Greyhawk - [Quag Keep 02] - Return to Quag Keep

by Andre Norton, Jean Rabe (v1. 0) (epub)

  “Aye, you are correct, that note is written in blood.”

  “It is a note. I thought it might be something special, like a map. Hey, Milo. It’s addressed to me.”

  “A love letter?” Milo had returned his attention to the door.

  “ 'Dear Naile Fangtooth: I hope your dragon-creature Freida . . .’ He wrote Frieda. Her name’s Alfreeta.”

  “Just read.”

  “Aye, you should read, Naile, this light might not last much longer.”

  “‘. . . safely finds you. We have made our way to Quag Keep.’ They’re here, Yevele and Berthold. Somewhere here.”

  “Read,” Milo and the wizard ordered practically in unison.

  “‘There are trolls in this place, and at least one giant that Yevele caught a look at. But perhaps worse are the traps. Ingrge lost an arm to one, and he is in dire condition.’” Naile looked to Milo, who returned his concerned expression. “ ‘We are holed up in a room full of small, strange beasts. This is where we tound your Frieda.’ Alfreeta. ‘We intend to explore this place further, once Ingrge is stable — or dies. The wizard could be our only hope. Him—and you. If this note finds you, come to Quag Keep as fast as you can.’ It’s signed Berthold of the Green. So they really are somewhere in this Keep. We re all together here.”

  “Well, you are here with me in any event. They are here elsewhere. So together you are, just not all in the same place. But let’s see if we can rectify that. Little Alfreeta, I know you haven’t the power to break through that door, and I know you can’t get us all out of here. But can you find Berthold again?”

  The little dragon chittered and cooed.

  “She said ‘yes,’ ” Naile translated.

  “Then can you go to Berthold and bring him and Yevele here?”

  Alfreeta cooed long and high-pitched, then she flew from the wizard’s shoulder and to the small door. She shimmered, her scales looking molten and her wings transparent. Then like a ghost, she passed through the door and disappeared.

  "Hope she really can bring the cavalry,” Milo said.

  “I hope you are right.”

  The olive flame that flickered above the wizard’s hand dimmed and sputtered. A heartbeat later it winked out.

  “Good,” Milo pronounced. “I’d rather not see this place. It’s too depressing.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Going Down

  Ingrge leaned back against the cage, the horned rabbit in his lap. His cloak was wrapped around him, with the remainder of Yevele’s cloak behind his head against the wire bars. Berthold held the waterskin to the ells lips and watched him take a few sips.

  “I’m going to leave this with you. There’s not much in it, but it’s better than nothing. Wait.” The thief pulled himself up to Alfreeta.’s vacant cage and brought out her water bowl. “Here’s some moffe. Looks clean enough.” He set the bowl next to the elf.

  “We’re not leaving him, Berthold.’’

  “Yevele," the elf’s eyes were narrow and his expression was stern. “As much as I would like to go with you and see if Berthold’s wizard exists, I can’t. Leave me here.”

  “No, Ingrge."

  “I’m a liability, Yevele. And you know it. I’m useless at the moment. I’d be worse than useless in a fight.”

  “Yes, I know it. Of course you’re a liability. A bowman who can’t fire a bow. You’re right-handed, so you can’t even use your sword to any advantage. But leaving you here — ”

  “Is the only thing that you can do. You want to help me? Then be right for yourselves. Find the wizard.”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes, I know. I don’t like the idea, but it is the right thing to do.”

  “Leaving the elf here?” Berthold asked before he thought.

  “Yes, Berthold, leaving Ingrge here.” She spoke very slowly and knelt next to the elf, rested his thin blade across his lap, and placed his left hand on the crosspiece. “But I needed it to be his decision. Completely. And I wanted him to convince me. Ingrge, we will be back for you, if the fates allow. You know that there are horrible things in this tower, and who knows what stands in our way. I do not believe the odds lavor us.”

  Berthold shook his head and padded to the door, set his ear at the crack. “Canyou paint a more dismal picture of our chance for success?” “I am a realist, Berthold of the Green.”

