Lord Toede (18 page)

“Abyss-fire, Groag,” bellowed Toede. “Get out of there! Throw the rope down. Do
something!” “I never thought...” said Groag. “Me, Lord of Flotsam?” “Groag!” screamed
Toede. 'Throw the rope down!" There was the sound of something falling, and a loud splash
echoed about four feet from Toede's position. The hobgoblin waded to where it floated and
picked up one end of the line.

And then the other end of the line. “Groag!” shouted Toede. “Yes, I suppose we should be
going,” said Groag to his beautiful blue vision. “Good-bye, Toede. Wish we could stay and
chat, but I've got things to do. I know that, now.” Groag gave an off-key whistle that
faded into the darkness, ending only with the sound of a busy shovel and then a few rushes
of dirt. The gray spot where the hole had been became solid black as the main entrance was
resealed. Toede stood in the darkness, holding both ends of the rope. Despair rose in his
heart, only to be shoved aside by another emotion. Anger. Anger at Groag, at Hopsloth, at
the dark gods, at Charka and the gnolls, and at anyone else who crossed his path. He had
believed. Nobility had played him for the sap. And now he was paying the price. “That's
fine then,” he muttered. “No more 'live nobly' for you, Master Toede. See if I help out
again.” And then Toede heard the waterfall start up once more.

In which Our Protagonist finds someone who has been worse off than him for a lot longer,
forms a fiendish alliance, and makes a breakthrough. Toede headed south in the darkness,
toward the sound of rushing water. One part of his mind was still reeling from Groag's
abandonment. One part was concerned that some evil undead creature would at any moment
leap out and attack him. One part was planning various forms of tortuous revenge against
Groag, who had overtaken Hopsloth on Toede's list of individuals most-likely-to-
be-found-someday-soon-as-the-mystery-filling-of-a-meat-pie.

And one part was very curious about how a waterfall could turn itself on and off.
Particularly since the passage rose slightly as he moved south, toward firm and
(relatively) dry ground. The most logical supposition was that the waterfall was the
result of some ancient device, still in operation after all this time, that had allowed
water to fill to a certain point, then tipped and emptied. That indicated the possibility
of an access hatch, or even a lower exit, perhaps at the base of the plateau.

Also to be considered a dread possibility was the fact that there was something (or
several somethings) alive down here after all this time, and that the waterfall was a
result of its (their) actions, perhaps as a transportation device, like locks or canals.
Least logical but most likely was that the waterfall would turn out to be something that
Toede had never seen before. The idea that it was something novel kept one of the parts of
Toede's mind occupied while the other parts were sulking, worrying, or plotting foul
revenge.

Actually, the cause of the waterfall sound proved to be all three. The passageway opened
and spilled into a large, dimly lit, dome-shaped room. The interior of the dome had been
tiled in silver and blue, but many of the individual tiles had fallen away. The room was
lit by a large pale stone overhead.

Once it had undoubtedly shone with the full radiance of Bunniswot's light-stone, but over
time diminished to no more than a dull amber luster. The room was circular, its curved
wall broken by what Toede assumed were reliefs and more of the odd statuary he had
observed above-ground. The floor was also bowl-shaped, mimicking the ceiling, and filled
with soft, black mud. In the center of that mud was Bunniswot's fiend, the creature the
pair had seen carved into the interior wall of the temple above. It was mounted not on one
but two rollers, the front held in place by what would otherwise be the creature's arms,
the rear by its legs. Its head overhung the front roller and consisted of a wolflike
muzzle with its lower jaw removed. Its eyes were hexagonal orbs cut from garnet or some
other blood-colored stone. The fiend was about twenty feet long with the front roller
fifteen feet end-to-end. It was bright red against the darker mud, and shone with the rich
luster of newly cast iron. It was spinning both rollers frantically but making no forward
progress in the thick mire. Instead, it was rotating counterclockwise slowly, spraying a
new layer of mud on the statues. The sound of that spray was what Toede had mistaken for a
waterfall. His path entered slightly above the level of the mud, which had a staircase
leading down into it. Everything below the top step was covered with a crust. Toede
scanned the room. There could be a hundred and forty doors in here, but if so, they were
hidden beneath the grime. He turned to leave. “Yo! You alive?” came a deep voice behind
him. Toede winced at the deepness of the voice. The part of his mind that was wondering
about the waterfall earlier now was wondering how fast he could check out the other end of
the tunnel. The other parts of Toede's brain, those that had fallen into squabbling over
whether Hop-sloth or Groag was more deserving of defenestration, was made aware that
something unpleasant was happening out in the real world. “Pard” His voice cracked.
“Pardon?” “You alive?” repeated the creature. Toede realized it had a mouth of sorts,
situated under the overhang of the jaw, above the main roller. “Ya know, like breathing?”
“Yes, I'm alive,” said Toede. He meant to add, “Are you?” but the answer set the creature
off. With a mighty roar it spun its rollers faster and more furiously, with the result
that it rotated faster in the dome. Toede stepped back into the passage as the
rooster-tail of grime swept past. The creature stopped its struggling and drifted to a
stop, almost facing Toede. “Damnation,” said the native of the Abyss. “Damnation and
crudbunnies.” Crudbunnies? thought Toede, but instead he asked, “What was that all about?”
“Sorry, natural reaction,” said the metal beast. “You're alive, and the first thing I
always do when confronted with the living is try to run them down.” “Must make you real
popular at formal dances,” said Toede, in a tone drier than anything else in the place.
The fiend regarded Toede for a long moment, then let out a low, appreciative whistle. “I'd
heard that you ogres had taken a fall,” it said. “I just wasn't aware you guys fell so
hard!” “I'm not an ogre,” said Toede, crossing his arms. “Don't tell me you're a human.
Even they don't get that ugly.” “Hobgoblin,” said Toede, defensively. “Never heard of
'em,” said the fiend. “Must be new. Lot of new stuff going around. I'm a juggernaut. You
can call me Jug or Jugger if you want.” “Is that a real name?” asked Toede. “As real as
most folk can make it,” replied the creature. “The real name is Crystityckol'k'kq'q.” The
clash of consonants grated on Toede's ears. The juggernaut's name sounded like a
wheelbarrow of crowbars going down some stairs. “Stick with Jugger,” said the
Abyss-spawned abomination. "The old guys, the real pros, they have names that would
shatter glass at fifty paces. That was in the old days before the Abyss was overrun with
wanna-bes. Cute little fiends with user-friendly names: Castlebaum, Bloodrip-per,
Muranitlar, and that new kid, Judith. What kind of names are those, I would ask, and they
would say, 'Ones that

