Threadbare Volume 3

by Andrew Seiple

  “No. I’m sorry. No, I don’t. I don’t have the first clue how to undo this.” The little wizard’s bearded face scrunched up into a mask of sorrow.

  Amelia squatted down next to him. “Will you come with us, then? Will you help fix this?”

  Ragnor shook. “I can’t. I can’t go back there. I’m... no. I’m sorry. I’d be of no use to you.”

  “But I will.” The heroes looked up as Ambersand entered through the castle door, axe bloody, shield battered, and armor gleaming in the light. “Halls are clear. For now.”

  The guards around them relaxed. “Thank you, sir. We’ll get out there and secure the way down!” Their captain saluted, then got them moving.

  “Welcome, then. Let’s go save the world,” Melos offered a gauntlet, and with some hesitation, Ambersand stowed his axe and gave it a shake.

  “Just keep yer demons to yerself, lad. I’m lawful.”

  “I... am too?” Melos squinted.

  “Pfft. Yer alignment’s chaotic if I’ve ever seen it.”

  “Okay.” Melos had no clue what the old dwarf meant, but at least he wasn’t giving him dirty looks every damned minute.

  “I’ll call them in,” Rezzak said. “I hate this, but we’ve got no other choice—”

  Melos woke up.

  Green light filled his vision, and he sobbed as the chamber, his own personal hell, swam back into view. Grissle’s shattered husk on his broken throne, the shredded pipes leaking green zeroes and ones, and the columns, the columns full of burnt cores. Broken magic, broken artifacts, as broken as the numbers that swirled overhead, half of them vanishing or shattering when they hit the hole in the center, the hole that kept growing.

  A mighty engine, a triumph, a proper wizard’s legacy... all in ruins and threatening to take everything he had left into the void, should Melos falter. Should he ever be weak.

  Like he had just a bit ago.

  He’d slept, even though he hadn’t planned to. Melos pushed his mind into his dungeon master’s projection—

  —and found himself inches away from his High Knight’s pale, frightened face, as she scooted back in her chair, eyes wide with surprise and mouth open.

  What did I do now? He pulled back from General Mastoya and looked down at himself. Still armored. Still clad. Sword sheathed. He was in... he was in the war room, he saw. The maps. He recognized the maps.

  “Sir?” She whispered, and the uncertainty in her voice shook him. He needed her. Needed her trust. She was loyal; he’d tested her so often, and she was one of the last balances against... against Anise. Against his first mistake.

  No, he thought, remembering the wails as the babes fell one by one into the fire, remembering how the children smelled as they cooked. Remembering how his cult leader had smiled. Not my first mistake. Not by a long shot.

  “Did you understand me?” he said, gambling. “Tell me what I just said to you.” He’d done this in similar situations in the past, and it worked about half the time, usually.

  Some color returned to Mastoya’s face. Green, naturally. “You ordered me to begin the assault, sir. Even though we’ve only got half the siege engines replaced and repaired. To... kill them all. Down to the last dwarven child.”

  “Then we understand each other,” Melos said, turning his back and folding his hands behind him. He closed his eyes, as he let his face fall into a mask of sorrow. It hadn’t been him. Hadn’t been his orders.

  Well. Maybe it wasn’t too late. “That was, of course, a test.”

  “Sir?”

  “If you’d objected, I would have thought you too weak to handle the assault. I don’t want every child dead. We don’t make war on children.”

  “No sir.” Something in her voice caught his attention, but he was too tired to focus on it, to catch the hints. No, this was going well enough, she could have her doubts.

  “Just win the war, so we can have our long-deserved peace, General.” He said, smiling, turning to face her again. “That’s all I ask.”

  The half-orc’s face was unreadable, as she stood and saluted. “Sir. I’ll see to that immediately.”

  And then she was gone, gone to the Waymark Station, down to collect her waystone and return to the front. Melos sagged into the chair in the war room and put his head in his hands.

  “We can do this.” He told himself. “It’s not too late,” he said. “There is a way to fix everything. We just need to hang on a little longer.”

  They were very pretty lies.

  Perhaps if he kept saying them, he’d believe them.

