by Max Anthony
“This looks like a temple,” said Rasmus in hushed tones. The expanse of the room seemed to absorb the sound of his voice. “Whatever would it be doing down here?”
“I never cease to be amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to appease whatever deity they choose to worship,” said Viddo. There were a few patron deities of thieves to whom he paid lip service, but it was mostly out of habit that he muttered his occasional prayer to them before he began any risky undertakings.
“Sometimes you just need something to keep you occupied,” said Rasmus, who had long since stopped worrying about what other people wanted to do with their time. “Look, there’s a dais at the end, or perhaps an altar.”
“And there are more writings across these pillars,” said Viddo. “It’s similar to that which we saw in the stone city above.”
“With any luck, you can make some sense out of it,” said Rasmus. He’d found himself becoming more and more curious as to the history of the city above, and now about this place below.
Viddo crossed the floor until he was close enough to see the markings on one of the pillars. His lips moved unconsciously as his brain sought to make sense of their meaning.
“In honour of his greatest majesty,” he read. “It appears to be in honour of a god. I can’t read the name as there’s no direct translation, but you can see he, she or it over there. It’s that picture of a fierce mask with five eyes and big tusks.”
“Gods always look fierce,” said Rasmus. “At least all the ones I’ve seen. Except maybe Triller the Sweetheart. She always looks quite tasty.”
“Oh mighty Five Eyed Mask God, we your humble servants do give ourselves to you. Our temple we build in your honour,” continued Viddo. “This all looks like the standard stuff,” he said, moving on to the next pillar. “We beseech you to bless us with your strength and give unto us your power, blah blah blah.”
“Nothing much worth listening to,” said Rasmus cynically.
“This could be tens of thousands of years old,” said Viddo. “It might have been original stuff when they were carving it into this rock. Now that every worshipper says the same thing, it’s lost a bit of its impact.”
“I suppose,” conceded Rasmus. “This is all much older than anything else on the surface, that’s for sure. I think there are a couple of temples in Moostur that are nearly four thousand years old and that’s considered ancient. In fact, they’re so old and weathered that it’s a constant effort to stop them falling over. And then you look at these places down here – dozens of times older and all perfectly preserved.”
When that sunk in, they felt a little more appreciation and felt a little more privileged at that which they looked upon. Their newfound respect prevented them from reiterating aloud that they still desired to steal anything valuable that wasn’t firmly nailed down and both still intended to leave this place much wealthier than they had arrived.
Neither man was a particular scholar of history and Viddo only skim-read the other pillars as they proceeded along the length of the room. The altar – if that’s what it was – was much larger than it had seemed from a distance, and was almost seven feet tall, ten deep and twelve long.
“If they sacrificed anything on that, I wouldn’t like to come across whatever beast it was that needed an altar this big,” said Rasmus.
“Perhaps their god did not appreciate tiny altars and required enormous ones such as this,” guessed Viddo.
The altar was close to the end of the room and had steps leading up to the top of it on the far side. The bulk of the altar had also concealed an additional doorway leading away, this one ten feet high and ten wide, flanked by smaller pillars covered in the same marble.
Unable to resist, both thief and wizard climbed atop the altar, in order to enjoy the slightly improved view.
“This looks like solid marble,” said Viddo, stamping his foot down hard on the surface, to demonstrate the solidity.
“I’m not sure I agree,” said Rasmus, also stamping. “If you stamp really hard, you can tell that it’s hollow. It’s probably a hollow box, else how would they have got it down here?”
Viddo jumped up and gave a two-footed stamp. Sure enough, there was a slight echoing quality to the vibration that indicated the altar wasn’t solid, though Viddo continued to deny it. “These ancient people have already shown themselves to be more than adequately skilled at stone working. It would be little surprise to me if they managed to get a solid marble block through here. That doorway might have been created so large for just that purpose.”
“No, listen carefully,” said Rasmus insistently, performing a little stamping dance. “And you can feel it through your feet. This altar has been brought down here in pieces.”
“Do we really have to bother ourselves with such a discussion?” asked Viddo, suddenly realising the foolishness of what they were saying.
Rasmus gave the smooth surface of the altar one final, petulant stamp. “No, I suppose it’s not worth the effort. Should we head off through yonder doorway?”
Viddo went silent and cocked his head quizzically to one side. “Did you feel that?” he asked.
“Feel what?” asked Rasmus.
“I could have sworn that there was a vibration coming from somewhere.”
“There’s probably lots of seismic activity this far below the surface. Perhaps you felt the after effects of a distant rumble.”
“No,” said Viddo. He stared at Rasmus and put a finger to his lips. “I think there’s something inside this altar,” he mouthed. Without further pause, he tiptoed as gently as could be towards the edge. Rasmus was wise enough to know when it was time to listen to advice and did his very best to tiptoe in the same direction.
