“Did Lull seem like an animal to you?”
“...No.”
“Nor to I,” Helesys replied. “It seemed like a Terran or a twisted version of one.”
“It is no matter.”
“Of course it is. If Lull is really a Terran, then it could be of help to us. Perhaps it could tell us about this blasted place.”
“It is not to be trusted,” the barbarian repeated. “The most dangerous creatures are the ones that can talk.”
“What about those that refuse to talk?”
Taunauk grunted in reply and Helesys abandoned the conversation. How had two as different as they wound up in this cursed dungeon? Would their differences only grow as their memories came back? It was a pointless line of questioning, yet in the twilight glow she entertained it.
She had a feeling they were both right in their own way: They could not go around blindly killing any and everything they came into contact with. Yet Lull had reached for her gauntlet; that could not be denied. The creature had known something about the true nature of her arm, even before she activated it.
If the creature was right and they did see it again—perhaps if they were forced to double back—then Helesys would not let her guard down. But she would also try to get every bit of information out of the pitiful Lull that she could.
~
The faint sound of their bootsteps on rusted metal was overshadowed by sounds of water and screeching. They saw faint torchlight through the twisted cages—fixed and unmoving—and for the first time, Helesys found herself wary of the light.
The rows of cages of the rusted prison became intermittent. Larger. Helesys looked upon the new rows with wonder. Some were twice the height of Taunauk, then three times. The further they walked the larger they grew, the less rust appeared on their surfaces and the less mangled the bars were.
Helesys wondered if any of these new cells were in use. The elf did not have to wonder long.
In the gloom of the torchlight, a serpent-like creature paced idly in a three-wide cell. It coiled around on itself, for even in the large cell the creature was as wide around as a man and thrice as long. Five pairs of legs lined its middle and marched in unison. The beast was covered in scales of a deep purple that seemed to shimmer in the gloom. The serpent’s head was both short snouted and tall, and it had two pairs of red eyes. One pair to the front and one pair high on the back of the head.
Though the serpent was clearly confined, they had no desire to pass close to it and risk calling another mass of blind-squid—or worse—upon their position. After a minute of searching, Helesys found another passageway through some of the last Terran-sized cells.
This time, a small cell was occupied with a gaunt-looking fishman. It was huddled in the back corner of the cell, limbs wrapped around itself. Its scales were dry and cracked, oozing black ichor. Its arms were pitifully thin compared to the fishmen the elf and human had fought before.
As they passed, the fishman’s gaze followed them with half-closed eyes. Its mouth was still and closed, teeth hidden from view.
Helesys and Taunauk stopped near the bars of the cage and looked upon the fishman. “Do you think it is a punishment?” she whispered.
“No. Fishmen bleed red. It is diseased.”
In the gloom of the torchlight, Helesys saw faint movement from other cells. At least half a dozen fishmen were kept in this portion of the prison, isolated and starving.
“It seems a cruelty.”
“The fishmen are not stupid. There is a reason. Come.”
That Helesys admitted. She pitied the dying fishmen for some reason that she could not say. It might have been because they were diseased or dying, or merely alone. The reason was as lost to her as the rest of her memories. Yet her pity was a small thing, a childish thing. Even she had some vague memory that diseases must be isolated.
As the elf and the human turned to leave, the fishman hissed. This hiss was weak and low, and rattled as if the creature’s insides were shaking. Then the mouth of the diseased fishman opened—no, the face of the fishman opened—splitting in four as if an X had been cut into its face. The four corners peeled back, revealing a writhing flesh beneath.
The weak hiss grew only a little louder as the other diseased fishmen joined the horrid song, their voices rising in unison.
Something different than a simple disease festered within the bodies of the fishmen. Something that made Helesys step back. Her wand-arm hummed and her stomach dropped. Something unspeakable.
Helesys and Taunauk spared no more time for them and they did not speak of what they saw.
With any luck they would have found a way out of this hellish place by morning.
~ ~ ~
Ziggurat
They reached the end of the prison—or so they thought. The torchlight grew and only specks of rust remained. They had come to the final cage.
The bars of this cage were as wide as Taunauk and this single massive cell stretched from the cave floor to the full height of the cavern above. The cage was nearly the width of the rusted prison as well. It almost ran all the way to the cave wall on the right, leaving only small walkways between the cage and the cavern wall. Those thin platforms were the only way out of the prison.
In their traversing of the rusted prison and climbing up and down stairs, they had ended up on the third floor. They walked to the edge where the prison ended and the giant bars marked the last cage. Then they peered over and took in the sight. Enormous shackles sat on the cage floor, each one nearly the size of a single prison cell and must have weighed over one hundred stone.
Worse, the bottom of the cage was damp and smeared with shit.
Helesys looked further, past the final, giant cage out into the even more massive cavern beyond. The rusted prison sat at the top of a ziggurat—a stone-step pyramid. Helesys could just see some of the stones descending beyond the ledge. Past that, the sound of chattering filled the air—fishmen—the sound of dozens or even hundreds of them. Helesys imagined that the ziggurat’s large stone steps were covered by fishmen.
