~
They didn’t stop for several minutes, and moved at an almost reckless pace through the rusted prison. They only stopped when they heard the scurrying of feet behind them, then through the prison cells around them—their gruesome-looking savior—moving with animal-like deftness through the thin, twisted confines.
The massive, yellow eye, the width of two hands, stared back at them from beyond the bars two rows away. The black pupil shrunk to a pinhole as Taunauk raised the torch against the bars. Its skin was reptilian and spined at the joints, caked with rust-powder. Its limbs were abnormally long and thin, folded as it crouched low, yet it could reach up and grasp bars along the ceiling.
It flicked long, clawed fingers against the metal and hissed, “Avert the light.”
The barbarian grunted and palmed both the torch and his axe in one hand, such that the head of the axe blocked the light of the torch.
It approached with rodent-like dexterity, slipping through narrow gaps in the bars. It chattered its needle-thin teeth as it neared the final set of bars. The pupil of its puss-yellow eye half-filling it.
Helesys’s wand-arm whirred with steady power, elbow half-bent in anticipation.
“No closer, creature,” Taunauk said.
“You should thank me,” the creature said, its eye flitting between the two. A strip of black flesh hung from its mouth.
After a long moment, the elf replied, “Thank you for your diversion, but no closer.”
“Ah, you’re welcome, weaver.” Its words lingered in a hiss.
“Why did you help us?” she asked.
Its eye flitted back to the elf, moving rapidly down and up, lingering long on her right hand. It grasped the rusted bars that separated them, its fingers alone were over a foot long—it would’ve been nothing for the creature to stick its arm between the bars and reach her.
Helesys called upon her wand and felt arcane energy crackled between her fingertips. The creature’s dagger mouth opened and its pupil widened, nearly blotting out the yellow.
“Answer me,” she commanded, “and be careful your hand does not get you into trouble.”
Its fingers wrapped around the rusted bar. “I’ve never seen such a contraption.” Its words were a gentle hiss now as it was transfixed on her metal hand.
“You are a weaver?” she asked.
“Yes—no… I was. We were all many things, once.”
“Before this rusted prison? Or before the dungeon?”
The great yellow eye looked away from her wand-arm for the first time when she mentioned the dungeon. It stared at her for a long moment without speaking.
“This creature is of no help to us,” Taunauk said. “It is a hoarder. A seeker of treasure.”
“Shut your mouth, outlander,” the creature replied, lowering its gaze to the floor. “I have no business with those who commune with the dirt and with trees.”
“Then speak your peace quickly,” the barbarian grunted, the wooden torch creaking under his grip.
“What is your name?” Helesys asked.
The creature looked at her with its wide yellow eye. “My name was Lull.”
“Then Lull, we are leaving this place. The rusted prison and this dungeon soon after...”
Helesys had meant to continue the statement, but the creature’s mouth opened wide and curved into a smile filled with hundreds of crooked needle-thin teeth.
“What is the matter?” she asked, metal fingers bristling in anticipation.
“You will try to leave. You may even make it far, but you will find no exit. No means of escape—”
“I’ve heard enough of this,” Taunauk said. “I am leaving.”
Taunauk’s weight shifted and the rusted floor creaked ever so slightly. Lull’s fingers rose and fell upon the bar. “I will see you again,” it said. Then it reached out slowly for Helesys, reaching toward her right arm. It would be an easy thing for Lull to grab her.
Helesys’s wand-arm whirred to life as the thin, gnarled fingers grew close, as if it sensed the approaching danger. It would be an easy thing to destroy the creature. A single blast had decimated the fishman-weaver. One this close would leave nothing left of pitiful Lull.
The elf whispered, “Don’t make me—”
—Lull gasped as light spilled across the twisted hall. Taunauk had uncovered the torch and waved it near the bars. Scattered light fell across the thin, scaly demon.
“Be gone, creature. Trouble us no more,” the barbarian growled.
In a moment, Lull had scurried another row away and whispered, “Sometimes I’m here… Sometimes I’m somewhere else. But you will see me again.” The single yellow eye blinked and was gone. Lull’s scurrying footsteps disappeared across the rusted prison.
~
Minutes passed with nothing but the occasional groan of the prison beneath their feet. Helesys continued looking back over her shoulder and even holding her breath until she was absolutely sure they weren’t being followed.
Soft green light began to break through the prison. Helesys thought that maybe—somehow—they had reached the surface. That moonlight was washing through the twisted metal, giving it an underwater glow.
Instead she found moss.
Gently glowing moss-lined stretches of the walls and bars, muting and drowning out the orange rust that she had grown accustomed to. It would have been beautiful, except that now she was overcome by stillness. Without the threat of Lull or the floating squids, the prison was utterly empty.
Helesys found herself desperate to fill the void. “You didn’t have to be so short with Lull.”
Taunauk sighed. “That creature is not to be trusted.”
“That was plain to see, but we could have gotten information from it.”
“Twisted words from a twisted creature.”
“My point still stands,” the weaver replied.
“Animals do not think like us. It is a mistake to think so. Deadly mistake.”
“Did Lull seem like an animal to you?”
“...No.”
“Nor to I,” Helesys replied. “It seemed like a Terran or a twisted version of one.”
“It is no matter.”
“Of course it is. If Lull is really a Terran, then it could be of help to us. Perhaps it could tell us about this blasted place.”
“It is not to be trusted,” the barbarian repeated. “The most dangerous creatures are the ones that can talk.”
“What about those that refuse to talk?”
Taunauk grunted in
