As it happened, it was Chortley who’d nearly brought disaster on them. They’d been walking along an otherwise perfectly ordinary corridor when he’d spotted a pattern in the brickwork. There would be a single white brick amongst the red, then, a few paces on, there would be a group of two, then three and four. This pattern repeated several times and Chortley had found himself mesmerised by it. Then finally one, two, three, but no four. Chortley had stopped, reached out to touch the wall when he was felled by a kick in the shin and watched as the bolt fizzed past his forehead as he dropped.
“I’m sorry to have kicked you so hard,” Velicity had said, running her hand up and down his shin in a soothing manner that, in fact, was more distracting than anything.
Chortley was trying hard not to focus too much on the sensation of her soft hand on his bruised skin, but he couldn’t help stealing a glance at her from time to time. Had she spent just a little longer than was strictly necessary “rubbing it better”? Or did she just think of him as a poorly child who needed some magic medicine? One thing was certain, his obsession with her was going to lead to trouble. Chortley knew this, and yet it made no difference. Trouble with her seemed infinitely preferable to a safe existence without her.
“What was that?”
Chortley awoke from his reverie as Epocrypha ran back to him. “There’s somethin’ up ahead, cap’n,” he said, pointing.
Chortley followed the man’s filthy finger, but all he could see was the darkness beyond Thun’s torch - the barbarian having been the only member of the company not to react to whatever they’d heard.
“I never heard nothing,” Mother Hemlock said.
Velicity shrugged, prettily. “Me neither, but then I was lost in my own thoughts.”
Chortley felt his cheeks flush. By the gods! Barely four months ago he’d been a self-centred, sadistic bastard who only thought about others if they could be of use to him, and only for as long as they remained that way. And yet now he felt as though he was enslaved by this woman, and every hint she gave that she felt something for him simply deepened his entrapment.
That time he heard it. A call, as if from far away. A desperate cry - weak, pitiful and on the edge of hearing.
“Follow me,” he said, pulling the torch out of McGuff’s hands and stalking off into the darkness.
“Hold your horses,” Mother Hemlock called after him, “how d’you know this ain’t a trap?”
Velicity shook her head as she followed the others after Chortley. “No, Mother, if this labyrinth rewards stupidity, then the sort of fool that goes striding into the darkness like that, without thought or planning, is likely to find a pot of gold at the end of the corridor.”
#
Bill turned to face the newcomer. “Marcello!” he shouted. “What are you doing here?”
The dark figure of Marcello stood framed in the doorway. He held a staff that pulsed gently in the darkness and, in his other hand, was a sword.
“Greetings my young friends,” he said bowing first to Brianna and then to Bill.
Aligvok peered out from behind the muscled torso of Negstimeaboi. “Marcello is it? That’s the name you’re using today. I knew it was you as soon as I heard the name.”
Bill turned to the ringletted female figure. “What d’you mean? Do you know him?”
“Know him?” Aligvok cackled, his eyes wide. “You fool! Were you never taught Ancient Varman?”
“Oddly enough, no I wasn’t.”
“I am surrounded by imbeciles,” Aligvok muttered. “Marcello is an old Varman name that our friend here has taken on. Its literal meaning is ‘less than one’ and some take this to mean modesty, but not him - he was never modest. No, less than one has another name, doesn’t it?”
Brianna got there first. “Minus!”
Marcello chuckled. “Yes, indeed and, despite appearances, I suspect that this beautiful body,” he pointed at the sheltering figure with blonde curls, “hosts the spirit of the famous wizard Aligvok the Apoplectic, last seen begging for his life as the Staff of Minus drained his essence.”
Aligvok shrunk further into Negstimeaboi’s shadow, sobbing quietly.
Bill Strike wasn’t hero material, he knew this. It wasn’t that he lacked courage in a tough spot, or that he turned away from the hard, but right, choice when it had to be made. He wasn’t hero material because, yet again, he didn’t know what the bloody hell was going on.
“What?” he managed.
