Massively Multiplayer (41 page)

They looked at the pile again.

Gingerly, Dinah extracted one of the longer bones from the pile. She appraised it for a moment, then found a match further down in the pile. Carefully, she laid them down on the altar stone. “I think those are legs,” she said quietly, still smiling at Malcolm. “Anyone see the feet?”

The answer, when it came, was anticlimactic. Under the helpful guidance of Ghostmaker, who revealed a disturbingly accurate knowledge of human anatomy, they gathered the rest of the bone fragments scattered throughout the tomb and laid them on the slab. Working deftly, Ghostmaker arranged them into a humanoid form, while Dinah observed from her perch on a nearby chunk of broken pillar, cradling the skull in her arms.

“That’s it then,” Ghostmaker indicated, stepping back. Druin shook his head. Who knew that there were so many bones in a human body?

Dinah stepped forward, raising the skull to perch it at one end of the array, then hesitated. Turning, she handed it to Malcolm instead, with a smile. “Here, my boy. Your insight was the one which inspired this solution – you should have the honors.”

Ghostmaker scowled blackly. Druin noticed Dinah’s smile widen a bit.

Malcolm, oblivious to the byplay, bowed and raised his voice in his best knight-errant fashion: “May thy bones know rest at last. Ashes to ashes...dust to Duster.” He placed the skull on the altar and took a step back.

For a moment, nothing happened. Ghostmaker opened his mouth to say something disparaging.

The Altar split in half, then quarters, then crumbled away into sand – dust – which swirled away down a passage which led into the rock. Druin glimpsed a rough circular staircase, which was obscured as Ghostmaker stepped forward.

“Right,” he said, asserting his position. “I’ll take point. Dru and Malcolm cover me, Princess you’re our reserve firepower.”

“And I, Ghostmaker?” Dinah asked quietly.

He hesitated. “You’re roving, backing up Princess B. with the fireworks or patching up the front liners as needed. You’ll do what you like, anyway, won’t you?” he said with a touch of bitterness, then turned to descend the stair.

“Indeed.” Druin wasn’t sure that anyone else saw her smile, but then, he was supposed to be too busy to see it himself. Hastening to his position, he followed Ghostmaker down into darkness.

Anticlimax, meet climax. Ambushes, by definition, always happen just when you’re getting confident.

As he rounded the second bend in the stairs, Ghostmaker suddenly halted. Druin heard him muttering, “hang on, there’s a—,“ before a hand reached up into the circle of light cast by Butterfly’s hairpin and yanked the swordsman down and away.

There was a loud metallic crunch as Ghostmaker twisted to land on top of his attacker, then a ringing sound as he rained blows with his shortsword. “Bugger! There’s a bunch of – get down here, mates! Princess! Light!”

Behind him, Druin sensed Butterfly’s arm sweeping forward, and motes of glitter sprang from the tips of her fingers. Wherever the blue-white specks struck, whether rock or combatant, they stuck, and the cavern was soon bathed in a flickering azure glow.

The scene that was thus illuminated was enough to inspire panic. Ghostmaker has on his knees, crushing the ribcage of a humanoid figure with papery gray skin stretched taut over its bones. One dead black eye glittered madly from an eye-socket, the other a pulpy ruin splattered across the hollow cheeks. Ghostmaker was hammering the pommel of his sword against the thing’s head in an effort to make it give up the grip it had on his other wrist, but it refused to budge. Amazingly, the thing somehow had enough strength remaining to yank Ghostmaker’s hand towards its maw, and its open jaws worked furiously, clearly trying to take a bite out of him.

Beyond the two struggling forms, a cavern with multiple openings stretched away into darkness, and from several of them more of the emaciated creatures were emerging, drawn by the noise and the light. With howls of hunger, they charged.

“Mr. Wallace? I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I need a little clarification on a few things down here before our techs go home for the night. Won’t take but a moment, I promise.”

Wolfgang regarded the window on his computer, which featured a miniature portrait of Agent Blanks, with suspicion. Schooling his features into a semblance of calm, he thumbed on the camera pickup.

“Can you be more specific about what you need? I can arrange for us to be accompanied by the appropriate technicians from our side...”