can be pronouncednobody wants to deal with a fiend whose name they can't pronounce.' Smug
little varmints.“ ”Excuse me for interrupting,“ said Toede, ”but I take it this is your
temple?“ Toede felt as if the creature's eyes had gone misty and then suddenly refocused
on him. ”Temple?“ it shouted. ”This is my tomb!" And began laughing.

Toede felt the vibrations beneath him and had to wait three minutes until the laughter of
the fiend called Jugger subsided. “Whew,” said the creature. “That felt good. I haven't
laughed like that in an elf's age. Is this my temple! Ha ha!”

Toede stepped in before Jugger set off on another round of mirth and memories. “You are
the creature from the legends? The one the ogres, the original ogres, defeated?” “Trapped,
but not defeated!” boomed Jugger. “I'm still here, waiting to make my quota.” It paused
for a moment, then added, “Six hundred fifty-one.”

“Okay,” said Toede, with the caution one usually uses to approach such conversational
booby traps. “Why six-fifty-one?” “That's how many I've gotten so far!” said the
juggernaut, beaming in pride. “My quota's an even thousand. Can't go back without my
quota. You'da been six-fifty-two if I could just get loose. Then three-forty-eight more
after that.”

“So you can't get loose?” said Toede. “Mired to the axles,” grumbled the creature. “Can't
get any traction worth a squat.” “Well,” said Toede, thinking of how to turn the
conversation toward the prospect of his own escape, “they did a good job on the temple.
Built it up, decorated it, then buried it.” “By the five-headed bitch-dragon, little
living buddy, they couldn't help themselves,” said the juggernaut. “They were ogres.
Everything they did was beautiful and fancy. They didn't even have ugly garbage. That's
one reason I was called in.” Another chuckle, as it added, “I got six hundred and fifty of
them, you know, before they pinned me like this.” Toede was scanning the perimeter of the
room for the barest hint of another opening. The juggernaut put in, “You'd better abandon
all hope at finding another exit. There ain't one. The passage behind you leads up to a
solid stone plug. And there ain't nothin' else lives down here, not even little blind cave
fish. Unless you bore yourself a new opening, you're stuck. It's just the two of us.”
“Just wonderful,” said Toede, sitting down on the top muddy step and setting the rope and
food satchel down next to him. “I take it you think I should just wade in and sacrifice
myself to you, since I can't get out.” “Save you some time and trouble, little breathing
pal,” said the juggernaut. “I mean, I like the company as much as the next denizen of the
Dark Lady's pit, and I want to know whaf s going on topside, but more than anything, I
want my six-fifty-two.” Toede sat on the step, looking pensive. “I mean, starvation is an
ugly, ugly thing. You get so you're just begging for death.” Jugger sighed. “Whereas, I'm
quick! You'll never feel it. Death is like that, you know.” “I know,” said Toede. “I've
died before.” He toyed with the idea of throwing himself under the juggernaut's roller,
and maybe returning somewhere else in his third life. But with my luck I'd come right back
here, he thought, three hundred and forty-eight more times. “You died before?” asked the
juggernaut with curiosity. “Couple of times, so far,” replied Toede. “And you're right,
while there's a lot of pain leading up to it, the exact crossing over into death is a
relatively painless thing.” The juggernaut let out a low whistle that sounded much the way
steam escaping from a kettle would, if the kettle were the size of a hay wain. “Boy, I
don't know. If you kill someone who has already died before, does that mess up the
bookkeeping? I don't know if I can count you or not.” The fiend was silent for a while.
“You've been down here since before the ogres were... ogres?” asked Toede. “Yep,”
responded Jugger. "I was real peeved the first couple hundred years after they lured me
into