Both wizard and thief were almost in a position where they could vault down the seven feet to the floor below, when the surface of the altar lifted violently beneath them. Viddo hopped lightly down, but the movement caught Rasmus unawares and the wizard toppled over, landing heavily on an unlikely combination of his shoulder and his backside. He watched in horror as a thick slab of marble rose from the top of the altar and was thrown to one side as if it weighed nothing at all. It landed with a crash, splitting into three pieces. All was silent for a few seconds.
Seven
There was nothing so dramatic as a roar, nor was there much of a delay. Something enormous stood upright, emerging from the confines of the altar where it might have been waiting for thousands of years. The creature was fifteen feet tall, but spindly. It had flesh of sorts – a drab green coating, though it was desiccated by the years. Here and there, bones were visible through the skin, yellow and brittle-looking. It had long, thin hands and a long thin face. The eyes within had not perished, but they were small, grey orbs that seemed to float within the sockets as if they had shrunk from their original size but were still attached to whatever it possessed for a brain by stiff optical cords. The creature’s nose was gone, as were its upper and lower lips. Teeth it had in plenty, though they were flat as if worn down through use. It looked like it had a permanent insane grin on its face.
The creature’s head swivelled around, to see what had awoken it. Fifty yards distant, it saw a lone figure – a wizard by his attire. This wizard was becoming rapidly more distant as his feet carried him away.
Rasmus didn’t know exactly what this monstrosity was, but he was pretty sure it was undead. The undead had a tendency to be stubbornly resistant to their second deaths, and the larger ones usually took a considerable amount of punishment before they succumbed to weaponry or spellcraft. As a consequence, Rasmus had decided it would be for the best if he put as much space as possible between himself and this creature. The corridor through which he’d entered this underground temple would probably be a bit of a squeeze for it to pursue him along and he felt he might be able to batter it with his magic while it groped ineffectually in his direction from a stuck position twenty yards behind.
Although Rasmus wasn’t in a position to see it, he h
eard a thud on the floor in the distance behind him. If the wizard had chanced to look, he’d have noticed the terrifying speed that the creature possessed. It didn’t move with the halting, jerky motions of the lesser undead – this one stepped smoothly out of the altar and set off without hesitation in pursuit of the only target it had seen.
With a fifty yard lead, Rasmus would have usually fancied his chances against anything slower than a galloping horse. Unfortunately, the huge strides of the undead giant made it somewhat faster than even a racing thoroughbred and it rapidly closed the distance on the wizard. It was surprisingly graceful in its run and when Rasmus finally did look behind, he saw that it was only twenty yards back, with its eyes fixed directly upon him and its long-fingered hands outstretched, ready to pluck him from the ground and dash him to pieces on the floor.
Reaching into his mighty magical repertoire, Rasmus used his last remaining gorilla-summoning spell, and prayed that the random nature of it would bring forth its maximum three apes, rather than the single beast that it might capriciously summon when only three would do. Luck neither smiled nor frowned upon the wizard and two of the hairy apes popped into existence. They knew what was expected of them and they leaped at the rushing undead, one grappling each leg. Rasmus knew that gorillas are much heavier and stronger than they appear, which is why he always had at least one of these spells prepared. They flailed away at the undead, and one of the apes managed to tear away a hunk of the leathery green flesh.
It was to the misfortune of the apes that the giant monstrosity was also much stronger than it appeared, and the encumbrance of two four-hundred pound gorillas hardly slowed it at all. It reached down with one arm and tugged at the first gorilla, which hung on gamely but was soon torn off. The undead threw the ape away from it in a casual backhand motion which was nevertheless enough to hurl the beast through the air and into a nearby pillar at great speed. The gorilla wasn’t killed outright, but it struggled to regain its feet since it had been badly broken by the impact.
The second gorilla continued to beat at the undead leg and its ministrations caused the giant to slow to a trot, whereupon it struck the ape twice, using its clenched fists as heavy clubs. The two blows were enough to dispatch the gorilla, which fell dead to the ground. It had done its job and Rasmus fled into the passageway, just ahead of the undead giant. The wizard didn’t stop until he reached the room with the acid-filled fountain. The undead was not dissuaded from its attempts to kill him, and it reached through with one unnaturally long arm, making grabbing gestures as it did so.
Rasmus finally stopped his run when he reached the far side of the fountain room and watched in fascination as the undead hand clutched and unclutched in the doorway.
Where’s that silly thief got to? he asked himself. In the shock of seeing the creature emerge from the altar, they had managed to run in separate directions. We must work on our teamwork he chastised himself, meaning to bring up the subject with Viddo later. For now, he was separated from his friend and uncertain how best to proceed. It looked as though he was safe from immediate danger, but if the undead had lain happily in that altar for a few thousand years, he was reasonably sure that it had the staying power to wait where it was until the wizard either died of thirst or looked for another way out. Of course, Rasmus still had a considerable number of spells he could call on, but he was reluctant to use them all up in one go, especially since he’d already got his heart set on a new, metal staff. In fact, he couldn’t think of any other wizard who had a metal staff, so he’d be unique amongst his peers. A trend-setter, he told himself, though he wasn’t usually so shallow that he spent time thinking about such things.
