neetha Napew - Spellsinger

are starting to hurt!" He started jogging down the platform.

"Come on out, damn you! Where the hell have--?"

The "you" was never uttered. It was replaced by a yelp of surprise as his feet

went out from under him....

XVII

He found himself sliding down a gentle incline. It was slight enough and rough

enough so that he was able to bring himself to a halt after having tumbled only

a few yards. The torch bumped to a stop nearby. It had nearly gone out. Flames

still flickered feebly at one corner, however. Leaning over, he picked it up and

blew on it until it was once more aflame. Try as he would, though, he couldn't

induce it to provide more than half the illumination it had supplied before.

The reduced light was barely sufficient to show that he'd stumbled into an

obviously artificial tunnel. The floor was flat and cobbled with some dully

reflective stone. Straight walls rose five feet before curving to a slightly

higher ceiling.

Having established that the roof was not about to fall in on him, he took stock

of himself. There were only bruises. The duar was scratched but unbroken. Ahead

lay a blackness far more thorough and intimidating than friendly night. He

wished he hadn't left his staff back in camp. There was nothing but the knife

strapped to his belt.

He stood, and promptly measured the height of the ceiling. Carefully turning

around, he walked awkwardly back toward the circle of moonlight he'd fallen

through. Nothing materialized from the depths of the tunnel to restrain him,

though his neck hairs bristled. It is always easier to turn one's back on a

known enemy than on an unknown one.

He crawled up the slight incline and was soon staring out at the familiar

forest. The lip of the gap was lined with neatly worked stone engraved with

intricate designs and scrollwork. Many twisted in upon themselves and were set

with the same dimly reflective rock used to pave the tunnel.

He started to leave... and hesitated. Mudge's last boot prints had been moving

in this direction. A close search of the rim of the hole showed no such prints,

but the earth there was packed hard as concrete. A steel rod would not have made

much of an impression upon it, much less the boot of an ambling otter.

The paving of the slope and tunnel was of still tougher material, but when he

waved the torch across it the light fell on something even more revealing than a

boot print. It was an arrow of the kind Mudge carried in his hunting quiver.

Crawling back inside, he started down the tunnel. Soon he came across another of

the orphaned shafts. The first had probably fallen from the otter's quiver, but

this one was cleanly broken. He picked it up, brought the torch close. There was

no blood on the tip. It might have been fired at something and missed, to

shatter on the wall or floor.

It was possible, even likely, that Mudge was pursuing some kind of

burrow-dwelling prey that had made its home in the tunnel. In that case

Jon-Tom's worries might prove groundless. The otter might be just ahead, busily

gutting a large carcass so that he'd have to carry only the meat back to camp.

The thought of traveling down into the earth and leaving the friendly exit still

further behind appalled him, but he could hardly go back and say truthfully he'd

been able to track Mudge but had been too afraid to follow the otter the last

few yards.

There was also the possibility that his first assumption might prove correct,

that the creature Mudge had been pursuing had turned on him and injured him. In

that case the otter might he just a little ways down the tunnel, alive but

helpless and bleeding.

In his own somewhat ambivalent fashion Mudge had looked out for him. Jon-Tom

owed him at least some help, with either bulky prey or any injuries he might

have suffered.

With considerable trepidation he started moving down the tunnel. The slope

continued to descend to the same slight degree. From time to time torchlight

revealed inscriptions on the walls. There also were isolated stone tablets

neatly set into recesses. Directions perhaps... or warnings? He wondered what he

would do if he reached a place where the tunnel split into two or more branches.

He was too intent on the blackness to study the revealing frescoes overhead.

He had no desire to become lost in an underground maze, far from surface and

friends. No one knew where he was, and when the night rain began it would

obliterate both Mudge's tracks and his own.

Holding the torch ahead and to one side, he continued downward.

Mmmmmm-m-m-m-m-m...

He stopped instantly. The eerie moaning came clearly to him, distorted by the

acoustics of the tunnel. He knelt, breathing hard, and listened.

Mmmm-lllll-l-l-l-l...

The moan sounded again, slightly louder. What unimaginable monster might even

now be treading a path toward him? His torch still showed only blackness ahead.

Had the creature already devoured the poor otter?

He drew the knife, wishing again for the staff and its foot-long spear point. It

would have been a particularly effective weapon in the narrow tunnel.

There was no point in needlessly sacrificing himself, he thought. He'd about

decided to retreat when the moan unexpectedly dissolved into a flurry of curses

that were as familiar as they were distinct.

"Mmmm-l-l-l-let me go or I'll slice you into stew meat! I'll fillet you neat and

make wheels out o' your 'eads! I'll pop wot little eyeballs you've got out o'

their sockets, you bloody blind-faced buggerin' ghouls!"

A loud thump sounded, was followed by a bellow of pain and renewed cursing from

an unfamiliar source. The source of the first audible imprecations was no longer

in doubt, and if Mudge was cursing so exuberantly it was most likely for the

benefit of an assailant capable of reason and understanding and not blind animal

hatred.

Jon-Tom hurried down the corridor, running as fast as possible with his

hunched-over gait. There were still no lights showing ahead of him, so he had

burst around a bend and was on top of the busy party before he realized it.

Letting out an involuntary yell at the sight, he threw up his arms and fell back

against a wall, waving knife and torch to keep his balance. The effect produced

among Mudge's attackers was unexpected, but highly satisfactory.

"Lo, a monster!... Daemon from the outer world!... Save yourselves!... Every

mole for hisself... !"

Amid much screaming and shrieking he heard the sounds of tiny shoes slapping

stone racing not toward but away from him. This was mixed with the noise of

objects (weapons, perhaps) being thrown away in great haste by their panicky

owners.

It occurred to him that the sight of a gigantic human clad entirely in black and

indigo, flashing a reflective green lizardskin cape and brandishing a flaming

torch and knife, might be something which could truly upset a tunnel dweller.

When the echoes of their flight had finally faded away, he regained control of

his own insides and lowered the torch toward the remaining shape on the floor.

" 'Ad enough, then, you bloomin' arse'oles?" The voice was as blustery as

before, if softer from lack of wind. "Be that you, mate?" A pause while otter

eyes reflected the torchlight. "So 'tis, so 'tis! Untie me then mate, or give me

the knife so's I can cut--"

"If you make a move, outworlder," said a new voice, "I will slit what I presume

to be your friend's throat. I can get to it before you can reach me."