The Valley of Thunder by Charles de Lint
Set in the walls, in a long row that ran along two sides of the chamber, were what looked all too much like gigantic sarcophagi. Although they were decorated with glyphs and designs, the motif didn't strike Annabelle as Egyptian so much as heavy metal punk. Lots of ornately detailed figures were carved on the lids of the sarcophagi, their clothing made to represent leather, chains, and studs with lots of sharp-edged objects. Razors. Knives. Swords.
Against the wall facing them was a series of steps that led up to a raised platform. A still figure lay there on a stone slab—corpse-white and huge. Annabelle thought it was another carving, until they got closer and she saw that it was the body of a dead giant. Male.
Alive and on its feet, it would have stood twice her height. The skin was smooth, hair black and fine, spread out in a fan around the head upon the gray stone. The body wore the same kind of leather gear as the carved bas-reliefs on the sarcophagi. Leather skirt, crisscrossed strips of leather across its chest like bandoleers. Lots of shiny silver studs. Small, sharp blades hung from its ears like earrings—six to each ear, running up from the lobe to the top of the ear. Two more hung from each nostril. More dangled down the length of its arms, the wires piercing the alabaster flesh.
Standing around the stone slab on which it lay, all they could do was stare at the corpse.
"What is it?" Sidi said. His voice, though hushed, seemed loud in the silence.
"The Oracle." Annabelle said.
Her hand lifted to touch the shape of Folliot's journal where it sat in the inner pocket of her jacket. They had to put a question to the Oracle that he couldn't answer— that was the only way out. Because otherwise.... Her gaze drifted to the sarcophagi lining the walls.
Were there more corpses in them? And what about the Lords?
Tomàs made a sudden sound. Breath sharply drawn in. Annabelle looked back at the corpse and took a step back. The eyelids had flickered open, cold blue eyes staring up at the ceiling. Annabelle's pulse doubled its tempo.
"What would you ask of me?" the corpse asked.
Me, me, me....
Its voice boomed hollowly, echoes resounding through the vast chamber. Annabelle and her party all withdrew from the stone slab. Annabelle reached for Sidi's hand and gripped it tightly.
"PILGRIMS," the corpse repeated. "WHAT WOULD YOU ASK OF ME?"
Me. me. me.... the echoes chimed in again.
Oh. Jesus, Annabelle thought. We only get the one question.
"PILGRIMS," the corpse said once more.
Grim, grim, grim....
"Give us a moment!" Annabelle blurted out.
Slowly, the enormous head turned, steely blue gaze fixing on her. Annabelle started to take another step back, but that cold gaze nailed her in place. Her insides began to churn. There was a knot in her stomach, like a hard rock sitting there. A sour taste rose in her throat.
A faint smile touched the corpse's dead lips. "THERE IS NO NEED TO HASTEN." he said.
Ten, ten, ten.... the echoes chorused.
"WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD."
World, world, world....
The voice seemed to come from all around them, the echoing words drifting across each other to become a babble of sound.
Swallowing thickly. Annabelle nodded at the corpse. "R-right," she said. All the time."
"MYSTERIES AWAIT YOU."
You, you, you....
Knees weak. Annabelle kept retreating. She would have fallen at the top of the stairs, except Sidi was there to help her keep her balance. The small group backed carefully down each step, unable to pull their gazes from the monstrous dead figure.
"PLEASURES YOU CANNOT IMAGINE."
Gin, gin, gin....
I could use a drink about now. Annabelle thought, and almost giggled at the incongruity of the thought.
A drink. Right. What was happening was that she was losing it. Giddy with fright.
Pull yourself together, Annie B., she told herself.
They retreated all the way across the room until they were standing by the elevator again. The corpse's gaze followed them until they paused, then slowly, it turned its head to stare up at the ceiling once more.
Freed of the prison of its gaze. Annabelle sagged against the wall behind her.
"What if it gets up?" she said. "What if it gets up and comes after us?"
"There is no place to hide." Tomàs said.
