From her selection of wands, Chuntha procured a thin rod, no thicker than
her middle finger but nearly half her height. Holding this before herself with
both hands, she began to rub it over her body, up and down. At the same time,
the witch murmured the melodious tones of the spell, a singsong performed in a
language from a time when mankind was yet very young.
The casting took effect. She opened her mouth and from it a torrent of fluid
emerged, spraying and soaking the ranks of worms as Chuntha walked around and
around them. As the liquid touched each worm, it flowed under it, coating it
completely. The fluid was sweet-smelling and more volatile than water, and a
moment after it covered the creatures beneath the woman, the secretion hardened
into a pliable gel.
“Now,” Chuntha said, “on my command, the center rank will
contract into a half-loop, the front rank will allow itself to be pushed
forward, and the rear rank will be dragged along. We are going to inch along to
the water. Go!”
To the amazement’of the worms, they were now joined together as solidly as
if they were one creature. Chuntha smiled as she watched the connected worms
move, knowing that they must be thinking she planned to drown them all.
The mat reached the water, and to the further amazement of the leading
creatures, it began to float. More, no water came through the gel surrounding
them, but air seemed to pass quite freely.
After a few moments, Chuntha had her boat. She loaded her luggage aboard the
raftlike
construction,
first removing from her bags
another wand, this one shaped like a wooden screw such as might be used in a
fruit press. She placed this to the rear of the raft, where it clung magically.
A short incantation and the screw trebled in
size,
then began to turn. The effect of this worm-gear device was to drive the raft
of worms forward.
Chuntha smiled and went to stand at the front of the
raft,
naked legs spread wide, the gentle breeze of their motion ruffling her hair.
She was quite pleased with herself.
Quite pleased.
Conan’s plan to ride their decomposing boat to the tunnels he had earlier
seen was not to be. The dead fish, aside from filling the cavern with a noxious,
rotting stench, had also begun to sink to the point where it was almost
impossible to propel it with the fin paddles Conan and Tull wielded. The cold
water of the underground sea washed over the trio’s ankles even at the center
of the craft.
“Best we attain the shore,” Conan said. “There is enough
ledge and beach for us to walk. We are not far, as I recall.”
“Aye, lad,” Tull said. “Good idea.”
The two men strained to paddle the hulk closer to shore. Elashi leaped to
the rocky outcrop closest to them, followed by Tull and then Conan. The fish
bobbed somewhat higher in the water now that was free of its human riders, but
water still covered most of it. As Conan watched, the fish jerked slightly:
something must be feeding on it from below.
“This way,” Conan said.
He led them up a narrow ledge that wound deeper into the rocks. The wall of
the cave was a goodly distance from the water here, and the glow-fungus was
scanty on the outcrops, making the footing treacherous in the darkness. Even
so, the Cimmerian’s sharp eyes managed to spy a relatively safe path.
They were no more than five minutes away from where they had abandoned their
boat when Conan stopped and waved Elashi and Tull to silence. He heard
something. The sound was difficult to trace due to the surrounding rock and the
echoes it cast, but it seemed to be coming from the water.
“Take cover,” Conan ordered. “Something approaches on the
sea.”
Tull and Elashi obeyed, scrunching down behind nearby boulders. Conan
himself moved into a patch of heavy shadow next to a fallen stalagtite twice
his height and diameter. He squatted and froze into immobility.
After a moment the source of the sound grew nearer and he recognized the
noise even as he saw its cause: a boat, with a sculling oarsman whose stroke
occasionally broke the surface with a small splash.
And what an oarsman! The creature stood half again Conan’s height, bore a
large hump upon its furry back, and had but a single eye. Bald it was, but with
a thick beard. It had massive arms and squarish, thick fingers, and its
movements propelled the boat along at thrice the best speed Conan and Tull had
managed to move the fish.
The boat was silvery, shining almost as if it were a looking glass upon the
darker water, and of what it was constructed, Conan could not guess. As the
craft drew abreast and rapidly past, Conan’s superior height allowed him to see
into the boat. Lying upon the floor next to the one-eyed giant was what
appeared to be a giant grub. White it must be, even in the green light, and
segmented like a worm, as big around as a barrel at the center, and rounded on
both ends. Conan wondered if these were the same two he had seen vaguely in the
bats’ cave.
The Cimmerian shook his head as the craft and its strange occupants passed.
He wanted no part of this pair. A few moments later the thing was out of sight,
and Conan moved to where Tull and Elashi waited.
“Did you see?” Conan asked.
“Aye,” Tull answered.
“A cyclops and one of
the giant white worms.
Odd, though. They’re enemies, on opposite sides.
Strange they’d be together. I
never seen
‘em that way
afore.”
“My, how wonderful,” Elashi said. “They have teamed up on our
account. You must be proud, Conan.”
“Come,” Conan said. “They have missed us, and by the time
they realize it, we can be far gone.”
With that, the three started moving again, in the opposite direction of the
cyclops and the worm.
Deek lifted his head and seemed agitated. Wikkell understood; he knew little
about the sensory apparatus of the worms, but did it function at all, it could
hardly miss the reek that filled the air.
Spoiled fish, and
no mistake about it.
“To our right,” Wikkell said, “just ahead, there floats the
cause of the stink, friend Deek. One of the great fish that inhabit the sea has
gone to join its ancestors, so it seems.”
Wikkell spared the fish a glance. Quite a large creature, he noted. It must
have been most formidable when alive.
Deek raised the front portion of himself up over the edge of the boat and
observed the dead fish. Its brother denizens of the depths must have been at
it, he saw, for there were great chunks gouged out of the flesh here and there.
Something odd about the wounds, though.
Well, the worm thought, it was not their concern. He lowered himself back
into the boat and used his tail to once again help Wikkell with the oar.
