The way was dark into the low road, but I didn't bother with a light, merely setting my left hand against the wall and walking. Always the best way with a maze.
Eventually I passed from the hidden tunnel to a more common utility space, past the Boxes, a honeycomb of abandoned fallout shelters Gotham's corporate elite built for themselves in the 50s, now home to dozens of squatters, and left again into an ancient (well, two hundred years old or so) smuggler's tunnel that passed near a buried and forgotten subway stop. We'd had to connect the two with another tunnel, of course.
Walking the low road is like seeing Gotham's history unfold around you, and not the sanitized public one. I must have seen a dozen tags from gangs that no longer existed. Here was the corruption and crime that had been a staple of the place since the very first murder in colonial days.
Slumped against a wall in the stadium, beneath a freshly-tagged triune sign and other warnings, was a glowing green bald head and hands protruding from some shabby clothes and partially hidden by a bushy beard and shades.
I stopped a respectful distance away and fished a couple granola and a chocolate bar out of my pocket.
"Professor." I called out.
"Doctor."
"I told you, I'm not a real doctor." In prison they let you pursue a degree. In Arkham? Not so much. But I had first met Professor Radium under the alias of one Dr. Drosselmeyer. A little joke of mine.
You know, this guy actually made a serum to raise the dead as long as the body was somewhat intact? Pity those so raised are too radioactive to ever get closer than fifty feet to anyone they don't mean serious harm to. Which is almost certainly why the greatest medical mind I've ever met or heard of- and just between us, that's saying something- is hiding away from civilization in a filthy abandoned tunnel.
I toss him the food. Technically, I packed it for spreading around the community, building a little goodwill and maybe encouraging people to come to Old Gotham, maybe even a little negotiating with some of the tougher customers down here. But I just couldn't bear to see the man like this.
"You know, we're trying to throw together a hospital in Old Gotham, not going so great with only a dozen or so doctors to look after over a million people. They could really use your help."
He laughed. A short, bitter, thing and waved his hand beside his glowing face.
"I think not."
"I'm pretty sure there's some lead-lined suits around somewhere. It'd do you a world of good to get out and about, helping people."
"And not doing your sort of business?"
I admit, I've enlisted Radium in some hair-brained schemes before. Partially because he won't take much charity, partially because people absolutely lose their shit when they hear words like 'radiation.' Just the threat of the Professor peeling off his rad suit and strolling down Kane st. has gotten the GCPD to back off and give me breathing space more than once.
"I'm out of that now, well and truly."
He hummed skeptically. "Well, if you do find an old rad suit, let me know. It'd be nice to socialize some, at least."
"Can do, Professor." I turned to leave.
"Wait!" I looked back at him.
"Wait. The low roads aren't as free or as friendly as they were even a month ago. A lot of people died, in the big shake-up. A lot more are scared. Lady Samantha has claimed this "underworld" as her domain, and a lot of people are buying in. Looking for protection."
"Lady-- Oh no. Professor Ross, please, please tell me you aren't talking about Salem."
"Well, I've never heard that name before. Is 'Salem' a very tall dark-haired woman with a pentacle carved into her forehead?"
I said something unprintable. I said unprintable things for some time. I think I may have started hopping up and down at one point, to more effectively stamp on the floor. I don't recall precisely.
Professor Radium just seemed amused.
After calming down I thanked him for his warning and said I had to press on regardless. I promised to get back to him on radiation suits and took my leave.
Salem. Of course. Someone upstairs, or possibly Below, had clearly decided my day wasn't hard enough already.
I stalked through the low roads, cursing like an angry druid all the while. Particularly when I had to make a big detour around Clinks, now blocked off to me.
I also took more time to avoid the more traveled and populated areas, mindful of Radium's caution. The Forgotten could be a clannish, insular bunch at the best of times, and even at best, I was a visitor, an employer, occasionally an honored guest. Never one of them. I had friends still, I was sure- free healing magic is great for making lasting friendships- but if a rival supervillain had set up here and gotten "lots" of people working for her? Best not to risk bringing the heat on any of them. So it was some time before I encountered anyone.
