Swords Against the Shadowland

He thought of the rats and bats that should have occupied this underworld, the insects and countless crawling creatures. Yet no living thing dwelled here. He remembered wondering if some monster, stalking these grim passages, had eaten the rats. Now he wondered if, following some animal instinct, they simply had fled.

Again, leaving Nuulpha on the tunnel threshold, he stepped beyond the range of the light to turn slowly in the darkness. Above, the ceiling's stalactites glimmered coldly with hints of phosphorescence, of crystal, and mica. In either direction, the cavern walls seemed to vanish, and the black gloom extended into some void, an infinity of fearsome night.

"Glavas Rho," he whispered, invoking the memory of the herb-wizard who, in the absence of father or mother, had raised him through boyhood. "I think you have not prepared me for this."

Nuulpha crept to his side. The lantern's wick was now turned as high as it would go, but the flame and its light seemed smaller than ever. He raised the lantern over his head, surrounding them both in a circle of faint radiance.

The Mouser drew a circle in the air with his left hand, one of the holy signs of his spider-god. "Let no evil thing pass into this glow," he intoned, his black eyes glittering sharply.

"Stop!" Nuulpha cried. The light wavered dramatically as, dropping the foodbag, the corporal clapped a hand around the Mouser's head and over his mouth. Instantly, he released the Mouser again, but spun him around. "You invite Malygris's curse with such careless words!"

Stunned briefly, the Mouser hugged himself against the chill Nuulpha's words caused as he looked up into his comrade's stricken face. "Thank you, Captain," he said, recovering himself. Yet, a thought flashed through his mind—had he just doomed himself with that stupid charm-casting? He turned to stare once more into the void beyond the light, into the darkness that ate at his reason.

"How easy it was to forget myself," he murmured to Nuulpha, "just once. Despite my cautions, despite knowing the danger, I acted according to my nature."

He bit his lip. Did he dare tell Nuulpha more? A double dread shivered through him, fear of Malygris's wasting curse, and of something else—these tunnels and caverns. Something stirred here, something vaster and more inhumanly malevolent than any mere monster of his imagination. He knew it, though he couldn't explain his knowledge.

Whatever it was, it was not Malygris.

"Let's move on," Nuulpha urged, laying a hand gently on the Mouser's shoulder. "Demptha will be glad to receive this food."

Turning, the Mouser forced a grin as he motioned for Nuulpha to lead the way. In truth, he suddenly preferred not to remain in one spot too long down here. "And Jesane?" he asked in a falsely jaunty voice, giving his thoughts to Demptha's daughter. "Will she be glad to receive me?"

Nuulpha snorted, quickening his pace subtly, as if sensing something more than the Mouser at his back. "Despite what your eyes tell you, she's old enough to be your mother."

The Mouser barked a laugh that sounded strained even to his ears. "Liar, and whoreson jealous dog!" he said, slapping Nuulpha's back. "You think you can turn my interest aside so easily? You want her for yourself."

Nuulpha shook his head emphatically. "I have a loving wife," he reminded the Mouser. "She loves to spend my money, loves to order me about, loves to lie around slothfully. . . . But never mind. About Jesane, I speak the truth. She could be your mother. Mine, too, for that matter. And Demptha is a lot older than he looks."

"But Demptha is far less enticing," the Mouser answered. He cast a backward glance as they left the cavern and entered a brick-walled tunnel. He knew it could only be a trick of the light, but the void seemed almost to stalk them.

When I stop, it stops, he thought to himself. Yet each time I look around it seems just a little bit closer. He chewed his lip while Nuulpha continued obliviously on. Finding himself abruptly on the edge of the light, he hurried to catch up.

A soul-wrenching scream ripped suddenly through the tunnels. Goosebumps rising on his flesh, heart hammering, the Mouser froze in his tracks and stared wide-eyed past Nuulpha into the forward darkness. The tunnels magnified the sound, and the echoes rattled from the stones. The food bag slipped from the corporal's grip, and the lantern trembled violently in his shaking hand. A man's cry of pain followed, then a cacophony of terrorized shrieking.

Nuulpha spun about, his face a pale, distorted mask of fear. A moaning cry bubbled on his lips. Knocking the Mouser down, he ran back the way they had come.