Sea of Death gtr-1

by Gary Gygax

  The gigantic slug moved along toward them for another minute or so. Then suddenly it stopped, its feelers waving wildly, and its bloated, grayish form began to heave and writhe. A strange piping sound came from the monster, a sound Gord had never heard from any of the slugs they had avoided or killed prior to this encounter.

  "Look at that bag of slime now, dearest one. See how the visitors I have called get its attention?"

  "What is happening?"

  "I have summoned insects to attack that thing. Even down here there are many to answer the calling I sent forth, and arachnids will obey too, sometimes. It will take a time — we had better get back from here now. Eventually the little ones will do their work, and the bites and stings will finish the slug. The beetles and bugs will feast on that slime-coated flesh, and we will go on thereafter."

  Gord shuddered at the thought. Even a ghastly thing like that deserved a cleaner death. Still, when it came down to it, it was a matter of their death or the slug's. Leda was more practical than he, no two ways about it. "You have saved us, girl," he said with calm admiration. "Nice work… but couldn't you have managed it some other way?"

  Leda shrugged. "I don't think so, but what's the difference? The swarm of insects came to me, and the summoning has worked. We will go on, and the matter is closed. Do you really concern yourself with that slug?"

  "Stupid of me, isn't it?" he replied with a tone of self-disgust. "That bastard would suck me up for lunch without thought, but it is a nasty way to die, that," he said, turning away from the thrashing thing and walking back a short distance with Leda to wait for the insects to finish their work.

  After a time they proceeded forward again, stepping gingerly around the area where the bugs were still feasting on the slug's remains. "One thing is apparent now," Gord mused as they walked. "The number of life forms we have encountered lately spells it out clearly for us."

  "What's that?"

  "Somewhere pretty close ahead is a place where this tunnel gives way to the desert above. All these monsters and other things don't come from inside this aqueduct."

  A few minutes later, Leda spoke. "You were right, Gord. There it is ahead, see?" She pointed to a wall of rock and soil about a hundred or so feet farther on up the tunnel, in front of which was a sliver of light that leaked down from the surface above. "Another barrier," she added with disgust as they approached the site.

  "It would have been handy to take this tube all the way to our target, and it did seem to be heading southwest, too. Maybe there's a way past this blockage like there was before," said Gord hopefully.

  A minor earthquake must have caused the collapse of the tunnel. The fall had totally blocked passage along the aqueduct, although a trickle of water issued from the broken stones and fell to the floor of the corridor. However, Gord and Leda found that they were not without alternatives. There were several dark openings in the sides and floor of the aqueduct at this point. All they needed to do was choose one of the several tunnels they could fit into.

  "Now we venture into more interesting places," Leda said to the young adventurer. "This kind of thing makes me feel right at home."

  "Do you remember your home, Leda?"

  "No… I have no personal memory of that. Still, we drow live in such conditions, I hear — don't you? What more natural, then, than to go traipsing off under an Ashen Desert?"

  Gord made a wry face but began checking out the options available. Eventually he narrowed their alternatives to two. "We can try the big hole here," he said to the girl, pointing to the place a slug must have made as a means of entering the aqueduct, "or we can follow the smaller one on the side there. It goes in our general direction, but the large one seems to turn that way also. Your choice."

  "Big passage, big monster. Let's give the small one a go."

  It turned out to be a good decision. They had to stoop, but the hard-walled passage went almost straight southwest, if slightly upward as well. Pretty soon it intersected with the floor of a bigger hole, the trail of a much larger slug that had come this way a long time previously, judging from the decaying condition of the tunnel it had left. Neither liked the looks of the place, but they had to follow it anyway. The smaller creature had done so, evidently, for there was no sign of its continuing passage anywhere nearby.

  The new passageway took them more south than west, a bit off course, but still they were making good time. There were odd growths here, some sorts of fungoid material that needed little moisture, creeping things, and occasional chitterings — bats, rats, and probably even little mice. Leda didn't turn a hair at any of it.