The sound of rushing water as a large filter-y thing made a sort of bridge over this man-made underground river. Twin eyes, low to the ground, flashed. A stick on a wall, an actual torch, if one covered in a glass lantern case, flared to life and I had to shield my eyes a moment.
Lowering my arm, I looked at the thing before me. Body of a large cat, or a rather small lion, wings of some bird, head of a ram, rising from lying across the path to sitting up. Ayup, that there's a sphinx. A Criosphinx, if you want to be pedantic, and when do I ever not want to be pedantic?
It hissed, which is really odd coupled with that horned sheep's head.
"One chance, one chance for life for thee. Be ye clever and guess my riddles three!"
I could... maybe take it in a fight. My magic usually works fine against magical creatures that aren't spellcasters. But sphinxes are surprisingly tough and it was probably a lot quicker, easier and safer to just play along.
"I'm game."
Despite the lack of mouthparts that could really make that expression, I got the impression of a giant grin from the beast.
"A wonderful warrior exists on earth.
Two dumb creatures make him grow bright between them.
Enemies use him against one another.
His strength is fierce but a woman can tame him.
He will meekly serve both men and women
If they know the trick of looking after him
And feeding him properly.
He makes people happy.
He makes their lives better.
But if they let him grow proud
This ungrateful friend soon turns against them."
I had a strong feeling I knew where this was going from the second line, growing bright between two dumb things. The part about serving men and women and growing out of control just cinched it. Still, time is less of a concern than correctness in classic riddling games, so I took a few seconds to run it forwards and backwards in my brain to make absolutely sure.
"The answer is fire."
It hissed at me, it's hackles raising, but didn't pounce. Correct, then.
"My home is not quiet but I am not loud.
The Lord has meant us to journey together.
I am faster than he and sometimes stronger,
But he keeps on going for longer.
Sometimes I rest but he runs on.
For as long as I am alive I live in him.
If we part from one another
It is I who will die."
Alright, this one was harder. Quiet in a noisy home, journeying together, with the home? Death to only one, the resident if it- oh. Oh, I am not smart for taking this long.
"A fish. In a river."
An angry noise from the little guardian. It rose and started pacing to and fro across the span. After a little it collected itself, and perched again with all the dignity of a cat pretending the immediate past had never happened. I let a small breath go and prepared myselt to listen intently and note each detail of his last, and doubtlessly most spitefully difficult, riddle.
"Humpty Dumpty sat 'pon a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!
'Twixt all the king's horses
and all the king's men
'Twas none could piece him together again!"
I blinked. And again.
"Humpty Dumpty... is an egg."
Now that I thought about it, I could dimly recall reading somewhere that the famous nursey rhyme had been a popular riddle, over a thousand years ago. This creature clearly needed some fresher material.
Oh well, I'm not going to complain about an easy win. Brag about solving a sphinx's riddles later, maybe.
It hissed again, louder.
"Treachery! Trickery! How couldst thou know my riddle?"
"You've, ah, not been summoned in some time have you? That last is a popular children's rhyme these days."
It stopped hissing and started growling.
"Oh, leave off. I answered your riddles fairly, and if they were well-known then they were poorly chosen! Now let me pass, or attack me anyways."
Glaring hatred, the little sphinx slunk off to the side. Many magical creatures are slaves to their nature in this way, it could not attack me now that I answered it, and so I crossed.
Silly me, I forgot that 'can't directly attack' leaves a lot of options. It charged down a tunnel, perpendicular to the one I came in, with a strange bleat that became a roar, and repeated.
"Alarm! Intruder on the Eastern bridge! Defend your homes and rouse the mistress! keeee-ooooar!"
I cursed and started running. Best to try and lose any pursuers in the mazelike bits ahead.
Of course, the locals lived in some parts of that maze and probably knew it better than me. No matter. They can't turn invisible, which is a hell of an advantage in this kind of cat and mouse chase.
