by GJ Kelly
“Is it in the pipes?” Loryan gasped.
“I don’t know,” Gawain confessed, opening the shutters of his lamp a little wider.
They could feel the vibration through their boots, rattling up through the white-stone blocks of the floor, and in the increased light, they could see more dust trickling from each of the five pipes at the eastern wall. One of the wheel-valves, loose on its spigot, began rattling in sympathy with the pipe manifold, adding a high-pitched ringing accompaniment to the lower rumbling of pipework embedded in stone.
Then it stopped, and silence reigned once more.
“It was like an earthshake in the pipes,” Loryan muttered, and then a deafening concussion from behind them almost bowled them over in shock.
“The door!” Gawain shouted, twisting and holding his lamp aloft.
Dust fell from the lintel above the steel portal, but the door remained firmly in its place. More dust drifted from the roof above them, cloudy motes swimming in the light from their lamps. Silence, then, save for their breathing.
Another concussion, this time a solid impact against the blocks of the southern wall, and more dust fell from overhead.
“Bricks and mortar fresh built in Zanatheum would not have withstood such a blow, never mind after a thousand years of crumbling.”
“Another wizard of my acquaintance, Arramin, once described this kind of elvish construction as keyed block-work. He said the blocks fitted together like the tongue and groove of carpentry.”
“And the roof, Serre?”
The pipes rattled briefly, marking the shadow-creature’s passing around the eastern wall. Gawain held his light higher, though his arm was still well bent at the elbow when the top of the lamp scraped lightly on the ceiling. “Appears also to be of white-stone blocks. It’s certainly not of lattice, rock and mortar.”
Another solid impact startled them, though it was perhaps weaker than the last, this time on the north wall.
“It’s circling us,” Loryan sighed.
“And likely feeling for a way in as it goes.”
A deafening crash on the door came next, then another, and a third, showers of dust, and the rock wedged behind the latch-handle shifted a little. Inside the blockhouse the noise of the creature’s impacts was painful, making ears and heads ache. Then the bough of wood Gawain had stuffed into the air vent fell clattering to the floor, and both men cranked their lamp shutters wide.
Gawain glimpsed something black disappear from the vent the moment the lamps were held aloft at full brightness, and they waited, watching, tensed and breathing hard.
“Hold this, Loryan,” Gawain ordered, slipping the lamp’s lanyard from his wrist and passing the light to the praetorian. “I’ll light a brand and stuff it out the vent a little.”
“Aye, Serre.”
A little brandy poured over the cheap Gorian canvas strips bound tightly to a length of gnarled darkwood, a smack of a firestone on Gawain’s boot knife, and the torch burst into life with an audible whump! He stuffed the burning end into the air vent and pushed it out, hoping it was burning above the door and was enough to drive the creature away, for a time at least.
“If there’s a darkweasel out there, Serre,” Loryan’s nose wrinkled at the smell of burning wood and canvas, “He knows we’re in here, now.”
“If there’s a darkweasel out there, Loryan, he’s welcome to try getting in here, but he’ll have to join the queue behind that shadow-creature.”
“Surprised it hasn’t tried the roof yet.”
“Don’t give it ideas.”
“Sorry, Serre.”
The pipes began their curious rattling song again, drawing the two men away from the door and closer to the manifold, lamps still held aloft.
“It must know where the Orb is, or rather where the emanations Allazar spoke of are the strongest.”
“Think it’s gone back in the pipe, Serre?”
“If it has, then it’s right there, with nothing but a pipe’s thickness of elven metal between it and us.”
“And right next to the box, too.”
“Aye,” Gawain agreed, eyeing the large-bore pipe at the base of the manifold against which the Orb casket was chained. “Like a cat curled up before a fireplace. Though unlike a cat, this thing is doubtless feeding.”
“How can this be, Serre? Emanations we can’t see, and a shadow-thing feeding off them? How can it be?”
Gawain shrugged slightly. “We can’t see emanations from a hot stove, Loryan, though we can feel the heat from it.”
