War of the Posers

by Eric Ugland

  “Sure,” I said.

  He walked off.

  I watched him go, but as soon as I took my eyes off him, I couldn’t find him again.

  The weather was turning. The sunshine of the morning had been blotted out by gray clouds, and wind whipped down from the mountains.

  I really hoped it wouldn’t rain. I hated climbing around rooftops in the rain.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  No such luck.

  The sky opened up and delivered a practically biblical deluge. Lightning shot through the sky, and thunder rolled so loudly I could feel it. As I made my way back to Urchadan Square, it felt like I was swimming. Practically no one else was out in the streets, although there were plenty of people looking out their windows. I was more than a little jealous, seeing bright warm fires on the other side of the glass while I got soaked to the bone, shivering more than a little in what had to be freezing rain.

  Unfortunately, I had a job to do. Once in the square, I did a quick once-over of the well. No one was waiting there for me, so, up I went.

  I trudged through a few alleys until I found a wall with good handholds and no lit windows. It was an easy enough climb, zipping up the wall until I got to the roof. Then I pulled myself up onto the slick shingles.

  Nothing unusual there. Just a roof.

  So I jumped to the next roof.

  Nothing.

  It went on like this as I made my way around the square. These were just roofs. Most had nothing on them, and no way to access them from anywhere below. There were three that had something like a roof-deck, but there was nothing anywhere along the square that could even be remotely construed as a hiding spot. Just roof after roof of boring construction, and everything normal.

  I stopped where I’d started, and sat down on the edge to look into the square. Maybe I’d see something to give me a clue as to where the damn The Fayden was. And who called themselves ‘the’ anything? Ridiculous. I wanted to throw fireballs into the air just to let go of some of my pent-up frustration. I didn’t, but I really wanted to...

  In that fugue state, while I was staring down into the well, I saw just a hint of a glow. It probably wouldn’t have been noticeable on any normal day, but with the storm and the time of day, there was the perfect blend of reflective capability and darkness.

  Far faster than I should have, I climbed down to street level, dropping the last twenty or so feet. I scrambled out of the alley, only slowing in the street to look a little more like I wasn’t running like a fool. I looked down into the well, and sure enough, I could see a faint light coming from down below. It was next to impossible to discern how far down, but it was a ways. And I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out what might have been making the light.

  Still, it was a clue.

  Was it a good clue?

  No. It was pretty terrible. Was I really going to swim down to the bottom of the well on the off chance that it was the hiding place of The Fayden?

  Seemed like it. The light was definitely coming from under the water, and the surface of the water was a solid twenty or thirty feet down the well. And normally that wouldn’t be such a big deal — climbing down thirty feet was easy, considering I’d just done significantly more than that a few moments prior. But the stones making up the well were covered in moss and slime and a host of other nasty, likely slippery things that would invariably make it next to impossible to climb.

  I sighed.

  Then I dove right in.

  Chapter Forty

  The water was so cold when I hit that it was a full-on shock to the system, and I involuntarily pulled in a lung-full of water.

  I came up to the surface, sputtering and coughing, and used my hands to hold myself up above the water line. My clothes were heavy and pulling me down, and my grip was slipping. A few good coughs, a little vomit, and I was treading water. I looked down. The glow was more pronounced here. Something was down there. I couldn’t see the bottom, and I couldn’t tell how far it was to the glow.

  A little hyperventilating to build up my oxygen levels, then a little reminder to look into finding a breathe water spell, and I dove down.

  The water stung my eyes, but I kept them open. Not because the water was so dirty, so much as it was cold. The water had to be close to turning to ice. Down and down I went, focusing on the light. It was getting closer, but I worried I wasn’t swimming fast enough to make it on the single breath I’d taken. My lungs burned. I wanted to take a breath, but I also wanted to get to the light.

  I swam hard, realizing what a bad idea this was. I was going to drown. But the light was so very close. I felt like I could grab it, so I kicked once more, as hard as I could, reaching out towards the vague glow in front of me.

  It was a knob. A glowing knob. It fit in my hand nearly perfectly. I pulled.

  Nothing.

  I pushed, still nothing. So I did what I should have done from the beginning, and I turned it.

  It turned.

  Just a little at first. I was trying really hard to get it going, but I was also running out of air. I doubled down, getting my other hand on the knob, kicking hard to keep from floating back up, all of my instincts yelling at me to just try to surface and get some air so I wouldn’t drown in the black water of the well.

  The glowing knob turned more and more, but my hands covering what little light it gave off, putting me into total darkness. I hit the end of the turn, and I pulled.

  Nothing.

  “FUCK!” I shouted into a horde of bubbles.

  So I pushed.

  Something moved, and I got pulled inward with a rush of water. I went through a short tunnel of sorts, something like a water slide from hell, bouncing around in perfect darkness until I was deposited up and out of a pool of water. I soared through the air with all the grace of a brick before bouncing down against the stone floor of the mystery place, wherever I’d gotten to through the well. Which in this magical world, could basically be anywhere.

  I lay there for a moment, just resting and taking in great gulps of air. There was nothing to give me any indication to where I was. A single glowstone did its thing above me in the ceiling, providing just enough that I could see the archways made above. Quality work, whomever had done it.

