by Mark Anthony
“Clkkk. Good ferragans,” they droned in mindless monotones. “Found metal. Whrrr. Good, good ferragans.” The creatures scuttled from the chamber and were gone.
Artek crept from his hiding place. He considered following the ferragans, then decided against it. What would be the point? Where could they lead him that would be any better than this pit? Either way, he had lost the others—and himself. There was no telling how deep below the surface they were now. The darkness seemed to creep into his heart, snuffing out his wan hopes. He would never get back to the city in time now. In disgust, he cast off the priestly garb of Malar. With a desolate sigh, he sat down on the foot of the garbage heap, setting Muragh beside him.
“Why are you just sitting here, Artek?” Muragh said in puzzlement. “What’s the matter with you?”
He did not answer the skull. Instead he stared at the tattoo on his arm. The sun had just passed the arrow. In the world above, night had fallen. Just twelve more hours, and all of this would be over.
“I wish it would just happen now, so I could get it over with,” he whispered bitterly.
“You wish what would happen now?” Muragh asked.
“This,” Artek growled, striking the tattoo with his opposite hand. “What’s the point in waiting to die?” He shook his head grimly. “I wish I were already dead.”
“Don’t say that.”
Artek stared at the skull in surprise. Muragh’s reedy voice had dropped to a grim whisper. His lipless mouth no longer seemed to be grinning, but clenched in anger. His orbless eyes bore into Artek.
“Don’t ever say that,” Muragh repeated darkly. “You don’t know what it’s like. You can’t know. You can’t.” The skull shuddered, though whether in terror or rage—or perhaps both—Artek could not tell. He shook his head, unsure what to say.
“Isn’t this just perfect?” Muragh asked with bitter mirth. “Here you want to throw away your life, and I would give anything to have mine back. Even for just twelve hours. Whatever time I had left, even if it was only a minute, I wouldn’t squander it. I would enjoy every second of it, and be grateful for what I had.” Despite his lack of flesh, Muragh’s expression was somehow rueful. “Life is always most wasted upon the living. The gods sure have a twisted sense of humor.”
Shamed, Artek hung his head. Again, he had proven himself utterly thoughtless. He might as well have been a rich man throwing away a loaf of bread in front of a starving beggar. Finally he looked at the skull. “What is … what is it like to …?”
“What is it like to be dead?” the skull finished for him. “Is that what you want to know?”
Artek nodded. For a long moment, he thought Muragh was not going to answer. Then the enchanted skull spoke in a low, eerie voice.
“It’s horrible, that’s what it’s like. It’s cold, and dark, and empty, utterly empty. Maybe it’s better for those who have truly departed. Maybe they manage to find some kind of peace. I wouldn’t know. I’m half in the world of the dead and half out of it. I dwell in the chill of the grave, but I still gaze upon the land of the living. It’s torture. I can see the light and warmth that I can never feel again.”
Sighing, Muragh whistled through his broken teeth and his few remaining wisps of rotting hair moved in the slight breeze. At last he went on.
“The worst of it is the loneliness. I could bear it all if it weren’t for that. Death is lonely. So terribly lonely. I know I can never be alive again. It’s just a dream. But I wish …” It seemed impossible, but Artek thought he saw a bead of moisture trickle from Muragh’s empty eye socket and run down his cheek.
Artek gazed at the skull with troubled eyes. All this time he had been wallowing in his own self-pity, cursing the lot fate had drawn for him. Yet here was one to whom fate had dealt a far crueler hand, and he bore it far more stoically than Artek ever had. Artek felt ashamed, and knew he should. He could learn a lesson from the skull. Even if he had only a short time left, he would not simply throw it away.
“I can’t pretend to know what you’ve gone through, Muragh,” Artek said. He laid a hand gently on the skull’s yellowed cranium. “But I want you to know that you aren’t alone. Not anymore.”
Muragh worked his fleshless jaw, but for once the enchanted skull was speechless. Artek laughed softly, then scooped up the skull. “Come on. I don’t know how far away the others are, but they had to land somewhere. No matter how far it is, we’ll find them.” His orcish eyes piercing the gloom, he moved stealthily through the opening through which the ferragans had disappeared and into a twisting tunnel beyond.
