Deomans of Faerel Page 12

  She stepped forward, her pale green eyes meeting his own with a knowing stare. He saw that her wings were smaller and neatly tucked across her back like shimmering paper fans, but when she crossed the room he also saw that both sets were bound by wide black bands. She carried something in her hands.

  “Place your hands on the table,” the voice from the screen commanded. Som complied and the rock-creature grindingly moved off to the side. “Eyes forward. Slowly remove your jacket but do not unfurl your wings. If you do so I will instruct the guard to peel them off. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  With shaky hands, Som slipped off the jacket. Some dust from his wings flitted in the air, glinting like glitter. He winced, but neither the rock-thing nor the fairy were affected, and the voice did not speak of it. Once his jacket was free of his wings, the girl-fairy gently took it from him and laid it on the table.

  She leaned in. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his neck and was immediately wrapped in her enchanting fragrance, a sweet smell like a rare and delicate jungle blossom. Her tiny fingers felt almost childlike when they brushed the skin of his back as she gently folded and tucked his primary wings together.

  With one hand, she held them in place while she worked with the other. He heard a snap and felt a slight pressure then a strange coldness. He knew instantly he had just been fitted with a band like hers.

  “The bands will remain in place until you are dead,” the voice from the screen said, “or until you have successfully navigated the maze.”

  Chan screwed up his face. “Maze? What maze?”

  A flash of crimson energy filled his vision, painfully jolting his entire body. His skin tingled long after the effect was over. He would not make the mistake of speaking again. The girl-fairy was already calmly fitting him with the second band.

  The ghostly visage swayed and swirled within the hood, like a chalky pool of water that had been disturbed.

  “The bands will remain on until you are dead, or until you have successfully navigated the maze,” it repeated. “In due time you will find the potion that has immobilized your wings has worn off, but I strongly suggest you do not attempt to fly or dust. Both sets of bands are firmly latched onto your wings. Any attempt will cause the bands to contract and your wings will be torn from your body. Do you understand?”

  “Y… yes.”

  The ghostly figure fiddled with some papers. From somewhere in the place it was came the faint sound of a distant scream.

  “According to the provisions between your sponsor and the Gaming Authority, your life is immediately forfeit, null and void, and of no consequence to this court nor anyone else. You are now deemed the expendable property of the Gaming Authority to do with as they see fit. Your only right, held in escrow, is the right to freedom, which shall be returned with due diligence should you successfully negotiate the maze. Do you understand?”

  He didn’t. Not any of it. Som sighed softly. Saying anything other than the opposite of what was truly on lips seemed quite pointless.

  “Yes, he managed.”

  The rock-creature rumbled back into the corner. The ghostly image on the screen began to rattle off a string of figures and correlations, apparently entering something into some oral record. Som felt the girl-fairy give a slight tug to the band around his lower set of wings, and then she drew near.

  “Just a puzzle,” she whispered in his ear. Truly it was deeper than a whisper, a tone on another level of hearing in a breath that was pure fairy, one that only he and the creature behind him could distinguish. “A big puzzle. Find the pattern and find your freedom.”

  The mysterious girl-fairy slipped a hood over his head. Som heard the rock creature rumble forward. It grabbed him by the arms and lifted him. He heard another hissing sound and felt a sensation similar to when he’d teleported through the pentalpha.

  The sudden embrace of more temperate and humid air engulfed him, along with a musky stench in his nostrils. His ears were filled with the wild ruckus of what sounded like a bustling barroom.

  Amidst the din floated a weird kind of music played on instruments unlike any he’d ever heard. There were many loud voices and many other sounds, a literal cacophony of slurred speech, guffaws, carnivalish music and the clanking of tankards. The place smelled terrible, something between sweaty feet and old laundry. The rock creature dropped him barefoot onto a cold surface. He was clad now only in his short pants. Someone yanked off the hood.

