by Heide Goody
Bez shoved the velvet purse out of sight and hurried to catch up with the others. Cope appeared in the doorway, waving for him to hurry.
“Where’s Merken?” she asked.
“What…?” Bez made a big pretence of looking back. “He was just behind me. He…”
Cope scoured the hall but there was nothing to see. A field of tiles, scattered with debris, wreaths of smoke drifting across it. Who could tell whether that piece of limb was Merken’s; which shreds of clothing had once belonged to the wicked man?
“He’s gone,” said Cope.
“He totally has!” breathed Bez in his best shocked voice.
“Lether yanera!” screamed one of the nearest grimlocks shaking his axe furiously.
Bloody snitch, thought Bez. He flicked the treacherous creature a few gestures which required no translation.
“He’s gone,” said Cope. She pulled Bez through the door and closed it behind them.
6
There was nothing to barricade the door with in case the grimlocks managed to cross the floor. Nonetheless, Cope grabbed a chuck of trap-flung stone and wedged it under the door for what good it would do.
“He’s gone,” she said for the third time.
“Great,” said Lorrika. When Cope gave her a sharp look, explained, “I was being sarcastic. This is not good.”
“He was a great man,” said Cope.
Bez bit back a bitter, sarcastic response.
“Let’s leave history to be the judge,” said Pagnell diplomatically, considering the way before them. “We’ll just have to manage without him. Things are going to get tougher ahead, not easier.”
“Ahead?” said Bez. “I’m sorry. I thought for a moment there you said, ahead.”
Pagnell pointed at a simple stone archway. “That’s the third of five thresholds. We’re over halfway.”
“Are you insane?” said Bez. “The man who brought us here under duress is dead. We’re not prisoners anymore.”
“Okay,” said Lorrika, frowning. “What are the alternatives, Bez?”
“We go back,” said Bez. “We leave, depart, withdraw, get the hell out of here. We grab our things, shrug and head back to the surface.”
Pagnell knocked on the door. “Um. Grimlocks, anyone?”
“We deal with them.”
“Make a deal with them?” said Cope.
“No, you simpleton. Deal with them.”
“Maybe we can pretend they don’t exist,” suggested Lorrika.
It took Bez a second to realise Lorrika wasn’t being facetious.
“Perception is everything,” she said. “At least, that’s what Rabo Poon believed. When we close our eyes, can we be certain the world is still there?”
“I’m going to risk saying yes,” said Pagnell.
“Defeatist,” she muttered. “If we concentrate hard enough, maybe we can remake the world beyond that door as we wish it.”
“Oh, come on people,” said Bez. He gave Cope’s arm an appraising squeeze – gods, the woman’s muscles were hard as stone! “We have the greatest swordswoman in the world here and she’s got a sword. I bet nearly all of those grimlocks are dead. A bit of the old snicker-snack and that’s the rest sorted.”
“Snicker-snack?” queried Lorrika.
“I am under instructions,” said Cope. “If the tooth-mage tries to run before we get to the Quill of Truth, I’m to damn well kill him.”
“Instructions from a dead man. All bets are off.”
Cope seemed uncertain. Bez could work with uncertainty. The warrior pulled out the pack of instruction cards from her jerkin pocket and searched through them.
Bez took advantage of her confusion. “We know the route back. We’ve walked it once. I’ve made a few notes of my own. We could actually survive this thing, yeah?”
Neither Pagnell nor Lorrika jumped to agree with him. It was perplexing.
“I mean, Lorrika, why are you even down here? You want to steal some stuff? Fine, let’s go back up top and rob the great and good of Ludens blind.”
“I’m not a thief,” she said.
“Right. Course you’re bloody not. So, what is it then?”
She shrugged. “It’s the technical challenge, isn’t it?”
“Is it? You want to put yourself through all this, stand in front of a great big magic feather, so you can tick it off your list? Didn’t put you down as a follower of Buqit.”
