by Randy Nargi
“I can’t tell how far it goes. But someone was kind enough to leave us some torches. Fetch me one, lad.”
There were a half dozen scattered around the pit. Justin grabbed one and handed it to Klothar.
The ranger touched the end of it. “Someone left this here recently.” He sniffed it. “And they used scented oil to soak the burlap. Dab a little under your nose and it will help with—”
Pari snatched the torch away from Klothar and started sniffing it like a madwoman.
“What are you doing?” Justin asked.
“That’s rose oil,” she said.
“So?”
“My sister used rose oil for her torches. Everyone thought it was a waste, but she liked to have a nice smell when she was underground.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know…” Pari slumped to the floor, stunned.
She looked around the room. “Could this be a throne room?”
“I see no throne, my lady.”
“Mariel said it went down into the pit. When they climbed down to investigate, something killed them. A trap.” Pari was breathing hard now and her eyes were wild, like she was having a panic attack.
“Your sister couldn’t have been here,” Justin said. “You said they were lost in Hell’s Gate.”
“She died in the Temple of Xyurn. She told me it was in Hell’s Gate. But it’s not. It’s here. But why would she lie?”
Pari began to sob and Justin kneeled down beside her and hugged her close.
Klothar lit a torch and perched himself on the edge of the pit, trying to see what was down there.
Justin continued to hold Pari, trying to comfort her. “Maybe we should just forget this whole thing and get out of here.”
She shook her head. “We can’t. Even if we wanted to.”
“The lady is correct,” Klothar said. “I’ve traversed the likes of this delving before. There are usually but two ways out, and one of them is death.”
“Cheery thought.”
“We can’t go down there,” Pari said, motioning to the pit. “That’s where they wiped. Mariel said it was a deathtrap.”
“We may not need to go all the way down. Look.”
By the light of Klothar’s torch, an opening was visible on the north side of the pit, about ten feet down. And there was another U-shaped chalk mark there on the wall of the pit near the opening.
Klothar went first, climbing down and entering the horizontal shaft. A minute or two later, he called up, “All clear!”
It took a while, because Justin was being super cautious, but eventually he made it down to the entrance of the shaft. Klothar grabbed him by the arms and pulled him in.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it lad?”
“Other than the fact that my muscles are shaking like crazy, no problem.”
The shaft was really claustrophobic—just a yard square, so you had to be on your hands and knees. It was tough to turn around in it too.
Pari lowered their supplies before she came down herself, but eventually they were all safely in the shaft.
They crawled north, Klothar leading the way, for a good half hour before the ranger called for a stop.
Thank god for that. Justin’s knees were killing him.
“It appears the other party stopped here and rested,” the ranger said. “Perhaps for some length of time.”
“I see some bits of bread!” Pari said. “They must have been eating here.”
“Pass them my way.”
It was pretty much impossible to change positions in the shaft, so Pari handed the bits of bread to Justin and he passed them up to Klothar. The ranger spent several moments sniffing and examining the bread, then announced that it was relatively fresh.
“Whoever came through this way did so fairly recently. Hours ago, not days ago.”
Peering into the gloom in front of them, Justin said, “That means they could be right up ahead of us.”
“The lad has a point. We must keep our voices down. Sound will travel far in this infernal box. Whispers only from this point on.”
They rested for fifteen minutes or so, stretching out so they could lay flat and give their knees and hands a break. And then all too soon, Klothar called for them to continue onwards.
The shaft went on forever, straight as an arrow, and perfectly flat. It felt like they had been crawling for miles. But then Klothar announced that he saw a dim light up ahead.
“What if it’s them?” Justin whispered. That would be bad. You couldn’t really fight or run away in such a confined space.
“Again, this is where we could have used an enchanter,” Pari said bitterly.
“Cover the glowstones and maintain silence,” Klothar whispered. “I’ll watch the light and see if it moves.”
It didn’t. Even after a half hour.
Klothar told them that the light most likely indicated a way out.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Twenty minutes later they arrived at the end of the shaft. There on the floor was a three foot by three foot opening with light streaming in from below. Klothar was the first one to look down.
Almost immediately he winced and turned away. “By all that is holy!”
“What is it?”
“Not a pretty sight, lad.” The ranger chanced another glance down below.
“Poor wretch,” he said.
“What?” Pari called from behind. “Tell me what you guys are seeing.”
“I’m not seeing anything,” Justin said.
“’Tis a man, sliced into pieces,” Klothar blurted out.
“Are you serious?” Justin asked. “How?”
“I’m not sure yet. Only the sharpest blades could have done that. He’s been cleaved through—muscle, skin, bone. Like a log on a sawmill.”
“That’s a pleasant image.”
“Klothar, since you’re the only one who can see down there, I need you to describe exactly what you are seeing.”