“That won’t be necessary,” Blanks smiled. “I have to confess, I’m also fascinated with your setup down here and I’d love your input on the human side of things.” His beaming face was warm and sincere and charming and as absolutely artificial as a seven-dollar bill.

“I’ll be right down,” Wolfgang agreed, before he could talk himself out of it. There was no question that Blanks’ interests would be more than casual. It was just as obvious that Blanks assumed Wolf’s knowledge of this fact. He was playing along and expected Wolfgang to play along too. But would the correct response therefore be to play the part of a smiling company front-man, or a suspicious, potential mole for the Agency? Or did Blanks already know something about his conversation with Tenser, and was this a fishing expedition? Should he acknowledge the contact and provide dummy information? Too dangerous. Marybeth might be able to pull it off, but not Wolfgang. He had the dreadful feeling that he was playing an extremely dangerous game without any idea of the rules or who the players really were, or even his own role.

But he had to play. So he would go down to the server floor and smile at Agent Blanks and answer his questions about how Crucible worked and what the administration was like, and maybe some glancing questions about Tenser’s relationship with the company. And he would fret the whole while, trying desperately to hide his cards even from himself.

As he ran, Druin couldn’t help but recall the last time he’d found himself fleeing for his life from a pack of murderous troglodytes. That time, it had been his own fault. If he’d only listened to Uriah and Wisefellow before he...

No, wait, that was the time before. The last time had been his fault too, but only because Malcolm and Jenna had insisted on...

Wait, did the fleeing across the stone plain above the tombs count?

He had a sudden vision of his life, and realized that he’d spent the majority of it running away very fast from dangerous things. It was not a happy picture.

To their credit, the team had performed perfectly. The first wave of attackers had been broken by a smashing rain of stones, courtesy of Princess Butterfly. That gave Ghostmaker the chance to dispatch his foe and form a line of defense with Malcolm on his left and Druin on his right. Dinah had hung back, ready to mend their wounds.

But there were simply too many of the scrawny humanoids to fight. Ghostmaker had traded his shortsword for a broad-bladed axe which he wielded with one hand. With his other he launched dart after dart at the oncoming swarm. Druin picked off one with his blowpipe, then switched to his long knives as the horde drew closer. He stabbed one in the arm, then swung his second knife low, the broad blade clipping entirely through the brittle legs. To his left, he could hear Ghostmaker grunting as another was slammed backwards by the force of a blow. He was almost deafened by the roar of another barrage from Butterfly, and was only saved from disaster when Dinah poked her staff over the top of his head to ward off an attacker which had drawn too close.

But despite the damage they were dealing, there seemed to be no limit to their foes, who were pouring now from all but one of the open cave mouths which ringed the chamber. Abruptly, Ghostmaker leveled his axe at the remaining arch, a gaping mouth with stalactite teeth. “That way,” he commanded, charging forward like a linebacker and taking another of the scabrous corpse-men with him.

Druin had no choice. He could see, with a certainty born of pessimism, that they were being herded towards this exit, but he was powerless to do anything but follow Ghostmaker’s rapidly diminishing bulk. If he stayed put, he would be engulfed. If he retreated up the stairway, he would run into Dinah and Butterfly. Summoning up whatever courage he could, he charged the nearest gray thing, knives first, impaling it on both blades. He felt the hollow-chested thing collapse like a Chinese lantern of paper and twigs, and ripped his arms apart, flinging the two halves into the masses on either side. Dust, rather than blood, sprayed in a gray cloud, obscuring his vision but not enough to keep him from following Ghostmaker into the cave mouth. Behind him, he could hear Butterfly and Dinah, and knew instinctively that Malcolm had taken the rear guard position to cover their retreat.

Stumbling down the dark passageway, Druin had just enough time to wonder why they were being herded this way before he shot out into unexpectedly open space. There was nothing under his feet, and he pivoted forward, tumbling downwards into blackness before an arm snapped out and gripped his shoulder.

“Steady, mate! Off to the side, help me catch the others!”

It was Ghostmaker, who yanked him unceremoniously back up onto solid ground before swiveling back to cover the tunnel.

