by L. L. Bower
Panting from my efforts, I pick up the stun rod from where it rolled and seize the other minotaur’s dagger. I secure the stun rod and dagger in my waistband. Next, I detach the large key hanging from the guard’s belt and step out into the corridor, which is lined on both sides by cells.
The torches that mark this corridor provide the most light I’ve seen in weeks, and I squint. Glancing from one end of the hall to the other, I look for more guards but don’t see any. I take a deep breath. Freedom smells sweet, even in these stench-ridden, dank surroundings.
Holding Noblesse in front of me, I start down the hall, keys in hand. Moving from one side to the other as I walk, I open all the rust-covered locks. Many of the cells are empty, and I briefly mourn the deaths of so many wonderful creatures that succumbed to Galdo’s experiments.
Yet others emerge, careful to open the metal-barred doors slowly, so they won’t make much noise. Three tomtes, who are shapeshifters with white beards and a single eye each, blink rapidly in the light. Also freed are two blue mermen and two oreads, rock and tree nymphs with grass-like hair and chiseled, square faces that resemble stone. I recognize these tribes from when I trained their leaders.
Two doors down, a frost giant with bluish skin and white hair, thrusts open his cell door. It clangs against the stone, making me wince. I put a finger to my lips and look around, my sword thrust in front of me, expecting a guard to come running. No one appears from the end of the hall.
“Sorry.” The giant has to bend in half to get through the cell opening. It must have taken an army to subdue him.
“I’m Geryen,” he declares in a subdued voice, “son of Hamill.” He bends over and thrusts out a shovel-sized hand.
I put my hand in his, and we shake, his grip like a vise.
“I’m ...” I whisper.
Geryen interrupts, “I know you who you are, Sir Calen. I’m one of the giants you trained a while ago.”
I smile. “I remember your face if not your name.”
I hand the stun rod to one of the tomtes and the dagger to a merman. I motion with my hand down the stone hallway where I believe guards are stationed and murmur, “Follow me.”
Fortunate for Geryen that the ceiling in this part of the cave is high enough for him to stand upright, but I stare at his feet, which sound like hammer strikes with each step. I again put my finger to my lips, and he gets the message. He walks on tiptoes, not an easy task for a creature his size.
Thanks to the giant’s efforts, we reach the end of the corridor, which is much brighter, without being detected. As I peer around the corner, another minotaur sits at a table, sipping from a mug of steaming liquid. Beyond this room, we hear shouting in some other language, louder than the sounds we made while escaping.
Before the minotaur can take another sip, I run up and stab him in the back. He slumps over the table with a groan, and his mug falls, shatters and splatters its contents on the floor. The second merman grabs the guard’s stun rod and dagger. I prepare for more guards to come running. We wait a moment, but nobody appears, and the distant but noisy arguing continues.
Past the guard, the cave floor tilts upward. A locked metal door with a tiny barred opening sits off to my right. I peer inside to see a murky, stone-walled room without any other light. A dark lumpy shadow lies in a corner on a pile of straw. I hope it’s more than just a blanket.
I try the master key, and it works. The door creaks open, and I cringe, worried that the noise will attract more guards. I stop to listen, but the angry, remote voices continue.
I quickly step inside and say to the shadow, “I’m getting you out.”
The shadow moves, and a creature lifts its head and struggles to get up.
I rush over to help. I grasp an arm and lift.
A small but deep voice says, “Thank you.”
The aged and filthy blanket sloughs off to reveal a human-type being with long hair and a beard, not a numinal. He’s shorter than I am and shivering, so I wrap the meager blanket around him and, more easily than I could’ve imagined, lift him over one shoulder. I can feel the sharpness of his bones through my ragged shirt. His legs flop down in front of me, and I notice his skin is loose.
He has a coughing fit, then squeaks, “I’m so grateful you’re here. I’ve been in this place a long time and thought I’d never leave.”
When we get outside the stranger’s cell, Geryen offers to carry him. We continue our journey onward to who knows what, the tomtes, mermen, oreads and myself in front, while the frost giant, with the limp stranger over his shoulder, follows.
