Then Stegoman's blast winked out, and they blinked in the sudden dimness. Frantic to make sure, Matt leaned over, holding the torch close.
There was nothing left but powder.
"I thank you, stalwart friend," Sir Guy said. "I should have called upon you sooner."
"I would I could take the lead," the dragon growled, "but I misdoubt me an I could tell the way. Nay, Wizard, let us go on."
"Right." Matt stepped gingerly through the mass that had lately been angry insects, watching carefully for any more, but they seemed to have caught the whole nest. Either that, or the survivors had sense enough to hide.
Just past the last scorpion ashes, the tunnel narrowed—not enough to trap Stegoman, but enough to make Matt feel claustrophobic again. The hallway turned a little this way, then a little that way, ambling off into the bedrock as if it hadn't a care in the world. It seemed to have been laid out by some very careless workmen—or as if it were another form of life. Matt had a fleeting thought of the kinds of monsters that might have been able to make this tunnel at the Sea King's behest, and swallowed his heart down out of his throat. Then he pressed on, sorely wishing he could take Stegoman up on his offer and let him take the lead—just for the light, of course. The torch was burning down, and Matt didn't want it to get close to his fingertips. He knew that Sir Guy had collected the other, unlit, antique torches from their sconces below, and every so often, he'd found another one to add to his bundle, but still...
The torchlight flickered on something that glinted. Matt stopped. "Be wary, folks!" Then he inched forward, torch thrust ahead.
The glimmering light revealed two recesses, niches in the walls directly opposite each other, four feet deep, four feet wide, and four feet high. In each lay a skeleton with an empty jug beside it, rags of ancient cloth still lying about its hips. Matt halted, apprehension creeping over him.
"The poor creatures!" Yverne cried. "Why were they caged here?"
"Punishment, I would say." Sir Guy scowled at the matched sets of bones. "I have seen this done aforetime—an unruly, disobedient one set with just such a cage in a wall, not high enough to stand in, or even to sit comfortably, and given little to eat or drink. 'Tis a punishment two-edged, for he is exposed to the jibes and mockeries of his fellows, even as they see him and are reminded of the reward for insolence."
"Yes," Matt said, "but prisoners like that are usually set free, aren't they?"
"They are only skeletons, Lord Wizard," Maid Marian said gently. "They cannot harm us now."
But Matt shook his head. "I'm getting a very bad feeling about this. If this were a public punishment, as Sir Guy said, there would have had to be a public to witness the punishment—wouldn't there? But there weren't any files of soldiers passing through here—this was a secret passage, not a thoroughfare."
"Dost say they are sentries?" Fadecourt demanded.
"Maybe worse." Matt pointed. "I don't trust the way they're set exactly across from each other, so that we have to pass between them."
"A trap, then?" Maid Marian asked.
"Could be. But I've run into things like this, back where I came from." Matt dropped to hands and knees; he was thinking of electric-eye photocells, with infrared light beams. "Down, everybody. Maybe we can put ourselves beneath their notice." And he crawled forward, wondering what he was going to do about Stegoman.
He needn't have worried. The skeletons screamed.
They sat bolt upright, fleshless jaws parting, emitting a clear, high tone that rasped right through Matt's head from one ear to the other. He was already clawing his way up the grid of bars before he realized that the screams had turned into a single, repeated word: "Master! Master!"
"Get 'em out of there!" he bellowed. "Shut 'em up!" Too late, he realized that the bars weren't there to keep the skeletons in—they were to keep intruders out, to keep them from getting to the bones and breaking them.
Fadecourt shouldered him aside, laying hold of the bars and wrenching them out of the stone., Matt reached for the skull...
And the bony hand reached down and came up with a sword.
The skeleton sprang out of its niche and swung, still screaming, "Maaaaster! Maaaaaster!"
Matt just barely managed to get his dagger out in time to block the swing. The skeleton whipped the sword around for an undercut...
And Maid Marian's quarterstaff cracked into its skull, knocking it against the wall. Then the staff knocked apart the bones of the hand; the sword clanged to the stone floor. The skull rolled against the stones, still screaming, while the headless skeleton leaped for her, its remaining hand clawing for her eyes.
The quarterstaff slammed into the rib cage, jarring the whole collection of bones back against the wall. Then Marian whirled and brought the tip of her staff down on the skull, cracking it open. The struggling bone dropped back to the floor, lifeless, and the screaming suddenly stopped.
But another scream still went on, then broke off. Matt turned to see Fadecourt rising from a jumble of bones, with a long line of blood across his chest.
"You are hurt!" Yverne cried.
The cyclops only looked down and wiped at the blood in irritation. "A scratch. We have greater matters to be concerned with."
"Darn right we have." Matt glanced ahead at the tunnel. Had he heard a faint sound? "Those things were calling for their master—and if these were the servants, I don't want to meet the boss."
It was a sound-a clicking, a clattering, growing louder.
"There is small choice." Fadecourt glared ahead at the sound. "We must retreat and give over our enterprise, or forge ahead and chance all."
"Maybe you have the choice, but I don't." Already, Matt could feel his geas pushing him onward. "I'm going as fast as I can. If their `master' is coming for us, our best chance is to catch him before he expects us. Good luck!" He ran ahead, torchlight swaying. Behind him, his friends cried out, startled, and came running.
Matt rounded a curve and slammed into a jumble of bones.
The passage had widened into a small court, and it was filled with dancing skeletons, glowing coals in their eyes, rusty swords in their hands. Just looking at the weapons gave Matt lockjaw. He shied, daunted for a moment, then shouted, "Out of the way! Let Stegoman at `em!" And he sprang aside, plastering himself back against the wall.
Marian leaped aside, too, but her style was with her quarterstaff whirling like a windmill, cracking bones and knocking skeletons apart. Fadecourt leaped over beside Matt and tore at the articulated bones, catching a femur to use for parrying sword blows, and Sir Guy stepped up beside Maid Marian, blocking and cutting, dispatching foe after foe. Yverne was slicing around her with one of the fallen skeletons' swords. Matt finally drew his own blade.
Then a roaring gout of fire surged past him, lighting up the chamber. Dry bones crackled and snapped, filling the whole passage with glaring flames. The jet of fire went out as Stegoman caught his breath, but the blaze kept on, though the skeletons still struggled toward the living people. Then the flame blasted again, and the few sets of bones that had still been standing keeled over, threshing even yet in a mindless homicidal impulse. The companions stepped forward, staves and swords ready to clear up the last few opponents...
And the whole cave darkened. Not into total night, but as if the chamber had suddenly filled with thick black smoke that dimmed the light and made every outline barely discernible. Stegoman's flame gouted out again, but it was reddened, growing more feeble, dimming as the darkness deepened, and Matt could feel the energy leaching out of him, weariness growing, weighing down his limbs like lead, while all about them, a giggling sound grew to a chuckle, then laughter, swelling and beating at their ears—and Matt suddenly understood how the skeletons had come to be there. The first usurping sorcerer had set a spirit to guard this place, a spirit who drank raw energy and was always hungry. Any living being stumbling into the midst of the monster staggered and swooned as the life energy was sucked out of it. Then the meat of its muscles oxidized, giving up more energy, and more, until even the marrow was gone.