Thud situated himself on a stool next to Ginny and pulled out a cigar to think over. He had a specific kind of headache coming on: a throbbing just behind his left eye that always showed up when magic was involved. Problems became tricky to unravel when one of the possible causes was a metaphorical POOF and a flash of light. Fortunately they didn’t run across that level of magic too often. The POOF and flash of light was usually the mage self-vaporizing.
“Got both a god and a djinn involved in all this somehow,” Ginny said. “Vanishing a scribe into thin air seems like the sort of thing one of them might be capable of.”
“Why Ruby?” Thud asked, a question directed as much at himself as anyone else. “Ye’ve got the power to snatch up anyone and whisk ‘em away and you choose Ruby and a pile of books?”
“Maybe they were worried that there was somethin’ in those books that she would find?”
“Figure they’d have just taken the books and done it long before now if that was the concern.” He flicked the ash off the tip of his cigar. “Round up some of the support team and get ‘em out there poking around looking for her. Don’t expect they’ll find anything but they might get lucky and it will give them something to do while we get ready to go back into that pyramid.”
“So soon?”
“Aye. We went and played on their terms to see what’s what. Now we’re going back and doing things our way. We’re going to skip the play-dungeon and get inside that pyramid structure and figure out just what in the hells is going on in there. If they have Ruby then we’ll find her. If they have a djinn lamp then we’ll find that too.”
“And if we end up fighting a god?” Durham asked. He’d been lurking at the edge of the conversation looking slightly panicked, as was his way. “Do we know anything about fighting gods? Are there rules in the handbook for it?”
“Gong?” Thud asked, redirecting the question. The massive dwarf was sitting on the tailgate of the armor wagon, scraping the tips of his crossbow bolts across a whetstone. The rhythmic scraping stopped as he paused to consider.
“The gods here have animal-heads,” Gong said. He held up the bolt he was working on and squinted at it. “First thing to try is to remove the animal-head. Might demote them. Even so, my experience is that people don’t function too well without a head. Might hold true for gods as well.”
Durham didn’t look as if this answer had appeased his concerns but he remained silent.
“You’ve made a bunch of declarations on what we’re going to do,” Ginny said to Thud. “But I haven’t heard anything on how we’re going to do it. Is there a plan?”
Thud flicked the butt of his cigar into the fire where it flared into a final puff of stink. He grinned. “Of course there’s a plan.”
***
Mungo was ready.
His goggles were perched on top of his head, their myriad of lenses polished until they gleamed. His trap pole was strapped to his back, attachments freshly oiled. The pockets and pouches in his vest were stuffed with picks and shims, strings, chalk and mirrors. His tool belt was organized alphabetically.
He was trying to set an example for Durham but wasn’t sure how well he’d succeeded. The human stood nearby, pants sagging slightly and with what appeared to be a splotch of mustard on his leather vest. He didn’t have the ‘ready for anything’ aspect that Mungo strove for. Instead he had his usual aspect of ‘panic, wing it and hope to survive’.
Thud had chosen to go with four groups of five. Mungo’s group was similar to the initial exploration team but they’d lost Thud and Gong to team one and gained Cardamon in their stead. Cardamon excelled at what he did but in no way did he fill the shoes of Thud and Gong. They still had Keezix in the event that they needed to hit things and Leery in case they were on the receiving end of the hits.
Team one had gone in two hours earlier and team two an hour after. Now Mungo’s team was approaching the front of the line. Team four was somewhere in line behind them but Mungo hoped that it didn’t come to that. Team four was the dwarves that usually stayed behind at the camp. They were there as reserves and reinforcements but if teams one through three failed Mungo wasn’t sure that the doctor/cook/logistics/wrangler/geology team was going to be the one to save the day. For that matter, teams one and two were intended as support. This was Mungo’s mission, after all, and Mungo’s team had the primary role. They were to enter through the dungeon, break through into the “backstage” area and then make for the top of the pyramid. Teams one and two were to hide themselves inside somewhere to be available as support or distractions and team four was supposed to rescue them all if things went badly. Mungo just hoped that none of the pyramid staff would notice that some of the teams going in the front door weren’t coming out of the exit.
