Short Story - The Trouble With Tombs (The Whale)

I'd like to introduce you to another short story set on The Whale, my madcap, insane, FUN, Discworld in space. Although The Whale originally started out as something altogether more serious, I'm enjoying filling the world with sarcasm, wordplay and general mischief. That means two things - more short stories while I work things out - and a complete rewrite of last year's novella. For now, though, have a read of the latest "Whale" short - The Trouble With Tombs.

Of all the different types of tunnels and chambers within The Whale, tombs tend to be the most easily angered. They see other tunnels as sullied by the aliens that travel through them, leaving footprints, rubbish and droppings. Not tombs. They are the guardians of the past, the custodians of what has come before. They are also good at melodramatically inflating their own role.
They don’t do anything proactive to ensure this protection, of course. And you will know from experience that doing nothing can be a risky strategy. So when a tomb is disturbed they tend to react badly. Even if those who created the tomb in the first place include traps or curses to protect the treasures within, tombs will always fight a rearguard action through the manipulation of local auras and scents.
Of course, when a human named Garth accidentally dropped his miner’s axe and found it sucked into the ground next to him, he didn’t know any of this. He thought he’d found a really cool pit. And Garth being Garth, he felt the need to explore it.
“I’m just going to have a quick look,” he said to his despairing companion, a tall, stringy woman called Nina. Nina looked over the edge into the pit below. It was what she was expecting - a pit. A dark pit.
“Never heard of good things in a pit,” she said.
“You never will, unless we explore them.” He dropped to his knees and shimmied to the edge. Inside, he was sure, was a prize of such value that he’d be able to give up mining forever. He was convinced that the treasure he was destined to find would be the first stone on the road to easy street.
Nina was a more practical soul. She knew there were no stones of any kind on The Whale. She was more certain that at the bottom of the pit lay pain, agony and dismemberment. There was a strange breeze flowing from the pit making her shiver. Nina was thinking about ghouls and ghosts and Gods.
Being human on The Whale made you question an awful lot of the supposed wisdom obtained when back on Earth. Before their abduction, very few Arrivals ever considered that a giant space creature passing Earth was a possibility, and even less worried that it might sweep them away from their homes and loved ones for the rest of their lives. That kind of revelation makes people more willing to question things they previously thought impossible.
One of the things Nina hadn’t previously considered possible was doing a deal with an alien in order to steal from the said alien’s grandmother’s tomb. However, that was the situation in which she found herself. Garth was the one who dropped the axe, but Nina was the one who stood him in the right place.
She held on to Garth and lowered him carefully into the pit.
The tomb, in response to the most unwelcome intrusion, immediately released pheromones and scent stored from the workers who had interred its longest-serving occupant. As Garth reached the floor of the cramped space these unseen signals swept past his head and into the maze of tunnels around The Whale.
The tomb knew it just had to wait.
“It’s 3Marax,” Garth said.
“How do you know?” Nina said, glad that her business associates weren’t totally lying.
“They’re all over the place.”
Inside the chamber, which was five feet high at the most, crude stick figures were scrawled on a battered canvas which hung from large uncomfortable pins. The figures on them were depicted in threes feasting, fighting and fornicating. The unique (terrible) drawing ability marked the chamber out as 3Marax territory.
“It’s a burial chamber,” Garth said.
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure,” he replied. He ran his hand over the closest of three small ivory coffins that took pride of place in the new chamber. As he did, he noticed the display of short, sharp and shiny weapons that were arranged around a set of three small coffins. Each weapon glimmered with a material that looked an awful lot like gold, which confused Garth gold is not easily available on The Whale on account of The Whale and everything within it being in the middle of space.
Nina peered into the pit.
“Wow,” she said.
“Wow’s about right,” Garth said. “Never seen anything like this before.”
So amazing was the sight that they completely failed to notice the disturbing murmurs and rustles coming from the tunnel behind them. The prospect of financial and reputational rewards quieted all those sensible voices that tell people to get away from the alien death pit before something bad happens.
“What should we do with it?” asked Nina, despite having a fully formed plan.
