Noises in the Dark

A traditional entrance to the Steel Perilous looked a lot different from the one Trick had emerged from. It was less a doorway in the side of a hill and more a massive pit descending through huge drifts of red sand and jagged sheets of twisted metal. After they unloaded the zelpnirs Chestin whispered something in their ears and sent them trotting off across the desert.

Trick paused in the middle of his stretches. “Are they going to be okay?”

“They're very intelligent creatures,” Sari said. “They'll make their way back to Harbek on their own just as easily without us as with us. Maybe easier.”

“That works, I guess.” He bent to touch his toes, groaning as he tried to get his overworked muscles to relax. On the balance of things he wasn't sad to see the zelpnirs go. Riding was not exactly a fun way to get around and if he had to ride through the Steel Perilous he wasn't going to be in any condition to do anything if another machine creature attacked.

“Are you two ready?” Chestin asked. He had divided up all their supplies and started handing them out. “Nothing wrong with taking the time to let your muscles recover. We have the food for it.”

“Do we need to worry about Harbek sending someone to drag us back to town?” Trick asked.

“Not likely,” Sari said. “No one elder outranks the other except in their specialties. Nel and Brossius could probably make Dart’s life difficult for a while if he refuses to send the lensmen or harvest guards out after you but I think he’ll just deal with it.”

“Not even if all six other elders lean on him?”

“Maybe then,” Sari conceded. “However I don’t think Brossius has the favors he’d need to call in to sway all five other elders over to his way of seeing things. And in this case, one of the elders is my mother so she’s not likely to go along with him for anything.”

Trick nodded. “I had wondered about that.”

“Shall we rest, then?” Chestin asked.

“I’d like to make a few more hours of progress,” Trick admitted. Still, as he stared down into the murky depths of the pit before him he wondered if setting out right away was the best way to go. “Are there safe places to camp down there?”

“A few. Not many known ones in this part of the Steel, though there’s one about five hours from here if all goes well.” Chestin shot him a glance out of the corner of his eyes. “I’m sure you remember what I’ve said about the importance of staying well rested, though.”

“We are under the open sky,” Sari pointed out. “Zenith wasn’t that long ago. I suppose we’re not likely to attract anything to Harbek, given where we’re going, but the ninth sphere could still find us and give us a bad time. We could just go down to the first layer and camp there. It might be safer.”

Chestin did not look impressed with that assessment. “It’s not the Steel Safer, Sari.”

“Then we’ll push for the known safe zone,” Trick said. “If we’re going to have to take a risk one way or the other I’d rather take the one that puts us closer to our goal.”

“Very well.” Chestin handed each of them their share of supplies. “I will go first, Sari will take the rear. If you see anything remotely out of place, put a ward between you and it right away. We can investigate it from behind a barrier just as easily as not. Trick, if something actually attacks us, you’ll be in position to hit it right away with our best weapon. Don’t wait. Slash whatever it is right away.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The first ten minutes of their trip into peril consisted of carefully half walking, half sliding down the slope of the pit full of rust dust. Tetanus was not the peril Trick had expected from their trip but it certainly qualified. Once they got to the bottom things got more complicated.

Looking around Trick could see the outlines of rusting, decaying walls that might have made up a hexagonal complex like the one he’d arrived in. However, the biggest issue was the floor. Each of them had a five and a half foot walking pole that they pounded on the floor in order to make sure it would hold their weight. Twice the floor gave way and they were forced to change their route. Working their way through the decayed chambers took the better part of an hour.

As they progressed they would occasionally hear scuttling sounds. The poles had topaz crystals mounted in the top which shone like a torch but, when turned with a guide ring, narrowed to a flashlight beam. Once they started hearing noises Trick narrowed his light crystal to a beam and started chasing them with it.

Chestin told him to stop but when Trick asked why the other man just shrugged and said, “If you want to know I suppose it doesn’t hurt.”

After chasing phantom noises for fifteen minutes or so he finally caught sight of the source of the noise. It was a small bundle of wheels and pincer arms. The whole thing couldn’t be more than two feet long and a foot tall and it was busy scooping up the rusty sand on the ground into a small container on top of the creature. After about a minute of that it rolled off somewhere. “Is that thing trying to clean up the red sand?”

“Possibly. Maybe they’re taking it down to some place where it can be smelted.” Chestin pointed at a part of the wall that looked like it had been chipped away at by pincers like the creature’s. “Sometimes you see them pulling apart the walls, too. There’s a lot of them on the upper levels around here, although I didn’t see any signs of them in the area you took us to.”

“So maybe not cleaners but the first phase of a repair process?” Trick frowned. “I wonder if the snake thing was actually a maintenance drone, too…”

“They’re just perils,” Chestin said. “Nothing more. Nothing less. Contemplate them at length when you’re elsewhere but here they are all simply dangers to be overcome. Those creatures aren’t cleaners. They aren’t maintainers. They just distract you from the potential dangers all around us. Keep focused. Listen for the size of the gears rolling over the floor. Small gears are distractions. Bigger gears are something dangerous.”

“What if I hear something with legs instead of gears?” Sari asked.

“Anything with legs is big enough to be dangerous,” Chestin said. He pointed his staff forward and shifted his light to the beam mode, illuminating a narrow opening in the wall that didn’t look quite like a doorway. “That’s a vertical shaft. We’ll need to get down that to reach the second level.”

“And I thought the hatch was bad,” Trick muttered.

“How long is the shaft?” Sari asked.

“Not long. The sides are very flat, though.” He pulled a rope from his sack and they tied it to Trick’s walking stick then wedged that across the shaft’s opening. Chestin carefully walked himself backwards down the shaft, holding onto the rope while Trick braced the stick. He kept his own light pointed downwards.

The shaft was only ten or twelve feet deep but Chestin took almost three minutes to get down it, not only testing the sides of the shaft to ensure they would hold his weight but constantly sweeping light over the bottom of the shaft. When he finally got there he looked up and said, “Come on down. I’ll look around the room here.”

Chestin stepped out of the shaft and his light bobbed around out of sight. Trick glanced at Sari. “Do you want to go first?”

She looked briefly offended. “Do you think I can’t anchor you here?”

“You can anchor me wherever you want but in this case-”

A shout came up from below. Without pausing to say anything else Trick grabbed the rope and dropped feet first into the shaft, sliding down as quickly as he could.