Alfred 2: And The Underworld (Alfred the Boy King)

by Ron Smorynski

  Deep in thought, he accidentally stepped on growing mushrooms, which squished and oozed a foul black goo. He stepped off and couldn't help but gag. “Do you all eat these mushrooms?”

  Gib, who led the way, had distanced himself from Alfred, pushing aside any gnomes who gathered to see the tall stranger. Pep walked with Alfred and was more convivial yet dour.

  “Pep, do you all eat the mushrooms?”

  “It is our food! We must keep it close and protect it from the goblins and ratkins. Once we had great caves of crops, but they attacked and destroyed them, nearly starving us to death. Now, we keep our food close.”

  “We were attacked by goblins too. They tried to destroy our crops,“ said Alfred.

  “You stopped them?”

  “Yes, we fought them off.”

  “We fought them too, but the Artofessor told us to stop wasting our time. Now we have our crops here amongst us. It is safer.”

  “It doesn't look safer. They don't look like good crops.” The mushrooms grew haphazardly on mounds of debris. There was no telling what the gnomes put in the mounds to fertilize and help them grow. He saw a gnome come up with a steel bucket and pour dirty water on a mound.

  “We always replenish the mounds with our waste so that we do not waste! Do not waste the waste! Our Artofessor is the smartest of us all!”

  “Oh boy!” Alfred could now recognize the foul putridness of the city. More mounds appeared throughout the corridors and maze-like space.

  The shapes of the corridors opened like catacombs, up and down too many levels and into many catacomb-like rooms. He saw tinkerers of metals here and there. The most intriguing thing he saw was springs of all sizes and shapes. Gnomes certainly had a fascination with springs. They used them for mining, it appeared, to punch through stone. Even though they could easily climb the walls, they devised spring-loaded elevators and steps. As the group went deeper into the intricate city, he began to see gnomes casually walk up to spring boards and get bounced to another level without missing a step. Or some seemed to walk off a ledge and land on a spring-cushioned platform below. Thankfully, Alfred did not have to use any of the spring boards or cushions.

  They came to a vast opening that led off to mines. The gnomes cranked a giant spring that pushed a mine cart into a tunnel with a team of seated workers. Adjacent to that, a mine cart arrived on the smooth rails, probably shot from somewhere within, loaded with a gnome and a load of ore.

  Past another room, Alfred saw gnomes cranking their gear-driven metal pipes and firing shafts of steal at targets. He stopped to view this, causing his group of gnomes to pile up. They would have pushed him forward, but they loved to see the spring loaders in action as well.

  All peered through to see some very tough and focused looking gnomes firing from small hand-helds to very large team-held rocket-launching tripod-mounted spring-fired tubes. Alfred gazed in wonder. At the far end were steel plates and thick dried fungi used for target practice. Many steel javelins of various sizes were stuck in the fungi or lying about after ricocheting off the steel.

  “Wow! That is amazing!” Alfred said.

  Pep talked to the other gnomes. “Shhh... don't let them know you're interested!”

  “What? What do you mean, Pep?” Alfred turned to look at them all shushing each other.

  “The Artofessor only allows his stone troopers the use of those.” Pep pointed to a tough motley crew of gnomes.

  One was obviously the leader, with the most ornate steel armour. “Who is he? Your general?” asked Alfred.

  “General? No, he's Gib's brother. What's a general?”

  “A general, the leader of an army.”

  “Army? Oh, what's an army?”

  “An army... you know, like that, a group who trains and fights to protect the city.”

  “Huh? An army? That's a good idea. We have groups. We work as groups with a team leader. But we don't train to fight. We are not allowed to. Only them, the stone troopers train to fight.”

  “Not allowed to? What do you mean?”

  “The Artofessor outlawed fighting or training to fight. He made a treaty with the goblins and ratkins! If we promised not to train our gnomes or make weapons, they wouldn't attack us!”

  “What? That doesn't make any sense.”

  “Well, they don't attack us! At least not down here. They do attack us if we stupidly go wondering about, but thankfully we haven't seen any recently.”

  “Recently?” Alfred smacked his forehead. “That's because we fought them up on the surface and in our dungeons! We had a great battle against them and stopped them! That's why you haven't seen any. You don't train or have an army?! That's crazy!” Alfred couldn't believe what he heard. He turned to see Gib, standing there below him, eyeing him.

  “Gib, that's your brother? A Stone Trooper?”

  Gib snarled, glancing quickly at Gup, who was approaching them.

  “You know you are supposed to return the spring drill,” Gup said, not acknowledging his brother.

  “It’s here, Gup, milord.” Pep bowed as the small crew reluctantly brought forth the spring drill they had aimed at Alfred.

