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  The Skeleton Key – David Annandale

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  The Skeleton Key

  by David Annandale

  The temple was buried far below a cemetery that had been abandoned for centuries. It was the forgotten beneath the forgotten. Its gods were dead, its idols without meaning. It was a ruin sinking deeper into the abyss of time. Or it would be, if it had been left to the dignity of its slow oblivion. But it had been reclaimed, and a new purpose imposed upon its corridors and vaults. It was a temple of sport now. And in a dugout that might once have been a prison, or a meditation cell, the most ancient of players brooded over the fallen, ruined nature of the age, and pronounced his judgement.

  ‘Idiots,’ Ramtut the Third muttered. The voice of the star player of the Champions of Death was a harsh whisper, scraping with the sands of history.

  ‘And we’re back! Jim Johnson and Bob Bifford with you once again after the Dungeonbowl opening ceremonies. Bob, weren’t they splendid?’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Ramtut. He sat in the rectangular chamber that passed for a dugout, watching the CabalVision inanity unspool in the crystal ball. He clenched a bandage-wrapped fist. Dust crumbled from the wrappings. ‘Idiots,’ he said again. It bore repeating.

  ‘That they were, Jim. And a big shout-out to the Bloodweiser Orchestra for a knock-out performance.’

  ‘You know, Bob, that’s the first performance of Morrheim’s Egregious Fanfare in its original arrangement for strings and scalded cats here at the Dungeonbowl, and I can’t think of a better introduction to the match we have for our viewers today.’

  ‘It’s a doozy, all right. Folks, this is it – the Bright Crusaders against the Champions of Death. Doesn’t get more tense than that.’

  ‘Indeed not, Bob, and it’s fair to say the crowd is lapping up that tension. It’s a battle of the extremes. The Bright Crusaders are the league’s most honourable players. There isn’t a single penalty for cheating in their history, and that’s not even getting into the spectators whose lives they’ve saved, even when that meant losing the game.’

  ‘They’re all about the honour of the game before the glory of victory. Which is just as well, given their win-loss record.’

  ‘And facing them is a team that has racked up an impressive series of triumphs and body counts.’

  ‘They managed to take out an entire stadium of spectators five years ago, didn’t they, Jim?’

  ‘They sure did, and swelling the ranks of their post-life fans. So there you have it, viewers: the incorruptible heroes fighting the undead horrors.’

  ‘Uh, but aren’t you…?’

  ‘Undead horrors, Bob. Horrors.’

  ‘They are a bit crumbly, that’s for sure.’

  The skeletons clattered back into the dugout, accompanied by the Champions’ necromancer coach, Tomolandry. They had watched the opening ceremonies from just below the bleachers. The skeletons crowded Ramtut on the bench as they clicked and shook, teeth chattering with excitement.

  ‘They enjoyed the show,’ Tomolandry said. He leaned against the dugout entrance. His features were obscured by the hood of his robe. Only the tip of his protuberant nose was visible. It shone in the torchlight.

  Ramtut grunted. He turned a jaundiced eye on his teammates. They had glyphs on their skulls to identify one from the other, but they were faded or smeared with dirt. Even Ramtut could barely distinguish them. He could pick out some by their physical variations. Spurs had bone growths spiking out of his shoulders. Dropjaw kept losing bits of himself. Straightline had trouble with the concepts of stopping and turning. Cup was missing the top of his skull.

  ‘Best show ever, was it?’ Ramtut growled. By which he meant the worst. In his day, there had been real opening ceremonies, with proper ritual sacrifices. None of the diluted, undignified spectacle of the present day.

  More excited clatters. The skeletons had never been good at detecting sarcasm. Spurs began to clack his fingers against his jaw, beating out his answer in code. It was amazing!

  ‘It was twaddle,’ Ramtut said. ‘Pap vomited onto the unthinking hordes on the bleachers. The best that can be said of it was that it and its audience were well-matched.’

  Spurs lowered his hand, seeming abashed.

  ‘They enjoyed the fireworks,’ Tomolandry said. ‘Very bright, close and hot underground.’

