by Max Anthony
They’d been in the foundry for a few minutes when Viddo saw something, far up on a nearby wall.
“A viewing port,” he said.
Rasmus squinted towards the indicated place. “A window aperture, you mean?”
Jera also looked. “Isn’t it easier to just call it a window?” she asked. Neither man responded immediately.
“I think there are steps leading up to it,” Viddo continued after a time. “It looks like there’s a doorway into the wall.”
Without speaking about it, or agreeing on a particular course of action, all three unconsciously headed in that direction, curious as to what might lie behind this window. They reached the wall wherein the aperture was set. Viewed from below, the steps were almost invisible against the carved rock.
“They start over here,” Viddo advised, already on his way.
The steps were not the sort of steps that the faint of heart would gladly ascend. They were exceptionally steep, with a high tread. There was no sign of a hand rail and the steps themselves were little more than a foot wide.
“Imagine the poor sod who had to climb these every day,” said Rasmus. “I’ll bet the mortality rate was astronomical.”
“You two stay here and I’ll take a look,” Viddo told them. Neither of his companions offered an objection to what they immediately thought was an absolutely splendid plan.
Viddo fairly raced up the steps, taking them two at a time and stumbling not once. His excellent hearing was just about up to the task of catching Rasmus mutter the words ‘show off’ before he was too high to hear anything further. The steps climbed for about forty yards and each stride revealed more and more of the foundry. Near to the top, Viddo couldn’t help but pause for a look out over what was more a vista than a mere view. The metal and stone of the furnaces looked no less menacing from here than they did at floor level, and the tops of the highest were still above where the thief perched.
With business to attend to, Viddo completed his ascent. Almost without thinking, he drew the shadows around himself in case there were any nasty surprises to be found at the top. He looked into the doorway and found that it led to a short passageway and thence to a small room, a few feet square. It was this room which had the window he had initially seen from below and he paused again to take in the sights.
“A foreman’s room?” he asked himself, wondering if this was where an overseer had watched down over the proceedings below. If so, the window was poorly placed, since the machinery and pillars obscured the line of sight to many areas of the cavern. Although he looked, there were no other such viewing areas to be seen on the other walls. The light wasn’t good enough for him to be absolutely certain.
There wasn’t much to this room – there was a square, stone block which Viddo took to have been the uncomfortable home to the hypothetical foreman’s buttocks as he sat through his shift. There was also a bench underneath the window, upon which a hypothetical lunch might have been laid out in preparation for eating. There was a cupboard in one wall with a stone door on it, which Viddo opened.
“Hello,” he said under his breath, taking out two objects. “What’s all this, then?”
He looked at his spoils – one cuboid stone box about twelve inches by six, with a stone lid that tilted back on hinges. Viddo was a man of simple tastes in many ways, therefore he didn’t spend time pondering the more esoteric possibilities for this box’s function and instead cut right to the chase.
“The foreman’s lunchbox,” he told himself, idly flipping up the lid. If there had ever been chicken sandwiches within, they’d either been eaten thousands of years ago or had perished into nothingness.
The other object was also made of stone, though it was polished and with a greenish tint. It was cylindrical, a little more than a foot long and the width of two fingers. It had holes running along its length and a further hole right at the end. Viddo stared at the object for a minute, turning it over in his hand as he racked his brain over what it could be. The answer came to him.
“A flute!” he exclaimed in delight, berating himself for not recognizing it immediately. Viddo did not fancy himself as a musician but he’d received basic training with stringed instruments long ago when he’d been in disguise as a wandering bard. Old habits died hard and he checked the flute for traps, telling himself that he’d found poisoned needles in more unusual places than this one. Satisfied that there was nothing untoward, he raised it to his lips and blew. The sound which came out was discordant and shrill – nothing like the sweet, melodic note that he’d hoped to hear. He covered a couple of the holes with his fingers and tried again, without any more success. Aware that time was passing, he peered into the end of the stone flute to see if there were any blockages. From what he could see, it was clear inside.
Unwilling to relinquish this most tuneless of prizes, Viddo left the room with the flute clutched tightly in one hand. He ran down the steps, knowing that it would irritate Rasmus some more, and joined his companions at the bottom.
“Stone flute!” he said, beaming happily. “It sounds like shit though.”
“Is it magical?” asked Rasmus, looking at the instrument. He wasn’t a great fan of music and was prone to falling out with street musicians if he thought they were pestering him for loose change.
“You know, I haven’t checked,” said Viddo. He placed a hand on the green stone and concentrated for a second. Surprise made itself known upon his visage. “Why yes, there’s definitely something there. Do you happen to have acquired any more spells of identification from that undead wizard’s spellbook?”
“The fool didn’t even have it in there,” snorted Rasmus. “It’s the first or second spell that every wizard should obtain and he didn’t have it. What a tit.”
Had the instrument been mundane, Viddo would have likely become bored with it in the following five minutes and done something like see how far he could throw it across the room. As it was, he stashed it away, thinking that it might be worth investigation later.
