Chapter Ten: The Things that Slumber

Sounds of battle echoed through the cracks and crevices of the London underground.

Gunfire and explosions. Occasionally the tunnel would shake and drops of water would rain on them for a moment, making them hike up their collars. A stiff breeze accompanied them most of their journey, nuzzling between their fingers and ankles.

Wesley’s boots were soaked through, and no amount of dry spells would keep them that way. The water was warm in spots and shivering cold in others. The air grew sweet as they neared the Museum. They’d been following Oliver, who used his wand to guide them, his wand spinning on his palm to point toward their goal.

Rats scurried across pipes and spiders danced in webs above them. The little orb of light that hung above Oliver brightened and dimmed randomly, shrinking their frame of vision.

“Expand the light,” Wesley said. “I can barely see.”

Oliver didn’t respond, but his head twitched. Wesley had rarely seen him this agitated. Even Maronie, who walked between them, was tense, her knuckles white around her wand.

“What is it you’re so scared of?” Wesley asked, the quiet whisper he used carrying an echo in the tunnel.

Oliver turned on him, the little light hanging between them like a flickering star. “Wesley, we have no idea what the Nocturne actually did. He used that orb thing, brought magick here, into the mortal realm. You’ve seen the dragons. What other things came crawling out?”

Wesley stared at him and said nothing.

“Dark things like dark places. Don’t you think we should at least be careful?” He turned. “I don’t like tight places.”

That was one of the first admissions of so-called weakness Wesely had ever heard from him. Even in the years of their friendship he’d been supremely confident and closed off. Close lipped about his childhood. Wesley hadn’t even known he’d had a younger sister until after a year of living together.

“We are three capable wizards,” Wesley said. “Whatever it is, I think we can handle it.”

At that very moment there came a wail that echoed in the tunnel. The three of them froze.

Wesley chose not to look at Oliver.

“What was that?” Maronie asked, her voice very quiet.

Oliver put a finger to his lips, shushing her. Then he shook his head and pointed down the tunnel.

They were going to move very quietly.

Another wail came.

It shook in the pipes, carrying a metallic ring with it.

Wesley again felt the shivers and a little stab of fear. He didn’t like enclosed spaces either and Oliver’s words were playing with him.

What could be crawling around down in these tunnels with them?

Slowly, and with a slight hiss, he drew his sword. Oliver was no fool. And as much as Wesley didn’t trust him, he would trust his instincts.

Soon they came to a tall room with a dome roof and a series of doors spread along the wall. A thin beam of light cascaded through the center of the dome, cutting through clouds of drifting dust.

They looked at each other.

“Was this on your map?” Wesley asked.

“No,” Oliver said, looking around. He sniffed the air. “Well…”

“It all smells the same. Nice try though,” Wesley said.

“And what do you suggest?”

“We pick one.” Another kind of primordial hiss echoed around them. It sounded like it was coming from one of the doors. “We’re not that far below ground. They can’t lead that far from each other.”

“Sounds like one of them would get us killed,” Maronie said.

Wesley nodded. “Then we better choose right.”

Their decision was made for them when the ground began to shake. A high pitched whistle filled the cavern and it pressed on them like a blanket. As if it were a physical thing trying to compress them.

Wesley hadn’t ever felt something like it. It wasn’t a spell. More something to lull him. He began to blink hard, trying to fight the noise.

Maronie blindly cast a shield spell but it did nothing but cast more light in the tall room.

Her spell waned as the sound nearly doubled.

Oliver stumbled. “What the–”

One of the doorways darkened a moment as something came slithering out. It reared when it cleared the narrow passage.

A huge serpent snapped its jaws at them, big green eyes glowing with magick. Its fangs were long as Wesley’s arms and…

He snapped his eyes shut, feeling the dreadful pull of the beast's gaze.

“Shut your eyes!” he shouted, “it's a basilisk.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Large serpents that could kill with their gaze. They would slowly drag the soul of the body. If a person can’t break the gaze then they would basically be dead. Usually the basilisk would eat them after that.

“What do we do?” Maronie shouted.

The serpent was moving. They could hear its long body slithering across the stone. Wesley chanced a look and saw the thing closing the gap. Oliver was moving too, his eyes on the ground, running toward the far wall.

Wesley grabbed Maronie and started pulling her to the opposite wall.

She screamed, raised her wand, and shouted, “Ventus!”

The torrent of wind swept across the cavern, throwing up dust. A sliver of the wind caught Oliver and carried him into the wall which he slammed into and fell to the ground.

“It's me,” Wesley shouted, as he dragged her.

The basilisk reared back its head, the dagger-sized fangs dripping venom.

“Dive,” he yelled, throwing a shield charm.

The charm exploded as the serpent’s head shattered it. Then they were cornered as they came up, pushed up against the wall.

Wesley made a snap decision.

He shoved Maronie down the wall and hit her with a cloaking spell. She disappeared into a mess of shadows. The basilisk turned on Wesley, who flung himself aside as the great serpent's jaws snapped on nothing. The force was such that a whoosh of wind kicked up dust.

