thought.
He pushed that disconcerting thought aside and concentrated on his discovery. Scuff marks around the hole's perimeter and on the tunnel's lid told of a recent passing. Helain must have fallen into the hole; that would account for her sudden disappearance. Rather than climb back out, she'd simply plunged forward into the narrow, gradually sloping passage.
Ganelon climbed down into the dark. The creatures that had dug the tunnel had been smaller than men, but the way was just wide enough for him to proceed on hands and knees. He hesitated at the opening for a moment, wondering whether it would be best to leave the exit clear in case he needed to retreat in a hurry or replace the lid, so no other creatures would follow him into the tunnel. In the end, he decided to push the cover back into place. Should anything confront him underground, he'd have no chance to escape.
The tunnel's cramped quarters and lightless murk didn't bother Ganelon; his time in the pit at Veidrava had acclimatized him to those conditions. The smell most certainly did. Whatever creatures traveled in the tunnels did not wait to go aboveground to relieve themselves. Worse still, they seemed to devour their victims on the move, leaving behind gnawed bones and rotting flesh on their retreat to the Fumewood. That no rats or other scavengers ventured into the tunnels to claim these prizes did not escape Ganelon's notice, but he tried hard not to think about the reasons for their absence.
Ganelon felt the tunnel open up occasionally to the left and right. These spurs confirmed his suspicion that the buffer was laced with a network of cramped tunnels. He could only hope that Helain hadn't strayed from this route, wherever it led. If she had, he might never find her. Still, whenever he came upon an intersection, Ganelon paused to listen for some hint of her position.
It was during one such pause that he first noticed the snuffling. Something farther back in the tunnels was testing the air. It made a sound like a hound following a scent. Ganelon recognized the noise, but it sounded weird enough for him to guess that it was no dog there in the dark.
He tried to fight the panic, tried to push forward. Every time he moved, though, he lost the sound of the tracker. When that happened, his imagination placed the thing at his heels. He could almost feel its unseen hands wrapping around his ankles, its jaws locking on his aching legs. The tunnel was too cramped for him to fight back. Even if he could get turned around to face the thing, he had no weapon. He'd left the shop without so much as a kitchen knife.
At an intersection he paused once more. The awful sound came from both directions, louder now and undercut with a throaty chuckling. They- whatever they might be-were closing in on him.
He scrambled forward. Each scrape or scuff of his passing sounded like a cannonade to him, or maybe it was just the thundering of his pulse in his ears. Something sharp pierced his hand. Ganelon yelped in pain and surprise, thinking that one of the things had gotten in front of him somehow. It was merely a jagged piece of bone. He tore it from his palm and hurried on.
By the time he spotted the circle of faint light up ahead, Ganelon could hear the sound of his pursuers even over his own clumsy flight. Their passing produced a steady hiss, as of something being dragged across the dirt. Worse still was the huff and snort of their breathing and the rumble of their obscene laughter. The growing din told of a dozen creatures, maybe more, sliding through the darkness behind him.
He expected them to fall upon him at any moment. His left leg was useless. It trailed behind him as if death had already claimed it, hampering his already maddeningly slow flight. Once something took hold of that limb, but Ganelon kicked it away with his right leg. The pursuing thing chuckled more loudly.
Ganelon could scarcely believe it when he scrabbled out of the tunnel and clambered up the steep ring of excavated earth that circled the entrance. He'd made it! He stood a chance in the open. There might be something close by he could use as a weapon. Perhaps the creatures wouldn't even follow him out of the hole.
That last hope was dashed almost as soon as it formed.
The light of the white moon was faint here, choked by the canopy of trees overhead, but it lit the entrance enough for Ganelon to get a clear look at his pursuers as they burst from the tunnel. Not for the last time that evening, the young man wondered if all the nightmares in Sithicus had come alive somehow.