I ran, right at the 'x' with eyes, don't want to go that way. There's people living that way. Left at the stop sign embedded in the wall, immediate right down the angled hall. Another right and hopping awkwardly over the patchwork of bricks. Then left at the stop sign embedded in the wall, immediate right down the angled hall.... I stopped running.
"Hello Salem. How have you been?"
My shadow streched, running up the wall, then detached from the surface and came forwards, the blob of darkness sprouting a face and resolving into further features until a tall young woman stood before me in a black evening gown. Lon black hair, black lipstick, heavy eye-shadow, something to make her face paler, and an angry red pentacle scar above her eyes.
"You! You were there! I saw you!"
"Now Samantha, I think we've established that I-" I made an unmanly yipping sound and threw myself back to avoid a ball of blue-black flames.
I hate fighting other spellcasters. Ever since that time Dr. Fate caught me trying to pinch the Ruby Eye of Sargon. Not only could they pull out more and often more versatile spells at the drop of a hat while I was generally stuck with whatever I'd prepared ahead of time, not only were some of my best weapons considered rather feeble attack spells, but other mage's spells tended to blow right through mine without resistance.
Even Felix Faust, the joke villain of the supernatural crowd, could beat me up with one hand behind his back. Unless I got the drop on him. Good times.
Fortunately, I have long since brought my towering combined intellect to the problem of devising a strategy to counter my greatest weakness.
Step one: run like hell. Most wizards don't go for morning runs like I do.
So I ran and got in a good bit of distance before I started circling again, caught in her little mobius loop of a spell. Okay, getting less distance out that than I'd hoped. But running away isn't the sum whole of the plan, I just needed a little space and time.
Step two: pull out dog-eared copy of the Odyssey, and flip open to Book Ten.
Step three: acquire magic moly from Hermes and-
The book burst into flame and I threw it away.
Okay, so much for the plan. I look to find Salem with a frankly unhealthy looking smile behind, and charge her.
The plan had been to get moly, an effective antimagic that would dispel everything I carried, but shut her down just as completely. Then close and overwhelm her physically. I'm not the greatest fighter in the world, scarcely above average, but I'm in very good shape, experienced and otherwise confident in my ability to beat up a high-school-age girl.
Not very sporting or gentlemanly of me, I admit. But when you try to kill me, chivalry goes right out the window.
That part of the plan was a nonstarter, but maybe I could make it work anyways. Most casters are pretty sad in melee range, if I can just close faster than she can cast, I cast fist. If I just never let up until she's disabled or dead, she shouldn't have an opportunity.
I make it about half way before some kind of shadow substance flays the clothes and flesh from my torso, and an utter jetstream of a windblast sends me tumbling down the tunnel to smash into a wall.
I glance down to see naked ribs, my own lungs and a bit of a pulsing thing that's probably my heart. Also skin and muscle visibly if slowly knitting together, apparently starting with the pain nerves. My everything hurts.
She stalks up, strangely I notice first that beneath the dress she's wearing fairly practical black boots.
"It was you. You were there. You laughed while I died, and praised your own self-righteousness. Well here I am, back again." She smirked and thrust her hand inside my gaping chest.
"Justice."
I knew pain, and then no more.
=============================================
I awoke first to pain, then to chanting.
My first thought was of a cult. Luckily I've long since learned the skill of waking without letting on in uncertain situations. Couldn't make out that chanting, wrists were bound. Above my head? Standing. Feels like ropes across my chest too.
Last thing I remember... Salem. We fought in the low roads. I lost. Typical.
Rough and hard at my back. Given who just kicked my ass, I think I understand my situation, and that playing dead isn't likely to help much.
I crack my eyes and after a long moment where I fear something happened to my eyes (notagainneveragain) I see lights that resolve into a crowd. With torches. Lovely.
There's not one chant, I realize, but two. Some are calling out 'Sa-man-tha!' Others are yelling something that sounds like... 'deshi deshi basara?' I don't know that one. My babel fish should translate, unless they ripped it from my skull- unlikely but not impossible- or they simply don't know what it means.
