Page 26 of Paladin's Hope

Light began to leak from the walls.

“Thomas!” yelled Galen, pounding on the door. “Let us out!” Stupid. Stupid. I should have been watching him more closely, I knew he was a murderer, but I was so busy making sure that he didn’t think we suspected him that I didn’t move fast enough.

“You’re fine!” Thomas’s voice was muffled by the door. “It’ll open in twenty-eight minutes, don’t worry. And the gas really doesn’t work.”

“Why did you shut us in here?”

“The pigs never get past the pit trap,” said Thomas. He sounded as if this was perfectly reasonable. “I have to use humans past that. Incidentally, the pit trap is the next one on the right. There’s two stages to it, though. First it’s on this side, then it’s by the far door. If you stand in a line in the dead middle of the room and don’t panic, you’ll be fine.”

“What?!”

“The middle of the room! Look, there’s a set of triangles on the floor. If everybody stands in a triangle, they’ll be fine. Be sure you do the righthand room, though. The lefthand one is full of spikes, and nobody ever gets past that one. I have lost more pigs that way…”

Galen slammed his fist into the door again.

Piper joined him. “We’re not running your gauntlet, Thomas,” he shouted. “We’re just going to wait until these doors open and come out.”

“I know you’ll try that, so I’m afraid I’m going to shut you in here,” said Thomas, sounding apologetic. “I am sorry, Doctor Piper. You seem like someone who could appreciate the mystery, and I hate to have to use these tactics. But you’ve also got a much better chance of getting through than any of the others did! Certainly better than the pigs! And think what we’ll learn!”

Hissssss…. Air puffed from the nozzles. Galen held his breath. Piper put his sleeve over his nose.

“Don’t worry,” called the muffled voice, “it really won’t do anything. I’ve been in there lots of times. I think probably the gas was lighter than air, so the penitent would have to lie flat to escape it.”

“A gnole doesn’t smell anything,” said Earstripe. Galen let his breath out again, cautiously, then began to pound his fist on the door in impotent fury. “You can’t think you’ll get away with this! People will come looking for us!”

“Yes,” said Thomas. “That’ll be useful. I can always use more test subjects if you don’t get to the end. I don’t actually know where the end is, you understand, though my theory is that you’ll eventually reach the sanctum sanctorum, and then the exit is the door next to the entryway, so you’ll wind up back in the cellar. So that’s a good reason for you to try and get through, isn’t it? To make it through before you run out of water or light. I shouldn’t want to try it in the dark.” He tittered again.

Galen snarled. The battle tide wanted to rise, but it had no target. Even a divine berserker did not know how to fight an unbreakable door. “When I get out of here, I’m going to wring your neck!”

“I hope not, but I’ll be going now, just in case. Good luck! I really am rooting for you. Remember, stand in the triangles!”

And after that, despite Galen’s bluster and Piper’s pleas, there was no further answer from the other side of the door.

* * *

Galen put his back to the wall, slid down it, and said, “I’m an idiot.”

“No more than I am,” said Piper, joining him.

“Yes, but guarding people from murderers is my job. And I was so busy watching him to see if he had a weapon that I walked into this like a lamb.”

“A gnole did too, tomato-man.” Earstripe’s ears were flat against his skull. “A gnole kept smelling, but a human only smelled excited, not guilty.”

“Oh, good,” said Galen, “he’s a remorseless murderer. That makes me feel better.”

Piper tried to head off the recriminations before they got any farther. “Look, what could we have done? As soon as we refused to go any farther, he would have trapped us. He knows the place. We don’t.”

“I could have held a sword to his throat.”

“In which case he could have just taken us into a room with a blade and told us to stand in the wrong place, so that you got chopped in half and he didn’t.”

“Mmmm.”

Piper gave up. Paladins wallowed in guilt as a form of meditative exercise. There was only so much you could do. “The door opens back up in twenty minutes.”

“So he said.”

“Well. There’s that. But if he actually wants us to find the traps for him, presumably he would give us as much information as possible.”

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