He had gone only a short distance down the passage when Muragh found his voice. “Wait a minute, Artek!” the skull said. “There’s something I need to tell you. I think I know where we are.”
Artek stopped and stared at the skull. “Well, why didn’t you say so before?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt our touching moment,” Muragh quipped.
Artek had no reply.
“Anyway,” the skull went on, “I’ve never been here before, but if the rumors I’ve heard are even half true, then the name of this place is almost certainly Trobriand’s Graveyard.”
Artek sighed, hoping this wasn’t a waste of time. Now that he had shaken off his despair, every second counted. “And just who is this Trobriand person?”
“He’s one of Halaster’s apprentices.”
Artek swore.
“Didn’t your father ever teach you a lesson about using foul language?” Muragh asked dryly.
“Of course,” Artek replied. “Where do you think I learned all these curses?”
Ignoring the skull’s groans, he thought about the implications of this new knowledge. Between the mad voyage of the pirate ship and the perils of the Hunt in Wyllowwood, he had all but forgotten their quest to locate one of Halaster’s apprentices. If they could find Trobriand, maybe they could convince him to show them a gate out of Undermountain.
“Tell me more,” Artek said, his excitement growing.
In the darkness, he listened as Muragh told all that he knew of Trobriand. There was not much. Trobriand was also called the Metal Mage, for his ultimate goal was to create mechanical beings that were stronger, faster, and smarter than any living creature. Over the centuries, this pursuit had both consumed and eluded him. While he constructed countless metal horrors that were swift and powerful, none approached the level of intelligence he desired. According to the rumors, the Metal Mage cast the failed results of his experiments down into a pit deep in Undermountain—a place thus known as Trobriand’s Graveyard.
“It doesn’t sound hopeful,” Artek said when Muragh finished. “But there must be some way we can contact Trobriand. I can’t believe that he doesn’t keep an eye on his old creations, just to see what they’re up to down here. But first we must find the others.”
Gripping Muragh, he continued down the tunnel. Before long, a ruddy glow crept into the air. Clanging sounds echoed off the stone walls. Finally, Artek came upon an opening in the left side of the passage, and cautiously peered within.
In the chamber beyond, a pair of ferragans was busily at work. Artek could not tell if they were the same two he had seen earlier. They all seemed to look the same. One operated the bellows of a glowing forge, while the other hammered pieces of red-hot metal with its claw. In the corner sat a third ferragan who was missing several of its legs.
“Clkkk,” emanated a sound from the broken ferragan’s pincer mouth. “New legs good. Scrrr.”
Evidently Artek was witnessing a repair job in action. He moved quickly past the opening. No alarm went up. No ferragans scuttled in pursuit. They had not seen him. He continued soundlessly down the tunnel. More chambers opened up to either side, and in several others ferragans went about their tasks: unloading wire baskets of junk, sorting through stray bits of metal, and forging new body parts. What these mechanical creatures lacked in wits they certainly made up for in industriousness.
A shout suddenly echoed down the tunnel. I
t was not the drone of a ferragan, but a human voice.
“Get your rusty hands off me!”
Artek would recognize that tone of cutting indignation anywhere. It was Beckla.
He sprang into motion and dashed down the tunnel. The walls fell away, and he found himself in a large cavern, its stony ceiling lit by a flickering crimson glow. A fierce heat wavered in the air, created by a bubbling pit of molten metal in the center of the chamber. Even as Artek watched, a ferragan dropped a chunk of iron into the pit. It melted and sank into the glowing pool. Then another sight caught his eyes, and his heart lurched in his chest.
Three ferragans each dragged a struggling form toward the smoking pit. Two of the forms wore crimson cloaks, and all three wore masks of beaten bronze. Artek was surprised that the masks had not come loose in the fall down the pit.
“Unhand us immediately!” the figure without a cloak cried imperiously. Corin.
“Chhhk,” one of the ferragans said. “This metal is reluctant.”
“Must not resist,” another iron creature droned. “All metal must be melted. Vrrrt. That is Squch’s rule.”