The wizard’s inappropriately-timed musings were disturbed when the grasping hand suddenly slid forwards a few feet in his direction. Then, the hand came even closer again.
Bugger it, that thing is squeezing its way into the passage thought Rasmus. The corridor that connected the fountain room to the temple area was quite tall and wide. The wizard had hoped that it would be sufficient to stop the creature’s progress entirely, but it seemed to have got a bee in its bonnet over the escape of its prey and was determined to push matters to a conclusion.
For a few moments Rasmus had hopes that the creature would accidentally dunk its hand into the fountain of acid. There were scrapings and shuffling sounds from the corridor as the undead inched its way ever closer, but in the end its long, long arms were not quite long enough to extend as far as the fountain. The hand continued its questing, but Rasmus stayed safely on the other side of the room.
He was in something of a quandary. Had he been alone, he might have been tempted to give a two-fingered salute to the metal staff and go back to look for an exit from this place. However, he knew that Viddo was effectively trapped on the other side of the undead giant and might even die if he received no assistance. Or he might escape with a sack full of plunder, which would possibly be an even less desirable outcome, since the wizard would have no claim to the spoils.
With a sigh, Rasmus checked through his catalogue of spells, trying to determine the most efficient ones for the destruction of undead. If he’d been a fancy-pants priest, he could have whipped out the symbol of his god and attempted to frighten the creature away, or perhaps even destroy it if he was favoured enough. Or he could have ladled some holy water onto the hand and laughed as it was withdrawn in haste. Rasmus had never wanted to become a priest, so he didn’t berate himself for long.
The decision was partly taken away from him when he heard a familiar voice shouting to him from the temple beyond.
“Rasmus? Are you in there?” it shouted. The sound of the voice caused the hand to increase the vigour of its searching.
“Yes, I’m here,” called Rasmus. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m quite fine, as it happens. I think this creature is stuck.”
“It’s trying to throttle me,” said the wizard. “But its arm isn’t long enough.”
“Wait on a second – I’m going to see if I can reach its back.”
It was lucky that the creature didn’t understand their common tongue, else it would have known what was likely to happen when a thief started talking about exposed backs.
Without warning, the arm began thrashing wildly in the room. There were reverberations through the solid rock walls as the creature struggled to escape from the corridor that it had inadvertently got itself stuck in. The hand ceased its search for Rasmus’ throat and began to push at the floor, to assist in its escape from the passageway. At first, it appeared as though it would be permanently stuck, which would have presented a challenge in itself, for Rasmus didn’t like the idea of hacking his way through fifteen feet of undead innards to get back into the temple. With a mighty push, the arm was withdrawn from the room and Rasmus was once more able to see through into the temple. A pair of huge legs and a green torso were all that was visible through the opening.
Tentatively, Rasmus crept towards the temple room. The giant was tottering, but still had the strength to attack the small figure that was nimbly darting around at its feet. The spindly arms swung and clubbed, each time coming close to Viddo, but not quite making contact with him. As he dodged, Viddo used his daggers to cut away slices of the dead flesh and Rasmus noted that two green-grey fingers had been severed and had fallen onto the floor.
“Cast something at it,” instructed Viddo, though his eyes never lost their focus. “And do it soon.”
Rasmus did cast something – he raised one hand and muttered a few arcane words. A blob of dense green, about a foot in diameter appeared in his hand and sailed slowly over towards the giant.
“I’d get back if I were you,” advised the wizard.
Viddo had seen this spell before and didn’t need telling twice. He executed a remarkably nimble backflip, followed by another and then a roll to the side. On his feet again, he sprinted towards the corridor where the wizard lurked. The giant started to give chase, just as the green blob hit it on the leg. There w
as a sound which could only be described as a glop and the ball exploded in a ten-feet area, coating much of the giant in a viscous, highly corrosive acid. No sound came from its mouth – indeed none had since it had first climbed from the altar – and it continued to pursue the thief.
It didn’t get very far and the acid from Rasmus’ spell chewed through the dead sinews on the leg it had contacted. The creature fell to one knee and as it did so, Viddo saw the flesh bubbling under the onslaught of the acid. The tiny eyes stared at its two opponents and the giant pushed itself upright and began to limp towards them again as the magic of the spell faded.
“Run!” shouted Viddo.
“Eh? What?” asked Rasmus, though his legs were already obeying the thief’s command. He was an act-and-bluster-simultaneously kind of wizard, though much of the bluster was for show.
Viddo went left and Rasmus went right. The smell of corroding undead flesh was horrendous and they gagged as they ran. The giant tried to catch both but ended with neither. It dragged itself along on its one functioning leg, wisely targeting the wizard as being the slower of the two. Even with one leg badly damaged, it could still move quickly and Rasmus once again found himself in a situation where he had to look over his shoulder in order to gauge how long until his death found him. Motivated by his reluctance to be crushed by an undead, Rasmus’ legs discovered sprinting abilities that they had not known existed and the wizard was able to keep enough of a lead over his pursuer.