this pit. First I think, Okay, I'll sink to the bottom and slowly wheel my way out, but
the mud's just thick and heavy enough to keep me afloat. So, then I think, Okay, I can
empty the mud by splashing it around a lot. So I do that for a couple hundred years. The
mud gets nice and thick around the edges, and then dries up and falls right back in, so
guess what? I'm still hosed."

“You've tried waiting for the mud to dry out?” asked Toede. “For a thousand years or so,”
answered Jugger. “A cou-pla times, actually. First I waited a century, not moving, until a
thin crust formed on the mud. Then I shifted into low, and it all broke up. Then I waited
two centuries, then three, and each time it broke up as soon as I set the wheels spinning.
So I waited a real long time, and then the bump came along and knocked everything back to
the muddy state.” 'The bump?“ said Toede. ”Bump,“ repeated the juggernaut. ”Just one, but
it was a loop of one. Gave the whole room a shake, and all the crust just caved in. That's
when the other feller was here.“ ”Other fellow,“ said Toede dully. ”Some human spellcaster
from Istar,“ said the juggernaut. ”Seems the gods got PO'd at Istar and dropped a mountain
on the place. He teleported out randomly and ended up here. Thaf s how come I know your
modern language, and also how I learned that starvation is such a horrible way to kill
yourself.“ ”He was number six-fifty-one,“ surmised Toede. ”Right, and ever since then,
I've gone back to spinning my wheels, hoping to generate enough heat and traction to get
out.“ ”So you've been running your rollers for over three hundred fifty years?“ ”I guess,“
said the juggernaut, adding defensively, ”I don't get out much, you know.“ Toede was
silent, weighing his options. He had rescued Charka out of his own hunger, and lived to
regret it. If he helped Jugger, then he would surely die, and over three hundred others
with him. But if among those three hundred were Groag, Charka, or Hopsloth ... ”I'm going
to help you,“ said Toede. ”Wha' the?“ said the juggernaut. ”I'm going to get you out of
there,“ said Toede. ”I can't get out on my own, and neither can you.“ He picked up the
rope and walked to one side of the passage, where he chose something that might have been
a statue and started pounding on the mud. It flaked away in thick clumps to reveal what
looked like an egg rendered in pale brown stone. Toede tied one end of the rope around it.
”I should tell ya, little live one,“ said Jugger, ”that if you wade in here and get close,
I may just try and run you down. It's what I'm supposed to do. Can't help it.“ ”I'll take
that chance,“ said Toede, taking the trailing end of the rope. He tested the muddy steps
with a toe. Slippery but solid enough. He started to wade in. ”Three things should stop
you from grinding me into the mud,“ Toede continued, slowly moving down into the mire. It
supported his weight easily, as he guessed it would. After all, it supported an
Abyss-spawned killing machine made of cast iron. ”First, if I die, you get one kill,
whereas if you escape you can make your quota and go back to where you belong. Second,
figure it out. If you get one visitor every three hundred fifty years, it'll be over a
hundred thousand years before you see the Abyss again.“ ”One hundred and eighteen thousand
years and three centuries,“ noted the juggernaut, and Toede could hear the faintest touch
of wistfulness in its voice. ”Right. And third, you don't know if I count for your tally
or not." The hobgoblin was swimming through the mire at this point, dragging the rope
behind him and moving to the side of the great crimson monster, near the front roller.
Once a whale had washed up on the beach near Flotsam, and Toede and a delegation of
merchants went down to investigate it. It was a huge, black monster and towered over them,
stinking in the sun. The gulls pecked at it, and it smelled horrible, and at length Toede
had dispatched a crew of prisoners to bury it then and there. Something that large made
Toede feel extremely vulnerable and small.

Touching the huge front roller, still smooth and shiny after millennia, made him feel the
same way. “I'm going to dive down,” he told the juggernaut, “and slip the rope under one
end of your roller. Don't move.” Toede took a deep breath and submerged in the mire,
feeling his way alongside the creature. The mud grew thicker and harder to move through as
he plunged downward, but at last he touched the underside of the roller. He shoved the
line underneath it and ran it up the interior curve of the creature's body.