The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “All of this moving between water and air is very confusing,” Eddy said. “I wonder if the maids have trouble keeping things straight.”

  “Don’t know, don’t care. This is the statue. I think you’ll agree, it wasn’t worth the trip.”

  “Wasn’t worth the trip!? Are you mad, Mab?”

  Eddy took a deep breath. It was something he was quite unaccustomed to doing before a swim, but it was easier than casting the water-for-air spell and the air-for-water spell over and over whenever he needed to talk to Mab. He dunked below the water.

  The statue was exquisite. Eddy did not have an eye for stone, but if he were to venture a guess he would suppose it was some manner of marble. It glimmered in the light of his eyes and the glow of the stalks with a pearl-like sheen. The figure was certainly a mermaid, and certainly beautiful, but not in the way most mermaids were. Her hair was short, her arms and tail hardened by travel and toil. One hand held the handle of a metal hammer that must have weighed twice what Eddy did. The other held a heavy chisel. He turned and glanced about. The floor was strange, perfectly flat, and with seams, as though it had been not just carved, but constructed from slabs of stone. Then he looked to the walls. His eyes widened.

  Eddy burst to the surface and took a breath.

  “There is writing! Writing all around. You didn’t mention that.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Mab said. “Dwarfs don’t do well in water. Didn’t even think to check. What does it say?”

  “I don’t know, there’s a lot of it. I will take another look.”

  He dove again and turned his eyes to the walls.

  The words were chiseled in a precise, steady hand. They wove a tale, one Eddy had never heard before. He found the start and eagerly began reading…

  Whomsoever may read this, I apologize for the sorrow and tragedy that brought you here. The fault can only be my own, for mine was the task left unfinished…

  #

  Whomsoever may read this, I apologize for the sorrow and tragedy that brought you here. The fault can only be my own, for mine was the task left unfinished. May Tria forgive me, and take as my replacement someone worthy of her trust, as I certainly was not. All that remains for me is to record for you how this terrible misfortune came to be, and she who should be cursed by those who have suffered for it.

  My name is Dua. For a time, I was the second of Tria’s three right hands. I still remember the day I was selected by her. I was one of the builders of her great temple, a place now shattered and broken. Tria smiles upon the crafters, the makers. I had devoted my life to honing my craft, and to honoring her name. Mine was the first chisel to meet stone when her temple’s construction began, and mine was the last hammer to fall when it was completed. I gained her favor, and so she took me as her apprentice.

  The tasks of the hands of Tria are not for mortals to know, but if the sea functions, know that it functions in part by her machinations. She is divine, a being slow to anger and quick to forgive. Even her own brother, Tren the Breaker, was dear to her heart. But there was one thing she could not abide.

  Just as a single clumsy blow from an unskilled sculptor can ruin the work of master, so can the fumbling of lesser beings threaten the workings of the mighty. Tria wished for all to know the joy and value of building, but mortals were to keep to the things of mortals, and gods to keep to the things of gods. Two mortals had taken up the forces of the sea and turned them upon each other. They were not divine, but swam closer than any before had come, and they knew not how to wield such raw power with discretion and reason.

  I shall not sully these walls with their names. Better they should be forgotten. They deserve no place within our history. But in their thirst for that most worthless of things—glory—they unleashed terrible horrors upon the sea. It was a dark day, the day the walls were raised. The day the sea boiled. The temple I helped to build fell that day. Many places fell. And had Tria not sought the help of her brother Tren, what was made would have been the end of sea.

  It was a terrible battle, the nearest since the dawn of time that the gods themselves had come to intervening. Let us all be thankful they did not. Just as a flake of ice melts in the warmth of the southern currents, so would the world be snuffed out should the gods ever show their true power. I swung my hammer. All the hands of Tria did. The followers of Tren jabbed their spears. The beasts and their creators were broken.

  Alas, for things of such power, it is not enough that they be broken. They must be unmade, lest they rise again. We pleaded with the vile summoners of the horrible beasts, in their fading moments, to unravel the spells that bound their creations to this world. They refused, blinded as they were by hate. Tren assured us that it was within his power, and the power of his avatars to strike them down again and again, should the need arise. But each battle would be more potent than the last. Soon the clash to strike them down would be as dangerous as the one we had worked to stop. So Tria sought another way.

  Though the sea is mighty, it still is but a blanket thrown about the shoulders of the land below. The beating of the waves may wear down the tallest of mountains, but the forge and crucible that lays at the heart of the land shall always build them anew. Such is the balance. And if these terrible creations are the work of the sea and its children, then it was the throbbing heart of the land which must be called upon to wipe them from this world. It fell upon our shoulders to prick the finger of the earth, such that its blood might mix with the sea and wipe away this terrible mistake once and for all.

  We all had a task. Mine was in most ways the simplest. I was to plot the path, to be the first to find the route to the heart of the earth. As ever, I swung my hammer fast and true. I bored through the sea floor while the others worked to craft machines that could do the same. And in time, I came to this place. We had selected this patch of the sea because the ground was nearly as firm a prison for the forces of magic as the caverns to the west. It had shielded this place for untold ages. I do not know how or when the strange plants and creatures I found here came to be, but they fascinated me. When I finally found the molten earth we sought, I instructed the others and the diggers were given their destinations. It would take them many years to burrow through and reach the cleansing blood of the earth, and it would do little good if only one or two of them reached it. A trickle would not perform the task we sought. We would need a flood.

