Aric thought the
stairs would never end. They hugged the outer rim of the pit,
spiraling downward. However, even though they were steep and despite
he and Burr taking them nearly three at a time, no end appeared in
sight. The strange fog that filled the air wrapped itself around
Aric's limbs and chest, sucking away the heat from his body and
stuffing itself into his lungs. After a while, he felt that he was
trying to run through waist-high water. Burr seemed to be holding up
a little better, but it was clear that things were not looking very
bright.
“Burr, are they
close?” Aric asked for the tenth time.
The prickly guy shook
his head. When he spoke, he sounded congested. “I can't smell them.
Everything smell like char.” Aric sniffed as well, and had to agree
with Burr; it wasn't a burnt smell, not exactly, but it did
definitely smell somewhat like charcoal. He wondered why.
“Can you hear them?”
The two of them paused
for a second to catch their breath, and Burr cocked an ear to the
swirling mists. He nodded. “Barely. They are running fast, to get
there first.”
“Then let's catch up
with them,” Aric said, and grit his teeth as he continued to bound
down the stone steps.
He began to wonder who
had hewn them out of the rock. Whoever it was, they had gone through
a lot of trouble to make this giant prison cell for the Jabberwock.
Had it been Mountain, who failed to slay the beast? Perhaps, for some
reason, he hadn't wanted to, and so instead carved this elaborate
holding-place for his dangerous pet. Or maybe this whole cavern had
had a different, forgotten purpose, and it had simply been very
convenient for confining apocalyptic death-monsters.
“Look, look!” Burr
whispered. The Tove pointed downward into the nearly-opaque mists,
and Aric had to squint for a few seconds before he realized what he
was seeing.
The stairs eventually
came to an end some four hundred feet down, and there was a flat
platform which seemed to be the base of the cylindrical pit. There
was a handful of shadowy, black figures in the distance, some of
which held their death-spears upright. In the fog, they seemed to be
feathers sticking straight out of their heads, as though they were
alien, bird-like monsters.
Confident that if he
could barely see them, they would have the same difficulty in seeing
him, Aric inched his way ever downward. He kept his eyes trained on
the gathered Mome Raths. As he got closer, he saw that the group was
clustered around some object which seemed to draw all their
attention, but Aric couldn't see exactly what it might be.
Eventually, he began
to be able to make out that there was a conversation going on. “...I
have the vorpal sword,” said one Mome Rath. It was the unmistakable
conceited baritone of Professor Trellis. “Let me through.”
Somebody else said
something which Aric couldn't pick out. The Trellis-silhouette
nodded. “I understand that. But I must get to the Beast below, on
urgent business. It is about to awake, yes?”
The other person
uttered a single syllable. It was most likely “Yes,” judging from
Trellis's reaction.
“And it mustn't get
loose, correct?”
“No,” the other
person probably said.
“Then let me
through. I will contain it for you. We come as friends, as
associates; we want the same thing. We will both benefit from
this...”
Aric scowled at the
Professor's flowery words. Those were the same flattering, soothing
things that he had said that day three years ago when Aric stood
before the Mome Raths for the first time, and he had let himself be
lulled into complacency. Not any more, never again. Aric wanted to
shout, wave his arms, cup his hands to his mouth and bellow: “Don't
listen to him! He's a liar and a cheat! You'll only end up his
puppet!” But he controlled himself. Barely. This scene needed to
play out.
There was another
exchange, too quiet for Aric to understand, and then something
happened. A door in the side of the wall opened up, beside the person
that the Professor was talking to, and Professor Trellis moved to
enter it with a pair of guards. Suddenly he turned around and faced
the place where Aric was crouching.
“Good luck following
us, Gerard! Yes, I can see you, standing on the fifty-ninth stair;
and Burr as well, just two above you. You're too late. Men, please
kindly cut their heads off. I no longer have any interest in them.”
And with that, he ducked his head out of view, and the hole closed up
as mysteriously as it had opened.
The remaining
half-dozen soldiers began to shout their war-cries, and one of them
charged up the stairs. A hundred thoughts buzzed through Aric's mind
as he thought up a way to stop the man before his deadly blade got
too close – somehow topple him off the stairs, or use the spear
that Aric had acquired to slice apart the other man's weapon – when
Burr cried out a warning. Aric saw just in time, and threw his belly
onto the stairs above him.
A crossbow bolt
whizzed through the air and buried itself in the solid stone above
Aric's head. With a terrible hissing sound, the rock began to bubble
and melt before his very eyes. Aric scrambled up a dozen stairs and
managed to turn around, pointing his spear defensively at the
approaching soldier. He heard the crank of the crossbow as its owner
reloaded another enchanted arrow.
