Филип Этанс - The Death Ray

“But all is not lost, Your Highness,” Vargussel said.

“There’s another spell?”

“There is always another spell, sire,” said the wizard. “I will need time, though, and resources from my laboratory.”

“How long?”

“A day,” Vargussel lied, “perhaps longer. The magic is powerful and carefully masked.”

The duke nodded, looking down at nothing, thinking.

“May I take it with me?” the wizard prompted.

“You had best,” answered the duke. “Keep it in your sight at all times, though.”

“I will,” Vargussel agreed.

“A day, you said?” asked the duke.

“Perhaps more,” the wizard answered.

The duke frowned and said, “Do your best to tell me something sooner. The lives of a score of city watchmen and Lord Constable Regdar may depend on it.”

“Indeed?” Vargussel asked, feigning surprise.

“They pursue the creature from which this steel was severed even now,” the duke said, his face lined and gray.

“Do they?” Vargussel murmured. “Do they indeed…”

Naull didn’t know how long they’d been in the sewers before she finally figured out a way to breathe through her mouth that actually cut the force of the stench. The air had a thickness to it that made it coat everything it touched with the smell of waste and decay.

The tunnel was the same size all the way in, but it still seemed to be closing in on her a little tighter with every step she took. They kept a steady pace and turned only a few times as they delved deeper into the city’s eastern reaches: the sprawling and crowded Trade Quarter. To Naull it felt like they’d been wading through sewage for miles but the city wasn’t that big. She thought she might be able to clear her head and start thinking straight if only she could take a deep breath. Instead, she tensed her whole body, riding waves of trembling panic while remaining stoic and silent on the outside.

“Here,” Jandik said from the head of the single-file line. He pointed to the low ceiling, and Regdar stepped up to follow the tracker’s finger as it drew a line from just over his head, down the tunnel into the impenetrable darkness. “This is where the scratches stop. We kept going about another hundred yards without seeing another sign. It’s as if the thing just disappeared.”

Regdar looked around, and so did everyone else. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel were made of old but solid brickwork. There was no sign of a door and certainly no visible magical effects.

“It could be under our feet,” Watch Sergeant Lorec suggested.

Regdar seemed to consider the idea, even scuffled his toes around under the opaque, brown liquid, feeling for a door or hinge. If there was a trapdoor in the floor of the tunnel, opening it would have sent thousands of gallons of water emptying into the space below.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “The thing that attacked us was made of steel or encased in steel armor. If it had been submerged, the piece I cut off would have been wet, or at least stained with this horrid soup. It was clean and dry.”

“There’s another secret door,” Naull suggested. “There has to be.”

“Can you cast that spell again?” asked Regdar.

Naull smiled and said, “That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?”

Regdar looked at her strangely and shrugged.

She closed her eyes and did her best to ignore him, the walls and the stench still closing in on her, along with the feeling of impending doom that she couldn’t for the life of her shake. Naull cast her spell. She heard Watchman Samoth slosh a few steps away from her as she intoned the incantation, but ignored that too.

When the spell was done, she opened her eyes and was greeted by a dazzling, green glow from the wall to the party’s left. She stepped to the wall and traced the outline of the door with her fingertip. Regdar leaned in close.

“I see it,” he whispered.

“Can she open it?” the sergeant asked.

Naull kept her focus on the spell, digging deep into her magic-enhanced awareness for the door’s hidden latch.

“Can she?” the sergeant pressed.

Regdar shushed him, and Naull silently applauded his patience. It took a minute more than she thought it would, but eventually her eyes locked on a chip of mortar at the edge of the door. She clearly saw her hand extend toward it and tip the mortar chip down as if picking it out of the wall. The door swung wide, revealing Naull shook her head, wiping the spell away, with her hand still poised an inch from the trigger. With the magic gone, she couldn’t see the door.

“Is that the latch?” Regdar asked.

She thought about opening it to show off her cleverness but quickly reminded herself what might be behind the door. She swallowed and found her throat dry and painful.

“Just, um…” she said. “Just scratch it like you’re trying to pull it out, and the door will swing inward.”

Regdar gave her a smile that she tried to return, then he turned to the tracker.

“I’ll take point from here,” the lord constable said.

Jandik didn’t argue. None of them did.

Vargussel threw open the door to his study and went immediately to the apothecary’s cabinet in which he stored his spell components. He opened just the four drawers he needed and quickly gathered up the components of the spell. Heedless of whatever papers might have been on his desk, he ran through the spell as quickly as possible, mixing the noxious components in a sizzling, smoking paste that almost caused a sheet of parchment to catch flame.

The mixture was gone in a puff of smoke, and Vargussel finished the spell. He closed his eyes and formed in his imagination a picture of the lord constable’s face. It took no more than a few heartbeats but Vargussel found his heart racing and his fingers tapping with impatience as the image formed more clearly, then took life in his mind.

Regdar was in the sewers. Vargussel could see him as clearly as if they were standing toe-to-toe, though in truth they were separated by a mile or more.

Stairs , the lord constable said, his voice echoing in Vargussel’s mind, somehow disconnected by magic, time, and distance from the image of his lips forming the words.

Vargussel hissed out a curse. They were at the sewer stairs. They had found the second of his secret doors. They would be in the slaughterhouse soon enough.

The wizard watched and listened as Regdar mustered his pitiful force of impotent city watchmen and some girl Vargussel had never seen. They started up the stairs.

I had time, Lord Constable, Vargussel thought. I was ready for you. You’ll see just how ready soon enough.

As Regdar and his people ascended the stairs, Vargussel fingered his amulet, watching, waiting patiently.

Regdar fought the urge to crouch the whole time he moved up the stairs. The ceiling was tall enough so that he could stand up straight, but just barely. The stairs were wider than he’d have expected, though. The telltale scratches ran all the way up the ceiling and lined both walls. Whatever it was they were tracking had definitely gone that way, back and forth maybe dozens of times.

The stairs looped back over themselves and stopped at a wider space, like a vestibule or foyer. Straight ahead of them was a heavy oak door bound with iron bands. Regdar stopped, waiting for the others to gather, though only Lorec and Jandik could fit in the space behind him. He couldn’t even see Naull.

“I make it about sixty feet up from the sewer tunnel,” Regdar said.

Lorec shrugged, and Jandik nodded.

“We should be about ten or fifteen feet below the surface, if I guess right,” the tracker said.

“Basement depth?” asked Lorec.