[Terquem]

Chapter 2

Part 8

“The layout here seems simple and obvious,” Brendun said as he led the way along a tunnel. The tunnel was man made, in that it was obviously not made by the toad-folk. The ceiling was high, at least two feet above their heads. The walls had been reinforced with cheap bricks and thick timbers spaced about twelve feet apart supporting crossbeams on the ceiling. Everything was wet. Water dripped from the beams and left small puddles along the uneven floor. The water had a dense, brackish smell and he could tell it came from the frequent high waves that crashed against the sea wall above. The passageway turned gently to the right and began to slope downward. After a short distance, the tunnel opened up into a large chamber.

“Well, that answers that question,” Tabitha said as she walked past Brendun into the chamber. The remains of several pieces of wooden furniture were scattered along the wall to her left, and against the far wall sat a heavy wooden chest, marked across its face with a swordfish painted on a representation of a sail. “Looks like I might have known these people. That,” she pointed, “is the mark of Captain Rahlo Agaspando. This was either one of her hideouts, or someone managed to steal that chest from her and hide it here, and I only know a few pirates dumb enough and tough enough to steal from Captain Rahlo. From the looks of this place,” Tabitha went on, taking the brand from Brendun’s hand and walking a few more steps out into the center of the chamber, “there was a pretty good-sized battle, but when it was over the winner, if there was one, didn’t try to break the seal on that chest. I imagine that, if there were bodies, maybe both sides killed each other off, the toad-folk must have carried them off a long time ago.”

“Iha stihhl don’thh uhndersstandhh awhy youhha lhet them gohh fahree,” Alo said moving from the rear to stand next to Brendun. She had found her other sword and was holding them both at the ready.

When she moved, it was without any sound at all. A tinkle from a buckle on one of her belts, or the slight sound of her leather pack stretching as it shifted on her back was the only thing that gave her movement away. Brendun had always been curious about the way the octopus-folk were, well, arranged. He had not seen many of the regular ocean living types in his life, just one or two and those all seemed built for sliding along the sea floor trailing their head bodies behind them. The octopus-folk were not built like those creatures at all. Anyone could tell the first time you encountered one of their kind. They had eight tentacles, and large solid dark eyes, with enlarged heads, but that was where the similarities ended. Octopus-folk’s legs, long as they were, ended in a body, a torso not completely unlike any other land walking folk. The torso was slim and short. When the Octopus-folk wore any sort of cloths at all, it was usually a long “kilt-like” garment which tended to obscure the region where their bodies and legs came together leading to the belief that their legs went all the way up to the bottoms of their heads, which was obviously not true at all. Where their heads rested on their torso there was a short, thin, neck. The head, larger than an average human’s head by easily twice the size, did tend to droop toward the back, but it still stood upright. All the Octopus-folk that Brendun had ever seen wore hooded cloaks, great billowing things of heavy, dense, dark colored fabrics. With the cowl pulled over their heads, and if moving slowly, keeping their tentacles close to each other, the octopus-folk could usually slip by, in a shadowy alley way or crowded street on a cloudy day, without being noticed for what they were.

He let Tabitha explore the room a bit, even though he had earlier reminded them to stay close, knowing that this was her field of expertise. Tabitha, Brendun knew, had a keen eye for minute details, and her knowledge of the pirates and other sea travelers in the region was unmatched, but as she moved closer to the chest, he began to get nervous.

“Tabitha, don’t do anything stupid. We have time to be careful,” Brendun said as he took his pack off his back, and then turned to face Alo. It took him a moment to decipher Alo’s question about the crab-eating toad-men, and Brendun said, “I let them go for a good reason. They understand we are dangerous, and if they had more numbers, they would have already been upon us while we searched the room for our stuff. They won’t risk attacking us outright, but I bet they are following us at a safe distance, hoping something else does us in, and they can pick up the scraps. We’ll keep moving. I think we might either find an entrance to the Labyrinth close by, or an exit back to the city. That trap door was a minor setback. I still intend to find what I am looking for.”

Alo slid closer to Brendun, and spoke slowly, for his benefit, and perhaps tyring to frighten him again, “I told you that it should not be found.”

“That’s interesting,” Brendun said, taking a knee, and reaching into his pack.

“Oh, great, here we go,” Tabitha said, turning slowly and with a flip of her hair she moved quickly back to stand beside Alo. “I told you to be careful of what you say around him.”

“What, whhahht didha I sssayh,” Alo said shrugging two of her tentacles.

Brendun stood up, holding a small leather case in one hand, “You said, ‘shouldn’t be found,’ not couldn’t be found. That means you know it can be found, even if you don’t know where it is. It means that you know things I need to know. Unfortunately, now isn’t the time to get to the bottom of that. This place isn’t safe, at least not safe enough to rest, so that means we see if that chest there is trapped, and if it is leave it alone, or, if it isn’t see if we can find out why it was left here and by who. We’ll keep this short, and then be on our way. I will feel a lot better once we are back in the city, or in the Labyrinth proper. Pirate hideouts give me the willies,” Brendun shivered at an old memory.