Ratastrophe Catastrophe

by David Lee Stone

  It was gloomy too; secret tunnels and passageways beneath a mountain should surely be covered in symbols and runes or something. Not like this one, all brown and sewery. He reached out and touched a wall that felt pretty much the same as the walls back home.

  Jimmy was just wondering whether he should check for hidden doors or concealed levers, when he heard footsteps approaching. He panicked and ran along the passage a little way, his head throbbing as he searched for somewhere to hide. There was nowhere. How could you hide in a place like this? He realized that the only way to survive would probably be to surprise whoever it was, and the only way he could do that would be to lie down on the floor and suddenly leap up, before he was trodden on. Things didn’t go according to plan.

  “Ahh! My nose—”

  “Sorry, mate.”

  Jimmy looked up and could just about make out a grubby countenance staring down at him. “Stump?” he managed. “I thought you’d gone.”

  “Couldn’t get past the rock door,” said the prisoner, looking around the tunnel with a grim smile.

  “No, I tried getting back out that way when I first came in,” said Jimmy.

  “Sick and tired of this place,” sighed Stump.

  “I’m not surprised. Good of you to come back, anyway. Even though you didn’t have any option.”

  “Exactly,” said Stump. “So, how are you gettin’ on? Found the children yet, have you?”

  Jimmy subjected him to a thoughtful look. “Do you see any children?”

  The prisoner peered over his shoulder and shook his head.

  “Well, then,” said Jimmy. “Let’s assume the obvious, shall we?”

  Stump reached down to pick some grime from his toenails. “Pity about Mick,” he said, after a while. “I really liked him.”

  “Why?” asked Jimmy. “What happened?”

  “Well, I thought if Mick crawled through that little gap beside the slab he could probably get us some help.”

  “And?” Jimmy prompted.

  “The slab must not have shut properly. It rolled over a bit more.”

  “That’s terrible!” said Jimmy, shaking his head. “Poor Mick.”

  “I know,” Stump agreed. “You thought he was small before, you should see him now.”

  Jimmy suddenly put a finger to his lips. “Did you hear that?” he said. “Sounds like…I don’t know, like something.”

  Stump paused for a second, head on one side, and then shrugged.

  “Nah,” he said. “It’s this place, ain’t it? Gets to you after a while.”

  “I’m sure I heard something,” Jimmy insisted.

  “Could be goblins. You get a lot of goblins in places like this.”

  Jimmy nodded. He wondered briefly about the rat purge in Dullitch. Perhaps the foreigner hadn’t drowned them after all, he thought. Maybe he had brought them here.

  “Alio alio alio,” said Stump, who was prodding the floor with his foot. “What’s all this, then?”

  Jimmy looked over his shoulder. “Have you found something?” he asked.

  “Yeah, a thingy on the floor,” Stump answered. “It feels like a pedal or somethin’.” He smiled. “Reckon I should push it?”

  “Don’t you?” said Jimmy.

  “I’m not too lucky with these things. Last time I pushed a pedal in the dark, I spent six months in a scorpion pit.”

  “How did you get out of that one?” Jimmy asked.

  “Leather soles.”

  “Wow.”

  “Damn right.” He checked the pedal again. “So, do you reckon I should step on it or not?”

  Jimmy looked both ways and shrugged. “You might as well,” he said. “We’re not getting anywhere, here.”

  “What’re you doing?” said Tambor.

  “Well, the giant didn’t take my axe away, did he?” said Gordo. “Or Groan’s sword. Why was that, d’you think?”

  Tambor remained silent.

  “Humiliation point, isn’t it?” said Gordo. “He’s showin’ us we can’t take him out even when we’re armed.”

  Tambor nodded. “I see, so you’re…”

  “I’m just making the best of a bad situation,” said Gordo. He was scraping away at the wall with the head of his battle-axe. A few grains of dust drifted down from the brickwork.

  “You’ll never get out of a cell like that,” said Tambor, shaking his head. “People escaping from prisons by scraping away a bit at a time, it’s all just stories. It doesn’t actually work. Besides, how do you know this is his cave? He could’ve taken us to some sort of giant fortress. You could just be scraping your way into the next cell.”

