The Death Ray

22

Naull didn't know how long they'd been in the sewers before she finally figured out a way to breathe through her mouth that actually cut the force of the stench. The air had a thickness to it that made it coat everything it touched with the smell of waste and decay.

The tunnel was the same size all the way in, but it still seemed to be closing in on her a little tighter with every step she took. They kept a steady pace and turned only a few times as they delved deeper into the city's eastern reaches: the sprawling and crowded Trade Quarter. To Naull it felt like they'd been wading through sewage for miles but the city wasn't that big. She thought she might be able to clear her head and start thinking straight if only she could take a deep breath. Instead, she tensed her whole body, riding waves of trembling panic while remaining stoic and silent on the outside.

"Here," Jandik said from the head of the single-file line. He pointed to the low ceiling, and Regdar stepped up to follow the tracker's finger as it drew a line from just over his head, down the tunnel into the impenetrable darkness. "This is where the scratches stop. We kept going about another hundred yards without seeing another sign. It's as if the thing just disappeared."

Regdar looked around, and so did everyone else. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel were made of old but solid brickwork. There was no sign of a door and certainly no visible magical effects.

"It could be under our feet," Watch Sergeant Lorec suggested.

Regdar seemed to consider the idea, even scuffled his toes around under the opaque, brown liquid, feeling for a door or hinge. If there was a trapdoor in the floor of the tunnel, opening it would have sent thousands of gallons of water emptying into the space below.

"I don't think so," he said. "The thing that attacked us was made of steel or encased in steel armor. If it had been submerged, the piece I cut off would have been wet, or at least stained with this horrid soup. It was clean and dry."

"There's another secret door," Naull suggested. "There has to be."

"Can you cast that spell again?" asked Regdar.

Naull smiled and said, "That's what I'm here for, isn't it?"

Regdar looked at her strangely and shrugged.

She closed her eyes and did her best to ignore him, the walls and the stench still closing in on her, along with the feeling of impending doom that she couldn't for the life of her shake. Naull cast her spell. She heard Watchman Samoth slosh a few steps away from her as she intoned the incantation, but ignored that too.

When the spell was done, she opened her eyes and was greeted by a dazzling, green glow from the wall to the party's left. She stepped to the wall and traced the outline of the door with her fingertip. Regdar leaned in close.

"I see it," he whispered.

"Can she open it?" the sergeant asked.

Naull kept her focus on the spell, digging deep into her magic-enhanced awareness for the door's hidden latch.

"Can she?" the sergeant pressed.

Regdar shushed him, and Naull silently applauded his patience. It took a minute more than she thought it would, but eventually her eyes locked on a chip of mortar at the edge of the door. She clearly saw her hand extend toward it and tip the mortar chip down as if picking it out of the wall. The door swung wide, revealing Naull shook her head, wiping the spell away, with her hand still poised an inch from the trigger. With the magic gone, she couldn't see the door.

"Is that the latch?" Regdar asked.

She thought about opening it to show off her cleverness but quickly reminded herself what might be behind the door. She swallowed and found her throat dry and painful.

"Just, um…" she said. "Just scratch it like you're trying to pull it out, and the door will swing inward."

Regdar gave her a smile that she tried to return, then he turned to the tracker.

"I'll take point from here," the lord constable said.

Jandik didn't argue. None of them did.

Vargussel threw open the door to his study and went immediately to the apothecary's cabinet in which he stored his spell components. He opened just the four drawers he needed and quickly gathered up the components of the spell. Heedless of whatever papers might have been on his desk, he ran through the spell as quickly as possible, mixing the noxious components in a sizzling, smoking paste that almost caused a sheet of parchment to catch flame.

The mixture was gone in a puff of smoke, and Vargussel finished the spell. He closed his eyes and formed in his imagination a picture of the lord constable's face. It took no more than a few heartbeats but Vargussel found his heart racing and his fingers tapping with impatience as the image formed more clearly, then took life in his mind.

Regdar was in the sewers. Vargussel could see him as clearly as if they were standing toe-to-toe, though in truth they were separated by a mile or more.

Stairs, the lord constable said, his voice echoing in Vargussel's mind, somehow disconnected by magic, time, and distance from the image of his lips forming the words.

Vargussel hissed out a curse. They were at the sewer stairs. They had found the second of his secret doors. They would be in the slaughterhouse soon enough.

The wizard watched and listened as Regdar mustered his pitiful force of impotent city watchmen and some girl Vargussel had never seen. They started up the stairs.

I had time, Lord Constable, Vargussel thought. I was ready for you. You'll see just how ready soon enough.

As Regdar and his people ascended the stairs, Vargussel fingered his amulet, watching, waiting patiently.

Regdar fought the urge to crouch the whole time he moved up the stairs. The ceiling was tall enough so that he could stand up straight, but just barely. The stairs were wider than he'd have expected, though. The telltale scratches ran all the way up the ceiling and lined both walls. Whatever it was they were tracking had definitely gone that way, back and forth maybe dozens of times.

The stairs looped back over themselves and stopped at a wider space, like a vestibule or foyer. Straight ahead of them was a heavy oak door bound with iron bands. Regdar stopped, waiting for the others to gather, though only Lorec and Jandik could fit in the space behind him. He couldn't even see Naull.

"I make it about sixty feet up from the sewer tunnel," Regdar said.

