“And here they are,” said the coordinator, stepping aside and indicating the dancers with a wave of his hand. “And I’ll say this: show me a better dance troupe in all the land, and you can have your money back.”
Duke Modeset cast a glance over the most pathetic assortment of miscreants he had ever set eyes on. He winced as a few of the group rushed to the aid of a member who had bent over to tie a ribbon on his leg and was having trouble standing upright again.
The duke cleared his throat. “They’re all a bit, well…old, aren’t they?” he ventured.
The coordinator shrugged. “In this case I felt only the most experienced dancers were required.”
“That one at the back with no hair, milord,” said Pegrand. “He’s on crutches, isn’t he?”
“I do believe you’re right—”
“That’s Mr. Gribbins,” interrupted the coordinator, subjecting the duke’s manservant to a malicious glare. “One of the finest clappers in the district.”
Modeset gave this careful consideration. “And he’s an active member of the team, is he?”
“Oh yes, certainly, without a doubt. Unless it’s Folk Week, in which case he does a wonderful turn as a maypole.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I think it would be fair to suggest,” said Modeset evenly, “that there isn’t a man in this room under seventy. Am I correct?”
The coordinator looked around, his head bobbing and weaving to achieve an all-encompassing view. “No, sir,” he said eventually. “I myself am forty-seven.”
Modeset pinched the bridge of his nose. “Pegrand?”
“Yes, milord?”
“Hang this man from the yardarm, will you?”
“Yes, milord. It’d be a pleasure.”
Modeset dismissed the dance troupe, padded across the flagstones, and collapsed into his throne. He was suffering from a terrible headache and an impending sense of doom, but at least he still had time. Oh, sure, there were rumors of heavy vandalism downtown, but that kind of thing happened all the time—nothing to worry about. The fireworks would last for another hour, and after that, well, either the children would return or he’d be murdered by an army of marauding parents. In the event of the former, there was a slim chance that his life would be spared. A lengthy period of exile was likely, but nothing more. Modeset grimaced; his would certainly be a reign to remember. He gazed up at the portraits of his ancestors and imagined that he saw a line of mocking smiles.
He was awoken from his vision by the sound of breaking glass. Pegrand careered into the room and fell to his knees. His head was bleeding.
“We’re under attack, milord,” he screamed. “The palace is under attack!”
TWENTY-FOUR
THE PARTY IN THE cavern was watching Groan rip out an iron gate. It didn’t take long; the barbarian tossed the gate aside like a child’s toy. Then he marched out into the intersection, peering cautiously in both directions.
“Anything?” Gordo inquired, battle-axe at the ready.
Groan sniffed, shook his head. “Lot o’ dust, nuffin much else.”
Jimmy ran through the arch and knelt to study the tunnel floor. “These footsteps came from the left, so they lead down there.”
The group turned to face the right-hand passage, which was blocked by a door of gargantuan proportions. Exotic-looking runes were emblazoned across its surface. They shone like gold.
“Ere, ’old this.” Groan handed Gordo his sword, then, with a running start, charged the portal. It wouldn’t budge.
“What does the writin’ say?” Stump asked, having second thoughts about his decision to stay in the mountain.
“It’s the same language that was written on the wall,” Tambor answered, a grimace forming. “It says that we’re nearing a place of ancient magic, a place where terrible necromancers from the First Age went to die.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” said Gordo.
“It’s not,” said Tambor. “I can’t imagine that the dead rest easy in a place like this, and I have a feeling our foreigner is possessed by something raw, ancient, and extremely terrible.”
“Sorcerers ’re all talk,” said Groan. “How ’bout the door?”
Tambor shook his head. “We’ll never get through it.”
“We have to!” Jimmy exclaimed. “Otherwise, the gods only know what he’ll do to those children. They might be lost forever!”
“Look, I can only remember a handful of spells without a spell book!” said Tambor. “Groan can’t get the door open and, with all due respect, I’m damn sure Gordo can’t. What else can we do but—”
There was a click, and the door creaked open. Stump was standing in front of it. For a moment, the group just boggled at him. Finally, Gordo approached the scruffy prisoner. “How did you do that?” he asked, matter-of-factly.
