Haggopian and Other Stories

First: Tarra remembered again his dream of a great slab door slamming shut. Then: he saw that in fact the wand was not held fast in claw but attached by golden link to a lever in the arm of the throne. Finally: even thinking these thoughts he was hurling himself backward, diving, slithering out of tomb on his belly as the door, falling in an arc from the inner ceiling, came thundering down. Then Tarra feeling that monstrous counterbalanced slab brushing his heels, and its gongy reverberations exactly as he had dreamed them!

His torch had gone flying, skittering across the floor in a straight line; but now, its impetus spent, it rolled a little in the dust. This had the effect of damping the flame. Still rolling, it flickered lower, came to rest smoking hugely from a dull red knob. The darkness at once crept in…

Ignoring his fear (snarling like a great hound at his back) Hrossak leapt to the near-extinguished brand, gathered it up, spun with it in a rushing, dizzy circle. This had the double effect of creating a protective ring about himself in the sudden, gibbering darkness, and of aerating the hot heart of the faggot, which answered by bursting into bright light. The shadows slunk back, defeated.

Panting, fighting to control mind and flesh alike, for this last close call had near unmanned him, the Hrossak suddenly found himself angry. Now berserker he was not—not in the way of the blood-crazy Northmen of the fjords—but when Tarra Khash was roused he really was roused. Right now he was mad at himself for ignoring his own instincts in the first place, mad at whichever ancient architect had designed this place as death-trap, mad at his predicament (which might yet prove permanent), but most of all mad at the miserable and much-loathed Hadj Dyzm, who must now be made to pay for all. Nor was Hrossak temper improved much by the fact that the skin of his hands, arms and chest had now commenced to itch and burn terribly, an affliction for which he could find no good cause or reason unless—

—unless nothing!—for these were precisely the areas of his person which he had pressed against the golden kraken idol!

Was that vile metallic sweat he had noticed upon the thing some sort of stinging acid, then? Some poison? If so, patently the centuries had detracted from its potency. Before striding from the main chamber and following his own trail toward the entrance shaft, Tarra stooped, scooped up dust, layered it upon the stinging areas. Also, he glanced once more at the golden idols.

They crouched, gleaming, upon their pedestals exactly as before…and yet somehow—different? Were they not, perhaps, more upright? Did their eyes not seem about to pop open? Had their tentacles not stretched outward fractionally, perhaps threateningly, and was not the sheen of slime upon their metal surfaces that much thicker and slimier?

The Hrossak snorted. So much for a wild imagination! But enough of that, now he must put his plan into action without delay. This place was dangerous; something hideous had happened to the men who came here before him; time was wasting and there could well be other horrors down here which as yet Tarra knew nothing about. He returned quickly to where the bucket lay upon the floor at the end of its rope.

“Ho!” came Hadj Dyzm’s harsh greeting as Tarra fired a fresh torch. “And where’s my idol, Hrossak?”

Tarra looked up. Dyzm’s evil face peered down from the ceiling hole, but anxiously, Tarra thought. “Oh, I’ve found your damned idols, foxy one,” he called up, “and nearly came to grief doing it! This place is booby trapped, and I was very nearly the booby!”

“But the idol,” Dyzm pressed, “Where is it?”

Tarra thought fast. “Three things,” he said. “First: the kraken idols lie on a lower level. Not deep, but impossible to scale carrying idol. Second: I have a solution for first. Third: as you’ve seen, I had to return for a fresh torch.”

“Clown!” snapped Dyzm. “Waster of time! Why did you not take spare faggots with you?”

“An oversight,” Tarra agreed. “Do you want to hear my solution?”

“Get on with it.”

“I need hauling gear—namely, a rope.”

“What’s this?” Dyzm was suspicious.

“To hoist idol up from below,” Tarra lied again. “Also, ’twere a good test: a chance to see if the rope is strong enough.”

“Explain.”

“Easy: if the rope breaks from weight of kraken alone, certainly it will break with bucket and idol both.”

“Ah!” Dyzm’s suspicion seemed confirmed. “You want me to toss down the bucket rope in order to make yourself a grappling hook.”

Tarra feigned exasperation. “What? Have I not already tried to climb, and did not the rope break? The idol, however, is fairly small, not quite the weight of a man.”

“Hmm! How much rope do you need?”

Enough to hang you! Tarra thought, but out loud he said: “Oh, about ten man-lengths.”

“What?” Dyzm spluttered. “You’re surely mad, Hrossak! Am I then to give you a length twice as long as the distance between us? Now surely you plan to make a grapnel!”