by GM Gambrell
Thirty Two
The Pit was neither fun nor full of socializing people.
It was, however, hotter even than the dungeons. The prisoners worked alongside great vats of green streaming sludge that flowed through troughs in the giant cavern. The sludge dripped down from hundreds of pipes in the cavern’s ceiling, joining the rest with steady wet thumps. The prisoners, along with dozens of Golems, shoveled the green slop out of the troughs and into bins that ran alongside a conveyor belt. Where the waste went, he had no idea, and he wondered why they just didn’t run the bins under the pipes and eliminate the need for prisoners and Golems to shovel it.
“That smell,” Jessica complained, plugging her nose.
“It smells like roses in the morning!” Simon exclaimed, yanking a shovel from the rack on the wall. “A pure pleasure only the greatest of wizards gets to experience.”
It stank worse than anything he’d ever smelt, a combination of rotted meat and ruined vegetables mixed with a sprinkle of sewer waste. It was an overwhelming stench made worse by the extreme heat. Still, it bothered Duncan were so much heat was generated. The Ancients had spent vast amounts of natural energy to generate heat in order to boil water and drive turbines for electricity, but New Atlantis had none of that. The city didn’t run on electricity, it ran on magic. But something, down here in the Pit, was generating enough energy to boil the waste.
“It’s bad, I know,” he said, taking a shovel from the rack by the wall. He ripped his sleeves off his shirt and fashioned impromptu masks for them to try and filter out the smell.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the mask.
He handed her a shovel and told her, “Follow me.”
“We’re not shoveling?”
“No.”
Jessica mimicked him as he pretended to shovel, the pair slowly working down the line. None of the other prisoners would even look at them, but Simon, at a safe distance, repeated what they were doing, following them. Duncan grimaced, wondering what the man was doing, but as long as he was quiet and didn’t attract the attention of the Magistrates, he’d leave it alone and deal with it wherever they ended up.
“Where are the newcomers?” Felix the guard ordered from much further down the line.
Duncan started to panic and then wished he and Jessica were invisible. If they could just be unseen for a few more moments, he thought, they could make the unguarded exit at the rear of the chamber. Simon laughed aloud, closer to them now.
He whispered, “I knew you were magical.”
Duncan spun around to see what the man was talking about, but panicked when he didn’t see Jessica. He started to scream out when Jessica gasped.
“Duncan,” he heard her slight whisper, “I can’t see you.”
His heart raced with the implication. He’d wished they’d become invisible and they had. Felix barreled down the gantry way towards them, bellowing.
“Who used unapproved magic? When I find you I’m going to rip you limb from limb. You’re dead…do you hear me? Dead.”
Simon winked out of existence too and giggled. “This is fun.”
Duncan didn’t think so and was in an absolute panic. If Felix found them performing magic, he’d have them killed, not to mention the fact that he was performing magic, which was a whole other problem in of itself. He found Jessica’s hand and then froze as the oversized Magistrate walked right by them. He paused for just a moment and Duncan was certain they’d been found out, but then he kept moving. He talked himself into breathing again and then continued down the gantry way to the side exit. The metal door was nearly rusted shut and had a spin lock like on a ship or submarine. He tried to turn it to the left, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Help me,” he told both Simon and Jessica.
The wheel suddenly spun freely and easily and in a few seconds they had the door open and were on the other side. He shut it as quickly and quietly as he could and then wished that they were visible again. Simon blinked into existence and smiled.
“It just needed a little magic.”
Jessica was staring at him, the look on her face a mixture of confusion and panic. “You really did magic, didn’t you, Duncan?”
“I didn’t mean to. I just wished we were invisible and we were.”
“It’s really that easy for them to just get whatever they desire, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Duncan agreed, “but I don’t know how I made it work. Magicians train for years to do even the simplest teleportation spells. Their entire first year is almost just that, learning to teleport so that they can go up to the next floor, which is the next grade. It takes a Magician child years just to learn to conjure food. There isn’t any way I can make us invisible within a few hours of gaining the ability.”
“Maybe you’re just a natural,” Jessica suggested and a little of the fear in her voice was gone. He knew what she was worried about. Now that he had magic, would he still support her? What was in their future?
“No,” Simon said simply, his sanity restored at least momentarily, “you are able to perform at full level because we keep getting closer to the Source.”
“What does it look like?” Duncan demanded. “How will we know it when we see it?”
“You will know and it will know you.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means.” Simon’s attitude had changed once they were out of the cell. He was much more subdued and sane sounding, though he was still speaking in riddles. Duncan wondered if he’d feel at home with NAME. The two could talk circles around each other, not ever actually meaning anything.
“Let’s go,” Duncan said, leading them further into the tunnel and into the heat.
The tunnel changed as soon as they got away from the door, changing from magical steel to natural rock. Small electric lights lit the path as the tunnel snaked away from the waste processing area, twisting and turning, but always sloping downwards. The further they walked down, though, the hotter it got, as if they were walking towards the very core of the planet.