  ‘Vulgar,’ Ramtut snorted. ‘Once, there was real grandeur to these events. None of this sad pandering.’ He turned back to the crystal ball.

  ‘It’s worth repeating, Bob, that the College of Wizards is really playing up the theme of this year’s championship, and who can blame them?’

  ‘The people who don’t want themes in their Blood Bowl matches, Jim.’

  ‘And what a lost opportunity that would be. What we have here is nothing less than a classic confrontation in a classic setting. Noble heroes venturing into the dark dungeon to seek out and destroy the monsters therein. That’s the story of this Dungeonbowl, Bob. And the crowd is eating it up. What a welcome the Bright Crusaders are going to receive!’

  ‘That could be a real advantage for them, Jim, though I see a few unhappy faces in there.’

  ‘Well-spotted and well said, Bob. If my eyes are not mistaken, those are supporters of Da Deff Skwad.’

  ‘In a crowd of humans, orcs and goblins stick out like green thumbs, Jim.’

  ‘Uh… yes. Quite. I must say I’m surprised they’re here at all, given their team’s surprise defeat at the hands of the Bright Crusaders.’

  ‘I’d say any victory through honesty is a surprise victory, but I agree.’

  ‘I think there is a lesson here for us, Bob. Whether Da Deff Skwad fans are here to boo the Crusaders or cheer the Champions, they’re here. And isn’t that what really counts in–’

  ‘Please shut up,’ Ramtut growled. He smacked the crystal ball from its mount. The images winked out and it rolled to the far corner of the dugout. He stood up. What stung was that the commentators were right. This match had a narrative. If the opposing team were anyone other than the Bright Crusaders, he would have guessed the fix was in. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. There was still half an hour before kick-off, but he was tired of waiting in the dugout.

  The skeletons filed out ahead of him. The exit from the dugout opened onto the dank, dripping, nitre-encrusted walls of the vestibule. The masonry was massive, but decaying. Ramtut glanced at the crumbling blocks and sniffed. The dungeon had all the structural integrity of rotten bone. No one knew how to build anything to last anymore.

  Beyond the iron door on the other side of the chamber was the Champions’ end zone.

  ‘We’ll be going on first,’ Tomolandry said when Ramtut reached the doorway. ‘The crowd is filled with Crusaders supporters, so they get the build-up.’

  Ramtut pulled his shrivelled lips back over his teeth. ‘Monsters before heroes, is that it?’

  Tomolandry shrugged.

  ‘And that, I suppose, is your stirring pre-game speech?’

  ‘The skeletons don’t need one, and you would walk out before I was finished.’

  Point taken. Ramtut could remember some speeches of old, though, that had value. That fired the spirit. That he had memorized the first time he heard them. Like everything else, oratory was a fallen art in this sad age.

  ‘About the skeletons,’ said Ramtut. ‘Are you sure we don’t need at least one ghoul? Or even a zombie? It feels like we’re conceding before we start.’

  Tomolandry tapped the sid
e of his nose. ‘They’re vital to the strategy,’ he said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘I still say it’s a bad idea.’

  Tomolandry clapped his cloth-wrapped shoulder. ‘Trust me. I know what I’m doing.’

  Ramtut didn’t trust him and didn’t believe him.

  The betting chambers were nestled beneath an overhang of the bleachers. There were a score of the low booths. Beyond them, at the foot of the stone bleachers, vendors plied the crowd with slabs of indeterminate meat on sticks and tankards of ale. The people milled, shouting and laughing, the din growing louder as the start of the match drew closer.

  Lots of noise. No one could hear what Greezing was saying to the dwarf bookie, especially with the other goblins crowding around to keep the conversation private.

  ‘Are you betting on the Champions of Death or the Bright Crusaders?’ the dwarf asked again. His quill was poised over the accounts ledger resting on the booking chamber’s centre.

  ‘Neither,’ Greezing said. ‘We’re not betting on a win.’

  The dwarf raised eyebrows almost as voluminous as his beard.

  ‘We want to bet the Bright Crusaders will be caught cheating.’

  The dwarf stared at Greezing for a long moment before he burst into laughter. Greezing waited the fit out. Eventually, the dwarf wiped the tears from his eyes and said, ‘Very good, very good. Seriously, though, how do you want to bet?’

