by Galen Wolf
"Whoa gaaz thea?" enquired the guard.
Despite fond remembrances, Zventibold wasted not a minute in lobbing one of his wickedly curved dissecting knives at the man's throat (he had kept them in his cotton underpants for such a time of need as this). In fact, those knives carried memories of better days for Zventibold as they had been a gift from Mavis during the first flowering of their love. Zventibold's tears flowed freely as the knife embedded itself in the guard's throat. As the blood erupted from the man's mouth, Zventibold thought he heard the guard utter a word. It sounded like 'boggle' but Zventibold could not be sure.
"Shot!" said William and clapped quietly. Turgid merely looked baffled. Then the three avengers walked over to the corpse. William had much experience with cadavers and his expert's eye told him that the man was dead. He knew this by quickly calculating how much blood pooled around the guard's body. There were at least seven pints, thus the man must be dead.
Zventibold had been mightily puzzled by the guard's last word. So there he stood debating with himself in that dark, rocky passage. 'Boggle' made little sense to him so he searched for alternatives. Could it be 'woggle'? A woggle was what the nomads of the Eastern Plains used to keep their tents together, if he recalled correctly. It made more sense to him than 'boggle' at least - which was something you kept up your nose. It was as his mind re-focused itself on the task ahead, that Zventibold discovered the oaken door the man had been guarding. He was greatly heartened, for logic told the dwarf sorcerer that this door led to the infamous Tyros Blut. As he explained later to Turgid over tea - why post a guard at a door that has no importance? Turgid suggested maybe they kept apples down there, which were bound to be valuable underground on account of the vitamins they contained, but Zventibold poo-pooed him. No, this was Blut's door.
And so he opened it. As he started into the almost tangible blackness beyond, Zventibold again thought of the guard's word and its possible import. "Yes," he told himself. "Yes - it must have been woggle. What else can it have been?"
In thinking this he made what was possibly the greatest mistake of his entire career.
Turning to Turgid, he said quietly, "Light a finger."
Turgid did so and by the light of the boy sorcerer's index finger they made their way into the dark, inky blackness. Even William, usually the most sensible and level-headed of men, felt some unknown, unseen threat chill his old bones and he drew Deathbringer (which he had put away to stop it knocking). The sabre glowed faintly in the dark and for the first time, William heard it softly murmuring to itself. Turgid also heard it and it seemed to disquiet him. The sword was having a conversation with itself about death and despair, or so it seemed to the wary listeners.
The slimy passage here was of much better quality than the one they had but recently been walking down. It was roofed and floored with cut stone and by the light of Turgid's finger they could see mouldering, yellowish heaps of what looked to be dung of some sort.
"What be that dung?" quizzed a curious William.
Zventibold was greatly troubled by the unexpected appearance of these heaps and he admitted, in a worried voice, that he did not know.
They walked for what seemed an eternity down the tunnel and, around them, the darkness swirled and mocked. All the time Deathbringer chattered to itself - it too seemed worried. Zventibold hoped they would come to the end of the tunnel before long. Every step seemed to be inexplicably wearying and Turgid complained that his finger was sore. A slow panic slithered up their spines and slowly and tightly constricted their minds. They began to walk faster and faster. It was Turgid who broke the grip of the psychosis-inducing darkness. "My finger really hurts now," he said in a petty voice. "Can you light the way now Zventibold - can you but?"
Zventibold answered in a voice that was far from being steady, "All right."
Turgid put his finger out. And there in the darkness fear crawled from the depths of Zventibold's stomach and lay curling and ice-cold in his heart. He made to light his finger, but before he could do so, William whispered in a shaking voice.
"There be somethin' 'orrible down there behind us.
"Can I go now though Zventibold?| asked Turgid in a pathetic voice, reminding them all of the position he had held for centuries as a village idiot.
Zventibold ignored Turgid's question, suspecting that some foul sorcery in the tunnel was making him prey to the spell that had chained him for so long. Instead, he turned to William. "Art sure?"