“Burr, do your
thing!” Aric yelled, and ducked. A rumbling peal of thunder rippled
the stone beneath his feet as a fiery bolt of lightning seared
through the air and struck the man charging up the stairs. His whole
body lit up with energy for a moment as he tumbled backwards, and
over the lip of the staircase. He landed with a noisy metallic clang.
By some luck Aric
dodged the second arrow, and Burr let loose another shaft of
lightning toward the archer. The attack left a streak of purple
burned across Aric's vision, and he scowled and blinked to clear his
eyes.
Three more arrows
thudded into the stone, behind them, one of which tore a hole clean
through Aric's jacket. He cursed. “Burr, we have to get down there,
or they'll pick us off!” He hefted his spear and hurled it as hard
as he could down into the group of soldiers; it didn't kill anyone,
but somebody cried out as it struck their foot. Burr threw his as
well and sent more bolts of energy downward. He must not have been
very accurate, or the enemy might have had some sort of Gyreproof
enchantments about them, because not one of them died.
I didn't
want to have to do this any more,
Aric thought, but desperate times and all.
He located the nearest arrow – buried in a vertical crater of
liquified rock – and ripped it from its hole. The arrowhead was
strangely shaped, barbed on one side and swirly on the other. Aric
crouched down, ignoring the other arrows that screamed through the
air around his head, and muttered something in a language that his
tongue was no longer accustomed to. He jabbed the tip of the arrow
into the stone at his feet, and it easily sunk an inch into the hard
rock.
A purple light pulsed
once from the arrowhead, rippling through the stone stair, and then
shot away through the solid floor. A glowing purple line streaked
downward from the arrow, following the contours of the natural wall
of the staircase; when it hit the floor it changed direction, homing
in toward one of the archers. It stopped under his feet, and he
realized this a little too late. The ground bubbled hungrily beneath
him, and suddenly he was swallowed up by the churning floor. His
scream was cut off as his head disappeared beneath the surface.
The other soldiers
were shocked just long enough for Aric to yank a fresh arrow from the
wall. Burr brushed past him, racing down the stairs with a speed few
humans could match. With his claws, teeth and lightning, he quickly
dispatched two more guards. Aric redirected the vile enchantment of
the arrows in his hands to take down another man and distract
another, just long enough for Burr to finish him off as well.
One Mome Rath
remained. He threw his spear at Burr, who lithely ducked out of the
way. It clattered uselessly against the rock wall. Then, to Aric's
dismay, the man pulled something from his cloak and brandished his
fists. Some thick equipment covered each of his forearms, and the air
around him rippled as if with the heat of a campfire.
“Burr, don't use
your lightning!” Aric shouted, and the Tove hesitated.
Unfortunately, this gave the soldier time to leap toward him and grab
him by the arm; in the blink of an eye, the soldier twisted around
and threw Burr with terrifying force against the wall. Burr yelped
once, then fell heavily to the ground.
Aric growled and ran
down the stairs. There was no time for ancient magic trickery; not
that it would work against Tezerotronic Phase-Bracers anyway. Aric
landed awkwardly as he reached the last step, twisting his ankle as
he landed, but he rolled to his feet and picked up a dropped spear.
Burr, limping but able, kept his distance from the man with the
crackling bracers. The Mome Rath shouted and clapped his hands
together. A shockwave rippled through the air between them, and Burr
twisted out of the way. Not fast enough, though, and it caught him by
the waist. He toppled onto his back, laid out vulnerable to the
soldier. The man seized his chance and charged Burr.
With a savage cry,
Aric swung the bladed spear horizontally, to slice the man in half at
the stomach. The soldier saw Aric's swing and brought his arm down
just in time, blocking the blade and jarring Aric's arms painfully.
Burr rolled out of the way and grabbed a fallen crossbow; he hurled
it straight toward the man, but with a simple slap of his hand, the
flying weapon shattered into splinters.
Burr and Aric backed
away from the soldier, who walked closer and closer to them. The
tezerotronic whine from the equipment made Burr wince, and Aric grit
his vibrating teeth. Those were still experimental the last
time I heard of them, Aric
thought quickly. They have a lot of power, but also a lot
of drawbacks. If only we can use the bracers' weaknesses against
him...
“He can't run very
easily,” Aric shouted. The soldier snarled and clapped, firing a
shockwave at them, but they both dodged in different directions. He
turned toward Aric and started walking; the man was sweating with the
effort of walking. Aric checked, and sure enough, on his helmet there
were anti-tezerotron nodes to protect his ears and sense of balance.
