FOUR
Mad Jack gave Jack a hand up, and there it was; a cleft in the rock, looking no different than any other cleft. "You are right," Jack said. "I would never have found this."
"No one could find it save by the most fortuitous chance," Mad Jack agreed.
"I'm sure that's why he never bothers to move it."
Mad Jack started in. "Follow me."
The path sloped steeply downward, so that they were quickly out of reach of daylight. In utter blackness, Jack kicked a pebble. It dropped off the side of the trail...and off...and off...and off. Jack cautiously poked his left foot out sideways and down, and felt nothing. He froze.
"Was that you?" said Mad Jack's voice in front of him.
"Yes."
"Follow my steps exactly. This path is quite narrow."
Jack listened to his guide's slow, cautious steps and followed them as if his life depended on it, which, he thought, it probably did. They went on like that for a long time, gravel crunching beneath their feet, and still there was no light, but they were getting closer to something. Ahead and downward Jack heard a muffled, rhythmic noise, shuffle-shuffle-shuffle, boom-boom-boom, and there was also the smell of the Pit, that sulphurous stench he recalled so well, wafting upward, growing ever stronger.
Onward in the dark, perhaps half a mile. The stench grew more powerful. Jack coughed.
"Like the perfume, do you?" Mad Jack's voice was even harder than usual. "Thanks to you, I was stuck in the Pit, smelling it, breathing it, for two weeks before I was strong enough to leave."
"You did attack me first," Jack pointed out, and then he quickly stepped back, coming close to a fatal loss of balance, as Mad Jack wheeled on him.
In the dark the red eyes burned. "Think you I had any choice at the time? Do you know how strong Aku's influence is? Do you know what a battle it was to cast his influence off? What a battle it is ever to cast it off?" The angry questions were pelting Jack like arrows. "Have you any idea how few have been able to do that?"
"No," Jack admitted. "But I do know he used us both, myself as much as you, and I am sorry I fell for it. I am sorry for my part in it."
Pause. Red eyes glaring. The endless void on either side. (If he attacks me here, we're both dead and Aku wins.) Point that out? Keep quiet? It was so hard to predict what might set Mad Jack off.
The two red ellipses with the black dots in their middles seemed to wink out as Mad Jack turned about again. "Come on, you bastard."
They went another mile or so, during which nothing was said, and then Mad Jack spoke suddenly. "Stop."
Jack halted immediately.
"You will take two more steps forward, make a ninety-degree turn to your left, and slide down a sort of chute. You will land in a brightly lit area in which we will probably encounter the first layer of guards. You'll have to strike at sound until your eyes recover. If we survive that, we will cross into a room where there's a lot of machinery producing...well, I'm not sure what all it's producing, but it certainly produces noise. Noise so loud that it will temporarily deafen you--if you get out quickly. If you don't, you'll be permanently deafened. I have been told that if you stayed longer than a few minutes the noise would pulverize your guts and kill you, and I think that that is probably correct, though I don't plan to stay in there long enough to find out. In short, dear brother, if you have any questions, ask them now."
"Shouldn't we put something in our ears?"
"Idiot. Trying to plug your ears against that would be like trying to fight off the invincible Samurai Jack with a needle."
"I am not invincible," Jack said quietly.
"Ready? One--two--left--"
Whoosh! Down Jack went, skidding beetlelike on his back in the darkness, sliding on some viscous, unpleasantly scented substance. What was that smell? It teased his memory...
Beetle drones! The oil that squirted out of them like blood when you cut into them had that hot, thick, musty smell at first, then took on a more spicy, choji-like odor as it cooled. Either way, it was pungent. (Merciful ancestors, every person in this place will smell us coming--)
Jack had no time to come up with a plan to deal with the smell; the chute ended abruptly. Blinding white glare. Startled voices. Whirring of robots. Outgoing fire to his right, that must be Mad Jack, unless some other warrior had been deranged enough to come in here. Cut. Cut. Listen. Cut. Cut. Cut. Splash of coppery blood across his chest. Slash. Shriek and thud. His eyes were adapting, he could see fuzzily. Beside him Mad Jack was helping hack a path through the minions. Jack slashed at a robot, and musty oil splattered in his face. He drew his sleeve across his eyes and kept going.
