by A Van Wyck
A six-armed serpent-woman, exquisitely rendered, reared twice his height. It appeared incongruous beside a shelf of jars, the contents of which he didn’t dare examine too closely. He passed other shelves, filled with figurines, fetishes and not a few weapons. All slowly falling to dust. The hot air squeezed sweat from his every pore and his wraps were seeped through before the ramp flattened out beneath his feet.
Finally, he’d come to the bottom of the well.
The circular room seemed small and out of place. The floor was carpeted, the walls wood-paneled, the vaulted ceiling beautifully frescoed. It looked like some high priest’s private library. Reinforcing this image was a lone bookcase of peculiar construction. It was freestanding and round as the room in the center of which it stood. It looked like a column, exquisitely carved and gilded and a head taller than he. He walked around it, noting that each of its eight sides were stocked top to bottom with scrolls. There was no doubt this was what he’d been looking for. He stared in despair at the multitude of labeled volumes. He’d memorized the symbols that made up the title he was looking for and was confident he’d recognize it. Cyrus had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to coach him to recognize nuances in writing style, era-based calligraphy and different kinds of ink. But, without being able to read the language itself, there had been little profit in the undertaking. He’d eventually threatened to throttle the priest unless he stopped.
He picked a scroll at random. As he drew it out, he recognized the title.
On the first try?
Frowning suspiciously, he unrolled it – carefully, since Cyrus had stressed that it would be very old. He knew pig skin when he saw it and it was certainly covered in writing. He retained enough of Cyrus’s coaching to recognize the angular script of some old imperial dialect, the blued characters faded with time. If it were truly as ancient as the priest had alluded, the alchemies responsible for its preservation were potent indeed.
It looked about right… The thief in him narrowed its eyes at the volume.
No way it’s this easy.
He drew another scroll at random, staring at the same title characters again. He unrolled it. Pig skin. He compared the two. The faded script was the same but… he looked closely. Even without being able to read it, it was obvious the texts differed substantially. With a sudden premonition, he dropped both to the floor, drawing the next one in line. And then the next and the next. With a frustrated snarl, he swept a shelf-worth of scrolls onto the floor.
Each one looked totally authentic and each contained different text. He stood back in horror. Was the scroll that long? Did it comprise the entire bookcase? There was no way he could carry all of these and, even taking as many as he could, he had no way of knowing which were important. He could end up taking back a useless load of disjointed twaddle.
Salt and silver! Now what?
Pacing seemed appropriate. He circled the offending bookcase as his thoughts raced. He’d be damned if he’d gone to all this trouble only to turn back empty handed. Stuffing his satchel with as many scrolls as it would hold jarred his sensibilities. He was a cat-burglar, not a pack mule!
But what choice did he have? Time was draining out the bottom of the glass.
It galled. To come all this way, into one of the most heavily guarded, well spelled, inaccessible fortresses in the known world only to be frustrated at the very last and by what? A wordy book?!?
With an inarticulate yell, he kicked the damn bookcase. Scrolls cascaded to the floor on the far side but not before he’d registered the hollow thud. He stared. It couldn’t be that simple. Limping slightly, he stuck his arm into the vacated shelf and knocked on the back board. It echoed like a barrel.
With a broad smile, he threw another wealth or worthless scrolls to the floor and climbed the shelves like a ladder. He drew himself up so he could have a better look at the gilded dome that capped the wooden pillar. It didn’t look like it was meant to come off but since gold didn’t habitually grow on trees, he was willing to bet it could. Somehow. He drew his knife, probing the edge where it met the wood. Finding no seam, he jammed the knife point under the lip of the dome, shifting his grip on the case so he’d be able to apply some leverage. He rose onto his toes, ready to bear down... and paused. His eyes had caught on the little sun, rising from the apex of the dome.
Why not?
