CH 4
Max recalled that Luck had made a mark on him years ago during his time in the calvary. On even the fairest of summer days, the moment he’d dismount and take up his ill fitting rucksack, the weather would turn and it would begin to rain. Hurrying through the streets in his coveralls with his old army pack and the bundle of sticks hiding the Heartspar, Max listened to the thunder overhead as the first rain came on in sheets.
“Like I said, follow my lead.” Bill reached up and clapped his hand on Max’s shoulder before he started down the stairs to the temple proper.
Once under the street in the cavernous hall that led to the Antechamber of the Gate, the sound of the rain was gone entirely. Every footstep echoed off the blocks of stone and leering gargoyles of the corridor. The hall simply stepped down and passed under a cyclopean archway into a vault that must have lifted nearly to the surface of the streets above. At the far end was a massive set of doors carved from titanic slabs of dolomite that had been carved with an intersecting mosaic of glyphs and images. There were serpents coiled in all four corners and two dragons standing rampant on either side of a central oval of carved human skulls surrounding an octogram of inlaid onyx.
There was a guard posted at either side of the doors. They were wearing long robes and ornamental masks that were the color of blood. Each held a ceremonial spear that was twice his height. The torchlight flickered, lending an air of movement to the shapes on the surface of the gate. As they entered, the guards shifted slightly as though they were confused. One looked to the near empty hourglass set on a pedestal in the center of the room with a large, musty looking tome.
“Alright! Gentleman, I’m sure you know that today is the Minister of Spectral Relations one hundred and eighteenth birthday. And to show his gratitude for your service, he is going to come here, to the catacombs, for a congratulatory inspection.” Bill beamed at the masked figures painfully. “You know how he loves his white gloves.”
The robed figures looked at one another, stepped out of the shallow impressions they and their fellows had worn into the floor and walked over to the giant book.
“Well there’s nothing here.” One said to Bill. “There wasn’t even a memo...”
“Memo? Of course there wasn’t a damn memo!” Bill turned on Max viciously. “You, why haven’t you started cleaning yet? Are you waiting for my permission? Well, you have it. I permit you to get working. Move it!”
“Right, well the old boy is quite spontaneous, isn’t he? There wasn’t a memo because he just hit me up with the idea.” Bill turned back to Max after he explained his lie in greater detail to the guards. “No, not the broom. Dust first, sweep last, start with the door - that’s what he’ll be looking at - wipe down the door first. that way the dust and grime will settle down to the floor. Then you sweep!”
Max went over to the door and began running a rag along the glassy surface of the stone. The chill of it through the rag reminded him of his afternoon visit with his attorneys. He listened as Bill moved the focus of his role onto the guards.
“You!” Bill stuck his nose right up the mask of one of the cloaked men and sniffed at the mouth slit. “You’ve been chewing Stingroot. I can smell it on your breath!”
“Yeah, but there’s no regulation against Stingroot...” He cowed in front of Bill’s bureaucratic menace.
“Right! Article six ninety dash ‘A’ dash fourteen clearly states that a guard may chew Stingroot, Mudbladder or Redleaf while on duty. But he must... what?” Bill barked at the man.
“He must police the chewed butts of the root properly?” The second guard answered for his fidgeting comrade.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Bill quipped.
Max wasn’t sure if he thought that Bill’s act was funny or heartbreaking. Since the guards were buying the routine so quickly, Bill obviously had the schtick down cold, which meant he had been the recipient of it more than a few times. Poor bastard.
“Telling, sir... um, answering in the affirmative, sir.” The first guard returned the favor and covered for his buddy’s answer.
“Good.” Bill walked slowly along the perimeter of the room, glancing back at the guards standing at the podium with the quickly draining hourglass. He made his way past each of the large urns that stood in a series of alcoves along either wall. Bill craned his neck around every one of them as the guards grew more restless.
“Oh my!” Bill exclaimed as both of the robed men at arms sagged guiltily. “I wonder who has been working so diligently to pile up all of these Stingroot buts behind this urn?” Bill knew that sarcasm was a poor substitute for wit, but it did the job. “You! Quit with the dusting - you’ll only do a half ass job anyway! Get over here and sweep out this pile of filth, and you two, put up your lances and help move this damned urn so he can get behind it!”
