Ruins of Camelot

by G. Norman Lippert

  "But I am not a witch," Gabriella had replied, meeting his eyes. "I am only a human."

  "You are not only anything," Goodrik had countered. "Take it. The magic of the sigil that accompanies you is unfocused. This old wand may serve as a sort of focussing point for it if ever the need arises. I expect it will only work once, but if at any point you require a certain…," he shrugged vaguely, "magical flux, you may attempt to use this."

  Gabriella had taken the wand and then merely held it curiously. It felt like nothing more than a cast-off stick. "How?" she had asked, looking up at the wizard.

  He had merely shaken his head and smiled cryptically. "I cannot say. I wish you good fortune on your quest, Princess. I am tempted to join you myself, but alas…" Here, he sighed deeply and looked back at Helena, who watched the proceedings with sombre eyes. "We have vowed not to meddle in the affairs of men. It is work enough, I am afraid, to manage the realm of witches and wizards."

  Gabriella had thanked them sincerely, if dolefully. Then, without another word, she had set off.

  It was a long trek through the subterranean world of the Barrens. Gabriella quickly realised that had she not encountered the witch and wizard and received their direction, she would indeed have become hopelessly lost in the interconnected maze of caverns and tunnels. The light of her torch soothed her eyes, making a dome of golden warmth around her, and the ever-present flutter of Featherbolt was a far greater comfort than she could have expected.

  The first time he alit on her shoulder, clicking his talons on her armour, she had been so startled that she had nearly dropped her torch. Shortly, however, she came to appreciate his subtle weight and the warmth of his feathers as they brushed her cheek.

  She began to talk to him.

  "I don't even know what watch of the day it is," she commented darkly. "Or even if it is morning or night outside. At this rate, it would be easy to walk on and on, not even realising one was tired until one dropped from exhaustion."

  Featherbolt ruffled his chest feathers and then polished his beak on his wing, not seeming to care.

  For a long time, Gabriella did not feel hungry. She wondered if the constant darkness was having some strange effect on her appetite but chose not to worry about it. Her store of food was nearly gone. She welcomed anything that helped her preserve what little she had left.

  Then, for the first time, she wondered about the falcon. Would she have to feed him as well? Shortly, however, this was answered by the bird himself. He launched from her shoulder violently, darting forwards and soaring low over the ground. With a flick of his tail, he seemed to pluck something from the stony floor. Circling back, Gabriella saw the wriggling grey body of a rat clutched in the bird's talons. She shuddered as he landed on a nearby boulder, dipped his beak, and happily eviscerated the creature. She stopped whilst he ate but refused to watch. She had always detested rats.

  "Ugh," she said, shuddering. "I can hear you. It's still squeaking, isn't it?"

  Featherbolt clicked his beak and then tore at the rat again, apparently enjoying his meal.

  The journey progressed, passing through wildly different areas of the Barrens underground.

  Sometimes, Gabriella and Featherbolt followed the course of the underground river, even as it crashed through rocky rapids and waterfalls or widened into eerily calm doldrums. The water always glowed with its freight of illuminated fish. At one point, the river widened into a massive lake so broad that its distant shores were invisible in the darkness. Here, ephemeral, blue shapes plowed the abyss slowly and rhythmically, like silk scarves caught in a spring breeze. The stillness of the lake was like glass so that Gabriella could see the creatures clearly, despite their obvious depths. Streamers of deep purple followed behind the shapes, forming whip-like tentacles. There seemed to be hundreds of them fading away into the unimaginable deep.

  At other times, however, Gabriella and Featherbolt angled away from the river, following the ever-present sparks of the goblinfire torch. They would find themselves in narrow shafts so close that Gabriella could easily touch both walls, and so low that she had to duck. These would progress for hundreds of feet only to open up onto great cathedrals of stalactites and stalagmites standing as regal as pillars and soaring into lofty darkness.

