Shadow Blizzard

by Alexey Pehov

  Shimmering walls and ceilings of black silver, the beauty of the faded autumn in the gestures and poses of every statue. A faint, barely audible hmmmm—the song of halls that guard the peace of the dead. Not even the faintest breath of wind, no drafts, and no sounds apart from the song of the halls, not a single whisper, not a single ray of light. Whatever magic once lit up these places, it died when the elves and the orcs left Hrad Spein.

  I kept on going, deeper and deeper under the ground. I didn’t even want to think about how many leagues of stone there were above my head. Who could have created all this frozen beauty at depths so incomprehensible to the mind of man? What miraculous means could they have used? And this was only the fourth level, there were forty-eight of them, plus those that had no names, where even the ogres never ventured when their race was at the height of its power. Whoever created Hrad Spein at the dawn of time must have been equal to the gods, or superior to them.

  The gloom slumbered, the dead slept their eternal sleep in the niches of the ancient tombs, and I was the only one who knew no rest. No longer paying attention to the beauty of the underground Palaces, I tramped on and on, and every second, every step brought me closer to my goal, my Commission—the Rainbow Horn.

  * * *

  It was the second day of my journey across the fourth level and my seventh day in Hrad Spein. A week had gone by, and I was amazed that I hadn’t been driven crazy by the oppressive sense of loneliness.

  A week. A whole week, spent Sagot only knew where. But I was halfway through the journey, with only four levels left.

  Ha! Only! I still hadn’t got to the places mentioned in the verse guide. A week had flashed past like a confused nightmare that I could hardly even remember. There wasn’t much chance that I would get back on time now, and it would be just like Milord Alistan to come down here himself.

  I had about half of my original supply of biscuits and lights left, and I was beginning to feel a bit concerned that soon I’d have to ration myself more strictly, tighten my belt and learn to walk in total darkness. And what’s more, there was no water in this part of the level and I had to be brutally economical with the small amount still splashing about in the bottom of my flask. My face was itching desperately, too—the effect of a week’s worth of unshaven stubble.

  I should have reached the stairway to the fifth level a long time ago, but there was no sign of it. I was starting to worry that I must have turned into the wrong hall by mistake and got lost.

  The map was almost no help to me. I could tell where the way out was, but there was no way I could tell exactly where I was myself. All the halls in this sector were the same—indigo and ochre walls, mother-of-pearl columns, and turquoise floors (a diabolical combination for the eyes).

  I was looking for just one hall. One with an entrance to a long, absolutely straight gallery that ought to lead me to the stairway I needed. But I had been searching for more than three hours, and still had not found it.

  Then I had a sudden stroke of luck (if you can really call it luck).

  This place wasn’t like all the ones before it. A small room with a closed iron door in the far wall and a narrow little manhole in the floor, covered with a steel grille. I walked up to the door, wondering feverishly why anyone would have wanted to put up a barrier here, especially since I hadn’t exactly seen a lot of doors in Hrad Spein. Realizing that I must have missed a turn somewhere, I turned to walk out of the room, but halfway across it I got a very big surprise. The wall closed up, as if it were alive, blocking off the way out and locking me in.

  “I don’t get it,” I told the darkness rather stupidly.

  The answer was a rumble from the ceiling. I hastily told the light to shine at full brightness and uttered a phrase that was rather offensive to the ears of the gods.

  The ceiling was moving toward me, threatening to skewer Harold on two-yard-long spikes that would have been the envy of every hedgehog in Siala.

  When I recovered from my stupor, I ran to the iron door and hastily inspected it again. A keyhole.… There it is! My hands were shaking a little as the ceiling slowly and implacably moved lower.

  The lock pick slid into the keyhole and broke off with an apologetic ping. I gaped stupidly at the stub left in my hand. Would you believe it! I flung it aside in a fury, struck the door hard with my shoulder, and hissed in pain. There was no way it was ever going to shift!

