by Lynn Egan
"One turn round the iron wood tree
Three steps down
Mouse jumps through the hole
And turns around
Grab the stars
And right you are
Swim, fish, swim!
Fly, bird, fly!
Tree's all alone
Mouse runs away."
It had the cadence of a skipping rhyme, and when she came to "Swim, fish, swim!” she repeated it a couple of times, seeming to become more confused or frustrated as they went.
"What is that you're chanting?" Michael finally asked.
It was a moment before Murud answered, "The rhyme that guides us out."
Michael wasn't sure what to say to that. "Ah," was all he could come up with.
She shook her head, "There should be some weapons or something along here. I was told there is a cache hidden to aid those who need to flee. Food, weapons, armor. Swim, fish, swim should lead us there, but I have not seen the fish."
Now that Michael knew they were looking for a fish, he figured he could help. He looked around at the stones on the walls, the floor, and finally the ceiling. He smiled and tapped her shoulder, pointing up.
As her red light hit the spot he pointed, the glowing fish figures he'd seen disappeared. She frowned, and he grinned. She frowned harder.
He put his hand over her forehead, covering her star, and the fish appeared again. They had been walking under a path of fish for some time, and she hadn't seen them because they only responded to blue light. She frowned more deeply.
"That makes no sense. I was not told that there were different lights, or that I might need a certain one!"
"Well how old is that rhyme?"
"Many centuries. But it is pure. Children's rhymes tend not to change, and this one was carefully tended."
"By whom?" Here Murud looked uncomfortable. Michael decided not to pursue it. "All right, what were you told about the rhyme?"
"It is a guide out of the cells. Those who made the castle thought that those who lived here may need to leave secretly at some point, perhaps from captivity. So, the escape was built and the rhyme made. The iron wood tree is the post in each cell for hanging the chains. Three steps down is three stones down from there, push in while turning the post. Go through the hole, turn around and press the stone back in so the hole below closes. Each cell has a light crown hidden behind. Go right and look for the fish, then the bird. The fish leads to the cache, and the bird to the way out."
Michael thought for a moment, and then looked up again at the fish figure on the ceiling. He had an idea. "Murud, do you think we've come to the end of the cells yet?"
"We may be close. It is hard to tell, we have gone slowly. We cannot have far to go."
"I think we've come much too far."
"What do you mean? We turned right, and there has been nothing. No passages, no stairs, no holes. Nothing."
"I think we turned the wrong way."
Murud drew herself up to her full height, brushing a fish with her hair. "I know which way is right." Michael was sure she left out the word "Peasant!" from her imperious tone. He grinned anyway.
"We did turn right, while we were facing away from the wall."
"Yes."
"The poem says turn around, so you're facing towards the wall. Left turns into right if you turn around."
The tall woman continued to look skeptical. "You are saying I got my family's centuries' old escape rhyme wrong?" Her tone was icy and dared him to question her authority.
Something clicked into place in Michael's head and he grinned wider. He pointed up again as his light highlighted the fish inscribed in the ceiling.
"I'm saying that Your Royal Highness knows very well that fish don't swim backwards!"
Chapter Eight
Michael led the way this time, and he could feel the princess brooding behind him. There wasn't anyone else she could be, though the cat-shifting was a surprise. They followed the way the fish heads pointed, passing the back of the cell he had been in, though they all looked the same from this side. They walked faster than they had before, and soon came to a set of stairs that spiraled down into darkness. Michael held the Claw at the ready and descended.
He had explored underground before, though he'd never liked it. Those times he had usually been with a group led by one of the Nimium professors who not only knew the way but could also easily handle anything they met. Now he was hungry, tired, sore, and alone except for a princess of unknown fighting skills. His one advantage, he felt, was the Claw.
He let part of his mind dwell on that other dungeon experience where he and Qilian had found the relic. They had been allowed in their senior year to explore un-chaperoned part of the vast catacombs that rested beneath the ancient college. Michael had let the Rochat lead, since the feline man had some tugging in his head that called him to explore a certain section.
It had only been an hour or two in, after a few minor scuffles with some of the vermin that infested the place, when Qilian had stopped and told Michael to douse his lantern. As their eyes had adjusted, it became apparent that the walls were covered in some phosphorescent moss or algae, which gave just enough light to see by.
Michael came back to the present and wondered if this place had that moss, too. He liked being able to see, but these light-crowns made them into big targets for anything lurking in the darkness. The shifting blue and red shadows made him nervous, too.
He decided to break the silence. "Why every cell?"
Murud scoffed, "Because one cannot be certain of being thrown into a convenient one."
Michael had to admit that once she pointed it out, the answer was obvious. The pragmatism of her forebears impressed him, as well as their ability to design something that stood the test of time - both the path itself and the rhyme with its secret meaning.
They came to the end of the staircase and into a large room. There was a messy mound of jumbled junk which extended from the center to the opposite wall.
It could have been the cache the princess had mentioned, and she made a sound of triumph and darted toward the piled objects. Michael saw a movement underneath a half-rotten box and cried a warning just before something leaped out and fastened its deadly fangs into the toe of her boot.
