by Max Anthony
The rotting smell they had noticed when they’d first entered the cavern was gone. In its place was something far worse, that being the smell of barbecued undead flies combined with the scent of partially-cooked rotting meat. Jera had a stomach of iron, yet even so she had to breathe through her mouth.
“Got any of those sausages left in your pack?” asked Viddo.
“I think I’ve still got a couple,” said Rasmus. “Want them now?”
“I’ll have them in a minute,” replied Viddo. “Let’s see what this thing is first.”
Jera shook her head in disbelief at this talk of food, since the smell was enough to put a starving man off a chicken leg. She directed her attention to the creature in front of her, or the remains of what had once been a creature. The body was almost twenty feet long from snout to tail, its skin a mixture of brown and green in the places it hadn’t been charred by the firestorm. It had a long head, with horns atop and teeth protruding through the rotting flesh of its lips. There were wings, now little more than tattered strips of flesh hanging from the bones. The source of its death was clear – it had a huge tear across its belly.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Jera.
“If you were thinking that it’s a dragon, then that’s what it is,” said Viddo. He went around for a look and pushed at the injury with his dagger. A waft of foul-smelling air drifted out from the body cavity and released a dozen flies which had been sheltered from the firestorm. They made straight for Rasmus, who swore and batted at them, whilst Jera did her best to help.
Viddo continued his investigation without paying heed to the wizard’s discomfort. “It came in through the gap right up there in the ceiling,” he guessed, pointing overhead. “I wonder if it was already injured and tore itself open on some of the rocks on the way down. What do you think, Rasmus?”
“Could be,” confirmed the wizard, swatting frantically around him. “Get off you little swine!”
“It’s only a young one. Probably not got much in the way of treasure.” Viddo squinted upwards as he considered whether he had any chance of getting up to the gap in the ceiling to find out if the dragon had come that way. He abandoned the idea quickly. It would be a tough climb that he could probably make, but it would take some time to do it safely and he had no idea if he’d just find himself in mile after mile of crevices that would take him all the way up to the surface.
“That’s a young one?” asked Jera. “How big do they get?”
“Much bigger than this,” said Rasmus, having flattened the last of his tormentors.
“Much, much bigger,” added Viddo.
“They can wipe out an unprepared group in seconds. It’d be easier to avoid them, except that they tend to accumulate an acceptably large hoard of wealth over their years of life. It’s often best to steal it from them rather than face them head-on.”
“Really?” asked an incredulous Jera. “All the tales I’ve heard suggest that dragons know down to the last coin how much they have and that they’ll chase thieves to the ends of the earth.”
“That’s not my experience,” said Viddo. “Most dragons are actually quite stupid and many of them can’t hear very well. They can be as tough as one of Rasmus’ steaks though. Very hard to kill.”
“This one’s not going to cause us any problems, so let us leave the beast and be on our way,” said Rasmus, handing Viddo a sausage. “Want one?” he asked Jera. She shook her head quickly and took the lead, allowing her feet to choose the direction.
10
Neither Rasmus nor Viddo objected to Jera taking the lead and they traipsed along a few paces behind. A small number of undead flies remained in the cavern, presumably having been somewhere out of the range of the firestorm spell. These flies pestered Rasmus and made a beeline for the sausage he was eating for his lunch. The wizard had quick hands and a low tolerance for the creatures and it wasn’t long before he was free of their bother. The cavern wasn’t overly large and Jera took them into a short passage, which at first appeared to be a dead end.
“A hole in the floor,” she said, looking downwards. The hole in question was smooth, about three feet across and perfectly round. It was definitely not natural and it cut through two feet of stone, beneath which was either a room or another corridor.
“I can see the floor,” said Rasmus. “About ten feet down. An easy enough hang-and-drop - who is going first?”
There was no question of going back – there may well have been other routes, but Rasmus and Viddo did not like to return along passages they’d already travelled. It seemed like such a waste of time. Jera was not so set in her ways, yet couldn’t see any harm in continuing.
“I suppose I had better go first,” she said. “Since I am wearing the armour. Are we sure that there’s nothing waiting at the bottom?”
“One can never be certain,” said Rasmus. “That is what makes it so much fun. On the other hand, my light is quite clear for all to see, so I can’t imagine that anything which is down there would not have come to look.”
The wizard had spoken too soon. There was the sound of bare flesh on stone and suddenly there was a face looking upwards. It was an undead face, with grey eyes and rotting teeth. Then, it was joined by another face and another.
“Only three of them,” said Rasmus. In other circumstances, he’d have been tempted to hitch up his robes and treat the creatures below to the sight of his buttocks, but he was aware that there was a lady present.
“Are you going to cast a fireball at them?” asked Jera.
“There’s no need to waste a spell to kill three of them,” came the reply. “We must get down there and do the dirty work with our weapons.”
“That means me?” she asked.
“It is customary for the fighter to go first into the melee,” said Viddo. There was no place for chivalry here.