“Oh, it’s alright, my friend,” Marcello said, stepping into the room and putting his arm around Bill’s shoulder. “Yes, I am, in a manner of speaking, Minus the Great Subtractor, Arithmetician43 to Emperors and Numerologist General. At least, that is to say, the spirit inside this now rather worn body is that of Minus. For this lifetime, however, I am Marcello, and that is the name I would wish you to call me.”
“So you built this laboratory?”
Marcello’s brown face broke into its familiar smile. “Indeed, it is one of my finest achievements.”
“What’s with all the bodies, then?” Brianna said. Bill’s arachnid sense tingled, he had a feeling Brianna’s legendarily brittle tolerance for being in the dark on any topic was within a whisker of snapping entirely. He took a small step to the side, increasing the distance between himself and the impending eruption.
Marcello seemed puzzled by her question. Bill had the distinct impression that the wizard had plotted and measured every step of the way to this point. Except that he’d, presumably, considered Brianna a mere bit-part player, an instrument to help ensure that Bill arrived here safely, for whatever purpose. Marcello was likely to discover the error of his ways pretty imminently. If Brianna were an irritant, it was the sort of grit that led to the oyster having its shell slit open by a pearl hunter.
“Bodies? Oh, you mean hosts,” he said, pedantically, not noticing the increasing altitude of Brianna’s eyebrows. “Well, as I explained in that gaol cell in Varma when we first met, the staff is a stealer of souls. Here, in this laboratory, I keep a stock of hosts so that, where merited, these spirits can be reincorporated. And also as an insurance against unfortunate accidents. I see that my body bank is somewhat depleted, as is the orb’s energy.”
Brianna nodded, as if this explanation made perfect sense. Bill took another small step away. “So where did you get the bodies from?” she said.
Marcello paused for a moment, and then went to open his mouth when he seemed to stumble backwards and, with a cry, fell to his knees. Bently’s mishapen face appeared over his shoulder, a knife at his throat. “You will release my master now, or you will die,” he hissed.
#
Chortley was knackered. He’d run into the darkness, carrying a torch in one hand and his drawn sword in the other, but, so far, the owner of the voice seemed as far away as ever. The corridors now twisted left, then right, as if snaking their way through the roots of the mountain.
But now he’d been forced to stop at a barred doorway. The door was made of ancient wood, as hard as iron, with a hole at head height that opened into the darkness of the corridor on the other side. Every now and again, the desperate cry could be heard, echoing from hells knew how far away.
Chortley couldn’t understand his compulsion to find the owner of the voice. Perhaps it was that it was a task he could get to grips with, a clearly understandable job that could, hopefully, be completed successfully, whatever else might then befall them. Maybe it was something in that sad call. Whatever it was, the sound came from ahead of them and so it lay on their path. For now, so did the door, and it stared back at him as the rest of the company arrived.
Three levers protruded from the wall next to the door and above each a legend had been scratched into the brickwork. “What do you make of this, Clegg?” Chortley said, sensing the interested gaze of the most irritating member of the company.
Jonathan Clegg bent down and peered at the scratchings. “Well, this first one seems to contain some sort of script written in various langu
ages. Let me see - yes, one of the languages is Ancient Varman. Aperite Portum. That means Open the door.”
“Well done, Clegg,” Chortley said, and reached forward to grab the lever. He pulled it down, just as Mother Hemlock, who’d only just caught up, cried: “No!”
The floor slid open revealing a dark pit that, at first panicked glance, seemed to contain many pointy shapes. Chortley fell backwards with a cry and was grabbed by McGuff, but Clegg disappeared over the edge and fell silently, into the trap.
“You bloody idiot!” Mother Hemlock said, rounding on Chortley. “I told you, this maze is made to be easy for Minus’s servants to pass.”
Chortley’s face, which had turned white with the shock of his near-death experience, flushed with colour. “So? It was hardly a brain-teaser was it? This is obviously just a door that should only be opened from this side, and that’s the sign.”
