by Ryk E. Spoor
“The clasp, however, was partially engaged. It was on its owner, and the Belt protects its wearer from all harm. Apparently,” he continued, “being turned to stone is not sufficient to disqualify you from ownership.”
Cirrus’ laugh echoed Ugu’s. “Ha! So one of the greatest treasures of all Faerie is removed from any possibility of use…by the sheer working of chance.”
Perhaps…perhaps it is just as well, Ugu thought. That power might have fallen into Amanita’s hands. He shuddered inwardly.
“You have deployed your armies?”
“Yes. The majority of them are in the northwest of the Winkie country; I would expect that if any invasion is to happen, it will be there. I have given Coo-Ee-Oh clear instructions on the contingencies for action. There are pickets set along the entire border, with patrols — mainly Tempests, with some Infernos — moving in irregular patterns across the land, to prevent any observers from predicting them.” Cirrus looked at him. “You, Majesty, have been extremely busy of late — as has Her Majesty, as well.” His expression said that the latter was something of a relief. Despite Cirrus’ virtuosity in his role, it had to be wearing to maintain the deception in the presence of a sorceress so volatile and suspicious. At least in the Rainbow Kingdom there had been no real reason for him to be suspected. “Are you…preparing, as well?”
“It is indeed as you say,” Ugu agreed. “Realize that much wizardry, many rituals and spells, normally require careful preparation, rare ingredients, burning of unique herbs and papers filled with powders volatile and dangerous. Yet,” he continued walking slowly, “if the worst does happen and either the Mortal succeeds against all odds in gaining the power of Oz, or somehow your armies are routed and we stand against the united forces of the Nomes and the Rainbow Lord, time will be what we are most short of.”
Cirrus gave a nod, showing he understood. “And so now…”
“Now Amanita and I are preparing the enchantments ahead of time, compressing them and arranging them in gem and staff and crystal, that they may be called forth by a gesture, a short phrase, even a particular event. Dozens, hundreds of spells, even, all at our fingertips for that ultimate eventuality.” He gave a sardonic smile. “Not wasted in the end, of course, even if all goes according to plan. Such convenience will be its own reward, whatever comes.”
Cirrus looked relieved. “I must confess, Majesty, I had been somewhat concerned about that…limitation of your Majesties’ powers, but I was unsure how to broach that subject safely. A man in my position making such queries…”
“…might be seen as a man trying to divine the weaknesses in those who sit upon the throne…perhaps all the better to remove them from the throne himself. Yes, of course.” Ugu gave Cirrus a quick, reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Amanita may be sharp of temper, but rest assured, General, I will assume you mean the best for our realm. You have sworn to me, and I believe your words. If you have any concerns — any at all — I want you to voice them to me, whenever — such as now — we have privacy.”
The former warrior of the Rainbow Kingdom drew himself up in gratified pride. Ugu looked on him and for a moment he saw the original Cirrus, staring into his eyes with agonized, defeated resistance that clung to nothing but a burning pride in his own existence. Somehow he kept his expression calm, but in that instant he felt a jab of phantom pain in his heart, a pain so rare and unfamiliar that it took a moment to place it; regret, not for his own failures, but for this success. This man before him was part-Tempest, but also part Cirrus Dawnglory, and there was tragedy in that.
To distract himself from these thoughts — which are useless, for there is no going back, nor any apology that would mean anything, even if I would — he returned to earlier conversation. “You have positioned your troops reasonably. Have you any particular strategies?”
Cirrus shrugged. “Many, but none that really will matter unless and until I see the nature, size, composition, and leadership of the opposing forces. I would expect to have at least one engagement which I don’t care if we win or lose, simply to gauge the mettle of our opposition. We will have all the advantages of home ground here, and I will exploit that to the fullest.”
“And the Mortal?”
Cirrus bowed. “I assure you, all the instructions are given…and with Your and Her Majesty’s forceful backing, I believe they are completely understood.”
