The Lore Anthology: Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 - 5 by John Klobucher Page A

come in the red hewed everwood.
    John Cap stepped back searching ceiling to floor, hoping to find a few panels more. “We need to know where the story goes to understand these people.”
    Morio grabbed the young man’s arm and with it fought to make his feet. “Perhaps on the other side of this door, my friend, it may continue. I did not notice when we came in.”
    “The door was open. It couldn’t be seen.”
    “Of course, now I remember too. Anyhow, it’s high time we try the latch,” said Morio doughtily reaching out. He itched for a fight with its rough handle. “Perchance we can sneak a peek or two or even snatch a more leisurely glance.”
    John Cap was wary yet did not object.
    But try as he might, despite clutching it tightly, the man o’ more simply could not trip the catch. And so some grumbling ensued.
    “It’s locked.”
    “We’re stuck.”
    “Do you think we should knock?”
    “Then what, Morio, ask the guards for a tour? I’m sure that they’d love to punch our tickets.”
    “Yes please! That’s the ticket indeed dear lad, the magic of wishful thinking at work. A tour plus punch to quench our thirst? Now I’m truly optimistic!”
    “But maybe just hold that thought for a bit, ‘cause I’d rather live till daylight. And anyway, Vaam is still asleep.”
    “I could wake her if you’d like.”
    “No ‘O, not yet. She needs more time. Let her dream on a little longer.”
    Then the two men did their best to recall what they saw on their path that night to this place, this hell-scented pigpen of fallen angles, this lopsided lockbox of purpose unknown…
     
    The Guard had led them from Liar’s Tree field down a road by a glade to the foot of a hill. There, yet under night’s thick cloak, they saw a dark structure loom ahead enshadowed from the moon. It was oddly tall amidst the trees with a face of silent stone — a visage unwelcoming, gray, and cold. Windowless it was this façade, though oriented east, as if keeping some secret unseen within or shunning the light of the world without.
    And so by the push and prod of the pike were the three strangers sent single file inside, to and through its open maw all of two stories high and yawning wide. On their left and their right there they passed twin great gates of hardest ironwood wrought by hand. Upon those gates a herd of shapes adorned the void that they minded with beasts.
    One thing low and snaky, two lofty a-wing, some devilish dirt dog, an odd cat-like king. Bull-sheep and bear-ass greeted them too, both by a boar-rat and all under toe of a tusky behemoth from realms far below.
    The clear voice of the tall young woman rang like a song through the stony hall. “Why this menagerie?” she sang. “Why honor these unheard-of creatures here?”
    But she and her friends knew not of this place. And the Guard were in no mood for show and tell.
    Rudely were they ushered on through a chamber of dull-colored quarrystone. Its floor was smooth, worn down in places, as if by rituals oft repeated. Yet its ceiling soared halfway to the heavens. They glimpsed strange implements hung from the walls, devilish things that seemed made to maul or maybe maim or make holey somehow.
    Dead ahead a pair more of the armored Guard awaited them mirthless and still — stoic sentinels standing on either side of a gaping inner doorway. The hole of it filled a space like the first through which they had safely passed, but from this deeper one there spilled an unavoidable blackness. Far off to the left at a table there sat two others, yet Guard those were not. They looked of old plainsmen, swarthy and crude, who eyed the strangers with cold disdain. One leaned back with his feet propped up as he sharpened the tip of a goring pole. It was bile-stained a vile green. The other bit into a blood-red pom and spit out its seeds with spite on the floor. Both wore the leathery skin of countless seasons riding wild and free, as ranger men of a treeless land, ever awash in sun