Tales of the Hidden World

by Simon R. Green

“It would appear we are not alone in the Labyrinth, Jarryl.”

  They exchanged a glance and made their way deeper into the darkness, swords at the ready. Some time later, they came to an iron portcullis lowered against them. Varles growled a curse. His bribed guards had told him nothing of this, though in their defense it could be said that never had they entered the Labyrinth at night. No King, they insisted with hands atremble, could pay them enough to walk the catacombs while night lay across the land. Varles studied the heavy iron grating and sheathed his sword, handing his torch to Jarryl. He took firm hold of the chill metal and slowly took the strain. Ropes of muscle corded across his broad shoulders as the ironwork groaned and shifted, and then he snarled triumphantly as, with a tortured squeal, the gate lifted a few inches from the floor. He grabbed desperately at the sweat-slippery metal, his muscles standing out in sharp relief as the portcullis rose another inch and another.

  Jarryl squeezed as far into the narrow gasp as she could, eyes smarting from the smoking torches she carried, and waited patiently, knowing that should Varles slip, the massive ironwork would surely crush her, but trusting him nonetheless. The gate lifted still further, and with some small cuts and much muttered cursing, Jarryl finally wriggled through. There was a dull thud as the portcullis tore itself from Varles’s grip, and Jarryl nodded soberly as the crude barbs at its base dug hungrily into the soft stone floor. She quickly wound up the portcullis with much complaining of its rusty chains. Varles ducked past the grating, and Jarryl let it fall again.

  Together they inspected the flight of rough-hewn steps that led down to the last level of the Labyrinth. Worn dangerously smooth by the passing of many feet, they stretched away into an unrelieved darkness neither Varles nor Jarryl could plumb. Jarryl handed Varles his torch, and side by side they padded down into the gloom.

  At the foot of the steps, they stopped and glared quickly about, for lying in a pool of blood were the two guards Varles had slain but an hour past up in the guardhouse. He studied the vilely mutilated bodies as Jarryl guarded his back with drawn sword.

  “Strange,” he said slowly. “They insisted there was but one entrance to the Labyrinth, yet if that were true, how were they brought here without passing us?”

  Jarryl shrugged lightly, eyes darting from shadow to shadow. “Have they any valuables on them, Captain? ’Twould be a shame to leave any sweets pickings for the morning’s guards.”

  Varles nodded solemnly. “Aye, but it seems to me I took what little they had when I disposed of their services earlier this evening.” He shared a brief grin with Jarryl, before turning back to the guardsmen. “How came they to be ripped apart, from throat to crotch? I give a clean kill, always.”

  Jarryl glanced at the mutilated corpses and shrugged uncomfortably, remembering the casually discarded jawbone. “Mauled by some animal, mayhap?”

  “Aye.” Varles sounded unconvinced. “Have you noticed how clammy the air is down here?”

  Jarryl nodded. “I’ve heard the Labyrinth extends far out under the harbor. There’s even some kind of mist down here.”

  She gestured with her torch at a few wisps that dissipated into the dank air even as they watched.

  They made their way further into the catacombs, passing cells obviously long abandoned, their dull metal doors scarred with the rust and filth of long neglect. Their attention was caught by paintings on the walls, which, starting at the foot of the stairs, depicted in marvelous hues a legend of the long ago, when Others stalked the Earth along with Man. Heroes vied with monsters, both so vividly presented Jarryl was hard-pressed not to reach out a hand and prove them real. There was a war, and in it battles and treacheries, foulness and great deeds, for this was a war between Man and those who ruled before him.

  Varles studied the walls curiously, for though they were dripping with a brackish water, the dyes seemed strangely unaffected, as though soaked into the stone itself. They walked slowly on, torches held close to the walls that they might more clearly see the long story unfold. There were many heroes, most of whom died unpleasant deaths, but strangely only one demon, which recurred again and again until the story ended, so suddenly as to be surely unfinished. The final painting, just as the first, showed the demon wrapped in chains, striving to reach a crowned man who threatened it with a blazing brand.

