The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “We will ask Miss Astra for her spell book. Oh, I hope she and her family are recovered from the quake,” Mira said. “And Guyver should have some spare work clothes to cope with the hot water. He has a farm farther up the rift.”

  “So… This is Barnacle,” Cora said. “It’s… nice.”

  Mira glanced at her. “That didn’t sound terribly sincere. Not impressed?”

  “Well, to be frank…” Cora began.

  “We don’t do business with places much smaller than West Shallow,” Cul explained. “Your whole city is the size of their shopping district.”

  “Ah… So that would be why nomads don’t stop by,” Mira said.

  “It doesn’t say anything about you,” Cora said quickly. “But when you travel as far as we do for trade, you’ve got to think about quality, quantity, variety, everything. That means stopping at the largest places.”

  “No, no. I understand. It’s just that I’ve always been rather proud of my home. We’ve been through a lot as a village and we always persevere.”

  She swam a bit more quickly, leading them to her home.

  “Here. Stay here for a moment. If you’re hungry, there is food in the pantry there. Help yourself. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

  Mira swam off toward the center of the city, which while plainly recovering from the quake at least looked to have stabilized. Cora and Cul looked about in the home.

  “She has so many things, Cul…” Cora said. “I’ve never been invited into a home before. There’s nearly as much here as in the markets.”

  Cora picked up some of Mira’s clothes, dislodged from where they had been hanging before the disasters struck. She held them against herself.

  “Not my size… but do you think she’d be open for a trade?” Cora said. “It is very nice.”

  “Put that down,” Cul said. “This is a home. You don’t just make offers on things in a person’s home.”

  Cora set the garment aside and placed her hands on her hips. “So you’re an expert all of a sudden?”

  “It’s just common sense. Shore-lovers aren’t like us. Their life isn’t about getting a good deal. They can afford to have things. To collect things. Because they have places to put them. Look at these bones…”

  He swam to a small recess in a wall, where a bit of netting held a pile of assorted skulls. Cora swam up and plucked a wolf skull from the net.

  “It is sort of impressive, I guess. Shells don’t get so gnarly and full of holes. Oh, and these are the teeth, right? Intricate… But we could collect things. We just need our own whale. You could strap everything in this house to a nice big whale.”

  “It isn’t the same. You’ve basically got to run your own drift of nomads to have a whale large enough for this much stuff. And look around. Everyone has a home like this.”

  “I suppose. But waking up every day looking at the same patch of ocean… How do you live like that? And you heard her talking. She’s a trader and she’s barely been more than a few towns over. That’s no life.”

  “It is a bit stifling, I suppose.”

  He picked up a small frame and found what passed for a painting in a merfolk village. The color was muted, composed mostly of blacks and purples with the occasional glittery bit of powdered shell or sprinkled sand. It was skillfully rendered, though, and depicted Mira herself with a merman.

  “Do you suppose this is her brother, Eddy?” he said.

  “You’d better hope so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a handsome one, and if he’s not her brother, then you’ve been fluttering your fins against the current.”

  “Not you, too. Why does everyone think I’m falling in love with her?”

  “Probably because you’re absolutely falling in love with her,” Cora said.

  “I don’t even know her!” Cul said. “It’s been just a few hours since she showed up. Just because I’m treating her properly doesn’t mean that I’m courting her.”

  “No. It’s the way you look at her and the way you fawn over her that means you’re courting her.”

  He crossed his arms. “I’m not going to argue with you. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. I’m going to take her up on her offer of food. I suggest you do the same.”

  “I’m going to take a look at the rest of her collection. But if she’s got anything you know I like, bring me one,” Cora said.

  Cul swam into the pantry to carefully sift through the still-disheveled contents. While he did, Cora replaced the skull and casually looked over the mound of fallen clothes. She found another top and held it up.

  “Maybe if we do a good job she’ll give us some gifts. I think I might grow into this one.”

  #

  “This is a lousy tunnel,” Mab muttered.

