The Last Cleric

by Layton Green

  He filed the knowledge away, and Rucker shook his head. “What’s yer point? That’s still too far.”

  “Think about how we came in,” Adaira said. She pointed in the direction of the sewer grate. “In relation to the baths.”

  Val exchanged a confused look with Dida. Synne and Rucker also looked stumped, but Ferin pushed off the wall, excited. “The blocked tunnel. The sewer grate is right in line with the blocked tunnel.”

  Adaira tipped her head in acknowledgment. Her sense of direction was much better than his own, Val realized.

  “But have you the power to clear it without alerting the demons on the street?” Ferin asked. “Or collapsing the tunnel even further?”

  “Probably not,” Adaira said, and then looked at Val. “But he might.”

  After sneaking away from the abandoned house, the party hustled back to the collapsed portion of the tunnel. Once they arrived, Val examined the pile of rubble. Ferin had nailed the problem: any of the three mages might have cleared the debris, but doing so without collapsing more of the tunnel and alerting everyone within earshot—that was the trick.

  He considered the possibility of using magic to dig above or below the collapse, and try to create a parallel tunnel. The more he thought about that, the less practical it seemed. He was no geomancer, and even if possible, the process would consume too much energy. Nor did they know how far the collapse extended.

  Rucker proposed having Adaira or Dida create another tunnel collapse behind them as a diversion, then letting Val plow through the tunnel. Still too risky, but another option came to him.

  “Dida, how strong are your wards? If I were to lift the collapsed section of the tunnel a few feet into the air, could you support the weight?”

  Dida studied the tunnel. “Doubtful. It would depend on how far it extends. Given the height and width of the collapse, I estimate I could create a ward that would support the pile to a radius of ten feet.”

  Val considered his answer. “What about a moving ward?”

  “What? I don’t—oh. I see. Very clever.”

  “I don’t see,” Rucker said. “What the bloody hell are ye talking about?”

  “Can you?” Val asked Dida.

  The bibliomancer rubbed his narrow chin. “Yes. Yes, I believe I can. It will take some time, though.”

  Rucker raised his axe in a threatening manner.

  “I’m going to disturb the rubble as little as possible,” Val explained. “Both to reduce the chance of extending the cave-in, and to avoid notice from outside. I’ll lift and compress the pile enough for us to slide under, and we’ll crawl forward while Dida protects us with a moving ward.”

  “Ye want me to crawl on me belly underneath a few tons of rock and a ward he’s never used before?” Rucker said. “Do I look like a mad delver to ye?”

  “Dida,” Val said, “how certain are you about pulling this off?”

  The bibliomancer performed more calculations in his head. “Ninety-five percent, and we can pretest the weight. The issue is longevity. A moving ward, not static by nature, will require a great amount of energy. I estimate I can maintain the ward for one hundred and thirty seconds. Be warned, that will exhaust my magical reserves.”

  “That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Val said. “So, we go a minute out, and if we’re not out by then, we head back.”

  As Rucker shook his head, Ferin said, “I’ll risk anything to leave this cursed world.”

  Adaira squeezed Val’s hand in consent, and Synne agreed as well.

  Rucker snarled as he flung a hand at the rock pile. “Get on with it, then,” he said, then muttered, “I don’t like tight spaces. Got trapped inside a tube worm’s burrow in the Gobi desert once, for three days straight, with all its disgusting little worm babies. Never thought I’d see sunlight again.”

  As the old adventurer continued to mutter, Dida spent almost an hour fine-tuning the casting of the “Walking Ward,” as he dubbed it. With the others guarding the tunnel, Dida had Val lift a portion of the rock to get a sample of the weight, and then Dida performed whatever calculations genius bibliomancers performed in order to perfect the spell.

  “I believe I am ready,” Dida announced.

  “You believe,” Rucker said, “or you know?”

  “Can one ever be certain of anything?” Dida asked, with a sniff. “Val and Adaira and I will proceed first, in case the volume of rock should change. Be warned—you must stay right behind us. I compressed the diameter as much as possible to conserve energy.”