  Also, this happened:

  Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Swimming. You can move through water without drowning.

  I slowly sat up, listening to the room. Seeing if there was something there, if I was safe. I mean, as safe as I could be. No monsters were actively attacking me. No living things of any kind, as far as I could tell. I could see where I’d come out of the water, because I could see the water, a spot of dark shiny, and there was the trail of water leading to where I stood. I couldn’t see the edges of the room, because they just faded away into darkness.

  There was a small table about ten feet away from me, halfway into the gloom, with a glass of water, a small piece of paper, and a key.

  I walked over to the table, but I hesitated reaching for the paper. My hand was still dripping wet, and I didn’t have much faith in the paper holding together after getting water on it.

  Instead, I knelt down to read the note.

  Use the key to unlock the door. Carry the glass. Do not spill any water.

  Well. This was fun.

  I grabbed the key, and started looking for the door. Which was actually harder than it seemed. Even with my elven dark vision, I couldn’t seem to pierce the darkness at the edges of the room. And getting closer didn’t help.

  I stood in the center of the room, under the glowstone, to think. Which is when I noticed sand falling from the ceiling. A steady trickle that was already building up on the floor. Also, a quick glance at the floor revealed that the exit was gone. The way back to the well, despite probably being next to impossible to swim back through, had disappeared into the floor. That, combined with the falling sand, meant, to me at least, there was now a time limit, and this had to be a test of sorts. A way to weed out people unw
orthy of The Fayden. And if it was a test, that meant I needed to use magic to solve the problems I encountered.

  After all, that was the reason I was here.

  I snagged a thread from my sleeve, and ripped it out. Then, I tied the key on the end and cast Detect Secret Doors.

  The key moved a little, so I pushed some more mana into the spell. Slowly, I moved around the space, happy to avoid the falling sand in the center of the room, which had already made a sizable pile.

  I paused at one wall, which I arbitrarily decided was north, as the key pulled away from me. I walked forward slowly, still powering the spell, and the key was now nearly straight out. There was a secret door here.

  With one hand extended, I took another step, passing into total darkness. That was a new feeling for me, at least in this world. I’d come to rely on my dark vision. But this was a handy quick reminder of the dangers of becoming overly reliant on any of my abilities. Anything could be taken away by someone smarter, more powerful, or more prepared.

  I ran into something. Or, more to the point, I stubbed my fingers into a hard an unyielding surface. I rubbed my hand across it, and felt something door-like. I mean, at the same time, what the hell does a door feel like? It wasn’t stone, it had that mild warmth of wood, the slight worked grain, and somewhere near the mid-point, it had a handle. Below the handle, a small hole.

  Dropping the spell, I took the key, thread still attached, and tried to insert it into the hole.

  It didn’t fit.

  My first impulse was to cast Zeddington’s Infinite Key, but that’s a one-use spell for any key it’s cast upon. So if I needed this key for something else, I’d be out of luck.

  Of course, it’s not like someone had searched me and taken all my belongings before I came into the well. I grabbed my key ring, looked over my keys, and picked out the key to my apartment door. I felt most confident in finding a replacement for that.

  I tied the special key onto my belt, hoping the thread would hold a little longer, and I cast Zeddington’s Infinite Key, and put the new key into the door.

  This time it fit.

  I turned the key, and I heard the tumblers of a lock click over.

  I almost stepped through before remembering the glass of water.

  “Dangit,” I said softly, and carefully, very carefully, I turned around. Like, exactly around. I counted my steps as I walked back to the lit area.

  The glass was totally full, the water up against the lip of the glass. With a delicate touch, I lifted the glass up. As soon as my fingers touched the glass, sand came down from the ceiling in great big streams. Clearly there was some real incentive to get out of the room. I was guessed I had about five minutes before the room was too full to move in. Maybe ten before I’d be buried.

  I moved quickly into the darkness, but going smoothly as well. Had to keep it smooth so I didn’t spill a drop. I slid my feet along, shuffling across the smooth stone floor. No drips, no drops, no nothing. I was succeeding.

  On the other hand, as soon as I reached where I thought the door was, my hand hit a wall. Nothing.

  No door.

  The sand wasn’t stopping, and I could feel that moving my feet was more difficult.

  Crap.

  I stepped to the side, keeping my hand on the wall.

  I couldn’t find it.

  More and more, farther and farther along, and I knew something else was at work here because while I may have been slightly off, there was no way I’d have been feet off.

  Magic.

  There was one good light spell I knew, so I cast Vaux’s Brilliance.

  Bye bye, darkness.

  It almost blinded me, but I did get a view of the room. The door was right in front of me.

  I reached out and opened the door, passing into the next room.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I shut the door behind me, and breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t about to be buried alive. It’s not like I was out of danger, though. I had no idea how I was going to get out.

  There was a set of stairs in front of me, leading down. I took them quickly, knowing, in the back of my mind ,that I still had other things to do that night. Still, I was careful, putting one hand over the top of the glass, making sure nothing spilled.