“Er, well, I sort of turned the handle,” Stump admitted. “You see, where I come from we put handles on the doors to stop people just walkin’ in. Then, if you turn the handle like this,”—he performed a small pantomime—“the door opens. It’s a proper miracle.”
Gordo tried to judge whether the prisoner was being sarcastic, before deciding that, on the contrary, he was serious.
“There’s a flight of stairs,” Tambor said, venturing a few feet into the passage beyond. “Judging by the breeze, I’d say it probably opens into a cavern of some kind.”
Jimmy snapped his fingers. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s got to be it!”
TWENTY-FIVE
A CROWD OF ANGRY FATHERS stalked the streets. They’d split neatly into two groups; the vandalizers and the justice seekers.
The vandalizers consisted of those fathers who worked in the building and manual trades. In a single afternoon, they’d managed to wreck City Hall, the Treasury, and a whole host of other important civic structures.
The justice seekers, those fathers in the merchant trades who liked an ale or two, were gunning for blood.
At sunrise, they’d wanted to hurt the duke. So they demonstrated for a while, then most of them went for a small drink at the Ferret.
Lunchtime arrived, and they’d wanted to maim the duke. So they demonstrated some more, then most of them went for a small drink at the Ferret.
After lunch, they would settle for nothing less than death, but by this time they’d had rather a lot to drink; most of them knew they wanted to kill somebody, but they couldn’t remember who it was.
Instead, they staggered through the streets in various stages of drunkenness, throwing stones at each other and screaming abuse. Eventually, they’d tagged along with their city-wrecking counterparts.
“Great gods,” said Quaris Sands, watching from one of the only palace windows to escape the stoning. “The language! Is scuddikuvoff actually a word?”
Burnie shrugged, spilling something lumpy from one shoulder. “I wouldn’t argue with them,” he said, rolling a blobby yellow eyeball. “This is getting out of hand, though. If those children aren’t found soon, there’ll be nothing for them to come home to!”
“Agreed, agreed,” said Quaris.
“So what are we going to do?” asked Burnie.
“I don’t know! The duke’s all out of ideas and I’m damn sure I am.”
Quaris picked at his bushy eyebrow for a time, then appeared to reach a conclusion. “I think,” he said, pausing between words for dramatic effect, “that we should climb to the top of the highest tower in the palace and jump out the window.”
Burnie sighed. “Very funny. We could just hide until it all blows over.”
“Hide? Hide? We’re supposed to be in charge of the City Council!” shouted Quaris.
“Ha! Correction, beardy,” said Burnie, shaking his head. “You are in charge of the City Council, I have a seat on it. Big difference. Besides, sooner or later the worst of those idiots out there are going to sober up and then they’ll really mean business.”
“But our hands are tied! We can’t do anything until w
e’ve heard from the hunting party! If there even is a hunting party! Oh gods! Oh despair!”
Quaris grabbed two handfuls of his own hair and dropped to his knees, emitting a low, desperate moan.
Burnie watched him with a bemused smile, and said, “Any chance we think about this a bit more before you book in at the asylum?”
“It’s no use. We’re doomed; the children are gone, the duke is going to be murdered, the city is bankrupt, and we’re all doomed!”
“Yes, fantastic; after you with the suicide pills. However, in the meantime, we need to keep these lunatics out of the palace, so just let me think, okay?” said Burnie, pacing back and forth.
“What is there to think about? We’re descending into hell,” cried Quaris.
“Yes, yes. Now, pull yourself together!”
Quaris stopped moaning almost immediately, and struggled to his feet. After a few sniffles, he managed to regain some composure.
“Right,” Burnie continued. “Grab some furniture and we’ll try to barricade ourselves in.”
“Okay, okay, but that means moving out of the shadows,” said Quaris, anxiously.
The troglodyte twitched. “After you.”