  CHAPTER 10: ON THE EVE OF BATTLE

  “...there’s not much else to tell,” King Grundi finished, as his officials hammered out a contract with the giants and the troops withdrew back into the mountain. “Ragnor came back; Ambersand didn’t, and the Seven fell taking down one of their own. All save for the demon knight.”

  The toys considered this. Threadbare raised his head. “Celia, did you know about any of this?”

  “No! Well... that’s not exactly right. I knew that Grissle turned on everyone else and used the Oblivion to try and gain power over the Kingdom. And that Mother died stopping Grissle. That’s what I learned, but it’s what everyone in the Cylvania learns.”

  “Yeah. No mention of dwahves or how exactly the Oblivion wahked,” Madeline said. “Man, I remembah dwahf zombie night. That was really freaking weahd.”

  “I see,” Threadbare said, looking up at King Grundi. “Why didn’t you tell people about it?”

  “Wouldn’t have done any good.” Grundi sighed. “I had a good talk about it with King Garamundi, before Melos pulled his coup. People knew all of the story they needed to know. Telling them about how dwarves had been involved would only make people blame dwarves. And telling them about how dungeon cores powered the Oblivion would just make people go and try to experiment with dungeon cores more. Which is how we got into this mess in the first place!”

  “You’re not wrong,” Garon said. “But why exactly is the Oblivion still going? Grissle was defeated, right?”

  “Aye. But...” Grundi shot a look over his shoulder, at the arguing ministers and the big blue giantess. “Ah, let’s discuss this inside. Dealing with giants always pisses me off.”

  Once they got back to the tunnel leading back into the mountain, a cadre of his honor guard fell in around the small king. Working with long expertise, they pulled his blankets back and used tools to pop apart the stone plinth that the Kneelchair used as a skirt and uncoupled about half of the bulky machinery, until the king was down to just a small throne with wheels.

  “Modular! Nice,” Cecelia looked it over. “It’d have to be, to fit through these tunnels.”

  “Modju-what?” Graves asked.

  “It’s tinker talk. Means you can swap parts around. There's more to it, but...”

  “It’s a bit sleep-inducing for non-tinkers so we’re best keeping it short,” Grundi laughed. Two of his honor guard took the back of the throne and wheeled him forward. Threadbare and Cecelia kept pace with him as he rolled back to the hold.

  “This sounds like a fixable problem, though,” Threadbare said, still thinking about it. “If there’s a magical machine, and you have notes on it, then why can’t other wizards go in there and fix it?”

  “We were trying to.” Grundi sighed. “But Grissle was a genius. Smart as a whip before he started stacking jobs is what I hear. Then he went and got twenty-five levels in alchemist, twenty-five in enchanter, twenty-five in wizard... and twenty-five in necromancer, as it turns out. But we were trying to line up the people to handle it, when Melos started getting skittish. He controlled access to the dungeon core. The main dungeon’s core, I mean. He was like a dog with a bone, suspicious and paranoid. And the daemon he brought in didn’t help matters none.”

  “But wasn’t King Garamundi in charge?” Graves asked.

  “Mm. In charge.” Grundi raised a withered hand, rubbed his beard. “It’s a nice idea. Smart kings know they’re only in
charge so long as they can keep their vassals wrangled. Garamundi was smart enough to see Melos was on edge. One of his best friends had betrayed him, after all. Ordering him to stand down and stop guarding Grissle’s work would have been like throwing fire at a mining charge. We thought we had time. We thought that things were stable, that eventually he’d come around.” Grundi sighed. “Then Garamundi died; Melos took the throne and told us we wouldn’t be touching the core device until he had enough skilled people of his own to ensure we wouldn’t try any funny business.” Grundi scowled. “About the same time, Ragnor went... missing.” The dwarf spat the word. “Along with his notes. Then Balmoran rebelled against Melos, and there was no talking to the man after that. Not that there was much in the way of cooperation before that.”

  Grundi sighed again, ruffling his beard. “We figured it would end badly. We should have joined Balmoran when they begged us to. But we figured it was human affairs, and that they could sort it out themselves and there was no point in trying to fix things until they did. But here we are.”