They reached the front of the line. The woman there barely looked up as they dropped their tickets into the slot. Moments later the gate swung shut behind them and they were once again in the ready-area, facing the door to the Mazerynth. Mungo stepped up to it and examined the latch for a moment before selecting a tool. A couple seconds of fiddling and the gate popped open.
“No point in following their rules and waiting,” he said. “The less we follow their prescribed route the less likely it is that we’ll be where expected.”
They moved quickly through the plaza beyond, making for the stone arch between the rabbit-headed statues. The chamber beyond, instead of having a sphincts in it, was occupied by large chains.
“The elevator is still down from the last group,” Durham said.
Mungo grinned. “Perfect! On top, quickly, before it comes back up. This will be even better than one of the employee entrances.”
They took up position and waited. Mungo poked more cake into the aperture on his pixie-lamp then focused it into a tight beam for a look into the dark shadows above. The shaft ran higher than the room size would have suggested. It appeared that there was enough space for the elevator room to move up from ground level as well as down. Perhaps for moving freight. As long as you had a room-sized elevator why not put it to full use? His light was only able to provide a bit of gleam to the upper reaches but it was enough to suggest a walkway running along the interior wall just below the chain winches. Next to him Durham prostrated himself and pressed an ear against the floor.
“I can hear the sphincts. It’s reciting that awful poem,” he said. “I can’t make out the words but I recognize the rhythm. We should be moving soon.”
Moments later there was a faint rumble of vibration and the chains began a smoothly oiled clicking as the elevator jerked into motion. Mungo wondered what the sphincts would think about the absence of another group coming through. Ideally nothing. Maybe it received breaks now and then. The elevator moved slowly, part of the attempt to conceal the motion to anyone inside of it. It came to a halt well below the walkway above but now close enough that Mungo’s lantern was able to clearly show the walkway and an opening that followed the direction of the chains on their pulleys.
“I estimate we have at least five minutes before the next group comes through,” Mungo said. “Plenty of time to climb the chains and get onto that balcony.”
Leery made a hmph noise in her throat. “If that was the plan why didn’t we start climbing when we first got on here? Or climb partway and let it lift us the rest?”
The truth was that it hadn't occurred to Mungo until he'd seen that the elevator was going to rise far enough to reach the walkway but this didn't sound like the sort of failure in thought process on which the party leader should spend too much time elaborating. While Mungo excelled at thinking, Thud encouraged the team to think outside the box and Mungo was sometimes unsure where the box actually was. There was also the climbing factor. Mungo’s arms barely reached above his head and had fingers more suited to twirling tiny screwdrivers than to grasping chain links and pulling the rest of him up after. He did fine with rope-climbing but climbing a ten-foot length of chain was not an appealing prospect. The alternative was ridin
g on someone’s back or shoulders which inevitably reduced their climbing speed to be on par with his.
“Strategic delay,” he said. “Our timing must be perfect.”
Leery snorted again but began climbing the chain rather than adding further comment. She was the best climber among the dwarves, even better than the human. Mungo would have thought that climbing would come easy to humans. They had absurdly long arms and legs, like monkeys trying to turn into spiders. Somehow it had all gone wrong along the way and humans climbed like neither spider nor monkey. Even the ones that were good at it paled next any other climbing animal Mungo could think of. Durham was not in the ‘good at it’ category. He was useful, however, in that after some explanation of expectations he was able to lift Mungo halfway up the chain to further reduce the required climbing distance. Durham followed after with a lot of grunting.