  The dwarf’s temper had cooled somewhat as she’d paced along the tunnel. This was good news for Eddy. It had taken a considerable amount of will power to keep from engaging her in conversation. His unquenchable curiosity could only be denied for so long.

  “What is so bad about it?” Eddy asked.

  “Lousy workmanship. And look what the water’s done to the walls,” Mab replied.

  She reached out with one of her stubby mitts and ran it along the wall of the tunnel. The black stone was riddled with cracks, some of them so deep Eddy’s glow didn’t reach their end.

  “This is a natural tunnel. There were no workmen,” Eddy said.

  “Bah. What do you know about tunnels? This was dug.” She crouched. “See here? Chisel marks. Most of this is natural. Probably a bubble in the stone when it cooled. But this stretch here was chiseled. And don’t tell me you didn’t notice the mounds of chips in the side caverns. Like there. See? This is a debris cavern. Dwarfs use them all the time. You’ve got to haul out the detritus and store it somewhere.”

  “But that cave where you were, and that story Dua told. She found that place while looking for a good way down. We are much lower than that cave now. Why would there be diggings down lower than that cave?”

  Mab shook her head. “And you say you were a miner. Mining isn’t just about digging down. It’s about digging quickly sometimes, and other times it’s in digging toward where you know something you want is. Like I said. There are these big voids down this way. And the walls are crumbly and weak. This is a tunnel dug through the weakest, most void-riddled rock available. They were after something they knew they’d find. Which is baffling, because in stone like this, you won’t find anything but more bubbles and voids. Who would dig down looking for nothing?”

  Eddy looked forward uncertainly. “I do not think there is nothing in this tunnel. This tunnel gives me bad feelings.”

  Mab paused and looked to him. “What sort of bad feelings…” she asked, almost accusingly.

  “I feel like there is a bad thing here. A dark thing here. Not here here. But there. The way we are going.”

  She narrowed her eyes and gripped the handle of one of her axes. “So you feel that, too…”

  “You feel the bad feeling? Why did you not say you did?”

  “Because you didn’t say you did. Why didn’t you say you did?”

  “Because you were mad at me and I did not want you to be more mad.”

  She shook her head, dislodging her beard to billow up again. “I was hoping it was my mind playing tricks on me. For the last few years my mind hasn’t been much good for anything else but playing tricks. You learn not to trust it when it tells you there are monsters ahead.”

  “You think there are monsters?”

  She nodded. “We’re deep. There’s a saying among the dwarfs. The deeper you dig, the surer you can be that you’ll find something. It’s why you don’t keep digging down a hole that’s not giving you something you want. Because no hole leads to nothing. So, if you keep digging where you haven’t found good, you’re likely to find bad.”

  “Bad monsters? Evil monsters?”

  “That’s the feeling I’ve got.”

>   “This is the best news!” Eddy crowed.

  “…What?”

  “I am on an adventure! The evil bad monster waiting for us must be the reason for the adventure. I think even maybe I was looking for it when I found you. I don’t remember so good, it seems a long time ago. But now that we know there is a monster, we must go and find it!”

  Eddy readied his pick and darted off into the tunnel. Borgle followed, chiming happily.

  “Blast it,” Mab growled. “Blast it to pieces! So my options are to remain in a dark hole in the bottom of the sea while the only person who knows how to let me breathe again dashes off to be killed, or to follow him and probably get killed with him.”

  Eddy turned back, his glowing eyes and fins sparkling in the distance.

  “Borgle! Go get Mab. She is not so good with swimming. And she won’t want to be late for the monster fight!”

  “What!? No, you blasted machine!”

  Borgle ignored her complaints, snatching her up with its pincers and placing her astride its back.

  #

  No longer limited to the speed Mab could manage, the trio streaked along the tunnel. The farther they traveled, the more certain they were that chisels and hammers had been at work here. The chip-filled voids became more frequent, and more thoroughly filled. The walls were smoother, more precise. And ahead, the looming sense of foreboding grew ever stronger. Whatever the source of the feeling was, there was no clear sign of it.