  "Now what?" Gord asked as they arrived at another decision point. There was nothing but dust and soil directly ahead, and only three possibilities for them. A hole slanted down, and another slug burrow intersected their tunnel at a right angle.

  "Down," said Leda without hesitation. "That's where water would be. We must be close to the surface by now, and it's high time we delved downward again. With luck, we'll find a maze of new passageways there."

  "What if the creators of the tunnels are there, too?"

  "Have your weapons ready," Leda answered dryly.

  Gord sent a large, flat stone down the slope of the passage first, listening to the sound of its slide. After several seconds he heard a faint clatter; then there was silence. "Hmmm… Be prepared to slow yourself after a couple of seconds, Leda. I think there's a drop at the bottom of this hole. Give me a short time, then set out behind me," he told her. Then Gord got out his dagger with his left hand and lowered himself gingerly into the opening.

  Negotiating this passage wasn't as easy as he had hoped it would be. Gord found that by some perverse instinct, the slug that had formed; this tunnel had decided to alter course to a more steeply slanting, nearly vertical, one after about thirty feet. It took all of his strength, pushing with forearms and knees against the sides, to slow his drop into the tube. The tunnel turned slightly toward the horizontal again for a few yards. Then, without warning, there was nothing beneath his feet.

  "Hellish hoppin' toads!" The expostulation came unbidden. Fortunately, so did his frantic reaction to keep from falling. As Gord felt the solid ground disappear from beneath him, he instinctively tried to halt himself. His right hand slammed hard against the side of the tube, while his left shot out to do the same. The sharp point of his dagger pierced the hardened slime that formed the passage. It held there, nearly dislocating his arm as the solid hold it gave him jerked him to a stop.

  "Whew, that was a close one," Gord muttered to himself as he rested on his elbows at the edge of the hole, feeling his lower body swinging free in space. A wind blew, ruffling his truncated robe. "I must be hanging out over the edge of a chasm!" Then he heard a shuffling, grating sound from above that terrified him. Leda was sliding down the passage after him, just as he had told her — no doubt holding her sword out, ready to run him through!

  Chapter 14

  Somewhere above, where the wind sent great clouds of dust and ash flying across the rolling wastes that had once been the Grand Empire of Suel, the struggle for life continued as it had for centuries. Wire-tentacle trees snared incautious animals, as did stinging whips, the low bushes that never grew near the predatory trees' wire-tentacles. Eight-barbs and snakeweeds fought for smaller morsels, while hungry rodents and insects feasted on the seeds and sprouts of these plants. Jumping cacti and touch-me-nots caught unwary birds and other flying things, as sliver sticks shot sprays of stuff at any warm object that passed near, so that the bits of wood would lodge in flesh, grow, and flourish. Basin plants offered the mirage of water; shower shrubs gave occasional sprinkles of the precious fluid — and deadly poison thereafter as well.

  The ashworms just below the surface ingested minerals and deposited wastes upon which other things fed and grew, and of course the multitude of these worms fed insects, birds, shrews, moles, and many other creatures as well. Dust archers exchanged shots with needle-birds; spotted pit vipers and deadly ash arrow
s slithered through the powdery land after their own prey. Dust striders and wolf spiders of large size lurked or ran, chasing or being chased by paddle-foot lizards and long, black centipedes. When darkness fell, packs of dogs, wolves, jackals, and big-footed, long-legged foxes ran over the dust. Sometimes the lurking dustfish took one of these canines, other times their packs dined on the flesh of the high-finned denizens of this place. In many forms and at many levels of activity, life went on.

  To the north, three nomads struggled across the drifts and dunes. They were still a good distance from the mountains, but soon enough they would come to the oasis they sought. Their water was running low, for a bed-of-nails plant and an incautious moment had cost them two full skins. Also, because all were still recovering from wounds, they traveled more slowly than they had on the way south. With luck, though, the three would make it.

  More than a hundred leagues to their east, and totally unaware of the existence of the struggling tribesmen, a dozen souls rode across the Ashen Desert on a strange, wind-powered vehicle. Already half of the bladderlike tubes it rode upon had been destroyed by sharp rocks or strange plants. Worse still, it had encountered a dust mire, and the morass of fine powder was. so vast and deadly that the craft had been forced to detour a hundred and twenty miles to go around the obstacle.