With a rattle and a clank, Jera dropped into the hole. She clung onto the rim for a couple of seconds as undead arms grasped at her legs. She fell amongst them, treating the closest to a headbutt. There was a dull clang as a second received a shield bash in the face, knocking it onto its undead arse. The third of the creatures caught Jera a glancing blow to the side of the head, and then received a not-too-glancing backstab from Viddo who had descended immediately that Jera had moved away from beneath the hole. A far more powerful undead would have perished from the blow and this weak example fell face down onto the ground.
Jera had managed to get her sword clear and struck out at the two remaining creatures, her attacks not fatal, but designed to draw their attention to her. With both undead swatting ineffectually at Jera’s shield, it was a simple matter for Viddo to stab them both to death.
“I could get used to this,” he said. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper fighter with us who can hold our opponents’ attention.”
Jera beamed at the compliment, while above, Rasmus pushed his head through the opening.
“Can I come down?”
“It’s all clear now, so get yourself through that hole,” said Viddo.
Wizard legs kicked in space for a second or two and then Rasmus joined them below. “Another passage,” he said, giving voice to that which did not need to be given voice to.
“This way,” said Viddo and off they went. Jera took the lead, which was the natural position for the most heavily armoured member of the party. Even with her sword tucked in her belt there was something about the way she carried herself that spoke of readiness. They had no real way of knowing if the horde of undead was still hunting for them, so they hurried along, looking to put as much distance between themselves and the wizard’s mansion as they were able.
This passageway had been cut from the rock and was smoother than most of those they’d seen so far. It was also twelve feet wide as if it had once carried a lot of traffic. Most pleasingly, it was also empty and the trio assumed that the three creatures they’d just killed had been there by coincidence rather than design.
“Yellow
stone,” said Viddo.
“The same sort of stone as the area in which that lich lived?” said Rasmus.
“It might be,” Viddo replied. “I think we only explored the tiniest fraction of that area last time we came here. We should be on our guard, but I don’t think we are necessarily about to stumble across the high priest and his dread knights – according to that stone map we are not yet close.”
“Do you think it is the lich that is trying to raise Him Without Name?”
“I don’t really know,” said Viddo with his brow furrowed in thought. “It strikes me that if I were a lich living down here, the master of all I surveyed, that I might not want a god coming along and taking all of the attention. There again, what do I know? I’ve never been a lich and I don’t anticipate ever turning into one.”
“You raise an interesting point,” said Rasmus. “It seems likely that there are other creatures of great power living down here. Maybe the lich doesn’t have it all its own way. Perhaps he wasn’t even a high priest but is now masquerading as one in order to command those thousands of undead people who exist in this underground complex.”
Jera listened carefully to the conversation, though she had nothing to add to it, given that she hadn’t taken part in the earlier expedition that Rasmus and Viddo had made. There’d been little time to stop and fill her in on the details, but it had definitely sounded exciting and a part of her wished that she’d been there with them.
The corridor branched several times, with Viddo pointing the way each time without hesitation. Rasmus was beginning to think that the thief didn’t have a clue which way he was going, but he knew that if he mentioned it, he’d be invited to take over. Rasmus wasn’t desperate enough to take on that particular mantle.
Doorways appeared in both walls, behind which were rooms lacking in features and furniture. They’d seen similar before and had guessed them to be offices of some description, or perhaps rooms in which people had once lived. In the past there may have been tables and chairs in these places, but almost everything that wasn’t made of stone had rotted away to dust over the millennia. In some parts of the dungeon they had found items made of wood, though these had been brought there much more recently than the times that the ancient crafters of this place had hollowed out the rooms and walkways beneath the earth.
As they travelled, Rasmus and Viddo passed on appropriate snippets to let Jera know what they’d surmised from before. There wasn’t the time to tell her everything, but she was able to pick up something of what they’d learned last time.
The corridors with rooms went on for some time. Rasmus and Viddo were too lazy to try and count them and it didn’t occur to Jera that she should try. Suffice to say that there were thousands of these rooms, spread over a large area.
“It’s strange to think that much of Frodgia could be riddled with such tunnels,” said Jera. “Perhaps even running far out beneath the sea.”
“There could conceivably have been nearly as many people living beneath the ground as on top of it,” Rasmus said. “Viddo and I have not been able to produce anything more than conjecture about why they chose to live here rather than above. Many of the undead are close to us in appearance, yet we do not know if they were in fact wholly different from us in how they thought and how they acted. We are convinced that there have been many distinct civilisations who have populated these halls over the thousands of years. Many of them may not have known that above them a sun shone down upon the surface that they’d never see.”
They were not able to continue the conversation. In a loud whisper, Viddo called them to a halt. He was standing outside one of the rooms they’d passed, looking in through the doorway.
“What is it?” asked Rasmus, coming for a look.
“That looks suspiciously like a ladder,” said Viddo, pointing to a series of rectangular indentations in one wall. The indentations vanished into a square hole in the ceiling.
