Songreaver

by Andrew Hunter

  "So we have to outrun it?" Garrett asked.

  "You can't outrun Death for long, Garrett," the Girl in Brown said, "You just have to try to get where you're going before it catches up to you. If we can make it to the tomb, we'll be safe."

  Garrett leaned out into the hot wind of the chamber, counting the black doors that marked the tombs of Wythr's kings. "Any chance that the Songreaver is in the top one?" he laughed.

  The Girl in Brown shook her head. "I don't know which one he's in," she said, "I've never been any further than this."

  "All right," Garrett said, drawing in a slow breath, "you guys wait here. I'll run out and see if I can make it to the first tomb before the Guardian sees me."

  "I'm coming with you," Marla said.

  "Me too," the Girl in Brown said.

  Garrett nodded. "Let's get this over with," he said, and stepped out onto the obsidian staircase.

  The stone beneath his foot shuddered with a deep resonating pulse, and a low groaning sound rippled through the mist. Garrett looked back at Marla and the Girl in Brown, but saw only confusion in their faces as well.

  He took another step, but the strange groan had died away. He hurried across the narrow obsidian span toward the stairs, trying not to think about what would happen if he slipped over the edge of the walkway. A moment later, and he was on the stairs, breathing heavily as he raced down the steps as fast as he dared, coming at last to the first spoke that reached to the central obsidian pillar. He ran across to reach the first tomb door which stood open wide. He ran inside the burial chamber with the two girls close on his heels.

  "It's empty!" Garrett gasped, looking around the wide, circular chamber that nearly matched the pillar itself in diameter.

  "Waiting for another king," the Girl in Brown said.

  "On to the next one then," Marla said.

  Garrett nodded and caught his breath before running back out onto the staircase and down toward the next tomb. He saw that its door was sealed shut. He fumbled for the hammer and chisel in his pack as he slowed his pace, approaching the door.

  He had the chisel in hand when the Girl in Brown said, "It's not him!"

  Garrett stared up at the Gloarish runes carved into the obsidian door, an unfamiliar name.

  "Keep going," Marla said.

  They ran back to the stairs and down to the next level below, again finding the wrong king.

  "I was afraid of this," the Girl in Brown said.

  "What?" Garrett asked.

  "These were the last two kings," she gasped, "It's going in reverse order... Brahnek was the first human king of Wythr."

  "So we hafta..."

  "Go down... way down," she said.

  Garrett put his fists on his knees, still clutching the hammer and chisel. "At least we haven't seen any sign of..."

  A sharp, glassy clicking sound cut him off. He looked up to glimpse something on the stairs above them. It disappeared behind the column before he could see it clearly, but it was man-sized, and covered with short white fur. The rhythmic clicking grew louder as the thing descended the stairs.

  "The Guardian!" the Girl in Brown cried.

  "Go, Garrett!" Marla gasped.

  Garrett ran back to the stairs and down again, not stopping at the next tomb.

  "Keep going," the Girl in Brown shouted.

  "Marla!" Garrett cried, "You go ahead and find the right tomb!"

  Marla nodded, her face even paler than usual. Her body blurred as she raced past him, taking the stairs faster than seemed possible. Garrett and the Girl in Brown lagged behind, casting glances upward at the increasingly loud click-clack of the Guardian on the steps above them.

  When they rounded the pillar again, Garrett saw the thing clearly for the first time. He made a sound that was something between a laugh and a scream, for his mind could not quite grasp the reality of the thing. It had the body of a white goat, but it stood on its hind legs like a man. Its front legs were withered and short, hardly the length of Garrett's forearms, and they twitched spasmodically as it walked. Two short, curving horns grew from the top of its caprine head, and it stared down at them with three eyes of such unearthly blackness that they left a triangular after-image that lingered in Garrett's vision when he shut his eyes.

  The Girl in Brown stood frozen on the stair, unable to tear her eyes from it as it descended slowly toward them. Garrett grabbed her arms and shook her. "Run!" he said, and she ran with him, away from the white goat.

  "Did you see it, Garrett?" she gasped, "Did you see its eyes?"

