Catacomb (Part 1 of 5)

© 1985 by Henry Melton
First published in Dragon #97
This is my most popular short fiction with fan letters and emails arriving even today. Pardon the anachronisms.  This was written back when both the Mac and the IBM PC were new and years before the web.  This was before everyone knew to click a mouse or knew that underlined text was a hyperlink.

Lunae, assassin for the Witch Queen of the Hinterlands, paused in silence before the large stone door.  <LISTEN, SMELL>  There was no sound beyond the latched opening, but she had learned to distrust silence in this place. The walls were cubits thick. The door, though balanced to open with a light shove, was itself more than a foot thick and, when closed, was sealed nearly airtight. Sound never traveled far in this twisty, dusty place, but the smells that the men and the beasts left behind had proved especially trustworthy to her.

She moved her torch to her left hand and leaned closer to the edge of the door, where she might catch a whiff of the scents within. There was, as always, a faint man-scent and the musty tang of some beast that must frequent this set of corridors. She hoped never to meet that one in the flesh. There was something ... compelling about that scent. She feared it. But now, there seemed to creep from behind the door a new scent, the smell of spice!

If there was any chance of a man behind the door, she had better be ready for a fight. The catacombs were more wild and dangerous than any other place she had been. There was gold here, and of course, there was greed.  Strike first! had proved themselves sure words of wisdom in the seemingly endless time she had spent in the dark, dusty halls. Lunae took stock of herself. She had eaten hours ago, and she was in fighting trim. The tools of her trade were ready to her fingers. It was a momentary temptation to pass by this door, but she had no idea if this corridor would provide another exit soon enough to avoid the creature with the musty scent. There was no reason to delay. Her torch was more than half gone. Going back was out of the question.

<OPEN THE DOOR> The latch worked smoothly, but the hinges did not. The door moved unevenly with the popping grind of a stone pivot.

<LOOK> Glowstone lit the roomy chamber with its cool blue light. <PUT OUT TORCH> There were signs of travelers. A torn leather sack lay on a large, flat boulder next to a trickling spring. The rivulet barely parted the dust on the floor before vanishing into a fault-line crack. That dust was well stirred by prints of man and beast. The hoofprints amazed her. Lead a pack animal down into the catacombs? The scents alone in this place would spook it.

Two other stone doors faced her. This was a crossroads, if that term could be used in these underground passages. She quickly moved to check them. <LISTEN AT DOORWAYS> There was never too much caution in this place.

There were no sounds, and the smells of this oft-used waystop masked anything that might be beyond them.  A set of conveniently placed boulders were at hand, so she blocked all three entrances.

"Thank you." It was a man's voice.

<PIVOT LOW. PLACE THROWING KNIFE IN LEFT HAND. LOOK>

She spun into a crouch, ready to throw her knife as soon as she spotted a target. Though it wasn't terribly bright, the glowstone light shone evenly enough to wash out shadows. A man could hide in two or three places among the jumble of boulders where the spring was sourced. Lunae was painfully aware that she was without the smallest boulder to protect her from any thrown weapon. She shifted her stance to give her better mobility. Stupid! I've spent too much time getting this far into the catacombs to be killed by some clever thief.  There was nowhere to run. The doors were tightly wedged by the boulders she'd so carefully moved into place!

"Nervous one, aren't you? You could at least say 'hello'".

She had his hiding place located now. There was a crack between the stones through which he watched her. He was shielded from her knife, but if she could reach the brass vial of contact poison in her pack ...  

<STAND UP SLOWLY. SAY: YOU STARTLED ME. I EXPECTED TO BE ATTACKED. TAKE A STEP TOWARDS MY PACK>

He had not attacked even though he had an obvious tactical advantage. Perhaps she could reach ...

He spoke. "I would appreciate it if you stayed right where you are!" She froze, her mind in high gear. He could have a nocked arrow aimed her way. If so, the aim would be hampered by the very rocks that protected him; no other weapon would have a better chance. He was either stupid or bluffing.

<DIVE INTO A ROLL. GRAB MY PACK.  USE MY PACK AS A SHIELD . GET THE BOTTLE OF POISON> She felt the embossed bottle in her pack just as the stinging bite of a dart found her arm.  Lunae fought for consciousness as a wave of buzzing darkness rushed over her.

YOU HAVE BEEN RENDERED UNCONSCIOUS ON A POISONED DART.   YOU ARE L0GGED OFF CATACOMB FOR 00:30 MINIMUM.   YOUR ACCOUNT BALANCE IS:   $     0.78 FOR TODAY  $    12.40 FOR THE GAME  $     7.50 TREASURE BONUS {RESERVED}

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Judith Cere stared morosely at her screen.  Fat chance her treasure would be there when she checked back. Even money that Mr. Hide- and-Seek would kill her and she'd have to create another character. She bunched her right hand into a fist and hit the desktop. A stack of papers slithered off the desk and landed on the floor with a fluid plop.

"Judith?" her father's voice called from his office room down the hall. "Is anything wrong?"

Her finger stabbed the PAGE CLEAR key, and she called back, "No, Daddy. I just transposed a field. No problem." Her voice shook a little and her hand hurt.  She didn't need to lose her temper. CATACOMB was proving to be a harder way to make money than she had hoped.

Her gaze rested guiltily on the scattered pile of handwritten invoices that she needed to key into a file as her task for the day. Best get to it. Father wasn't one to let the kids slide on their chores. Even if she was seventeen, he could make her feel like her brother Georgie caught with forbidden cookie crumbs all over his face.  Maybe he wouldn't mind her CATACOMB adventures, but play before work was against the house rules.

She picked up the first paper and invoked the home database. Get the file built, then check on Lunae again.

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YOU ARE UNCONSCIOUS FROM THE EFFECTS OF A POISONED DART.   LOGON TO CATACOMB IS NOT ALLOWED FOR 00:14 MINIMUM.   YOUR ACCOUNT BALANCE IS: $     0.78 FOR TODAY  $    12.40 FOR THE GAME  $     0.00 TREASURE BONUS

Thief!  Well, at least he left her alive.

She cleared the screen and plopped down on her bed.  Her flute case, half buried among books and cosmetics on her dressing table, was a black reminder of her problems. It was not going as she had planned. The ruby stolen from Lunae wasn't worth much in real money, but she'd counted on it to cover part of her time charges for playing the game until she could find more treasure. The three hundred dollars was due in two weeks. To be twelve dollars in the hole was not only depressing, it was embarrassing. She shouldn't have told Diana about her plan.

With a whoop, Barry skidded into her room and was followed by Jay, his friend from the house down the hill. A pair of suction-cup darts crossed in the air, one of them bouncing off the mirror of her dressing table.

"Barry, get out of my room this instant! You're messing up everything." She picked up the expended plastic dart and tossed it out the doorway.

"Hey! That's my dart!"

"Then go get it, brat!"

From down the hall, her father's voice silenced them both, "You kids be quiet. It's work time. Barry, do you want some file maintenance? Judith, are your invoices done?"

They both knew silence was the safest course. Barry gave her a silent sneer as his brotherly token of disrespect and waved Jay out with him. If there had been a silent way of murdering her brother ....

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