Tales of the Old World (42 page)

Johan hurled himself to one side of the stone doorway, where he lay panting
in terror. After a moment he found that he was, surprisingly, still alive.

Johan blinked. “It’s just light!” he called out, standing up warily and
dusting himself down. Shielding his eyes and peering around the doorway, he saw
the others walking into the light, black silhouettes against the brightness.

“Get in here, manling, sharpish!”

Johan staggered forwards, tentatively entering a chamber where the air was
crisp and sweet, and the sound of soft breathing resonated peacefully. As his
eyes grew accustomed to the glare, Johan gasped in astonishment. They were in a
low roofed, circular chamber at least thirty feet in diameter. The walls were
bright white, and radiated the light which had assailed them.

This was not what had caused Johan to gasp. In a circle around the walls of
the cavern there was a ring of stone slabs, perhaps twenty in all. On each,
bedecked in the finery of princes, was an elf warrior of such beauty and
nobility that it was almost painful to look upon them. They slept, and theirs
was the soft breathing which filled the air. Each was in full war gear, each
held an elaborately styled sword to his chest. Each looked to be a king.

“Ancient elf lords, livery of Tiranoc, the sunken kingdom,” Jiriki spoke
softly, his voice tinged with awe.

But even this was not what had caused Johan to gasp. At the centre of the
chamber, surrounded by the sleeping elf lords, was a plain yet elegant plinth,
elf and dwarf runes were inscribed in its surfaces, the spidery grandeur of the
elven sigils contrasting with the powerful majesty of the dwarf work.

Atop the plinth sat a finger. A black, wizened finger. A wrinkled, mostly
decayed, scabrous thing of great antiquity. Despite its obvious age, Johan was
under no illusions that this was what these princely lords were here to protect.

Grimcrag looked over at Johan and laughed. “Don’t be taken in, boy, one false
move and these charming lads will be revealed in their true shape. Vampires, I
wouldn’t wonder. Daemons even. Don’t touch ’em.”

Johan paused; doubt assailed him. Then, with trembling steps, he made for the
central dais. Jiriki was already there. The elf stood by the plinth, reading the
inscriptions as best he could. “These are beyond me, but they are probably
powerful runes of protection akin to those on the doorway.”

“Vot Treasure?” Ever down to earth, the barbarian was scouting the chamber,
looking for secret compartments where the great treasure trove might be found.
“Nothink here. Not vun think.”

The dwarf looked around and sniffed the air, shaking his head in evident
disgust. “Good point, meathead. We’ve been done!”

“Never mind that now,” whispered Johan. “Let’s get the Finger and get out of
here—we can sort out payment later, when we get back.” Once more, he was sure
that something awful was about to happen. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

They converged on the central dais. The Reaver’s sword weaved, testing the
air, and his eyes darted nervously about the chamber. Grimcrag stood close by,
legs apart for balance, his axe held firmly in both hands. Jiriki reached out
for the finger—as he touched it, the breathing of the sleepers faltered in its
regular rhythm.

“Leave it, Jiriki!” Johan screeched. “Remember the
instructions: the
simulacrum!”

The elf recoiled from the finger as if struck. He nodded to Johan, eyes wide.
Grimcrag guffawed, a nervous cough of a laugh.

Johan carefully unwrapped the simulacrum from his pack. It looked little like
the blackened stump on the plinth, but the wizard had assured them that it held
magic properties enough to contain the guardians for a while at least. Johan
reached carefully with his left hand for the aged finger, his right
simultaneously manoeuvring the simulacrum into place. As he grasped the finger,
a shudder went through the sleepers. Quick though Johan was to remove the
artefact, one of the lords abruptly awoke, sitting upright and reaching for his
sword.

“WHO DARES—” he began, but his voice was cut short as Grimcrag’s axe removed
his noble head from his elegant body. Jiriki winced. Johan placed the simulacrum
on the dais. The sleepers resumed their slumber, although now their breathing
was disturbed, and they fidgeted restlessly in their sleep, as if in the throes
of nightmares.

“Goddit, ja?” Keanu asked.

Johan nodded.

“Let’s go,” growled Grimcrag.

They made for the door, half expecting a hideous trap to be sprung as they
left. Jiriki paused by the defiled slab, his forehead furrowed by lines of
uncertainty.