  Left and Right hands, under the guidance of Tria and Tren, had done fine work on the diggers, but we couldn’t trust that they would function perfectly for as long as was required. Someone needed to stay behind, to repair those that failed, to awaken those that slept. I volunteered.

  The task should have gone to someone stronger, wiser.

  While I waited for them to make their way, I returned to this place. I studied the creatures. I tinkered and crafted. My focus wavered. I was a fool.

  The thieves and the Great Ancient both slept. The Great Ancient was a threat only when it stirred, and my fellow hands forged the chains strong enough to hold for a hundred lifetimes. We believed that at rest, the thieves would be harmless. We were wrong. Too late I learned even while they slumbered, even while locked away in their crypts, their hunger was not slaked. They sipped at the strength of the sea. They drew away the power from anything within the cavern. And what they fed upon grew weaker. The growth in the cave. The diggers. Even myself.

  By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late for me. I lacked the strength to leave this place. In time, some of the diggers found their way here, but only a few. They all should have. They should have bored tunnels to the chambers of the thieves and the Great Ancient, then tunneled to this place and beyond, to unleash the molten blood of the earth to end the monstrous creations once and for all. But they were weak, they ran down, and without me to tend to them, they would never awake.

  I do not know what became of the others. I do not know why no help ever came for me. Perhaps even the eyes of the divine cannot pierce the stone of thi
s prison. Perhaps this was a test, and I have failed. No matter. I abandoned my task long enough for it to become impossible to complete. I am undeserving of my place as one of the hands of Tria. As I record this, the stalks and creatures that once thrived in this place are withering, succumbing to the same terrible thirst that weakened me and the diggers. If they vanish entirely, I shall wither and die without them to sustain me.

  There has been little for me to work with here, but I have done my best to craft a mechanism which might complete the task of which I have been so poor a shepherd. It is complete, but just as I lack the strength to leave this place, I lack the strength to awaken it. It rests beneath me, as useless as I. All is lost for me.

  I have resolved to sacrifice myself. I give up my vitality, my immortality. May its power push back the terrible hunger of the thieves and allow this place and the sea around it to recover. Perhaps it will allow the diggers to awaken again. Perhaps it will merely delay the inevitable awakening of our slumbering foes. It does not matter. It is the last act available to me. May Tria and Mer have mercy upon me and forgive my failure.

  #

  Eddy surfaced for the tenth time and recounted the last of the tale. He huffed and puffed.

  “Holding breath very much is not fun at all. Now I know why surface people do not swim very deep…”

  “So that thing down there is a demigod?” Mab said.

  “Yes! She is an almost god. I am not a worshiper of Tria, I worship Mer, but the hands of Tria are still very important almost gods. I did not know of Dua’s story. It seems a strange end for someone so important.”

  Mab peered down into the water. “We don’t all get the end we think we deserve. Wasn’t there something about building something in that story of hers?”

  “Yes! She said she was trying to build something that could help, but she could not awaken it.”

  “You’ve been waking up these diggers. Seems like you should be able to wake this thing up, if it was anywhere.”

  “Yes… It is a curious thing that I do not see it. It says that it rests beneath her, but I see nothing but stone.”

  “And the demigod turned to stone.” Mab scratched her head. “Is that what you things do when you die?”

  “No.”

  “So why did she?”

  “I do not know. I think it was magic. Magic is always the way in these stories.”

  “So, coming here has earned us nothing.”

  “It earned us a story and I got to see the stone remains of the divine! That is very much!”

  “We are still trapped in a cave.”

  “But we are trapped in a cave with a divine being.”

  “A dead divine being.”

  “A dead divine being is more alive than most things that are not dead. Probably.”

  “If she can get us out, I’ll bow down to her. If not, she’s a landmark.”

  Eddy’s expression hardened. “A very important landmark.”

  “Not to me. To me she marks the spot where I got my hopes up for the last time. Now let’s go. The sooner we get to that weak spot and start digging, the sooner I’m back in the tunnels and hopefully headed home. I don’t like this end of the cave. Something about the way the stone feels beneath my feet. Wetter. Riddled with little tunnels. Doesn’t feel stable to me.”

  Eddy crossed his arms. “There is a machine, somewhere below her. That is hidden treasure. A very important part of any adventure. Borgle, dig down, but carefully. We want to find this machine, but not break it. And stop when I say so.”

  “No, no! What did I just tell you, it isn’t stable enough—”

  Borgle eagerly chimed. It removed Mab from its back, dug its claws into the stone, and began hammering.

  “This is a dangerous waste of time!” Mab called over the pounding impacts.

  “What did you do yesterday?”

  “I hunted.”

  “And the day before?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And before?”

  “Hunted.”

  “So you were due for nothing today. This is much better.”

  “But the stability!”

