by Sean Heslin
They did not go to the Storeroom as hoped,; it was explained the place was on high alert, dishing out glass friendly weaponry and armed barricades.
“Glass friendly?” enquired Jocene.
“You know, flame-throwers, electric guns, that sort of thing. Nothing that fires projectiles,” said Ihjundas.
“Swords?”
“Even better,” he said with a devilish grin. “We have high intensity flaming swords with nanofibre edges. Those puppies will cut anything.”
Jocene nodded in approval.
“Can I have one?” said Terand.
“No.”
They came to the main tramline, which in this version of the palace/castle was a floating polythene pod that rode a beam of light. It looked unreasonably fragile, but when Pib gingerly stepped aboard she assured them it was solid as a rock.
The team were sped along to the Significant Exit room, then ushered to the long wall on the far left-hand side of the establishment, where a cart waited. They trundled along for a few minutes. It was starting to get dark. As they travelled further towards the back wall the light was gradually fading. Free-standing sconces and floor-mounted striplights served as illumination here, coating all they saw with an eerie flickering glow.
After a lengthy amount of time of bouncing around in the rattling cart, it dawned on the crew that they were going all the way to the back wall. They could no longer see the end of the hall they had entered by and the light quality here was negligible.
As they went even closer to the rear, Rancha noted something peculiar. The seven walls that spanned the length of the room did not reach the very back wall as he had always thought. The edifices seemed to run short a good fifty metres or so before the end, leaving quite a wide empty space. At the moment though, the area was less empty, for there were a fair number of work crews already setting up gantries and sandbags in preparation for the Chamber's defence. Other cart tracks were being used as shuttles for supplies and oxen were employed to power mobile cranes and generators.
All this was in aid of defending the most notable items in the vicinity, in the words of Terand:
“Those bloody doors are fnuging enormous!”
Four doors, side by side. Fifteen people could walk through at the same time without trouble. A duwaark would not bang its head on the way through. These massive portals were currently being severely reinforced with girders and deadbolts.
“Ihjundas?” said Rancha. Ihjundas turned round expectantly. “...Where...where exactly do these doors go?”
A troubled look passed over Ihjundas' face. “If I told you, you would not believe me. I am afraid I will have to show you.” The group left the cart at the end of its rails, where it was immediately commandeered by a worker and rattled off into the distance.
Perci swallowed uncomfortably. Sounds and air did not feel right here. It was like sitting at the bottom of a lake, and just as spooky.
Ihjundas did not head towards the large doors as expected. Instead, after a few muttered words with a supervisor, he turned and walked a short way back along the corridor they had just travelled down. The wall here did not have as many exits on its length as those near the entrance. There were blank patches in the patchwork and the little blackboards had not been used. The crew were led up several flights of gantries and stopped by a heavily bolted portal, yellow and black stripes painted upon it, intimidating in its aspect. The identifying plaque said simply 'Watchtower'.
“We going through here then?” said Perci.
Ihjundas nodded silently and looked deeply troubled. Then he sighed. “Let us get on with it then, the sooner I show you, the sooner I can leave. Excuse me, sir,” he added, addressing Goe who had been attempting to sleep on the railing. Ihjundas shuffled over to the door and pulled out a key. He looked back over his shoulder briefly.
“If you want to run away, now is the time to do it,” he said.
Jocene and Terand kept a firm grip on Perci's shoulders.
Ihjundas undid the padlock adorning the portal, and pulled back a pair of industrial deadbolts. Then, straining with the effort, he pulled...
A moment of displacement.
...it open.
A wall confronted them. Yellowish red brick, grey mortar, tough to talk to, a wall.
“Oh blast,” said Ihjundas. “I'd forgotten about this. Can somebody nip downstairs and fetch someone with a sledgehammer?”
Jocene volunteered and vaulted away down the stairs.
“What's going on?” asked Rancha.
“After the last attempt to break through, we discovered a couple of stealthy demons had snuck through this way while everybody was occupied down there. Caused weeks of havoc. A lot of good people died catching them.” A slight tear welled in Ihjundas' eye, and there was a solemn moment of contemplation. Rancha, concerned, touched his friend on the shoulder, but Ihjundas waved him off.
“But never mind that now,” he said wiping his face. “Where's that sledgehammer?”
A few moments later a heavyset man arrived, bearing a portable rock drill. He set to swift work and the brickwork fell away in chunks. On the other side was a dark corridor with light filtering through gaps in the opposite wall.
“Keep an eye on this door will you?” said Ihjundas to the man with the drill. “I'll be back in five minutes and would appreciate if there was a quick way back home”
The guy smiled in obedience and stationed himself, reclined against the nearby rail. Ihjundas told the group to follow and went through the aperture. After a short distance down the broken corridor, they came to a simple heavy cloth flap, with the wind whistling around the edges.
“This is your last chance to leave. If you really don't want to know what is on the other side of this sheet. And believe me, I truly wish I did not know. Too many souls were lost that day.” Ihjundas looked close to tears again, but nobody spoke. He nodded mournfully and pulled back the flap.
“Oh my...” began Milspeth, but stopped, horror on her face.