When the first bony hand emerged from the gloom, Ganelon rightfully mistook it for part of a giant bat. The three digits were thin and clawed, perched halfway along a larger limb webbed by a leathery membrane very much like a bat's wing. That semblance ended with the creature's head. It was bulbous, with the faceted eyes of an insect. Its mouth, too, was that of some monstrous bug. Its mandibles clacked open and closed, sucking in breath and expelling it as the horrible chuckling that had so unnerved Ganelon.
A second bat's wing snapped forward, bending at joints it should not possess, in ways that defied common sense. Still chuckling, the thing pulled itself up out of the tunnel. Its torso ended in a mass of short, writhing tentacles. Like the rest of its grotesque form, the squirming limbs were the sickly blue-white of a drowned man's flesh.
Ganelon threw himself over the top of the embankment and rolled to the forest floor beyond. He couldn't stand; his leg wouldn't support the weight. He crawled into the scrub. Thorny branches tore at his face, but he didn't notice.
They were coming for him. Ganelon shut his eyes tight, but he could still hear them pulling themselves through the dead leaves carpeting the ground. Others took to the air, their leathery wings stirring the bushes and fanning him with cold night air. All the while, they huffed and cackled and clacked their mandibles together hungrily.
'Helain,' Ganelon whispered, 'I'm sorry.'
The solid clank of something metallic right beside him made Ganelon wince. He braced for the blow, for the rending claws and tearing mouths, but they did not come. Instead, a horrible shriek filled the night. Ganelon looked up to find the creatures retreating. They darted into the trees or stumbled over each other to reach the safety of the tunnels. Slack-jawed and incredulous, the young man stared at the fleeing beasts.
'I believe this belongs to you,' said a melodious, cultured voice.
Ganelon was too exhausted to be startled, so chilled by Death's proximity that he merely turned and gaped at the weird figure standing behind him. A flowing cloak obscured the man's form. His face was hidden behind a full mask that was itself partially lost in the shadow cast by a wide brimmed hat. Every stitch of his clothing was the same pale color, almost like the light of the new white moon.
'You frightened them off,' Ganelon said.
The stranger nodded. When he did, Ganelon could smell the fragrance of flowers from the mask's long, hooked nose. Roses, he realized numbly. Of course.
'Why were they afraid of you?' the young man pressed.
'Because they are surprisingly bright for such hideous beasts,' the stranger offered. He shifted the odd-looking mass of metal in his right hand; he balanced it against the ground and leaned on it like a walking stick. The contraption clanked again, this time more softly. 'As I said, this belongs to you.'
Ganelon studied the clutter of twisted rods and padded screws. It was some sort of leg brace. He'd seen miners wear similar ones at Veidrava, but never as elaborate as this. 'Sorry, but you're mistaken.' He rubbed his eyes, wiped away the blood from the scratches on his face. The shock was wearing off a little. 'Did you see a woman come this way?' he asked as he crawled out of the scrub.
'Helain is safe,' the stranger replied. He presented the brace yet again. 'I hate to sound the pushy merchant, but I really do think this item is yours. It's the only reason I came.'
Ganelon shoved the brace aside. 'What do you know about Helain? Where is she?'
'Safe,' the stranger replied, 'or very nearly. The things in the Fumewood give the mad a wide berth. In a few days she'll have reached her destination.'
'Which is?'
'A place you'd really do best to avoid.'
'I'm supposed to take your word for that, I suppose,' Ganelon snapped. 'I don't believe a word of this.'
The stranger shrugged and removed his mask. Ganelon had expected a scarred and hideous visage, but the man was handsome, preternaturally so. 'What you believe is irrelevant to the truth of the matter, Ganelon. If you want to get Helain back, you need to recognize that fact.'
'How do you know my name?' the young man asked. 'No, never mind. I don't have time. Just tell me how to find her.'
'No,' the stranger said simply. 'Not yet.' Ganelon took a threatening step forward, but his left leg buckled beneath him. He pitched forward into the dirt.
