by Dan Willis
Bradok nodded excitedly. He had to jump to reach the end of the giant lever. He caught hold and hung, suspended, his entire weight on the metal beam. Corin joined him and slowly they felt it begin to shift and break free.
With a screech and a clang, the lever snapped down, dumping the dwarves on the ground in a heap. The mechanism sped up, whirling and clanking, and Bradok imagined he could see the giant hands sweeping across its face on the tower outside. As they neared the midday hour, the lever began to rise up again, and the machinery slowed to its normal pace.
“So much for light,” Corin said when nothing happened.
The words were barely out of his mouth when a loud grinding sound filled the tower. A metal cable high above the clock mechanism began to turn, and Bradok followed it over to another assembly of gears and wheels. The cable pulled a giant wheel, spinning it almost halfway around until it stopped. Then a gear somewhere engaged, and the entire machine whirred to life.
Gears began turning spools of metal cable, playing some out and reeling others in. Some of them moved easily, while others clearly resisted the effort after so many years of immobility. One of the cables screeched and stopped, the cam pulling relentlessly against it, stretching it. Somewhere above, whatever it had been attached to had refused to wake and go to work.
“Get back,” Kellik yelled. “There’s too much tension on the thing. If it snaps, the loose end will slice up anything it hits.”
The cable kept stretching and stretching, while the pitch of the machine changed as it pulled relentlessly. A metallic clang suddenly echoed through the tower, and the cable went slack. With the machine no longer restrained by the cable, the other spindles sped up, and suddenly an explosion of light flooded the tower.
Bradok swore, covering his eyes. When he could see again, a rosy light that could only have been sunlight illuminated the tower.
“Reorx’s beard,” he swore again.
The light shone in through a small hole in the high ceiling and struck a curved reflector that diverted it down into the room.
“They’ve got some kind of mirror system that reflects in light from outside,” Much said, awe in his voice.
“Look at this,” Corin said, bending down by the ventilation controls.
Bradok and Kellik joined him. With the bright light flooding the room, they easily read Main Hall on the first lever.
“Try it,” Much said as Corin took hold of it.
Unlike the lever to reset the clock, the Main Hall lever was short and thin with a bulbous end. Corin grasped the bulb and, without any seeming effort, pulled it down.
A gear somewhere in the bowels of the machine engaged, and one of the six shafts that emerged from the machine began to spin. It spun slowly at first but picked up speed until it whirled. From somewhere outside, a clanking, screeching noise erupted then seemed to grow in pitch, higher and higher until it disappeared.
“Did it work?” Bradok asked.
They all looked at each other then raced down the spiral stair and out over the broken door. The cavern outside was blazing with light that descended into the cavern from three shafts in the ceiling. Below each shaft, giant crystals caught the light and sent it out in targeted beams. Some struck reflectors, like the one in the tower, shedding gentle light down into the cavern. Other beams vanished into holes in the walls and ceilings, no doubt heading off to illuminate other parts of the city.
In the bright light, Bradok could see that the main cavern had been carved in the shape of a cross, with four arms radiating out from the central square. Elegant buildings had been cut into the walls on either side and, although it was abundantly clear from the trash in the streets that they had been looted, neither time nor defilement diminished their true beauty.
Along the lanes were planters with long-dead trees, twisted and skeletal, attesting to the decay of Starlight Hall. At the far end of one of the cross arms, there stood a round void, as if something had stood there and had simply vanished. From his vantage point, Bradok could see that the hollow hole left behind appeared perfectly smooth. For some reason, the sight disturbed him.
A strange coughing noise caught his attention, and Bradok glanced up at the ceiling. Great gouts of dust and debris were being vomited out from behind metal grates in the ceiling.
“Cover your faces,” he yelled to the group still gathered around the central fountain.
“What’s happening?” Corin asked, covering his face with his cloak.
“It’s the vents,” Much said, laughter in his voice. “Who knows how long they’ve been out of use? And now they’re busy pushing all the years of muck out of them.”
Even through his cloak, Bradok could tell that Much was right. The dust and debris rained down for a full ten minutes.
As the dust finally began to drift out of the air, Bradok rejoined Tal and Perin at the fountain. As the minutes passed, the human seemed to be breathing easier, his color returning.
“That was the right thing to do,” Tal said.
“Lucky guess on my part,” Bradok said. “I don’t know who this Galoka guy was, but this city of his is amazing. I’ve never dreamed anything like it.”
“I want to know how they’re moving so much air,” Much said. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “In another hour or so, the air should be completely replaced. It’s incredible.”
Perin stood up slowly, gripping Bradok’s shoulder for support. “Thank you,” he said, breathing deeply. “I feel like myself again.”
He wobbled a bit, and Tal put out a hand to steady him. “Take it easy for a while,” Tal said. “We can rest here, can’t we?” he asked Bradok.
Bradok checked the compass. The Seer held her spear at her side, which usually meant it was all right to stop. He nodded to Tal. “We can stop here,” he said.
“Good,” Much said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “I’m going to inspect those machines, see what I can learn.”