  Som found himself standing in what looked like a giant birdcage that hung in the air over a wide pit at the dead center of a bustling barroom. The place was a sweltering den of debauchery, a cesspool of indignity filled with stinking dwarves and a variety of other creatures. A few Colodians moved through the inebriated crowd, shock wands in their hands.

  Hanging on the walls and dangling down from the ceiling were dozens of magical viewscreens. One at least ten meters across was affixed to the far wall. It looked down over the fog-filled bowl. A single face filled much of the screen. It was his own.

  In the center of each table stood glowing red vases shaped like tortoise shells. They offered just enough light for the patrons to scrawl onto paper tablets. Tiny, red-winged creatures dashed each slip to a darkened booth high up in the ceiling. Through the windows of the booth, an obese creature that looked like a giant slug sat surveying the scene. It was surrounded by more armored dwarves. It leaned toward a round metal disk fixed to a stick and barked out in a booming voice.

  “Contestant ready?”

  The crowd grew slightly less boisterous. Had the ugly thing just asked him a question?

  It pushed its bulk forward, practically spilling from the window. “I say, contestant ready?”

  Som gave him the finger. “Not really!”

  The crowd roared and raised their tankards. The slug-thing jiggled. A deep throaty laugh escaped its long slit of a mouth.

  “Okay, funny man, where sponsor?”

  A man pushed through the crowd, waving his arms. It was Andin. He looked distraught.

  “This wasn’t part of the bargain!” Andin yelled.

  Bargain? What the hell was he talking about? Then it struck him. Som had been duped. This had been Andin’s doing all along.

  The lumpy creature grumbled. “Bargain? What bargain? No bargain here. Fairy has wings. Wings make too easy. Not good enough challenge.” The crowd began to stir. The patrons seemed to be growing impatient for whatever was about to take place. A tankard sailed through the air.

  “Then I wish to go with him!” Andin cried out. The crowd booed. “Please, put me in the cage as well! This isn’t fair! If he can’t use his wings he’ll be torn to shreds. We had a bargain!”

  The slug-thing laughed and the crowd howled as the cage began to move steadily down into the pit. The viewscreens flickered and then danced with numbers. Som could still hear Andin’s cries, but they quickly became drowned out by the roar of the crowd who now stood and cheered as the cage dropped into a bank of soupy fog.

  Som shut his eyes and held his breath until he could hold it no longer. He opened his mouth and gulped for air, greatly relieved to find that he could breathe just fine in the fog. At last, he opened his eyes.

  He could see nothing. The cage eventually settled onto something solid. There was some light here, a faint blue glow that lit up the space like a paper lantern.

  The cage door snapped open, sprung by some unseen device. Som did his best to contain his breathing, which came now in ragged huffs. Something echoed in the gloom. His mind raced as he tried to make sense of what was happening. Some reflex engaged and his wings flexed, but the pain was almost unbearable.

  There could be no avoiding it. He was going to have to step from the cage, to face whatever it was that waited in the pit. Reluctantly, he placed one foot out and stepped down.

  The ground was wet but otherwise solid. The moment he stepped clear the cage began to rise. He leapt away just in time to see it swallowed by the murky cloud, whic
h sutured itself back into one defiant, puffy mass. He stood shivering in the much cooler depths of the gloomy pit, unsure of what to do next.

  A tankard clanked down beside him, followed by two small objects that clanged off the stones. In the area of disturbed mist he spotted what looked like two daggers. But when he stooped to pick them up he realized they were little more than kitchen knives. He angrily clenched them in both fists.

  A bright light appeared beneath a thicker band of mist that hovered near the ground, accompanied by a soft whirring. Three small orbs rose on rapidly fluttering wings to hover in the air before him. Each contained a single, lidless eye. A bright white light shined from a slit just above. Atop each orb were triangular antennas from which steady puffs of blue smoke drifted high up into the air like rings from a cigarette.

  They are watching me, Som deduced. By his guess, the orbs were transmitting images back to the screens above, possibly even to other screens throughout Kriegen Hold. More than likely, odds were being recalculated at that very moment based on his reactions.