TWENTY-SIX
THE PARTY EMERGED OUT onto a rocky promontory overlooking a vast darkness. Jimmy was the first to get a clear view of his surroundings.
It wasn’t a cavern, he decided, because caverns had roofs and this place just seemed to go on and on forever. He gazed around him in awe, feeling like a tiny insect staring up at the universe for the first time. Above, and to either side, there was darkness. Below, there were…children. “There they are!” Jimmy gasped, pointing downward.
The children were congregated on the cavern floor. There were hundreds of them, yet they barely made an impression on the vast expanse. Jimmy suspected that you could probably enter the cavern from the other side and walk right past them without spotting them on your way out again.
“I don’t like the look of this place,” said Gordo, nervously. “It’s…distorted.”
“There he is,” said Tambor, pointing across the cavern.
Diek Wustapha stood atop a large boulder, surrounded by the teeming children. He was absolutely still.
“Maybe we could sneak the children out,” Jimmy ventured. “There’ve enough caves down there. One of them must lead to the surface, law of averages. What d’you reckon? I could try it, quiet like. Besides, it doesn’t look as if he’s awake.”
“He’s awake,” said Tambor, eyes narrowing. He looked down at the children who were milling around far below. They were sleepwalking, but they would only get so far before they turned back and stumbled in the opposite direction, as if repelled back toward Diek by some invisible wall of force.
“Oi!” said Groan, suddenly. “Look at ’im!”
A circle of light had formed in the air above Diek Wustapha. It descended on him, swirling around his torso and extending outward, sweating a dark yellow light. Gordo hefted his battle-axe and took aim, but Tambor pulled him back.
“That’s dark magic,” he said sternly. “You’ve got no hope, trust me.”
“What can we do, den?” said Groan, who didn’t like the look of it either.
Jimmy peered over the lip of the protruding rock. It was a fair way down, he had to admit. The City Hall precipice all over again. He weighed up his chances of landing safely, then realized it probably didn’t matter how he landed. If the ground didn’t kill him, the foreigner would.
“I reckon I could get the children out now,” he said, looking at his granddad evenly.
“I can probably help, there,” said Stump, with a lopsided grin. “I’m good with kids. I’ve got twenty-six from my first marriage.”
“Damn,” said Groan and Gordo in unison, looking at the prisoner with a sudden respect.
“That leaves us with the foreigner,” Tambor said to them, rolling up his sleeves. “Right.”
Gordo noticed the old man’s expression and closed a pudgy hand over his wrist. “Hold on, Tambor. What’re you doing?”
“A spell.”
“Not the Tower of Screaming Doom, surely?” Gordo’s eyes rolled back in his head. “What good’s that going to do here?”
Groan sniffed. “He might die laughin’.”
The dwarf made to chuckle, but Tambor’s expression stopped him dead. “I’m going to try the Doorway of Death.”
“But, but…but you don’t have your spell book!” shouted Jimmy, wide-eyed.
“I don’t need it, I think I can remember,” said Tambor, with a look of concentration.
“But you can’t fight him with magic, Granddad. Not him. He’s in league with something awful.”
“I don’t plan to fight him,” said Tambor. “I’m going to try to open the portal behind him. I think it’s just like a fissure in time. Somebody else will have to push him inside!”
“Leave that to us,” Gordo said. He turned to Jimmy and Stump. “You get those kiddies out.”
Jimmy nodded and peered over the edge of the promontory. Then he seemed to reach a decision. He took a few steps back, closed his eyes, and jumped. He would have landed perfectly had he remembered to open them again.
“Agggghhh—”
Tambor rushed to the edge.
“You all right?” he shouted down.
“Fine,” came the reply. “Just got a bit of a pain in the arhhhh—”
“What?”
“It’s all right. I hit my head getting up.”
“Great,” Gordo whispered to Groan. “If he didn’t know we were here before, he knows now.”
“I heard that,” said Tambor, scowling at the mercenaries. “My Jimmy’s a brave lad.”