“Maybe there are some books or murals that tell the story of Galoka and his followers,” Corin said with equal zest.
“It looks pretty picked over,” Bradok said, plopping down by the fountain. Then he looked at them and smiled. “Explore all you want,” he said. “Just take someone with you.”
Corin looked for Omer and motioned to the other. Omer grinned and ran after him, still clutching the rag doll Much had made for Teal. Bradok had noticed that the dwarf never went anywhere without the doll. He seemed happy enough as long as he had the doll close by.
Bradok leaned against the base of the fountain and watched the hands on the clock turn, counting off the minutes. It felt so good just to sit and rest, he didn’t notice as several hours passed. Only the diminishing light in the cavern eventually alerted him. Clearly the daylight above was fading into night.
He rose just as Corin returned with Omer, Kellik, and Rijul in tow.
“Have you just been sitting here all this time?” he asked, chuckling.
Bradok nodded.
“Boy have you missed it!” Rijul said, full of youthful enthusiasm. “This city is enormous. All sorts of things to explore. There’s at least three more caverns off this one.”
Kellik nodded. “They’ve all been looted, like this one, but it’s like the looters didn’t know or care what they were looking for,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Bradok asked.
“The inside of the buildings have been trampled,” Corin said. “The furniture is smashed, the tapestries ripped, but we’ve found weapons and tools and valuables just lying around in the mess.”
“Who tears a building apart but doesn’t take weapons or valuables?” Bradok wondered.
“Someone who is stupid,” Kellik said, shrugging.
“Or someone looking for something specific,” Rose said, joining the group. She held what appeared to be a book with a metal cover.
“I found this inside a burned-out library,” she continuing, holding out the book, made entirely of polished steel, so they could all see.
Bradok knew instinctively that it had been made of the same, corrosion-proof steel as everything else. At the edges, along the spine of the book, ran an intricate metal hinge so the book could lie flat for easy reading. The front had been painstakingly engraved with the title: Galoka, His Travels and Teachings. Below that was a subtitle: The Chronicles of Starlight Hall.
Something in Bradok yearned to touch the strange metal book. He reached out and opened the cover, revealing fifteen metal pages bound into the spine with small metal rings. Each page was perfectly flat, and each was the same size. Tiny rows of engravings marched down the pages like columns of ants, and Bradok had to lean in close and squint to read the words.
“I’m sure it’s all very fascinating,” Chisul’s voice interrupted them as he came striding up with a small group, all carrying the fruits of their scavenging. “But what makes you think the people who wrecked this place were looking for that?”
“I didn’t say they were,” Rose said, still cradling the book reverently. “But whoever burned the library wanted these people’s knowledge destroyed. I bet they didn’t count on a metal book that was able to survive the fire.”
“Yeah, I can agree with that,” Chisul said, a grin on his face. Then he looked around at the magnificent hall. “This whole place feels good, feels right.”
“What are you talking about?” Much asked, joining the crowd.
“Just that this place is perfect,” Chisul said. “It’s got light, air, clean water. We’ve even found some seeds for trees and vegetables and a garden cavern where they used to grow food.
“In fact, this place has got everything we need. Best of all, there’s no one to protest us just moving in,” he added.
“I don’t know,” Corin said worriedly, running his hand through his beard. “Something bad happened to the people here, and someone sure tried to destroy this place.”
“Maybe a long time ago in some fairy tale,” Chisul mocked him. “But no one’s been here for decades, maybe even centuries.”
Bradok had to admit Chisul made good points.
“There’s no telling if these caverns are truly secure,” Much argued. “We’ve barely begun to investigate all of them.”
“We can secure them one at a time,” Rose said eagerly. “Check each one out, make sure they’re safe, and then move on.”
“I don’t think that will work,” disagreed Jeni in her dreamy voice, which drifted above the crowd.
All eyes turned to where the peculiar Daergar girl stood, rocking from one foot to the other, undulating her hips as she moved.
“I bet the compass won’t let us stay here very long at all,” she said.
Bradok reflexively put a hand to his pocket then hesitated. He liked the idea of staying in the fantastic city, and he wasn’t sure he wanted the opinion of Reorx’s compass. Before he could extract it from his pocket, however, Corin spoke up.
“Why do you say that?” he asked Jeni, narrowing his eyes. “What do you know? Have you discovered something you haven’t told us about?”
Jeni shook her head, pointing to a pile of rubble at the base of the clock tower. Bradok had been staring at the tower for hours and hadn’t noticed anything odd, but as one the group followed Jeni’s pointing finger and approached the rock pile.
“What are you getting at, girl?” Kellik demanded.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but the words died in his throat. There, in the center of the pile, everyone saw the same thing: covered in dust and looking for all the world like a rock was a skull. Once Bradok could see it, he also saw what looked like an armored chest and arm, ending in a long, curved spike.
“What is that?” Rose said fearfully.
Bradok pushed his way to the front and picked up the skull. What had made it so hard to see before was that it didn’t look like a skull, at least not like any he’d ever seen. There weren’t any holes for eyes, just a smooth, curved surface all the way across the front of the face where the eyes should be. Two vertical nostril slits sat high in the center of the forehead, and the upper jaw held a double row of backward-facing, needlelike teeth.