  You bastards.

  A great grinding noise sounded and he felt the entire chamber begin to slowly rotate. The orbs swished behind him, their lights painting his shadow against the opposite wall. In the spot they illuminated, an iron door came into view.

  This place was more than just a pit, he realized. It was some kind of construction, a deranged funhouse. He only hoped that what lay beyond the door was more entertaining to those above than hazardous to him. He crept forward, the ridiculous weapons clenched tightly in his fists.

  The door looked very sturdy and bore a gruel of surface rust. There was no handle, only a round metal disk at the center where a crossing of seams met. One of the orbs zipped in front of him. It turned to focus on his face. Som shielded his eyes from the glare. He did his best to give the impression he was not completely terrified. He reached out and touched the disk.

  The door’s seams split apart, the four resulting triangles of iron whooshing back into the corners of the frame. Impossibly, the disk remained in the air, blinking. The blinking gradually increased to a strobe, and then the triangles of iron whooshed back into place.

  He had only a few seconds to get through, he realized. Again he reached out and touched the disk. When the door reopened he jumped through into a cubed corridor crafted of iron plates. The orbs swished past him just as the door closed swiftly behind.

  The girl-fairy’s words came back to him.

  Just a puzzle.

  He realized at once what was happening. Andin was using him to participate in some kind of twisted game. He thought back to the tiles they had played on the sandbar and felt ill. Andin had picked up on his amazing memory and talent for solving puzzles. He’d probably wagered a small fortune to get him in here.

  He looked back. There was no disk on this side of the door.

  “Only one way to go now,” he said into the gloom.

  He followed the cubed corridor several meters down to another door that did contain a disk. He opened it and quickly stepped through. He found himself in a much larger cube of metal. The door quickly shut and a loud ticking began.

  Great, he thought. A timer.

  The four walls each consisted of nine, stacked cubes similar in dimensions to the entry corridor. As expected, the door he’d just passed through also did not have a disk on this side. But each of the three remaining doors in the room did. Each additional door was located in the center cube on the lowest row.

  He grinned. The element of choice had just been introduced. Things were about to get very interesting.

  A low podium stood in the center of the room. He rushed forward to examine it, the orbs fluttering around him in order to capture more dramatic angles. The mist was gone, he realized, and the floor was now a tight chinking of metal grates.

  The podium looked to be crafted of copper and was fixed solidly to the floor. The surface contained the carved relief of a two-dimensional grid of squares, thirty-six in total. Each of the squares glowed with a dull blue light. There were symbols on each: circles, octagons, triangles and stars. And each of the four symbols appeared on the grid a total of six times.

  He squat down and studied it. The incessant ticking was becoming something of a distraction. He did his best to ignore it.

  There were three numerical dials just below the grid and a round button below that. Each of the dials was set to zero. He scratched his chin in thought. This was some kind of puzzle, alright. The solution probably unlocked a door. There were ten digits on each dial. He set them all back to zero.

  Something was missing. Clearly, each of the thirty-six squares represented a value. Once the puzzle was solved, the dials on the bottom were adjusted and the button pressed. But what were the values? This didn’t look to be that difficult, but similar puzzles usually contained at least one or two numerical values to start things off.

  He stood and looked around the room. There was nothing else in sight, not on any of the walls or the ceiling. But there was something quite interesting on the floor. Something in the center. He looked down and realized he was standing on a gigantic triangle.

  He heard the grinding of metal overhead. The cube in the center of the ceiling opened and a dark shape dropped onto the floor.

  Som leapt behind the podium, again instinctively twitching his wings. He winced and fought to fight back the pain. With shaking hands, he held the measly weapons out before him.

  What had fallen to the floor looked like a cat, except one with two heads. It was about the size of a dog. It hunched low and surveyed the room. One of the heads caught sight of Som and growled. The other quickly snapped around to join it.