Sidi nodded. "And no way to escape. We have to put a question to it."
"God." Annabelle rubbed her face. "What kind of question?"
But she knew. An obscure bit of schooling rose bubbling up in her mind. Question and answer time. Final exam. The teacher grinning because he knew she hadn't been studying.
It had to be a riddle. This Oracle was like the Greek sphinx in Thebes, except instead of it posing the riddle, and then devouring those unable to find solutions, it was up to them to come up with a question. And if it gave them an answer, they were god food.
Oedipus, where are you when you're needed?
"What do we ask?" she repeated.
Her companions shook their heads.
"It's gotta be obscure—maybe something from our own experiences, something it couldn't possibly know about? Like who used to play lead guitar for the Wailing Men before Lee Sands?"
But she didn't think that would cut it.
"The journal said merely a question." Sidi said. "Any question."
"Yeah. And we all really put a lot of trust into what Neville Folliot's got to tell us, don't we?"
"Then ask it that, Annabelle. Where we can find Neville Folliot."
"And when it tells us? Then we're just godfood."
Ask it that question. Shriek said. She gave the Oracle a long, considering look. I will .stop the Oracle.
Annabelle pointed to the sarcophagi. "Want to bet there's more dead giants in those? Dead giants that can move? I'll bet these are the Lords of Thunder."
Ask the question. Shriek repeated firmly.
Annabelle drew a deep breath. "Sure," she said. "Fine. I mean, what've we got to lose, right?"
Just everything, she thought as she led the way back to the dais on which the Oracle lay.
The immense head turned toward them as they approached. "PILGRIMS," it said. "WHAT WOULD YOU ASK OF ME?"
Me, me, me....
The weight of its gaze made Annabelle's legs feel all watery again. She cleared her throat.
"Uh, we want to know where we can find Neville Folliot." she said.
"WHICH NEVILLE FOLLIOT?" the Oracle replied.
Ot, ot, ot....
Annabelle and her companions exchanged puzzled looks.
"What do you mean which?" Annabelle finally asked. "THERE IS MORE THAN ONE."
One, one, one....
Wasn't that just perfect? Annabelle thought. Bad enough just trying to track down one of Clive's twins. Now they find out that the bugger's gone and cloned himself.
"The real one," she said.
Twenty-nine
"Do you know how we may exit from this place?" Clive asked Howlett.
"Well, now." Howlett pointed to the left. "That's the direction that they brought you from. And that—" he pointed the opposite way "—is the direction they took your brother."
"Then that is the way we will go." Clive said.
He led off, Smythe beside him, letting the others follow as they would.
"This time we'll have him," Clive said. "He only has an hour or so lead on us. I can almost taste his presence."
"I'd be happier with a weapon in my hand." Smythe said, "for when we flush our captors."
"I'll be happy just to have a grip on Neville's throat."
Smythe nodded. 'The humbugger's led us by the nose, all right."
"And do you know what?" Clive said, glancing at his companion. "What will you wager he'll have some convincing talc to make good all he's put us through?"
"If it was him," Smythe said. "You heard what Guafe said about these clones."
"Oh.
But then he thought about the pretender in Dramaran and Howlett. and how difficult it had been for him to accept that they were not one and the same. Could the replicas be so exact that they couldn't be told apart?
"These replicas," he asked Guafe, looking over his shoulder. "Do they all carry the same memories, as well?"
"Unlikely."
"There," Clive said. "You sec, Horace? All we'll need to do is put a question or two to our man when we have him, and we'll know soon enough whether or not he's a replica."
They came to a branch in the corridor and paused. Down the one that led to the right they could sec more jail cells, which appeared empty from the perspective they had of them. Down the other there was a long expanse of empty hallway, but near its end they spied a number of doors leading off.
"What do you say, Edgar?" Clive asked.
Howlett shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Then we'll take the left," Clive said.
They made a grim company as they strode down the hall. Lies and trickery had been all they had met since first entering the Dungeon, and they were all weary to death of being played the fool.
