Then a roaring gout of fire surged past him, lighting up the chamber. Dry bones crackled and snapped, filling the whole passage with glaring flames. The jet of fire went out as Stegoman caught his breath, but the blaze kept on, though the skeletons still struggled toward the living people. Then the flame blasted again, and the few sets of bones that had still been standing keeled over, threshing even yet in a mindless homicidal impulse. The companions stepped forward, staves and swords ready to clear up the last few opponents...
And the whole cave darkened. Not into total night, but as if the chamber had suddenly filled with thick black smoke that dimmed the light and made every outline barely discernible. Stegoman's flame gouted out again, but it was reddened, growing more feeble, dimming as the darkness deepened, and Matt could feel the energy leaching out of him, weariness growing, weighing down his limbs like lead, while all about them, a giggling sound grew to a chuckle, then laughter, swelling and beating at their ears—and Matt suddenly understood how the skeletons had come to be there. The first usurping sorcerer had set a spirit to guard this place, a spirit who drank raw energy and was always hungry. Any living being stumbling into the midst of the monster staggered and swooned as the life energy was sucked out of it. Then the meat of its muscles oxidized, giving up more energy, and more, until even the marrow was gone.
But the monster could send energy back into the skeletons to send them against intruders.
"Wizard!" Yverne cried in despair. "Magic, or we are lost."
Not much choice, now. Matt had to risk alerting Gordogrosso to their raid, or atrophy. But there was one slender hope. A magical creature, just exercising its natural processes, might not attract attention, any more than this dark energy-drinking monster did. "Max! Get us out of this!"
"How, Wizard?" The bright spark danced before him, and the laughter halted. Then it redoubled, and the darkness thickened about the spark. But Max blazed brighter, and the darkness thinned and was gone, while the laughter suddenly transformed to a shriek.
"There!" Matt shouted. "Just what you did! Leach the energy out of that creature! Dry it up!"
The shriek turned to a snarl of rage, echoing all about them, and the darkness drew in to form a black ball in the middle of the passage, hiding Max from view—but the Demon's voice carried clearly to them. "Even as you say—though I am loathe to do it, to a creature so much akin to me. Still, it has no conscience, and knows only how to destroy. It shall be done."
The snarl soared back into a shriek again, and kept on rising and rising until it seemed as if it would shred Matt's brain—but the ball of darkness grew smaller and smaller, then thinner, till Max could be seen through it, growing brighter and brighter...
Then the monster was gone, with a final, echoing scream.
"It is finished," Max said.
Then suddenly, he began to vibrate, then to give off streamers of light-colored mist that radiated away from him and were gone.
"They are free now," the Demon said, "the souls he held imprisoned, the spirits of those skeletons you destroyed. So long as the bones endured to anchor the souls, the mortals were imprisoned here. But you have freed them."
"Us?" Matt gasped, astounded. "No way! It was you who zapped him, Max!"
"I?" the Demon vibrated with delight. "I can do naught, Wizard! I am only a force, a personification of a concept! I must be directed, commanded—and it is you who have loosed me. Nay, 'tis your doing; I am but your tool."
"If you say so." But Matt had his doubts. "Care to guide us the rest of the way?"
"I cannot. Summon me at need." And Max winked out.
Matt sighed in the sudden darkness. "Have any torches left, Sir Guy?"
"I have dropped them," came the knight's voice. "Let me see, now...where...No, that is a bone...Here! Stegoman, if you will?"
Flame brightened the gloom, showing Sir Guy holding a torch in Stegoman's flame. Then the dragon's glow shut off, and torchlight flickered on the walls of the chamber. "Four left," the knight said.
"That ought to get us there—we can't have far to go now."
Matt took the torch and turned away down the tunnel, trying to be careful about stepping over the bones.
The passage ran straight for about sixty feet, then took a sudden, right-angled turn. Matt slowed down, instinctively wary of a next step where he couldn't see ahead—but as he came around the corner, his torchlight flickered off oak planks and iron straps. "A door! We've made it through! Come on, folks!" And he leaped ahead, just as Fadecourt shouted, "'Ware!"
Matt's foot came down—and down, and down! He was falling, and he howled in fright—then jerked to a halt, slammed against a rock face.