“I’m not. But the key to a happy life is the setting and completion of goals.”
“It would be something, wouldn’t it?” agreed Pagnell. He saw the disbelief on Bez’s face. “Oh, come now. Have a little professional curiosity. A wizard, a news-bard-person and a … a recreational treasure seeker. Down there lies magic, wealth and the greatest news story to hit this town since the invention of the falafel.”
Cope held up a card. “What’s a tontine?”
Pagnell frowned. “I think it’s a kind of musical instrument.”
“Probably not relevant then,” said Cope and put the cards away.
“Well?” said Bez.
Cope nodded. “Yes, apart from the cut to my chest, I’m fine, thank you.”
Bez swore a silent curse on the literal-minded. “What do you think about our situation?”
“Oh,” said Cope. “We’re going on. We have to.”
“But do we?”
“I want to. The Quill of Truth is the only way I’m going to find the answer to my question.”
“Maybe we can answer it for you,” said Bez. “Save you the trouble.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. It’s a very deep question. Lots of layers. You really, really have to think about it.”
Something thumped against the door. The wedge beneath it held, but Bez couldn’t see it lasting long.
“Onward,” cried Pagnell.
They moved down the tunnel as the thumps continued, through the third threshold, and towards another door.
“What do we face next?” asked Cope.
Pagnell had few notes left to consult. “The, um, Vice of the Infidels. Only a true shepherd can guide the faithful through. Doesn’t have a friendly ring, does it?”
The doorway in front of them was no wider than a common townhouse’s, although it was a good ten feet high. The open door was several inches thick and either made entirely of riveted metal or plated with it. Pagnell swung the door experimentally.
“So?” said Bez.
Pagnell shrugged and looked inside. The tunnel extended beyond the light of the torch. “There are regularly placed holes in the floor,” he noted.
“Maybe something shoots up through them,” said Lorrika. “Noxious gas?”
“Vicious spikes,” said Bez.
“Sausages,” said Cope.
Bez could have slapped the woman, but held back. Not because she was a woman but because she would have certainly slapped him back. “Sausages?”
“Would fit through those holes.”
“This is meant to be a deadly trap.”
“Poisoned sausages,” said Cope, undeterred.
“If we ever enter a trap called the Barbecue of Doom, I’ll look out for poisoned sausages. But this is the Vice of the— What was it, Pagnell?”
“Stay here,” said the wizard, taking the torch from Cope. He ventured down the corridor.
“We’ll just wait here, yeah?” Bez shouted after him. “Scream if you need anything.”
As the torchlight faded, darkness closed around them. From behind the hall door came the sounds of continuous bashing and thumping.
“Cope: tell Bez about your great quest,” Bez heard Lorrika say.
“I’m sure he’s not interested,” said Cope.
“I think he will find it … enlightening.” There was an amused tone in Lorrika’s voice.
“Very well,” said Cope’s voice. “My quest is in the form of a question, given to me by High Shepherdess Gwell. Once I have understood the answer, I will know my true purpose and understand what I must do
with my life. In all honesty, it is a vulgar question, but I understand truth can come from the basest sources.”
“The question,” prompted Lorrika.
“Yes,” said Cope. “In search of a true answer, I have tracked beasts from the Aklan Plateau to the sea, and observed their ways. I have consulted the mage academics of Aumeria. I have studied philosophy with the wisest men of Carius. I have learned the Finoreans believe the great black is the spirit of their forefathers. I have heard the Ainuma legend of the demon grizzly. I fought with one in the Yarwish forests while trying to inspect its leavings and I kept one of its teeth as a keepsake but I—”
“The question!” snapped Lorrika.
“Of course—”
The hammering on the wedged door through which they’d recently passed changed abruptly in tone. One hard thump and there was a scraping and twisting sound: of wood coming apart, of something being forced open.
“Gods!” yelled Lorrika. “Inside!”
