Barclay, J [2008] Vault of Deeds

by James Barclay

  The quiet was unusual. It meant that few scribes were out detailing heroic deeds. Too few to try and hold back the forces of evil sweeping towards Goedterre. That is, unless Bloodchild decided on all out assault before the specified day. He didn’t understand the need for taking one step at a time. And he would awaken ancient defences he could not hope to combat if he struck too soon. Too soon, of course, being before Kettifer had completed the disconnection rituals that would leave the hero crypts sealed when evil stood outside the gates of the city, before making good his escape.

  The problem for Kettifer was not that Bloodchild might fail. Indeed that would not necessarily be a bad thing at all. The problem was that Kettifer could be trapped here while the defeat occurred and his little deals could easily be uncovered. Retirement would be a distant dream then and one he would be able to reflect on at length from his gibbet.

  But try as he might, Kettifer could see no way to get his money out any quicker than he already was. Even now, he felt nervous. The eyes of financiers and administrators were swivelling the way of the Academy in suspicious fashion and Gletterforst was utterly useless as an obfuscator. Fortunately, he was pretty good at being a vicious bastard instead. One couldn’t have perfection in one’s unwitting allies. Kettifer had thought about letting Gletterforst in on it all but he was so…principled… about little trifles such as betrayal of a nation and the coming of a second dark age. It left a nasty taste in the mouth.

  The question for Kettifer was whether the amount of funds he had already siphoned off would see him through in a decent manner. And also whether Bloodchild would actually honour his side of the safe passage agreement. His consideration of these matters was disturbed by a faint scratching sound. A nearby book was taking draft. A formalised deed sounded altogether more dramatic, like stone masonry.

  His interest piqued, Kettifer ambled past the lines of books that sat in rows on the ancient stone floor. The book in question was somewhere in the second dome judging by the light and sound. A senior scribe, then, but not one of the very finest. Stone crunched under foot. Kettifer glanced down. There was a little dust on the floor.

  ‘Ah yes, of course, no cleaners.’

  He let his eyes come to rest on the closed book on its cracked marble dais. A book that had closed with such violence that the spine had buckled and the covers fused together. It would take a spell of some magnitude to prise it open. Fortunately.

  ‘Poor Gethen,’ said Kettifer. ‘You should have been happy with the honour of being among the best here on the floor. Dear, oh dear but the young can be headstrong and so terribly nosey.’

  Kettifer patted the book and walked on through the short linking passage and into the second dome of the Vault. A glow suffused the book in which the draft was being written. Light seemed to fall into it, thoughts and visions tumbling down to nestle among the pages, awaiting the hand of the master word smith to hammer them into beautifully embellished indestructible truth.

  Arriving at the book, Kettifer raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Surely you are not due to stand with your fledgling hero until tomorrow,’ he muttered.

  A short incantation followed. Pages turned, each one cracking with gravitas. Faster and faster they went, the breeze very pleasant on Kettifer’s face, the odour one of ancient wood and high polish. The Principal’s eyes scanned the draft script. To many, it would be nothing but gibberish. To the finest scribe of them all, it painted a picture so vivid it could have been right before his eyes.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Why do I get the almost unquenchable desire to jump?’

  Grincheux thought he had watching the defeat of evil from enough high mountains not to suffer from vertigo. It appeared he was wrong.

  ‘Why do you think I have a hand on your shoulder?’

  It was true. She had. And it was also true that should he jump, and he really, really wanted to, he would dangle in mid-air. Strong little thing, his hero.

  ‘Please keep it there.’

  Grincheux and Cassandra had moved quickly and quietly away from the office. They’d left the central path as it headed sharply down and into a jumping shadow-strewn garish morass. Rough rock pathways ran off horizontally on both sides and let on to a huge number of narrow gloomy holes that might or might not go anywhere.

  The pathways became a ledge without an outer rail that overlooked the immensity of the pit and presumably ran right around its circumference. The ledge was about three feet wide and treacherous. Other openings led off at irregular intervals but Grincheux ignored those for now. Having shuffled a little way along the ledge, his back hard against the damp and dripping walls, his eyes had been drawn to what lay beneath and now it consumed him. And unconsciously, he had edged closer and closer to the brink.

