by Dave Higgins
Behind Edmond, someone scuffed around on the floor. Turning, he saw Grew lying down, spinning on his back. “What are you doing?”
Grew sprang to his feet and slid backward, then swivelled and raised his hands in the air. “Look out!”
The closest monster was almost on top of Edmond. He hastily raised his shield. A judder ran through his shoulder as a stinger slammed deep.
The hideobeast whipped its tentacle back, wrenching Edmond’s shield from his arm.
Edmond lunged forward, parrying a claw with his sword, then cutting into the hideobeast’s body.
The monster screeched at him, throwing the shield away and readying its stinger to strike.
“Out of the way!” Grew called.
Edmond jumped left as a wall of fire raced by.
Skin sizzling and popping, the hideobeast raced for the other side of the room, flames trailing behind it. As it ran, it passed the corpse of one of its fellows.
Edmond let it go and looked around. The remaining hideobeast breathed its last with a sword buried in its head. Nearby, Daffodil sat on the ground, hand pressed to a wound in her side. Edmond rushed to her and pulled her fingers away. The gash was long, but not deep.
“It’s fine,” Daffodil said. “My armour took the brunt.”
“We have the potion,” Edmond said.
Daffodil shook her head. “Save it.”
“All right,” Edmond said. “But we need bind the wound still. Take off your armour, and I’ll tear a strip from Grew’s cloak.”
To Grew’s credit, he didn’t protest when Edmond slashed a generous bandage of his cloak with a sword. Daffodil shivered as Edmond wrapped the strip across her cut as best he could. “Sorry. Cold hands. Can you stand?”
On the other side of the room, the burning hideobeast screeched and collapsed to the ground.
“Sure,” Daffodil clambered to her feet, then wobbled a little.
Edmond recovered her armour and sword, along with his shield. He slung them across him, ready to carry them until Daffodil felt better. Then he checked what the monsters had left behind after dying.
They’d only left rocks behind in their wake. Edmond rolled one around in his palm, tapped it, then smelled it; they really were just plain rocks. He put them in his pack anyway, in case Grew was right about needing to collect as much as possible.
Done, he opened the far door but kept his hand on the handle. Nothing waited behind the door. Glancing back at the others, he stepped through into another corridor.
“Edmond!” Grew called.
Edmond turned. Daffodil slumped against Grew, eyes closed. A slight sickly scent, like the time his mother tried to disguise rotting cabbages with honey, caught his nose. He ran back and untied the bandages. Black threads spread beneath Daffodil’s skin. Poison. “The potion.”
“Here.” Grew thrust the uncorked bottle into Edmond’s hand.
Edmond held Daffodil’s lips open and trickled the potion into her mouth. He didn’t want her to choke. After pouring a little on the wound, he poured more into her mouth.
With a cough, Daffodil swallowed and her eyes fluttered. Edmond poured until the flask was empty.
The threads lightened and the surrounding skin darkened to its natural peach colour. The wound healed over, leaving unblemished skin behind.
Daffodil’s eyes opened. Grabbing Edmond’s shirt, she dragged him close and kissed him on his lips. Edmond flushed with confusion. After a moment, she let him go and smiled. “My Eddie’s a good kisser.”
“I think she’s delirious,” Grew said. “She must still have poison in her system.”
“Yeah.” Edmond inhaled, his lips still tingling. A warm feeling coursed through him; kissing felt good. Which made him feel guilty. Daffodil wasn’t in her right mind. “Let’s rest here until she feels better.”
“Better rest in the next room,” Grew said. “Those monsters will reappear in an hour.”
Edmond nodded, glad Grew was along. He could imagine them sitting there relaxing when the monsters sprang out of thin air at them.
Chapter 11
Hermit
Edmond sat with his back to the wall, his gaze on the sword on his lap. The blade had lost its edge in the fighting. Which might have mattered more in the hands of someone skilled at using it. If he’d spent more of his time practising with a sword instead of a book, Daffodil wouldn’t have been injured.
