The Black Librarian Archives

by Taylor Clogston

  “We’d better hurry,” said Dan. “I think the sun’s going to set soon. Unless...” He felt shock setting into his body. Their passage through the gate differed from the dungeons they had entered before. It was like the night when he had passed from the world of London and away from the fire that had fallen from the sky. What was the connection? “We could try to go back home. Maybe we should.”

  “No,” said Marit. Dan turned to look at her and felt his stomach clench at her face’s strained paleness. “We can’t go back,” she said. “That gate only goes one way.”

  “How do you know that?” demanded Tarissa.

  “I can’t explain it. I... just do. Try it out, see for yourself.”

  Tor Pin opened his mouth, but paused. “I have no idea where the leylines are here,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t know where to try opening the gate.” He scratched his head. “Look, I know you are scared, Marit, but you aren’t making any sense.”

  Richard pointed to the horizon again. He seemed agitated. “Whatever, we’ll figure out how to get back later. We need to get moving before it gets dark.”

  Richard was right. Dan began to walk on shaky legs, not waiting to see if the others would follow.

  There were a couple weak protests, but after a moment the group set off together toward the looming shape on the horizon.

  Almost half an hour passed before they reached the entrance. The sun had almost set, its light ever fainter. Their goal was a black stone monolith with flat sides which stretched up into the sky at least two hundred feet. Blocky, geometric glyphs unlike anything Dan had ever seen covered its front face.

  A doorway was set into the face, eight feet tall and five wide. The soil underfoot gave away to rough, natural granite which seemed at odds with the alien nature of the monolith itself.

  Richard led the way, and behind him, Tor Pin carried a bead of “Light.” In a tentative line, the rest of the party followed into the depths of the dungeon.

  Chapter 9

  The seamless floor and walls appeared to be made of a hard, smooth material which curved gently as it rose. There was no light aside from that which Tor Pin carried, and even that glow seemed to soak into the walls as the party descended. The path grew ever steeper until the party almost fell rather than walked.

  Dan’s heart pounded, and the dagger in his hand dripped with sweat, too slick to hold tightly. Not that he could use it, should it come to that. He had never needed to fight with a weapon. In the past they had all known what dangers lay ahead, but down here... Dan jumped as Tor Pin stumbled and the light flickered.

  He hated it, plain and simple.

  After a short while the passage came to an end before a thick stone wheel. Marit tapped its broad face with a knife in several places, inspecting it closely. It seemed plain and unmarked from Dan’s perspective.

  “Come here, Tor Pin.” Marit knelt and pointed at the seam where the wheel’s bottom met the floor. Tor Pin held the light close, and Marit nodded with a hum of satisfaction. She pulled a steel spike and a mallet from her pouch and gave the seam at the floor two sharp taps.

  Something gave. Air hissed by Dan’s ears and an acrid breeze brushed past him as the stone wheel rocked and fell back toward the group. Marit hauled Tor Pin away moments before the wheel would have crushed him, and the whole group covered their faces as a cloud of bone-dry dust blew around them. When it had passed—though Ruckus’ sneezes still rang through the passage—Dan rubbed his eyes and peered through the new doorway.

  Light glowed beyond. Dan staggered after Marit and Tor Pin through the opening, passing into what felt like fresh air by comparison.

  It was beautiful. The floor gave way to a vast ravine across which tiny stone plateaus rose in clusters like a bizarre bridge. The ceiling above was far higher than it had been in the passage, an irregular dome. Glistening stalactites hung from it, though no stalagmites rose from below. The ground was strewn with clumps of light purple moss like subterranean grass, and dim green points of light the size of bumblebees floated like dandelion fuzz all around.

  “Sprites,” said Ruckus. He sounded surprised.

  “What’s that?” asked Tarissa, emerging behind Dan and brushing grime from her brilliant red hair.

  “Those little specks are called sprites, I think. They live here. They aren’t like the monsters normally pulled into dungeons.” Ruckus gave an anxious growl. “I didn’t know that before I saw them, and I don’t know why. I’m not comfortable finding out these things hidden in my head.”