“Come on, Jiriki, it was him or us,” Grimcrag said softly from the doorway.
“If I’m wrong, at least it’s not you ’as been kin-slaying, and I’ll owe someone
due reparation.”

Hesitantly Jiriki joined them outside the chamber. “We’re all in this
together, my friend. Let’s hope we’re right.”

In the passageway, Keanu had a torch re-lit, and the warriors carefully
closed the stone door behind them, shutting out the white light and plunging
themselves into gloom once again. Johan handed the magical talisman to Jiriki,
who passed it around the doorway, realigning the broken runes once more.

“There you are, see!” Grimcrag exclaimed. “That wizard knows what he’s up to
all right—all bar the treasure, that is…” His gruff voice trailed off, and he
spat on the floor.

“Somvun get da Treasure first?” Keanu suggested, striding off along the
corridor with lantern held high.

“Mebbe so,” grunted the dwarf. “And wait for us!” Johan and the grizzled
dwarf followed the barbarian.

Jiriki joined them a moment later, a puzzled frown still on his face. “The
problem is, if we think for a moment, that the chamber had lain undisturbed for
ages. We found it as it was sealed, runes unbroken. No one has been there before
us.”

“And that means—” Johan added after the required moment’s thought.

“No treasure!” Grimcrag scowled even more ferociously than usual. “As I
thought, that wizard has some explaining to do once he’s got ’is precious Finger
back!”

Dispirited, the adventurers made their way to the surface and the long trek
back to civilisation. It seemed that the quest was, at least from their own
point of view, a failure.

“At least ve’re gettink da Finga,” Keanu commented, attempting a glimmer of
cheer as they trudged out of the broken down cave entrance. “Und ve can see da
Daylicht vunce more.”

Grimcrag looked around the desolate hillside. It was starting to snow again.
“What good’s that to us, eh? Daylight won’t keep us warm, nor pay our expenses
neither.”

Jiriki laughed. The situation had tickled his elvish humour. “And all for a
mummified bit of man-flesh that is worth nothing to anyone except our misguided
patron. We can’t even sell it to anyone else.”

Grimcrag snorted and stomped off into the snow, followed by the barbarian,
now wrapped tightly in his bearskin. The dwarf’s gruff voice floated back towards
the elf, who was stowing his bow to avoid the string being ruined by the damp
air. “Not funny. Not funny at all!”

Bursting into a bright and spirit-raising melody, the elf ran lightly after
his companions, leaving Johan shivering in the entrance. A plan was growing in
Anstein’s mind, a plan so devious that it might just work.

“Hold on you lot! Hold on!” he shouted, rushing off down the hillside after
the vanishing figures. In a few minutes he caught them, waiting for him in the
lee of a large boulder which offered a little shelter from the elements.

“Make it quick, lad,” Grimcrag said through gritted teeth.

“Yes, yes, but listen to this idea,” Johan began, hopping from foot to foot.

“Ideas, pah!” spat Keanu, his breath steaming in the cold. He stabbed Johan
in the chest with an iron hard finger. “Dis hole grosses Dizazta ist ’coz of
your verdamten Planen.” Johan had noticed before that the barbarian’s accent
thickened to near-incomprehensibility when he got angry.

Even Jiriki shook his head wearily. “I think you’ve got us in enough of a
mess already with your pipe-dreams, lad. Leave it alone, eh?”

As the three Marauders turned to go, Johan jumped in front of them, eyes
gleaming.

“Listen, you miserable beggars. We’ve got the Finger, right?”

“Ja, so vot?”

“The Vizard, sorry, the wizard wants it, right?”

“Yeses, go on…” Grimcrag was interested. He could see the glimmerings of a
plan happening, a plan which might involve some gold.

Johan seized his chance and blurted out the whole scheme. “We get old Gerry
the butcher to make us a finger just like the real one. After all, the wizard
has never seen it.” Johan counted the points off on his fingers. “Then we take
the real finger and bury it somewhere secret nearby.” Jiriki was nodding in
approval. Johan held up another finger. “We take the fake finger to the wizard
and try and get an explanation from him. He won’t let us in the tower if we
don’t have something to wave at him.”

“Klewa lad. Be Kontinuing.”

“Well, as I see it, once we’re in the tower, he’ll either spin us a yarn, or
offer us some gold by way of apology. If we get some treasure, we go back and
get the real finger for him. Otherwise, we tell him he’s got a fake and sell him
the real one. Simple! We can’t lose!” Pleased with himself, Johan swelled up
with pride.

