Chapter 6, Part vi

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.