by Riley Keene
“We’ve been underground for bells. Your sense of direction is basically just you guessing at this point.” Ermolt leaned his hammer up against the wall, and Athala groaned under her breath. This was going to be a long one.
“It is not! You just can’t admit that I have a better sense of direction than you.” Elise put her hands on her hips, squaring her shoulders towards him. “We’re still on the north side of the river. Trust me, I know my way around here. Don’t forget, I grew up in this city.”
Ermolt crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “I’m not saying you don’t know your way around. But we’ve been up and down so many tunnels, taken so many turns, and gone so far down beneath the city, I find it difficult to believe that you just ‘know’ where we are.”
“Um,” Athala finally cut in, silencing them both. They turned to look at her and she swallowed, hard. With a quick breath she attempted to muster her courage to continue even as she picked at her fingernails. “D-did you want me to try and get a reading again? If you two would just stay here while I do it, I’ll be able to finish properly and have a much better idea of where we’re going.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Elise snapped, and Athala flinched. The Conscript either didn’t notice it or didn’t care. Athala was pretty sure it was the not noticing part, but the bells they’d spent down here already were technically Athala’s fault. “It must be this way because the spell can’t be directly under the Temple.”
“Even if you’re right and that way does lead under the Temple, how can you possibly know how far down we are? The spell might be directly under the Temple and no one would know if we were far enough down. Or maybe the room has metal panels on the ceiling. That could block the ambient,” he hesitated, “magic, uh, stuff. Even if it was pressed right up against the basement! Right, Athala?”
“Well, um, technically yes, there are ways to shield a room to keep any magical leakage contained, but if the room was entirely encased, the detection spell would—”
“Exactly!” Elise nearly shouted, punctuating her excitement with a shake of her hands. Her torch sputtered with the movement. “We would have seen giant rats and animated skeletons long ago if the ambient magic weren’t shielded well enough to keep things out of the basements.”
“Um, actually, if just the stone around it is dense enough, it could keep the spell at bay. The openings here in the passage would allow the ambient magic to propagate in this direction much farther than it would through the solid stone.”
“And the above-ground stone of the temple is dense granite and marble,” Ermolt said, smugly crossing his arms over his chest. “Could the foundation be anything but dense stone, regardless of the condition of the room the spell is in? And that’s if the temple wasn’t probably a half-kren that way!” Ermolt stabbed his finger back in the direction they’d came.
Athala huffed as that statement started another go around for their argument. Instead of paying attention to their tired words, she examined the walls a little, looking for anything she could provide to the conversation to inform the argument one way or the other.
The majority of the stone was just like in the passages before, but less pitted as the air had grown quite a bit less humid. She was surprised to note some kind of guide carved into the wall—arrows on the corners where the walls met that pointed along each passageway, with what appeared to be Draconian letters carved above them. Almost like a signpost one might find at an above-ground crossroads along a trade route. Unfortunately, the stone walls were quite worn by time, and she was having trouble getting a good look at them with Elise’s torch flailing about as the Conscript started gesturing wildly.
Athala paused for a moment to listen to them. Somehow the discussion had drifted to her belief that he was unable to accept her as a leader. He, of course, was being defensive, but it was making her angrier.
With a sigh, Athala sidled up behind Elise, opening the Conscript’s pack—which was now conveniently placed on the ground—and she began digging around inside.
“What are you doing?” Elise snapped at the sound but didn’t turn around.
“I’m just trying to get a torch. There’s some markings on the wall that—”
“Alright, sure. Just make sure you close it up when you’re done,” Elise said distractedly before returning her attention back to Ermolt. “Because even when I do let you make a decision—”
“Let me?” Ermolt scoffed. “When have you ever let me take charge for even—”
With barely a second thought, Athala tuned out the argument. It wasn’t important. The air was stuffy and stale, and they’d been surrounded by nothing but the smell of old dust and their own stink for a long while. If they needed to relieve some pressure, Athala was willing to let them. As soon as they began yelling, their words would echo back and they’d realize that they’d decided to have a screaming match in the middle of a potential nest of giant rats, animated skeletons, and other unpleasant byproducts of ambient magic. Athala suspected that their current course had been uneventful not because other threats were not here, but because they were not as territorial as the rats had been.
If loud noises—like Ermolt snarling about his formal training in tactical approaches to combat—made such beasts believe them to be threatening predators, potential prey, or invading rivals, the peaceful progress they’d made would become significantly more exciting, and not in a good way.
Athala pulled two torches out of Elise’s bag, as well as a spare vial of oil, and buttoned the knapsack closed. She tucked one of the torches into her own pack. It was likely that she only needed the one for now, but the need for it had made her regret not bringing torches of her own. “Thanks, Elise. Can I light it off yours real quick?”