The sound she made was somewhere between an angry shout and a surprised scream, and she flailed her foot on the ground, trying to dislodge the creature. Its jaw was stuck in the leather of her footwear and her thrashing was knocking its long body into the floor repeatedly. Michael ducked forward and slashed at the thing with the Claw, missing the first time and striking the stone of the floor. Ice formed at the impact site and spread outwards swiftly in the dampness. His second try struck the writhing thing, severing part of it and freezing the rest. Murud's next stomp broke it cleanly from her boot, fangs still embedded. She didn't seem to notice, and was breathing hard.
"What the kaelach was that?" This gutter talk surprised and pleased the young man - so she was a person after all! Feelings and everything.
"Centipede. Keep your toes curled, there's still poison in those pincers." Michael looked around, knowing that there had to be more of the things around. Giant centipedes were ubiquitous underground. This was part of why he didn't like caves. He poked the body, noting that it thawed quickly, then used the Claw to turn over a couple more pieces of debris. He heard a skittering farther into the pile. "This whole thing seems infested with them. Are you sure there's anything of value in here?"
She had found a piece of cloth nearby and used it to work the centipede's mandibles out of the leather of her boot, tossing them away when they were free. "Yes, there has to be. My family would not have left their kin helpless." She stood up and brushed her hands off on her pants, then stood with her fists on her hips, surveying the pile. Michael shrugged and began to turn more things over with a stick he had found, Claw at the ready in his other hand. He could tell that more of the centipedes were scurrying out of the way as he dug further into the
mess.
"They are all running away from you. Why did that other one attack me?"
Action muffled his reply as he shifted more wood pieces out of his way, "You probably surprised it. They'll usually run away unless you threaten their nest." A gleam of metal caught his eye, and he worked it loose and tossed it toward the princess, then explored further. A few more shiny objects made their presence known and Michael fished them out. After a while, he decided enough was enough and turned around to examine what he'd found.
Murud had not stood idly by, and he saw that she'd cleaned most of the items off. There was a small buckler that had seen better days, two daggers that had once been well-crafted but were now quite dull, and a jeweled rapier hilt whose blade had long since rusted away.
"There has to be more than that." Her tone implied he hadn't tried hard enough. He knew that they didn't have a lot of time to explore this ancient pile of trash, but he shrugged and gestured at the long-forgotten weapons cache as if daring her to dig in.
"How long has it been down here, Princess? What kind of safeguards were put in place to preserve the metals, the leathers and cloth that were used to wrap them? Even my Claw was only metal by the time it was found. Unless it's enchanted, we won't find much in here."
The blond woman frowned, first at him, then at the mound of detritus. Thoughtfully, she said, "There must be something…"
Michael sighed. "If the castle was built in a time of political upheaval, yes, there would have been plans made and weapons stored, but how long has it stood here? How many coups have there been? Has anyone thought to put any upkeep into the escape route, or have you all simply relied on the builders of the place and that silly children's rhyme?"
"That 'silly children's rhyme' allowed me to save you, do not forget!" was her angry retort. She stormed over to the cache and began bodily lifting and tossing things out of her way, aiming for the center.
Michael raised a hand and said a word of warning, but the angry princess wasn't listening. He was impressed that she could shift some of the items she was moving; this was no soft palace courtier. He turned his attention to seeing if anything she threw aside was usable. Nothing seemed worth anything, though he had made himself a belt of sorts and had secreted the jeweled rapier hilt and dulled daggers there. There wasn't any sense wasting what they found.
Murud let out another cry of triumph as she pulled some sort of sword out of the muck. It glistened with something disgusting, but it seemed whole. She swung it a few times and grinned with satisfaction.
"I knew there had to be something!" She turned to him expectantly, but his eyes were fixed on something near her feet. She looked down and spied what he'd been looking at, and picked it up curiously. It was about the length of her hand and as big around as her wrist, whitish and glistening in their weird light. "What is this?"
Michael had almost expected this, but gulped anyway, "That… is a centipede egg."
~
The princess dropped the egg as they heard movement from an opening in the wall close by. It landed with a rubbery bounce and one of the centipedes darted out of the pile, grabbed it, and swiftly disappeared back into the mess.
Michael's first instinct when he heard the ominous skittering from the hallway was to change into a raven and fly away. Centipedes couldn't jump and he'd be safe up in the air. But the creatures could climb almost anywhere so the princess's cat form wouldn't help her, and he wouldn't abandon his rescuer.
He glanced over and saw that she had the sword at the ready in one hand. He kicked the buckler over and she picked it up. She moved as though she'd held a sword before, but with an uncertainty that told him she'd never faced a serious opponent.
From a hallway opposite them, a low, long form sinuated over the rubble of ages. In their red-blue light, it was quite monstrous, and Michael was certain this was the largest cave centipede he had ever seen. Its body was four feet long; the thick carapace looked as strong as steel, and two wicked pincers clacked threateningly into each other above the thing's maw of a mouth. Michael felt the fear rising from the depths of his gut, let it wash over him, accepted his imminent death, and then decided to fight against it to the best of his ability. Acknowledge and Act was the best lesson he'd ever learned.
