Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger

by Philip Blood

  “Check around the wall, I hope there’s a way out of here without swimming any further. Your body is too cold to go back into that water for a while,” Jatar decided.

  Still shivering, G’Taklar started crawling around the small shelf between the water and the cavern wall. “I found a low opening, but I don’t like the thought of crawling through.”

  “You might not have much choice, check around further and see if there is another way to go,” Jatar told the cold young man.

  “Nothing, this hole is the only choice, that or the water,” G’Taklar explained after concluding his search.

  “I don’t think you’re up to another swim in that cold water, not knowing how far, or if there even is another place to get out.”

  “No, I agree, I don’t want to go in there again.”

  “All right, you’ll have to crawl,” Jatar decided.

  “Great,” G’Taklar answered sarcastically. He crouched down and entered the low tunnel. The ceiling kept getting lower and lower until he had to crawl along on his belly for about twenty feet.

  “This is getting kind of tight in here,” he complained to Jatar.

  “So far your only other choice is going back to the lake,” was the imprint’s answer.

  “I know, and that’s what has kept me going this far, but this ceiling had better not get any lower or it’s going to be a long crawl backward,” G’Taklar noted.

  A few feet farther the passage began to widen out and eventually he could stand under a low ceiling. G’Taklar started to walk forward when a strange low gravelly voice spoke out of the dark ahead, “Good food!”

  G’Taklar froze at the sound of the base voice; it was powerful, deep and sounded like it rolled around in a massive chest before booming out of some cavernous mouth.

  Then, in contrast, a high pitched voice answered the other. “Possibly Ebemoon, but would you mind giving me a chance to speak to him before you try to eat the poor boy?”

  Then the high pitched voice called to G'Taklar from out of the dark passage ahead, “What’s your name, young man?”

  “You better answer him, he already knows you’re here,” Jatar advised.

  “I am G’Taklar Ardellen, a noble from fair Tarnelin in Lindankar.” He tried to say it proudly, but his youthful voice broke on the word, ‘fair’, so his desired effect was ruined.

  “G’Taklar of Lindankar and a noble… thank G’lan, finally someone with more than a fifty-word vocabulary,” the higher pitched voice exclaimed.

  “Who are you?” G’Taklar asked somewhat fearfully, he could not see anything in the absolute darkness. G’Taklar remembered to ‘think’ his words to Jatar as he’d done during the negotiations, this way the voice in the dark wouldn’t hear his conversation with Jatar, “That voice sounds cultured, could this be another escaped prisoner?”

  Jatar’s thoughts answered, “I’m not quite sure… something is odd here.”

  The deep voice of Ebemoon spoke with more animation, “Eat Food!”

  “No!” the high-pitched voice hissed, “Just wait a moment, you dullard!" He spoke up again to G'Taklar. "In answer to your question, my name is Halvisun.”

  “What do you want with me?” G’Taklar asked.

  “Brains!” Ebemoon bellowed.

  From the irritation evident in his voice, Halvisun was obviously getting peeved with Ebemoon. “Would you mind? The first chance in eons that I get to speak with someone of intelligence and you want to ingest the poor boy,” Halvisun squeaked in exasperation.

  G’Taklar thought frantically to Jatar, “I think Ebemoon is the brain eating souldead the guard spoke about! Should I run back down the passage?”

  “No, this Ebemoon would catch you when the passage narrowed to a crawl. You should keep talking, it seems that this Halvisun person has some control over Ebemoon… so try to be friendly,” Jatar suggested to his cousin.

  G’Taklar spoke aloud again, “Halvisun, who is that person with the deep voice?”

  “That is Ebemoon, the most stupid creature to ever walk the face of the earth and my everlasting companion, however, I don’t want to talk about him, I want you to tell me about yourself. There’s not much time left and I’m so starved for any news of the world.”

  “Starved?" G'Taklar answered in a quavering voice.

  Halvisun chuckled, "Just an expression, I'm not here to eat you, though I can't speak for Ebemoon."

  "What do you mean about not much time?” G'Taklar asked.