Blindly, they moved forward in the dark, through the thick door to the hole-lined tunnel. Bez reached out for the door; felt hands bigger than his reach over and ram it shut behind them. There was the solid unarguable sound of several bolts sliding into place.
“Did you do that, Cope?” said Bez.
“Do what?” said Cope.
“Anyone?”
“I didn’t touch anything,” said Lorrika. “Cope?”
“What?”
“Did you do that?”
“What?”
The yellow light of the torch grew: bobbing and weaving along the tunnel towards them.
“Okay, okay,” said Pagnell, a little out of breath. “Some of the flagstones wobble. Not sure why. There’s a door down the other end, locked in some way. I don’t think the trap is set off until both doors are—” He stared at the closed door.
“Cope did it,” said Bez without hesitation.
“Can’t leave you alone for a minute!”
“Because Lorrika told me to!” said Cope.
“I never!” Lorrika protested.
“Oh, and I suppose you always do what people tell you do, do you?”
Cope appeared to give this some thought. Whatever that thought might have been was interrupted by a clunk and a grind from above.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Bez.
Spikes of black iron, two feet long, emerged from holes in the roof even as the ceiling slowly began to descend. Lorrika, quicker thinking than the others, shifted her feet away from the holes in the floor. Bez leapt in alarm but no spikes came up.
“Top and bottom match,” said Pagnell, forefinger pointing down. “Pegs in holes.”
“We’re going to get squashed?” squeaked Bez. “The Vice of the Infidels. Why is it never a metaphor?”
“We have to get out,” said Lorrika reasonably, pushing past Pagnell.
She had not gone far when the ceiling, which had been descending at a sluggish crawl, gave a thunk and dropped an inch all at once.
“Whatever you just did – don’t!” said Bez.
Lorrika looked down at her feet. She shifted her balance and the paving stone she stood on rocked. The ceiling dropped another inch. “Look.”
“What?” said Cope.
Lorrika rocked the stone again and the ceiling dropped again.
“Which part of don’t is confusing you?” squeaked Bez.
“The more we move, the sooner we die,” said Pagnell.
“Grand!” muttered Bez. “We just stand here and wait to die. That’s some plan!”
“We would have had more time to think about it if someone hadn’t shut the door!”
Bez glared furiously at Cope. “So what do we do?”
“We find a way out, right?” said Lorrika, already exploring along the floor, testing stones and feeling at the seams. She had the nub of chalk in her hands and was marking each stone in turn. “Don’t tread on the crosses.”
A thumping noise began on the door behind them. It sounded distant, muffled.
“They’ll not get through that so easily,” said Cope.
“And we’ll have the same problem at the far door,” said Pagnell. “Neither will release until the trap has gone through its full cycle.”
“Cycle?” said Bez. “You mean…?” Speared by spikes or crushed by the descending ceiling. It wasn’t much a choice of deaths. Bez was unhelpfully put in mind of the grimlocks’ song, of jam composed of lungs and spleens and wobbly kidneys in their goo. “What kind of depraved sadist would come up with a contraption like this?” he demanded of no one in particular.
“Kavda the Builder,” answered Pagnell. “Although I don’t think he was either depraved or a sadist.”
“You don’t think? You don’t think? A huge mechanical mouth designed to mush us up into paste! Not depraved? You have to give me sadistic at least!”
“A lot of this does seem a bit excessive, true. But, it’s like Lorrika said, it’s the technical challenge. I believe Kavda the Builder was more interested in whether something like this could be done, not if it should be done.”
The tips of the descending spikes were now at eye level. Bez shifted his head so it wasn’t in any danger of getting poked by one. Cope took two of the spikes in hand and, for no visible reason, tried to bend them away from each other. It was pointless activity, but Bez guessed if you spent your life hitting, squashing and bending things then why change your ways right at the end.
“Well, marvellous,” he said. “We’re all about to die the most horrible deaths imaginable—”
“Do you spend a lot of time imagining deaths?” asked Cope.