“Then let’s hope the shadow doesn’t get too much fatter while it’s eating emanations. If that pipe bursts, it’s in here with us, light or no light.”
The rattling stopped, and an eerie silence filled the blockhouse.
They waited, listening intently, lamps held low and eyes scanning the pipework. Then they heard a faint creak, coming from the base of one of the wheeled valves, as though pressure were increasing within.
“Serre?” Loryan whispered, “What do you think?”
“I think the first concussion we heard came from the thinner pipes outside the blockhouse, the shadow bursting out from them. It’s as Allazar and Berek suggested, the creature tracked us under the ground, using the city’s channels and conduits to remain close to us in the day. And I think if it managed to burst those smaller pipes asunder, it may, if it draws enough strength from the Orb here, burst through these, too.”
“Threk.”
“Indeed. If these wheels operate in the same manner as those I saw at the Wheel of Thal-Marrahan, then turning them to the right will close the pipes. We need to persuade it out of the pipe somehow, and then close these pipes to prevent the shadow-creature’s return. I’d rather have it hammering on the door than bursting out from the pipe and showering us with shards of metal.”
Loryan drew his shortsword, and Gawain stepped back. There was little room to manoeuvre, but the Gorian swung the flat of the blade back-handed and slapped the large-bore pipe. The blade rang, and they waited. Nothing. And then the faint creaking of the joint under one of the wheel valves.
“It’s still there,” Gawain whispered. “Give it another couple of whacks.”
Loryan turned slightly more sideways on, braced, and then hammered the pipe, twice.
Pipes rattled alarmingly, wheels loose on their spindles shuddering, and then there was smashing impact on the north wall, and a crashing impact against the door.
“Quickly!” Gawain shouted, “Turn the wheels! Turn the wheels!”
The first, on Gawain’s left, was frozen solid, but a quick twist counter-clockwise showed the valve to have been fully closed already. Gawain began heaving on the second, shoulder-to-shoulder with the praetorian, valves squealing at the unexpected movement after ten centuries of idle repose.
Another tremendous and deafening impact on the door, and then the clatter of wood, the burned-out torch forced from the vent.
“Turn them all! Turn them all!” Gawain shouted, rushing with lamp wide open to stem the ingress of the shadow-creature oozing through the air vent. It seemed to fight its way forward in spite of the light, but after a second of futile effort, fled from the light when Gawain thrust the lamp closer.
“This one’s stuck!” Loryan shouted.
“Turn it the other way a little, then back again!”
Metal squealed against metal, and then the seized valve broke free, Loryan heaving the wheel clockwise until, as the pipework began its familiar rattling, the last valve was shut. Gawain tested them all to be certain in his own mind that the pipe was sealed against the shadow, and then he heaved a sigh, and stepped back.
The rattling continued for a few moments, dust spilling from the wall. Then, a short silence. Loryan picked up his discarded shortsword, and with a cruel grin, whacked the blade on the section of pipe where dust from the wall had signalled the shadow’s presence. More rattling, and then silence again.
oOo
46. One More Thing
> Five times the shadow-creature attempted to gain entry through the pipes, only to find its way blocked by the valves and then be sent packing by heavy ringing blows from Loryan’s shortsword. Compressed into the tight confines of a pipe fabricated from a steel it could not penetrate, the vibrations made by the shortsword’s blows seemed to cause the creature as much discomfort as bright light did on the occasions when it attempted entry via the air vent above the door.
For hours, the two men played that laborious and repetitive game with the creature, until finally there was silence. Gawain guessed that the thing outside had tired of smashing at walls, pipes, and the unyielding door, and had settled on the far side of the wall by the pipe manifold, nearest to the casket and whatever invisible light the Orb radiated and the creature craved.
“Been quiet a long time, Serre,” Loryan whispered, the two men sitting on the floor, backs to the walls.
“For which my aching head is extremely grateful,” Gawain muttered in reply, mixing silvertree powder from his pack into a cup of water.