  “The core device is the key to all of this.” Threadbare said, thinking hard. “We need to go to Grissle’s lab and see what’s wrong with it.”

  “The old labs have been sealed for years,” Graves said. “And to get there you’d have to get to the Capital City, go through Castle Cylvania, and hope that the entrance is somewhere down there in the sealed labs. With the most elite forces that the Crown has guarding it, including the king himself, and the Hand. Who are apparently the daemonic resurrections of the Seven?”

  “The odds aren’t good to begin with,” Kayin said. “Then you have to figure out something that took a genius a hundred levels of the nerdiest jobs around to create. And hope that you have a way to fix it.”

  “Aye,” said King Grundi. “We were grooming people for the task. Had a good start on it. Then Melos pulled his treachery, tried to kill one of our families, and we had to go to war. And between The Lurker and the war... we just don’t have the people anymore.” Grundi shook his head. “Dwarves aren’t exactly inclined to wizardry to begin with. Now we’re a shadow of what we were.”

  Threadbare looked around at his friends. “We don’t really have any wizards,” the little bear said. “But we’ve got a few enchanters. We need to try.”

  “And I think I know how we could do it,” Cecelia said, rubbing her hair. “But it’s not going to be easy.”

  “Oh, well, when have we ever taken the easy way on something?” Garon said. “I’m in.”

  “Psh, like any of us be out,” Zuula snorted. “We come dis far kicking ass and taking names. Not about to stop now.”

  Threadbare smiled. “Thank you Zuula. Thank you everyone.”

  “Dude, don’t mention it,” Glub said. “This is kinda fun when it’s not scary. And sometimes when it’s scary. And at least I’m not stuck in some weird cult where I have to bang women all the time anymore.”

  “Wait, what?” King Grundi stared down at the little wooden fishman.

  “Ah... nevermind. So here’s the plan—” Cecelia started.

  “Wait,” King Grundi said. “Let’s discuss this in more secure quarters. The Lurker might be dead for now, but there’s no harm in being cautious.”

  The honor guard led them through the hold, to a large building they’d passed by last night, on their way to visit Beryl and Jarrik. Great foundries thundered in the halls surrounding the structure, hammers falling like raindrops as the din swelled and pulsed. This part of the dwarfhold never slept, forgefires burning hot, as ore was converted into metal, and stone was shaped to the needs of their society.

  Hidon was waiting out front for them, frowning.

  “What do we have?” King Grundi stopped, and his Honor guard fell in around him, reassembling his Kneelchair, snapping back together the heavy pieces of the stone plinth that they’d been hauling around for the better part of a mile.

  “We found Montag’s body sealed into the wall of his office. He’s been there a while.”

  Grundi bowed his head. “I’ll arrange his coin. This was war he died in. His family gets the adamant due.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” Hidon led the way inside, through long, curving halls with heavy metal doors sealing off side passages. “Here,” he said at last, opening the first wooden door any of them had seen in the place.

  The office inside was covered in blood, with hooded dwarves in heavy leather garments scrubbing the floors and walls and sorting through the stained piles of papers scattered everywhere.

  But the golems’ eyes were drawn to the piles and heaps of gleaming yellow powder that lay scattered all over the place.

  “Oh... my... goodness...” Madeline squeaked. “That’s... that’s easily wahth...”

  “Shh,” King Grundi said. “Don’t remind me. Because I’m going to have to do something very undwarflike here in a bit.”

  “The Lurker bought out the market last night, working through intermediaries,” Hidon shook his head. “Knew we’d find out sooner or later. Didn’t care. Which means that the Crown is close to their endgame.” Hidon sighed. “We had to disable some blasting charges to get in here. Oh, and we found those tinker parts you needed,” Hidon nodded to Cecelia.

  “Thank you!” Cecelia smiled. “Now I can get to work.”

  “Work fast,” Hidon sighed. “We’ve got a week, maybe two. That’s what our spies tell us. Then the Crown’s forces are going to march.”

  “Oh. Oh no. I won’t have time to montage anyone. This...” Cecelia shook her head. “This is bad.”

