by Sean Heslin
One thing that was not spoken of at this time, was the use of the word 'poo' and other similar verbal utterances in common speech, usually in the form of invective. In his notes, however, there was mention how different types of faeces could be used to describe different severities of situation depending on texture and colour. For example, yellow and runny could be hideously disgusting, possibly a visit by a disliked aunt, while black and solid could be immediate painful danger.
Pib's situation above, upon stating 'Poo' in its invective form, would fit into the Wise Man's nomenclature as the infamous 'ghost' faeces. This is where the sensation of it leaving your body can be felt, but no trace of it can be found afterwards. To translate this into terms of a feeling, it is probably best put as a sensation of severe disconcertedness coupled with a sense of dread that you may have imagined the whole thing and will need to go again very soon.
Chapter 47
“The dark; friend and lover and veiled cover for all that might tease the eye and trick the mind. Seek in the dark for all that you may find.”
- Linton Groundkeeper, trying his best at his local writers' group to sound interesting, 4067 CM
The group stood in various frozen poses of fleeing by a comparatively small doorway into a very big room.
It was a high vaulted affair, constructed mostly out of black and grey marble, with flickering torches in sconces and the occasional macabre statue depicting gods-knew what acts. Filling the room, apart from a great deal of air, was a small battalion of Undying warriors, discernible from regular troops thanks to the Mark of Yurmuth visible upon their flesh.
These soldiers were a personal guard of some variety, their well-made armour emblazoned with an unrecognisable sigil. The odd symbol seemed rather like a misshapen, malformed child's drawing of a seagull far away in the sky, but twisted about the middle somehow.
The fearsome warriors stood to various degrees of attention about the hall, but their numbers were mostly concentrated around a high-backed black chair. It seemed more of an armchair with a particularly tall backrest, giving it the aspect of an especially comfortable throne. Reclining within that chair was a man, one leg draped casually over a side. His head rested atop an arm of which the elbow rested on the other arm of the chair. He was most relaxed in his posture, and many men would battle fiercely to copy such a pose and the patronage thereof.
All heads in the room were facing the door through which the companions’ headlong flight had taken them. The man in the chair was grinning, and all the guards had their weapons drawn. The crew were placed at a severe disadvantage amongst these heavily armed fighters.
A more decorated guard close to the seat of power looked to his master for orders. There was a sharp word of command and the soldiers formed a semi-circle, effectively blocking all paths apart from a lonely empty space that stretched from the door to the chair.
The man sat straight and gestured at the group to lay down their arms. He was still grinning as if he had just heard something funny.
Perci and Pib looked askance at Rancha, while Jocene and Terand performed some swift tactical calculation. Goe tried to sit on the floor because he was knackered.
Rancha sighed, considered his stone clawed hands, and then slowly raised them in the air in the international sign of surrender. Disappointed, Terand and Jocene sheathed their weapons, and Yrinmet stopped glowing about the edges.
The seated man bade them approach, so with a certain amount of trepidation they did so. The guards about them rustled uncertainly, but stayed in place.
Within seven feet of the man, and the Fear hit them.
Perci's bladder emptied instantly, Terand fell to his knee and Pib shook uncontrollably. Milspeth was horrified, tears streaming, but Goe had short-circuited and fallen asleep on the floor. Only Jocene appeared unaffected, her capacity for fear having long scabbed over.
Rancha approached the chair, his stony hide bearing the brunt of the waves of terror, emanating from a few steps in front of him. It would have been so easy, to reach out with his gargoyle claws and open the throat of this obviously evil, evil man. But.
His mouth opened.
“!” managed Rancha, then he also fell to his knees in shock and awe.
“Hello!” said the man cheerfully. “Welcome to my temporary home, please make yourselves at home. Oh, and while I’m at it, what the hell are you doing here?”
Nobody answered. Nobody could answer.
He sighed. “Okay. You. Tell me.” The man pointed at Yrinmet whose face was pressed to the floor. He recoiled as if an arrow had hit him.
“W…we…wanted to…” His voice failed.
The man gestured in exasperation. “Typical, this always happens. Okay, you. You’re still standing up, so you must be doing well against my Fear. Tell me what I want to know or I’ll give you a hug.”
Jocene whom he had indicated, looked disgusted, but unafraid at the prospect of her brain frying from the close contact.
“Fine, whatever. We are here to find Eric the Merciful. I presume that is you?”
The man nodded and looked pleased at being recognised.
Jocene continued. “As far as I know we are supposed to be stopping you from doing whatever you are trying to do. Taking over the world would be my best guess. Any particular problem with this?”
Eric was regarding her intently, a touch of intrigue in his features. “You aren’t afraid of me at all, are you? This is a novelty, although it isn’t the first time. Hmm. Who are you? The face looks familiar but I can’t quite…”
“Laira the Reckless,” lied Jocene smoothly. “You may have heard of me from way over west.”
