by Ari Marmell
Cræosh grinned. “Never overestimate the intelligence of the ogres, Shorty. I once saw one trying to wrestle a tornado.”
Belrotha glanced up sharply. “Who win?” she asked.
The entire hallway shook as Jhurpess slammed his heavy club hard into the nearest wall. “Jhurpess tired of this!” he shouted, waving his arms, glaring viciously at the lot of them. “Jhurpess tired of talking, Jhurpess tired of wandering like lost cubs, and Jhurpess tired of castle! Jhurpess wants to find queen and leave! Now!”
“Ape's got a point,” Cræosh agreed with a shrug.
“You think the entrance to the tower's up here after all?” Gimmol asked as Belrotha once more lifted him to sit beside her head. “I mean, Rupert's the first living thing—well, more or less—that we've seen. Maybe he was guarding the entrance?”
Katim's jaw curled. “I don't think so. Why…go to all the trouble of building a…secret entrance, and then go and…attack anyone who gets near? It…sort of ruins the secrecy, don't…you think?”
Cræosh nodded. “I’m inclined to agree with the troll,” he said. Katim allowed her mouth to gape open, and she clasped both hands over her hearts and staggered.
“Funny,” the orc continued, barely even glancing at her. “I think Rupert would've waited to attack us until we were away from the entrance, so as not to tip us off.”
“Unless he expected us to think of that, and so he attacked us when we were near—” Gork began.
“Stop it, Shorty, or I'll have to hurt you.”
“It was just a thought,” the kobold said sullenly.
“Yeah? Well you can take that thought and shove it back up your ass with the rest of your brain!”
“Hello?” Fezeill said, snapping his fingers. “Entrance? Tower? Remember?”
“If we assume that…the entrance is not here,” Katim continued, “then it only leaves one…place. The only place we haven't…searched. It really,” she added, “should have been…our first guess, now that I think…about it.”
“Oh, fuck,” Cræosh said succinctly.
Katim nodded. “Indeed.”
The squad, after a few brief stopovers in several of the castle's sundry supply closets, stood gathered at one of the doorways to the queen's unnatural garden. Each of them peered uneasily at the twisting plants and twisting paths—most of them because they'd seen the unpleasant varieties of vegetation residing therein, Belrotha because she still couldn't accept the sudden shift of seasons.
“Okay,” Cræosh said, “what now?”
“We still have to find…the door,” Katim told him.
“Yeah, I sort of know that. How do you propose we go about it? Leaving aside the fact that it really would be summer by the time we finished searching the whole place, I’m not getting anywhere near that damn ivy. I've already had to fight one homicidal shrub this month, and that's one more than my quota.”
“I agree,” Katim told him, a strange excitement coloring her tone. “That's why…I've got no intention of searching the…garden.”
“So what are we doing?” the orc asked, clearly exasperated.
“Clearing the…garden. Why do you think I…insisted we stop on the…way?”
Cræosh glanced back at the haphazard collection of supplies and then grinned. “Queen Anne's not going to be at all happy with us.”
“You know, I had that…exact same thought.” Then, together, they both called for the ogre.
Belrotha was more than strong enough to ensure that the barrels reached even the farthest corners of the garden, and that they cracked open when they landed. Even five barrels of the stuff wasn't enough to coat everything, but the mess was spread wide enough to serve.
Cræosh began to tear up as the fumes washed over them. “Shall we?” he asked, his nose wrinkling. Katim began striking flint and steel over the end of a torch, a tendril of saliva wobbling from a wide, jagged grin.
“You're enjoying this,” Cræosh accused.
The troll shrugged. “I've found very few problems that…cannot be solved with the proper application…of fire.”
“I swear, you're as bad as the bugbear.”
Katim's torch finally caught. “You may wish to…step back.” The blazing brand hurtled over the queen's courtyard, vanished from sight behind a shrubbery. For a long moment, silence—and then, with a heavy whumph, the torch ignited the first puddle of the lantern oil in which they'd drenched the garden.
