by Chris Turner
Dereas clutched his spear tighter. The hairs prickled on his scalp. The backdrop of vague splintering sounds followed this cry, as of shells being smashed with great hammers. The less than inviting discords had him halting in his tracks, plagued with a grimace of uncertainty.
“I think best we avoid that way, comrades. Let’s be away from this horrid place.”
There was little objection. Something unusual clung in Dereas’s memory after the feeling of the last junction. It went beyond even the suggestion of unimaginable woe, though it was indefinable to his warrior’s instinct.
Up the main passage they trod, their boots sloshing in the phosphorescent water. The tunnel wound inexorably on, following anything but a straight path. The passage curved, looping back on itself through solid rock, narrowing its way and twisting, widening at times to sections as large as a cavern and a place where they would gape at the numberless, natural, gem-crusted formations clustered on the ceiling and feel the welcome drip of cool water lapping down on their sweat-doused heads as it seeped from high places. The water, as it turned out, was pure, and they drank it lustily.
No concept of night or day graced this cheerless place. All felt helplessly disoriented. Stomachs roiled and muscles ached. Their last meagre meal had been devoured back at the T junction perhaps an hour ago or half a day. Time had become meaningless.
A new junction appeared out of the gloom. Now they caught a glimpse of a stony mass jutting out of the claw-hewn wall. The anomaly was a shapeless lump, low and smooth at first. Squatting before it, Dereas traced the outline of a primitive snake’s head with a single eye, the whole effigy gaping like a slug. The carving was cold and serpentine to the touch, almost like sculpted ice. With the look of some sacred deity out a wizard’s dream or other, it was fashioned in the shape of a water fountain or some spout. From the snake’s mouth dribbled more of the magically-lit water which trickled out to join the main confluence.
Dereas cupped his hands. He let the cool water play through his brown-knuckles. He splashed it on his sweaty brow. Two small human skulls were directly fixed to the rock beneath the proto-snake. The whole exhibit had the look of a devotional altar to Dereas’s eye, before which beings would kneel. It was much too overt and disquieting for his tastes. More stoneworks massed directly opposite the construction on the other side of the tunnel, flanking a gaping black hole which descended downward on a sharp angle. From this opening wafted unsettling cool, fetid air, before which Jhidik quivered on the weight of his game leg, wincing.
“A pretty little statue,” he muttered. “What inspired such grotesquerie, I wonder?”
A macabre moment overcame Draba, or perhaps in the whim of a vile prank, he contrived to tighten a bootlace and casually bump the Pirean with his hip, sending him stumbling almost into the hole. For a second Jhidik swayed and cried out in a hoarse voice before he was pulled back by Dereas.
“You careless, miserable sod!”
Draba’s lips curled in surprise. “Careful there, one leg,” he cautioned, reaching out with a comradely hand. “The mountain holds dooms around every corner. You, my friend, are living on borrowed time.”
Jhidik pulled himself away from the villain’s clutch and struck out with a fist. “You idiot!” He rounded on the smirking rogue who was a head shorter and who leaned on his sword a casual distance away like a cocky weasel. Draba’s wicked blade flashed in his palm.
Dereas intervened with speed. The tip of his spear quivered in front of Draba’s nose, already penetrating the man’s guard. “What’s with you, lout? Next time you try a stunt like that, you lose a hand—or an eye. Are we clear?”
The simpering smirk on Draba’s face showed he was not, and Dereas could barely stop himself from lashing off the fool’s head, especially after just being recently tested by Rusfaer. The blinding urge to push steel through that prankster’s heart became overwhelming. He managed, teeth gritted, to relax his twitching fingers.
Rusfaer and Hafta snorted at the amusing display and turned away, unimpressed with their peer’s impetuous behaviour.
Draba resented the slight and sought to recover his dignity. “What’s wrong, captain?” he jeered at Dereas. “Your lame boy here can’t fight his own battles?”
Dereas’s expression grew snarling and dangerous. “No,” he said with a menacing laugh. “I’m sparing ‘my lame boy’ from spilling your guts on the cold stone. In fact, I’m sure he’d do it before you could spit sideways.”
