The Drawing of the Dark

Prophesy ye of Arthur?

Or is it me they celebrate?'

At this point Aurelianus began giving him syllables that carried no meaning for him, and weren't in Welsh. Duffy guessed that the part he'd understood had been a stylized greeting. He stopped trying to follow it and just called out the incomprehensible words as they were muttered to him.

Aurelianus' relayed monologue went on for many minutes, and the Irishman was getting sleepy. He wondered if it would be all right if he sat down, and decided regretfully that it probably wouldn't.

At one point his heavy-lidded eyes snapped fully open in panic. Had he missed a phrase? But Aurelianus was calmly droning the next one, and a moment later Duffy was instinctively repeating it in a loud voice. I guess I haven't missed any, he thought. I must have one of those household spirits crouched on my shoulder, the ones that breathe for you all night while you're asleep, and it's maintaining my half of this bizarre address while I doze.

With that reflection he really did stop paying attention to the words his mouth called out, and he even let his eyes close completely. An old campaigner, he was not incapable of falling asleep standing up.

Finally Aurelianus' promptings began to take on a tone of conclusion, and there came at last a phrase which, by its inflection, was obviously the last. A pause followed, and then Duffy called one more sentence into the abyss, in apparently the same language but a more jocular tone. 'Only after the echoes had died away down the well and up the stairs did the Irishman come fully awake and realize that the sorcerer hadn't fed him that one. Fearful of having ruined everything, he glanced at Aurelianus.

The old man, though, was smiling and nodding. 'A nice touch, that last,' he whispered to Duffy. 'I'd forgotten their peculiar sense of humor.'

And I recalled it, eh? the Irishman thought unhappily, too weary to let this new piece of evidence really upset him. I'll worry about all this in the morning. 'Fine,' he sighed. 'Let's get the hell out of here.'

'In a moment. Hush now.'

For another minute or two they stood staring at the coping stones in the unsteady lamp light. There were age-blurred carvings on them, but Duffy was sick of deciphering things. He wanted only to get back up to the surface - he was beginning to fancy he could actually feel the weight of all the dirt and rock overhead.

Then a voice spoke out of the well - a deep voice that carried more than a lifetime's worth of strength and sadness - and it said, 'Yes, Sire. We will, be honored to stand one more time with you.' The sound seemed to press outward against the walls and ceiling, uncomfortably constricted by the subterranean chamber.

Duffy was startled, but after a pause collected his wits and said 'Thank you.'

The old wizard stepped back now and waved the lamp toward the stairs. Duffy thought he looked cautiously pleased, like a chess player who manages to castle advantageously. Without a word they began the long ascent.

Before long they came to the sling, hung from two hooks wedged between stones in the ceiling, where the peculiarly devolved being had accosted them. There was no sign of it now. Duffy had paused to look around, but Aurelianus urged him on with a curt wave. The lamp still shone as brightly as ever, but the old man shook it worriedly and turned the wick lower, cursing softly as he burned his fingers.

When the steps levelled out at the short landing Duffy took a deep breath and ran his gloved fingers through his hair. The last stretch now, he told himself. Or the last cramp, I should say.

'Come no further, topsiders,' fluted a weirdly whistling voice from the darkness ahead. The Irishman leaped back and landed in a crouch, his dagger out, and Aurelianus nearly dropped the lamp in his haste to turn the wick up again. The glassed-in flame brightened, and glittered on the patchy white fur of three man-tall creatures that Duffy took at first for spiders.

Then he decided that this species, too, might have been human once, though much longer ago than that of the grinner in the sling. Their ears had grown wider than spread hands, at the evident expense of their eyes, which were completely buried under thick fur. Their limbs were grotesquely long and twisted, and the Irishman suspected that when the things crawled their knees and elbows would be above their heads.

'Put out the light,' one of them said, and Duffysaw why the voice was so odd - their cheeks had retracted, leaving their mandibles projecting nakedly under their wide nostrilled noses.

'Get out of our way, vermin,' Duffy growled, 'or we'll put out your lights.'

The thing extended a hand tipped with five long claws, and waved them in the air like the legs of an overturned bug. I don't think you can,' it lisped.

'Dung beetles!' shouted Aurelianus angrily. 'Listen to my voice. Listen to his. Can it be you don't know who you're confronting?'

The thing laughed softly, an odd sound like dice shaken in a cup. 'Of course' we know, man.'

The wizard stepped back. 'Someone's bought away their loyalty,' he whispered. 'I knew there were dangers down here born of atrophy and neglect, but I didn't expect outright treason.'

Bought with what? Duffy wondered. Before he could ask, all three of the things hopped forward at once as if yanked by the same string. One landed on top of Duffy and bore him to the floor, trying to claw in under his upflung arm at his eyes while the Irishman hacked at it with his dagger. Aurelianus dropped the lamp, but it rolled, still burning and unbroken, into a corner.

Another of the things was at Duffy now, digging at his stomach but foiled for the moment by the chainmail hauberk under the leather tunic. Though Duffy's flailing dagger seemed to be sinking into soft abdomen as often as it skidded off bone, the one on top of him kept dragging its claws across his forehead and cheeks. He could feel his own hot blood running into his ears, and other blood was sliming his dagger-gripping fingers and running down his wrist. All he could smell was goaty fur and all he could hear were his own involuntary screams.

Then something collided, hard, with the thing crouched on his chest. The Irishman rolled out from under and slammed his dagger to the hilt into the face of his other attacker, roughly where its eye would have been, and it rolled over backward so convulsively that the dagger was wrenched out of his hand.

Scrambling up into a crouch he turned to face the first one'- and saw only two motionless bodies sprawled on the floor. He spun to see how Aurelianus was faring, and saw the old wizard pushing aside a limp form to go pick up the lantern.

Duffy straightened up and relaxed; then his knees buckled and he allowed himself to sit down heavily. 'I thought.. .there were only.. .three of them,' he panted.

'oh. I see.' Aurelianus had approached with the light, and Duffy now noticed that the fourth creature, which had knocked the thing with claws off his chest, was different. He rolled it over with his foot, and saw again the slit pupilled eyes and wide grin, now lifeless. Its throat had been sheared right across by the spider-thing's claws, but the hilt of its short sword stood up from the bristly white chest of its slayer. Which was nearly my slayer too, Duffy reflected.>Aurelianus stared at him curiously, but shrugged and got to his feet. 'Right.' He padded to the end of the level stretch, where the stair resumed, and continued the downward course.