by Adele Abbot
“You’d forgotten it I suppose?”
“For a moment only,” he felt around. “Just for a moment. Ah!” Ponderos brought out the globe and tapped its surface, a pearly luminescence shone forth and holding it aloft, it shed a circle of soft white light around them.
They looked around them. The dusty floor was a light grey. Above, a suggestion of a rocky ceiling could just be made out but around them, to right and left, behind and before, not a single glimpse of a supporting wall could be seen.
“Let me,” suggested Calistrope, “I am a little taller.” He held the globe higher.
“This is a stupendous place,” said Ponderos in a stage whisper. “Gigantic. Will the light attract these flying animals, do you think?”
“Probably so,” said Calistrope. “Roli?”
Roli shook his head. “They are practically blind I believe.”
“Well then. Blind, Ponderos. Roli’s bats are blind.”
The three of them continued on. Now that Roli’s bats had frightened the ants into closing the doors—or so they supposed—they walked at an easy pace.
Calistrope stopped and pointed to several piles of small bones which they were about to pass. “This shows there are indeed animals here, insect remains are quite different,” he indicated other debris. “You see, broken chitin plates, hollow tubes of the stuff.”
There were other marks in the dust, smudged tracks from something that must drag its feet, long grooves as though some bony snake had writhed its way between the debris.
“Bones, yes but flying animals? That’s quite a leap of imagination,” Ponderos stopped and scratched his head, he was not convinced that Roli was right.
“These bones are quite light though. Look,” Calistrope broke a long slender bone in half to see its cross section. “Triangular and they’re hollow, too. Look at that, it weighs practically nothing.”
“At least they’re…”
“There are a lot of them here,” Roli’s voice came from further on where he had been investigating more remains. “These are broken and… and I think they’ve been chewed.”
“I was about to say small. There must be something here bigger than bats, then.”
“It wouldn’t need to be very much big…”
“We’re about to find out, I think,” said Roli and drew his sword from its scabbard.
Roli was looking at a pile of stones almost as tall as himself.
Ponderos approached and asked, “Do you see something?” Roli pointed with his sword. “There. Big, I think. Very big.”
“Yes. Take care.”
A pile of broken rock had been dragged together to make a protective lair. From one end a large triangular head like a ploughshare rose to stare at them. It moved slowly from side to side, warty green hide covered the angular skull and bulges at either side had the appearance of eyes. The jaws gaped, a bulbous grey tongue bulged behind a ragged fringe of yellow teeth.
“I think it must be blind,” said Calistrope. “Like Roli’s bats. Perhaps it locates us by the sounds we make. And it seems to move slowly, if we go around it quietly…”
The creature moved out into the open and the light illuminated it more clearly. A fat body set on four splayed legs which worked in diagonally opposed pairs; the belly was gross, a distended bag brushing the ground as it moved—a long spiny tail dragged a groove into the dust. From nose to the start of its tail was the length of a man, the tail was easily as long again.
It looked sick and weak. Beside the laggard movement and probable blindness, the forlorn crest which ran from the head along its back was limp and drooped to one side.
“It really is an animal,” gasped Roli. “I never dreamed they could grow so big.”
“If that is an animal in the wild, give me insects,” said Calistrope. “At least they cull the terminally sick and the healthy look after the others. Anyway, whatever it is, let us edge around to the right. Quietly, maybe it’s harmless…”
There was the merest flicker of movement between its jaws and something long and nauseatingly smelly flashed past Calistrope. The tongue which had been fat and swollen had suddenly become a long rope, dripping with sticky fluid and firmly wound around Roli’s’ arm. It started to retract, pulling the boy, struggling and shrieking with terror, towards it.
The two men, for long moments petrified with shock, rallied and dashed towards the creature’s head with swords upraised. Closer to the animal, they saw that there were eyes behind the green swellings, each one shining behind a tiny aperture and moving independently, one watching the struggling, screaming boy, the other swiveling to keep Calistrope and Ponderos in focus.