“I can’t go on,” Jessica said, steadying herself against the smooth stone wall. She was drenched with sweat and looked ready to pass out.
Duncan collapsed next to her. It felt like walking through an oven set to broil. His vision was clouded, and all he could think about was water.
Simon, on the other hand, looked unaffected. “Why don’t you use your magic to cool?”
“What?”
“Wish it.”
Duncan nodded and wished for two canteens of cold water and seconds later there they were. He handed one to Jessica and then drank sparingly from the second, trying not to overdo it, knowing that if he did, he’d throw it right back up. He then imagined he and Jessica surrounded by ice-cold air. A blue mist swirled about them, but it was so hot in the tunnel, it cancelled out the effects of the chilled air. Instead of being cold, the air was room temperature and comfortable. They sat and rested awhile anyway, sipping water.
“It can be handy, can’t it?” Jessica asked, referring to the magic.
“I guess. I still don’t want it.”
“But couldn’t you fight them with it? Couldn’t you make changes from here?”
“I wouldn’t be very powerful once we were away from the Source, and even if I was, I don’t want to stay here. I don’t belong here.”
“No one belongs here,” Simon said, interrupting. “This place is as unnatural as the Source.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Duncan began. “Or you’re lying.”
“I suppose we’ll both find out, won’t we?”
Duncan didn’t answer him and instead stood, comforted by the water and the cooler air. They proceeded forward down the narrow tunnel. The electrical lights stopped and Duncan conjured them flashlights. He wondered how the objects, built of basic science, functioned while created of magic. Or were they like the Golems? Were they summoned from some ancient store of flashlights and he just thought he’d cre
ated them?
They walked the rest of the day, always turning and always heading in a general downward direction. Duncan had to recast the cooling spell several times. The deeper they went the hotter it got, and eventually they no longer needed the flashlights as even the stone glowed dull red. There was no way Jim could ever approach the Source, he thought, no way the ancients without magic could have gotten near it. It just wasn’t humanly possible.
“We’re there,” Simon said simply as they entered a massive cavern many miles below the city of New Atlantis. The great pipes from the mainland that glowed dull blue and then absolutely shone once they reached the magical island all came together in the gigantic cave, all leading down and over the edge into a great chasm. Duncan leaned over the edge and looked down. The pipes ended and spewed out a blue mist that contrasted with the red burning stones and cast eerie shadows about the cavern.
“That’s the life force of the planet,” Duncan said, pointing to the piping. “That’s why there’s the Creeping Death and where their magic comes from. They suck the life out of the world and pump it here, feeding whatever monstrosity lies at the bottom of this pit.”
“Indeed,” Simon said softly. “It is all our lives pouring in like so much wasted water.”
Duncan leaned over the edge of the narrow walkway and gasped.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked, not able to take his eyes from what lay at the bottom of the underground cavern.
“Hello, old friend,” Simon said, leaning over the edge along with Duncan. “I see you’ve grown.”
The Source of magic was a living, breathing creature, but a creature unlike anything he’d ever seen. It was formless, filling the cavern like mud, and easily a half-mile long and a mile wide. Its burnt orange skin was dotted with thousands of eyes that glowed dull blue like Simon’s and the other prisoners who’d spent a lot of time in the dungeon. The thing’s body filled every nook and cranny in the cavern and rippled like the waves on the ocean, sending the thousands of eyes
“What is it?” Jessica asked. “It looks like a giant orange mud puddle with eyes.”
“It’s not from this world,” Duncan said knowingly. “It’s not of earth.”
“It was much smaller when it fell from the sky,” Simon told them. “When I picked it up it was only a little orange rock. I thought it might be gold.”
“What do you mean I?” Duncan asked, not looking at Simon, but still staring over at the Source.
“I means me. Me is I.”
The eyes blinked rapidly and focused on Duncan, and then the creature screamed, its shriek reverberating in the scalding hot cavern and forcing the three to cover their ears.
“I think it saw me,” Duncan said, and then had to repeat himself nearly at a scream just to be heard.
“No,” Simon said, “we are ants to it. Insignificant. Something else is happening.”
The blue mist that dripped from several of the pipes slowed to a trickle and then stopped completely. The pipes themselves no longer glowed blue and instead quickly began to glow red from the extreme heat the Source put out. The entire quivering mass of the Source screamed again and surged upwards like pop being forced from a cola bottle. They ducked back as it convulsed, stepping back into the tunnel. The Source was in abject agony without the constant flow of life force from the main lands. The piping began to steam as its metal heated up.
“Fix. Fix. Fix. Fix. Fix. Fix. Fix.”
The Source repeated the demand over and over, both audibly and in their heads. It sounded like a petulant little child, screaming for a favorite toy to be repaired.
“I think we need to get out of here.” Duncan said, dragging Jessica behind him and sprinting back up the tunnel.
Simon stood for a moment, staring down at the Source. “It’s almost over, old friend. Almost over.”