Chapter Twenty-Two: Signs of the Apocalypse
No dreams. For once.
What a wonderful start to my... not day.
I sat up, spine cracking in protest at the sudden action. My eyes complained when the light from the setting sun caught them a glancing blow.
Oh, ye gods. It was almost nighttime. Did the Nether have its own equivalent of creepers? Mob swarms? Angry villagers?
I groaned and tried to get up. It took a few tries, but eventually I was on my feet and feeling the brunt of a vicious dizzy spell.
"Rise and grump." Came a voice from behind me.
"It's rise and shine." I yawned grouchily.
Horus looked at me. "Rise and grump is more accurate." He said with no expression at all. "Humans don't usually shine unless they are on fire. Of course, that can be arranged."
"No." I exclaimed, scrambling backwards and away from the psychopath. He was probably being serious. In fact, I've never seen him be anything else. "No, I would not like to be set on fire. Thank you for the offer, but no."
"The same effect could probably be achieved with glowstone dust." He said thoughtfully.
"Hello? Wandering from the subject here?" I waved my hands in front of his face, just out of slicing range. "Now that we're here, what are we supposed to do?" I paced around and threw my hands into the air. "I'm guessing you didn't stop us here for a bit of beauty sleep-"
"Careful!" Horus grabbed my arm and yanked me backwards. I looked back at where my back foot had almost landed and discovered - surprise!- a dark, gaping crevasse that could have swallowed the space my lack of danger instinct left behind with ease.
I regained my footing and stared at it. "Next time, when I fall asleep next to a homicidally deep hole in the ground, can you tell me about it beforehand?"
"We are not likely to encounter this kind of scenario again."
I glared at him. "That's not the point." Has this guy ever been in any kind of civilization? Met anybody who wasn't being killed by him?
Horus looked at me blankly. "Pardon?"
"If there is any danger nearby," I began slowly, as if talking to a child. "You tell me. So I can not die from it."
"Even if I inform you of dangers beforehand, I doubt it would make a difference between your living and dying afterward." He said, equally slowly.
I raised an eyebrow. "Fine. Yes, I get it. I'm an idiot. But I would appreciate it if you told me before we do anything I'm likely to die from."
He sighed. "Yes."
"What?"
"Yes," He repeated. "I will remember to keep you informed next time there's a chance you may get killed."
"Thank you." I said, slightly stunned.
"In fact," He continued. "I'm going to tell you about it now."
"Tell me about what?"
Horus looked down at the crevasse, and then at me. "We are about to enter a situation in which you may die, discontinue life, cease to live, quit the human race-"
"I get it!" I interrupted. "From what?"
"A great many things. The place is trapped. Heavily guarded. Spiked pits, poison, a myriad of monsters, etcetera."
"And there's a dragon scale in there?"
"More than one. But yes, dragon scales." He spread out his hands. "So, you're coming?"
I frowned. "What, I have a choice?"
Horus opened his mouth to say something, probably regarding my uselessness, and then closed it again. "Well... in a sense, yes." He said instead.
I was struck dumb. I was aware my mouth had started to flap like that of a stranded fish, but I couldn't do anything about it. When I finally managed to get my face under control, I said, in spite of my actual thoughts on the matter : "I might die?"
He sighed. "You might die, but you won't."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
I hesitated, then shrugged. "Yeah. Fine. I'll go." I suppose he must have hit his head down in the mine. Or maybe the portal affected his mind somehow. Either way, he wasn't acting normal - not that he ever did, in any case - and if I let him go alone he might do something unfortunate. Like eradicating the world as we know it.
"So where do we go?"
He pointed down into the crevasse.
I followed where his finger was pointing. The steep rocky walls went straight down into the pitch dark without consideration for any idiot who might have gotten it into their heads to climb down, and whoever it was had to have been an idiot to get the idea in the first place. An idiot, or me.
Not that I'm saying I'm not an idiot. I'm just a bigger idiot than anyone else I'd ever met.
"All the way down?" I asked.
"Yes, Steve. All the way down." Horus sighed.
I looked down again. When my brain started trying to retreat into the back of my skull, thus giving me the mother of all migraines, I was forced to look back up.
"Whoa." I said, which pretty much summed up my state of mind at the moment. I sat down.
Horus gave me his trademark look of amusement, which somehow had the power to convey amusement without actually involving a smile in any way or form. Somehow it was worse than being jeered at by a mob while hanging upside-down by one's ankles above a compost heap. And I know because... well, that was a story for another day, wasn't it?
"You don't have to come." He said, still wearing that irritating look.
Nether, no. I could sense another eternity of being babied around and left behind in nice, safe places where my guts won't spill, where I would inevitably die of boredom behind the answer 'I'll pass, thanks'.