  Gordo stopped scraping, turned and gave the sorcerer a wry smile.

  “Can you feel it?” he said.

  “Feel what?” asked Tambor.

  “There’s a draft coming from this wall. There’s probably a long abandoned passageway behind it.”

  “Or a lot of people blowing,” said Tambor, who knew the way the gods worked.

  “Grphnu,” said Groan. He forced himself up onto his elbows. “Where am I?”

  “In the infamous cell of a thousand secret exits,” said the sorcerer sarcastically.

  “What hit me?” asked Groan, groggily.

  “Same thing that hit me,” Gordo muttered.

  “Here,” said the barbarian, struggling to his feet and marching over to Gordo. “Don’t bovva wiv that.”

  There was a low rumble and a section of tunnel slid away.

  “Well, look at that,” said Stump, standing back.

  Jimmy stepped inside. The new tunnel was considerably brighter than the one they had been traveling along. It looked as if it might actually lead somewhere.

  NINETEEN

  SOMEWHERE IN THE DARKNESS, a wall heaved.

  Behind the wall, various nocturnals scurried away.

  A second concrete belch rocked the tunnel, larger this time, more weight behind it.

  Then the wall crashed down.

  “’S dark,” said Groan, widening the gap in the cell wall by booting out a few rogue bricks around the edge. “You got any good torch spells, sorcerer?”

  Tambor nodded and tried to think of the one that was hovering on the edge of his memory. It was a good torch spell, and, best of all, it didn’t require fire pellets. What it did require was a torch, but he’d snatched one of those from the cell and had it stashed inside his robe. Still, he supposed, there was no point in bringing it out if he couldn’t light it.

  “Bloke who sold me this battle-axe,” said Gordo, “told me it could glow in the dark.”

  One after another, they stepped into the passageway. Groan blocked the opening so that they could test out Gordo’s “torch.”

  It was pitch-dark in the tunnel.

  Nothing happened.

  At length, Tambor turned to the dwarf. “Was there a low counter in the shop?” he said.

  Gordo shrugged. “Why?”

  “I’m just wondering how that shopkeeper managed to see you coming.”

  Groan was first to laugh at the joke, which had a lot to do with there being three of them, and both of the others were involved in the telling. “P’raps if we follow this tunnel it might lead somewhere,” he said, once he’d stopped chuckling.

  “You reckon?” said Gordo, praying for strength.

  They walked along in single file, Gordo leading and Groan bringing up the rear. Tambor stumbled back and forth between them.

  Suddenly, a torch struck up in the darkness, bathing the tunnel in a warm glow.

  Groan and Gordo started.

  “Where did you get that?” said the dwarf.

  Tambor’s grin was so wide that it looked as if his face had split. “In the prison,” he said. “I just wanted to get it alight before I gave it to you.” He passed the torch to Groan and the party continued forward.

  “So the old magic’s coming back to your fingertips is it?” said Gordo.

  “Hah! I’m as surprised as you are. Isn’t it fantastic? Me
mory’s a wonderful thing, you know. The Naked Flame was one of the three spells I learned in my first week at the Elistalis in Dullitch. They’ve all but demolished the old academy now, you know.”

  Gordo nodded; he’d recalled the building on his first visit to the city. It had been a sight to behold, with its gleaming silver walls and the giant metal rings that spun endlessly on the roof. “Shame about that. It was very, er, dominating.”

  “What were the uvver two spells?” asked Groan, who was forever destined to remain half a conversation behind.

  “Well,” Tambor began, biting his bottom lip. “There was the Tower of Screaming Doom, but, of course, you’ve seen that.” He ignored Gordo’s loud sniggering. “And then there was Mortis Portalitas.”

  “What’s that?” asked Gordo.

  “The Door of Death. That is, the opening of an interdimensional portal between this realm and limbo.”

  “You were taught that on your first day?”

  “No, I said I learned it on my first day,” answered Tambor. “In actual fact, I read in on the wall in the boys’ latrine.”

