by Max Anthony
“What a bother!” said Jera in exasperation. “All five of my companions are dead and this is the first sign of any treasure I’ve seen and it doesn’t look like we can reach it! I can’t go back with nothing, or their deaths will have been in vain.”
There was a deep grumbling sound, which Jera and Viddo both felt in their bones. Abruptly, they found themselves covered in a huge pile of dust which seemed to have fallen out of nowhere and left them with a thick layer of grey powder all over their clothing and armour.
“Try it now,” came the voice of Rasmus.
When the cloud of heavy dust had settled, Viddo realised that the wizard had used a spell to destroy a large chunk of the wall, taking the alcove with it. The chest remained undamaged – presumably it was enchanted to prevent such easy destruction.
“Your aim has improved,” said Viddo, noting with approval that Rasmus had managed to avoid the creation of a hole in the floor as well, which would have sent the chest falling to the level below.
“Unsurprisingly, spells for the shaping of stone are prevalent within this book,” replied the wizard. “That was one of the weaker examples this wizard had recorded.”
Viddo gave the chest one final check for traps and found it to be free of threat. He took a deep breath as he always did before opening one, then withdrew his hand at the last moment. “You open it,” he said to Jera. “I still harbour fond memories of the first chest I opened.”
Jera reached out her own hand and then paused mid-reach. “What was in the chest?” she asked.
“Five copper pieces and a scroll to conjure up a flask of water. There was also a poisoned needle trap that I’d missed, which caught me on my finger when I triggered it. They had to carry me out of there unconscious. I was lucky to survive, apparently.”
“Oh,” said Jera.
“Don’t let that put you off though. I am a lot more accomplished now than I was back then.”
Jera tried to look reassured by these words. She was tempted to use her sword to lever back the lid but she was a polite lady and didn’t wish to appear as if she doubted Viddo’s words.
The lid was heavy and fell back with a crash. Viddo looked inside and rubbed his hands together.
“Look at all of this!” he said.
“There’re enough copper coins to pay off all of my father’s debts in here!” said Jera, betraying her naivete in the world of high-value plundering.
“Your father didn’t mention debts,” said Viddo, momentarily distracted.
“That’s what he sent me out here for,” said Jera. “To find enough copper to pay them off.”
“Your father didn’t say anything about sending you out either. He told us you were headstrong and took this all upon yourself.”
Jera looked embarrassed. “Did he really say that?”
Viddo could tell that she was taken aback and he didn’t press the matter further. “Look, you have to brush all of this copper to one side, since it’s next to worthless. What we’re looking for is gold and the odd piece of platinum.” He plucked two coins forth, one gold and one platinum. Jera stared at them.
“I’ve never seen a gold coin, let alone a platinum one,” she said, giving the impression that she was almost too nervous to take them from the offering hand. “Is any of this mine?” she asked. By nature, she was not a greedy woman.
“Oi, Razzo?” said Viddo, calling the wizard by his little-heard nickname. It was little-heard because only Viddo dared to use it and only then infrequently.
“What is it?” asked Rasmus.
“If we go by the rules, Jera qualifies for a full third, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, yes. She played enough part in the encounter to have an equal share in whatever we find.”
“There you go,” said Viddo to Jera. “A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s slaughter of an undead wizard. Ignore the coins for now and let us investigate these other items,” he finished, already knowing that only one of them had got lucky. That individual was neither Viddo nor Rasmus, but that pair were experienced enough to take the rough with the smooth.
“One metal shield,” he said, running his fingers over the pristine, burnished metal surface. “Definitely magical in nature.” Viddo put it to one side and reached into the chest again. “One set of steel plate pauldrons, also magical.” He placed them on top of the shield. “One silver chain locket, with shield design, heavily magical.” It too went onto Jera’s pile. “Two potions. Contents unknown.” With that, the magical armour was handed over to Jera and the potions left forgotten nearby.
“All mine?” she asked.
“All yours,” said Viddo. “We’d normally take their value from your share of the coins, but I think we can overlook that formality on this one occasion.” He said this knowing full well that he and Rasmus had two diamonds of enormous value to sell. There was no sound of disapproval from the vicinity of the spellbook, so he knew that the wizard had no objections.
“These pauldrons are far too big!” Jera exclaimed in disappointment. She’d felt how lightweight and strong they were.
“Put them on. They’ll shrink to fit,” said Viddo with a shake of his head. “Don’t they teach new adventurers anything at all these days?”
While Jera put on her new armour and protective locket, Rasmus continued to memorise spells and Viddo started fishing out the gold and platinum coins. He placed them in stacks of ten on the floor next to the chest and it took him ten minutes to fish each one out from amongst the pile of copper and silver.
“Why do people bother with these things?” he asked, starting up his familiar old refrain. “Copper coins should know their place and that place is on the top two floors of a dungeon. Silver coins should not venture any lower than the fifth floor.” Thus spake Viddo Furtive.
At the end of the counting, he found there to be one-hundred-and-fifty gold coins and ninety of the platinum variety. “Perfectly divisible by three,” he said with satisfaction.
