The Tower of Bashan

by Joshua P. Simon

  Andrasta frowned. “What about that part with danger from above?”

  “What do you mean? Those bugs were all over the ceiling.”

  “Yeah, but they never attacked us, except for that one that smelled your blood. The riddle said something about aim. Any cut from the beetles would have been purely by accident.”

  Rondel inclined his head. “You’re right. That is strange.”

  Stone grating against stone sounded in the enclosed space, sending a chill across Andrasta’s arms. Her head darted about frantically looking for the source of the noise. Above, on either side of the walls an opening appeared that hadn’t been there before. Long shafts slid from the opening, then quickly pointed down.

  “Watch out!” she shouted, grabbing Lela and throwing them both to the side.

  Wood clacked against stone. One splintered mere inches from her. Rondel screamed.

  She followed his voice. He had been unable to avoid one of the shafts. Though his light armor had offered some protection, one of the spears sliced his side at the ribs.

  She swore when his hand came away with blood. His eyes widened as they met each other’s gaze.

  The clinking of the beetles behind them rose to a deafening frenzy. With his free hand, Rondel redirected the light of the lantern behind them. Hundreds of shimmering beetles raced toward them on thousands of tiny, scratchy legs.

  Andrasta lunged forward, snatched the lantern from Rondel and pushed it into Lela’s hand, shouting, “Run! We’re right behind you.”

  She grabbed Rondel by an arm, threw it over a shoulder and got them moving after Lela who wasted no time following Andrasta’s command.

  Andrasta glanced down at Rondel’s bleeding side which he held with his other hand. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad enough,” he grunted as they turned sharply down another corridor. He snorted, then winced.

  “Something funny?”

  “Just thinking that the clue made sense after all.”

  “I guess it did.”

  “Yeah, and to think I actually didn’t think things were going too badly.”

  “Yeah, next time you have a thought like that again, keep it to yourself.”

  Rondel snorted. “You and I both know that won’t happen.”

  Despite their situation, Andrasta grinned. “No, it probably won’t.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Rondel woke in a haze. First, the smell of old vomit registered, then the ache in his abdomen, and the intense desire to scratch near the pain. The muffled sounds of clinking tickled his ears. His eyes shot open, hand going to his waist in search of a weapon.

  Andrasta was at his side. She stayed his hand. “They can’t get in.”

  He met her eyes. His heart slowed. Smeared yellow sludge covered her clothing. “What happened to you?”

  “Beetle guts.”

  “I see. What happened?”

  “That shaft must have had something on it because you hadn’t lost a lot of blood, but you lost consciousness. I had to carry you. You’ve been out for a few hours, I think.” Andrasta nodded to Lela. The girl slept curled in a ball. “She did good. Found the door and got it open. We got you inside, but a few beetles made it in before we could close the door.” She looked down at her shirt. “This is what remained of them.”

  Rondel regarded Lela. “I guess it’s a good thing you brought her along then.”

  “Yeah.” She paused. “She’s pretty shaken up.”

  “I imagine so. Has she spoken any about losing her uncle yet?”

  “No.”

  Doesn’t mean she’s not hurting. I need to think about how best to approach the subject.

  Andrasta gestured to his side. “I did the best I could using that stuff you bought from the alchemist in Sagal. You’ll probably want to check it yourself though. I’m not as good with that sort of thing as you.”

  Rondel unwrapped the bandage. He winced at the releasing pressure. Andrasta had cleaned the wound well, stopped the bleeding, and dressed it with a poultice of herbs from his pack. He pushed lightly on the puffy red skin, making sure there was no sign of infection. “It looks good. Did you and Lela eat yet?” he asked, shifting subjects.

  “Some. Trying to ration what we have. There isn’t a whole lot.”

  “That’s what happens when you make last minute decisions.” He sighed. “Water is going to be a problem too if it takes this much time and effort to get past the remaining guardians.”

  “Not yet it won’t. There’s a small pool just up ahead. We’ll at least leave here with full skins.” She handed him one.

  “Finally, some good news.” He took a long drink. “When do you want to leave?”

  “If it was up to me, we would have never stopped. So it’s up to you,” she gestured to Lela, “and her. Her feet aren’t looking great. Thankfully, most of the damage is on the tops and sides.”

  “I’ll look at them when she wakes.” He touched his side, wincing from the tenderness. “Hand me my bag. There’s some stuff I bought in the city that’s good for pain. That should help.”

  She dragged his things over then moved away to lie on the hard floor. She used her pack as a pillow. “I’m going to sleep. You should do the same. Remember, what’s coming next.”

  Despite the vague, convoluted nature of the clues, the information about the next guardian would have been obvious to even a child.

  Rondel shuddered. Snakes.

  * * *

  Hours passed. How many, no one knew for certain. Rondel guessed at least four or five based on how much of his pain medicine had worn off by the time he awoke. It took him a while to get moving. In addition to the wound, his muscles screamed from all the running and fighting over the last day.

