Swords Against the Shadowland

Stepping into the tunnel, Nuulpha leaned on an iron lever embedded in the dusty floor. A narrow panel, seemingly made of thinly sliced granite, dropped into place with a clinking of chains. But for the lantern's light, which was moving ever farther up the tunnel, darkness ruled.

Crouching to avoid banging his head in the low passage, Nuulpha touched the Mouser's arm and urged him after the light. The Mouser, quickly as his aching muscles and injuries allowed, chased after that singular glow with his friend and rescuer close on his heels. As he went, he strapped on his weapons and tossed his light cloak over his shoulders, feeling a little better in familiar accoutrements.

"What is the lady's name?" the Mouser whispered over his shoulder as they strove to overtake Nuulpha's swiftly moving partner.

"Jesane is a lot of things," Nuulpha answered, "but she's no lady."

"Even better," the Mouser said with a grin. "Women with crossbows excite me. I've got a quarrel I'd like to fit to her string."

"You'll have more than a quarrel if she overhears you," Nuulpha warned, nudging him along. "Limp faster."

A narrow, stone-lined archway marked another passage that abruptly forked off to the right. Slowing his step, the Mouser stared into impenetrable darkness and repressed a shiver. Though he could not say how, he felt sure that something unseen not so far down that tunnel stared back at him, a malevolence so cold and ancient that he perceived it on a level deeper and more primitive than any of his five senses.

Humor deserted him. He hurried on until he stood at last in the umbra of Jesane's lantern, and when he spoke again, he kept his voice to the barest of whispers for fear of disturbing things best left undisturbed. "No rats," he muttered, eyeing the tunnel floor. In a place like this there should be hundreds of rats, thousands of rats. A queer urgency crept into his words. "Where are the rats?"

Neither Nuulpha, nor Jesane, answered, but in the lantern's yellow glow the Mouser caught the look on the soldier's face. He noted the grip Nuulpha kept on his sword and the manner in which Jesane held her cocked crossbow ready.

Swallowing nervously, he put a hand on his own slender sword and loosened it in its sheath. The walls seemed closer than ever, and he felt the weight of earth and rock above him as surely as if it rested on his shoulders.

Another archway and another darkness-filled passage branched off to the left. Only a few paces beyond that, yet another passage offered itself. Jesane led them under its low arch, and they soft-footed in a new direction. The lantern seemed a tiny shield against the overpowering blackness, and the Mouser found himself praying someone had remembered to fill its reservoir. The thought of getting lost down here. . . .

They turned into yet another tunnel, and the floor turned slick with slime, then muddy.

Without warning, the darkness burst with a glittering and glimmering. Neat pinpoints and jagged shimmering streaks of brilliance flared to sudden life. Jesane lifted the lantern higher as the Mouser caught his breath.

They walked no longer in a man-made tunnel, but in a natural cavern whose roof dripped spectacularly with stalactites. Bits of quartz and mica embedded in the formations, in the walls and roof, caught and scattered the lantern's glow, creating an eerie and awesome display.

"The underworld of Lankhmar," Nuulpha whispered. "A honeycomb of man-made tunnels, natural caves, and deep caverns. A secret closely guarded by the Overlord and the Great Noble Families with the cooperation of the high priests of certain powerful religions."

Instinctively the Mouser softened his step, and his gaze searched the shadows and gloom-filled crannies, the upper reaches, and the unyielding darkness beyond the reach of Jesane's small light. Such horrible, mysterious grandeur! Putting out a hand, he dragged his fingertips over the rough limestone surface and the jagged point of a stalagmite that rose as high as his waist. An overwhelming sense of age shivered through him.

Letting go of the stalagmite, he gazed upward again and imagined himself in a stygian mouth, between powerful jaws, monstrous teeth about to crush out his life.

Jesane moved ahead quickly, and Nuulpha, glancing back the way they had come, again put a hand on the Mouser's shoulder and urged him onward. Once more the Mouser caught the narrow, worried look in his friend's eyes; he perceived the way Nuulpha listened as if to the very darkness and the tension revealed by the grip that never eased on the hilt of his soldier's sword.

Quickening his pace, the Mouser turned his eyes from the beauty the cavern offered. Beauty sometimes made tender bait for deadly traps, and every attitude of Jesane and Nuulpha suggested danger lurked near. He resolved, not just to follow Jesane's light, but to stay within its wavering, yellow circle.