by Max Anthony
“You’ll get no argument from me on that one,” Viddo replied. “However, it may be that we will meet our pursuers again before we escape or foil the mad god’s plot.”
“We’re not thinking of escaping, are we?” asked Jera.
“I have no specific plan to escape before we have at least seen if we can put a spanner into the death god’s machinery. On the other hand, I have no specific plan to hurl myself suicidally into a battle I have no hope of winning. A dead wizard sires no heirs.”
“I didn’t know you had plans to sire heirs,” said Viddo.
“I don’t,” replied Rasmus. “Still, one never knows how one might feel in the future.”
“The thought of a couple of smaller Rasmuses gives me fear for the city in which you choose to live,” said Viddo with a chuckle.
With that, they moved on. To their relief, the fault in the rock remained wide enough for them to proceed without having to remain in single file. Viddo admitted that his sense of direction had been confused by recent events, though he said he was fairly sure that they were headed into the right general area.
The passage went on for a long time, widening here and there, before narrowing again. Sometimes the ceiling was low, at other times it stretched so far above that they couldn’t see where it went. Rasmus kept a careful eye out in these places. Last time he and Viddo had ventured into this underground world they had encountered many spiders, one of which had almost managed to suck Rasmus’ juices from his body. The wizard didn’t want to be surprised again.
The downward slope eventually levelled off and they came into an area that could have been described as a room of sorts. There were no furnishings, though some scraps of armour lay on the floor, thick with grime from an unknown source. They stopped and picked through the items, in case there was anything of value that had been left abandoned here.
“These have been here for a long time,” said Viddo. “If you see the pieces of armour over here, I think they once housed a skeleton that has since crumbled with the passing years.” He picked up what looked like a steel plate gauntlet and rubbed it on his sleeve. The metal underneath shone brightly and he picked up the second. “These are enchanted. They’re nothing special though. Do you want them?” he asked Jera.
Jera took one of the gauntlets and peered inside, as if there might be a bony hand still inside. There was not and the leather inner looked clean and supple.
Rasmus caught her look. “Don’t worry about the fellow who once owned it. He’s not around to claim it back.”
Jera pulled the gauntlet on, watching as it shrank to fit her much smaller hand. It appeared almost delicate now that she was wearing it and she put the other one on to match it. This new armour was better than her old, since she hadn’t been in possession of anything to cover her hands. The extra protection felt reassuring.
“I feel guilty, since everything we find is suited to me,” she said.
“I think Viddo and I are past the point of counting coppers,” said Rasmus. “You’ve earned everything we’ve found so far. If we should journey again, we will work out a more equitable method to divide up the spoils.”
There were other spoils much closer to home, which Viddo found in a small pile beneath a rotting metal shield. There were a few silver coins and a smattering of gold, the latter of which he put into his pack. “These poor fellows won’t be spending them any time soon,” he said, feeling a pang of sympathy for those who had evidently died in this place, their histories to remain forgotten and forever unknown.
Jera yawned. “I’m getting tired,” she announced. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I found you?”
Rasmus considered the question. “It’s probably well into the night now. We usually just sleep when we’re tired. I can see you’ve taken a beating today, so perhaps it’s for the best if we have a break. I think we’d have seen our pursuers by now if they’d made it through my wall of stone spell.”
They did what they could to make themselves comfortable. Rasmus and Viddo were familiar with the techniques needed to sleep in places that men and women were not naturally designed to sleep. Jera was not quite so practised and she stared at her thin ground sheet, wondering if there was any chance she would be able to get comfortable enough on it to get some rest.
Meanwhile, Viddo pulled out his flute, reluctant to admit defeat in his quest to produce a melody from it. He blew into it once more, producing a shriek and then a screech. He pulled out his thief’s tools and used a length of wire to poke around inside the instrument to find out if it was blocked. There was no obstruction inside, which forced him to conclude that the flute had been crafted to sound like it did. He tried a couple times, failing to produce anything that could be described as a tune. A long-buried memory tugged at his consciousness and he pursued it until he remembered something he’d seen long ago. With an idea in his head to try something out later, he stashed the flute and lay down. He fell immediately asleep, much to Jera’s chagrin. Rasmus showed a total lack of concern, since he was already deep in slumber.
Several hours later, they were awake and ready to move again. Jera had not slept well. Still, she was young and had a much stronger constitution than one might have thought from looking at her. All warriors had powers of quick recovery and Jera felt her bruises from yesterday fading. She stretched, treating Rasmus to the sight of a very flat, tanned stomach. He unconsciously rubbed at his own belly. He was lean enough, but he thought he would probably benefit from a few sit-ups to bring himself back into tip-top condition. Many wizards found it a constant battle to stay slim, even those who only pecked at their rations.
They walked for another hour, until Viddo saw what he thought was illumination ahead of them. He waved a hand for the others to halt so that he could creep forward under the cover of darkness. Jera and Rasmus duly obliged and the thief vanished at once from their sight, making not a sound as he did so. He returned within two minutes and bade Rasmus extinguish the light from his spell.
