By Darren Robinson (Writer's Choice)
The four men stood agog at the crest of the ridge, their gaze lost in the shadows that swamped the dell before them. Ileus, the Heroes’ Hero, was the first to move, albeit to scratch genatalia. Pileus and his brother Pluteus continued to find solace in each other’s clothing. And large Pronucleus swayed unsteadily, the gthack bite on his behind continuing to cause him much angst, his blood reacting adversely to the apricot jam in his system.
Ileus rued the decisions of the day before, for in hindsight an extra two days’ travel was preferable to dissecting the mountain pass and all the gthack nests that accompanied it. Though his memory of such textbook adventuring was not great, he ought to have heeded the warning signs, the immeasurable compote-smears on the localised rocks and vegetation and the sweet aroma of apricots that filled the air. But he had been exhausted, bereft of logical thought – they all were: the journey from the good wizard’s wendy house had been long and fraught with danger. Nests of gthacks had seemed a worthwhile risk, and conserve-laden bites a negligible consequence. But as it turned out, one man’s apricot jam was another man’s poison, and poor Pronucleus was looking worse by the second.
Ileus drew a deep breath, briefly forgot where his sword was, unsheathed it, and began the descent towards the dark entrance hiding amongst the shadows before them. Time was slipping away like sand through his fingers – Pronucleus would soon succumb to his wounds. With the prize so close now ahead of them – the wizard’s enchanted box and all the magic it contained – Pronucleus’ mortal wounds would soon be nothing but a fading scar, both of body and mind. But Ileus knew the sternest test was still waiting for them. For what lurked in those deep, dark catacombs was something unearthly. A terror as yet unimagined, and unimaginable.
The brothers Pileus and Pluteus followed behind, skipping hand in hand, the former armed with mace, the latter with customary eggplant. Pluteus, alas, had trouble distinguishing the tools of warriors from a good broth, a condition attributed since birth, but what he lacked in armament he made up for with enthusiasm and a taste for his brother’s underwear. This somehow made him a powerful ally.
Pronucleus brought up the rear, breathing heavily, all astagger. Pray they made it through whatever waited for them beyond these gates and to the wizard’s box of spells deep within the labyrinthine tunnels. The old wizard was paying handsomely for their service, and the rewards were vast. The good magician was useless without his box of tricks and had himself barely made it out of these very caverns alive having dropped his livelihood from a moment of utmost carelessness. The commission of these four warriors was his attempt at redressing that error.
And here they stood, a veritable picture of heroism, taking away the image of a large man with a funny walk and two brothers within the process of exchanging socks. That they could do so in such a place was heroic in itself, for the atmosphere was foreboding, a permeable menace that hung in the thickness of the air, seeped into every dark stone, every stealthy shadow. The relics of an ancient and heinous past littered the dell all around: statues of warriors frighteningly realistic, most poised for battle in all manner of positions, others not, but all with twisted looks of abject horror cutting their faces like the shards of a broken mirror. Broken columns jutted from the ground and probed the darkness on either side, the fingers of a desperate hand smothered within the bowels of the earth.
With dread the four traversed the threshold of those yawning gates. Not one of the four spoke nor dared make noise, for the cavernous tunnels bore wings to such sounds and carried them far to that which listened in the gloom. A luminescent moss carpeting the stony walls lit their passage, though Ileus knew his path – the kindly wizard had imparted his knowledge of that place well, despite many coughing fits in between, and had even had the foresight to write directions on a crisp packet knowing full well that the memory glands of Ileus, Father of Legends, were not all they should be and not entirely in-keeping with his reputation.
It was that crisp packet Ileus held aloft now, like a cellophane Excalibur, reading what he could in the soft ghostly glow of the moss and trying desperately to stifle its fearsome crackling. But, picking their way between hordes of ghastly statues and despite all the care in the world, and with the utmost irony in successfully and heroically withholding the escape of doom-bringing crispy rustles penetrating the silence all around them, it was Pileus munching on a boiled sweet that revealed their presence to that which lurked within that deathly place. As big Pronucleus leaned exhausted against a monolithic pillar, they heard it – like some ghastly percussion that echoed and fell all around them, the dread rattle they had all longed never to hear.