“Yes, my lady.” He took another peek down and then said, “The room is small, perhaps ten foot on a side. Wood paneling. Glowstone sconces. The floor is of dark tile in a grid pattern. There is but one doorway to the west. And something on the wall by the doorway. It appears to be some sort of lever. Scattered about the doorway are what look like crossbow bolts. A half dozen. Maybe eight. In each corner of the room are poles—rather like flag poles, but they only stand four or five feet above the ground.”
“Flagpoles for dwarves,” Justin said.
“Are there flags?” Pari asked.
“None that I can see. Lad, pass me over your glowstone staff.”
Justin did so, and he saw the light streaming up from below intensify as Klothar extended the staff into the room. A moment later the ranger cursed.
“Seversilk!”
“What?”
“That’s what sliced the wretch to ribbons,” Klothar said. “I only could catch a glimpse of it when the light drew close enough to detect the glisten of blood on the silk. It’s like a net down there. Strung just a few feet up from the floor.”
“You are really making zero sense whatsoever!”
“Seversilk is really nasty,” Pari said. “Imagine super strong thread that’s sharper than the sharpest razor in the world. It’s used in these kinds of slice ’n’ dice traps. You make choke lines, or tripwires, or nets from them. Really hard to get past without an enchanter—or some bolt cutters, but they don’t have those here.”
“Well, the other guy got through it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Klothar, you’ve been saying that there were two of them—the other party that was ahead of us, right?”
“Two men, slight of build. That’s right.”
“So one guy got chopped up, but the other made it through. He must have, because he certainly didn’t retreat, right? Because we were right behind him.”
“You’re right, lad. He must have figured out a way through.” Klothar stuck his head down int
o the room again. When he looked back at Justin and Pari, he said, “The lever by the door. That very well may disable the trap. There are a number of bolts there, scattered on the floor. Misses, I wager.”
“So he hit the lever with a crossbow bolt and the trap went away?”
“Either that, or some safe passage was revealed,” Klothar said.
“It’s worth a try,” Pari said.
“Pass me my bow and arrows, lad.”
“You think you can hit it.”
The ranger sniffed dismissively. “One shot, probably. But you are going to have to hold my legs. I will need to hang down in order to get a clear shot.”
“Um, I don’t know if that’s such a hot idea. What if I drop you?”
“Then I will go to pieces,” the ranger grinned. “Get it?”
“Okay, not really funny. How about you stick to the rangering, okay?”
Justin handed the short bow and arrows to Klothar and they tied a rope around the ranger’s waist for safety. After passing the rope over to Pari, Justin said, “Ready when you are, kemosabe.”
It took a fair amount of gyration, but Justin ended up kneeling on Klothar’s legs, while the ranger bent at the waist and extended his torso into the room below.
Hanging upside-down, he took a shot.
“Pull me up!”
Justin did so. “You hit it?”
“I need another arrow, lad.”
“I thought you said one shot?”
“Not with you squirming on me like a fancy boy.”
“Hey, that’s uncalled for!”
“Sorry, lad. I’m afraid I’m a bit light-headed from hanging like that.”
They waited for Klothar to recover and then repeated the maneuver. This time, the ranger cheered himself. “Got it! Pull me up!”
As he did, Justin heard a deep mechanical rumble from the room below.
“Success!” Klothar shouted. “The net is lowering to the floor. Get ready to climb down. We won’t have much time. Just hang and drop. It is merely ten feet. I’ll catch you.”
Thirty seconds later, he shouted “Go!” and dropped into the room below.
Justin hustled and swung down. Then he felt Klothar’s arms around his waist and he dropped. Klothar eased him down, and the next thing Justin knew, he was down on the ground.
“Out the door! Don’t touch anything!”
Klothar repeated the process with Pari and soon they were all huddled in the hallway outside of the room. And just in the nick of time, too. The rumbling started up again, and the net began to rise. Now it was obvious what the poles were for. They rose from holes in each corner of the room and lifted the seversilk net—and the grisly corpse of the hapless adventurer. Justin recognized the guy.
“That’s one of the assassins!” Justin exclaimed. “He was in the room when they were torturing us!”
“I thought the Hawks killed everyone but Mariel,” Pari said.
“No, this is the guy who threw the smoke bomb. He got away with her.”
They watched until the trap fully reset and then Klothar led them down the corridor, moving slowly to check for traps at every step.
The corridor ended in a narrow spiral staircase winding down. It looked like it was made of the same wood as was used for the paneling in the room they had just left.
At the bottom they emerged in the middle of an immense room with shadowy black walls and a stone floor. It was lit by tall braziers that didn’t seem to flicker at all. They looked like they were illuminated either by light bulbs or the biggest glowstones Justin had ever seen.
The distance from the bottom of the spiral staircase to the closest wall was at least a couple of dozen yards and there was a door inset into the wall.
As Justin turned and surveyed the entire room, he saw that every one of the eight walls had a door in it. This was a room of doors.
Klothar told Justin and Pari to wait by the stairs while he checked the room for traps. As he moved closer to the north wall, the ranger called out. “You can see through these walls. Come this way but walk where I walked.”