“It does look a bit like a ladder, doesn’t it?” asked Rasmus, eagerly pushing his way past Viddo so that he could get a closer look. As soon as he stepped within, there was a loud click and Viddo had to leap backwards to avoid a stone slab descending from the top of the doorway. It landed with a thud, sealing Rasmus inside, with Jera and Viddo outside.
“That silly wizard should learn to slow down,” muttered Viddo. He inspected the aperture and saw that the stone slab had been perfectly fitted into a slot above the door frame, making it almost impossible to see. The unwary Rasmus had stepped upon a pressure plate on the other side, causing it to fall into place and blocking the doorway completely. The slab was so well made that there were no gaps to either side, making communication with the man on the other side impossible.
“I can try shoulder charging it open,” offered Jera. This wasn’t such an unusual suggestion. Even though she was slight of frame, fighters had an in-built knack that allowed them to smash open many doors.
“I wouldn’t bother,” said Viddo. “It’s several inches thick. I don’t think there’s a person alive who could break through it with their shoulder.” He had his knife out and tried to push the tip of it into the tiny crack around the edges between the doorway and the slab. He could see at once that he wasn’t going to be able to get any leverage and even if he did, the stone was going to be much too heavy for him and Jera to lift.
He stared for a time, before admitting to himself that he was stumped. “I think we’re going to have to go another way and try to find him,” he said, genuinely worried.
He used the pommel of his dagger to knock on the unyielding stone, producing a dull metallic sound that didn’t echo.
“What are you knocking for?” asked Jera. “Do you have a secret means of communicating using the sound?”
“No,” said Viddo, continuing to knock. “If the wizard responds, I’ll know he hasn’t fallen victim to another trap within the room itself. It’s the oldest trick in the book – stick two traps next to each other. If someone survives the first one, they’ll be lulled into a false sense of security and then will blunder into the next one.”
There was no response from the other side and although it had only been a few minutes, Viddo was starting to lose hope. He raised his arm for one final knock and, seemingly without transition, the door and surrounding wall turned to dust. This powdery grit fell upon Viddo and Jera, covering them both in a good quantity thereof.
“Stand back,” came the voice of Rasmus. “Or you might get dirty.”
There were many things which Viddo wished to say, but he remained quiet for a moment as he patted vigorously at his hair and clothing. Clouds of yellowy dust blossomed into the air, covering him anew. Jera had not been so badly caught by the wall dust, and coughed as she wiped what she could away from her armour and clothing.
“What was all that banging for?” asked Rasmus. “It was hard to concentrate on disintegrating that wall with all of the noise you were making.”
“I thought you could have died or become permanently separated from us!” exclaimed Viddo. “What were you doing, you fool?”
“Eh? I was simply having a look up this ladder I found, to see where it goes. I wasn’t aware there was any cause for concern.”
“I thought you’d run out of spells to get through stone,” said an unmollified Viddo.
“I had. Until I got a hold of that undead wizard’s spellbook. There were lots of nice spells in there for me to reacquaint myself with, along with one or two I’ve never come across before.”
“Such as what?” asked Viddo, curious in spite of his mild irritation at the wizard’s reluctance to admit blame.
“Just bits and pieces,” said Rasmus evasively.
“Go on, what was there?” pestered Viddo, sensing when the wizard was trying to cover something up.
“It was right at the back of the book. The place where one would normally keep the spells that one has found but is not yet competent enough to cast.”
“And what was this spell?”
“It didn’t give a detailed description of the likely effects of casting the magic. It was the name which interested me. ‘Boom’ it was called. Or perhaps ‘Bang’. It was hard to be certain.”
“I’ll bet you almost wet yourself in excitement when you saw that one,” said Viddo, his irritation now forgotten. He was easily distracted at times.
“I must admit that my interest was piqued. Anyway, I shall not cast it willy-nilly, since I have no way of determining its efficacy in any given situation. Let us turn our attention to this ladder. I think it leads up into another temple.”
Jera had followed their conversation with interest. “You bicker like a couple of old men!” she accused them.
“How dare you!” said Rasmus, not at all offended, nor trying to give the impression that he was.
“The cheek of it!” exclaimed Viddo.
“The first man to refer to me as a whippersnapper gets my sword shoved up his bum,” said Jera, already detecting which direction the conversation was about to take.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” sniffed Rasmus.
“Nor I,” said Viddo, waving a hand as if the thought had never once occurred to him. He turned his back and entered the room through the large hole that Rasmus’ spell had left behind, doing his best to hide the smile that had crept unbidden onto his face.
“Watch you don’t step on that second pressure plate,” called Rasmus. “Though admittedly I already did so. There was a grating noise, but nothing happened.”
Viddo had already spotted the pressure plate, which was an almost-indistinguishable square area in the middle of the floor. Using whatever methods that thieves employed for these things, he examined it and then walked across to a series of tiny holes in the left-hand wall.
“A gas trap,” he said. “You’re lucky this place is so old. The gas must have decayed or whatever it is that happens to toxic fumes after ten thousand years in storage.”