“Come,” said Viddo quietly, leading them forward. The darkness was not absolute, so none of them tripped or fell. The fault in the rock, which had saved them from the dragon’s breath ended abruptly in a room that had clearly been carved, rather than being a natural formation. They crouched at the end of the tunnel and looked into the room beyond. It was perhaps more accurate to call it a very wide passage instead of a room. Light globes were embedded in the walls, providing a muted glow of dirty yellow and allowing them to make out the details. It was wide and straight, with a high ceiling and seven-feet-long alcoves in the walls. The alcoves were stacked four high and there were countless numbers of them, visible as far as the available light would permit. The floor was paved with slabs of smooth, dark stone. It was possible to see that the room continued on ahead for some way, with the dim specks of light stretching off into the distance. There was a wide crack running along the floor here, which narrowed as it got further away.
“I think we’ve found catacombs,” whispered Viddo. “If I had to guess, I’d say that they abandoned work on this particular area when they came across this natural fault here. It looks like the fault widened at a later time and broke their nice, new floor.”
“Catacombs, eh?” said Rasmus, staring carefully into the alcoves in the walls. He knew what they normally found in catacombs – skeletons that had a tendency to rise up and attack with a motley collection of decaying weapons.
Viddo also knew this, so headed off any questions. “I went a few yards along and all of these alcoves are empty of potential undead. Maybe they didn’t want to store anyone here if they thought that the whole area might end up being sundered by an expansion of this fault. Anyway, we can’t go back, can we?”
All three of the adventurers stared ahead, lost in their thoughts. None of them particularly wished to enter an area that stood a realistic chance of teeming with undead.
“Let us proceed with caution,” said Rasmus at last.
They stepped from their tunn
el and into the wide, long room, with Jera and Viddo in front and Rasmus behind. They relied on the magical light globes to guide their path, since they didn’t want to give any advance warning of their coming. Jera’s armour rattled somewhat, which was an unavoidable side-effect of bringing a fighter along.
“From what we’ve surmised of life in this place, I am sure they must have had many dead,” said Rasmus. They’d travelled a few dozen yards along and had yet to find any skeletons lurking, so the wizard felt confident enough to speak at closer to his usual volume.
“I think they fed their fallen to their god,” said Viddo, without knowing exactly why he’d said it. “Or at least one of the civilisations down here did so.”
“The rulers never suffer the same fate as their subjects, even in death!” said Jera, showing a rebellious side to her nature. “I should imagine that the most important people would avoid such a fate and would be laid to rest in catacombs like this one.”
“It looks as if their bones have turned to dust,” said Rasmus, breaking step and crossing to one of the alcoves in the wall for a closer look. To his surprise, there was a glimmering of magic within the confines of the recess, which he could only detect now that he was close to it. There was something about the aura which triggered a buried memory.
“Viddo, come and look at this,” he called.
“What’ve you found?” asked the thief.
“These alcoves project some kind of magical stasis. I’ve come across it before at the university. We use it to preserve rare specimens and protect them from decay.”
“There’s nothing here to preserve. Or perhaps there was at one time and the magic has now failed.”
“I don’t think so,” replied the wizard, crossing to another of the alcoves. “The magic is here as well.”
“Would the magic preserve a body for ten thousand years?” asked Viddo doubtfully.
“Some magic deteriorates over time, it is true, but the aura I can feel here hasn’t decayed a bit. I am sure of it.”
“Do you think that this ancient people built their catacombs in preparation of an expected influx that never came?”
“I don’t know,” said Rasmus. “Something feels out of place, doesn’t it?”
“And what’re these markings here?” asked Jera, pointing out a series of tiny etchings to one side of another recess nearby.
Viddo took a look with a furrowed brow. The best thieves could understand mundane script better than any wizard and this particular thief had already been immersed in several varieties of the written language in the underground world.
“It’s a name, I think,” he said eventually. “Doubtless for the person who was interred.”
“That suggests that there was someone here, once,” Rasmus said. “What was this good lady or gentleman called?”
“There’s no equivalent that I’ve heard, but it’s something like G’Rtia. Sounds a bit feminine.” He crossed to another alcove. “And here was a Truiret. Over here a F’tliu. And what’s this?” he asked, with what sounded suspiciously like joy. “There’s a R’smunia over here! This could have been your great, great, great, great aunty!”
“Rasmus is a very traditional name!” said Rasmus. “I am not surprised to find its roots extend into the depths of the earliest history.”
Viddo found himself tickled by his discovery and performed a mock-salute at the empty resting place of this mysterious R’smunia. They turned and left it behind.
After another hundred yards of the straight, wide room, one or two of the alcoves showed signs of occupancy. When he saw the first skeleton, Viddo crossed straight over to it and crashed his dagger into its ribcage. There was a rattle and he fancied he heard a sigh, but in the end, he was forced to conclude that he’d stabbed an inanimate object.
“Why does this one have a skeleton in it?” he asked.
Rasmus approached. It was immediately clear that the magic on this alcove was weaker than on the others. “There’s hardly any sign of the magical stasis here,” he told them. “Perhaps it was created imperfectly to begin with and the body which was put here has decayed, albeit at a much-reduced speed.”
