Circle at center sc-1

by Douglas Niles

  As was so much of his own realm. The Delver commander had recently received word from Nightrock, his own homeland. Many of the food warrens had been destroyed by the temblor. He knew that if he had taken his army home, there would have been a critical shortage of provisions. It was not in his interests to have Delvers eating other Delvers, and so he had continued on with the campaign, striving to find a way to strike at their hated enemies.

  But where could they go from here?

  My master. The words came into his mind, the message from Kerriastyn, the army’s other arcane. Though she was second in command of this mighty horde, he was pleased that she knew to show proper respect to her leader.

  What is it? Where are you?

  I am here, high on the mountain. I have made a discovery that might prove promising.

  Wait. I will reach you shortly.

  Zystyl began to climb, following the rope lines that his scouts had laid earlier. He made his way steadily upward, knowing that Kerriastyn would not have reached out to him if she did not have something truly interesting to report. She was a capable leader in her own right, and would have handled any minor discovery by herself.

  It was fully an hour later that the first sensations told him that he was drawing close to her. From a hundred paces away he could smell fresh blood, Delver blood. But the spoor was tainted with another stench, an animal-like odor that seemed to seep from the very rocks themselves. He heard Kerriastyn hiss, the sound a beacon drawing him through the darkness.

  When he was within ten paces of Kerriastyn he could sense her excitement in his own mind, and then he could hear the rapid pounding of her heart, the giddiness of her breathing. She was standing between the corpses of two Delvers. From the probing of his mind Zystyl could see that both had been killed violently, and one was partially devoured.

  “That smell… it is wyslet, is it not?” he asked, finally recognizing the animal stench.

  “Yes, master,” Kerriastyn replied. “They slayed one of these Delvers and were eating him. They killed the second when he came upon the first, then fled when more of your warriors arrived on the scene.” She waited expectantly. His first reaction was to demand further explanation, but his intuition told him that he should know why this was important.

  And then he did.

  “Which way did the wyslets go?” Zystyl started to see the possibility.

  “They ran up the hill, and vanished.”

  “Indeed.” They had disappeared upward. Wyslets couldn’t fly, he knew… so they must have had a path of escape, a route into the ceiling of the First Circle.

  Where could that have taken them? Wyslets needed food, and they probably had a route into and through the swath of midrock. Could those caverns take them all the way to the Fourth Circle, to a new world awaiting the cold kiss of Delver steel?

  Zystyl remembered another thing that had happened in the last few cycles. He had heard hammering, steel against stone, coming from high up in the world. His best guess had placed that sound near the top of the pillar of the nearest watch station, the place he had been when the quake had rocked the world.

  And he remembered the sweet taste of Seer tears, the allure of a woman he had touched, smelled, tasted, and heard. That memory still burned within him, rising into a compulsion, a need that he desperately wanted to slake. Could it be that she had escaped, that she had found a way into the vast canopy overlying their world?

  It was enough to fuel his decision.

  “Gather to me!” he shouted, a command that would carry for more than a mile through the vast Underworld. He would collect his army, and he would follow the path of the wyslets, knowing that there would be new routes before him, new opportunities for plunder, violence, and war.

  N ow their progress was encouraging, and Karkald and Darann even felt a few moments of excitement as they were able to stride along, climbing only gradually, making their way through what proved to be an extensive network of rock-walled caverns. After some hours they found a comfortable grotto in which to sleep, and even enjoyed the luxury of a bed of dry sand.

  They awakened refreshed, and continued their trek with renewed hope, finding the route steadily advancing before them. Unfortunately, by late the next cycle they had found no sign of animal nor even fungus, and they began to wonder how long they could survive here.

  Abruptly they halted, both of them groping for the memory of a sound that had just barked through the darkness, barely rising in volume above the scuffing of their feet.

  “What was that?” Darann whispered.

