A Clatter of Chains

by A Van Wyck

  “This nag?” a woman’s voice questioned doubtfully. He turned and almost fainted. Not three paces from him stood a figure encased completely in dark, supple leathers. And masked to boot! He’d seen no one pass him and he clutched at his chest, feeling the labored pounding of his heart. Incongruously, the apparition was standing on tiptoe, inspecting the teeth of a horse critically.

  “I’ve seen better animals pulling ploughs,” it said. “But I suppose it’ll have to do.” The apparition vaulted into the saddle, bypassing stirrup to go from the ground to the horse’s back in one smooth movement.

  “I… uh…” He tried again, finally bridling a bit at having his merchandise put down so callously. “Now see here,” he called, putting some outrage in his voice. Outrage was always good for another ten percent soothing-fee. But he got no further. The man with the yellow hair was suddenly right in front of him. A somewhat worrisome (if kindly) smile played around the man’s mouth. He found himself unable to blink.

  “Thank you, sir,” the man said politely in accented Renali. “I’m sure your horses will serve our purposes adequately.” There was a snort from the leather wrapped woman. The man moved past him and mounted up, the rest of the astrorodents following suit.

  Old Farool stared after them dumbly.

  “There… there’s still the matter of payment!” he shrilled, feeling the situation had somehow gotten beyond his control. He’d be damned if he let this lot out of here without settling the entire bill beforehand. “I demand…” he trailed off as a shadow fell over him.

  He turned find the huge man towering above him. He felt himself become very small and insignificant as the giant leaned down to put them nose to nose. A low growl rolled from the beastly figure.

  Farool let loose an involuntary whimper.

  The yellow haired one rode up, tossing the reins of the sturdiest animal to the giant. The hulking man mercifully turned away to climb into the saddle. The blond one spoke again, dislodging his terrified attention. “You may send our bill to the Holy Temple of Helia in Tellar. I assure you they will not hesitate to reimburse you.”

  “Hurry up!” the woman called impatiently. And then they were gone, ridden off into the night. The sound of hooves on flagstones slowly faded into the distance. Old Farool, his legs feeling decidedly weak, hobbled over to a mounting block and sank gratefully down, still clutching his heart.

  “Master,” one of the grooms sidled up, “should we…” the groom trailed off, seeming at a loss as to what they should do. As was Old Farool, truth to tell.

  He nodded vigorously anyway. “Yes,” he said, “yes, close up.” It would be good to have a nice, solid barrier between him and whatever else was out there tonight. He swallowed hard. No need to tell the wife about any of this.

  No. No need at all.

  His squinty eye twitched uncontrollably.

  * * *

  If he was still smiling beneath his mask, it was a rictus grin. Panicked eyes stared from between his wraps and his fever had taken on an unhealthy tingle.

  The white stone of the spiraling passage was uniform, with nothing to distinguish wall from floor from ceiling. No doors. No windows. No lamps – the stone exuded a luminescence so bright it even robbed him of a shadow.

  At first, as he’d wound his way down the gentle ramp, he’d been impressed the ancient architects had managed to hide this wide, curving passage within the confines of the tower. Certainly he’d seen no evidence in the drawings and sketches to suggest such a construction. But as he’d walked and walked for what felt like turn after turn of the glass, following the blind curve that defied any measure of distance, he’d come to a horrendous realization: There was no way to hide something like this. Even taking into account the ridiculously shallow slope, he’d descended at least four or more floors. And that was plainly impossible.

  In a fit of panic, he’d fallen into a loping jog, pushing on and on until his throat was on fire and his knees were watery. And still the passage threatened to go on forever in bright, unmitigated uniformity.

  Now, finally staggering to a halt, he braced his hands on his knees. He had to admit defeat.

  Cat scat on a skewer…

  Arching to relieve the knot in his lower back, he dragged his wraps down around his neck. There was no breeze to cool his damp hair but at least he could breathe. He would have to turn back, he realized between gasping breaths, or risk being stuck down here when the sun came up.