"It's like Chinese boxes," was how Smythe put it, describing the various levels. "Every time we think the end's in sight, there's another box to open, another puzzle lying in the way."
Well, no more, Clive thought. A man could brook only so much of it. It was time to stand up like a good Englishman and be counted, and by Goa, he meant to do just that.
When they reached the first closed door, they paused again. Smythe took hold of its knob. At a nod from Clive, he cautiously tested it, then turned it sharply and flung the door open. Clive darted in, with Guafe and Finnbogg on his heels. Howlett remained behind in the hallway.
There was another mechanical man sitting behind a desk in the room. He looked up, startled at their sudden entrance, then reached for one of the black boxes with which Hare had incapacitated them earlier. Clive didn't give him the time to use it.
He crossed the room, one hand closing on the man's fist, the other sweeping the box to the floor. Before the man could break free, Guafe was there, lending Clive his strength. At the pressure of the cyborg's grip on his arm, all the fight went out of their captive.
He spoke rapidly in an unfamiliar language.
"Speak the Queen's English." Clive told him, "or shut your gob."
"Please," the man said quickly, switching to English. "Don't hurt me."
"Brave lot once they lose the upper hand, aren't they?" Clive said, to no one in particular.
Their captive quivered.
"Hold him, would you, Chang, while we search him for weapons."
Though how they were supposed to recognize a weapon in this place was beyond Clive at that moment. With boxes that sent out an invisible ray to steal a man's strength, who knew what else they might have?
They emptied everything out of their captive's pockets and spread it out on the desk, then bound him to his chair. Guafe fetched the black box from where it had fallen.
"Primitive," he remarked, studying it. "But effective."
"Was it damaged?" Smythe asked.
The cyborg pointed it at their captive and thumbed the control. The man went in mobile. When Guafe thumbed the control again, he slumped in his bonds.
"It appears not." Guafe said.
"Look," Finnbogg called.
From a closet he was pulling various bits of gear— things that had obviously been taken from the Tawnians' prisoners, for Smythe recognized his own knife near the top of the pile. Clive smiled when the dwarf held up a saber in a plain leather scabbard. He took it and belted it on.
"That feels better," he said.
He drew out the blade and tested its balance. It was a beautifully crafted weapon, without a blemish in the metal. The balance was perfect.
By now Howlett had entered the room and was bent down beside Finnbogg at the door to the closet. When he stood, he held a modernistic-looking pistol in his hand.
"Now, this is more like it," he said.
"What is it?" Smythe asked.
"This, my friend, is a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum, one of the world's most powerful handguns, as Dirty Harry'd say."
"And who is he?"
Howlett gave him an odd look. "I forgot. You guys don't know anything about my time. Harry's just a damn straight shooter—played by an actor named Eastwood."
"I... see," Smythe said.
Shrugging, Howlett cracked open the magnum's cylinder. He shook out its bullets into the palm of his hand.
"Damn," he muttered, discarding the empty shells. "Only three shots. Do you see any ammo in there, Finn?"
"Finnbogg find this."
He stood back from the closet with a deadly looking mace in his hands, the head spiked with steel flanges, and gave it a couple of short practice swings. As Guafe and Smythe rooted around among the gear for weapons for themselves, Clive returned his attention to their captive.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"M-merdor—if it pleases you."
"Nothing about this place pleases me. What are your duties here?"
"I keep the records of the... prisoners," Merdor said. His brow was beaded with sweat.
"And?"
"And catalogue the gear we take from them. That's all—I swear! I have nothing to do with deciding who fuels the lords and who does not."
"Your records," Clive asked. "Are they current?"
"Oh. yes, sir. Completely current."
"Then, show me what you have concerning one Sir Neville Folliot."
"Folliot? He was just released, not an hour ago. The records have already been transferred upstairs.
"And what has become of him?"
"I... I'm not really sure." Merdor replied. "I assume he's been set free to go upon his way."
