by Max Anthony
“A fireball acts a bit quicker than acid,” said Rasmus, looking at the bodies. “Fire always strikes me as a more humane way to destroy evil creatures. Nonetheless, I must work with the spells at my disposal.”
“I wonder how many more of these ghasts there are for us to find,” said Viddo. “If each cell was occupied by a single one, then eight remain. Assuming each cell was occupied and that there was only a single creature in each.”
With no way to come up with an accurate answer, they crept from the room again, taking care not to stand upon the dead ghasts, in case the remnants of the acid damaged their footwear. They kept their weapons to the ready, with Viddo to the front and Jera to the back. It seemed like the wisest move to keep Rasmus safe in the middle.
There were too many options to choose from. In the past, Viddo had used a left-right-left method of selecting which route to follow. When he’d found out that a powerful creature which pursued them also used this same method, the thief had tried to adopt a more random way. For a man who embraced flux and chance, he found it surprisingly difficult to break away from the rigid left-right-left that he had become fond of.
This, the second floor of the castle was in some ways like the floor below it. There was old carpet in places, as if the Baron had run out of money or interest before he’d covered all the floors. Unlit oil lamps hung from their hooks, green with verdigris as a result of their age and the dampness of the castle. In spite of Viddo’s earlier insistence that they could expect to see ornaments on tables, there were none to be admired or stolen. It appeared as though the man who’d once lived here cared naught for the niceties of civilisation. Viddo knew there was many a despot who pretended a love for works of beauty, whilst at the same time revelling in death, so it would not have been unusual if the Baron had decorated his castle. Most families had heirlooms and the wealthier the family, the more heirlooms they tended to accumulate, which they had an irresistible desire to put on show, no matter how dreadful they might be. Perhaps the Baron had to sell all of his heirlooms in order to fund the construction of his castle, Viddo thought to himself.
When they reached the closest door, Viddo inspected it and discovered no sign that it had been recently opened. He pushed it and looked inside, finding a room with a fireplace and a smattering of wooden furniture. There was nowhere in which valuables could be concealed, so he closed the door quietly behind him.
They turned left and then left again, before proceeding straight ahead. The greyness of the walls and the dankness of the air made it feel more like they were in a dungeon again, rather than in a place that a rich man had once called home. There was a shape ahead of them, slumped against one of the walls, which they stopped at once Viddo had put a crossbow bolt through its temple to make sure it wasn’t alive. It was another of the ghasts, this one with only three arms, the last of which had been sewn onto its stomach. Aside from the ravages done to the body before its death, it did not appear to have been otherwise injured. Viddo tore a colourless gem from the creature’s chest – perhaps the magic did not last forever. Before they moved on, the thief recovered his crossbow bolt, putting one foot against the creature’s throat in order to assist with his efforts to lever the missile from its skull.
As he stood, his keen ears caught the sound of footsteps, approaching along a corridor that intersected with this one. He waved his companions to silence, thinking that Rasmus’ light must have surely given them away already. There didn’t seem like any point in making himself and Jera blind, so Rasmus kept it glowing while Viddo crept along the wall towards the intersection. The thief looked around the corner – twenty yards away, something approached. It was heavily stooped, though it still looked tall even when bent almost double. The creature was wiry and pale, with grubby green robes wrapped around itself. Viddo caught sight of its face – it was long and hairless, with a pointed nose and a wide mouth, filled with sharp teeth. The reason it had not noticed the light was because its eyes were completely bandaged over. Whether there were eyes remaining beneath, Viddo didn’t bother himself to wonder. As it approached, it muttered quietly under its breath, as if it were insane.
“Must find the key…the Baron will be most upset that it’s lost…I must find it….must find the key, then I can bring him back,” it repeated to itself.