The ranger was right. Once you got a little closer, you could see that the entire fifty-foot length of wall was made of glass, from floor to ceiling. Or if it wasn’t glass exactly, it was something that sure looked like glass. And through the glass, Justin saw various corridors, passages, doorways, and arches—all shrouded in darkness. That’s why the walls looked black from a distance. He also noticed that the door wasn’t really a door. It was more like a door-sized frame in the wall. There weren’t any hinges, handles, or anything that indicated it might open.
“This reminds me of an aquarium I went to in California,” Pari said. “Monterey, I think. Have you ever been there?”
“No,” Klothar said.
“I think she was speaking to me,” Justin said.
He told Pari that he hadn’t ever been to the Monterey Aquarium, but his parents had taken him to a big aquarium in Atlanta when he was a kid and he could see what Pari was talking about. He half expected a shark or a manta ray to come swimming up to the glass.
“I know, right?”
“But there’s got to be a purpose for these glass walls. I wonder what this place is, really.”
“It feels like another trap to me,” Klothar said. “Stay right here while I check the rest of the chamber.”
Pari squatted to the ground and brushed her finger against the floor. “No dust at all. That means no footprints to follow.”
“The guy must have come through here… somewhere.” Justin’s gaze followed Klothar as he started walking around the room, prodding the floor with his bow. Then Justin noticed that there was a design painted on the outer edge of the spiral staircase. He pointed it out to Pari.
“What do you suppose that is?”
“I can’t really tell,” she said. “Just looks like colored dots to me.”
“Klothar!” Justin called.
“What is it, lad? I’m trying to concentrate here.”
“Pari and I are going to check out the staircase, okay?”
“If you must. Just don’t touch anything.”
“Yeah, yeah. You keep saying that.”
Justin and Pari returned to the staircase and took a closer look at the design.
“Planets and stars,” Pari said.
“And here’s a comet.”
Painted on the outer spiral of the staircase were numerous celestial symbols. They didn’t seem to be arranged in any specific order.
Pari peered in towards the center of the steps. The main support pillar around which the stairs ran had a circular design painted on it.
“Is that supposed to be the Earth?” Pari asked.
“Maybe. Or Tomira,” Justin said, showing off his lore skill. Tomira was the name the ancient Pycerians called the world.
“What’s so exciting about the stairs?” Klothar said, as he joined them.
“Nothing, unless you want an astronomy lesson from Professor Justin here.”
“I happen to have a great affinity for the heavens,” Klothar said.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They all whipped around towards the sound.
Someone was there pounding on the glass from the other side.
Pari’s eyes narrowed, and she took a few steps forward “Mariel?”
They all rushed up to the glass. It was Mariel. And she didn’t look good. One arm hung limply at her side and her face was criss-crossed by cuts and gashes. She slumped against the glass like she could barely stand.
“Pari…” Her voice was muffled. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was you who was in front of us?” Pari asked.
Justin asked, “How did you get in there?”
“The doors… there’s only one way out. Choose wrong and you’ll be stuck in here like me.”
“What? There’s got to be a way out.”
“There isn’t… just fog and dark… and the girl.”
“What girl?” Pari asked.
“I don’t understand,” Pari said.
“Had to get himself killed. Chopped into bits. You saw him, right?”
Klothar nodded. “May Dishlad take his soul.”
“He had the circles memorized. He was marking our path for the next team. But I should have memorized it myself. I thought the next gap was south. I could have sworn it was.” She trailed off. “Oh, shit. She’s back.”
“Who?”
“The girl…” Mariel’s eyes went wild with fear.
“I don’t see anything,” Pari said.
“She’s here. She’s in with me. She’s so cold.”
“The poor wretch is addled,” Klothar said.
“No, look!” Pari pointed to a white shape walking in from the shadows.
It was a little girl—no older than four or five. As she ambled closer, Justin could see that she had pale skin and colorless hair and she wore a simple white dress.
Mariel started to back away. “Pari, I’m sorry for everything I did. I’m sorry what happened to your sister and everyone else. This was my job. I had to do it.”
Justin reached in his pouch and withdrew the phone. He held it up to the glass. “Is this yours?”
Mariel’s eyes widened. “You need to get word to Noon. Colonel David Noon. Tell him Blue Squad’s gone. Tell him we tried.”
“What are you talking about? What’s all this military stuff?”
The little girl was getting closer and Mariel staggered away, trying to keep her distance.
“We were sent in to figure out what the controller was trying to do.”
“What controller?” Justin asked.
Mariel gave an impatient shake of her head. “The AI that does all this. It’s out of control, paranoid. We think it’s trying to escape.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Pari said.
Mariel stumbled and fell.
“Mariel!”
“I’m just so tired, Pari. I can’t do this anymore. I tried. It’s up to Crimson now.”
“Crimson? Who’s Crimson?”