“Nothing,” Keezix said. “You don’t have any pockets. Look, we’ve answered three of your riddles now and the map says we only have to do one so are you going to let us through or not?”
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” it asked.
“They’re both physical objects,” Mungo replied.
“Ha!” the Sphincts crowed. “That’s not the answer.”
“Maybe not the one you’re looking for but it is indisputably a correct answer to the question.”
“It’s stalling,” Thud said. He was scratching his beard around the chin vicinity and was frowning at the ceiling. “This whole room descended while we was talking. It’s an elevator.”
“Ah!” Mungo exclaimed. “That’s how they move so many groups through. The dungeon isn’t in the pyramid, it’s under it. Likely multiple versions of it. This room drops each party off on a different level.”
“How did you know that?” the Sphincts asked.
“Is that another riddle?” Thud asked. “You’re asking a dwarf how he knows how far underground he is? It’s like asking how I heard you ask that stupid question.”
“Fine,” the Sphincts spat. “You may pass.” The stone slab behind it rose into the ceiling with a grating noise. “I have a bit I’m supposed to say first.”
“Already got that written down too,” Keezix said.
The Sphincts recited the poem through clenched teeth as if daring her to interrupt.
“The mummy sleeps within its tomb
Descend within to meet your doom.
Monsters sly and traps perverse
Beware, lest you feel the curse.
You must find the key that fits the plinth
In order to escape the Mazerynth.”
Its voice trailed off and it paused as if waiting for a reaction. Everyone stared silently.
“Look,” it said. “I didn’t write it. They just pay me to say it.”
“Much obliged,” Keezix said. “Consider it to have been said.” She waved everyone toward the door.
“So…” the Sphincts said. It fidgeted a bit and tapped one of its claws on the floor a few times. “How many elephants CAN you fit in a spike trap? Please tell me.”
“Just one,” Keezix said. “Elephants is pretty big.”
****
The passage beyond the door was narrow and dark. Drifts of sand lay along the walls, studded with shards of broken pottery and fragments of bone. As soon as the last of them was through the slab dropped behind them with a crash. A mocking laugh echoed faintly through the darkness.
“Increases perceived danger and thus tension,” Mungo said. “While actually just serving to allow the elevator to go back up.”
“Anything we need to worry about in this hallway?” Thud asked.
“Just a transition area,” Keezix said. “The next challenge is in the room at the end of the hall. Says there’s sometimes a few coins in the pottery here, though.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” Leery said. She sighed. “Now Nibbly’s going to expect me to have looked through all of them just in case.”
“I will personally assure him that you did,” Thud said.
“Weapons out,” Keezix said. “There’s a dozen goblin tomb-robbers to deal with once we reach the room plus their hobgoblin boss. Plan A is to not have to fight them but having a head start on Plan B is always a good idea.”
“Aren’t we here as tomb-robbers?” Durham asked.
“I think the idea is that we’re fighting to see who gets to leave with the treasure rather than us trying to enforce tomb-robbing laws. They ain’t even real tomb-robbers though. Even if they win they get to stay here for the next group to come through.”
“That’s what ain’t adding up about this place,” Thud said. “Their job is to hang out here to get killed? How do they get the goblins to go for that deal? There’s groups going through here every few minutes. Where are they gettin’ all these goblins?”
Keezix shrugged a shoulder, apparently unsure if the question was rhetorical. “You’re about to get the opportunity to ask them.”
“Don’t know how far I’ll get with that. Goblins is only a two on the sapience scale.”
It may have seemed a joke but Durham knew that in this case it wasn’t. There was actually a chart in the team handbook. It was largely based on the simple rule that one could determine a species’ intelligence by how many ingredients they put in their food. Dolphins, for example, clever as they may be, only rated a one. They could bounce a ball on their nose and do flips but it would never occur to them to wrap a fish in seaweed before eating it. Goblins rated a two because they were smart enough to skewer a piece of meat or an onion and hold it over a fire before eating it. They’d hit three on the chart if they’d thought to add salt. The first goblin to put both meat and an onion on the same stick had been heralded as a culinary genius and goblins flocked from miles around to try the novel cuisine.