Keezix and Cardamon were last up, both being in the ‘average’ category as far as dwarven climbers went. They seemed to move upward by sheer force of will rather than with anything resembling aptitude. They lined up against the wall alongside the door as they reached the top. Mungo used his mirror-on-a-stick to take a peek around the doorjamb. Clear. He waved everyone forward onto a continuation of the walkway that ran the length of a much larger space. The chains ran into the room and wrapped around great spindles set into gears on the floor. The power gear’s spindle had a team of camels attached to it with a driver slumped atop one of them. He was watching an hourglass on a shelf next to him, waiting for it to run down to indicate time for the elevator to move again and had the look of someone who spent their work days watching time trickle by.
Durham’s crouching location behind the wall had placed him between Keezix and Leery. They were crouched as well which, given their lower starting height resulted in their whispered strategy discussion taking place around Durham’s knees. He tried to lower his head further down to make himself part of it, a task his neck wasn’t sure it was up to.
“You think sneaking past him is our best option?” Keezix was asking.
“It’ll be quieter than a fight,” Leery said. “If we don’t manage to sneak past then there’ll be a fight anyway.”
Keezix arched an eyebrow at Durham’s looming face. “You have anything to add?”
“Where’s Mungo?” asked Durham.
This prompted the inevitable glancing about the immediate vicinity, as if Durham hadn’t already done so. Then Keezix poked her head around the corner. Her beard wagged back and forth as she surveyed the room. Then she looked up. She pulled back and returned to her crouch next to Durham.
“Damn,” she said.
Durham pushed himself up enough to peer over the wall. He didn’t have to peer far. Mungo was on the ceiling, the lenses of his goggles gleaming green in the shadows.
On the chain, rather. He had his arms and legs wrapped around it, riding it toward the center of the room as it clicked its way around the spool. It was about to carry him directly over the head of the camel driver.
“I can’t watch,” Keezix said.
Durham couldn’t stop watching. Was Mungo seriously…
The gnome dropped, arms out, hands poised dramatically. He landed on the camel-driver’s head with a soft plop. The camel-driver pulled the camels to a halt, a confused expression on his face. He reached up with one hand and extracted Mungo from his head, holding him out at arm’s length to examine him. His confused expression graduated to bewilderment.
“Oh, begging pardon, sir,” Durham said quickly, standing up so he was in view over the low wall. The man’s head swiveled to look at him. The outer ends of his eyebrows moved from looking like a bird with its wings up to a bird with its wings down. “My friend wasn’t wearing his safety harness while he worked. We didn’t know anyone was in here. Thank…uh …Khomen that you were there to catch him.”
The man looked back to Mungo then let him go to finish his descent to the floor. There was a thump from behind the camel indicating a successful completion. “Who’re you?” he asked.
“Maintenance crew,” Durham said. “We’re here to oil the chains and pulleys.”
The man shrugged. “First I’ve heard of it.” He prodded his camel with a stick and started it moving again. “Carry on with it then. I have to keep the winch moving on schedule. Keep your little varmint off of my head if you don’t mind.”
He completed half a trip around the winch then came to a stop again at the sight of the rest of the dwarves now standing around Durham.
“Awful lot of you for a maintenance crew.”
“Need someone to carry the oil,” Durham said. “You don’t think the varmint is going to carry it do you?”
The camel-driver glanced down at where Mungo was brushing himself off and inventorying his multitude of pockets. Mungo looked up and adopted what Durham guessed was his idea of a varmint face.
“What was your varmint doing up there if you don’t even have oil yet?”
“We have to use up the last of the old oil before we can requisition new oil,” Durham said as if this was the most obvious thing. “And if they ask what took so long I’m going to refer them to you. They can wait in line while you explain all the elevator delays to the sphincts.”
The power of the anonymous ‘they’ seemed to work. The driver glanced nervously toward the doorway at the other end of the maintenance walkway. He shrugged and started the camels moving again. Durham waved the dwarves toward the door. They marched through, whistling while Durham helped Mungo climb back up onto the walkway.
“Excellent job,” the gnome said in a low voice. “You were able to determine my plan and play your part perfectly. Your training is coming along well.”