  With Andrasta’s help, he redressed his wounds and stretched. Then he saw to Lela’s feet. The girl held back any yelps, but the pain on her face was obvious as he applied a salve to the scrapes and cuts. Thankfully, as Andrasta said, her soles were still in good shape. He gave her a small dose of the same pain medicine he used earlier.

  After a quick meal of dried lamb, Andrasta refilled their water skins, and they set off down the tunnel.

  He liked to believe that the more he moved the better he felt, but in truth each step pulled and tugged at his wound in ways that made it hard to think about anything else.

  Gods, and we’ve just made it through one guardian.

  What Rondel thought was the beginning of a long trek, ended rather abruptly when they came upon a wooden door set within the cavern wall.

  “That wasn’t too bad,” said Lela.

  “Be careful what you say. Optimism could get us killed,” said Rondel, remembering his comment from earlier with Andrasta.

  Andrasta looked back at him. “Are you ready for this?”

  He removed the silver flute from around his neck. They had stolen the ancient artifact from a museum in Zafar. The flute had been created by Thalamanak and was said to have great persuasive power. In fact, many believed the sorcerer used the flute to cull the beasts he created to fight in the sorcerer wars. Though Rondel and Andrasta only knew for certain that the flute was needed for the fourth guardian, they both reasoned that it may work on other levels as well. Snakes, if nothing else, especially made sense.

  “Ready as I’m going to be.”

  Andrasta grabbed the door handle, and pushed. It opened without a sound. His partner brought her lantern up and cursed. She swung the door open the rest of the way and stepped inside. Rondel and Lela followed, matching her gaze as she held the lantern aloft.

  A spiraling stone staircase rose from the floor and hugged the cylindrical room’s walls. It disappeared into a darkness the light could not reach.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” cursed Rondel. He gave Lela a look. “I told you to be careful what you say.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I guess I won’t be needing this yet,” he said, putting the flute back around his neck.

  Andrasta grunted and walked to the bot
tom of the staircase. On the first step lay a sprawled skeleton with daggers implanted in both eye sockets. They matched the ones taken from the first.

  “From the same group?” asked Andrasta.

  “Looks like it,” said Rondel. “Taking them out one at a time. You’d think the others in the group might catch on that they could be next. Especially with such a strange way of killing someone.”

  Andrasta removed the daggers and placed them into her belt. “I don’t know if I’d call it strange. It has a certain style to it,” she quipped before taking the first step upward.

  He muttered. “You would think that.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Rondel really hated flutes.

  Granted, a flute was an actual instrument he could still play despite his damaged hand. So, that’s one mark in its favor. And I guess it is small and easy to carry. But that’s it.

  He had grudgingly practiced the device over the last few weeks to lessen the chance of making a mistake inside the tower. Although he found some pleasure in making music again, he could never get past his intolerance of the inferior instrument.

  Court fools and little girls play the flute. Not the greatest minstrel of all time. He held back a snort. Good thing I’m not him anymore.

  In Rondel’s former life, the lute was his instrument of choice. Flutes, in comparison, were just too limiting. While one could change the pitch of a note through breathing, it never sounded the same as when someone bent the string of a lute to perfection. The fact that one could not sing when playing the slender instrument was another strike against it.

  Nothing however, spoke as poorly of the flute as that this one in particular did not work as expected.

  After exiting the spiral staircase, they had entered a rectangular space that consisted of descending levels like an upside down pyramid with a half-wall separating each level. The door to exit the space resided on the lowest level, unsurprising given the confusing nature of the sorcerous tower. Holes of varying size opened along the walls on each level and housed snakes to protect each stage of the descent. The holes and the snakes grew in size the closer they got to the exit.

  Each level had not only contained snakes of different sizes, but also different breeds. Rondel managed to kill most of them by using the various chemicals obtained from the alchemist in Sagal prior to their re-entrance into Bashan.

  Too bad for those that came before us that many of those compounds had yet to be discovered. Oh well, the beauty of progress.

  He put the instrument to his lips for the fourth time, having played it three times already without the desired outcome.

  His fingers moved across the body of the instrument, covering and uncovering the holes calmly, especially considering the fifty-foot-long cobra towering above him, hood fanned wide.

  No one ever claimed that I couldn’t play under pressure.

  Slowly the cobra swayed before him. Rondel followed suit, trying to mimic snake charmers seen in his travels. He wished he had picked one’s brain when he had the chance.

  He met the black-scaled creature’s obsidian-like eyes. He suppressed a shudder.

  It’s like staring into a—

  A sword swept down across his vision. The last note he played climbed to a high-pitched squeak before stopping short. The cobra’s head fell to the floor. Blood squirted out of the headless body. Rondel jumped to the side as it collapsed, tail still slithering as if news of its demise hadn’t yet reached that part of the reptile.

  Gods, that was close. I didn’t even realize the snake was moving to strike until it was too late.

  A small, cylindrical clay container, one previously obtained from Sagal’s alchemist, landed just behind the snake’s body. Other cobras similar in size had begun to slither forward, some drifting out of holes in the back wall near the door they sought to reach. The container burst apart, sending dust and smoke in all directions, confusing the dozens of snakes moving toward them.

  Right on time, Lela.