By the time they had killed all the minions and reached the far wall, Jack could see perfectly well, but no longer hear. The floor shuddered under their feet from the noise coming from the other side. The noise vibrated Jack's tongue against the roof of his mouth, thudded in his throat, in his guts; it was like a painful tide pounding against his ears. No wonder all those minions had stayed clustered at the other end.
Mad Jack put his hand on the wall. The vibrations trembled the muscles in his forearm. "Soundproofed," he mouthed, and he opened the door and stepped through. Around them machinery that stretched from floor to ceiling squealed and pumped and churned and steamed and pounded. Jack could feel his heart struggling to beat against the insistent mechanical rhythm. A thousand years ago, when he had first been dumped into this horrible Aku-infested world, he had entered a bar and covered his ears against what had, at the time, seemed an intolerable racket.
The samurai ran through the paths between the machines. The din hammered insistently at Jack's ears, his guts, his sanity. He glanced around once or twice as he ran. All this furious activity seemed to result in no visible output. It was noise for noise's sake, ugliness for ugliness's sake.
The samurai ran through the door at the other side of the room and slammed it shut behind them. Now they were in a long hall, dimly lit by what appeared to be clusters of fungus hanging from the ceiling. Except for themselves, the hall was empty, and it was eerily, impossibly quiet. Jack wondered if he were now deaf. He put his hand on the wall and felt no vibration. He glanced inquiringly at Mad Jack, who shrugged slightly, as if to say "This is how it is because this is how it is." Then the double mouthed "Take a rest," and they sat down against a wall and passed the water bottle. Presently Jack's stunned ears rang, then buzzed. His hearing was coming back. He also needed to visit the toilet. Beside him, Mad Jack shifted uncomfortably and rubbed his lower abdomen.
"Can you hear me?" Jack asked.
"Yes! Don't shout."
"Sorry."
Mad Jack shifted again.
"I need to find a toilet," Jack said.
"Yes. The vibration seems to stimulate the urge. But we should just...go."
"Out here? We can't! It would be like leaving little signs that say 'They went that way.'"
"There is that." For the first time, Mad Jack seemed indecisive. "The toilets here...some of them are real, some of them are...I'm not sure if they're machines or demons, but whatever they are, they don't take kindly to people coming along and..." He trailed off thoughtfully. "They shift, is the problem. Like the doors."
"If we don't find a real one soon," Jack said, beginning to fidget himself, "the point will be moot."
"Not far from here are some that were real when I was here last." Reaching a decision, Mad Jack stood up. "Come."
Five doors to the left was one marked HUMANS. Flattening himself against the wall, Mad Jack pushed the door open a little way. Jack, backing him, could see nothing except tile floor and part of a tall bullet wastecan. Mad Jack edged the door open a little wider, peeking. Jack tried not to squirm. "I see no bodies, or pieces of bodies," Mad Jack said. "Perhaps it is still real."
Ready to fight if necessary, Jack followed him in. The restroom had a sour untended smell and the sinks looked grimy, not that he was worried about such niceties at a moment when his back teeth were swimming. There were no urinals, but opposite the dirty sinks there were five little booths. The one Jack entered contained one of those weird, horrendously uncomfortable Occidental-style toilets that made you feel as if you were perching awkwardly on a high stool. Jack was glad he didn't need to sit down. Pulling his clothes aside, he sighed with relief.
"If I were you," Mad Jack said from the next stall, "I would not try to flush it, and I would back out, keeping an eye on it."
They backed out at exactly the same time, moving in perfect, unintended, dancelike unison. Not for the first time, Jack wondered uncomfortably how much difference there really was between them.
Mad Jack inclined his head towards the door, and, as if something had seen, the bolt intended to allow the janitor to close off the room shot itself shut. Jack lunged to open it, jerking back hastily when the metal bolt and the metal door glowed red-hot. He tried to cut it open, and his sword left only a faint scratch; it would take time to cut through this. He turned back towards the sink to get water to throw on the bolt--
From an end stall, which was, oddly, not one that either of them had used, there came an odd sound, something between a gurgle and a growl, and the sound of something ripping loose from the wall. As one, they drew swords. Here in the Pit, at least, where it and he had been forged, Mad Jack's sword too held magic. The blade shimmered with dark fire.
