Curiosity Killed the Cat
A free fantasy serial
by KD Sarge
Part 3: Many Doors
(Read part 1 here. Part 2 is here.)
Srivasi reached for the door and hesitated. He had the right answer now, but there was no guarantee that the correct door led to safety. He looked back, and it was still dark around the corner they’d come from. He could go check, but probably the door was still closed, still hidden by the skill of its builder. Maybe he could find it and force it open, find a way to get back to the surface—and maybe he couldn’t. He wasn’t particularly eager to have the boy see him fail. If—
“Oh, fine.” The boy bounced forward and yanked the door open. Leaped back, leaving Srivasi standing before the doorway alone.
Only darkness flowed out. Metaphorical flowing, not real, thankfully.
“Are you going to make more light?” Dasid demanded. “Or should we just stand here a while first?”
Oh. He’d let his wand go out, distracted by running for his life. Srivasi thought of shoving the child through the door and holding it closed, but the boy would make noise and bring anything that might be nearby to attack. Though on the other side of the door…
No. If something attacked the child, Srivasi would have to help him. Better to avoid it if he could. Srivasi sighed and lit the tip of his wand.
“Huh,” Dasid said.
“It looks just like where we are,” Srivasi said.
“Yeah, except no light. Like the tentacle door.”
“It doesn’t seem damp, though.”
“Yeah, probably a dry monster in here.”
Srivasi willed more light from the wand, but still saw nothing but a short corridor leading to three more doors. It wasn’t quite the same as the one he stood in. There was no crystal globe, not even a plinth to hold one. The stone blocks that made up the walls were smaller and did not fit as well. The floor, too, was less expertly made, with dips and swells. Srivasi eyed the ceiling that had mortar bulging out between stones, and wondered if it was safe.
“Well, onwards and upwards. Downwards. Whatever,” Dasid said, slipping past Srivasi. “That gold isn’t going to find itself.”
“How are you still so certain there will be gold?” There still wasn’t any way to go back, so Srivasi followed the boy, but kept an eye on the ceiling.
“Who puts this much effort into a prank? Something like this is built to hide a treasure, so there must be treasure.”
“You’re an optimist,” Srivasi said, amused. The boy seemed so cynical and sarcastic, yet—
“Don’t start name-calling, friend Whiskers.” Dasid stopped. Instead of three doors in a row, this corridor ended with a door straight ahead, a door in the left wall, and a door in the right. The door on the left didn’t fit its framing so there was a diagonal gap beneath it, while the wall above the right door sagged and the door warped under the pressure. Srivasi hoped that wasn’t the correct door since he wasn’t sure it would open, and if it did, he wasn’t sure that the wall wouldn’t collapse.
“Stumped?” Dasid asked. “It’s so short. Looks easy.”
Srivasi frowned at the chiseled sentence above the middle door. It wasn’t deeply cut so it was hard to read, but the actual problem was indeed easy. “En, che, la, mi, se—de.” He pointed at the door to the left. “It’s the Aduli syllabary. Absolutely anyone who can read Aduli could answer this question.”
“It’s a wonder we’re not overrun with treasure-hunters,” Dasid said. And, “I think it’s your turn.”
Oh for the love of—Srivasi grabbed the handle and yanked before he could think too much of Jhi Bo with her long bright sword, who would have opened every door first even if the door said “library.” The stupid thing stuck. Srivasi tugged. Might this place have a library? The syllabary question aside, it seemed a place where learning was honored, so—the door gave.
“By all the unnamed gods,” Dasid muttered, “this is getting silly.”
The corridor continued as before, for perhaps five feet. Then it ended in three more doors. All continued the theme set by the last three of not quite fitting, but at least none of them seemed to be supporting the wall above it.
The problem was a quote from Kencee’s Breath of Doom: Separating Myth from Reality. Even if a maze-wanderer hadn’t read it—Srivasi had—anyone who knew anything of dragons would know that a red-scaled one was more likely to breathe fire than frost or lightning.
Beyond the door with the fire-glyph lay a corridor of perhaps seven feet, and another set of doors. Srivasi noted that the masonry was improving again—the blocks of the wall were still small, but met better. Above the doors a sentence of ancient Fwenye directed Srivasi to “take the third door.” Srivasi reached for the door on his right, then reconsidered. Fwenye read right to left, and the sentence reflected that. So wouldn’t the counting of the doors also reflect that?
“Stumped again?” Dasid asked.
“Next question is yours,” Srivasi muttered, before waving at the left door. “This door is also yours, as it is most definitely your turn.”
Dasid chuckled and opened the door. And groaned.
Ten feet of corridor, three more doors. The stones fit together as if grown that way. The unknown masons were certainly gaining in skill after whatever happened between the first door and the second.
Above the doors was a question about magic correspondences that any apprentice mage could have answered in her sleep and probably had.
Another corridor, more doors. This time Srivasi struggled, but eventually came up with an answer regarding star placement from hazy memories of his father trying to teach him to navigate the family fishing boat.
Three doors later it occurred to him he probably should have kept track of the doors as a way to mark time. Or left marks for Jhi Bo to find.
Or both. Both probably would have been good things to do.
Another door, and Dasid muttered a word Gerda surely would have smacked him for. The corridor ran perhaps twenty feet to either side of the door, and at each end was a set of doors.
“I,” Dasid said, “have about had enough.”
“That point was several doors ago for me,” Srivasi agreed. “Should we go back and try to get past the thing with tentacles? Or see what lurks behind another wrong door?”
“Now you’re the one wanting to go on?”
“I don’t see any option for going back. Do you?”
“Fine.” Dasid waved at the corridor. “Which doors?”
The masonry had improved again. Now there was a pattern in the walls, rocks ranging from light grey to black placed to create an image of…tree roots, perhaps, or a river and its tributaries, flowing along the wall of the corridor. But there was no hint that Srivasi could see telling him which doors he should choose.
Above one set of doors was a question about denizens of the Abyss. Srivasi didn’t know the answer, but he was certain he had a book where the knowledge could be found. The other question was simpler, a bit of an Ikontran legend and on the door images of beasts it could feature. Srivasi did not have to strain to remember the creature the traveler met was a selkie.
“Do you see any hint at which doors we should choose?” he asked.
“I’m for the one that doesn’t lead to a monster.”
“Most helpful. Did you want to go ahead and check each door then? I’ll wait.”
“It’s your turn to open the door.”
Srivasi growled and walked to the second set of doors, and opened the one with the symbol for a selkie.
“Have you heard the tale of the man commanded to cut down a tree to earn his freedom, but before he can finish every time it grows back?” Srivasi asked.
“No, but it sounds like this,” Dasid said, looking under Srivasi’s arm on a corridor with two sets of doors. “Who does this? Has someone spent a lifetime down here digging holes to put silly riddles above stupid doors?”
“I think we’re at the point of a couple lifetimes,” Srivasi said. The walls were decorated again, this time with white stone in an abstract pattern that was very pretty but gave no more hints than the last one. Srivasi chose the set of doors with the easier question and went on.
Two more corridors with two more sets of doors, and Srivasi came through a door into a corridor with a set of doors behind him, one door twenty feet down the corridor, and a set of three doors twenty feet beyond that. The question above those doors was about a denizen of the Abyss.
“Are you stumped for real this time?” Dasid asked quietly. “You look…”
“We’re going in circles.” Srivasi looked over his shoulder to confirm and he was right—they had come back through the door with the selkie.
“It’s not a maze,” Dasid said. “It’s a death trap.”
If you’d like more of Srivasi and Jhi Bo, their story “Guardian” is in our anthology Under Her Protection.