by Rick Cook
Halfway across the room they found the source of the sauna. A chasm divided the cavern and from the bottom, faint and far away, came the sound of the water.
"How deep do you think that is?" Danny asked as he squinted down into the blackness.
Too deep," Wiz said.
Too wide besides," Malkin added as she looked across the gap. "I don’t think our ropes will reach, even if we could find something on the other side to secure them to."
Wiz thought of crossing the dizzying blackness on a rope and got a distinctly queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Let’s assume ropes are a non-option," he said.
"Well, I’ve got something for this," Danny said. "Watch." He lifted his staff and pointed.
The hair on Wiz’s neck stood up and he started to protest, but he was too late. Rocks and boulders on both sides of the gap glowed blue, then rocked in their places and rose gently into the air. Danny waved his staff like a conductor’s baton. Waves of magic twisted and congealed into invisible forms as the rocks floated out into empty space and settled in place according to some unseen plan. More waves of magic as the rocks locked together and a great arched bridge began to take shape. More magic and smaller stones rushed to fill in the gaps. A final burst of magic and a bridge sat in place, glowing from the unnatural forces that held it together.
There!" Danny said proudly.
"Come on then," Wiz said unhappily. "Let’s get over this as fast as we can." The bridge was solid enough beneath their feet as the party started over.
"Beats a rope, doesn’t it?" Danny said gaily. "It’s a variation of a spell I worked out for Ian’s toy blocks. Just scale it up, and hey:"
Takes a lot of magic," Wiz said.
"So? We’ve got power to spare here."
The magic globe lighting their passage flickered, then flickered again. Wiz saw something like a moth flit around it. Then another and another and another. Something stung Wiz on the back of his neck. He slapped at the spot and felt something small and furry under his fingers. He jerked his hand away and shook his fingers and a scrap of black fluttered out of them.
"Get off the bridge!" he yelled and charged ahead. Caution forgotten, the rest of the party charged after him, swatting at the things around them. As soon as they were on the other side, Danny gestured and the rocks went thundering into the canyon. But by that time the entire party was under attack. In swarms and hordes and legions the tiny black things came on, diving mindlessly to the attack and sticking where they landed to bite and chew. Each of them was no larger than a mouse, but they struck with blind ferocity. Wiz laid about him with his staff, striking great swaths of the creatures down by magic. Malkin turned out to be a surprisingly good swordswoman. Her long arms gave her reach and her wrists were like iron. She used her reach to keep the things off and the edge of her rapier to take out several at once. June was a whirling dervish with her knife, slicing in a dozen directions at once. Danny also struck out with magic. Glandurg flailed about him with Blind Fury. He never hit what he was aiming at, but there were so many of the things that each stroke felled half a score. Along the way he also brought down two good-sized boulders and a stalactite, but he barely noticed.
The light in the cavern dimmed as the creatures mobbed the magic globe, like a pack of enraged moths. Wiz struck out desperately again and again. Caught in the open as they were the things could attack from any direction, including driving straight down. Even the ones who had been knocked from the air crawled toward them to continue the attack.
A fireball whizzed past Wiz’s ear and singed the hair on the left side of his head. He turned his head to glare at Danny and the thing that was diving on him missed his eyes and latched onto his ear instead. Danny shrugged and went back to throwing fireballs.
The little things were so thick in the tunnel there was really no place to aim at, but it didn’t matter. As soon as each fireball emerged from Danny’s staff it was surrounded by a horde of suicidal batlets who dived to their destruction in it. Wiz, seeing what was happening, began dividing his time between beating off attackers and throwing fireballs. The cavern filled with rank smoke and the reek of ozone and burned flesh. Gradually the attackers became fewer and fewer and finally there were none.
The party found themselves standing back to back in the cavern, surrounded by a haze of stinking smoke and a carpet of dead creatures. Wiz realized he had been bitten in a dozen places or more. He could feel the blood oozing down both cheeks and a wound in his forehead was trickling blood into his eyebrows. Most of the others appeared wounded in several places as well.