  “Stone me. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to remember that one, will you?” said Gordo.

  “Hah! I’ve practiced, of course, but I’ve never had the nerve to actually finish the summoning.”

  A little way down the tunnel Tambor noticed a small square of indentations on what he took to be the east wall. He squinted at it. The patch consisted mostly of rough lines pulled together to make a language that didn’t quite sit right, no matter how you read it. It seemed as if whoever had made the markings hadn’t known how to spell the longer words properly and, instead of checking things through, had just taken his chances.

  “What is it?” said Gordo. He’d walked another twenty odd yards down the tunnel alone and was pretty annoyed that no one had bothered to call him back. Groan said nothing.

  “It’s some sort of writing. Hold on, I’m trying to translate. I think it’s religious,” said Tambor, feeling along the scratches with his index finger.

  “Mmm,” he said, after a time. “It says that in the beginning there was a stick.”

  “What kind of stick?” said Gordo. “Did it have things coming out of it?”

  “Just says a stick,” Tambor answered.

  “Was it one o’ them sticks wiv’ two ends?” said Groan, deep in thought.

  “I don’t know, it doesn’t seem that important. Either that or there was a loss of concentration, because then it starts going on about a garden.” Tambor leaned closer.

  “‘And the gods said, Eat of any tree in the garden, but be very careful that it be from the garden and not from anywhere else because’”—Tambor paused to catch his breath—“‘just outside the garden lives a serpent who makes his own fruit with instruments we didn’t give him.’”

  “Are you sure this is authentic?” asked Gordo, frowning.

  Tambor shrugged.

  “How does it finish, then?” said Groan, who was getting restless.

  “Er, let me see….Oh, here, there’s a prediction about the end of the world.”

  “Bet magic causes it,” Groan said, as he spat on the floor.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Tambor snapped. “Magic is perfectly safe in the right hands.” He went on to read about an old mage who wrote a magic book that led to the collapse of what, on Illmoor, would have passed for civilized society.

  “It reckons a barbarian invasion will thrust the world back into the dark age,” Tambor lied.

  “I thought we were in that already,” said Gordo, thoughtfully.

  “It’s all rubbish anyway, apart from the last bit,” said Tambor.

  “Why, what does that say?”

  Tambor squinted. “Well, apparently, we’re inside the Twelve, and it’s a warning. It advises us not to venture any farther unless we want to end up lost for the rest of eternity in a terrible labyrinthine maze.”

  “Hah! Load o’junk. C’mon, let’s move,” said Groan.

  They continued along the tunnel, which sloped down for a few yards and then veered sharply to the right.

  “Here,” said the dwarf, suddenly stopping. Tambor practically tumbled over him.

  “What is it?” asked Groan.

  Gordo knelt down and ran his hand over the ground. He checked and double-checked, then reached a conclusion. “It’s a grate,” he said. “In the floor.”

  “Can you lift it?” Tambor inquired, hopefully.

  “Think so. Only one way to find out, eh?”

  There followed a moment of frantic fumbling and a few mild curses when a finger got trapped. Then a scratching ensued, which turned into a shaking and ended in a mad hammering. Tambor felt a chill sneak inside his robe. It started to give his legs a hard time. He felt ancient goose bumps begin to resurface.

  “Hang on a minute,” said Gordo, finally. He was still down on his knees, but had apparently stopped trying to force the grate. “It’s massive.” He peered back along the floor of the tunnel. “Groan, I reckon you’re even standing on it.”

  The barbarian tried to look under him and, failing to see anything, stamped his foot. There was an expansive creak.

  “No-o-o-o-o!” screamed Tambor, but it was too late.

  The grate fell away and the trio plummeted through the floor. Groan snatched at a broken rung, but he couldn’t hold on to it. The torch Tambor had been clutching teetered on the edge of the grate, flickered, and went out.

  “I’ve seen these before,” said Stump, looking down at a floor covered with mosaic tiles. The room seemed completely out of character against the background of the dungeon passageway. Jimmy had never seen so many bright colors, and it was extraordinarily well lit with braziers. He wondered if the gods employed a caretaker; there were certainly some very big footprints nearer the wall.