  With a frustrated growl, he sat, though it was more of a collapse. He drew his legs up for somewhere to rest his forearms and added his forehead for good measure. The bright stone stared at him from between his feet. Something was wrong. He was missing something. The High Archon upstairs had been a fossil of a man – there was no way the ancient could drag his bones down into the bowels of the tower like this and be back in time for morning prayers.

  Had he somehow, in his ignorance of this strange place, gotten lost? Would someone, decades from now, come upon his pile of bones and ask, ‘Why didn’t he just take the shortcut?’

  His snorted laugh launched a droplet of sweat from the tip of his nose to the white floor. He stiffened as he watched the salty speck run slowly… uphill.

  His ring sat at room temperature. But it had already missed the miraculous mural above and if it was being fooled, then probably so was he.

  Unwinding his wraps from around his neck, he arranged them in a little pile. One forlorn arm he left flung outward to resemble the needle of a compass. It pointed back the way he’d come. He set off in the direction it pointed, hoping fervently that he was being paranoid. Frequent looks soon failed to find the dwindling clump of cloth in the view over his shoulder. How far was one revolution around the curvature of this passage? He’d counted just under a thousand paces when, from around the sprawling curve, a shadowy spot appeared close to the ground.

  No!

  He raced over to find himself standing above the cloth marker he’d laid out. And, he noted – true fear worming in his gut – the needle pointed its mocking finger at him. He’d expected it to point away from him, as it should if he’d been going in circles. A wave of vertigo hit him hard enough to send him to one knee. He stared at the marker. Was he wrong? He distinctly remembered laying it out to point uphill. Back the way he’d come. Though clearly now it indicated downhill. But could he have been mistaken?

  It was possible.

  With a hiss, he straightened. Glaring at the marker, he deliberately he put his back to it. It was pointing downhill. So downhill he would go.

  Six hundred steps found him standing above it again, facing the mocking needle that pointed uphill. The vertigo sent him to hands and knees, fighting the roiling nausea that threatened to overflow him.

  Only six hundred paces? Had he miscounted?

  No, he hadn’t. And he hadn’t been mistaken about the direction his makeshift marker was pointed either. There was magic here and it was either messing with the corridor, or messing with his mind. The latter seemed more likely but… He suddenly recalled how the stone of the mural had seemed alive, how seamlessly and silently the entrance to this place had revealed itself. It was not so far-fetched to think the stone was moving around him. He suddenly had the panicked image of himself down the gullet of some stone beast.

  He shook his head to dispel the thought. Especially the thought that he hadn’t spied the entrance (or, more importantly, the exit) during his circumnavigation.

  A thousand paces had become six hundred. Uphill and downhill had somehow reversed without him noticing. But, he thought, his drop of sweat had noticed.

  From his spent store of thieving genius, a weary idea raised its hand.

  From his satchel he took a handful of glass marbles, intended to foul the steps of pursuers. (Or, in a pinch, serve as ammunition for his sling.) With sweaty fingers, he placed one on the ground between his feet… and watched it slowly make up its mind to roll uphill. As its certainty increased, it slowly gathered momentum. He followed at a lop
e.

  For a few heartbeats it seemed the marble would outpace him. Then it hit the crease between wall and floor. After that it settled into an uncomfortable but manageable jog. Blowing like a bellows, he pursued, keeping to the inside wall as the marble ran the longer circuit along the outside one.

  He’d gone a good thousand paces (with no sign of his makeshift marker) when, with a loud percussion, the marble simply disappeared. He skidded to a wheezing halt, afraid to blink lest he lose the place the marble had vanished. Carefully, as though stalking an adder, he made his way over.

  Nothing distinguished the spot from any other stretch of wall. Except that, plainly, the marble had gone somewhere. He spent an inordinate amount of time simply staring. As his questing fingers found a complete absence of wall, he swallowed a vicious curse. Snatching his hand back as though burned, he spent some more time studying the not-quite stone his eyes told him was there. Finally, he reached into his satchel for another marble and a second opinion. He rolled it in the direction its brother had disappeared.

  He watched the little globe ignore the wall to roll a short distance beyond it. The altered perspective wrenched painfully at his sight and sensibilities. The marble’s progress was brought up short by some unseen barrier. Gradually, it mustered the momentum to roll somewhere away and out of sight.

