Depths of Madness

by Erik Scott De Bie

  “Liet?” asked Twilight, not wanting to. “What say you?”

  The youth looked at her for a long breath, rubbing at his sheathed arms. Finally, he shrugged. “If something tripped the wards and survived,” he said, “logically, ’twould have attacked us as we slept, watch or no. At least we’d find a trace. Since it didn’t do so, and we didn’t find any sign, I say you could well be wrong. Perhaps the wards merely expired on their own and needed no help. Regardless, there’s no reason to go back.”

  Twilight bit her lip. She shouldn’t have cared, but it still hurt.

  “Here!” exclaimed Slip from just beyond the once-enspelled doorway. She stood inside a narrow alcove off the corridor. “Look at this! Some manner of markings!”

  Fighting the discomfort that came from being contradicted by Liet, Twilight knelt down beside the halfling. Sure enough, something had been etched into the inside of the doorway—four roughly vertical lines with dashes, crosshatches, and markings that rose parallel to one another, almost like tally marks.

  “What are they?” asked the halfling.

  “Qualith,” said Twilight. “Illithid. Crude. Scratched with a talon, mayhap.”

  “A mind flayer wizard?” Davoren said doubtfully.

  “Sorcerer, more likely.” The warlock just shrugged as if to dismiss the distinction. “I’ve seen stranger things.”

  “You say that often,” said Liet.

  “And ’tis true every time,” Twilight said, eliciting weighing looks. Mystery was comforting—he’d come just a little too close to her that night.

  “Believe it or not, these are the marks of the Illithid language. They record emotions and thoughts.” She ran her fingers over the markings.

  “What need has a race of mind mages for written words?” Davoren scoffed.

  “Telepathy has a limit,” said Twilight. She laid her hand flat against the writing. “And this message was left for someone.”

  “Can you read it?” asked Liet.

  “Qualith is amazingly complex, meant to be read by illithids themselves. It would take extraordinary talent or decades of study to decipher these markings,” said Twilight.

  “So which do you have?” asked Liet.

  Twilight smiled. It was hard to stay angry at the youth. Perhaps she could forgive him his lack of support. Later, perhaps, once he had well—and fully—atoned.

  Eyes shut, she traced her fingers down the four lines.

  “Anything?” asked Slip, shifting anxiously.

  “Resentment,” said Twilight, “at being imprisoned. Rage, at the writer’s captor. A touch of fear, at the power of those above. And a name.” She scrunched her brow in thought. “This illithid was a prisoner of a place called Negarath.”

  From the way the warlock reacted, Davoren knew the name somehow.

  “You recognize this word?” asked Twilight.

  Davoren bared his teeth. Their battle had certainly made him less guarded in his contempt for everyone and everything.

  “Never you mind,” he snapped. “This prisoner is long gone, as is anything else in this wizard’s sanctum. There is no danger.”

  Twilight cast a supplicating look back toward Liet, longing for support, but the youth merely shrugged. Twilight bristled.

  “Very well, then,” said Twilight. “We move forward, against my judgment. I want that noted.”

  The others nodded, and only Gargan looked at Twilight with something approaching uncertainty. Not that he acted on it.

  What good are you if you don’t speak up? Twilight cursed.

  The corridor beyond the back chamber of the wizard’s sanctum turned out to contain many such alcoves for holding prisoners—in magical stasis, Twilight reasoned. The alcoves were empty and appeared to have been so for some time. Twilight felt no magic active anywhere in the corridor. The dark pathway terminated in another portal, this one complete with a stout stone door.

  Twilight could hear no sounds through the door, so she examined it. She found no hidden needles or pressure plates, and while the device used a dozen sliding bars in a complex design—a dragon grinning as though bemused—the actual lock seemed simple enough. She slipped out her picks and fell to work, springing the device in a few breaths.

  “Sand. Something feels wrong,” Twilight said as she stood and stepped back for Gargan to push the door open. The door cracked and creaked, then swung open on its own into darkness, lit only by dim candle flames. “I think—”

  “What’s the worry?” Slip asked. She smiled at Gargan. “It’s just—” she gasped.

