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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.
'It seems he decided to pay the toll himself,' Aurelianus remarked lightly. 'Grab your dagger - and the little' sword if you like, though I don't think we'll have any more trouble - and let's go. This lamp won't light us all the way to the top as it is.'
Duffy resented Aurelianus' airy tone. 'A brave thing died here,' he said gruffy.
'Hm? Oh, the beastie with the big eyes. True the wages of courage is death, lad, but it's the wages of everything else, too. The common penny, the coin of the realm. Stop to mourn for every good man that's died for us and you'd never get from bed to the chamber-pot. Come on.
The Irishman braced himself on his numb hands, got his legs under him and shakily stood up. His vision was flickering, and he had to lean against the wall and stare at the floor, breathing deeply, to keep from fainting.
Your bed is waiting for you up there,' said the old man. 'Onward and upward.'
The light did wink out while they were on the tightly twisting stairwell, but they groped their way to the top with no further incidents. Duffy was nearly unconscious, and no more aware of his situation than if he'd been dreaming. None of his injuries actually hurt, though he felt hot and swollen and throbbing all over. After a long period of stair-shuffling, a change in the air-temperature
made him open his eyes and look around. They were in the dark, unused chapel again, faintly lit by the as-yet tenuous dawn.
'Why...' the Irishman croaked, 'why should they have.. .recognized me or my voice? Any of them?'
'You need a drink,' the sorcerer said, kindly.
'Yes,' he agreed, after some thought, 'but if I have one I'll be sick.'
Aurelianus reached under his robe. 'Here,' he said,
handing Duffy a straight, dried snake. 'Smoke this.'
The Irishman held it up and peered at its silhouette against the window, rolling it between his fingers. 'Is it' like that tobacco plant from the Evening Isles?'
'Not much. Can you get to your room all right?'
'Yes.'