  Once, the sparks led them into a sort of avenue with an unnaturally flat floor and complicated shapes looming on the walls. Raising her torch, Gabriella saw that the walls were in fact carved into rows of doorways and windows, steps and entries, forming a silent tableau of forgotten civilisation. She wondered how old the strange underground city was. There were words engraved over many of the entrances, but they were strange and completely indecipherable. Near the end of the avenue, a mass of stalactites formed an eerie growth against the building façade. Hidden within it, nearly buried inside the ancient formation, was a strew of bones. With a shudder, Gabriella saw that there were several skeletons, none of them exactly human. The heads were too big, the bodies far too small. Dwarfs, she thought, or gnomes. There was no way to tell for sure.

  She hurried on.

  Eventually, she stopped. She had finally become hungry. Featherbolt landed on a nearby ledge as Gabriella opened her pack. She was down to her last crust of stale bread and strip of venison. Feeling eerily calm, she ate most of the remaining food. The last few bites, she wrapped in a cloth and replaced in her pack.

  "That's it," she told Featherbolt, sighing as she stared into the goblinfire. "Only one more little meal left."

  There did not seem to be anything further to say on the subject.

  Weariness stole over her. She had not planned to sleep yet, but now it seemed inevitable.

  Without getting up, she merely rolled onto her side, tucked her pack beneath her head, and closed her eyes. A minute passed, and then two. Her breathing slowed.

  In the darkness, spiders scuttled out from beneath the rocks and trickled down from the dim ceilings, using the stalactites like highways. They approached Gabriella, many as pale as bones, some as large as a man's hand, and surrounded her. Featherbolt watched this warily, his golden eyes flicking over the scuttling assembly, prepared to strike.

  Finally, having collected in their dozens, the spiders turned away from Gabriella. They formed a ring around her, their alien eyes turned outwards, watching the cavern darkness.

  Featherbolt saw this. After a moment, he relaxed.

  Eventually, even he slept.

  The next day, Gabriella finally found Coalroot.

  She had spent the morning (not that she could tell if it truly was morning or not) descending a long, straight shaft ever deeper into the earth. The walls of the tunnel had grown increasingly taller and narrower as she walked, so that she felt like a mouse crawling within the walls of a cottage. The air had become warmer as she progressed and was now quite hot. Sweat trickled into her eyes, and she swiped it away with the inside of her wrist.

  There was light as well. Unlike every other glow that she had encountered in the caverns, however, this light was neither blue nor cold. It was a burnished red, growing gradually brighter as she progressed. The sparks of her torch streaked ahead, following the course of the tunnel as if in the teeth of a hard wind despite the perfect stillness of the air.

  "Whatever you do," Gabriella repeated under her breath, "do not talk about treasure. That's the only rule. Do not so much as say the word. Can we do that, Featherbolt?"

  Featherbolt stood on her shoulder, his feathers fluffed out in an effort to cool himself. His wing felt hot against her cheek.

  "Get off," she whispered, flapping a hand at him. "You're making me even hotter."

  The bird launched into the air and squawked in irritation. He circled her, apparently unwilling to get too far ahead.

  A vertical bar of deep red became visible between the walls of the tunnel some unknown distance away. There was subtle motion within its depths, as though from a slowly shifting cloud.

  "I think we are very nearly there," Gabriella said, swallowing. "Acc
ording to Helena and Goodrik, Coalroot will tell us what we need to know. So long as we do not say the wrong thing."

  The air had developed a whiff of sulphur. The goblinfire rippled and flared, leaping towards the reddish light ahead. The rift grew as they neared it.

  There was a noise. Gabriella heard it and realised that it had been going on for some time just below the level of audibility. It was a dull rumble, a sort of groan, as if the earth itself were shifting very subtly around her.

  Featherbolt landed upon her shoulder again. He clicked his beak and shivered his head violently, raising the tiny feathers of his forehead into hackles.

  "I know," Gabriella replied nervously.

  Finally, after what seemed like far too long a time, they reached the end of the tunnel. Beyond its high walls, red depths stirred massively, like storm clouds at sunset. The stench of sulphur was overwhelming. Gabriella stopped and drew a deep breath through her mouth. Then, steeling her nerve, she stepped out into the red light.

  The cavern was monumental. Its floor was a shattered valley, broken and jagged, strewn with boulders. Smoke poured from the cracks, dimming the air, and yet red light filled the space, reaching even to the ragged cone of the ceiling hundreds of feet up.