Behind Viddo, Rasmus cleared his throat, as quietly and softly as could be. At once, the creature paused and turned its head to the side, revealing the small, dark hole of its ear. Viddo held his breath, wondering if it had heard his companion. Whatever the creature made of the sound, it resumed its journey and walked straight by the lurking thief. Emerging from the concealing shadows, Viddo moved without a sound, his shortsword raised. Down plunged the blade, directly towards the invitingly exposed spine of the creature. The backstab did not land as it was intended to. With the sword an inch away from striking, the creature vanished, the inrushing air making a muted popping sound.
“Gah, another bloody wizard,” said Viddo, standing with his hands on his hips in order to demonstrate his disgust.
“That spell is a very potent one,” said Rasmus, hurrying forward. “Since you’ve triggered it, we can be sure that the creature is likely to be a powerful foe.”
“Where will it have gone?” asked Jera. “Somewhere safe, I assume?”
“It could be anywhere,” said Rasmus. “However, the fact that we encountered it on this floor makes it likely that it will be somewhere here. In my opinion.”
“It was looking for a key,” said Viddo, aware that the other two might not have been able to make out the creature’s muttering sounds. “It said something about bringing the Baron back.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Rasmus replied. “We had best ensure that the key is never found, for it seems like he has plans to make an unwelcome return.”
In the distance, there was the sound of a door slamming. There was a distant growling noise, joined by a second. Viddo heard it first – a scratching, scrabbling sound of hard claws fighting for purchase on unyielding stone.
“Something’s coming,” he said.
16
These brave adventurers did not run away from the noise of approaching enemies. Instead, they made haste towards it, with Jera and Viddo marching side-by-side along the corridor. Ahead was another intersection, where the corridor continued onwards, but also went to the left and right. There were more doors and the moisture on the walls caught the light, reflecting it back in a series of flickering and shimmering patterns.
On the far side of the intersection, two massive shapes approached. At first, Jera thought they were black-haired bulls, so thickset were they. Then, more details became clear as the light reached them. They were hounds – squat and muscular, with long snouts, sharp teeth and glowing red eyes. Their fur lacked the glossy sheen of a normal hound, instead being patchy and revealing bald patches of pink skin underneath. They were the size of bears and moved with a similar eye-confounding speed. Each competed with the other in their efforts to reach the trio before them. When they were less than five yards away, they vanished, leaving Viddo and Jera in mid-swing.
“What…?” asked Jera.
“I dispelled them,” said Rasmus. “They were quite clearly conjured beasts. Demonic hounds of some description. Anyway, it seemed a shame to let them run riot when it was so easy to dispose of them.”
In spite of their chosen professions, neither Viddo nor Jera were so bloodthirsty that they would object to such an easy victory. The hounds hadn’t seemed the friendly sort and looked like they’d take one or two hefty blows before succumbing. The thief opened his mouth to say something. Whatever words he intended were replaced by an oof when he was struck by a lightning-fast shape, which leapt from the right-hand corridor of the intersection. It had more limbs than it should have, and it sent down two powerful blows upon the arms which Viddo had raised in his defence.
Jera went to assist, but Viddo and the ghast were rolling and thrashing too violently for her to use her ba
ttle-axe in any meaningful way. She threw herself into the scrum, crooking her arm around the neck of the assailant and trying to prise it away. Rasmus ran to assist, his staff in hand and ready to deliver a helpful blow if chance permitted it. He didn’t know what made him look – as he came close, he caught sight of something from the corner of his eye and saw another of the creatures, sidling closer from the left-hand corridor. To his horror, it was clinging to the ceiling somehow, using either strength or unnatural magics to hold itself in place. Realising it had been seen, it released its grip in order to pounce on the wizard below. The intended fall was prevented by the application of a powerful glue spell, which kept it adhered in place.
“You can stay up there,” said Rasmus, giving it a smack on the head with his staff. The creature was stuck by all of its limbs and could do nothing to resist as the heavy staff clattered off its skull again. Realising that his friends might need his help first, the wizard looked behind him. Jera was busily beating the other ghast with an arm that she’d somehow ripped away from it, and Viddo had just headbutted it. Rasmus knew Viddo to be well-skilled in the dirty arts of brawling, though the thief got few opportunities to put his expertise on show. What was more surprising was how willing a pupil Jera must have been. And she seems like such a nice young lady, Rasmus said to himself, hitting the ghast on the side of the head again.