Ugu smiled. “Excellent.” He looked out one of the windows, where he could see the walls of the greater Grey Castle. We do not know whether your current mission will succeed, Mortal Man…but succeed or fail, your fate is already decided.
Chapter 35.
I rose from the bed, stretched, and looked around. The bedroom looked pretty much the same as it had when I went to sleep. One exception was a small table and chair with, as Baum often described it, a smoking hot breakfast laid out. I went to the little attached washroom and freshened up, then came back and ate.
It was when I went to get dressed that one change became evident. The closet where I’d put my cleaner clothes — and my armor and sword — was empty. Looking very carefully now at the floor and roof areas, I could just make out seams that showed what had happened; there was a trick wall, like those seen in many movies, and they’d rotated the full closet out and left me with the empty.
I grinned and pulled down the covers. My gauntlets and greaves were still there; I’d slipped them under the covers while I was undressing in a deliberately disorganized way. It would’ve been nice to have all of it — especially the sword — but this was a hell of a lot better than nothing.
My old clothes, slung over the nearby chair, would have to do. I don’t mind re-using pants, but the other articles offended my Twenty-First Century sensibilities. Unfortunately, unless I wanted to try to launder them in the tiny washroom and then wait hours for them to dry, I didn’t have much choice. And I’d dealt with worse things in the last year or so.
Clothed, I put the usual remaining mortal possessions in my pockets — my keychain with mini-pointer, Swiss Army knife, recharged inhaler — and slung my small bag of vital possessions (such as my medications) over my shoulder. Finally, I put on my remaining pieces of armor, took a deep breath, and opened the door that should have led to the common room.
I’d expected the dimly-lit, rough-hewn tunnel; that didn’t prevent a little feeling of shock at actually seeing it. Just like the closet, the entire room sat on a pivot, and now the doorway led into Kaliko’s Gantlet.
“Ah! Time for a refreshing morning exploration!” I called to the dead silence, hearing my voice echo faintly down the corridor before dying away. As there was enough light to see by, I began walking down the corridor. I tried not to jump when the door slammed and locked behind me; after all, this was all according to the script.
Now I had to be cautious, though. I suspected that some of the traps and tricks Baum had described might still be here, but there was no reason new and different ones could not be added. Not that it necessarily made much difference; my abilities and those of Inga were drastically different and things he could, in effect, walk through could kill me easily.
I continued down the corridor, finally emerging into a room about forty feet across with three other corridors. I did jump this time as a steel door slammed down inches from my back with a thunderous clang that resounded through the caverns. Apparently I wouldn’t even have the option to retreat back into the corridor near my room.
“Ichi, ni, san… which of you should I choose, ne?” I muttered. My gut told me it probably didn’t matter which, but I still liked to make a decision. Finally I chose the one directly in front of me, continuing my walk straight ahead.
I got about fifty feet down that tunnel when the lights went out and a rumbling boom told me that another door had blocked off my retreat. I waited a moment, but heard and saw nothing in the impenetrable gloom; then I chuckled. “Ah, quite a problem this could be. Blind and having to move forward down an unknown corridor.” I reached into my pocket.
“But for now, I think I’ll level this playing field.”
Cool white light shimmered into being from the LED flashlight built into my keychain. I began moving forward, and almost immediately saw a huge black void; the floor I’d seen in front of me before the lights went out had disappeared, withdrawn or collapsed probably when the door behind me had come down. I moved cautiously to the edge and shone the light downward; nearly at the limit of vision, an array of sharp points glinted darkly. “Traditionalists indeed. The old spike-at-the-bottom-of-the-pit ploy,” I said in my best Don Adams voice.
This did present something of a problem. I could barely make out the other side of the pit, thirty or forty feet away, and though — when I stamped deliberately — I could feel some springy “give” to the stone that showed I was in a magical land, there wasn’t nearly enough to allow me the trampoline-like leaps I was able to get away with back in Iris’ castle.
There was a little ledge left around the edge of the pit, which otherwise filled the corridor side-to-side, but way too little to walk on. It looked like I was going to have to cross by using my rock-climbing skills to work my way across.