Nobody else said anything.
They stood on a walkway that ran around the top of a tall yellowish tower, which stood at the epicentre of one of the world's greatest cities. Or at least they would have been standing there, had they arrived a few thousand years earlier.
They did stand at the top of a tower, but all that was left of the vast city were uncountable sets of foundations, smoothed by the weather, stretching into the distance on all sides. Much of the landscape was course sand, and beyond the boundaries of the former mighty city walls, all was naught but bare, inhospitable land. In some of the closer buildings they spotted bleached bones sticking out of the rubble, but whether they were from man or beast, none present could tell. The silence was all-pervading, only the grim wind showed that what they were seeing was real and not some tortured nightmare.
“This was the great city of Froob,” said Ihjundas quietly behind them. “Once it was the centre of all civilization, much of what was achieved here has lasted for generations.”
Perci was uncertain how to frame his thoughts. “What happened here?” he asked, gazing out over the desolation.
Ihjundas took a deep breath to steady himself. “About thirty years ago a man styling himself as a dark ruler led his armies here to do pretty much what Eric is about to do.” He leaned over the edge and pointed downwards. The group could just about see the top of one of the giant doors that led back to the palace/castle. There was one on each side of the tower below their very feet.
Ihjundas continued with his eyes tightly pressed together. “The city was flourishing the day he arrived, and many, many battles were fought to stop him. Then, there was an explosion of some sort. Nobody knows for sure what it was, but the results you can see for yourself.” He gestured out over the rubble, the bare foundations, the lack of anything alive. “As I said before, many souls were lost that day and there is no way to reverse this devastation. Believe me, we tried. But the city of Froob nor its inhabitants will never be seen again.”
/> He sighed, and suddenly looked very old.
“Er...”
“Yes, Perci?” he said without looking up.
“You said this happened thirty years ago?”
“I did.”
“Although Froob was destroyed some two thousand years ago.”
“It was.”
“Isn't there a slight discrepancy here?”
“There is.”
“There is?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Go on then, explain it.”
“I cannot. History records that Froob was indeed razed to the ground about two thousand years ago in an unforeseen earthquake. History also records that an unknown explosion destroyed Froob thirty years ago. Both are true and the city was never rebuilt between the two events.”
“Why not?”
“Nothing can live here for more than a week. There is something here that prevents it.” He pointed off to their side and for the first time, they noticed a skeleton sat next to the wall along the walkway, bony hands still clutching a pair of binoculars. Pib squealed in fright.
“That was one of our early watchers. We originally started to send people up here to give us advance warnings of any future attacks, but they came off their shifts strangely ill. Then one day we found this poor soul dead at his post, and well...”
“Why didn't you bury him properly?” demanded Milspeth. “You just left him here to rot?”
Ihjundas smiled thinly. “It is a mark of respect for the man in question. He was devoted to his duties, and even in death, he guards us still. We remember him in our prayers.”
They stood a moment regarding the grisly spectacle. Then a gust of the chill wind brought them back to their senses.
“I will leave you here now. If Eric's army does not arrive in the next four days, use this.” He presented Terand with another amber globe. “After I am gone, the door will lead to a room containing beds and food supplies so you will not starve. Remember, four days or you will become quite ill, even you Jocene, so I strongly advise you to return by then.”
“Wait a minute!” cried Perci. “You are just going to leave us here to wait for Eric to turn up, without so much as a la di dah?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Don't worry they will probably turn up before the end of the day so you won't be waiting long. I have to go and supervise the blockades now, so if you will excuse me...”
And he left. Just like that.
“Well...!” spluttered a highly indignant Master Yansul.
“Oh, be quiet and have some alcohol,” said Terand offering Perci his hip flask before taking a healthy swig himself.
“Any immediate danger of being attacked?” said Jocene, abrupt
Yrinmet glanced around at the still desolation. “Doesn't look like it.”
“Then I'm going inside for some sleep. Wake me up if anything good happens.”
“That's a good point,” said Rancha. “What time is it? I've lost track with all this travelling around.”
“Well, it was evening when we left the Chasm, but it was midday at that castle place,” said Yrinmet shaking some contraption on his wrist.
“Where is Froob?” asked Pib from the shadow of the wall.
“Do you know, I have absolutely no idea,” said Rancha. “I'm guessing it is in roughly the same time zone as the Exit Chamber, but as to the continent or country...?” he shrugged. “Best not to worry really. Volunteers for the first watch anyone?”
“I'll do it,” said Terand dubiously picking up the skeleton's discarded binoculars. “I've nothing better to do now. Besides you are paying me...” He held out his hand, grinning meaningfully. Sighing, Rancha relieved Perci of the gem pouch bag and paid the man with a pair of smallish kintstones.
“A pleasure doing business,” said Terand, before making himself comfortable.
The others went through the flap indoors and beyond, through the door which had until recently had led somewhere quite different. They found Jocene lying on a couple of blankets in a corner, already snoring gently. She had taken off the upper half of her armour, leaving a tight-fitting shirt that made Perci gibber when he saw it.
