Haggopian and Other Stories

“Of what?” Tarra sighed. “Crumbling bones for hook, or soft gold, perhaps? Now who’s wasting time? Even if it were possible, how could I climb with you up there to cut me or rope or both with your sharp knife. ’Twas you pointed that out in the first place, remember? And anyway, I have your promise to let down the ladder—or had you forgotten that, too?”

“Now, now, lad—don’t go jumping to hasty conclusions.” Tarra could hear him shuffling about a little; a thin trickle of dust drifted down from above; finally:

“Very well, assume I give you the length of rope you say you need. What then?”

“First I fetch the idol. Then you lower what rope you have left, and I tie mine to it. Ah!—and to be certain it won’t break, we use a double length. You then haul up idol in bucket. And if you’re worried about me swarming up the rope, well, you still have your knife, right? Then—you toss down rope ladder for me. And the last quickly, for already I’ve had enough of this place!”

Dyzm considered it again, said: “Done!”

A moment later and the rope began coiling in the bottom of the bucket, and as it coiled so Tarra gazed avidly at the heavy handle of that container, which he knew he could bend into a perfect hook for hurling! Finally Dyzm cut the rope, let its end fall.

“There!” he called down. “Ten man-lengths.”

Tarra loosened the rope from the bucket handle, coiled it in loops over one shoulder. He must now play out the game to its full. Obviously he could neither make nor use grapple with Dyzm still up there, and so must first ensure his departure.

“Incidentally,” he said, in manner casual, “those booby-traps I mentioned. It wasn’t one such which killed your last two partners.”

“Eh?” from above, in voice startled. “How do you mean? Did you find them?”

“Aye, what’s left of them. Obviously the work of your unknown ‘guardians’, Hadj. But these caves are extensive, possibly reaching out for many miles under the desert. The guardians—whatever they are—must be elsewhere. If they were here…then were we both dead in a trice!”

“Then were you dead in a trice, you mean,” the other corrected.

But Tarra only shook his head. “Both of us,” he insisted. “I found one of your lads on a high, narrow ledge near-inaccessible. He was all broken in parts and the flesh slurped off him. The other, in like condition, lay in narrow niche no more than a crack in the wall—but the horrors had found him there, for sure. And would the funnel of this well stop them? I doubt it.”

The other was silent.

Tarra started away, keeping his head down and grinning grimly to himself; but Dyzm at once called him to a halt. “Hrossak—do you have any idea of the true nature of these guardians?”

“Who can say?” Tarra was mysterious. “Perhaps they slither, or flop. Likely, they fly! One thing for sure: they suck flesh from bones easy as leeches draw blood!” And off he went.

Now this was the Hrossak’s plan: that he wait a while, then cause a loud commotion of screaming and such, and shrieking, “The guardians! The guardians!” And gurgling most horribly until Hadj Dyzm must surely believe him dead. All of which to be performed, of course, right out of sight of him above. Then utter silence (in which Tarra hoped to detect sounds of fox’s frenzied flight), and back to break handle from bucket, form grapnel, attach double length of rope, and so escape. Then to track villain down and break his scrawny neck!

That had been his first plan…

But now, considering it again, Tarra had second thoughts. Since he must wait down here for at least a little while, why not turn the interval to his own advantage? For even now, if things went wrong—if, for instance, the real guardians came on the scene—he might still have to rely on Hadj Dyzm to get him out of here quickly. His chance of the latter happening, especially now, after putting the fears up the fox, were slim, he knew; but any port in a storm. Better slim chance than no chance at all. And so it were best if he appeared to be following Hadj’s instructions right up to the very end. Anyway, the thought of stealing one of the idols was somehow appealing.

With these thoughts on his mind, he rapidly retraced his steps to the cave of the golden krakens where they waited on their pedestals before the tomb of the lizard-king, and—

By light of flaring torch the Hrossak gaped at the transformation taken place in the idols. For they did not wait atop their pedestals—not exactly. And now, truth slowly dawning, Tarra began to discern the real nature of the curse attaching to these subterranean tombs. Doubtless the alien monarchs of this long-extinct race had been great wizards, whose spells and maledictions had reached down through dim and terrible centuries. But in the end even the most powerful spells lose their potency, including this one. What must in its primordial origin have been a swift metamorphosis indeed was now turned to a tortuously slow thing—but a deadly thing for all that, as witness the pair of charred cadavers.