  He snorted. “Realists shouldn’t play fantasy role-playing games. They take the fun out of everything.” Satisfied there wasn’t a troll or a giant outside, Berthold carefully and slowly opened the door. “Join me?”

  Yevele touched Ingrge’s cheek, and their eyes met for a moment. Then she was fast after Berthold, and —equally carefully and slowly — she closed the door behind them.

  After they’d been gone a few moments, Ingrge stared at the bank of cages opposite him, the magical torch lodged in the wires of Al-freeta’s empty cage showing all the curious and sad faces watching him. He closed his eyes and tried futilely to shut out the pain. He wondered if Yevele and Berthold found the wizard, and thereby found a way home, would his Earth-self also be missing an arm?

  “Forty-two steps to the beach,” he whispered. “Sand between my toes. How many steps to the sea?”

  Then Ingrge slipped into unconsciousness again.

  Berthold and Yevele had made two circuits of the main room, using their hands against the walls, pushing and prodding the stones, hoping there might be a section that would swing open and reveal a way below.

  Berthold put his hands out to his sides and made an exaggerated shrug, clearly not knowing what to try next. Yevele frowned at him and made another pass, this time pushing harder on any stone that looked slightly darker than the others.

  The thief watched her again, then began to circle in the opposite direction, pausing almost at once as he spied the snake-like threads in the carpet follow him.

  “1 wonder.” He leaned over the carpet, and the writhing threads congregated under him. He brought a hand near the nap, and some of the threads rose and tried to strike at him.

  “Interesting.”

  “We must hurry, Berthold, to find a way below,” Yevele said. “Soon another troll ... or worse . . . will come down the stairs.” She stood next to him, watching the threads. “Yes, it is interesting.” Then she bent and grabbed the edge of the carpet and flipped it back. The threads hissed at her, but she was so quick they could not bite her. “Very interesting.”

  A wooden trapdoor was set into the floor, under where the center of the carpet had rested.

  "Oh, that’s just too easy,” he said, “hiding a trapdoor like that. Under the carpet is the first place someone would look.”

  Yevele made a move for the pull-ring on the door, but she stopped herself and gestured to Berthold. “Look it over. Might be something dangerous about it . . . being so easy to find and all.”

  “Easy to find? I don’t know about that.’’ The thief crept forward and looked closely, tracing his fingertips around the edge of the door and looking for small symbols, like were on the cages. “Safe,” he decided. She stepped back from him and looked up the stairs, cocked her head and listened. Satisfied no sentries were coming, she gestured again. “Fine, I’ll open it.” He did, and fusly air wafted up and made his eyes water. "You know, those trolls’ll notice the rug messed up. No way we can pull it back just right.”

  “Doesn't matter,” she said. "They can’t fit through here.”

  “Maybe they don’t need to. Maybe there’s something just as bad downstairs.” He took a deep breath, held it, then started down what looked like a rickety spiral staircase.

  She was on her feet and ready to elbow him aside. “I’ll go first.” Berthold shook his head. “You’re the best swordsman . . . swordswoman . . . I’ve seen. I watched you in that fight with the skeletons, when Ingrge brought me to the caravan. You’re quick and deadly. But you’re not sneaky. I dare say you’re a bit clumsy.” He flinched, waiting for her reaction to the last statement. But she just stood there, and so h
e continued. “You’re not quiet. Not in that armor. So let me see what’s down here. If I don’t come back in a few minutes, you’ll know something got me. And you’ll know that you better come back with Milo and Naile before going any further.” Then he was gone, silent like a cat down the spiral stairs, another ol the magical torches tucked under his arm. The stairway was strong, and though it looked terribly old and weathered and rickety, Berthold suspected the stairs could support a lot of weight. So a troll couldn’t fit down here, or a giant. But what else could? What else heavy and threatening? He shuddered at the thought, and kept going. It was a long way down.

  He guessed he was thirty, thirty-five feet below ground when he moved off the last step. Looking up, he could see Yevele peering down at him, her face partially obscured by the rungs of the stairs. He motioned, not sure if she could see him, then he looked around.

