“Doesn’t he magically flit around down here?” Ususi answered from behind, “He may only have limited range.”
The cleric supposed he could see a couple of flakes. He trusted Gunggari to be right. Time was wasting, and they had to move. “Then that’s where we are going, too.” He walked up to the door, laid hold of the ring, and pulled.
“Wait!” yelled Elowen, at the same time as Ususi, though the mage was less polite in her request than the elf.
The door didn’t budge despite his effort. He wished that the gloves given him by the Nentyarch weren’t drained.
“I said, wait,” said Elowen, at his shoulder, pulling him back. “We have to watch for traps.”
Marrec shrugged, irritable. “Eschar went this way. Beyond lies the Sighing Vault.”
“Not precisely true,” intoned Ususi from further back, who had moved the opposite direction of Elowen when Marrec tried the door. “If there is a vault, we may have to run a gauntlet of protections to get to its center.”
Marrec’s face reddened. He could not justify his unthinking action, pulling on the door so recklessly, so he said nothing.
Gunggari finally noted, “This door, at least, appears to be free of defenses, but it is stuck.”
“Give me a hand here, Gunny,” requested Marrec. He and the Oslander both heaved on the metal door. It didn’t even creak, though both men groaned with the effort.
Something cold and odiferous shouldered him out of the way. Gunggari, similarly jostled, danced back and grasped his dizheri; the ice demon had slid up silently while their attention was on the door. Ususi had managed to free it from its compulsion of inaction.
Their icy chaperone reared back, its paw-like hands balled into great fists. With a grand release, the fists swung and smashed square into the center of the iron door. The door blew off its hinges with a screech of metal, a shower of sparks, and a clamorous crash of metal on stone. The sound continued to echo up and down the corridor for several seconds before dying away.
Marrec said, “Our guide may prove more useful than I had supposed.”
The creature leered and giggled at Marrec.
“No doubt about it,” agreed Elowen.
Marrec felt his attitudes shifting slightly. “We can’t keep calling you ‘creature;’ what is your name?” Marrec asked the queen’s envoy.
The beast considered then rasped, “The Victorious Slayer of Compassion.”
“We’ll call you Victorious for short,” responded Marrec without losing a beat.
The creature didn’t react to the cleric’s simplification of its name, except to cough up a phlegm-coated chunk of stained ice, but it did that sometimes.
Marrec shoved his spear through the opening of the mouth of the great bust. The eldritch glow on the spear’s tip illuminated the chamber beyond.
The square space revealed was covered in gray, peeling plaster. Across the width of the room was an unlit exit, but in between, the plaster that had not crumbled was covered in paintings strangely bright and vivid. Scenes, figures, and glyphs adorned the room in no apparent order. The visual jumble covered the walls but also the floor and ceiling, creating a disquieting mosaic of disturbing images: a dragon eating a virginal maiden, a plague of worms infesting a screaming man, a seascape where a great tentacled monstrosity pulled down a ship, a giant roasting bound prisoners on a spit…
Marrec looked away, disgusted. He studied the room, trying not to focus on the painted scenes. Nothing moved, and nothing stirred in the empty exit. Crumbling plaster lay in clumps and drifts across the floor, thankfully obscuring some of the images.
“This way,” said the cleric. He didn’t like the look of the preternaturally bright images. He said, “Try to step only on the crumbled plaster.” He followed his own advice, treading carefully, sometimes jumping from one island of powdery gray dust to the next.
Victoricus followed Marrec. The demon surprised the cleric by following his direction, instead of sliding across the room as Marrec had expected. Perhaps the demon was bound to serve him? More likely, it knew something about the images in the plaster that it hadn’t divulged.
Gunggari followed, then Ususi, and last Elowen. As Gunggari reached the bare stone hallway where Marrec and the demon waited, Ususi reached the center of the chamber. The mage paused.
“That’s interesting,” said Ususi, looking at a collection of arcane sigils that painted the floor near her feet. “These are Nar characters, but the alphabet is strangely reminiscent of Imaskari letters.”
“Interesting, but not important now,” opined Elowen, right behind the mage, “Let’s go.”. “Just a moment,” said Ususi, as she bent and touched a finger to one the glyphs, tracing its lines.
“Oh, shards,” breathed the wizard, then she yelled, “It’s got me!”
It was true. Where her finger had touched the image, a meniscus of paint stretched to maintain contact. It did more than stretch; it pulled. Ususi was yanked forward, her finger, her hand, and her forearm swallowed into the floor. It was as if the ground were a voracious liquid, not hard plaster. Elowen caught at Ususi’s other flailing hand and the mage’s forward momentum into the floor was arrested.
Marrec, standing on the other edge, saw that where the wizard’s arm disappeared into the floor, new color sprang to life. It was as if a new painting were rising up from the floor, there all along, but only then becoming visible. So far, it revealed only a feminine arm, which terminated at the point where Ususi knelt, struggling to pull herself from the floor’s grip.
“Pull her out of there,” yelled Marrec. “It’s eating her, or… or something.”
The cleric hustled back into the chamber, determined to remain only on the mounds of crumbled plaster. Because of his, the demon’s, and Gunggari’s earlier traversal, the mounds were somewhat scattered, and it was more difficult for him to get across quickly without touching the painted floor.
“Gods, it’s got a grip on her,” complained Elowen, her voice tight, as she pulled on Ususi’s other arm. If anything, she lost ground, and Ususi was pulled forward, nearly her entire arm swallowed, her straining head falling dangerously close to the absorptive surface.
Marrec arrived, clamped both his hands on the free arm, lending his strength to Elowen’s. They both heaved. Ususi groaned as her bones crackled with the strain. With a sucking pop, they pulled the wizard clear. All three of them very nearly stumbled and fell backward, but in the end they managed to retain their footing on the crumbled plaster.
Breathing hard, his hand still on Ususi’s arm, Marrec murmured, “Come on.” He led Ususi across. Elowen followed after. They assembled safely on the opposite side of the painted chamber.
Ususi turned to Marrec, “That is another life I owe you.”
A smile ghosted his lips in return. “I’m glad I’m building up credit. I may need to call in that marker before we get clear of the Vault.”
CHAPTER 22
Fallon had failed to keep the schedule. Damanda tapped midnight black nails on lacquered armor just as dark. Green highlights played along her silhouette. The fluctuating emerald glow emerged from an ominous point further down the ruined hallway where Damanda and her retinue stood.
The pulsing, ravenous glow was the light of the Lurker in the Middle, and by its intensity, it was clear the entity had not snared Fallon. It was still hungry. Damanda, for all her might, had no desire to meet the Lurker face to faceor whatever passed for a Lurker’s face.
Fallon’s absence was troubling. The Rotting Man’s compulsion should have cored the elFs mind and marched him dutifully into the Lurker’s grasp, leaving the idiot child for Damanda to collect at her leisure. No child, no Fallon, no triumphant return to the Close with the Talontyr’s hard-sought prize in tow.
Worry puckered tentative steps across her stomach. It did not do to disappoint the Rotting Man. His plans were coming to fruition. She doubted she could survive being a barrier to his goal, intentional or not.
That’s why she would not fail, despite Fallon’s troubling absence.