With growing haste, Ileus gripped the teddy bear in his tunic, which he’d forgotten he had, and urged his fear-stricken comrades onwards. By the Vest of Ares, they were so close. But within minutes and during a quick game of hopscotch, it happened. With a zing! something zipped through the air and embedded itself into Pileus’ shoulder. With a shriek of pain and despair, Pileus had time to hand his brother’s blood-soaked jockstrap back to him before a second arrow ended his life.
Pluteus swung around, eggplant at the ready, but his senses were overwhelmed by an awful and deafening echo of hissing, so much so that he did not know which way to face. And then Ileus saw it, advancing through the gloom – just a glimpse but enough to send the sharpest icicles of fear into every his every pore – a pale face, a head of writhing snakes, and with that terrible rattle sound filling the air around them all. Pluteus drove his eggplant with all his might into the monster, but it broke. And brave Pluteus would forever remain in that position, mashed vegetable in hand, to join the rest of the macabre warrior-statues lining the catacombs. A greyness overtook him from the head down with a sound like rockfall, a look of incomprehensible terror on his face as the gorgon’s gaze rendered him to stone for the rest of eternity.
With a shout, Ileus, Slayer of Badgers, sprang into action and ran away. Pronucleus, heavy with jam, laboured tragically behind, and the sounds of his panting were soon lost in the darkness of passages and columns uncountable. Ileus heard a mild thud as the big man finally yielded to the fruit that filled his being. In despair, Ileus took refuge behind a grotesque statue – a real spearsman of aeons past – and prayed he would not be discovered. The walls echoed with the rattle of his pursuer, close at hand and remaining so for an age, appearing to leap from place to place, sometimes seemingly within the merest yard of where he cowered in heroic defiance. Ileus stayed still and silent, trying to hold his shaking breath in check and his noisy elbow from squeaking.
As the rhythm of the monster’s tail gradually became fainter and less frequent, Ileus thought back to their adventure’s beginning. The wizard’s promise of riches in his extremely cramped wendy house, as the four warriors pretended to drink tea from tiny, plastic cups and turned brightly coloured dials decorated with smiling faces, burned bright in his mind. Through this flame, he listened to the wizard’s lamentations, in between bearded and erratically painful coughing fits, of a possession long lost, the wooden box of spells, condiments and cards of all things tarot, Pokemon, and nudey ladies. He watched as the smiling yet sad magician produced a large silver key, the only means of breaking the box’s enchanted seal, and placed it on the plastic yellow table in front of them. Then he listened as the bearded sorcerer dived into detailed derivations of directions through lands unbound, forests untamed and mountains unbroken, and finally of the dark catacombs at journey’s end. Then Ileus tightened as the old wizard trawled through twisted tales of terror tinged with a taste of tragedy and torture, the warning of the gruesome and grotesque gorgon itself and how it had forced him to flee from a compound-gathering exercise and leave the source of his wizardy behind, lost in the gloom. Then the wizard had bewitched and bewildered them all with boundless banter and other words beginning with B.
Then it was time to leave, and the warriors had begun their quest … and now, as Ileus became slowly aware of the deafening silence, the end of his suddenly lonesome journey. For there in the stifling blackness, leaning askew against a broken column with only the wink of iridescent fungus to reveal its presence, was the box the old wizard so yearned for. Whether by luck or mystic guidance, Ileus’ feet had carried him to the very spot he sought – a kind twist of fate indeed, for he had totally forgotten where he was headed.
With lingering fragments of his dreams flitting through his mind, he dared not reach out at first lest the monster hear him. But though it was nearby, and would surely discover him before the hour was out, it was not close enough to deter him from his quest’s end. He slowly and carefully reached out and lifted the small yet heavy box. Shaking and cradling it carefully, he ran his fingers over its well-veneered surface and fingered the oversized keyhole in its side. Within lay powers unimaginable, and with it the means to escape this evil place with his life, to garner riches beyond dreams. He felt a pang for his lost comrades and wondered too if they might even be restorable to the ranks of the living. Dare he dream? With trembling fingers, he reached inside his pouch for the large silver key given him by the kindly wizard.
With a strangled cry and a resounding slap to the head, he realised he’d left it on the wizard’s stupid bloody yellow plastic table.