  Steam in a great cloud billowed and rose. Beneath it, smoke roiled and flame lashed upwards followed by dread screams and attendant demonic laughter. He could hear the clanking of chains and the hammering of metal. The sawing of wood and the grind of stone on stone echoed grimly up into the darkness above.

  And in the moments of clarity the steam and smoke granted him, Grincheux could see, hundreds of feet below, the full horror of the demon pit. Leathery bodies writhed across one another. Great fangs glistened, limbs carrying weapons and tools hacked, beat and sawed. Mouths gaped. The stench of foul flesh seeped into his clothes and hair.

  Out of the seething mass grew structures some of which were depressingly obvious, others had purposes about which he could only speculate. Wood and iron gantries rose up into the dome from which hung ropes and chains by the hundred. A grid of metal was being hammered into the wall below them and the manacles, gibbets, spikes and stakes attached to it needed no further explanation.

  Something with arms like a giant wooden spider and great cartwheels of steel sat in the centre of the floor over which swarmed an army of demon workers. And gossamer threads floated in the air, propelled there by the wings of overseer type demons with whips and spade-ended tails. A huge metal pole as thick as an ancient oak, soared up from the steam, hung with hooks and lines. About its base, a wheel like that of a ship sat on the horizontal. Oiled and glistening, it awaited its first turn.

  ‘You know what’s most impressive?’ said Grincheux.

  ‘Impressive?’ asked Cassandra as if through a mouthful of salt.

  ‘From a style-perspective. From a classic iconic perspective. From the pages of a text book of beautifully clichéd and gloriously hackneyed evil tropes perspective. This is all of that made real. If someone asked you to paint the picture of a pit of evil, how would yours differ from that which you see?’

  Cassandra was stone-faced. ‘They are building a city of doom, here beneath the corridors of the Academy. They must be cast down.’

  ‘Well yes, of course, but look…’ Grincheux spread his arms. ‘…take a moment to enjoy the classic stereotypes, the sheer volume of well-worn images of evil set out before you. Magnificent in its way.’

  ‘In a moment, I shall release my grip for I fear I must wash the filth of you from my hand,’ said Cassandra.

  Grincheux glanced round to see if she was joking. It appeared she was not.

  ‘You misunderstand. I’m not glorying in it, just admitting a grudging respect for those on the dark side of the battle able to visualise as clearly as we can on ours, the base physical articles of their beliefs.’

  ‘It must be destroyed bolt by bolt until all that remains is dust,’ said Cassandra.

  ‘Absolutely, my hero, and yet there is something missing, isn’t there?’

  ‘Apart from a dozen armies of light flooding this place with the glory of Goedterre?’

  ‘Yes, apart from that.’ Grincheux’s desire to jump was fading as his brain clanked back into gear. ‘The fact of this place does not explain how the forces of evil defeated so many heroes, only that is has happened. That is Kettifer’s true betrayal, I’m sure of it.’

/>   ‘Does it matter? All we must do is summon the forces of light. Clean out this nest. Slay the beasts and bring succour to those lost in the darkness.’

  Cassandra’s voice took on an increasingly strident tone. Forthright and beautiful. The words of a hero. Just a little loud.

  ‘And we will,’ whispered Grincheux, flapping his hands for quiet. ‘I just need a little more evidence.’

  ‘Seek it quickly. My sword hand grows restless.’

  Grincheux smiled. ‘Should we survive this, you have a fine career in heroism ahead of you. The fuel of words you give me is of the highest quality.’

  Cassandra’s words were drowned out by the flap of leathery wings at close quarters. A shadow fell across them. Above them, a demon rose. His forked tongue licked out over great fangs. A trim beard was on his chin and pointed ears flanked his head. Red he was all over and his tail, long and sharp, coiled and twisted. He opened his mouth wide to roar.