  “A strange history indeed,” Varles said slowly. “But I know this last man by his profile, Harak, first King of Mhule these centuries past. His head still marks their coins.”

  “And the demon?” Jarryl asked, glancing at the wall and as quickly away again.

  Varles frowned. “It seems to me there was a similar painting on the door leading down from the guardhouse, half-hidden under the grime of years. When I commented on it, the guards talked hastily of something else.” He shook his head and strode quickly on. Jarryl hurried after him.

  The narrowing corridors led still downward, the cracked stone floor became ever more treacherous. Varles was no longer sure of his way, and more than once had to stop and retrace his steps. But finally, the torches revealed a featureless iron door set into the wall, with only a small revolving section to pass food through. Varles grinned, relieved his memory had not played him entirely false. He rapped on the door.

  “Shade! Can ye hear me?”

  “Aye! Get the door open and free me from these cursed chains!”

  Varles sheathed his scimitar, took the ring of keys from his belt and began the slow process of trying them in turn. He soon found the right key and struggled with the obstinate lock.

  “Captain Varles!” Shade’s voice floated through the gloom so clearly Jarryl would have sworn he stood beside her rather than the other side of a thick iron door.

  “Aye, Shade, I’m still here. What is it ye want that can’t wait the few minutes it’ll take to free ye?”

  “I have to know, Captain, is it day or night?”

  Jarryl glanced at Varles, who shrugged.

  “Night, Shade, when else might we come a-calling?”

  He pushed the door open and by the light of the flickering torches Jarryl studied the beaten and manacled figure who lay in the far corner of the condemned cell. Long and lean with sun-bleached hair, he wore only a filthy bloodstained tunic and a dirty rag at his throat. Half-healed wounds showed clearly on his wiry frame, and blood dripped from ankles, wrists, and throat where the chains chafed him. Jarryl’s eyes widened; with no window, and no chance of release till his dying day, it was no wonder Shade had lost all track of time, but for what mad reason had the guards blindfolded a man kept in a completely dark cell?

  As Varles entered the cell Jarryl heard a faint scuffling behind her. She spun, sword at the ready. Back down the corridor, something tittered in the darkness. She gripped her sword firmly and padded silently back down the passage.

  Varles slipped his torch into a battered iron holder and busied himself with the deeply embedded iron loop, but this time the key was not easily to hand, and he began to doubt it was even on the ring. He paused, eyeing the wall dubiously. If all else failed, he could perhaps tug the iron ring far enough from the wall to saw at it with his scimitar.

  “Captain, why are ye taking so long?” Shade’s patient voice jerked Varles from his reverie. “If this be night, we face certain danger here. In nights past, I have heard something scuffling outside my cell that from its sound I’d not face through choice, something only the cold iron of my door kept at bay. If I must use the sorceries of night in such a place as this, I’ll not answer for the consequences.”

  Varles repressed a shiver at Shade’s calm and measured tone. He bent again to his task, and then spun suddenly around as Jarryl’s shocked scream echoed faintly in the distance.

  On leaving Varles with Shade, Jarryl had quickly made her way back down the passage, sword held out before her. She knew the tales city dwellers told of this place, but her contempt for all who walked the land inst
ead of a ship’s deck had led her to discount such fears till now. She felt sure something moved in the darkness ahead, though ever and again she rounded a corner with torch held high to find nothing but dancing shadows and the hint of a mocking titter. Whatever she was chasing seemed always to retreat before her, leading her back to the steps that ascended from this last level of the Labyrinth.

  Jarryl sprang around the far corner in fighting stance to face an apparently empty corridor, but she knew better than to relax her vigilance. Whatever she pursued, she had not given it time to scurry far. She held her flickering torch a little higher, glanced down the corridor and gasped; the dead guards no longer sprawled at the foot of the stairs. Only a wide pool of blood remained to mark where they had lain.

  A flicker of movement spun Jarryl around to face the wall at her right. She stared at the opening painting of the chained demon, uncertain as to what had caught her eye, and then her heart jumped as it slowly turned its awful head to look at her.

