The plan was sketchy at best. Redevere had mentioned a portal between the Dreamlands and the Place of Waiting, but it was a mission to get to. The entrance was nestled behind the bookshelf of someone called the Crawling Creepiness, or something like that. The youthful looking demon was not clear about names, something people had mentioned to her a lot over the aeons.
Since returning from the fateful trip where Andrew had discovered the true nature of his ‘guide,’ Redevere had made herself at home in his apartment, and was having a great time. One thing Andrew noticed, not without a twinge of jealousy, was Redevere’s ability to live in the moment and cast all other cares to the wind.
“When you’re a fallen angel, you’re living on borrowed time. A lot of motivation to focus on the present, yeah?” was how she explained it when he had asked.
Now the pair were back in the Dreamlands, Andrew was wishing he was back in his apartment with his new partner living on borrowed time, and not here in the dark, dank valleys and gullies at the foot of Kadath, dodging creatures of nightmares Andrew really did not need to know about.
The guarded archway of the underground city was still a couple of hundred yards away, but the light thrown off by large braziers on the ground just near the entrance revealed hideous creatures in full metal armour, wielding vicious halberds with viciously serrated edges. Crouched beneath a tree, behind the trunk, the pair watched and waited. Far above them, on the summit of Kadath itself, Andrew knew was the one place no one with any brains wanted to go. It was a castle or something like that, but Andrew had never seen it and had intended to keep it that way.
The guards changed as the new watch emerged from the subterranean realm below. Andrew could see no way he and Redevere could slip through between the shifts, something a sharp, hissing intake of air by Redevere confirmed.
“We need another way in,” Andrew whispered.
“No crap, meatie. Ventilation,” Redevere replied.
Not exactly trusting his new infernal friend, but having little choice, Andrew followed her as she edged to their right, careful to stay under the cover of the trees and in the shadows. Andrew questioned the wisdom of keeping her pink tracksuit on, given it was hardly blending into the natural hues around them. If he ignored Redevere’s unnatural (to him) skin colour, she was quite an attractive wom . . . demon. Andrew shook his head violently, jolting his thoughts onto more relevant tracks. If Redevere had sensed his thoughts, she gave no hints of it.
After about an hour of trekking through the edges of the high altitude forest, Redevere stopped and pointed. Against a wall in the side of the mountain, a small plume of white smoke or steam rose lazily before the light breeze dispersed it into the night air. Without a word, Redevere turned straight for it, looked around the mountain’s side and the trees, and then stepped out into the open, striding straight for the source at the wall. Andrew had no choice but to summon up the appearance of confidence and follow the curvaceous demon.
The pair had nearly made it when a voice stopped them dead in their tracks. Andrew had to force his hands to remain down.
“Who goes there?” a loud, rumbling voice demanded.
“And who do you think you are talking to, you half-breed goblin?” Redevere snapped back, her index finger punctuating every word.
A swarthy, brown-skinned, leathery creature, dressed in the same armour as the guards at the gate and bearing the jagged halberd, closed his mouth. His eyes darted from Redevere to Andrew and back again. There was a slight wobble in the halberd’s point.
“I am looking for intruders,” the guard responded, pulling himself up to his full height, which was considerable.
“And do we look like intruders?” Redevere asked, somehow looking down her red nose at the taller guard, her pointed ears moving.
“Um . . .,” the guard mumbled.
“Would intruders be strolling about here for all to see? In the open?” Redevere pressed her advantage.
“Um . . . No?” the guard was taking a wild stab in the dark.
“See, you’re smarter than most,” Redevere smiled at the guard like he was the most gifted child in a class full of gifted kids.
“What do I tell the commander you are doing?”
“You tell him nothing, guard,” Redevere smiled more widely, and Andrew was sure she batted her eyelashes at him. “He’s a busy man. He doesn’t need to be bothered about us when we clearly belong here, does he?”
“No. True.”
“Good. What’s your name, guard? My friend here and I can put in a good word about your diligence tonight,” Redevere smiled.
“I am Drog the Bigger,” the guard’s eyes filled with pride at a job well done.
“Thank you, Drog the Bigger. You have done well, tonight,” Redevere almost intoned ceremoniously.
Drog lowered his halberd, turned, and marched away, continuing on his rounds with a renewed bounce in his step.
“They’re dumber than even mortals,” Redevere muttered, as she led the way to the vent.
The opening had a rusted grill over it, heavy bolts holding it down onto the rock of Kadath. Andrew gave the grill a small shake and was surprised to find it moved quite a bit. Redevere glared at him and put her index finger over her mouth. She grabbed one of the bolt heads with a hand and twisted, gritting her teeth, which were pointed and serrated. The bolt quietly sheered off. Andrew tried to do the same, but it was no use, despite the grunts he put into it. Redevere snorted when she saw him and continued with the other bolts, shaking her head and muttering something about flesh-imprisoned humans.