  "Yeah," he said, the image of its three void-black eyes only now fading from his vision.

  At the juncture of the next tomb spar, Garrett had to stop to catch his breath. His side hurt too much to keep running. He shoved the tools into his belt and doubled over, filling his lungs with the damp tomb air. "Gimme... a minute," he wheezed.

  "Garrett, we have to keep moving!" the Girl in Brown said, her eyes following the clattering hoofsteps of the watcher on the stairs above.

  "I know," he gasped, "Just... a minute."

  He looked down over the edge of the stairs to see a dark blur as Marla continued to run, pausing only to check the inscription on each door she passed. He groaned to see how far down she had already gone.

  The click-clacking continued, growing ever closer.

  "All right," Garrett said, "let's go."

  Garrett and the Girl in Brown continued to descend, slower now than they had before. Garrett's feet and shins began to ache, growing worse with every step on the cold volcanic glass. He drew in enough breath to yell, "Find anything?"

  "Not yet!" Marla called back. She sounded very far away.

  Garrett groaned and forced his legs to move a little bit faster. "Why... couldn't... he have... been... the last... king... of Wythr?" he panted.

  The Girl in Brown laughed nervously and then gasped as she glanced back over her shoulder.

  Garrett looked too, and his heart fluttered with fear at the sight of the white goat on the same level now with them, only a few yards behind them on the stairs. It's withered forelimbs twitched as is hobbled toward them on black hooves.

  "Go, Garrett!" the Girl in Brown shouted, "I'll slow him down!"

  Garrett blinked, realizing what she intended to do. "No!" he shouted, and he grabbed her by the shoulder of her brown cape. "Come on!"

  Garrett ran down the black steps, ignoring the pain in his legs and pulling the girl with him. He missed a step and came down hard on his left foot, sending a burst of pain through his leg and dislodging the iron chisel from his belt. The chisel pinged off the side of the obsidian steps and spun down to strike the edge of a walkway beneath them. Tiny shards of black glass tumbled with the chisel as it disappeared into the green mists below.

  "Gah!" Garrett shouted, staggering forward and struggling to regain his balance.

  The Girl in Brown pulled him back from the edge and started to speak, when the clack-clack-clack of the Guardian's hooves grew louder and faster, almost upon them.

  "Jump, Garrett!" the Girl in Brown shouted, and, when he hesitated, she pushed him over the edge of the stairs onto the walkway below.

  He landed on the walkway with the wind knocked out of him, but otherwise unharmed. He looked up to see a brown sleeve wildly flailing over the edge of the stairway above. The Girl in Brown screamed once and then appeared over the edge as she jumped down after him.

  Garrett dodged out of the way as she landed beside him on the walkway. She had a grin on her face as she came to her feet again.

  "Almost had me!" she said.

  Garrett laughed, and the two of them descended the stairs again, just as the white goat rounded the pillar and came into view once more.

  "I found it!" Marla's voice called up from below.

  Garrett found new strength in the knowledge that he was so close to his goal. He and the Girl in Brown flew down the staircase, leaving the white goat further behind each time they rounded the tomb pillar of Wythr's kings.
>
  Suddenly, the sound of its hooves fell silent, and Garrett stopped running to look upward at the underside of the black steps above.

  "Do you think he gave up?" he said.

  The Girl in Brown looked at him, a desperate hope in her eyes.

  Then they saw a white shape launch out into the air from the stairs above, and the white goat fluttered down toward them on membranous wings that stretched between two spiny protrusions, jutting from its back. It let out a tortured bleat as it circled around and glided down to land with a glassy click-clack on the stairs below them.

  "Oh, that's not fair!" the Girl in Brown shouted.

  The Guardian's hooves clicked on the black glass as it mounted the steps upward toward them, driving them back the way they had come.

  "Marla, he's between us!" Garrett shouted.

  Garrett's weary legs threatened to give out beneath him, as he climbed the steps to escape the advancing Guardian.

  "There!" the Girl in Brown shouted, and she pointed down at another walkway below them.