Our surroundings grow brighter as shafts of sunlight stab through holes in the rock roof. The heated discussion is louder now, so I stick my head out far enough to see around the corner. Ahead is an open area with three ogres in heavy armor milling about. They’re so busy arguing that they don’t notice me. On a table to one side lay playing cards and some kind of coinage.
I motion to the others to back up, and we lean against the cave wall. Geryen shifts the newest member of our motley crew to his other shoulder.
“Ogres,” I whisper and hold up three fingers. Geryen and I could take them on, but he’d have to set the human down.
The others whisper among themselves. Again, I underestimate my fellow escapees. Even though we’re all weakened from inactivity and a lack of good food, one of them murmurs, “Let us handle this.”
Two of the tomtes ask the second merman, “Can you arm us?” They point to the other stun rod and the dagger he confiscated from the guard I stabbed. The third tomte already has the stun rod I gave him when we first escaped.
I cock my head. “What’s your plan?”
The closest oread whispers in my ear. “We’ll use our Creator-given powers. They don’t stand a chance.”
I briefly worry that their powers won’t work in here, since they didn’t work in the cells. Didn’t Winston say Galdo put a magic-dampening spell on this dungeon? As if in answer, Noblesse vibrates, and I realize my worry is misplaced.
“Watch.” The oreads reach their arms out around the corner and wave them back and forth in rapid succession at the cave ceiling. The stalactites over the ogres’ heads vibrate, and then loud cracks echo through the chamber as the rock splinters. The sounds make the ogres stop arguing and look up. Jagged pieces of rock tumble down on their heads and knock them to the ground. They moan as they fall.
While the ogres still rub their heads and before they can rise, the tomtes shapeshift into ogres of equal size and strength. I feel unnecessary but also amazed, as each tomte takes on a fallen ogre. They kick, stun, stab and pummel all three ogres until they can’t get up. Then they turn to Geryen, bow and say, “Your turn.”
As they back away, the frost giant blows on each of the fallen ogre guards, which encases them in ice, the human escapee still lying limp over his shoulder.
He beams. “That’ll keep them for a while.”
Later, as we recall this event, I joke to Crisa that Geryen has made “frozen ogres” instead of frozen yogurts, which makes her laugh. Right now, though, we’re focused on escape.
“Can you three keep your ogre forms, in case we meet more guards?” I ask the tomtes. They all nod.
“And will you mermen take turns carrying our weak friend there, so we can move faster?” I remember from training that mermen are exceptionally strong, even though they’re likely weakened by their incarceration. Geryen, while having a long stride, isn’t fast, especially with the added load of the stranger on his back. Besides, I need the others like him, with their special capabilities, to be our first line of offense.
“We need to hurry before more guards arrive.” I wave my arm forward. We all take off running, the tomtes/ogres in front, followed by the oreads and mermen. Geryen and I protect the rear.
We continue our upward trek, toward what I hope is the exit of this prison where we’ve resided for too long. Although I’m constantly on alert, we don’t see any more guards. I briefly wonder why.
&nb
sp; I look back to see Geryen hunched over like an old man because the cave roof has gotten lower as we climb, but still he bumps his head on a protrusion of rock and exclaims, “Great bloody toes!”
The oreads shush him to which he murmurs, “Sorry.” Geryen massages his bushy head.
I remember more about Geryen now, who uttered the same curse when he bumped his head on a tree branch one day during our training session. Angry, he uprooted the tree. When I commented on his strength, he remarked, “I lift tree trunks and boulders every morning to build my stamina. ‘No pain, no gain,’ isn’t that what you humans say?”
I asked him how he knew about humans. He told me, when humans enter the woods, giants like to hide and eavesdrop. Although we can’t see them, unless someone touches an Omniweed or steps on a fairy like I did, the giants don’t want to frighten the humans if they should bump into them or hear them.
