Haggopian and Other Stories

The flue swiftly widened out, like the neck of a jar, and at a count of only thirty rungs Tarra touched floor. There was the torch he had seen from above, guttering now on this cavern’s floor, but of Hadj Dyzm—

The Hrossak stood with one hand on the ladder and turned in a slow circle, holding high his torch. Over there…more statues of Cthulhu and others of his pantheon. And over here…an open box carved from solid rock, its heaped contents spilling over onto the floor. But such contents!

Tarra stepped as in a dream toward that fabulous hoard, and reaching it heard Dyzm’s hoarse, echoing chuckle—from above!

He fell into a crouch, spun on his heel, leaped back toward the ladder—in time to see it whisked up, out of sight. And more important, far out of reach. So that now Tarra knew how sorely he’d been fooled, and how surely he was trapped.

“Hrossak?” came Dyzm’s guttural query from overhead. “You, Tarra Khash—do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, trustworthy one!” Tarra almost choked on the words.

“Then hearken awhile,” the other chortled, “and I’ll tell you all the tale, for I’ve seen what a curious lad you are and I’m sure you’ll be enthralled.”

“By all means,” Tarra growled. “Why, you might say I’m a captive audience!” And he too laughed, but a trifle bitterly.

“In all truth,” said Dyzm, “I really did come out of Eyphra with a caravan—but of sheerest necessity, I assure you. Mayhap you’ve heard of the sulphur pits twixt Eyphra and Chill Sea?”

Tarra had: effluvium of extinct blowholes, the pits were worked by a penal colony under the watchful, cruel eyes of guards little better than criminals themselves. It was said that men aged ten years for every one spent in those hellholes, and that their skins rapidly grew withered and yellow from…the…work!

Withered and yellow, aye. Which was a fair description of the way Tarra’s brain felt right now.

He sighed, shook his head in dismay, sat down in the dust. He looked up. “You escaped, hey?”

“Not so fast, Hrossak! Oh, you’re right, I was there, indeed I was—for three long years! And all that time spent planning my escape, which is all anyone does in that place, until finally it became imperative. You see, there was a ragged bone of a man in that place with me, and before he died he spoke to me of these vaults. His directions couldn’t be simpler: come around the southern tip of the Mountains of Lohmi until you find a waterfall and pool, and so on. He had been here, you see, coming upon this place (quite genuinely) by accident. Later, weighed down with treasure, he’d fallen into the hands of mountain men. They were so awed by what he had with him that they let him live, even let him keep a bauble or two before cuffing him about a bit and pointing him in the direction of Eyphra. Aye, and weeks later he’d stumbled into that suspicious city a ragged starveling, filthy and verminous, so that when the people saw his few paltry nuggets and gems… Why! What else could he be but a thief? And so they’d taken away the last of his trove and sent him to dig in the sulphur pits, which was where I met him when they sent me there for murder. Ah!—but he’d already been there for four years, and it was something of a legend how long Death had fruitlessly stalked him. However that may be, all men must die in the end. And he was no exception…

“Now then: oft and again he’d told me the tale of these treasure vaults, but never how to get here until the very end, with the last gasp of his dying. And by then I knew he told the truth, for dying, what use would he have for lies? He knew he was finished, you see, and so had nothing to lose.

“For that matter, neither had I much to lose; which was why, at first opportunity, I ran off. No easy task, Tarra Khash, flight from the sulphur pits. I left three guards dead in my wake, and a fourth crippled, but at last I was free and running. Aye, and now I had somewhere to run.

“Bits of jewellery I’d taken from the dead guards bought me third-class passage with a caravan I met with where it entered the pass through Lohmi’s peaks, following which I spent a deal of my time with a pair of guides, converting them from their loyalty to the caravan’s master to my own cause. Ah!—but it’s a powerful lure, treasure, as you’ve discovered.”

Here Tarra gruffly interrupted: “What? Hah! You can have all your much-vaunted tomb-loot, Hadj Dyzm. Keep it and good luck to you. Nothing more than cursed curiosity caused me to follow you, and more fool me for that!”

Again Dyzm’s chuckle, but darker now. “Well, and doubtless you’ve heard what curiosity did for the cat?”

Tarra nodded, almost groaning in his frustration. But then he took a deep breath, clenched his fists until the muscles of his arms bulged, and said: “But I’ve also heard how cats have nine lives. Be sure, Hadj Dzym, that in one of them, this mouser will catch up with a certain rat!”