“Trolls and goblins don’t read Ancient Varman, or any of the other languages written above those two levers,” Velicity said, and her obvious disappointment poured cold water on Chortley’s anger. She pointed at the third lever, above which was a childish representation of a severed head. “That’s the correct one, any troll would see that and pull it without even looking at the others.”
A voice echoed from the blackness beneath their feet. “I say!”
Chortley got onto his knees and carefully nudged his way to the edge of the pit. “You’re still alive then, Clegg. Despite your stupidity,” he said. Chortley Fitzmichael was not a man to dwell on his own misgivings, especially when they could be conveniently offloaded on someone else.
“By sheer good fortune, my lord, I missed the spikes, although I’m not entirely certain what I landed in.”
“Are you unharmed, then?” Chortley said, his voice echoing up and down the corridor.
“More or less.”
Chortley shook his head. “Pity,” he muttered, “I suppose we’d better try to rescue him then.”
Standing up, he addressed the company who stood, at a safe distance, looming in the glooming. “Does anyone have any idea? Or, even better, some rope?”
Chortley reflected that a large percentage of the cracked squad’s collective brainpower was now at the bottom of the pit, so he turned to the witches. “Do you two have any suggestions?”
Mother Hemlock shrugged. “Whatever you do, you’d better hurry,” she said, “I don’t s’pose that hole will stay open for long.”
“‘Scuse me, Mister.”
Chortley turned in time to see Maestro Minito’s nobbly head with its battered chef’s hat approach the hole. Ratbag hung back a little, straining against the kobold’s grip.
“What are you doing?” Chortley bellowed. Before he could move, however, Minito had shoved Ratbag to the edge and, despite her protests, had begun to lower her.
Mother Hemlock grabbed Chortley’s arm as he lunged towards the opening to the pit. “Leave it, lad. There’s no time!” She nodded at the floor beneath the still-closed door - it was starting to slide back.
Moments later, Clegg’s voice could be heard. “But she simply stinks. Ow!” Almost instantly, his head appeared at floor level.
Chortley pulled away from Mother Hemlock, knelt down and, with Minissun’s help, dragged Clegg up. “He says you’re to pull Ratbag up next,” Clegg wheezed.
“Hold my legs,” Chortley said, leaning over the edge of the rapidly shrinking pit. He could hear the grinding of rock on rock as gears, unused in centuries, strained against the friction. He felt weight on the backs of his shins and stretched further until a greasy hand grabbed his. Fighting the urge to let it go he shouted: “Pull me back up!”
The opening to the pit was shrinking faster and faster as the mechanism freed up. The gap was now no wider than a stride. “Minito!” Chortley called. “You bloody idiot!”
The sound of grinding on rock rose in intensity and was joined by a high pitched scraping. Then, just as the opening was approaching the point where it could be better considered a closing, Minito shot out like a cork from a bottle and fell onto the floor, which conveyed him a foot or so before thudding closed.
The kobold’s face was twisted into animalistic shapes, but Chortley couldn’t tell whether they were of rage, fear or simple exertion. Whatever was causing the expression, it chilled Chortley’s blood.
Then the curtain closed, and the placidly dull face of Maestro Minito reasserted itself. He looked up at Chortley, smiled and held up his hands as he retracted his talons.
“I keeps ‘em super-sharp, boss. And not just for cooking.”
“Nicely done, lad,” Mother Hemlock said.
“Indeed,” said Chortley, snapping out of whatever dimension of hell his imagination was currently wandering. He stepped forward and, gathering his courage, held his hand out to the kobold. He tried not to shudder as Minito grabbed it and pulled himself to his feet.
Chapter 21
Marcello, great wizard of Varma and Arithmancer to Emperors, stood, a knife at his throat, and looked for help from an audience that, at this point, had all the dynamism of a line dancing club for statues.