"What where those things?" Danny panted, as he wiped blood from his eyes. June was instantly at his side with a cloth, cleaning the wounds on his face and ignoring her own.
Wiz bent down to examine the litter of corpses around them. Each of the things had the form of a tiny bat, perhaps hah0 as long as his little finger. The mouths sported a pair of outsized fangs and even in death the little eyes showed a glazed malevolence. He picked one up and showed it to the others.
"Little vampire bats," Danny said. "I wonder if these things carry rabies."
"Rabies we can handle," Wiz reminded him. "Healing magic, remember?"
"Speaking of which:" Malkin said, looking at the bloody wounds on the back of her hand.
As one person, the party sank to the ground where they were and started rummaging through their packs for what Wiz persisted in thinking of as "first aid kits."
On an impulse Wiz tried a listing and scowled at the result.
"More weird code," Danny said and then winced as June dabbed a healing salve on a wound on his neck.
"So the Enemy sent these things against us," Malkin said.
"If I had to guess I’d say they weren’t exactly sent," Wiz said. This part here looks like another variation on the watcher spell and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of code for remote control."
"Meaning?" Danny studied that section of the listing-
"Meaning I think these things operate independently. If I had to guess, and that’s pretty much what it is at this point, I’d say this part here is a magic detector and they home in on magic. What’s more, magic seems to rouse them to a rage. You’ll notice Malkin wasn’t the focus of an attack and they didn’t go after Glandurg until he got Bund Fury into action."
"Kinda like leaving hives of killer bees around as guards," Danny said. "Cute."
"Ugly," Wiz corrected. "Especially since the same principle could be applied to other critters. Nastier ones."
Danny nodded. "Let’s get out of here then. There may be more on the way and I’m not sure I’d want to face a horde of maddened dragons."
"And no more magic," Wiz admonished. "Not if it attracts these things."
"Our steel and our courage alone shall carry us henceforth," said Glandurg.
"Well," Wiz amended, eyeing Blind Fury, "we don’t have to swear off magic completely."
TEN
ENTER THE LOBSTER
"Moira," the wind moaned. "Moira, Moira, Moira, Moira."
It keened around the towers. Frigid fingers clutched at the banners and tugged at the windows. It could not find purchase against the wizards’ spells, but it kept on.
Moira went to the window and tried to look out, but a dark formless thing beat upon the pane, as if to strike her, and she turned away.
"Is it getting worse?" she asked Bal-Simba.
"It gets no better. That in itself means it will get worse. Like a starfish on an oyster. It pulls and pulls and eventually the oyster weakens."
The dragon hesitated. Then perhaps I should go out there," Moira said.
"And give our enemy the advantage he seeks? An unwise move, My Lady."
"Then what shall we do?"
"Work Wait. Perfect the spells to drive this thing from our door."
The dragon did not turn its head. "I wish Wiz was here."
Bal-Simba sighed. "So do I, My Lady. So do I."
Their first warning w
as the way sounds changed. Careless footsteps or dislodged pebbles rang sharper and more hollowly. Wiz was still trying to puzzle out the difference when they came around a bend in the tunnel and stepped out into a new world.
The cavern was immense. Stalactites and sheets of flow stone rippled from ceiling to floor in pastel pinks and yellows. They made weirdly distorted shadows in the light from Wiz’s glow globe. In spite of the steady illumination the shadows seemed to flicker and dance in eerie motion. The air was heavy with damp and utterly still. Occasionally a foot would dislodge a pebble and the sound would ring through the emptiness.
They picked their way along for perhaps two hundred paces and then, suddenly, there was no floor before ’ them.
It took a minute for Wiz to make a coherent picture out of the sense impressions, like staring at an optical illusion. Finally the elements snapped into focus and he realized they were standing at the edge of a cliff thickly coated with onyx flowstone. By directing the magic light out over the darkness he could see that the face was a steep cascade of the same orange, pink and white material as the surface they were standing on. He could not see the other side and the light did not show him the bottom, but his magic detector pointed straight out across the emptiness.