The others, standing by the boulder on the desolate hillside, assessed the
plan.

“Butcher, ja?”

“A simulacrum of a simulacrum, I like that.”

“Treasure and gold after all!”

“Well?” enquired Johan after a minute or so. “What do you think?”

Grimcrag grabbed him by the shoulders, staring sternly into Johan’s eyes. The
dwarf’s black eyes gleamed ferociously. Johan thought perhaps now something
awful was going to happen after all. The others crowded round, looking over
Grimcrag’s shoulders to see what was going on. Johan felt his back meet the cold
stone of the boulder. He gulped.

“Manling,” Grimcrag began, speaking slowly and with deliberation. “Of all
your harebrained schemes…” He stopped, and Johan cringed inwardly at what was to
follow. “This… is the best so far!” With a whoop of joy, Grimcrag threw his
helmet into the air, caught it again and set off down the hillside at the
nearest he was ever going to get to a sprightly jog.

Jiriki grinned. “This is going to work, lad—he’s even singing his favourite
song!” Punching Johan cheerfully in the chest, the elf set off after the dwarf.

“What song?” Johan shouted, wincing from the blow.

“Komst, lad, let’s go.” The Barbarian sprang catlike down the hillside.

Still smirking with satisfaction, Johan began picking his way down the
treacherous slope. Even though he was concentrating hard on not falling over,
his ears caught the unmistakable sound of the Marauders in full song as they
descended the hill. After a moment’s hesitation, Johan threw caution to the
wind. Well, no one from the Empire was around to hear him.

“Gold gold gold gold!

Gold gold gold gold!

Wonderful gold!

Delectable gold…”

It was all going to be all right after all. Probably.

The wizard was pleased to see them, skipping excitedly as he undid the myriad
locks and bolts to his tower.

“You have it, you have it?” he fussed, leading them by torch light up the
steps. “Of course you have, I saw it from the window.” The wizard turned around
on the steps and reached out a bony hand. Johan thought he saw a rather greedy
glint in the eyes which peered out from the shadows of the heavy cowl. “I’ll
carry it from here on now, shall I?”

His eyes were mesmerising, and Johan felt his hand reaching unintentionally
into his back pack. “You can carry it now,” he intoned dully. Johan was barged
aside by a sturdy armoured figure, who broke the spell with a characteristically
gruff outburst.

“Not till the tower, that was the deal. We deliver it to the top of the
tower. Always does things to the letter, we does. We’ve got honour!” Grimcrag’s
voice was laden with sarcasm, but if the wizard noticed he did a good job of not
showing it, running off cheerfully up the steps.

“Very well, my friends. Hurry along, hurry along, I have a kettle on for a
nice hot drink.”

“Hrrumph!” Grimcrag added, but they followed the excited sorcerer up to his
den nonetheless. Five minutes later and they were sitting around his table,
glasses of a hot, mead-like drink steaming before them. None of them touched a
drop.

“Come along now,” the wizard chided, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
“Drink up, we have much to celebrate!”

Johan smiled glassily and made to take up his glass, but the Reaver stopped
him with an iron hard forearm. “Njet drinking!”

“We always keep clear heads when concluding business. Nothing personal, you
understand.” Jiriki’s silky steel voice decided the issue.

“Of course. You are… professionals.”

Shaking his head to clear what felt like a thick fog, Johan thought he caught
the edge of a snarl in the wizard’s voice. The Marauders made no move. There was
a heavy silence.

“Well?” the wizard exclaimed after a moment, and there was no mistaking the
impatience in his tone now. “Where is it?”

Grimcrag turned to Johan and winked. He was enjoying this immensely, although
the canny dwarf had noticed that there were no treasure chests lying around this
time. “Where’s all the treasure then?” he enquired of the wizard, as politely as
a hard bitten dwarf who has been dragged to the perilous ends of the world for
absolutely nothing could manage. “Where’s the gold?”

The wizard waved a hand dismissively and smiled. “I took your advice and
moved it. It was a lot of worthless clutter. All locked away safely downstairs,
never fear.” He patted the large ring of keys under his cloak. They jangled
comfortingly. “Now, if I might insist, the Finger of Life, power of goodness,
please, as agreed. I have waited long enough, and we do have a deal!”