Hissing angrily, the demon burst out of the stall. One could still tell that it had been disguising itself as a humble toilet. It seemed to be made of white porcelain, and water swirled in its gaping jaws. The samurai attacked, not trying to kill it yet, but to force it towards the door with the idea of splashing cooling water on the bolt. With a flushing sound, the demon belched water onto the tile floor, and the samurai skidded. Jack's feet flew out from under him. He rolled back to his feet, to see Mad Jack halfway down the demon's jaws, headfirst. With no time to be gentle, Jack yanked the half-drowned double out and threw him backwards. His black gi was soaked and dripping, his hair tumbling around his shoulders in wet black plaits.
"Wad your clothes up against that bolt!" That was all Jack had time to say before the demon was upon him. He knew better now than to try to keep his feet. He dropped to his knees and slashed from that position. Behind him he heard Mad Jack coughing and retching up water. Then he heard the bolt shoot back, but the gagging continued; for some reason Mad Jack wasn't leaving. "Go! Go! Go and kill Aku!" Jack said, and the demon leaped on him with a flushing roar, dumping cold water all over him that undid his topknot; his hair plopped wetly into his eyes.
Still coughing, Mad Jack lunged forward with the wastebasket in his arms, jamming it as far down the demon's throat as he could. It burbled angrily, but it was completely clogged. While Mad Jack held the wastebasket in place, Jack hacked the demon apart, and then they helped each other out the door, where they paused to catch their breath, Mad Jack still coughing intermittently.
As Jack wrung out the wet black gi, his thumb and middle finger met through a hole in the fabric. He shook it out, holding it up, and let out a low whistle. That metal had been so hot that it had burnt a bolt-shaped hole through a garment saturated in cold water.
Mad Jack took the gi and put it on. The charred hole was in the upper left sleeve. "That settles it," he said. "From now on, we pee in the potted poison ivy."
Wringing out his own gi, Jack began to laugh, and Mad Jack laughed with him. Then the double mumbled something.
"What?" Jack said, wringing.
Another mumble.
"I can't hear you, so sorry."
"If you hadn't jumped in, I'd have drowned," Mad Jack said. "I said, Thank you."
"You're welcome." Jack put on his damp gi. Cold and clammy, it plastered itself to his body.
"That doesn't mean I don't still want to kill you if I can," Mad Jack said sternly. "I am only giving credit where it is due."
Jack bowed. "Thank you. Now, how do we get on with killing Aku? Which way now?"
"I don't think we should continue on this way." Mad Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It's been too easy so far. It makes me nervous. I fear we are being ushered into a trap. So I think we should change our plan. I think we should climb down the old elevator shaft that leads straight into the heart of the Pit. It's a couple of miles long, but there are maintenance crawlways every so often where one may stop and rest."
"You don't anticipate a trap there?"
"No," Mad Jack said. "It's very old, quite unsafe; I believe they'll take the view that no one would ever be reckless enough to try to climb up or down it."
That was certainly reassuring.
"Follow me," Mad Jack said.
Six minion attacks, a wall that shot spears, and a trapdoor over a vat of acid later, they were looking down the old shaft. It was utterly black, smelling mostly of age and disuse, but there was also a faint, troubling whiff of death, as if other warriors had tried this route from time to time.
They climbed down and down and down into the dark. Jack quickly found that many of the handholds in the rotting timber were loose. One had to test each one very carefully before changing position. Now and then a handhold would fall out when he tested it, rattling down the shaft until it finally landed at the bottom.
Down and down. Rest. Drink. Down. Down. Down. Their slow, careful descent must have been going on for hours. Down. Down. Down. Rest. Drink. Eat a little. Down. The only faint light was from Mad Jack's eyes.
"Hello!" he said suddenly. "Someone else came this way recently. There's a scrap of cloth stuck to the wall. Looks new."
"Can you tell what color it is?"
"Pink."
"I wonder if he made it," Jack said.