Bez ignored her. “—but, it’s okay, because the guy who made this didn’t really mean any harm. Let’s spend the last few minutes of our lives in silent admiration the craftsmanship of this bloody inescapable magic trap.”
Cope grunted. She had bent the spikes maybe an inch out of true. They were no less spiky and no less deadly, but there was an odd sense of achievement on her imbecilic face. She moved forward, avoiding a flagstone marked with a cross and set to work on two more spikes.
“It’s not inescapable,” said Pagnell, quietly, to himself.
“What?” said Bez.
“An inescapable trap would be dangerous.”
“What? Yes. Obviously totally dangerous! You do know it’s going to kill us?” The fact he was having to explain this while stooping to avoid the ceiling was beyond stupid.
“Kavda was very safety conscious,” said Pagnell. “That note of his. He made sure his builders wore protective boots while filling the acid pools. He was a details man. He was down here every day, overseeing the construction. He must have considered the possibility someone, himself even, could have accidentally triggered this trap. There has to be a reset switch, or a secret passage to get out.”
“There are no secret passages in this place,” said Lorrika, coming back up the tunnel, at a crouch.
“Okay, no secret passages.” Pagnell scuttled around in frantic thought. Bez hoped the wizard could produce evidence he had a remarkable brain before the descending stones did the job for him.
“Vice of the Infidels,” Pagnell murmured.
“Yes?” said Bez.
“Only a true shepherd can guide the faithful through.”
“Yes?”
“A true shepherd.”
“Yes.”
“A shepherd.”
“Not sure repetition is the answer.”
“What’s special about a shepherd?”
“Not a lot,” said Lorrika. She took a nasty sharp thing from her belt and shoved it in the narrow gap between wall and descending ceiling. It instantly snapped under the pressure.
“They have sheep,” called Cope as she bent spikes.
“Yes,” said Pagnell. “What else?”
“Rams.”
“Yes.”
“Lambs.”
“Apart from the animals,” Pagnell groaned.
Cope grunted loudly. The spi
kes in her grip were now gently curved, like the fangs of a serpent. She moved off in search of others, the giant woman almost bent double under the falling ceiling.
“A crook,” she said. “You know, their staff.”
“Is this helpful?” said Bez. “Because I’m struggling to see the benefit…”
Pagnell considered the grimlock spear-turned-torch in his hand. He stabbed it into one of the holes in the floor. It sank a distance.
“You’re not going to be able to prop the ceiling up with that,” said Bez.
Pagnell shook his head.
“You think there’s a catch or lever down one of the holes,” said Lorrika. “A release switch—”
“—That would be pressed by the descending spikes—”
“—Or could be activated by a man with a stick—”
“—And Kavda and the high priests of Buqit would have known which hole.”
A quiver of excitement and dread fluttered through Bez’s innards; excitement there might be a way out and dread he might die with the hope of release so close. “What are you waiting for?” he said.
Pagnell bent the spear in the hole, snapped it in half, and passed one half to Lorrika. “Start down the far end,” he said. She scurried away.
Pagnell waggled his half a spear in hole after hole, bent-backed as he worked along. “Got anything long and thin?” he asked Bez.
Bez was about to make a glib comment when he remembered he still had a paintbrush on him. He whipped it out and began to jam it in holes.
“Jiggle it a bit,” said Pagnell.
“Take it from me,” said Bez, “I’m jiggling for all I’m worth.”
The space between floor and ceiling had shrunk to the point Bez was crawling on hands and knees. Ahead, Cope was forced to scuttle like a crab, still yanking on spikes whose tips were scant inches off the floor.
“They’re not magic either, you know,” said Pagnell.
“What?” said Bez.
“These traps. You said it was a magical trap. It’s not. Kavda was an engineer, a scholar of natural philosophy. This trap, I’m sure there’s a cunning pulley mechanism or such to raise the stones again but, at the moment, this is just falling stones trying to kill us.”
