by Max Anthony
“Maybe there was a fight in here,” said Viddo. “This was a storage room before, I’d say, and there was civil war amongst the people and they had a big set-to in here.”
“I think this was the high priest’s personal booze stash,” said Rasmus. “I think he had loads of wooden shelves around the walls and they’ve decayed over time, dropping the contents to the ground below, where they’ve shattered.”
“Booze stash, eh?” asked Viddo. “Surely nothing alcoholic could have survived this long, could it?”
“Most assuredly not!” said Rasmus. “Unless it was perfectly sealed in a jug without any sort of air inside to promote rot.”
They separated casually, as if they were off for a stroll on a summer’s evening. They used their feet to kick aside shards and pieces of the broken grey jugs.
“These were made of stone,” said Viddo. “How long must it take to produce one single stone jug? Weeks, I’ll bet.”
“Got one!” said Rasmus triumphantly. He rose to his feet holding an intact jug.
“Get the lid off and let’s have a look inside then!” said Viddo, hurrying over.
With a flourish, like a master chef raising the lid from his latest dish, Rasmus grasped the stone ball that had been carved on top of the jug’s lid, and lifted it free.
“Bugger it,” he said. “Empty.”
“They must have used wax or something similar as a seal,” Viddo guessed. “Unless we find one with a perfectly-fitted stone lid, we’re not going to find our rightful drink.”
The search became all-consuming, with both men cursing the ancient craftsmen for their inability to make a perfect stone lid. They found three more intact jugs, all of which were empty. Just when it seemed as though all hope was gone, Rasmus found another jug, which seemed to huddle in the corner as if it were hiding from the light. He lifted it up and immediately noted that it was heavier than the others they’d found.
“Here! Come quickly!” he called.
Rasmus was so excited that he hardly waited for Viddo’s arrival before he plucked off the lid. It made a faint pop as he did so, to suggest that whatever seal there had been was still in place. A smell came from inside – a powerful stench of something ancient and rotting. Then, the odour cleared to be replaced by something more familiar – that of rough, distilled alcohol.
With trembling hands, Rasmus raised the jug to his lips and took a sip. A series of emotions crossed his face, none of them quite clear. Eventually he spoke.
“It tastes bloody awful!” he said.
“Never mind that, give me a taste,” said Viddo, grabbing the jug. Since Rasmus hadn’t fallen down wheezing or dead, he felt secure enough to take a big gulp.
“Tastes like razor blades,” he gasped.
Rasmus grabbed the jug and took a swig. “Good gods, what did they make it from? Pigs’ dung?”
After a few more samples, both men agreed that it tasted much better than it had at first, though neither had any idea what spirit it was. What quickly became clear was that this survivor from the high priest’s personal stash was rather more potent than anything else they’d drank in the recent past.
“We can’t leave it behind,” slurred Viddo an hour later. “Some other bastards will have away with it as soon as our backs are turned.”
“How much of it is left?” asked Rasmus. “Maybe we should take it with us.”
“We can’t leave it behind,” repeated Viddo, wagging a finger at an imaginary foe.
“I don’t think I can drink anymore,” said Rasmus. “As sweet as it is. Like nectar.”
“I’ll have one more try,” said Viddo. “Just to remind myself what it tastes like. There’s still over half of it left, you know? We can’t leave it behind.”
“I’m going to feel like shit in the morning,” confided Rasmus, helping himself to another mouthful. “Assuming it is morning. Who knows when you’re a hundred miles below ground?”
“Can’t you just cast some sort of cure spell on us?” asked the thief. “Then we’ll be right as rain?”
“You’re thinking of priests again,” mumbled Rasmus. “I can cast a fireball if you want?”
Viddo stared straight ahead, wobbling a little as his brain evaluated this last question. “Won’t that burn us both to death?” he asked.
No response was forthcoming and no fireball either. The travails of the day and the punishing effect of the ancient alcohol had sent the wizard into a slumber. Shortly, a snoring was heard. Viddo resisted the urge to sleep for a few minutes longer before he also slumped over. A second snoring joined the first.