Muffled rasping laughter from the other side of the shaft. "If you step on something wet and crunchy at the bottom, you'll know!"
A couple of hours later Jack reached down with his right foot and felt something solid and horizontal. He heard Mad Jack step off onto the level and followed suit.
"This is the lowest maintenance shaft," Mad Jack said. "From here we'll have to feel for the trapdoor."
On hands and knees, they groped in the darkness, occasionally seizing one another's hand or ankle by accident. Jack found the trapdoor and carefully lifted it. The sulphur smell blasted up, strong enough to make him wince. He followed Mad Jack into a narrow crawlway. After crawling some distance, Mad Jack came to and lifted another trapdoor, and the samurai dropped into a long hall, almost on top of a woman who wore a blue skirt, blue jacket, blue high-heeled shoes, and a white blouse. She carried a fat briefcase. At sight of the samurai, she hastily set the briefcase down. "Good Lord and butter," she said. "What happened to you?"
"Eh?" Jack said.
She withdrew a hand mirror from her briefcase and held it up so they could see the two apparitions covered from head to toe in blood, dirt, demon dampness, and robot goo, dark eyes peering from one messy mask of battle, red eyes from the other.
"We're Maintenance," Jack said.
"Maintenance wears swords?"
"To kill the rats," Mad Jack said.
"You're warriors here to kill Aku," she said, undeceived. "Well, don't let me stop y'all. He hasn't paid me on my retainer in four months." She withdrew a towel from the bulging briefcase and handed it to Jack. "Here."
"Thank you." He wiped his face and passed the towel on.
"If Aku dies, at least I'll get paid out of his will. And if he dies intestate..." She smiled. "Well, in such a case, the lawyers get paid first!"
"You're a lawyer?" Jack put a nervous hand on his sword even as the ordinarily fearless Mad Jack took a step backward.
"I'm Aku's lawyer and I wish I'd never accepted the job. If you can get me out of it I'll be very grateful. Look, why don't y'all go in the secret fiends' entrance? Nobody except the most evil creatures knows about it. We lawyers use it all the time."
Jack, who didn't trust lawyers even outside the Pit, said, "No, thank you."
"No, wait," Mad Jack said. "She is telling the truth. I have heard of the secret fiends' entrance."
"How many guards?" Jack asked.
"None. It's secret."
"Lead on, please," Jack said.
She led them down two flights of stairs and a short way down the hall to an unmarked door. "Secret fiends' entrance," she said with a flourish. "You'll come out in the throne room, a little behind and to the right of Aku's throne."
Jack bowed. "Thank you!"
"You know, you're kind of cute." Smiling flirtatiously, she handed him a card. "Why don't you call me after the battle?"
"Let's go," Mad Jack said.
"You know, if you survive," the lawyer said.
"Thank you. If you will excuse us--"
Mad Jack cracked the door.
"And if you don't end up in a wheelchair," the lawyer said.
Mad Jack opened the door wider.
"Thank you, madam, I--"
"And if you don't end up all scarred up."
Mad Jack rattled the doorknob impatiently.
"I mean, a little scar that doesn't show would be OK, but if you end up with big disgusting scars all over your face--"
"Madam, I must go!" Jack said, bowed, and followed Mad Jack through the door.
"Good luck!" the lawyer called after them, and closed the door.
Aku's throne room was decorated in the same garish red-and-yellow flame motif as the little bit of the Pit which Jack had seen previously. The shape-shifter sat on his flame-design throne. Perched on the arm of the throne, like a toy Aku had set aside until he had time to pick it up again, was...
"Kiku!" Jack whispered. "How'd she get here?"
Kiku saw them but betrayed no reaction. Instead, she quietly reached behind her and began undoing her obi, which seemed a strange thing to be doing at a time like this, but then Jack noticed her removing various metal pieces from its many thick folds and assembling something, although from here he could not tell what.
"Pretend you are my prisoner," Mad Jack murmured, and Jack put his hands behind him as if his wrists were cuffed.
Mad Jack took his arm and propelled him to stand before the throne of Aku. The shapeshifter's eyes widened at sight of the quarry he had pursued for so long.
"Father," Mad Jack announced, "I'm home!"