The trouble with his luck, he realised, was that it only affected him. It only helped those around him by accident. If he’d been in Daffodil’s place, she might not have been hurt.
Daffodil crouched down next to him and smiled. He felt warm where she almost touched him.
“How are you feeling?” He tried to keep his gaze on her eyes. Then looked away, so she didn’t think he was staring.
“Much better. Thanks for the potion.”
“You’re welcome. I’ve been thinking, maybe we’re getting out of our depth here.”
Daffodil tilted her head.
“I can’t lose you,” Edmond said. “And the lower we go, the more dangerous it’ll get.”
Daffodil frowned for a moment. “I know I was against us going down here at the start, but look how deep we’ve got.”
“We’ve almost died a dozen times.”
“That’s part of going on a quest. You constantly say you want to be this great scholar. This is how the greatest heroes got there: they levelled up on quests until they could change the world.”
“There’s a dragon down there.” Dragons had eaten almost everyone he was close to. He couldn’t—.
“And your one true love.”
Edmond didn’t respond for a moment. Melinda looked like the true loves of great heroes should. And he remembered loving looking at Melinda. She was clearly someone’s true love. But he wasn’t sure any more that she was his one true love. He couldn’t stop thinking about Daffodil kissing him. Heat crept up his face. She was so much younger than he was, and his best friend. He shouldn’t feel that way about her.
“What is it?” Daffodil leant closer.
“Ogre!” Grew shouted.
The ogre filled the open doorway on the other side of the room. A doorway Edmond knew he’d closed. Which meant the ogre was following them. Very slowly.
Edmond scrambled to his feet and helped Daffodil up, before putting his sword in its sheath. “We keep moving. It’s going so slowly, we can outpace it.”
Carefully packing their equipment as the ogre inched under the lintel, the three of them marched through the far door along yet another corridor. A short walk later, the passage ended at two closed doors. Edmond pressed his ear to the one on the right. Hearing several hideobeast-like hisses and skitters, he opened the door on the left.
A long corridor wound its way to a door unlike the others. Instead of marble and metal, it was made of rough boards held together with rope; almost like the goblin door above.
Edmond crept closer and raised his hand to shove it open; but something made him pause. Instead, he knocked on the boards.
“Come in,” a voice called.
Shifting in front of Daffodil, Edmond opened the door.
The scent of boiling herbs wafted out. A robed man, threads of grey hair drooping over his face, sat cross-legged on the floor. He had an impressive, drooping white beard and squinted out from under wild white eyebrows. A handful of knucklebones lay scattered across the tattered rug. Painted leather hangings covered the walls of the small room. “Welcome, brave adventurers. I am Yelash Respell. Hermit and Seer.”
“I’m Edmond.” Edmond waved the others inside. “This is Daffodil and Grew.”
Yelash looked at them. “A strange mix. All so young.”
“We’re old enough to rescue our friend.” Daffodil thrust her chin out.
Yelash’s eyes widened still further. “Unusual. Most people are here for the gold.”
Edmond shrugged. “We’re not heroes. We’re just trying to get our friend back.”
“
Your friend?”
“Melinda,” Edmond said. “The dragon took her.”
“She’s dead, then. You should turn back.”
“She’s not dead yet.” Edmond tried Grew’s wisdoming stance, just in case it helped. “I’ve read everything I could find on dragons. They only eat once every five days. It’s been two, so we have three more before it eats her.”
“Then she’ll have died of hunger or thirst,” Yelash said. “You should turn back anyway.”
“We’ll see for ourselves first,” Daffodil said.
Yelash sighed. “A shame, then. Fighting a dragon only ends one way: with the dragon having more to eat.”
“Maybe.” Edmond lowered his outstretched arm. “We’ll see.”
“Very well.” Yelash stirred the knuckle bones with a barely more fleshed knuckle. “Then you need to answer three questions correctly. Answer the first, I’ll grant you the answer to a single question. The second will grant you a scroll enabling you to return to the town above whenever you wish. The last will give you an exit, allowing you to bypass this level.”