The guards removed their masks and set them on the log as they stepped nervously over to the urn and set their spears against the wall. As Bill passed Max he snatched the rag from his hand and winked. “I’ll finish the damn dusting! You want something done right...”
Max noticed that the sand in the hourglass was close to gone. Bill had explained to him that the glass went two hours at a turn. The guards would turn it four times a shift, annotating in the log beneath it when they did so. There were hundreds of years of entries in that massive book. Max guessed that they had less than fifteen minutes to get into the catacombs before the next set of guards arrived and things got out of hand. He and the two guards shoved the urn up onto its edge and carefully rolled the thing out a couple of feet so that the stinking mass of stingroot leavings could be cleaned up. It was a scary moment, keeping the twenty stone urn on edge. The three of them shared a smile once it was safely set back on its base. Max stole an exaggerated peak over his shoulder at Bill, who was pretending to clean the gate while installing the seal so that the guards couldn’t see what he was doing from behind.
“He’s not paying us any mind, see.” Max whispered and tossed his head in Bill’s direction. The guards followed along and grinned as Max produced his flask. “Care for a nip on the job?”
“Oh, you’re a saint.” The first guard, the one who had made the pile of stingroot, took the bottle and stood with his back to Bill and took a steady, lengthy pull. The second waved it off as Max crawled behind the urn to get at the mess.
“No. Had my F.O.O.T coin a year now, I don’t touch the stuff.” He produced a dull bronze coin with the symbol of the Fraternal Order Of Temperance stamped on it. “I go to meetings twice a week. Not that I’m stuck up. I don’t bother others about their habits.”
Bill heard the man’s comment over his shoulder in the cavernous echo of the chamber. Neither of them had planned on a tea totaling sentry. He had set the seal in its hollow in the center of the octogram and charged the onyx by using his athamae as a conduit for as much of his strength as he could allow on short notice. Now that the seal was ready, he just had to put the final twist on it. He glanced at the hourglass and then over at Max, who had finished scraping up the stingroot pile at that very moment. They nodded slightly to one another and Bill went back to working on the seal.
The Seal of the Dark Gate was a dense silver disk inscribed with three concentric circles. Once in place the outermost ring actually fused with the onyx inlays, running along the grooves of the charged octogram like quicksilver. The second ring had a series of raised sigils on it that marked the ages of man and moon along its circumference. Within that ring was the central disk that bore the crowned skull of the Ministry of Disembodied Persons. Bill counted on his fingers, and nervously twisted the second ring with its raised glyphs a quarter turn to the right, paused and then back to the left until it had only three sigils between the first mark and the central tine on the skull’s crown. As he let go, a subtle ticking could be heard coming from the seal.
The guard holding the flask had begun to see small pieces of air moving like frogs leaping from leaves into the water, at least he would describe it that way if somebody asked him what the air looked like. The second man looked round at Max and gave him an approving thumbs up at his work cleaning out the patch of scum.
“Gets right on top of you, don’t it...” The man watching the air wasn’t at all sure how long the dandelions had been growing out of the pillars on the walls, but they must have been there a while because the were going to seed and the chamber was full of cottony wisps.
Bill backed away from the gate as a deep violet glow emanated from the seal and began radiating along the octogram and through the runes inscribed across the door.
“How about a hand putting this back?” Max asked the sober guard as he started tipping the urn. The hallucinating sentry stepped away from the urn in awe at how the flowers were making the door come alive. The other guard was facing away from the door and could not see the snakes from the corners of the door uncoil and slither through the central oval of skulls while the ticking from the seal grew loud enough to echo in the vast room.
The last few grains of sand were falling through the neck of the glass and Max could hear boots on the stairs leading into the chamber. As the urn dropped back into its place the last glyph on the ring around the center of the seal came into line with the crown and a loud gong sounded through the room.
“Thanks-” The guard managed to say after the urn landed properly and immediately before Max’s fist sent him off his feet and onto the stone floor in a snoring pile.
“Ye Gods...” The sentry dropped the flask and fell to his knees as the enormous stone doors swung open and exhaled a century of mildew.
Max plucked the Heartspar from the pile of sticks and took up his pack as he headed for the door. He stopped abruptly and rifled through the bunch of poles.