The following morning, if indeed it was morning, the two adventurers roused themselves, each feeling slightly worse for wear. In other circumstances, they might have slept off the worst of their hangovers, but their competing snorings had allowed neither a peaceful slumber. And though they were both hardened travellers, used to sleeping in the most unusual of places, a solid stone floor was amongst the most difficult of places to get comfortable.
“You’re looking a bit shabby,” said Viddo to the wizard.
“It tastes like a cat has shit in my mouth while I slept,” said Rasmus. He smacked his lips and scratched at himself through his robes. The smell of spider queen guts was still there, but had faded. Either that or he’d just got used to it.
“Ah, look at that!” said Viddo in dismay. “Someone’s spilled the last of the booze out onto the floor.”
A mysterious person had done just that – the jug had toppled over at some point and the contents were tipped out onto the stone.
“You weren’t going to have another drink, were you?”
“I might have been tempted. Just to clear my head, you understand.”
“I’m thirsty again,” said the wizard. “And dying for a piss.” He looked at the steps upwards with a bleary eye. “But I’m buggered if I’m going to climb all the way up there again. Not with my head in the state that it’s in.”
The sound of flowing waters reached their ears, though it was not the sort of water that either man would wish to drink. When they had finished relieving themselves, they turned their attention to the metal door.
In spite of the excitement of locating the most exclusive spirit ever discovered, Viddo had still given this door a thorough checking-over the previous evening and determined that it would present no challenges to his mastery over locking mechanisms. As it turned out, it was much stiffer than he’d expected and he wondered if the fumes from thousands of years of evaporating booze had done something to the lock’s innards.
“I’ve broken my lock-picking spoon,” Viddo protested, looking with dismay at the two halves of the broken implement.
“Just get your proper lock picks out,” said Rasmus with short humour. “Relying on a spoon makes you look like a smart-arse.”
“A spoon is a perfectly adequate tool for most locks, I’ll have you know,” lectured the thief. “And they are far easier to come by and far less expensive than a set of proper tools.”
Nevertheless, Viddo unrolled his pack of tools and drew out a lock scraper and something that looked no more sophisticated than a solid metal cylinder. After a bit of scratching and scraping, he freed up the seized parts, before ramming the metal cylinder into the lock and giving it a hefty kick. The door swung open.
“I’ve not met the door yet I couldn’t get through,” he said with professional pride, stowing away his tools.
“Another corridor,” said Rasmus, looking out. “Another sodding corridor.”
Realising that the wizard was feeling rough, Viddo didn’t bother to antagonise him by replying. The corridor in question was eight feet wide and high. It went straight on for a few dozen yards before it ended, with the options being to turn left or right. Viddo promptly turned left, idly wondering whether the wizard’s breath now smelled worse than his robes.
“We’ve come down a level now,” he advised Rasmus. “In theory, the perils should become greater. Stronger undead and deadlier trap
s.”
“More deadly than that fifteen feet tall abomination? I think we’re already several levels deep in this temple,” said the wizard. “I’ll wager that a few thousand yards above us are rooms containing single skeletons and shallow pits without spikes at the bottom of them.”
“We don’t have any provisions, and we are less burdened with loot than I would like, so perhaps it’s for the best if we’ve entered this place deeper than we think. This sword I found won’t have been lying around near the entrance for any neophyte to pick up. It’s a beauty. And those undead spiders would have run riot in a group of newly-trained wizards or priests.”
“I wonder if there are any other steps leading to here,” said Rasmus. “It seems a bit strange for us to have travelled here by such a convoluted method.”
“These places aren’t always built to a single plan,” said Viddo thoughtfully. “Old passages get forgotten about, new people move in and dig new tunnels. If this happened over the thousands of years that we believe it to have happened, I’m not surprised if the logic behind it all is mixed.”