  The chamber seemed identical in size to the main room above, and even with the torch he couldn’t quite make out the features of the ceiling. He thought he saw something moving, maybe bats, maybe something bigger. He thought he smelled guano. Berthold had been in some of the caves in Kentucky— bats lived in all of them. Lost River Cave, right in Bowling Green, was his favorite, with the largest cave opening in the eastern United States. He’d taken a boat tour along the underground river a few years ago, sailing right under the city through that cave. And he’d went with a high school group once to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky’s gem — the largest known cave in the world, with more than three hundred mapped miles of caverns and tunnels. This was just like a cave, he thought, smelled like one, felt damp like one. He tried to remember his other cave trips, but the experiences were elusive. What else was he forgetting about his real life? he wondered. Was his real self slipping away?

  The floor and walls were worked stone, the bricks just like those on the tower’s exterior, but they looked much older. He walked away from the stairs and held out the torch. The stones were definitely worn, like running water had worried at them, and they were moist, blotches of a quivering moss stuck to the ones toward the floor. As Berthold followed the wall, he spotted a section of flowstone, similar to what he’d found in Kentucky caves — a type of onyx created by mineral-laced water flowing slowly over rock. Mounds of the moss were along the edges of the wall, and there were smaller patches closer to the stairs. There was another trapdoor, though he could clearly see only the edge of it. Moss and guano were spattered thick on it, and so he guessed the door hadn't been opened in quite some time. Still, he was curious where it led.

  He saw small bones, too, probably from rats, and pieces of leather and canvas. In some places the floor was thoroughly clean and shiny, and after a moment he realized this was a path that went from the stairs to a shadowy part of the room.

  He held the torch closer to the shadows and saw a tunnel that twisted away into darkness, and he shuddered again at the thought of exploring down there by himself.

  Quite the tale I’ll have to tell the guys at the stationhouse, he thought. If I ever get back to the stationhouse. Not that they’d believe me in the first place. Who ’d believe any of this? Well, let’s see where this goes. He started into the tunnel, then spun back when he heard a clanking sound—Yevele rapidly coming down the steps, her sword’s scabbard thwacking against the rungs.

  “Quiet!” he said in a stage whisper. “You’ll bring all the trolls down on us.”

  "Already happening. Company,” she said before she reached the bottom. “The giant’s coming for another looksee. Couldn’t move the rug in time so he’s going to know that — ’’

  “Nerragh!” A voice boomed down the spiral stairs.

  “. . . a couple of trespassers have crawled down into the basement."

  “Let’s move.” Torch in one hand, dagger in the other, Berthold hurried along the tunnel, staying close to the wall. Yevele’s chainmail shirt made “chinking” sounds as she ran behind him.

  “Nerraghhhhhh! ”

  No doubt it was a word, Berthold guessed. It was louder this time, shouted in anger and repeated twice more. Perhaps it was a curse word, the giant upset that it had been lax and let uninvited guests inside. Or maybe it was an alarm, it certainly could work as that. Behind them, he heard the flutter of wings, the shout having disturbed whatever had been clinging to the ceiling.

  “Bats, I hope it’s bats. They’re harmless,” he said to himself.

  A moment later proved him right, as a stream of bats shot down the tunnel and disappeared in the darkness ahead. A few of the bats were disconcertingly large, and Berthold was happy the tunnel was tall and therefore kept them a good distance away.

  “Where are we going?”

  Berthold followed the tunnel around a corner and skidded to a stop. There was a chamber ahead, practically identical to the one they’d just come from, but there was no matching spiral staircase. From the flutter of wings, he knew the bats were at the ceiling, disturbing other bats previously hanging there. The air smelled hurt-fully strong of guano, and he gagged.

  “There,” he pointed. The light from the torch barely stretched to an alcove. “See, a path leads straight to it.”

  Yevele grabbed his shoulder and pointed. His intended route consisted of a path with less guano on it than on the rest of the floor, and footprints were visible along it. They were large, troll or giant-sized.

  “They can’t possibly fit down that spiral staircase,” Berthold said. “You said there’s no way that — ’’

  A “throoming” sound echoed somewhere behind them.

