by Dante King
“I hope this passage is big enough for your lizard and my bear,” Rollar said, looking a little worried.
Fang and the direbear were not only coming along because they were our mounts. In addition, they were serving as improvised pack mules. The direbear was carrying the heavy steel wolf’s head weapons from Yeng, which used the Emperor’s alchemists’ explosive gray powder to launch the red balls that detonated immensely powerful fireballs. The powder and red balls had been stored in waterproofed barrels strapped to Fang’s flanks. I hoped that these weapons could be used against the wyrms, as long as we were able to get them into the caverns, of course.
“If it’s not, those two are going to have a very long swim—well, a walk along the ocean floor—ahead of them,” I said. “But we might as well try. Come on, let’s see if we can find the entrance to the passage.”
We explored the isle and found the entrance to the Black Passage in a few minutes. It was a large cave, located between two Jotunn-sized boulders that formed the peak of the fortress-sized isle. This part was large enough for both Fang and Rollar’s undead direbear to fit into, and I hoped that would be the case for the rest of the passage.
“How are we going to find our way through the dark down there?” Friya looked uncharacteristically uncertain. “This part of the journey has not been in my dreams, so we are truly heading into unknown territory.”
“We can’t use torches,” Layna said, “because of the swells of water that periodically flood the labyrinth with the tides and waves, according to what the pirates said.”
“And I can’t use my Light powers because there’s no sunlight, starlight, or moonlight down there,” Elyse said.
“Ah, but I can, with the Dragon Sword,” I said. “Call upon your Light powers now, Elyse, and I’ll use the alchemy of the Dragon Sword to fuse the light magic to some Death energy. We’ve got enough of it to keep a bright light burning for years with Fang and Rollar’s direbear.”
Standing on the highest boulder of the isle, Elyse raised her mace to the sun. A shaft of brilliant light beamed down on her, enveloping her in dazzling luminescence. In an instant, she transformed, covered in gleaming golden armor, with her mace doubling in size. I held out the Dragon Sword and drew on the Death energy of Fang and the direbear. My vision was filled with the glowing gray skull of Death magic and the shining yellow sun of Light magic, both hovering like phantoms in the air in front of me.
I pulled the Light energy into the Death magic, keeping the idea of constant, inextinguishable light in my mind while blending them. I asked my party for an unenchanted weapon, which I could imbue with this new power. Layna was eager to volunteer one of her prized weapons for the task: a beautifully crafted dagger with a long, wavy-shaped blade.
I poured the new power into the dagger, and the blade turned from a polished silver hue into gleaming metallic purple. The weapon now glowed with a bright violet glow. I climbed down to the shore with it and dipped it beneath the lapping waves. It continued to glow underwater, its brightness not dimmed at all.
“I’ll give it back to you when we’re back above ground in Prand,” I said to Layna. For now though, I needed to keep it as I would be leading the expedition through the Black Passage.
I took one last look at the ocean and open sky, wondering whether it would be day or night when we emerged on the other side. Steeling my resolve, I clambered down the rocky slope that led into the heart of the caves. The usefulness of the dagger became immediately apparent as soon as we got a few yards into the tunnel. Past the entrance, where some sunlight still filtered down from above, the labyrinth was pitch-black. When I sheathed the dagger just to see how intense the darkness was, I couldn’t see my finger an inch from my eyes. I pulled the dagger out again, and the cave was flooded with brilliant violet light, easily enough to read by even a good few yards from the dagger.
We walked down the passage for half an hour, seeing no signs of any other passages or routes, although we did hear the muted roar of waves and the gurgle of water rushing through some parts of the cave system. The cave remained large enough that Fang and the direbear were easily able to fit through them. The ceiling was fifteen feet high at least, and the width was always a few yards across. Eventually, we came to a section where the cave forked into three different tunnels.
“All right,” Friya said, “now we have light down here at least, but how are we going to figure out which way to go from here?”
“I’ll follow my nose,” I answered.