“I’m sure you’re onto something,” responded Rasmus. “My mind likes to see patterns and reason. Where there is none, it tries harder and harder to make sense of it, regardless of the fact that the search might be fruitless.”
“I’ve long since stopped caring,” said Viddo. “Though I don’t blame you for wanting answers.” He shrugged. “But sometimes there are no answers to be found.”
By now, they had passed a number of doorways, the apertures empty of doors. Through these doorways were a variety of featureless rooms in a mixture of sizes. One or two other corridors led to destinations unknown.
“People must have lived in these chambers,” guessed Rasmus. “And the doors have rotted into nothingness, the occupants with them. Gone and forgotten.”
Not all of the doors were entirely gone, and across one doorway was the remains of something that had clearly once been wood. It had sagged and fallen away from its stone hinges. The dark surface was pitted with large holes. In the room beyond was the remains of a bed and a small table.
“Someone’s lived here more recently,” said Viddo. “Doesn’t look like they’ve been here for a while, though.”
“Probably ran out of food and water,” muttered Rasmus sourly. “And starved to death somewhere ahead of us.”
The corridor made one final turn before it ended at another wooden door. This door was solid and well-made, with no signs of being ravaged by age.
“Well, well,” commented Viddo. “Here’s a turn up.” He dropped his voice low. “We should exercise greater caution from now – the hinges on this door look recently used.”
Rasmus found himself examining the stone mountings, but couldn’t see anything that betrayed activity. Still, it wasn’t his speciality, so he bowed to the thief’s judgement in the matter. He felt a surge of excitement course through his veins and the alcoholic fugue which had clouded his mind was swept away. There was nothing like the potential threat of an imminent and unknown death to sharpen one’s mind.
There was no doubt in either man’s head that they were going through this door, rather than turn back to look for another way. Viddo crouched by the lock and saw that while it wasn’t a recent design, it was one that he’d come across before. There was a needle, carefully hidden, which he disarmed almost without noticing it and then he turned the mechanism until it was unlocked.
“Why’d anyone want to lock their door down here?” mouthed Rasmus.
“To stop people like us thieving their items,” responded Viddo with equal quiet. Rasmus looked enlightened as if he’d not considered that possibility, and waved a hand to indicate that Viddo should open the door.
Viddo opened it a crack and looked within. It was lit, though very gloomily and he couldn’t make out the source. There were shapes that looked like furnishings and other shapes that looked like things he didn’t want to think about too much. Shy boys get nothing he told himself and pushed the door open further, so that he could enter.
Inside was a room that might have once been beautifully appointed. There were grand chairs made of thick, solid wood and cushions of rotting red velvet. There was a settee, also upholstered in the same velvet. A table was in the middle of the room and on it was a bowl. Viddo stood on his tip-toes near the doorway and saw that there were numerous grey, shrivelled items within the bowl, which had presumably once been fruit. There was a crystal decanter on the table that contained a fluid of the deepest red. The light Viddo had noticed came from a single glass ball in the ceiling. It was gloomy and for some reason he got the impression that it was intentionally so.
All was not well in this room though. Sitting in the chairs and lying on the settee were fully-clothed bodies, with several more on the floor. These bodies were grey and peculiarly shrivelled, as if they’d been dried in a kiln and carefully positioned here. Their clothing looked old, but Viddo got the impression that it had once been well-made. Oddly, the presence of bodies struck them as less unusual than finding a fully-furnished room so far from anywhere.
Checking warily for traps, Viddo walked across to the table and looked at the decanter. He picked it up and swirled the contents around. The fluid seemed to have partly dried and it left glutinous traces around the edge of the crystal. He lifted the stopper, already knowing what it was. The sharp, metallic tang confirmed his suspicions.
“Blood,” he whispered.
Meanwhile, Rasmus had been investigating the bodies, which more accurately meant he was rifling their pockets for valuables. He turned up one copper coin, which he dropped to the stone floor in moderate annoyance. Unable to prevent himself, he gently prodded one of the corpses in the cheek. Its skin crinkled and felt as thin as parchment.