Helesys and Taunauk ducked away from the edge of the overlook as two pairs of fishmen rose over the top of the ziggurat and then approached that large cage. Each pair was pushing a great bulb of water that rolled and sloshed, like a giant, clear sack. These they pushed in a sweeping pattern, picking up the muck and grime from the cage floor. Behind them, a fishmen weaver chanted. It looked as if the weaver’s spell was containing the water.
Meanwhile, the elf and the human waited patiently. They would not take a chance on the creaks and groans of the platform giving away their position.
Helesys’s thoughts drifted back to the giant cage. What could the fishmen possibly be keeping in a cage that size? Something that was so very big and yet not tame? Taunauk was eyeing the cage too, measuring it, similar questions no doubt running through his mind.
When the fishmen left, rolling their sewage colored balls, the weaver and the barbarian stalked through the small platforms to the right of the giant cage. Here there were stairs leading down to lower levels and finally to the stone at the top of the pyramid.
Now that they were closer to the edge of the prison and closer to the edge of the ziggurat, the elf’s fears were confirmed. The chattering that filled the air was the sound of hundreds of fishmen. Each stone step of the ziggurat was as tall as a fishman and so they had covered many areas in animal hide, making primitive dwellings out of the corners of the stone steps. Fishmen covered nearly all the spaces between those dwellings. Some were hopping down the stairs, bearing shields and spears. The rest were gathered in great masses. These stood absolutely still while looking up at the cavern ceiling and chattering in unison.
There was no way they would get past that number of fishmen. The only spot that was bare was a wide stone ramp that led up to the massive cage.
The cave wall to the right, curved around and it seemed as if a stone path continued from the top of the ziggurat to some quiet safety opposit
e the fishmen. She pointed down through the bars to this right-branching path.
“That is preferable,” the barbarian replied. So Taunauk led them down two flights of stairs to reach the bottom of the rusted prison—the top of the ziggurat. They paused at each level to be sure no more fishmen would return to finish their cleaning.
When they reached the stone, Taunauk said, “Wait here. I will go first. Look and return,” and with that he moved quickly down the set. Again, surprising Helesys with his swiftness and quietness. The elf held her breath as he stalked toward the corner of the cavern, hugging the right-hand wall as he peeked around the corner. Then he disappeared around it.
Helesys’s heart sped up as he crouched at the last stairwell. She glanced between the corner of stone and the edge of the stairs. Forty beats passed before Taunauk returned. He peeked around the stone and then stalked up the stairs as swiftly as he’d gone.
“There is a stone building with a door inside leading further. It appears empty of fishmen, but filled with faeries.”
“Faeries?” Helesys cursed her amnesia.
The barbarian mimed a tiny creature sitting in the palm of his hand. “They are preferable to the fishmen.”
The elf weaver shrugged. “We do not have much choice then.”
“No.”
Taunauk turned and surveyed the edge of the stone stairs before descending the metal ones again. This time Helesys followed, their bootsteps ringing quietly on the metal. They paused at the corner briefly and then continued around.
The stone building Taunauk spoke of was short and squat, taking up the whole of the passage—nothing but cliff to the right and stairs to the left. The building was cut into the face of the cavern such that only the face only stuck out an arm’s length. The front of the building was shaped like that of a temple, with stone columns lining the front and a peaked roof. A small stream of water flowed out from the door and down the stone stairs.
The weaver and barbarian slipped inside and looked back. Thankfully their intrusion seemed to pass undetected.
~
Inside the short curved hallway, the single room of the stone building was a cross between a temple and an alchemist’s laboratory. Huge stone statues flanked the entrance, abstract carvings of Terran species with clamshell faces—not fishmen, or human or elven. The statues and most of the room were covered in bright green moss, save for the clam-shell faces of the statues which appeared to be brushed clean.
Carvings decorated the corners, walls and floor of the room. The carved patterns were all curved parallel lines, giving the appearance of rippling waves all across the stone. The wavy carvings on the floor were cut deep enough that water followed them—steady water that came from under the door in the back of the room.
The door in the center depicted two more clam-faced Terrans kneeling with arms overhead in some form of prayer. Around the door were stone tubes that curved from all around the ceiling and congregated around the door. Water trickled from the bottom of these tubes, fed from somewhere high up in the cave.
All around, tiny blue figures of electricity danced through the air—faeries. Helesys marveled. Again, she knew instinctively that the faeries were not dangerous or devious. In fact, they brought a smile to her face—the opposite reaction she had to the fishmen. Helesys held out a hand—her left—for no other reason than she was curious, and was greeted by a single faerie landing on her palm.
The tiny creature was no more than half-a-hand tall. It too had the torso, head, and accompanying two arms and two legs of a Terran, but with two wings nearly the length of its body. The entire skin and wings were translucent and glowed a brilliant bright blue which spiked with white as tiny streaks of lightning bounced within it. It reminded her of the fishmen and their cleaning sacks of water, except that the faeries were barely-contained electricity.
The little faerie danced and twirled on the palm of her hand, folding its limbs and wings in an elastic manner before flying away.
Taunauk smirked and then turned his attention to the ornate door in front of them. “Ask the faeries how we pass through.”