  Twilight looked into the darkness, as did the others. In the chamber beyond, four startled lizardmen blinked at the companions, roused from their game of bones.

  Not hesitating a heartbeat, the goliath leaped forward and split one from fangs to tail. His engraved sword hissed as it burned the lizardman’s flesh away like boiling water through sugar. The steel itself bled greenish acid. The hapless creature’s companions gave startled squeals. They drew obsidian weapons.

  The goliath’s rush overturned the dry rotted table at which they had been playing, which promptly shattered on the stone floor. Gargan kicked the remains aside and carved another lizard in two, but the distraction gave the third time to hurl a cracked stool in his face. As Gargan reeled, the fourth hissed a war cry and lunged forward with a scimitar.

  Then smoking blood spattered Gargan’s face as Davoren’s ruby blast blew a lizardman’s head into a black and red abyss. The creature flopped headless to the floor with a disconsolate plop, and the flame arced from it to burn a hole through the stool-hurler. Both twitched, smoking.

  As Gargan, Liet, and Slip fanned out to search for more of the creatures, the warlock stifled a yawn with one hand. “That was interesting,” he said to Twilight. “And you say you are afraid of an ambush?”

  Twilight glared at him but said nothing.

  The room was ten paces on a side, filled with the crumbling remains of furniture and decorated with filth. Arcane sigils in much worn and faded paint adorned the walls, though they were all defaced and defiled. It had likely been a casting chamber. The room was just as old and as strange of architecture as the corridor and first chamber, but smelled much fouler.

  Twilight was glad the lizards had not bypassed the wards to enter the previous chamber—the smell had been contained.

  No other fiendish lizards were found in the chamber, nor could they see any of the creatures down the next corridor.

  “Must have left the main group,” said Davoren, “for some rest and diversion.” He grinned. “The rest theirs, the diversion ours.”

  “Scouts, testing us,” said Twilight. “We should still go back.”

  The warlock groaned.

  The door, however, ended that debate for them. With a scrape of stone on stone, the heavy portal swung back into place, despite their best efforts to restrain it. In place, it looked no different from the rest of the wall, and it had the appropriate lack of door handles, clasps, hooks, pulleys, and opening catches.

  “I suppose you’re all pleased,” said Twilight. “I don’t even know how to begin opening it. Probably a command phrase.” A mechanical thunk and rasp from the other side struck her ears. “And that would be the locks sliding into place.” She folded her arms and looked away.

  “All’s well,” said Liet. He put a reassuring hand on Twilight’s shoulder—an act no one but the oblivious halfling missed—and smiled gently. “Be not afraid.”

  “Only of those things that warrant it,” Twilight snapped. She shook Liet off roughly, hoping it would be an action none of the others would miss.

  Slip, alert halfling that she was, remained completely oblivious. “I know what’ll lighten this up,” she said. “Let’s figure out the mystery!”

  “Mystery?” Liet asked, turning from Twilight, who signaled that they might as well explore these rooms in greater detail.

  “Of where we are, silly,” the halfling explained. “Where lies this dungeon?”

 
“Please,” Davoren said with a dismissive wave. “It’s hardly a dungeon. Deserted ruins, more like it.” He gestured at the sloping, twisting, curving walls. “The deserted ruins of some mad child’s doll house.”

  The image of a blood-soaked doll flashed through Twilight’s mind.

  “Speak louder, and we shall see how deserted it is,” promised Taslin.

  “Can we not move on?” asked Twilight, tapping her foot nervously.

  “Praise be to the Lord of the Hells,” said Davoren. “The filliken offers a glorious suggestion.” He grinned at Taslin. “We should listen, scarred one.”

  “I am curious as to Slip’s thoughts,” said Taslin. “Say on, noble small one.”

  It took Slip a moment to realize the priestess was addressing her. “Well,” said Slip. “I’m trying to figure out …”

  Ignored by the others, Twilight pressed ahead, examining the darkened corridor. An exceptionally stout portal had once closed off the casting chamber from the hallway, exactly opposite the hall of prisoners, but it had since fallen into rubble. Probably aided, Twilight thought as she glided carefully through the darkness, by the fiendish lizards.