Much bent down and picked up two long, curved bones from the floor, holding them up close to the skull. They were long enough to be arm bones, but everyone could see they were wicked, curving teeth.
“This jaw bone is two separate pieces,” Much said, holding the huge teeth in place against the skull in Bradok’s hands. “The bottom part must be missing.”
It was the largest jaw anyone had ever seen or imagined. The sight sent shivers up Bradok’s back.
“What was it?” Bradok asked Corin.
The Daergar reached out and took the skull, pouring water from his bag over it. As the dust disappeared, the skull took on a green hue, like bottle glass. Even more disturbing, Bradok could see Corin’s hand through the side of the skull.
“It’s not bone,” Corin said, holding the skull up for everyone to see. “It’s chitin.”
“What does that mean?” Lyra asked in a small voice.
“Chitin is what insect skeletons are made of,” Urlish Hearthhome said.
“That’s no insect skull,” Chisul said. “It looks human or maybe elf.”
“Only if humans had no eyes,” Perin said.
While the others argued, Bradok studied Corin. The dwarf’s normally easygoing manner had hardened, and his left eye was twitching.
“Tell me more. What do you know about these chitin creatures?” Bradok asked.
“He doesn’t know anything for certain, I’m afraid,” Xurces cut in. “There are old legends, nothing more than bard’s tales really, of a race of humanoid insects who burrow deep in the earth.”
“This is no legend, Xurces,” Corin said, holding up the skull. “This is real.”
“Well, what do the legends say about these insects?” Chisul asked.
Xurces sighed as if he didn’t believe he was having such a preposterous conversation. “They’re called the Disir, or at least that’s what I’ve heard them called. They’re supposed to be deep-dwelling insects with armored bodies, swordlike arms, and ravenous appetites. They’ll eat just about anything, even some rocks.”
“That’s it?” Kellik said.
Xurces shrugged. “Until five minutes ago, it was just a story to frighten disobedient children,” he said. “I never really paid attention to the details.”
Kellik brought out his hammer and a crowbar and began clearing debris. Bradok, Chisul, and Corin helped until half an hour later they had uncovered all the rest of the skeleton.
Kellik whistled, glancing at Xurces. “The next time someone tells that story, you can tell them it ain’t a story,” he said.
The skeleton had four legs attached to an oblong, tail-like piece that Urlish called the abdomen. Above that, a massive chest sprouted two arms that ended in serrated, swordlike blades. They assembled it partly on the ground, but even so, its size was enormous.
“I would not want to meet that monster in a dark alley,” Much said once they had all the pieces laid out.
“Dark,” Xurces said, snapping his fingers. “I just remembered something else about the legend. The Disir are blind. They prefer the dark. They hunt with sound, like bats.”
Much and Bradok looked at each other then turned slowly, looking up at the clock tower above them where the cogs, shafts, and gears were churning merrily away. It suddenly seemed like an awful lot of noise.
Watching them, Chisul also looked up and felt terror. “Turn that thing off,” he yelled. “Turn it off now!”
CHAPTER 19
The Hive
It took ten full minutes to get the water drive out and stowed. In the silence that followed, the only thing that could be heard was the ragged breathing of the survivors. Every ear strained to hear something, anything. No one knew what, exactly they were listening for, but everyone knew they would recognize it once they heard it.
“I don’t hear anything,” Xurces said after what must ha
ve been a full half hour of silence.
“Maybe they didn’t hear us,” Lyra said in a frightened voice.
“If there’s anyone left to hear anything,” Kellik said.
“I don’t want to stay and find out,” Bradok said, pulling out the compass and staring down through its crystal top.
As the light-gathering machine shut down, the stream of twilight from outside ceased. The only light that remained were the giant crystals that had bounced the beam around the cavern. They seemed to have the ability to store some of the light that passed through them and they glowed, pleasantly dim, shedding enough light to see by but still giving the impression of night.
“What’s down there?” Bradok asked, pointing down the lane of dead trees.
“A couple of big doors that lead to a rough tunnel,” Rose said.
“All right,” Bradok said, rechecking the compass and shouldering his pack. “Let’s head in that direction.”
The doors at the end of the tree-lined hall were large and ornate. They looked almost decorative, but Kellik pointed out the massive iron bars that could be dropped from a hidden slot in the ceiling. Once in place, the bars would keep the doors closed against just about any menace. The fact that they were still slotted in their holes in the ceiling made Bradok wonder again: Just what had happened to Galoka and his followers?
The passage beyond appeared to be a natural tunnel, like the ones they’d followed all the way from that first beach where the skeleton of Silas’s boat lay decaying. With a sigh, Bradok pressed forward. Kellik was closest to him, trailed by Much, Perin, and old Marl Anvil. The rest of the survivors followed at a short distance.
“Well, this is interesting,” Rose said, coming up beside Bradok. “Evil mushroom people behind us and killer insect creatures ahead. Never a dull day here in the underground.”
“What makes you think the killer insects’re ahead of us?” Bradok asked.