  In the centre of the space, dominating it, was a shape that Gabriella simply could not comprehend. It was something like a twisted tree, so enormous that it would have dwarfed the entire castle of Camelot. It was black as coal, wrinkled with deep crags, cracks, and fissures. Its branches jutted up and out in all directions, thick as highways and driven deep into the cavern's ceiling. Far below this, the tree's roots spread like rocky tentacles, laced with cracks. The cracks glowed orange, as if the core of each root was pure fire. Worst of all, the centre of the tree's trunk bore a gaping maw, burning bright red, as if lined with live coals. This was the source of the ruddy light that filled the cavern.

  Featherbolt clung to Gabriella's shoulder, his talons scratching tightly on the edge of her armour. Slowly, staring wide-eyed up at the incredible shape, Gabriella walked out onto the broken plane of the floor.

  GABRIELLA XAVIER.

  The voice that spoke her name was not human. It was hardly even a voice. It seemed to be formed of the guttural rumblings of the earth itself, vibrating deep into her ears and thrumming in her bowels. It was simultaneously almost silent and massively deafening.

  "Yes," she replied. Her own voice came out as a dry croak, but she could not seem to bring herself to speak any louder.

  Gabriella Xavier… Xavier… Gabriella… avier… ella…

  The voice rumbled onwards, breaking into echoes, dozens and hundreds of them. The echoes seemed to fade into great distance, and Gabriella had the eerie sense that they were being broadcast throughout every dark depth of the Barrens underground.

  "Heh hee!" a much smaller voice suddenly called out. Coming on the heels of the diminishing monstrous echoes, this new voice was tiny and merry, like a jingle bell in the disastrous expanse of the cavern. Gabriella glanced around, seeking its source.

  A small man was seated amongst the snaking roots of the tree shape. His back was bowed with age, and his bald head bobbled as he waved at her. Against all probability, he seemed to be sitting in an old rocking chair. He worked it gleefully, bobbing back and forth on its curved rails. Even through the distance, Gabriella could see that he was grinning at her merrily, beckoning her forwards.

  "What in hell…," Gabriella muttered, her eyes still wide.

  Carefully and warily, she began to move towards the wizened figure. It was slow work due to the disastrously broken floor and the rafts of noxious smoke that poured through the cracks. As she skirted these, Gabriella saw that the crevices glowed faintly in their depths, some as wide and deep as canyons. The rumble of the earth was still audible. She could feel it through the soles of her boots. Before her, the awful tree shape loomed ever larger. Waves of heat baked from its jagged surface, beating down on her. Featherbolt switched his head back and forth restlessly, still clinging to the lip of her breastplate.

  "Hee hee! Come forth, Princess!" the tiny, old man called thinly, still waving. "Come and greet me. Let us speak! Oh my, yes." He cackled wheezily, gaily.

  The floor around the snaking roots was shattered into sharp, uneven terraces, each one higher than the one before it. Gabriella climbed these cautiously as she neared the man. The enormous, black roots of the tree shape spread around her now, each one as charred and deeply cracked as embers. Where they sank into the ground, the rocks rippled with heat shimmers. The twisted trunk rose above her, scorched black and ribbed with deep, sharp crags.

  "That's a girl," the old man laughed. His voice was nearly as cracked as the rocks around him. He smiled at her gummily, chewing his lips, but his eyes were brilliantly sharp, blue like the ice of a winter millpond. "Come closer. Have a rest and visit awhile. Ask me your questions, Princess, and tell me your tales."

  Gabriella was close enough to the old man now that he didn't have to raise his voice to speak. She neared him warily, and he simply looked up at her, his head bobbing on the stubbly stalk of his neck. He wore a rough, nondescript cowl, its hood pushed back between the knobs of his shoulders. Between his clasped hands was the head of a black cane apparently made of stone. Its tip was notched into the cracks before his bare feet. He rocked energetically, watching his visitor, apparently waiting for her to speak.

  Gabriella studied him, frowning with consternation. Finally, she asked, "Are you… Coalroot?"

