Sea of Death (22 page)

"Big passage, big monster. Let's give the small one a go."

It turned out to be a good decision. They had to stoop, but the hard-walled passage went almost straight southwest, if slightly upward as well. Pretty soon it intersected with the floor of a bigger hole, the trail of a much larger slug that had come this way a long time previously, judging from the decaying condition of the tunnel it had left. Neither liked the looks of the place, but they had to follow it anyway. The smaller creature had done so, evidently, for there was no sign of its continuing passage anywhere nearby.

The new passageway took them more south than west, a bit off course, but still they were making good time. There were odd growths here, some sorts of fungoid material that needed little moisture, creeping things, and occasional chitterings – bats, rats, and probably even little mice. Leda didn't turn a hair at any of it.

"Now what?" Gord asked as they arrived at another decision point. There was nothing but dust and soil directly ahead, and only three possibilities for them. A hole slanted down, and another slug burrow intersected their tunnel at a right angle.

"Down," said Leda without hesitation. "That's where water would be. We must be close to the surface by now, and it's high time we delved downward again. With luck, we'll find a maze of new passageways there."

"What if the creators of the tunnels are there, too?"

"Have your weapons ready," Leda answered dryly.

Gord sent a large, flat stone down the slope of the passage first, listening to the sound of its slide. After several seconds he heard a faint clatter; then there was silence. "Hmmm… Be prepared to slow yourself after a couple of seconds, Leda. I think there's a drop at the bottom of this hole. Give me a short time, then set out behind me," he told her. Then Gord got out his dagger with his left hand and lowered himself gingerly into the opening.

Negotiating this passage wasn't as easy as he had hoped it would be. Gord found that by some perverse instinct, the slug that had formed; this tunnel had decided to alter course to a more steeply slanting, nearly vertical, one after about thirty feet. It took all of his strength, pushing with forearms and knees against the sides, to slow his drop into the tube. The tunnel turned slightly toward the horizontal again for a few yards. Then, without warning, there was nothing beneath his feet.

"Hellish hoppin' toads!" The expostulation came unbidden. Fortunately, so did his frantic reaction to keep from falling. As Gord felt the solid ground disappear from beneath him, he instinctively tried to halt himself. His right hand slammed hard against the side of the tube, while his left shot out to do the same. The sharp point of his dagger pierced the hardened slime that formed the passage. It held there, nearly dislocating his arm as the solid hold it gave him jerked him to a stop.

"Whew, that was a close one," Gord muttered to himself as he rested on his elbows at the edge of the hole, feeling his lower body swinging free in space. A wind blew, ruffling his truncated robe. "I must be hanging out over the edge of a chasm!" Then he heard a shuffling, grating sound from above that terrified him. Leda was sliding down the passage after him, just as he had told her – no doubt holding her sword out, ready to run him through!

SOMEWHERE ABOVE, WHERE the wind sent great clouds of dust and ash flying across the rolling wastes that had once been the Grand Empire of Suel, the struggle for life continued as it had for centuries. Wire-tentacle trees snared incautious animals, as did stinging whips, the low bushes that never grew near the predatory trees' wire-tentacles. Eight-barbs and snakeweeds fought for smaller morsels, while hungry rodents and insects feasted on the seeds and sprouts of these plants. Jumping cacti and touch-me-nots caught unwary birds and other flying things, as sliver sticks shot sprays of stuff at any warm object that passed near, so that the bits of wood would lodge in flesh, grow, and flourish. Basin plants offered the mirage of water; shower shrubs gave occasional sprinkles of the precious fluid – and deadly poison thereafter as well.

The ashworms just below the surface ingested minerals and deposited wastes upon which other things fed and grew, and of course the multitude of these worms fed insects, birds, shrews, moles, and many other creatures as well. Dust archers exchanged shots with needle-birds; spotted pit vipers and deadly ash arrows slithered through the powdery land after their own prey. Dust striders and wolf spiders of large size lurked or ran, chasing or being chased by paddle-foot lizards and long, black centipedes. When darkness fell, packs of dogs, wolves, jackals, and big-footed, long-legged foxes ran over the dust. Sometimes the lurking dustfish took one of these canines, other times their packs dined on the flesh of the high-finned denizens of this place. In many forms and at many levels of activity, life went on.

