It had taken three weeks for Gim Gim to get the right party together for this expedition. Only four members of the Krarsht temple -- very few indeed -- knew of his special passage into Pavis. None of the Black Fang cult members -- even his closest aides in the gang, knew of it -- but he needed their members and their special climbing skills to take the path past the dragonsnail chamber that supposedly led to the "pool of Gorpgod."
Of course, there were others in Pavis who would have even better ways of doing the same thing, but this was not exactly an expedition for anti-chaos fighters.
The Black Fang members, as dangerous as they were, would not work with or tolerate open chaos, and that in turn meant that he could not get past the dragonsnail, let alone anything else that might require such powers, with a Priest of Primal Chaos. (Even assuming cooperation with such a creature might be possible -- on the basis of his limited experience it would not have been easy.) And the Black Fang members were generally city people. Even their murderers were people more used to backstabbing than to fighting monsters in the Rubble.
So it took a fair amount of work and thought to put together a party of five people, besides Gim Gim himself, including two of the few Krarsht temple members who were presentable humans with no chaos features, and three members of the Black Fang cult who combined fighting skills and climbing skills. At that, this expedition would cost him an arm and a leg, Gim Gim thought, hoping the expression was figurative and not literal.
It was also necessary to get down into the tunnels by some method that did not
reveal the presence of the various Chaotic temples, and, finally, to take some
potential food with them. He solved the second problem by getting the temple to
"donate" two of its potential trollkin sacrifices, and the first by getting the
krarshtkids to dig an angled tunnel alongside the underground stream that ran
across the main path between Trolltown and the Krarsht temple.
Then "all" that remained was to get Gim Gim, and his three Black Fang associates safely to the entrance near Devil's Playground. They could meet the two Krarshti and their trollkin prisoners at the bottom of the tunnel.
Gim Gim pondered whether it was better to go most of the way under the escort of a Lunar patrol, but finally decided against it, on the grounds that the fewer that knew of their progress, the better. As it was, the guards at the gate would know that agents wre going out. Ironically, as they traveled out into the Devil's Playground, heavily cloaked, all that they met was a small band of newtlings, who immediately ran to the River, and then a Lunar patrol. Gim Gim flashed the proper identification, sighing to himself that, for all the difference it had made, they might as well have taken the Patrol with them.
The passage down the tunnel and the meeting with the Krarshti and their hand-tied prisoners went well -- Gim Gim's fears of a troll raid notwithstanding. The climbing gear they needed was in a pile next to the trollkin -- that at least had been brought by creatures whose appearance would have disturbed the Black Fangs, had they seen them. The whining of the trolkin, apparently instinctive rather than controllable, was so irritating that Gim Gim finally ordered their mouths to be gagged. As an afterthought, he ordered them blindfolded, too. Best they not see where they were going!
Once again, Gim Gim followed the course of the map into the dragonsnail's chamber (*Author's note -- most of the passageways here are filled with water at the time of the adventure in River of Cradles -- but that adventure happens later, after the tunnel to the Zola Fel River near Ogre Island is broken open, and the main tunnel between the Krarsht temple and Trolltown is closed off by a sinkhole: RoC, p. 133). The dragonsnail still blocked the way to the passage above its head. This time, however, the problem was easy to solve -- the two Krarshti picked up one of the trollkin and pitched it to the back of the chamber. Sensing motion, and smelling food, the dragonsnail slithered there and began to feed.
The Black Fangs, less accustomed to these practices than the Krarshti, looked a bit disgusted, but realized that trollkin were trollkin, and would most likely have been eaten by their relatives if not by a the dragonsnail. Besides, they were too busy taking advantage of the dragonsnail's movement to spend much time watching the trollkin's end.
With rapid and skillful use of acrobatics, ropes, and Glue spells, the climbers
arranged a rope pulley sufficient to bring along the less skilled members of the
party, including the other trollkin. Gim Gim himself, of course, was no mean
climber, given his long experience, but he was impressed with the skill of these
"second story men" in this quite different environment.
The tunnel was quite difficult to climb, even with all the skill of the party members, especially given the cave slime that coated the walls. The climbing became even more difficult as they got close to the top of the shaft.
Two of their senses began to be overwhelmed -- hearing, and smell. A horrible smell of living rot began to be obvious, and a continuous wailing noise like that of a nursery began to be heard. But the infants in this nursery never paused for breath or stopped.
They entered upon a chamber, apparently empty except for a pool at the far end. Once again, the exit from this chamber was over the pool. The smell and the noise were even worse, and got worse the closer they came to the pool.
One of the Krarshti stepped in the pool, and tentacles suddenly emerged from the far side. The Krarshti jumped back, as a walktapus began to emerge! "Well," said Gim Gim calmly, "give it what it wants." This time throwing the trollkin went even better than the last time. The trollkin landed in the far side of the pool with a splash, and floated for a few seconds until the tentacles of the walktapus pulled it down.
Gim Gim cast his life detection, held his breath (sincerely hoping the water wasn't too poisoned), and stuck his face in the pool long enough to see that there was nothing in there except the walktapus and the rapidly dying trollkin. He waved the party forward, and with equal precision, they formed a pyramid, and set up the rope pulley as before. There was only one problem: several of the party was retching, and one of the Black Fangs vomited, luckily not hitting Gim Gim, who was just below him.
