True.
Clutching his sword, Guest fought savagely, turning himself onto his back as he was sucked into the murkbeast's mouth.
Clasping his sword with both hands, he turned the blade upwards.
Even as the murkbeast bit down.
The murkbeast munched down with full force, munched without thought, driving Guest Gulkan's sword upward through the roof of its mouth. The pain of this unprecedented wound sent it into spasms. Caught still in its mouth, Guest was trapped by the wet, pumping lubrication of the murkbeast's spasming organ of absorbtion. He was being stifled, pulped, crushed. He could not breathe. A huge heat was drowning him, was -
'Ya!'
The shout was the Witchlord's, a shout of wrath, a shout so loud that Guest heard it even in his confinement. With that shout, the Witchlord drove his sword deep into the murkbeast's guard- glutted stalk.
This rupture of its belly was more than the murkbeast could stand. Insane with pain, it vomited up the contents of its gut. Guest was ejected in a hurtling spurt which saw him thrown to the mud, with a rain of corpse-mash splattering down on him.
Then the murkbeast collapsed in a shuddering heap, and Lord Onosh grabbed his son and dragged him to safety.
'Gods,' said Guest, when his father released him. 'I'm – '
'Hush down,' said the Witchlord. 'Hush down, and still. Lie still, and rest… '
Whereupon his son, needing no further introduction, flopped like a rag doll. A very muddy, wet, disheveled rag doll. A barefooted rag doll.
Even after all the trauma he had so recently suffered, the Weaponmaster had wit enough to lament the loss of his boots, for an underground warren like the Stench Caves was sure to be prodigiously productive of things which could tear the feet.
'Well,' said Lord Onosh, at length, 'at least we're through the worst of it.'
'Are we?' said Guest.
'We got past the – the thing,' said Lord Onosh.
'The murkbeast,' said Guest.
'You had heard of it?' said Lord Onosh.
'I had not heard of it,' said Guest, 'but my many travels have made me adroit in putting names to unknown things. We will call it the murkbeast.'
'The eater of many men,' said Lord Onosh.
'Doubtless,' said Guest. 'But it can hardly have eaten everyone.'
Many people had quested into the Stench Caves in search of the cornucopia. None had survived. Guest doubted that a mere murkbeast could have been sufficient for the destruction of so many heroes – for, after all, the murkbeast had not proved a match for two brawny Yarglat barbarians, and some of those who had quested into the Stench Caves had gone in great companies, strongly armed and surely proof against all but the worst of violence.
'You are very much the pessimist today,' said Lord Onosh. 'So I hope you won't be too offended if I give you some good news.'
'What good news?' said Guest.
'I spy light,' said his father. 'White light. Over there.'
With that, Lord Onosh pointed in a direction which might have been north, south, east or west – there was no telling precisely which, for both Witchlord and Weaponmaster had got hopelessly turned around in their underground adventuring.
'It is white light, yes,' said Guest. 'A good change from this liquid vomit of green which pours down upon us. Very well, then. I am ready for the journey.'
'So let's be going,' said his father – spuriously, but the Witchlord found himself reluctant to let his son claim the initiative.
With that, the pair set off toward the white light, which grew to a steady promise, a promise which was fulfilled when they gained the safety of a tunnel smooth-walled, level, flat and warm.
In that tunnel, there was music – quiet music, not like the roiling measures of the musicians of Sung, but subtle easings reminiscent of the drift of the sea, and backed by a leisured pulse which spoke of the womb at midnight.
The light which lit this tunnel was that of mother-of-pearl: a gleaming gloss with something of the restfulness of gray about it. Into this restfulness there ventured the two Yarglat barbarians. Both had lost their swords in the battle with the murkbeast, though they still had knives, throwing stars, eye- gouging handscrews, darning needles and packets of pepper. And Guest still had – it was safe in a buckle-down sheath – the bead- tipped blade which he had stolen from the Mutilator.
Thus armed, the pair proceeded down the corridor, looking like two mud-besplattered lunatics who had escaped from an asylum by way of a swamp. They had the wary look of men for whom the world has become a place of hallucinatory shock, of untrustworthy delusion, of tripwire and deadfall.
Yet…
The swooming music continued its sundering lunder-munder melodiby, drowsing all with restfulness; and the tunnel was pleasantly warm, with the nondescript gray tiles assuming a similar warmth beneath Guest Gulkan's naked feet; and the way was clear, and…
'Stop,' said Lord Onosh. Guest stopped immediately.
'There's a… a rat or something,' said Lord Onosh.
'Where?' said Guest, looking down the corridor, which curved subtly as it disappeared into the distance.
'There's a door,' said Lord Onosh. 'Do you see it?'
Even as the Witchlord spoke, an animal ventured from a door some thirty paces away.
'It is a rat,' said Guest.
'A tame rat, perhaps,' said Lord Onosh.
'We'll see,' said Guest.
And with that, the two advanced upon the small creature, which made no move to run away. It was certainly built along the general lines of a rat, but as they approached it sat up on its hindpaws, and seemed quite comfortable in that posture. Guest studied the beast with caution, knowing that a wild animal that is over-friendly may well have rabies.
He remembered an episode from way back in his past, when, in the early years of his youth, he had ventured down from the Ibsen-Iktus Mountains in the company of the witch Zelafona, her dwarfson Glambrax and others. Glambrax had been bitten by a dog believed to be rabid, which had occasioned a great lecture from Sken-Pitilkin on the subject of rabies.
'This thing may be diseased,' said Guest. 'As the fox from the forest which licks your hand may be dooming you to death by rabies, so too may this thing.'
'Perhaps,' said Lord Onosh. 'But it looks a pleasant enough creature.'
This was so odd, coming from the Witchlord, that Guest Gulkan half-wondered whether the soothing background music had addled his father's head. But… well, it had to be admitted that the thing in front of them was certainly layered with cuteness, so much so that Guest was hardly sure whether it was any kind of rat at all.
'It's soft,' said Guest, who was by now almost within grabbing distance of the thing. 'And a little bit plump.'
'A rat well-fed,' said his father.
'I'm not a rat,' said the beast, sounding very offended.
The quokka spoke in Eparget, the very Yarglat tongue in which Witchlord and Weaponmaster had been conversing. To hear the creature speak shocked both barbarians to silence.
Lord Onosh sucked in breath through his teeth.
And Guest -Guest found himself sweating. He reminded himself that there are no such things as talking animals. Guest remembered Sken-Pitilkin telling him as much. There are no talking animals, just as there are no orcs, elves or leprechauns. They are things of fantasy, things which have no place in our world of mud and blood