  “I’d tell you to run, but though Ebemoon is lacking in brain power his tracking instincts are spectacular. He’ll just catch you anyway and I wouldn’t have this chance to talk to you,” Halvisun explained with a sad note.

  “Jatar, what do I do? He’s as much telling me that this Ebemoon will kill me!”

  “Stay calm, ’Tak, find out as much as you can from Halvisun,” Jatar suggested.

  “Halvisun, can’t you tell Ebemoon to leave me alone? You seem like a friendly person.”

  “Ebemoon has a mind of his own on this kind of thing. Believe me, I’ve tried to reason with him, G’lan knows I have, more times than I care to recall, but he always gets his way. You see Ebemoon and I… oh, drat… I seem to have miscalculated, sorry G’Taklar, I so wanted to help you…”

  “What are you saying, Halvisun!” G’Taklar yelled in panic.

  Suddenly two massive hands grabbed G’Taklar around the upper arms, startling the naked young man. He yelled in pain as sharp claws pierced his arms, but a moment later he was silent as the venom from the souldead’s claws paralyzed his system.

  “G’lan, I can’t move!” G’Taklar exclaimed within his mind.

  “I’m with you, G’Taklar,” Jatar answered calmly, trying to be the anchor for G’Taklar’s wildly fluctuating emotions.

  “It’s one of Vorg’s souldead! It’s going to kill me, suck the brains from my head! Help me, I...” G’Taklar’s overtaxed mind blacked out from the strain and the venom coursing through his body.

  When G’Taklar became conscious again all he could see was blackness.

  “So this is death?” G’Taklar thought resignedly.

  “Not quite, you aren’t dead yet,” Jatar’s unmistakable thought responded.

  “Jatar, where are we?”

  “Look around, so I can see.”

  G’Taklar did as he was instructed and he could see a round patch of grayness above, some dim light from far away. “We're in a pit,” he reasoned, “how did we get in here?”

  Jatar’s calm thought replied, “Ebemoon must have dropped you in here."

  “My head hurts, I must have landed on it,” G’Taklar exclaimed, rubbing at his sore scalp.

  They heard voices above echoing in the cavern and they seemed to be discussing ways to eat G'Taklar.

  “It seems that a lot more than your scalp is going to hurt if we don’t get moving. That sounds like numerous souldead up in that cavern above us. I gather that you’re about to be consumed in some ritual. I suggest you keep your comments to me in thought, so they don’t hear you.”

  “What happened to Halvisun?" G’Taklar thought to Jatar.

  “I don't know,” Jatar answered.

  “What do we do, Jatar?”

  “Don’t panic, remember what you learned in the Tchulians’ cell, we got out of there, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, just to become the main course in a souldead’s dinner party.”

  “Feel around and see if we have anything to work with.”

  G’Taklar felt along the stone bottom of the rough pit, but it seemed to be completely empty. He was so concentrated on his search that he only caught a little of what the souldead were saying, but the word 'squash' caught his attention. “What did that one say?”

  “You don’t want to know, believe me.”

  G’Taklar shuddered, his imagination running away with the thought of what the souldead were planning.

  “There’s nothing, only some loose gravel and dirt!” G’Taklar exclaimed, finishing h
is search of the small floor area.

  “Then check the walls,” Jatar advised.

  G’Taklar went to his right and started feeling around the circumference of the pit.

  “There seems to be a section of loose rocks here,” he noted, feeling the cracks among the stones.

  “Pull them out, if you can. Perhaps someone hid something, or maybe you can make a foothold to help you climb out of here!” Jatar said with excitement, he had not held much hope that G’Taklar would find anything.

  G’Taklar pulled out the small rocks first then found that one large piece was loose. When he pulled it out he found that it was a thin, yet wide piece of stone; he set it down on the floor of the pit. When he felt into the opening he found that there was an empty area behind the place where the stones had been.

  “Maybe it’s a passage!” he exclaimed excitedly, hope springing forth.

  “Feel your way in, and hurry G’Taklar,” Jatar urged, expecting to hear the awful voice of Ebemoon from above at any point.