“Oh, he is,” said Gordo, reassuringly.
It was Groan’s turn to go over the edge. He unhooked a leather knapsack, which nobody had noticed before, and pulled a length of rope from inside.
“Where the hell did you get that from?” shouted Tambor.
Groan shrugged. “Always carry rope,” he said. “Never know when it’ll come in ’andy.”
“Why didn’t you say you had that before Jimmy jumped?” asked Tambor.
“You didn’ ask. ’Ere, Gordo, you comin’?”
He fastened the rope around a tiny ledge above the mouth of the cave and began to rappel over the lip of the rock. The dwarf waited a while, then followed him. Stump waited in the shadows, wondering which course of action would turn out to be the best bet.
Tambor shook his head to clear his thoughts, straightened up, and returned his attention to the foreigner. Then he mumbled a few syllables and breathed a magic smoke ring through his nose. It floated in the air above him for a time, then became a thin wisp of green. Finally, it descended. As it curled around the foreigner, a strange light filled Diek’s eyes.
On the ground, Gordo, Groan, and Jimmy Quickstint had stumbled upon a problem.
“It’s an invisible wall,” said Gordo. He took a step back and swung his battle-axe at it. There was a glancing crack, but nothing happened.
“Great,” said Jimmy, rolling his eyes.
“Le’ me ’ave a go,” said Groan, putting his weight against the barrier.
“Paid good money for this axe,” Gordo muttered to himself. “The bloke told me it’d go through magic barriers like a knife through butter, no problem, he said.”
Groan had failed to shift the unseen boundary. Instead, he was taking out his frustration on a nearby rock.
“Maybe there’s some way over it,” Jimmy hazarded.
“He said to me, Gordo, why would I sell you rubbish when you’re practically family, and I said—”
“Stan’ back,” said Groan. He picked up the rock he’d been jumping up and down on, reeled back, and hurled it at the wall. It smashed into shards.
“He’s got those kids mesmerized,” said Jimmy, staring into the circle. “Look at ’em. We’ve got to do something quick.”
“—What about a dagger, the bloke said. Dwarves should
have a dagger, but I said—”
“Will you shut up about that stupid axe!” Jimmy screamed.
Then a bolt of energy pierced the circle. Jimmy looked up.
“It’s Tambor,” said Gordo, following the beam to the sorcerer’s fingertips. “It must be part of the doorway spell. Why couldn’t he have remembered that one when we were in the woods?”
Groan had chosen to take a running leap at the invisible barricade. This time (to his considerable surprise) he crashed right through it, bowling over a few of the children.
Diek Wustapha’s eyes flicked open.
“He’s awake!” screamed Jimmy.
The dwarf looked up. “Quick!” he shouted. “Find another exit.”
All across the floor, eyes blinked and heads shook. The children were waking up. There was sobbing, crying, foul exclamations, and an awful lot of bewilderment. One or two of the more astute kids were already picking up stones as if, in true Dullitch spirit, they could smell a fight brewing.
Stump was feeling his way along the east wall of the cavern, hunting for a different set of steps. The foreigner had to have walked them down there somehow.
“Over there,” came a shout from Jimmy. He was pointing at an arch farther along the same section of wall, a toddler clutched in his other arm. “We’ll take them that way. It must join to the tunnel where they came in.”
“You go on,” Stump shouted. “I’m gonna see if I can find a backup route in case that one turns out to be a dead end. Be careful, though, this place is riddled with ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oles….”
Jimmy gasped; Stump had disappeared right in front of him. There was a muffled cry, becoming more distant as it progressed and, finally, it stopped. Jimmy didn’t reckon he’d see Stump again.
Diek Wustapha stared blearily around the cavern. As he took stock of the situation, his eyes widened.
Interlopers: destroy them.
Stepping back on the rock, Diek raised a hand and sent a burst of green flame hurtling toward the giant barbarian.
Groan looked up just in time to avoid the blast.
Destroy him, Diek. Destroy him before he reaches you!
Ratastrophe Catastrophe Page 14
