Andrew Hartley - Act of Will

We hadn’t spoken for a while and her voice echoed in the confined space so suddenly that I looked around me uncertainly, as if afraid of offending someone. “No,” I whispered. “That was a building. This is quite different.”

We moved on, stepping through a doorway into a cavern. It was huge, and vaulted like a temple. Renthrette held up her lantern, and as the light splashed across the floor, we froze. On the far side of the cave were four seated figures, armored with bronze and cloaked in scarlet. They were facing us.

I gasped and turned to flee, pulling Renthrette after me. I blundered against the wall but managed to stay upright, and began stumbling back the way we had come, blinded by terror and sudden claustrophobia. I had barely gotten out of the corridor when a strong hand seized my wrist and pulled me sharply backwards. The shock felt like it would tear my arm out of its socket. Stopped in my tracks, I twisted round to face my captor.

A lantern shone in my face and Renthrette whispered, “Get back in there.”

I stared at her in amazement as she walked back down the stone corridor and into the great chamber.

“You want to take them on by ourselves?” I hissed. “Good luck.”

“I think even you could handle this fight,” she answered without looking back.

She strode away, not even trying to be quiet. I waited where I was, considering her composure and the sudden darkness. (She had, of course, taken the lantern with her.) As I started cautiously after her, she called back, her voice booming from wall to wall, “They’re dead, Will. See for yourself!”

She was right. The raiders were sitting against the wall, their weapons on the floor in front of them, their hands and faces leathery. Across the cavern lay several more. All dead.

“What the hell is this?” I whispered.

Renthrette adjusted the flame of her lantern and we got a better look at the cavern. We saw a dozen bedrolls and as many cloaks and weapons strewn about, but no sign of a struggle. I walked over to the back of the cavern and found a well shaft, almost brimming with dark water. Behind it was another dead raider, his helm in his hands and a twisted look on his desiccated face. I sat on the edge of the well and looked at him. They could not have been dead more than a couple of weeks, perhaps only days.

“The enemy has been tracking our movements since we showed up,” said Renthrette. “They knew we were bound to come here at some point.”

“You think this was a trap?” I said. “For us?”

I looked around some more, considering the damp stone of the walls as it picked up the light and glowed pale as opal. The entire cave sparkled softly with that same crystalline rock.

Well, at least you know how they got here.

Which meant that more raiders could appear here any second, taking the places of their comrades who had been killed.

“Renthrette!” I said. “I don’t think we should be here.”

She was crouching by the four seated corpses, and looked in my direction when I spoke. I was going to say more but then I heard a sound somewhere below me: it was a glugging sound, thick and liquid. I snatched the lantern and peered into the waters of the well. There was a moment of near-silence, the soft dripping of water resonating through the caves and tunnels, and then it came again, this time resembling a gurgling, bubbling sound that I could feel vibrating through my stomach. The water stirred, as if it was beginning to boil.

Something was coming up.

I leapt to my feet and ran, shouting, “Get out! There’s something in the well!”

I hit the opposite wall as the water sloshed over the rim and splashed onto the floor. I turned and saw, or half saw, the faint haze of an almost colorless cloud breaking from a bubble in the water.

“Gas!”

We ran.

We ran out and up, back the way we had come. With each step I fought my dread of the tightening of my lungs, a dry, sickening drowning feeling. I stumbled and fell more than once. I held my breath until I could go no farther and had to gasp the thin cavern air, terrified of sensing some scent or flavor that would mean death. I was at Renthrette’s heels all the way, heedlessly bashing my knees against the stone until we burst from the caverns into the afternoon light. I’ve never run so hard or so fast in my life.

We threw ourselves into the dust and drank the air, wheezing and laughing at our escape. She sort of half embraced me in her joy, and I hung on until her desire to break away became unavoidable.

“Just some kind of gas,” she said, amazed.

But there was no “just” about it. I thought of those doubled-up corpses inside; we had survived where the raiders hadn’t. They weren’t invulnerable. They weren’t unbeatable. We weren’t destined to lose every time we saw them. I grinned at Renthrette and she grinned back, without distaste or suspicion. It was about time.

We readied the wagon and made for Adsine, pushing the horses as hard as we dared in the heat. Renthrette was as matey now as she had ever been, and I tried to think of a way to capitalize on her good humor. It wasn’t that she was never civil to me, but actual pleasantness tended to be the kind of thing you record in a ledger, like a lunar eclipse or the birth of a two-headed cow.

“It was a good thing you saw that gas,” she said with a disarming smile as we rolled into the afternoon.

“I heard it first, gurgling down there like the witch’s cauldron in a children’s story.”

“I don’t really know any stories,” she answered. “Once our waiting woman-”

“Hold it! You had servants?”

“A couple,” she replied.

“Tough life,” I muttered.

“One of them was my old wet nurse,” she explained, ignoring me. “She was once caught telling us stories and was replaced. My father said that such fantasies were corrupting nonsense.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I sighed. “For a while back in Cresdon I was held personally responsible for the collapse of morality and religion all over the region. I wish I had been. Maybe you saw some of my plays,” I ventured hopefully.

“I’ve never been in a theatre,” she said.

“Never? You’re joking! Never?”

“Did I miss something?”

“Theatre is where the world makes sense!” I exclaimed. “It’s where we admit the roles we play daily, where we confess our love of intelligence and evil. It’s where. You aren’t listening, are you?”

“What?” she said suddenly. “Oh, I’m sorry, Will. I was trying to remember Nurse’s story.”

“Don’t worry, I’m used to it.”

“It was something about a girl, and a dragon who was so lonely that he wept constantly-”

“And his tears flowed down the mountains and threatened to drown the village,” I said hurriedly. “Yes, I know it. But it was a boy, not a girl.”

“In mine it was a girl,” she said.

“Whatever.”

She paused for a long, thoughtful moment and then, with what I took to be courage, looked at me and said, “I don’t remember how it ended. The story, I mean.”

It was a request, of sorts.

“Well, as you’d expect, I suppose,” I said. “The little girl has to save the village, so she goes up into the mountains and petitions the dragon to stop crying. At first the dragon is angry and he weeps tears of rage so that the waters rise to the windowsills of the houses below and the villagers have to go upstairs. Then the little girl tells him about her family and how they are in danger, and the dragon cries tears of sadness so that the waters rise to the door lintels and the villagers have to climb onto their roofs. Then the little girl, realizing that the dragon is merely lonely, offers to befriend it, and the tears stop. The waters subside and they all live happily ever after. The end. Not much of a story really.”