“What are you doing, come on!” Bill shouted in a hoarse whisper as the footsteps grew louder.
Max took the stoutest of the pieces of wood from the batch and tossed it to Bill, who caught it in the air.
“You might need more than a dagger in there.” Max smiled grimly as he and Bill stepped through the gate into the catacombs. The door shut a moment after they were inside.
“That went well.” Max joked as they stood together in the utter darkness.
“Yeah, piece of cake from here, really.” Bill failed to sound as calm. “No worries.”
***
“So you’re the man to see.” The first of the twins informed Nigel. “That’s what our boss told us.”
“Me?” Nigel was confused. Not only was this visit out of the ordinary, but he’d never seen the two men in front of him before. He was certain he would have remembered if he had.
“Yes John, that’s exactly what our boss told us. He told us that you are most definitely the man to see Dr. Pillywizzet.” The second crossed his hands at his belt.
“Ummm, I’m not Pillywizzet. I’m afraid there’s been a mistake...” Nigel began carefully.
“No mistake. Not on our part, was there Errol.” John the twin explained.
“No John, not on our part. The sign on the shop says Pillywizzet, doesn’t it?” Errol put his very scarred, block-like hands on the counter and leaned towards Nigel.
“Well, no, this is Pillywizzet’s shop, but I’m just his apprentice. I’m not him... your boss is quite right, though. I mean, if it’s instruments, Phil is the man to see... assuming that’s why you’re here...” From one look at Errol’s paws, Nigel was quite certain that these men did not play any instruments, except perhaps the tympani. This certainty pressed his bladder even further.
The twins looked at each other and mulled over the situation as a single entity.
“I think he’ll do.” John looked at Nigel and almost smiled. “Don’t you Errol?”
“Yes I do, John.” Errol stepped back from the counter and folded his hands exactly like his brother just had.
“Look after him for me.” John stopped almost smiling and headed out the door. “I’ll be off for a moment.”
“My pleasure.” Errol looked at Nigel as John left. “Pillywizzet’s apprentice, eh? Must be a sharp luthier yourself then, to be taking lessons at the knee of a genius.”
“I’m... ahhh... I’m competent, um yeah, I’m good...” Nigel leaned back to look out the window. “I’m not one to brag, really...” He could see a carriage through the dark and the rain. It was festooned with swirling, feathery lights that sent multicolored fans of radiance across the words, “Billingsgate’s Pharaonic Phantasy Tour!”.
“Oh my gods...” Nigel felt thinly solid at that moment. He was trembling lightly when John came back in with a fine wyrmshide case.
“Here we are.” John set the case on the counter and opened it. “Needs a tune up.”
“And a cleaning.” Errol chimed in.
“A proper cleaning.” John added as he watched Nigel’s pupils stretch widely at the sight of the lute.
Billingsgate’s lute was carved from a single piece of pale green jade larger than Nigel’s mind could easily conceive. It was literally radiant with energy, only a master would dare to try do so much as move the bridge on such a relic. There were rumors about the Billingsgate’s lute, it was said to have come from the strange mountains of Qi Chanth, across the great eastern ocean on the other side of the world. An ornate motif of a demon with huge curved fangs consuming a blazing village of hapless and terrified victims was carved across its surface. Nigel was spellbound by it, and the thought of trying to tune it made his overtaxed bladder leak slightly.
“Oh, I think I’ve wet myself...” Nigel chirped under his breath.
“What was that?” John wrinkled his brow.
“He said he’d be happy to tighten her up.” Errol remarked menacingly. “Didn’t you lad?”
“oh.. ah, yea.. I’d uh...” It was all Nigel could get out.
“Be on with it then boy, we’ve got a schedule.”
***
“Don’t touch anything.” Bill explained the first principle of Curse Management to Max. “Doors, statues, symbols, oddly colored stones... anything that looks like treasure, especially that. Gold’s always cursed or sitting on top of a trap door or something.”
“Yeah, I assumed that.” Max groaned.
“Well this my business, you know, dealing with the dead and undead and their associated environs.” Bill piped back.
“If you were to take your first try at riding a falcon, would I need to tell you not to get into a staring contest with it?” Max upped the radiance on his illumination spell so that the head of his staff threw light further down the hallway. “Because they don’t like that, you know.”