  Swirling mists curled up around its misshapen body as the chains fell away, the painting coming horribly alive as she watched. A few strands of mist drifted out of the painting toward her, and then a thick fog boiled from the stone, filling the corridor. Jarryl backed away as the tittering sounded suddenly close and then screamed as something impossibly large loomed out of the fog. She dropped her torch and flailed out wildly with her sword, feeling something give under the keen blade’s urging. High-pitched chattering sounded in her ears as she turned and ran headlong back down the pitch-dark corridors.

  Without her torch, she was soon lost, and rather than run blindly through the Labyrinth, she stopped to take her bearings. A light glowed dimly from a side passage, revealing that she stood before the final painting of the chained demon. The unsteady light grew stronger till she recognized Varles running toward her with drawn sword and a freshly blazing torch.

  “What happened, Jarryl?”

  “A demon, Captain.” Jarryl fought for breath. “The demon from the wall painting!”

  Thick fog spilled suddenly from the painting beside them, filling the corridor. Shade’s voice rose faintly in the distance.

  “Free me, Captain! Ye need my help!”

  The naked urgency in his voice contrasted strangely with his polite use of the formal ye. As Varles and Jarryl stood together, blades at the ready, something moved out of the fog and into the dim light. Fully a dozen feet tall, hunched over in the cramping confines of the passage, its bony head scraped the ceiling while massive arms drooped to the floor. It was long and lean, with a barbed tail that hung twitching past malformed flanks. There were no eyes, only dusty sockets where eyes had once been, yet it followed their movements nonetheless. Its gaping maw revealed row upon row of stained, serrated teeth.

  The high-pitched tittering was strangely inappropriate for such bulk, Varles thought fleetingly as he dropped his torch into a nearby holder and then leaped to the attack, Jarryl at his side. Their blades sank deep into the demon, spraying foul-smelling blood across the floor and walls. It screamed, and an overlong arm sent Varles flying down the corridor to smash into a wall. Jarryl ducked the return swing and sprang under its reach to pierce the demonflesh that would hide a heart in any body less misshapen. It hissed, and Jarryl had to throw herself headlong to avoid wicked claws that dug furrows in the stone wall behind her. Varles staggered forward, and she screamed at him to free Shade. He gazed stupidly at her as she snatched his torch from its holder, touched it to another on the wall, and threw it back to him. His eyes suddenly cleared as he snatched it out of midair and then darted back down the corridor. Jarryl ducked the demon’s petulant swing and retrieved her blade from where it lay sheathed in the demon’s chest. She danced back just in time to be sent sprawling by a clawed hand that tore her cloak away and ripped a bloody track across her left shoulder. Blood splashed down her numbed arm. She spat out a curse and staggered to her feet again, pressing home an attack she knew to be hopeless, her skill weaving a web of steel between her and the demon. The wall torch was already burning low.

  Varles tugged and twisted at the stubborn iron loop. Shade cursed dispassionately and pulled at his chains, which were so arranged that try as he might he could lift his hands no higher than his waist. As Varles paused to wipe sweat from his eyes, Shade suddenly tensed.

  “Captain! Is there light in my cell?”

  “Aye, Shade, how else could I see to wrestle with these damned chains?”

  “Then free my eyes!”

  “I haven’t the time, Shade!”

  Varles took the iron ring in both broad hands and put his shoulders to the task. With agonizing slowness, he felt the corroded metal stir under his grip. He jammed a fat against the wall to brace himself and threw his weight against the loop. For long moments, he stood straining, and then the stone gave, the ring flying from the wall in a cloud of dust and stone splinters. Varles lay sprawling as Shade reached up and pulled the blindfold from his eyes. He laughed triumphantly when a shadow fell across his face though there was nothing to cast it, and then he tore the heavy manacles from him as though they were nothing but paper. Varles staggered to his feet, but by the time he was up, Shade had already gone. He lurched back into the corridor, sword in hand, and snatching the torch from its wall holder, he hurried after Shade.

