Then there was a metallic snap and she felt the surge stop. The rope slackened as she floated to a stop. The elf weaver managed to half-stand, still trapped, and saw that she had not been pulled all the way to the rusted prison. She didn’t pause to contemplate whether the trap mechanism had failed. She fumbled her left hand—her true hand—for a small knife on her hip, hidden in her robe.
And as Helesys slipped the knife and set to the rope net, she looked to Taunauk’s brawl, but saw only the fishman that had broken off to avenge its fallen leader—the fishman swimming in a fury toward her. Its wake splashed and broke wide, blotting out everything behind it. It screeched mad and drowned out everything else.
The elf envisioned the brave Taunauk overcome at her moments tumbling underwater—the fishmen having slain him or left him wounded in the shallows. She envisioned that behind this screeching fishman was his brethren, come to tear her apart.
Helesys raised her gauntlet and felt the arcane violence churn again. She screamed and the fishman was nearly close enough to touch before a massive axehead descended like a starfall and cleaved the screaming creature in two. The shallow water split and exploded like a blastshell had been dropped.
And when the roar of the splash settled, Taunauk stood over her, staring at the crackling energy at her fingertips.
The elf lowered her weapon and cut thrice more at the net to free herself. She stepped out and pushed the net away in the shallow water. Meanwhile the barbarian stared at her wand-arm.
“Clever sheath for a wand,” Taunauk said and gestured to the metal arm. “Elven?”
“I do not know,” Helesys replied, turning her hand over. It looked or was made to look like a sleek gauntlet—it was anything but.
“Do you remember your teachings?”
The elf shook her head again. “I called upon the magic of the wand with merely a thought… I do not know what else it can do.”
Taunauk nodded. “The memory lies somewhere within you. I could not remember battle, yet the weight of my axe is familiar.”
“An echo,” Helesys said, recalling the barbarian’s comment in the first room.
Taunauk half-smiled in the gloom and gestured for her to walk with him. She wondered if that was the extent of the outlander’s expression.
~
The two waded through the knee deep water of the flooded room with less worry and passed the carnage of their battle. The smell of oil and fish was heavy in the still air. Pockets of deep red blood mixed with the still-bobbing water. The fishmen seemed more numerous than before, but Helesys suspected that was from their being cleaved in two—by Taunauk’s axe and by her magic cannon.
But the numbers did not match: There was one that nearly came upon her in the net-trap. The first that Taunauk had killed in a single leaping blow and the fishman-weaver who Helesys had blown apart with magic.
“There should be one more body,” she said.
“It swam away. Down the well,” Taunauk pointed out a ways toward the corner of the room where the water turned a deep, dark blue. Who knew where the underwater passage led.
“Will it return?”
Taunauk grunted, “Not for a time. Fishman was smart to run. May muster allies and return, but not for a time.”
“Then we will be long gone,” Helesys replied.
She was ready to be away from there and back in a dry passage. Now that the excitement of battle was over, the cold was returning. The water was not icy—not deathly cold—yet she knew that prolonged exposure would sap her strength. Strength she would need for whatever else lay ahead in this cursed place.
Taunauk grabbed the torch that lay propped on the body of a fishman; the single torch that stayed lit. They searched the flooded room. Both scanned around and below the waterline, weary for anymore traps that might be waiting for a wrong step. When they were sure there was no other way forward, the two waded toward the rusted prison.
“I did not expect anything to escape your axe,” Helesys said in a quiet attempt at conversation.
“The two split. One for you and the other for the well.”
“Ah, so you diverted to help me?”
Taunauk grunted in affirmation, then shrugged. “I see now that you needed no aid.”
Helesys smiled. “I am not so proud as to turn my nose up at help.”
They were nearly at the hallway when the barbarian paused as if gripped by a thought.
“We must relearn strategy,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow at the giant human. “Do you think we used to know each other?”
Taunauk stared at her, his eyes hidden in the dim. “This life echoes. I feel it with you as well.”
Helesys stared back. She could not say for sure that the barbarian was wrong. There were things she knew inherently. She felt her wand-arm and managed to call upon it. She knew of the hidden knife on her hip. But she did not feel the same about him. She did not feel him as an enemy, ally, lover, friend or kin.
She hoped that it was merely her muscles remembering a little quicker than her other faculties.
Taunauk must have sensed her lack of commitment. “It is no matter,” he added, turning toward the hallway. “I trust that all things will come back to us in time.”
“What about strategy?” Helesys asked. “I feared I would catch you in the blast.”
“Good eye for the weaver,” he said, ignoring her concern. “His chant was a hex upon my axe. They would have died more swiftly.”
“Then I will target weavers and archers,” Helesys said. “What will you do?”
“I will go first. And I will give your magic a wide berth.”
~ ~ ~
The Rusted Prison
The first floor of the twisted structure was almost completely collapsed, no higher than the knee-deep water of the cavern. The fishmen could possess a passage beneath it, but none befitting an elf and a human.