  The old man grinned suddenly, stretching his wrinkled lips and showing his toothlessness. He rocked slightly faster. This, Gabriella figured, was answer enough.

  "What was that voice I heard earlier? The one that sounded like the earth itself and spoke my name?"

  "Hm-hmm!" the old man laughed secretively, his eyes dancing. He raised one hand and touched a finger to the side of his nose. He nodded and giggled.

  Gabriella's frown deepened. "I was sent here," she announced. "I was told that you could help me in my quest. Is this true?"

  "Perhaps!" the old man replied, nodding. "It all depends, does it not?"

  "On what does it depend?" Gabriella pressed evenly.

  The old man's eyes cleared for a moment. "On whether you ask the right questions."

  Gabriella drew a sigh. She didn't have time for riddles from demented, old men. She looked around the ruddy depths of the cavern.

  "What is this place?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her. "And who are you?"

  "Ah-hah!" the old man brightened. "A question that I can answer! This is the restless grave of Chaorenvar, also known as Lord Vulcan, the undisputed ruler of the molten deep. These," the old man raised an arm, gesturing at the charred tree-shape overhead, "are his frozen bones!"

  "Chaorenvar," Gabriella repeated slowly. "The ancient fire mountain?"

  "Aye," the man rasped passionately, "ancient but never at rest. This cavern is the negative of the mountain peak that once framed him! Alas, the broken slopes of his mighty shoulders have fallen away, leaving only its shadow in this tomb of earth, but the bones of Chaorenvar's fiery core remain. Do not let his tree-like appearance fool you! His branches are the shafts that broke to the surface above, spilling rivers of rock. His roots are the conduits to the molten oceans of the earth's heart. And his trunk is the hellish throat of his wrath, what once belched liquid fire high into the clouds, raining ashy death onto the lands above for miles in every direction."

  Gabriella was dumbstruck. She looked up at the petrified bones of the mythic volcano. Its molten heart still glowed, proving that it was not dead, but only dormant. The old man rocked and muttered to himself happily. He giggled. After a minute, Gabriella lowered her eyes to his again.

  "Then that must make you the spirit of the volcano," she ventured, "I have read of such things in the myths. You are not as you may appear, but change your form for whomever you meet. Is this so?"

  The old man grinned up at her and shrugged his bony shoulders, not as
if he didn't know the answer, but as if he had no intention of giving it. The blue of his eyes seemed to flash in the baleful dimness. He leant towards her. "You may indeed call me Coalroot," he whispered harshly, as if sharing a delicious secret.

  Gabriella went on, "What do you know of me besides my name?"

  Coalroot tilted his head back and forth thoughtfully. "I know your past and future but not your present. It is the nature of my being. Time is to us exactly the reverse of what it is to you, for you know the present but never the future and barely the past. Oh yes. Heh hee! Many have come to me over the eons, and I always sense their approach. I know as well the nature of their leaving. If, of course," here, his eyes switched towards her and grew sharp, "they are allowed to leave. Heh hee!"

  He sighed with amusement and then became more subdued. "But alas, I never know what anyone might do or say during the moments that they are with me. Perhaps they come to seek their futures. Or perhaps, instead, they come to steal from my hoard! Many come with that very intent, you know, for I have collected much treasure from the forgotten depths of the earth! More than most can imagine. It amuses me!" He cackled again, wheezing almost silently, and then asked with a conspiratorial leer, "Do you know of my hoard, Gabriella Xavier?"

  Gabriella shook her head carefully. "I have come for knowledge," she answered. "That is all."

  Coalroot chewed his lips as he considered this, nodding his head speculatively. His fingers squeezed and gripped the head of his cane, making balls of knuckles. "I have very much treasure," he acknowledged, winking one eye up at her. "It is right behind me, buried in a vast hollow. The gold shines like the sun in the light of my fires. You wish to see it, do you not?"

  "No," Gabriella replied warily, fear uncoiling in her belly like a snake. "I am here to ask questions. The only thing I seek is knowledge."

  Coalroot's eyes narrowed, and his smile snapped shut like a trap. He stopped rocking and glared at her. After a very long pause, he began to rock again, more slowly now.