Helesys studied the little creatures. “It is an odd thing. With the fishmen I could not understand their language but felt the meaning of their chattering. I understand the creature, Lull, plainly.
“As did I. It spoke the common tongue.”
”With the diseased fishmen and with the faeries, I do not understand them, nor sense their intent.”
“Some creatures are far too strange. Does the moss speak with itself?” The barbarian nodded to the stone statues covered with it. “It must; it knows where to grow. Perhaps that is why the faces of the statues are not…”
Taunauk trailed off as a pair of faeries floated toward the face of a statue. They traced a circle with their tiny hands, one faerie starting from the top and the other from the bottom and flew around in a clockwise circle. They stayed perfectly opposite each other as they traced around the statue, their path steadily shrinking, steadily converging on the center of the statue’s clam-face.
The whole display took little more than a minute and as the faeries traced their paths, Helesys saw the statue’s face dull to a deep gray as the tiny creatures swept dissolved the faint green moss trying to get a hold on the claim-face.
And when the pair of glowing faeries reached the center their bodies burned white-hot and their spinning grew faster and then blurred together until two became one. Then in a brilliant, silent flash, the merged body split into three blue faeries.
Helesys and Taunauk watched, spellbound as the faeries joined their brethren floating around the stone room. The other faeries, if they perceived the event, reacted in no way to it.
“So much for your theory,” the elf weaver jested.
“...The moss still speaks.” He sighed as if weighing more words, then added, “Then we are on our own and must find a way through this door.”
Helesys sensed there was more her comrade wanted to say, but stayed silent. The hulking warrior bent down and grabbed the bottom of the door and grunted in strain as he tried to lift the stone with nothing but brute force. The stone did not budge. He gave up after a few moments.
“There must be a way,” he said.
Helesys turned her attention to the door as well. It was an intricate design and as she looked at it closer she realized it was a locking mechanism. There were a dozen pipes, but only some formed a path from the ceiling, around the door and ended at the floor—only these connected paths had water trickling through them. The other pipes were short, the longest no more than the length of a forearm and the majority only a hand-length.
If the pipes controlled the door then the different pieces could be moved. Helesys touched the stone, pushing and pulling—it only took a moment for a lone piece to spin. It was situated on a spinning plate which held four different pieces of piping. Though it took only a small force to find, it took both hands to spin the stone. As the plate and pieces spun, one of the flowing, completed lines was disconnected, and water dripped down the wall.
The elf weaver both ignored the dripping water and made a mental note of the original position, but continued spinning the plate. The next piece of stone piping did not connect properly, but the next piece did, redirecting the flow of water—yet still not making a complete path to the floor.
As she spun the stone plate, she heard the muffled clank of gears behind the wall. Helesys smiled. “Simple enough.”
Taunauk grunted in affirmation. “I will watch the entrance.”
She waved the barbarian away and looked over the rest of the piping—of the puzzle. She found five circles in all that changed the layout of the pipes and set to the task. It would be easy enough to simply try combinations until the correct one was achieved, but that would take time. Time they did not have. Who knew if the fishmen made routine rounds or if they would file in by the dozens to give thanks to these gods or ancestors. Helesys doubted they would be happy about their intrusion.
So s
he examined the wall further, listening to the clank of gears behind the wall. Then the stone door grumbled, but did not budge. She eyed the door curiously. “Taunauk, come try to lift this again.”
The barbarian came over quickly and stooped down, again grunting in strain. This time they heard the dull scrapes of stone—of movement—but Taunauk could not do more than budge it. He groaned in frustration and stalked back over to the entrance.
Helesys spun the dials again, each time trying to turn them in such a way to make complete paths to the floor—since it seemed the gears only moved when paths were formed. Minutes passed as the elf tried combinations but none elicited that promising grumble of stone.
Something in the mechanisms was affecting the weight of the stone door.
“Quiet,” the barbarian hissed.
The weaver turned and saw the faint movement of shadow in the hall. She ducked behind one of the two large statues that flanked the entrance. Footsteps. Then two fishmen warriors stepped into the room and stopped between the two statues. They regarded the place with a quiet, tandem gnashing that reminded Helesys of the cadence of prayer. After a moment they turned to leave. Neither the elf nor the human moved until they could no longer hear the footsteps.
Outside, the chattering of hundreds of fishmen was ever present. Helesys desperately wanted to get back to the trickling of water and the puzzle that might lead to their salvation.
“The mechanism,” Taunauk whispered.
Helesys set to purpose and a thought occurred to her: If the mechanisms affected the weight of the stone door, then perhaps the flow of water was not the key. Perhaps the pattern of water was—the water in the pipes acting as a counterweight to the door. She would turn the plates and set the pipes to make the longest path possible, thinking that more water in the pipes at one time would lessen the weight of the door.
But as she set to the task, the fishmen returned—the elf weaver only knew because one cried out in a frothing scream. Helesys whirled around just in time to see the second fishmen round the corner and be cut in two by the massive battleaxe.
Death without Direction: A Modern Sword and Sorcery Serial (A Battleaxe and a Metal Arm Book 1) Page 3
