The Worldwound Gambit by Robin D. Laws

Author:Robin D. Laws
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781601253279
Publisher: Paizo Publishing, LLC
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The Get-In

Lined in angry pink tissue, the arch resembles a set of diseased gums. Yellow, daggerlike teeth protrude from it. Viscid saliva drips down from the top teeth, spattering the intruders as they step beneath them. The archway twitches. Calliard shudders in realization: on a command from the gatekeepers, the teeth can jut out and the gums slam shut, impaling those caught between them.

On the mouth’s other side they find a narrow foyer, lined by hairy stingers. Beads of steaming venom form on their tips as they probe for patches of exposed skin. Calliard shrinks back from them.

Gad eases in between him and the halfling. He claps his hands together. “I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I’m going to like this place.”

“You’re joking,” says Vitta. “Wait, I’m stating the obvious again, aren’t I?”

Like the rest of the tower, the chamber burns with an inner phosphorescence. It casts a green pallor onto Gad’s jaunty smile.

“He’s not joking,” says Jerisa.

“Of course I’m not. This place is full of demons!”

Vitta’s tiny teeth grit together. “You say that as if it’s a desirable state of affairs.”

“Indeed I do.”

Vitta frowns. “That first demon was stupid, I grant you that.”

“No, no,” says Gad. “Demons aren’t stupid. And that works in our favor.”

“It does?”

“Stupid people are impossible! They’re used to being fooled, and wary of it. Demons, on the other hand …what’s the signal quality of the ideal mark?”

“Greed?” Vitta asks.

“Close enough—selfishness, of which greed is a major variety. And what is a demon?”

The corridor ahead fills with pea-colored steam.

Gad stops and turns to face Vitta, visor still upraised. “A demon is a creature of pure selfishness. And that’s no metaphor. Come on now, we’ve heard it now how many times since we started? What are they made of? Bits and pieces of rancid souls, all the mortal individuality systematically pounded out of them until only the nasty desires are left. I don’t have to tempt demons—they’re born tempted. They’re made of temptation.” He rubs his hands together. “That makes them mine.”

“It sounds convincing when you say it,” Vitta allows. “Of course, that’s what we want to believe.”

“All that damn journeying, that was the hard part. Here’s where we go to work.”

“You’re saying this rip isn’t as insane as it feels,” says Vitta.

The fog parts. The foyer opens into a cavernous central chamber. A sickly radiance suffuses its shadowed vastness. Its fleshy, vaulted ceiling is domed and ridged, like a distorted top palate. Ropy strings of viscera hang across it. Sacs of organic matter dangle from the strands, contained in translucent epithelial sheaths. Vitta tries to count and mentally catalog the various organ types: there are masses of fibrous meat, bags of ochre liquid, twisted arrangements of tubes and fibers. Side by side with these hang cocoons, egg masses, and inexplicable collections of insect body parts trapped inside balls of webbing. Unnatural bugs scuttle along the visceral pathways, stopping periodically to feed from them. They nip off chunks of tissue with sharp mandibles, or spear proboscises into juicy organs.

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