“I don’t know,” replied Garth, despite having a fully formed plan.
In a staggering coincidence, or rather, in a staggering lack of imagination, both humans were thinking about killing the other and making off with the loot. The only difference was that Nina had formulated the plan about three days prior around a table in a bar in a grubby little shanty town called Dove.
“I know a guy who might be interested,” Nina suggested. She would need Garth’s help getting the weapons out. She may as well keep him keen while he did it.
“We should really give them to be studied,” Garth replied, picking up a sharp dagger and hiding it down the back of his trousers. “Think what we could learn about 3Marax culture.”
Nina spun around and grabbed some of the sacks that were supposed to be used for ivory and emptied them of their original contents. She threw them down to Garth.
“Let’s worry about what we do with it once we have it.”
“It’s a bit spooky down here.”
“That’ll be the coffins,” Nina said.
“Not just that.”
“Have you started filling up the sacks yet?”
Garth shook away a feeling that he wasn’t wanted. The tomb, if it could have, raged. He crouched down and started loading up the sacks.
Nina found a safety rope and threw that over.
“Attach it to this,” she said.
It was then that the noises behind her became too loud to ignore. Nina really wanted to ignore them. She didn’t want to turn around to see what was now probably within biting range of her.
When she did, she was relieved to see that it was the monsters she was expecting, not the monsters she feared. Three little, spiky hairy walnuts with faces glared at her from the murky darkness of the tunnel.
There’s nothing quite like a 3Marax trio on Earth. They share a singular consciousness across their three bodies, which allows them to get around their otherwise physical shortcomings (the main one being their size - as each individual body is no taller than the average human waist). Their features are squashed into the centre of their faces and instead of a nose, they have a small opening at the top of their forehead.
They are, in summary, not the type of alien you want to see in the line for hugs and kisses.
Not that they would want to join that line in the first place.
“You found.” Oh, and they could speak. One at a time. Just about. Each body can talk, so the easiest thing for a struggling bard to do is number them based on the order in which they start to chat.
“I followed the ivory like you said.”
“Good. You kill other?” 1Ujk said.
“He’s inside.”
“We said no go in.”
“He didn’t give me much choice.”
It should be aware now that this is an existing relationship. The 3Marax was called Ujk, and was often found scheming and plotting around the various dive bars of The Whale. Dove, the little town where Garth and Nina had started their adventure, was the type of settlement that used dive bars as its foundations.
1Ujk and 2Ujk jumped down into the pit. There was a short scream and a thud, although Nina wasn’t sure what order they happened in. Not wanting to remove her glance from the final 3Marax body, she shouted over her shoulder.
“Garth, there’s a 3Marax here.”
The silence that responded was ominous.
“Did you kill him?” Nina asked 3Ujk.
Ujk looked at her. “Human not moving. No. Alive.”
“Not alive,” Nina said. “Or no. Alive.”
“No. Alive.”
“So he’s breathing?”
Nina had experience of working with and bargaining with 3Marax. There were moments when the experience of communicating with them was incredibly frustrating.
3Ujk nodded and spoke slowly. “He is alive.”
“Oh, good,” Nina said, not entirely sure if she was as relieved as she should be.
“Deal still good?” 3Ujk asked.
“Of course,” Nina agreed. “We split the loot in…”
Nina fell silent for the same reason that the tomb beneath her was suddenly incredibly happy. It appeared that the pheromones had worked. The dark tunnel behind Ujk was, all of a sudden, a lot darker. Any light supplied by the veins that glowed around The Whale was cut off as a huge creature squeezed itself toward them.
Nina could make out a bright red glow from its eyes.
And dripping, drooling mouth.
She pointed.
3Ujk wasn’t able to move before a large clawed hand swept down and scooped them up.
“SWAMPER,” Nina yelled. “Swamper!”
Swampers are big, scary alien monsters. You’d probably guessed from the context, but I wanted to make sure you knew. It’s difficult to describe them as they have an annoying tendency to look different each time they are encountered. Not so much shapeshifters, but over-enthusiastic growers. Limbs can appear and drop off in a day.