The rats scurried back to remain outside the reach of the light.
“Point taken, let’s keep moving.”
They were getting testy with one another. Both of them realized that they were lost and that they weren’t going to say anything about it to the other. Neither of them wanted to be the first one to say...
“That’s it, I know I’ve seen that gargoyle before, he’s missing that left brow horn.” Max announced, finally unable to keep it to himself. “We’re lost. Bill, we are lost in the catacombs.”
“Well, I’m glad you said it first.”
***
The common rats who had been close to the gate when the two men (one and a half men, the rodents reckoned, in terms of the number of meals they would provide) entered the catacombs, ran back to their den and spoke directly to their clan leader. He immediately took audience with the nobles. It had been years since men had walked into the catacombs of their own accord. Few things were as exciting to the soverigns as fresh meat.
***
“I know I heard water running by somewhere a ways back.” Max offered. “If there’s rats and running water there has to be a way out, or down or something.”
“Yeah I heard that two, about four turns back, right near that pair of crypts with the coupling trolls carved between them.” Bill curled his lip in disgust at the very, very poor taste of some of the dead and wealthy.
“Alright, lets head back then.”
After an hour of squinting and pacing about as they listened Bill figured that the tumbled set of standing sarcophagi were covering a hole in the wall. Carefully, the two of them wedged their staves under one of the heavy coffins and onto the floor without letting it open. The contents of the leaden box would almost certainly be most annoyed by a sudden wake up after centuries of mouldering. They sweated and hoped the slight jarring wouldn’t bother the occupant. They found a rough opening that either of them could squeeze through once they had their packs off.
Twenty or so minutes later the sound of water actually falling and splashing somewhere below came into range of their hearing. However, the presence of a growing number of rats along their new route unnerved them both.
“I’d say we’re on the right path.” Bill tried to sound optimistic. “We seem to be following the rats to wherever it is that they come and go from these tombs. That’s got to be something.”
“We aren’t following the rats.” Max explained calmly. “Their leading us.”
“You’re sure of that?” Bill winced.
“Oh yes. There are quite a few more that have been following us.” Max smiled grimly. “And their quite a bit larger.”
“Oh good.” Bill was less than enthused. “But I’m not wrong, am I, to assume that they have to get in and out of here somehow? We must be getting near some kind of exit to the surface.”
“Sure we are.” Max agreed. “Let’s hope it’s something we can get through before they decide to make a meal of us.”
The hallway became consistently more cluttered with tilting columns and broken statuary. Bill and Max had to be more cautious about where they put their feet as the floor tiles grew uneven and cracked into sharp pieces. They noticed that the walls were covered in a thickening layer of mossy slime that grew more veined with the blind roots of trees overhead as they continued.
“They’re closing on us, aren’t they?” Bill asked Max. He knew that after his brief time in the army and all of his auric classes at university, Max had a heightened sense of awareness meant to be used in hard situations.
“Yep.” Max found himself growing laconic as his training kicked in and expanded his perception. He had a very good idea of just how many rodents there were in the horde goading them forward. The lines of travel within the pack told him that there was a sort of organization to the mass. However they communicated, there was a pecking order that ran from the largest of them who held their positions at the back of the pack like generals.
***
Darren, the emperor of the Crypt Hordes, was aware that the men were not clueless. He had been right to assemble all of the family. Darren wasn’t surprised, the only humans dumb enough to invade his realm were usually adventurers, and they were rarely without the means to defend themselves. He decided to extend a few of his knights along the high ledges and into the raceways that burrowed ahead of the travelers so he could flank them when the time came. His warriors obeyed without question and took to the walls and ceiling clung roots.
***
The floor had become a carpet of sticky, black mud peppered with tufts of hairy mold and islands of happy moss. The walls appeared alive in the light of the staff, the stones of the catacombs lost under a tapestry of roots and hanging mosses. The dead smell of the air had been replaced by the odor of rain and fecund vegetation. Bill and Max slowed as the floor ahead came into view of their light. A few dozen yards off, the tumble of green draped blocks simply ended. Water fell past the edge of the tunnel, cascading in ribbons and bouncing streams into whatever lay below.
“There’s our way out.” Bill’s voice cracked.