  ‘Classic,’ breathed Grincheux. ‘Just look at th—’

  The demon’s head parted from his body and both dropped from sight. Grincheux had a moment to register the expression of surprise on the demon’s face and the hiss as Cassandra’s sword was returned to her scabbard before he felt a hand on his arm and irresistible pressure in the direction of the nearest opening.

  ‘We are discovered,’ said Cassandra, leading the way into the gloom of a tight and twisting corridor that angled sharply down.

  ‘You noticed.’

  ‘Battle is joined.’

  ‘By you anyway. The other chap is anything but.’

  ‘His fate will be mirrored throughout this place.’

  ‘I do hope so.’

  The passageway was growing hot. Luminous lichens lit their way between walls that ran with stinking fluid that might never have been water. Tendrils of vegetation reached out to grasp them. Shouts and hoots of alarm followed them down, joined by other voices from in front of them. Grincheux’s boots were inadequate for the conditions underfoot. He slipped and slithered and was glad of Cassandra’s steadying hand on his arm even if her grip was a little on the tight side. He hoped his fingers would be able to grip a quill sometime in the future.

  ‘I trust this is the right direction for you,’ said Cassandra.

  ‘So do I. I fear time is running a little short.’

  The passageway levelled out and opened up around a sharp right hand bend. The light of multiple fires, torches and lanterns flooded in. Cassandra let go Grincheux’s arm and drew her sword. It still dripped with the blood of the demon that hissed onto the ground, leaving smoking holes in the rock. Heaven knew what it was doing to the inside of her scabbard.

  Ahead of them was an open space, set with the equipment of a combat quadrangle. Grincheux ceased to hear the screeches and hoots that grew in volume and fury with every heartbeat. He forgot temporarily the plight in which he and Cassandra found themselves and he ignored the diminishing chances of their survival. All that mattered was getting his visions into the draft of his book before he died, should that be his fate. This had to be recorded. It had to be given its chance.

  Grincheux walked steadily to the edge of the quadrangle. It took a while for the distorted imagery the…students?…yes, students, he supposed, left in his mind’s eye. And the fact was that he was seeing a pretty much perfect mirror image of a typical scene from the Academy’s quadrangle.

  Four students ranged across the centre of the quadrangle in a rough line. Each had a, well, unique body shape. A multi-tentacled creature about six feet tall and twice as wide sprawled in a heap of grey mottled flesh, its face stuck on a thick neck that bore scales and looked as if it was palsied. At least a dozen eyes swivelled on individual stalks and below the slit of a nose, a beak snapped and ground. Each limb held a weapon or other implement of destruction. It had no apparent means of forward movement.

  If that creature had possessed shoulders, it would have been rubbing them with a demon standing on the hind legs of a horse. Its torso was massively muscled and shone like armour and its two limbs ended in great taloned claws which clutched a hammer whose head was a spiked globe and whose haft was of steel ending in another spike. It whirled the mighty weapon experimentally about its head with all the apparent effort of twiddling a pencil. That head was hawk-eyed and feathered in the black of a raven. The mouth was unable to contain its vast array of fangs and great pointed ears nestled into the sides of is skull.

  The other pair were scarcely less ridiculous and surely the sketches of a deranged child made flesh. One possessed the head, sail back fin and tail of a lizard yet stood on two legs to display the torso of a bear. Those legs were built for raw speed and in its forelimbs, it carried a whip and a net. Its eyes were jet black and its mouth contained serrated layers of bone. Grincheux ground his own teeth and grimaced.

  The final beast, the one nearest to them, was largely human, barring the head of a cobra that poked above the collar of his smart white frilly shirt. The quintuple knuckled bone fingers were another little giveaway that he was not of woman born and the final one was most probably the webbed feet that flapped impatiently from underneath the finely tailored cuffs of his embroidered hose. Oh, and his skin was a painfully bright blue as well. A demon dandy. So, not human at all. Now Grincheux felt he had seen it all.

  But not quite.

  A very familiar voice was speaking. It came from the mouth of the tutor who stood in full plate mail before them and carrying a mighty two-handed sword. The blade was covered in glowing runes and words of magic glittered on his helmet, the visor of which was pushed up. The Academy’s finest ever combat tutor.