  Garrett did not hesitate this time but jumped, landing hard on the cold black glass. The Girl in Brown landed beside him and hauled him to his feet.

  They made it down three more flights of steps before the Guardian glided down to cut off their descent once more.

  "I really... wanna... punch him... in the... nose," Garrett snarled as the Girl in Brown dragged him back up the stairs.

  "Bad idea," she said.

  "Yeah... try magic?" he gasped.

  "Anything's worth a try," she agreed.

  Garrett reached into his pack and pulled out a flask of essence. He turned to face the goat creature as it climbed the stairs toward him.

  "I'm tired of running from you!" he shouted. Garrett thrust the canister above his head and pointed the fingers of his right hand toward the coal-black eyes of the demon.

  "Veiarnna te noulleanna!" he shouted, and a burst of rainbow flame sizzled through the mist toward the white goat.

  The Guardian shrieked out an angry bleat and pushed through the prismatic flames, undaunted.

  Garrett said something that Uncle would have grounded him for, and turned to run again.

  Suddenly, a gray blur appeared on the stairs behind the white goat, and it cried out in pain as Marla lashed her belt across its back. It turned to face her, lunging forward with its withered forelimbs outstretched. Marla danced clear of its grasp, giving ground as it advanced on her in turn.

  "Jump down again?" the Girl in Brown whispered in Garrett's ear.

  He gave her a fierce nod, and they hurried to find a safe spot from which to leap.

  They landed right behind Marla as she lead the creature downward along the spiral.

  "Hi," Garrett gasped.

  Marla grinned at him.

  "Keep moving," the Girl in Brown said.

  "I don't know how much more of this I can take," Garrett wheezed.

  "It's only a little further now," Marla promised.

  "You really should get more exercise, Garrett," the Girl in Brown said, "You're spending too much time in the library these days."

  Marla raised an eyebrow and gave her a hard look.

  "Nevermind," the girl whispered.

  They descended three more flights of stairs when they came to the door that Marla indicated.

  "It's locked," Marla shouted, "from the inside!"

  Garrett felt for his tools, snatching the hammer from his belt, but realizing that his chisel was lost. He stripped off his backpack and began frantically rummaging through it for something else to use.

  "Let me try," the Girl in Brown said, reaching into her belt pouch and pulling out a long, slender metal ribbon with a hook on one end. She stepped up to the doors of the tomb and slipped the metal tool between the crack in the center of the obsidian doors.

  Garrett and Marla watched the stairs, growing more anxious by the moment as the click-clack of the Guardian’s hooves grew louder.

  The Girl in Brown grunted with effort as she worked the slender bar of metal between the two doors. "It's too heavy," she gasped, "Must be a beam of some sort."

  Garrett looked at Marla, their eyes wide. The clicking grew louder still as the white goat approached.

  "Stand back!" Marla cried.

  The Girl in Brown had just enough time to step out of the way as Marla shouldered hard into the door with blinding speed. The doors shook, throwing off a cloud of dust, but did not yield to the vampire girl's charge. She stood there, slumped against the doors, with a very stunned look on her face.

  "Ouch," Marla said.

  Garrett's brain raced, searching for an answer, but paralyzed with fear of the white demon who even now staggered into view around the curve of the stairs. "I don't know what to do," he said, "I'm sorry... I..."

  Just then they heard the sound of Warren's voice calling from somewhere high above. "Garrett! Are you in here?"

  "Warren!" Garrett shouted, "We're down here!"

  "On the stairs?"

  "Yeah," he called, "but don't come down! There's a demon here, and magic doesn't work on him!"

  "What?" Warren yelled.

  "A demon! Get out of here! Don't come down the stairs!" Garrett screamed.

  "Come down the stairs?"

  "No!" Garrett cried, then sputtered with frustration, "Warren, just leave!"

  The hooting cackles of three ghouls echoed through the tomb shaft.

  "Not a chance!" Warren shouted, "Sit tight, Garrett! We're coming!"

  The Guardian cocked one of its long ears and then turned to hobble back up the stairs, disappearing from view.

  "Oh, no," Garrett moaned.