This one only had a couple of fully formed arms, but that was all it needed. In the same movement that it had used to sweep 3Ujk up, the swamper opened its mouth and threw the little alien in.
Nina staggered back and felt a little hand stop her from toppling into the pit. 1Ujk and 2Ujk were on either side of her, wincing as they experienced both being in a monster’s mouth and watching themselves getting eaten.
“We fight. You get in there,” 1Ujk said. They pointed to the pit. The entrance would be too small for the swamper to fit through, regardless of what happened to Ujk.
Nina wasn’t sure about hiding in a dead end, but her desire to hide away was enhanced when the swamper gurgled and spat 3Ujk out. 3Marax are incredibly difficult to digest. The alien flew over her head and embedded in the tunnel wall, legs wiggling furiously as they tried to escape.
The Swamper turned its burning gaze to Nina.
“Yes!” she said and lowered herself down over the edge.
1Ujk watched her descend. They pulled the rope up. Nina didn’t think anything about that. She was busy reacting to the claustrophobic situation she found herself in.
The sounds of battle echoed down into the little tomb.
“What’s happening?” Garth said. He was leaning against one of the caskets, pushing a hand against a nasty-looking head wound. Blood ran through his fingers, but other than that he seemed remarkably unharmed.
“There’s a swamper,” Nina said.
“How did the 3Marax find us so quickly?” Garth asked.
“They must have tracked us.”
“You’re talking out of your arse.”
“This is a 3Marax pit, right? Maybe you tripped an alarm.”
The light from the hole above dimmed as something passed over it. Slobber or saliva or snot dripped down into the tomb. Nina moved back. She was beginning to think that her plan was staggeringly bad idea.
“You made a deal with 3Marax,” Garth continued to press the point.
“You don’t know what’s down here. Did you step on anything?”
“We’re going to die down here because of you.”
“Stop being so negative.”
“I hope you’re happy with yourself.”
Nina stopped replying to Garth’s accusations and risk assessments. She was busy trying to find something positive about what was going on.
The noise above stopped.
A large thud echoed down to them.
“Did they kill it?” Garth asked.
They both looked up at the small gap.
It seemed to get smaller the longer they looked at it.
There was no sound.
Nina got annoyed. It seemed that whatever was alive up there was deliberately trying to create dramatic tension.
Still..
“Oi!” she yelled.
A large shape covered the opening.
Red eyes looked down at them.
“Shit,” Garth said.
There was a strange noise, and the red eyes and the sizeable scary head they belonged in moved backwards.
Ujk appeared.
“Our pet,” Ujk said.
“What!” Garth shouted so loud his voice echoed around the tomb.
“It ate you!” Nina said.
“Playing.”
Ujk stayed perfectly still.
“Help us out then,” Nina said.
3Marax don’t shrug. Their emotions and motivations are difficult for humans to understand. They are, however, not as dumb as they look. Humans are often dumber than they look, which is why over the history of The Whale, many have found themselves in both metaphorical and actual pits just like Nina and Garth.
When Ujk stepped away from the tomb, they did not return. The humans in the tomb heard the swamper and its little alien masters walk away. The hole hovered above them, too high to reach, even if Garth wasn’t weak on account of him slowly bleeding to death.
Everything turned silent.
“Well,” Nina said.
“Just don’t,” Garth said.
The tomb watched them and started to feel a little bit more important. It was now a shared species tomb. This was something to feel proud about. Progressive. Maybe the little incursion could be forgiven, now it was so much more than just a 3Marax tomb. Perhaps, the tomb thought, sitting around and protecting the dead wasn’t enough. Perhaps it should be a bit more… proactive in keeping its attendance up. It couldn’t do anything about the hole at the top, but within…
With a flex and a twist, the tomb made the ground shift. Nina jumped to the side as spikes appeared from the ground immediately beneath the little hole. She screamed. Garth looked at the spike that was now sticking out of his chest. He closed his eyes. It just seemed easier to die at that point. Nina started to cry.
The tomb felt his soul slip away. It liked the feeling.
Time for a change.
Time to go hunting.