Deomans of Faerel

by Ted Fauster

  The skeleton with the axe stood struggling to pull the weapon from the dashed ribcage of its companion, while the injured skeleton pushed madly against it. As they struggled to free themselves from one another, Som crept forward with his own pilfered weapon. Heaving with all his might, he slammed the blade down.

  He caught the one with the axe on the collar bone. The sword dashed down to shatter its ribcage. But it didn’t stop there. It continued down to become lodged in its hip. The force was enough to separate one leg from the damaged hipbone. What remained collapsed in a heap.

  Som yanked at the sword but could not free it. He stood gasping for breath and sweating profusely. He looked over. The axe had managed to fall to the side, but the last skeleton was glaring at him, its eye sockets burning like two fiery lumps of coal. It was armed with a narrow sword with curved barbs on each side of the blade, but it now only had the one arm. The other lay on the ground grasping a sword of a similar design. Most of this remaining skeleton’s ribcage was destroyed and its jawbone hung limply, attached to its skull by only a thin crook of bone. It struggled to move.

  Som looked down at the axe. It was much bigger than the sword.

  He dropped to his knees and picked it up. He hadn’t expected it to be so heavy. Suddenly terrified he would not be able to lift the much bigger weapon over his head, he let loose of it and sprang back just as the skeleton slashed out at him.

  This time he wasn’t so lucky. The tip of the blade caught him on the shoulder. It tore a long gash down his arm. He fell to the ground, wincing in pain and clutching at the injury. A warm gush of his own blood ran out through his fingers as the broken skeleton cackled victoriously. It lurched forward.

  Som was through messing around. As quickly as he could, he tumbled to the side to allow the skeleton to fumble past. He then rolled forward and scooped up the other short blade the skeleton had lost and spun around into a crouch and hurled it through the air. It sailed end over end and crashed sideways into the creature’s spine. The skeleton crumpled to the floor, the light in its eyes dimming and then winking out.

  Still in the crouch, Som took a moment to catch his breath. The orbs whirled about the room, two of them surveying the bloodless carnage while the other swept in for a closeup. He glared at it, swiping out with his hand but missing. The tear on his arm burned, but he was thankful to discover it was nothing more than a simple flesh wound. Nearly exhausted from the effort, he reached out to steady himself, His hand found one of the fallen blades this last skeleton had wielded. He scooped it up.

  It wasn’t a bad weapon at all, longer than a dagger but not quite as long as a sword. It was light and very well crafted. The curved barbs at the top of the hilt spread away from a bronze blade about as wide as his small hand. Upon closer examination he noticed an etching along the length of the blade, some kind of runes. He stood and walked over to where the last skeleton had collapsed to located its twin. This he picked up as well.

  They looked very much like bronze sais, he realized. Both weapons of simple design, but each in very good shape. In the wreckage he found a belt. He strapped it around his waist. There were loops on either side. This was the belt from the skeleton who had wielded these weapons. He admired them again and decided he would hold onto them for a while.

  He looked down at the floor, almost forgetting the whole purpose of his being down here. The distinct shape of a square was on the floor. He noticed something else, something in the center of the square. He kicked aside the bones. Now he was thoroughly confused.

  In the center of the square, two symbols were carved side-by-side in the floor. The one on the right was a simple circle. The one on the left also looked like a circle, only with wavy lines radiating out.

  “The… sun and moon?”

  To complicate matters, what he first took for a thin sliver of bone was actually an arrow pointer fixed to the floor. The base of the pointer appeared to be fixed to the ground on a swivel. The tip pointed directly at the sun symbol. There was a podium in this room as well, one identical to the first. With the back of his hand, he wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. He slid the blades into the belt loops and walked over to examine the surface of the podium.

  The square on the left of the first blinking square was now also blinking. Its symbol matched the one on the floor. Som grabbed hold of the podium and leaned forward, studying the grid, racking his brain.

  He already knew that each symbol appeared nine times… and there were four symbols… and thirty-six total squares…

  He looked up. “No,” he incredulously gasped. “Could it be that simple?”

  He dashed over to the pile of bones, nudging them with his foot to make sure they would not somehow reanimate. When they did not he reached out and snatched up one of the skulls. Holding the grotesque things as far away from him as possible, he went to the next door, the one that should have coincided with the next cube on the left of the two blinking cubes. He opened the door and quickly tossed the skull inside. The door shut, but moments later he heard the sound of a disturbance of the other side.

  The rooms react the moment something enters, he realized. The floating orbs tracked behind him as he opened the door. But this time he only peered through.

  Three spiders the size of poodles scuttled about the room.

  He scanned the room to make sure that’s all that was inside. It was. The door shut and he smiled triumphantly to himself. The floor of the room beyond contained a star. He’d seen it. Of course, he would have to check the dial in the room to be sure. But he had at least part of what he needed.

  He scrambled back to check the podium. It now registered the next room. The third cube in the sequence was now blinking with the symbol of a star. With the tip of the sword, he scratched the number ‘three’ beneath it. He then scratched a ‘one’ beneath the triangle and a ‘four’ beneath the square.