They had to climb to reach a passable level of the twisted structure. Taunauk went first, he stowed the torch in a sling on his back where it rested along the massive battleaxe. He climbed methodically, testing handholds and footholds, casting strange shadows on the twisted metal. The prison groaned at the intrusion. The second floor was covered with barred doors and Taunauk paused, perhaps contemplating forcing the door aside, but continued up.
Meanwhile, Helesys mentally marked his path. If the bars could hold his weight they would surely hold her.
Taunauk scanned the third, but ceased his climb on the fourth floor and stepped off onto a landing. For the briefest moment the barbarian disappeared. Even his torchlight.
But the briefest moments can stretch on and in the gloom and in the cold of the dungeon, Helesys felt utterly and completely alone. Company was a comfort that she might not always possess.
Torchlight returned and though it was four stories up, it brought the elf a little kindling of warmth. Taunauk leaned over the landing and beckoned her up with a wave.
Helesys climbed the rusted prison, the gnarled metal groaning much less than before, but still protesting her ascent. Though she was set to task, her mind wandered, puzzling over how the body and even the mind could know things innately as they did: Commanding her metal arm with a thought, fear of prolonged exposure to the cold water, fear of the fishmen, the feel of blastshells exploding, Taunauk remembering the feel of his axe…
Perhaps some things were merely instinctual or ingrained so deeply they were indiscernible. Had the swing of an axe or the call of a wand become akin to walking or breathing? Taunauk knew he was a hunter, without remembering the specifics of his life…
But Helesys did not know what she was—a weaver, yes—but it seemed like a tip of the truth rather than the whole of the spear. Perhaps both she and Taunauk would live long enough to remember their lives and their truths.
Helesys easily followed the barbarian’s path up the twisted bars. When she was within arm’s reach, Taunauk offered her a hand and pulled her up the rest of the way as if she weighed nothing at
all.
Past him, torchlight stretched down the orange-red hall. The walls were a mix of crumpled paneling and bars, not a single one spared from rust and decay. Swirls of rust-dust lined the floor, punctuated by Taunauk’s giant bootsteps.
“There appears to be a path,” the barbarian said, gesturing with the torch.
She stared and finally saw: The rust-dust seemed to flow in a pattern down the hallway, like river silt marking the twists and turns of flow.
“No fresh tracks,” he added.
“No fresh tracks here,” the weaver corrected.
Taunauk grunted in reply. “Keep your eyes open.”
~
Helesys decided that she did not like the rusted prison, even more so than the cold, flooded passageways.
For one, the glow of the torchlight was both necessary and damning. There were no torches in the rusted prison—no other sources of light at all—and so without the torch they would’ve been nearly blind. But with the torch they were a beacon to any creatures within and also nearly blind to anything beyond their path, for the light of the torch cast uncountable shadows against the rows of bars, obscuring everything beyond.
And it was impossible to be quiet. Even as the elf tried to time her steps so they fell with Taunauk’s, their weight betrayed them. Every minute or so, the floor beneath them would groan, as if calling out to any denizens that there were intruders within the walls.
But none came—not until the floor shifted beneath their feet.
A clang of metal beneath their feet that echoed through the entire prison. Both the elf and the human froze, afraid to move.
And from the dappled gloom of the rusted hall, a black form floated toward them. It was nearly as wide as the hallway and as it came closer, Helesys saw the outline of an ink-black squid. Its dozen arms pulsed, thin black skin covering and stretching between them. It floated slowly, steadily toward them like a specter.
Taunauk raised his axe.
“Do not do it,” a voice hissed from their left.
Helesys turned, readying her wand-arm and at first she saw nothing behind the cursed forest of shadows. It was only when she heard the voice again that she saw a hint of the creature.
“The empty cell beside you. Hide there. Be quick.” The voice came from behind a dozen shadows—sinister threads of fangs and a single massive, yellow eye.
Taunauk stepped carefully into the cell beside them, but he had not taken his eyes off the approaching squid. He had not seen the sinister look of their savior. Reluctantly, the elf followed.
Both watched the silent procession of the squid—eerie and eyeless—bobbing slightly with each pulse of its limbs. It stopped right in front of their cell. Right where the floor had creaked beneath their feet. Hunting by sound.
In the dappled shadows, Helesys saw more movement from their savior’s direction. Accompanied by the faintest patter of feet. So faint that the squid did not bother with it. Helesys held her breath so she could follow the sound—back the way they had come.
Then another clang came from that direction, sharp and purposeful. The squid followed the new sound. For some reason, their hellish-looking savior was leading the creature away.
Neither Helesys nor Taunauk moved while the squid floated down the hall.
Then they heard an ear-piercing scream, short and violent. A shriek that echoed through the rusted prison a dozen times over. Deep in the depths of shadow the entire prison began to writhe. Shadows of squid began to float all over.
A procession came. A dozen squid floated by. Beyond, it seemed as if the entire prison was writhing as tentacles danced in the shadows. All converging on the source of the sound.
And when the last squid floated by, Taunauk stalked out of the room, leading her further down the hall, away from the creatures. Helesys looked back for only a moment and saw the black mass congregating in the distance. An uncountable number of squid pooled there—flooding the hall.