There was no time to reminisce as the creature rushed in to protect its nest and children. Emboldened by their mother's presence, some of the other centipedes made feinting lunges across the floor. This multi-sided attack caught Murud off guard, and she retreated closer to Michael. Facing a fast, deadly foe that didn't even come up to one's knees was unnerving if one had only faced human sparring partners.
From a tactical standpoint having her behind him was both good and bad. She was the less experienced fighter, and had a longer reach, but it meant Michael couldn't circle and get the huge beast from the side while she distracted it.
"Take it head on! Let me get around it!" he shouted, trying to dodge to the side. He couldn't see behind him, to confirm that she did what he said, but when he sidestepped the next attack, her sword whistled past him and struck the thing right between its antennae. The blade skipped off the hard shell and slid with force to the floor, where it rang off the hard stone. Murud yelled with frustration and scrambled backward as the thing lunged again. Michael slashed at it with the Claw, grazing an antenna, which instantly froze. The centipede reared back and retreated a few paces, shaking its head. Being thin, the appendage quickly started to thaw and become flexible again. The creature advanced. Michael got an idea.
"Murud, strike what I strike, as soon as I strike it!"
"What!?" She shouted, swinging her blade at one of the smaller insects she'd retreated into.
"Just hit what I hit!" He slashed again at the antenna, and again it froze solid the moment the Claw touched it. The princess's blade came down shortly afterwards, shattering the now-brittle part. She made a glad cry as the creature retreated again, having lost one of its major sensory organs. It backed away and the smaller centipedes came closer in, defending their injured parent.
These babies were in the one- to two-foot range and faster than the larger one, but their shells weren't as thick or hard. Murud skewered a couple while Michael slashed and froze a few more. This enraged the mother again and she charged the princess, who was the larger target. Murud leapt sideways and a lucky swing severed the creature's other antenna, disabling it. It thrashed for a few seconds and then retreated towards the pile, its children following closely. Each of the smaller ones grabbed a few of the eggs which had been scattered in Murud's raid of the nest and coiled their bodies around them tightly. Then the mother coiled herself around all her offspring until there was nothing but an impenetrable mass of insect carapace.
The princess was panting and shaking, and made a move as if to attack the now-still mass of enemies. Michael, who was forcing himself to breathe slower and keep his overexcited muscles still, warned her to stop.
"If you attack them now, you won't do any damage and you'll probably make them angry again. They're defensive, see?" He waved at the pile with his left hand; his right wouldn't uncoil from the Claw for a few minutes yet, his muscles always seemed to lock down that way during a fight.
Murud straightened up and wiped her face with her forearm, "We are safe, then."
"Not especially. Dormant like that she'll grow her antennae back in, oh, a week. Those eggs will hatch before that and be hungry. We should go. There are probably other ones out hunting that will be back soon."
The tall blonde woman shuddered a little and nodded, looking around for something to scrub her blade with. Some dusty tattered scraps in the corner were the best she could do and she used them to wipe the insect goop off her sword. It was a nice weapon; one-handed for someone of her height, straight and double-edged, with a gently sweeping hilt. The wooden handle had seen better days, but seemed to have held up, and the pommel was a simple globe of metal.
Michael's hand finally uncurled from the handle of the Claw and he stretched and c
lenched it to restore circulation. As he did this, he walked around the cache and looked at each of the entrances to this room. None of them looked particularly promising, and no bird-figures showed themselves in his light. He returned to Murud and shrugged.
"Where to next, milady?" she raised an eyebrow at his familiar tone, but looked around thoughtfully.
"You saw no birds."
"None. You're having a streak of luck, though, if you'd like to look around."
The woman tightened her lips and walked around the perimeter of the room. Near the entrance where the giant centipede had entered, she stopped. "There is a bird here!"
Michael frowned. He'd looked there, what could he have missed? He joined her and looked where she pointed. He saw nothing, but had an idea. He covered his blue light and in the glow of her red one, there was the outline of a seagull in flight. "You found the way out, Your Highness…" but she had wandered towards the other entrances.
"There's a dove at this one… And a raven at the next!" She looked back towards him. "The rhyme did not say which bird to follow." She stood in thought for a moment. Michael knew which one he preferred, but maybe the princess had her own ideas. He grinned to himself; this princess definitely had her own ideas!
"Shush, I am thinking. The seagull could mean it leads to the ocean, perhaps the bay at Seasguir…"
Michael grimaced. That was NOT a walk he wanted to do underground and with no supplies.
"The sign of the dove could mean the palace gardens. We have always had dovecotes there, built in stone when the palace was raised. The Raven… the only thing I can think of is the Duchy of Ishald. Their symbol was always the raven, and they have been friendly towards the Crown for centuries."
The young master of Ishald managed to turn a surprised cough into something resembling a sneeze. He wasn't sure the princess knew who he was yet. He'd known that Ishald had enjoyed close ties to the royal family through the centuries, which had been broken somewhat by his father's, well, lack of morality was the kindest way to put it. He put those thoughts as far back in his head as he could, knowing that somehow his lovely companion could pick up on them. Speaking was safer than thinking at this point.