  The delay, the extra days of hardship, and the very fact that such a thing could happen infuriated the captain of the dust cruiser. Obmi gave the wizard called Bolt a tongue-lashing on account of the matter, and then he ordered the chief pilot flogged for good measure. The dwarf took over from the man doing the lashing, for he wasn't hitting the offender hard enough. Obmi was a bit too zealous, though, and the victim died before the sun rose the next morning. The dwarf didn't mind, for it meant one less person to eat the scanty food and consume the dwindling water. Besides, there were two others aboard who were almost as knowledgeable as the dead pilot.

  The wind-powered cruiser that bore the dwarf and his parly across the powdery terrain wasn't the only strange craft plying the Ashen Desert. Another, smaller and odder still, was skimming along at a speed much higher than that of the sailed vessel. This vessel was flshlike. In fact, it not only resembled a grouper but was painted like one and had dark eyes — crystals of smoky sort that allowed anyone inside to see out, but not vice versa. The craft was fully enclosed against dust and wind storms. Perhaps three or four could fit inside it without discomfort. There was no way of knowing how many the vehicle contained as it moved over the dust.

  Viewed from a distance, the flshlike thing appeared to float just about a foot above the ash and powder. Actually, about midway along the sides of this piscean vessel were revolving blades. These turning blades were made of stiff, thick leather. As the leather strips turned, their edges came into contact with the surface of the ground over which the craft floated. Puffs of dust and ash were spewed toward the tail as the vehicle's paddles revolved, one blade after the other brushing against the powdered ground. The craft moved along very quickly in this manner.

  From a dead stop, the thing was slow to get under way. A walking man starting out at the same time would be a bowshot ahead of the craft two or three minutes later, for each sluggish turn of the vehicle's double wheels moved it only a few feet ahead. As the paddles turned, however, the thing gathered momentum, and after a few more minutes it moved faster than the strongest man could walk. Once under way for a fairly short time, the strange device could shoot along at the pace of a galloping horse, but such a rate of speed was dangerous. Too dangerous, in fact, for long distances across the barren, ash-coated land it sailed above. Upthrusting stone, sudden dropoffs, and other dangers were too numerous to allow it to move as fast as its occupants desired. Even though its belly was scaled with metal plates, the first few difficulties of high velocity told them that care was needed. Some of the dents and scars that the vessel bore spoke eloquently on the dangers of haste.

  Still, the fish-thing moved swiftly, slowing up-slope, speeding down, traversing an average of ten miles each hour, not counting stops for rest and maintenance. It had come seven hundred miles in but four days' time, and the particularly smooth and level stretch of land it now negotiated enabled its riders to increase its velocity without undue risk. The craft was virtually flying along, and its helmsman reckoned its speed at thirty miles an hour. He was humming as he steered.

  "What is that dark line on the horizon?" the co-driver queried.

  "Ashstorm, perhaps," he replied.

  "I think not, but we could be closing with winds ahead," the co-driver said thoughtfully.

  The one steering kept his eyes on the looming color ahead. "It is unmoving, I think," he ventured. "Are there mountains shown on the ancient chart?"

  "Any mountains were destroyed in the Invisible Firestorm, dolt," the driver shot back.

  There is only one way to determine what is there, then," the fellow said grimly. He jerked on a line next to his right side, and the rotation of the leather-paddled wheels increased in speed. There was a wheezing and puffing from the rear of the vessel, but both driver and co-driver ignored the sound. They didn't worry; the craft would manage the speed. Minutes later, the thing was doing forty miles per hour and still gaining velocity.

  "We'll be close enough soon to see what it is. Should I slow us now?"

  "Keep traveling! We must get there quickly," the co-driver snapped.

  It wasn't long before the line resolved itself. The dark etching across the western horizon was a black bluff of stone. It stretched north and south as far as the eye could see. It seemed at least fifty feet high in its lowest places, higher elsewhere.