To the north, three nomads struggled across the drifts and dunes. They were still a good distance from the mountains, but soon enough they would come to the oasis they sought. Their water was running low, for a bed-of-nails plant and an incautious moment had cost them two full skins. Also, because all were still recovering from wounds, they traveled more slowly than they had on the way south. With luck, though, the three would make it.

More than a hundred leagues to their east, and totally unaware of the existence of the struggling tribesmen, a dozen souls rode across the Ashen Desert on a strange, wind-powered vehicle. Already half of the bladderlike tubes it rode upon had been destroyed by sharp rocks or strange plants. Worse still, it had encountered a dust mire, and the morass of fine powder was. so vast and deadly that the craft had been forced to detour a hundred and twenty miles to go around the obstacle.

The delay, the extra days of hardship, and the very fact that such a thing could happen infuriated the captain of the dust cruiser. Obmi gave the wizard called Bolt a tongue-lashing on account of the matter, and then he ordered the chief pilot flogged for good measure. The dwarf took over from the man doing the lashing, for he wasn't hitting the offender hard enough. Obmi was a bit too zealous, though, and the victim died before the sun rose the next morning. The dwarf didn't mind, for it meant one less person to eat the scanty food and consume the dwindling water. Besides, there were two others aboard who were almost as knowledgeable as the dead pilot.

The wind-powered cruiser that bore the dwarf and his parly across the powdery terrain wasn't the only strange craft plying the Ashen Desert. Another, smaller and odder still, was skimming along at a speed much higher than that of the sailed vessel. This vessel was flshlike. In fact, it not only resembled a grouper but was painted like one and had dark eyes – crystals of smoky sort that allowed anyone inside to see out, but not vice versa. The craft was fully enclosed against dust and wind storms. Perhaps three or four could fit inside it without discomfort. There was no way of knowing how many the vehicle contained as it moved over the dust.

Viewed from a distance, the flshlike thing appeared to float just about a foot above the ash and powder. Actually, about midway along the sides of this piscean vessel were revolving blades. These turning blades were made of stiff, thick leather. As the leather strips turned, their edges came into contact with the surface of the ground over which the craft floated. Puffs of dust and ash were spewed toward the tail as the vehicle's paddles revolved, one blade after the other brushing against the powdered ground. The craft moved along very quickly in this manner.

From a dead stop, the thing was slow to get under way. A walking man starting out at the same time would be a bowshot ahead of the craft two or three minutes later, for each sluggish turn of the vehicle's double wheels moved it only a few feet ahead. As the paddles turned, however, the thing gathered momentum, and after a few more minutes it moved faster than the strongest man could walk. Once under way for a fairly short time, the strange device could shoot along at the pace of a galloping horse, but such a rate of speed was dangerous. Too dangerous, in fact, for long distances across the barren, ash-coated land it sailed above. Upthrusting stone, sudden dropoffs, and other dangers were too numerous to allow it to move as fast as its occupants desired. Even though its belly was scaled with metal plates, the first few difficulties of high velocity told them that care was needed. Some of the dents and scars that the vessel bore spoke eloquently on the dangers of haste.

Still, the fish-thing moved swiftly, slowing up-slope, speeding down, traversing an average of ten miles each hour, not counting stops for rest and maintenance. It had come seven hundred miles in but four days' time, and the particularly smooth and level stretch of land it now negotiated enabled its riders to increase its velocity without undue risk. The craft was virtually flying along, and its helmsman reckoned its speed at thirty miles an hour. He was humming as he steered.

"What is that dark line on the horizon?" the co-driver queried.

"Ashstorm, perhaps," he replied.

"I think not, but we could be closing with winds ahead," the co-driver said thoughtfully.

The one steering kept his eyes on the looming color ahead. "It is unmoving, I think," he ventured. "Are there mountains shown on the ancient chart?"

"Any mountains were destroyed in the Invisible Firestorm, dolt," the driver shot back.

There is only one way to determine what is there, then," the fellow said grimly. He jerked on a line next to his right side, and the rotation of the leather-paddled wheels increased in speed. There was a wheezing and puffing from the rear of the vessel, but both driver and co-driver ignored the sound. They didn't worry; the craft would manage the speed. Minutes later, the thing was doing forty miles per hour and still gaining velocity.