  After several minutes of enthusiastic swimming, they came upon the first unique discovery. The tunnel turned sharply and began to open. Embedded in the wall, surrounded by recently fractured stone, was the statue of Dua.

  “Look! Dua has been leading us!” Eddy said. “Tria is smiling upon our quest!”

  “The blasted statue fell down the pit and bounced down the same tunnel we did. Not everything is an act of this god or that, you great idiot of a fish.”

  Eddy ignored the observation. He drifted down and marveled with wide eyes at what lay beside the statue.

  “One of the hammers of Tria…” he said, reverently reaching the round-headed hammer from where it had fallen. “A gift from the gods.”

  “The statue’s fingers broke when it hit the wall and the hammer fell,” Mab countered.

  “I tell you the thing the gods did. You tell me the way the gods did it. Both are true,” he said. “I say it is a sign. I shall arm myself with the hammer.”

  He closed his fingers around the grip of the tool. He was quite strong enough to lift it, but buoyancy was another issue entirely. He had to work his tail madly to keep himself from simply sinking to the floor of the tunnel while wielding it.

  “This…” He grunted. “Is maybe not a tool for carrying all the time.”

  “Hand it over,” Mab said, hopping to the ground and holding out her stout arm.

  “This is a thing of the divine. Tria is the daughter of Mer. And this is given to the hands of Tria from Tria herself. Are you a follower of Tria?”

  “No. But I know how to use a hammer.”

  Eddy hefted it, then scratched his chin.

  “I think… I think maybe Tria would rather the tool go in the hands of the better maker. Yes. It is a thing for making. And you are very much good at making. Even if you do not use it in Tria’s name, you serve Tria with the good you will do with it.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night. Hand it over.”

  Eddy presented the hammer to her. The tool was nearly as tall as Mab was. Having carried both the hammer and Mab, Eddy knew that if they were not a match for each other’s weight, they were close. Nevertheless, Mab took the tool and gripped it like she was born with it in her hands. She gave it an experimental swing, easily turning one of the larger bits of debris in a nearby alcove into powder.

  “Well I’ll be… It is a miracle. Might well be the best hammer I’ve ever handled, and it wasn’t made by dwarfs,” Mab said.

  “The tales say that the hammers of the hands of Tria are forged in the earth’s burning heart. They are born of a long-held agreement between the gods above, the gods below, and the gods of the sea.”

  “Tell your tales,” Mab said. “All I know is if I’d have known it would have been worthwhile to fetch this out of the water, I’d have found a way to dig myself out of that cave without your thinking machine.”

  Eddy shook his head. “No. Because then it would not have been here for the fighting of the big monster.”

  He fetched up the chisel. Like the hammer, it was larger than seemed necessary, almost half the size of his pick. It was clearly a rock chisel, its end almost blunt, and though the dents and scrapes along its tip told the tale of centuries of usage, it looked as strong and useful as ever.

  “This I will use. I do not know how. But I will use it.”

  “Sounds like the sort of plan I’d expect out of you.”

  A low grinding sound rumbled up along the tunnel. They turned to its source, somewhere in the darkness beyond the sharp turn. This grinding didn’t have the subdued, muffled nature of something far off in the distance. It was sharp. Nearby. The grind ended with a metallic clack that seemed to shake the whole of the tunnel around them. Eddy’s eyes literally flashed with excitement.

  “I will use it now!” he proclaimed.

  He darted forward. The roof and walls spread away. The ground took on a steeper slope. Without being told, Borgle snatched Mab up again and toted her along, keeping close to Eddy. The tunnel floor had turned to a vertical wall by the time they came to the evident source of the sound. It was a bar, as thick as Borgle’s body, but made of a darker metal. The enormous bar was slightly curved, one end embedded into the stone of the wall. The other leading off into the darkness. Eddy and Borgle followed. The curve continued, outward into the darkness, then curving back toward the wall. Right before its opposite end embedded itself back into the stone, they found a long loop of similarly thick metal hooked around it. A second loop connected to the first one. They were the first few links of a chain, and each of them was much larger than Borgle itself.

