Read Golem in the Gears Online
Authors: Piers Anthony
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Fantastic fiction, #General, #Fantasy fiction, #Epic, #Xanth (Imaginary place)
The labyrinth of passages began to assume a form. This seemed to be a series of concentric circles, with the inner circles larger than the outer ones, as if closer to the center of things. Whatever there was that was worth finding, would surely be found in that center!
There was another shudder, and they heard more stones falling, to the side. This time it couldn't be the fault of the three of them; they had been stepping very lightly. Was something else causing it?
They went on, more nervously. Grundy had never been bothered by tunnels or tight squeezes; his size and agility had always enabled him to get clear. Now he was begin- ning to be bothered. It was obvious that neither Snortimer nor Puck felt any more at ease than he did.
The going got easier as the tunnels became larger. These ones were in better repair; their walls were turning smooth, and their floors were firmer. The fungus glow brightened. Snortimer began to grow nervous, not liking the light, but did not actually balk. Probably this glow would seem like deepest darkness in daylight, so the monster was able to tolerate it.
Finally the tunnels became so large and so close together that the spaces between them were more like walls. Then the walls disappeared, and what remained was a fair-sized chamber: the center of the labyrinth.
In the very center of that chamber was a small, ornate
chest. Could it be a treasure?
Excited, now, Grundy went to it. But what might be small to a man was large for him; he was unable to lift
its heavy lid.
"Let me do it," Snortimer said. He reached forth with
a huge hairy hand and grasped the lid, hauling it off.
Grundy grasped the edge, hauled himself up, and peered into the open chest. He saw gleams of reflected light, such as might come from jewels or glossy metal, but couldn't quite make out what the objects were.
Snortimer reached in and drew out a handful. They seemed to be objects made of metal—curving spikes, hollow inside. Grundy took one, and found it heavy. It was about a third his own length, shaped like a very long, thin drinking hom, all of bright metal.
"Jewelry?" he asked. Neither Snortimer nor Puck could answer; they had never seen anything quite like this.
"Well, let's take one out with us," Grundy decided. "Maybe one of the others will recognize it." He was dis- appointed that the chest had not contained treasure, though he really had no use for treasure anyway. It was mostly human beings and dragons who placed value on treasure, so others tended to copy that attitude.
Snortimer fastened one of the objects to Puck's band of chains, so that the little ghost horse could carry it back conveniently. It was little enough, as treasures went.
He was disappointed on another score: here he had penetrated to the center of the labyrinth, and unveiled its secret—and found nothing worthwhile. Certainly no liv- ing creatures had been here for centuries, and there seemed to be no traps. It was probably safe to use the other tunnel down into the Gap Chasm, if it didn't collapse on them. "Let's get out of here," he said.
The others were happy to go. They started back—and heard another rumbling. There was going to be another collapse!
Suddenly Grundy recognized a pattern. "Chester— those are his heavy footfalls!" he exclaimed. "He's trot- ting around up there, looking for us—and knocking the stones down! That's why tunnels keep collapsing!"
That did indeed seem to be the reason. "Chester, slow down!" Grundy called—but when he raised his voice, the sound echoed as if he were a giant, and dirt sifted down from the ceiling of the chamber. He could bring it down on himself!
Silently, they hurried back. Chester's erratic trotting continued to shake the chamber, making them increas- ingly nervous.
They reached the point of the first cave-in. Now they had to figure a way around it, intersecting their original tunnel on the other side. That shouldn't be difficult—but Grundy felt a tightening apprehension.
He guided Snortimer to the left, hoping to cut back right. But though the passage soon forked, neither fork bore back the way they wanted. This was like the detour in the forest, that had refused to return to the magic path. The perversity of the inanimate! If he had Dor's talent, he could simply ask the passages where to go, and they would answer. For that matter, he could have asked the metal thing what it was, and solved the mystery. But that of course was why Dor was rated a Magician, and was now King: his magic talent was more versatile than Grun- dy's. Anyone could talk to living things, if he knew how;
only Dor could talk to the inanimate.
The tunnel forked again, and again neither fork went where they wanted it to go. Grundy was about to turn
back and try the other direction—when there was another rumble, and the passage behind them collapsed.
"Chester, you hoofbrained horse's rump!" Grundy wailed impotently. "You're destroying us down here!"
Now they had to go on, and none of them knew the best way through this maze. They just had to keep going
and guessing—
Before long, Grundy knew they were lost. The pas- sages went on and on, dividing and merging, and there was no way to tell which way was out, or whether any way remained open. They were trapped.
Grundy thought of something else to try. "Maybe if we knock on the ceiling, they'll hear us, and can come in from the other side."
Snortimer used one of his hairy hands to pick up a rock, scrambled up the side, and banged on the ceiling. Some pebbles were dislodged, but there was no collapse. He tapped in a pattern: KNOCK-KNOCK, KNOCK-KNOCK,
KNOCK-KNOCK BANG!
It worked! The earth shuddered as the centaur trotted over, orienting on the sound.
In fact, it shuddered too much. "Another collapse!" Grundy screamed, and they dived out of the way as the ceiling sagged and then fell. They had almost brought
disaster on themselves!
They choked, on the clouds of dust in the air, as the rocks settled. They would never get out this way!
Then sharp-eyed Puck saw something. He neighed and started forward, scrambling over the rocks. "Watch out!" Grundy cried. "You'll bring another fall down on your
head!"
"Yo!" Chester called. "You okay, down there?" The collapse had opened up a new way out! That was
the night sky up there!
Grundy mounted Snortimer again, and they scrambled nimbly up to the surface. It was a tremendous relief to be free!