Mad Jack gave Jack a hand up, and there it was; a cleft in the rock, looking no different than any other cleft. "You are right," Jack said. "I would never have found this."
"No one could find it save by the most fortuitous chance," Mad Jack agreed.
"I'm sure that's why he never bothers to move it."
Mad Jack started in. "Follow me."
The path sloped steeply downward, so that they were quickly out of reach of daylight. In utter blackness, Jack kicked a pebble. It dropped off the side of the trail...and off...and off...and off. Jack cautiously poked his left foot out sideways and down, and felt nothing. He froze.
"Was that you?" said Mad Jack's voice in front of him.
"Yes."
"Follow my steps exactly. This path is quite narrow."
Jack listened to his guide's slow, cautious steps and followed them as if his life depended on it, which, he thought, it probably did. They went on like that for a long time, gravel crunching beneath their feet, and still there was no light, but they were getting closer to something. Ahead and downward Jack heard a muffled, rhythmic noise, shuffle-shuffle-shuffle, boom-boom-boom, and there was also the smell of the Pit, that sulphurous stench he recalled so well, wafting upward, growing ever stronger.
Onward in the dark, perhaps half a mile. The stench grew more powerful. Jack coughed.
"Like the perfume, do you?" Mad Jack's voice was even harder than usual. "Thanks to you, I was stuck in the Pit, smelling it, breathing it, for two weeks before I was strong enough to leave."
"You did attack me first," Jack pointed out, and then he quickly stepped back, coming close to a fatal loss of balance, as Mad Jack wheeled on him.
In the dark the red eyes burned. "Think you I had any choice at the time? Do you know how strong Aku's influence is? Do you know what a battle it was to cast his influence off? What a battle it is ever to cast it off?" The angry questions were pelting Jack like arrows. "Have you any idea how few have been able to do that?"
"No," Jack admitted. "But I do know he used us both, myself as much as you, and I am sorry I fell for it. I am sorry for my part in it."
Pause. Red eyes glaring. The endless void on either side. (If he attacks me here, we're both dead and Aku wins.) Point that out? Keep quiet? It was so hard to predict what might set Mad Jack off.
The two red ellipses with the black dots in their middles seemed to wink out as Mad Jack turned about again. "Come on, you bastard."
They went another mile or so, during which nothing was said, and then Mad Jack spoke suddenly. "Stop."
Jack halted immediately.
"You will take two more steps forward, make a ninety-degree turn to your left, and slide down a sort of chute. You will land in a brightly lit area in which we will probably encounter the first layer of guards. You'll have to strike at sound until your eyes recover. If we survive that, we will cross into a room where there's a lot of machinery producing...well, I'm not sure what all it's producing, but it certainly produces noise. Noise so loud that it will temporarily deafen you--if you get out quickly. If you don't, you'll be permanently deafened. I have been told that if you stayed longer than a few minutes the noise would pulverize your guts and kill you, and I think that that is probably correct, though I don't plan to stay in there long enough to find out. In short, dear brother, if you have any questions, ask them now."
"Shouldn't we put something in our ears?"
"Idiot. Trying to plug your ears against that would be like trying to fight off the invincible Samurai Jack with a needle."
"I am not invincible," Jack said quietly.
"Ready? One--two--left--"
Whoosh! Down Jack went, skidding beetlelike on his back in the darkness, sliding on some viscous, unpleasantly scented substance. What was that smell? It teased his memory...
Beetle drones! The oil that squirted out of them like blood when you cut into them had that hot, thick, musty smell at first, then took on a more spicy, choji-like odor as it cooled. Either way, it was pungent. (Merciful ancestors, every person in this place will smell us coming--)
Jack had no time to come up with a plan to deal with the smell; the chute ended abruptly. Blinding white glare. Startled voices. Whirring of robots. Outgoing fire to his right, that must be Mad Jack, unless some other warrior had been deranged enough to come in here. Cut. Cut. Listen. Cut. Cut. Cut. Splash of coppery blood across his chest. Slash. Shriek and thud. His eyes were adapting, he could see fuzzily. Beside him Mad Jack was helping hack a path through the minions. Jack slashed at a robot, and musty oil splattered in his face. He drew his sleeve across his eyes and kept going.
