III
They spent evening in the house of Simbish, where Cortez regaled them with his memories of the time of the ancients, and they him with tales of the world outside the Valley of K’dyzz. Bault prepared a meal from the larder of the unfortunate Simbish; coarse brown bread, jellies, pickled eggs and vegetables. Mualla kept her disappointment regarding the lack of meat to herself, she had no wish to seem ungracious, and any ill-humor she may have felt was eased by bowls of sweet, dark purple wine. They retired early, Mualla occupying the single bed, and Bault, awkwardly rejecting Mualla’s invitation to share the bed, stretched out upon the long dining table. Cortez remained on guard outside, assuring they were unmolested.
Rising with the sun, they gathered a few scant provisions, and prepared a number of torches. With these they set out, following the path Cortez had planted in their minds. Presently they stood before their goal, before them yawned the gaping black wound in the earth that was the entry point into the Labyrinth of Salk-Ouendoo.
“It reeks of rancid blood and the unwashed flesh of the sick.” muttered Mualla, covering her nose and mouth with the crook of her arm.
“You paint quite the picture with your words, woman.” Bault knelt and struck flint and steel, lighting a torch. “Shall I light one for you?
“Nay, I will want my hands free for sword and shield. Stay behind me with the torch held high, I will see well enough. Ready one of your enchantments as well.”
“I have any number of marvels ready at a moments notice. Ladies first.” Together they stepped through the opening.
They followed a rough natural passage that meandered for several feet before it opened into a large chamber. The torchlight revealed it to be perfectly square, with walls built of strange blocks whose uniform precision marked them as works of The Ancients. The floor was littered with debris; broken furniture, piles of dust, and various unfathomable artifacts scattered about in a desultory fashion. Mualla picked up one such object, a disc of some smooth material that was subdivided by varied ridges and depressions. She looked quizzically at Bault.
“Hghm?”
“That was a plate, for eating, you’d put the different foods in the different sections. Something like it is still used today among the Aristocratic Pygmies of Ahztallas.” explained Bault.
“Fair enough.”
Mualla tossed the plate to one side. It had not yet hit the ground when a shaggy nightmare shape came hurtling at them from the dark.
Mualla thrust her shield up and the thing smashed against it, forcing her backward.
"Yig!” she cursed, struggling to keep her footing and strike a blow with her scimitar. There was a flash of yellow talons and a great chunk of her wood and leather shield flew away. The warrior-maid of Iforne’ struck, barking in satisfaction as she felt her blade cleave deeply into flesh. But her foe did not falter. A second blow of the taloned paw ripped the remains of her shield away. Mualla leapt back and gripped her scimitar two-handed and prepared for the thing’s onslaught. It’s malformed bulk could just be perceived in the torchlight, and it emitted a guttural vocalization,
“Therma magnetics misaligned…compensate…compensate…”
Suddenly Bault threw himself between her and the mysterious assailant. With a flourish he thrust head forward and a cloud of sparkling peculiarly hued mist billowed from the illusionist’s mouth. There was an inhuman yelp of pain and bewilderment. Bault stuck out with his falchion, and Mualla leapt to his side to hew at the attacker. They ceased when it lay still on the floor before them. Bault raised the torch to reveal the nature of their foe.
It was a large vaguely anthropomorphic shape covered in course, foul-smelling hair. It’s flat, bestial face was filled with large, colorless dead eyes, flaring bat-like nostrils and jagged yellow fangs. Great pointed wolf-like ears depended from the sides of it’s bullet head. There was an abysmal, unnatural foulness to the whole of its being.
Mualla probed at it with her scimitar, prying open one of the great wounds they had hacked into it.
“It bleeds but little, and behold, there is no bone or guts…just spongy… meat. Do not eat of the flesh of this creature, Bault, it is unwholesome and foul.”
Bault glared incredulously at his savage companion. Her ideas of what made for an appropriate repast often differed alarmingly from his own. “Thank you, Mualla; I was very close to digging into this foul carcass with great relish.”
Mualla shrugged and grinned. “Does your god, Visking, not say:
‘After a hard battle, feast, even upon the flesh of the serpent. Verily, drinks doth be upon me, Man of the Red.’ You are certainly a Red Man Bault!”
“That verse can be interpreted a number of ways. We should keep moving!”
“Agreed. Light another torch, with my shield rent, I’ve a free hand to carry it!” Bault knelt and kindled another torch. Mualla stretched her splendid body and looked about.
“What was that you spat at the thing? The color! I cannot describe it! ‘Twas not blue, nor red, it…I know not! Thank Yig you had it though!”
“That was the Ulfire Mist of Kuangtang. I cannot use it again for some time though, it would kill me. And do not invoke the Serpent God, especially here in this place.”
Mualla scoffed. “It is in such places as this that Yig’s powers are exalted! Fear not! The Great Serpent will look upon you with favor as long as I am at your side!”
Bault sighed and handed her the torch. “Come. Best we walk side by side for the nonce.”
The pair moved through the great room until the came to a pair of metal doors that stood open, a long dark hallway was non the other side and they proceed down it. The walls of the corridor were marked with peculiar hieroglyphs.