He caught his breath, amazed to find he was still alive and not falling. Then he looked back up over his shoulder and saw Fadecourt, lying flat against the edge of the drop-off, one huge arm knotted and bulging with strain. "I saw," he grated. "Reach up and grasp the edge, Wizard. You must aid me in drawing you up."
"Yeah, right!" Matt reached up, as Fadecourt pulled, and caught the edge. Then he strained with every ounce of strength, and the cyclops yanked him up and over. Matt rolled away from the edge and sat up, wild-eyed and panting. "Thanks, Fadecourt. Guess I was right to invite you to join us."
"As I was, to ask." The cyclops squeezed Matt's shoulder. "Are you restored, Wizard? For we still must pass this pit."
Looking up, Matt saw that they stood on one side of a huge hole, filling the tunnel from wall to wall, and at least twenty feet across. Beyond it was about ten more feet of stone floor, then the door. "Somebody really didn't want visitors, did he?"
Then the smell hit him, and he gagged. The pit emitted a dank, fetid aroma, and far below, he heard suspicious rappings.
"Let us be gone, and quickly," Sir Guy said. "Whate'er dwells here, it may rise, and I have no wish to meet it by torchlight."
"Me neither." Even unseen, the thing was giving off vibrations that made the hair rise on the back of Matt's neck. "But I wouldn't try a broad jump."
"I would." Fadecourt stepped up to the edge.
The scrapings below became faster, more eager.
"I pray you, do not!" Yverne cried, reaching out to catch his arm. "We cannot bear the loss of you; 'tis not worth the risk."
Sir Guy didn't look all that sure about the last part, but he dutifully shook his head. "We must be all together to attack the sorcerer, good cyclops. We cannot spare your strength."
Fadecourt hesitated, flattered, then smiled up at Yverne and stepped back. She breathed a sigh of relief. "I thank you, good Fadecourt."
"At your pleasure," he murmured, and Sir Guy bristled.
The bulls were pawing the ground, and Matt definitely didn't need them to butt heads here. "Flying," he ventured.
Stegoman wagged his head from side to side. "I can barely squeeze through this passage, Matthew. Assuredly, I could not open my wings."
"Well, I might try...but no, I'd rather do this without magic." Matt glanced down to the pit, felt the emanations, and shuddered. Whatever was under there just might be able to cancel his spell in midflight. No, he didn't think he wanted to try levitation.
And the scrapings were coming closer.
"An arrow." Maid Marian took out her bow and strung it. "Can you lash a line to it?"
"Sure, if we had one!"
" 'Tis bound to my waist." Marian pulled a rope end loose. Fadecourt caught the coil, took an arrow, and began to tie the one to the other. "But to what shall you affix the arrow?"
"The door," Marian said simply.
Fadecourt and Matt exchanged glances, both feeling like idiots for not having thought of the obvious.
"But who shall draw the rope across, and make it fast?" Yverne asked.
Maid Marian smiled, tying the light line to her arrow. "There is a ring upon the door, milady, and 'tis set into a plate—-see you?"
Yverne looked and saw the huge iron circle set into the door in place of a knob. She frowned. "Aye. What of it?"
Marian aimed and l
oosed.
The arrow sped out over the pit, slammed into the metal plate with a clank like a boiler meeting a sledgehammer, and ricocheted down.
"Oh, well done!" Yverne clapped her hands. "But how shall you draw it back to us, to make it fast?"
"There is no need; 'tis a four-barbed head, and the shaft is iron." Marian drew back on the rope; the barbs of the arrowhead caught on the ring and held. She handed the line to Fadecourt. "Brace it well, cyclops." Then she took hold of the rope.
"Hey, no!" Matt cried "Let one of the guys take the risk!"
"Wherefore?" Marian gave him a challenging glare. " 'Tis my arrow, and my shot; 'tis my risk. Do not think to—"
With a roar, a huge gout of flame erupted from the pit, and the rope burned through.
Marian stared. So did Matt. Then he whispered. "That, too. Yeah."
"Back!" Stegoman thundered. "It comes! Stand back against the walls; leave me room!"