  Tarissa nodded and held out a hand as if she expected one of the lights would rest upon it. “Strange. If that’s true, might there be other natives in this place? How can they live here at all? I thought they drift in the Sea of Mana when they’re not called into a physical world.”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Ruckus. “And I wish I knew the reason why that is.”

  Assembled in the clearing, the party walked in silence until reaching the edge of the ravine. Marit threw metal bearings at the stone pillars that rose to connect the far edge, the iron spheres clattering off their nooks and facets. Dan had seen her use this method before to test the integrity of potentially precarious footholds. The plateau remained stable. It would be safe to cross.

  Marit tied a rope around her waist, gave the other end to Dan and Richard to hold, and jumped the short gap to the first plateau. She let out more rope, traversed the island, and leaped the few feet to the second island. Stomping her boots around, Marit seemed satisfied with its safety, and beckoned for the others to join her.

  To Dan’s surprise, Tor Pin bounded across without even a glance at the gaping chasm beneath his feet. Dan tried to keep pace, but as he reached the end of the second plateau, he couldn’t help but look down.

  And he froze.

  Far, far below, a luminescent green mist rose as if to pull him into an endless fall from which there could be no escape. Dan felt physically sick, like a monstrous hand had reached out and grabbed his heart, crushing it to powder.

  But then someone had taken his hand and pulled him across, and he was standing in the middle of the largest of the stone islands. Dan came back to reality and saw Marit’s concern as she let go of his hand.

  “You okay?” she asked, rubbing sweat from her forehead.

  “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Thanks.”

  She nodded. “Don’t look down.” Then she turned and jumped to the next island, Tarissa and Ruckus in tow. Dan shook his head as Richard passed him with a look of concern and rejoined the others.

  Having crossed to the cavern’s far edge, the party sat and rested. Dan was grateful for the moment to gather his wits, the headache from his rude awakening still thumping in his head. He lay on the stone ground, the moss lumpy beneath him, and stared up at the far-off ceiling. The sprites were like stars against the dark of the cavern ceiling. Dan closed his eyes, feeling the cool, almost damp air, and imagined he was back home on a summer’s night. His heartbeat slowed at the memory. They had come this far, and they could go further still.

  “Are we ready to go?” asked Marit. She was the first to her feet, looking about and sorting items in her pouch. “There’s another door like the last one just over there.”

  “I think so.” Tarissa joined the trapmaster, stretching as she stood.

  “Can’t we take a nap?” grumbled Ruckus. He still lay sprawled out on the ground. “We spirits need our rest after death-defying feats like that.”

  “We need to move quickly.” There was no humor in Marit’s voice. “The longer we stay, the more danger we put ourselves in.”

  “Right,” said Tor Pin. He still held the mote of “Light” in his hand. Dan knew from experience it would last about eight hours, and he hoped they would have no need to use another bead.

  Marit turned, knife in hand, and led the way. “Come on. I doubt this will be our only trouble along the way.”

  ***

  The next corridor was different: twice as wide, winding broadly, and
proceeding at a more or less level angle. It allowed Dan to walk alongside Ruckus at the back of the group in case anyone were to attack from behind. Not that he could easily fend off an attacker, but Dan thought he was at least physically stronger than Tarissa and Marit, neither of whom had likely spent the last three summers working in the fields.

  It was Marit who noticed the corridor widened as they progressed. “Do you think we’re coming close to another cavern?”

  “Hells if I know,” said Richard, breaking the silence he’d settled into as of late. “Maybe we missed a door earlier because we were so focused on the ravine.”

  “I hope not,” said Tor Pin. “I don’t like the idea of backtracking that way.” He paused. “I wonder if this was designed as a defensible position.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Dan.

  “If you’re defending against an attacking army,” said Tor Pin, “and you are inside a fortress, it does you good to have a wider opening on your side than on that of the enemy. It means fewer of the enemy can reach you at once.”

