Into the Madness

by Richard H. Stephens

  Alhena gave her a quick nod before facing a group coming toward him. Creatures along the fringes of the mist slipped off to the sides, likely to sneak up behind him.

  Beside her, Larina was a flurry of movement, releasing arrow after arrow in a futile attempt to keep the increasing horde off the two giants and Rook. It wouldn’t be long until she depleted her supply.

  A horn blared in the distance, jarring Sadyra’s senses with the possible implications. The fog and the proximity of the surrounding hills made it impossible to gauge what direction the blast had emanated from.

  The noise had everyone in their group scanning the mist. Instead of taking advantage of their momentary lapse in concentration, the creatures stared into the mist blanketing the waters of Splenic Splash and backed away.

  The horn sounded again. Definitely from the direction of the bog.

  Sadyra watched in disbelief as the creatures on the verge of routing her small band vanished into the fog, crashing through the undergrowth until even that noise died away.

  She unconsciously stepped away from the edge of the water, her companions gathering around her. If whatever approached instilled fear in their attackers, she wasn’t sure she wanted to stick around to find out why.

  Pollard and Olmar assumed a position in front of the others and backed up the path, infuriating Sadyra. She would be forced into the thickets if she wanted to get a shot off.

  Curiously, Alhena squeezed between the giants and approached the edge of the bog. His staff shone bright, but as far as Sadyra could tell, he wasn’t readying a charge; merely illuminating the water’s edge.

  “Pops, get back ‘ere.” Olmar made to go after him but Alhena held up his hand.

  “Stay back. Whatever you do, do not provoke him or our journey ends here.”

  The Bowels of the Beast

  The silence within the Gimcrack’s mouth was disturbed by long, soft inhalations—akin to the cave breathing. Melody swallowed her discomfort, looking around the small chamber in the faint light of her staff. She raised a hand to the meshed teeth to run her fingers across the off-white stone and was inundated with thoughts that were not her own. She withdrew her hand and the sensation faded. Reaching out again, she pressed on the teeth—the contact made her stagger backward to fall on her rump, reeling at the startling revelation of the stone.

  Implanted in her mind was the essence of the creature’s existence. The Gimcrack devoured rock in order to free itself. It had done so since the formation of the world. At the rate it moved, eons would pass before it actually broke free. At which point, it had designs to devour the world’s surface.

  She stood up and tentatively placed her free palm against the inside of the Gimcrack’s mouth, tracing the veins of rock toward the opening at the back of the cave. “Can you hear me?”

  You are indeed the offspring of the witch. I am attuned to your presence just as you are mine.

  She jumped, pulling her hand away. A distinct voice had sounded in her head. She swallowed her misgivings and directed her light into the round fissure at the back of the cave. It appeared slick—its surface ribbed in regular intervals as it dropped out of sight.

  “What are you?”

  The creature didn’t respond.

  She frowned and placed her hand against the mouth wall.

  I am the wyrm of the earth. Grown from a seed, if you will. I am eating my way to the surface of my cocoon so that I may devour its sweet flesh and evolve.

  Melody blinked. She had no idea what the Gimcrack spoke of. “The world is your cocoon? You mean you’re like a butterfly or something?”

  I know not what is a butterfly. I was inserted within this pod you parasites refer to as your world. The rock sustains me until I am able to breach the surface. Once there, I shall devour its flesh and transform into my true self; free to fly away.

  “Parasites? You mean my brother and me? We’re people. We inhabit the world’s surface. What will become of us?”

  You are insignificant. You have destroyed much of what is good. I feel the earth’s pain. I must be free of this rock to cleanse the surface. Of all the parasites, your kind is the worst.

  She couldn’t argue with that. As Wizard of the North, she’d witnessed the devastation wreaked by mankind. Helleden’s firestorms were a travesty in and of themselves, but the sorcerer wasn’t the only one culling the beauty from the land. Still, if what the Gimcrack said were true, once it ate its way free, the world as they knew it would perish anyway.