Rolling her eyes, Milspeth smacked the back of the knight's head and went to investigate the barrels of supplies on the other side of the room. Pib tried to go to sleep too, but complained that she could not manage it during the day. Goe walked in a small circle for a few moments then starting snoozing where he stood. Yrinmet produced his book and began quietly leafing through it. Rancha amused himself by turning his hands into miniature urglon talons. All in all, the scene was one of quiet peace.
Two hours later, Milspeth dished out food that she had discovered and Terand wandered to let Pib relieve him on guard duty, she moaning about restlessness.
An hour later, Pib came back in, muttering about spookiness so Yrinmet was voted for the next watch.
Later, it was Rancha's turn, so he transformed into his natural shape and perched on top of the tower's flat roof. There was no sign of the army so he was unreasonably bored.
It was then Perci's vigil. Half an hour later he came back in.
“Looks like there's a storm coming. A weird one.”
Yrinmet looked up from his reading. “How do you mean? Strange colour or something else?”
“Well, that too. But what I meant was it seems to be coming from all directions at once. Like a big circle along the horizon.” Perci waved his hands in a circular shape.
“Perhaps its some sort of advance attack,” suggested Jocene. “Clear out the defences before the army gets here.”
“I've heard of things like that,” nodded Yrinmet. “War spells. I've tried a few over the years but they need a shi...”
Milspeth raised her eyebrow.
“...an awful lot of power,” he finished lamely. “And by the sounds of it, this one would be quite difficult if it covers the horizon.”
Rancha stood and brushed off his trouser legs. “Let's go and have a look then.”
They filed out onto the battlements and stared out across the wasted expanse. There did indeed appear to be a dark line that quite literally went around the whole horizon.
“Hmm,” said Terand peering through the binoculars.
“What?”
“Doesn't move very fast. Won't get a good view for a while.”
“Guesses to what it is?”
“Well, it could be a storm,” hazarded Terand, uncertainly scratching his forehead.
“Yrinmet!”
“Hello?” said he.
“Anything in your bag of Tricks that will help us get a look at this thing?”
Yrinmet frowned in thought for a moment. Then he turned away, and turned back again holding his book, which he proceeded to flick through while Pib took a turn at the binoculars.
“Ah! Here we go. It's a modification of the one I used to look through the walls at the Fortress. With your permission?”
Rancha indicated he should go right ahead. Yrinmet shut his eyes and muttered for a while. He made defined arm motions, designating this bit of space and this set of dimensions. Then he turned the enchantment loose and lo, there was a shimmering patch of air, which he pointed at the horizon.
The magnification was quite remarkable and the crew were treated to a close-up view of a particularly hairy nostril.
“Ugh, zoom out! Zoom out!” said Pib.
“Sorry, my fault,” said the illusionist, gesturing further.
The image pulled back a fair distance, showing them a picture of pure fear.
“Oh dear,” said Milspeth.
In absolute silence, Yrinmet walked the puckered air right the way around the tower with the group gawking along like a class of schoolchildren in a museum.
Terand sagged to the ground first. “We're screwed!”
“I have to agree,” said Yrinmet, collapsing the air viewer. “There is no bloody chance in…let's see...an ait's chance in a watertight cage of hungry aardmawks. Yes, that's a good
one.”
Jocene also sat down. “Unfortunately I agree also. I may be immortal, but I have my limits.”
“Damn it all,” said Rancha.
Milspeth and Goe held onto each other.
Pib just sat and quivered.
Perci, look from one to the other, to the other. He looked quite puzzled. “Come on you lazy shnotdwars! We can easily take on them all! It is my divine right to save the world, and you are my worthy companions! We are heroes! We cannot lose!”
“Perci,” said Rancha gently. “There are fnuging millions of them. There are very few things divine or otherwise, that can that little lot on. And we don't have another army or a few nuclear bombs, so we are probably stuffed.”
“Probably?” said Perci, seizing on the word.
“Are,” said Rancha. “But nice sentiments though.”
“Wonder if we can use sentiment as a weapon,” said Jocene, her tone exceedingly and neutral dry.
“How about a sing-song?” said Pib from Terand's lap.
“Huh, go on then,” said Rancha. “Goe? Do the honours will you?”
Goe nodded and smiled sweetly, twinkling at Milspeth. She tutted at him but seemed pleased at the mild flirtation. Counting in, they launched into a heart-rending duet, which spoke of hope, loss, honour and freedom. It was simply beautiful, and had them all humming in time to the floating melody. For a few minutes, there on top of the lonely tower in the ruins of a civilization, they had an island of peace and understanding, sharing the one thing they had in common. They were alive.
As with all good things, this one had to come to an end. The soulful tune reached the last note, jerking them all back to the reality of the situation.
The dark ring was beginning to take on form. Jagged edges were visible and odd glints from reflective surfaces.
“All right,” said Terand. “Let’s think of what we can do.” He squinted professionally over at the horizon. “I give them maybe half an hour to be inside arrow range, and ten minutes after that to be at the gates.”
“Forty minutes to live,” said Yrinmet cheerfully. “I've had worse threats.”
“Do you think we will be okay, Yrinny?” said Pib. “I mean, I’m not very good at fighting, but I can try!”