by Mike Shel
“So perfectly safe, yes?” gloated Gnaeus.
“This time, you half-wit,” she sneered. “Next time maybe it melts your eyeballs out of their sockets. Don’t be a fool.”
“Agreed,” said Auric, mild as he could manage. “We’re still early in our effort. Please, Gnaeus. I’m still entertaining hopes we all walk out of here alive.” Auric stood back, hands on his hips, looking at the contorted hall, the disfigured metal of the gate. The passage heading off into the darkness resembled a constricted mouth, the mutilated iron its ragged, uneven teeth.
We must push on, he thought.
Try as he might, he was unable to dispel the notion that by passing through this point it would be as though they were serving themselves up as a meal; that they were allowing themselves to be swallowed whole.
29
Bottomless
Removing the twisted remnants of the gate proved a difficult task. It no longer swung freely on its hinges and was jammed firmly in place, pressured by the impinging bricks from all directions. Belech, strongest of the five, struggled with it for several minutes before conceding defeat. Finally, Lumari applied a fast-acting corrosive liquid to key points of the mutilated barrier that ate away at its metal with astonishing speed. Disassembling it into smaller bits, the party moved it out of the way and at last headed deeper down the constricted corridor, crouching low to pass through the mouth-like opening.
The corridor weaved for a few dozen more feet before widening again to its original dimensions, eight by eight, though the floor still slanted at a slight angle that Auric found disorienting. The hall made a few abrupt turns this way and that, at last opening into an irregularly shaped chamber about fifteen feet wide and thirty feet long. The space eventually narrowed again, snaking off into the distance. But the focus of the room was a pit at its center. A ledge about a foot and a half wide lay along the left-hand wall, providing a route past the pit’s beckoning blackness.
“This is the pit that swallowed Galadayem Pela, yes?” asked Gnaeus, gingerly peering over the precipice.
Lumari consulted the hand-drawn map Gower Morz had provided. “It would seem so,” she answered, “though it’s about twice as wide as the map would suggest. And it was supposed to be in a hallway. This is a distinct room.”
Belech approached the lip of the pit with caution and looked over. Retrieving a copper penny from his pocket, he dropped it down the shaft.
Silence.
“Bottomless,” muttered the old soldier.
Auric joined him and repeated his action, tossing a coin down the hole. He watched the darkness swallow his penny, with no sound of it striking stone. Taking hold of Gnaeus and Belech’s shirt sleeves, he backed away from the pit, tugging at them both. “Recommendations?” he asked.
“Tie a rope around my waist,” Gnaeus suggested. “I’ll walk across the ledge to the other side while you and Belech hold on to that rope like the life of someone dear and precious depended upon it.”
“The ledge slants down just a bit, into the pit,” Lumari observed. “And if you haven’t noticed, the heat is growing more oppressive. I’m seeing more condensation on the walls and some type of plant growth between the bricks—lichen, grasses maybe. I wonder if that ledge might not be slick.”
“I weigh the least,” offered Sira. “Why not tie the rope to me and let you four hold tight? I’m certainly the least encumbered, with little beyond the satchel and my shield.”
“Buckler,” said Gnaeus.
“Buckler,” conceded Sira with her smile.
In that moment, Auric saw Lenda standing before him—always the first to volunteer for a risky endeavor—and his heart wept. But he had to admit that Sira making the first attempt across was the most prudent course of action. Belech produced a length of rope and looped it around her waist. The priest handed her buckler to Gnaeus, along with the satchel containing the Golden Egg, her lopsided smile on full display.
Lumari extracted a drawstring pouch from her backpack and cast a handful of the black grains it held across the ledge. “That’s specially treated sand. It’ll absorb moisture on the stone and provide some traction for you,” she said, replacing the pouch in her satchel.
The priest thanked her and approached the ledge.
“What was it Gower Morz said caused Pola to fall into the pit?” asked Gnaeus, who had been aboard the Duke Yaryx with Sira when the rest had met with the old Syraeic brother.