The fire spread quickly, and plants unlike those found anywhere else on the continent began to burn. Thick, cloying smoke rose from the center of Castle Eldritch, impregnating the high-floating clouds, meshing its dull, greasy black with their pristine ivory. A choking miasma—alien, even obscene—spread perniciously across the city of Sularaam. It crept through cracked windows and open doors, clung tenaciously to clothing and carpets and hair. It would take weeks, perhaps months, before the city could rid itself of the lingering stench. Across the tiny isle, hundreds turned to gawk at the smoke that was rapidly transforming from a column to an umbrella over the castle's towers. But the doings of Queen Anne had always lurked beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, and though many a curse was leveled at the choking aroma, not one soul dared approach the castle to investigate.
Within the castle halls, the goblins crouched or huddled in the corners, curled up to shield themselves from the waves of heat that poured through the open doorway, hands clasped tightly to ears, lips and teeth pressed together in grimaces of torment. For within that garden, many of Queen Anne's plants did not go silently as they burned. Across that unhallowed courtyard laired the clinging vines that had required so much more sustenance than soil and sun—and those vines lamented their deaths in a terrible keening that scrabbled at not merely the ears, but at the mind. On it went, and on, unhindered by any animal need to pause for breath, and only when nothing but ash and charred clumps of sticky fibers were left did it finally cease.
And it was long minutes after that that Cræosh found himself regaining some sense of hearing through the pounding in his ears.
“Is everyone all right?” he called, somewhat louder than he realized. Some of the replies were more coherent than others, but everyone was alive and not totally deaf. He could only hope that by the time the flames died away, they'd all have recovered enough to move on.
Indeed they did—although Katim complained of sporadic ringing in her ears—since it was two hours before the last of the fires sputtered and died. Embers glowed here and there from within heaps of coal-gray ash, and puddles of sap and other fluids bubbled and steamed, but it appeared safe to cross.
It wasn't even that hard to convince Belrotha to step through the doorway. Apparently, she'd somehow decided that burning down the garden was sufficient punishment for its refusal to follow the law of the seasons.
It was Gork, of course, who gave a victorious shout, perhaps twenty minutes later. Every one of the squad was coated to the elbows in black sludge, where they'd pushed and dug through the clinging detritus that had been the ivies, saplings, and other plants growing along the walls. Gork traced a few lines in the ash, revealing the outline of the door.
Directly behind where the man-eating vines had dwelt. “Of course,” Cræosh said.
Gork peered at the latch, trying to determine if it was locked—and then threw himself back with a rather porcine squeal as Jhurpess, still impatient, slammed his club into the door. The portal flew open, very nearly wrenching itself from the hinges, and slammed against the wall of the corridor beyond.
“Well,” Gork announced sourly, “I guess it's unlocked.”
Jhurpess grinned at him, then grinned wider when Belrotha said “Good smash.”
“Oh, great.” The kobold shook his head. “They're encouraging each other.”
The passage beyond the door led to a spacious spiral staircase winding its way up the center of what had to be the tower they'd sought. The stairs themselves were clearly well used and well maintained both. Torches, unlit but ready to go, j
utted from sconces at regular intervals. The plush carpet—probably a deep red, though the light of the squad's own torches wasn't quite sufficient for them to be sure—remained firm, almost bouncy, and showed the impressions of many a footfall.
After enough winding about to make a wagon wheel dizzy—Gimmol, when asked, estimated that they were probably a good five stories or more aboveground—the staircase finally deposited them on a landing. It boasted the same thick carpeting, and a single door, which Gork swiftly reached out and opened, silently, before Jhurpess could use it for a gong.
The squad gathered tightly around the doorway, staring at what could only be Queen Anne's bedchamber. Cræosh, literally leaning over the kneeling kobold so as to get a better view of the room, found his jaw dropping in amazement.
It was ordinary! Yes, the carpeting was deep enough that Gork could have gotten lost in it. Yes, the canopied, four-poster bed was larger than the hut Belrotha had flattened in Jureb Nahl and trimmed in silks expensive enough to pay, if not a king's ransom, then at least a baron's. But for all that, it could just as easily have belonged to any one of a hundred nobles in any of a dozen kingdoms.