“He needs his helmet
in order to stay conscious!” Aric yelled. “And his sense of
balance is weakened! The bracers can't--”
The man shouted and
suddenly fell to one knee, but it wasn't in pain or fatigue. He
slammed his heavy fist on the ground, and the floor violently split
into ragged slabs. Aric jumped just in time, but landed wrong and
fell, banging his shin on a stone edge. He gasped in pain. The
soldier's foosteps sounded loudly in his ears, and the whine grew
stronger as he approached.
Aric looked up in time
to see the man standing over him. His eyes were red-rimmed but mad
with hate. These are Trellis's hand-picked zealots,
he realized. These aren't the rank and file Mome Raths that
do the paperwork. Trellis means business.
The zealot lifted his
arm, and the bracer crackled with magical energy.
Suddenly a wooden pole
blurred out of the air and slammed into the side of the man's helmet
with a metallic peal. He toppled heavily onto his side, and a small
crater erupted on the floor where he placed his hands to stop
himself. The node on the side of his helmet spat out a few sparks
where it had been struck.
Aric scrambled to his
feet, ignoring the pain in his shin, and found one of the
death-spears. He turned around and with a shock saw that the soldier
was already on his feet and loping toward him with his arms extended.
Aric quickly jabbed the blunt end of the spear toward the man's
collarbone. This time he was too slow to block, and the spear caught
him between his neck and shoulder, and he twisted awkwardly to keep
his balance.
Burr appeared and
rammed his fist into the man's stomach. Aric tried to stop him, but
it was too late: the strange energy from the magical bracers visibly
coursed through Burr, making him flinch in pain, but he continued
with the falling Mome Rath, making sure he landed flat on his back.
Aric reached down and
pulled Burr away. The soldier moved again to rise. Aric gripped the
haft of his spear, judging the distance. “Not so fast, buddy,”
Aric said, and swung the bladed death-spear over his head and down
toward the man.
The very tip of the
blade sliced clean through the stability-core ring of the bracer on
his right arm, and the valuable part tinkled uselessly to the ground.
Its owner panicked. “What have you done?!” he yelled, fumbling
with the equipment. Aric grabbed Burr by the collar of his shirt and
walked quickly away.
“We're gonna want to
put some distance between us and him,” he explained when Burr
looked at him with confusion. The tezerotronic whine increased in
volume and pitch, as did the crackling noise. Aric shielded his eyes.
There was a brief flash that lasted for the blink of an eye, a faint
pop, and a rush of
air. A moment later,
when nothing moved nor made a sound, Aric opened his eyes.
Where the soldier had
been was a clean, smooth, bowl-shaped crater. Not a single trace of
the man remained.
“And that's
why they were still experimental,” Aric said with a decisive nod.
“Look at this,”
Burr said curiously. Aric followed him, stepping over the bodies of
the dead guards.
“What did you find?”
Aric asked.
“Look.”
(Graphic
6.10: In the wall is
an indent the size and shape of a door. There is no handle, no window
and no opening.)
“I could swear that
Professor Trellis walked through this wall a minute ago,” Aric
muttered as he groped around the edges of the indentation with his
hands. “I wonder how he got in.”
Suddenly, Hector's bright voice filled the room. “Aric!
You're all right!” The librarian gasped as he saw the carnage. “Did
you do all that?”
“With a little help,” he responded, and ruffled
Burr's ears. Lilly followed Hector down the stairs, frowning at the
bodies. “I don't know how much you guys saw,” Aric said, “but
Professor Trellis was here just a moment ago. He was talking with
somebody, reasoning with him, and that person decided to let him
continue on to find the Jabberwock. Somehow this wall opened up and
he walked through.”
“He must have gained permission, as with the forest
edge when we first arrived,” Lilly said.
“Yeah, but how are we going to get that same
permission?” Aric complained. He watched as Burr sniffed the edges
of the false doorway.
“Perhaps he got in because he has the vorpal sword?”
Hector supplied.
Aric sighed. “Yeah... Those swords are kind of in
short supply, sadly.”
“There is no Gimble thereon,” Lilly said, half to
herself.
Suddenly the ground rumbled again, just as it had done
when they were in the tunnels. A stalactite fell from the darkness
above and shattered into a thousand shards on the floor. Hector
jumped a foot into the air with fright.
“Everybody close to the walls,” Aric commanded as
more stone spikes fell and threatened to impale them. The rumbling
lasted for a few more very long seconds, then stopped; then it
started again, fiercer than ever. A low-pitched sound thrummed
through the entire chamber, almost like a moan.