“Pela,” Lumari corrected him. “Galadayem Pela. It was a tremor. The second quake they experienced in this place. It was the first that caused the gate we just passed to vibrate and splash the substance coating it into Morz’s eyes. It’s what caused his blindness.”
“Pola, Pela…regardless, she’s long dead,” retorted Gnaeus. “The point I’m trying to make is that we’ve had no tremors while we’ve been down here.”
“Let’s not forget that less than three months ago an earthquake toppled a bell tower that had stood for seven centuries,” warned Auric.
Gnaeus grimaced, nodded.
“Be careful…Sira,” said Auric, devoting deliberate attention to speaking the correct name.
Sira answered with a solemn nod, then turned back to the pit. Though the ledge was wide enough for her to walk across it without concern under normal circumstances, the presence of the bottomless pit, the slight angle of the stone, and the condensation on the walls preached caution. She faced the ledge wall and spread out her arms, following the brick contours with her fingers as she inched across, placing her weight on the wet stone before her. Her forward foot slipped near the far side, catching a patch of moisture Lumari’s black sand had missed. Fortunately, the priest managed to steady herself and recover her balance. She reached the far side safe, eliciting a chorus of relieved sighs from her companions.
Sira removed the rope from her waist and tossed it across the gaping pit. Lumari was next, crossing the ledge with equal caution, again without incident. She allowed herself a rare smile as she turned to face the men on the other side of the pit. Sira began assisting with removing the rope, grinning along with the alchemist. Suddenly, their smiles vanished and they let their hands drop to their sides, looking beyond their three comrades across the pit’s blackness.
“Why are you here, Sister Sin Eater?” asked Sira, her tone watchful.
Auric and the men beside him swung around. At the entrance to the pit chamber stood the priest of Ussi, face hidden by the dangling rags of her filthy vestments. She leaned on a twisted hickory cane, which she used to steady her shaky gait as she approached.
“This place is dangerous, Sister Sin Eater,” said a wary Auric, “and we have no need of your sacraments here. I suggest you leave…at once.” Auric felt a tingling sensation at his left hip. Had the Djao sword vibrated? He edged his right hand to the weapon’s grip, his apprehension escalating. Auric spoke a stern warning as he drew Szaa’da’shaela from its scabbard.
“Come no further, sister. Your approach is unwelcome and your silence does not inspire confidence.”
The shaggy-robed priest stopped, banged her thick cane on the flagstones several times.
“Who sent you?” Gnaeus demanded, unsheathing his own weapon. “This green stuff beneath our noses deadens our sense of smell, else I suspect we would have scented your pungent approach. Head back to your nasty hidey hole!”
The priest muttered something in a deep tone.
“Speak up, brother,” asked Auric, assuming a ready crouch as his suspicions grew. “Those rags muffle your words.”
The priest went to one knee, gripping the hickory cane with two aged, masculine hands.
“I invoke the blessing of Vanic,” began the rag-clad figure in a gruff, familiar voice, “and ask that he fortify my limbs, guide my weapon, and give me the strength to speed all of you beyond the Final Veil!”
The figure sprang forward with remarkable spee
d and charged at them, commencing a whirl with the hickory cudgel he swung like a bat. Belech raised his shield, but too slowly—the twisted wood connected brutally with his temple, the blow sounding a sickening crack. The old soldier was knocked off his feet and he fell to the ground. Without pause the priest was swinging the cudgel again, this time at Gnaeus, who warded off the first blow with difficulty, his rapier ringing out as though insulted by contact with its wooden opponent.
“Bessemer!” yelled Auric as he moved to flank the warrior-priest.
“He’s just a fucking old man!” Gnaeus yelled back in disbelief.
“Divine Fury, lad!” Auric called. “Vanic heeded his prayer!”
Their assailant swung again at Gnaeus, missed, but the arc returned swiftly as the swordsman began retreating, desperately parrying with his overmatched rapier. Auric envisioned what was to happen seconds before it did: Gnaeus took one step backward, two, then three. Auric cried out as he rushed at Bessemer, who was fighting like a berserker rather than a feeble octogenarian.
