“Don’t jist stand there loike a couple o’ harebrained ninnies,” shrieked Rafferty, “don’t y’ recognize a prison break whin y’ see wan?”
They bolted outward, Perry scooping up the door bar in passing, to bring it smashing into a Goblinoid Human’s knee, shattering the cap, the guard falling screeching to the floor, where his days were ended by Marley and his lethal bucket.
“Bork!” I heard a shriek, and looked up in time to see Tynvyr and Rufous bearing down on me. “Up behind! We’ve got to help Fiz!”
I leapt astraddle Rufous behind Tynvyr, and through milling legs and stomping feet we darted for the exit. While behind, Tip with Drak’s sword, Perry with a bar, Rafferty with a nightstick scooped up from a fallen foe, and Marley with his killer bucket battled the remaining guards.
But two of the Goblinoids, shouting at the tops of their lungs, raced after Tynvyr and Rufous and me.
Up the spiral stairs we ran, Rufous leaping up three steps at a time, the Goblinoids right behind. Up from the basement and to the first floor, we fled, Rufous darting down a long hall, toward the stairs at the far end, Tynvyr crying “Yah! Yah!”
Behind us thundered the guards, yelling for aid, but we did not slow to see if they were answered.
Up the second set of spiral stairs twisted Rufous, the fox beginning to labor, for he was carrying double, not used to bearing someone of my massive size.
Even so, ahead of the guards we bounded onto the second floor, and with claws scrabbling and Tynvyr shouting and guards thudding up after, Rufous charged down the long hall to come unto the Rooms of Forbidden Illusions.
Past doors we flashed, glancing into the rooms as Rufous ran by. And at the third door, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Fiz—“Stop!” shrieked Tynvyr, the fox planting his front feet stiff-leggedly while hunkering down his rear, skidding on the slippery floor, sliding and spinning, whirling me off to fly through the air, arms flailing and legs thrashing. I crashed to a stop against a wall ten feet beyond.
Dizzily, I scrambled up. Even now, the Goblinoid Humans were charging toward us. Rufous with Tynvyr still aboard scrabbled back toward the door where we had seen Fiz, and I darted after. We made it into the room just ahead of the pursuers.
And there was Fiz.
There, too, was Khassan, across the room, on his knees, crying “No! Please no!” He was begging!
And Fiz was at the border of the carpet, my awl in her hand, poised over the rug’s edge binding.
What the … ?
“No!” shrieked Khassan. “I’ll let you all go! I’ll set you all free! Just please don’t do it. He will get out!”
Footsteps thudded behind us. The guards!
“No, no!” Khassan screamed.
I looked at the carpet, and hidden down deeply within the pattern, I could barely make something out. And with my poor Fairy Sight, so very weak when compared with Fiz’s, I could just discern a huge face peering up through the geometrical design, a deep red face with yellow, viperous eyes and a leering mouth filled with glistening fangs, the face of a—plink
The barely audible plink of a breaking thread sounded as Fiz broke the binding on the carpet.
RRRRAAAWWWW!
Explosively expanding out from the carpet, swelling upward and crashing through the ceiling, shattering open the Yellow Poppy like a rotten melon, exposing the grublike patrons to the Sun, suddenly, the gigantic form of a massive Demon towered high above, laughing ghoulishly and shouting “Free! Free!”
Wreckage crashed down all around us, and flames blasted upward as something below caught fire. “Fiz, get out of there! Use your wings! Fly! Flee!” I shouted, darting toward the ruin of the stairs, the front stairs, they were closer.
“Bork!” Once again Tynvyr and Rufous came to my aid, and I leapt upon the back of the fox, and he ran like Hel.
Khassan fled, too, as did his guards, running before us.
But then a great hand came down and scooped up shrieking Khassan, lifting him high into the air. Suddenly there was a squashing sound, as of a bug being smashed, chopping off Khassan’s screams in mid-shriek.
Downward we fled, Rufous bounding in great leaps from stair fragment to stair fragment, from shattered rubble to tumbled ruin, flying across gaps that took my breath away. And I knew then that neither Tynvyr nor I would have made it without the fox.
The front of the building was burst open, and we bolted outward into the alleyway street. Behind us, flames raged.
“Hiyo!” came a call, and out from the wreckage stumbled Tip and Perry and Rafferty and Marley, the Gnome still carrying his killer bucket. And flying down from above came Fiz.
And towering upward into the sky loomed a gigantic Demon, red pulp dripping from his closed right fist, and he laughed horribly, madly, his yellow viperous eyes wide and glaring insanely.
Reaching down into the flames, the Demon lifted something up from the burning wreck. It was another of the rugs. He pulled loose one thread, and a second gigantic Demon appeared, towering up into the sky.
Swiftly, three more Demons were loosed, making five in all. And they looked at one another and laughed their mad laughs. Then, as if of one mind, they sped away from one another, to come to five points equidistant on the perimeter of the city.
Rafferty looked and with trepidation in his voice said, “Saints presarve us, they are at th’ points o’ a pentagram.”
At that moment, violent ocherous energy crackled along a five-pointed web between the Demons, and suddenly, there we were, us and the whole wicked city, under a dark maroon Sun, while overhead a black Moon sailed through a sulfurous yellow sky.
“Neddra, Neddra,” howled the Demons, and then I knew that somehow the entire city had been transported to the Lower Realms. And across the endless dust-laden plains and past the bubbling pools of lava came marching great ravening hordes: the Legions of the Undead.
We had gone to Hèl.
We were in Hèl.
We were surrounded by Hèl.
We ran like Hèl.
Just ahead of gibbering corpses, slavering black-fanged baying things, flaming devils, tall stalking creatures made of bones, yellow-eyed leathery-webbed howlers, ebon wraiths, and other things too hideous to describe. And racing past us and through the city streets veered thundering chariots, drawn by Hèlsteeds and bearing howling ghouls waving jagged lances, great spinning blades upon the wheels, each ghoul swerving to try to impale us on that whirling death. Yet we dodged and darted, and fled before them, running for our very lives, trying to reach the Halfling House.
And as we ran, great shudders racked the city, thunderous explosions booming, buildings blasting apart, ruby fire flaring upward into the sulfurous sky. Crowds of people raced this way and that, screaming dopers and slavers and sadistic guards, panderers, thieves, ruffians, brigands, muggers, burglars, the entire population of this wicked city, all of them of one vile sort or another, the entire population and us, too, fleeing before the ravenous Hordes of Hèl.
Just ahead of death, we ran, and at last, there was our goaclass="underline" the Halfling House.
Darting and dashing, Fiz flying, across the final rubble-strewn field we fled and onto the porch, slamming inward through the door, Rafferty coming last, bolting inward and under a table, crying “Dando! Away! Fly! Foe! Flee!”
Dando twisted his ring.
Nothing happened.
“The door, Rafferty!” he shrieked. “Shut the door!”
But I was closest and scrambled for the door just as this huge, claw-handed, skull-faced Giant came ripping up out of the soil—RRRRAAAWWWW!—lunging forward, reaching for the opening, just as I slammed it shut.