  Your mother sought me out. She promised to expedite my progress to the surface if I agreed to guard the Tang Stone. Had I known the effect it would have on my progress, I would have eaten her instead. With you here, I may yet satisfy that yearning.

  Melody couldn’t conceive of her mother agreeing to release the Gimcrack if she had known what the result of its freedom meant. If Mase had formed an accord with this creature, it was likely undertaken to achieve her own ends.

  “Easy, mister earth wyrm.” She grimaced. Did this thing have a sex? She shook her head. If she didn’t act fast, she faced the unsavoury prospect of being devoured by the stone crushing beast. “How does this Tang Stone affect you?”

  The Gimcrack’s tongue lurched.

  She screamed and flailed her arms to keep from falling. The tongue abruptly settled down, dropping her to her knees. Not knowing what to do, she re-established a link with its mouth.

  It has brought my progress to a stop. I am no longer able to move forward.

  That’s a good thing, Melody thought, then shivered and pulled her hand away. If the Gimcrack communicated with her telepathically by touch, it probably had the capacity to read her thoughts.

  She reached out again.

  I beseech you to honour your mother’s pledge and retrieve the stone.

  “The prospect of freeing you to devour the earth’s surface isn’t an option I care to entertain. I’m sure you can appreciate my point of view.”

  Mase promised me!

  “I’m not Mase.”

  A shooting pain behind her eyes made her wince as she sensed the Gimcrack’s anger. She needed to appease the creature before it devoured her. “Without the Tang Stone, how long will it take you to reach the earth’s surface?”

  There was silence for a long while. She wasn’t sure it heard her. She thought about asking again, but let it be. The longer the Gimcrack remained quiet, the calmer she hoped it would become.

  When it spoke, she jumped in fright.

  I do not have a way to calculate distance. Every time the world dips its poles, I advance approximately the width of your stick’s bottom end.

  Melody guessed the staff’s lower tip to be no greater than her two thumbs placed side-by-side. Judging by the distance she and Silurian travelled into the mountain to get to this point, it would take the Gimcrack tens of thousands of years to reach the surface. Even that prospect didn’t sit well with her, but perhaps in the interim, something might be done to stop the creature. She had to be smart.

  “Allow me to extract the Tang Stone. I need it to prevent the world from suffering any more damage. If I do that, it will be better prepared for you.”

  That is unacceptable. Free me or I will grind your bones to dust!

  “And what good will that do? If I don’t retrieve the Tang Stone you’ll never get out of here. Even if you do, there’ll be nothing left to feed on. The Tang Stone is the key. With it in my hands, you’re free to continue your journey. In the meantime, I propose to you my pledge. I won’t stop until I have put an end to the biggest scourge our world has ever seen or I will die in the attempt. It’s your choice, but don’t take too long to decide. Unlike you, we parasites have a short lifespan.”

  Waiting for the creature to respond heightened her anxiety. Silurian remained injured on the far side of those teeth, cold and alone.

  She considered using her magic to affect an escape but couldn’t think of a suitable spell to break through a rock wall, or whatever the Gimcrack’s teeth were
made of. Fire and ice would only raise or lower the temperature. Perhaps that might cause the creature a measure of discomfort. Then again, the creature ate rocks.

  Duplicating the teeth would only exacerbate her dilemma, and a shrinking spell might affect the Gimcrack’s entire mouth—not an appealing prospect with her inside it.

  She was adept at divination and vision casting but neither of those attributes were helpful trapped inside a monster.

  “Well?” She jammed her staff into the spongy rock and was thrown to her backside by the Gimcrack’s lurching tongue.

  Hmm, it feels pain, she thought and reached a hand to the wall.

  Do not do that again. You may retrieve the Tang Stone, though I cannot promise not to digest you.

  “That’s not acceptable.”

  Be that as it may, I am not going anywhere soon in either scenario.

  If not for the fact that her brother desperately needed her, she had a mind to sit down and deny the creature. To die knowing she had prevented a future generation from suffering a grim reality if the Gimcrack ever breached the surface.