Closing a fist around it, he twisted experimentally. There was a sharp click. He smiled as the dome hinged to one side, revealing the hollow core of the bookcase. The top of a scroll peeked from its recess like the hilt of a dagger jammed into the heart of a tree. He grabbed it and dropped back down, unleashing an avalanche of scrolls.
Unrolling it, he found himself swallowing hard. He also knew human skin when he saw it. The blued characters covering its surface – tattoos – weren’t faded at all.
Now this is more like it.
Rerolling it gingerly, he stuffed it into his satchel, finally casting a glance over the mess he’d made. He groaned.
Ghosts leave no trace behind.
Climbing again, he stabbed one of the fake scrolls into the exposed compartment, just in case, and pressed the dome shut. Then he bent to collect the scattered volumes and replaced them in orderly rows.
Finished, he stood and gave the place a critical glance. Nodding his satisfaction, he turned for the exit. The urgency to be gone from this place was suddenly overwhelming. He found himself jogging up the ramp despite his tired legs. He breathed a little easier the moment he was out of the yellow glare at the bottom of the well. His thoughts were already turning to the problem of the spiral passage above, wondering whether he would be able to better find the exit if he tried traversing it sightless, by feel alone–
“So.”
He skidded to a halt, knives jumping to his hands. His head whipped wildly in an effort to find the speaker. A score paces along, from behind a stack of crates spilling lengths of braided hair, a hooded priest strolled to block his way.
“Face to face at last,” the figure rasped wetly.
Tattered black robes. Long, filthy nails.
He felt his throat constrict and a familiar terror deaden his limbs.
Malice poured thickly from the deep hood of the dread mage. There was nothing ethereal about him this time. He was here. In the flesh. Inside Seven Deep.
The dark cowl lifted.
“Well,” the mage corrected, “sort of.”
Shock and revulsion landed a solid punch to his gut. The mage’s lips were desiccated and molting. Mottled blue-gray skin hung in moth-eaten patches from the sunken cheeks. The skin over the chin was split to the bone and ran with thick puss down the neck. The thing smiled, exposing jagged, brown teeth.
“Surprise,” it hissed, rotting throat imparting a moist sibilance. Dull, pearled eyes, like those left in a snake’s discarded skin, mocked his given name. The thing’s tongue was dead black. “So pleased to finally meet you.”
He swallowed hard.
“I cannot say the chase has not been exhilarating,” the thing continued. “Though I confess, I was a trifle lax. I should have guessed, as soon as I learned of this place, that you’d bring it straight here. Luckily, your ignorance has saved me from mine, eh? Ha! Hahaha!”
He cringed at the terrible, wet laughter stabbing his ears. He fought the panic that bid his feet to run. If this thing were even half as powerful as he believed, he was already dead and running wouldn’t change a thing. He had a sudden, horrible image of everyone upstairs – guards, priests, everyone – lying dead and broken.
His fingers twitched. A thrown knife probably wouldn’t do it. Probably wouldn’t even come close.
And the thing was toying with him. A serpent, watching with unabated focus and immeasurable patience as the recipient of its venom writhed.
He glanced surreptitiously left and right. The brilliance of his thieving fever was stunned mute. In the cold presence of the thing confronting him, it offered him the mental equivalent of a flabbergasted sh
rug. But perhaps it would thaw if he could but buy a little time.
Luckily the dread (or was it dead?) mage did not seem to be in a hurry. Its laughter slithered across his raw nerves. Echoes coiling up and down the ramp, it was slow to fade.
“Oh,” the magicker chortled, “the short memories of your kind are a constant joy! Although,” the mirth curdled, “I admit to being mildly impressed.” Milky eyes took in the luminescent stone all around. “I almost didn’t find you here. How many do you think surrendered their puny lives to raise this monument to futility? How many spent their paltry souls to imbue its seal? A score? A hundred-count? Just being down here makes me itch.” The thing tossed its shoulders irritably, the movement boneless and wrong.
My kind? What seal?