“Can you read them Bault?”
“Somewhat. They give directions to various areas in the complex. We have just quit the dining hall, now we are headed to something called The Re-Search…Labor…something.”
Mualla bristled, her golden eyes widening. “Sounds ominous.”
The hall terminated before another set of metal doors these were shut, but opened easily when Mualla pushed them with a bare foot. Before them was revealed another great hall like the one before them, but this one was fairly choked with long tables and benches all piled high with bizarre and baffling artifacts. Bault fairly trembled and stifled a cry. “Look at them! These things are immaculate, but yet they must be tottering with age, I must…”
“Hold, Wizard! There will be time enough to rifle through these gewgaws, but we must first deal with Saul-Ouendoo.”
Bault reluctantly complied and they sped across the room to the next set of doors. Another long corridor followed, and another large hall, this one filled with massive wheeled contrivances similar in aspect to an oxcart but composed of strange otherworldly materials. This time Mualla nearly had to physically drag the Y’conian illusionist form these ancient mysteries.
They found themselves in yet another of the corridors, near identical to the others but as they approached the end of it, they hound the walls, floor and ceiling to be scorched and blackened. They arrived at the end and found the doors lying on the floor deformed and twisted as if from great heat.
Stepping across the threshold they beheld a room similar to the other great halls they had passed through, but it’s contents were radically different. Before them was a circle of low domes of metal. Thick cables led from them to a raised dais upon which rested a tall oval mirror, embedded in a tangle of wires and cables, twice the height of a man. It cast a weak bluish light about the area. They thrust their torches into the honeycomb-like surfaces of the low domes so that they might have their hands free.
Mualla blurted an inarticulate protest as Bault bounded up to the dais and mounted it, examining the mirror. Mualla ran up to his side.
“Fool! Do not tread so carelessly! You know well the works of The Ancients are not to be trifled with.”
Bault would not be distracted. “ Behold! Look into it, Mualla. By Visking this is no mirror!” Mualla squinted and peered at the gleaming surface.
At first all she could discern was a bluish glow, but then she could make out a landscape. It was a land of strange rock formations formed by the action of alien winds and oceans, covered in plants and fungi that had never sprung from earthly soil. A great azure star crawled across the alien vault, it’s surface ablaze with tendrils of crackling black lightning. Dominating this scene was an enormous two-pronged pyramid carved from one cyclopean piece of some ebon, obsidian-like material. Unidentifiable winged shapes flitted about it. The indigo star continued it’s path across the sky. Mualla turned away from the mirror in horror, for when the star should have slipped behind the colossal pyramid,
it slipped in front of it.
Shaking her ebon curls, Mualla struggled to clear her thoughts. Looking to Bault she found him submerged to the waist in the surface of the mirror. Howling in alarm she grasped his tooled leather girdle and drug him back with such force that the two fell off the dais in a tangle of limbs.
Bault struggled upright and shoved Mualla violently to the floor. “Damn you woman! It’s a gateway to ANOTHER WORLD! What wonders await there! Did you not see!”
Mualla reached up and slapped his whiskered, russet face savagely. “Fool! Naught but madness and death waits beyond that mirror! Do ye not remember what Cortez told us? This could be the sorcery that threw down The Ancients.”
Bault recoiled and slumped down against the dais, his eyes wild. “But did you not
SEE! The Orb of Xathar! The dread Citadel of Ibak! We must enter the mirror!
Iä Gonshu! Iä! Iä!…”
Mualla seized the illusionist by the collar and shook him violently. “Enough of that! Come back to me or by the Coils of Yig I’ll slap the ruddy hide from your skull.”
Bault struggled for a moment before meeting Mualla’s gaze. First she saw madness in his eyes, but gradually he came to himself. Mualla gripped his face in her hands. “Bault? Are you with me now?”
Bault nodded weakly. “Aye…I’m sorry I… Visking! Now I know well the madness that drove the likes of Salk-Ouendoo! We must…oh Mualla!”
Mualla wrapped her arms about the trembling magician and held his head to her splendid bosom. “Forget the madness in the mirror! Let us make haste to finish our task and put this hellhole to the torch ere we leave. We… Yig!”
Mualla sprang to her feet and brandished her blade. A spear cast away, malevolent soulless orbs reflected the baleful torchlight. Great shaggy bodies lurched toward them. A repellent stench, at once animal and fungoid, assailed their nostrils. Bault climbed up from the floor and took his place by Mualla’s side, falchion in hand.
“Damn! While I lay raving like a madman, the bastards slipped up and flanked us! Visking curse me for a simpering fool!”
“Do not reproach yourself overmuch, sweetmeat. Yig has set before you a chance to redeem yourself in battle! Relish this gift! Never are we more alive than when death is at hand!”
Bault mopped his brow with his sleeve and grinned at the savage by his side. “Perhaps you gazed into that mirror overlong yourself.”
“Nay! I have always been mad!”
The pair laughed heartily at Mualla’s jest, then braced for combat.
The shaggy monstrosities surged forward, the gutteral croaking that passed for their voices chanting in unison;
“Therma magnetics misaligned…compensate…compensate…”