  As Rucker fumed, Val lay on his back at the edge of the cave-in, with Dida to his right and Adaira on his left. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Indeed,” Dida said.

  With a deep breath, Val focused his magic and lifted the pile of rubble two feet into the air. Though lighter in weight than the cave-in he had lifted off of Will in the abandoned clay mine, the tonnage was substantial.

  The difference lay in Val’s strength. He was a far stronger mage than before. It was not a simple matter to lift the rock pile, but neither did it expend as much energy as summoning Spirit Fire.

  Yet it wasn’t a single, quick lift. Once Dida inserted his invisible ward, Val and the others slid beneath the suspended pile of rubble and, with a leap of faith, Val released the rocks over their head.

  The ward held. Val breathed and lifted the next portion. On a count of three, the party slid on their backs or crawled on their stomachs, depending on their preference, as Dida moved the ward. Once they got moving, Val and Dida worked in tandem, Val lifting and releasing at the same time Dida edged the shield forward. Adaira was tasked with muffling the noise from the released piles, which she did by using a powerful reverse Wind Blast against the bottom of the rocks, easing them down. Still, anyone within earshot would hear the settling of the pile.

  Rucker had gone pale even before they started crawling, so Val tasked Synne with counting off the seconds. “Eighteen, nineteen,” she called out, after they had moved a dozen feet.

  The plan was working, but crawling on his back while maintaining the Walking Ward had taken a greater toll on Dida than he anticipated. “One hundred seconds more,” the bibliomancer said through clenched teeth. “That is my limit.”

  He shaved off ten seconds, Val realized.

  “Thirty-one,” Synne called out.

  “We go back at fifty,” Rucker called out. “Not a second more.”

  The pile of rocks and debris loomed inches from Val’s face as he crawled. He could see the mud and insects coating the bottom, smell the dampness of the stone. He focused on lifting and releasing in a regular rhythm. Lift release breathe. Lift release breathe.

  “Thirty-six!”

  The volume of Val’s next lift seemed less than before. “It’s thinning!”

  “Push,” Ferin said.

  “Forty-two!”

  Still no sign of the tunnel on the far side. Maybe Val had imagined the lighter load. If they had to crawl back, Dida would be spent, Val would be in rough shape, and they would be back at square one.

  “Fifty!”

  “Turn back,” Rucker said, through clenched teeth.

  “No!” Ferin said.

  Val debated for half a second, then decided to gamble. They could push harder on the way back, he told himself. Whatever it took. If they didn’t get through, they might not have another chance.

  He asked Adaira to use her Owl Sight, then focused his magic on raising the next portion of the cave-in, this time extending farther out than he had before, much farther than Dida’s ward would extend. Val knew they couldn’t go that far and still make it back, but if he could just reach the end . . . he probed even farther, testing the limits of his strength, lifting an enormous amount of rock a few inches off the ground, just enough to peek through—

  “I see it!” Adaira cried. “It’s not far ahead!”

  Val eased the rocks down with a shudder, then resumed the original plan, lifting a smaller portion while Dida inserted the ward.<
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  Fifteen seconds later, they were through.

  As Dida collapsed on his side, breathing hard, Adaira took a glow stone out of her pack and illuminated the new portion of the tunnel. Rucker lurched to his feet and paced back and forth, muttering to himself as he brushed off the soil.

  Dida clapped Val on the back. “Well played, my friend. A moving ward. I do believe you just supplied me with a graduation thesis.”

  Exhausted by his effort, Val couldn’t help but grin. Stuck in a world full of bloodthirsty demons, crawling through a sewer tunnel towards an uncertain fate, and Dida was thinking about his senior paper.

  Adaira squeezed Val’s hand. “How do you feel?”

  “Drained, but okay.”

  “What about ye?” Rucker asked Dida.

  The bibliomancer had taken a knee while he recovered. “I’m afraid the task took much more from me. One-quarter strength left, at best.”

  “We should move,” Synne said. “Our access to provisions and a safe haven is now lost.”

  Her comment caused the mood to sour. She was right. There was no going back.

