David Chandler - A thief in the night

“Yes, certainly,” the knight said. “Presumably the trap on the door would stop the first one who tried to come through. The noise it makes would alert you that someone was trying to come in. The invaders would be unlikely to fall for the trap twice, but by the time they disabled the mechanism, you could have a dozen archers here, protected by this defensive works, and they could hold off all but the most determined attackers.”

“The elves thought they were going to be attacked,” Malden said, climbing over the barricade. From the far side he could see how easily a man could duck down behind the gathered junk and be shielded from incoming attacks. “They must have believed that the humans would come in here after them and finish the job. The last thing they expected was that they would be sealed inside and left to rot.”

“Sounds good, lad,” Slag said. “Too bad your theory is horseshit.” The dwarf was busy examining the clockwork that had propelled the spiked board.

“Oh?” Malden asked.

“Two reasons. No elf ever built something this complicated. They lacked the skill. Secondly, the buggers all died off centuries ago.” He ran one finger across the teeth of a heavy gear. “But the oil on this thing is fresh.”

“Then-someone else has been here. And recently,” Cythera said.

“Most like they’re still here,” Slag insisted. “And they didn’t want us coming in.”

Croy frowned. “It doesn’t seem like Morget’s demon would be capable of building that trap.”

“It had no hands,” the barbarian agreed. “The woman had a sense something was here. Now we know it’s more than just intuition. There’s someone else in here with us.”

“But who?” Croy demanded. “This place has been sealed tight for centuries. The demon seems able to come and go, but only because it can flatten itself so that it fits through narrow cracks in the earth. We know no human has ever despoiled this place-the chains out front were still intact, and their enchantment had never been discharged. Moreover, if any man of Skrae had ever come here before we would have heard the tale.”

“Grave robbers, perhaps,” Malden said, though that failed to counter most of Croy’s points. It was all he could think of.

For a while they all just stared at each other, fear passing from one to another as their eyes met. This was not something they’d prepared for.

“Whoever they are,” Slag said finally, “even if they didn’t hear all that noise-they’ll probably come check their trap from time to time. And when they do, they’ll see that someone broke their fucking toy. They’ll know we’re here, too.”

Croy drew Ghostcutter from its sheath. “We need to be on our guard from this point forward.” He saw Morget’s axe jump into his hand. “Everyone,” the knight said, “get back behind this barricade, while we scout the way forward.”

Morget moved without instruction to one of the two doors leading deeper into the Vincularium. The barbarian shoved his helmet down over his shaved head and nodded to indicate his readiness. Croy moved to the other door and stood to one side of it. Whoever constructed the door trap might even now be aware that it had been triggered. He had no conception of what might come to check on it, but he was ready. Carefully, in case there were more traps, he pushed down on the latch of his door. It swung open easily, revealing only darkness beyond.

If anyone was out there, they needed no light to see by. Croy considered extinguishing his group’s own lanterns, but he had fought in darkness too many times to think that wise. A man fighting without a light was as likely to strike down a friend as a foe. He looked across at Morget, who opened his own door. No spikes jumped out, nor did the ceiling of the barricade room fall in, nor did the room fill up with boiling oil. All to the good.

Lantern in one hand, sword in the other, Croy stepped through his door. Beyond lay a room so large his light failed to illuminate anything but the wall behind him. The floor was made of cobblestones like a city street, smoothed down by time and commerce until they were nearly as flat as flagstones. He took a few steps forward into the darkness but failed to find another wall. Soon he was standing in a rippling puddle of his own light, with darkness beyond him in every direction.

He turned to look behind him and could just see the door he’d come through. Standing next to it was its twin. Morget stood framed by the light coming in through that door-it seemed both doors opened on the same chamber. Croy wanted to call Morget out to join him but dared not make noise. He could hear nothing but the omnipresent sound of dripping water and the roaring of the air as it rushed past his ears. There could be a host of demons all around him, with slavering jaws and squirming tentacles, but if so they were not pressing their attack.

After considering his options for a moment, he headed back to the barricade room. “All right,” he whispered, “everyone, come with me. But we must remain absolutely silent!”

He had no idea what was out there in the enormous room. Yet it would be foolish to simply wait in the barricade room for the enemy to arrive. He would look for another defensible spot, one the unseen opponents wouldn’t be watching.

The five of them moved in absolute silence-or as close as they could manage. Morget’s arsenal rattled and clanged under his cloak, and Slag’s tools jangled in his purse. They headed left, along the one wall Croy had found, the outer wall of the barricade room. The wall was made of white brick, roughened here and there by centuries of dripping water. Croy had expected to follow it to another wall soon enough, but after a hundred feet or so he found nothing. The wall seemed to go on forever, featureless and unchanging save that every twenty feet it was braced with a massive column, ten feet square, that ran straight up into the darkness over their heads.

He kept going. After passing another five columns, he saw Malden waving to get his attention. Croy nodded, but placed a finger across his lips to indicate the thief should remain silent.

Malden grimaced in annoyance, then set his lantern down and pantomimed what he’d wanted to say. He held up one hand flat, the fingers pointing straight ahead, then pushed his other hand past it, curving away from it.

Croy frowned and tried to puzzle out the meaning. Then he had it. Malden was saying that the wall they followed was curved.

The knight ran his hands along the smooth bricks, trying to feel the distortion. It was very slight, and very subtle, but once he saw it, it was obvious. The wall was definitely concave. They must be inside some enormous circular room, and he had been hunting for a corner. Had he kept going, he would eventually have returned to the two doors leading into the barricade room.

Slag, watching the interplay of gestures, nodded eagerly. He took a piece of charcoal from his purse and drew a large circle on the wall. Croy nodded in approval. Yes, he thought, we are in a round room, very good.

Slag next took out a ball of string dyed with spots along its length. Croy had seen similar strings used to measure out parcels of land-the spots would be a precise distance apart, and if you knew the distance you could tell how long a given piece of property was, or how wide. The dwarf handed one end of the string to Malden, then reached up to close his fingers around Malden’s hand, indicating that the thief should hold the string tight. Then, lantern held high, Slag walked back the way they had come until Croy could barely see the dwarf’s light swinging in the distance. Slag stopped at some arbitrary-seeming point, then hurried back and drew some dwarven runes on the wall with his charcoal. Croy couldn’t read most of them but recognized some numbers.