Well, except for a single repulsive (but, thank the Ancestors, not erotic!) portrait of King Morthûl hanging beside the bed.
Cræosh scanned the room, as he was certain the others were doing as well. In addition to the bed, the chamber held a huge wardrobe, a table with a gold-framed mirror, and two doors—no, three, counting the one in which they stood.
Except that one of them couldn't exist. Unless he'd gotten completely turned around, that should be the outer wall of the tower itself! It took a moment for his mind to stretch back several weeks and dredge up the relevant memory. “The carriage,” he whispered.
“What?” Fezeill asked.
“The carriage,” Cræosh repeated. “There was a door in the carriage, remember? Rupert said that it led to the queen's private chambers.” He shook his head. “That's a hell of a trick.”
“Indeed,” Gimmol agreed, nodding. “I couldn't even guess at the spells required to pull this off.” He paused. “I wonder if it functions when the teleportation wards are active?”
“I wonder if it matters,” Gork said sourly. “Can we just get this done with and worry about Queen Anne's parlor tricks later? I don't want to die here—and that includes of old age.”
“Keep your testicles on, Shorty, we're moving.”
A perfunctory search revealed nothing else unusual, and they quickly devoted their attention to the last of the three doors. “Queen Anne through here?” Belrotha asked.
Cræosh grimaced. “She fucking well better be. If not, it means we missed something. Else. I swear, this woman doesn't just have a thing for corpses, she's also got a bloody door fetish.”
Gork shuffled forward, reached for the door, and promptly flew across the chamber, accompanied by a sizzling sound rather like a lightning bolt coated in bacon grease. Whiskers standing erect, wisps of smoke rising from his fingertips, Gork used the wardrobe to haul himself upright and fixed the others with a baleful grimace. “I think it's someone else's turn to open a door.”
No one moved.
“Well, this is just fucking great!” Cræosh snapped. “After all this, we're not gonna let one damn door stop us, are we?”
“Of course not,” Katim told him blandly. “You go…right ahead and open it.”
“Um…Shut up, troll.”
“That's about what I…thought.”
To their credit, they certainly got creative. They tried everything, from bashing it open with Jhurpess's club (the wood somehow conducted the unnatural electricity, and Cræosh and Katim couldn't help laughing at the sight of the bugbear with his entire coat of fur standing on end) to standing back and letting Gimmol toss spells at it (none were strong enough to open the portal) to standing even farther back and letting Belrotha toss furniture at it (which bounced off).
“Gork!” Gimmol exclaimed suddenly. “The skull!”
“Gimmol!” the kobold replied in the exact same tone. “What the hell are you talking about?”
The gremlin sighed. “The talisman King Morthûl gave you, remember?”
Gork nodded slowly. “What about it?”
“He said it was a focus, to assist him in penetrating the barriers around the castle. Maybe we can use it here.”
“I dunno,” Cræosh protested from a few feet away. “Didn't he say that it had to be as close to the laboratory as possible? Are we close enough here?”
“No,” Gimmol said. “But that's not what I meant. Gork, hold the skull up to the door.”
“Not a chance! I’m not getting anywhere near that door again!”
The gremlin sighed. “So don't get too close, Gork. Just do it.”
Mumbling, the kobold raised the talisman and held it about a foot away from the door.
“A little closer than that, Gork.”
Grumble, grumble.
The skull suddenly began chattering and cackling, twisting in Gork's hand like a live rodent.
“Ouch!”
“What's wrong, Shorty?” Cræosh asked.
“It bit me!”
Gimmol's eyes went strangely unfocused. “Just hold it for another minute, Gork.…”
And then the gremlin cast his spell. It was a simple spell of opening, not much more than an apprentice-level incantation. It certainly wasn't powerful enough to open this door; he'd already tried it once, and failed.
