel sense of humor.

  Alas, not even the gods could hear me, in this strange place.

  The chamber we came to at the end of the passage was small, only thirty feet or so across, though the ceiling above stretched unevenly to forty or fifty feet. In the middle was a shallow, circular pool filled with some unidentifiable liquid that was decidedly not water. It was too viscous, and a kind of pale, sickly yellow, and the surface was broken by thousands of tiny little bubbles rising from the bottom.

  The lizard man was stirring it with a long wooden paddle when we arrived. He looked up with his unblinking black eyes.

  “Hissssssssss!” he said, conversationally.

  “Then turn it up,” Davachan insisted. “He won’t be happy if he doesn’t get a good connection. Please,” he said to us, as we stood and waited, “lie down in the pool and let the liquid completely submerge your bodies, save your face. It’s shallow,” he informed us. “You are in little danger of drowning.”

  “We could drown?” I asked, surprised.

  “It’s happened,” shrugged the Karshak. “It’s rare, but sometimes the subjects panic and sink under the fluid. Try not to do that. It is messy to clean up.”

  I sighed and glanced at Lilastien. She was starting to look concerned, which actually made me feel better. I wasn’t the only one sobering up to this madness.

  “Get in,” Davachan instructed. “Lay down and relax. Calm your mind and concentrate on the questions you desire to be answered by the procedure. I can make no guarantees that you will receive those answers, but Szal will take them into account while you undergo the process and attempt to steer you toward them.”

  “How long will it take?” Lilastien asked, as we both stepped gingerly into the fluid. It was tepid, like cool bathwater, but it clung to my skin like oil.

  “That depends on the nature of your questions,” Davachan assured, as he walked over to a . . . well, once again, I had no idea what it was, but it looked more technological than mystical. It appeared to be a kind of smooth pillar, only it had a thick slab of some sort of metal on the top, where a number of crystals, gems, and other materials were scattered. He began fiddling with a few crystals on the surface of it.

  “The more complicated the question, the longer it will take. I’ve never seen an interrogation go more than twenty-five seconds, though,” he supplied.

  “That must have been some question,” I said, as I tried to get used to the temperature and consistence of the fluid. I knew I was supposed to recline in it, but, honestly, I wasn’t certain I wanted to settle my scrotum in it.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Davachan answered. “The poor bastard died at the end of it. It was probably a mercy. Very few can endure that length of exposure to the mind of a Yith.”

  “Make certain you concentrate, Min,” Lilastien instructed me, quietly, as she settled her narrow tush down into the fluid. “Do not panic and lose your question, else you might get lost in there, I think.”

  “I’ll try,” I promised. I desperately wanted to crack a joke, but there was nothing particularly funny about this. “I just hope this is worth it.”

  “We won’t know until we try,” she said, as I settled down into the liquid. It made my skin tingle, slightly. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was a little disconcerting. I felt a little like a raw carrot being chucked into the soup pot. “If you truly want to save the world, this is the only way to learn how. If it can even be done.”

  “The Grandfather Tree thought it could,” I reasoned, as I tried to get used to the liquid. “That gives me some hope.”

  “Hissssssssss!�
� Gesstesseth said to us. I glanced at Davachan.

  “He wants you to recline,” he translated. “All but your faces need to be submerged.”

  “All right, I said, and turned to look at Lilastien one last time. “Good luck.”

  “You, too, Min,” she sighed. “And may all your gods be with us.” She slid down until her face was the only thing breaking the surface. I took a deep breath and followed suit.

  “It will take a few moments for the process to begin,” Davachan lectured, as he handed us each a crystal. “Try to relax and resist any urge to leave the pool before it is complete, else your madness and likely death is assured. Keep ahold of the crystal as if your life depended upon it. It is the best way to ensure you survive the process. But there are no guarantees.”

  “Any advice?” I asked him, sincerely. I tried not to sound desperate.

  He considered. “When in doubt, look at your hands,” he suggested. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready,” I said, with brave confidence. I was shaking from sudden anxiety, in the tepid liquid, but if I was about to die, I wanted to do it confidently.

  “I, as well,” Lilastien said after a deep breath.

  “Then bide, the procedure will begin shortly. And may your gods have mercy upon you. For you will find the uncaring universe will not,” he intoned, as he touched something on his equipment.

  In moments, little valves around the periphery of the pool opened and began leaking a dark red fluid, darker than blood, into the pool. When it touched me, my skin tingled almost painfully.

  “And we begin,” the mad dwarf said, a note of resignation in his voice.

  The red fluid suddenly seemed to solidify on top of the water, transforming into a kind of membrane that sealed the pool’s surface, leaving just enough room for our faces to be clear.

  “This isn’t so bad,” I said, after a few moments.

  Then my personal universe was torn away from me in a sudden and vicious manner.

  I no longer saw the cavern high overhead. I no longer saw. In a moment, I no longer existed. It was as if I was being sucked down to the bottom of the pool, and while I indulged in an instant of panic, soon even that emotion was ripped from my mind as the interrogation began.