  Som’s hands shook. The big cat’s fur was a matted mess of reds and browns covered in a cloud of tiny flying specks. Its eyes were bright yellow and glowing, its teeth long and sharp. It suddenly sprang forward.

  Without thinking, Som crouched low and then sprang up. Both knives came up with him, although he wasn’t really sure how he knew how to do that. The cat dropped down nearly on top of him, but it did not use its claws. Instead, it snapped at him with both heads, snarling like a mad dog. Both knives dug deep under the jaw of one head.

  The creature howled in pain as Som heaved it back onto the floor. It writhed in the center of the room, the stricken head hanging limply like a discarded sock puppet. The remaining head turned and licked at it.

  Som wasted no time. He swallowed his fear and dashed in, driving both knives deep into the disgusting creature’s remaining neck. The impact stirred a puff of the flea-like specks as both blades sank deep into the furry flesh. The cat howled. Som pushed forward with all his might, driving the ugly thing to the ground as a wash of warm blood spilled over his hands.

  He sprang back, panting wildly. He brought both knives up before him. The cat lay unmoving, a puddle of blood spreading out from beneath it.

  Som flicked his hands to remove as much blood as he could, still huffing with excitement. He went back to the podium and set the knives down. He wiped most of the blood onto his shorts then picked them back up. The center square at the very bottom of the grid, he noticed, now blinked on and off. It contained a triangle.

  He looked around. Had anything else changed? But the only thing different was the carcass lying in the center of the room, blood dripping down into the floor grates. He shook his head. The ticking had not stopped. He sprinted to the nearest door.

  It looked like all the others with just a simple disk of metal in the center. He wondered for a moment if that meant anything, if it represented a circle. But he doubted it. There was a triangle on the floor here. That certainly meant something. He touched the disk and the door opened. He leapt through.

  Just as the first door had, this door closed with a hiss. Thankfully, there was a disk on this side as well, which meant he could get back. But when he reached up to make sure, he was shocked to discover the door would not budge. Before he had time to consider this, he heard another door opening overh
ead.

  He whirled around just as a gang of skeletons clattered to the floor.

  The first one to hit broke to pieces, which made one less to contend with, but the remaining three used it to break their fall and sprang up to glare about. They had much bigger weapons in their hands.

  Wonderful.

  Their glowing, red eye sockets locked on him. They rushed forward in a mad, cackling scramble. Som took up a defensive stance and deftly rolled to the side. They clattered past. They were clumsy and rather slow, he realized. Thank god for that. He scrambled to the center of the room where the first skeleton lay smashed and quickly picked up its sword. The weapon was short and rusty, but it was far better than a pair of steak knives. With a wild cry, he rushed forward and brought the weapon down in a clumsy arc.

  The tip of the sword struck ground. He’d missed completely.

  The skull of the nearest skeleton shook, its glowing eye sockets brightening as it screamed and swiped at Som with a wavy bladed dagger. He jerked back just as the tip swept within inches of his face. Without thinking, he jumped straight up and kicked out, amazed at how high he had managed to leap. His heel caught the skeleton square on the jaw and he heard a snap. Its head popped off and tumbled onto the grating. Som landed squarely on his feet just as the bones before him tumbled to a dusty pile.

  One of the last two skeletons had already snuck around behind him. He could hear it scratching along the floor, skulking behind somewhere in the gloom. The one still in sight held a large axe. It looked especially mean, much larger than the others. It glared at him crookedly as they all moved in a slow circle. Its eyes flashed and it rushed forward just as Som heard the skeleton behind him scamper.

  Hoping against hope that he still had it in him, he crouched and then sprang high into the air. His exertion propelled him straight up and over the charging skeleton who brought the axe down. It missed cleanly and Som tumbled through the air, landing with catlike agility onto the floor behind it. He was shocked at his own dexterity and strength, but not foolish enough to forget the fight. He whirled around with the rusted sword at the ready.