“But...” Lars looked up the shaft. “Where does it go?”
“Anywhere but here is looking mighty good,” Krosp snapped. “Everybody! Get on!”
Dimo watched as the creatures wobbled slowly in their direction. “Listen to der kitty. Hy dun like dese tings!”
Kalikoff examined the control panel and swore. “The controls are locked!” He snapped open his knife and attacked the panel. “Gimme a second.”
Dimo looked back at the creatures. One of them shuffled ahead of the rest. It swiveled its stalk towards the worried Jägermonster. Instinctively, Dimo raised his left hand in front of his face, which was why the thin, barbed tentacle that shot from the stalk stung his hand, and not his face.
Astonishingly, Dimo screamed, and stumbled backwards aboard the elevator, just as Kalikoff wrenched a restraining bolt free. A fat spark jumped, and the entire elevator shivered.
“Everybody better be on,” Sturvin yelled as he threw a lever, “’Cause we’re going up!” With a jolt, the elevator cage began to rise. There was a soft pattering, as several dozen of the little barbed tendrils smacked into the bottom of the lift.
Ognian leaned over a kneeling Dimo, who looked up at him with agony on his face. “Dat ting got me mit poison,” he spat.
Ognian bit his lip. “Iz bad?”
“Very bad,” Dimo spoke through clenched teeth. “Hy ken feel it moffink op my arm! Hurry!”
Ognian stood up. With a flick of his fingers, the gigantic halberd spun in place, faster than the eye could follow. He then stopped it instantly, held out his hand, and caught Dimo’s arm as it dropped from above.
Dimo’s eyes closed and he let out a strangled scream before collapsing to the ground.
“You cut his arm off?” Lars asked horrified.
Ognian examined it critically. “Dis vas der correct vun, jah?”
Suddenly his face twisted as the severed arm began to liquefy, oozing out of the sleeve onto the floor. Ognian dropped it with a look of relief. “Yop. Dot vas it.”
Meanwhile, Maxim was already applying a tourniquet to the stump of Dimo’s arm. Ognian leaned in solicitously. “How hyu doink now, brodder?”
With a hiss, Dimo tentatively released the death grip he’d maintained on his upper arm. Maxim eyed the wrapping he’d applied, and gave a nod of approval. Dimo managed a shaky grin. “Better, Oggie, tenk hyu. Dot vas a goot cut.”
Ognian let out a deep gust of breath and grinned back.
“Remind me,” Lars said in a weak voice, “to never tell you guys I have a headache.”
With a groan, the elevator came to a stop. Everyone looked out. A faint chemical light flickered, revealing an empty platform, and what they realized was—
“It’s another elevator,” Kalikoff declared. “This is just a transfer stage. We must be really deep if one elevator wasn’t enough.”
“Does it look safe?” Krosp tentatively patted a paw on the new elevator’s dusty metal floor.
“Hy suppose ve ken dizcuss it vile ve vaits to see if doze poisontings ken climb,” Maxim said archly.
“Everybody get on!” Sturvin ordered.
“Let me give you a hand,” Zeetha offered, then looked stricken. “Uh—sorry.”
To her surprise, the Jäger laughed. “Ho! A joke!” He saw her distress and waved his hand. “Dun vorry, dollink. Hy iz not dead. Efferyting else ken be fixed!”
Sturvin threw the lever, and with a squeal, the lift began climbing upwards past endless walls of blasted rock.
“Fixed by whom?” Zeetha asked. “Lars once said that the Jägers don’t let doctors near them, even if they’re wounded. He says that you’re waiting for a Heterodyne to fix you up.”
Dimo eyed a preoccupied Lars. “Huh. Dot vun, he knows hiz stories,” he conceded.
Maxim waved his mechanical arm. “Iz true. Sum uf uz have vaited for a very lonk time.”
Ognian draped an arm over Dimo’s shoulder. “Yah! But lucky for Dimo, ve got—”
Zeetha didn’t see Dimo’s arm move, but suddenly his fist was buried in Ognian’s midsection. The Jäger gasped and dropped to the ground. “Hokay!” Dimo said brightly, “Right arm? Schtill feelin’ goot! Tenks, Oggie!”