Jhidik grinned. “That, or heave your carcass down this wonderful hole,” he said with a sinister grimace.
“Oh, is that it?” snorted Draba. “Well, it’s easy to—”
A blade flashed in the Pirean’s hand and pressed up against Draba’s pulsing jugular—with the blinding speed of a snake.
The lout licked his lips, as if pondering the seriousness of the warrior’s boast. That he could be caught off guard by not one, but two men, one of them lamed, inflamed his blood. Yet he turned a notch cooler as he saw the raw-edged look on the Pirean’s murderous face.
The scowl grew on Draba’s round chin, and he crimped up his lip, like a small boy whose bullying had gone sour.
“Seems as if I’m the only honest one here,” he complained. “Truth is, your gimping man’s a liability to us. He’ll only slow us down—or get us killed if something goes awry in the tunnel—say some beast does try to maul us. I was only doing us a favour, culling the herd, so to speak.”
Dereas recoiled at the level of Draba’s audacity.
Jhidik took three jerky steps forward. “The only favour you’ll be doing us, you dunghill cock, is slitting your own throat.” The words poured forth in a gush of choking anger.
Dereas had stopped listening. Out of the corner of his eye, he had noticed Rusfaer’s careless grin during this whole episode. He stared, puzzled. The smile had faded to a surly frown. Was it genuine reproach on his brother’s part, or a quick cover-up for his complicity in the affair?
In a quick upward motion, the beastslayer threw down his spear and hooked arms under Draba’s armpits—slamming the bully hard down on the rock, back first.
Draba wheezed out a gasp, eyes starting from his head.
The full weight of the war chief pressed on top of Draba and Dereas hissed air through his teeth straight into Draba’s bloody ear. “Don’t ever try to goad my men again. If you do, rat, I’ll cut you to pieces and shove you down that hole myself.”
The flustered bully, still gasping for air, uttered no retort. He groped painfully to his feet, staring defiantly at Dereas whose eyes were dark as death. Withal, Draba’s eyes seemed slitted and promised terrible repercussions to come. The weaselly face was contorted in a disturbing grimace, yet at the same time, not understanding why Rusfaer’s expression remained so impassive.
The shattered company took up their journey again. Draba moped his way along mechanically, nursing a bruised back and battered ego.
The matter seemed settled, but Dereas’s spirits remained cloudy. Draba’s spiteful aura and muttered oaths were indicative that he sheltered a grudge that would fester and threaten to undermine their mission.
None felt sorry to leave behind the oppressive fetish. With the wary steps of hunted men the wanderers followed a path of silent gloom, always on a slight upward slant. The surrounding rock became drier and smoother here, the air fresher, perhaps indicating a break or opening somewhere in the rock to reveal open sky. There was a sense that the walls had been chiselled in more glorious days, and with some precision, thought Dereas. Obviously the artisans who had chiselled these effigies had been meticulous, he reflected, judging from the craftsmanship and the sturdy stone trestles now fitted above their heads which likely kept the rock from caving in. Smaller side passages appeared from time to time, but these they avoided. An indefinable feeling of emptiness permeated their bones. There was a fear of getting lost too, and Dereas’s senses swam with the thought of wandering these frightful tunnels in aimless circles.
The tensio
n between the war chiefs had not lost its grip. Amexi’s and Draba’s muttered curses grew to sneers as knife play broke out over a petty argument over who had tread on whose heels. Draba had wrested the blade out of Amexi’s hand and had almost plunged it into his ribs before Dereas came sprinting to lock arms with him and knock the dagger clear, bending the shorter man’s wrist back. He sent the troublemaker sprawling to his knees, panting for breath. “When will you learn your lesson, you squabbling oaf?”
Rusfaer found the whole incident entertaining and his smirk indicated no less. All the time Draba’s wrath had been brewing to seething levels. Dereas did not treat Draba’s behaviour lightly. Men were known to go mad when entombed underground, or so he recalled from grim tales and folklore of his people, so he grudgingly overlooked the incident. This time. He knew his man Amexi would not instigate so fevered a reprisal over something so trivial. The hothead Draba was much to blame for the incident, everyone knew it, and the beastslayer kept one eye trained on him.
