A Discourse in Steel (29 page)

“Aye, that.”

Nix let Egil digest matters.

“Even if we get down there and don't break legs or skulls, then what? We still have the thing above us.”

“We go through that door.”

“And then?”

Nix raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Fun's in finding out?”

Egil grunted.

“I told you it wasn't a good plan.”

“You said it was a bad plan and you were exactly right.” He again ran a hand over Ebenor's eye. “You have enough line in that satchel?”

“Pfft. Enough line? Who're you talking to, Egil? Enough line. Besides, I only need half the length of the tower. Not even that, as I've got to err short. Meat, too. Had it for the key.”

Egil blew out a breath. “Line will probably snap.”

“Could,” Nix said, nodded. “But I always buy the finest. And I had this enspelled for extra strength.”

Egil nodded, considered, finally said, “Fak it. We go.”

Nix tapped him on the shoulder. “No one will ever believe us if this works.”

“No one would believe half of what we've done,” Egil said.

Nix unslung his satchel and started working on his lines, one ear on the creature below. He wound two lines together to make a single, stronger line, then measured it off in arm spans, estimating the length.

Egil sat beside him, eyes closed, praying.

“One for me, too, yeah?” Nix whispered.

Egil nodded without opening his eyes.

Nix took a small piece of now rotting meat from his satchel, frayed one end of the line, and used the freed fibers to tie up the morsel of meat. He tied himself into the line, a full-on harness that ran under his legs, just under his arse, and up through his crotch. He left lots of slack after him so he could do the same harness for Egil.

“Like a chair, see?” he said to the priest. He pulled at the line. “Though if this line slips up into the crotch, I'm likely to never have children.”

“I wouldn't worry,” Egil said. “With the small bits you've got hanging in there, I'd wager you could fit a couple ropes between your legs and hit nothing vital. Me, now…”

Nix grinned. “Neither pithy nor profound, priest.”

“No?”

“No.”

Nix harnessed Egil to the end of the rope, both of them grinning all the while. When he was done, Nix checked the length of the rope once more.

“Going to be a little short. I'll cut it the moment we're down. We'll fall the last bit.”

Egil nodded, the grins disappeared, and they shared a look.

“I didn't mean it when I said your plans always go wrong,” Egil said.

“I know that.”

“I did mean what I said about your crotch, though.”

“Not the first time you've been wrong about something,” Nix said. “Here we go.”

They crept to the landing and shone the dim light from the crystal down the tower onto the quivering mound of stinking flesh. They positioned themselves for a clear fall and Nix lowered the meat over the edge toward the creature. When it was low enough, he swung it toward the creature.

It thunked into the creature and Nix tensed, ready.

Nothing.

“Shite,” he hissed. It occurred to him that the creature might not even eat meat. It probably didn't need to eat at all. Still, with nothing for it, he swung the rope again and hit the creature once more.

Still nothing.

“Wake it up,” Egil said.

Nix nodded, shouted, “Open your fakking mouth, beast!”

A great tremor shook the mound of flesh. Two score sets of eyes opened all over the creature, all of them bloodshot and swinging wetly in their sockets. A dozen of them looked up at Egil and Nix, focused on them, and then a score of fanged mouths opened, hissed and growled and roared.

“Good morn to you, too, fakker,” Nix said. “Breakfast time.”

“It could spit it out or chew through the rope,” Egil said.

“Little late for that, priest. Time to roll your fakkin' dice.”

Nix swung the rope at one of the medium-sized mouths and the creature snapped at the morsel. The moment its mouth closed, Egil and Nix leaped off the ledge, both of them shouting, intent on dying defiant if die they must.

Nix's stomach hit the back of his throat. He was aware of the glyphs and sigils in the wall flashing as they fell past them, each arcane character shooting lines of green or red or yellow energy across the length of the tower, but their fall carried them past so quickly that they outran the magic.

He caught a flash of eyes and mouths snapping at them as they fell past the creature. The floor rushed up fast, too fast, but the moments stretched slow, too slow, and Nix imagined himself hitting the bottom at speed, lying there dead and broken, or worse, broken but alive and unable to move as the horror crept down the wall for him.