  My eye fell on the manhole in the floor. I grabbed the grille with both hands and pulled with all my might, straining so hard I almost snapped in half. But, as I ought to have expected, the grille didn’t budge an inch.

  I had to do something, and quick! The unknown builders who had built this manhole for some strange reason had given me a chance to avoid being killed, and I didn’t intend to waste it.

  I scooped a handful of vials out of my bag, chose one that had a skull in flames drawn on it, and put the others back. I flung the magical vial at the grille and the glass clinked as it broke. I darted off to a safe distance—as far as I could get.

  A bright flash of flame!

  I crawled to the manhole on all fours, praying to Sagot that everything had worked properly. The spikes on the ceiling were almost scraping my back. The grille covering the manhole in the floor had disappeared. I dived into the hole, without even thinking about the consequences. I fell for a second, hit a stone floor, and hissed at the pain.

  A grating sound from somewhere up above told me that the ceiling spikes had made contact with the floor. The light flared up to its previous brightness in a gesture of farewell, and died.

  Magnificent! The space I’d fallen into was so narrow, I had to perform miracles of agility just to reach the bag at my waist. I hooked a new magical lamp out of one of the pockets with two fingers, squeezed my eyes shut, lit it, waited for a few seconds, and then started inspecting my new refuge.

  A small square room with a narrow stone tunnel leading out of it.

  Twisting myself into an impossible position, I looked up. There was the square manhole I had come through, and the ceiling, grinning at me with its spikes. I twisted myself even farther out of shape, almost lying down, and shone the light into the stone tunnel. I could only see five yards; after that it was pitch black.

  Of course, I could have just died there, like a rat in a trap, but somehow I didn’t really want to depart for the light so soon. So I would have to crawl through the narrow passage and just hope it didn’t narrow all the way down to the eye of a needle. Sagra be praised, it didn’t, and eventually I could see the end of the tunnel.

  The hole leading out into the hall was no more than two yards above the floor. First all the things I had been pushing along went flying down, and then I followed. I had to twist pretty sharply to land on my feet instead of my head, but I managed this little task successfully and found myself standing in a brightly lit space.

  There was no time for looking around, and I quickly gathered up my things that were lying on the floor. I put one bag over my shoulder, the other on my belt, set the knife on my thigh and pulled the straps tight, slung the crossbow behind my shoulder. That seemed to be everything. Now I could take a look at the place, since this was the first time on this level that I’d come across a hall that was brightly lit.

  The architecture was rather inelegant for elves or orcs—too coarse, simple, and plain. There was a large stone head of one of those half bird, half bears on each wall. As usual, the faces in these sculptures were hostile and the eyes blazed brightly in the light of the magical lamps—lamps that were like my own little lights, but much larger.

  The blazing eyes caught my attention. Caught it and held it. In the first head they were green; in the second, fiery red; in the third, intense yellow; and in the fourth, the deep color of the sky just before a thunderstorm. The palms of my hands immediately started sweating, because those eyes were actually precious stones, and each one was just a little bit smaller than my fist.

  If I could collect all those stones, I’d never ha
ve to work again. They’d make me rich for a hundred years, and the price of the Commission—the fifty thousand that Stalkon had promised me if I dragged back the Rainbow Horn for him—would seem laughable. Why, the dwarves would sell me half their mountains for a single stone like that!

  This time I didn’t hesitate. I took out my knife and went over to the nearest face, the one with green eyes. I stuck the knife between the gem and the ordinary stone and started using it like a lever, working the gigantic emerald loose.

  The green jewel yielded with surprising ease and I caught it in my hand. Then a torrent of green cascaded out of the empty eye socket onto the floor. I even forgot to open my mouth. In ten seconds an entire fortune in small emeralds (small, that is, after the emerald eye) spilled out.

  They scattered across the smooth floor like grains of millet, sparkling bright green in the light of the lamps. I stuck the large eye-emerald in my bag and started gathering up its smaller brothers with trembling hands, obsessed with the feverish thought that once I emptied all the treasure out of the eye sockets, I’d be far richer than any king.