  Sour bile tingled at the base of his throat.

  Steeling himself, he pressed his palm flat to the floor and proceeded to extend his arm by increments. His jaw creaked, teeth grinding, as his foremost digits passed where the wall should be. Shuffling forward on his knees, he kept going. And struck stone.

  Bewildered, he looked about and found his perspective madly manhandled once more. And then he found himself marveling. It was the work of the same unrelieved glow that denied him a shadow. Even as it robbed the corners between ceiling, walls and floor of definition, it conspired to hide an entire side passage. In this place, the outer wall curved back on itself in a seamless twist that blended with the passage so well as to be invisible.

  He stood, tracing a hand up along the wall as he did. Experimentally, he took a few backward steps. To his eyes, the hated corridor resurfaced, unblemished by any means of egress. He hastily returned his hand to the smooth stone, his eyes straining as he was swallowed by the hidden switchback once more. So perfect was the illusion, he proceeded with his other hand outstretched, like a blind man guarding against unseen obstacles. Gradually, his eyes accepted the new perspective. He was just starting to get over his vertigo when the passage spat him out into a circular antechamber.

  Light behaved more normally here. It revealed, across from him and framing a massive doorway, twin statues carved from the pearly rock. The two devastatingly beautiful, ludicrously muscled young men wore nothing but sandals and loincloths and were perhaps three times life size. Each held a massive sword that gleamed in a way suggestive of an edge not common to stone. Muscles and tendons were depicted under eternal tension as if arrested at the birth of powerful swings. The sculptor had captured them perfectly.

  Perhaps too perfectly.

  The illusion of life was so complete, he had no trouble at all imagining those swords wakened to sudden, fatal motion. If, say, a heathen thief were to try and pass between them. Even without an edge, something that heavy moving at any appreciable speed would pulverize bone.

  And if he were not very much mistaken, the downward curving ramp he spied between the two was the first round of Seven Deep.

  He regarded the sublime, stony visages of the paired guardians. Their flat eyes seemed to follow him as he leaned first right… then left…

  Damn this place and its ungodly livened stone!

  “Look,” he addressed them, feeling seven kinds of stupid, “I’m here to help, alright? There’s a priest – one of you guys – who thinks he can save a lot of lives if he can only get his hands on something in there,” he pointed past them down the ramp. “So how about you let me pass?”

  Of course they didn’t answer. Or move.

  Crap…

  He started pacing. He didn’t have a whole lot of options. Press on or leave. That was about it. And he was running out of time. His legs scythed with his pacing, a furious frown on his face.

  “Fuck it,” he decided.

  He backed up a few paces for some room and broke into wild dash toward the ramp. The nervous growl rolling from his throat was a lot preferable to the terrified whine he felt building deep in his chest. Timing was going to be everything here. Slamming onto his lead foot, he hurled himself into a dive, turning it into a spin. The flat trajectory would offer the smallest possible target...

  The world flashed by in a blur.

  He hit the ground in one piece – instead of three bloody ones – and tumbled upright to glare at the backs of the immobile guardians.

  Not so much as a twitch from either of them.

  He was almost disappointed. After the entrance and the spiral passage, he’d been ready to believe solid stone could mimic life in this place. Perhaps, he thought admiringly, that had been the intention. He shook his head in wonder. Magician mentalist masons. As if there weren’t enough bloody magic in the word without having to worry about statues coming to life.

  Smiling at the absurdity of it, he turned to regard the ramp. A stone lintel bore what he recognized as the Heli numeral for ‘one’. He’d reached the first level of the Well. From here on in, the most direct danger no longer came from the spells and devices trying to keep him out but from the things being kept in. He glanced around nervously as he traversed the first circle.

  It wasn’t what he’d expected.

  The place looked like a library. He started to relax a little when, after passing the third arch, he’d yet to see anything beyond shelf after shelf of books and scrolls gathering dust. By the fourth circle, he was starting to feel disappointed.