By the time they had killed all the minions and reached the far wall, Jack could see perfectly well, but no longer hear. The floor shuddered under their feet from the noise coming from the other side. The noise vibrated Jack's tongue against the roof of his mouth, thudded in his throat, in his guts; it was like a painful tide pounding against his ears. No wonder all those minions had stayed clustered at the other end.
Mad Jack put his hand on the wall. The vibrations trembled the muscles in his forearm. "Soundproofed," he mouthed, and he opened the door and stepped through. Around them machinery that stretched from floor to ceiling squealed and pumped and churned and steamed and pounded. Jack could feel his heart struggling to beat against the insistent mechanical rhythm. A thousand years ago, when he had first been dumped into this horrible Aku-infested world, he had entered a bar and covered his ears against what had, at the time, seemed an intolerable racket.
The samurai ran through the paths between the machines. The din hammered insistently at Jack's ears, his guts, his sanity. He glanced around once or twice as he ran. All this furious activity seemed to result in no visible output. It was noise for noise's sake, ugliness for ugliness's sake.
The samurai ran through the door at the other side of the room and slammed it shut behind them. Now they were in a long hall, dimly lit by what appeared to be clusters of fungus hanging from the ceiling. Except for themselves, the hall was empty, and it was eerily, impossibly quiet. Jack wondered if he were now deaf. He put his hand on the wall and felt no vibration. He glanced inquiringly at Mad Jack, who shrugged slightly, as if to say "This is how it is because this is how it is." Then the double mouthed "Take a rest," and they sat down against a wall and passed the water bottle. Presently Jack's stunned ears rang, then buzzed. His hearing was coming back. He also needed to visit the toilet. Beside him, Mad Jack shifted uncomfortably and rubbed his lower abdomen.
"Can you hear me?" Jack asked.
"Yes! Don't shout."
"Sorry."
Mad Jack shifted again.
"I need to find a toilet," Jack said.
"Yes. The vibration seems to stimulate the urge. But we should just...go."
"Out here? We can't! It would be like leaving little signs that say 'They went that way.'"
"There is that." For the first time, Mad Jack seemed indecisive. "The toilets here...some of them are real, some of them are...I'm not sure if they're machines or demons, but whatever they are, they don't take kindly to people coming along and..." He trailed off thoughtfully. "They shift, is the problem. Like the doors."
"If we don't find a real one soon," Jack said, beginning to fidget himself, "the point will be moot."
"Not far from here are some that were real when I was here last." Reaching a decision, Mad Jack stood up. "Come."
Five doors to the left was one marked HUMANS. Flattening himself against the wall, Mad Jack pushed the door open a little way. Jack, backing him, could see nothing except tile floor and part of a tall bullet wastecan. Mad Jack edged the door open a little wider, peeking. Jack tried not to squirm. "I see no bodies, or pieces of bodies," Mad Jack said. "Perhaps it is still real."
Ready to fight if necessary, Jack followed him in. The restroom had a sour untended smell and the sinks looked grimy, not that he was worried about such niceties at a moment when his back teeth were swimming. There were no urinals, but opposite the dirty sinks there were five little booths. The one Jack entered contained one of those weird, horrendously uncomfortable Occidental-style toilets that made you feel as if you were perching awkwardly on a high stool. Jack was glad he didn't need to sit down. Pulling his clothes aside, he sighed with relief.
"If I were you," Mad Jack said from the next stall, "I would not try to flush it, and I would back out, keeping an eye on it."
They backed out at exactly the same time, moving in perfect, unintended, dancelike unison. Not for the first time, Jack wondered uncomfortably how much difference there really was between them.
Mad Jack inclined his head towards the door, and, as if something had seen, the bolt intended to allow the janitor to close off the room shot itself shut. Jack lunged to open it, jerking back hastily when the metal bolt and the metal door glowed red-hot. He tried to cut it open, and his sword left only a faint scratch; it would take time to cut through this. He turned back towards the sink to get water to throw on the bolt--
From an end stall, which was, oddly, not one that either of them had used, there came an odd sound, something between a gurgle and a growl, and the sound of something ripping loose from the wall. As one, they drew swords. Here in the Pit, at least, where it and he had been forged, Mad Jack's sword too held magic. The blade shimmered with dark fire.