"It looks like we’re going to have to climb down," he said to the others." Tine," Malkin said, shedding her pack and unhooking a coil of rope from it "I’ll go first."
Wiz wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the prospect of climbing down a slippery cuff in the dark, but he felt he had to assert himself as leader. "Why you?" Malkin looked up at him. "Because you’re a klutz. Now help me find a rock to tie off on."
That was true enough that Wiz didn’t argue. But he was a little surprised she knew the word.
Malkin selected a convenient boulder, looped the rope around it and secured it with a particularly complicated looking knot. Keeping the rope taut in one hand she stepped back and admired her handiwork.
"All right everyone, I’ll go first. Be sure to keep tension on the rope and whatever you do don’t let it go slack and then jerk it."
"Why not?" asked Danny.
"Because if you do the knot comes undone. That’s how we get the rope down when we’re at the bottom."
Danny looked at the knot again.
"It’s perfectly safe," Malkin assured him. "The next person to go down stands by the rope and keeps the tension on. Just keep doing that and we’ll be fine." The thief rigged a harness from a shorter piece of rope and attached it to the main rope with a peculiar looking knot.
"I’ll take a light with me and signal for the next one to follow," she said, and with that she stepped backwards into the blackness and disappeared from view. Danny kept tension on me rope as she worked her way down. The others watched the rope twitch as Malkin worked her way down the cuff face. Finally it lay still and they heard her call up to them.
"Okay. It’s about a hundred paces down. There’s plenty of rope and its an easy descent. Come on down one by one."
Since he couldn’t lead, Wiz figured the leader’s next logical place was as rear guard. He let Danny and then June go down. Glandurg disdained the rope and scrambled down the cliff face like a fly. At last the rope was still again. Wiz picked up Malkin’s pack, slung it over one shoulder and started to work his way down the cuff.
In the back of Wiz’s mind a small voice kept telling him all this was wrong. You don’t find limestone caves beneath volcanoes. Halfway down the rope Wiz decided this was arrant pedantry and told the small voice to shut up.
The rope finned and steadied as someone took hold of it from the bottom. With that aid Wiz made good time the rest of the way down.
Thanks," he said as his feet touched the ground Behind him the rope holder snorted Wiz turned to look His first impression was of Malkin in a silver fright wig. His second impression was of a lot of teeth, claws, flaming red eyes and really awful breath.
He yelled and ducked as the thing took a swipe at him. He rumbled for his staff, but the thing was too close, so he settled for tripping backwards and going flat on his back. The thing closed in for the kill and the world bunked. The protection spell, Wiz thought. The protection spell kicked in. His second thought was that he wasn’t wearing the magic ring, so he must have been stunned by his fall and before he had time for a third thought, a liquid voice broke in.
"Oh, I hope you are all right. Not damaged in any way? Here, let me help you up."
Thanks," Wiz said, taking the preferred hand.
It wasn’t a hand, exactly. It was a claw. A very large claw. At the other end of the claw was a lobster-about thirty feet of lobster.
"Uh, thanks," Wiz said again.
The lobster waved an antenna. "Think nothing of it. All in a day’s work, I can assure you." Its voice was a warm rich baritone, not at all the way Wiz had expected a lobster to sound. Although come to that, Wiz realized, he didn’t really have an idea how a lobster should sound. Terribly sorry about that," the lobster went on. Those creatures have no manners at all, not to mention absolutely no taste! Tasteless."
The lobster gave Wiz’s hand a little squeeze before releasing it "On, and you’re molting too," the lobster said delightedly. "How wonderful. You’re especially tender at this stage." The lobster sighed. "And the sheik are such a bother." It occurred to Wiz that he might not be out of trouble yet.
"Uh, where are my friends?"