Nobody argued; they plastered themselves against the rock. A head poked over the pit, a huge, blunt, questing snout with faceted eyes, under which were two huge clashing pincers. Behind them came a pair of crooked bowlegs—and another pair, and another. Up it came with a slither of scales, foot after foot, yard after yard, leg after leg.
Yverne screamed. Matt might have, too—he remembered all the little scorpions they had roasted back at the beginning of the tunnel. Their big brother had come for revenge.
It opened its jaws and blasted flame.
Stegoman roared, with a gout of fire that met the centipede's. Flame blasted against flame and splashed off the walls; the companions scrambled out of the way.
"He holds it!" Sir Guy cried. "Attack!"
Matt jolted out of his trance, whipped out his sword, and leaped forward, stabbing. His sword point skidded across the chitinous shell—then lodged between segments. Matt leaned on it with every ounce of his strength, and the blade went in.
The monster screamed and thrashed, four sword points skewering it, and the segments closed on the sword, twisting it out of Matt's grasp. He dove for the hilt, but it danced mockingly before him as the monster gyrated in pain, and it turned its snout back toward him...
Fadecourt threw his huge strength against the body, holding a length of it still just long enough. Matt seized his sword and yanked it out, found another gap, and plunged it in again. So did Marian—she was on her third or fourth stab, and Sir Guy and Yverne weren't far behind. The monster shrieked and drew breath...
Stegoman blasted, his flame catching the centipede broadside.
Its scream veered toward the supersonic; it whipped about, blasting a return at Stegoman. But the dragon held his flame steady, till the centipede's slackened—and slackened more and more, for the five companions were stabbing and stabbing. Matt tried to remember his freshman zoology class, figuring where a heart might be, and stabbed and wrenched, trying to avoid the green slime that welled between the segments, but not succeeding too well, remembering, with a sick, sinking feeling, that basic life-forms like this took an awfully long time to die...
But breathing fire took a lot out of the worm. It gave a last, feeble puff of flame; then its legs folded, and its faceted eyes began to dull.
"It dies!" Sir Guy cried.
"Back!" Fadecourt bellowed. "It falls!"
For the first time, Matt realized that, no matter how much of the huge centipede had come out of the pit, there was more down below, and it was hanging loose from the side now, dead weight, the slackened claws having lost their hold on the niches in the rock. It slid backward faster and faster. The companions leaped aside just before the head whipped back over the edge of the pit and shot down out of sight.
They stood silent, staring down into the darkness, not quite believing the battle was over.
Then Matt felt a burning pain on his upper arm. "Yow!" He looked down and saw that the ichor had eaten through the cloth of his tunic. "It's acid! Everybody out of your clothes, quick!"
He scrambled out of his garments and shivered in the chill, glad that he had held to the habit of wearing underwear—in defiance of this world's custom. The ladies shed their dresses, standing almost as decently clad in their shifts, and Fadecourt and Sir Guy caught up the cloth to wipe the slime off skin and armor, respectively. Sir Guy inspected some mild etching and said, "I am nearly unscathed." He turned to Fadecourt. "And you, friend?"
Yverne saw the raw patches on the cyclops' skin and cried out.
"I will endure," he grated. "It is painful, but I am not hindered. Quickly, let us come out of this place! Then the wizard may mend me!"
"I may do so now." Marian took the belt off the remains of her gown and reached into a pouch. She took out a small jar, opened it, and began to rub the cream inside onto Fadecourt's burns. " 'Tis an herbal compound I learned to craft, from a monk. 'Tis a sovereign remedy for small wounds of all kinds—does it aid you?"
"A blessing," Fadecourt said, with a huge sigh of relief. "I thank you, maid."
As she finished anointing him, Matt said, "I hate to rush things—but do you have another one of those iron arrows?"
"Aye." Marian took up her bow, drew a new arrow, and tied the remains of the rope to it. She drew and loosed, and in a very short while, Fadecourt was swinging hand over hand along the rope—having claimed that he owed it to her for the salve. Then Stegoman braced the other end of the line, and Matt and Marian between them figured out how to make a fireman's chair. They swung across one by one—and, when they were all standing on the far side, they looked back at Stegoman, with a sudden shock of realization.