I roll my head a bit and I can see where someone conjured, transmuted or otherwise raised a jagged mass of glittering obsidian and shaped part of it into a seat, no, a throne. Salem is walking towards it. For my part, I'm tied to a wooden post atop some heaped sticks.
Now there's two versions to Salem's origin story. The one in her GCPD and psych file at Arkham says that she was an ordinary if not particularly sociable high school student in upstate New York who inexplicably went full Carrie on her tiny hometown before carving a pentacle in her face and driving down the coast to our happy city. The tale as told from her own lips is that she grew up in Colonial Salem before being accused as a witch, beaten, tortured and dragged out before the community to be burned at the stake. But as the flames licked her feet, she swore she would one day return, even from death, to have her revenge on those pious hypocrites who brutalized and condemned her. And now she has returned for her revenge.
Now, far be it from me to criticize or question my peers' motives, but there's some holes in this story.
The big one being that nobody ever burned in the Salem Witch Trials. Hundreds of people were imprisoned, a few died of exposure in their miserable cells. Nineteen people and three dogs were hanged, one man, Giles Corey, was crushed to death beneath a door piled with stones. But no burnings, that was a uniquely European thing. And yes, I checked after meeting her the first time, that is equally true in this world.
Number two, while I don't know much of geneaology, it seems to me extremely unlikely that every male she crosses paths with, in a very different state, would be reincarnations or descendants or whatever of her accusers. It doesn't exactly help her case that she insists Batman is the judge who sentenced her despite never seeing more than his jaw.
Third, none of this accounts for her previous identity or life growing up as a normal-ish person in a normal community. She never engages with her past, refuses to acknowledge her family name. If you ask her she'll tell you she burned and then she was back and elbow-deep in gore, no childhood involved.
Now, it's entirely possible this woman is everything she's claimed. It's the DCU, and anything is possible. She could be the spirit of a dead witch, from an alternate universe possessing the body she has now. But I'm rather inclined towards the theory that she's a severely-messed up teen witchling, that something terrible happened that drove her to kill off her entire community, abandon her old identity, and strive to murder every male of the species who crosses her eye. I have a wild guess or two what that might have been, even. Bu I'm not going to get too attached to any one theory.
Crazy I can work with. See my short-lived association with Maxie Zeus. It's her magic that's a problem.
Though... she hasn't murderized this half-masculine chanting crowd. So that's new.
"Eyes up here, Reverend!" I look up to see Salem lounging on her black throne, and petting my new friend, the Criosphinx who is still glaring down at me. I return it. Somehow, at some point, I'm going to make a tiny lion-skin rug, more like a welcome mat, of you.
And whenever it gets dirty, I'll take it out and beat it.
"Ladies and gentleman, before us we have a special guest! The esteemed Reverend Cotton Mather, an expert on witchcraft and celebrated author of that witchfinding guide, Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions. Please, do make him feel welcome."
There was general booing and jeering from the crowd. A couple started chanting again before trailing off.
Here and there, I saw the faces of friends. Families, former henches, and just people I'd helped out or had helped me out. Most looked frightened, a few looked resolute.
I frantically shook my head. Even if everyone joined in, even if they had a plan, a couple dozen against what looks like at least fifteen hundred wasn't going to end well. I'd try this on my own.
You know, cannon fodder makes for an excellent diversion.
Shut up, James. A reputation for sacrificing your friends gets you a lot less friends.
What did I have?
My coat was gone, along with my phaser and books. Also my shirt. I still had the babel fish, I think. Regeneration and armored skin... no Mo Fuqian will do nothing against Salem's magic, and will probably take a week or two to grow back over my torso. So just regen.
I might be able to tank the fire until the ropes burned off. No armor on my chest, but regen. Smoke could still be a problem, though, didn't most burning victims pass out from smoke inhalation? And is she made or fueled the fire with magic, who knows? Not really an option.
"You stand accused, Reverend, of false imprisonment. Of torture, of murder. How do you plead?"
A few people in that crowd, the Torvald brothers and Mr. Fuery, got hard looks on their faces. I shook my head harder.