He drank half of it, then handed the rest to Loryan. “Here, it’ll take the edge off the headache.”
The praetorian looked pleasantly surprised, and took the offered medicine. “Thank you, Serre, me and my head both appreciate it.”
“It needs a while for it to take effect, but it’s a blessed relief when it does.”
Gawain closed his healer’s helper, and returned it carefully to his pack. He considered frak, but the thought of chewing with such a throbbing headache was too far beyond the pale.
“Darkweasel would likely have heard the noise that thing made.” Loryan sighed, draining the cup and handing it back to Gawain.
“It’d need to be a deaf darkweasel not to.”
“Won’t attack though. Probably sent a penny-blade scout or two, no more than that. Prester told us what was done to those Simanian regulars. They wouldn’t have seen anything like that done to ‘em before in Pellarn province.”
“You don’t approve?”
Loryan shrugged. “Not my place, Serre. We’ve heard tales of worse things in the north. And worse in the provinces too since the Goth-lords and the darkness. If it stops those scum chasing us, or slows ‘em down, you won’t hear me complaining. Serre.”
“Have you seen much of the Empire since the fall of Pellarn? How badly do the people fare in the provinces?”
Loryan shrugged, and laid his now narrow-shuttered lamp on his lap. “First Cohort is the primary corps of the Emperor’s First Legion. Five hundred men in the Cohort, and our main duty was the Emperor’s close protection, and if he ever left Zanatheum, I wasn’t in the Guard when he did. Imperator Berek knows a lot more about everything than I ever will, Serre, best you ask him such questions.”
“He seems a good man.”
“Aye, he is. You buy your way through most of life at home, but you can’t buy command in the Imperial Guard. It’s given, and it’s only given when it’s earned.”
“And Imperator Berek commanded the primary corps of the Emperor’s First Legion.”
“Still does, or will, when we get back,”
“Then your Emperor must’ve have understood the importance of the Orb’s destruction, to send such a high-ranking officer to prevent the enemy obtaining it.”
“Aye, Serre, maybe he did. It’s why we were so proud, and why we were able to stomach hiding our uniforms. The Emperor chose Imperator Berek, and Imperator Berek chose us. And that’s also why, now we’re honour-bondsmen to you, you can bet your life we’ll see that box over the side like you said, or die trying.”
“Let’s hope it’s the former.”
They dozed in turns again, time dragging and the world reduced to a small rectangular space, though this time they were closed in by stone and not by fog. Gawain had no idea how much time had passed, but had just decided that dawn must be close when a strange tension seemed to rise within the blockhouse. Gawain flicked his foot, nudging Loryan’s boot and watching in the narrow-shuttered lamplight as the praetorian opened his eyes, blinked, and frowned. Then the door began to creak.
At the top and bottom, a thin line of shimmering black resisted the dim lamplight the men had slumbered by. The shadow-creature had a grip on both ends of the door, and was heaving, trying to rip it from its hinges, immense pressure beginning to make the elven steel creak and groan.
Gawain flipped the shutters of his lamp wide open, and stood, Loryan following suit. The blackness shimmered a moment longer in the cracks in the door, and then disappeared. A new creaking sound then, and the rock wedged behind the latch-handle shifted a little, and dust motes trickled to the floor.
“A brand! Quickly!” Gawain ordered, pulling out the pouch hanging around his neck and withdrawing his firestone, and then his boot knife.
Loryan doused the wrapped end of a torch with Jurian brandy, and then with a grinding crack, the rock wedged behind the door latch split in two, but held. A smack of firestone on steel, but nothing happened. Another, and the makeshift torch erupted with first a blue flame, then smoky yellow.
The rock behind the latch shattered at the very moment Loryan thrust the flaming brand out of the air vent, and for a moment, the shadow-creature resisted whatever pain the light from the fiery rags might have caused it. Incredibly, the torch was ripped from Loryan’s stunned grasp and disappeared out through the narrow vent.