“Laira?” A dubious eyebrow went up. “Unlikely, since I am fairly sure she was captured by the Total Information Network on smuggling charges a few weeks back.”
“I escaped. What do you expect?”
Eric gave a mock bow. “Then I am honoured to be in the presence of a master, if you escaped from them. What’s the phrase? Many have tried, but…something. It will come to me in a while.”
Jocene looked slightly off balance. He was getting to her, the centuries-old scabbing being flicked. She tried a different tack.
“What are you doing anyway, that deserves the attentions of this lot?” said Jocene waving at the cowering crew.
Eric grinned. “Oh, nothing too spectacular. Would you like to help?”
“Is it worth it? By the standards of eternal damnation, I mean.”
There was a pause while Eric considered this.
There was more silence.
He looked quite concerned.
Then, the clouds around his brows cleared.
“No,” he announced proudly. “But you might want to help anyway.”
“I’ll pass thank you.”
“Suit yourself. Guards! Stick them into the Pit for a while, until I can think of something better to do.”
“Which P…”
“The hole in the ground, not either of the rooms.”
“Sah!”
Several guards materialised behind the crew and prodded them into motion. Goe was woken by Milspeth and he cheerfully ambled along behind them.
“Are we...mm...doing something fun?”
“No Goe. Tell me it is all going to be fine?”
“It's always fine! When we are...mm...together.”
“Thank you.”
They were escorted through another side door and along winding corridors that even Terand gave up trying to memorise after a while.
“As soon as we stop, we shall strike,” whispered Jocene into Rancha's ear. He nodded and she fell back to relay the message to the other combat-ready companions. Glancing back Rancha saw faces grow grim and hands loosen buckles on pouches and sheathes.
They entered a small room with only the one door and no windows. Oddly, the guards came in with them and in a circle, surrounded them. The group were mildly disconcerted, but were tensely waiting for a ‘Now!’ to explode among them.
There was a humming in the air, which Rancha could not place, and he shifted on his feet. He could sense Jocene’s mouth opening to yell.
“N…!”
There was a viciously bright light and a crack in the air.
They all flinched and shut their eyes tight reflexively.
A sensation of being sucked sideways through a leaf shredder, the feeling of being smacked across the face with a dead pot plant, the impression of being stamped under the heels of a giant, and then…
Black.
“I’ve gone blind!” wailed Perci.
There was a sound that was very similar to a Goe-shaped person walking into a wall in the pitch-blackness and falling over with a slight “oof.”
Rancha waved a hand in front of his own face. He too, also seemed blind.
“Er, I don’t mean to be funny,” came the voice of Terand, “but where have the guards disappeared to?”
“Or the door for that matter,” said Yrinmet. A scraping noise came from the direction of his voice, giving the impression he was feeling along the walls in the dark.
“Ouch, watch where you’re stepping,” said Pib peevishly, her voice contorted.
“Does something smell funny to you?” said Milspeth.
Various noses sniffed the air. There was a definite change in air quality from a few moments ago.
“I don’t think we’re in Grandag any more, Pemo,” quoted Perci.
Rancha sighed. “I really hated that play, it's offensive to iccles. And witches. Don’t do that again. Okay, people, I have a sneaking suspicion we have been teleported somewhere.”
“Underground,” said Yrinmet, still tapping walls.
“Quite far away,” said Terand, coughing.
“Has anybody got any light, I think Goe’s unconscious,” asked Milspeth, worried.
Yrinmet muttered a few choice phrases under his breath and light came from an uncertain source to banish the darkness.
Pib frowned. “Huh, this is boring.”
The chamber in which they now stood was little more than a grey cube cut out of the rock and smoothed over. The walls, floor and ceiling were featureless save for a small hole in one corner that served as both the air supply and the latrine. Perci had managed to get his foot stuck in it immediately.
“How? How do you do this?” said Rancha, using gargoyle might to fish out his charge's foot.
“With companions like you, no matter how unholy, there is no adversity we cannot take on!”
“Has he smacked his head recently?” said Terand.
“No, he is merely terrified. Perci is in his 'happy place' I believe the parlance is,” said Yrinmet.
“We must escape! Take stock noble fellows!”
“You sure?” said Terand.
“Let's just do what he says for now,” said Rancha. “If he really is a divine champion or something, our survival rating goes up that way. How's Goe?”
“Sleeping again,” diagnosed Milspeth, kneeling painfully by her friend. “Leave him in peace for now.”
“And our things? Everybody got everything?”
An inventory was taken and none of their equipment seemed to be missing.
Rancha breathed. “Then we have a start. Right. Okay. What next noble leader?”
“Me?” Perci was startled by the direct question, overriding his terror. “We start to find a way out to slay this evil?”
“Good plan,” said Yrinmet. “Rancha, if you could bend a little, so I can touch the ceiling? I should be able to work out how far down we are.”
Pib was openly impressed, smiling up in awe. “You are amazing Yrinny, how are you doing that?”