"We'll be close enough soon to see what it is. Should I slow us now?"

"Keep traveling! We must get there quickly," the co-driver snapped.

It wasn't long before the line resolved itself. The dark etching across the western horizon was a black bluff of stone. It stretched north and south as far as the eye could see. It seemed at least fifty feet high in its lowest places, higher elsewhere.

"Slow us, and turn south," the co-driver instructed, cursing all the while.

The fish-shaped vehicle eventually curved its course to follow the cliffs, bearing south and now going only as fast as a horse trotted. Nonetheless, it still ate up the ground with relentless regularity.

LEDA HURTLED DOWN the shaft made by the long-dead slug. The tube resembled a J, the upper portion tilted about thirty degrees from the vertical and the hook truncated so as to have about half missing. Although she hardly cared about it as she descended, the portion that was gone might have been sheared off by the same cataclysm that created the great chasm into which the J-shaped passage led. As she reached the spot where the tube curved back toward the horizontal, Leda's precipitous descent was slowed slightly; and for this she was glad. The dark elf had no idea that in the next second or two she would be catapulted from the tube into empty space, with the next solid ground to be encountered tying hundreds of feet below.

Gord feared that Leda was sliding toward certain death. He also feared that unless he did something fast, Leda would carry him with her, and both would plunge to become gory smears somewhere far below the place he precariously held onto.

As the sound of Leda's too-rapid slide down the tube came nearer to him, Gord reacted with speed and daring. With a heave, he jerked himself back up into the end of the tunnel, pulling his dagger free from the wall as he did so. In the same action, with the momentum of his surge to propel him, Gord shoved himself upward so that his back was pressed against the curving roof of the pipelike passage. By looking down and backward between his legs, he would be able to get a glimpse of Leda's form an instant before she slid past him. Just as a dark blur of motion came shooting beneath him, he acted.

In the same motion, Gord plunged his dagger into the tunnel wall above his head and dropped his lower body down from the ceiling, his legs closing from the full diameter of the tunnel to a clamping position similar to that which would be used to stay on the back of a wild horse. The magically keen point of the dagger was imbedded in the tunnel, and both of Gord's hands were wrapped around the hilt in a death-grip. His legs struck something soft as they scissored together. There was a muffled scream, a terrible pull that made his straining muscles shriek, and then he felt a pair of arms clamped around his locked legs. Gord was again hanging part way out of the passage; he could feel the sharp edge at the lip of the tube cutting into his shins.

"Don't let go," Leda's quavering voice called faintly. Fortunately, she had not been holding her sword when she came sliding down, or Gord's legs would have been severely sliced.

"I'm not," he replied through clenched teeth, "but you'd better pull yourself up here in a hurry!"

"I… I… can't. I don't dare let go of your legs. There's nothing below me!"

"Great," he groaned. "Just hold on, then. I'll try to pull us both up." The young thief was strong enough to manage that, but as he started to draw himself upward toward the imbedded blade, Leda screamed and Gord felt the dagger move slightly.

"Stop, Gord! When you do that, my lower back pushes against the wall and it forces my grip loose."

"Forget it, girl," Gord told her. "I won't try it again, because the dagger that's holding up both of us is loosened when I try that."

"Then what will we do? I can't hold on like this forever!"

His feet were touching, but not securely locked together, behind Leda's upper back. She held onto his legs awkwardly as she attempted to secure herself by grasping as high as she could. "Move your hands to just behind my knees, Leda. Lock them there." He felt her shift and then comply. After the girl had done this, Gord pulled himself toward the dagger, then slid back and repeated the process twice more.

"What are you doing?" The query from below was both frightened and angry.

"Hold tight!" Gord growled through a grimace. He hauled himself ahead once more, pushed his elbows against the tunnel wall as firmly as he could, and levered the buried blade up with wrists and forearms. It jerked free suddenly, and Gord was immediately pulled toward the sheer drop below.

"E…e…e…k!" The cry of horror came in a long, shrill scream as Leda felt them both beginning to slide and head for certain destruction.

But Gord had a plan, and his catlike reflexes made it work. At the point where his waist passed the rim of the tube, he raised the dagger and drove it downward again. It struck home as before, this time on the very edge of the opening. Gord hung at arm's length now, with Leda dangling below and moaning in abject terror. There was true method to his seeming madness, however.