Gawain heaved back on the latch-handle, but even with his knee braced against the steel he couldn’t move it. Only the tapered blade of the Gorian bollock dagger hammered at the foot of the door was preventing the portal being ripped away from the blockhouse.
“Light another! Light another!” Gawain cried.
“No firestone!” Loryan shouted desperately, and shoved Gawain out of the way to apply his considerably greater physical strength to the handle.
Gawain snatched up another torch, doused it hurriedly with brandy, and lit it, ignoring the tongues of flame from the stone floor where he’d spilled the golden liquid in his haste. Loryan began groaning through clenched teeth, and then crying out, then screaming with the effort and the pain of drawing back the latch handle, and Gawain shoved the flaming torch out through the vent, hanging on with both hands.
He felt a tugging, and then another more forceful jerking, like a big fish taking the bait, and then with an audible click the latch fell back into place, and Loryan sighed. The creature had released the door, and was gone into the night.
There were deep creases in the praetorian’s fingers and palms where he’d fought against the strength of the shadow, and he held those hands before him as he slid down the wall beside the door, sitting heavily. Gawain drew his shortsword and jammed the pommel behind the latch-handle as best he could, then knelt, and held up his lamp.
“Stay still, and try to move your fingers a little, very slowly. We need to get some blood back in them.”
“I’m good, Serre, just need a little rest…”
“Your sword may yet be needed,” Gawain stated firmly, fetching his pack and rummaging for the healer’s helper and a roll of bandage. “And with fingers bruised like that you won’t be able to wield one.”
It took a little time to make wadding liberally daubed with Eeelan t’oth and then to bind it lightly in each of Loryan’s immense and calloused hands. The praetorian gasped and complained first at the cold of the elven unguent, and then in surprise at the sudden numbness which robbed his hands of pain.
“Try not to use them for as long as possible,” Gawain commanded, packing the supplies away. “I think we’ve seen and heard the last of the shadow-creature for this night. Unless the hole leading into that pipe is close by, it’ll need to find shelter from the daylight quickly. Dawn can’t be far away.”
“Serre,” Loryan acknowledged, and leant his head back against the cold stone of the western wall, eyes closed. Then he opened them again.
“Serre?”
“Loryan.”
“Thank you.”
Gawain sa
w something in the praetorian’s expression that hadn’t been there before the night in the blockhouse had begun. He couldn’t place it in the glare of the wide-open lamplight, but he nodded. “For nothing. As I said, we may need your strength and sword-hand later.
They sat, lamps wide, feeling the night’s chill from the cold steel of the door, waiting for sunrise, and the return of their comrades.
They were both dozing when Gawain thought he heard the five-syllable call of a wood pigeon. The sound was so unexpected he almost started, and for a moment he wondered if he’d lapsed into sleep and dreamt it until he caught the surprised look on Loryan’s face too.
He screwed the shutters of his lamp closed, and Loryan followed suit. A solid bar of grey light diffused through the air vent, and strips of grey were clearly visible at the top and bottom of the door. Morning had broken. They stood, and Gawain helped the praetorian shoulder a surprisingly heavy pack before slipping his own into place. Once cloaks were adjusted and the comforting weight of the longsword rested in its familiar position over Gawain’s shoulder, they waited in the gloom, listening.
Eventually, two metallic raps rang lightly on the steel of the door, followed by two more. Gawain drew his shortsword from behind the latch and repeated the signal with the pommel. There was a delay, the latch moving freely but the door not moving at all. Then they heard blows being struck, and in the gloom saw the end of the bollock dagger being knocked from side to side, attempts being made to loosen the wedge which held the door closed.
Finally, the dagger blade disappeared, and the door heaved open, revealing a worried-looking Allazar and Ognorm.
The wizard sighed in obvious relief, and Ognorm grinned happily.
“Morning melord, best we get a move on, Reesen’s seen a couple or three lights moving in the distance, and there’s two mould-bodies over near the trees.”