"No thanks." I retrieved my sword from where I'd left it under the tree. "I'm coming whether you like it or no, buddy."
For a moment, I swear he almost smiled. It might've been just the light hitting his face at a funny angle, but he almost looked ... like he wasn't plotting murder.
Horus shrugged. "Suit yourself, then."
"Er... just a question."
"Yes."
I stared down at the yawning pit of doom. "How are we supposed to climb down there?"
He tilted his head. "We're not."
There was a sudden snap of misplaced air. My ears popped. All light vanished.
I looked down at the ground. I looked up at the sky. I then discovered, to no surprise at all, that we were now at the bottom of the hellishly deep ravine, instead of at the top.
Great. One step closer to Hell.
"Maybe a little warning next time?" I suggested gingerly.
No answer.
I looked around at about head-height. When I came up with no results, I looked a little lower, and then a little more lower.
Horus crouched down low, rocking slightly on his heels with a dazed look on his face. I stepped a little toward him, and when I wasn't immediately decapitated, I taunted fate by going closer still.
Still no answer.
I bent down slowly and waved a few fingers in his face. "Hey, man, you okay?"
His hand suddenly shot up like a striking viper and closed around my fingers. I let out an almighty screech and shot backwards, stopped from hitting the far side of the ravine only by the magician's grip on my hand.
"Quiet." He said, letting go of my fingers. I suffered a pratfall and yelped when I hit the ground. He dusted off his knees quite pointlessly and stood up, staring into the darkness that surrounded us on all sides.
"What was that about?" I hissed.
Horus pointed wordlessly above our heads. I looked up again.
A row of rather large boulders sat peacefully on a very slight ledge over our heads, suggesting, in an equally peaceful tone, that with the slightest inclination they could turn us into a stringy red smear at a moment's notice, if only we'd be kind enough to raise our voices a little, please and thank you.
I gulped.
The sorcerer pointed again, this time in front of us. Very, very quietly, he said:"Scorpion pits in thirty meters, pressure plate-triggered poison arrows in fifty. After that, it's pretty much Hell and High Water in all senses of the phrase. The labyrinth changes traps at random."
I gulped.
This was going to be a long day. Or failing that, the short remainder of the rest of my life.
"You will not die." Horus promised. "Not quickly, at least."
With that optimistic parting note, he strolled off into the darkness, leaving me to tag along in case I didn't want to die an excruciating death.
In a land far away, due to the fact it wasn't in Hell and wanted to stay that way, there was a bar.
In the bar was a man. He wasn't a particularly impressive personage, as far as personages went, but his waist certainly was. There was a lot of waist. It seemed to have a mind of its own. If this man was to trip and fall, he would put earthquakes out of business.
Above all, this man was so drunk he couldn't feel what his feet were doing anymore. Which was a fortunate thing, since they were dancing a fandango. The man had never seen a fandango in his sober life (Which usually didn't last long), and if he didn't get off the table, probably never will.
An axe slammed inches away from his feet. The horizontally blessed man skittered out of the way with the grace of a wobbling jelly.
"Now, meester Dancer," snarled the man who up until recently, had an axe in his hand. "Eef you would kindlee grace our tablé veeth you abseence, I would feel obleeged to not chop your legs off, Yes?"
The midriff-enriched man graced the barbarian with a dreamy smile and kicked over his tankard. Oblivious to the enraged screaming, he danced on.
Invisible music charged the air. The generously-proportioned man flowed along with the notes like a undulating whale, his feet drifting in beat with the unseen conductor.
Cursing, the man pulled out that axe and aimed for the toes, repeatedly bringing it edge-first down on the table and repeatedly missing as the toes simply moved out of the way.
The waist-centered man tapped to the edge of the table and spun back again like a very large mass of liquid that was somehow staying in the air. He raised a leg - not very high, mind you - and promptly froze.
Something in the music gave a sudden, horrible twang.
With a shout of triumph, the barbarian brought the axe down on a shoe.
The blade shattered.
Dreamily, the rotund man stepped off the table and walked to the door without a word, wherein he proceeded to exit the building, leaving the man who used to own an axe gaping after him.
The man had stepped off the table, but he had not actually deigned to land on the ground.
The Necromatrix closed the door behind him and ensured the locks were locked properly, all six of them.
It had been a tiring day. He'd had to deal with a minor necromancer who'd caused an accidental zombie uprising, endure a meeting with a council of village sorcerers (All those handshakes! He couldn't remember how many times he'd washed his hands in that hour alone), and strangle an assassin with one hand because the other had been holding onto the side of a building at the sixtieth storey and he'd left his staff on the balcony.