The rope jerked taut, held on one end by the creature's mouth, and the sudden stop was so jarring that it cut short Nix's shout and made him feel like he'd run into a wall. The immediate stop pulled all the air from his lungs, cinched the rope so tight on his legs and arse that they went numb, and caused him to bite his tongue. The rope bounced him back up, but only for a half-beat before the rope between him and Egil snapped taut and jerked him down again. Egil grunted from the impact and bounced up while Nix fell back down. They bumped against each other, causing Nix to see sparks for a moment.

Above them, the creature's mouths roared and slobbered. Egil and Nix hung there suspended three or four paces above the floor, gasping, pained.

“Cut it, Nix,” Egil said through gritted teeth.

Unable to breathe, his entire body aching or numb, Nix fumbled for the dagger at his belt.

Another series of wet rumblings and roars sounded from above, a sickening sloshing sound as the creature started to move. But instead of the creature's downward motion lowering them closer to the floor of the tower, they started to rise.

Nix glanced up at the quivering mound of flesh, its dozens of eyes fixed on him, its huge body undulating wetly down the wall. Three of its mouths were working in unison to reel in the rope.

Shite and shite.

“Nix!” Egil said. “Cut the damned rope!”

Nix finally got his dagger drawn and sawed at the rope. The magic that made it extra-strong also made it extra-resistant to Nix's blade.

“Damned gewgaws!” Nix shouted, sparing Egil the need.

They rose another pace or two, another, and the creature oozed down at them.

He sawed more frenetically, finally cutting through the first of the two ropes he'd twined together.

They rose another pace. The creature came down another.

“Shite, shite,” Nix said. He finally cut through the second rope and he and Egil plummeted the short distance to the floor, hitting it in a tangle of limbs and gear. They wasted no time, despite their pain. Both of them staggered to their feet and over to the chest.

Above them, the creature wormed its bulk down the wall, teeth snapping, slobber falling like rain.

Nix took his key from his satchel, dreading what the fakking thing would demand.

“Give us a carrot.”

Nix could hardly believe it. “Finally got some luck.”

“Hurry, Nix.”

Nix gave the key a bit of carrot and shoved it into the chest. It warmed while it did its work.

The creature was getting closer.

“Nix?”

“Hit that fakkin' creature with a hammer or something,” Nix snapped. “Come on, key!”

The key cooled and Nix turned it. Inside the chest were pages of thin metallic plates inscribed with an alphabet Nix had never seen. On top of them, in a leather harness, were six hollow tubes, all marked with magic sigils. Nix grabbed the harness and, unable to resist, three of the metallic pages. He shoved the lot into his satchel.

“Nix…” Egil said, the tension in his voice as sharp as a blade.

“I know,” Nix said.

He looked up to see the bulging form of the creature nearly down. Mouths extended from its form, almost like short arms, and snapped at the air.

“Move,” Nix said, and ran to the door near the chest. To his relief, he saw a keyhole like the one they'd seen on the door above. Nix still had the key in hand.

“Open it,” he said. “Now!”

“Give us a pomegranate,” the key said.

“Fak you and your pomegranate!” Nix said. “Open this lock!”

The creature let itself fall from the wall and hit the floor in a huge, stinking, wet heap. Scores of eyes fixed on Egil and Nix and the creature rolled and squirmed and bulged toward them.

“Fakking gewgaw!” Egil said, cursing not at Nix but at the key. He threw a hammer at the creature and the huge weapon hit the mound of flesh with a sickly thwack. The creature roared but did not slow.

“Give us a pear, then,” said the key.

Nix held the key up before his face. “You're going to end up in the gut of that thing behind me where you'll eat nothing ever again unless you open this fakking door! You hear me?”

Egil backed into Nix, trying to keep his distance from the snapping mouths.

“Nix,” the priest said.

The key was quiet for a moment. “You owe us a pomegranate.”

Nix shoved the key into the lock, felt it warm, the bit fitting itself to the complicated, enchanted mechanism.

“Hurry!” Egil said.

The key did its work, Nix turned it, the door slid open, and he and Egil piled through. The door slid closed behind them, cutting off the frustrated growls and roars and hisses of the horror.