“I don’t like this,” he whispered to Viddo. The thief shook his head in acknowledgement and agreement.
There were two doors leading out of this room. Picking at random, Viddo determined that there were no traps and that the door wasn’t locked. It opened with a screech and they both stood still, listening in case the sound had disturbed anything. Nothing arrived to greet them.
Viddo looked to see what was in this next chamber. There was more furniture – a large dining table with fifteen chairs around it. A chandelier hung from the too-low ceiling, with no candles in its holders – almost as though someone had hung it there for show, since the illumination was provided by another glass ball. In each of the seats was a body, clothed and with the same shrivelled appearance as they’d seen in the previous room. Behind the table, there was a fireplace with a metal grating in it. There was no fuel for a fire and no indication that one had ever been set there. Viddo had come across many a fireplace with a hidden back and he crossed over to look at this one, only to be disappointed that there was no concealed treasure.
There were another three doors away from here, all of the same solid wood. It was beginning to look as though they had stumbled upon an extensive suite of rooms. Still cautious, Viddo looked through one door and then summoned Rasmus over with a wave of his hand.
“A bathroom and privy!” he said. “But the bath is piled high with more bodies.”
Rasmus peered over Viddo’s shoulder. In one corner was a square, stone hole which comprised the bath. It was impossible to tell how deep it was, because it was overflowing with the bodies Viddo had mentioned. Suddenly eager, Rasmus pushed his way into the room.
“I need another piss,” he said. “Alcohol always does this to me.”
Shortly, he began relieving himself into a round hole in the floor of the bathroom, whilst trying not to catch the eyes of the bodies near him. The stream of his urine went into the hole and vanished somewhere below with a faint gurgling.
“That’s better,” said Rasmus, having concluded his business with this room. “Though I don’t like going with people watching me.”
By now, familiarity had started to lower their caution levels and their voices rose to a more usual volume. Ra
smus still allowed the thief to look at each door before he opened it, but there were no more traps and no more locks. There were quite a few rooms for them to explore and they looked through doors and doorways, finding the same well-made, but decrepit furniture everywhere they looked. The bodies were everywhere, too. Dozens and dozens of bodies. After his early find of one copper piece, Rasmus rifled hopefully through a few more pockets, but was no more successful in uncovering something worth having. One of the bodies even had a tiny finger-trap in its tunic, presumably to catch out pickpockets. It snapped shut on the end of Rasmus’ finger, causing the wizard to jump with the pain. After he’d tugged the trap off his finger, he pushed the corpse off its chair in petulance. It fell to the floor with a thud and its head bounced unpleasantly. Rasmus was unrepentant, particularly in the face of Viddo’s mirth.
One room held a book shelf and the wizard perked up at once, for the tomes thereon appeared to be free from age-rot. Ignoring the seven or eight prone bodies nearby, he pulled down a couple of the likely-looking books and studied their covers. He could read the languages well enough, but was not approving of the contents.
“The Priest and the Undertaker’s Wife?” he muttered to himself as he read the title of one. ‘Cooking with Herbs and Spices’ said another cover, followed by ‘Avians of Guyer Forest’.
Rasmus quickly realised what these were – they were the books of a man who didn’t read, but who wanted to appear educated by stocking his bookshelf with whatever random texts he’d been able to pick up for two coppers apiece at the marketplace.
The wizard looked up at the sound of Viddo’s whispered summons. “Look over here,” he called softly. “I think I might have found you some new robes.” Rasmus slid the copy of ‘Milk Churners and Cheese’ back into the shelf and went over to his friend.
Viddo took the wizard into what was undeniably a bedroom. There was a huge and heavy four-poster bed here, festooned with hangings of the same dusty velvet that they had seen elsewhere. I’ll bet that bed was a bugger to get down here the wizard thought absently. A harpsichord stood in one corner and Rasmus felt a shiver run down his spine. Averting his eyes from the wooden instrument, he took in the large set of free-standing wardrobes and the single clothed body lying on the bed.