  “Actually it’s good. They were almost all set to go days back, but someone sabotaged the tunnelers they needed to break into our networks.” Hidon smiled under his beard. “Not sure who it was but they did us a good turn. Probably the Rangers, that’s their sort of thing.”

  “Now you can tell me about your plan to fix the Oblivion,” King Grundi said, while Hidon and his agents cleaned up the yellow reagent, bottling it in vials and stacking it in crates.

  “Well first we need to go get a look at it,” Cecelia said. “But I think I know how we can get inside the castle, at least, without having to fight our way to the city, then through the castle gates. Fort Bronze has a Greater Waymark inside it. There’s a station where waystones are kept. If we can get one of them, we can pile into Madeline’s pack and one of us can teleport right inside the Castle. Mind you, that chamber’s guarded too, but it isn’t set up to handle a merchant’s pack full of golem adventurers.”

  “We had enough trouble getting into that place the first time around.” Garon shook his horns. “I can’t imagine they won’t have upped the security.”

  “We can’t go in the same way, obviously,” Kayin said. “And they’ll be on the lookout for little golems now, desu.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to fight our way in, then,” Threadbare said. “Because we’re going to be helping the dwarves anyway.”

  The room fell silent.

  “They turned us down,” Cecelia said.

  “Aye. About that...” King Grundi coughed, his lungs rattling. “The situation has changed a mite. Namely, The Lurker ain’t here no more. So I don’t have to pretend that I don’t like your offer.”

  “You were lying about that?” Threadbare frowned.

  “Mmmm... it wasn’t so much lying, as it was... prevarication. We had an enemy agent around. Had to be careful, because anything we said would go back to Melos. Of COURSE I want three hundred golems marching alongside us! Which brings me back to that undwarflike thing I said I’d do.” He waved a scrawny arm around to the crates of yellow powder. “Take it. Take all of it. Along with any other thing you need.”

  Every dwarf in the room stilled and looked toward their king, eyes wide open.

  “What? Can’t spend it if yer dead.” Grundi shrugged. “And Melos is out for blood. Whoever he might have been once, whatever he did, he’s in league with daemons now. There’s no way this won’t end with blood.” He leaned forward, starin
g down at Cecelia. “Which brings me to one big question, here. He’s your father. If it comes down to it, comes down to his life versus all of ours and probably everyone else’s, what will you do?”

  The rest of the dwarves looked to each other, slowing in their work as they tensed, and looked to Cecelia.

  Cecelia looked down. “I...” she said, then stopped.

  Threadbare took her hand in his paw, and she looked down at him, gazing into his button eyes. For a minute she stood there, thinking.

  “I have to stop him. But I’m sorry, he’s my father. I can’t kill him,” Cecelia told King Grundi. “I... if he won’t surrender, I’ll try to capture him.”

  “That answer...” King Grundi began, and Cecelia closed her eyes.

  “...was completely correct!” The dwarf finished.

  Cecelia opened her eyes.“Wait. What?”

  The tension in the room had eased. The other dwarves were nodding, as they cleaned.

  “Lass, I don’t care how undwarfy we’re getting here by giving up valuable reagents, there’s still a line. Asking family to kill family is just wrong.” Grundi snorted. “As far as I can see, we’re in this mess because hard men made hard decisions over and over again and look where that’s got us. Fuck that noise. You reminded me of that with the giants,” He said, looking down at Cecelia and Threadbare with a smile poking through the braids of his beard. “The only way we’re going to win is by helping each other and saving lives. Not by doing MORE evil things, on top of what’s already been done.”

  “I like you!” Fluffbear squeaked.

  “Bahhahahahaha! Thanks, lass.” Grundi nodded to his honor guard. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go figure out who to appoint as my replacement minister of dangerous and new devices.” He sighed. “And talk with his family. That’s not going to be fun.”

  “Sir,” Garon shared a glance with Jarrik. “I have a recommendation, if you don’t mind...”

  *****

  “I’m what?” Beryl said a day later, after the details had been hammered out.

  “In charge of the department. Oh, and if you need more yellow reagent we’re going to have a lot to spare,” Threadbare said, his golden laurels gleaming in the light of the glowstones. “The Lurker went a little crazy trying to keep it out of our hands.”