“I’m a werewolf, Vance, and I dare say I have a better sense of smell than anyone here,” Friya said. “All I can smell down here is damp rock, saltwater, and rotting seaweed. What can you smell that I can’t?”
“I’m following a scent that no mortal nose can pick up,” I said. “The stink of death. Old death.”
“This entire area must be saturated with it!” Friya exclaimed. “We’re under the ocean, and there have to be trillions of dead sea creatures everywhere.”
“No, I’m looking for a very specific death scent,” I countered. “I’m able to pick ‘em out now, like a human bloodhound. Well, a bloodhound god. You know what I mean.”
“And what scent is that?”
“Dead cave trolls. Cave trolls are the wyrms’ preferred snack, I’ve heard, so where there are a lot of dead cave trolls, we’re gonna find wyrms. And the caverns where the wyrms are won’t be under the ocean. It’ll be under Prand. If I can find the wyrms’ lair, I can find the way out of these tunnels.”
“Understood,” Friya said, nodding. “It seems there are things even a werewolf’s nose cannot detect.”
Anna-Lucielle stepped forward, looking nervous. “There’s, uh, one thing I’m worried about, Vance,” she said. “Percy mentioned that the last section is all underwater, and that you’d have to be able to hold your breath for five minutes while swimming through it—and that’s if you get the route right the first time. I, uh, I really don’t think I can hold my breath for even two minutes, much less five.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan for that when we get there,” I said. “Nobody will have to hold their breath for longer than maybe a minute, ninety seconds tops.”
“You’re the God of Death, not the God of the Sea, Vance,” Isu said drily. “You’re not immune from drowning, and you don’t have the power to make others breathe underwater, much less yourself. And if you’re thinking of drowning us all and then resurrecting us when you’ve dragged us out of the water…”
“I definitely wasn’t thinking of doing that,” I said with a chuckle. “Trust me, there’s a way we can get through the underwater caves. You’ll see when we get there. For now, I’m going to do some scouting.”
I closed my eyes and fine-tuned my senses, sifting through all the ancient death that hovered and drifted here. It was astonishing how much there was. The oceans, it seemed, had held life for far longer than the land had.
When I’d first started out as an inexperienced, weak deity, I’d been able sense death only in the most crude and indistinct manner. I had known it was there, but I hadn’t been able to distinguish individual deaths among the great mass of it all.
Now, I realized that in those early days, I’d been seeing it all like an old, near-blind geriatric with thick cataracts over his eyes. These cataracts had slowly dissolved and fallen away as my power had grown. Now, they were gone completely. My death vision felt as sharp and crisp as any eagle’s, my nose as potent as a bloodhound’s when it came to sniffing out individual deaths.
Here, there were a great many dead marine creatures, and I could see them all—if seeing was even the right word to use for the process of detection I was using—but marine creatures weren’t what I was looking for. I concentrated more deeply, sifting through the immense mass of death scents, looking for the needle in this haystack. It was there, somewhere, I could sense it, incredibly faintly, like the hint of a smell of rain on a clear and cloudless day.
I pulled more Death power into myself,
amplifying the potency of my senses. Then, finally, I got it—or, rather, it grabbed me: the faint but undeniably distinct death scent of dead cave trolls. I honed in on it, focusing all of my thoughts and concentration on this singular scent. In my mind’s eye, an ethereal trail of black light came into being in front of me, like a long thread of wool, floating in mid-air, guiding us through this dark labyrinth.
“Got it,” I said triumphantly. “Let’s go.”
“Are you sure?” Elyse asked.
“Does Elandriel eat goblin shit and fuck goats? Hells yes I’m sure. I’ve picked up the scent of dead cave trolls, and not just a handful of them, hundreds of the smelly bastards. And unless there’s some sort of underwater cave troll graveyard around here, or a bunch of cave trolls did the lemming thing over the cliffs into the sea, then I’m pretty damn sure I’ve found us a way out of here. The only reason there’d be so many dead cave trolls in the same place is because they’ve been shat out by wyrms in their lair.”
