Tome of the Undergates

dying fortress seem the logical choice? Greed? Some bizarre, misplaced desire to do the proper thing? No, he told himself, that doesn’t work for adventurers.

A lust for some breed of unpleasant death, then?

That seems more likely.

Whatever the reason, the stone did not answer. With no more hope to drive him to beat answers out of it, he sought to bring it down with his head. Sighing, he rested a hot brow against cold rock, giving up on it as he had given up trying to find a way out of the forsaken chamber.

He had wondered, when panic had dissipated and calm prevailed, if there was a mechanism of some kind to make the slab rise. After all, he had thought, something must have made it fall. That hope was foetid and rotting now as calm gave way to futility. He swept his gaze about the large, circular room; if such a device existed, he’d never find it.

What floor there was extended ten paces before him into a stubborn outcropping of rock. The rest had long disappeared, swallowed up by a pool of black water that writhed like a living thing. Torches burning emerald lined walls that rose high to form a domed ceiling, glistening with a macabre shimmer of green and ebon.

Whatever had operated the slab before was long-decayed or long-drowned.

The meek thought of searching the waters had been banished long ago. Black enough to eat even the emerald light, there would be no way of finding anything in its depths. The thought of something lurking in there, like the somethings he had seen lurking in brighter waters, was just one more reason to stay on land, however meagre.

Logic and sense abandoned to futility, he turned and, with nothing else productive to do, screamed.

‘KATARIA!’

He froze. His echo was joined.

A melodic giggle reverberated through the chamber, bouncing off walls like a chorus of tinkling bells. The harmony was tainted, however, as though those bells were scratched and cracked. He felt it, rather than heard it, slithering across the water, over the stone, through the leather of his boots and into his skin.

He whirled, eyes narrowed, hand on sword. Nothing but stale air and flame shared the room. Or rather, he corrected, shared the part of the room he could see. With the laughter ringing in his bones, he felt his gaze going ever wider, pulled to the water.

‘No,’ he muttered, ‘not a chance.’

The giggle emerged once more, twisting in the air and becoming a stinging cackle. It rang familiar in his ears; his face twisted into a scowl.

‘Greenhair.’

At the accusation, the laughter became a horrid, shrieking mirth, loud enough to urge his hands to his ears. Resisting, he instead slid his sword from its sheath and snarled at the water.

‘And what’s so damn funny?’

‘If you knew, it wouldn’t be quite so.’

The voice was alien and convoluted, as though it couldn’t decide what it wanted to convey. It was deep and bass, but tinkled like glass, and carried with it a shrill, mirthful malice.

‘Tell us,’ it spoke, ‘what drives the landborne to try the same thing over and over and expect different results?’

Lenk arched a brow. Wherever the speaker was, it seemed to see this.

‘You have been pounding at the stone for some time.’ It sighed. ‘Have you not yet realised it moves by will? Our will?’ It giggled and spoke at the same time. ‘All moves at our will, at Her will, earth and water alike.’

‘You haven’t moved me.’ He spat into the water.

‘Haven’t we? You drew your horrid metal at the sound of our song.’

‘Conceded,’ Lenk muttered, ‘but it’s no great accomplishment that the sound of your voice makes me want to jam something sharp into you.’ He raised the weapon in emphasis. ‘Show yourself so we can get this over with.’

‘Curious. What is it that drives you to fight? To think that we wish to fight you?’

‘I’ve been doing this sort of thing long enough to know that if someone’s referring to themselves as “we”, they’re typically the kind of lunatic I’ll have to kill.’

‘Astute.’

‘Time is too short for that sort of thing, you understand. ’

‘One would think all you have is time, unless we decide to move the stone.’

Lenk ignored the echoing laughter that followed, searching the waters for any sign of the speaker.

The stirring began faintly, a churn in the water slightly more pronounced than the others. He saw a dim shape in the gloom, the inky outline of something moving beneath the surface. Soon, he saw it rise, circling at the very lip of the rock.

It was when he saw it, so dark as to render the void pale, that it dawned on him.

‘Deepshriek. .’

‘The servants of uncaring Gods and the blind alike have spoken that name,’ the creature replied, its voice bubbling up from the gloom. ‘To others, we are Voice and Prophet to Her Will. The landborne forgot all those names long ago, however.’ Its voice was quizzical. ‘Tell us, what green-haired maidens have you been consorting with?’

‘Hardly the point.’

‘The point? The point?’ It became wrathful, a great churning roar that boiled to the surface. ‘What heathen consorts with blasphemy with such casualness? Such callousness? ’

‘Yeah, I hear that a lot.’

‘Speak to us.’ The black shape twisted towards his outcropping. ‘What did she promise you in exchange for vengeance? Treasures of the deep, perhaps, the laden gold of the drowned? Or were you overcome with sympathy for her plight? Perhaps she appealed to your love of false, uncaring deities.’ Its voice became a slithering tendril, spitefully sliding up from the deep. ‘Or are you the breed of two-legged thing that lusts to lie with fish- women?’

‘I’ve come for the tome.’

The shape froze where it floated. The voice fell silent, its pervasive echo sliding back into the deep.

‘You cannot have it.’ It spoke with restrained fury.

‘Landborne. . you all covet things you have no desire to learn from, you seek to steal them from their proper authority.’ Its echo returned with a tangible, cutting edge that seeped into flesh and squeezed between sinew. ‘Do you even know what holy rites this book contains?’

‘I don’t care,’ he snarled through gritted teeth. ‘I gave my word I’d return it.’

‘Your word is an iron weight in deep water. What is your true purpose to come with such heresy in your heart?’

‘One thousand pieces of gold,’ he answered without hesitation.

‘Meagre riches!’ the Deepshriek roared. ‘Fleeting! Trifling! They give you pleasures you will forget and in exchange forsake your purity and chastity. You would trade power, the power to return the Kraken Queen to her proper seat for shiny metal? There are infinite worlds of golden garbage in the deeps, forever clenched in the drowned hands of those who would die with it. You are no different.’

‘I haven’t been paid yet. If I die, I won’t even have gold to drown with.’ The irony was lost on him in a sudden fury. ‘I’ve seen what comes out of the deeps. I’ve seen it die, too.’

‘So it was you,’ the Deepshriek seethed from below. ‘I heard the cries of the Shepherd as you callously cut it down. And so did Mother Deep hear the wails of Her children.’

‘I didn’t kill it,’ he replied, ‘but I put a sword in it. That’s one thing I can do to demons.’

‘Demon?’ It loosed an infuriated wail. ‘Demon? A word birthed by the weak and covetous to rail impotently against the righteous. You display your ignorance with such callousness. ’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You are blinded and deafened by hymn and terror for your false Gods. You would deny your place in the endless blue. You were not there, as we were, in ages past when Great Ulbecetonth reigned with mercy and glory for Her children.’