Bones of the Dreadnought
II
Captives!
As the figure leapt, Mualla lunged forward and swung her scimitar, meeting it in mid leap. There was the squeal of rending metal and a bluish flash like lightning. The bandaged figure fell to one side, still and smoldering, while Mualla was hurled in the opposite direction, she fell twitched violently once, and lay still.
Bault howled in distress and made to render aid, but found himself surrounded by a half dozen more of the gaunt rag covered wights. With lightning speed he drew from his satchel a small metallic box that allowed him access to one of his more powerful illusions, one that had previously bedazzled the Radium Men of Tazzozz to a point where he and Mualla were able to evade them altogether.
He activated the device and it projected before it a near perfect, lifelike image of a buxom blonde woman in an elaborate bejeweled gown, her golden locks piled high in a fashion that spoke of the work of the ancients. The woman in the projection strummed on some sort of stringed instrument and sang a sweet melody in a voice that was like a cold, clear stream tinkling across a rocky, mountainous creek bed.
Alas, what had rendered the Radium Men mesmerized had no effect whatever on these skeletal fiends. They ignored Bault’s’ illusion, stepping through it to attack the magician from Y’kon. Bault lay about with his falchion, striking blows that should have felled a mortal creature ten times over, yet they fell upon these ghoulish scarecrows resulting in a dull thud and a shock of pain along Bault’s arm. Bitterly he fought, to no avail. He had no time for despair however, for Bault was struck a blow to the back of his skull, and knew not but oblivion.
************************************************************************
Bault’s next awareness was of oppressive heat and humidity and a sickening, cloying stench that brought to mind vomit and rancid grease. He groaned, and felt himself being drug upright. He forced open his eyes to gaze upon the grinning countenance of Mualla, illuminated by flickering reddish light. It was a vision that was at once angelic and demonic.
“What happened?” he groaned.
“We were bested in combat, and taken captive.” Mualla stated flatly. “We are in a cage in some sort of dungeon. Our captors have been working furiously since I awoke, no doubt preparing some sort of nasty fate for us!”
Bault cursed and struggled upright, rubbing the great knot that rose from the base of his skull.
“You seem untroubled by this turn of events.”
“Oh, I am troubled, but I see no use in wallowing in despair. We will escape, or not. This life is but one fleeting stage of the progression of souls.”
“I for one am not satisfied with ending this stage now, particularly in this manner.” Bault grumbled.
Mualla slapped his arm and laughed.
“Nor am I! Listen; there are only six of the things left. I clove one in twain above, but it blasted me senseless when I did. I have watched the remaining ones carefully. They are frail and sickly. Look.”
Bault gazed out from the tarnished metal bars of the cage that held them. Beyond the bars was a chamber, cluttered with all manner of detritus. Pieces of ancient machinery scrap metal, piles of rags and discarded clothing. Dominating the room were six cylinders in two rows of three. They were heated in some manner and noxious vapor issued from them. Between the rows and in front of the cage was a long metal table, foully stained and cluttered with rusted cutlery.
Scuttling busily about this environment were the six fiends that had attacked them. Tall gaunt, awkward things that moved in a peculiar stiff fashion. In the reddish light spilling down from odd panels in the metal ceiling, Bault could make out more details.
The “men”, if they could be called that, were clad in ragged, disintegrating coveralls, inexpertly repaired with various ragged patches. What passed for their flesh was also in a state of decay, cracked, dried, inundated with salt and falling away in chunks. Here again, the things had sought to arrest this decay with ragged bandages and sutures of fabric and wire. Bault hissed through his teeth when he saw the bone exposed by the things loss of flesh. It was not the yellow or bleached white one might expect, but it had the look of burnished steel.
“Androids!” Bault muttered.
“And what?”
“Androids! Automatons built by the Ancients to perform labors! Some were fashioned to look like people. By Visking! I never thought to see one still functioning!”
“Then you must have some idea how to defeat them! What are their weaknesses?”
“Hard to tell. It depends on the tasks they were built to perform. But I have read that they felt no pain, nor weariness, and took no food or drink, using only the mystic energy that powered all of the Ancient Ones civilization. By Visking! That’s what laid you low Mualla! When you destroyed that android on the deck you spilled out its remaining power!”
“Look how they move. They seem hobbled.”
Bault watched as the decrepit automatons lurched about, tending the cauldrons, organizing the instruments on the table. Their motions were unsteady, and accompanied by labored whines, squeaks, and buzzes.
“Aye, they are in poor repair. I see some heavy tools or something close by we could use for bludgeons. Hmm! I wonder what’s in those cauldrons?”
Mualla crouched and gripped the metal bars, straining like some lithe predatory beast, longing to break free and slay.
“Note ye that stench in the air?” she muttered.
“Aye, what of it?”
“Tis human fat, rancid with age. Yig! I can taste it on my tongue! No doubt they think to render us in those cauldrons for some purpose. They must have done the same for whoever dwelt in those tents we found on deck, unless these things put out the tents to lure travelers here. Coils of Yig! We must break out of this cage!”
Bault blanched and rubbed his beard. He had been stripped of his satchel, hat, cloak and belt, but…
He stooped and slipped his fingers into his boot. Yes! The androids had not been thorough in their search of his body. He had kept in his boot an artifact he had recovered from an ancient ruin some moons ago, a short cylinder made of the transparent, resilient material used so often by the Ancients. It had at one end another metallic tube at a right angle to the larger one, and a small lever that activated the relic. Bault pressed the lever, to no avail.