Druin took a moment to glance around. They were in another large chamber, this one illuminated by light filtering through several chinks in the stone overhead. They were standing on a narrow stone ledge overlooking a vast pit which took up the majority of the chamber’s floor. The remnants of a shattered stone arch jutted from the other side of the chamber, and Druin experienced a nasty case of deja-vu. Didn’t this resemble the treasure chamber on the pirate island he’d found with Jenna and Malcolm? That fraction of his brain devoted to keeping track of such things wondered whether the same designer was responsible for both areas. The majority of his attention, however, was drawn to the tricky question of how they were going to get across the pit and so escape the horde of gibbering dust-things pursuing them up the passageway.

The same question occupied a lot of minds. “Princess, we need that bridge” said Ghostmaker grimly. He took another glance back down the passageway. “I suggest you put the hop to it, we ain’t got much time.” He hefted his broad axe and lowered his stance.

“I do not know if I possess the capacity,” the young woman said doubtfully. “I will attempt it.”

She shuffled forward, kimono rustling over the rocks as she knelt on the very edge of the precipice. Placing her delicate hands flat on the stone, she closed her eyes and began humming, a tuneless, eerie noise in sharp counterpoint to the approaching howls of the creatures.

Nervously, Druin tried to split his gaze between the cave mouth and Butterfly’s kneeling form. At first, her efforts seemed to produce no effect. Then, with a crack and groan, a slender spine of stone slid out from the ledge, just below her hands, and began questing towards the shattered remains of the bridge on the far side. The span thickened as it lengthened, and for a moment Druin had hopes that they would actually touch. Then his attention was snapped back to the cave mouth, as the first of their pursuers, faster than its cohorts, rushed forward only to be split in half by a blow from Ghostmaker’s axe. Dust from the two spinning halves of the thing showered over Butterfly, who rocked back on her heels and shook her head.

“I have no more authority,” she confessed in clipped tones. “The stones do not obey.”

“Obey or not, we’ve got to get over that gap,” Ghostmaker ordered as he leveled the dart-thrower on his wrist at another foe down the passageway. “They’ve figured out it’s no use running up here one at a time, but they’re massing for a rush. They figure they got all the time in the world.”

“Don’t they?” Druin muttered.

“Not by half, mate. You’re a scout, right? Well get ahead and scout then! Move your legs!”

“But how will that...”

“Bring a rope, fool!” Ghostmaker punctuated his demand with a volley of darts which were answered by wails of rage from the darkness.

Quickly they gathered a length of light, strong cordage from Druin’s backpack, and Malcolm knelt to tie it around his waist. “Are we even sure this is the right way?” he asked.

“At present, it is the only way, child,” Dinah said solemnly. She patted Druin on the back. “Do not fail us, young man.”

Druin risked a glance down into the depths of the pit. “Oh, I’ve got the best reason not to.”

There was no more time for preparation or debate. The swelling sounds from the cave mouth indicated that their enemies had expended their patience, and were massing for an attack. Druin dashed into the passageway as far as he dared, stopping just short of the nearest gray corpse, then pelted as fast as he could back up towards the chamber, with the thing hot on his heels. He felt the air of Ghostmaker’s axe whicker over his scalp as the warrior crushed his pursuer, then a loss of traction as his feet met the smoother stone of Butterfly’s new bridge, then nothing at all as he sailed out over the void, stretching forward with hands, legs, his neck craned forward to see if he could catch the crumbled arch with his teeth if he had to...

...Somewhere in the crystal heart of a computer outside Seattle, Washington, a relay fired and generated a random number...

...Druin felt himself falling...

...Marcus Tenser watched the figure tumbling through the air, and for a moment wondered if his job might be simplified if he just let it go. But then where would the rest of the party go, and how could he keep them together and focused on their objective long enough for him to finish his task? He needed more time, and he needed the party distracted, not homicidal. So his little peacekeeper would have to live. He reached into the holographic display, his coding avatar already enabled as always, and
pushed
gently...

...Druin thudded onto the stone bridge and wrapped his arms around a massive pillar. He scarcely had time to breathe, still in shock from his flight, before a call came to him from the other side, where his companions waited desperately. He wrenched the rope over his head and threw the loop around the boulder he had been hugging. “It’s on,” he shouted, “go, go
go
!”