~
They didn’t stop for several minutes, and moved at an almost reckless pace through the rusted prison. They only stopped when they heard the scurrying of feet behind them, then through the prison cells around them—their gruesome-looking savior—moving with animal-like deftness through the thin, twisted confines.
The massive, yellow eye, the width of two hands, stared back at them from beyond the bars two rows away. The black pupil shrunk to a pinhole as Taunauk raised the torch against the bars. Its skin was reptilian and spined at the joints, caked with rust-powder. Its limbs were abnormally long and thin, folded as it crouched low, yet it could reach up and grasp bars along the ceiling.
It flicked long, clawed fingers against the metal and hissed, “Avert the light.”
The barbarian grunted and palmed both the torch and his axe in one hand, such that the head of the axe blocked the light of the torch.
It approached with rodent-like dexterity, slipping through narrow gaps in the bars. It chattered its needle-thin teeth as it neared the final set of bars. The pupil of its puss-yellow eye half-filling it.
Helesys’s wand-arm whirred with steady power, elbow half-bent in anticipation.
“No closer, creature,” Taunauk said.
“You should thank me,” the creature said, its eye flitting between the two. A strip of black flesh hung from its mouth.
After a long moment, the elf replied, “Thank you for your diversion, but no closer.”
“Ah, you’re welcome, weaver.” Its words lingered in a hiss.
“Why did you help us?” she asked.
Its eye flitted back to the elf, moving rapidly down and up, lingering long on her right hand. It grasped the rusted bars that separated them, its fingers alone were over a foot long—it would’ve been nothing for the creature to stick its arm between the bars and reach her.
Helesys called upon her wand and felt arcane energy crackled between her fingertips. The creature’s dagger mouth opened and its pupil widened, nearly blotting out the yellow.
“Answer me,” she commanded, “and be careful your hand does not get you into trouble.”
Its fingers wrapped around the rusted bar. “I’ve never seen such a contraption.” Its words were a gentle hiss now as it was transfixed on her metal hand.
“You are a weaver?” she asked.
“Yes—no… I was. We were all many things, once.”
“Before this rusted prison? Or before the dungeon?”
The great yellow eye looked away from her wand-arm for the first time when she mentioned the dungeon. It stared at her for a long moment without speaking.
“This creature is of no help to us,” Taunauk said. “It is a hoarder. A seeker of treasure.”
“Shut your mouth, outlander,” the creature replied, lowering its gaze to the floor. “I have no business with those who commune with the dirt and with trees.”
“Then speak your peace quickly,” the barbarian grunted, the wooden torch creaking under his grip.
“What is your name?” Helesys asked.
The creature looked at her with its wide yellow eye. “My name was Lull.”
“Then Lull, we are leaving this place. The rusted prison and this dungeon soon after...”
Helesys had meant to continue the statement, but the creature’s mouth opened wide and curved into a smile filled with hundreds of crooked needle-thin teeth.
“What is the matter?” she asked, metal fingers bristling in anticipation.
“You will try to leave. You may even make it far, but you will find no exit. No means of escape—”
“I’ve heard enough of this,” Taunauk said. “I am leaving.”
Taunauk’s weight shifted and the rusted floor creaked ever so slightly. Lull’s fingers rose and fell upon the bar. “I will see you again,” it said. Then it reached out slowly for Helesys, reaching toward her right arm. It would be an easy thing for Lull to grab her.
Helesys’s wand-arm whirred to life as the thin, gnarled fingers grew close, as if it sensed the approaching dang
er. It would be an easy thing to destroy the creature. A single blast had decimated the fishman-weaver. One this close would leave nothing left of pitiful Lull.
The elf whispered, “Don’t make me—”
—Lull gasped as light spilled across the twisted hall. Taunauk had uncovered the torch and waved it near the bars. Scattered light fell across the thin, scaly demon.
“Be gone, creature. Trouble us no more,” the barbarian growled.
In a moment, Lull had scurried another row away and whispered, “Sometimes I’m here… Sometimes I’m somewhere else. But you will see me again.” The single yellow eye blinked and was gone. Lull’s scurrying footsteps disappeared across the rusted prison.
~
Minutes passed with nothing but the occasional groan of the prison beneath their feet. Helesys continued looking back over her shoulder and even holding her breath until she was absolutely sure they weren’t being followed.
Soft green light began to break through the prison. Helesys thought that maybe—somehow—they had reached the surface. That moonlight was washing through the twisted metal, giving it an underwater glow.
Instead she found moss.
Gently glowing moss-lined stretches of the walls and bars, muting and drowning out the orange rust that she had grown accustomed to. It would have been beautiful, except that now she was overcome by stillness. Without the threat of Lull or the floating squids, the prison was utterly empty.
Helesys found herself desperate to fill the void. “You didn’t have to be so short with Lull.”
Taunauk sighed. “That creature is not to be trusted.”
“That was plain to see, but we could have gotten information from it.”
“Twisted words from a twisted creature.”
“My point still stands,” the weaver replied.
“Animals do not think like us. It is a mistake to think so. Deadly mistake.”
Death without Direction: A Modern Sword and Sorcery Serial (A Battleaxe and a Metal Arm Book 1) Page 2