  There was a stairway that started beside the head with the yellow eyes and led straight up to the ceiling, where there was a hatch. That was my way out.

  I was distracted from gathering up the emeralds by a shadow that appeared from behind my back. From my hands and knees I flung myself sideways in a most inelegant manner, and a yataghan came down hard on the spot where I had just been, clanging loudly against the marble floor.

  When I swung round and saw the creature that had almost killed me, I was stupefied. Standing there just three yards away from me was a skeleton. Not a human skeleton—the bones were too broad and heavy. Most likely it was an orc’s; at least the fangs were the right size.

  A yataghan in its right hand, a small round shield in its left, and eye sockets filled with myriads of crimson sparks—the sign of reawakened magic. Darkness only knows how its bones held together, but the creature threw itself at me.

  I’d never have thought that skeletons were so nimble. This lad was just as fast as I was, and his yataghan turned into a blur of steel. He almost drove me into a corner but, fortunately for me, the stairway was close by and I started scrambling up it as fast as I could. I forgot all about the precious stones—now I had to save my own skin. When I’d covered a quarter of the eleven yards that separated the ceiling from the floor, I felt the stairs shudder.

  After a quick glance down, I started moving my arms and legs twice as fast. The skeleton wasn’t planning on stopping halfway. Throwing the shield away and grasping the yataghan in its teeth (what a sight that was!), the dead orc came scrambling nimbly up after me. I must say, he climbed a lot better than I did, and he caught up with me at a height of about nine yards.

  There was nothing else for it; I had to take desperate measures. I grabbed hold of the banister rail with both hands, waited until there was almost no distance at all between my enemy and me, then slammed both boots into the yellow skull with all my might.

  My enemy went crashing down onto the floor and was smashed to smithereens.

  I didn’t really feel like going back down again. What if there was another surprise waiting for me? For always used to tell me to be content with a little and never make money more important than my own life. As usual, the old thief and priest of Sagot was right. I’d better follow his advice and be happy with what I already had in my bag.

  A minute later I was back in the familiar purple and silver halls of the fourth level and I had to use another light. I looked round to see where I was, and chuckled. Whatever happens is always for the best. The gallery leading to the stairway down to the fifth level started from the hall that I was in.

  I certainly hadn’t been hoping that somehow, completely out of the blue, I would end up in the Halls of the Slumbering Whisper, which turned out not to be halls at all, but the gallery that led to the fifth level. Naturally, no one had warned me where I was, and there were no indications at all on the maps.

  The gallery was lined completely with black marble with white flecks. Marble floor, marble walls, marble columns on the right of the balcony. I walked up to the edge and looked down. There was only just enough light for me to see the floor of the hall down below.

  I thought I heard something.…

  Sh-sh-sh-sh …

  I stopped and listened. Yes, my ears hadn’t deceived me, there was definitely a hissing sound. I looked around, but couldn’t see the source of the sound anywhere nearby. It seemed to be coming from inside my own head. I marked the unexpected sound down to an overactive imagination, stopped thinking about it, and carried on.

  About a hundred paces farther on I thought I could hear vague, indistinguishable words starting to take shape through the hissing, but no matter how hard I strained my ears, I couldn’t make out what they meant.

  I found the dead man about twenty paces later. All that was left of him was a heap of bones. Ah, but wait, men don’t have fangs growing out of their lower jaws. Like the skeleton that had almost chopped me into stewing steak, this was either an elf or an orc, but I could thank my lucky stars that this skeleton wasn’t going to attack me.

  By this point the hissing had changed to a totally incomprehensible muttering, as if the speaker had stuffed his mouth full of hot porridge. Twenty yards farther on there was another corpse waiting for me, and in the next five minutes I counted twenty-six skeletons. But there was no way of telling what they had died of or how they had gotten there.