  “So what’s it all about?” Jimmy asked.

  “Well,” said Stump, crouching down. “You got to step on the right ones. If you don’t you gets an arrow flying at you from them holes in the wall, there. See?”

  Jimmy saw the circles and nodded. They were tiny. He shuddered. Arrows that small could probably shoot right through you and you wouldn’t feel it until all your bits ran out of juice.

  Stump was preparing to demonstrate. He reached out and brushed a finger along the surface of the first tile. Nothing happened. He went through the same procedure with the tile next to it, and got a similar response.

  “Oh, well,” he said, after carrying out a spot check on a further seven surfaces. “Maybe they’re all spent or something.”

  Jimmy smiled as the prisoner got up, walked into the center of the room and collapsed with an arrow in his leg. Three more shot from the holes over his head. Stump was writhing on the mosaic tiles.

  “Hold on!” Jimmy called. “I’m coming over.”

  He dropped onto his stomach and began to pull himself toward the injured prisoner. Arrow traps exploded above him, but he reached his companion with little difficulty.

  “I’m gonna pass out,” said Stump, eyes fluttering.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Actually, you’re very lucky; it didn’t bite that far into your flesh,” said Jimmy, examining Stump’s wound.

  “Oh great! Thank the lords for small mercies. If I wasn’t aaahhhhh!”

  Jimmy yanked the dart from Stump’s leg, tossed it aside, tore off a scrap of his jerkin, and dabbed away the blood.

  “There you go,” he said, smiling.

  “I’m gonna pass out,” said Stump.

  “But it only bled a gnat’s wing!” shouted Jimmy. “You lost about a thimbleful.”

  “It don’t matter,” said Stump. “I can’t afford to lose any. Look at the size of me.”

  Jimmy shook his head in amazement and crawled to the edge of the mosaic floor, dragging the injured prisoner after him.

  “Where are we, then?” said Groan, rolling over onto his back and staring at the ceiling.

  Gordo coughed. “Hell?” he ventured.

  “I
can’t see a thing,” said Tambor. “I’m going to crawl over this way a bit. Tell me if I bump into you.”

  “You’ll know if you bump into Groan,” said the dwarf.

  “Of course, sorry. It’s the dungeon, it warps your mi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i….”

  There was silence.

  “Tambor?” said Gordo, listening intently.

  Nothing.

  “Groan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What happened to Tambor?”

  “Dunno,” answered Groan. “I don’t fink he’s ’ere anymore.”

  The dwarf crawled around in the dark. He sounded like a pig sniffing out truffles.

  “Hold on a minute,” said Gordo, finally. “There’s some sort of ahhhhhh!”

  Groan got to his feet in the darkness.

  “What’s this, hide-’n’-seek?” he muttered, testily.

  He padded around the room, his back against the wall. When he had circled it entirely, he stepped in a little and tried again. His foot caught the edge of something smooth and sloping. He dropped down onto one knee and felt it with his hands. It was a chute of some kind.

  “Oi!” he shouted down it. “You all right down there?”

  There was no reply.

  “All right,” Groan boomed. “I’m comin’ down.”

  Jimmy grabbed hold of Stump’s arm and pulled him back. They were about fifty yards beyond the arrow-trap room.

  “Now, don’t tell me you can’t hear that,” said Jimmy.

  Stump put his head on one side. “Yeah, I can.”

  “What do you think it is?” asked Jimmy.

  “Could be up on the mountain or somethin’,” Stump suggested.

  “No. It’s closer than that. Listen carefully,” Jimmy whispered.

  “P’raps there’s a tunnel above us?”

  “Could be,” said Jimmy. “That’s definitely voices, though. Don’t you think?”

  “Sounds like shoutin’ to me, people shoutin’ somethin’.”

  “Listen,” Jimmy interrupted. “It’s getting nearer.”

  “Hey,” said Stump, pointing toward the roof of the tunnel. “There’s a huge great hole in the ceiling.”