He told me, when my kind finds a giant’s footprints, they often report another ‘Big Foot’ sighting. But, by the time other humans arrive to investigate and take pictures, the giants have obliterated their large prints. Then, to substantiate their Big-Foot claims, a few humans dress up in furry costumes and create hoaxed moving-picture clips.
Geryen said he thinks humans are a mysterious race, sometimes behaving meanly and sometimes acting just plain silly. He asked me if we are dark or light creatures. I told him we’re some of both.
We reach a fork in the caves. I listen attentively with my fairy-enhanced ears in both directions. To the left, the tunnel is shadowy with the only sound being the constant drip of water. The other direction has more light, as well as muffled screams. That must be the way to the lab.
Even though we don’t have time, I’d love to crash into that diabolical lab, free any captives and release every type of extreme weather I can think of. I’m guessing though that Galdo has cast a spell to prevent anyone but him from using magic in his lab. He couldn’t experiment on numinals otherwise.
I thrust Noblesse into the darker tunnel on the left, since her magic is active again, and she doesn’t vibrate to signal the presence of dark creatures. The sun on her handle glows, and the flowers and fairies’ eyes are open.
“Let’s head left,” I suggest as I peer into the gloom. Why didn’t I take one of the guard’s lanterns?
We walk for quite a ways without seeing any guards, which I think is odd. The merman carrying our human companion, asks, “Can we stop for a moment?”
I know the dead and injured guards will be found soon, so I don’t want to stop. But by my companions’ slumped, shadowy forms and shuffling gaits, I’m convinced we should. I again focus my super hearing down the corridor behind us. I don’t hear anything but the persistent trickle of water and some distant brushing sounds.
“We’ll rest, but just for a little while.”
The merman groans when he lays the human on the rock floor, and then he grabs my hand for a shake as he glows slightly blue. “I’m Baru,” he states, as he shakes my hand, “and this is my friend Claymont.” He nods his head toward the other merman, who gives off the same bluish aura.
The tomtes then declare themselves to be Mordea, Tumea and Olea, and the oreads are Caroom and Lawra.
I nod. “Nice to meet you all.”
Claymont asks Baru, “Would you like me to carry the human?”
Baru nods and scrunches his shoulders up and down to loosen them.
The human captive lifts his head. “I’m slowing you down.” He coughs and lowers his head again. “Go on, without me.”
“No way.” I kneel beside him. “I’m curious though. Who are you? Galdo usually has no use for humans.”
“How well I know it. He’s worse than his father ever was.” He clears his throat. His voice is softer than a whisper, and I lean in to hear him. “I was lost in limbo, but Galdo liberated me. Only so he could experiment on me, I might add, because I was a special case, a human champion.”
I stop mid-breath and jerk back like I’ve been hit with a stun rod. “Can it be? Are you Simean?”
“Yes, son of Gladstone.” Someone gasps behind me. “You’ve heard of me?”
I nod. “Yes, when I was training to be champion. You stopped the chimera and the behemoth and helped turn the tide of the Seven Years’ War. You also dispatched Delbo, Galdo’s father.”
“That was enjoyable.”
I’ve been in this dungeon for a few weeks, but, by contrast, this man has been here for what must have seemed like eons. I can’t imagine how discouraged and depressed he must have felt.
“I’m Calen, son of Mortimer, at your service. It’s a pleasure to meet you. But how can you still be alive? I estimate you should be at least 100 years old.”
Simean starts to chuckle but then sputters. In a reedy voice, he says, “One advantage of being in limbo—a person doesn’t age.”
“Ah, I see.”
While I want to find out how Simean returned from limbo and was captured, we can’t stop any longer. While we’ve rested, the brushing sounds I heard earlier have gotten louder, and Noblesse begins to vibrate. Whatever is behind us is dark and moving fast.
“I’d love to hear the rest of your story, but I think something’s following us. Let’s go.”
We rise quickly. Claymont thrusts Simean over his shoulder, and we hustle farther down the corridor.