“We must get through, the Jabberwock is awake!”
Lilly said urgently. “We must find a way through, and quickly!”
“I'm really tired of these puzzles and permission
issues,” Aric said. “Burr, if you wouldn't mind...” He gestured
theatrically toward the door and took a step back. Burr gave himself
some space, then flexed his hands. Bluish-white lightning danced on
his fur, the leaped from his arms and pierced the wall. After a
deafening explosion which showered them all with dust and chips of
stone, Aric coughed and looked at the wall. A charred hole just big
enough to crawl through gaped open in the false doorway. Without a
word, Aric climbed through.
He stood up in the dark space beyond, waiting for his
eyes to adjust, and with a terrible shock, realized that he was not
alone.
(Graphic 6.11: A male Tove sits on a throne-like
chair with a thick book on his lap. He is dressed exotically, and
there are Tovish tapestries and souvenirs on the walls. The man looks
up with a terrified expression.)
“Who are you?” asked the unfamiliar Tove
frantically in perfect Humish. “How did you get in here?”
“Where did he go?” Aric asked as calmly as he
could.
“Where do who go? I don't know what you're talking
about.”
Aric could feel his pulse rising. “A tallish man,
well-dressed. Had a golden sword and an old book. Two bodyguards. A
sneer that could turn milk sour. Can't miss him. He just came in here
two minutes ago, and if you don't tell me right now--”
The Tove stood up indignantly. He was muscular and
seemed well-fed, but strangely, Aric couldn't place an age on him. “I
do not respect people barging into my home without my permission! If
you want to find your friend, you have come to the wrong pl--”
Aric strode forward, slapped the book out of the Tove's
hands and seized him by the lapels. “Now you listen to me, buddy,”
he seethed into the man's reluctant face, “Professor Trellis is not
my friend. He is going to do something very, very bad, and we are
going to stop him. Do you understand? We have to get to him
immediately. The fate of the world is in the balance.”
Though clearly frightened, the strange man had the guts
to speak his mind. He put his paws up in the air defensively. “I am
sorry, my friend, but I will not tell you which way he went.”
“And why not?” Aric asked. He kept his grip tight
on the man's shirt.
The Tove actually smiled, which made Aric's grip loosen
a little. “Because you are going to kill the
Jabberwock.”
Aric scowled. “Then you're on the wrong team,” he
said, and pulled back his right fist to strike him. Suddenly a pair
of hands tugged on his coiled arm. Aric looked: it was Hector.
“Stop!” he pleaded. “Maybe he can help us!”
“Didn't you just hear him? He's on Trellis's side!”
Lilly spoke up. “He went this way, Aric!” She
pointed down a hallway that led away from the throne-room.
Suddenly Aric felt a pair of teeth sink into his left
forearm. He shouted in pain, then dropped his fist onto the Tove's
head to make him let up. Jolted, he fell off his throne and scurried
into a dark corner. “You'll never stop the Jabberwock!” he cried
out frantically. “You're too late!”
“Who are you?” Aric asked with genuine
horror, rubbing his bleeding arm.
“It is Mountain,” Lilly realized. Aric glanced at
her, and her eyes were wide with the shock of the revelation. “The
one that did not slay the Jabberwock.”
“What do you mean?” Aric asked. “Mountain died
almost a thousand years ago, he can't still... can he? How do you
know it's him?”
“It is Mountain,” Burr agreed. “Look, that symbol
on his throne and on his robe. It is the Aztlav signet. And his
fur-markings, they is just like all the stories say.”
Confused, Aric glanced between Mountain and the others.
He looked at Hector, who, of course, was writing in his journal.
“What-- What? Really? But how?”
Mountain started laughing from his corner, and Aric
easily recognized it as the laughter of the mad. His slate-colored
eyes glinted in the torchlight, and his voice was full of fanatical
inflexion. “Fine. I'll tell you. Yes, it is me, I am Mountain, the
original wielder of the vorpal sword. I, who went to slay the
Jabberwock. I, who only wounded it, and sealed it away for a thousand
years. I built this place with my own two hands out of the stone, to
house the beast, to keep it comfortable so it would never want to
leave. But why did I not kill the creature, that most lovely of the
Wabe's creations, you ask?
“It was because I saw its worth. It is not the
terrible beast you all think it is. No, it is not! Ha ha! It carries
with it the manxoma of the entire Wabe! Its power is not
simply one of destruction! No, its power is the ability to transfer
life energy from one thing to another. Of course, it can take
that energy for itself and destroy the world, but it can also grant
that energy to other living things! It can grant eternal life!