"I be sure as a nut, mas'er Zventibold. I be sure as the town cat."
Zventibold, although shivering in the preternatural cold that swept out from the tunnel, drew his dagger from its well oiled sheath in his underpants. He had been practising with the blade in the darkness only minutes before and was eager to show off in front of his manservant. "All right, William," he said. "We'll have to search for some way out of this foul lair."
"I thought that's what we were doing anyway?" volunteered Turgid, but Zventibold quieted him.
"Hush lad," he snapped. His switched his finger on and there was light.
Zventibold led the way now. They walked so fast that they broke into a jog, and even a slow run. All of them were throwing nervous glances into the almost palpable darkness that sucked and whirled outside the island of illumination cast by Zventibold's finger. It was Turgid who found the end of the tunnel by running into it. The passage ended in a hugeness - an anonymity of impenetrable rock.
"Oh, Harold save us!" wailed Turgid through broken teeth - asking the help of his favourite God - Hector's son-in-law up in heaven.
"Aiii!" groaned Zventibold. "There is no way out."
Of all of them, William Fitzshogun, ex soldier and lover of life, felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. He turned to face his nameless enemy and Deathbringer sang its joy.
"There be somethin' out there, sure as a nut," said William. "It be 'idin' in the darkness! It be comin' for us!"
Zventibold's hand itched as he grasped the sweaty hilt of his dagger. Nervously, Turgid played with himself - a childhood habit he had never grown out of. "Oh Harold save us!" he whimpered, falling on his knees.
"Get up man!" snapped Zventibold. "Have you no spells that could aid us?"
Turgid was in despair. "I only know Tree Disguise and one with playing cards."
"Listen!" said Zventibold. A heavy lumbering sound moved towards them.
"I'm going to have to put out this light so I can prepare a spell." Zventibold quickly extinguished his finger by spitting on it. The dark took them to its screaming bosom and in the thick gloom, they heard the lumbering thing draw closer. Then when it seemed as close as it could be, they heard its rasping breath. It scented them and then it began to make a sound as if it was repeating one word over and over again. This insane chant rived their minds; it seemed to say 'boggle, boggle, boggle, boggle' again and again. Insanity's fingers poked into the gates of their minds. Deathbringer cackled and William coughed dryly. Then it was there, close enough to touch - so huge - blocking the passage. The panic in their heads screamed at them that they were going to die, but these were not such men as would accept death without a struggle.
Two jets of pure energy spurted from Zventibold's hands and struck the creature. A smell of burnt slime rose from the beast but William did not pause for a moment and wielding the sword, Deathbringer, he leapt at the Boggle, chanting a Pirakteshi battle hymn - "Wora-worra, wora-worra, worra-ey!" he went, fearlessly slashing at the beast.
Zventibold attempted a Lightning Surprise to follow up the Double Death Ray Blaster that he had begun with, but he was not fully recharged. Seeing his trusty manservant in danger, he leapt to the attack, covered by Turgid who threw handfuls of loose pebbles he had scooped from the floor.
It seemed that their assault must surely fail as they smashed and kicked at the Boggle creature. But then the unhoped for happened: the Boggle began to reel before their onslaught. With the last of his strength, William forced the tip of Deathbringer into the Boggle
's soft stomach. The sword muttered something about 'going on holiday' and disappeared into its gut. It was at that moment, the Boggle ran away, interrupting Deathbringer's journey among some of the lesser known organs. William wiped the black bile from the blade and scratched at the loose flap of wrinkly skin that obscured his armpit. He breathed heavily and said, "I thought we'd 'ad our biscuits there, Mas'er Zventibold - if you take my meanin'."
Turgid had disappeared. They both looked round but everything was as it had been before the Boggle attack, except there was a beautiful Silver Birch growing in the passage.
"Where's he gone William?" asked Zventibold.
William shook his head. "There's no accountin' for folk," he said sagely.
At that moment Turgid appeared. "I was a tree," he said. "It's my spell. You know - the tree disguise one."
"Never mind about that," said Zventibold. "We need to find our way to Tyros Blut."