“Fak,” Egil said, breathing heavily.

“Seconded,” Nix said, his heart a hammer on his ribs.

They stood in a small square room, perhaps three paces on a side, their backs to the door. Another metal door was opposite them. The glyphs and sigils etched into its surface made Nix dizzy. He saw it had a keyhole like the others.

“Is that another lock?” Egil said.

The creature slammed into the door behind them. The wall shook, and the metal groaned. The creature slammed into it, again, again. The metal bent and veined under the stress.

“Time to go,” Nix said.

He moved to the door, studied the glyphs as best he could. Likely they were some kind of triggering spell if the door were not opened with the proper words or items.

“Those glyphs?” Egil asked.

“Some kind of trigger, I'd wager,” Nix said.

The creature hit the door behind them again, its frustrated roars and growls gaining ferocity. The metal squealed and a line appeared, a slight buckling.

“What will it trigger?” Egil asked.

“Nothing good,” Nix said. To the key, he said, “Open the lock. Try not to trigger the magic.”

“Give us a pear.”

Nix and Egil cursed in unison.

“Why does everything have to be so damned complicated with you?” Nix said to the key. “Fine. I owe you a pear, too, to go with the pomegranate.”

He didn't wait for a reply, just shoved the key into the lock. It fitted itself to the mechanism, grumbling all the while, and he gave it a turn.

The glyphs on the door flared and acrid smoke filled the room. The door didn't open.

“What happened?” Egil said.

Nix shrugged. “Maybe the glyphs fizzled? I don't know. It's unlocked, though. Let's pry it open.”

Nix gave Egil one of his daggers and, while the fleshy horror tried to beat open the door behind them, the two of them worried at the seam between the door and the wall. They got it open a hair's width and water started streaming in, warm and stinking.

“Shite,” Nix said, seeing their danger. “Hurry. Hurry.”

The more they pried it open, the faster the water poured in, filling the small room. Egil jerked it open a hand's width and the water started to rise rapidly.

“By fakkin' drowning?” Nix said, pulling at the door. “Really? Really?”

“On two,” Egil said.

Both of them grabbed the edge of the door.

“One, two.”

They pulled, both of them grunting with exertion.

The water rose to their waists, their stomachs.

“Come on, Egil! Fak!”

The sinews and veins and muscles in the priest's arms looked carved out of stone. His face and head reddened with exertion, turning Ebenor's eye bloodshot. With a final heave he jerked the door open enough for them to fit through. Water rose to their necks.

Nix held the light crystal before his face. “Bright,” he said, and the eye opened fully, casting a bright beam of white light.

“Get a breath,” Nix said, tilting his head upward to keep it out of the water. He shed his falchion, keeping only his daggers and his satchel, the latter with the metal plates and the leather sling of chimes he'd taken from the chest.

“And leave your hammer.”

“Aye,” Egil said, then, “Don't drop your satchel. Those chimes came dear. One, two, three.”

They went under. The moment they cleared the doorway they were in open water. The submerged mausoleums and crypts and tombs of the necropolis loomed darkly around them. Nix flashed the light from his crystal around to get his bearings and watched in horror as the bottom of the lake rolled and boiled, throwing up a fog of mud.

But even through the mud he could see the grasping, bony hands and decayed forms of dead serpent men clawing their way out of the bottom. He understood immediately what had happened. The glyphs he'd triggered on the door hadn't fizzled. They had awakened the dead.

Nix grabbed Egil by the arm, spitting bubbles, and pointed through the murk at the rising dead. Clouds of mud and dirt polluted the water. Corpses were clawing their way up all over the lake bottom. Nix pointed up toward the surface, shined his light that way. Egil nodded, but before Nix could start for the surface, a bony hand emerged from the lake bottom under his feet and grabbed him by the ankle.

He exclaimed in surprise, expelling a cloud of bubbles. He lurched upward, pulling the dead thing with him. A torso emerged, scaled skin sloughing from the bones. A reptilian skull capped the sinewy neck. The mouth opened wide, as if to bite him, but he kicked it in the face, knocking its jaw clean off. But he could not dislodge the undead's grip.