As we burrow deeper into the lava tube, it gets darker, even though it’s dimly lit at the end. If there are spiders or cave crickets in here, we won’t see them, even if they’re right in front of our faces. The thought makes me shudder. I hate spiders.
We can’t go any faster because we’re already feeling our way along the walls. I stumble over the uneven and unseen floor. The air seems hotter, which may signal a ground-level opening ahead, since early summer mornings in the forest can be very warm. Of course, once we’re out of this place, I can change the weather to suit us, thanks to the Creator’s gift.
I’m surprised there are no guards in this blacker part of the cave. The brushing and now scraping sounds, like cards being riffled in a deck, intensify behind us. The darkness and shape of the tunnel make the sounds echo so that they seem to surround us.
“What are those noises?” one of the tomtes asks.
“I wish I knew,” I mutter.
The tomtes have regained their numinal gifts, but do I have my weather powers? If I bring sunlight into this cave, I can view what’s following us, but the light might also allow an enemy to better see us and attack.
In addition to the brushing and scraping sounds, now clicks, like doors latching closed, and squeaks are added. Are mice following us? Noblesse is vibrating like mad now. Whoever they are, they have dark hearts.
Baru moves back to trot beside me. “Do you want to see what’s after us?” he asks. “I can be bioluminescent for a short time.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“My light won’t be all that bright in my present state of weakness, but it will be better than this black soup.”
“Terrific. I’d like to see what’s behind us. How far will your light extend?”
“About ten feet.”
Since Baru’s power will be concentrated to one area, it won’t light the entire cave like my sunlight would. “Go for it.”
Baru takes a deep breath, and while jogging forward, his blue skin takes on a deeper azure glow. Blue veins pulse under his skin. Then a sapphire gleam extends from him outward to the tunnel walls.
My eyes take a moment to adjust. Moving forward, I look all around me, but don’t see anything except silky smooth lava walls, almost as polished as glass. I still hear scraping sounds but can’t find their source.
That’s when Geryen says, “Look up.”
I do and see why the giant, who’s much taller, swats with both hands above the top of his head. Right above him are two large-winged creatures. As I peer farther behind us, a faint cloud of shadows from these creatures, too numerous to count, scurry toward us across the cave’s ceiling.
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br /> Chapter 4 – Enemies Attack
Our pursuers are bats, but, judging from the size of the two above us, they aren’t normal chiropters. Their bodies are the size of Geryen’s fist. They have long, razor-sharp teeth, like the vampire kind in my world, spiked claws and ears the size of lettuce leaves.
No wonder we haven’t seen insects, the primary diet for bats, in these tunnels. Of course, these overgrown creatures can doubtless attack larger prey too, like rats or lizards, even us. Baru’s glow agitates them because several spread out their large wings and squeak. Still more scuttle along the ceiling, baring their fangs.
Geryen blows on the front group of bats, freezing them. The rest scamper over the tops of their frozen pals to keep coming in an endless stream.
Now I understand why we haven’t seen any guards in this part of the tunnel. No need, with these sinister sentinels around.
“Douse your light,” I urge Baru. I hope these bats use echolocation, rather than sight to see in the dark. Even if they can’t see us, they’ll still be able to sense us. To the others, I add, “Let’s move and make as much noise as possible to confuse their sonar.”
With Baru’s blue glow gone, it’s gloomy again. We take off running and all chatter loudly, so our voices ricochet off the cave walls to confuse the bats. The floor is still uneven, so I turn my ankle and almost fall. I test the ankle by circling it while I still hop forward on the other one. It feels sound.
I jog again. Geryen bumps into me, and his warm breath now ruffles my hair. He must be bent over to separate himself from the bats. Because his stride is so much longer, I’m guessing he’s working hard not to run over the top of me.
“Do you want to run on ahead?” I ask him.
“No, I’m fine.”
Judging from their squeaking and scraping noises, the bats stay right with us. Lucky for us, the tunnel grows brighter as we head toward the light at its end. On the walls, the tomtes’ shadows shorten, and I realize they’ve shapeshifted back to their normal selves, in order to run faster.