  Axe in hand, hunched in a fighting stance, Rucker led the way through the unexplored portion of the tunnel. A hundred yards in, a grate appeared overhead, and Adaira floated up to check their position.

  “It’s the right way,” she said, excited. “We’re on a direct path to the bathhouse.”

  The walls had become slick with moisture and algae, and puddles started to appear on the floor. As they walked, the puddles morphed into a thin layer of murky, foul-smelling liquid, probably excrement. Before they knew it, they were wading through knee-deep muck, trying not to gag from the smell.

  Val noticed Rucker moving through the sludge more easily than anyone else, as if the soupy liquid wasn’t affecting his movements. Val asked him about it.

  “If ye think I’m all I appear to be,” the crusty warrior said, “then ye don’t know me very well.”

  Val had no idea what that meant, but Rucker refused to answer more questions.

  The sewer tunnel spilled into a round chamber easily a few hundred feet across. The narrow conduit continued on the other side, and four other tunnels exited the room at regular intervals. Val tested the water with his staff as they edged forward. The depth appeared unchanged.

  “Why don’t one of ye float us across?” Rucker asked. “I don’t like the looks o’ this.”

  “Wise counsel,” Synne said.

  As Val linked arms with Rucker, Adaira and Dida held Ferin between them. The mages took flight while Synne followed below, skimming atop the water with the floating jump-step of the majitsu.

  When they were halfway across, a creature the same color as the sewer muck rose out of the water. It had the broad flat face of a salamander, and its elongated torso sat atop a stubby tail that allowed it to slide back and forth through the water as if on wheels.

  Val started as five more of the creatures emerged, popping out of the water like jack-in-the-boxes, scooting back and forth and making glugging sounds as they watched the party.

  “Those are demon grub, not demons,” Rucker called out. “Just fly around them and don’t make contact. The skin is poisonous to humans.”

  “Perhaps they’re food,” Ferin said, unsheathing one of his scimitars, “but what’s eating them?”

  As if on cue, the strange creatures disappeared beneath the sludge, and a flurry of humanoid bodies covered in bristly gray fur rushed into the chamber from a pair of tunnels. A foot taller than Val and ropy with muscle, the demons had intelligent, rat-like faces and a ridge of sharp plates running down their backs. Each carried a short sword carved from bone, notched along the sides, and the rat-demons in the lead hefted spears of the same material. Without breaking stride, they tossed a barrage of spears at Val, Dida and Adaira, recognizing them as mages and knowing they were vulnerable during flight.

  The bone spears whizzed through the air and forced Dida and Adaira to crash into the muck, sacrificing flight to erect a Wizard Shield. Val tried to do the same but didn’t get his shield up in time. Just before a bone spear pierced him through the chest, Synne leapt in front of him and batted it away with a ridged hand.

  Val dropped into the thigh-deep filth of the cistern. The seven-foot tall rat demons rushed forward, tossing another round of spears as the party struggled to find their footing on the slimy bottom. The mages erected Wizard Shields in time, but one of the spears grazed Ferin on the arm, spinning him around. Rucker lowered his head as a missile shattered on his horned helm.

  “Rakatori!” Rucker shouted. “They’re clever fiends, so watch yerselves!”

  Val estimated there were a dozen of the creatures. Half stayed back to toss spears at the wizards, keeping them occupied, while the other half rushed to engage Synne and Rucker and Ferin. The rat demons looked formidable and intelligent, but Val would still bet on the team with three wizards.

  Until the rat demons’ own wizard stepped forward.

  Shorter and leaner than the fighters, wearing a tattered brown robe over his fur, the long-nosed rakatori mage raised his hands and swirled them in the air. A moment later, three balls of hardened muck rose out of the cistern and shot towards Val, Adaira, and Dida. The slimy globes of magic burst against the Wizard Shields and rocked the three of them back.

  A few more like that, Val thought grimly, and one will get through.