The climb up this chimney wasn't any more difficult than the one before, and
this time they weren't carrying a trollkin like a wiggling lump of baggage, but
the smell and the noise made it all seem much more difficult. At times like
this, Gim Gim was glad he had the reputation that he did -- for it was obvious
that both the Krarshti and the Black Fangs feared to show fear in his presence.
"The greatest fear of all," Gim Gim thought, "the fear of being made afraid."
As they reached the end of the climb, it was obvious that the source of the by-now overwhelming smell of corruption and the horrible wailing was coming from a place beneath the tunnel. Peering down, they saw a set of ledges, further apart than a man's height, running down to a scum-filled pool.
By now, everyone in the party, even Gim Gim, was retching and vomiting every few minutes. The smells and the noise were too much to bear. They could see what was causing the noise -- weird distorted manlike creatures -- about two dozen of them. The wailing creatures milled around, biting each other and occasionally falling into the scum-covered pool below. Everytime they fell, a great distorted hand and arm rose from the pool and pushed them back onto the ledge.
Cautiously, the party descended the slippery slopes, using spears and their ropes to prevent a long fall into the horrible-looking pool. Then, several gorps slithered out of the pool onto the ledge. It soon became obvious that the gorp were looking for the party, but, upon experiment, it became equally obvious that, if they kept a long distance from the gorp, the gorp could not detect them and wandered back into the pool.
It was obvious where the name "the pool of Gorpgod" had come. It was less obvious what manner of creature was in the pool. The noise made it impossible to think, as did the smell. Gim Gim tried to reduce both by stuffing some material in his ears and tying something over his nose. The first expedient worked better than the second.
Gim Gim pondered whether it was worth the risk to try to establish communication with the pool monster. Finally, he shrugged, and threw a Mindspeech spell at the great limb the next time it rose above the water.
The mighty blast of volume and emotion in response knocked Gim Gim off his feet, literally. Luckily, his climbers managed to keep him from sliding down the slippery ledges into the gorp-filled pool. At first, he had no idea of what he was hearing. But he realized soon that it was Seshnegi, a language which he had not heard for many years, and had never particularly expected to hear again.
Listening more closely, it appeared to be a form of Seshnegi that he had never heard before. Many of the words and the phrasing were utterly incomprehensible. He tried to sort something from what he heard: "Love ... creation . . . birth ...chaos .. the chaos in me truly makes . .give birth to . . .the Primal Chaos. . .joy . . .oh wonderful . . .agape. . .transcend the limits ... overwhelm the world . . . all is Life."
Gim Gim was not sure what was down there. He guessed it was some sort of Priest of Primal Chaos, although he had heard that there might be some other GorpGod. The creature down there was undoubtedly quite old (it had been long centuries since any Seshnegi speakers had been in Prax), but it had done nothing with its Age other than to live. It was probably barely distinguishable from the gorp that it created with such ectasy. On the other hand, it was obviously one of the few happy Chaos creatures that Gim Gim had ever encountered: it was in a perpetual state of theopathy.
It occurred to him that the the question of separation was the key between Law and Chaos. Law separated things, distinguished one from another -- two sexes, male and female; two philosophies, good and evil, and so on. Chaos blurred all distinctions, including those between Life and Death -- for broos even Love-making was an act of Death, for vampires Death was an act of Love-making.
Viewed that way, it was quite probable that the Orlanthi view of the Lunar Empire as ultimately Chaotic held a strong element of Truth -- for nothing so engaged in dissimulation and blurring distinctions could in the end be anything else. So, it was possible that Chaos was using him and the Empire as much as they were using Chaos.
On the other hand, was this creature's immortality so different from that of the Gods? Wheezing Orlanth, as much as this creature, was tied into a circle of repetition by the Great Compromise. And, although the Red Goddess claimed to have transcended the Compromise, she had not so much conquered the problem of Being as denied it.
Well, he thought, enough ontology, time to leave. What he had learned really hadn't helped him much: although information of any sort had value, and maybe he could trade this information to some Chaos worshipper who could make better use of this than he could.
The first priority, however, was to get out. They had used up their trollkin, so he wondered if they should take a couple of these strange wailing creatures with them. A little experimentation soon convinced the party that the creature's bite contained some form of weak acid. It might be a form of justice to feed these to the walktapus and the dragonsnail, but getting them out of here safely was more trouble than it was worth. And the entire party was weak and distraught from what could only be called the illness of their immediate environment.
In fact, the trip back proved easier than the trip in. The walktapus and the dragonsnail were still munching on the last of their respective trollkins, and no one fell this time. Since all of them had emptied their stomachs, there was little left to vomit. Of course, they all smelled horrible, and they would probably have to burn everything they were wearing.
Even worse than the stain on their clothes was the putative stain on their souls. They were weary, and appalled, especially the Black Fangs, who had never seen naked Chaos before. Gim Gim would not be surprised if one or more of them would soon undergo a religious conversion of some sort.
He would have to figure out what to do with the Black Fangs after they got home. It would be a shame to waste such talents as they had displayed tonight, but now they knew too much.
For them, as for him, knowledge could be as much a disadvantage as an advantage. He would have to decide soon, very soon, just how much a disadvantage it would be for them.
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