  “It sounded like a shout, didn’t it?” Karkald’s reply was as soft. For a time both dwarves remained immobile and silent, straining to hear. Soon the noise was repeated, a distant cry or howl that bespoke of frustration, despair, and anger. There was something exceptionally plaintive in the sound, a sense of longing that contrasted oddly with the piercing nature of the vocalization.

  “Do you think it heard us?” Darann asked.

  “It must have,” Karkald replied. “We weren’t trying to be quiet.” Not that they could do much to silence their march, he groused to himself, when they were forced to pick their way over loose rubble, feeling their way.

  He was startled out of his private griping by the sound of his mate’s shout.

  “Hey… where are you? Who are you?”

  “Are you craz-!” He hissed in outrage, but was startled into silence by the sound of a reply.

  “Help! I caught! Help! Help!”

  The voice echoed through the cavern, but they could discern a direction. Immediately Darann started out, until Karkald stopped her long enough to get her to touch off a light. She held the coolfyre high over her head and followed along while Karkald took his spear in hand and pointed the weapon aggressively before him.

  He quickly realized that they were walking down a smooth, natural pathway. Barely two or three paces wide, it was a seamless surface of rock that twisted through serpentine curves along the floor of a large, natural cavern. Suddenly he came to a stop, as the light revealed a dark hole gaping in the floor before him.

  “Who dere? Help! Help, help!” yelped the stranger, in a voice that somehow managed to sound savage and childish at the same time.

  And the voice was coming from the hole in the floor. When Darann extended the light over the lip of the pit, they found themselves staring down into a bright-eyed, but exceptionally homely face. The huge eyes blinked against the sudden illumination, and before the figure clapped hands over his face Karkald got an impression of big ears, puffy lips, and large, jutting, teeth. Squinting, the prisoner looked through his long fingers, that mouth spreading into a pathetically hopeful grin.

  “Gotta rope?” The question was a chirping squeak.

  “We do!” Darann replied, turning to Karkald expectantly.

  He shook his head, and stepped back from the edge of the pit.

  “That’s a goblin!” he hissed quietly.

  “I don’t care!” she retorted, more loudly, then raised her voice even further. “We’ll help you!” she called out, giving Karkald a scornful look and folding her arms across her bosom.

  “Tanks! Tanks lotsa much!” cackled the goblin. “Oh, me belly and me feets so sore!”

  “How long have you been in there?” asked the dwarfwoman, pointedly turning away from Karkald.

  “Lotsa long time. All lone too. Only seed a couple wyslets come by-I howl fierce at ’em, dey go way.”

  “Wyslets?” Darann’s eyes widened in alarm, and Karkald couldn’t resist taking a quick glance over his shoulder. Those slimy predators of the Underground were rare, but ravenous and dangerous when encountered. He had never seen one, save in captivity in Axial, but the thought of the fang-toothed killer slinking through these caves was chilling in the extreme.

  “Get the rope,” Darann directed, and Karkald scowled as he unslung the line from his shoulder.

  “Can you climb?” he asked gruffly, curiosity getting the best of him as he threw the end into
the pit and automatically wrapped the end around his waist in a sturdy belay.

  “Wit’ some help… Can you pull me too?”

  Both dwarves pitched in to lift while the goblin seized the rope in his two hands. Using his flat feet to push off the wall, the creature slowly made his way up the side of the pit. A few moments later he crawled over the edge of the hole and lay gasping on the cavern floor.

  Karkald had never seen a goblin, but he was surprised by the wave of revulsion that almost urged him to kick the scrawny creature right back into the pit. Instead, he scowled and took a step back as the goblin climbed to his broad, incongruously large feet.

  The fellow stood there, big head bobbing atop a thin neck. His posture was stooped, and his legs were spindly and knock-kneed. The big ears drooped to either side of a round face, a visage dominated by that broad mouth with its array of chaotically arranged teeth, and those bright, watery eyes.

  “What’s your name?” Darann asked, after extending introductions for the two dwarves.

  “Hiyram is me,” said the goblin. “And I owe you big tanks.”