“The pit!” yelled Auric, but too late. Gnaeus flailed an instant before pitching over the precipice and vanishing into the bottomless hole.
Bessemer turned to face Auric a split second before the Djao weapon he wielded could skewer the man, swinging his hickory cudgel upward to ward off the stabbing thrust. The blade cleaved through the end of the thick wood, as though the old warrior-priest’s bludgeon had no more substance than a loaf of bread. But Bessemer pressed his attack with the now-shorter weapon, spinning it above his head as he closed. Auric shielded himself from another blow with his weapon, where blade met crossguard, and watched an additional hunk of wood part from the cudgel.
I’m whittling the goddamned thing, was Auric’s absurd thought, suppressing a mad chuckle. He was amazed by his blade’s sharpness, but focused frantic attention on parrying Bessemer’s manic attacks.
The next collision of cudgel and blade sliced the priest’s bludgeon in half, the end not in Bessemer’s iron grasp striking Auric in the gut. Though the blow was mostly absorbed by his leather cuirass, it still knocked the wind out of him and forced Auric back further. It was then that he caught sight of Sira, who had somehow managed to make it back to this side of the pit, kneeling over Belech, doubtless tending the man’s head wound, her back to the fight. Bessemer threw all his weight forward in a suicidal effort to bowl Auric over, heedless of the wicked Djao blade. Auric slashed at the man, but the warrior-priest used the last hunk of his cudgel to deflect the weapon as he slammed into Auric, striking the wall that loomed behind them.
Bessemer pivoted again, tearing the hood of his stolen vestments from his head so that his vision was no longer hindered by it. He was wild-eyed, enraptured by sacred frenzy, foamy spittle falling from his lips. He seemed to spy Sira at Belech’s side and launched himself in her direction, forgetting Auric, with no other weapon but his divinely murderous hands.
“No!” cried Auric in sudden panic.
He regained his balance and sped toward Bessemer, now mere feet from Sira, who was deep in healing prayer for a prone Belech. Swinging Szaa’da’shaela with his right hand firmly on the grip, Auric prayed the blade and his reach were long enough to stop the man barreling at the cleric of Belu. Auric felt the sword catch Bessemer in the back of the legs, slicing deep into his calves. The rag-clad man cried out in pain and spilled forward, carried by his own momentum. Sira, alerted by Auric’s cry, managed to brace herself before the old man collided with her, but it did nothing to prevent him from knocking the much smaller woman toward the pit.
Auric watched in impotent horror, crying out her name as she flipped over the edge of the precipice. “Sira!”
He approached the ledge, his heart sick. But when he reached it, he found himself laughing with relief. Belech, lying on his back and partially healed by the cleric’s sacred efforts, had managed to grab hold of the woman’s arm before she plummeted to her death. Auric reached over the lip to help haul her up. Sira was grinning and tearful with her own relief. For a few moments, the three of them lay on their backs, chests rising and falling with greedy breaths. A ragged groan of pain from Bessemer ended their respite.
The three scrambled up and stood over the warrior-priest, who was still clad in the sin eater’s stinking rags, blood pooling around his ruined legs; the blade had bit down to the bone, severing tendon and muscle alike. Auric was too relieved at Sira’s survival to forbid her when she moved to heal their attacker’s ghastly wounds. Bessemer waved her off with an angry sweep of his arm.
“What use have I for these legs any longer?” he raged. “Take Belu’s bounty and spend it elsewhere! My life is at its pathetic end. The…th-the Aching God can claim my guilty carcass at last! My heart was marked thirty-three years ago, and it’s lived in terror of him since. Now it’s in his bloody grasp.” He wept, tears of impotence and ire.
“What happened before that idol, Wallach?” asked Sira, answering the man’s self-loathing rant with startling intensity. “What happened that you never confessed before?”
“The truth happened,” he spat, resting a cheek despondently on the flagstones of the chamber made damp by mucous and tears. “The goddamned truth. The unholy beast found my accursed measure!” The man wept again, disconsolate, then tried to arrest his tears, breathing in and out through his nostrils like a bull about to charge. He jerked his head up and let out a guttural curse. “He’ll find yours, too, Auric Manteo!”
