Chapter 12
“Bloody Gnomes,” Cici whispered to himself as the two gawked at the wreckage.
After several minutes of waiting the two men were able to approach the door without being overwhelmed by the stench. They stood at the threshold and looked into the wide open space as if they were assessing a burned down home. Cici’s big head looked up and down and all over the place, while Kopius looked on indifferently. While the first part beyond the entrance was littered in debris, farther down was the hallway they had seen before being assaulted by the smell.
“Why ‘bloody gnomes’?” Kopius asked.
“At best they’re a nuisance,” Cici answered as he continued his inspection.
“And at worst?” Kopius prodded.
“See these here,” Cici explained, pointing at several large, smooth stones closest to the entrance. “Those were used to seal this gate. See those ones further on,” he said pointing to the jagged, much larger stones. “That’s what they do. They dig and dig with no regard for what is above or below them.”
“I think I missed something,” Kopius interrupted. “Oh-jin said nobody likes Gnomes but never really expanded on that. So, that’s basically all I know.”
“A Gnome by itself is harmless–for the most part,” Cici began. “They are tiny, aggressive and practically indestructible.”
“How… how is that harmless?” Kopuis asked.
“When I say tiny, I mean ti–ny,” Cici responded, taking his hands to indicate the things being no more than a foot tall. “They have two front teeth that they use to gnaw through everything; dirt, wood, stone–damn near everything. Now, one of those biting at an ankle can be dealt with by even a small child. But, if you have a few hundred of them, they will chew through you before a thirty count.”
“Where does the harmless part come in?”
“Maybe ‘harmless’ was the wrong choice of words. ‘Avoidable’ is a better way to say it.”
Kopius shrugged and gave a look that said ‘please explain’ but without the ‘please’.
“They stay underground and are known to be nocturnal. We would only encounter them under particular circumstances, like being underground or in a cave. Everyone hates them because they excavate without regard. If your crops sit above a vein of ore, they will excavate the ore and possibly collapse your crops.” He pointed back to the jagged rocks and then up at some of the open spaces where the sun leaked through.
“Gnomes were here digging out the ceiling, looking for something. They can smell it, you know, the veins of ore. Anyhow, they found some up there and as you can see, this is how they left it.”
“Are you sure this didn’t just collapse from above?” Kopius wondered out loud.
“If it weren’t for that foulness in the air we had to burn away, I would be inclined to agree with you. Imagine your home was up there and now it's down here because they were digging.”
“I would be upset.”
“You’d likely be dead my friend, they work at night when you're sleeping. That’s why folks are less than keen about them. That and they are thieving little bastards… ” Cici seethed out of nowhere.
Kopius tried to get more information about the personal nature of the big man's ire but Cici insisted that it was a story for another time. He ended it by saying not to bury your valuables but wouldn’t elaborate. When Kopius suggested they head towards the service tunnel Cici declined and assured Kopius that the path forward was safe. He insisted the gnomes had long been gone, leaving behind only the mess and the smell. There were several lingering questions but at the moment, Kopius didn’t really care.
They navigated past the rubble, squeezing between a few larger boulders until they reached the large posh hallway. The pathway was covered in paving stones with an intricate design that was both artistic and functional. It clearly indicated that the right side went to Cawbachu and the left to Kickshaw. Every few hundred feet there was a beam of sunlight to keep the long walkway illuminated. Every fifty feet, or so, an unlit torch was attached to either side of the wide arcing passage.
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Kopius resisted the urge to hear his echo, though their footfalls did satisfy that itch to a small degree. He was impressed by the overall design of both the passageway and Kickshaw itself. Even with Oh-jin scoffing at the place, Kopius felt it was well planned and laid out. If this were an abandoned town in any of the RPG games he had played, he would be able to claim it as his own. There was nothing like having your own village to help with earning XP and some passive income. Some games, that’s all a player did was build and maintain a village. The tediousness of those types of games was a real turn off to Cory, who needed some virtual violence for therapeutic purposes.
Roughly ten minutes later the two men came to a dead end–sort of. A wall of smooth stone masoned together blocked their path. Cici pulled a torch off the wall, blew it a fire kiss and then stepped up to the wall. Though it was built well it was never completed. Missing at the top were the last few rows of stone to officially seal the tunnel.
Without a word, Cici–torch clenched in his teeth–Ninja Warrior-ed his way up the wall, through the small gap and over to the other side. Kopius laughed at the nimbleness of the big man before he followed Cici’s lead and did his own version of getting over the warped wall.
Once over the blockage they stepped out of the remaining tunnel and into a large enclosed circular area. To their right was a tall smooth surface encircling all the way around before returning on the left. There, to the left, were two doorways. The smaller of the two openings was more gate than door. It had the whole rot-iron, jail cell type feel to it that gave Kopius an unpleasant memory. The opening next to that was just as tall as the hallway they had strolled down but about half the width. This pathway was sealed off by stone and mortar and stood unblemished.
At the center of it all was the beginning of a circular staircase. The steps looked like marble or quartz with a mixture of black, white and blue mineral composition. The white balusters had a waviness to them and gave the illusion that they were moving as you approached it. A clear handrail raced a top the balusters, circling its way up and out of sight. Wide enough to walk a few elephants side-by-side, the staircase rose until it reached the ceiling and disappeared above.
“Service gate right there,” Cici mentioned, pointing to the set iron bars.
“And this one?” Kopius asked about the sealed tunnel.
“Service lift,” he answered.
“An elevator?” Kopius mumbled, impressed.
“Is that a transport of sorts?” Cici guessed.
“Yeah, moving stuff up and down.”
“Indeed, this–elevator–goes up to the surface of Cawbachu.”
Kopius chuckled at the description. Cici made it sound like they were going to be landing on a new planet or moon or something. It briefly reminded him of some people on Earth who inexplicably insert ‘the’ in front of inanimate things; like freeways for example. Cory would give directions by saying something like, ‘take 101 to 85 south’ vs ‘take the 100 to the 85 south’– it made no sense but I fucking digress.
“Here is something I discovered my last time through,” Cici said with enough enthusiasm to break Kopius from inner strife. He had a wide grin and beckoned Kopius over to the base of the stairs. “This is how they knew when the lift was moving.”
He took the torch in his hand and placed it in sconce just below the clear handrail. The effect was instant, like flipping a power switch. One moment the crystal clear handrail was minding its own business and the second the fire light came close the rail lit up like a beacon. The light raced all the way up the staircase and gave Kopius his first indication of how far up it was.
A magnificent spiral appeared, creating a type of synchronous celtic knot made up of tubes of fire light. Kopius was in awe of both the complexity and magnitude of it all. The white parts of the stair treads further lit up the large stairwell while the black and blue besmirched the walls with purposeful characters; most of which looked like wild animals.
“Beautiful isn't it?” Cici said with the same reverence that Kopius felt. “Rivals anything that you might find in Corundu.”
“It’s… brilliant,” Kopius said absently, ignoring the forming crick in his neck as he gazed up.
“Brillant,” Cici repeated to himself. “I rather like that.”
“What,” Kopius chided, finally giving his neck a break. “You guys don’t have that word here?”
“No, no, we do. I’ve just not heard it poised like that is all. It’s clever. You’re clever, my friend. Will you ever cease to amaze me?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kopius answered the rhetorical question in all seriousness. “I’ll stop amazing you soon enough.”
“Somehow I don’t believe you.”
“You’ll know when we move from the oooh’s and ah’s to the oh-no’s and why-me’s.”
Cici just laughed and patted him on the shoulder. He swung his arm in an ‘after you’ fashion and the two started the arduous chore of climbing the stairs.