  She knew Silurian would never give up. She had come this far, she may as well go all the way. She got to her feet and approached the Gimcrack’s throat. Taking a deep breath, she illuminated the darkness within and dropped to her backside, ducking her head to descend into the bowels of the beast.

  Her mind whirled as she descended the Gimcrack’s throat. What was she doing creeping inside a creature searching for a talisman her dead mother had left here? It felt like she was trapped within a nightmare—cognizant of her actions and able to exert her freewill, but confronted with an impossible dilemma.

  She had no way to tell time within the beast. The creature’s size was incomprehensible. All she knew was that she was tired, sore, and hungry by the time her staff finally illuminated a widening in the tunnel. Envisioning what she was about to enter, she balked at the prospect of leaving the false safety of the constricted passageway.

  The Gimcrack’s throat opened into a cavern four times the size of its mouth. A tumble of broken rock lined the floor of what she perceived to be its stomach, her intended path funneling through a smaller tunnel that continued beyond the stomach’s far end.

  She shored up her courage and set foot on a large rock to examine the stomach’s interior. Other than random chunks of rock debris undulating ever so slightly, there was nothing remarkable about the floor. Her mother’s words echoed inside her head. Seek out the Gimcrack. At its bottom lies the Tang Stone. At its bottom. Its bottom.

  She swallowed. Did that mean she had to wiggle her way into the creature’s…? She shuddered just thinking about it.

  The red rune confirmed her fear, indicating the smaller opening. A shiver of revulsion wracked her body.

  The floor of the stomach lurched and tossed her toward the smaller opening. She landed hard amidst a jumble of crushed stone, scraping her palms and bruising her knees. She lost hold of her staff and scrambled sideways to rescue it from a bank of churning rocks.

  Her eyes widened at the significance. The rocks were being moved toward the intestinal tunnel.

  Another convulsion threw her farther along the floor. She hung onto her staff at the cost of bashing her elbow.

  She screamed when the stomach lurched a third time and barely avoided being crushed by the layer of rock behind her as she slammed into the back wall.

  She was being digested.

  Eccentric Enemies

  Eccentric. The only word he could think of to describe his enemies. Where had they gone, and what were they up to? These were the questions Helleden asked of his minion Surgat, high atop the Wizard’s Spike after the demon reported the message his last pigeon had delivered from Dagan.

  While in Gritian, Helleden had dispatched his armies south of the Undying Wall before returning to the seat of arcane power he so coveted.

  “I don’t know, m’lord. Seems the northern wizard searches for something in the Altirius mountains.”

  Helleden paced the octagonal chamber pondering a course of action. It was time he re-entered the field to lead his armies, but his armies had run out of enemies.

  The kingdom of Zephyr lay under his control—a goal had sought-after for centuries. Many armies had tried to usurp the Svelte’s reign since Zephyr’s inception five hundred years ago, but other than his ill-fated foray two decades ago, no one came close to claiming the prized jewel.

  Surgat remained on one knee, his face close to the flagstone floor. That was what Helleden appreciated about his elite minions. They never questioned their role. They were like an extension of his thoughts. Whenever he willed something to be done, Surgat, Dagan, and up until a little while ago, Barong and the Sentinel, ensured it was completed. The Sentinel’s loss pained him most of all. The creature had been the ultimate beast. Reflecting back, it obviously hadn’t been good enough.

  His thoughts darkened. Up until a month ago, he was on the verge of becoming the only magic user left outside of the Wilds. There was also that old dragon up north but it remained holed up in its tower.

  The re-emergence of Phazarus, whose identity Barong had flushed out before the wraith’s untimely demise, had changed everything. One wizard was bad enough, but two Wizards of the North was incomprehensible.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, both magicians had subsequently vanished. One presumably searching for something to use against him, and the other into the Gulch of all places.

  Helleden ignored Surgat and gazed out the southern facing floor-to-ceiling window. “What are you up to, Phazarus?”

  “M’lord?”