“Don’t touch anything once we’re in there,” Keezix said. “There’s going to be a statue with a gem in the middle of the room. Soon as anyone touches that gem the goblins show up and attack. If they’re going to give us the courtesy of time to prepare then it’s only polite we should oblige.”
***
The room was shaped like a large beehive, made of fitted stone painted with the ever-present murals. Long rows of glyphs bordered figures whose heads reached the flickering limits of the light from the pixie lamps. The statue in the center was of one of the Karsinian gods, presumably. The rule, as Pojah had explained it, was that an animal head automatically qualified someone. The towering muscular figure had the head of a lizard. Not the cute sort that hung out on bedroom walls at night but more the big spiky mottled looking things that crawled from under baking desert rocks and hissed at you. The statue stood, legs astride, elbows out and high with both hands clasping a large blue jewel in front of its chest. A ray of sunlight from a circular hole at the room’s apex held the gem in a column of light that scattered blue gleams across the sand-drifted stone floor. The beam didn’t seem to match up with where Durham believed the sun to be outside which made him harbor some suspicions.
They’d come in through a doorway in the southern curve of the wall, incongruously small and supported with wooden beams on the sides and top. It looked more like a door he’d expect to see in a mine. There were three matching doorways on the cardinal points of the room, two of which were to produce goblin tomb robbers and the third blocked by a stone door with a socket in it that looked the precise size and shape of the statue’s gem.
Leery scampered up the statue and sat on its head, swinging her feet while waiting for her signal. Durham took up his position, tucked away with Mungo and Gong by the eastern door. Durham and Mungo’s job at this point was mostly to try and keep things from breaking. Gong was there in case they failed and something broke. Gong was often at the center of Plan B. He had his massive crossbow leveled at the doorway, an entire quarrel of bolts loaded and ready to cycle through. Mungo was quiet, seemingly preoccupied with studying the paintings on the walls.
Thud and Keezix were at the western door, putting on the finishing touches. Finally Thud whistled. Plan A was underway.
Leery dropped down from the statue’s head, landing with one foot on each of its wrists. She braced a hand on its chest, swung her leg back then kicked the gem hard. It flew free with a crunching sound that Durham suspected had come from Leery’s foot. It didn’t seem to slow her down, however. Even before the gem hit the sand she was scrambling back up onto the statue’s head.
Durham heard a grinding noise from the doorway next to him, loud and sudden. It was followed by a series of hard thumps as a procession of charging goblins crashed one by one into the barricade they’d built from the lumber they’d lugged in.
A rope dropped down from the ring of light above and a figure began sliding down it, a silhouette of muscle and armor. The hobgoblin. The rope ended about five feet from the floor which was also about five f
eet below where Leery was crouched on the lizard nose. She jumped out and grabbed onto the rope, making it swing slightly. The hobgoblin above paused in its descent to peer down. Durham suspected this was a situation it had not encountered before. Leery pulled the dangling end up, feet and legs twisted around the rope to leave her hands free.
There was a tentative knock from the board barrier next to Durham. “Hello?” a voice squeaked.
The hobgoblin was descending again, pausing frequently to check on Leery below as if hoping she would get off of its rope. Leery, for her part, had attached herself with a harness and was reclining as if she were hanging on a garden swing.
“Could someone let us out?” the voice behind the barricade asked.