"Stop that!" Gord said. "Fear saps strength. You have nothing to worry about now. I'll have us out of this mess in a second." He flexed his leg muscles, both to make certain that they gripped the dark elf securely and to reassure her that she was in good hands, so to speak. Holding firmly to the dagger with his left hand, Gord released his right from its iron grip and felt around the lip of the passage. His exploring fingers found what they sought – a crack deep enough to use as a hold. He pulled himself up a few inches, using the right hand to do so, then he released his left from the dagger hilt and held it down toward Leda.

"Grab my wrist!" he ordered her as he felt her upstretched fingers groping against the back of his left hand. She complied readily, and her right hand grabbed his left wrist with a viselike grasp born of fear. "Now hold tight. I'm going to release my legs, but I'm holding your wrist, just as you have mine," he explained slowly and carefully to her. "I'll find a toehold once my legs are free, and then I'll draw you up… Now!"

The sudden tug of Leda's full weight on his arm nearly made him lose his handhold, but the fingers of his right hand retained their position. He braced his right foot against the wall to keep his body from swaying while moving his left foot here and there, seeking any hold he could find. For a few seconds it seemed to him that the clifflike wall must be as smooth as glass, but then his toes found a little ledge. After carefully raising his foot and setting the sole of his boot on the outcropping, Gord placed weight upon that foot. This helped relieve the tension on his right arm a bit, allowing the muscles to relax just a little so that blood would flow more freely and lend strength to that member.

"Up now!" he cried to Leda, digging his fingers into the crack again and pushing down on his left leg for leverage as he hauled upward with his left arm.

As the girl's slim body was pulled upward, the strain shifted from Gord's arms to the foothold. If the little ledge of limestone crumbled, or his boot slipped, they would both be lost. Gord prayed silently. Then Leda managed to grab his belt, and using this new grip the girl pulled herself up to a position beside Gord. The young man's left hand guided Leda's own left to the handle of the imbedded dagger. "Let go of my wrist now, girl, and grab the pommel of the dagger – it's buried fast in the stone and will hold your weight easily."

Leda did as he said. "I have it!" she exclaimed in joy. Then she freed her right hand, and using both arms pulled herself up and over the lip, back into the tube above.

In a second Gord had hold of the dagger again, pulled himself up, and then he and the elf were wedged into the tube side by side, the cramped conditions actually giving both a sense of safety and security for the moment.

"How do we get back up the tunnel?"

Gord paused to think before answering Leda's question. "I am not sure we do," he said.

"Have you a flying carpet now?" She sounded exhausted and cross.

"No, but there might be some means of getting down that both of us can manage. That monstrous cavern, or whatever it is, seems to head off toward the southwest – just the direction for us."

"You go ahead if you like. I'm going to climb back up the way we came," Leda said acidly. The dark elf turned and began to wiggle away.

Gord remained where he was, waiting to see if she really meant what she said. But before she had gone twenty feet back along the passage, Leda froze in her tracks, and Gord heard the same sound that stopped her – a sort of slurping, snuffling noise. He had no idea what made such a sound, but decided he didn't care to find out just now anyway. As Leda began making her way carefully back toward Gord, the young thief eased himself over to the place where the tube opened onto the chasm and peered down and around. Five or so feet to his right and about ten feet down, a ledge ran along the face of the rock for as far as he could see. That looked like a usable route, and Gord could use his acrobatic skill to gain the place with no difficulty. But Leda would find it impossible to get to the ledge without his help.

"Don't lose your dweomer now," he muttered to his dagger as he began chipping away at the limestone just beneath the edge of the hole. By doing this, he turned a small toehold into a sort of step – at least in his climber-experienced eyes. Then, farther down and to the side of the passage he leaned out of, the magical blade went to work again, cutting the soft stone to provide another holding place.

By now Leda was back, and she was terrified again. "What are we going to do?" she moaned.

Instead of answering her, the young man redoubled his efforts. Then he moved away from Leda, swinging out to the step he had carved beyond the opening and working with one outstretched hand to hew another hold farther toward the ledge.

"Don't climb away without me," Leda pleaded.