The company filed along in grim procession. Dereas stalked in front and Rusfaer and his surly cohorts in rear. All men hoped for an end to this abominable march and the close confines, far away from the bloodthirsty lust of the Eakors. Dereas was confident to take the lead in the fractured band, sometimes interchanging with Jhidik or Rusfaer when the urge came upon him.
In one section of the tunnel, the path was ripped in half, likely caused by an earthquake. They looked down into a yawning chasm, a plunge into empty blackness with no visible end.
Dereas peered over the rim with trepidation; Jhidik lurked at his side. They heard no sound, no tinkle of water in those unknown depths. The small stream that ran from the other side dribbled down the sheer face in meek, noiseless patter. The others crept closer to the edge. Too far to leap, Dereas thought. A rash move to take a running leap and try to hook fingernails on a wet surface across the black pit, a vault which would likely lead to a grisly end. They must crawl one by one precariously around the side across the ledge where the trickle ran, using whatever handholds they could find.
Dereas tossed his spear across first, which clattered noisily onto the rocks across the gap. The walls were clammy, foreboding. Dereas made the first tentative steps, wincing in chagrin. He halted and gripped the wall with his free hand, but recoiled at the dank feel. He crafted careful, lithe steps and set hands methodically, scabbard scraping on the rock behind him.
Twelve feet only. It was child’s play, at least in broad daylight, but on a ledge with parts crumbling and drowned in greenish gloom and only a few inches wide at places, it was only with nerves of steel could one cross.
Dereas arrived safely. Hafta and Jhidik made skittish steps next, almost slipping to their dooms as Dereas, snatching up his weapon, thrust out his spear so his white-faced comrade, who was thankfully within range, could grasp it. He reached and grabbed Jhidik by the belt. The muscles on the beastslayer’s shoulders knotted as he encircled him underneath the armpits. Rusfaer, following on Jhidik’s heels, refused Dereas’s hand, as did Draba, hating the sight of his enemy, let alone any helping hand from him. Draba went so far as to impress everybody with an idiotic acrobatic leap for the last few feet, only to pin-wheel back into the void at the last second and had not Rusfaer shot out a hand and grabbed his mail shirt, he would have perished. “Smarten up, you idiot! Save your antics for another time.”
Stung by the remark, Draba gazed up at his chief with a smug, almost beseeching look. His air of false pandering was not lost on the big warrior. A strange dependency existed between the two. This Dereas could see, one which he could not quite understand. He flashed both Rusfaer and Draba a stare of mild perplexity, passing eyes beyond to the murk in which they must grope.
The last was Amexi inching himself halfway across snail-like. On the narrowest part of the ledge, a small chunk of rock crumbled loose from his left heel. He almost slipped and fell face first into the abyss. Like a spider, the warrior hung there, tottering for several seconds, finally pulling himself up, trembling and blinking in the gloom with sweat pouring into his eyes.
Dereas helped him the last few feet and he and Rusfaer peered down into the black, bottomless pit once more. They expected to hear a tinkling or splashing or some pebble crashing against the primordial rock or stone or deep water...but none came.
A frowning silence overcame the company; heated grumbles melded into scowls. All perked their ears to hear what was not to be heard.
Though none could be certain, the keenest amongst them might have heard the tiniest ghost of an echo plink far, far below in that illimitable darkness.
A thud? No, thought Dereas. A distant slither of ancient scales?
There was a stir of movement, definitely something solid. The rattle of ancient breath perhaps?
It was not definitely and instinctively clear what it was and Dereas jerked a hand to his scabbard. He felt his pulse quicken. His flesh crawled at the thought of what possibly had been alerted.
With the utmost noiselessness, the troupe slipped away from the eerie gap, plagued with misgiving.