The four men stood agog at the crest of the ridge, their gaze lost in the shadows that swamped the dell before them. Ileus, the Heroes’ Hero, was the first to move, albeit to scratch genatalia. Pileus and his brother Pluteus continued to find solace in each other’s clothing. And large Pronucleus swayed unsteadily, the gthack bite on his behind continuing to cause him much angst, his blood reacting adversely to the apricot jam in his system.
Ileus rued the decisions of the day before, for in hindsight an extra two days’ travel was preferable to dissecting the mountain pass and all the gthack nests that accompanied it. Though his memory of such textbook adventuring was not great, he ought to have heeded the warning signs, the immeasurable compote-smears on the localised rocks and vegetation and the sweet aroma of apricots that filled the air. But he had been exhausted, bereft of logical thought – they all were: the journey from the good wizard’s wendy house had been long and fraught with danger. Nests of gthacks had seemed a worthwhile risk, and conserve-laden bites a negligible consequence. But as it turned out, one man’s apricot jam was another man’s poison, and poor Pronucleus was looking worse by the second.
Ileus drew a deep breath, briefly forgot where his sword was, unsheathed it, and began the descent towards the dark entrance hiding amongst the shadows before them. Time was slipping away like sand through his fingers – Pronucleus would soon succumb to his wounds. With the prize so close now ahead of them – the wizard’s enchanted box and all the magic it contained – Pronucleus’ mortal wounds would soon be nothing but a fading scar, both of body and mind. But Ileus knew the sternest test was still waiting for them. For what lurked in those deep, dark catacombs was something unearthly. A terror as yet unimagined, and unimaginable.
The brothers Pileus and Pluteus followed behind, skipping hand in hand, the former armed with mace, the latter with customary eggplant. Pluteus, alas, had trouble distinguishing the tools of warriors from a good broth, a condition attributed since birth, but what he lacked in armament he made up for with enthusiasm and a taste for his brother’s underwear. This somehow made him a powerful ally.
Pronucleus brought up the rear, breathing heavily, all astagger. Pray they made it through whatever waited for them beyond these gates and to the wizard’s box of spells deep within the labyrinthine tunnels. The old wizard was paying handsomely for their service, and the rewards were vast. The good magician was useless without his box of tricks and had himself barely made it out of these very caverns alive having dropped his livelihood from a moment of utmost carelessness. The commission of these four warriors was his attempt at redressing that error.
And here they stood, a veritable picture of heroism, taking away the image of a large man with a funny walk and two brothers within the process of exchanging socks. That they could do so in such a place was heroic in itself, for the atmosphere was foreboding, a permeable menace that hung in the thickness of the air, seeped into every dark stone, every stealthy shadow. The relics of an ancient and heinous past littered the dell all around: statues of warriors frighteningly realistic, most poised for battle in all manner of positions, others not, but all with twisted looks of abject horror cutting their faces like the shards of a broken mirror. Broken columns jutted from the ground and probed the darkness on either side, the fingers of a desperate hand smothered within the bowels of the earth.
With dread the four traversed the threshold of those yawning gates. Not one of the four spoke nor dared make noise, for the cavernous tunnels bore wings to such sounds and carried them far to that which listened in the gloom. A luminescent moss carpeting the stony walls lit their passage, though Ileus knew his path – the kindly wizard had imparted his knowledge of that place well, despite many coughing fits in between, and had even had the foresight to write directions on a crisp packet knowing full well that the memory glands of Ileus, Father of Legends, were not all they should be and not entirely in-keeping with his reputation.
It was that crisp packet Ileus held aloft now, like a cellophane Excalibur, reading what he could in the soft ghostly glow of the moss and trying desperately to stifle its fearsome crackling. But, picking their way between hordes of ghastly statues and despite all the care in the world, and with the utmost irony in successfully and heroically withholding the escape of doom-bringing crispy rustles penetrating the silence all around them, it was Pileus munching on a boiled sweet that revealed their presence to that which lurked within that deathly place. As big Pronucleus leaned exhausted against a monolithic pillar, they heard it – like some ghastly percussion that echoed and fell all around them, the dread rattle they had all longed never to hear.
