This is Episode 2-10 of a serial urban fantasy & paranormal story.

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Part 2-10: Stairwell

Though I appreciated the advance warning, I was not in the mood to stab any more doom knights. I expressed these misgivings to the Jailer.

“Well,” he said, “we could sit here for the rest of your days. I can teach you how to extend a meditative state that will stay the most agonizing erosion of boredom. Perhaps we can try to decipher the Band across the next decade…”

“Okay okay, point taken. But maybe you could show us how to use these things, some techniques, or…?” I was stalling, sure, but as I said it, it sounded like a fine idea.

“I would but for two matters, one of which is pressing. First, while they may look like weapons meant for a soldier with skill, they are but patterns built inside a larger construct. As the kingdom is false, so is most you see within. The King and Queen’s tools are geared to respond to this,” he tapped his head. “Not this.” He patted his forearm.

“So then…” said Persi, and reached out. The polearm twitched, then skittered across the floor towards her like a weird frozen snake. It flipped up on its end, sharp end digging into the stone, handle arcing with a whoosh. She snagged it, fumbled, then recovered it before it clattered to the ground. The Jailer gaped at her.

She blushed, and said, “I’ve had some practice in a place not entirely unlike this.”

“…Indeed. If there’s time I should hope you both tell me your stories. But I first must finish mine.” He picked up the rapier and studied it for a moment.

“The second matter: inside my tower, we are safe,” he continued. “Outside my tower, unsafe. Below my tower, in the chambered holds, I still have influence but it is a mere mote thereof. Below is the Minder’s realm, but I believe you’ve bruised that one up quite well. The Keeper will be searching too, but I hope to confound her for long enough to show you what’s down there.”

“So not safe, but yet not unsafe?” I said.

“Aptly put. The longer we wait, the better odds that the Minder will regain his strength. Shall we?”

I made an agreeable noise and pushed thoughts of menacing knight’s helms, giant birds, and twanging bolts to the back of my head, convincing my subconscious that those things only existed in open fields. Surely the dungeons beneath the haunted castle courtyard were chill. Surely.

The Jailer walked back to the start of the staircase and stood still for a moment. At first I thought maybe we were going back up again, but then a rectangle on the floor glowed yellow. It faded, taking a chunk of the floor with it. The stairs no longer ended; they continued into the ground.

Down we went. The Jailer took the lead, I followed, and Persi the freshly minted polearmist guarded the rear. The stairs continued to spiral. The passageway was as claustrophobic as I’d expected it to be, but there was a small blessing in that it was well lit. No flickering torches or anything like that: down here, the flat, sourceless light returned.

After some time, the Jailer paused and nodded. “We’re far enough from my frequencies now.” He presented the rapier to me, holding it out hilt first. After a loud breath, I took it. The ring scratched and fizzed.

“The Minder and the Collector made most of the courtyard,” our tour guide said. “It is fashioned circular, which might strike you as odd, depending on how they do things in your world.”

“Definitely odd. We noticed that there were sixty torches in the circular passageway—sixty minutes on a clock-face,” I said, giving the rapier a few test swishes.

“Yes, very good. Very observant. I said earlier that I believed it is a form of measurement. When you came here—”

He stopped and I almost impaled him with the thin sword.

“What? What’s wrong?”

He looked up. I followed suit. The ceiling was all wrong, too hazy. I blinked and it was gone, replaced with an infinitely high space. The walls went up and up then disappeared into the distance.

“We waited too long,” said the Jailer. “The Minder’s opened the gaps. We must be swift.”

We doubled our pace. There was little to mark our descent, and after a half minute of bounding down the steps it began to seem like the damn hallway again, round and round we go, when we stop, everything will blow!

I didn’t notice the creatures until the Jailer raised a finger. Several of those globular freaks from our march were oozing down the walls like leeches. Their tendons trailed behind them, snaking up the sides into the indiscernible heights. Insectoid feelers wavered down at us.

“Strike them if they come near!” said the Jailer.

They came near. Like a fat spider, one detached from the wall and dropped, suspended by its knobbly wire. It fell behind us, but within reach of Persi’s long weapon. I heard her shout “Yahh!” A hissing noise followed.

“Got it!” she yelled.

“Good, keep moving!” said the Jailer.