The openings into the craggy rock wall were easily attained. Tull gathered
several clumps of the glow-fungus into a matted ball, in case the tunnels might
be devoid of the plant light, and the three ascended the rocky wall and entered
the largest of the three openings. Conan felt better almost immediately. There
seemed little likelihood of anyone being able to follow them here, not with
all, of the possible exits from the giant caverns of the
Sunless
Sea
.
Tull’s precautions regarding the light seemed sound, as the walls of the new
tunnel were mostly dark. The diameter of the tube was perhaps that of a small
room, tall enough to stand and walk, but either side being easily reached in a
step or two. With Tull holding the ball of fungus high, the three of them
started off down the tunnel.
Conan halted suddenly, listening intently.
“What is it?” Elashi asked, her voice a whisper.
Conan strained to hear, but the faint noise he had heard was gone. He shook
his head.
“Nothing.
Let us depart.”
They moved off.
The Harskeel’s caution in dispatching a scout bat ahead paid dividends. The
solitary flier returned and alighted upon the raft. It was Red, and he gave his
report gleefully. The three they sought were just ahead! They had entered a
tunnel only a few moments’ distance. No, they had not seen him, of that Red was
certain.
The Harskeel grinned. Finally!
Deek suddenly became agitated, and Wikkell had no notion of what the cause might
be. The giant worm thrashed about in the boat.
“What is it?” Wikkell asked. “Do you want to say
something?”
The worm did what the cyclops had come to recognize as a nod.
“Very well.
I shall put ashore so that you may
find a patch of rock.”
Wikkell did just that, and moments later Deek was able to produce that
scratching and hesitant voice of his.
“Th-the f-f-fish!”
“What about it?
Just a dead creature.”
It was difficult for Deek to speak at great length, given the method he had
to use. How best to explain that their quarry could not possibly have had a
boat, nor any means of constructing one when they had first arrived at the
Sunless
Sea
? And that some of the gouges on
the body of the dead fish were, in retrospect, hardly likely to have been made
by others of its kind? Best get right to the point: “Th-their
b-b-boat!”
Wikkell, for all his size, was not in the least stupid. Despite Katamay
Rey’s thoughts to the contrary, one did not rise to become first assistant to a
wizard by being less than adept. He understood Deek’s reference immediately.
“You think so?”
The more Deek thought about it, the more certain he was.
“Y-y-yes.”
Wikkell digested this unpleasant tidbit,
then
nodded. “Aye, it would make a certain kind of sense. We should at least
check out the possibility, should we not?”
“I-i-indeed.”
Wikkell altered his stroke with the oar and the light craft turned quickly.
In a moment they were heading back the way they had come. Clever humans, if
they could use a dead fish for a raft.
Mayhap more clever and
therefore more dangerous than they had been given credit for.
It might
be wise to take extreme care when at last they were approached. It would be
foolish to worry about Rey’s anger only to be skewered by some sword-wielding
human.
On the
Sunless
Sea
,
the wizard Katamay Rey was carried over a never-ending
dock,
accompanied by his thralls the cyclopes. Ahead, the bridge appeared… behind, it
vanished… and it was as if they moved across the most solid of ground.
Chuntha’s raft of living worms churned through the water, driven by the
magicked screw, keeping far enough behind the wizard to avoid being seen but
close enough so that he was but a few moments ahead at any given time.
“There,” Red said, flapping a membranous wing toward three
openings on the face of the cliff set back slightly from the edge of the water.
“The center hole.”
“You are certain?” the Harskeel asked.
“Without a doubt.”
“Good. Then let us proceed apace.”
“Uh, I feel that our bargain has been completed,” Red said.
“We provided transportation upon the water, and now that journey is at an
end.”
“But we have not yet captured our prey.”
“Your prey,” Red observed.
The Harskeel considered its options. Did it need the bats any further? Well,
who could tell? Better to have them and not need them than to be without and
require their assistance. “I feel that my concentration is too poor to
perform the blood-spell transfer at the moment.”
Red looked dubious, as dubious as it is possible for a monkey-sized bat to
look. “Oh? And what would aid your concentration? No, allow me to guess:
capture of the three tasties?”
“How astute you are.”
Red nodded. “I see.”
“Barrels of blood in infinite supply,” the Harskeel said. “It
would be a shame to perhaps mislearn the spell and ruin
it,
would it not?”
This statement took Red a bit longer to think about.
“Very
well.
We shall accompany you.”
“A bat after my own heart.”
“Not a bad idea at all.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.
Let us hurry and catch them.”
“What in the world is
that
?” Elashi asked, pointing.
Just ahead of them the narrow cave widened into a large chamber. Centered in
the room were several tall and spiky-looking, thick-stalked plants. Glow-fungus
grew thick upon the walls here, and the plants were easy to see. Upon the
floor, surrounding the
plants,
lay what appeared to be
a shimmery carpet that covered the rocks with a soft blanket. Conan had seen
that material somewhere before, and it only took an instant for the youthful
Cimmerian to recall where: the boat in which the cyclops and worm had ridden seemed
most similar.
“Uh-oh,“Tull said.
“I do not like the sound of that,” Conan said. “What is the
problem?”
“These
be
Webspinners,” Tull said.
“So?” Elashi said.
“I know little about them save that they are best avoided, can the
Whites and the bats be believed.’”
At that moment Conan heard someone call him.
Conan.
He
looked around. There was no one here save the three of them.
Conan of Cimmeria.
Strong,
handsome, manly Conan.
The voice was female, laden with honey and desire, and Conan felt a great
puzzlement. Where was the woman who called? He would very much like to know,
since it seemed as if she would be well worth getting to know better. A lot
better.