"Damn you!" Clive cried. "Tell me where I can find him."
"But, I don't know—I swear I don't."
Smythe appeared at Clive's side, buckling another saber to his own belt.
"What about the next level?" he asked. "Where is the nearest gateway?"
Merdor blinked. "In the Hall of the Lords of Thunder—where the Oracle sleeps."
"What exactly are these Lords of Thunder?" Guafe asked.
Now Merdor seemed astonished. "They rule this level," he said after a few moments. "They always have, always will."
"Until this Madonna puts the blade to them." Smythe said.
"You would know that better than I." Merdor replied. He sat as straight in his chair as his bonds would let him. "You are her assassins, not I."
"We are not assassins," Clive began, but then thought. Why bother trying to explain? "What is the quickest route to this hall you spoke of?"
Merdor told them without hesitation.
"He seems very pleased with himself," Smythe said. "Perhaps we should take him with us to defuse any... surprises that might await us."
"Please—no."
Smythe grinned. "Ah-ha! What did I tell you?"
"It's not that," Merdor said. "I swear you'll have no trouble reaching the hall. It's only when you're inside...."
"Yes?" Clive prompted him.
"Well, it's the lords. They won't be pleased. And what displeases them, they use for fuel."
"You mean eat, don't you?" Howlett said.
Merdor hesitated.
"Speak up, man," Smythe told him.
"Well, in a manner of speaking." Merdor said. "Yes. The Lords do convert the living into fuel for their bodies."
Smythe glanced at Clive, who gave him a nod. Smythe quickly cut their prisoner free, then retied his arms behind his back.
"Lead on," he said.
"Please." Merdor said. "The Lords see no difference between the prisoners we bring them and ourselves. If you want to throw your lives away, I won't stop you— i obviously, I can't stop you—but why drag me in with you?"
"Curiosity," Clive said. "We want
Smythe could feel the man tremble under his hand as he shoved Merdor toward the door. They made him take the lead. Clive and Smythe walking directly behind him. Howlett came next, the magnum thrust into his belt. There had been no extra ammunition for it. Guafe and Finnbogg brought up the rear.
Clive paid attention to the route they took, matching it in his mind with what their captive had told them. So far, there had been no discrepancies. Perhaps Merdor had been telling the truth. But what about this hall where his brother had gone? Would Neville survive his encounter with the Lords? Had he already vanished once more, into the next level?
The sense of time in the Dungeon was obviously very much askew. For Neville, or even his replicas, to have spent anywhere up to five years in places, it seemed that time worked at varying rates for each being trapped in it. One could arrive at the same time as one's companions, become separated, and then a year might pass for you, while only a day or so for them before you met again.
It made no logical sense. But, then again, as they were all so fond of telling each other, nothing here made logical sense.
But there had to be some connecting thread—some reason for it all—no matter how alien it might seem to them. Clive couldn't shake the sense that they had all been specifically chosen to come here—at least all save for Horace, Sidi, and himself, who had merely blundered in while searching for Neville. What was it that connected his brother with Guafe and Shriek and a Portuguese pirate? With Clive's own descendant, Annabelle?
Thinking of her again awoke a pang of sorrow in Clive. He should never have let her—
"My God!" Smythe cried suddenly. "It's him!"
They had come to another branching of the corridors. Down the length of one that led to the left was a small group of Tawnians, with the unmistakable figure of his twin standing among them. One of the Tawnians began to level his black box at them, but Howlett was suddenly pushing between Clive and Smythe.
"Get out of the way!" he shouted.
He had the magnum in his hand, the weapon leveled, left hand gripping his light wrist to absorb the handgun's recoil. When he fired, Clive was sure that his eardrums were going to explode, the sound of the weapon was so loud in the confined space of the corridor. Long after the shot, his cars were still ringing. But down the hall, he saw the Tawnian with the black box lifted from his feet as though a puppeteer had jerked his strings. The Tawnian was flung back against a wall, where he slid to the floor, leaving a red smear on the surface of the wall behind him.