  He crossed his arms and smiled wide. Now he only needed one more symbol. Of course, he’d need to enter the room with the three spiders to check the pointer. And he would have to do the same with whichever adjoining room contained the circle. But at least he could now determine each of the values.

  The orbs whirred in front of his face. He stood for a moment in thought. Then he bent and retrieved another skull. He crossed back over to the door from which he had first entered this room. Just as he’d suspected, it now opened. He jumped back into the original room where he had slain the cat and crossed over to the other side. He opened the door and quickly tossed the skull in. Then he peeked inside.

  The floor of this room contained another triangle. The door slid shut and he waited, hoping that his theory was correct. When he heard movement, he opened the door again.

  The charcoal face of a winged, monkey-like creature filled the opening. It screeched and Som leapt back, but before the door could shut it managed to get through.

  Som rolled back and quickly drew his swords. He brought the tips of the twin blades up over his head. They drove into the ground, jamming him to a halt. Pushing out with all his might, he snapped his body forward and slashed down with both blades. But the swords only swooshed through empty air. He whirled around with both blades held high.

  He heard it fluttering in the air. Above him, the monkey had circled back and settled up in one of the high corners of the room, seemingly intelligent enough to know that its intended victim was armed. It hissed and whooped down at him, its bright yellow eyes bulging.

  Som waited, using the time to catch his breath. The flying monkey had to land sometime. The creature had jammed itself into the corner. Unable to flap its wings it remained in place only by pushing out with all four limbs. The tail, Som now noticed, ended in a long stinger.

  He rolled his eyes. “Come on!” he cried. “Now that’s just not fair at all!”

  The monkey’s limbs began to twitch. And for a brief moment Som actually felt sorry for the creature. It didn’t look like it wanted to be here at all, but it was also not behaving intelligently enoug
h to attempt striking up a conversation. Som tried anyway. Just in case. But at the sound of his voice the creature only swiveled its head like a dog and whooped some more. It slipped once but was able to regain its footing. When it slipped a second time, it howled fiercely and dropped down, furiously beating its wings.

  It buzzed Som like an angry hornet, the long tip of its stinger punching down several times. But the attack was halfhearted and it flew immediately to the opposite corner, wedging itself back upon the wall.

  Som kept to the center of the room, his blades still held high. But despite the smallness of his weapons they did have some weight. Som may have been fast and incredibly limber, but he was not exceptionally strong. In time, he knew, he would be forced to lower his arms and the monkey would attack.

  He looked about the room. But he already knew there was nothing here to help. In the other room there were more weapons, but only the stinking carcass of the cat lay in here. Then it struck him.

  He dropped his aching arms and ran for the other opposite door. He heard the buzzing of the wings behind him but dared not turn around. Quickly, he slapped at the disk of metal and the door opened. He dove through.

  The monkey followed. Once again, it buzzed him, this time knocking one of the blades from his hand. But Som did not care. He skidded to a halt and immediately whirled around to rush back through the door. This time the monkey was not as quick.

  Som stood panting in the cat room. He was minus one of the blades now, but at least he had trapped the monkey. More of them probably waited in the next room. But there was no time to rest.

  He laughed when he realized he had inadvertently trapped one of the orbs in there as well. Perhaps the monkey would catch it. With his hands on his knees, and the incessant ticking still in the background, he took a moment to completely catch his breath, Then he went back to the monkey door. Drawing one last breath, he opened it.

  He stood poised with the remaining sword but saw nothing but the skull in the room beyond. The door swished shut. He opened it again and jumped inside. Quickly, he ran to the center of the room to check the pointer, then sprinted back through to the cat room.

  He went back to the podium, pleased with what he had seen. Just like room with the cat creature. the pointer in the monkey room was set on the symbol of the sun, and there had been only one monkey.

  Positives and negatives, he thought with an inner smile. This is easy. Now all he needed was to find a circle room and to check the pointer in the spider room. It all sounded so simple, but his stomach sank when he realized what that truly meant. He still had to fight three spiders and whatever waited in one of the circle rooms. And he would probably have to fight the monkey as well, just to get to the spiders.

  He wondered if skeleton bones would burn.

  Once again, he opened the door to the skeleton room, fully prepared to battle the monkey. But it was still crammed in the upper corner, shaking. He jumped through before the door could close and crept cautiously to the center of the room. Keeping his eye on the monkey, he picked up a long leg bone and quickly crossed to the opposite door. The monkey hooted softly, watching him intently as he crept past, but it made no move to swoop.

  Thankful for that much, Som leaned the bone against the door and murmured the flamefinger cantrip. Remarkably, the thumb and index finger of his right hand came to life with a spearmint flame, the magical fire rolling languidly along the inner curve of the two digits.

  “Glad I took the time to memorize this one in the bell.”

  It didn’t burn at all. But when he touched his finger to the end of the bone it immediately became aflame. The monkey hooted a little louder but still did not come down. Som picked up the makeshift torch in his left hand and reached out with his sword hand to open the door. He jumped through.

  The corners of the room were stuffed with webs, long silken strands running across the center. He moved swiftly, singeing a path to the center of the room. Sill no signs of the spiders. The torch had done the trick.

