Called to Darkness

by Richard Lee Byers

  Why, she wondered, struggling to focus, were his spiteful complaints half putting her to sleep instead of angering her? He must be bewitching her the same way he'd befuddled Ganef's men!

  And the blow from behind would come next!

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Centipede

  Kagur bellowed, and it broke her free of Holg's spell. She flung herself forward and felt the breeze as the old man's staff whizzed through the air at her back.

  She whirled, dropped the green crystal lantern to clash against the floor, and snatched for her longsword. She'd cut the treacherous—

  No! She wouldn't! Something was driving both of them mad, but she had to resist it. She left her blade in its scabbard.

  Perhaps too addled for any more magic, Holg rushed her. Snarling, he feinted low, then whirled the staff at her head.

  She knocked the weapon aside with her shield and shifted in close. She drove her fist into his jaw.

  Hitting him was as satisfying as she'd imagined it would be, and more satisfying still when he fell down. Now she'd kick him until—

  No! "I'm not your puppet!" she screamed.

  That defiant outburst felt right, but just whom was she defying? The blue mold? How could that be? She'd been confused almost since the moment she entered the tombs, before she'd come anywhere near the stuff.

  "You're shrieking at me," said Eovath, laughter in his rumble of a voice.

  Kagur whirled. His axe dripping blood, more gore spattering his body, her brother leered at her from the far corner of the Vault.

  "It's a good trick, isn't it," he continued, "driving people crazy? Rovagug taught it to me."

  Trembling, she reached for her sword. Her groping hand couldn't find the hilt.

  "But apparently the magic didn't quite take with you," Eovath said. "That's all right. I'd rather kill you with my hands." He started forward.

  She dodged left, and he compensated instantly. He was still coming right at her, and the way he was shifting his axe from side to side, she couldn't tell where to position her shield.

  But it made no sense that he was lurking here, or that she'd missed spotting someone so enormous the moment she peered into the crypt. It was as crazy as any of the fancies that had been festering inside her head.

  And so, as he swung the axe, she croaked out, "You're not real!"

  Eovath vanished.

  But what had made her imagine he was here in the first place?

  The centipede! Gorum, she'd even glimpsed and chased the filthy thing, but then, with her thoughts warping and blurring as soon as she tried to think them, forgotten all about it.

  She had to locate and attack it before it could try any more of its tricks. She cast about but couldn't see it.

  Where could it possibly be hiding? She strained to think, but nothing came to her.

  Not until she realized that Eovath—or the illusion of him—had stood straight and walked without difficulty. The tomb had a high ceiling, and in her empty-headed state, she'd neglected to look up.

  The creature was floating above her.

  It did somewhat resemble a centipede longer than a man was tall. Dozens of legs dangled down the length of its body. But it had a pair of writhing tentacles, too, each wrapped around a scimitar with a blade of smoky crystal. Set in a triangle, one above the other two, its three jagged mandibles gnashed and dripped a viscous liquid. The glows of the blue fungus and Kagur's lantern glinted on its shell and in its cluster of round little eyes.

  The creature was hideous almost beyond bearing, but Kagur sneered at its manifest cowardice. It had fled before her already, and now it imagined it was hovering above her reach.

  Resolved to teach it differently, she drew her sword and ran at one of the crystal sarcophagi. She sprang to the top of it, leaped again, and cut.

  Her blade lopped off the tip of a segmented leg and swept on to shear into the insect-thing's belly. Then she dropped back onto the coffin. She floundered on the slick crystal lid and moist fungus but managed to keep her footing. She bent her legs for another jump.

  The centipede plummeted straight at her.

  She dived out from under it and slammed down hard. Her foe crashed down on top of the sarcophagus. As she rolled to her feet, it hopped to the floor.

  The creature scuttled toward her and cut with both scimitars simultaneously. She blocked one with her shield and parried the other with her father's sword. The steel rang, and before the centipede-thing could pull its tentacles back, she slashed the one on the left. Dark ichor splashed from the wound. The crystal blade slipped from the thing's grip, and it had to make a fumbling snatch to retrieve it.