  He felt confident they could have taken the rat mage alone, but they also had to contend with the fighters throwing bone spears. If Val lowered his Wizard Shield, he risked opening himself up to a spear attack or the rakatori mage. He couldn’t maintain the shield the entire time—that was very draining—but the constant barrage kept him on the defensive. He guessed the rat demons planned to eliminate the party’s fighters, wear Val and Adaira and Dida down, and pick them off one by one.

  It was a sound strategy, except the party’s fighters were not normal fighters. Synne met the charge of the rat demons in front of one tunnel, and Rucker and Ferin stepped forward to defend the other. Ferin proved to be a vicious and dirty combatant, blocking the short sword of his opponent with one of his scimitars, then lowering to slice out the legs of the rat demon with his twin blade. The demon screeched and fell into the water, legs spurting green ichor.

  Despite Synne’s display of agility when she blocked the bone spear, Val guessed the rakatori had never seen a majitsu before, because they attacked her as if she were a slight, weaponless woman surrounded by a pair of hulking rat demons.

  They attacked her, and then they died.

  Synne hurled herself at the first attacker, hitting him with a flying kick to the chest before he could react. Her next kick drove through muscle and bone, throwing the demon back a dozen feet. Recovering impossibly fast, she spun and blocked a sword thrust with her forearm, then delivered a combination that snapped her attacker’s head back and dropped the rat demon like a thunderclap.

  Rucker was almost as impressive. Somehow he moved as if fighting on dry land, despite the fact the scummy water reached almost to his waist. Val had begun to suspect Rucker’s strange, multicolored ring afforded him freedom of movement in varying terrains and substances.

  After blocking the first swing with his spiked vambrace, Rucker stepped back and caught a rakatori in the chest with his battle-axe. The gleaming blade sliced through the demon as if it were air, leaving a trail of smoke where it passed. The scream of the rat-faced creature echoed off the walls. Val caught the corner of a grim, surprised smile on Rucker’s lips, and the warrior twirled his new blade and cut down the next demon.

  Just as Synne was about to finish off another attacker, the rat mage shot three spheres of hardened muck at her. She dodged the first two, but the third hit her square in the chest, sending her sprawling.

  Without thinking, Val flew across the cistern to help her. Two bone spears whizzed by his head, narrowly missing, and he erected a Wizard Shield just in time to protect himself and Synne from another round of projectiles
. He scooped her out of the water, holding her head in his arms as he continued to shield them.

  The remaining rakatori were squared off against Ferin and Rucker. With the rat mage distracted, Adaira stepped behind Dida’s shield and tried to slice through the throat of a rat demon. A green line appeared, but the skin must have been thicker or a different consistency from that of a human, because the rakatori kept fighting. Adaira tried a different tactic, sending waves of water crashing into the fighters, distracting them while Rucker and the black-sash gypsy cut them down.

  Yelling for Dida to protect Synne, Val advanced on the rat mage, picking up discarded bone spears from the muck and flinging them at the demon with his mind. This kept the rakatori pinned against the wall and forced him to erect a constant Wizard Shield. Before he could escape, Val saw a blur of silver and heard a loud thwack as Rucker’s axe buried itself into the back of the rakatori. Its spine severed, the rat mage fell to the ground, twitching as it died.

  The cavern fell silent. Val looked around. None of the rakatori was left standing.

  Rucker spat. “Filthy beasts. Got them all, at least.” He retrieved his axe and ran an admiring eye over the smooth surface. “Me and Demonbane, we’ll get along just fine.”

  Val rushed back to check on Synne. She had regained consciousness and was easing to her feet.

  “How bad is it?” he asked.

  She tried not to wince as she probed her chest and ribs. “I hardened my skin before it hit. A minor blow.”

  Hardly minor, he thought. It had knocked her unconscious. He knew that a Wizard Shield, though extremely useful, was no panacea. It took an enormous amount of energy to maintain and was susceptible to the magic of a stronger mage, or even an extremely powerful blow. The ability of a majitsu to harden his or her skin—a weaker form of a Wizard Shield—was meant to protect against fists and blades, not a blast of magic or a dragon’s claw.

  “We have half a jar of healing salve left,” he said.

  “Don’t be absurd,” Synne replied, gasping with the effort.