Oliver was screaming at him but Wesley couldn’t hear him. “Get to the museum,” he yelled back. “I’ll—”

The tail came out of nowhere and almost skewered him. Apparently there was a long hook to it which looked sharp enough to cut him in half. He threw three more spells at its face which exploded into red sparks. The sound was disorienting, even to Wesley. It echoed like distant canons.

A tunnel’s faint outline shone in front of him, illuminated by his spells.

He stumbled down it until he found his feet and then he was sprinting, his feet pouding the uneven ground.

The narrow space was quickly filled with the sound of the slithering snake.

Fear was biting Welsey’s chest, making the dead sprint a frantic thing. If he’d ever had any normal nightmares this probably would have been one. Cold dark place, bad visibility, tight spaces, the occasional stench of rotten flesh and feces.

Wesley began to wonder, as his breathing became raspy, how fast a basilisk really was. He found out a second later as stones struck his face as he rounded a corner. The basilisk had snapped at him.

The thought of caving in the tunnel right onto the snake came to him as blood trickled down his face. But he didn’t exactly have a death wish.

“Fumo,” he yelled and smoke billowed out of his wand as he held it over his shoulder.

Somewhere, sometime he’d heard that snakes didn’t have the best vision. The basilisk let out a monstrous hiss and began to snap at him wildly.

The ground shook and more stone rained.

A dark tunnel stretched ahead when he rounded another corner and he knew time was running out. He wouldn’t be able to outrun it in a straight stretch.

It was an uncanny thing, to hear death sliding along the ground, creeping ever closer. Wesley felt the pain in his chest tighten as the snapping fangs neared. The thing's breath was warm and left a sickly feeling in his nostrils.

There came a sudden sound, like a voice, a hissing, rasping word.

“Halt!”

Wesley stumbled, spinning as he went down, bringing his blade up. He skidded across the ground and heard his clothes tearing against stone snags.

The fangs flashed and he parried the strike with his sword, the dwarven made blade ringing as it hit the fangs. His shield caught the rest of it. Venom dripped dark green droplets. The thing reared back again, poised to strike.

Wesley poured more into his spell, keeping his eyes straight, trying to track the shadow on the wall. The light from his shield was pale and scattered the shadow.

“Mortal,” came the voice again. “Halt. Be at peace.”

Wesley blinked. “What?”

“Do not be afraid.”

The voice was soothing, like a smooth violin played to perfection. A quiet hiss. A slow poison.

“What do you want?” Wesley asked.

“You, child, I want you. Look at me.”

There was a lunge and Wesley swung his sword blindly. Out of sheer luck he struck the fangs once more.

“Look at me, child,” she purred. “I will take away your pain.”

Something tugged in the back of his mind. Like an anchor dragging him peacefully through warm waters.

“Will it hurt?” he asked, a kind of mind fog taking him.

Shadows flickered on the walls. His shield wavered, his concentration draining with each second under the beast’s pressure.

“It will be like falling asleep…”

That didn’t sound so bad to Wesley’s paralyzing mind.

“The Nocturne will pay…” the voice hissed.

Wesley’s slowly closing eyes shot open and grit his teeth. “The Nocturne?”

His anger flared.

“What do you know about him?”

The serpent’s breath came out hot as a wall of flame and he felt beads of sweat trickle down his face and into his eyes.

“He is the Defiler. The Terror of Baacorn. A brute–”

“You are going to kill him?”

“I will take your power. He will pay.”

A sudden burst of fear hit Wesley like a physical blow. “I want him for myself.” He said the words like a sudden realization though it was nothing of the sort. A bloodlust for the ages, was what he felt. “I want to do it.”

“Well, sweet child, then I’ll take you.”

The hiss became a piercing sound, followed by the horrible snapping of jaws.

Wesley’s shield burned bright hot and he pushed it out with a furious kind of animalistic yell. Then his blade reached out too.

The shield charm broke as it stretched and was struck by the snake’s strike.

The force of the shield exploding kicked the serpent’s head into the ceiling of the tunnel and when it fell, it caught the tip of his sword.

The blade tip caught the edge of a scale, and as if the snake had been made of warm butter, the sword cut through flesh and bone and lodged itself in the beast’s skull.

Cool blood splashed down on Wesley, making his cough and roll away to avoid the head, which had become quite heavy.

Shudders passed through the snake’s long body, shaking its coarse skin on the stone.

The abrupt darkness of the tunnel mixed with the stench and death throws had Wesley shaking. The sticky, thick blood didn’t help either.

He could feel it in his mouth and traveling down his throat.

Gagging, he began to convulse.

And so, before the night went black, and he was pitching and heaving, he thought how lowly an end this was for him.

To die in a sewer, surrounded by shit and piss.

A tragic end to a tragic life.

The Nocturne had won.

He tried to laugh, but he could only gurgle, bile rising in his throat.

The sound echoed lonely through the empty tunnels.