  "Slow us, and turn south," the co-driver instructed, cursing all the while.

  The fish-shaped vehicle eventually curved its course to follow the cliffs, bearing south and now going only as fast as a horse trotted. Nonetheless, it still ate up the ground with relentless regularity.

  Chapter 15

  Leda hurtled down the shaft made by the long-dead slug. The tube resembled a J, the upper portion tilted about thirty degrees from the vertical and the hook truncated so as to have about half missing. Although she hardly cared about it as she descended, the portion that was gone might have been sheared off by the same cataclysm that created the great chasm into which the J-shaped passage led. As she reached the spot where the tube curved back toward the horizontal, Leda's precipitous descent was slowed slightly; and for this she was glad. The dark elf had no idea that in the next second or two she would be catapulted from the tube into empty space, with the next solid ground to be encountered tying hundreds of feet below.

  Gord feared that Leda was sliding toward certain death. He also feared that unless he did something fast, Leda would carry him with her, and both would plunge to become gory smears somewhere far below the place he precariously held onto.

  As the sound of Leda's too-rapid slide down the tube came nearer to him, Gord reacted with speed and daring. With a heave, he jerked himself back up into the end of the tunnel, pulling his dagger free from the wall as he did so. In the same action, with the momentum of his surge to propel him, Gord shoved himself upward so that his back was pressed against the curving roof of the pipelike passage. By looking down and backward between his legs, he would be able to get a glimpse of Leda's form an instant before she slid past him. Just as a dark blur of motion came shooting beneath him, he acted.

  In the same motion, Gord plunged his dagger into the tunnel wall above his head and dropped his lower body down from the ceiling, his legs closing from the full diameter of the tunnel to a clamping position similar to that which would be used to stay on the back of a wild horse. The magically keen point of the dagger was imbedded in the tunnel, and both of Gord's hands were wrapped around the hilt in a death-grip. His legs struck something soft as they scissored together. There was a muffled scream, a terrible pull that made his straining muscles shriek, and then he felt a pair of arms clamped around his locked legs. Gord was again hanging part way out of the pass
age; he could feel the sharp edge at the lip of the tube cutting into his shins.

  "Don't let go," Leda's quavering voice called faintly. Fortunately, she had not been holding her sword when she came sliding down, or Gord's legs would have been severely sliced.

  "I'm not," he replied through clenched teeth, "but you'd better pull yourself up here in a hurry!"

  "I… I… can't. I don't dare let go of your legs. There's nothing below me!"

  "Great," he groaned. "Just hold on, then. I'll try to pull us both up." The young thief was strong enough to manage that, but as he started to draw himself upward toward the imbedded blade, Leda screamed and Gord felt the dagger move slightly.

  "Stop, Gord! When you do that, my lower back pushes against the wall and it forces my grip loose."

  "Forget it, girl," Gord told her. "I won't try it again, because the dagger that's holding up both of us is loosened when I try that."

  "Then what will we do? I can't hold on like this forever!"

  His feet were touching, but not securely locked together, behind Leda's upper back. She held onto his legs awkwardly as she attempted to secure herself by grasping as high as she could. "Move your hands to just behind my knees, Leda. Lock them there." He felt her shift and then comply. After the girl had done this, Gord pulled himself toward the dagger, then slid back and repeated the process twice more.

  "What are you doing?" The query from below was both frightened and angry.

  "Hold tight!" Gord growled through a grimace. He hauled himself ahead once more, pushed his elbows against the tunnel wall as firmly as he could, and levered the buried blade up with wrists and forearms. It jerked free suddenly, and Gord was immediately pulled toward the sheer drop below.

  "E…e…e…k!" The cry of horror came in a long, shrill scream as Leda felt them both beginning to slide and head for certain destruction.

  But Gord had a plan, and his catlike reflexes made it work. At the point where his waist passed the rim of the tube, he raised the dagger and drove it downward again. It struck home as before, this time on the very edge of the opening. Gord hung at arm's length now, with Leda dangling below and moaning in abject terror. There was true method to his seeming madness, however.