  “Oh,” said Dan. “I think I know what you’re talking about. Wasn’t there that old story about the Knights Miracular where only a hundred of them held a gap against two thousand enemy wizards?”

  “Exactly!” said Tor Pin. His voice grew louder and faster as it tended to do when he grew excited about scholarly matters. “If sprites live here, other creatures or people likely live here too, and as the opening grows larger the further we go, the more likely it seems...” he trailed off.

  “We’re the invaders,” said Marit in a flat voice. “Puts the monsters who live here in a better position to fight us off.”

  “Err, yes,” said Tor Pin. “I suppose you could look at it that way.”

  Richard raised a fist, and Soo’s fire coalesced around it. “Then we’d best be ready for an encounter.” His voice sounded dull.

  Dan looked at him, worried. Richard was usually the most boisterous of them all. Dan stood a bit straighter and adjusted his dagger to position it better for defense.

  The floor split, and a shaft of pale light shone up from below. Marit stumbled, swore, and wrenched her foot free of the gap. “Get back! Everyone get back!” She nearly pushed Tor Pin over as he was behind her, but after a few moments of scrambling everyone had retreated from the hole in the floor.

  Dan caught his breath. The light streaming into their tunnel was yellow-green like diseased grass, and the same mist at the ravine’s bottom now drifted in and floated around them like smoke in moonlight. Dan pulled his shirt over his nose to block the mist as Marit knelt and tapped the edges of the hole with her dagger. The edge close to the party remained solid, but as she contacted the far edge with her blade, it crumbled like dried mud and fell away.

  Marit stood, pulled a handful of metal bearings from her pouch, and threw them down the tunnel. Wherever the spheres touched the floor they punched through and careened soundlessly away, leaving tiny pockmarks of light illuminating the corridor’s ceiling like bulbous stars in a filthy sky. She sighed and turned to Tor Pin. “We might get across if it's just a pitfall trap. Can you break the floor on the opposite side?”

  “I-I think so.” Tor Pin fished in his pouch as Marit stepped back, the pale-faced Mystic coming up with a small bead which looked to be ceramic. Tor Pin crushed the bead between two careful palms and blew between them, scattering the powder across the gap, disturbing the mist and making it tremble.

  Pulsing wind rattled the party, roaring in their ears, ravaging the corridor before them. The gathered mist was torn away, and as far as Dan could see the floor and right-hand wall disintegrated, falling into the glowing green abyss now looming at their feet.

  Tarissa gasped at Dan’s right and fell back into Richard, scrambling away from the luminescent hell below. Dan imagined he heard stone crack beneath his feet heralding the drop which would leave all of them dead in this alien world.

  But the stone stood firm, and Dan’s breathing returned to normal. He knelt to retrieve the dagger he hadn’t realized he had dropped, and glanced over to see Marit already surveying the new development. The only sign of her fear was a trembling in the hand which held her matted dagger.

  Tor Pin, had plastered himself against the left-hand wall, eyes screwed shut and teeth clenched. Tarissa put a gentle hand on the Mystic’s shoulder, seeming to draw him back to the present.

  Ruckus didn’t seem to be affected at all. “Quite a fall,” he said. “Good thing you had your wits about you, Marit. What’s the plan for getting down?”

  Down? Yes, as Dan looked over the lip of the floor, he could make out stone below. The mists were thick enough that the fall had seemed infinite, but it appeared there was solid ground only about fifty feet below. Enough to kill a careless invader in freefall.

  “I only have one ‘Feather Fall’ with me,” said Tor Pin in a flat tone. He still seemed to be gathering his wits about him. “It could safely carry perhaps two of us at once. Perhaps three. Any more than that and we would likely sustain injuries.” He didn’t mention the other side of the issue, that there would be no way to return.

  “You’ve done plenty,” murmured Tarissa. She began pulling things from her pockets and bag. “What do we have in the way of rope? I have about twenty feet here.”

  “I’ve got another twenty,” said Marit. “Not enough.”

  The hairs stood up on the back of Dan’s neck, and Ruckus’ ears perked up. The spirit dog looked down the corridor behind them and sniffed as Dan turned uneasily to look. Nothing.