  “Maybe it's a skinny giant,” Yevele said, the sarcasm thick in her voice. “Or maybe it just sucks in its stomach and squeezes through the hole.” Then she pointed to another path, and another, not used as often as the first, judging by the thickness of the guano. She started down the nearest of those, tugging Berthold with him. “Hurry.”

  "Nerraghhhhhh! ”

  The path led to another alcove where Yevele thrust Berthold in, then followed. Here the walls were covered with the quivering moss, as was a moldy wooden door she pushed open and stepped behind. “Hurry.”

  Berthold considered a retort, as she certainly didn’t need to order him around so. But he kept quiet, as the “throoming” grew louder. She closed the door behind them, all but a crack, and he gave the torch to Yevele, praying that she kept it far enough back that light wouldn’t spill out. A part of him demanded that he shut the door all the way, put his back to it, and pray with every bit of his will. But the larger part was curious—bad enough curious that he hadn’t looked down that second trap door. He just had to see what was making the "throoming” noise.

  The creature was carrying one of the smokeless torches, and so Berthold could easily—and unfortunately, he thought — see it. Yevele had called it a troll, but it wasn’t what he thought a troll should look like — not close to the miniatures used in the game, or the pictures in the monster books, and nothing like his game master had described. So it might not be a troll at all. But whatever it was, it was hideous.

  “Nerraghhhhhh! ”

  It stood easily nine feet tall, with broad shoulders that, judging by the gouges, Berthold suspected had been scraped on the edges of the trapdoor opening when he squeezed through. The arms were long, like an ape’s, with overlarge hands ending in gnarled fingers hanging down to its knees. All of its joints were exaggerated or ballooned, and the rest of its arms and legs were almost skeletal, the scaly, drab green-gray skin pulled so tight across the bones it looked rubbery and painful. It wore no clothes, and so Berthold could see that its ribs protruded above a sunken stomach. Clumps of calluses were scattered everywhere, especially on its joints, and were likely the result of the creature rubbing against walls and doorframes as it patrolled the place. The beast’s head was its most horrific feature. Long and thin, with a crooked upturned pug nose that was black and wet. The left side of its face looked as if it had melted, the corner of its mouth hanging down below its chin, and a thick rope of drool spilling from it. The
left eye was twice the size of the right, yellowed, and set where its cheek should be. The right eye was active, though, a scabby, wrinkled lid blinking as the monstrosity searched the chamber.

  Each footstep was heavy, making the "throoming” sound they were used to. Some of the bats stirred against the ceiling high overhead. For a moment, Berthold thought the footsteps were echoing. But they weren’t evenly repeated.

  “Nerraghhhhhh!”

  “There’s another one coming, ’’ Yevele said. “Best to deal with them one at a time.” She flung open the door, sword leading. “Yo, ugly,” she called to the troll.

  Berthold’s heart rose into his throat as the misshapen monster dropped its torch and charged the battlemaid. "No. No. No.” He stood in the doorway, aimed his dagger and threw. "What are you doing, Yevele?”

  The dagger sunk into the troll’s chest, but it didn’t slow the beast, only seemed to annoy it. As Berthold tugged two more daggers free and prepared to throw them, Yevele moved in, driving her sword forward like it was a lance and running it all the way through the troll's stomach up to the pommel. Thick, black blood gushed over her hand as she pulled the blade free.

  The troll howled, and the "throoming” of the second approaching beast grew louder. Yevele skewered the troll again, leaping back to avoid its long arms, "whooping” when it fell to its knees and then fell forward.

  Overhead, the bats started flying, disturbed by the noise of the fight and torch that flickered on the ground.

  "I told you I could kill one!” Then she rushed toward the tunnel they’d come through, where the second troll now stood. This one was larger, its face intact. A deeper green, it had a long twig-like nose, but its arms were shorter and muscular. It dropped its torch and roared, then it reached for her. She deftly dropped beneath its flailing arms and shoved her sword up, catching it just under the rib cage. She stood, in the same motion lifting the beast onto its toes, and kicked hard at its left knee. It roared again as she slammed her head into its stomach, tugging her sword free, and danced back.

  "Neragggggghhh! ”