***
Each of the strings was stretched as thinly as Nigel would ever have let a typical lute go. But to allow a priceless work of magick like the one he was timidly working at to go without being restrung for so long was criminal. Each string was crafted from filaments of unwound unicorn horn, which meant that the maker had to harvest one of those magickal horses for every set of strings. And even then, though they were sure to vibrate at diabolical and perfect frequencies, they did not stretch so much as they evaporated with playing. The strings he was trying, ever so delicately, to bring into tune, were too thin. And every time he had any one of them close to being calibrated, the lute would pull back and slip the tuning ket in his fingers. It was a thought it knew it needed new strings and wouldn’t allow another tuning until it got them.
“How long you got left on it?” John, or perhaps it was Errol asked from the front of the shop. It had taken a bit of convincing that included more than a little self deprecation and pleading with Billingsgate’s roadies for them to allow Nigel to work alone in the shop at the back of the store.
“Um....” Nigel was fighting with the powerful instrument as he answered. “Thirty more minutes, just want it to be perfect is all.”
“Perfection is our expectation.” One of the twins responded. “But the boss has a schedule.”
“A very important schedule that cannot be deviated from.” The other added. Nigel thought the twins routine of complementing one another’s remarks was becoming quite rote at that point. Rote, but no less effectively intimidating.
“Understood...” Nigel called back as he leaned away and wiped sweat from his forehead. Being so close to the lamp in order to make such precise adjustments had his forehead threatening to drip on the instrument. He surmised that his new acquaintances would not be happy if their precious lute was stained.
As the roadies shuffled about, obviously restless, while they waited the half hour Nigel asked for, he became more frustrated by the recalcitrance of the jade lute. He had no strings spun from unicorn’s horn. Pillywizzet didn’t believe in keeping dark instruments or their associated parts in his shop.
“You’re being a right bastard, aren’t you?” Nigel asked the lute as it unwound its tune again. “I haven’t got any horn filament, you’ll have to make due.” He was whispering to it as he had been for most of the evening. What was strange about his one sided conversation was that Nigel had the shadowy impression that the lute was listening to him. Well, it understood him at any rate.
“Alright, that’s it...” Nigel pressed gently on the belly of the lute while turning each of the keys with the strings clamped in place. “Ha... there you go-”
The jade instrument flared with power and let out a piercing shriek so high in pitch that it couldn’t be heard with human ears. Nigel recoiled as hairline fissure ran down the length of its neck. He was paralyzed for a full minute as the horror of his mistake held him like a tiny bird under a man’s boot.
“How long then?” One of the twins asked.
“Ummm...” Nigel’s jumped at the question. One desperate answer swam among the chaos in his mind.
“Nearly ready.” He closed his eyes and tried his best to make the lie sound patient and self assured. “Just another ten minutes or so.”
***
The pair of most likely doomed classmates turned and faced the ragged vanguard of the horde swarming at the edge of the light. There was movement along the walls, darting shapes the size of cats skittered above them, clinging to the roots and cracks.
“Ohhhh, yeah, mmmm wow that’s, ah, that’s a lot of rats.” Bill wavered as he knelt and took the large dagger from his boot. “Tons, I’d venture to guess, tons of rats.”
“Clear off!” Max had been steadily tying together a roiling set of verses and currents since he had noticed the rodent army gathering behind them. With his command he sent a dozen whistlesnaps bouncing across the front masses of the legion and back into the darkness of the corridor. Scores of the small beasts died on impact and the skipping sparks of the small missiles broke up the order of the group. The dancing light threw shadows about the hall that showed the outlines of large creatures hunkered down at the rear of the formation.
As quickly as the spell had faded a pair of large, terribly fanged rodents leapt from the wall to Bill’s left. He ducked one and tucked his crude staff under the belly of the other as it passed by, tossing it toward the edge of the pit, where it bounced once and squalled as it fell into the darkness. The second had landed and rolled back and strike Bill from behind. It had coiled for its leap when Max planted the heel of his boot on its neck, ending it with a muted crunch.
A third feline sized rat came at Max from above, he spun from his stance with his boot on the neck of the last and swung his staff easily, connecting solidly with the rodent. The beast died on impact and sailed until it landed with a wet skid in front of its lord in the back.