I led my party through the fork, taking the tunnel to the left; this was where the black thread connected to the smell of dead cave trolls was leading me. Just after we took a few steps into it, I sensed the air pressure in the tunnel changing.
“Hang on everyone!” I said, getting the feeling that something big was coming.
Everyone dug their heels in and gripped onto each other. Drok and Rollar gripped onto Fang and the direbear, anchoring themselves to the massive undead beasts. Each of the barbarians held one of my shoulders, while I held fast to my women.
Then it came … a deep, whooshing roar, and a rush of air against our faces. With that sudden gust of wind came a black wave of water, smashing against us in the dark with cold force. Had we not all been braced for impact, it would have scattered us and thrown us around the tunnel like a gust of wind picking up dry leaves and flinging them around. For two or three seconds, we were underwater, then with a great, heaving suck, the water withdrew, leaving us drenched but safe.
“Now I see why regular torches wouldn’t have been any use down here,” Layna remarked.
“And I can see why only one man ever made it through this black hell alive,” Rollar muttered darkly. “If I’d have been down here myself, that wave would have bowled me over, extinguished my torch, and left me totally disoriented in this inky darkness. It’s only by sheer luck that a man could get himself out of this horrid maze alive.”
“Good luck, or a good nose for dead cave trolls,” I said. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”
We arrived at yet another fork. Again, I followed the ethereal black scent of the dead cave trolls to pick a tunnel. Once more, shortly after entering the new tunnel, I sensed an ocean wave rushing in. We braced ourselves, using the heavy undead beasts as anchors, and again we were drenched but safe.
After almost two hours of wandering through endless forks in the tunnels and their oncoming waves, we reached what seemed the end of the labyrinth: a large cavern with a black pool of water in the center. We walked into the cavern, relieved to be out of the maze of tunnels, and came to stand around the edge of the pool. With the cavern illuminated by the bright violet glow of the enchanted dagger, the pool looked like a giant vat of ink. There was no way to tell how deep it was, how many tunnels branched off it, or how far one would have to swim to reach the end of it.
“How the hell are we going to get through this, Lord Vance?” Rollar asked, staring at the pool with anxious eyes.
“Relax, Rollar,” I replied. “It’s all under control.”
“You said you had a way for us to get through this five-minute underwater section in a minute.” Layna raised one of her finely arched eyebrows in a skeptical manner. “Perhaps it’s time to tell us exactly how you plan to do this. I, for one, absolutely hate swimming.”
“Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to do any swimming,” I said. “All you’ll have to do is hang on.”
“Hang on to what?” Layna asked.
I snapped my fingers, and a number of shark fins slipped up out of the black water. My undead sharks had been with the ship this whole time, and while we’d been navigating our way through the labyrinth, I’d sent out a signal to them to seek me out. When I called out to my undead creatures, they would cross oceans, deserts, impassable mountain ranges, and hell itself to get to me. My undead sharks had navigated the underwater caves, drawn irresistibly to me like iron filings to a lodestone.
“Ah!” Rollar beamed out a delighted grin. “I’d forgotten about these creatures! How are we to hang on to them underwater, though, Lord Vance?”
“Just stab ‘em with your daggers and hang on to the dagger hilts,” I said. “Oh, and hold your breath too. I’ll go first, since I have to find the way. Once I’ve done that, my sharks will know the way. They’ll pull you through the underwater tunnel as fast as arrows shot from a huntsman’s bow.”
I would have preferred to send a shark on its own to scout a way through the underwater caves, but that was impossible. While their sense of smell was extraordinary when it came to detecting scents underwater, they couldn’t pick up on any scents outside of the water. Only personally was I able to follow the ghostly black trail that led to the dead cave trolls. I hadn’t tried holding my breath for a long time. Could I hold it long enough for my shark to swim its way to the end of the route? There was only one way to find out.