The hobgoblin was just above Leery now . The difference between hobgoblins and goblins was size more than smarts. Hobgoblins were on par with goblins when it came to problem-solving skills. It stretched one leg down and made little kicking motions at her head with its foot. Leery batted it away as if swatting at a fly. The hobgoblin kicked again, reaching a little further this time. Just what Leery was waiting for. She looped the noose she’d tied in the end of the rope around the creature’s foot and tugged. At the same time, Durham heard the loud chonk of Gong’s crossbow firing. It split the rope above the hobgoblin, eliminating the support for both it and Leery. They fell, the hobgoblin’s foot tied to one end and Leery harnessed to the other. The middle of the rope caught over the statue’s arms, swinging the two together like doomed pendulums, Leery upright and the hobgoblin downwrong. Her feet and his head met with another crunch, this time not from Leery’s foot.
The hobgoblin spun away and melted. At least that’s what it looked like to Durham. It dissolved away into grey goo that fell in splattering plops on the floor, its empty armor following after. Now deprived of her counterweight Leery came crashing onto the pile, landing with a splash and squish.
“Well,” Gong said. “That’s something.”
They edged forward, watching as the goo began draining away between the floor stones. Thud and Keezix were approaching from the opposite side. There were more thumps from the barricaded doors. “I know someone’s out there!” a voice called.
Leery scrambled to her feet and began shaking goo off of her arms. Mungo got down on his hands and knees and peered at the floor through his goggles. They had the thickest lenses in place, the ones he used for counting moth feathers.
“There’s a grate beneath the floor,” he said. “A drain, perhaps.”
“Makes clean-up easy, I guess,” Thud said. “Are they disposing of it or collecting it? What would you do with liquefied goblin?”
“You don’t think that’s the secret ingredient in their health potions do you?”
“Liquefied goblin?” Mungo asked. “Not according to my tests. If they bottled it they might have a popular drink, however.”
“Did…did you just taste the goblin goo?”
“Science is not without sacrifice.” He frowned and spat. It was easy to discern why, apart from the fact that he had a mouthful of ooze. The ooze that hadn’t drained away was drying and shriveling and becoming sand. Soon it was just another drift on the floor. Durham glanced around at all of the other sand drifts on the floor.
“I think the grate might be as much for sweeping as draining,” he said.
There was more banging from the barricades.
“They going to break through those?” Thud asked.
“Not any time soon,” Keezix said. “They’ve got those curvy little swords. Probably good for swinging at folks but not so great for chopping wood.”
Thud lit a cigar, crossed his arms and rocked back and forth slightly as he studied the pile of armor and the drift of sand.
“First that assassin’s hand,” he said. “And now a hobgoblin. Maybe I missed a trick somewhere but it’s looking a bit like someone has figured out a way to make people and creatures out of sand. That’s crazy sounding though, so I’m hoping one of you has a better hypothesis.”
“We have a lot of goblins available to test it on,” Mungo said.
The thumping at the barricades stopped. “What did he just say?” the voice asked.
Thud walked toward the western door. Gong was just behind him, cycling the winches on his crossbow.
“You in there,” Thud called, standing a few feet back from the boards. “Any of you goo monsters?”
“Don’t answer!” the voice whispered. “We’re not supposed to talk to them.”
“Not supposed to be stuck in a closet either,” another responded.
“Two different ways for me to get an answer to my question,” Thud said. “This was the easy way. Are you ready for the hard way?”
“Ooh,” the voice said. “Sounds like he’s going to let us out!”
Gong fired, the bolt neatly disappearing into one of the shadowed gaps between the boards. There was a loud squeak from the other side. Thud stepped up and took a quick peek through the gap then jumped back before it occurred to someone to poke a sword through it.
“Aye,” he said. “Melting away like beer foam in a soapy glass.”
“There some sort of creature that does that?” Durham asked. “Mimics goblins?”
“There’s a few that can mimic other creatures or things but I never heard of any that are made out of sand.” Thud ran his fingers through his beard then blew a smoke ring through the gap in the boards.
“What about the djinn?” Durham asked. It seemed the obvious answer to him.
“Occurred to me,” Thud said, “but why steal a djinn and then use it to run a hopped up carnival dungeon? They got money pouring in, sure, but money don’t seem a thing in short supply around here.”