  “I’ve got more,” said Richard. He turned to Tor Pin, but the Northerner shook his head.

  Marit hummed. “I might be able to unbraid the rope and lengthen it,” she mused.

  “That’d never work,” argued Tarissa.

  Ruckus growled. Dan took a step backward, passing the rest of the party who seemed engrossed in sorting out the rope they carried between them. “What is it?” he asked the spirit dog.

  “Something’s back there,” Ruckus said, “but it’s different from the other spirits we’ve fought.”

  “Is it like the sprites we saw earlier?”

  Ruckus growled again. “I don’t know. But we need to get down, and quickly.”

  Something moved. It was large. It scraped wetly. It was close enough that the dull green light reflected in its bulbous eyes. “Tor Pin, you only have the one ‘Feather Fall?’”

  The Mystic held up a pale blue bead. “Yes, and I have been trying to figure out what the best pair between us would be to scout below. I feel descent is inevitable but perhaps Richard and Marit could go ahead—”

  Dan shouted and barreled into Richard who was just in front of him. The Contractor had little time to react, falling backward into Tarissa and Tor Pin as Dan put all the strength of a field worker’s shoulder into his friend’s chest, straining at the jumbled mess of bodies until they had all fallen off the edge of the ravine, tumbling to the ground far below.

  Chapter 10

  For two heartbeats Dan wondered if he had murdered his friends, but then a pale blue glow surrounded him, shards and bits of ceramic decaying in the air, and his fall was slowed.

  Not much, of course. Dan had seen “Feather Fall” used before to help transport wounded animals or move huge boulders embedded in the earth. It was a spell which required enormous energy, but made its targets almost weightless for a time, depending on their size. A pair of people might experience a rather pleasant descent. Five young adults and a spirit dog sharing the magical payload...

  The ground rushed to meet him, and Dan closed his eyes.

  A force like a horse’s kick slammed into Dan as he impacted, rattling his bones and spattering bright lights across his vision. Weight rammed him from above, and something gave in his ribcage.

  Groans and coughing echoed off the walls, and Dan struggled to his knees out from under the bodies that had fallen on top of him. He fell back down, sick to his stomach. The thought floated through Dan’s head that he must h
ave fallen the quickest because he had been the furthest from Tor Pin’s bead. An odd thing to focus on, some other part of his mind told him, considering the sharp pain that stabbed into him every time he gasped the acrid air. Ignoring the others climbing to their feet, Dan forced himself to stand straight, and looked around.

  The ceiling and walls, as best as he could see through the mist, were a dull gray-brown like mud, ribbed and scored like the innards of a petrified beast. Massive pipe-like coils ran around the upper edges of what Dan now realized to be a wide-walled cavern, several of them breaking off randomly and abruptly into drop-offs. The coil which had formed their tunnel continued a short way beyond the point of breakage but didn’t seem to lead anywhere. It must have been a deliberate trap, Dan thought, and not a failure of architecture.

  “Miracles… You knight-damned idiot,” gasped Tarissa. She held her side, struggling to keep her eyes open. “You could have… killed everyone.”

  “We needed to get down,” said Dan. His voice seemed quiet, not echoing in the slightest. The thick mist muffled his voice. “Something following us. Bad. We needed to go.” There was a wall close. He walked toward it, legs shaking, putting out his hand for support but drawing it back as his foot contacted a growth in the floor. He waved to clear the mist away.

  Bubble-like sections of rock were fit into the floor where they met the wall, and cracks ran across their surfaces. Long things like ropes connected them together, and those ropes themselves were broken in places. A thick, slimy substance oozed from the breaks, running across and eventually drying and cracking upon the floor, forming its bizarre pattern.

  Behind him, Tor Pin was sobbing. He’d had the presence of mind to break the spell bead, but the strain of the fall so soon after the tunnel’s collapse seemed too much for the Northerner.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. It grew closer. Dan could feel it. He looked up at their coil and swore he could see the hulking outline of the thing within its mouth.