In the dark, because I was going to need both hands for this one.
“Okay, round two.” I moved over to the lefthand side of the pit and reached out, getting a good idea what the remaining ledge felt like and where it was. Then I clicked off the light and reached down.
The rock was solid, but only an inch or two remained. The interior wall had some rough spots, but I couldn’t rely on it to provide much of a foothold. As I slowly lowered myself and felt the strain on my hands, I felt my heart starting to hammer. I had to cross forty feet using mostly my hands.
A year before, I don’t think I’d have had the ability to make five feet without my hands giving out; back then, it’d been almost twenty-five years since I’d tried the idiotic trick of freeclimbing solo. But as I felt my fingers grip, slid my right hand out, got a good hold, then slid my left over, it began to sink in just how much I’d changed. It wasn’t easy — no way! — but I was moving along pretty well, and it felt like my hands could actually take it. Five feet. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Hey, this isn’t so bad…
Overconfidence can kill you, and as I went to make the next move, I slid my hand out a little too casually, gripped but hadn’t finished when I started to move my left, and the shift in weight suddenly pulled my right hand free.
With an inarticulate cry, I found myself dangling over the black void, hungry spikes an invisibly lethal distance below, hanging on by three fingers. Shit!
I didn’t dare move for a moment, just tried to make sure my left hand kept its grip. Then slowly, slowly, I brought up my right, feeling the movement threatening to pull my fingers free. And the sweat of fear wasn’t improving things. I could feel the second finger starting to slide the tiniest bit…
And then my right hand clamped down on the ledge.
I hung by both hands and tried to get the rest of me to relax a little. I couldn’t take much time, though, because now my hands were really starting to scream with the strain, but I was not taking any chances now. Focus. Move with very careful coordination. Right hand slide. Clamp. Left hand slide. Clamp. Right hand. Twenty-five feet. Thirty. Got to be getting near the edge. Thirty-five, at least near as I could guess in the dark. Forty, and now I could sense that faint deadening in the air that you get from approaching a wall. I slid my right hand over and found the edge of the pit, got my hand on it, moved until both hands were on, then heaved up with a last protest from my abused fingers, rolling onto the flat surface of the corridor.
I lay there for some time, regaining my breath and massaging my hands. I was probably going to need them again. I had to hope I wouldn’t have to do that trick again, though, because I wasn’t sure I could manage it.
Still, I felt pretty good about pulling off that Lara Croft, and sat up finally, shining the light in front of me. More corridor, ending in what looked like a dead end.
“Well, it could be, I suppose,” I said as I walked up to it. “But Kaliko said test, and testing indicates there’s ways to survive.”
Hidden doors were the trick du jour for Nomes, so I began tapping away at the wall. Sure enough, off to the righthand side I found an area that didn’t sound quite like the others. Using the magnifier from my Swiss Army knife, I found the crack. Not large enough for a person to fit through. Not a person my size, anyway.
Poking and pulling at various projections eventually located one that slid, causing the little door to pop open.
“So that’s the reason.” Inside was a lever which, I guessed, would open the door at the far end and let me out. I reached in and turned it.
Dim light returned, and I could see the door opening and the pit being covered by a rock surface. The solid click of a shackle locking around my wrist, however, put something of a damper on my relief.
“Traps within traps,” I muttered, looking down at the broad, steel shackle attached to a thick chain. “Like I expected. And at least this time,” I grinned, and with a tug pulled my hand free of the gauntlet, “I out-thought you.” I reached in and pulled my crystal gauntlet the rest of the way through. “And I’ll take this back, too.”
I walked back to the doorway, but I slowed. It was different… something was in that room…
Baum had described a “giant.” Me, I’d call what I was looking at more like an ogre or a troll, massive, huge, inhuman yet very humanoid, with grey stony skin, black eyes without a trace of white that reminded me of a shark’s, and the teeth weren’t far from that, either. The chain it was attached to wouldn’t quite let it get to any of the exits, fortunately for me. Unfortunately, it could reach any part of the room, and as it stood something like fourteen feet high, I was not at all comfortable with that thought.
