Days of High Adventure (3 page)

“Ugh, that smell,”
she said, her nose wrinkling as her eyes fluttered open.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Pretty bad. I’m trying not to think of what it is.”

Amanda opened her mouth to hazard a guess, but then closed it again. There wasn’t much point in offering her suggestions. It would just make everything that much more uncomfortable.

She sat up, glancing down at Eric’s legs as he bent and stretched them. “Thanks,” she said.

“No problem. Wish I could do more, though. Like get us out of here. Or kick Jason’s ass for this. Still ain’t figured out if we’re trapped in his stupid imagination or if he had some psychic dream like Lovecraft or some bullshit.”

“I was hoping I’d wake up in my own bed,” Amanda admitted.

Eric shook his head. “No. Gave up on that a while ago. My train of thought is too consistent for this to be a dream.”

“Yeah
, I guess you’re right,” Amanda frowned. Looking around at their cell, Amanda quickly found that there wasn’t much to see. There were three walls of black stone blocks, a barred window too high up to see through, and iron bars separating them from the passageway beyond. She smelled smoke from a torch over the awful stench that polluted the air.

“I don’t think we’re in a world Jason made up,” she decided. “He wouldn’t dream of a world without flush toilets.” Her nose crinkled up at the stench. “Either that or whatever crush I had on him is gonna die pretty quick.”

Soon, the pair heard the sharp sound of metal grinding against metal, and then the squeal of hinges. Footsteps approached, shuffling closer and closer as the two felt their heartbeats pick up. They heard muttering, too—a growling, irritated mutter, once again in a language neither of them could understand.

The oldest-looking of the robed men
from their arrival stepped in front of their cell, hunched over and clutching at something in his hands that glittered with yellow light. Up close, they could see now that he wasn’t terribly old or decrepit. He was simply smaller and more haggard than the other two they’d encountered.

He
grunted something at the pair, gesturing for them to stand up with his hands still closed around whatever glowed within. Then he squeezed, barked out a couple of words, and unfolded his hands. They saw gleaming flecks of some yellowish gemstone in his palms. The robed man blew across his hands at them, sending the cloud of sparkling dust into the cell.

“...tell me it will never work. Of course it will work. My ideas
always
work.” He looked up at the pair with one eye squinting and the other open wide. “You understand me now, neh?”

Amanda and Eric both blinked. “I can
—yes, I can!” Amanda gasped.

“And you are not mad?”

“What?” Eric asked.

“They said such a spell would drive you both mad. But you’re not mad, are you?”

“I’m honestly starting to wonder,” Eric answered.

“No! We’re not crazy,”
said Amanda. She reached for the bars. “Please, we don’t know what’s going on, can you help us?”

“Hhhhah!” the older man said. “You are in the coils of the serpent now. The only help I could offer you would be a quick death, and what would you give me in return? Eh?”

He reached into a pouch that hung from his belt, fumbling around while muttering too quietly to be understood. From the pouch he drew a crystal, and holding it up to his eye, he gazed at Amanda, then at Eric. His frown didn’t lift, but he nodded with some small measure of satisfaction.

“I am Yaol,” he said, “apprentice to Bel-Danab, chosen of Set! He conjured you here in a ritual with his other apprentice, Randast. They will see you now. I advise you to be polite. You look like wasted meat to me.”

Then he left, and they heard the sound of the door opening once more. This time, they heard the heavy footsteps of the guards.

***

“Across time and space, you called to me,” said Bel-Danab from his throne. It was adorned in lush purple silks, situated upon a small dais at one end of the broad chamber. His staff leaned against the throne within easy reach. A pair of voluptuous women adorned only in jewels lay across the carpeted floor at Bel-Danab’s feet. They looked on haughtily, as if their position put them far above that of the two prisoners standing before their master.

It was hard to determine his age. He certainly wore his years well. Bel-Danab was a handsome man. His short blond hair swept back from his head, revealing strong features and deep green eyes. It was an appealing face, except for its lack of warmth.