“Come on, damn you! Function!”
He tried again...and thrice, to no effect. It had worked before, why now did it choose to fail in their hour of direst need? Again he pressed the lever. There was a quiet pop, and a cone of blue flame appeared in the end of the smaller metallic cylinder.
Bault stifled a cry of triumph and turned to Mualla.
“Now. Keep a watch while I…”
In that selfsame instant, he saw two of the androids had come to the cage and unlatched it. No sooner had it opened than Mualla lunged forward, grasping the door and using it to batter aside the two androids; they were caught unaware and were bowled over. Snatching up a long metal implement, whose original purpose was a mystery lost to the ages, she charged a third android stoving in its head in a shower of sparks and pungent fluids.
“Blood!” she shrieked. “Iä! Blood and souls for The Father of Serpents!”
With this blasphemous war-cry she charged at the remaining three androids, who were unprepared to contend with a Warrior Maiden of Iforne’, hot blooded and prepared for battle.
Bault lurched out of the cage as the two androids knocked down by its door were regaining their feet. He thrust the blue flame of his torch into the crumbling face of the nearest and it recoiled as it’s filthy wrapping caught fire. It became entangled with it’s companion, setting that android alight as well.
Casting about the room his gaze settled on Mualla’s scimitar sitting atop the pile of their belongings the androids had deposited on the floor. He seized it and swung at the neck of one of the blazing androids. He avoided striking at its trunk, for that was where he suspected it’s deadly power source was housed. The keen edge of the Ifornean blade bit into the neck of the android, unlike Bault’s falchion, this was a sword forged by the diabolical weaponers of Iforne’, of an alloy wrought of meteoric metal and black sorcery, quenched in blood that had once coursed blackly through beings that frolicked in the outer dark.
The thing’s head flew across the room, and it’s decapitated body stumbled blindly about. Bault spun about, avoiding a blow from the other android with agility he would never have thought himself capable of, and severed the legs out from under the mechanism. It’s trunk crawled after him and clawed upward at him until Bault drove the scimitar though it’s head and it ceased moving with an eerie, pitiable squeal.
Bault whirled about, prepared to combat more foes, only to find Mualla had dispatched her three opponents. They lay at her feet in sparking, smoldering piles. Bault offered her the scimitar.
“I must get one of these for myself. It’s a most effective weapon.”
She shrugged. “Alas, I have but one, and I am unlikely to be able to get another, I am not loved by my people.”
Bault grasped Mualla by the shoulders and spoke earnestly.
“Your people are the poorer for that.”
Mualla met his gaze for a heartbeat, and then looked away, rolling her eyes.
“You are a silly man, Bault of Y’kon. Hurry! Let us gather our things and climb out of here, you’ve managed to set nearly everything alight.”
Verily, the room had become smoky, and flames could be seen flickering in and around the cauldrons. The pair of adventures gathered up their accoutrements and began the arduous trek upward. The place was like a cramped maze, but ever they sought the sets of steep stairs, seemingly placed at random. These they would climb and seek access to the deck. Smoke began billowing up from below, growing thicker, and Bault thought he could hear the muffled roar of a conflagration. They were climbing up their eleventh set of stairs when he gave voice to his concerns.
“Hurry Mualla. We must be free of this place soon. I fear it burns.”
“Aye. It shouldn't be too much farther; we've climbed up several floors and…”
Mualla’s statement was cut short as the whole world seemed to lurch about them. They were nearly thrown from the stair as it pitched wildly about. This went on for what seemed like an eternity, and then stopped.
“What in Yig’s name?” exclaimed Mualla. “An earthquake?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t…”
Again the world shuddered and the two held on for dear life. Again the motion calmed, but this time it did not cease completely. There was a steady trembling, and a rhythmic sway as though the ancient ship were playing the waves once more. And from below the came a deep thudding sound, as though many great hammers where being raised and slammed into the very foundations of the earth.
The couple spoke no more, and applied themselves to climbing furiously upward. At length the found themselves in a small chamber that was open to the air on three sides. The openings had once held some transparent panels like glass, but these were long gone and only jagged fragments remained. The tattered remains of tents fluttered about it, and scattered about were pots, mats, and other evidence of previous habitation.
Bault and Mualla went to opposite sides of the chamber and leaned far out, seeking to divine their location. They were not far from the deck , it was a few feet below them and there were steps leading down to it for the chamber they now occupied. But that fact was but an afterthought compared to the other spectacle they beheld.
“Itek and Visking!” Bault yelled. “Mualla! Do you see?”
“Aye! I see it, magician.”
The ancient ship was indeed moving inexorably across the salt flats of Mobylet. At first unevenly, but now with a steady pace. On either side of the hull Bault and Mualla could see colossal...
members, six in number, so large in diameter ten men might not join hands around them. They had a hard, spiky, chitinous surface that shone bluely under the moonlight. They threw up great clouds of salty dust as they swung forward and back, dragging the tarnished battleship of the Ancients across the flats. The rusted hulk groaned and screeched in protest, and pieces of it could be heard breaking away and crashing down, both inside and out. From beneath the prow of the vessel, they saw two long, chitinous tendrils arcing through the sky on either side waving and questing.
Bault sank to his knees and groaned.
“Great Visking preserve us! It’s alive! It’s ALIVE!