There was an array of silver bells on the wall. None of them were labelled, because if anyone else aside from the Necromatrix found out what they were for, he would be in a lot of trouble, though not for long, because whatever was in the cell those bells were linked to would probably kill him first. All of them were silent as of the moment. Which was a fairly good sign that the Necromatrix will probably survive to see another day, although for how long was never certain.
He sat at his desk in silence. He couldn't be bothered to go to bed, because a) he didn't need sleep and b) there was a beartrap in his bed. In case somebody had found their way into his study and decided to get a bit of shut-eye. Working mostly by night tended to make tired assassins, he reasoned.
The silence had been allowed to last for a while before a cheerful tinkling broke it. The Necromatrix glanced up sharply.
A little silver bell wobbled uncertainly, stopped and then started up again with a defiant air.
Silently, the Necromatrix noted the bell's position. He opened his closet, which was filled with a variety of canes, selected a plain black one, and walked out of the room.
Knitting needles clacked against each other in an obnoxious fashion. The servant girl gritted her teeth. Even the dog in the corner tried to get away from the noise by backing even further into the corner, which obviously did not accomplish anything aside from making its tail sore.
The clacking stopped. The old woman in the armchair looked at the girl suspiciously.
"Why are you still here, Patricia?"
The girl hid behind her hair. "You told me to stand here, ma'am. Said I was no good for anything else, ma'am."
The old lady scowled. "I don't remember saying that, Patricia." She had a voice like a harpist playing a guitar. You never found out what was wrong, but it was gods-damned infuriating.
"No, ma'am." Patricia said dully. It was usually best to just go along with it.
"Well, what are you standing around for, you ingrate?" The old woman snapped. "Go and sweep the courtyard or something. Get out of my sight, you miserable girl."
Patricia left with an almost visible glow of relief. It was a good day. She had got off lightly.
"And you, you wretched mongrel, get out of that corner!"
The dog slunk away, remembering to stop its tail from wagging until it was out of sight in case the woman changed her mind.
Scowling, the old woman in question resumed her knitting.
Clack clack clack.
There were no ghosts in the mansion, because all of them had run away the day she moved in.
Clack clack clack.
A bird dismantled its own nest and flew very, very far away.
Clack clack snap.
One of the knitting needles broke neatly in two.
The old lady stared at it for a moment, then with an excruciating slowness, put her knitting down and rose out of the chair like an avenging scarecrow.
She didn't bother shutting the door behind her.
Meanwhile, a helmeted rider on a horse galloped through a town, trampling fruit stalls, people, and a small deadbush.
A couple of mounted guards galloped after him, yelling threats, trampling fruit stalls, people, and a tortoise.
Don't worry. The tortoise was fine.
The guards stormed through the marketplace with people cussing at them in at least thirty-six languages and one in Double Dutch, finding to their astonishment that the first rider had mysteriously disappeared.
They scanned the market suspiciously. No sign of a helmeted head anywhere.
After the guards rode away again, a thin young man with mousy brown hair put his helmet back on, mounted his horse, and rode back the way he had come from.
The Necromatrix didn't bother taking a candle to the cellar. What he did take was a silver rapier, his cane, and his perfect demonic night vision, albeit only in one eye.
In front of him was an obsidian door with nine tungsten-gold alloy locks on it. Taking eight separate kegs from under his cloak, the Necromatrix carefully unlocked them one by one. For the ninth, he unscrewed the top of his cane, revealing a tiny black key and the clawbone of a lindwyrm in case he needed an distraction so he could make a speedy exit.
The Necromatrix inserted the small black key into the final lock and turned.
The door swung open with a malevolent smoothness.
He peered cautiously into the almost congealed darkness inside the chamber. After a while, there was some movement.
The Necromatrix readied his cane.
A small dog trotted out of the darkness. It had patchy fur, and an ear that was floppy in a way most people would call 'charming'.
That was because 'most people' had never met this dog before.
The dog put its head on one side and whined. The Necromatrix didn't relax his grip on the cane.
It yapped a few times, pranced around in a circle then whined again. The Necromatrix listened in silence for a while, and then relaxed.
"I suppose you are right." He said after a moment. He opened the door a little wider and stood aside. "For the time being, then."
The little dog trotted away, tail wagging.
The disturbance spread. Such was the nature of disturbances.
Primordial beings shifted in their slumber. One got up for a glass of cordial.
It reflected a little on its life. There wasn't much of it, as the God had been fired rather early in its career.
Something was wrong with the universe. Well, one universe, anyway. It happened to be one of its favourite universes.
Shame it couldn't do anything about it, since it was dead.