  The muttering was hammering away insistently at the door of my mind now, as if some bastard had stuffed an entire hive of angry bees who could talk into my head. I could only pick out occasional words from the ragged droning—“blood,” “die,” “brain,” and the like.

  Well, let’s just say the words I heard weren’t exactly the kind that would cheer my heart. I could feel the muttering in my head, and the corpses that kept turning up with increasing regularity set my nerves on edge, so I started singing a simple little tune to crowd out the voices, but it didn’t really do much good.

  The next corpse was a great surprise. This was no heap of old bones, but a perfectly fresh body. I would have wagered my soul that only a few hours earlier this lad was still alive and well, and not planning to die.

  I’d seen him at Mole Castle with Balistan Pargaid—from which I could draw the conclusion that Lafresa and her companions had already walked through the gallery and gained a few hours on me. What a cunning bitch!

  But at least things were a bit clearer with this corpse. Even a thick-witted Doralissian could tell what the lad had died of. He’d stuck a yard of iron into his own chest a few times—in other words, he’d committed suicide. His hand was still clutching the handle of the dagger sticking out of his chest.

  The muttering was pulsing in my head like a dull ache now. I frowned and ground my teeth, but I couldn’t understand just what foul plague could have affected me like this.

  Five steps farther on the whisper suddenly broke into a howling chorus of triumph in my head, making me drop to my knees and squeeze my head in my hands. I was swamped by a wave of universal revulsion and horror.

  I didn’t just hear words. There was everything here—visions of unbelievable horror, the smell of decomposing corpses, the taste of death-worms on my tongue, the sensation of rummaging through a corpse’s belly. The voices were insistent, calling me to them, chanting a song that set me howling in horror and excruciating pain. My senses were completely confused, but absolutely everything was clamoring for and craving my death, urging me to take out my knife and thrust it into my throat.

  The song rumbled on, massaging my mind insistently with its soft, slippery fingers. Every word, every chord of the voices brought new horrors that crept into my ears, blinded my eyes, smothered my tongue.…

  That was when I realized that I’d found my way into the Halls of the Slumbering Whisper, but there was nothing I could do about it now. The voices were stronger than me, and I was slowl
y, inexorably going out of my mind. I wanted to take a few steps and throw myself off the edge of the balcony, or beat my brains out against the wall, or turn my knife on myself.

  I had to do something, anything, to stop THIS! Against the will of my faintly glimmering mind, my hand reached out to the handle of my knife. As Sagot is my witness, I tried to fight it, but the struggle was like trying to smash a massive boulder with a twig. The voices INSISTED that I had to die, and it was impossible not to submit.

  Just as he did in Hargan’s Wasteland, Valder spoke in a barely audible whisper:

  “I’ll help!”

  The voices howled in unison with the irresistible torrent of the song and retreated to the very boundaries of hearing. My hand obeyed my will once again.

  “Quick, Harold, I can only give you a minute! At this moment that’s as much as I can do!” said the dead archmagician.

  I jumped to my feet and dashed back toward the place where the voices still had no power over me. My hands were shaking, but I managed to fish the cotton earplugs out of my bag and stick them into my ears. The muttering came closer again, so that I could almost make out the words. It took me another ten precious seconds to take out the vial with the liquid that neutralized any hostile magic for a couple of minutes. I tore the seal open with my teeth and poured the contents into my mouth. The bitter taste flooded over my tongue and my stomach protested and shuddered, almost turning me inside out. I had to make an effort to hold the foul muck down.

  “That’s it, I can’t do any more!” Valder declared, and the dam he had created burst and collapsed.

  The voices came back, but now they were just voices, mouthing abominations without any visions to support them. The bitter liquid was working—but for how long? Casting aside all doubt and hesitation, I rushed forward, hoping to get through the gallery before the defensive magic weakened enough for the whispering voices to take control again.

  “Kill yourself! Go to the darkness! Die! Die! Die! Blood! Kill!” the voices whispered in powerless fury. “Stop! Wait! Die, it’s so easy!”