Probably does something crap like make pigeons dance, he thought sourly, before opening his mouth to speak. “There is a huge iron door over there,” he said, wafting with a hand off to one side. “You can’t really see it from the ground.”
With nowhere more appropriate to go, they went in the direction of the door. Having discovered that the wall made them feel more secure, they stayed close to it as if they were rodents stealing grain from a farmer’s cellar. Certainly, the dimensions of the foundry made them feel tiny and they were all looking forward to the time they could return to a place of a more standard size.
The door which Viddo had spotted was set into the wall, without any heed to symmetry or central positioning. It was about twenty feet tall and ten wide, otherwise as plain as could be.
“It’s ajar,” said Viddo, pleased that he wouldn’t have to try and open a locked example of this size.
“Phew,” said Jera, pleased that no one would be asking her to shoulder charge it open.
“Great,” said Rasmus, pleased that he wouldn’t have to wait for hours as the other two fruitlessly tried to open a door that was monumentally too large for them.
In the case of this particular door, ajar meant that there was a two-feet gap between the door and the doorway. There was a wide passage on the other side, commensurate with the size of the door which covered it. This passage was not lit and it wasn’t clear what lay along it. Viddo’s night sight allowed him to see that it opened out into another chamber, though the area of the room he could see was empty.
“I realise that we’ve made haste to this very spot, but I think we need to ask ourselves if there’s likely to be anything worthwhile along a passageway that is so large. It’s not like there’re only going to be mice. It’ll be something big.” said Rasmus.
“There could be undead mice,” offered Jera helpfully.
“What are you complaining about?” asked Viddo, full of bravado, reassured that he’d seen nothing to be concerned about. �
��We need to go in this direction anyway to get to where we need to be.” As he spoke, he leaned nonchalantly against the door, in order to show how unconcerned he was about what lay ahead. Although he only put the slightest of pressure on the door, he discovered to his surprise that it started to move and he stumbled, catching the door with his hand as he tried to steady himself. Before he knew it, the door had swung away from him, screeching loudly as it did so.
“Just goes to show the value of a well-made hinge,” said Viddo, trying to make light of his blundering. “I’d have never thought that door would move so easily.”
“Or so noisily,” pointed out Jera, much to Rasmus’ delight.
As they talked, the door continued to drift open, screeching no longer. It completed a semi-circle and came to a halt with a quiet bump against the foundry wall. At once, there came the sounds of heavy thumping from along the passageway, as if something enormously heavy approached. Without waiting to be asked, Rasmus and Jera ran away to one side and hid behind one of the huge anvils. Viddo followed, but not before he’d seen many large shapes approaching. These shapes had been in the room beyond, hidden from sight against the walls to either side. With an acrobatic and entirely unnecessary roll, Viddo joined his companions.
Seconds later, the shapes emerged, their details becoming clear in the orange light of the foundry. They were statues – hulking and massive. The first pair to emerge were at least fifteen feet tall and humanoid in form, with immaculately-carved hands. The rest of their bodies were poorly-formed and indistinct, as if it were not important for them to have anything other than functioning hands. Behind them came several smaller shapes, these only five feet tall and broad with it. The smaller ones were hardly statues at all, so little effort had been put into their making. They had blocky arms and legs, and a lump atop their shoulders that could only be described as a head if one knew that a head was expected to be found in that place.
Rasmus was an explode first and ask questions of the charred body sort of wizard. The first of the larger statues burst into a huge shower of fine dust, followed by three of the smaller ones as Rasmus cast two of the stone destruction spells he’d pilfered from the undead wizard.
“Wait!” whispered Jera, indicating to Rasmus that he should refrain from casting any more of his spells. “Look – they’re not interested in us.”
She appeared to be correct and, when the last of the statues filed out, they formed two lines on the far side of the doorway. There were three of the larger statues and five of the smaller ones remaining. After assuming their positions, they stood stock still, displaying the infinite patience that only those who expect to live forever can display.
“Look at them,” said Viddo. “They are pitted and scarred all across their bodies. These must have been created for the heavy lifting duties in this foundry.”
“And those smaller ones might have fetched the coal in those carts that we found,” Rasmus replied.
“Why are they just standing there, do you think?” Viddo wondered.
“The opening of that door must have been the trigger for them to leave their room. Now they await instruction,” said Jera with certainty. “Except that no instruction will be coming because everyone is now dead and this foundry no longer functions.”
“With any luck, we should be safe to walk past them and see if there are any further exits from the room whence they came,” said Rasmus. As he pushed himself to his feet, the wizard caught a wistful look in Viddo’s eyes.
“Don’t statues traditionally have magical gems embedded into their foreheads in order to make them function?” the thief asked.
“Where on earth did you get that idea?” asked Rasmus. “The first time I ever saw a statue with gems embedded in it – the first time in over three hundred years of life, mind you – was when we appropriated the two you now carry from that sculpture, last time we were here. And that statue was a special case, since it represented a god, rather than being an ugly, malformed lump of stone with a manicure.”