Calistrope brought his blade down to slice the tongue in two but to no avail. It was made of some marvelously resilient fiber and showed no sign of harm at all as the glass blade rebounded. Ponderos attacked the gross abdomen but with similar lack of success. Try as they might, neither weapon inflicted more than minimal damage.
From somewhere Roli drew on reserves of courage. He ceased struggling, exchanging panic for icy calm. With teeth clenched viselike, he pulled a long thin-bladed knife from his belt then turning, letting the loathsome tongue pull him closer, he plunged the knife down through the tiny opening at the center of the armored turret into the creature’s left eye.
The tongue let go, retracted and let Roli go free. He fell to the ground, panting and gasping with reaction now the danger had gone, he crawled away. Calistrope and Ponderos stood watchfully as the obscene creature backed into its pile of stones, shaking its head where the hilt of the knife still protruded from its eye.
“Is he all right?” asked Calistrope.
“Roli?” asked Ponderos turning back to the boy.
“Yes. Yes I’m all right. Let’s just get out of this place. Lizards, ugh!”
“Let’s go by all means,” Calistrope replied. “But where to? I’m not sure which way we were going?”
Ponderos held the light high and there, thrown into shadowed relief were their foot prints trailing off into the darkness. He pointed in the other direction. “That way.”
They walked on, light held high and eyes open for further attack. As time passed and nothing came to trouble them, they relaxed a little. Now and then, in low tones, they discussed the obnoxious animal.
“Lizard,” said Calistrope suddenly. “Roli, you called it a lizard. Do they also roam around the Raftman’s Ease?
“No. I don’t think so. I heard the hunters there though. They talked about the things they hunted. One showed me some hide, it looked like the skin on that thing.”
Calistrope nodded. “I met a lizard in the high valley, where the moth took me but it was the length of my hand, we became friends. I fear my education has been neglected.”
“Or forgotten,” suggested Ponderos.
“Perhaps. I really ought to review my memory vault when we return.
They came at last to what must have been the far side of the cavern. To either side of them, the walls had closed in until now, they were only a few ells apart. The roof had become low enough to see that it was natural rock cracked and fissured and stained white with guano. A faint odor of ammonia had been evident for some time and had grown in strength as they approached; heaps and drifts of bat droppings lay along the walls.
The wall ahead boxed them in. A wall that was not rough rock; here, the stone had obviously been dressed.
“We’re blocked in here,” said Calistrope and even as he said it, the sound of unevenly flapping wings reached them from above, like a hundred scraps of parchment fluttering down on their heads.
Down they came again, tiny eyes gleaming in the lamp light, like black ink blots suspended on brown dried-up leaves. Into and out of the sphere of light, closer and closer to their heads, brushing their hair, tapping their faces with wing tips, claws scratching at skin like tiny thorns.
They waved their arms and shouted to no avail. The scratches became bites, some of the animals clung on and began to feed on the living
flesh, to lap at the blood flowing from wounds.
“Shades,” Roli wailed. “Here come those lizards again,” he pulled out his sword and sent it scything through the bats before taking up a guard against the reptiles.
Two lizards lumbered towards them like giant geriatric frogs. Their turreted eyes were never still, swiveling and darting as the creatures looked first at the humans then up into the clouds of bats.
They bunched together, Calistrope trying to keep the flying animals at bay while the other two watched the lizards, ready for attack. The expected never happened though. The bats—formidable as a flock and obviously panicking the ants—held no terrors for the chameleons. The long sticky tongues shot upward, picking bats out of the air with uncanny accuracy.
The flock was enormous, though; too large for the lizard’s feeding frenzy to make a substantial reduction in numbers. However, once the creatures realized they were also the hunted as well as hunters, they took more care in their approach, slowing their attack to a point where the humans had time to do more than defend themselves.