"While I was a tree," said Turgid, "I had time to look around. And I found a low doorway."
It was true. Turgid had found a low doorway in the side of the tunnel. Breathing heavily, Zventibold and William followed him into a brightly lit cavern. Torches along the wall provided the light and also hanging there were some rather threadbare tapestries. Tables and chairs filled the cavern - some overturned - some covered with scraps of food.
"This place be still in'abited," said William. "But I baint see no one 'ere now." He turned and looked all around him to check if he was telling the truth. When he was satisfied he said, "No, it be empty o' life."
"I wish I could be so sure," said Zventibold, musing to himself as he scratched his chin slowly.
Then Turgid spoke, "Look, there's a door at the other end; should we approach it, do you think?" No one answered him and then he spoke again. This time his concern was for the general untidiness of the dining hall - for that is what he took it to be. "Do think this evil man Tyros Blut lives alone? For if he does, he is very messy."
"It would seem not, Turgid, for this place has the appearance of a hall set for the feeding of many acolytes."
William spoke now. "This be the guards' quarters. I can tell that by the heaps of droppin's that lie scattered on the floor."
Zventibold was puzzled by this but he bowed to William's superior knowledge of military matters.
"If that is the case, William, then we are in grave danger." It was then that Zventibold's eyes first saw the droppings that William had alluded to. Beside the tables they lay - monstrous piles of dung. Some were yellow; some were brown, some black, some orange and some contained worms. "Well I certainly wouldn't employ guards that weren't housetrained, and that's a fact."
William walked up to one of the piles and kicked it. It was horribly squidgy and it smeared all over. When he made to wipe his boot on the tablecloth, he noticed that some of the bones scattered here and there were recognisably human.
"There be nothin' as queer as folk," he said, holding his nose against the vile smell that had arisen from the disturbed dung and walking over to where Turgid and Zventibold stood by the far door.
As they faced its weathered oak panel, standing there resolute but undecided how to proceed, the door opened as if of its own accord. There revealed behind it was a mouth of huge proportions, overgrown with hair and possessed of vile and rotting teeth. It had legs and arms and was dressed in full plate armour. Its ragged, foetid breath was insufferable and the gallant trio were forced to fall back. The mouth-man seemed to smile and the lads were paralysed with fear. The mouth's huge, knobbly tongue - fat and greasy like a slug - moved to lick its lips. The two arms on either side of the orifice lifted the clubs they carried and the mouth moved towards them. They started to run away but as they turned, their horror was trebled, or perhaps quadrupled, as they saw that behind them somehow, creatures of the same kind as the mouth-man were coming down the hall. One of them - the closest - was a long armoured tongue, like a foul, be-bumped centipede on burly arms. Behind it, were two fish men with tridents and a crab man with only his clicking pincers. It seemed like this was Tyros Blut's foul idea of a seafood surprise. It was a nightmare; how could they fight such horrors as these?
"Turgid," shouted the desperate mage Zventibold, "pick up a weapon." He pointed to a rusty knife that lay near them on a table.
Turgid smiled and waved his butter knife. "I've already got one!" he said.
William buttoned up his jacket and prepared for a fight. Zventibold seemed to have become more talkative and outgoing the further they travelled from Piraktesh - it seemed that his boyhood passion for death and decay had left him. "No!" he shouted. "I will not die! I have much to do. My love lies waiting for me in Piraktesh. I have to avenge my dead father, and I wouldn't mind a crack at bringing honour, truth and justice to the thrice accursed realm of Piraktesh neither."
The other mouth-men had come through the doorway now - each as hideous to behold as their fellows. They gibbered threatening inanities, but still they did not attack. It seemed that they were waiting for a signal from a higher authority.
William stood, Deathbringer unsheathed and muttering - it seemed he had a headache. This of course was impossible as the sword did not have a head. William would have told him so but he was otherwise occupied in being perturbed.