But this time, speaking through parched and cracking lips now pursed in concentration, Gimmol cast the spell through the Charnel King's talisman, rather than at the door directly.
The skull ceased laughing. For perhaps a full minute, nothing else happened; and then it barked. There was just no other word to describe the abrupt shout that burst from the tiny marble mouth.
The door didn't open so much as it simply ceased to exist, revealing a narrower flight of spiral stairs, once more leading up.
Gork and Gimmol both stared at the skull, which was once again cackling maniacally, and then at each other. “If you've somehow used it up,” Gork said, shoving the talisman back into his pack, “don't expect me to get between you and His Majesty.”
This particular flight of stairs emitted an odd smell, one foreign to the rest of the castle. The closest that even Katim, with her acute senses, could describe it was as a vague olfactory echo of Queen Anne's own scent, combined with the dust of ages and just the faintest hint of decomposition.
“Um…” Fezeill stopped abruptly, his feet on two separate steps. “I’m just wondering…”
“What?” Cræosh asked, twisting at the waist to look back and down. “What is it now?”
“If we're here to stop Queen Anne's rite, or at least to let, uh, ‘someone else’ stop it…Do we really want to have the Tree of Ever on us? What if she gets a hold of it?”
Silence in the stairway.
“This,” Cræosh grumbled, “is a fine time to think of that!”
“Could tree stay here?” Jhurpess asked.
“No way,” Gimmol said before Cræosh could answer. “Leave it lying around the castle? Might as well give it to her.”
“Okay, fine,” Cræosh said, dragging it from his pack. “Belrotha?”
“Yeah?”
“This symbol said bad things about your mother.”
The ogre, who had turned sideways to fit through the staircase, glowered at him. “Me not stupid, Cræosh. Little tree thing can't talk.”
Sigh… “All right. I just wanted you to crush it.”
“Why you not just say so?” The ogre reached out, plucked the Tree of Ever from the orc's hands, and ground it swiftly into sawdust. The squad began tromping up the stairs once more.
“Cræosh?”
“Yes, Belrotha?”
“Why us bother to go to woods and get little tree thing, if us just going to crush it?”
“Shut up and keep climbing, Belrotha.”
“Okay. Cræosh?”
&nb
sp; “What?”
“You not talk about my mother again.”
The staircase finally opened up onto another landing, similar to the one providing access to the queen's bedchambers. Again a wooden archway sat in the center of the wall; no doorway, this time, but just an open space. Gork raised a hand, signaling the others to stop, and then crept silently to the gaping entryway. Crouched as low as he could, he peeked around the frame.
The laboratory—for surely this must be it—was perfectly circular, taking up the entirety of the tower's upper level. Shelves and hooks and cupboards and niches lined the walls, containing, it appeared to Gork, a bit of everything. Books, plants, fluids, stones, preserved body parts from a thousand different creatures, the tools used to extract said parts—these and more were scattered about, in no order that he could discern.
Standing in the center of the chamber was a platform of a rough stone, slanted at a steep slope. Carved into it was a human-shaped depression equipped with manacles of all sizes and shapes. And in the center of that hollow, looking ludicrously small, lay Shreckt.
He was locked down by the smallest shackles the contraption possessed, and he appeared weak and listless, his head lolling with the rhythm of his breath. Gork found himself wondering idly if they could afford to postpone their interference until after Queen Anne had finished with the aggravating little imp.
He tried to jump out through his own snout when Katim appeared beside him, almost as silent as he himself had been.
“Does it strike you as odd,” he whispered, trying to cover until his beating heart slowed, “that we just happened to show up when her ritual was going down?”
“Not really,” the troll said softly back. “She probably started…when she learned we were coming, in hopes of…getting it done before we…found her.”
“Indeed, I’m afraid I had to rush things. Do you approve, sweet Gork?”
The kobold and the troll tensed at that measured, feminine voice.
“Oh, dear. I've startled you. How rude of me. I know you're there, of course, just as I know that your friends are crammed rather uncomfortably into the stairway. Why don't you all come in?”