“Look,” shouted Ponderos battering his way from a cloud of the things with two or three clinging to his shoulder and neck. “There’s a way out; another door there, in the wall.”
“Lead the way,” returned Calistrope. “Can you open it?”
There was more than one doorway, all but one of them closed. The three crowded through and the bats stayed outside, disliking the confined space within. Calistrope was covered in bats clutching at the shoulders of his coat though only one had managed to find anywhere to bite into—just beneath his ear.
Roli—perhaps due to his smaller stature—had largely escaped notice and helped to work the animals free from the other’s flesh. Ponderos had suffered most, blood ran in half a dozen streams from bites and lacerations.
Free at last, they looked around the tiny cell into which they had rushed. It was square, small enough for Ponderos to touch opposing walls with outstretched arms, and the roof was low enough for him to touch. The interior was smooth and grey, featureless.
When they had dressed their wounds, they ventured outside to examine the other doors reasoning that one or other of them should lead into a passage away from the cave. The closed panels, like the interior of the cubicle, were smooth; there were neither keyholes nor handles. Apart from a dark grey circle on the lighter grey panel, they were blank. They pushed and thumped and tried to slide the panels without success and it was not until Calistrope accidentally placed his palm against the dark grey circle that the door at the other end suddenly opened. It opened onto a dark pit for a fraction of a second and then was closed again.
They tried the other doors but Calistrope’s hand seemed to be the only one with whatever quality caused the doors to open. There were four doors in all, the permanently open one, the two central inoperable doors and the other end one which opened fleetingly on to the pit where the light that Ponderos held could not reach the bottom.
They experimented with the functioning door which, they found, neither swung in nor out, nor slid to one side. It seemed simply that it ceased to exist.
Above them they could still hear the restless movement of bats in flight. Roli’s call was a considerable relief. “Here’s another way out,” he had walked farther along the wall and found another door, a narrow panel let into the rock face. There was no magic grey circle; he pushed, it swung inwards with a creak. “Like a regular door,” he laughed and from inside, there’re steps here.”
Chapter 19
The steps spiraled upward, upward, upward, turning in a broad circle, gritty with dust, and small gravel and rock fragments which had fallen from the ceiling onto them. They continued to climb the steps, the tall risers making climbing a strenuous business. At length they reached a small landing where another door opened to one side before the steps carried on. There was dust and debris here as well, which had been disturbed by small clawed feet that had crossed and recrossed the floor space, leaving tracks.
Ponderos pointed the tracks out to Calistrope who nodded. “Yes. Both animal and insect, I think. I wonder if it’s the proximity of the atmosphere plant, the air is thicker here than we’re used to.”
“And warmer, too,” added Roli. “I’m just going to look through that door there.”
He was back a moment later.
“Like down below. Four more doorways although I can’t open any of them, do you want to try, Calistrope?”
The Mage’s hand opened each one in turn. The two outer doors opened only for an instant onto gaping shafts, the two central ones were inactive. They returned to the stairs and began to climb again. Signs of animal and insect activity decreased as they went and soon there were only occasional tracks, a very rare pile of bones or a dried up insect casing.
Everything they saw attested to the great age of the structure. The stairs were blocked here and there by roof falls and these they had to file around or squeeze past or climb over. They reached a second landing identical to the previous with the four doors exactly like those below, they came to a third landing and here they sat on the top steps to eat some of their meager food supply.
“Shall we check the doors outside?” Roli asked when they had finished.
Calistrope pursed his lips. “I suppose we had better, assuming there are some.”
There were and they yielded exactly the same result as those on the lower levels. The fourth level though, was different.
One of the central doors opened into a cell similar to the one they had sought refuge within, this one was illuminated by a flat glowing panel in the ceiling. On one of the wall panels was a dimly illuminated rectangle enclosing a ladder-like grid, one line of the grid was illuminated about a quarter of the way from the bottom.
