Alaistair Archibald - Questor

****

Thribble saw the human female's gaze flicker upwards and fasten upon him for one heart-stopping moment. He made a swift side-step into the blind end of the tunnel, relieved that no great clamour arose from below; however, his relief turned swiftly to dismay as the light was extinguished. Was he about to be eliminated by a sudden inrush of some noxious gas? He had no idea

The demon's worst fears seemed confirmed, as a loud hiss pervaded the metal tube. The tiny imp drew a deep, convulsive breath, and his cheeks blew out until his head looked like a grey marble. His lungs began to burn, and he shut his eyes, determined to resist for as long as possible. The hissing sound persisted, and his sensitive ears began to pain him as the pressure increased within the duct. At last, he had to obey the overpowering, urgent message from his tortured body, breathing out with explosive force, but still refusing to inhale.

Bright sparks and speckles sparkled before his tightly-shut eyes as he fought to control the howling demands of his body. His head twisted from one side to the other as he denied his lungs the air they craved. The pain in the imp's ears rose to an agonising peak, and the thrumming in the darkened tube increased to an overwhelming tumult. After struggling to stem the relentless imperatives of his stem-brain for what seemed like an eternity, he succumbed, drawing a mighty, spastic breath.

Thribble forced himself to remain calm as he assessed the reactions of his aching, yearning body to the intake of the potentially poisoned air. No new pains arose; no wracking, scorching pains in his chest, no palpitations of his heart. Whatever the intentions of the humans below, it seemed they were not introducing toxic substances into the tunnel at this time, although their actions were completely beyond his understanding.

The loud hiss reduced to a peevish squeal, followed by brief silence. The minuscule demon dared to take a breath, and then another. He heard a loud clanking noise from the chamber below, and the flow of air reversed for a few moments, causing Thribble's ears to pop again. After this, another loud mechanical noise heralded the welcome return of light to the duct, and conditions returned to their previous state.

****

"Okay, everybody; heads up," Terrence said, after clapping his hands to attract the attention of his subordinates. "The nasty stuff comes next. Get into your suits and perform a full pressure check on each other; if you value your lives at all, don't be tempted to skimp. There are no second chances with VX; am I clear on this?"

A nervous chorus of assent arose from the gathered techs; although previously unacquainted with VX, Terrence had told them all in great detail of the awful powers of nerve agents when he summoned them.

Terrence tried to preserve an air of confidence and competence, but he knew the protective suits had lain deep within the Haven stores, unused, for many decades. The test he had ordered carried out gave him some assurance that the ancient, patched ducts would do their duty, but the smallest pinhole anywhere in the sealed air system would spell death to anyone in its vicinity.

****

Thribble dared another glimpse down the ventilation duct opening, seeing the white-clad backs of the Technicians as they trooped out of the room. If he were to have any chance of escaping from the metal tube, he would have to move quickly. He lowered himself from the lip of the aperture and dropped onto the reinforcing lattice.

Lying prone on the grille, he scanned the room for possible soft-landing sites, or means of climbing to the floor. For a moment, it seemed to be hopeless; a nine- or ten-foot chasm yawned beneath him, at the bottom of which lay a floor of hard tiles. However, at the corner of his field of view, he saw a large bucket of water. The tiny demon felt sure he would survive a dive into water from this vertiginous height, but it was not directly below the opening.

There was only one thing for it; Thribble quailed inside at the thought of what he must do, but he had no intention of letting down his human friend, Grimm. He had one power that, until this moment, had seemed a spectacular example of uselessness, but which seemed to be ideally suited to his current situation. He wrapped his prehensile tail around one of the metal bars and dropped. Thribble began to swing back and forth, like some bulbous, grey pendulum-bob, extending his tail little by little, until his body described great arcs across the room.

At the peak of one such arc, the minuscule imp relaxed his tail, and he flew across the room. Thribble's arms, legs and tail flailed at random as he flew through the air; he banged his shoulder painfully on the inner wall of the bucket, but he landed in the water. Although the impact knocked the breath out of him, the netherworld imp knew he was not badly hurt as he swam to the surface and spluttered.

Although he could not reach the lip of the bucket, the thin metal from which it was constructed allowed him to use his limited powers of teleportation to escape; his few inches' range of inter-dimensional travel were more than adequate. In a moment, he dropped a few inches and found himself standing safely on the floor.

He still had not the slightest idea of what he could do to rescue his friends, but he knew that the closure of the metal barriers in the duct could not be a random act. It must be intended to direct the poison straight to the metal cell imprisoning the two Questors.

Thribble guessed that Terrence and his 'techs' had introduced some harmless substance into the pipe, perhaps as some kind of test; the next vapour they introduced might not be so benign. He turned to see a yellow cylinder on a rack, covered with meaningless numbers and strange symbols. However obscure the labels, one stood out: a stylised representation of a human skull resting on a pair of crossed bones.

This cylinder must contain the deadly substance, thought Thribble.

He realised he had no chance of reaching Grimm and warning him before the noxious vapour was released into the tube and carried towards his friend. Somehow, he must sabotage the operation without drawing attention to his actions. The cylinder was fitted with a long hose which trailed to the floor, and at the end of this was a large metal cup. The diameter of this corresponded well with the openings in the ventilation duct, and Thribble surmised that it was screwed onto the underside of the aperture.

What could I possibly do to disable this canister of death?

Then it struck him, as he saw an open bag of what looked like cotton waste lying in the corner of the room. Running to the bag, mindful of the little time that he might have, he grabbed a double-handful of the fibrous material and raced back to the cylinder, ramming the cotton deep into the hose with all the strength at his command. After a dozen repetitions, Thribble managed to compress the matter until it was a solid, impassable lump at the base of the hose.

The imp worried that the gas, if it were under any great pressure, might force the cotton from the tube, but he could only hope the blockage would hold. Hearing movement in the anteroom to his right, Thribble bounded to the main door of the room and teleported through it. He knew where he was in relation to the cell; he hoped to make his way back there and find some means of lifting the imprisoning walls that held Grimm and Xylox. Then he realised that his best bet might be to enlist the aid of the large white-haired human, with his prodigious strength, or the half-elf, Crest, with his lock-picking skills. He had no idea where either of them was, but he thought he should be able to follow their scent trail from the Habitation Block, and he knew where that was.

****

"It's all set up, Terrence," Technician Brunton said. "You can start the pump whenever you want."