Andrew helped Redevere remove the loosened grill, and surprisingly Redevere said nothing rude about it. Underneath the grill was a narrow hole plunging down into the side of the mountain at a very sharp angle. Andrew was a thin man, so he would have no trouble moving down it and controlling his speed. Redevere, quite a curvy person with a generous figure, was going to find it tougher going. Redevere arched her eyebrow at Andrew when she caught him looking at her, a ‘what’s your problem’ look in her eyes.
With no better response coming to mind, Andrew climbed up to the opening, lowered his legs into it, and started sliding down with his feet, and then his arms, braced on opposite sides of the vent. He was a thin man, but he had a surprising amount of strength. He put it down to years of yoga. As he moved down, speeding up as he gained confidence, he heard Redevere enter the vent and follow him. The human paused every so often to allow the demon time to catch up with him.
It could not have taken all that long, but it seemed like it. Dimness inside the vent finally gave way to a growing light source at the bottom, which was hardly better than a dim candle. Andrew wondered what was at the bottom and why the light coming from it was so dim. With any luck, he hoped it was something like a storage room, with no one in it. The first clue he was wrong were the moaning sounds rising up through the vent. Andrew suppressed a shudder.
Then the stench hit him like a hammer blow to the inside of his nasal cavity. Redevere was happily humming a dirge to herself, giving the whole scene a dark and oddly dissonant feel. Andrew looked down just as the foetid miasma separated into stale sweat, tangy blood, and rotten faecal matter. The human had to clamp his mouth shut and tense his stomach up to prevent his last meal from raining down through the vent.
At the bottom of the hole, Andrew stopped with his feet just inside the vent’s shaft. He carefully listened, facing each ear down in turn, hoping to detect the smallest movement or whisper. There was nothing except the constant moaning emanating from what Andrew imagined were the ravaged remains of more than one inmate. Andrew was wondering what to do when Redevere hissed at him with a jerk of her chin at the opening, all emphasised by a scowl.
Suddenly, the hissing from Redevere was taken up by whatever was below them. Andrew heard not just one voice, but a multitude of them. There was nothing for it. Andrew braced himself for the drop and snapped his legs together, letting him fall into the space below. The drop came up short. Andrew felt his knees buckle, as he hit the floor much sooner than expected. He rolled through to the left, smacking into something soft and fleshy. The muttered curses were colourful, as Andrew stood and rammed his head up into the low, stone ceiling. He found he was face-to-face with a similarly bent over young woman who had a spoon poking out of her left eye socket. An older man, whose hand was on the spoon, just stopped whatever he was doing and stared at Andrew. Andrew stared back. Until a thud followed by more flowery swearing and cursing from different voices erupted behind them.
“Calm the hell down, morons! What idiot stands under a hole? Tell me that!” Redevere was raging at the people she had landed on, shaking a red fist at the four of them. She even kicked the youngest, an elementary school kid, in the ankle, getting the middle finger in response.
By the time Redevere had turned her attention to her surroundings, the hissing shushes had started being interspersed with calls to shut up and worse. Andrew noticed some of the voices were coming from further and further away. Andrew spotted one person who was saying nothing, and approached her.
“Excuse me, I’m really sorry to disturb you, but do you know whe . . .,” Andrew stopped short when the young woman with dark skin turned around.
Andrew took a step backwards, bumping in Redevere, who grunted loudly at him. The woman now facing them looked African, wearing what had been very nice clothing which had seen better days. Torn to ribbons and bearing gaping holes, the woman’s clothes suggested she had been through some hard times. Andrew’s guess was confirmed when she tried to speak.
“Thsha sha plash o aitin,” she replied, one hand on her face.
Andrew gasped when he noticed a dark, jagged line circling three sides of the woman’s face, and he realised the hand was holding her face back against the front of her skull. The edges were waving slightly with the woman’s movements.
“Pardon?” Andrew whispered, edging closer to the woman.
“Aiden. Aiden,” the woman repeated.
“She said, it’s the place of waiting, you dunce,” Redevere intervened.
Andrew looked about, wondering how they were going to find Gabriel Neilsson. It was not like he was going to jump and wave in this cramped place, with its ceiling just over a metre and a half from the floor. Then he had a brainwave.
“You,” Andrew said to the man he had nearly landed on quite loudly. “Yeah, old guy, with the spoon.”
The man turned, along with the woman who still had the spoon in her face, and glared at Andrew, index finger rising to his mouth. He shook his head with a scowl like Andrew was an ignorant tosser.
“Look, you want me to shut up. Fine. I need to find Gabriel Neilsson the sailor. The sooner I find him, the sooner I’m out of this joint,” Andrew said, raising his voice a little more. “Everyone, pass the word to your neighbours. Gabriel Neilsson. Sailor. Show yourself!”
Hisses and cries of ‘shut up’ changed to moans, which then morphed into muttered questions, all three words. ‘Gabriel Neilsson? Sailor?” It was a like a wave on a lake, the sound moving in an even circle away from Andrew and Redevere, as people passed the message to those around them. The sound dimmed and vanished when it had got too far away to hear. Those people around Andrew and Redevere had returned to their sullen, morbid silence.
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