The old man seemed to notice what had happened to him at the same moment the rest of them did. When he lifted his cheek from the wet floor, several thick layers of skin tore away, the flesh that was in contact with the flagstones now a bloody ruin. In reflexive horror, Auric and the others jerked up and away from Bessemer, who howled like an animal as he seemed to meld with the floor—the stones were absorbing his form, pulling it in as though he sank slowly into a vat of tar. Belech grabbed hold of the man’s left leg, attempting to deny the stones their prize, but more flesh tore away from the bone when he did and Belech released the limb in shocked revulsion.
In mere seconds Wallach Bessemer’s body was gone, only a few tails of the sin eater’s rag-robe still protruding from the flagstones. Belech tapped his foot near one of the filthy tatters, then pulled at a shred, but it didn’t budge—the stone was as solid as it had ever been.
“What in the Yellow Hells just happened?” Lumari called, still on the other side of the pit. “Was that old man just…sucked into the stone?”
“Yes,” replied Auric, stunned.
“He called on the war god to let him fight one last time,” Sira said, tears coursing down her cheeks, hands on her head, staring at the tatters that looked as though they had sprouted from the flagstones. “Vanic answered the old warrior’s prayer, but the Aching God…took him.”
“Eighty, and he almost bested three of us,” said Belech, his great hands kneading one another, clearly shaken by what he had just witnessed.
Auric thought then of Gnaeus. He walked over to the edge of the pit. “He joins Galadayem Pela,” he said, sheathing his blade, looking down into the inky depths with sudden sadness.
“With no body now for us to bury,” added Sira. The priest gave a blessing at the precipice with one hand, wiped away her tears with the other.
“Look at this,” said Lumari.
Auric turned to the alchemist, who was staring over the edge of the pit from the far side of the chamber. The rope was still tied around her waist, but during the fight the end that the men had held had fallen into the pit. Following its length, something strange happened about six feet past the pit’s lip. It appeared the rope was cleanly cut, the remaining sixty feet or so vanished into the darkness. Lumari began hauling up the rope, but rather than quickly reeling in the severed end, more rope emerged, as though the rest of it was submerged in a pool of blackness.
“Sorcery,” whispered Auric. He took a silver crown from his
purse, threw the coin at the center of the pit, and watched it vanish.
“That’s magical darkness,” Lumari confirmed.
“I wonder how deep this pit really is,” Auric said.
“Lower me in,” suggested Sira. “The two of you can manage my weight. I’ll take one of Lumari’s glow-rods with me and we’ll see just how deep it is. We’ve got a seventy-five-foot length of rope; at least we’ll know if it’s shallower than that.”
Lumari nodded. “She’s the lightest of us.”
Auric had misgivings, as did Belech, but both women insisted on trying.
“According to Gower Morz,” said Lumari, “Ariellum Brisk tried to talk Bessemer into checking the pit more closely after Galadayem Pela fell in.”
“And he refused,” added Sira.
“Alright,” conceded Auric. “We lower you in. Tug once if you want us to stop, twice if you want to be hauled back up.”
Sira nodded with excitement, smiling again. Lumari provided her with a fresh glow-rod and tossed the rope over to them. They made a harness for the priest, which would allow them to lower her about fifty feet. She sat on the pit’s edge, struck the glow-rod on the ground to ignite it, and gave them a nod. “Let’s do it!”
They lowered her slowly and watched with fascination as her feet suddenly disappeared as they passed the six-foot mark. She smiled her crooked smile at them. “Magical darkness alright! Keep me going!”
Her legs vanished into the inky soup, then her torso, the glow-rod winking out. This left what looked like her disembodied head floating in the darkness. Auric and Belech stopped, unnerved by the sight. The image of Lenda’s severed head danced before Auric’s eyes.
“I’m fine, friend Auric, Belech,” Sira reassured them, raising her hand holding the glow-rod. “Keep me going.”
Her head disappeared with the rest of her. They continued lowering her for about another twelve feet when they felt a single tug. Belech called down to her. “Have you hit bottom, lass?”