“But,” the thing continued, “here, at least, is one itch I can scratch.” An arm rose smoothly, hand shaking free of the long sleeve.
Bile rose in his throat.
The appendage was rotten, shedding skin in tattered strips. Hooked fingernails, ridged like goat’s horns, curled towards him. “I’ll take the key now,” the thing sang, “and the map as well, if you please.”
He blinked. “Key?” he managed to whisper. “What map?”
“Give me the key!” the thing shrieked, slithering closer. Its voice lashed at him like a serrated lizard’s tail.
He flinched, retreating from the menacing claw. “What key?” he screamed, more in fear than inquiry.
Truth must have rung in his denial because the outstretched arm dipped.
“What key?” the thing repeated, tone dripping puss and astonishment in equal measure. “You don’t know? You are here and you don’t–”
A beat of silence.
“Ha! Hahaha!” The shrieking was steeped in madness. It cut off abruptly. “What did you think I was following?!” the thing snarled. Its demeanor had changed from hysterical to murderous in a flash.
“I give you too much credit, it seems. Still,” it admitted, the calm façade restored, “you did an admirable job hiding. A worthy idea even, trying to muddle your scent,” it smiled horribly, curved nail lifting to stab at his chest, “but your charm was unequal to the task. The magic of this world has become laughable!”
Charm? Memory winked. He was suddenly aware of the jade teardrop beneath his wraps. The necklace had hidden him from the sniffer-spell in the governor’s mansion. Neever hadn’t asked for it back and he hadn’t offered.
“Like trying to hide a burning brand behind a screen of muslin,” the thing pronounced, “futile. Even inside this cursed place, the call of it is unmistakable.”
If he lived through this, he decided, he was never taking the damned necklace off ever again.
“I still don’t know what ‘key’ you’re talking about,” he essayed, pleased at how steady his voice was. There was something about inescapable doom, he was finding, that dulled panic.
“There,” the mage crooned, curved talon pointing, “on your finger.”
Silence reigned for half a dozen heartbeats. Then he transferred his glare to the ring in question.
You?
The ring ignored him coldly.
This was about you!? I should have known! You sly, fork tongued, fly blown, sand-spawned, searing pain in my ass! It was you all along?!
A curio, procured from a crooked merchant in passing. A purchase that had, quite literally, foisted itself upon him. Possibly the only thing he owned he’d ever actually paid for… and the only thing on his person he could not willingly part with.
Salt and silver!
“This?” he tried. “This is a ring,” he stated the obvious.
“No,” the mage corrected irritably, “it is a ring right now. It can be whatever it wants. But what it is, is a key. Now give it to me!”
This last came as a shriek that rocked him back on his heels. He retreated from it, stumbling down the ramp.
I would, too, he thought despairingly, but the misbegotten thing doesn’t seem inclined to let me go. And I don’t fancy being Jiminy the nine-fingered thief…
“Do you know,” the whisper dogged him as the mage followed his retreat, “how many have died, hmm? The eyebrow-less fool who’d lost his donkey. He died with his bowels hanging about his ankles.” The mage matched him step for step. “Partially my fault, I don’t have a great affinity for your god-bitch’s playthings,” it admitted, snaking nearer. “The horse soldier, here in the city? He had notions of defiance at first. He met his end howling for his mother.” Another step. “Your obstinacy seeds your trail with corpses. Have you any inkling how many more I’d be willing to kill? The monk you had traveling with you, perhaps? Or the noble lady who sheltered you?” The black tongue flickered hungrily. “The Inithanir whore who bedded you? The ship that bore you to this forsaken place? Or mayhap the first person I see wearing something that offends me… So many innocents to choose from. I could crush them with a thought.”
He didn’t doubt it for a moment.
But then why am I still in one piece?
Finally his thoughts sped from their turgid crawl:
Souls to imbue a seal… Something making it itch…
The thing had been looking around at the walls. Seven Deep? The Well was a seal? What was it sealing? His eyes narrowed on the mage. Him. It was sealing him. His power.