Hissing angrily, the demon burst out of the stall. One could still tell that it had been disguising itself as a humble toilet. It seemed to be made of white porcelain, and water swirled in its gaping jaws. The samurai attacked, not trying to kill it yet, but to force it towards the door with the idea of splashing cooling water on the bolt. With a flushing sound, the demon belched water onto the tile floor, and the samurai skidded. Jack's feet flew out from under him. He rolled back to his feet, to see Mad Jack halfway down the demon's jaws, headfirst. With no time to be gentle, Jack yanked the half-drowned double out and threw him backwards. His black gi was soaked and dripping, his hair tumbling around his shoulders in wet black plaits.
"Wad your clothes up against that bolt!" That was all Jack had time to say before the demon was upon him. He knew better now than to try to keep his feet. He dropped to his knees and slashed from that position. Behind him he heard Mad Jack coughing and retching up water. Then he heard the bolt shoot back, but the gagging continued; for some reason Mad Jack wasn't leaving. "Go! Go! Go and kill Aku!" Jack said, and the demon leaped on him with a flushing roar, dumping cold water all over him that undid his topknot; his hair plopped wetly into his eyes.
Still coughing, Mad Jack lunged forward with the wastebasket in his arms, jamming it as far down the demon's throat as he could. It burbled angrily, but it was completely clogged. While Mad Jack held the wastebasket in place, Jack hacked the demon apart, and then they helped each other out the door, where they paused to catch their breath, Mad Jack still coughing intermittently.
As Jack wrung out the wet black gi, his thumb and middle finger met through a hole in the fabric. He shook it out, holding it up, and let out a low whistle. That metal had been so hot that it had burnt a bolt-shaped hole through a garment saturated in cold water.
Mad Jack took the gi and put it on. The charred hole was in the upper left sleeve. "That settles it," he said. "From now on, we pee in the potted poison ivy."
Wringing out his own gi, Jack began to laugh, and Mad Jack laughed with him. Then the double mumbled something.
"What?" Jack said, wringing.
Another mumble.
"I can't hear you, so sorry."
"If you hadn't jumped in, I'd have drowned," Mad Jack said. "I said, Thank you."
"You're welcome." Jack put on his damp gi. Cold and clammy, it plastered itself to his body.
"That doesn't mean I don't still want to kill you if I can," Mad Jack said sternly. "I am only giving credit where it is due."
Jack bowed. "Thank you. Now, how do we get on with killing Aku? Which way now?"
"I don't think we should continue on this way." Mad Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It's been too easy so far. It makes me nervous. I fear we are being ushered into a trap. So I think we should change our plan. I think we should climb down the old elevator shaft that leads straight into the heart of the Pit. It's a couple of miles long, but there are maintenance crawlways every so often where one may stop and rest."
"You don't anticipate a trap there?"
"No," Mad Jack said. "It's very old, quite unsafe; I believe they'll take the view that no one would ever be reckless enough to try to climb up or down it."
That was certainly reassuring.
"Follow me," Mad Jack said.
Six minion attacks, a wall that shot spears, and a trapdoor over a vat of acid later, they were looking down the old shaft. It was utterly black, smelling mostly of age and disuse, but there was also a faint, troubling whiff of death, as if other warriors had tried this route from time to time.
They climbed down and down and down into the dark. Jack quickly found that many of the handholds in the rotting timber were loose. One had to test each one very carefully before changing position. Now and then a handhold would fall out when he tested it, rattling down the shaft until it finally landed at the bottom.
Down and down. Rest. Drink. Down. Down. Down. Their slow, careful descent must have been going on for hours. Down. Down. Down. Rest. Drink. Eat a little. Down. The only faint light was from Mad Jack's eyes.
"Hello!" he said suddenly. "Someone else came this way recently. There's a scrap of cloth stuck to the wall. Looks new."
"Can you tell what color it is?"
"Pink."
"I wonder if he made it," Jack said.