“Randast and I were in the middle of a deep ritual when your voice came to me. Ordinarily I would not have been diverted in such pursuits, but I heard the call repeatedly. I would know why. Where are you from?”

“S-Seattle, sir,” Amanda answered, feeling more nervous than ever. This wasn’t just scary; it was embarrassing, too. She wondered if she was blushing. “We’re from Seattle. As for why I called to you, I...I didn’t think you were real. We were only playing a game. Joking.”

“A game?” Bel-Danab pressed his hands together in front of his face, looking past them contemplatively. “You come from some far-off age. That much is clear from your dress and the manner of your arrival. Your clothes seem made with elaborate skill, yet they somehow have the look of...commonality. You lack adornment or treasure. You are neither lords nor priests of any god, are you?”

“No, sir,” Eric shook his head. “We, um...we come from a wealthy country, but we ourselves aren’t rich or anything.”

Bel-Danab nodded. “And your flesh reveals weakness. Sloth. Soft hands, unmarked skin. You don’t miss out on meals, either of you, so you likely aren’t slaves.” Amanda bit her lip as the women laughed. She was getting a little tired of people commenting on her weight. “I see little to look forward to in mankind’s future but weakness and degeneration.”

He rose from his throne, striding forward
for a closer look. Standing just behind them were Bel-Danab’s two apprentices, Randast and Yaol. The latter was still gleeful over his success in bridging the language barrier. The former maintained a stoic expression, seeming indifferent to the whole situation.

“And what of Set?” asked the lord of the tower. “What of the gods? Whom do you worship in your Seattle? What do you know of Set?”

Eric and Amanda glanced to one another nervously. He clearly wouldn’t like the answer at all. Neither of them felt good about their chances in lying to him, though. “Set’s the god of death in a culture that isn’t really around anymore,” Eric answered. “He hasn’t been worshipped in, uh...gosh...around two thousand years, I guess? Maybe a little less than that, but I don’t think anyone really practices that religion anymore.”

“I’m sure you could find a few,” Amanda offered hopefully. “Seattle’s a very open-minded place, there’s gotta be, um...a couple...maybe,” she mumbled, her voice faltering under Bel-Danab’s gaze. She looked away from his cold green eyes.

“Neither lords nor wizards,” Bel-Danab frowned. “I reach across a world and untold millennia, costing me not only a prize captive but also a captain of my guards as sacrifices, only to retrieve weak, babbling peasants. Set teaches us humility.”

“Perhaps their ignorance of the god goes some way to explain their condition,” suggested Randast.

“Perhaps. Regardless. I had expected that a call such as hers would require some arcane feat, yet there is no magic within either of them. Given the wantonness of her tone, I had thought at the very least to enjoy a pleasant dalliance. Instead I find...this,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Healthy, perhaps serviceable, but hardly the sort to make a worthy concubine.”

Embarrassment died and was quickly forgotten. If that was all he
had to say on the subject, Amanda was perfectly happy to let it go. The more this douchebag talked, the happier she was that he found her unattractive. The only worry was over what else might happen to her and Eric.

“She is a virgin, my lord,” piped up Yaol.

Bel-Danab’s eyebrows lifted slightly, yet no light came to his eyes. “Well. That will at least partly make up for the loss of our barbarian northerner, hm? Not remotely the same value, but virgin adults can be hard to find in this land. Yaol, see what labor you can get from her until then. I leave her to you. Do not allow her to be harmed or defiled.”

“And of the other?” Randast asked as Yaol grinned and nodded.

Indifferent to the wide-eyed panic plain on the two young faces before him, Bel-Danab merely shrugged. “As I say, they look healthy. There are always the mines,” he suggested as he turned back to his throne.

“No!” Amanda
objected. There were already guards at their sides once more. “Listen, you don’t need to send him away! We’ll do whatever you—!”