  Kagur grinned, advanced, and cut again.

  As the fight continued, the wormlike insect's mouthparts periodically dripped a thick, viscous drool. Kagur assumed it was poison, and made a mental note to stay well away from those bony mandibles.

  But it was still trying to poison her mind, too. A force she now recognized as intrusive tore at her thoughts, repeatedly reducing them to disorientation and bewilderment. She kept forgetting where she was and how the fight had started.

  It didn't matter, though. Now that she finally had the centipede-thing in front of her, she didn't need to think to kill it. Fury, loathing, and her training would carry her through.

  She pivoted to cut at the centipede's right tentacle, gashed it, and instantly swung back to meet an attack from the left. The crystal scimitar whirled in low and then whipped high, shedding droplets of venom as it traveled.

  Crouching, Kagur dropped below the arc of the attack and cut at the same spot she'd ripped already. Her sword sheared all the way through the tentacle. The severed end and the weapon it was coiled around tumbled to the floor. The centipede gave a rasping cry and faltered.

  Trusting to speed to carry her safely past the remaining scimitar, Kagur charged with her point extended. The longsword punched into the cluster of eyes.

  Before she could pull it back out, the centipede-thing surged forward. Evidently it was willing to drive the blade even deeper into its own flesh if that was what it took to score on Kagur in return. The three mandibles spread wide.

  Then the creature's legs gave way beneath it, crumpling from front to back so that the thing fell quickly, but still, discernibly, a segment at a time. The other scimitar made a cracking noise as it too dropped to the floor.

  Kagur dragged her sword out of the centipede's head, stepped back, and scrutinized the carcass. It showed no signs of jumping up again, but it was her thoughts coming back into focus as much as the creature's lack of motion that convinced her it was finished.

  Toward the end, she'd realized her mind was failing, but it took the recovery of her faculties to make clear to her just how crippled she'd truly been, how close to falling into utter lunacy or imbecility. The threat was now past, but even so, she shuddered.

  She moved back to Holg, poured water on his face, and patted his cheeks. "Wake up, old man."

  Milky eyes fluttered open, and he groaned. "I'm tired of getting hit in the head."

  "Be glad I didn't cut it off." She offered the waterskin. "Drink."

  When Holg was ready to stand, he had to go squint at the centipede-thing. Kagur, meanwhile, dribbled herbicide onto the blue mold and watched it wither, the luminescence in certain patches flaring for an instant before flickering out altogether.

  The tombs proved to be considerably less extensive and mazelike going out than they'd seemed coming in. Kagur realized it was her burgeoning insanity that had made them so bewildering and wondered with a twinge of disgust just how many times she and Holg had wandered in a circle without realizing it.

  She was glad to leave the crypts, but her reaction was premature. She and Holg had to return immediately with Lady Ssa and several guards. The reptile woman wanted to see for herself that her agents truly had accomplished their task.

  Kagur considered reminding Ssa of her assertion that the presence of living serpentfolk would offend "the gods and
the hallowed dead." But she was tired, and in the wake of the centipede's psychic assault had developed a pounding headache. The gibe seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

  She suspected Holg felt no better than she did, but as she might have expected, that wasn't enough to stifle his loquacity. As Ssa surveyed the chamber where the insect-thing had met its end, he asked, "So, what was it really all about?" He pointed with his staff to indicate the centipede's carcass. "What was that thing?"

  "Such knowledge wasn't part of the bargain," Ssa replied.

  "But will it do any harm to share it?" the shaman said. "I love my tribe in the Uplands, but sometimes, dwelling among them, I missed the conversation of other scholars." He nodded toward her squat, hunched warriors—creatures unmistakably her kin, yet just as unmistakably formed differently than her or the bodies in the sarcophagi with the crystal lids. "Perhaps, on occasion, you feel similarly."

  Ssa stared at him for several moments. Then: "The thing you killed is a seugathi. Such creatures serve even fouler and more powerful beings that dwell in the Vaults of Orv."