Jera looked at her share with something akin to awe. “So much money,” she said, putting it into a coin purse at her waist. Viddo could tell that the pouch had previously been empty, since he could read the contents of a coin pouch from fifty paces across a crowded marketplace.
“You appear to have done exceptionally well to have got so far without suffering the same fate as your fellows above.”
Jera’s face crumpled at the memory. “Everything seemed to go wrong from the moment we set foot in that place. We set off with such hopes of adventure, yet none of the others had prepared in the way they should have done! They kept telling me it would be an easy thing to chop up a few rats and Doppy thought there’d be coins lying everywhere, just waiting to be picked up.”
“Were they your friends?” asked Viddo softly. “Your father told us that you knew them.”
“I knew one or two of them, but not well,” she replied. “I listened to their tales and they all sounded so confident and experienced. I let myself get carried away with their stories. If I’d known that it was all bravado I would have stayed at home.”
“But you did not and you proved yourself vastly more resourceful than all of the others. Without falling prey to misplaced modesty, my friend Rasmus and I have seen the strongest of opponents arrayed against us and defeated them. I think I can speak for us both when I say that we are impressed by the fact that you have survived for so long.”
“Thank you,” Jera said. “I have always had a talent for combat, though you might not think it to look at me.”
With Rasmus continuing to pore over the spellbook, Viddo spoke to Jera for a time about how she had ended up in this place and found that what he and Rasmus had surmised was a close proximity to the truth. It had taken her party of adventurers a long time to find the entrance to the low-level dungeon above them. One of their number apparently had a vague idea of the location, but when push came to shove this person proved incapable of leading the group to the entrance cave. In fact, they’d been about to give up owing to a lac
k of provisions when they had finally stumbled upon the way in.
After a couple of early deaths and a fight with the giant rats, they’d accidentally released some undead which had been hiding behind a stone panel in the wall of the room with the sealed door. In the middle of the combat, they’d been attacked from behind by some grey-fleshed creatures. Outnumbered, and with the rest of her party dead, Jera had escaped down the steps and through the stone village. After that, she had wandered for a time, taking cover in the labyrinthine corridors and passageways. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d avoided her own death and after more than three days hiding underground, she’d seen Rasmus and Viddo enter the wizard’s mansion from afar. She’d followed them warily at first and was about to announce herself just when the spellcasting started.
“If I know my friend well, the look of glee on his face tells me that we shall have no difficulty crossing back over the stone village and on to safety,” said Viddo.
“It might be nice to try out my new armour,” said Jera, turning this way and that to admire the new pieces she wore.
Viddo didn’t reply and had taken to an examination of the writing that lined the walls. Rasmus had helpfully destroyed some of it, but what remained built up a picture of sorts. As Viddo walked around the room, he found that he could read the text almost as well as he could read any other written language. There were still one or two concepts that he struggled with, but the same could be said of most other languages as well. He didn’t like what he was reading and felt obliged to disturb Rasmus.
“I don’t think we’ll be escaping any time soon,” he said.
“Why’s that?” asked the wizard.
“Something is amiss in this underground world. And it may require our attention.”
Rasmus dragged his eyes away from the fireball page of the spellbook. “Everything is amiss down here,” he said.
“This is proper shit-on-fan kind of amiss. They’re close to bringing Him Without Name back into this world.”
“Oh,” said Rasmus. “That is quite amiss, isn’t it?”
8
“How do they plan to accomplish this god-summoning feat?” asked Rasmus, with his concentration now thoroughly interrupted.
“Something to do with providing him enough blood to feed on,” said Viddo, while Jera stood nearby looking worried.
“What makes you think that there’s any more truth to this than all of the other stuff you’ve read about death gods?” asked Rasmus.
“I can’t be certain about anything,” Viddo told him. “This undead wizard had a close interest in the passing of time, and the latest entry on his wall shows a time of zero to indicate that it was the last thing recorded.”
“Surely he could have made this last entry a thousand years ago,” said Rasmus. “Why are you so sure that it relates to now?”
“You could be right, but I am worried nevertheless. Time has a different significance in this place, almost as if it is lacking in importance. The representation of zero time could be a year, ten years or a hundred. Whatever the truth of it, I think it incumbent upon us to return here once we have seen young Jera to a place of safety.”
“I’m not going,” said Jera.
“And then we come back here ourselves and determine the likelihood that this death god will be successfully summoned.”
“I’m not going,” said Jera again.
“At the very least, there is a cause for concern, I believe. And now that you have had a chance to top up on your spell repertoire, we are much better prepared than we were only a short while ago.”
“I’m not going,” said Jera, louder this time.
“Do those words on the wall give any suggestion as to which direction this mischief will be taking place?”
Jera sighed loudly and strolled away towards one of the windows, listening to the wizard and thief as they continued with their discussion.
“If I recall the details on that stone map correctly, then I believe I can lead us into the general vicinity. Of course, there is sure to be a considerable amount of searching to be done once we reach the target area.”
“I think we need to leave,” Jera announced.