“Shut up, girl,” grunted a guard, clamping his hand over her mouth.

Eric was already being hauled away. “Hey, get your hands off—!” He, too, was cut off, but much more roughly. The last Amanda saw of her friend was his head rocking back from the punches that came across his jaw.

Unkind
hands dragged her down dark hallways to the sound of Yaol’s cackling laughter.

***

“What the hell is this? Some nobleman?”

“Hardly,” said the guard as he shoved Eric to the rocky ground.
His days-long trip from the tower through the desert had not been gentle. Eric’s t-shirt hung in shreds from his shoulders. Scrapes and bruises adorned his flesh. His wallet, keys and the smashed remains of his cell phone lay miles away.

Eric found himself in a broad pit dug into a hillside hundreds of yards across. Here and there
stood simple tents of burlap or leather, piles of rock and debris and crudely-built horse-drawn carts. Torches scattered throughout the mining camp held back the night. Everywhere, Eric saw men in little more than loincloths toiling with shovels, picks and broad pans. He spotted a few women among the laborers, too, which coupled with the variety of skin tones left him thinking that slavery here was an equal opportunity practice.

That didn’t leave him feeling any better about it.

He saw guards, too: men in piecemeal leather and plate, with halberds, spears and whips. Most wore cloth masks. Those who did not were ugly enough that masks would’ve been an improvement.

The same could be said for the barrel-chested overseer who stood beside him. “Get up, boy!” the man barked. His head was shaved and his skin deeply tanned from long days in the sun. He folded his arms across his chest skeptically as Eric rose.

“I am Tronus. You will work or you will die. That is all you need to know. Oh. And that the camp is surrounded by archers,” Tronus added. “Do not think of escape. You will be shot before you can even see the city. Have you handled a pick before? Or a shovel?”

“Not a pick,” Eric shrugged. “Only a little with a shovel.”

“Fah!” Tronus spat. He gestured to one of the other guards. He shifted to another language, in which he said, “Get him a pan and take him to the southwest shaft. He can haul rocks. Maybe he’ll catch on quickly, eh?”

Another guard laughed. He grabbed Eric and hauled him along.

Eric frowned thoughtfully. He could understand two different tongues here. Yaol had done something magical to him and Amanda to allow them to speak his language. Yet clearly he understood this other one, too. Eric wondered how many languages he could understand. He also wondered if it would help to reveal that to his new masters.

“Take this,” grunted the guard. He shoved a large mining pan into Eric’s arms. It was so big that Eric wondered if it had
originally been the body of a wheelbarrow. The guard, not taking understanding for granted, pointed to a nearly-naked man emerging from a tunnel in the side of the hill. The hapless man bore a similar pan, only his was full of rocks and sand. He staggered out, dumped his load into a horse-drawn cart, and then returned to the shaft.

The guard kicked Eric in the side, pushing him toward the same shaft. Eric bowed his head and followed instructions.

They weren’t going to hurt Amanda. He had heard that much. The mine was only a few days away from the town by cart. Eric needed time to get oriented and to figure out his options.

He shuffled and stumbled down the mine shaft, resolving to watch and listen. There would be opportunities for escape. There had to be.

***

“They won’t kill him unless he is stupid. If he is smart, he will work and he will be fine. Slaves cost money. No sense wasting them.” The strange, older man sat at a table covered in bound scrolls, small tools and crystal. H
e focused his attention on a particular green piece, into which he slowly drilled small holes with great care.

Amanda stood nearby, holding the handles of an iron kettle full of bubbling...well, she didn’t really know what it was. It was important that she not spill. It was also important that she not get her nose too close to it. After a week of more menial toil, Amanda had finally been brought into Yaol’s laboratory.
It was still manual labor, but the laboratory beat the scullery by far.

“He could work in here with me,” Amanda tried. “He’s a good...good worker. We work well together.” She did her best to sound meek. It was obvious that Yaol was thrilled to have someone to boss around. Why not two?