Jhidik’s leg was not improving. It had stiffened considerably during the last arduous miles of stumbling through the dark and Dereas and Amexi took turns helping him plod his way through the endless twisting passages. It seemed that they were going in circles, and that the tunnel was a foul trick of the mind. The splint that Dereas had fabricated for the Pirean had held up, but was not altogether perfect and he had to stop many times to tighten it. But it was slipping and blood had seeped around the edge, staining the old fabric. A rank, septic odour wafted from the wound and caused him to conclude that the gash was festering, possibly already malignant. “It needs to be cleaned, Jhidik,” he said seriously. “I’ll risk dousing it with this weird green water, but it could make it worse. The liquid could be contaminated.”
Jhidik waved a hand. “Let’s do it then. We have to keep moving.”
Dereas complied; his efforts, he hoped, would make a difference.
The tunnel weaved relentlessly upward and Dereas thrust his hunger from his mind. He clambered up a crude staircase of natural ledges, some which had been carved out skillfully in the naked rock. He wondered, who crafted them? The others followed with grudging unease, Jhidik trying to hide his limp. The war chief swung a confident arm to motion them onward. With sullen grunts, Rusfaer and his band stalked behind, grumbling curses. Their heavy tramp was like the plod of feet made of lead.
The six scrambled up a shorter flight of stone steps where the peculiar green light seemed to glow with even more intensity.
Weapons drawn, the group crowded into a long narrow hall where they beheld a gigantic carven facade of smoothly-polished stone. The wall rose hugely out of the dimness, rearing many times a person’s height, up from a jumble of toppled columns and blocks sweeping along the base of the opposite wall. The troupe wandered spellbound across the paves, hands on their hilts, bearing the strange weariness of travellers from a faraway land; all the while large drops issued from the high ceiling and the strange waters glistening down the facade trickled into the middle of the hall. It was a strange sight—the wall bore an air of ancient antiquity as if it had been revered over long centuries.
An austere altar rose out of the gloom ringed with pedestals holding stone bowls, some long-toppled. These stood eerily, looking much like bird baths. An earthy smell permeated the chamber; odd underground plants with black- and dark-green broad leaves grew from various cracks in the facade. Dereas noticed several squat, bush-like plants also poked up from the cracked pavestones. The curious flora was nourished by the falling water, a weird find to be growing in the dimness? After prodding them with the flat of his blade, he saw that they were not figments of his imagination. A mosaic underfoot showed the faintest reminiscence of a coiled snake, the flagstones tainted with the passing of ages and spread with lime and budding stalagmites, well worn and damp from the dripping water. Closer inspection revealed that the high facade was carved with what looked l
ike a pictographic history of a forgotten race—gatherings of people, ceremonial fires, a primordial sun rising over a nation and a horned mountain that was obviously Vharad. Strange archaic script was inscribed beneath the pictographs, elaborating every scene of the past employing symbols of moons, stars, sickles, hammers and animals of all breeds. Dereas saw carved on the final block to the right, almost flush to the floor, a gigantic stone serpent rearing with its strangling coils bound around a group of a hundred stricken faces.
He stiffened. His blood tingled at the ghastliness of the image. Some deep primal cord of recognition stirred within him, given more fuel by the pall of primitive superstition of the distant past oozing from the very pores of the stone around him.
Rusfaer clomped about in grumbling impatience; he finally stumbled upon a gloomy alcove inset into the great facade. It was about eight feet square and he motioned for all to gather. Something had stirred him. The chamber was replete with webs, dust, and a dim feeling of tragedy. Inside, Dereas saw a stone pot bolted with iron ring and accompanied with frayed ropes, large enough for a miniature person or perhaps a child to squat inside. What was this strange vessel? It looked strangely akin to a sacrificial ground, what with its flanking, slightly angled stone slabs ideal for directing runnels of blood of intended victims—somewhat of the same that Dereas had witnessed in obscure temples and blood cults as far to the west as Lunra, bordering Phygus, and scattered across ancient Darfala. The room itself contained dilapidated stone torch holders and candelabra stationed equidistantly at knee height around the chambers as if they were ritual ornaments. Amexi, suddenly disinterested, chose to explore elsewhere.
“A curious parlour,” remarked Rusfaer grimly.