"How," Matt said, "are we going to get the dragon over here?"
"I can leap with ease, if I have room enough to land," Stegoman answered. "But yon dozen paces is nowhere nearly enough. Open the door, Wizard, and all of thee go through it; then I'll have room enough indeed, and shall be with thee straight."
On the word, Fadecourt turned and lashed a huge kick at the lock. Metal snapped, and the door slammed back.
There was darkness behind it. They stood in silence, waiting, until they heard distant voices calling.
"What sound was that?"
"The door, fool! Belike the warders bring another luckless soul to join us!"
"Or," a third, and nervous, voice said, "have they come to take one of us away to the gibbet?"
" 'Tis the dungeon," Maid Marian breathed, "and no guards."
"Surely," Sir Guy agreed. "Wherefore would they ward a door that has not opened in hundreds of years?"
Matt frowned. "You'd think somebody would have remembered."
"Their guards were on this side of the door," Yverne pointed out. "If such a monster as this failed, what use would be human guards?"
She definitely had a point. Matt thrust the torch out and stuck his head behind it, inspecting for booby traps, then leaped through the door, just in case—but no nets fell, no barbs sprang out. "It's safe. Come on, friends."
They filed through. Then, with a whoosh, a huge thud, and a scrabbling of claws, Stegoman shot through the door and skidded to a halt, jolting against the far wall. Matt glanced at the floor; the dragon's claws had gouged grooves in the granite. "Glad you're on our side. Now—where do we go?"
"Yon." Fadecourt turned, pointing, then strode ahead.
He seemed very sure of himself. Matt wasn't about to argue—but he did wonder. He followed the cyclops while he wondered, though.
They followed a sloping floor up, where the rock was no longer quite so rough-hewn. They tried to walk as quietly as possible, but as they neared a door of planks, a low voice called through its small grate, "Who brings light in the darkness?"
They stopped, all looking at Matt. He swallowed and answered, "A friend. What are you doing here?"
"I performed pantomimes in village squares, and mocked the king," the voice answered dryly. "And you?"
"We have come to help those who deserve it." It was a justified gamble—Gordogrosso punished only goodness, not evil Matt nodded to Fadecourt, who
laid hold of the latch and shoved. There was a crack of breaking metal, and the door swung open.
There was a minute's silence.
Then a middle-aged man, with hair almost white, crept out of the cell, blinking in the torchlight. "You...you would not mock me?" Then he saw Stegoman; his eyes widened, and so did his mouth.
Maid Marian clasped a hand over his lips. "Softly, goodman—he, too, is a friend."
"I am not a-hungered," Stegoman rumbled. "Even if I were, I prefer my food clean."
The man looked indignant, so Marian removed her hand and he growled, "I'll have you know I was most fastidious, till I was locked down here!"
"I understand," Matt sympathized. "They don't exactly provide running water." But a thought was hatching. "Think you can tell us who's down here for what?"
"Nothing easier," the actor said with confidence. "In the cell next to mine is a tax collector who let some poor folk, who could not pay, escape the whip. Next to him is a farmer, who sought to prevent the soldiers from taking his daughter. Farther on—"
"That's fine," Matt interrupted. "Tell us about them as we come to them. You go first."
The actor was only too glad to go, partly because Stegoman was bringing up the rear. He gave them a running commentary, and as they came to each door, Fadecourt bashed in the lock and let out the prisoner. Matt and Sir Guy herded them along in front, though Sir Guy gave Matt a questioning glance. Matt only gave a short shake of the head in answer.
It was very simple, really. He didn't want possible criminals coming behind his back—and he didn't mind letting them have first chance at the guards. He felt a little guilty at the idea that he was throwing the prisoners to the wolves, but he reminded himself that it was a better chance than they ever would have had otherwise—but the stab of conscience made him warn them, "Take up whatever weapons you can find. We're apt to have to do some fighting, if we want to get out of here."
The prisoners were only too glad to cooperate, wrenching table legs loose in the few well-appointed cells—the ones that contained more than moldering straw. Fadecourt took to yanking chains out of the walls in cells that had them; as they neared the door to the castle, half of the prisoners were armed with links.
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