  ‘I was serious.’

  The dwarf blinked at him, grinning happily. ‘You want to throw your gold away, I won’t stop you.’

  He laughed all the way through the transaction.

  When the goblins were done, they turned their attention to the halfling who had been leaning against the wall between betting windows, one hairy-toed foot against the brickwork.

  ‘All done?’ the halfling asked. His name was Pillip. His clothes were dirt-smudged and dark, though his ruddy cheeks undermined the dangerous look he was trying to achieve.

  ‘Done,’ said Greezing. ‘You placed yours too?’

  ‘I did.’ Pillip straightened up. ‘Time to see my uncle, then.’

  Pillip’s uncle, Hallic, was a referee. He was also a halfling who believed in doing business, and doing it smartly. Greezing had found him to be very receptive in the days leading up to the match, and now he was delivering what he had promised. It didn’t hurt that his nephew had placed gold for him on the same bet.

  ‘The way I see it,’ said Hallic, ‘Dungeonbowl is already an unorthodox approach to Blood Bowl.’ He spoke quietly but didn’t whisper, rolling his words lovingly, as if appreciating their taste. He was standing beside one of the dungeon’s portcullis gates, his hands on a wheel, waiting to turn it. The portcullis was out of sight beneath the foundations of the bleachers, which only had a direct view of the centre of the dungeon. With half an hour to go, CabalVision had not opened its all-seeing eye on the playing field yet. Greezing and his fellow goblins would have all the time they needed to make their preparations. Once the game began, they would have to hug the shadows more carefully, but Greezing felt sure they could avoid detection and do what needed doing.

  ‘Unorthodox,’ Hallic said again, pleased with himself. ‘Yep. So what we’re looking at, I say to myself, and I don’t disagree, is enhancement of the unorthodox. And since the unorthodox is a selling point, then this is enhancement of the entertainment. That’s the opposite of cheating the customer.’

  ‘You said it, uncle,’ said Pillip.

  Hallic glanced at an hourglass. He said to Greezing, ‘You boys know your way around in there?’

  Greezing chuckled. The laugh spread to the other goblins behind him. Veelber and Gilspat almost dropped the heavy load they were carrying between them. ‘We know,’ Greezing said.

  ‘Good.’ Hallic looked at the hourglass again. The timing had to be precise. The last inspection of the dungeon by the representatives of the Colleges of Magic had just finished. Between the departure of the College officials and the arrival of the teams, there was a window for enhancement.

  This was it.

  Hallic turned the wheel. The well-oiled portcullis rose in surprising, but satisfying, silence. ‘Off you go, then,’ he said.

  The goblins ran into the tunnels beyond.

  ‘Well, we’re moments away from the teams taking to the field, and the excitement is at a fever pitch. Everything is pointing to this being a memorable match, if I do say so, Bob. Even the start is something different.’

  ‘Too right, Jim. For the teams AND for us.’

  ‘Exactly. As you know, Bob, one of the features of Dungeonbowl that makes it unique is the fact that the teams don’t know where each other’s end zone is. So there are three stages to the match. There are six chests scattered around the dungeon, and the first challenge is to find them. Then players have to get the ball, which is in one of those chests, while the other five are traps. Finally, the teams have to find where they’re supposed to take the ball. And on top of that, they can only start with six players on the field.’

  ‘There’s a good reason why a single touchdown is all you need to win.’

  ‘You said it, Bob. But today we’re looking at a historic first for the game. There has never been a Dungeonbowl championship where the spectators don’t know where the end zones are, either.’

  ‘It’s a brave move by the Colleges of Magic, Jim. The teams are being teleported straight from their end zones to the centre of the dungeon, and that’s where we’ll see them first. I don’t know if this idea will catch on, but points for trying something new.’

  ‘I doubt you’ll get Ramtut to agree with you there, Bob!’

  ‘Oh, touché, Jim!’

  [forced hearty laughter]

  ‘Hold on, Bob, I think this is it… Yes… yes… HERE THEY COME!’