  "How did a seugathi get into the tombs of your ancestors?" Holg asked.

  The serpent woman gave a short hiss. "I wish I knew."

  "Well, then, why did it come in? What did it want here?"

  "As best I can judge, it wanted to sow the cytillesh—the blue fungus—on the coffins of the sleepers. I assume that if we checked, we'd discover it shifted the lids slightly as well, so the spores could get inside. Then it remained to defend its handiwork."

  Holg frowned. "And why would it want the spores to reach the sleepers?"

  "Cytillesh is often called brain mold. Over time, it alters the minds of those who breathe it in."

  Intrigued despite herself, Kagur said, "Then the bodies in the boxes really are ‘sleepers,' not corpses. They're hibernating like bears."

  "Yes," said Ssa, "they're wizards who suspended themselves to await the moment when we serpentfolk are ready to wrest back all that is rightfully ours from your wretched kind."

  Holg scratched his chin. "And what do the masters of the seugathi have to gain by driving the sleepers mad or afflicting them with whatever it is that brain mold does?"

  "I don't know," the serpent woman said. "I've never met anyone who even had a plausible guess why such creatures pursue the bizarre ends they do. Perhaps they're all mad themselves."

  Holg mulled that over for a moment or two. Then he said, "I appreciate you indulging my curiosity. Now, if you'll show us the maps you mentioned, we'll be even more grateful."

  "As soon as I complete the cleansing you began," Ssa replied. She faced the sarcophagi and raised her clawed, scaly hands above her head. Emeralds and topazes set in her various ornaments flickered with their own inner radiance. The air grew cold, and her bodyguards scurried to clear the space between her and the coffins.

  Averse though she was to any display of sorcery, Kagur recognized that Ssa's present intentions were no concern of hers. Still, driven by an obscure impulse, she said, "Wait—what are you doing?"

  "Destroying them," the sorceress replied. "They are not going to wake up demented in my time to claim or ruin everything I've built."

  "You said that brain mold alters the mind over time. Maybe the sleepers haven't yet breathed in enough of it."

  "Or perhaps they have."

  "So you'll just butcher them when they're lying helpless? Your own kin? The only creatures in this whole great cavern that are truly like you?"

  Ssa's gaze dripped scorn. "No one is like me."

  Then she hissed an incantation, and with a shattering of crystal lids, the bodies in the sarcophagi burst into flame.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Orc Child

  The green glow of the crystal lantern washed over the rocky floor ahead. None of the serpentfolk had objected when Kagur held onto it. She doubted that was out of gratitude. More likely, for all their claim to be the superior race, they were reluctant to start an unnecessary quarrel with someone who could slay a seugathi.

  She peered at whatever the light could show her, listened, and sniffed the air as well. She and Holg agreed that while Ssa's cavern itself might be truce ground, the paths leading in and out were likely prime spots for marauders to wait in ambush.

  Thanks to their caution, they'd caught the sound of something padding after them a while back. Then, moments ago, it had made a noise like a cough. Kagur suspected the sound was actually a signal to alert its comrades that victims were drawing nigh.

  But if so, she hadn't detected those accomplices yet. With a twinge of reluctance, she hooded the lantern so Holg could peer with his peculiar senses. Blackness engulfed them.

  "Well?" she whispered.

  "Nothing yet," the shaman replied.

  "Look up," she said. One foe floating above her head had nearly made an end of her, but she was in her right mind now.

  After a moment, Holg said, "Ah, yes."

  "What?"

  "It's more brutes like the one that wanted to attack you on the way into Ssa's city. They're crawling on the ceiling, and they've got nets."

  "How many are there?"

  "Seven I can see."

  Kagur opened the lantern. "Walk on like we don't know. When we're close, warn me, then make a bright light."

  As they stalked toward the danger, Kagur's nerves were taut, and she had to fight the impulse to look up. Finally, Holg said, "Now."

  She closed her eyes. The shaman rattled off a spell, and the resulting blaze turned the inside of her eyelids red. The marauders gave rasping cries.

