An awareness slowly wavered before her, amid the bobbing sensation inside her head. Somewhere between a dream and a memory, Sienna’s mind was taken back to the time as a young girl, when she had been caught in a beaching wave, and had been spun head over heels.
Her sense of orientation was as foggy as the noises.
Not noises. She was hearing voices.
Strangers were calling out. Some were raised in anger. But all of them spoke of distress.
She did not know what was making the grief all around her, bringing to mind images of the aftermath of a battle. The aftermath of a battle just fought, which would explain the burning sensation on her back. A family member must have been lost.
Guilt, at not knowing who had actually fallen, injected itself into her jumbling thoughts, with a need to know who exactly it was, because without their name in the Song of Diergon, they might get lost on the way to his mighty Hall.
But the foggy sensation remained around her.
Anger, at not knowing what was happening, gave her strength. The pain in her back was an anchor for her mind to hold onto, and she gradually clawed her way to consciousness. Slowly, she forced her bleary eyes open.
And then she promptly wondered if she was still asleep.
With the burning between her shoulder blades, she knew she was not in a dream. Worried less about the possibility of a wound, she focused instead on the alien world that greeted her.
She was in a giant cavern. But it was no natural cave. It had been built. And what a feat of building! She swooned as she took in the size of the place.
She could not move. Looking down at her arms, she saw she was submerged nearly to the shoulders in some substance like mud, holding her fast. But it was not mud.
Then she saw more things moving around her. The blurriness sloughed off her eyes, and she saw people around her. Everywhere she looked, there were people held in the same, ugly, greenish, glowing ooze. She tried to move, but could not.
She pushed, forcing herself against the slimy substance to rise, as her body was lying sort of lopsided. She was determined to get her feet under her.
She gave a grunt.
“So, you’re awake.”
She slowly looked around, and spotted Daws, standing on a catwalk above the Slime-pit.
“We went to a lot of trouble to bring you here. You might as well settle in.”
“You might as well make peace with your gods, little man,” she rasped.
“Hah! That’s the spirit! Keep the courage up! You’re only feeding the cause!”
A man beside Sienna spat curses at the Tinker. But she was distracted, as a morbidly strange creature slithered up beside him.
She took in the sight of the new arrival, with the upper body of a woman, and the lower body of a huge snake. She was not unattractive in the face, but her cold eyes held a mood of ugly contempt. She immediately locked Sienna in a stare-down.
And then, as if her appearance was not strange enough, she actually spoke.
“You’ve done your part well, Daws. I just hope it works.”
Sienna noticed the condescending tone of voice.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Lady Pouzelle,” Daws replied.
His lack of attention to her insults, Sienna surmised, was his weapon against her. She took a careful look at the swords belted to Pouzelle’s scaly hips, to assess how well she might use them.
“Lady Sienna’s leader,” he went on, “will sit in front of that shroom, trying to find a way to open the door to rescue her.”
Then he looked back down at Sienna, with a tone that was so calm, it was not even hostile.
“She’s not going to leave that spot. She’ll stop causing trouble. That’s the weakness among your kind, hero. Your own leader will forget the mission, just because of your ties.
“She’ll be there, when this army of tri-cleorps comes out of the shrooms in full force. She’ll be overwhelmed and torn to pieces, all her efforts for naught. She won’t even be remembered in your foolish songs.”
“We’re going to get you,” she replied quietly.
“You’ll be the only one left alive when she’s dead. The masters might find amusement with you after all this is done, turning you into a new creature.”
He and Pouzelle departed, and Sienna looked around the chamber, and the hundreds of people trapped alongside her.
Some were already dead. From all appearances, with the sunken cheeks and thin flesh, they had wasted away. By Diergon, some of them were children!
She looked to the front of the chamber, and saw, at the head of the cavern, a throne, broken and covered with refuse. This had been a kingdom once.
A little ways to the right of the throne, there stood a giant toadstool. Not shaped like the shrooms in the forest, it was shorter, about 12 feet tall. Thick of trunk, it had a mildew-white skin, and bright purple-pink spots on its rust-colored hat.
She realized the green light in the cavern was coming from not just the Slime, but also the Toadstool. It was a magical thing.
A group of wizards stood around it, all wearing dark and hooded robes, all chanting and waving their hands in magical gestures.
As Daws and Imep exited the Hall, Sye-nitch trotted along behind, listening closely.
“Imep,” the human said discreetly, “I meant what I said back there. Let the girl sit in front of that shroom. She won’t leave.
“Stop trying to take her. She’ll be there when your tribe comes into the forest; and you’ll have your revenge good and proper.”
Sye-nitch wanted to say something, as the bigger fighter stayed quiet, but Daws added, “The Daghaivan will use any excuse to make you look bad. Be patient, then get the rewards.”
Reluctantly, Imep grunted agreement.
Without another word, Daws took his leave down a separate dark tunnel, courteously walking farther away before lighting his little lantern, to make his way back to his own exit-shroom.
Sye-nitch waited until the glow was out of sight.
“We’re still following the orders of a human?”
“He’s not ordering us” Imep growled. His scowling head bore straight ahead, as he plodded on his way. “The Daghaivan hate him almost as much as they hate us.
“Now we owe him a favor. On the Day of Conquer, we might be the only thing that keeps him alive.”
“Then let’s take the woman now!”
“No! She’s stronger than she was before. We’re not going to be seen losing more of our tribe. We follow his advice, and get her later.”
Sienna studied the Toadstool, and the wizards, for several minutes.
She turned to the man beside her, who had cursed at Daws.
Before she could ask, he spoke up.
“Tombart is my name, Lady. These evil worms carried me from my home. That Toadstool is magical. This Slime is magical. They’re connected.” A look of apathy clouded his eyes, as if his spirit had waned away. “They’re drawing the life-force out of us, to power their spell. And here we sit, trapped.”
She just nodded. The abominable substance was unnatural. She felt its foul nature, just as in the forest, as if her spirit were being touched in some obscene way.
Studying her fellow prisoner’s thinned cheeks and squalid eyes, she asked, “A cursed place this is. But where is it?”
“An old dwarf kingdom.”
She scowled, and tried to move again. The burning came back.
The burning came, but was not harming her. She could bear it. She started to rise up.
Tombart moaned, his head rolling. Then the groaning spread to more people around her, as if they were being affected.
Sienna stopped. As she let herself sink back down, a wave of weakness, like seasickness, washed over her. She had to take a moment.
“That just makes it worse,” Tombart told her. “It leeches your strength faster, if you try to move. Anger and movement just feed it more.”
“Does it burn you?”
“No.”
The young woman studied the Great Hall again.
“I don’t know what you would save your strength for. Even if you could crawl out of this muck, where would you go? Our lives are over.”
“Ha! For this insult, it’s their lives that are over.”
He looked at her bewilderedly.
“Master Tombart, Fawnlum Lichner is the one whom these dogs face.
“Look at me!” she snapped.
He turned his eyes back to her.
“This suffering won’t make me heel to these scum,” she said, with a feral smile. “Hiding in this forsaken hole won’t save them. She’ll find her way down here, and they’ll pay!”