“Oh, no problem, Athala. Here.” Elise held her torch out, letting Athala light it off of the flame. “There you are.” She shot Athala a brief smile, before she returned to scowling at Ermolt. “See, I might be more inclined to take your so-called ‘counsel’ into consideration if you weren’t—”
Athala held her freshly lit torch steady next to the carved signs she’d found on the wall. The labels were worn, but still readable, and she was correct that they were in fact in Draconian. She looked closely at them, but none of the Draconian on this corner seemed to indicate anything coherent upon a first glance.
She stepped around her bickering companions to examine the other side. While there wasn’t anything particularly helpful here, either, a few of the symbols from the inscribed stone earlier were showcased. The ’fortress’ word that had been repeated on it was clearly pointing down the passage ahead on one of the carvings. None of the other Draconian word-letters looked familiar from the inscribed stone.
Common sense dictated that the ‘fortress’ thing was the purpose of this catacomb. And it was unlikely that anywhere could have a purpose larger than such a powerful spell. It would be akin to putting a signboard out for the kitchens in front of the king’s palace. Sure, some people were there for it, but there was something more important here. Even back when such spells were more commonly made, they were of great significance.
Athala looked at Elise and Ermolt. They were still arguing, although their tones had turned to more vicious whispering and less yelling. She really didn’t want to try and get between them. At least, not without being more sure she was pointing them in the right direction. She would investigate on her own and then come back when she felt confident enough in her assessment to interrupt their fight.
After heading a few dozen fen down the ‘fortress’ marked hallway, Athala looked back at her friends. The two of them were still arguing in the flickering pool of light shed by Elise’s torch. The stone walls didn’t echo their voices much. Their conversation, while building in volume with each passing moment, was just a low mumble at this distance.
Without the sound echoing back to them, it would take them a while to remember themselves. “It will be good for them,” she said, mumbling to herself as she r
eturned to navigating the hallway. “They need to get some things out in the open. Stewing on problems isn’t healthy.”
After another few steps she considered that statement a bit closely. She realized that she might be a bit far ahead of them when they finally snapped out of it. And that they wouldn’t know which way to go.
With a sigh, Athala reached into her bag and grabbed the second torch she’d borrowed from Elise. She found an empty sconce and settled the torch into it before lighting it off the lit one she carried.
When they finally decided to get back to work on investigating these ruins, the torch would show them where she had gone. They’d catch up eventually. And maybe she wouldn’t be dead before they did.
Chapter Six
Aside from the constant fear of her impending death, and the damage she was doing to her cuticles by tearing at them with her index finger and thumb, Athala felt good about her decision. As she rounded the first corner and found that the passageway continued instead of ending in the pile of rubble she had almost expected, she even let out a little cry of victory. A quiet cry. More of a whisper.
There weren’t any signs of fresh activity in these halls—no giant rat droppings or scraps of discarded meals, or even piles of forgotten bones—but the fact that things had been so quiet for so long worried her. She kept her pace deliberately and painfully slow so that once Elise and Ermolt came to their senses they could catch up to her quickly.
After she took her time before rounding a second corner, Athala became slightly concerned about how long they were taking to catch up. How much yelling did they really need to get out of their systems? It had been at least a quarter of a bell already, and she didn’t even hear the shuffle of leather boots or the clink of metal buckles behind her.
She slowed her pace a bit more, doing a lot of meandering and looking at the walls. There wasn’t anything there. But at least she was trying. As she walked, she took care to quiet her footsteps, in case there was something else out in the dark around her. Not that her stealth mattered—it was generally considered foolish to attempt to be sneaky while holding the only light source in a pitch black hallway. She shivered and told herself the tunnel was just a little cooler down this way.
By the time she turned the third corner, her concern tilted sharply towards her own safety rather than the emotional well-being of her friends. Ahead of her, the walls of the hallway were cracked and crooked, human-sized broken openings allowing dirt to spill into the passageway. From the hallway, the openings revealed only blackness beyond.
The sound of running water bubbled out of the darkness at a low whisper.
For a moment, Athala considered dousing her torch. It would have been pointless. She was no more safe in pitch darkness than in the only source of light for half a kren. She couldn’t defend herself if she couldn’t see what was attacking. At least with the torch she could bring her magic to bear against threats that approached her. Even if it made her a beacon.
Athala pressed herself against the wall as she moved towards the nearest crack in the stone. The air was cool and there was a dampness to it that was oddly refreshing. It was almost as if she hadn’t realized how dry the air had been until feeling the humidity on her skin.
She considered her options for a moment. Her range of spells was quite versatile, but there were still many situations that she was effectively unable to deal with. She just had to keep a spell ready in her mind to be able to react quickly and hope the spell she chose was the right one for the situation. Athala flattened herself up against the wall at the edge of the hole.
Her non-magical options were limited, so she did what she figured was the safest possible course, regardless of how stupid it felt. She reached forward and waved her torch in front of the hole in the wall. From her position against the wall it didn’t reveal much, but she listened closely as she pulled the torch back to her. She didn’t hear any reaction—no angry squeaks or creaking of bone—so she crept closer and peeked into the crack.