  G’Taklar scrambled into the low hole and thought to Jatar, “This could be a passage out of the entire caverns!”

  His hand touched something leathery in the dark that was lying on the bottom of the small tunnel.

  “G’lan, it’s a dead body!” he exclaimed in disgust a moment later when he felt the shriveled hand of the corpse.

  “Old, from the feel of it,” Jatar noted dispassionately. “Keep moving G’Taklar, when they discover the opening behind you, they’ll soon follow.”

  G’Taklar didn’t need to be told twice. Steeling his nerves to touch the corpse in the dark he crawled over the remains quickly only to bash his head into solid stone a moment later.

  “Ouch, Vorg’s breath, that hurt!”

  “Stop wasting time and check around for other openings!” Jatar ordered, worry evident in the tone of his thought.

  G’Taklar sensed his concern and quit rubbing his sore head and felt around the walls. “Nothing, it’s a…dead end.” His own words sounded like a death sentence to the frightened boy, his emotions had taken too many shocks in the past day.

  “As I told you before G’Taklar, you’re not dead yet. Get back to the opening to the pit so that you can seal it up again from the inside!”

  “But what good will that do me? This guy probably did the same thing, and he starved to death in here! There’s no escape!”

  “I’ll guarantee you one thing, if you’re already dead there will be no chance of escape, but as long as you’re alive we might think of something.”

  “What’s the use? I should just let them kill me and get it over with, starving to death is a horrible way to go,” G’Taklar moaned.

  “Look, G’Taklar, I heard the souldead arguing about who gets your intestines and who gets to suck your blood first. Ebemoon put in his bid for your brain, it seems he has some affinity for sucking out that portion of your anatomy.”

  “G’lan help me!”

  “He isn’t going to help anyone who gives up. Now, are you going to do what I told you or are you going to willingly let the souldead divide you up like a carcass at a meat market?”

  G’Taklar didn’t answer; he just crawled back over the old cadaver and went back to the original opening. Listening to Jatar’s suggestions he put all the small rocks in the passage then crawled back in and pulled the large flat stone into place. He used the small rocks to wedge around the edges, holding the slab in place as it had been before he pulled it loose.

  “Good, now go back to that corpse, I need you to search the body,” Jatar suggested.

  “Why do you want me to touch the rotting thing? Don’t ask me to use its bones for anything!” G’Taklar pleaded.

  “Do you always ask so many questions?”

  “Yes, I do,” the young man answered.

  “He has clothes and there might be a sword,” Jatar explained.

  G’Taklar reached the rotting body and began feeling the shriveled corpse. “You were right, it’s old, but the clothes seem all right. G’lan, what a stench, I think I’m going to be ill!”

  “Is he wearing a sword?” Jatar asked, ignoring G’Taklar’s discomfort.

  After feeling around the putrid torso G’Taklar located a leather belt around what must have been the man’s waist. “No sword, he only had a dagger,” G’Taklar said in disappointment.

  “A dagger, thank G’lan, your odds of surviving just tripled; now we can fight if it comes to that. Get his clothes off,” Jatar suggested.

  “I wish you could do some of these things, it feels disgusting,” G’Taklar noted.

  “I am doing it, I feel whatever you do,” Jatar responded, feeling through G’Taklar’s hands as he moved the rotting body around, pulling off the silky soft material of the corpse’s clothing.

  “Conceal the dagger by tucking it into the pants behind your back. If it comes to a fight the surprise of you having the dagger might make a difference. I think those souldead can see through the dark,” Jatar explained.

  Not long after G’Taklar finished dressing he heard the deep voices of the souldead barking loudly above the pit.

  “What if they discover the hole?” G’Taklar thought in fear.

  “Unlikely, they don’t seem to be overly intelligent and it obviously worked for that poor man back there, though his luck ran out afterward.”

  After a short time, the voices of the souldead went away.

  “Now what?” G’Taklar asked.

  “We give them a little while to make sure they don’t come back and check the pit again, then we go back out and try to find a way out of the pit.”

  “Where they can see us?”