  The teams were sent on one at a time, and a deafening storm of boos arose when the Champions of Death appeared. On his front-row seat in the bleachers, Pillip looked back and forth between the centre of the dungeon where the Champions of Death were arriving, and the giant CabalVision crystal screen that floated above centre field. It would show the other regions of the dungeon as gameplay advanced, but for now it displayed close-ups of the team. Most of the images were of Ramtut’s shrivelled features, which snarled through his wrappings. The skeletons were too difficult to tell apart.

  A human sitting next to Pillip clapped him on the shoulders almost hard enough to knock him off the bleacher. ‘Some home crowd advantage, eh?’ she shouted happily, her words almost lost in the din of the hate aimed at the Champions.

  Ramtut greeted the crowd with an unambiguous gesture. People rose in their seats, promising him a slow, painful death.

  Pillip kept a straight face as he contemplated the stupidity of the threat.

  The Champions moved off into a hallway heading north, and the Bright Crusaders entered centre field. The crowd’s frenzy reached new paroxysms, but the storm was a joyous one now. Pillip winced at the piercing cheers.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ the woman asked. She gave Pillip’s shoulder another clout before she sat down.

  Her companion glared at Pillip. ‘What’s wrong? Got something against heroes?’

  Squeaky clean drips, Pillip thought, but kept the sentiment to himself. Both humans looked strong enough to punch him through a wall.

  ‘Just worried,’ he lied. ‘I have money riding on them.’ Which was half-true.

  ‘They’re finally winning a championship,’ the woman said. ‘I know they are.’

  ‘It’s Sternright and Gallant!’ the man shouted. ‘Sternright and Gallant!’ He was on his feet again, and the woman joined him.

  ‘Arik! Dirk!’ the woman yelled at the Crusaders’ Star Player and his right-hand man.

  Flowers rained down from the crowd on Sternright. To Pillip’s disgust, the man blushed. He rubbed his square
chin bashfully. His face, framed by blond locks, turned a bright crimson. Dirk Gallant gathered up the flowers and set them aside carefully.

  ‘I was there in ’88 when Dirk ran out of bounds to save a kitten,’ the woman confided.

  ‘I’m jealous,’ Pillip said dryly.

  ‘Arik really is sensitive, isn’t he?’

  ‘Just what you want for a Dungeonbowl player.’ Pillip hoped the Bright Champions wouldn’t lose before the goblins had the chance to trick them into cheating.

  The whistle shrieked through the damp corridors of the dungeon. Ramtut led the Champions of Death at a run up the north passage. They had barely started when the two of the Bright Crusaders appeared from central chamber. Ekerd Honourschine and Conrad Knightstandt raced up behind the skeletons. Ramtut had expected the move. The humans were splitting up to cover as much of the dungeon as fast as possible in the hunt for the ball. Ramtut couldn’t trust the skeletons on their own, so he had to keep his team in one group and use force to counter speed.

  Honourschine and Knightstandt were fast. They were closing with the Champions.

  A vaulted entrance was coming up Ramtut’s left. He slowed as he reached it. The chamber was shaped like a bowl, the ribs of the walls sloping in towards the centre of the floor where a chest waited in plain sight. The chest looked oddly rounded, even soft. It was also present too soon. Ramtut couldn’t believe the ball would be in the first room he passed, but there was no choice. The chest had to be opened. He spun on his heel. He pointed at Cup.

  ‘Open the chest,’ he said, and charged back down at the Crusaders.

  The other skeletons collided with each other in their effort to turn around, but Straightline managed to pivot and ran ahead of Ramtut and the pack. He barrelled directly into Knightstandt as if expecting to run straight through the Crusader. The impact blew Straightline apart. Bones rattled against the corridor walls. Knightstandt staggered, winded. Ramtut hit Honourschine at an angle, knocking him off his path and into his teammate. Knightstandt slammed into the wall and slumped down.

  ‘Unclean fiend!’ Honourschine yelled at Ramtut and tackled him around the chest. He tried to throw Ramtut to the ground. The skeletons pulled him off. Ramtut yanked the Crusader’s helmet from his head, reversed it, and hammered Honourschine into unconsciousness.