[CRACKFIC] Noble is the Head 39

[makingamochrie.livejournal.com]

Kindasorta Greg's turn.

Title: Noble is the Head 39
author: makingamochrie
Pairing: None (this chapter)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer:  Jimmy no longer cracks corn and I do care.  CRACK!

Approximately an hour later, an hour blessedly free from ghosts, noises, visions, hallucinations and other things of that nature, Ryan stopped the group abruptly and went to his haunches.  “This looks like a good place,” he announced, swinging his pack from around his broad shoulders.

 

“A good place for what?” Greg demanded.  “Unzipping our duds and seeing whose prick is the longest?  Sorry to break it to ya this way, dude, but we all pretty much already know the answer to that one.”

 

Ryan rolled his eyes.  “To eat, you moron,” he said, sighing loudly as he reached inside his pack and pulled out several wrapped bundles of his sister’s wonderful cooking.  Some even retained some warmth, and the scents were indeed mouthwatering.

 

“Oh,” Greg said, sitting down immediately, “that’s different, then.  You’re still gonna get your skinny ass kicked for the moron crack, though.  Just warning ya, your Maj.”

 

“What’ve we got?” Colin asked from his place behind Drew.  The activities of the day so far had left him with a deep, grabbing hunger in the center of his gut.

 

“Here!” Drew said, grinning as he handed the ex-jester a good-smelling bundle of cloth.  Colin opened it to find leaves wrapped around a rice and meat mixture that smelled as if it had floated express down from Paradise itself.  He inhaled fully, salivary glands standing at attention and working overtime, as were his taste buds and nose. 

 

“Thanks!” he praised his friend before lifting the wrap and biting into the thing entire and groaning at the ambrosia that filled his mouth to bursting.  “By the gods,” he groaned, “that’s about the best food I’ve ever eaten.  Your sister’s skills go way past healing.”

 

“Oh fuck,” Greg said, his voice as repulsed as anyone had ever heard it.  Three sets of eyes shot over to the wrap, now lying on the floor.  As they watched, maggots and other disgusting creatures crawled from it in never ending streams of slime and rot.  Drew squealed next and threw his wrap to the floor, then added a healthy dollop of vomit to it.  Maggots and worms blindly sprouted from both.  The stench was overpowering.

 

Colin looked down at his own wrap, which looked, and smelled, as delicious as ever.  With the very tip of one long finger, he poked at the meat, but nothing seemed out of place.  He looked over at Ryan who, reading his mind, lifted his own bit of food, showing it to be perfectly normal as well.  “Hallucinations?” Colin guessed softly.

 

Ryan nodded.  “Greg, share mine.  Drew, share Colin’s.”

 

“Not a chance, man,” the thief said before his hand was grabbed hard and shaken.

 

“You need to keep up your strength,” Ryan ordered, pressing the meal up to Greg’s lips and all but forcing it in.  “Take it now, or by the Gods I’ll shove it down and cover your mouth until you swallow it whole.”

 

“Kinky,” Greg muttered around the food, but did as he was told, thanking the gods that the food in question seemed fresh and warm and good.

 

Colin didn’t have to try quite as hard with Drew, even though the nobleman had just vomited.  He was hungry and took what Colin had left with relish, licking his lips and even Colin’s fingers as the morsel disappeared down his large gullet.  “Thank you,” he said, kissing his friend’s cheek. “God, that was good.  Any more?”

 

“I’m afraid that’s the last of it,” Colin said, mournfully, especially as he himself had only a small bit of it and he was still quite hungry.  As if in answer to his morose thoughts, a quarter eaten bit of food bounced from his head and landed neatly in his hands.  Looking up, he saw the Prince grinning at him and, grinning back, he popped the morsel in his mouth and chewed happily.

 

A wine skin, filled with the Mage’s wonderful brew, was passed down the line, and all took their fill.  The taste was heady and good and made them forget the holes in their bellies, at least for now.  It also made them forget their weariness and anxiety.

 

As one, they again stood, stowed their leavings and reshouldered their packs, once again ready for whatever awaited them further down the tunnel.

 

*******

 

The next obstacle showed itself no more than fifty meters past where they’d stopped for their impromptu lunch.  It was, or at least gave the appearance of being, a door.  A solid door.  A very solid door made of thick, dark oak wood with metal straps laid horizontal, vertical and crossways.  No hinges, no handle, no holes of any type.  Just a door, and apparently impenetrable.

 

Greg strutted up to the obstruction, his lips twisted in a sneer, his entire being radiating cockiness and confidence in spades.  Reaching out, he touched the sensitive pads of his fingers against the door, touching it as one would touch a cherished lover.

 

“Greg,” Colin warned softly.

 

“Hush,” Greg said. “Let the Master do his work.”

 

Colin looked as if he wanted to say more, but one look from Ryan kept him mum on the subject, so he instead stood back, arms folded across his chest, to watch.

 

Drew, meanwhile, was taking advantage of his new eyesight to eye the walls to the right and the left of the door.  It sat flush with the tunnel walls, and there appeared to be no side passages that would give them easy access to see what was around the back side of the enormous door.

 

Then he noticed, to the right, the rocks in the walls.  Unlike the other, randomly placed rocks that filled the tunnel, these seemed almost…forced there…unnatural in a way that the others weren’t.  “Greg….”