A dull blue-green light illuminated the space beyond the wall, likely a form of ancient phosphorescent fungi or algae. The murmur of water was a little louder and the air that brushed past her face was refreshingly cool.
But the view itself was quite limited. The crack faced a rock wall behind it. There was a small space between the back side of the wall of the passage and the natural rock. She couldn’t see anything though, and the crack was too narrow to poke her head through to look around. Her curiosity was piqued, however. Athala moved with much less fear to the next crack in the wall, peering through.
This crack gave a much clearer view of the underground landscape. Babbling dribbles of water descended from out of sight at the far end of the cavern into a stagnant pool, likely dripping from the stone itself.
The tunnel dug for the Ploosk River to travel beneath the city was probably above, and it was very likely the source of the water.
A small rivulet ran out of the pool but the surface itself was mostly undisturbed, and it glowed with bioluminescent plant life. It was a cool blue glow, almost too low to see by. The glow revealed how much the flora around the pool had been mutated by the ambient magic energies. Disks of mushrooms clung to the damp walls, each one the length of a horse. Athala’s knowledge of fungi was limited but she’d done enough research to know that size was unusual.
There were some over-sized insects picking at the mushrooms for sustenance and she felt a pang of sympathy for their plight. Most over-sized insects mutated by magic were done so directly by a spell actively and intentionally designed for that purpose. Those creatures were fully-formed as they had been when small and were functional enough to survive in their typical role as a predator, worker, or large research subject.
When insects became misshapen by ambient magic—or when magically-grown insects mated—they became susceptible to the laws of nature instead of the whims of a specific magical purpose.
Insects are so small for a reason.
The creatures that bumbled along the cavern walls were misshapen and lumpy, their size making the formation of their carapace during pupation a clumsy and inefficient process. It meant that even the largest of them—a few seemed to be near the size of a wolf—would never be a dangerous threat to her, no matter how wicked the thick pincer-like jaws or jagged horn structure they carried on the fronts of their heads. They were incapable of quick movement and the malformed carapace would offer almost no protection from even someone as weak as Athala striking them with a booted foot.
A quick, close blur of movement caught her eye, dragging her from thought.
Perhaps the large beetles weren’t the only wildlife in the cavern.
With a whispered hiss Athala backed away, holding the torch up to keep illuminating the area as she tried to catch another glimpse of what she had seen.
She tried not to breathe too loudly.
The thought of running rose in her mind, bubbling fiercely, but she knew that whatever was there could likely outrun her and her companions were nowhere nearby.
After a painful moment, the reflection of red eyes glowed in her torchlight.
Athala started with a little yelp as a mutated giant rat scrabbled through the narrow opening in the passageway. Instinctively, Athala began to prepare to cast her fire bolt spell at the creature when a second one began to stalk into the light of the torch from farther up the passage. And a third appeared crawling out of the crack behind the first.
One rat she could have easily handled with a quick fire bolt.
Perhaps she could dispatch two if they hesitated before attacking. Three would be a challenge, and by the time she got to it, the third would likely be sinking its teeth into her.
As a fourth poked its head into the crack in the passageway, and a fifth squeezed in from another crack farther up the wall, she knew she needed to take a different approach.
Her most versatile spell—in fact, her favorite—was the production of illusions. She couldn’t create a flawless image of whatev
er she liked, but she could create something to distract or frighten some magically-altered wildlife. She briefly considered trying to distract them from her with an illusory piece of cheese, but dismissed the idea quickly as silly. It would only distract them as long as it took them to determine it was false. And she wasn’t even sure if magically-altered rats liked cheese. If they didn’t they’d likely just give chase after her and run her down in the passage to her untimely demise.
She needed to frighten them.
Athala murmured to herself the requisite words of the spell as the rats moved slowly closer. The fingers of her free hand traced the careful calculations needed to collect, arrange, and execute the magical energies.
As the spell completed, she focused on what she wanted to form, holding the image of it in her mind’s eye, concentrating against the momentary lightheadedness of spell casting, and imagining her illusion overlaid over the world at the far end of the pool of torchlight.
The illusion announced itself with a low rumbling noise. Great hairy paws padded onto the stone, the pressure of its weight arching its toes, revealing the slight glimmer of retractable claws poking out. It lowered its head to the floor, its green eyes glimmering in the torchlight. The illusion was larger than a horse, filling the corridor, and its long, fluffy fur was orange with dark stripes.
The rats reacted to the illusion of the giant housecat with equal parts fear and confusion. A few of them began to back away. The nearest ones arched their backs, puffing out their own fur and hissing at the approaching predator. With their focus on something other than Athala, she was free to scoot along the wall away from the rats as they took up a defensive formation. They prepared to strike if the giant cat should pounce on one of their packmates.