Unwilling to give up on this particular fantasy, Viddo peered at the statues for a few moments longer, before he eventually admitted defeat and hurried after his companions.
13
The room from which the statues had emerged was suitably intimidating in size, and suitably free of ornamentation or decoration. There was a wide exit passage on the left-hand wall, and they hurried along it, not wishing to get caught in one of these more exposed places. Rasmus thought it strange that a storage room for statues would have two exits and thought it even stranger that he hadn’t raised this potential issue before they’d come in this direction. Regardless, this other passage did exist and it led them to another vast area, this one much more sparsely lit and with jagged walls. The blackness beyond the light was impenetrable and it looked as if it might go on forever. It was noticeably colder in here and each of the adventurers struggled to suppress their shivers at the cold breeze that caressed their skin.
There were piles of grey rock close to the place through which they’d entered – heavy chunks as large as six or seven feet across. There were a number of huge mauls on the floor next to this pile – each of the hammers more than twelve feet long, topped with a lump of iron that the three of them could not have lifted in tandem.
“Magnetite,” said Jera, impressing her companions with her knowledge of iron ores. “This must be a mine and those bigger statues must have broken these larger rocks into smaller pieces, ready for the furnace.”
Unlike most mines, which comprised a labyrinth of tunnels to follow the seam of metal or stone, the creatures who had created this one had simply expanded the space outwards, as if the ore were so abundant that they could chip it out from anywhere they chose to hit with a pickaxe.
“I don’t like it here,” said Jera.
“Nor me,” said Rasmus, looking off into the bleak distance. He didn’t know what it was that he didn’t like – the feeling had been building within him since they’d entered the foundry and this mine did nothing more than compound the unease.
“The people who hollowed out this place did so in order to create weapons to kill in the name of their god,” said Viddo. “I can handle the undead in their droves, but this place speaks of entire civilisations geared up for murder and bloodshed. We should leave at once – I yearn for the miles of featureless corridors that seem welcoming and homely by comparison.”
“And the chests full of loot,” said Rasmus, perking up at once.
They stayed close to the nearest wall and travelled at the greatest speed they dared. There were not enough of the light globes to be certain that they wouldn’t trip and Rasmus brought forth his magical light to ensure that no ankles were broken unnecessarily. Soon the last of the globes was behind them and they were all grateful for the wizard’s spell.
The walls gleamed faintly as they reflected the light. Viddo was curious to find out if there was moisture in here and ran his fingers over the surface. They remained dry and he realised that this entire place must be made up of the metal ores. If just a fraction of the iron in here had been used to make weapons, there would have been enough to equip a million soldiers. He hoped that everything which had come out of the foundry had long since crumbled away. Whatever it was going on in this underground world, there appeared to be no great level of organisation to it. On the other hand, they had no idea how much more there was left to discover. He dismissed the worries from his mind for the moment and focused on running.
It was Viddo who noticed it first. He was a thief and trained to notice that which was meant to remain hidden, except that what he heard wasn’t necessarily trying to remain undetected. They’d travelled almost half a mile, without seeing any sign of an exit and they’d started to confront the notion that they might have to go all the way back to the foundry and look for another exit. The wizard’s light bobbed ahead, cheery in spite of the surroundings and resistant to the pitch black which tried to crush it out of existence. In the distance, there was a low w
humping sound, and then another. It was the noise of vast wings pressing upon the air and the unhurried nature of the sound spoke of laziness or disinterest. Viddo looked towards the noise and saw a vast, dark shape gliding serenely along. The distance was difficult to judge precisely. Whatever it was, it wasn’t close, but it was definitely coming closer.
“Something’s coming,” Viddo said. “And we’re not going to like what it is.”
“Want me to kill the light?” asked Rasmus.
“It’s seen us already and it can probably see us even in the darkness.”
“What is it?” asked Jera without concern. She was still invigorated by her success against the revenant and its slaves.
“A dragon,” replied Viddo. “This time it’s not a small one and it’s certainly not dead. It’s not alive either.”
“A bloody undead dragon?” moaned Rasmus. “I wish these undead would piss off sometimes, really I do.”
“You sound just like my mother,” replied Viddo, not slowing his pace.
“Gentlemen, there’s a dragon coming,” said Jera. “Shouldn’t we be giving it due attention?”
“Probably,” said Viddo. “I think there’s a cave ahead,” he said, flicking his eyes between the approaching creature and an area of deeper shadow way in the distance. The dragon’s wings furled and unfurled, filling the distance with their vast expanse as they swept the beast onwards.
“Are we going to make it in time?” asked Rasmus, unable to see either cave or dragon. He could definitely hear the sweeping sound of the wings now and didn’t like it one little bit, especially when they were all so exposed.
“No,” said Viddo.
He heard Rasmus mutter something under his breath. It sounded like an oath, though it was in fact a spell. All of a sudden, they were running faster than they had been just a second before. Much, much faster.
“Do we have the undead wizard to thank for your spell of haste?” asked Viddo.