“For junior postal agent?” Durham asked.
Mungo frowned. Not the angry sort of frown but a frown that looked like a wound.
“Sorry,” Durham said. “That was uncalled for. But don’t try and tell me that was your plan.”
Mungo was silent. He lowered his goggles, turned and followed after the dwarves.
Durham hesitated, considering. No, that definitely hadn’t been the plan. He took a last glance at the disinterested camel-driver then hurried after.
The maintenance walkway continued into the new room, turning to run along the side of one of the pyramid’s angled walls. The room was vast and open, the hollow at the heart of the Mazerynth. There were people moving everywhere, hurrying their way between smithies and tanneries and armorers. Long workbenches dissected the room, scattered with tools and oddly shaped bits of metal that glinted in the light of scores of pixie-lamps suspended over the workspace. The air was hazy with smoke and the shadows grew thick higher up where open-space gave way to support structure.
The heads of the line of party members rotated one by one as a whispered command was passed back from Keezix at the front of the line. The command stopped at Mungo, still just ahead of Durham. Cardamon whispered it back but the gnome just nodded. He didn’t turn to relay the order to Durham.
“Oh, come on,” Durham hissed. “I said I was sorry.”
The gnome turned. “Don’t do anything weird,” he said. “We’ll fit right in.” He turned back, leaving Durham to wonder if that had been the whispered command or just Mungo’s way of telling him to be silent. He could see what was meant by ‘fitting in.’ The people he could see moving below had the look of adventurers, just like the ones outside. Their group of five fit in as perfectly as if they’d had an invite.
The center of the chamber was occupied by a thick cylinder of stone that ran all the way to the ceiling above. A tower at the pyramid’s core. Windows spiraling up its side indicated stairs within that led to the apex. Mungo nodded toward it superfluously; Keezix was already on the way. The walkway ended ahead at the angle where two of the pyramid’s great walls met. A ladder led up to a wooden hatch at the end of a low and narrow maintenance passage suspended from the ceiling. It ran from the angle all the way to the top of the central tower.
“There’
s our entry point,” Mungo said. “Straight to the room at the top. Any sign of the other teams?”
Durham shook his head. The walkway gave them a good vantage point across the spacious interior. Durham had been watching, trying to get an estimate of how many adventurers were working below. He hadn’t seen any groups of dwarves though.
“Excellent,” Mungo said. “They are supposed to be hidden, after all. We’ll go up first,” he told the team. “Then Leery, Cardamon and Keezix.” He frowned at the ladder and turned to Durham. “Might I get your assistance with the climb or do I need to get out my ladder-climbing hooks?”
Durham was curious to see the ladder-climbing hooks but now didn’t seem to be the time. ‘Assistance’, when it came to helping Mungo climb ladders, meant that Durham did all of the climbing with Mungo hanging from his shoulders. Experience had taught Durham then when you traveled with kilt-wearing dwarves you always wanted to be first up the ladder. This seemed to suit Mungo as well as it gave him first access to the hatch above.
“Give that hatch a close look before you open it,” Cardamon said. “Natural place for a trap or an alarm.”
They started up. Mungo didn’t weigh much more than a backpack which would have been fine if Durham hadn’t also been wearing a backpack. The ladder was a fifteen-foot climb and Durham was puffing halfway through.
“Stop,” Mungo whispered as they neared the top. Durham waited. He felt horribly exposed parked at the top of a ladder over a room with hundreds of potential suspicious gazes. Mungo climbed up to stand on his shoulders in order to inspect the hatch. Durham listened as the gnome muttered to himself.
“No lock, visible hinges, could be an anterior surface trigger but that would prevent authorized access, hatch is recessed, seam is clear…” then in a whisper directed at Durham- “I’m going to open it. I could take it off by the hinges but I don’t think it necessary. Keep your head low in case I’m wrong.”
Mazerynth Page 15