Edmond glanced at the others. “We’ll do our best.”
“Fine,” Yelash said. “With every roar of a dragon, I grow. With every word of a merchant, I shrink. What am I?”
“What?” Edmond asked.
“It’s a riddle,” Yelash said. “You know, like: what walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?”
“I know that one,” Grew said. “It’s a human. We crawl as babies, then walk as adults, and use a cane when we’re elderly.”
“Is that right?” Edmond asked.
“Sure,” Yelash said. “But that wasn’t the—”
“So that’s one down,” Daffodil said. “We get to ask you a question.”
“That wasn’t the right riddle,” Yelash said. “You were meant to answer the one about the growing bigger and smaller.”
“You didn’t say that,” Edmond said. “You asked a question, and we answered it.”
“All right, fine,” Yelash said. “What’s your question?”
“What’s the answer to the other one?” Grew asked. “The one about the growing and shrinking?”
“It’s your eyes,” Yelash said. “Your eyes grow bigger from fear of the dragon, but narrow with suspicion from the merchant.”
“Then that’s the answer,” Grew said. “It’s your eyes.”
“Exactly,” Yelash said.
“Good,” Grew said. “So then we get the scroll.”
Yelash glanced between them for a moment, frowning in confusion.
“We answered two questions correctly,” Daffodil said. “So we get the scroll.”
“You’re cheating,” Yelash said.
“We didn’t make the rules,” Edmond said. “And as far as I can see, we’re not breaking them.”
Muttering, Yelash reached into his robe and produced a scroll, handing it to Grew. “Fine, but you won’t get the last question right.”
“How rude of me. I forgot to ask,” Edmond said. “How are you today?”
Yelash frowned in confusion again. “I’m fine. How are—” He broke off and chuckled. “You almost had me there, didn’t you?”
“I did.” Edmond bit down on a giggle. Yelash was a hermit not a village idiot, so it wouldn’t be right to laugh at him.
“And that’s the third question,” Grew said.
“What?” Yelash asked. “That wasn’t even a question. It was rhetorical.”
“We answered it right,” Daffodil said. “So we get the exit.”
Yelash shook his head. “Do you know how long it takes me to come up with riddles?”
“Probably a long time,” Edmond said. “You should change the rules so people have to answer them.”
Yelash’s eyes narrowed. Lips pursed, he waved at the wall behind him. With a shimmer, it became a second wooden door. “The stairs are through there.”
Edmond waited until the others had stepped through the door before turning back to Yelash. “Sorry about that, but we’re not the smartest or the strongest. We have to bend the rules sometimes to get through all this.”
Yelash surprised Edmond by smiling. “I think you might be underestimating yourselves. You said you’re not heroes, but you might be the first ones I’ve seen in years.”
“Thanks,” Edmond said. “Oh… there’s an ogre following us. You might want to move before he gets here.”
Yelash took a deep breath.
Edmond ducked down the stairs before Yelash said something rude. The stairs wound down and down, turning from paved to rough before opening into a room with walls made of slabs of stone and a dirt floor. Daffodil and Grew stood on the final stair, eyes flicking from slab to slab. Realising they weren’t sure it was safe; he shimmied past and stepped into the room.
The dirt gave a little under his feet, as if loosely packed. The dull throb he hadn’t noticed in his feet eased. He took a few more paces and waved the others after him. “It seems safe.”
It felt pleasant to walk on something softer after days of walking on stone. Edmond checked his hourglass; it needed turning again. He wasn’t sure when it had gone empty. It couldn’t have been long before? He thought about how far they’d come. If it had taken them two days to reach the sixth level, then they should reach the bottom in three more. After all, how deep could the—?
A sour smell joined the warm earthiness. Something snagged Edmond’s trousers. Looking down, he saw rotten fingers curled around the cuff of his trouser leg.
Jerking his leg up, he shook himself free and raced back to the others. Hands broke through the surface all around them, grey fingers snapping at the air. Then the hands became arms, followed by putrid heads. A dozen zombies pulled themselves from the ground, surrounding them all.