"'Ow can we fight them, mas'er Zventibold? There be but two men 'ere." This was an obvious dig at Turgid who was shivering considerably and sprouting the odd leaf. He had also started to cover himself from head to foot in dung. Seeing this William found himself wondering at the cunning of the fellow. He had not spent three thousand years as a village idiot for nothing. It was obvious that Turgid hoped by smearing himself with the unpalatable faeces he would discourage the hungry beasts.
"Why don't they attack, mas'er?" asked William. But Zventibold had gone to stand by himself in a corner and waschanting strange kabalas over a pile of discarded bones in the wall recess.
William swung Deathbringer around his head. The sight of the magical sword seemed to strike terror into the hearts of the assembled creatures. They fell back about three Pirakteshi krells. Battle lust began to fill William's frail, arthritic form. His liver spots glowed with righteous anger. Not for the first time, he wished Jeremiah Foolscap were by his side. But he sang, "Wara-worra, wara-ey!" and danced a Pirakteshi war jig.
Suddenly great peals of laughter rolled through the cavern as a deep and evil voice spoke, "You think that one frail old man, a deformed, hunch-backed mage, and a dung covered boy can defeat the mighty sorceries of Tyros Blut - god-emperor of the known world in waiting?"
He laughed again and its sound drowned out William's fanatical chanting but it could not make him put even a foot wrong as he danced his frenzied jig. Even Zventibold's chantings were inaudible, but above all the laughter, the plaintive cries of Turgid for his mother could still be heard, though unfortunately not by her as she had died early in the Sung Dynasty.
"Ha, ha, ha!" went the evil laughter.
"Wara-worra, wara-worra-ey!" went William.
"Shrogsi-flica'ac'h-schmoo-zlik!" went Zventibold over the bones.
"Mammy! Mammy! Mammy!" wailed Turgid from within a paste of dung and worms.
"Get them!" shouted Blut and the creatures of hell's kitchen charged.
William halted the first ones in a wave of blood. His blade lopped off lips, moustache hairs thick as forearms, plaque, fish scales, and clanged uselessly off the enamel of the yellowish teeth. He swung again and sent the second wave of fish men and mouth men reeling back over their dead. Truly he was a haunted warrior. Then the unforeseeable happened -William swung his sword at a large and particularly decayed mouth man. As the full strength of the sword, powered by his ropey arms, struck its teeth, the blade lodged in a patch of black rottenness. It slowed him for an instant. But that instant was all the mouth man needed. William staggered, then they were all upon him. It would have been William's last second on earth in his role as warrior doorman had not Turgid come to his aid. Yea - even Turgid, small and pa
thetic as he was, had found courage. From where? Who can tell? Perhaps it had been in the dung. Whatever its origin, Turgid leapt and with his butter knife clenched in his teeth, he wrestled William's assailant. The huge tongue wrapped around him - threatening to snuff out his life and stuff him between the putrid teeth and past the epiglottis into the slimy red tunnel of eternal night that was its oesophagus. Turgid, took the knife from between his teeth at last, and hacked and hacked at the tongue until the erupting blood acted as a lubricant and allowed him to slip to freedom. The mouth's flailing slackened until it finally fell dead. Turgid looked down and saw that his boots had been completely eaten away by the mouth-man's saliva. It was lucky he was wearing his ironweave socks, he mused.
William had recovered his balance but was hard-pressed still. Deathbringer's song of entropic destruction rang out in its exultation. A spear whistled past William's leg. If his muscles had been any bigger, its poisoned tip must surely have caught him and wreaked a horrible destruction. The thought that it was fortunate that he'd never taken up bodybuilding flashed through William's mind but then it was gone. Unfortunately, the very instant his mind had been occupied with bodybuilding a crab man's pincers had been approaching his neck. Turgid saw William was in terrible danger and knew that he would not hear him above the clamour of the battle. He did the only thing he could do in the circumstances and leapt at the crab man. The pincers closed with a sickening crunch around Turgid's neck and his head rolled, gargling wildly on the floor. This startled William and, turning, he disposed of the feeding crab man with one thrust of his mighty weapon. There were tears in his eyes as he did so.