  “Look at the size of that chain…” Mab said. “If that’s how much chain it takes to keep something locked down, I’d hate to see what’s at the other end of—”

  “You will meet your end, monster! Yaaaaah!” Eddy shouted.

  He swam off along the chain. Borgle followed.

  “I don’t care if you want to die, but why under the mountain must you drag me along with you?”

  Eddy’s lust for monster-slaying left no room for logic or response. He followed the chain to where it connected to some manner of massive metal band. The band was embedded in a smoother column of black stone. Swimming along the band revealed another loop, and from it ran another chain. He followed this and, to his dismay, found it simply attached to another enormous metal bar. He followed it back and, when he returned to the black column, swam up along it. This section of wall was etched with long, regular grooves. A second band, not far above the first, led him to another chain and, once again, to a bar embedded in the wall of the chamber. The only difference this time was that one end of the bar had nearly been pulled away from the wall, and beyond its failing end, a tunnel not unlike the one the one that had led them here led off into the wall.

  “Where is the monster!?” Eddy shouted angrily. “Why so many chains and nothing but columns and walls?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m not complaining,” Mab said. “But now that you’ve taken a moment to think, have you noticed this chamber doesn’t have a roof bearing down on us? We should see how far up it leads. If we’re lucky—and I hesitate to even suggest it—maybe it leads all the way to the surface.”

  “No. It does not. We have gone very far. But not so very far that we are in a place that we would not have seen from my home while exploring and trading. There are no big holes with chains and columns in the bottom near Barnacle. But maybe we can go very far up, and from there maybe we find our way back to my mine. But I feel the bad feelings of the mon
ster, don’t you? We do not leave until we kill the monster. Heroes don’t go home before the adventure is through.”

  Mab muttered through clenched teeth. “Then maybe the monster is further up.”

  “Monsters are down, not up. Everyone knows that,” Eddy said.

  “If you take me farther down, I will use this hammer to bash your brains out.”

  “That is not a nice thing to… Wait… Do you hear that?” Eddy turned to the tunnel. “It is not a big sound like before. This one is a small sound.”

  “Good. Let’s investigate. A small sound is less likely to kill us in the meantime.”

  Eddy darted toward the tunnel mouth, but before he’d even ventured inside, he saw a distant glimmer of blue light. It sparked, flared, and streaked toward him. The sound resolved itself, amid considerable echoing, into a single word repeated over and over.

  “Eddy, Eddy, Eddy, Eddy!”

  A moment later, a bubble-encapsulated figure burst from the tunnel and thumped into the merman’s chest.

  “Rustle? You found me!” Eddy said, stowing both chisel and pick so that he could address the creature.

  “Eddy, Eddy, Eddy,” the fairy said gleefully. “I found you! I used my magic and I felt where you were and I could feel the flow of the water and what are those things!?”

  Rustle darted up to hide among Eddy’s hair, causing his hair to billow around the fairy’s bubble.

  “Be calm, Rustle. These are friends. That is a digging machine that thinks. It is called Borgle. It is the thing we found before things shook and I went away. And that is Mab. Mab is a dwarfmaid. Why are you in a bubble, Rustle? It is hard to hear you.”

  “The spell wore off. Where did you find a dwarf?”

  “A cave with glowing sticky stalks and tasty soft-shell things.”

  “… Tasty soft-shell things?”

  “Yes. They are like long lobsters. But that is my story. What is your story?”

  “I tried to dig for you with this claw I borrowed. And then the spells started wearing off and I got scared I would die from that pain that comes from going too deep, so I went searching for help and I found the wonderful and delightful, the brilliant and kind, the magnificent and magnanimous Merantia.”