Dark realization struck Artek. Seeing their bronze masks, the dull-witted ferragans must have mistaken Beckla, Corin, and Guss for pieces of scrap metal. And now the creatures were going to melt them down.
Specimens
Wizard, noble, and gargoyle fought against the pincers that held them, but living muscles—even those forged from stone—were of no use against hard iron. The ferragans clambered near the bubbling pit and raised their jointed appendages, preparing to cast their struggling burdens toward the vat of molten liquid. Beckla, Corin, and Guss would be burned alive. Artek had to do something. But what?
Before he could think of an answer, a piercing sound—high and keening, like an alarm—filled the air of the cavern. The ferragans abruptly froze. In what seemed like terror, they stared at an opening in the far wall of the chamber, their glass eyes bobbing on the ends of wiry stalks.
Clanking, a half-dozen hulking forms appeared in the far opening and scuttled into the cavern on multiple legs. Their shells were as bright as polished steel, and they waved great serrated claws before them and dragged flat, razor-sharp tails behind. To Artek, they looked for all the world like gigantic steel lobsters. They surrounded the three ferragans cowering near the pit of liquid metal.
“HALT!” one of the creatures ordered in a thrumming monotone.
“DROP!” commanded another.
Clicking in fear, the ferragans opened their pincers, releasing Beckla, Corin, and Guss. The three fell to the floor mere inches from the edge of the fiery pit. They tried to crawl away but were stopped by the impenetrable line of lobster-creatures.
“PRISONERS!” said one of the steel-shelled newcomers. “OURS!”
Beckla tore off her bronze mask, and Guss and Corin did the same, staring at the creatures in horror. As they revealed their faces, pitiful squeaks and rattles rose from the three ferragans.
“Clkkk! Not metal!” they wailed in their buzzing voices. “Bad ferragans! Whrrr! Prisoners for thanatars only! Not for ferragans! Scrrr! Must re-forge ferragans! Bad, bad!”
Evidently consumed by remorse at their mistake—and their apparent failure to be good ferragans—the three crablike creatures lurched forward and heaved their rusty iron bodies into the pit of molten metal. They clicked and squealed, pincers waving, as their carapaces began to glow: first red, then orange, then white-hot. Melting, they sank into the pit and were gone. The remaining ferragans kept their distance, staring submissively at the lobster-like creatures that the others had called thanatars. While the ferragans were workers, the thanatars were obviously the police.
“TAKE!” one thanatar commanded, and several others reached their serrated claws toward the three captives near the pit.
Artek gripped the hilt of the cursed saber at his hip, but he resisted the urge to leap into the room swinging. He wasn’t certain he could kill—disassemble?—even one of the steel-shelled thanatars, let alone six of the things. Yet he couldn’t let them simply drag the others off to some dark prison.
Once again Artek’s dilemma was resolved as several more mechanical forms slithered into the chamber. Things are getting stranger by the second, he thought. The new creatures were sleeker than the others, as dark as polished jet, with sinuous, many-sectioned bodies and countless undulating legs. If the ferragans were crabs and the thanatars lobsters, then these new metallic monsters were giant silverfish. They had no eyes, but dozens of wiry antennae sprouted from their heads, waving before them. Clearly, the antennae were their primary sensing organs.
“SILVERSANNS!” one of the thanatars intoned. Somehow the word resonated with derision.
“Not are thessse prisssoners, yesss?” one silversann said, in a hissing voice.
“Ssspecimens are they,” added another. “Ssstudy them we will. Take them not to prissson, yesss?”
The thanatars glared at the silversanns, but they hesitated, their claws hovering over the prisoners. Artek sensed a rivalry between the strong-bodied thanatars and the obviously more intelligent silversanns. And right now that rivalry was the only thing keeping the others alive.
The largest of the thanatars—and evidently their leader—advanced on the silversanns. “PRISONERS!” the creature said again. “OURS!”
“Have them when done with our ssstudies you may, yesss?” a silversann replied.
“Ssstudy, yesss?” echoed another. It stroked Beckla with its feelers. The wizard recoiled in disgust.
“SQUCH!” the lead thanatar said in protest. “PRISONERS. OURS!”