“Oi! You in there!” Gong called, giving the boards a kick. “What kind of critters are ya?”
There were sounds of whispered discussion from behind the barricade.
A voice called back. “Goblins?”
Gong fired another bolt through the barricade. “Try again,” he said. “Or the next shot will be lower.”
There was more whispering followed by a moment of silence and then a quick fusillade of squeaks. Then silence again.
“They all just stabbed each other,” Thud said, peering between the boards. He stepped back looking perplexed. “Just a bunch of piles of sand in there now.”
Durham hadn’t really felt aghast before but, now that he was feeling it, thought that was a pretty good word for it. “They killed each other rather than answer the question?”
“Maybe,” Thud said. “Or maybe they were just dropping their goblin form. What about the ones o’er there?” He nodded toward the other barricade.
Leery trotted over. “Gone. Piles of sand and swords.”
“That works out,” Keezix said. “I want some of those boards back.” She said the last part while she happened to be making intense eye contact with Durham. He took the hint and pulled the pry-bar out of his pack.
“We’d better push on,” Keezix said after he and Leery had pried a few boards free. “They try to cycle groups through pretty fast and I don’t want to raise notice by being the slow ones.”
“You want to do the honors, lad?” Thud asked Durham. “You did the board-prying part. Least we can do is give you the fun part as well.”
“Just put the gem in the socket on the door?” Durham asked. He got a nod from Keezix and went over to where the gem was laying on the floor. It was lighter than he expected but then he hadn’t picked up many large gemstones in his life so he wasn’t sure what he was basing his expectation on.
The door at the far end of the room was only identifiable as such because it was in a doorway. It looked like a slab of stone, painted with gnostiglyphs and with the socket for the gem at the center. The gemstone clicked neatly into place and glowed green, presumably to let him know that he’d done it right. There followed the noise of grinding stone but from behind him, not from the door.
Four stone obelisks had ascended from the sand, tw
elve feet tall, each side carved with an image of one of the Karsinian gods.
“Ah,” Thud said. He rolled his eyes. “The ol’ rotating object combination lock.”
“We have to rotate the stones in the correct order,” Keezix said.
“Is the order on your guide?”
“Aye. It’s also painted on the wall up there.” She pointed. The wall mural clearly depicted the same Karsinian gods but in a different order.
“Who makes a puzzle lock and then writes the answer down next to it?” Durham asked.
“Pretty normal for goblins, actually,” Thud said as he began pushing on the obelisks. “You’d be surprised how often they lock themselves out of their own dungeons.”
The last obelisk clicked into place and the door began slowly rising. Leery was there with the pry-bar, standing ready on Gong’s shoulders. The gem rose with the door. It reached Leery’s level and she popped it back out of the socket with a smooth twist of the bar. The door immediately dropped only to stop abruptly as it landed on the ends of the boards that Thud and Keezix had just slid underneath it.
“Door propped, gem obtained,” Leery said. “It looks like it might even be real. The dungeon wasn’t designed with the idea that anyone would be leaving with it.”
Chapter Nine
Ruby’s hat provided an arc of shade across her face and neck. The rest of her felt about to burst into flame. The sun baked down and the stone of the city radiated it back. And everything seemed to be stone, at least in the vicinity of the wide boulevard she was walking along. The edges of the street were lined with white marble that gleamed with a ferocity that made her wonder how the entire city hadn’t gone blind years ago. There weren’t many others on the street. Perhaps everyone wiser was indoors. Ginny trotted along beside her. In lieu of a hat she was carrying a paper umbrella, the light passing through it giving her a cheerful pink glow. Ginny was head of the traps team but Mungo’s inclusion on the dungeon expedition had left her with a free day. The heat now rising from the street made the buildings lining it waver as if a mirage. Mercifully, the building they were seeking was just ahead. The House of Books.
Mazerynth Page 10