Once he was far from the hole in the ground, Grundy described his adventure, embellishing it only slightly, and showed them the metal spike Puck had brought out. "What do you think it is?" he asked.
Neither Bink nor Chester had any idea. "Not treasure, certainly," Bink concluded.
"More like a tool," Chester said. "But it has no han- dle."
They decided to camp one more day, then take the tunnel down into the Gap. Obviously the tunnel repre- sented no trap, as long as they were careful not to trigger a collapse.
But as the day brightened, Grundy remained unsatis- fied. There were too many unanswered questions! Who— or what—had made all those tunnels, that network of passages surrounding the central chamber? What had hap- pened to those creatures? Why had they left a treasure chest full of hollow metal spikes? He hated to remain in ignorance.
At last he got up and walked alone to the entrance of the tunnel to the Gap. He stood there and stared at it. "If only I knew who made you!" he exclaimed.
There was the rustle of leaves. A giant ancient acom tree grew at the brink of the cleft; some of its roots had been exposed, but it had survived. "I can tell you that, golem," it rustled.
The tree! It had to be many centuries old! It had been here when the tunnel was new! "Tell me!" Grundy cried.
"It was the voles," the tree rustled.
"The what?"
"The voles. Human folk call them by other names, but
they haven't appreciated the real voles."
"What other names?" Grundy asked, perplexed.
"Wiggles and squiggles and diggles." "Wiggles!" Grundy exclaimed, appalled. "Are they
swarming again?"
"Of course not, golem," the tree rustled, chuckling in
its fashion. "But they're related. The wiggles are the smallest and worst, and the diggles are the largest and best, and in between are the squiggles. They're all related." "I know that, barkface! What about the voles?" "The voles are the true name for that extensive family of tunnelers. They were once more common than they are now; you hardly see any of their family branches anymore. But the greatest of them were the civilized voles, bigger than the squiggles but just as tunnelsome. It was here they had their main camp, a thousand years ago. I was just a sprout when they left, but I remember." "They departed a thousand years ago?" Grundy asked,
amazed.
"Give or take a century; I lose track. My memory rings
aren't what they used to be. Before the dominance of the
goblins and harpies, anyway."
"The harpies and goblins haven't been dominant since
the days of King Roogna!" "Just so," the tree agreed. "These voles—just what were they like?" "They were fairly big—bigger than the squiggles of
today, but smaller than the diggles. Big enough to make
these tunnels."
"Centaur-sized, then!" Grundy said. "Maybe a little smaller. They didn't like to be crowded,
so they made their tunnels with some clearance. It's hard for me to judge, because I was so much smaller then."
"These voles—they were just big squiggles, just tun- neling everywhere?"
"They tunneled, but they weren't just squiggles!" the tree rustled. "They did things, there underground. They had conventions, or something, they made plans—and then they went away."
"Where did they go?"
"That I don't know. They just went, leaving their tun- nels behind."
So the tree really didn't know much. But Grundy tried again: "We found some sort of metal thing, a chest full of them, like hollow spikes, only slightly curved. Do you know what those would be?"
"Oh, yes, of course. I saw those being used. They are artificial claws."
"What?"
"The voles dug so much, they wore off their natural claws. So they put on artificial ones, made of metal, very strong. Then they could dig twice as fast, and not get as tired. Those claws were their most prized possession."
Of course! Hollow claws, put on over the natural ones, like gauntlets. That would greatly enhance the ability of a digging creature. Mystery solved.
But as Grundy returned to the bed, he realized that the greater mystery remained. Where had those voles gone, and why? It was evident that nothing had hurt them, for there were no skeletons and there was no damage, other than that done by Chester's hooves. They must have gone of their own volition—their own vole-ition—to some place of their choosing. Perhaps they were there today, digging even better labyrinths.
But probably he would never know where or why. It was a frustrating frustration.
Chapter 5. Stella Steamer
In the evening they proceeded to the tunnel and entered it. The ghost horses, satisfied that all was well, did not accompany them; they preferred to graze on the surface. Again the dim illumination of the fungus helped them, without bothering Snortimer unduly; it was almost as if the voles had had Bed Monsters in mind. Or maybe such fungus was part of the natural habitate of nocturnal monsters. It was, at any rate, another fortunate coinci- dence.
Grundy led the way, because Snortimer was most at
home in a dark passage like this and was very sure-handed here. Chester and Bink had to be more careful, with their big clumsy feet. Once again Grundy appreciated the Good Magician's wisdom in specifying this particular steed. Often Humfrey's prescriptions made a good deal more
sense than they seemed to at first.
The tunnel wound down and around, tantalizing them with a seeming descent to the bottom, only to rise again. Obviously the voles had not considered directness to be a virtue! This was probably their scenic route, though all
there was to see was round walls.
Then an aperture appeared, into which a stray beam of moonlight probed. Snortimer shrunk away; moonlight wasn't deadly to him, but he distrusted it on principle.
Chester paused to peer out—and whistled. Grundy dis- mounted and went over to look, climbing up to the cen- taur's shoulder in order to reach the elevation of the hole.
Now he saw it. Above, the pale moon squatted on an unruly cloud. Below, the awesome precipice of the Chasm opened. Grundy felt suddenly dizzy, as if falling into that terrible Chasm. Chester's big hand caught him before he fell. "You need all four feet on the ground before you lean out that window," the centaur murmured.
True words! Grundy scrambled back down and away from the hole; he had had more than enough of it!
Travel resumed. Progress seemed swift enough, but was actually slower than it would have been on level ground, because they were constantly stepping over stones and clearing cobwebs from their way.