It had already seen me. “Good morning, little man,” it said with a humorless grin, showing off tiger-shark teeth with grinding back molars. I became aware of a low, discordant humming, a faint tune that had become stronger as I approached. “You seek to pass; I seek my breakfast.” It chuckled as the light dimmed farther, leaving me unable to clearly distinguish the creature except by a faint phosphorescent glow of the eyes. “One of us will gain our desire, I think.”
This sucks. The thing wasn’t quite as huge as Iris, but I had almost no armor and no sword. It had an immense reach advantage, could see me in the dark — with those eyes, it could probably see perfectly in light that was nearly pitch-black to me — and while I might well be able to hurt it if I got close enough, the getting close would probably end up fatal. Or crippling, then fatal.
See in the dark.
I could not restrain a pretty evil chuckle. “Oh, my friend, you are so very right.”
That’s when I let the thing have the mini-laser pointer right into the eyes, five milliwatts of coherent light blasting away the darkness and hammering into eyes vastly more sensitive than mine.
It shrieked, staggering backward, tripping over the post that held it chained, and I charged forward. It whipped its claws out blindly, but I ducked under, leapt up, and and slammed my right fist down onto it with everything I had.
The Music of the Spheres had told me the creature was a nearly-pure Faerie; it was no more prepared for that strike than the Temblors had been. Pinned between True Mortal and unyielding stone, I heard it break, a sickening sound like a small animal run over by a truck, magnified a hundredfold; the impact resounded through the rock as though it had been struck by a wrecking ball. The scream cut off in a gurgle; the light in its eyes went out and the light of the room came up.
I moved away, feeling nauseated for several moments. I didn’t regret killing the thing as such — it was clearly about as Not Nice as anything I’d yet met — but I just kept feeling that crunching sensation and it made me shudder. I hadn’t really wanted to kill anything. Even things like that. And that had been a pretty gruesome death.
After I’d slightly recovered, I chose one of the other passages and
headed down it. Good thing I had a big breakfast. I’ve been doing a lot of work this morning.
As I continued, the light seemed to be getting brighter, with a slight orangish tinge, and my lips tightened. I have a suspicion…
Coming around a bend in the corridor, I could see my suspicions were correct. A broad bed of glowing, nearly white-hot coals nearly filled the room ahead. The room itself was getting uncomfortably warm, and getting closer to the coals felt like approaching an oven. The giant barbeque pit was about sixty feet across, maybe seventy. I could just make out, through the light and wavering heat, an exit on the far side.
I backed off and thought. This was a much stickier problem. Glancing around the room gave me no immediate ideas; the walls were much smoother here, so there wasn’t much chance I could somehow climb over and around the coals, even assuming it wasn’t impossibly hot above them. Unfortunately, it felt very hot indeed — about as hot as my dad’s forge used to get when he’d set it up for a bit of blacksmithing.
After sitting there for a few minutes, I thought I noticed something about the coals, so I sat up and paid a bit more attention. After a few more minutes I was sure. The coals weren’t shrinking. That meant the fire was magical.
Momentary elation was replaced with self-annoyance. Yeah, sure, Einstein, the fire itself may be magical, but the heat it gives off isn’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t feel it much. Secondary effects weren’t covered by my True Mortality; a landslide of rocks started with a magical crowbar would kill me just as dead as if it had been a mundane crowbar starting the slide.
I went back to the corridor and tested the stone. While it did give under my fingers, I wasn’t sure if I could even reasonably try Inga’s solution; my Mortal nature didn’t give me super-strength, just something that looked like it under certain circumstances. Lifting, carrying, and throwing large chunks of rock weren’t some of those circumstances. Magical rock, yes, if I punched it right it’d fly away — or break in a thousand pieces — but I couldn’t lift and carry it any more than I could the mundane stuff.