  Kagur opened her eyes. The light in the air dazzled her, but she blinked several times, and then she could see.

  The pallid, hairless things on the ceiling, however, still had their bestial faces screwed up like they were at least half blind. She nocked an arrow, drew, loosed, and one fell from its perch to thud on the tunnel floor twenty feet below.

  She shot another, and it plummeted, too. Then, with roars and grunts, the rest dropped lengths of rope or vine and clambered down as fast a man could sprint.

  As the beast-men reached the ground, she dropped her bow, whipped out her longsword, and readied her shield. Holg gripped his staff with both hands. Then, fangs bared, knives and cudgels poised, the creatures surged at them like a pack of starving wolves.

  Recalling how the brutes liked to pounce, Kagur watched for the two racing in the lead to gather themselves for a final overwhelming spring. At that instant, she hurled herself at them.

  Her slash caught one at the start of its leap, opened its neck, and splashed gore through the air. She rammed her shield into the face of the other. Bone crunched, it staggered, and she sliced it across the back of the knee and hamstrung it.

  She took another stride into the midst of the remaining beast-men. She cut one across the belly, and, knees buckling, it dropped its stone club—a broken-off stalactite or stalagmite by the look of it—to yowl and clutch at the wound.

  At once, she pivoted, just in time to catch the swing of another stone club on her shield. She riposted with a head cut that sliced away a pointed ear.

  The beast-man bared its crooked fangs and struck back. She wrenched herself out of the way and thrust her point into the creature's torso.

  Good, but she had one foe remaining, and she'd lost track of it! She whirled to locate it before its bludgeon, blade, or filthy jagged teeth found her.

  Something cracked, and she turned far enough to reorient on the beast-man just as it pitched forward onto its face. Making sure he disposed of it, Holg hit it a second time.

  "I would have caught up with you a little sooner," he panted, "except that the creature that was shadowing us ran up to help its brothers." Flexing the fingers of his right hand, he nodded toward an eighth beast-man sprawled several paces away.

  "I managed." Kagur stepped to the brute with the split belly. It snarled and tried to flounder away from her as she thrust her sword into its heart. "You're all right?"


  Holg switched his staff to his right hand so he could work the fingers of the left. "Fine."

  She grunted. "Then I'll finish off the rest of the beast-men. You see about recovering my arrows."

  When they were ready, they trekked onward through the dark and echoing spaces. At a place where a downward-sloping passage split into three, Holg consulted the spirits.

  By rights, the maps he and Kagur had seen and the counsel they'd received should prove a tremendous help in finding their way. But they couldn't be sure a creature who made no secret of despising humans hadn't decided to lead them astray, and even if she hadn't, the Darklands were still a maze. Thus, Holg intended to keep performing the ritual from time to time. He'd simply do so less frequently.

  The wolverine fang and its leather thong slithered toward the mouth of the tunnel on the left, and the old man smiled. "The directions are good so far."

  "So far." Kagur stooped and retrieved the talismans that hadn't moved while he fetched the one that had. Then, as they prowled on, she said, "No thanks to me."

  "What do you mean?" Holg swept the tip of his staff back and forth just above the floor.

  Kagur scowled. "I shouldn't have antagonized Ssa by asking her to spare the sleepers. Her kind and ours are obvious enemies. What do I care if they slaughter one another?"

  "Do you remember what I told you about patterns?"

  She tried to recall. Holg said lots of things, and many of them seemed pointless. But this time, she recognized what he was getting at.

  "Eovath murdered his own helpless kin. Ssa meant to do the same, and it ...bothered me."

  "Enough to make you protest."

  Kagur had never really considered that people could do things without understanding their own motives. She found she didn't much care for the idea.

  "The way turns steep up ahead," she said. "We should save our breath for the climb."

  Two marches later—at some point, she'd lost the habit of trying to divide time into "days"—she sighted a red worm the size of a man surrounded by a sort of rippling haze. She and Holg waited for it burrow into the passage floor and disappear, and when they advanced and felt the residual heat at the site, she realized it had melted its way into the stone.