From the floor, Ognian wheezed, “S’okeh, brodder.”
Sturvin called out. “Pay attention, people. We’re nearing the top. We don’t know what’s up here.”
As it turned out, there was disappointingly little. It was evidently just another platform stage, but the other elevator had been disabled by the crude, but effective, method of filling the shaft with large rocks.
“No way we can clear this,” Kalikoff declared with finality.
“But—but we can’t go down again,” Lars said. “The lift is too noisy. Those things will be waiting.”
“Ve could climb down,” Maxim suggested.
“But Dimo—”
“Aw, he bounce pretty goot.”
The subject of this discussion slumped to the floor, and gingerly rubbed his shoulder. “Eediots,” he muttered. “Ve must find anodder vay. Miz Agatha—”
“—Is a Heterodyne?” Zeetha asked quietly.
Dimo froze, and then gave a forced chuckle. “Vot? Dot’s krezy tok.”
“One of you is always near her,” Zeetha said flatly.
Dimo rolled his eyes. “She safe uz. Ve gots to pay her beck.”
“And so you did. On the bridge to Passholdt.”
Dimo frowned. “Dot vas for me. Maxim and Oggie gotta vait for dere turns.”
Zeetha snorted. “Good one. You remind me of some of the people I knew back home.” She crossed her arms. “I know you don’t work for the Baron. Lars says that you wild Jägers are still looking for a Heterodyne heir. I think you’ve found one.”
The two eyed each other. Finally, Dimo let his head thump back against the wall. “Iz hyu gunna expose her?”
“Of course not,” Zeetha huffed. “She is zumil. My student. I protect her. So you can tell those elephants sneaking up behind me to relax.”
Ognian and Maxim froze, looked at each other and then straightened up with embarrassed looks upon their faces. “Dose vere prime goot sneakin’-op moves, lady,” Ognian muttered.
Maxim rolled his eyes. “Brodder? I vould just drop it, hokay?”
“Hey!” Krosp caught everyone’s attention. He held his paw up and motioned for silence. “Does anyone else hear... singing?”
(It is here, with great reluctance, and a full awareness of how a chronicler should report a story without being the story itself, that one of your professors enters this narrative.
Surely the tedious whys and wherefores of how he came to find himself in this particular prison at this particular time have no significant relevance to the greater story, and thus, shall be ignored[68].)
Anyway, it was shortly thereafter, that a lone prisoner, who had been attempting to lighten his pitiable fate by engaging in some heartfelt balladeering, was started when one of his cell’s floor stones suddenly flew upwards, propelled by a hirsute green fist.
A few more stones disappeared, and an unshaven green face emerged. “Hello dere,” it said cheerfully.
“Good grief,” the prisoner replied in astonishment. “You’re Jägerkin! Nov shmoz ka pop[69]?”
“Oho!” Dimo exclaimed as he hoisted himself up. “A home boy! So vere iz ve?”
Another Jäger appeared. The Professor offered him a hand up. “We’re in a cell somewhere under Sturmhalten castle.”
Dimo eyed the thick iron-bound door and nodded. “Vell—hit’s been fun—” He reared back and with a vicious kick, smashed the door from its frame. “But ve gots to go.”
The Professor stared at the door, and only slowly registered the parade of people climbing up from the floor and heading out. His attention was caught by a large white cat in an elegant coat, which paused long enough to poke him in the stomach. “I’d get moving, if I were you,” he advised.
68
Except to say that, when engaged in the perfectly legitimate art form known as Storytelling amidst the general public, one should always be aware of any and all local ordinances regarding slander, gossip, and defamation of character regarding a town’s leaders, who usually regard freedom of expression as something reserved wholly for themselves. Just saying.
69
This is a phrase in the original language of the Mechanicsburg region, which roughly translates as, “Are you going to eat me?” Any long-time resident of Mechanicsburg will tell you that this is a remarkably useful phrase to know. Your Professor (for yes, this falsely incarcerated person was, in fact Professor Philip Foglio), is, despite the shrill claims of the local Chamber of Commerce, indeed a native-born son of Mechanicsburg.