  "They'll try to fight it," the Girl in Brown said.

  "I'll go to them," Marla said, "They have to be warned."

  Garrett nodded, but Marla was already gone, leaping up to catch the edge of the stairway above and pull herself up. Garrett caught a glimpse of a dark blur headed upward around the spiral toward the unsuspecting ghouls.

  "They bought us some time," the Girl in Brown said.

  "Yeah... any ideas?" Garrett said.

  The Girl in Brown ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. "Somebody didn't want that door open again," she said, "They must have rigged it to seal itself from within once they buried the king inside."

  Garrett ran his fingers along the edge where the doors met the arched obsidian frame. "The hinges must be inside too," he said, "and no gap beneath."

  "We're here to loot all your dead guys, demon!" Diggs shouted from somewhere above. A verdant flash of light filled the shaft shortly thereafter.

  "Diggs is into the essence," Garrett sighed. He remembered how much the ghoul liked the flame spell, especially the hot version. He stopped breathing for a second as a thought struck him.

  Garrett reached into his pack and pulled out the canister he had used to cast the flame spell on the Guardian. The metal was still cool to the touch from the casting of the spell. He laughed.

  "What is it?" the Girl in Brown asked.

  "Essence gets really cold when you use it... as it goes away," he said, pulling out the other canister as well, "It kinda sucks all the heat out of everything around it as it goes." He looked at the obsidian doors again and then pulled the water skin from his backpack as well.

  "So... what?" the girl asked.

  "So, my uncle told me once how people used to dig mines, before they had metal tools," Garrett said, "They would build a big fire next to the rock and, once it got really hot, they would throw cold water on it. Even the hardest stone would crack apart when the water hit it." He tucked one of the canisters under his arm and handed the waterskin to the Girl in Brown.

  "What do I do with this?" she asked.

  He thought for a moment. "All right," he said, working the nozzle open on the half-full canister in his hands, "Uh... uncork that water and pour half of it out."

  She pulled the stopper out of the waterskin and took a long drink before emptying half of the water over the side
of the platform. She held out the partially emptied skin toward Garrett.

  He tilted the essence flask and carefully dribbled the glowing green ooze into the mouth of the waterskin. When he was done, he tossed the empty flask over the edge and took the skin from her. Corking it again, Garrett shook it up, mixing the water and essence together. He handed it back to her.

  "So, when I tell you, I want you to pour the water out onto the door," he said, "and try to get as much into the center crack as you can."

  "All right," the Girl in Brown said, her eyes narrowed.

  "For now, uh... just... stand back a little," Garrett said.

  The Girl in Brown stepped back, holding the waterskin at the ready and eyeing the stairs nervously. More flashes of green light came from above, but there was no sign of the Guardian.

  Garrett held the full essence canister in his left hand and reached out with the fingers of his right, almost touching the black doors of the Songreaver's tomb. He whispered the words to the spell that Lampwicke had taught them, focusing his intent on the very center where the two doors met.

  A jet of white-hot flame shot from his fingers, lancing through the crack in the center of the doors. He held it there, channeling the arcane energy of the essence into a single point of unimaginable heat. His left hand began to ache with cold as the essence drained from his flask, and the glassy stone in the center of the door began to glow a dull red.

  Then the canister felt suddenly light, and the flame flickered out.

  "Now!" Garrett cried.

  The Girl in Brown lifted the waterskin, pressing its mouth against the center of the door, as high as she could reach above the point where Garrett's fire had burned. The glowing water and essence mixture poured down along the seam, bursting into steam where it touched the red-hot glass.

  The Girl in Brown screamed and turned her face away as a cloud of steam billowed out, but Garrett dropped his canister and thrust the palm of his left hand against the rapidly cooling glass.

  "Ghe'haalan jheghaaro the'Uhla," he shouted, and the steam turned instantly to a cloud of jade green butterflies. A shocking retort sounded from the door, and the water froze suddenly into glittering ice as the essence within it released the power of its magic. Large cracks spiderwebbed out from the center of the door as Garrett snatched his scalded hand back from its shattered surface.