  “Yes, unless you’re planning on starving to death in here like your buddy over there.”

  “My buddy!” G’Taklar exclaimed in disgust.

  “Just a joke, G’Taklar.”

  The voices of the souldead came back three times; several of the beasts had to see for themselves that their meal had indeed gotten out of the pit. Eventually, they stopped looking.

  “All right G’Taklar, it’s been two bells since we last heard any of the souldead nearby, they’re probably out searching the passages for you,” Jatar explained.

  “Wonderful thought, if we do escape this pit all I have to do is avoid a horde of searching souldead who have pieces of my body already assigned as their portion of the meal.”

  “Does sarcasm run in your family?”

  “Are you kidding, cousin?”

  As quietly as possible G’Taklar removed the small stones and then set the large one down on the floor of the pit. Once he had scrambled out of the hole he looked up toward the dim patch of grayness twelve feet above.

  “Now what?” G’Taklar asked.

  Jatar didn’t answer; he was busy trying to think of some way out of the predicament.

  “G’Taklar,” a high pitched voice said from out of the darkness above.

  “It’s Halvisun!” Jatar noted.

  “What do I do?”

  “He knows you’re here and he hasn’t called out the alarm, perhaps he’s here to help you out of the pit.”

  G’Taklar looked up and whispered, “Halvisun, will you help me escape this pit?”

  “Of course, that’s why I’m here. I’m sending down a rope.”

  A moment later the rope hit G’Taklar’s left shoulder. He climbed upwards and reached the edge into the dim chamber above when two very powerful hands took hold of his shoulders and lifted him up and over the lip of the pit.

  G’Taklar started to speak before he looked up into the face of Halvisun, “Thanks, I couldn’t have gotte...”, but then he saw Halvisun in the dim light and exclaimed, “Vorg’s breath!” He leaped back from the horrible snarling visage of Ebemoon’s fanged face and huge body and nearly pitched backward into the dark opening of the pit. The big souldead’s long arms grabbed him by the shoulders and steadied the shaking G’Taklar.

  Halvisun’s squeaking voice said, “Sorry, I was going to explain ea
rlier, but my cycle was up sooner than I’d thought.” Halvisun voice came from a second small head sprouting out of the massive souldead’s shoulder. G’Taklar had not noticed it until the squeaky voice spoke.

  G’Taklar was horrified and said, “Vorg slay me, you have two heads!”

  “Vorg indeed, it is that evil bastard that I have to blame for this condition. I’d let Ebemoon suck out his brain if he wasn’t long dead and gone.”

  “But you’re the creature who put me in the pit!”

  “No, that was Ebemoon here,” the little head explained, bringing up his right hand to point at the larger centered head. The fanged maw snapped at the pointing finger, but it was out of reach.

  “He’s rather upset about my helping you escape, but I’m in full control right now, so I’m not letting him speak, but come, we must get you out of here soon or he’ll give the alarm.”

  “But you said he couldn’t speak.”

  “Not as long as I’m in full control, but that doesn’t last long. Soon he’ll regain complete control of his head, though it will take the full change of cycle before he gains control of the body. Now quickly, come this way.”

  The souldead creature led the way into the dark.

  “What do I do?” G’Taklar thought to Jatar.

  “Get after him, he’s your best chance right now; just don’t let him know you have the dagger and watch for any changes in control.”

  G’Taklar hurried after the large beast and soon they entered a passage where it was completely dark.

  Halvisun put a hand out and stopped G’Taklar’s progress and said, “We have a little time, so I’ll tell you what I want in payment for helping you escape. Please tell me of the world, describe where you come from, the people you know, what’s happening out in civilization, that kind of thing. I’m going insane trapped on this stupid beast’s shoulder. It eats people’s brains in an attempt to get smart enough to figure out how to get rid of me.”

  “Is there any chance it will take over as we talk?”

  “No, I’ll leave before that happens. Once Ebemoon regains control of his mouth I’ll have an idea of how long it will be before he regains control of the body. Until then you should be safe enough, I sent the other souldead searching in the wrong direction, so you don’t have to worry about them finding us.”