While Ponderos stood in the doorway to keep it open, Calistrope touched a finger to the lower grid marking just below the bright one. An angry buzz sounded from somewhere. Ponderos, step inside would you?”
With the doorway empty, the door materialized and Calistrope repeated the action. For the briefest of moments, there was a sensation of extreme cold. The grid was now illuminated at the line where Calistrope’s finger touched it. He nodded, as though some thought had been confirmed. “Roli, would you go to the stairs and tell us what you see there?”
Roli nodded and went outside while Calistrope stood in the doorway and watched him disappear through the access door. He returned, breathless. “It’s where we stopped to eat. We’ve come down a level.”
“Just so.”
When the door closed, Calistrope put his finger on the top bar. An icy sensation enveloped them leaving them feeling slightly clammy. The door dematerialized and the air pressure fell noticeably. Outside, the walkway and the landing beyond were similar to those below except that the layer of dust on the floor was unbroken; nothing had come this way for decades, perhaps for centuries, longer.
A second difference was the fact that there were no more stairs leading upwards.
“Can you smell something Ponderos? Roli?”
They took deep breaths.
“The air is fresher here. Easier to breathe,” decided Ponderos.
“It’s thinner,” added Roli.
“What you say is true but there’s something else, something faint.”
Ponderos drew another breath of air. “I don’t know what it might be.”
“Nor I, though it’s familiar,” Calistrope looked towards where the landing ended at an arched passageway. “I suppose we go that way.”
“Hadn’t we better check the other doors first?” asked Roli. “There may be more levels above us.”
“Indeed,” Calistrope touched the adjacent door panel, it remained inert. The door at the right hand end revealed the shaft below it momentarily. The leftmost door stood open. The shaft which they expected to see was blocked an arm’s length below.
A cubicle box-structure was canted to one side, jamming itself tightly against guide rails. From its top, thick heavy rope, twisted
from metallic fibers led slackly to a winding drum set further up the shaft.
“A mechanical lifting machine,” Calistrope was lost in admiration for long seconds as he took in the great loops of steel cable and the device which somehow passed torque to the huge winding drum “Mechanical. And I’ll wager the one at the far end is the same. The two central ones you see,” he turned to Roli, his voice assuming a lecturing quality, “alter the spatial co-ordinates directly. Whatever occupies their interior is translated to a new location while the devices at each end haul their cargo from one place to another.”
Roli was frowning. “We were moved instantaneously, as when we step from the hallway at your manse to the workshop?”
“Exactly, or so I believe. The workshop is actually some way from my manse, as you remember. Yet it requires no more than a step from the hallway to reach it.”
Ponderos asked, “Then why the lifting engines?”
“They were the main method of transport I’d say but they have broken down, no?” Calistrope nodded. “I think we have used the alternative ascending system, the fail-safe system.”
“Or vice-versa,” suggested Ponderos. The three walked across the landing, leaving footprints in the virgin layer of dust. At the passageway, Ponderos looked back, a slightly puzzled expression on his bronzed face. “Roli, hold the light down near the floor,” he pointed to the faintest of indentations running across the landing, it stopped just short of the lifting system. Ponderos wiped a thick layer of dust away. “Do you recognize this Calistrope?”
The Mage nodded. “Down at the subterranean lake, before we were captured.”
“Exactly. A track, a metal marker, whatever you wish to call it.”
“Should we follow it? The other led us into the ants’ nest.”
“I hardly think it was a trap, Calistrope. As we thought then, it is likely to lead us to something constructed by men.”
“Then let us go.”
They marched off, Calistrope in the lead with Roli at his shoulder and Ponderos bringing up the rear. The track, now that it had been discovered, was plain to see; it ran along the center of the passageway as straight as a die. The passage itself was semi-elliptical in section, it had been cut through the rock with the precision of a machine although, like the stairs they had climbed earlier, nature had spoilt the exactitude of the original work with rock falls and cracks.