  Jarryl swung her notched sword with aching arm, sweat running into her eyes, her blood making the floor slippery. She only just ducked the demon’s lazy return swing and heard again its hateful titter. She knew it was playing with her but dared not retreat. With her gone, it might disappear back into the wall painting again, and there was no telling where it might choose to reemerge. She thought fleetingly of the painting on the guardhouse door and realized who had mutilated the dead guardsmen. The discarded jawbone swam before her eyes, and in a flash of inspiration, she understood the empty cells and why the city lived in fear. The King let the demon live by feeding on those prisoners it could reach. Only a thick iron door had saved Shade. In her musing, she let her attack slow, and again the heavy arm sent her flying. She lay exhausted, knowing she had to get up, but unable to force herself to her feet.

  She stared helplessly up at the sniggering demon, and then her eyes widened as Shade stepped from the shadows beside her. The demon screamed shrilly and threw both gnarled hands to the ceiling. Flames burst between them, dull red with the stink of brimstone. The demon screamed again, and the flames crackled unsupported on the air. It seemed to Jarryl that the demon knew Shade, and in its own way feared him. Varles helped her to her feet, and she leaned on him a moment, before pulling away. She’d not miss the battle this promised to be.

  Shade howled something in a tongue only the demon seemed to recognize, and it threw the flames at him. He darted aside, and Jarryl grinned with a savage joy as the sorcerous flames seared the demon’s picture from the wall. It howled in agony as flames licked up around its bulk, but there was no longer any painting for it to disappear into. Fire roared in the narrow corridor, consuming the demon in a brightness too painful to look upon. It screamed in rage while it roasted, held fast in the passage by its bulk. As Varles and Jarryl watched, flames scorched along the walls, obliterating the paintings. The demon seemed to fall in upon itself, and soon the sorcerous flames had left nothing but a charred skeleton. The stench of burned meat hung heavy on the air as the flames flickered low. Shade loomed suddenly out of the shadows.

  “We’d best leave; the sorceries of night have been called upon here, and I’d not stay to see the result of that calling. This fire is not the kind that can easily be banished.”

  He turned and ran down the corridor, leaving Varles and Jarryl to follow as the flames roared up again, eating into the very stone itself. With the heat already scorching their backs, they sped along the narrow, twisting corridors, just managing to keep Shade in sight, for he seemed to need no directions to lead him out of the Labyrinth. When he reached the portcullis, he barked a few wor
ds, gestured with a hand, and the iron grating rose obediently before him, hanging on the air as he sped under, and then falling slowly back again. Varles and Jarryl only just scrambled through the lowering gap. Jarryl shot a venomous glare after Shade but saved her breath for running. There’d be time for a reckoning later. Behind her, she could hear flames crackling and realized that although Varles’s torch no longer burned, the corridor was still well lit. She risked a glance over one shoulder and cursed as she saw the corridor was already ablaze.

  By the time they reached the final stairway, the flames were a raging inferno and no more than a dozen feet behind them. Sweat poured off them, and their breath came hard as they assayed the narrow steps. Shade stood in the guardhouse door at the top of the stairway, a grin twisting his mouth as he watched, making no move to help. Varles and Jarryl forced themselves up the last few steps with flames licking at their heels and burst into the guardhouse. Shade slammed the door shut behind them, sliding home the bolts. They lay panting a moment, regaining their breath, and Varles absently noted that the ancient painting of the demon on the inside of the door was naught but a patch of charred wood. Shade smiled.

  “Be grateful ye’re both good runners; another moment and I’d have had to slam the door on ye lest the flames reach me.”

  Jarryl glared at him. “Ye’d have done that to us, who freed ye?”

  Shade shrugged. “If I’m to have partners, they must be my equal.”

  Varles got to his feet. “Partners, is it? Shade, ye swore an oath to serve with me in return for your freedom from that cell. Ye’ll keep your oath, won’t ye?”

  He drew a silver dagger from his scorched sleeve. Shade regarded it thoughtfully a moment and nodded.

  “As ye say, I swore an oath. Now let us leave; the fire will not long be balked by that door.”

  He turned, and pushing open the thick iron doors, left the guardhouse without a backward glance. Varles and Jarryl shared a look and then followed him out into the cool night air.