Having recovered from the shock of being tackled by a strong and deadly opponent, Viddo was grateful for Jera’s assistance. It didn’t take long for the pair of them to get the upper hand. The ghast was no heavier than it looked, which made it harder for it to get the leverage to use its strength to full advantage. Therefore, the nimble thief and the ferocious warrior were able to hurl it to the floor, whereupon Jera picked up her axe and buried the head of it deep into the sternum of the creature. It didn’t die at once – indeed it kicked out as it tried to get clear of the blade. Viddo finished the job by stabbing it beneath the chin, pushing the sword into its brain matter and giving the blade a twist in order to maximise the trauma.
Rasmus felt a presence at his shoulder.
“Need a hand?” asked Jera.
“I think I’m nearly done,” said Rasmus, wincing as a section of the trapped ghast’s skull burst free and flew against the wall. The next blow in the same place dislodged a section of brain, which fell next to Jera’s foot. She stepped back two paces. By the time the glue spell had expired and the ghast tumbled to the floor, it was a frightful mess.
“Anyone got a cloth I can wipe my staff with?” asked Rasmus, looking this way and that in case any more were approaching.
“I usually just wipe my weapons on the back of your robes when you aren’t looking,” said Viddo mildly. Rasmus couldn’t help himself and he turned to see if there was any unexpected staining where there should not have been. Jera giggled.
Rasmus could take a joke and did not offer words of anger at being taken advantage of in this manner. Instead, he invited Viddo to lead them onwards in the direction of the door that had been slammed in the distance.
“It won’t be long until that wizard realises that his summoned beasts have been less than successful in their appointed duties,” he said.
“This way,” said Viddo, already heading towards the place from which the hounds had appeared. Having been caught out once, he kept his eyes upon floor and ceiling. There was another intersection, with only a left and right turn. Each of the trio scanned the area cautiously, in case there were any more of the cunning ghasts poised to strike. There were none and Viddo went to the right, this new corridor being narrower than the other. After twenty feet, he called them quietly to a halt at a place where there was a door in each wall. One of the doors was plain wood, the other slightly more ostentatious, with an arch to it and a faded plaque to one side, upon which were the words ‘No Entry’.
They waited patiently and quietly. “Let’s see if the door opens again and then we can kick our way inside and slaughter that wizard,” whispered the thief.
“I think he knows we’re here already,” said Rasmus, pointing at the door. Upon the surface of the wood, an eye had appeared – twice the size of a human eye and with a lid which blinked once when they looked. Viddo poked the eye with his finger and was disappointed to find that it was as hard as the wood and showed no sign of pain or irritation.
“We need to act fast,” said Rasmus. “He’ll be preparing for our arrival.”
Viddo looked over the door. The lock was big and crude, though that wasn’t what caused him concern. “Have you got another dispel you can cast on this door?” he asked. “It’s got a few guards and wards that will take me a time to unravel.”
No sooner had Viddo spoken the words when he felt the protections wink out, as if they’d never been there. There were few things that Rasmus couldn’t dispel with a try or two. The door wasn’t even locked and Viddo depressed the handle, pushing it open to reveal the interior.
Inside was a room of twenty feet to a side, which seemed to be one of the standard sizes in this particular castle. The room was unlit, except by the light from Rasmus’ spell. There were shelves visible and a table, upon which were items. Jera gave the door a push with her foot and it swung open further, until the hinges prevented it from clashing against the inner wall. The room was empty. Opposite, a square doorway led into another room.
Cautiously, they entered, Jera in the lead, Rasmus next and Viddo at the rear, doing his best to remain hidden. There was no sound or movement at first and Rasmus tapped Jera on the shoulder to show her a shrug. As she turned around, Jera noticed that the door was swinging quietly closed behind them. She opened her mouth to call a warning, but it was too late. Rasmus vanished as if he’d never been there and half a second later, Viddo found himself outlined by a cheery golden glow, which betrayed his precise location to anyone who might have been looking. Close to the wall behind them, Jera saw a shimmering outline of the hunched wizard.