And it has done so to me for the past thousand years! And so it shall
stay!”
Suddenly Mountain sprang up toward Aric and tackled him
to the floor, tearing at his face with his long claws. Burr and Lilly
leaped to his rescue, but the mad Tove swatted them away with his
ferocious talons.
While he was distracted, Aric pulled the dagger from
his belt and rammed it into Mountain's chest. The Tove gave a start,
but kept on fighting with the same vigor. Aric slapped away his paws
and clamped his hands around Mountain's neck, It was softer than it
looked, but even though he squeezed the creature's windpipe shut, he
kept clawing at him with a savage grin and insane eyes.
“He can't die!” Aric grunted, and Burr finally
managed to rip the madman off of him, and Aric pulled the dagger out
in the same movement. Not a drop of blood spilled. As the two of them
tumbled about the room, upsetting lamp-stands and tables covered in
tapestries, Aric saw Hector rifling through some books in the corner.
“Now is not the time, Hec,” Aric said, but Hector
waved the comment away.
“I'm trying to see if we can cut him off from the
Jabberwock's energy somehow, so we can stop him!”
Aric's thoughts raced, and he ignored his numerous
scratch wounds for a moment. “Think, think... He would probably
have to regularly receive energy from the Jabberwock, so it would be
somewhere he would frequently go--”
“The throne!” Lilly exclaimed, pointing at the
ornate chair. Aric ran to it and examined the back and seat. He
pulled out his knife and started cutting away at the cushioned
back-rest, but Lilly stepped up and in one deft movement, tore the
entire cushion away with her hands.
“Thank you,” Aric nodded. He pointed to the glowing
circle of runes etched into the stone behind it. Quickly reading the
ancient-magic letters, he picked a certain key spot in the formula
and started etching an extra rune. The sounds of furious, snarling
battle filled his ears, making him sweat as he traced and retraced
the desired lines with the tip of his dagger.
Finally the extra rune took its place in the ancient
sentence, and began to glow with its companions.
Suddenly, a despondent wailing pierced Aric's ears. He
turned and saw Mountain, pinned by Burr to the stone tiles. A pool of
dark blood was spreading outward, filling in the regular pattern of
lines between the tile squares. Mountain was moaning and howling, and
goosebumps covered Aric's neck as he saw what was happening to the
ancient Tove.
His fur changed from a rich black to gray, then white,
then the color of dust. The skin on his angular face sunk inward, and
his well-toned body seemed to deflate until he was little more than
skin and bones. His eyes bulged from his sockets and his whole person
became pale in color, emphasizing the dark red patch in the center of
his chest, where Aric had stabbed him. His breathing was labored and
became slower and shallower. Burr slowly stood and left the miserable
wretch to wither.
Nobody spoke. They all watched as Mountain's borrowed
life force drained away. With immense effort he looked straight into
Aric's face, and his eyes still held a gleam of triumphant madness.
“Star sent you, didn't she?” he gasped in a voice drier than all
the deserts in the world. “Yes, she did... She never approved of my
choice... She has wanted to see me dead for a long time... But she
lives using the same power that I have used...”
Lilly's eyes grew wide once more. “Star... Star! That
was the togom of the Tulgey Wood, the one that guided us here!”
Mountain laughed, but it was more like a choking cough.
He shriveled even more in that brief moment, and parts of his
extremities began to blow away as trails of dust in the slight breeze
that swept through the room. “She is a fool...”
And with those words, Mountain gave one last shudder
and became still. Time proceeded to take its suspended toll on his
body, and it crumpled up like the limbs of a dead spider. When he was
simply a leathery skeleton, the aging finally stopped.
“I cannot believe it,” Lilly said to herself. “I
was speaking to Star... I wonder if by destroying the bond between
Mountain and the Jabberwock, we also destroyed the bond for Star?
Will she still be alive when we get to the surface?”
“Definitely not if the Jabberwock comes free,” Aric warned.
Seeing his coat sleeved in bloody tatters, he huffed and pulled it
off, dropping it to the floor.
“Are you all right, Aric?” Hector asked, gingerly
poking at Aric's arms. They had long, bloody scratches, and they
dripped slowly onto the floor.
Aric shook his head nonchalantly. “Nah, the pain'll
kick in after the adrenaline wears off, in about twenty minutes. By
then we'll have either slayed the Jabberwock, or be dead, in which
case it won't really matter.”
“This way,” Lilly said, and they followed her as
she followed Professor Trellis's trail.