 

But the thief had already seen and turned his attention to them, eyes narrowed in concentration.  “A red herring?” he asked the walls, “or the answer?”  Staring for a long time, he shook his head.  “They’ll wait.  Back to the door.”

 

He pressed in different places, but the enormous blockade didn’t move the slightest hair.  It didn’t squeak, squeal, groan, or do anything but stand there, all but mocking his attempts to get through.  Suddenly he turned.  “Colin…give me a boost up, will you?”

 

Stepping forward, Colin formed a cradle with his hands, and Greg stepped into it, levering himself upward until he came into contact with the very top of the door.  Carefully, aware of the chances of accidentally tripping a trigger, he drew his fingertips over the wood he could feel, set so perfectly against the roof of the tunnel.

 

Then he felt it.  A tiny depression; one so small that anyone would have easily mistaken it for a warp in the wood.  But not Greg.  He’d been a thief his whole life, and was more attuned to things like this than anyone he knew.  “Ryan,” he ordered. “Get me a tiny bit of sand from the floor.  Just a few grains.  No more, no less.  Hand them up to me.  Now.”

 

Nodding, Ryan did as ordered, picking out a few grains of sparkling sand from the ground at their feet, letting some slip through his fingers, and handed it up to the waiting thief.

 

“Thanks.  Now, everyone but Colin, stand back and be ready.  I’m not exactly sure what this is gonna do.”

 

“Maybe you should wait until you have some idea?” Drew asked, quite logically.

 

“Do that and they’ll be finding our bones littering this place,” Greg bit off.  “No, this is the way out. I know it.  I can feel it.  Just do as I say.  And Colin, when I tell you too, yank both of us away before the second syllable has even come out of my mouth.”

 

“Will do,” Colin assured him, increasing his grip on Greg’s ankle.  “Ready when you are.”

 

Drew and Ryan drew away as well.  “Ready,” the Prince said.

 

“Here…we…go….”  Placing the sand in the depression, one precious grain at a time, Greg felt the door begin to move; not to the one side or other as he expected, nor even to open inward or outward, but upward into the ceiling as if in a track.  “Uh oh,” he mumbled, knowing instinctively what was going to come next.  Frantically, he used his finger to sweep out the grains he’d already inserted, but it was no use.  The door was picking up speed, moving with eerie silence as it disappeared upwards; two thirds gone, one half, three quarters, gone as if it had never been there at all.

 

“You did it!” Drew replied, clapping happily.

 

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you,” Greg grumbled.  “Colin, pull back! Now!”

 

Colin did, catching the thief as they both tumbled back onto the hard ground.

 

The grumbling started a second afterward.  Loud and low, huge rocks scraping against one another.

 

“The walls!” Drew squeaked. “They’re closing in!”

 

“Not only the walls,” Ryan added grimly, looking up at a ceiling that was at least a meter lower than it was before.

 

“The floors as well,” Colin added, watching in horror as the floor of the tunnel rose, covering the rocks on the walls.  “Wait!” he said.  “The rocks!  Maybe there’s a pattern there to stop this thing!  Greg!  Quick!  Before the floor covers it up!”

 

“Or the ceiling,” the prince said, already unsheathing his sword and sticking it hard into the descending ceiling as if to keep it from lowering itself any further.  An impossible task, he knew, but it was the only thing he could think of to do.

 

Colin, getting on Ryan’s wavelength, used the only thing he could, his own body.  Pressing his back against one wall, he kicked his legs out until his boots settled flat on the other.  And he pushed as hard as he could, trying fruitlessly to keep the walls from moving inwards.  He grunted in pain, but continued to push as the sweat dripped fiercely into his eyes.  “Greg,” he grunted.  “The stones….”

 

“I’m trying!” Greg shouted, standing before the inlaid stones, trying to pick out a pattern.  “If it is the answer, and I do it in the wrong order, we’re all fucked.”

 

“We’re all fucked anyway, genius,” Ryan growled, “so just start pushing, for fuck’s sake!”

 

Gnawing at his lips, Greg raised a steady hand and brushed it against the first clear stone to the left.  With a soft sigh, the stone imploded into powder and slid down the wall.  The tunnel walls, ceiling and floor began to pick up speed.  “FUCK!!!”

 

“Try again!” Colin ordered.  “Please, Greg, try again!”

 

Grunting, Drew copied Colin’s movements, managing to wedge himself against the rapidly closing walls.  The pressure on his back and legs was enormous, but he willed his legs not to buckle.  Fat beads of sweat popped out at his hairline and beneath his nose, dripping into his mouth and down his neck.  “Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods,” he moaned.  “Greg!!  Please!!”

 

“Shut up!” the thief snarled.  “I’m trying over here!!”

 

“Try  harder!” Ryan ordered.

 

“You wanna fuckin do it, your Majesty?” Greg demanded.  “No?  Then you just shut the fuck up, too!”

 

He stared at the pattern, deliberately letting his vision go out of focus, demanding from his quick mind the solution he knew was there.  Then, without thought, he watched as his fingers moved against the stones in quick succession.  Each one lit as he pushed it, emitting a pulsating glow.  When the last stone in the pattern was pushed, the stones glowed in unison.  A humming soon followed, increasing in pitch and strength with every passing second, soon becoming so loud and so ear splitting that all the men covered their ears, writhing and bucking in a pathetic effort to get away.  One by one, they slipped into unconsciousness.  Greg was the last to go, sliding down the wall even as he cursed himself for his failure.

 

And the walls continued to close in.