Mazes, thought Rasmus, having found himself on the receiving end of one of these spells. They were truly a splendid use of magic, bypassing as they did the target’s inner resistances to spellcraft in order to throw them harmlessly into an alternative plane of existence. The trouble was, the wizard admitted to himself, the spell was only really splendid when it was he who was doing the casting. When other people cast it at him, the maze spell was a monstrously evil one. As his consciousness raced amongst drab grey passageways and branching corridors of the maze, Rasmus hoped that nothing bad would have transpired when he returned. The hope was scant.
When he reappeared, things were not going well. Viddo was frozen, encased in thick chains of ice. Rasmus’ eye for the magical also detected that the thief had been glued, webbed and paralysed. The hunched wizard had evidently been protected by a spell which Rasmus had in his own book at the university, which could trigger the instant cast of several minor spells in one go. It was tremendously useful, though again, only when used by me, he thought.
Before he could see where Jera was and before he could cast a dispel at Viddo to clear the magics which beset him, Rasmus vanished again. Another chuffing maze! he spluttered to himself. This one was slightly different to the previous, but they all had a similar design flaw, which the most intelligent of beings could quickly identify and exploit. Even so, it would still take a short time to progress to the exit and Rasmus flew as fast as he was able.
In the wizard’s chamber, Jera found herself effectively alone against their opponent. Viddo was clearly incapacitated and though the ice already showed signs of melting, it didn’t look like he’d be helping out in the immediate future. As soon as Rasmus had vanished for the first time, she’d thrown her two-handed axe at the outline of the hunched wizard. She’d heard a shriek and her weapon had cut off the top half of her opponent’s left hand, jamming its palm against the wall and sending four fingers and half a thumb onto the floor. Viddo had managed to unleash a snap shot from his bow, the quarrel dinging away from an invisible shield around the wizard. After t
hat, the stooped creature had done something and the thief had become trapped by magic.
Without her axe and having seen that ranged missiles were ineffective, Jera had rolled forward in the hope that she could pummel the wizard senseless. She’d got to within three feet, when she’d felt something grasp at her body, hurling her away into the far corner. She struck the wall hard and it was only her warrior’s training that allowed her to ride the impact and get to her feet. Rasmus appeared and then disappeared again.
In the corridor where they’d first encountered it, the creature had been disadvantaged by its bandaged eyes. Here in the chamber, it wore no bandages and its rheumy yellow eyes fixed on her easily. “Wizard against warrior,” it cackled, evidently feeling it had the upper hand. “Was there ever such a one-sided battle? The might of the mage against the clumsy steel of the fighter. You are a pretty one, though. The Baron may well have had a use for you.” The creature gasped out a laugh again. “Not that I shall tell him. I will kill you and then find the key. A shame you took off my fingers,” it added, almost as an afterthought.
Jera wasn’t prone to indecision, but she’d chosen to remain still while her opponent talked. She had no way to reach it before it cast another spell at her and she reasoned that while it was rambling, her companions might be given a chance to intervene. Off to one side, Rasmus reappeared and promptly disappeared for the third time.
The hunched wizard sighed. “I can see that your companion is an accomplished wizard. I suppose I should dispose of you in order that I can give him my full attention once he returns. My maze spells don’t appear to be very effective against him.”
With a practised and theatrical nonchalance, the wizard lifted its undamaged hand and gave a slight wave as if it were saying goodbye to a treasured visitor. Then, it fell over without so much as a gasp. For a moment, Jera wondered if it were playing some kind of prank on her. She took a step forward and it didn’t move. Wishing to be sure, she sprang at it with a fighter’s speed, covering the intervening space in four long strides. She crunched her elbow into its exposed neck. Even though her blow landed cleanly, Jera realised she had struck something that was already dead.