Darren had guessed rightly that these two were formidable opponents, his first jab at them had showed that. They would more likely be taken by a mass assault than a proud charge by he and his gentry. There was however, no glory in such a pyrrhic victory. Sending so many to their deaths only to leave a pair of soiled and tattered corpses would more likely upset his already disaffected conscripts. In order for his fellow clansmen to maintain their rank, Darren would need to make a mighty showing. That meant taking on great risk challenging the men with a handful, perhaps a dozen of his closest nobles. He disliked the decision, but it was a question of politics as much as it was tactics. He gave the order to regroup and hold, much to the relief of his subjects.
“Oh, they seem to have gotten the message, maybe they’ll just...” Bill tried for a grin as the waves of rodents in front of them retreated into their holes and corners.
“Bill, lay down on the floor and cover your head.” Max sounded completely flat. he was in the midst of linking together the workings of a very tender and very dangerous sanguine spell.
“Right.” Bill could tell from the hot orange glow emanating in diffuse points from Max’s eyes that whatever Max was up to, it was going to be spectacular... hopefully spectacular enough to save both of their asses. He laid on his stomach in the slime and put both hands over the important parts of his neck. He was still holding onto his dagger absently as he watched the prowling shapes come closer.
Timing was everything. Darren and his brothers slinked forward in the waning light of the tall man’s staff. He wanted to use their size and ferocious look to intimidate his enemy before charging. The key, he knew, was to make that push at the moment the man cast whatever spell he was winding up with. Too late and there would be hell in the tunnel, too early and the same result was a certainty. The man moved his arms in a large gesture and did a half turn in place, coming low to the floor where his companion lay prone.
Darren’s remaining forward scout dropped from the ceiling without command in a brilliant move that would disrupt the sorcerer mid casting. The king and his closest generals charged.
Bill watched as time seemed to slow around him. He saw the large rat, as big as those he’d fought already, drop with all four clawed hands stretched out to rake Max as he was absorbed in his spell. Somehow, Bill flung his dagger at the falling critter and skewered it through. He almost grinned before getting a look at the dozen or more monsters bearing down on them. Each was as large as a panther and clad in bits of makeshift armor probably cobbled together from the remains of dead noble’s troves. Had he had the time to be frightened he might have considered how much better a steady job and a plethora of benefits really had been to a grisly death being torn apart by huge rodents.
However, Bill did not get that chance. As he watched the oncoming charge he saw Max finish his spell. A tiny white ball of light fizzled out of the knobbed end of the Heartspar and bobbled along like a bee toward the bloodthirsty creatures. Bill’s heart sank as he saw Max grin under the sheen of sweat the spell had laid on him.
Darren almost stuttered in his sprint as he saw the fading point of light wobble toward him. So much pagentry and contortion had gone into a tinkling bit of a spell. Perhaps he’d misjudged his enemies. No matter, they’d make the first fresh meal his subjects had tasted in months.
It was his last thought.
The bumbling light winked out completely just behind Darren with a sound like a wet fart. From Bill’s perspective, the light vanished with a massive gulp of wind that tore overhead only to be
followed by a tremendous boom that shook the hall violently. Small pieces of rat meat and unidentified fluids splattered against him, some of the mess landing on his face before he had time to cover it.
He lit his athamae with a push of his mind and saw the whole of the corridor coated in rat. There were big pieces and small pieces, blood and bile, cleanly dismembered carcasses... a tumult of raw gory stew. Max grinned as the swarms of common rodents frantically ran about collecting all of the tasty remains of their former monarch and his retinue. They disappeared into their crevices and runs leaving the hall in approximately the same state of filth as it had been seconds before.
“What the hell was that?” Bill was happily flabbergasted.
“That was what got me booted from the calvary.” Max stood up and wiped his hair from his face. “It takes quite a bit of effort to keep it that small.”
“That was small?” Bill gaped as he recovered his dagger and sheathed it back in his boot.
“It’s an incredibly dangerous working.” Max let out a long, tired breath. “I haven’t tried it since the service. I’ve been scared to.”
“Rightly so...” Bill agreed as the walls and floor let loose a series of snaps and groans that increased in intensity. They looked at one another and sighed.
With a great catapulting tilt, the floor beneath the pair collapsed from the fractures Max’s spell had left in the supporting columns below them.
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