Lorec shrugged, and Jandik nodded.

"We should be about ten or fifteen feet below the surface, if I guess right," the tracker said.

"Basement depth?" asked Lorec.

Regdar shrugged and turned to examine the door. There was no obvious lock, just a big, heavy, iron ring.

"Why am I getting a bad feeling about this door?" Regdar asked no one in particular.

"Because you're not an idiot," Sergeant Lorec answered, then seemed to remember himself. "I mean, because you have good instincts, Lord Constable."

Regdar waved off the young man's embarrassment and briefly pined for Lidda. She could have examined the door for traps, removed them, then picked the lock. Regdar sighed at the thought that what he needed right then was a thief, but he was surrounded by the watch.

"I'll open it, milord," Lorec said, squaring his shoulders.

Regdar smiled, held his shield up to cover his face, and said, "I've got it, Sergeant, but thank you."

Reaching around his shield, Regdar tugged at the iron ring, but the door held fast. Nothing shot, squirted, exploded, or hissed out at him, and he didn't drop dead or burst into flames, so Regdar had to assume it was just locked.

"Stand back," he said.

The two men pushed back to the top of the stairs, the others giving way behind them.

Regdar whirled and kicked the door hard just below the iron ring. The blow sent a resounding thud echoing down the stairs and tendrils of electric pain tingling up Regdar's leg. The door didn't budge.

"You hit that hard, milord," Lorec said. "It damn well should have opened."

Regdar rubbed his leg and called for Naull.

By the time she made her way up the stairs through the others, Regdar's leg was beginning to feel normal again.

"I've heard there are spells to keep a door closed," he said.

Naull looked at the door, took a long, deep breath in the stale but not odorous air, and said, "One or two. I had a feeling we'd be in a position like this, breaking into a murderer's secret hideaway and all."

She stared at the door and whispered a string of nonsense words. It seemed to Regdar that they should have echoed more in the confined space. Once spoken, the words fell dead as if they had weight.

There was a click, then a creak, and the door eased open a few inches.

Regdar put out a hand to push past Naull, startling her.

"Jandik," he said, "bring that light up."

The tracker came forward and Regdar carefully drew his greatsword. He stepped through the door into a wide room made from mortared flagstones. There was another iron-bound oak door in the wall to his right and a third across the room. A single sheet of parchment was nailed to the door on the other side of the room. Regdar could just barely make out what looked like writing from across the dimly lit room. Otherwise the space was empty and seemed not to have been used in some time.

Jandik stepped in next to Regdar and they both examined the floor. Thick dust was everywhere but there were obvious tracks-furrows almost-connecting all three doors.

"Looks like either one," Jandik said, "or both."

As the others filed into the room, Regdar said, "Sergeant Lorec, take Jandik, Asil, and Samoth, and go through that way." He pointed at the door with the parchment nailed to it and Lorec started crossing the room immediately. "Naull, Lem, and Drahir will come with me this way. Bring me that parchment first, though," he added.

Lorec was already there. Regdar saw him reach for the parchment while leaning in to read it from Samoth's lanternlight.

The sergeant's hand never made it to the parchment before it was blown off in a blast of air, fire, wood, iron, dust, blood, and shattered bone.

Regdar was pushed back and fell sprawling against the wall, only dimly aware of pain and heat, screams and grunts.

"Damn you," Vargussel muttered to Regdar, though the lord constable couldn't hear him. "Have you no intellectual curiosity at all?"

The explosive runes were meant for Regdar, but who knew the lord constable would send some lowly watch sergeant to read it?

Though it was hard for Vargussel to see through the clouds of dust and smoke filling the room, he could see Regdar scramble to his feet, virtually unharmed. The young woman was coughing, waving away the smoke, but also still standing. One of the watchmen at least seemed to have survived, and he ran out of the room, coughing and gagging.

The smoke continued billowing and Vargussel could just make out the shape of a man laying on the floor, his skin and clothing ablaze.

Vargussel smiled at the fact that he'd hurt them at least-maybe enough to turn back their little expedition into his private affairs. He stopped smiling when he heard the woman begin casting a spell.

She ran through it well, managing not to cough, and Vargussel cursed her the whole way.

What will it be? he thought. A gust of wind, a wind wall…something to blow away the smoke?"

The room filled with pelting, fast-driving sleet. The dull crystals were driven by a strong wind, falling almost sideways in the confined space. The few watchmen that still stood scurried around in a panic as the woman tried to assure them that it was "all right" and that they shouldn't panic.

"Sleet storm," Vargussel whispered, then thought: This one has a flair for the dramatic.

It didn't take long for the conjured storm to clear the room of smoke, drive the dampened dust to the floor, and put out the fires.

Vargussel shrugged. At least he could see better.

The runes did their work well. The sergeant was dead. His right hand was gone completely and his face was a blackened, ruined mass of scorched flesh. The watchman who held the lantern for his sergeant had been thrown back a good eight feet and lay crumpled on the floor in a position only someone with a broken back could accomplish.

One of the others seemed to have stabbed himself through the thigh with his own sword. He sat against a wall, twitching, shivering in a pool of freezing sleet, bleeding.

Japdik, Regdar called to the man as he slipped across the floor to him. It's all right. You're going to be all right.

That made Vargussel laugh.