  He dropped into a crouch and saw that the pointer was pointing to the circle—the moon. He smiled. The value for the star symbol was a negative three. He turned to leave and one of the spiders dropped right onto his head.

  He immediately let loose of both the sword and the torch. He flopped to push the spider off, but the fuzzy creature had clamped firmly onto his skull. Som cried out when he felt a sharp twittering stab at the top of his head. He knew that he had been bitten. But the spider did not stop there. It clamped tighter and began to chew on his scalp.

  Mad with pain, Som dropped to the floor. Instead of his sword he picked up the torch. He set it to his head. The spider hissed and released its grip enough for him to flick it to the ground. No longer concerned that the arachnid was the size of a sunhat, Som hopped straight up and stomped down with his bare feet, squishing the fuzzy brown thing to a pulp. He then snatched up the sword and ran straight back to the skeleton room.

  He dashed madly into the room, startling the monkey who howled loudly. This time it did swoop down. Som dropped to his knees and slid through the pile of bones to scoop up the other sword. Once he had both in his hands he whirled around and ran screaming at the creature.

  By the time he had stopped whirling his blades and opened his eyes, he was horrified to find what he’d done to the poor beast, but it was survival of the fittest now. And he most definitely wanted to survive.

  Bathed in sweat and blood, chest heaving up and down, he gulped for air. His head stung and itched but otherwise he felt okay. A trickle of his own blood ran down his cheek and he felt a cold and wet spot on the crown of his head, but he didn’t even bother to feel around up there. If he wanted to live he had to keep moving. He knew how to beat the maze now.

  Just one more value.

  According to the grid, there was one more room to the right of the monkey room. Of course, there were also rooms above each of the blinking squares, and stacks of rooms above them. But the grid showed a circle in the room to the far right.

  How foolish it had been to include all four symbols on the first row. If he was right, he was only minutes away from solving the puzzle. He only hoped the value of the room would turn out to be a low number. And that the timer would not run out.

  He gathered another skull and dashed through the original monkey room. On the opposite side he slapped at the disk and tossed the skull inside. The door shut. The moment he had it open again he leapt through and ran for the center of the room. He broke into a slide and saw that the pointer was directed at the moon, a negative number. He sprang to his feet just as five globs of glowing green jelly dropped from the ceiling to the floor.

  “What the hell are these?”

  The gelatinous masses had no arms or legs, neither did they have a head, or any eyes or ears for that matter. They were simply five globs of jiggling green slime about the size of a man. What harm could they possibly…

  The skull on the floor sizzled and melted as one of the globs engulfed it…

  The globs continued to draw closer, moving at the pace of a brisk walk. Som swiped at one with the swords, but both blades passed harmlessly through. Thankfully, the blades did not succumb to its toxins. The globs turned and changed direction, squishing into each other to form one gigantic mass.

  Som dashed for the door, but he had forgotten the doors locked until the monsters inside were dispatched. He jumped into one corner just as the giant glob was nearly on him. It shifted direction while he was still in the air, and he was forced to jump again. This time the glob separated back out into its five distinct pieces, four of which rushed into the corners of the room.

  What was he going to do now? The globs were slow, but they could shift direction so quickly. They seemed to anticipate his moves. He’d tried for the door in an effort to retrieve the torch, but there was no going back through the door now. The fifth glob rushed for him and he leapt easily over it. He fully expected the globs in the corners to come rushing out. But the things surprised him by rem
aining in place, bubbling and gurgling with resigned patience.

  He did his best to calm himself. What was he waiting for? He had all the values. There was a podium in this room, too. He leapt over the shifting mass of green goo. He did the calculation in his head.

  There were thirty-six squares on the grid. But that meant little. Four squares would have been just as easy to calculate. Each symbol appeared nine times. And he now knew the values for each symbol, which simply rendered the entire equation down to four simple values and nine factors.

  The triangle was a positive one, the square was a positive four, the star was a positive three, and the circle was a negative five. Applied to each other nine times, the answer was simple. The solution to the puzzle was the number twenty-seven. But the solution did nothing to stop the globs. And the fifth one was tracking him like a slow-motion hound.

  “If I only had the torch…”

  He rolled one final time. He was desperately loosing energy. He brought both swords together and once again summoned the flamefinger cantrip. He touched his fingers to both blades.

  The flames took. He whirled about to face all five globs with two flaming swords. He swiped at them and they instantly recoiled, drawing back to one corner where they again amassed as one. He moved in but did not dare plunge either of the swords into it. Although they were repelled by fire, he doubted the swords would remain burning inside their watery innards. Instead, he laid one flaming blade down lengthways before it, trapping it, and rushed back over to the podium.

  He quickly adjusted the last two dials to input the number. The ticking noise still filled the air. He hoped he had enough time. He liked the sais. They felt good in his hands. And two blades were surely better than one. He rushed back across the room to retrieve the other blade, which had nearly burned completely out. Just as he latched onto it, the flames flickered and died. Without a moment’s hesitation, the giant mass lurched forward, but Som was already back at the podium. He smashed down on the button.