“All in good time,” said Rasmus in response, before turning his attention back to Viddo. “I wonder where they’d find a large quantity of blood in a place like this. And is it just blood?”
“We really need to leave, now,” said Jera.
“We’re going soon, Jera,” said Viddo, then directed his next sentence at Rasmus. “There’s some sort of artifact mentioned, but the details are vague. If we find it, we should probably hit it with something heavy.”
“There are several hundred things running across the plaza below,” said Jera with more urgency. “They are heading towards this mansion and they don’t look as if they’re coming for a cup of tea.”
Viddo and Rasmus scrambled towards the window. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” asked Rasmus. Far below, there was a great deal of purposeful movement and many grey shapes dashed amongst the statues towards the mansion. “They are almost upon us!”
Jera shook her head at the wizard’s words. “I never did mind about the little things,” she said softly under her breath. Only Viddo heard it and he chuckled to himself.
“I could drop a firestorm on them,” Rasmus said, almost wistfully. “Though I do not think it will catch better than half of them, since they are so widely spread.”
“You should do something,” Viddo advised. “It is unlikely that you’ll get a better chance to reduce their numbers.” Far below, the first of the undead reached the front door to the mansion.
“I have a better plan,” said Rasmus. “You have been remiss in your searching of this room, Viddo. There is not a competent wizard anywhere who will not have left himself an escape route from his tower or his keep. You have simply overlooked where it is.”
“I would hardly say I have overlooked anything,” argued Viddo. “Since I have not once claimed to have completed my exploration of this mansion. There is no secret that a bumbling wizard can keep from me!”
“We wizards do not bumble! We walk with strength and purpose to our destinations!”
“Standing in every dog shit on the way!” said Viddo.
Jera stared at the pair of them in wonderment. “Please stop arguing!” she demanded, quietening them in an instant. “We are in the gravest of danger and you two are arguing over dog poo!” Jera had her own sense of decorum and couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘shit’.
Viddo made one final utterance about clodhopping wizards and set himself to his task. In spite of the flat nature of the mansion’s frontage, the interior had tapered with each floor they’d ascended, as if the house were set against an inwardly-sloping wall. Because of this, the very top floor was much smaller than the ground floor and there were only three large rooms at the highest level. It meant that Viddo had to do much less searching than he might otherwise have had to, which was a positive in the circumstances of several hundred approaching undead.
“If I were a stupid, stupid wizard, where would I have my escape passage?” pondered Viddo, displaying the good sense to keep this thought in his head instead of speaking it for all parties to hear.
As he ran his fingers gently over the back wall of the room, he observed Jera standing ready in the adjacent room with her sword in hand. She’d discarded her old short sword the moment she’d picked up the shield and recovered her own longsword from Viddo. The way she carried herself when danger approached told him that she’d been wasted against skeletons and giant rats. Rasmus had positioned himself next to her. He had an air of nonchalance, which didn’t fool Viddo for a second.
In spite of his dismissive comments regarding the bumbling nature of wizards, it appeared that the undead occupant of this mansion was wilier than Viddo had anticipated, and any secret passages stubbornly refused to reveal themselves.
“Are you certain there’s a secret passage?” he called through the doorway.
“It is a one-hundred percent copper-bottomed certainty,” came the reply. “And you had best find it soon, before we are overrun by swarms of low-level creatures.”
Rasmus waited patiently near to the stair well. He’d managed to absorb quite a number of spells from the spellbook and was feeling much more confident about things to come. Had this pack of undead not shown up so inconveniently, he’d have spent a lot longer at that table, but all-in-all he was quite content. The book was too heavy to bring with them and he was going to have to leave it behind, which was a shame, though there were only a few things in it that he didn’t already have in his own book. Apart from one spell in particular that he’d had to learn just out of curiosity, even if he didn’t exactly know what it did. Perhaps he’d get the chance to try it out at some point.
Bumbling wizards, he thought to himself with a chuckle. He did enjoy the minor altercations that he and Viddo engaged in.
There was a pattering sound from below. It was faint at first, but approached rapidly. Rasmus glanced at Jera. There was nothing on her face apart from absolute concentration. Rasmus had once been told by a warrior of great skill and experience that the difference between the fighters who lived and the fighters who died was what lay inside. The man or woman who was scared before the fighting had even started was never likely to achieve success in their profession. This warrior had said that the knuckles were the place to look. The whiter the knuckles, the tighter was the fighter’s grip on their sword and the greater the fear in their heart. Jera might as well have been holding an apple for all the tension Rasmus could see in her hand and her arm. She looked at him and smiled.
“They’re coming,” he said.
And come they did. The first ones arrived in a group of five, as if they’d been the fleetest of foot. They looked different to the creatures from the stone village and bore a striking resemblance to the undead which Rasmus and Viddo had first discovered in an underground city nearby – they looked almost human, with grey skin lined and weathered by the unimaginable passing of years. Their teeth were rotting brown and their eyes a uniform grey, showing neither pupil nor iris. They moved quickly but jerkily as they pushed their way up the stairs.
