The Bloody Eye

11

Calmet was frightened. He was frightened more than he'd been since the night Laud removed his eye and introduced him to the Power. He didn't feel like a priest who represented the Power, not right then. He felt weak, frightened, and angry.

Something had gone wrong. Both Naargh and Hassq had failed to deliver the new group of slaves. It had been weeks since the Black Carnival had performed the ritual. Why weren't the slaves there?

The cleric looked again at the number of side tunnels that jutted off the main shaft. He'd once asked Laud why so much of their limited slave labor was used to dig so many tunnels away from the main vein, so many false passages and empty chambers. Laud had responded that there were other treasures in the earth, many of which could not be deemed natural. As Calmet passed one such junction, he decided he was grateful for all of Laud's strange passageways. He wanted to stay as far away from Laud's alchemical laboratory as possible.

He noticed two orc guards bringing an injured slave toward the surface. For a brief moment, he looked at the filthy wound so certain to become infected and was tempted to heal the limping slave. Then, he remembered his mantra of power: "Cull the weak to be the strong!"

Calmet motioned to the guards and told them to bring the slave and follow him deeper into the shaft instead of continuing toward the surface. The guards looked confused, but didn't question the cleric's order. That was one of the things Calmet liked about serving Gruumsh. No one questioned his orders. There were no philosophical debates among the servants of Gruumsh. Avenues to power were clearly established. If you performed the rituals, you gained the power. There were no mysteries associated with the nature of Gruumsh. He was raw power and he despised weakness. Of course, that was one of the things that was bothering Calmet at that very moment. The failure to complete the mine and finish the sanctuary would likely fall on his own head. He was the one responsible for dealing with the orcs, so their failure was ultimately his failure.

The shaft became steeper and Calmet smelled the difference between the moist earth of the deeper regions and the dryer dust near the top of the shaft. Oddly, he became aware of water dripping and the sounds of picks penetrating the obstinate rock lower down. He didn't usually take time to notice scents and sounds. He must be avoiding the issue at hand.

How could they possibly complete the sanctuary before the solstice without adequate help?

Calmet and his followers approached a junction where a seldom-used passage jogged to the left. He motioned his strange entourage to follow him and turned into the smaller passage. After ten or fifteen paces, he pulled up abruptly. His eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness of the smaller passage, and he focused on the side of the wall where the passage twisted once more. Standing out slightly against the darker shadows, the small group saw a shadowy figure. Larger than a human, it made them uneasy. Their eyes could make out the winged monstrosity that seemed to guard the passage, but they didn't quite understand why a stone statue would affect them in such a way.

Calmet lifted his amulet, a silver eye with a hole to represent Gruumsh's missing eye, that a long-dead orc had fashioned for him from his sun symbol. He whispered an Orcish word of power across the top of the infernal symbol. The whisper gained in intensity as the very sound traversed the surface of the amulet until the gutteral word exploded on the statue with unexpected force, echoing back onto the small party with an even louder, eerier sound. As the echoes trailed back toward the main shaft, Calmet proceeded down the passageway. The guards looked at each other and followed. Neither one liked the uneasy feeling that energy was surrounding them, prodding them, and testing them as they turned to follow the cleric through the twisting passage.

Ten paces farther down the passage, Calmet performed another ritual. Pulling a piece of dried dung from one of the pouches tied to his belt, Calmet turned to the guard closest to him, growled another gutteral syllable in Orcish, and rubbed the dried substance on the guard's bare skin. The dung quickly disintegrated into dust, but the guard exhaled with a triumphant grunt as his body tensed and he sensed a power he had never experienced before. His eyes grew wide and perspiration fairly flooded down his entire body. Where the cleric had touched him, the veins in his arms bulged and the muscles expanded to huge proportions. Moments later, the phenomenon coursed all the way through the guard's body, vein after vein and muscle after muscle reaching phenomenal proportions.

Calmet ordered the transformed guard to take the slave by himself and follow him precisely. Calmet sidestepped to the extreme left of the small passage and took two steps with one foot carefully placed in front of the other. He sidestepped to the extreme right of the passage and took one step forward. The sideways motion was repeated several times more; then he stepped at an angle to the very center of the passage and turned to motion the guards forward.

Vurrgh was the guard affected by the spell. He easily grabbed the wounded human slave, pulled the unfortunate across his shoulders, and repeated the simple pattern.

Calmet heard the guards grunting behind him, but he continued to lead the small party in this odd pilgrimage without explaining himself or even looking to see if his fellow was successfully navigating the pattern. He assumed his compatriot could figure out the easy little dance and be able to avoid triggering the trap. If his minion happened to trigger some nasty snare, it must be the will of Gruumsh to cull the weak.

Calmet raised his amulet again and spoke another gutteral word, bringing forth a sickly green glow from the pendant. The glow pushed aside the deepening darkness in the passageway, and Calmet looked with amusement at the tunnel as it seemed to twist and turn for no obvious reason. He sensed, rather than heard Vurrgh and the other orc come up behind him, but he offered no acknowledgement of the minions' presence.

The tunnel jogged briefly toward the left then back to the right. As the passage opened up into a small, natural cavern, Calmet ducked quickly through the opening. As if on cue, a horrendous scream pierced the quiet. The sonic force of the shriek caused dirt to sprinkle down from the tunnel's ceiling, but Calmet knew exactly where to stand in order to be spared the earthen rain that dropped in clods atop the guards and the injured slave.