  He darted right, Andrasta on his heels. After a quick sprint, they climbed over a thirty-foot stone wall that led to the cleared level above them. For once, a wall had handholds even he could use.

  “I take it that song didn’t work either?” Lela asked after they took a seat beside her and their gear.

  Rondel shook his head, grabbing his side where his wound ached. “Only for a little while. I’m not sure what changed for it to strike, but we at least killed another one.”

  “That only leaves another forty or so to go. That I can see anyway,” said Lela as she peered over the wall.

  “Your sarcasm is noted,” Rondel huffed.

  “A different song?” suggested Andrasta. “Something not about a blacksmith bedding a whore maybe?” she added with her own layer of sarcasm.

  “You knew that one? I thought you weren’t a music fan.”

  “I’m not, but I’ve been in enough taverns to know the chorus to The Tools of the Trade.”

  “The song’s not the problem. We need to face it. The flute isn’t going to work here. After four snakes, I think that’s obvious.”

  “What do the symbols on the flute say again?”

  “Same as I told you the last three times you asked,” said Rondel through clenched teeth. “Play it loud and play it true.”

  “Are you sure? I mean—”

  “Guys,” said Lela. Fear edged her voice. “The other snakes finally figured out where we went. The smoke isn’t fooling them this time.”

  Rondel frowned. “They’ll never be able climb up after us.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah, the wall is completely vertical. And snakes don’t have arms to use in the handholds.”

  “What if they figured out a way to get up here anyway?” she asked, still looking over the side.

  Rondel shook his head. “Snakes aren’t smart enough to figure that out.”

  “Did anyone tell them that?”

  He looked over the wall and clicked his tongue. “Well that’s not something I expected.”

  The cobras had formed a mass at the bottom of the wall. Slowly they slithered about each other, twisting and turning in and out of knots, creating a ladder of sorts out of their bodies.

  “It looks like they’re going to manage getting up here after all,” said Andrasta. “What’s the plan?”

  Rondel swore. At times, he appreciated the trust Andrasta placed in him to get them out of less than ideal situations. It made him feel needed, useful. Other times he loathed her reliance on him. Too often he felt as though he was making things up as he went along, and it was only a matter of time before his luck ran out.

  At the moment, that latter feeling dominated his thoughts.

  I’m all out of the chemicals we used earlier.

  “Rondel!” snapped Andrasta. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Nothing immediately comes to mind.”

  She stood, holding her sword out front. “Then I guess we go with mine.”

  “That’s stupid. There are too many to kill,” said Lela. “Especially with only one more smoke bomb to confuse them.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  Lela looked to a narrow tunnel nearby. “Something even more stupid.” She grabbed something out of Rondel’s pack, picked up the lantern, and dove inside.

  Rondel quickly went to the tunnel to follow after her, but was too large to fit. “Lela! Come back here. What are you doing?”

  “I felt a breeze. I think the tunnels are interconnected. If so, I might be able to find a way down through a back way and get to the door to open it while all the snakes are here. Then maybe you guys can figure out how to make a run for it.”

  “If you’re wrong, you’ll be trapped inside the walls with snakes.”

  “Look, just keep the cobras busy and stay alive until you hear my signal.”

  Lela disappeared around a bend in the tunnel. Rondel turned back to Andrasta.

  “Can you believe that girl?” he asked. “She’s
going to get herself killed.”

  Andrasta grunted as the first cobra separated itself from the teeming pile rising ever higher. “There are risks to staying here as well.”

  She swiped her blade out, but the snake moved in time to avoid it.

  “Yeah. There are a few.”

  * * *

  “Are you trying to kill yourself?” a voice asked inside Lela’s mind. She paused briefly at the sound of her uncle’s voice. She knew he was dead but the inflection and tone in her head made her answer anyway.

  “No,” she whispered, feeling the need to answer the ghost.

  “Then why are you doing this?” came the voice again.

  “I couldn’t save you. Perhaps I can at least save them.”

  “And die in the process.”

  She shrugged in the tight confines of the tunnel.

  “It would be worth it if I had a chance to do some good.”

  “Good? Save doing good for good people. They are thieves and killers.”

  “They saved me twice. Once in an alley and once at the docks. They even gave you work when it was likely no one else would have.”

  The voice in her head sighed. “All right. But be careful. Dying is not pleasant.”

  “I imagine so,” she answered back, but the presence she felt had disappeared. It left her wondering if the exchange had been real.

  I’m going crazy.

  She really had no intention of dying. She had a plan.

  A good one too. I think.

  She had reasoned the only threat she might face inside the tunnels would come from below. Since the snakes and holes in the walls were much smaller than the ones on the level below it, snakes could go down, but not up.

  I just have to hope that Andrasta and Rondel can keep the cobras busy enough that none of them will retreat into the walls on their level.

  The deeper she traveled inside, the heavier the dread in her stomach became. Muffled sounds of fighting from outside and the ever-increasing smell of dirty reptiles in the enclosed space did little to help matters as the tunnel began sloping downward.

  Twice she gagged, hot bile rising along with panic

  What if I’m wrong about being able to find a way down and I get stuck in here?