  She deemed traps unlikely, since the lizards had gotten through unscathed, but there was no such thing as being too careful. She sensed multiple auras of magic, so she crept onward slowly, searching. At the other end, having walked the hall untouched, she waved the others forward.

  “We stepped through a portal near Longsaddle,” Taslin was saying. “And it did not lead where we thought it would.”

  “Ah,” said Slip. “Same with my band. Though not Longsaddle, but Dambrath.”

  “Band?” Taslin asked.

  “Aye! Four, originally. Me, a blue-haired girl, a thick dwarf, and Liet, of course.”

  The youth squinted. “I’m sorry? What—?”

  Even as he chuckled, Davoren narrowed his fiendish eyes in confusion.

  Slip blinked. “Oh,” she said finally. “I must be taking you for someone else.”

  Twilight did not flinch. “We should be silent,” she said. “An ambush may await.”

  “Oh, Belial’s pisspot,” growled Davoren. “An ambush like that of the lizards, perhaps? Some leader you are, always overestimating the danger.”

  The shadowdancer narrowed her eyes but made no reply. She crossed into the next chamber, casting about for some foe, but she found nothing there to distract her.

  The room in which they stood might once have been a monster’s fighting arena, with stone floors that sloped gradually down to a pit at the center. The remains of sigils drawn in crimson paint around the pit indicated a ward of some kind, perhaps a summoning circle.

  Four statues of rusted, broken armor stood at the corners of the room, two shattered beyond the faintest possibility of repair, and the others propped against the wall like inebriated knights set there by obedient squires and left to rust by those less loyal. Six doors led from this chamber.

  “What do you suppose—?” Liet started.

  In retrospect, Twilight should have seen it coming.

  “Whee!” Slip exclaimed, sliding down the slope to the bottom of the shallow pit. She bounced and landed face down with a great “oof!” and moved no more.

  “Are you well?” shouted Liet.

  “Oh aye!” Slip called back. “My face broke my fall!”

  “Pity,” Davoren murmured.

  He might have said more, but there was a sudden creak of metal too long left to mold and dust. The two statues that still resembled upright people shuddered into motion.

  Too late, Twilight understood the significance of the statues. Too late, she realized what would trigger their purpose: a creature at the center of the circle when the runes of protection were not operating. Wizards sometimes kept guardians for just such an occasion, particularly when they summoned creatures strongly resistant to magic.

  “Slip!” she shouted. “Run! The—!”

  That was as far as she got before the first of the helmed horrors drew its rusty blade and lunged at her. The weapon burst into flames as the creature charged.

  Everything seemed to happen at once, in that moment. Twilight rolled away from the one that swung at her, only to see Liet stumble into its path and be dashed to the ground. Gargan leaped upon one of the horrors as it loomed over Davoren and Taslin, his acid-coated sword smashing it. Slip blinked, transfixed by the statues’ sudden movements, and screamed.

  That doesn’t help, thought Twilight as she dived between a pair of armored legs. With an upturned wrist and a dip, she thrust her rapier up through the monstrosity’s breastplate, an angled strike that would have unmanned, disemboweled, and slain a living man, but had no such effect on the creature. Her sword did stab into the horror’s essence, and a blue-white mist began to leak between the fringes of its armor.

  The construct shuddered but did not slow. It swung down one rusty fist with not-so-rusty speed, which Twilight narrowly dodged. She danced back, keeping impeccable balance, until Liet sent her stumbling as he charged at the horror.

  “Fool!” Twilight cursed in anger and fear.

  Liet might have replied, but Twilight saw energy crackling around the horror and her eyes went wide. She hissed, and Liet dived just below a swath of flame that sliced the air overhead, erupting from its breastplate. She dodged, but just barely.

  “Davoren!” Twilight shouted, gritting her teeth against the pain and the heat.