It wasn’t just that there seemed little they could do, given the proximity of the knife point to the wizard’s jugular, but, Bill thought, whether they would help if they could. Marcello had proven himself to be, at the very least, an arrogant, manipulative bastard and he hadn’t yet revealed his true purpose in plotting to bring them all together here. On the other hand, by releasing Bently’s master they would be exactly doubling the number of arrogant, manipulative bastards in the room and that couldn’t be considered a good thing under any circumstances.
“Release my master, now!” Bently hissed.
If it were possible, Bill could have sworn that the wizard’s brown skin paled a little.
“I can’t,” Marcello managed, “the orb is almost entirely drained of its power.”
There was a stirring from behind Negstimeaboi, who was watching the drama with nothing more than mild interest. Beside her stood Ambler, whose attention was entirely on his chisel-chinned Amazon.
“He’s right. These oafs have used up too much energy,” Aligvok said.
Ambler stepped back and, with obvious relish, kicked Aligvok’s pert backside so that he sprawled on the floor in front of the orb, his blonde ringlets obscuring his fury.
The knife milimetered into Marcello’s throat, nicking the skin. “You lie!” Bently screamed, the exhaustion, pain and sheer alienness of this world finally chipping away the last fragments of his sanity.
Marcello winced and, when he spoke, the words tumbled out of his mouth in panic. “I can’t do it, but he can!”
Everyone turned to look at Bill.
“What are you talking about?”
“The orb is powered by the energy of dissipated souls within the staff. That energy has now been used up,” Marcello said. “When souls disincorporate, they become a form of elemental energy, the fifth element, and the orb is powered by such energy. He is an elemental, he can recharge it.”
Brianna moved to stand between Bently and Bill. “And at what cost to him?” she asked.
Bill raised his eyebrows. He’d been feverishly processing this news, trying to find a way out of releasing the Faerie King. But Brianna was right, there was bound to be a cost, energy didn’t come out of nowhere. When he’d first used his fire magic, that power had come from within himself, leaving him exhausted but, as he’d developed his skill, through trial and error, he’d discovered that he could draw heat from his surroundings and channel it. It wasn’t easy, and it only worked if the heat was there in the first place, but it had made his power far more useful.
Marcello nodded. “There is always a cost,” he said, “but we need only enough energy to release one soul, so only one life will be required. Yours, to be precise.”
Bill stepped back in shock and felt Brianna’s arms around him.
“Which is very convenient,” continued Marcello as Bently’s knife was withdrawn from
his throat, “because the king will also need a host body, and he’ll be able to move into the one you’ve just lately vacated.”
“Why should he do it?” Brianna demanded. “Who’s going to make him?”
Bently and Marcello advanced towards Bill and he felt a warm breath in his ear. “Oh I rather think I am,” said the sweet voice as a sharp point dug into his back.
#
Maestro Minito had been given the dubious honour of pulling the third lever. Chortley had ordered the rest of the company to hang back to beyond where the pit had lay, but the door had opened with no more fuss than could be expected of hinges that hadn’t moved in decades. When the screeching echo had died down, he patted Minito on his knobbly44 shoulder. “Well done, Maestro,” he said, “that was quick thinking and even quicker action.”
“Thank you, mister,” Minito replied, his black eyes flashing as he glanced up, “I figured if we needed stupidity to get through the maze, we likely need brains to get back out again.”
Chortley nodded. “Indeed,” he said, choosing, on this occasion, not to take offence at the implication - that could wait till later.
McGuff appeared at Chortley’s shoulder and handed him a torch. Fitzmichael waved it into the darkness but, in the fluctuating light, saw nothing more than brickwork, stone and damp - exactly as on this side. Although, come to think of it…
“Does it seem colder, wetter, to you, sergeant?” he said.
McGuff sniffed the air. “Yessir. But p’raps we’re near the roots of the mountain now, sir. Maybe there’s a underground river nearby.”
Chortley turned to see Mother Hemlock peering into the darkness.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I ain’t sayin’ nothing, not till I’m sure. Maybe we’re not goin’ to have to go much further.”
“What do you mean?” Chortley was in no mood for cryptic answers.
“I said, I ain’t sayin’ nothing…”
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