"I'm not, and don't worry. Come to the mouth of the tube and climb out quick, or that thing coming behind you will have you for dinner." As Leda cautiously looked out, Gord showed her where the places for her hands and feet were. She was reluctant at first, but then a squishy, plopping sound from close behind her propelled Leda down and out onto the first step in a flash. "Just follow me, keep three holds at all times, and don't move too quickly," Gord said, making it all sound much easier than it was for her.

A rubbery appendage came snaking out of the hole Leda had just vacated. It paused, quivered for a moment, then quested in her direction uncertainly. With no hesitation, she moved to the next position, her head now about five feet below the mouth of the tube. Gord was working on gouging out another pair of holds. The protruding member lengthened, and was only a foot from Leda's body now.

"Gord, do something! It's going to grab me in a second!"

Gord moved to his right and let himself drop to the ledge below. By using the stone, he slowed his fall easily, and what shock there was to the drop he absorbed with flexed legs. As he turned to face the girl, Leda saw that she could move sideways a couple of feet to where he had been but a moment before and did so. The tentacle lengthened too, nearly reaching her with its searching tip. Then it did touch her, and with an involuntary cry, Leda jerked away from it, lost her hold, and fell – about two feet down into Gord's waiting arms.

"Let's move along," he suggested to her as he put her down on the two-foot-wide shelf of limestone. "Who knows what that thing can do?" With that, Gord began walking casually along the ledge. Leda followed, facing inward and doing a rapid side shuffle to keep up. After about two hundred feet there was a gap of six or seven feet before the shelf resumed on the other side, a bit lower than the elevation they presently occupied. Some fall from above had apparently carried part of the ledge away.

That thing is still after us," Leda hissed.

"No time to waste," Gord observed. An amorphous glob with several waving stalks that pointed in their direction was oozing its way methodically along the ledge about fifty feet behind them. A little work, and Gord had a single handhold about two feet out along the sheer surface. Grabbing that with his left hand, the young adventurer swung his body like a pendulum, arcing over to the far portion of the ledge and landing nimbly on his feet.

"Leda, go back a couple of steps, run, and jump. I'll be here to catch you." The monster was now only about ten feet away from her, so the dark elf nodded and immediately did just that.

"Now move on past me," Gord continued. "Let's see if that lump of dung can follow us across that space." Leda went forward a few steps and then turned to watch what he was doing. Gord stayed at the edge of their new pathway, watching the blob. One of its tentacle-pseudopods waved out toward him, as the mass of the monster hesitated where the ledge ended. Gord moved away from it a bit. The member snaked around, then down. It contacted the new ledge and appeared to fasten itself there. Then it began to thicken, and the blob on the far side seemed to dwindle at the same time. "I'll be damned!" Gord said in wonder and disgust

"Do something!"

Even as Leda urged him on, Gord was drawing his short sword. "That I am, girl!" he muttered. With an oath, Gord struck downward, hitting the black band of stuff just in front of the arriving swell. The blade sliced keenly, and a rush of vile, dark stuff washed over the steel. There was a keening sound, and in the next instant the mess fell from sight. Then Gord heard a faint sizzling sound coming from his weapon, and as he looked down he could barely believe his eyes – the ichor of the monster was dissolving the metal of his sword!

"Now I'm screwed!"

"There are other swords, love," Leda said and squeezed his arm. "We are safe now, and alive. That, not your sword, is what matters."

"Until it comes time to fight again," Gord retorted. There was nothing to do about it, though. He finally dropped the hilt and scabbard down after the dead horror, shrugged, and resumed his position in the lead along the narrow walkway of stone. "At least I retain my trusty dag," he finally said.

"Of course, Gord, and I still have my sword. Let us be bold!"

He didn't feel very bold just now, but at least the dark elf was now recovered from her fright at the near plunge into the abyssal subterranean rift they'd chanced upon. Let her handle the next problem with her spells and her weapon. Right now, Gord simply wanted to get out of this underworld and see the sun again – even if it meant plodding through the Ashen Desert once more.

The ledge slanted downward and grew broken, much as if the natural forces that created the place desired long, sloping steps, and it also broadened. So, it was actually very easy to travel along, as long as they didn't encounter a wide stretch where it was missing altogether. Eventually the ledge came to within ten feet of the floor of the rift, and they were able to jump down. They moved into the middle of the cavern to Investigate it. The ceiling was higher than they could see, and the place had to be nearly three hundred yards from side to side.