I ran with my rapier held out and up, like I was leading a crazed battle charge. Two dropped in front of us. The Jailer threw out his arms and showered them with yellow sparks. The things flew back and up, sputtering. Another came down right on top of me, skewering itself on my blade with comic precision. It screeched and fired back up, rocket-fast.

After that, they wised up and stopped dropping. Instead, they scooched along the walls, heading back the way we had come from. After a moment, we were alone again. After another moment, the stairs started to vibrate and rumble.

“Faster! Faster!” cried the Jailer.

But it was too late. They came rolling from behind, glued together in a hideous beige-grey wheel, three times our height, tendons twisted and wrapped around it like a deranged hunk of yarn.

The Jailer stumbled, spun on his heel, and fired a stream of sparks at it as he fell backwards. Shoots of golden streamers rattled the wheel, near stopping its descent as it wobbled against the walls. The creatures keened and flailed their worms. I froze, stunned at the sight of the looming mass. Persi turned too, walked backwards down the steps until she bumped into me, and said, “Brace!”

She pointed the long polearm up at an angle and jammed the other end of it into her shoulder. I had no choice but to lean into her and try to add my weight behind the weapon. The big monster wheel fell toward us. It hit the polearm, sinking into creatures that shrieked and squirmed—but the whole remained unbroken. The impact shook the rapier from my grip. I wrapped my arms around Persi. She moaned as the weight of it pressed into us. My left foot slipped down a step, forcing me to move down with my right to keep balance. But it slowed, slowed, sinking into the shaft… halfway, then three quarters, until it was only an arm’s length away.

The wheel stopped. My feet were halfway off the next step, calves shaking with the strain as I pressed my toes hard into the floor.

The wheel chittered and squealed.

“Hurts, ahhh, hurts,” grunted Persi.

I adjusted my grip on the tiny girl until one of my hands were on her weapon. I pictured a golden glow and tried to feel the tickle of the ring. The protests from the monsters pitched up and became frenzied. Yellow smoke curled from the gash.

“Slipping,” said Persi. I could feel the gentle slide too. More pressure on the toes.

“Hold on, hold on.”

My legs were about to give. We were going to break and fall and be crushed if this stupid stick didn’t fry them or blow them up or—

There was a sharp crack and we did fall—the world went spinning and I hit the stairs on my side, bashing the hell out of my elbow and thigh. I bounced down a few steps before my limbs figured out how to stop me. The creatures were individuals again, I saw them flying all about, a confusing storm of demented yoyos. I curled into a ball, expecting them to descend on me and do terrible things.

“Ooouuu…”

I heard Persi, and peeked. She was splayed a few steps up, bleeding from a gash on her face. The polearm and rapier lay a few steps further up, the blade of the former cooling from gold back to pale yellow.

“Girls, are you alright?” The Jailer limped towards us from below.

“What? Did I, did I really blow them up?” I said, picking myself up.

“Away, it would seem, at least,” said a familiar British voice from above.

The Minder strode down. He stopped before the pointy end of the polearm, scowling at it. I scrambled to Persi, getting myself between her and the man in the ridiculous top hat. He made no move to stop me.

“Jailer, it has been some time. Showing these trespassers around, are we?”

“Go tend to your abominations, why don’t you,” said the Jailer.

I leaned towards the rapier, wishing I knew how to do Persi’s Jedi thing so it’d fly into my hand.

“Yes, you’ve quite upset the poor dears. How many of the King’s toys have you stashed away, ol’ boy?” The Minder watched me as I conspicuously snatched up the rapier and pointed it at him. The Jailer said nothing.

“Hm, right then. I’ll leave you to it. You’re late as it is. She’s expecting you.”

I lost my footing again, and fell to my hands and knees. I was sliding, and very confused. The Minder smirked and turned as I realized that the stairs below him were gone, replaced by a slope. We were all sliding. I flipped over onto my butt and faced forward, grabbing the polearm as it passed me so it wouldn’t cut Persi, who still looked dazed. She slid on her back, her head raised ever so slightly.

The slide ended in a large circular room with a high, domed ceiling. We spilled out onto the floor—rolling, bumping and cursing.

I managed to hold onto both weapons. This was a good thing, because the instant we arrived, two knights in black armor charged, swords held high and shimmering with blue fire.

 

Continued in Part 2-11

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