  If Surgat had been anyone else, Helleden would have thrown him off the Spike for speaking without being asked, but he was running low on competent servants.

  “The Gulch? The Gulch? What are you doing there?” He drummed his long nails on the pane. “Surely not to parley with the Aberrator…”

  That last thought wouldn’t leave him. The Aberrator was a diviner of death—a neutral magic user who didn’t partake in the realm of the living other than to ply his trade; depending on death to enact his dark rituals.

  “Not many survive the Gulch, m’lord.”

  Helleden’s shoulders stiffened. Was Surgat becoming brazen enough to voice his own opinion?

  The grey demon remained crouched on the floor exactly where he had dropped when first entering the wizard’s chamber. Other than his voice, he might be mistaken for a prostrate statue.

  Helleden sighed. He didn’t relish sending Surgat to a certain death but he had to know what Phazarus was up to. If the wily old wizard had turned the Aberrator to his cause, Helleden’s plans were in trouble.

  He had allowed his armies free rein of Zephyr to do whatever they pleased with whoever they came across, but that decision hadn’t worked out as well as he had foreseen. The surviving people of Zephyr had vanished.

  His armies had chased them to the southern ports of Ember Breath and Apexceal only to discover the seaports abandoned. Where had they gone? To the sea, obviously, but what was their destination?

  His shipbuilders worked feverishly day and night since capturing the seaports of Thunderhead, Storms End, and Madrigail Bay. Unfortunately, their efforts were being hampered by the scarcity of usable wood. His firestorms had seen to that.

  He smote the window with a closed fist, the large ring on his little finger clanging loudly. His builders were forced to harvest the northern Altirius forests, but the distances involved and the lack of seaports along the northern coastline had set them back. The latest report out of Thunderhead had the first war galley at least another fortnight away. The surviving Zephyr army might be anywhere by then.

  He briefly entertained the idea of marching into the Kraidic Empire and commandeering their fleet, but without an emperor to ease the way, his army would end up fighting with the Kraidic forces left at home. He dared not risk the Kraidic troops turning on him. Perhaps he had been hasty in ordering Karvus’ death.

  He struck
the window again and strode over to Surgat. “Arise.”

  Surgat stood, his red eyes not daring to look Helleden in the face.

  “Look at me.”

  Surgat did.

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  “You are familiar with the Aberrator?”

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  “Good. I need you to enter the Gulch and find out what Phazarus is up to.”

  “Yes, m’lord,” Surgat responded without the slightest hesitation. There were only a select few who would volunteer to undergo such a mission.

  “If you find Phazarus, kill him.”

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  “Then be gone. Don’t return without the wizard’s staff.”

  “Yes, m’lord.” Surgat turned and was gone from the chamber.

  Helleden stared after the departed minion. He had a sinking feeling he would never see Surgat again.

  Pact with a Lunatic

  Alhena spread his arms wide on the banks of Splenic Splash, his staff’s light barely cutting the fog. If he was wrong about who approached, they were in serious trouble. He swallowed. Even if he was right, there was no guarantee that they would be allowed to leave the Gulch alive.

  The Aberrator wasn’t a well-balanced individual. Alhena liked to think of the man as unusual. Most people meeting the Aberrator for the first time would lean toward lunatic.

  The third blast of the horn was so loud Alhena flinched, but he remained motionless lest he be killed where he stood.

  Splashing water preceded one of the most bizarre spectacles he had ever witnessed. Out of the fog, a lanky, barely clad, dark-skinned man held a long whisker in each hand to steady himself—his feet resting on the gills of an elephant-sized catfish that whisked him across the water’s surface. Alhena jumped out of the way as its body slid halfway onto the shore.

  The repulsive smell of what Alhena presumed to be the rotting carcass of the catfish turned up his nose. The Aberrator’s ride had long since died, but being a necromancer, the crazed overlord of the Gulch never ran out of beasts to do his bidding. If they refused him while still alive, the Aberrator had a quick remedy to induce them to heed his command.