With growing haste, Ileus gripped the teddy bear in his tunic, which he’d forgotten he had, and urged his fear-stricken comrades onwards. By the Vest of Ares, they were so close. But within minutes and during a quick game of hopscotch, it happened. With a zing! something zipped through the air and embedded itself into Pileus’ shoulder. With a shriek of pain and despair, Pileus had time to hand his brother’s blood-soaked jockstrap back to him before a second arrow ended his life.
Pluteus swung around, eggplant at the ready, but his senses were overwhelmed by an awful and deafening echo of hissing, so much so that he did not know which way to face. And then Ileus saw it, advancing through the gloom – just a glimpse but enough to send the sharpest icicles of fear into every his every pore – a pale face, a head of writhing snakes, and with that terrible rattle sound filling the air around them all. Pluteus drove his eggplant with all his might into the monster, but it broke. And brave Pluteus would forever remain in that position, mashed vegetable in hand, to join the rest of the macabre warrior-statues lining the catacombs. A greyness overtook him from the head down with a sound like rockfall, a look of incomprehensible terror on his face as the gorgon’s gaze rendered him to stone for the rest of eternity.
With a shout, Ileus, Slayer of Badgers, sprang into action and ran away. Pronucleus, heavy with jam, laboured tragically behind, and the sounds of his panting were soon lost in the darkness of passages and columns uncountable. Ileus heard a mild thud as the big man finally yielded to the fruit that filled his being. In despair, Ileus took refuge behind a grotesque statue – a real spearsman of aeons past – and prayed he would not be discovered. The walls echoed with the rattle of his pursuer, close at hand and remaining so for an age, appearing to leap from place to place, sometimes seemingly within the merest yard of where he cowered in heroic defiance. Ileus stayed still and silent, trying to hold his shaking breath in check and his noisy elbow from squeaking.
As the rhythm of the monster’s tail gradually became fainter and less frequent, Ileus thought back to their adventure’s beginning. The wizard’s promise of riches in his extremely cramped wendy house, as the four warriors pretended to drink tea from tiny, plastic cups and turned brightly coloured dials decorated with smiling faces, burned bright in his mind. Through this flame, he listened to the wizard’s lamentations, in between bearded and erratically painful coughing fits, of a possession long lost, the wooden box of spells, condiments and cards of all things tarot, Pokemon, and nudey ladies. He watched as the smiling yet sad magician produced a large silver key, the only means of breaking the box’s enchanted seal, and placed it on the plastic yellow table in front of them. Then he listened as the bearded sorcerer dived into detailed derivations of directions through lands unbound, forests untamed and mountains unbroken, and finally of the dark catacombs at journey’s end. Then Ileus tightened as the old wizard trawled through twisted tales of terror tinged with a taste of tragedy and torture, the warning of the gruesome and grotesque gorgon itself and how it had forced him to flee from a compound-gathering exercise and leave the source of his wizardy behind, lost in the gloom. Then the wizard had bewitched and bewildered them all with boundless banter and other words beginning with B.
Then it was time to leave, and the warriors had begun their quest … and now, as Ileus became slowly aware of the deafening silence, the end of his suddenly lonesome journey. For there in the stifling blackness, leaning askew against a broken column with only the wink of iridescent fungus to reveal its presence, was the box the old wizard so yearned for. Whether by luck or mystic guidance, Ileus’ feet had carried him to the very spot he sought – a kind twist of fate indeed, for he had totally forgotten where he was headed.
With lingering fragments of his dreams flitting through his mind, he dared not reach out at first lest the monster hear him. But though it was nearby, and would surely discover him before the hour was out, it was not close enough to deter him from his quest’s end. He slowly and carefully reached out and lifted the small yet heavy box. Shaking and cradling it carefully, he ran his fingers over its well-veneered surface and fingered the oversized keyhole in its side. Within lay powers unimaginable, and with it the means to escape this evil place with his life, to garner riches beyond dreams. He felt a pang for his lost comrades and wondered too if they might even be restorable to the ranks of the living. Dare he dream? With trembling fingers, he reached inside his pouch for the large silver key given him by the kindly wizard.
With a strangled cry and a resounding slap to the head, he realised he’d left it on the wizard’s stupid bloody yellow plastic table.