  Small items started appearing among the books, looking like nothing so much as the leavings of a village market. He spied several collections of bones or shells and some earthen crocks, mostly broken. Drawn by a thief’s curiosity, he was compelled to give a closer examination to one or two items, idly wondering how serious Cyrus had been in the admonishment to touch nothing. He leaned in close to what appeared to be a string of mushrooms only to jump back with a hurried oath. He left the desiccated necklace of human ears to continue their shriveling decomposition. After that, he kept his distance as the books and scrolls dwindled, replaced by seemingly random memorabilia.

  Certain items snagged his attention, ranging from carved masks of savage brutality, to beautiful sculptures of wood, and stone. These were items and icons that had once engendered worship, he realized. He could feel the pull of them, the ghosts of long dwindled gods and spirits reaching out to him. He averted his eyes but they were hard to ignore, so he stubbornly kept his gaze on the ground.

  He knew when he’d reached the bottom of Seven Deep. Beyond the final lintel, the ethereal glow of the stone changed from its white radiance to a laden gold. He hesitated before the threshold. The sundown glow did not spill through the enormous doorway, trapped instead like fog behind a windowpane. He waved a hand through the divide experimentally, his fingers passing unhindered. Taking a steadying breath, he plunged through.

  The change was immediate. The air was lifeless and hot, abrading his throat like a stiff bristled brush. Squinting against the unpleasant glare, he looked around. It seemed that some of the largest pieces in the collection had ended up here. He saw a broken column of pink quartz, taller than himself. It shared a heap with a scatter of chalcedony menhirs. The monoliths looking forlorn in their recline. It only got weirder from there. The statue of a slender woman leaned toward him from her pedestal. Her arms had been hacked off and her eyes, mouth and ears hammered shut with gold. A rattle, as of reed chimes, brought him around. A malformed puppet swung from tangled strings, its oversized head distended around a huge smile, the lips, once lacquered red, straining to contain the double row of pointed teeth. Crazed
, red rimmed eyes seemingly fixed on him, it rocked gently to the breath of his passage. He kept a wary eye on it as he backed away.

  Something brushed the back of his neck and he spun, biting the end off a foul oath. His knives flashed as he skipped out of reach. But the suit of armor didn’t follow. It did wobble slightly as its jostled mannequin settled. It wasn’t armor the way he knew it. For starters, the helm was a crazed mockery of a human face, hovering on the cusp between smiling and snarling. The effect was unnerving. He knew enough to recognize the design as vaguely Imperial. But instead of enameled plates and chain, this was a thing of scales and hide – oddly thick and strangely pebbled, like the great lizards of the Shen. The mannequin stood as the warrior must once have, feet braced apart and hand resting on sword hilt.

  Glad I don’t have to tangle with you, fellow.

  He wiped the back of his hand across his slick brow as he turned away. He made to sheathe his knives but stilled as he caught sight of a squat figure, impossibly broad, crouched less than a dozen paces away. It was hidden amongst the sealed boxes and packed shelves.

  Eyes glinted in the yellow haze.

  Dropping into a protective crouch, he raised his blades to ward off the springing creature… Which didn’t spring. He stared unblinking, gripping his knives so tightly they trembled. Moments passed as the creature remained spring-less.

  Suspicion surfaced.

  “You alive?” he called out. The thing didn’t react. Of course, in this place, not alive wasn’t necessarily the same as not dangerous. He forced himself to pad closer. As details emerged from the gloom, he relaxed, returning his knives to their sheaths with a sigh. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble, assembling this beast. He doubted it was the product of taxidermy. If an animal like this existed anywhere in nature, nature was fickle indeed. Trunk-like arms, a deep chest and a fanged snout some poor predator had given its eye teeth to populate. Glass eyes stared from eerily humanesque features, on a level with his own despite the fact the beast crouched, its prehensile tail curled about its squat hind legs. Hair – or rough plant fibers by the look of it – covered its bulky mass. He backed away from it. Real or not, it looked like the kind of thing you didn’t turn your back on. When the curve of the ramp hid it from view, he sighed in relief and continued on his way. He kept a wary ear out for slinking footsteps, just in case.