"Oh, they’re off chasing the rest of those things. They attacked them, you know." A sniff of disdain. Tasteless. Utterly tasteless. No matter how much garlic and herbs you use, it’s like eating old leather."
Wiz remembered the guardroom with the dismembered skeletons.
"Now you, on the other hand! Oh, think how wonderful you’ll smell all boiled up with lemon pepper and a bouquet garnish of herbs."
Wiz scrambled back up the slope away from the huge claws. "Look, can’t we talk about this?"
"But it is the function of humans to be served up on a plate with garlic butter and surrounded by parsley," the lobster protested as it moved toward him. It paused. "Ah, you don’t happen to have any parsley with you? Pity. I’m out." The lobster extended his enormous pincers and advanced on Wiz. "Now, I assure you, your nervous system is so primitive you won’t feel a bit of pain."
"I’ll be the judge of that," Wiz said, continuing his backwards scramble. "Did anyone ever tell you it’s impolite to eat your acquaintances?"
The lobster sighed gustily through its gills, giving Wiz a whiff of iodine-scented "breath." "You humans have the most curious notions. We have always believed that a little light conversation before dinner allows you to fully appreciate the meal. But not too much. Come on now, into the pot you go." Wiz kept backing up. There wasn’t anyplace to run to and the lobster seemed to move over the rocky ground more easily than he did.
"You’re being quite unreasonable, you know." The lobster sounded almost hurt.
"After all, humans eat us."
"But you give us heartburn."
That," said the lobster smugly, "is the advantage of a superior constitution. We don’t get heartburn."
A fireball whizzed over the lobster to splatter against the cavern wall above them.
"Oh, drat!" said the lobster and scuttled backwards at astonishing speed as Malkin, Danny and the others came up the tunnel.
"Boy, am I glad to see you guys!" Wiz said as the rest of the party gathered around him.
"We had a little butt-kicking to do," Danny explained
"What was that?" Malkin demanded. "The Enemy?"
"No, that was a lobster. I think it was here before the Enemy took over. Local color you might say."
"I’d like to color him," Malkin retorted fiercely. "Boil him in a pot until he’s bright red."
"Yeah, well the feeling is mutual," Wiz told her.
ELEVEN
LATERAL TO THE REAL WORLD
I wish these things would run straight for a while, Wiz thought irritably. But the tunnels down here didn’t and this was an
especially twisty part. Wiz’s inner ear was starting to send queasy messages to his stomach because of all the sharp turns.
Then the tunnel opened out into another room, an enormous, echoing black space that yawned before them in all directions. Wiz hastily ducked back around the corner and dimmed the magic light. Then he motioned for a huddle.
"What does the magic detector say?"
Danny squinted at the device. That there’s something magical around here that probably wouldn’t be too glad to see us." He cocked his head and squinted some more. "But it’s not real active and it doesn’t seem to be directly in our path." Wiz peeked around the corner again and listened intently. The silence was as overpowering as the darkness. He looked at Malkin, but the thief shook her head.
"Nothing," she said quietly.
"Okay folks, single file and move softly. We don’t want whatever’s out there to surprise us."
Wiz considered leaving the light off, but he decided the danger of falling into a hole outweighed the risk of alerting whatever was in the neighborhood. With a gesture he sent the globe of light floating above them. I gotta figure out a way to make these things directional, he thought as he followed Malkin out into the room.
The room was huge. After nearly a hundred paces the light no longer showed the walls or ceiling, only the uneven, stalagmite-studded floor, glistening with moisture. It occurred to Wiz that the detector might be pointing toward their ultimate destination rather than toward the exit. If that was true they could spend hours searching for the way out and if there was more than one they could be thoroughly lost before they knew it.
Out in tile gloom was a heap of something. It wasn’t rocks and it didn’t seem to be alive, but aside from that Wiz couldn’t make out just what it was. With a gesture he increased the brightness of the magic light and was rewarded with a glint from the heap.