Yrinmet balanced precariously on Rancha's shoulders so he could press his hands to the ceiling. “It was something to do with resonances and a version of a hellbat's radar. I can feel the echoes. And we are about a mile straight down which makes tunnelling a little too hazardous and lengthy for my taste.”
“I could turn into a giant mole or something,” offered Rancha.
“Don't you have to be your big dragony thing first?” said Perci. “You would crush us!”
“You were doing so well. I am an urglon. Not a dragon. I would appreciate if you remember that. But, you raise a valid point, I'm stuck as a gargoyle for the foreseeable.”
They despaired while they all thought.
“Maybe Yrinny could teleport us all out? He is a strong sorceror!” said Pib, subconsciously half-curtseying towards the trickster.
“Hmm. I lack the supplies for such a heavy-duty spell. I could probably manage you, Pib, you are a handleable size...”
“I am okay to be handled!”
“...but I might miss and embed you in solid rock.”
They despaired a little more.
Terand was banging the back of his head softly against the wall. “Mebbe have the varmint grant the rock life. Force it to make a ladder up to the top.”
“Our leader would never make it all the way up,” said Rancha.
“Hey!”
“You would fall from exhaustion,” said Jocene matter of factly. Not to mention our elderly friends. I could tunnel out and survive the inevitable tunnel collapses, but then I am immortal and have hundreds of years to take my time over the job. If I have to.”
“Not ideal.”
Other plans were thought up and vetoed just as quickly and it looked like there was no way out until they got let out. The Pit was their home for the immediate future. After a while, they decided to follow Goe’s example and rest until the inevitable.
Yrinmet dimmed the light and they all fell into various examples of fitful sleep, except for Rancha of course, who was all alone with his thoughts in the confined space.
“When I get out of here,” he thought. “I really need a new job.”
Chapter 48
“To foil well, first take a large hammer and flatten your chosen metal evenly and thinly. Next, to thwart any imperfections, heat to the point of distraction and strike!”
- Ovani Trotkin, retired blacksmith trying fruitlessly to impart wisdom to his two-year old nephew, prior to the destruction of his town of Grailway, 3236 C.M.
Eric was reasonably worried. This was the first bunch of heroes that really stood a chance of overthrowing his ‘evil’ empire, least of all because they had Jocene the Immortal Slayer who was technically immune to fear with them. He had enjoyed her little lie about her identity, but it rankled that she even found it necessary. She was famous!
No, it was their nonchalant inventiveness that upset him.
He had found recently with those heroes that he did not kill outright, generally were worth keeping around in case there was a chance to convert some of them to his cause. Gods knew he needed to make up the troop numbers. Occasionally he had heroes imprisoned where he could keep an Eye on them, to see if they could be useful.
He had been watching this latest batch via the usual devious means, and had been reasonably impressed at their ideas for escape, and even more impressed that they had not wasted effort trying them out before realising they wouldn’t work.
He was tempted to torture/convert them on the spot when it occurred to him that the impending doom that would be bestowed upon them did not seem to worry them one jot. Previous groups had spent enormous amounts of time fretting and worrying about what was going to happen, which had jellied their minds nicely. This lot were totally devoted to their immediate needs and not much else. They didn’t even make a proper group of mismatched companions, for they were all loners to a man, aside from the elderly couple. There was something odd there too, something he could not place.
It was as if some unknown force had grabbed a highly qualified set of adventurers completely at random, slung them together, driven them by a cause introduced by (technically) a knight from the middle of nowhere and sent them packing to save the world.
Eric couldn’t figure that one out either. Most groups deliberately decided to save the world. These people really did have better things the
y would rather be doing.
He wondered if he should send down some anti-goblins to dispose of them right now, but a niggling little feeling at the back of his mind told him that this might be a bad idea. They would probably just end up with some fresh anti-goblin meat.
Eric pondered. He could leave them down there indefinitely, but as he had heard them say, at least one of them would survive the indefinite period, and would probably come and find him to thank him for the inconvenience. Besides, there was limited cell space of this type and much more powerful beasts needed containing. He had no doubt whatsoever in his mind that, given sufficient time, one if not all of them would escape. And nothing defeated fear better than rage.
He had to start working on them now.
Chapter 49
“Hope is irrelevant if you do not have any.”
- Lady Edinth during her 5th kidnapping of the year. 4098 C.M.
“…so the way I see it, there is only one way to get a mankfree to do that sort of thing, and that’s only if you put a peppermint or something on top of its nose.”
It was now a few hours later, and since the chill of the chamber made it difficult to sleep, the group was chatting aimlessly for lack of anything better to do. Perci was telling them about the delights of living in a castle, and the entertainment available; travelling circuses being one of them.
Regrettably, Yrinmet had served his time in his youth as the resident Trickster in one of these shows, and Terand had done security work against the lovely brigands such a caravan might encounter. For them a travelling circus was half a dozen people trudging alongside a gaudy wagon, travelling from village to village in order to get fed. As a result, they both had some inside experience and some unflattering opinions of Perci’s views.