“I’m heading under,” I said to my party members. “Here, take this.” I handed the glowing purple dagger to Rollar; he and the party needed to keep it so that they would have a light source. I, meanwhile, would be continuing the rest of the journey in complete darkness.
“When will we know when you’ve reached the end, and when your sharks are ready to take us?” Friya asked.
I snapped my fingers again, and all but one of the sharks slipped down under the water. “When the sharks’ fins break the surface again, you’ll know that I’ve made it and that it’s time for you all to go. Watch how it’s done now … and I’ll see you on the other side.”
I drew Grave Oath, held the blade between my teeth, and then jumped into the water and swam over to the remaining shark.
“Here goes nothing,” I whispered to myself.
Then, focusing my spirit on the ethereal black trail of the scent of dead cave trolls, I filled my lungs with air, dived under the shark, and slammed Grave Oath into its underbelly. The blade did little damage to the undead beast. Anchored to its body in this manner, I was ready to set off.
I linked my senses to the shark’s own senses. They were wondrously accurate when it came to detecting underwater obstacles. The impenetrable darkness would have rendered my senses blind.
While the shark dragged me along, I used the creature’s inbuilt navigation system to create markers of where we’d gone in the underwater caves. The undersea cave system was just as complex and treacherous as the labyrinth we’d come through. As we went on through the pitch-black water, I found that I had to admire Captain Redbard. He had to have been either the luckiest or ballsiest pirate captain in history to have taken this on without any supernatural aid and made it out the other side alive.
I had always been a strong swimmer, but the strongest human swimmer in all the world couldn’t have come close to matching the shark for swiftness and agility underwater. What was more, with the undead beast’s magnificent navigation system working in tandem with my senses, avoiding underwater obstacles became effortless. I could anticipate their presence well in advance and swoop gracefully around them.
Less than a minute after diving under the shark and sticking Grave Oath into its belly, we broke the surface. I found myself in a pool in a huge cavern. There was a large exit leading to the base of the cliffs, against which I could see fierce waves crashing. A smaller, darker tunnel led out of the cavern into another system of tunnels, deep below the earth. This was where the dead cave troll scent was tugging me.
Now that I’d done the route and imprinted the memory of it into my shark’s senses, I was able to transfer
this memory into the minds of the other sharks. They would now be able to pull my party members through the underwater caves swiftly and smoothly, without any hassle.
I sent a command to the sharks to surface, wait to feel daggers being jammed into their underbellies, then to swim over here as quickly as possible. I also sent the instructions into the minds of Fang and the direbear; they were too big to hitch an underwater ride with the sharks, but since they didn’t need to breathe, they could simply walk through the underground caves.
After I’d done all of that, I found a comfortable-looking dry boulder and sat down and waited.
I saw them coming long before they surfaced. In the depths of the black pool, a violet glow began to become visible. Sure enough, the glow grew steadily stronger, and my party emerged coughing and spluttering from the water a few moments later.
“I guess you guys don’t quite have the lung capacity I do, huh?” I joked when they all came staggering out of the water, gasping for breath—all except Drok, who was beaming out his usual idiot’s grin. The long swim had washed some of his usual stink off, which was a welcome change for everyone except him. He sniffed at his semi-clean body, and his grin drooped into a frown.
“Ugh,” Layna growled, grimacing. “I hate swimming!” I had to wonder whether this was a personal thing for her, or whether all Arachne hated being in water. It made sense. I couldn’t think of a single kind of spider that voluntarily went anywhere near bodies of water.
“Elyse, do me a favor and step into that shaft of sunlight there,” I said to Elyse, pointing at a pillar of sunlight that was coming into the cavern from the exit near the cliffs. “And Rami-Xayon, could you pull up a stiff breeze for us?”
“I’m soaked to the bone and freezing cold!” Rami-Xayon protested. “We all are! A strong wind will give us all frostbite now, save perhaps those of us who come from the frigid climate of the Northern Wastes.”