The shriek continued, sounding in every way like Calmet imagined a howling demon would sound. Yet, the evil priest stood watching and waiting for the inevitable movement that would follow the piercing shriek. One of the mushrooms, one with a more violet hue than its shrieking companion, moved toward the priest, crawling forward on a writhing root structure. It reached out with its four frantic tentacles flailing, but Calmet stepped back quickly enough to avoid the threat. He turned to Vurrgh and gestured for him to throw the wounded slave in front of the slowly moving violet fungi that was inching toward them.

The evil priest smiled grimly as Vurrgh used his bull's strength to catapult the ill-fated slave within tentacle range of the fungus. The frightened slave tried to stand and limp to safety, but one of the tentacles tapped his bare back, causing the unwitting sacrifice to jerk in an involuntary spasm. The slave was immediately paralyzed. Calmet and the guards watched in fascination as the plant wrapped all four tentacles around the slave's motionless body. The fungus pulled the body in and cradled it in a disturbing embrace of death as acid from the fungus began to devour it.

Immediately, Calmet intoned the liturgy of sacrifice. With his face lit by the frightening green glow of his amulet, he voiced the heartless words pronounced by priests of Gruumsh throughout the centuries.

"The powerless we give to the source of power," recited the priest over this latest atrocity. "We sacrifice the powerless to partake of power. So be it!"

After speaking the infernal words, he motioned for the guards to follow and moved toward a second opening. He glanced disinterestedly at the violet fungi dragging the slave's corpse next to the shrieker. As the parasitic fungi oozed onto their victim, the shrieker mercifully stopped its sonic assault, leaving Calmet and his followers with aching ears.

As they entered the second opening, Calmet casually informed his minions that the fungi would mulch around and over the slave's corpse in a matter of weeks. He stared meaningfully into the eyes of both guards as though to underscore the fact that, should it serve his purpose, he would be willing to sacrifice them just as easily as he had sacrificed the unfortunate slave. He turned and led them forward once more.

Once past the cavern, Calmet turned again. He hugged the left wall of the narrow passageway, paying no attention to whether the guards followed suit. They had served their purpose and he needn't worry about them triggering traps. He stepped through another natural opening and immediately voiced a gutteral syllable. The cavern was suddenly lit with torchlights placed in sconces throughout the cavern and a pair of braziers that flanked a small stone altar.

The priest walked swiftly toward a writing table piled high with quills, pots of ink, and a mixture of fresh parchment and used vellum. He glanced briefly at an old, leather chest in one corner of the room and noted that it seemed undisturbed. Then he picked up a piece of vellum and squinted at it when he sensed movement out of the corner of his eye. Vurrgh had grabbed his axe and was advancing swiftly toward a table filled with jars, bowls, bottles, and casks.

"Halt!" commanded the priest.

"Master! Something's moving!" answered Vurrgh.

"Stop, you fool!" responded Calmet. "The creature is mine!"

Calmet waved Vurrgh off and called the small humanoid over to him. The one-eyed homunculus stopped grinding the black, moldy herb it had been smashing with a mortar and pestle and spread its small wingspan to full breadth. The wart-covered creature launched itself into the air and flew toward the priest, alighting on Calmet's shoulder.

Having averted the unnecessary conflict, Calmet motioned for Vurrgh to approach the table. Calmet ordered him to take a seat. He passed his hand over a map spread upon the table. The priest always thought more clearly when he spoke aloud, so he took the opportunity to point out several geographical features between the mine and Scaun. He stretched a piece of vellum over the bottom half of the map and began explaining the plan in terms that even a troglodyte, much less a relatively intelligent orc like Vurrgh, could understand.

The new piece of vellum represented a map of the mine as well as the underground passages either constructed or discovered in the course of the mining operation. Calmet explained how Laud had dowsed for gold and how rich the main vein had been. He briefly spoke of the tens of thousands of gold pieces worth of ore that had been mined, refined, and melted into the ceremonial vessels that would be used in hallowing the ancient shrine at Scaun.

He pointed to a tunnel that diverged from the rich vein of gold ore and said, "Here is the key. If we attempt to excavate the shrine from the top of the mountain, the southerners will try to interfere and will cost us valuable time and resources. Instead, we will tunnel into the desecrated shrine and consecrate it anew before the southerners ever know that we've reopened it. By then, the avatar of Gruumsh will appear and it will be too late."

When the priest saw Vurrgh nod in general understanding, he continued the lecture with all the fervency he had once shown in the pulpit.

"We will unleash the full power of Gruumsh from within the mountains. The southerners and their weak, civilizing ways will face the full, ferocious power of Gruumsh for the first time. Gruumsh will empower a new army of orcs, troglodytes, and half-orcs and we will conquer all-even the southern lands."

"Conquer all?" asked the guard.

"Yes," answered the priest, "we will conquer all. Your people lost to the southerners because they wandered from the old ways, the true ways. Gruumsh removed his power from the weak leaders and the southerners took control. This time, there will be no weak leaders!"

"Cull the weak!" responded Vurrgh with the ritual phrase, but the priest looked into his eyes with a hypnotic stare that instantly silenced him.

Calmet leaned over the table and said to the orc in the most malevolent whisper imaginable, "We must finish this tunnel on time, if we do nothing else." He pointed to the passage on the map and looked back at Vurrgh. "If we don't finish this tunnel on time," he continued, "it will serve as your grave."

Calmet didn't express the next thought to pierce his own mind: If the tunnel wasn't finished on time, it would be his grave, too.