  “That’s all right-” the dwarfwoman began, before the goblin cut her off with a disdainful snort.

  “But your dwarfy kind is what made dis trap! You two dwarfses big doofuses! I go ’way!”

  “Why, you ungrateful cur!” snapped Karkald, snatching up his spear. “You’ll change your tone, or I’ll pitch you back in that hole-forever!”

  Before he could jab the weapon the goblin bounded away, moving in a speedy scuttle that carried it completely around the pit. Hiyram’s jaws gaped, baring teeth that suddenly looked dangerous. With a jeering snarl, he raised his head, sniffed loudly and insultingly, then turned to amble into the darkness.

  “What a runt!” growled Karkald, who nevertheless restrained his rash impulse to hurl the spear. He had no doubt but that the nimble creature could easily evade the clumsy weapon, and he reminded himself that he would just be giving away one of his tools. Even more, he was surprised to realize that, despite his anger, he really didn’t want to kill the wretch.

  Still, the encounter had put him in a foul temper, and he glowered at his wife.

  “That was a waste of effort and coolfyre. We’re lucky he didn’t cut the rope.”

  “Well, I’m glad we helped him!” she spat, then drew a ragged gasp of breath.

  He was startled to see that she was really upset. Her irritation only soured his own mood and aggravated his hunger. He stomped around the pit and continued through the cave without looking back, though he listened to make sure that Darann was coming behind.

  For the rest of that cycle they continued on without speaking. Though they started along the path taken by the goblin, they saw no sign of the creature. Darann periodically touched off a bit of flamestone, and Karkald picked a route through the network of caves and caverns. After making a dozen such choices, he figured that they had safely departed from Hiyram’s route, but even so he held his spear at the ready and continued to listen for any sound.

  The going was relatively easy, with smooth floors and wide passages that didn’t require any steep climbing. They were making good progress, but more and more the question occurred to him: progress toward what?

  By the time weariness was telling Karkald that it was time for another sleep, his mind had returned to more immediate concerns. Thus far they’d encountered none of the patches of fungus that had provided them with sustenance on the cliffs below, and the emptiness in his belly was a growling, relentless pain. In the deepest reaches of his awareness he admitted to a stark fear, the harsh realization that he had failed his wife in every way possible. Yet it was not a fear he could articulate, for he needed to maintain a facade of hopefulness, to provide some reason for them to keep on trying.

  But now, finally, he had no more energy, no more hope, to offer.

  With a sullen grunt he sat on a rounded boulder, stretching his weary legs, fighting to keep his fear, his despair, from showing on his face. Darann touched off another pinch of flamestone and they looked around to see the same interminable, winding cavern. They had been following a patch of dry riverbed that boasted a few patches of sand and many jagged rocks.

  “You’re not planning to sleep here, are you?” she asked.

  “Seems as good as any other place,” he declared sourly.

  “If you don’t mind rocks poking your back! No thank you-I’m going on.”

  “What’s the point?” Karkald demanded. “Just to keep on walking till your boots wear out?”

  “Maybe the point is to find something to eat… or a better place to sleep. Or maybe we’ll find a way back to-” Her voice choked off and she turned away from him, standing straight and proud.

  “To Axial?” he snapped. He saw her flinch and immediately regretted his tone, and his anger. Still, he was unprepared for the fury in her eyes when she turned to face him.

  “Maybe to Axial!” Darann proclaimed. “All we know is that we couldn’t see the city’s lights anymore. Maybe it’s still there-maybe our people are alive, wondering about us! Maybe we can give them warning of the Delvers!”

  “And maybe mushrooms will grow around our feet while we’re standing here!” shouted Karkald, his own temper slipping away. “Try to understand, we’re the only Seer dwarves here! We have no one else to turn to, no city to go back to, nothing!”

  “I don’t believe you!” she cried.

  “Fine. Believe what you want!” he retorted, rising and stomping through a circle in the cave, his body trembling with anger. The force of that rage was a frightening onslaught, a tidal wave of emotion he felt unable to contain.

