"In those legends, the ur-ogres had fought an Abyss-spawned fiend, defeated it, and trapped it."
Toede thought of his own dream, of the ogres burying the temple. "You think this is commemorating the battle?"
"Uh-huh," said Bunniswot. "Or warning people that here is where the fiend is trapped."
Bunniswot, with the light, took two steps backward, just in case. Toede took two steps forward, to examine the carvings closer.
Several hundred years before, the timbers supporting portions of the floor had rotted away, such that little was holding up the panels of the ancient floor. Stone and gold made thinner than a sheaf of paper were now spanning deep pits and hidden underground passages.
Toede stepped onto one such location, where four unsupported tiles met. They cracked immediately beneath his modest weight.
The hobgoblin pitched forward, his arms pinwheeling to grab on to something concrete. He shouted what might have been a cry for help, a curse, or both.
The scholar shouted something back and stepped forward, but Toede was already gone. Bunniswot counted to three before he heard the impact, a loud splash. The sound echoed and rebounded off the walls, booming in the scholar's ears like a castle falling into the sea.
The booming diminished, until finally Bunniswot was left with the silence.
He dropped flat on the floor and crawled to the edge, testing every move before placing any weight on the fragile surface. He edged up to the rim of the void below.
"Hello?" he asked meekly, afraid there would be no reply.
Chapter 17
The reply came, not in any words that Bunniswot would wish to repeat in mixed company. Mixed, in the terms of containing men and women, adults and children, or the living and dead.
The long colorful string of loud curses bounced off the walls of the upper temple.
"Are you in pain?" shouted the scholar when the verbal onslaught finally wound down.
"Yes," shouted Toede. "My feelings are hurt that I'm down here and you're up there." "What do you see?"
"Darkness and water," said Toede. "I'm in some kind of flooded hallway or aqueduct. It's neither deep nor swift." 'Thank goodness for the water," shouted Bunniswot. Another string of curses, followed by a pause. "Why do you say that?"
"You fell about fifty feet," replied Bunniswot, estimating by his count. "If you had hit something hard, you wouldn't be alive to be cursing now."
Toede refused to be comforted by this news. Above him, a bright light revealed Bunniswot's position. To the right and left everything faded into darkness.
"I can try this passage that heads toward the south," said Toede. "I think I hear rushing water in that direction."
"Not a good idea," said Bunniswot. "We had to dig our way in here, remember? It's unlikely that there's another exit. You notice any vermin? Any rats?"
The sound of someone turning around swiftly to look in all directions at once, while standing in water, then a quiet, concerned, "No."
"That's too bad," said Bunniswot with the manner of man who was not at the bottom of a watery hole. "If there were, that would mean I might be wrong-there is another way out."
"I'm out of options," said Toede crossly. "I'll go get help," said Bunniswot. "What an original idea. Throw down some food, will you? It may be a while before you get back."
"Right." Something shadowy splashed into the stream near the hobgoblin. Toede waded over to it and pulled it out. "Got it? You want the light?" Bunniswot shouted.
"You'll need it," said Toede, adding to himself, if there are any nasty creatures left, I'd rather Bunniswot's light attract them to him as opposed to me. "I'll find a dry niche and wait."
"Right-oh," said the scholar. "I hate to leave you like this."
Toede considered yet another string of curses, but instead said, "I'll be fine. I've hosted dinner parties in worse neighborhoods than this. Now go, before I catch the cobbiewobbles or something worse."
"Right-oh," Bunniswot repeated. Toede heard footsteps retreating in long strides. There was another shout about a minute later. Bunniswot, letting him know that he had reached the door unharmed, was indeed heading for help. Toede sloshed through the water and found an uncomfortable pile of damp, rotted timbers that had cascaded from the ceiling a few millennia earlier. He clambered up on them, shucked off his boots, emptied them of water, and unwrapped the package Bunniswot had tossed to him. Strips of cooked boar, still fresh from the previous evening. Toede chewed on the meat, reflecting on his situation.
His dream had been a sending, of that he was certain. An opportunity to further enhance his noble status by helping the young scholar.
And to enhance his own name and line his pockets with any ancient coins that were lying about.
Again, the idea of noble actions and self-advancement seemed to go hand in hand. He helped the scholars and got a gem and a fine meal. He discovered the lost temple of the proto-ogres, and was meant to find great treasure. It wasn't his dream's fault that the floorboards were weak, was it?
The noble heroes always followed their dreams. So Toede followed his, and now it left him seated on some moldering wood awash in fetid, lifeless water.
Of course, the dream didn't mention the big edifice above, the jackal-faced fiend with the rolling-pin lower jaw. Was that more than just an oversight?
Toede shuddered and cast a glance around. It looked as though nothing had passed this way, fiendish or otherwise, for the past five hundred years or so. So either the creature from the carving was very lackadaisical about its housecleaning habits, or the temple was empty.
Except for him.
Toede leaned back, staring into the darkness above him. He closed his eyes and listened, but heard nothing except for the rush of a distant waterfall. He was unaware of the passage of time and fell asleep without intending to. His dreams were monochromatic, unenlightening, and unremarkable. No shining women showed him the way out.
Then was the sound of boots on tiles above, and Toede bolted awake. The sound of rushing water in the distance had stopped, but Toede could discern the sounds of a careful, heavy tread, as if each footfall were being tested
and retested before proceeding.
There was no light from the hole far above, only the same murky grayness.
"Hello?" said Toede, his voice echoing in the darkness. Louder, he shouted, "Bunniswot? Anyone there?"
From above came a quiet, level voice. "Hello, Toede."
"Groag, is that you?" Toede could just make out the smaller hobgoblin's silhouette, black against darker black.
A pause, as if the shadow were thinking it over. "Yes," came the response.
"Did Bunniswot send you?" Toede said, growing concerned. It sounded like Groag, and looked (as far as he could tell) like Groag, and since Toede could not imagine much of a market for Groag-imitators, it must be Groag. But something was amiss here.
Another pause. "Yes," came the answer, "and Renders, before he left."
"Did you bring a rope?" said Toede.
'Typical," came the response. "Yes, I brought a rope."
"Well, nice of you to drop by and all, but do you think you could hurry up and get me out of here?"
Another pause, and when the answer came at last, it was all choked. "Why?"
"Well, because it's wet and cold and I'm in a temple dedicated to a creature who might not be entirely dead," said Toede.
Another pause. "And?"
"And I'm asking you nicely," said Toede, smiling in the dark. "Very nicely."
"Oh." Another pause. "That makes it all better, then, doesn't it?"
Toede frowned and said to the figure above, "I sense that something is wrong here."