  At the bottom, spiderwebs totally covered the archway. At least they weren’t giant spiderwebs. They looked normal, just a little more enthusiastic. I slid my foot through first to make sure there was solid ground on the other side. There wasn’t a lot of light, but there was enough to see. The problem was, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Which wasn’t really a problem so much as it was disconcerting. Regardless, I pushed through the spiderwebs, and came to the next part of the test.

  I was standing on a balcony, and spread out below me were hundreds of poles. They were about a foot in width, and all at different heights. All the way on the other side of the poles was a small thing that looked like a wood-fired pizza oven. Complete with a fire burning inside. Although I couldn’t see if there was any wood burning or if it was something else entirely. Given the magical nature of, well, everything, I had to imagine it was magical fire of some kind.

  The poles, or columns, I guess (Can it be a column when it doesn’t support anything?) swayed gently in the breeze. Except, when I tried to feel a breeze... nothing. The air was still. The still intact cobwebs behind me weren’t moving in the slightest. So why were the columns?

  I got right up to the edge of the balcony, the starting platform, and I peered into the space between the columns. It just went down into darkness, with no evidence of how far down things went. Which could explain a little why the columns were moving. Even from where I was, I could tell they were made of stone, the same kind of yellowish old semi-crumbling stone that made up the walls and the domed roofs.

  The glass of water was getting warm in my hands. The room was getting warm. Like uncomfortably warm, and rather quickly. I glanced behind me, and saw a glow from the stairs.

  The glow was moving, coming closer. And bringing an immense amount of heat with it.

  The stones were turning red hot. Clearly, whoever made this test was not a fan of anyone taking their time. Now I certainly wished it might have been a little more relaxed, like a ticking clock or something. The whole move-now-or-be-cooked was not my favorite form of motivation. Still, it got me moving.

  I took the barest moment to pick a starting column, choosing the one closest to me. But as soon as my foot touched the stone top, it tipped and crashed into its neighbor, which crashed into its neighbor, and in very short order, there was a nightmare domino effect. At least a third of the pillars were gone.

  “Whoops,” I said softly.

  The heat behind me began to radiate out, and steam came off my clothes. At least I was getting dried out, and no more wrinkles in my trousers. Gotta find that silver lining.

  I tried the next column. The same thing happened, with about as much cacophony and destruction.

  “Magic,” I reminded myself.

  A quick check of the spells told me what I already knew — I had nothing to help me fly. I also lacked a teleport spell. Coming up empty annoyed me, but it’s not like this was a normal everyday occurrence I could have planned for.

  There were a few options I saw. One, I could cast Raise Dead and try to raise some of the people who had surely died here over the years. Then I could somehow get them to make an undead human (or whatever) chain across the open space. But the time required to get zombies or skeletons or whatever undead I managed to raise, to understand what I wanted them to do, and then get them to actually do it, and do it successfully, meant I’d for sure get cooked. So, that wasn’t an option.

  Next, shadow step and run across? Was it possible I could move fast enough in the shadow dimension that I wouldn’t cause the columns to fall? As I thought about it, dutifully ignoring the smell of my own flesh roasting, I seem to remember that my form within the shadow realm didn’t exactly have the same effect upon the
world as I did when I was real. Or, rather, when I was corporeal.

  So I cast Shadow Step and made a run for it, holding the glass of water between two hands.

  The heat was still somewhat there in the shadow realm, but as time slowed down, I darted across, stepping lightly on each column, half-noticing that a shadow-heartbeat after I stepped off each column, it would start falling.

  By the time my shadow-world visit was over, I’d made it to the far side.

  I stood before the fire.

  It was magical, natch, and because I’d seen this in a movie, I took the water in the cup, and poured it onto the fire.

  The fire went out, revealing a keyhole.

  I took the key from the table, and I put it into the hole.

  A perfect fit.

  With a quick turn of the key, nothing happened. For a second.

  Then the floor beneath me disappeared, and I was falling.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  In the brief moment of free-fall, I thought about how a simple spell like Feather Fall would be ridiculously useful given my predilection for climbing, and, apparently, falling. Too bad I didn’t know it.

  However, this wasn’t the sort of death trap I’d been expecting. Instead, a wall angled out towards me so that I gently moved from falling to sliding, going more and more horizontal until I was barely moving.

  Which was naturally the perfect spot for there to be a hole.

  Which I went right through, and free-fell once again.

  This time, however, my fall was quite short. I ended up in a large pile of pillows. Remarkably soft, nearly perfectly white pillows that had the pleasant odor of laundry soap to them.

  Slowly, because I had no idea where I was nor what I was supposed to do, I pushed some of the pillows off of me until I could make out a better view of my surroundings.

  I was somewhere that looked remarkably like the pictures I’d seen of Penn Station before it’d been torn down to make way for Madison Square Garden. It was big, with wide open spaces and very high ceilings covered in decorative mosaics. Light streamed in through huge windows, and I heard water. Not like a river or anything of that nature, but like a decorative fountain. It was the most relaxing place I’d been to since visiting Vuldranni. Hell, I’d wager it was the most relaxing place I’d ever visited in either of my two worlds. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and got to my feet.