“Where’re all the other bodies?” asked Jera. “I think this place was full at one point and now the dead have gone.” It was a question that none of them had an answer to.
More and more of the skeletons appeared as they continued, with Viddo and Jera chopping at a couple to see if they could prompt them into activity. None of the dead rose to threaten them and Rasmus checked their alcoves. In each case, the stasis magic felt as if it had degraded compared to the magic that remained on the empty alcoves.
They came to a carved stone wall, which ran directly across the width of the catacombs in front of them. The wall was square, with a swirling mural that was elaborate and without repetition. For once, this was an example of art that didn’t rely on the deaths of others as its subject matter. To the left and right, the catacombs continued for a short distance before they turned again. Viddo looked and saw that where they stood was the convergence for four different branches of this burial place.
“It’s as if everywhere meets at this bit of stone in the middle,” said Viddo. His thief’s senses were tingling in the way they did when he thought someone was trying to hide something. He took a half-stride forward, before pausing and turning to Rasmus. “You’re going to wait until I’ve got close to that wall and then you’re going to turn it to dust, aren’t you? You’ve never forgiven me for that time we hid in the chimney and all of the soot clung to you.”
Rasmus had the good grace to look guilty. “It would have been in jest,” he said, giving Jera and Viddo a chance to step away from the mural. The wizard’s hand waved and the wall did not collapse into dust.
“An ensorcelled wall,” said Rasmus. “Designed to prevent wizards from doing what I have just attempted.”
In general, the more powerful the wizard, the harder it was to destroy their magic. On the other hand, the strongest of wizards could undo more or less anything they wanted to, as long as they had memorised enough spells to keep trying. Rasmus gave it another go and this time the stubborn wall collapsed with a soft whump, leaving nothing behind apart from a pile of dust that was much smaller than the volume of the destroyed rock.
The carving on the wall had taken three ancient craftsmen almost a year to create. It had taken Rasmus less than a minute to destroy it, though it would be incorrect to suggest that his casual vandalism even registered in his mind. The dust cleared and the trio, all of whom were by association equally culpable in destroying the wall, looked at what lay behind. The stone had been over ten feet thick, so it was fortunate that Rasmus’ prowess with stone deconstruction spells was such that he could have punched a hole through an even thicker section of wall. As it was, he’d opened up an entrance large enough for them to walk through without difficulty.
“I knew it! A hidden room!” said Viddo excitedly.
They entered a chamber twenty feet wide and fifteen high. It had been completely sealed before Rasmus’ magic had intruded upon its integrity and it looked as though it had never been intended for anyone to find it. The walls inside were lined with marble, carved even more beautifully than anything they’d seen before. In the centre of the room was a bier, raised four feet from the floor and upon this bier was an emaciated body, wrapped entirely in what seemed at first glance to be yellowing sheets of cloth. The body wore a circlet of gold, with gold rings upon its fingers and had a sword in its grasp.
The figure gave a groan of anguish and abruptly sat upright. A split second later, a dagger entered its spine and a shield struck it firmly in the face, causing it to lie back equally abruptly, whereupon the dagger entered its chest four times, a sword bounced off the top of its skull and a stout metal cosh broke both of its kneecaps.
“I think it’s dead,” said Rasmus, peering in for a closer look.
What they’d first thought to be yellow cloth was in fact bandages, from which rose the fa
intest smell of embalming fluid. The creature’s face was almost completely covered up, though in places the bandages had slipped away to reveal the brown, sunken flesh underneath.
“I feel a bit guilty doing that,” said Jera.
“Dear me, don’t!” said Rasmus. “Given the chance, this mummy would have infected us with all manner of diseases. Some of them have even been known to cast spells.”
“And look at it this way,” said Viddo. “This poor chap has lain sealed up in here for goodness knows how long, with nothing to keep him occupied but these walls. It’s no wonder he was upset.”
“So what you’re saying is that we’ve done him a favour?” said Jera, performing the necessary mental acrobatics to come to terms with her unnecessary guilt.
“That’s an excellent way of putting it!” said Rasmus, pleased as punch. “We’ve done this evil undead creature a great service.”
“And since one good turn deserves another, let us accept his gracious reward by relieving him of his worldly goods,” said Viddo, already tugging at the longsword. Even in death, the mummy retained a surprisingly strong grip and Viddo had to put one foot into the undead armpit and twist firmly. There was a sickening wrench and the sword tore free, with a mummified hand still attached. As Jera looked on with an unreadable expression, the thief used his dagger to lever the fingers off the hilt. The hand fell to the floor with a quiet thud.
“This is a bit of a beauty,” said Viddo, weaving a pattern in the air with the blade. Then with a look of momentary disappointment, he turned to Jera. “You’d probably better have it,” he said. “Rasmus will be able to identify it later, but I think this is a good one.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t dream of it!” protested Jera. “I’ve got so many items already. Besides, I’m more of an axe type of fighter. I’m much better with one of them than a sword.”
“Let us find you an axe then, Jera,” he said, tucking the sword into his belt. “I fear for these poor undead if you are even better with an axe than your blade.”