  The warlock didn’t need to be told twice. Crimson power erupted from his hands and dark tendrils appeared from the ground, surrounding the helmed horror, enwrapping and entangling it. The creature swung its deadly, flaming blade at Twilight and Liet, but it could not reach them—its sword cut just a hair too short. Twilight flinched away, putting as much distance between herself and that burning steel as she could, and the flames kissed her cheeks. As she did, she caught a glimpse of Gargan and his foe, and that stunned her.

  The goliath faced his opponent in a sword duel that rivaled a tropical storm at sea. Swords flew and spun, cutting like scythes caught in a whirlwind.

  The horror might have spent centuries moldering and rusting, but it moved as though it had been built a tenday past—like the deadly weapon it was meant to be. Its attacks left and right, up and down, flowed through continuous motion as though launched by an elf duelist with a mithral saber, rather than a suit of armor with an iron greatsword. All the while, the horror itself was the picture of mechanical calm, simply fulfilling its appointed task.

  Its unruffled exterior, however, made for a poor reflection of Gargan. While many swordsmen fought with their muscles, backing fierce blows and counterstrokes with hot fury, and those trained in the fencing arts like Twilight fought with their heads, knowing every strategic attack, parry, and riposte through long practice, this was something far different. Gargan fought not by heart or mind, but by spirit.

  Gargan’s face was serenity itself, and no rage burned beneath its surface. The blade in his hand danced seemingly of its own accord, turning away strikes Twilight barely saw coming. The goliath never batted an eye as he parried steel a finger’s breadth from his nose. He slapped the sword wide, reversed his grip as though spinning a baton, and slashed back in underhanded, tearing a burning gash across the creature’s helm. The blade’s acid took its toll upon the thing, impeding its flexibility and movements.

  Davoren bellowed with fiendish laughter and threw blast after blast at the horror. Taslin summoned Corellon’s power to melt away its armor, piece by piece. All the while, it slashed at Twilight and Liet, where they cowered, with the determination only the dead and the mindless possess.

  “Corellon!” Taslin cried, throwing her melted sword-and-symbol skyward, where it stopped and hovered in the air just out of reach. White fire crackled around it, and the blade blazed suddenly whole. Twilight thought she saw something skitter out of the way above, but it fled her mind when she had to turn away to keep from being blinded.

  A column of divine flame tore down throug
h the ceiling, engulfing the monstrosity. The Lord of the Seldarine’s wrath tore through the suit of armor with its flaming sword. A biting squeal of metal rose over the roar of the inferno. The smoking horror gave a disappointed hiss and crumbled to the floor, inert and useless. Its form fell with a solid thump, fused by the extreme heat of Taslin’s spell.

  A heartbeat later, Gargan slashed and ripped his foe to scrap. The horror gave a pitiful hiss as the goliath spun with his final backhand and lightly tapped the sword point to the floor. Behind him, it clattered into a pile of half-dissolved rubbish.

  “Well,” breathed Twilight.

  “What a deep thought,” Liet said with a grin.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  So …” Slip said in the resulting silence. Her demeanor could not have been more tranquil. If a battle had been fought, she seemed not to have noticed. Liet decided to bite. “Aye?”

  “So we all came from different places!” exclaimed Slip. “Through different portals!” Apparently, she truly hadn’t noticed.

  “Remarkable concentration,” scoffed Davoren.

  “Belt up, and give the little one a chance,” Taslin shot back.

  Slip continued undaunted. “Thus … thus!”

  Liet thought the brainless halfling should get a third chance. “Thus?” he prodded.

  “We all have different dirt upon our boots!” the halfling said excitedly.

  The others rolled their eyes and Liet sighed. Twilight gestured to the floor.

  Slip looked down at her bare feet. “Oh.”

  “You twit,” growled the warlock. “It means we have come to this foul place by means of twisted Art. Someone is interfering with our portals, likely.” His eyes fell on Twilight venomously. “I recall that the leader of my band led us through just such a conveying path, without regard to the consequences, of course.”

  Liet looked at Twilight as well, but the elf’s face was blank. Her eyes, though, shifted back and forth uneasily. That struck Liet as odd. He felt perfectly calm, the thrill of combat fled. Hadn’t the battle ended?