"Ah! But we have a witness! I saw you there! And I'm afraid for a crime of this magnitude, there can only be one sentence." Her smile really creeps me out.
Focus! What do I have?
Hands. Tied, but in a nearly perfect position to break those ropes with one sharp jerk. Might hurt my hands, but I'll get over it quick. And... oh! They didn't take my glove or Lancelot's ring! I have invisibility. How can I use that? If I just vanish, she'll just zap me where I stand, still tied to the post, just to make sure. If she sees me free my hands, she'll just kill me before I can undo the chest ropes.
I need someone else to free my chest. We need her to free us.
Bless you, James.
"I am confused." I called up to her. "You say that you died once in this manner. Are you in such a hurry to inflict that same pain, whether or not I was there? Can you not see, as everyone here, that I'm no Cotton Mather?"
"You are he! We've spoken, you were there!"
"I'm John Binder, Bookworm! And you, are no Puritan witch! You've never been to Salem!" That I know of, "Though you've certainly a witch's cruelty in full measure. What happened to Coldsprings Samantha!"
She screamed and slashed her hand, a shadow darted forth and impaled me... and severed most those damned ropes. I'd thought I'd need to take at least two or three shots to pull that off.
I cough up a large amount of blood as the shadow blade dissolves. Okay, I'm going to need... need a couple of seconds here before enacting my daring escape plan.
"Liar! Deceiver and divider! By your own words, you are condemned!" She pitches a small fireball at my feet. Okay, so much for time.
I use my gloved right hand to twist the ring on my left, and jerk my hands sharply towards me a moment later. The rope breaks and I flop invisibly onto the sticks. My feet are painfully hot, though nothing to the pain in my chest, and I probably have moments before all this wood below me kindles too.
Samantha screams again, and the wooden post explodes, showering splinters down on me.
I try to roll and mostly just manage to flop onto my back instead of my front. Ow.
Come on Holy Grail, work faster! You saved me from having all my skin off earlier, what's a little impalement?
Okay, to be objectively fair, the Grail is amazing and patching me up in seconds here, they're just seconds I don't particularly have.
Time feels oddly stretched out when you're trying to escape death, and doing a terrible job of it.
I flop over again, get my arm beneath me and push. It hurts, but I sort of get up, to hands and knees and start to really crawl. I get to the edge of the pyre and fall off in a clatter of wood. Salem's eyes narrow at the sudden movement of the sticks and lobs another of those blue-and-black jobs. I push with my legs this time and barely get out of the way. My legs are under me again, I'm walking, if painfully. Now running. Invisible in a crowd of flailing, fleeing people.
Worry first about those trapped kids. Come back later.
Or better yet, delegate this whole Salem problem to Freddy. He'd probably enjoy that, right?
===============================================
After everything I went through to find these kids, rescuing them was almost anticlimatic.
Alright, when I saw a bunch of emaciated zombies surrounding them, I was a little free and easy with the sonics in Darth Vader's glove. Turns out, they were refugees, not a threat to the kids, at the moment anyways. Who knows what might have happened if the situation went on?
Some dipwad had this operation going where he fleeced people out of all their cash, jewelry etc. promising a secret tunnel to the mainland. Then he locked them all in an enormous cellar and left them to starve. Fortunately, nobody had reached the point of cannibalism when I finally crawled in through an air vent and dropped to the floor.
Having no books and no patience for this tomfoolery, I used the Glove's crushgaunt feature to attack the handle and lock on that steel door. It gives me an impressive grip strength and in no time at all we surged out in a great crush. I ate three bullets drawing aggro for the squishier members of our impromptu mob, which barely registered against the other injuries of the day, but still slowed me down a bit. Enough that I was just a few seconds too late to keep them from killing the con artist, his girlfriend and their three guards.
Oh well, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. And as we don't have a DA at the moment, I feel empowered as the mayor to say there's no point in prosecuting anyone.
Since everyone is weak from hunger, I get to find the nearest ENCOM phone and find a ride for these people to the shelters and a hot meal. That done I go back to wait outside and finally get to sit a minute.
It's been a very long day, and it's not over yet.