Muffled rasping laughter from the other side of the shaft. "If you step on something wet and crunchy at the bottom, you'll know!"
A couple of hours later Jack reached down with his right foot and felt something solid and horizontal. He heard Mad Jack step off onto the level and followed suit.
"This is the lowest maintenance shaft," Mad Jack said. "From here we'll have to feel for the trapdoor."
On hands and knees, they groped in the darkness, occasionally seizing one another's hand or ankle by accident. Jack found the trapdoor and carefully lifted it. The sulphur smell blasted up, strong enough to make him wince. He followed Mad Jack into a narrow crawlway. After crawling some distance, Mad Jack came to and lifted another trapdoor, and the samurai dropped into a long hall, almost on top of a woman who wore a blue skirt, blue jacket, blue high-heeled shoes, and a white blouse. She carried a fat briefcase. At sight of the samurai, she hastily set the briefcase down. "Good Lord and butter," she said. "What happened to you?"
"Eh?" Jack said.
She withdrew a hand mirror from her briefcase and held it up so they could see the two apparitions covered from head to toe in blood, dirt, demon dampness, and robot goo, dark eyes peering from one messy mask of battle, red eyes from the other.
"We're Maintenance," Jack said.
"Maintenance wears swords?"
"To kill the rats," Mad Jack said.
"You're warriors here to kill Aku," she said, undeceived. "Well, don't let me stop y'all. He hasn't paid me on my retainer in four months." She withdrew a towel from the bulging briefcase and handed it to Jack. "Here."
"Thank you." He wiped his face and passed the towel on.
"If Aku dies, at least I'll get paid out of his will. And if he dies intestate..." She smiled. "Well, in such a case, the lawyers get paid first!"
"You're a lawyer?" Jack put a nervous hand on his sword even as the ordinarily fearless Mad Jack took a step backward.
"I'm Aku's lawyer and I wish I'd never accepted the job. If you can get me out of it I'll be very grateful. Look, why don't y'all go in the secret fiends' entrance? Nobody except the most evil creatures knows about it. We lawyers use it all the time."
Jack, who didn't trust lawyers even outside the Pit, said, "No, thank you."
"No, wait," Mad Jack said. "She is telling the truth. I have heard of the secret fiends' entrance."
"How many guards?" Jack asked.
"None. It's secret."
"Lead on, please," Jack said.
She led them down two flights of stairs and a short way down the hall to an unmarked door. "Secret fiends' entrance," she said with a flourish. "You'll come out in the throne room, a little behind and to the right of Aku's throne."
Jack bowed. "Thank you!"
"You know, you're kind of cute." Smiling flirtatiously, she handed him a card. "Why don't you call me after the battle?"
"Let's go," Mad Jack said.
"You know, if you survive," the lawyer said.
"Thank you. If you will excuse us--"
Mad Jack cracked the door.
"And if you don't end up in a wheelchair," the lawyer said.
Mad Jack opened the door wider.
"Thank you, madam, I--"
"And if you don't end up all scarred up."
Mad Jack rattled the doorknob impatiently.
"I mean, a little scar that doesn't show would be OK, but if you end up with big disgusting scars all over your face--"
"Madam, I must go!" Jack said, bowed, and followed Mad Jack through the door.
"Good luck!" the lawyer called after them, and closed the door.
Aku's throne room was decorated in the same garish red-and-yellow flame motif as the little bit of the Pit which Jack had seen previously. The shape-shifter sat on his flame-design throne. Perched on the arm of the throne, like a toy Aku had set aside until he had time to pick it up again, was...
"Kiku!" Jack whispered. "How'd she get here?"
Kiku saw them but betrayed no reaction. Instead, she quietly reached behind her and began undoing her obi, which seemed a strange thing to be doing at a time like this, but then Jack noticed her removing various metal pieces from its many thick folds and assembling something, although from here he could not tell what.
"Pretend you are my prisoner," Mad Jack murmured, and Jack put his hands behind him as if his wrists were cuffed.
Mad Jack took his arm and propelled him to stand before the throne of Aku. The shapeshifter's eyes widened at sight of the quarry he had pursued for so long.
"Father," Mad Jack announced, "I'm home!"