David Chandler - A thief in the night

He tried to fight off such doubts. They were no help at that particular moment. “Come,” he said. “Let’s go back. There must be another way up-some stairwell that will take us more directly to Cythera and Slag, and-”

Morget was beyond talking, at that point.

The barbarian roared and charged at the wall with his shoulder, hard enough, it seemed to Croy, to smash his own bones if the bricks didn’t yield.

Luckily, they did. The door shifted an inch or two, letting in a gust of foul-smelling air. Croy wrinkled his nose. At least this new reek didn’t smell of excrement. Instead it stank of rotting vegetables and spoiled meat.

“Damn your tricks, sorceress!” Morget cursed, and then struck the door again, hard enough to make the tunnel shake. The door shrieked as it opened another few inches-and then Croy winced as he heard something heavy and metallic fall away from the door. It clattered and rang as it fell to crash on a floor on the far side.

“Now at least they know we’re coming,” Croy said. He was not prone to sarcasm, normally. Maybe Malden had been rubbing off on him.

“That just makes for a fairer fight,” Morget replied. He pushed the door again and it opened easily. It must have been barred from the far side, that was all.

Morget slipped through the opening and Croy followed close behind-just close enough that he could grab the barbarian’s shoulders and pull him back before he fell to his death. Beyond the brick door was a narrow ledge looking out over a vast room. The floor of the room was a good fifty feet below them.

Morget shouted in anger and struck the wall behind him with a closed fist. The blow made an echoing boom that rolled around the big room for long seconds.

We may not surprise them, Croy thought, but if luck is with us we’ll scare them senseless.

Candlelight revealed few details of the room beyond, but enough at least to give Croy some idea of how to proceed. The ledge was only six inches wide, part of a stringcourse that ran along the wall. This at least was dwarven architecture-the stringcourse was made of carved dwarven runes, hundreds of them, with raised dots between every six or seven runes, probably to mark the end of one word and the start of another. Below the stringcourse someone had made a very crude ladder by chiseling holes into the wall for handholds.

Croy sheathed Ghostcutter and started down, lacking any better plan. He had never been a skilled climber, but he went down as quickly as he could, clinging desperately to the handholds.

They were too small for human hands, really, but he found he could grip them with a few fingers, and use other handholds for the tips of his boots. Carefully, and far slower than he would have liked, he climbed down the wall to the floor below. He was hampered in this by the need to hold his candle in one hand even as he climbed. He dropped the last five feet to the floor and unsheathed his sword the second he was standing on solid ground.

Behind him Morget came down much faster, with Dawnbringer clamped tight between his teeth.

By the time the barbarian dropped light as a feather to the flagstones, Croy had made out more of the chamber. The room was perhaps a hundred feet long, and half that wide. Its walls were of fine marble veined with a deep green. No furniture, machinery, or other fixtures filled the space, but at one end a massive throne had been carved to abut the wall, a deep chair raised up on six steps of joined marble blocks. “An audience chamber. Or perhaps a place of judgment,” Croy said.

“Once upon a time. Now it’s a midden,” Morget replied.

They were both correct. At their feet lay the iron bar that had barred the secret door above them. It had dug a shallow gouge in the floor when it struck. It was, however, far from the only thing strewn across the floor. Rags, bits of broken wood, and countless pieces of cave beetle shell had been dumped here without heed. The floor was thick with rotting meat and cut-up pieces of mushrooms. Entire fish skeletons crunched underfoot.

None of it was fresh-but it was new. This was not garbage dumped by dwarves in ages past. Someone living had used this chamber to store their refuse.

“Gah!” Morget shouted, and lifted up one boot to stare at its underside. The sole was clotted with fish guts. “What’s next? Will we have to crawl through a charnel house before we find this demon? Or perhaps a latrine?”

“I don’t think so,” Croy said. He pointed with Ghostcutter at the far side of the chamber. A massive arched doorway stood there, open to darkness.

Oozing across the threshold was a thing perhaps fifteen feet in length, though its shape constantly changed so it was hard to tell. It had no fixed form, instead rolling forward like living water. Its skin looked slimy to the touch, and underneath could be seen shapes like organs and even faces, pressing upward against the skin in mute screams of torment.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Croy asked.

“Oh, aye!” Morget said, and let out a booming laugh that made the whole marble chamber buzz.

The demon flowed across the floor, the edges of its shapeless form rippling as it glided over the refuse. A face pressed outward against its skin, the eyes protruding and staring in Croy’s direction. A second face loomed toward Morget. Both were stretched and distorted to a point of horror.

Croy set his candle on the floor, squeezing its lower end between two flagstones so it would stand upright. He couldn’t fight this thing if he couldn’t see it. Then he brought Ghostcutter down, the point near the floor. He put his left foot back to improve his stance.

He had no idea how to attack it. It did not have limbs to cleave or a proper head to target. He was not so foolish to think that the faces would be vulnerable. It had too many of them, for one thing. Morget had spoken of a central organ that seemed important to the beast, but Croy couldn’t see it through the skin. What could you do with such a shapeless abomination, save carve it up and then burn the pieces?

He doubted it would stand still while he did that.

It came on fast, faster than a man could run. Just before it would have lapped across Morget’s boots, it reared up in the air and struck at him with the edges of its envelope. Croy jumped in and brought Ghostcutter around in a wide arc intended to slice open the thing’s back. The cold iron edge of his sword found little purchase-its skin gave too easily, so it was like trying to slice honey. He managed only to trace a shallow wound that oozed a clear fluid.

The monster did not roar in pain-if it had a voice at all, it had not used it yet. Croy knew he’d hurt it, though, because it stopped attacking Morget and came at him instead. He expected it to turn around to face him, but instead it merely leaned over backward and splattered all over Croy’s chest and face like a thing of pure liquid. Its back became its front, and Croy was overwhelmed instantly.

Sticky fluid splashed across his mouth and nose, sealing in his breath. He clamped his eyes shut and tried to bring Ghostcutter up, but the thing’s infernal substance wrapped around his sword hand and squeezed, constricting the muscles in his wrist until he dropped the weapon. He fought and clawed against the stuff as it wrapped around his waist and pulled him off his feet, drawing him into its body.

The demon swallowed him whole.

He passed through its skin like diving into hot water and suddenly was inside the thing. Its blood burned his face and hands-anywhere it touched exposed skin-and slithered down the collar of his tunic and up his sleeves.

There was no air inside the thing. Its jellylike substance pushed at his lips, trying to get inside of him, to suffocate him. Wherever it touched his bare skin searing pain made his muscles twitch, while fear threatened to overwhelm him like a black wave. He was seconds from death-seconds at the very most-and his natural urge to panic, to scream, was almost uncontrollable.