It was a good theory. Only one way to test it. He raised his knives into a guard position. The mage halted, maligned maw snarling wordlessly. If there were going to be balls of fire and bolts of lightning, now was the time, surely... He stared the thing down. He was tense, ready to dodge. Heartbeats sped by wherein he completely failed to burst into flame.
Well, well…
“Take it,” he invited, beckoning with his blades, “if you can.”
The mage hissed, hands snaking from the dark sleeves to spread into pale claws.
“As you wish.”
Even with the moment of warning, he had no time to even think a surprised oath. He had the fastest hands of anyone he’d ever known but he nearly lost sight of the mage as it blurred toward him. Instinct alone propelled his knife into the path of the claw winging towards his face. The strength of the blow was immense, threatening to drive him into the ground. He had an image of the other claw rising toward his throat.
Wrenching his leg muscles, he managed a backward leap. Talons speared doggedly after him, striking for his stomach. He needed to attack, he realized, before he became too fatigued to dodge. Darting in, he feigned a stab at the cowled face. The mage swung a powerful counter blow at him.
He was ready for it. Ducking beneath it, he surged upward, his lead knife sinking up to its hilt in soft stomach. The other found ribs, angling up into a lung. He whirled clear, wrenching his knives after him as a clawed hand raked down, scything through where he’d been. The mage staggered.
An overpowering stench assaulted him. He looked down and almost gagged. The blades of his knives were covered in rotten blood shot through with streaks of puss.
“Impressive,” the voice jerked his head back up in surprise. “But pointless.”
He felt the cold sweat of shock prick down his spine. Where he’d stabbed the mage, small patches of wet showed but did not bleed. Two knives to the gut seemed to have made no impression other than to bring the cowl down around the thing’s ears. What little ears it had left. If there had been any doubt before, it was now just as dead as this creature obviously was – and had been for some time.
The face was rotten and scarred. A jagged seam ran its length, cleaving sickly flesh to the skull. One milky eye cried filth down a holed cheek, glistening on the stub of cartilage that was all that remained of the nose. One ear was gone, the other swollen and unrecognizable, sending a tracery of infected veins across the shaven scalp. The thing, kept alive by some unholy sorcery, flashed him a serrated smile.
“You are going to die here,” it informed him.
Yup, I’m fucked…
Years of street-born arrogance chose then to surface.
“Make me,” he challenged and then, because he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t, added, “handsome.” Not one of his more memorable quips, but cutting nonetheless.
“With pleasure,” it growled.
It came at him even faster this time. He threw up an arm to block a clobbering blow and the impact nearly threw him from his feet. The protecting arm on his other side was hit as well, hammering his elbow into his short ribs. Air exploded from him. One of the raking claws shot past his weakened defenses and black talons scored deeply along his hip, lighting a fire all the way to the bone. He screamed.
An unseen blow caught him under the jaw, cutting him off. His feet left the floor, knives flying from senseless hands as he tumbled limply down the ramp. He hardly felt his cheek smack stone. Dazed, he tried to climb to his feet. He’d made it as far as his knees before five new lines of fire ripped from his shoulder down to the small of his back. The pain of it ripped up his throat and out his mouth, flattening him in its wake.
The footsteps sounded loud to his stunned ears as the dead mage circled him. A blow to the back of the head stole his vision for a moment and stinking fingers clamped painfully around his nape. He was hoisted like a sandcat cub, feet twitching feebly. Instinct drove him to scrabble at the vice starving the blood from his brain. The sharp edges of the goat-horn talons flensed his skin.
Displaying frightening strength, the thing spun him around and launched him. He spun end over end like a rag doll, his back plowing into something hard that cracked and splintered. He collapsed to the floor amid falling sheaves of moldy paper and shattered shelves. He gasped for air, coughing weakly at the dust rushing down his abused airways. He tasted blood in his mouth.