  Rather than unleash that torrent, he clumped away from Darann, marching resolutely along the cavern pathway, backtracking over the route they had taken an hour earlier. He listened, half hoping that she would call out to him, apologize, plead with him to return… but she remained grimly, stubbornly silent.

  And so he marched out of her sight, and kept going. His feet followed the cavern floor by memory, and his sturdy legs stretched through long strides. Despite his earlier fatigue it now felt good to move, to give release to his contained energy. He drew deep breaths, alternately feeling self-pity, anger, and guilt. Each emotion came with its own level of pain, and the cycle repeated over and over in his mind until he had walked a very long way.

  Finally he leaned against a wall, feeling the support in the darkness, realizing that he was in fact incredibly weary. He slumped downward onto a makeshift seat and sighed. The storm of feelings had abated, and in its wake he felt emptiness, a hollow sensation that seemed to have the same effect on his emotions as hunger had upon his gnawing belly. Nothing remained to drive him, to bring him to his feet and to move him toward anything resembling a purpose.

  Until the acrid scent wafted past his nostrils and he sat up, rigid with sudden, gripping fear.

  Wyslet!

  The odor was instantly familiar, a stench every dwarf learned to recognize at an early age. This spoor was faint, but unmistakable-a mixture of urine and carrion that lay across the air, like corpses staining a battlefield. The savage predators had for the most part been driven from the surface of the Underworld, but they were known to lurk in trackless tunnels. They lived in small packs, stalking such prey as they encountered. Primarily this meant that they ate bats, fish… and unlucky dwarves.

  Terror galvanized Karkald and he sprang to his feet, spear held in his hands. He was afraid not for himself, but for Darann, and he started along the path at a run, searching the air with his nose, hoping that the scent would fade, that the wyslets were far away.

  Instead, his fright expanded into panic as the stench only grew stronger. His feet pounded the cavern floor as the odor grew piercing and pervasive. The truth was inescapable-not only were the wyslets between himself and his wife, but they were moving closer to her, at a speed faster than he could hope to run.

  W hy did he have to be so damned stubborn? Darann shook her head and paced a few
steps across the cavern floor. He was an ill-tempered fool, and she really was better off without him! What in the First Circle had ever compelled her to go to that Goddess-forsaken watch station anyway?

  And in the next intake of breath she was fighting back tears, feeling the bitter moisture sting her eyes and, against her best efforts, trickle onto her cheeks! Damn her foolishness anyway-she already missed him!

  Still, she decided with a snort of determination, it would do him good to spend an interval alone in the darkness. He could simmer and stew all he wanted, and in the end he would see that she was right. They had to keep going, had to believe in something at the end of their journey. To give up would be to die, and she was not yet ready to yield that fight. Her face hardened-Karkald had to trust her, to see the wisdom of her position.

  And he would.

  With at least that much resolution she went back to the small bundle of her knapsack, the satchel illuminated softly by coolglow, and allowed herself a few sips of cool water. She was just tucking the waterskin under the flap of leather when the stench wafted past. Immediately she stiffened, then spun to stare into the surrounding darkness.

  Of course she knew the smell of a wyslet, but now that odor had a very different character than it had when she’d visited the animal cages in Axial. The thought of the rangy hunters prowling through these caves prickled at the hair on the back of her neck. She wished Karkald was here, and felt a deep pang of regret over the harsh words that had sent him away.

  Clenching her teeth, Darann made a small pile of flamestone atop a nearby boulder, a rock with a flat top that rose a little higher than her head. Touching off the coolfyre, she crouched in the shadow at the base of the large block of stone and stared into the cavern that was now brightly lit.

  At least four pairs of red eyes glared back at her for a moment until, with snorts of surprise, the wyslets ducked back into the darkness. But in that flashing instant she gained an impression of desperate, unfeeling hunger, and the sensation filled her with utter terror. They were soulless, those eyes, and on a visceral level she felt vulnerability reduce her to a living, breathing morsel of food.