  ‘That’s…’ began Cassandra.

  Grincheux nodded and gripped her sword arm, staying her desire to rush in just for the moment.

  ‘Alderion the Invincible.’

  ‘But didn’t he…?’

  ‘Die tripping over the academy cat while carrying a tray of lethal poisons to the chemistry lab? Yes. That’s what we were told, anyway.’

  ‘So Alderion is being threatened or blackmailed or something too,’ said Cassandra, shaking her head sadly. ‘Just like Principal Kettifer.’

  Grincheux’s shake of the head was equally sad. ‘Do they train thick-headedness to heroes these days or is it a natural talent?’

  ‘It’s a nat—hey!’

  ‘I thought I’d explained this and everything you’d seen would back it up. And even if it didn’t, I hoped you might remember the reason we’ve come down here for longer than it took us to actually get here. Just take it one step at a time…if Kettifer is in on all this, then…’

  Cassandra pointed at Alderion. The baying of demons was horribly close now.

  ‘He’s in on it too?’

  ‘Bravo. Now let’s listen while we can. See what he says to cement his guilt.’

  Either side of the passageway were shadowy alcoves built to house the busts of some evil lord or other. They retreated into one each and while they prayed not to be discovered just yet, they listened. Alderion’s voice oiled out, covering everything with a thin film of odiousness.

  ‘…in all your battles, remember this. A hero is an essentially weak individual –’ Cassandra’s teeth grinding together loosened dust in Grincheux’s alcove. ‘—weak in the most important area of all. And where is that?’

  Seven arms went up. Five of them tentacles.

  ‘OoH, OOh. Me, ME!’ gurgled the beak.

  ‘Yes, Coagula.’

  ‘The body, sir. Weak body, weak warrior.’

  Alderion smiled an indulgent smile. ‘A worthy attempt but wrong, I am afraid.’

  There followed concerted irritable grunting from all four and a couple of imaginative threats. Alderion’s smile didn’t falter.

  ‘Any of you who think you can take me down, be my guest. I am but an old man, no? Indeed I wish one of you would try. You would prove my point most eloquently.’

  Four inhuman demons studied their feet, hooves or globulus mass. Take your pick.

>   ‘Wise choice,’ said Alderion. ‘The weakness, is in the hero’s will. In his belief.’

  A forelimb waved. Alderion nodded for the lizard to speak.

  ‘What about her belief?’ spoken with classic sibilance.

  ‘Oh my dear Komodos,’ said Alderion. ‘No true hero can ever be female.’

  Cassandra’s strangled screech would have alerted guards in every direction but for the outbreak of demonic laughter from the quadrangle.

  ‘Keep that anger,’ hissed Grincheux. ‘We’ll be needing it.’

  Grincheux blushed at the most un-hero-like stream of expletives. Impressive, mind you, in one apparently so pure. And actually quite lyrical in their way. There was hope for the girl yet. Alderion was still speaking.

  ‘…so the only reason most of them ever win battles is because they believe they will and, worse, so do you. If you simply stop and think about who is facing you…some jumped up pretty boy in shiny armour versus your brute strength and cunning then you’ll be half way there. All right? Good, we move on because that is not the whole story. Indeed the sharp ones among you will have worked out that there is another whole half to come.’

  A variety of red and black creatures thundered past their hiding place, missing them completely and simultaneously proving that there was nothing more stupid than a servant of the dark under orders and giving Grincheux a tiny ray of hope regarding their survival. When the thundering had dimmed to muted echoes, Alderion’s voice could again be heard.

  ‘…no, Coagula, four. FOUR.’ The correct number of fingers were held up. ‘That is the number following three and before five. Both of which are large numbers when compared to your IQ. Put that sword down or I’ll cut off the limb that wields it.’

  Grincheux saw the sword in Coagula’s tentacle sweep down at Alderion. The old master parried with embarrassing ease and slid in a riposte, neatly dividing the limb from its body. Coagula screamed and threatened vengeance.