Squch. Artek had heard the ferragans utter that word earlier. It almost seemed like a name of some sort. It was as if the thanatar were saying that this Squch had granted them all prisoners.
“But to usss ssspecimens Sssquch gave, yesss?” the leader of the silversanns countered. “Oursss ssspecimens are. Yesss, yesss?”
Artek shook his head. Evidently, the silversanns thought this Squch person had given the captives to them. While he couldn’t be sure, he guessed that Squch was the leader of all of the mechanical creatures. They certainly seemed to speak his name with reverence and fear.
The thanatars waved their claws menacingly at the silversanns. The slinky mechanicals cowered—clearly they were not created for battle like the lobster-creatures—but they did not give any ground. Fear rose in Artek’s throat. If there was a fight, Beckla, Corin, and Guss would be caught in the middle—and likely torn apart.
“Quick!” Muragh hissed. “Do something!”
“I’m thinking!” Artek muttered back. Then an idea struck him. There was no time to decide whether it was good or bad. Taking a deep breath, he left the safety of the tunnel and ran into the cavern. “Greetings!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
As one, all the mechanicals turned in his direction.
“Great,” Muragh mumbled. “You’ve got their attention. Now what?”
Artek swallowed hard. “It seems that you’re at a bit of an impasse,” he said loudly. “Perhaps your leader, this Squch of yours, could help you resolve it. Why don’t you ask him what to do?”
The metallic creatures stared dumbly at Artek. His words were lost entirely upon them. Only the silversanns seemed to grasp part of what he had said, their supple antennae waving uncertainly.
“You’d better speak to them in a language they can comprehend,” Muragh whispered.
Artek nodded. He tried again, choosing his words carefully and speaking in his best imitation of their tinny voices. “Prisoners?” he asked, pointing to his companions and then himself. “Specimens?” He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “Ask Squch. Squch knows.”
These words seemed to excite the mechanicals. The thanatars emitted high-pitched whistles, clacking their claws. The silversanns hissed sibilantly, feelers whipping back and forth. Artek watched in growing alarm, wondering if he had angered them.
“SQUCH!” the thanatars uttered. T
hey seemed to nod their small steel heads. “SQUCH! TELL!”
The silversanns rippled their sleek bodies. “Yesss. Asssk mussst we Sssquch, yesss. Tell usss will Sssquch what to do ssshould we. Yesss, yesss.”
Three thanatars picked up Beckla, Corin, and Guss, holding them securely—but not ungently—in their clawed appendages. Another thanatar moved toward Artek, and he suppressed the instinct to run as it reached out and lifted him off the floor. The ferragans clicked submissively, scuttling out of the way as the thanatars marched toward the opening through which they had entered. Antennae waving, the silversanns slithered behind.
“It’s good to see you, Ar’talen,” Beckla said, her face drawn with fear. “But I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
Artek did not answer. He hoped he did as well. Either way, it was a gamble. But if anyone knew how to contact Trobriand, it would probably be the leader of these creatures. And that was Squch.
The thanatars carried them through a winding labyrinth of rough-walled tunnels and irregular chambers. Here and there, thin veins of silvery metal marbled the stone walls. Artek guessed that this place had been a mine once, perhaps constructed by the same dwarves—the Melairkyn clan—who had built the vast city of Underhall eons ago. Artek shuddered. They must be far below Waterdeep indeed. Yet, remembering Muragh’s words, he hardened his will. He would not give up—at least, not until the very end.
At last they passed through a rough archway into a large natural cavern. Here the stone walls were riddled with serpentine veins of silver metal. Lanterns like those that were attached to the heads of the ferragans lined the perimeter of the cavern. Their light was reflected and somehow amplified by the thin veins of metal, filling the air with a dazzling silver glow. It was breathtaking.
The thanatars came to a halt in the center of the cavern, the silversanns just behind. Opening their claws, the steely creatures dropped their burdens. The three humans, the gargoyle, and the skull dropped to the floor with various exclamations of discomfort and indignation. Before them was a shadowed hole in the floor that filled Artek with a sense of dread. Behind them, the thanatars and silversanns formed a half-circle, falling into an expectant silence.