  Borgle threw chips and pebbles aside as it thundered deeper. Mab crossed her arms and muttered under her breath, no longer willing to strain her voice trying to shout her warnings over the din. As the digger sunk into the stone, flash-melting the sides of the fresh tunnel, the dwarf gazed at it with curiosity. Out of the water, Borgle didn’t dig nearly as quickly, but it was still clearly enough for Mab to be impressed, even if it was in spite of herself.

  She picked up a cooling bit of stone with her gloved hand, then tossed it into the pool to whistle and spit against the water.

  “Digging machines… Round holes…” she grumbled. “They’ll be the end of all of us.”

  Chapter 17

  Rustle darted through an ever-narrowing sequence of passages. He’d ceased thinking about where to go several minutes ago. The passages he chose were more about how to get farther from the mess he’d inadvertently left behind him. Finally, he wedged the bubble that served as his air supply into a narrow enough crevasse for his discomfort with close spaces to push his maddened panic aside.

  He turned and looked to the opening and took a moment to catch his breath.

  “Monsters…” he panted. “Monsters. In a cave. At the bottom of the sea. Lost. Alone.”

  He held his head and tried to keep from falling back into the beckoning arms of open panic again. It didn’t work.

  “Why did I ever leave the pond!?” he squealed. “What am I going to do now? Merantia picked the wrong person to help her in her wonderful, flawless errand.”

  The surface of his bubble, bulging from the crevasse in the wall, trembled. He reluctantly eased forward, took a breath, and stuck his head out into the water. At first there was silence. Then the water brought him the deep, resonant clack and crackle of claws scraping at stone. He pulled his head back into the bubble and shook the water from his hair.

  “That’s more than one. They’re waking each other up… What did I do!?” he said. “Oh, think! Think, think, think! What does this mean? What happens now? The inscription. What did it say? There was… um… There was a bit about each one of those things being foe enough for a great hero. And… Oh! Yes! The water’s edge. They will only be stopped by the water’s edge! They won’t go out into the air.”

  An almost demented smile came to his face.

  “Of course! That’s why this cave exists! That’s why there’s so much air here. It’s to stop the thieves from getting out!”

  He slumped against the wall behind him, which was now dripping dry thanks to the bubble pressing up against it.

  “At least I didn’t doom everyone.” His brow furrowed. “Except… when Eddy read that tablet, the water started rising…”

  He clawed his fingers through his hair. “We did doom everyone!”

  His flight reflex briefly disregarded logic and wisdom. He rammed face first into the opposite wall in an attempt to retreat further into the tiny crevasse.

  “Ugh…” he groaned. “It… It won’t work this time. I can’t run away from this one. Even if I could make it all the way to the surface without being eaten by a fish or something, what would happen to Eddy? And his sister? And everyone they know?”

  He reached down to his side, where he’d secured the digging claw he’d borrowed from Eddy’s glove.

  “I can’t flee…” He swallowed. “Which means I have to fight. Or find someone who can. Merantia! … No. She sent me out here for a reason. She cannot fight right now. She isn’t strong enough. And not Stuartia. Vile and evil Stuartia. Curse her name a thousand times… But that only leaves Eddy. And what can Eddy do? He’s strong, and he’s more at home here in the sea. But he’s still just a merman, what is a merman against one of these… these so-called thieves?”

  He took a breath.

  “Maybe… Maybe it doesn’t matter. We’d be together. And more is better than less. And if this is
an adventure, a story of myth in the making, then surely the end can’t come until we reunite.” He tightened his fist and shook his head again. “I’m talking nonsense. Madness. But this whole day has been madness. So maybe madness is the only thing that makes sense.”

  He patted his sling, and its one sweet remaining.

  “Anything is better than hiding until I starve or suffocate…”

  With what little courage he was able to gin up, he flitted back out into the open and began to retrace his steps. Isolated in the center of his bubble, for the first few minutes he was spared the ominous sounds of the beasts he’d unleashed.

  By the time the rumble of countless clacking claws finally reached his ears, he was nearly upon them. As the only source of light in the entire cave, there was little hope he could remain unseen, but he did his best to douse his glow as much as possible regardless. This left him buzzing about in near blackness, his mystic intuition the only means at his disposal to guide himself. He skimmed low to the floor of the cave, keeping as far as he could from the clacking and crunching. Now and then he caught a glimpse of a slashing limb or a drifting hulk with a chitinous shell. The things seemed to be ignoring him, more interested in freeing their brethren than wasting a moment to squash the tiny point of light floating among them. They were also moving with a sluggishness that suggested they were anything but fully recovered.

  “Good,” he whispered to himself sweeping between two empty crypts, “I still have time… But who knows how much? I’ve got to get to Eddy fast.”

  His buzzing flight quickened as he approached the entrance of the tomb. When he reached the first of the three gates, he allowed his glow to return to full brightness and flew for all he was worth. His mind and body were approaching their limits. There had been a reason he’d come into this place. Was it Merantia’s will? Had he thought he’d find Eddy? He couldn’t remember anymore. He didn’t care. For the moment the foolishness of even the divine and wise Merantia’s instruction had soured him on acting on her behalf. Right now, Eddy was all that mattered.