The zombies were wretched creatures, their rotting and putrefied flesh barely held together by some sort of magic. They looked like they’d fall apart at any moment, but Edmond knew even he couldn’t get that lucky. They fixed their yellowed eyes on the humans in their midst.
Edmond’s sword was in his hand and his shield on his arm before he’d thought about it, Daffodil at his side.
With the monsters all around them, Grew had nowhere to hide. Standing with his back to the others he shuffled on the spot, trying to dance without leaving the circle.
Three zombies stumbled and shambled toward Edmond at broken-neck speed. He cut at the first, lopping off its arm. It wasn’t difficult; they barely seemed to be hanging together as it was.
The arm flopped to the ground, but then used its fingers to crawl toward Edmond.
With another swipe, Edmond took the head off a second zombie, expecting it to collapse, but the body kept going without the head.
The zombie continued in a straight line as Edmond moved to face the third. At least they didn’t track him without heads; he couldn’t move too far though or he’d leave the circle. He brought his shield up and shoved as the zombies staggered closer. What could they do to him without weapons? He was sure it wouldn’t be good.
The undamaged—by Edmond—zombie stumbled back, knocking the headless one down. But the third, one-armed, zombie grabbed Edmond’s shield arm in a surprisingly firm grip and dragged it toward its mouth.
Edmond swayed and struggled, but couldn’t free himself. Slashing across with his sword, he pushed the zombie back with his shield.
The arm stayed attached to Edmond’s own, the fingers locked with a vice-like grip. No matter how Edmond shook, he couldn’t get it to fall off. And then he felt more fingers close about his ankle.
The arm he’d lopped off was locked around his leg. And just beyond it, the decapitated head rocked forward on its jaw, only to sail into a wall as one of the fallen zombies caught it with a flailing leg.
Arm stretched as far out as he could, Edmond struck at the limb clutching his own, severing it at the elbow. Swinging again, he cleaved it off at the wrist. As the other zombies clambered to their f
eet, he sliced the arm from his ankle.
One headless and one untouched, the zombies lunged for him. He couldn’t even let them touch him or they’d never let go. He’d be incapacitated by zombie arms.
With a slash of his sword, he decapitated the second zombie. Stepping aside as they swayed forward, he cut the arms from both. They still kept going, but it only took a push from his shield to send them off balance. The third zombie struggled to get upright without arms. Edmond sprinted from the circle and diced each zombie until there wasn’t anything large enough to chase him.
He turned back to the circle, to see if he could help. The zombies the others had faced were lying in smoking piles around the room, and Grew had his arms around a shaking Daffodil.
“What happened?” Edmond asked.
“He saved me,” Daffodil said. “Those things had me. I just freaked out. Grew burned them off me.”
Daffodil drew Grew into a bone-crushing hug.
Grew turned deep red. The hug must have squeezed the air from his lungs.
With the point of his sword, Edmond prised the zombie hands from his arm and leg and threw them with the other parts. Bile flooding his mouth, he turned away before the others saw how green his own face was.
“I hope this isn’t an entire level of those blasted things,” Daffodil said. “They’re disgusting.”
Edmond saw Grew’s arm was still around Daffodil’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” Grew said. “I still have some mana left. I’ll protect you.”
Daffodil twisted, shaking Grew’s arm off. “I can protect myself. And you, most of the time. Thank you for saving me, but don’t think I’m some princess that needs rescuing.”
The passage out was barely wider than Daffodil’s shoulders; whoever was at the front would be stuck there until they reached the next room. Yet somehow, Edmond couldn’t help smiling as took the lead.
Chapter 12
Mumbo
Edmond probed the darkness ahead of him with his sword, the shadows flickering and dancing around him. With his mana exhausted and no time to rest, he had to rely on whatever light made it from Grew at the back. On the plus side, it meant his shadow was pressed against Daffodil’s. Keeping his shield high, he followed the narrow passage as it curved to the right, then to the left. As it wove right again, something pricked his shoulder.