  “Notice, we have a prisoner, an uppity. We are taking him to the Artofessor,” Gib said.

  “He looks weak,” Gup said. “Why isn't he in shackles?!”

  “He was, milord,” said Pep. “But due to his inability to walk the rock without his hands, we had to allow him the ability to catch himself when he fell.”

  “So the uppities are as weak as the stories say they are,” Gup said. Other troopers came to peer at Alfred. Gup turned to them. “Back to your training! We have a kingdom to police!” The troopers hurried back to shooting their devices.

  Gup looked at Gib. “Give him to me, and I'll turn him in to the Artofessor.”

  “That's not the law, Sergeant,” said Gib. “We found him. We can deliver him.”

  Pep and the other gnomes stared as the two brothers looked at each other with stone faces.

  Gup shrugged and returned to his busy stone troopers firing their spring-loaded weapons.

  “I don't like your brother, Gib.” Alfred had begun to realize that the society down here was oppressed. Gib finally showed a faint smile as he glanced up at Alfred.

  “Can I meet your Artofessor now?”

  Alfred began walking down the corridor. Gib quickly pranced up ahead of him. The gnomes followed.

  “Hold up here for a second. Down here are the worker's quarters, those of us without families.” Gib pointed down a different corridor. Alfred saw many male gnomes in small rooms cut out of stone. The small crew walked in, and at the fourth door on the left, Gib and Pep dropped off Alfred's gear. This was their room. Inside, there were two stone cots, a table and stone benches. There were metal cups and plates and metal chests. That was all they had.

  Alfred looked sadly at them. The other crew members dispersed to rooms, dropping off their mining gear, and returned. All wanted to see what would become of Alfred.

  Gib waved them to follow as they exited the living quarters and continued toward the Artofessor’s quarters.

  He spotted the stone doors where two of his brother's elite stone troopers were guarding. Each held a spring-fired weapon and wore well wrought steel armour.

  “Gib, in my kingdom, all the people, including the children, are fully armed, ready to defend the kingdom and their families.”

  Gib missed a step upon hearing this. He held up his hand to signal Alfred to wait as he approached the guards. There was a strange squabble between the guards and Gib, as they argued about whether the Artofessor could be disturbed at this time. Alfred distinctly heard Gib say repeatedly “a king.” Eventually, the stone troopers nodded and let them in.

  The stone doors swung open into a large pentagon shaped room. Along its edge ran a carved stone bench with actual pillows on them. The pillows looked oddly human sized.

  “Are those man pillows?” Alfred asked Gib.

  He shrugged, “Gifts fr
om the Merchants of the Silver Lands, long ago.”

  Alfred's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. He noticed not just a few, but many pillows and tapestries and candelabra and silverware strewn about on stone tables and an upper balcony circling the entire chamber. It was the most decorated and adorned room he had seen. It reminded him of the Ambassador's tent – only these decorations looked much older, dustier and aged with worn surfaces.

  Alfred began to walk in and was suddenly jerked back by Gib. Several stone troopers, guarding opposite entrances, raised spring-fired weapons, ready to shoot. Gib pointed down, and Alfred noticed the subtle carved line where the supposed commoners could enter into the room but not cross. The line delineated a walkway ending in a pentagon shape a few feet inside. And of course, there was no furniture and no pillows or silverware in this area.

  They stood a long while. Pep whistled a bit but stopped when Gib finally looked at him. Gnomes in robes could be seen hobbling to and fro, beyond the guards and on the balcony. Gib cleared his throat and then stood silent.

  Alfred wanted to talk but didn't feel asking about the oppression and oddities he saw would be beneficial at this time. Then Alfred saw them. He did not notice them at first. He saw at the far end, realistically wrought sculptures of what appeared to be a king and queen, holding each other. They were in a terrible pose, as if hiding their faces from something. Was it the sun? Had they turned to stone? He stepped closer and was immediately pulled back again.

  “Your king and queen?” Alfred whispered, pointing.

  “Turned to stone by your sun! By the curse wrought upon us by the upper folk! Your wizards and clerics and the Crusaders!”

  Chapter Forty-Four: The Artofessor

  “What? Why?! Why did they curse you?” Alfred asked.

  “Ask him,” Gib said, bowing as did the other gnomes. “The Artofessor!”

  Alfred gulped and looked up to the balcony. There, in grey makeup or paint, stood a gaudily dressed gnome. He was somewhat diminutive and slightly bent over, with small shoulders and a large belly. He wore richly woven robes, yet Alfred could see their aged weariness. He wore large glasses and had a feeble look.

  “Why did you bring this uppity deep within our city and into my court?!” The Artofessor's voice was remarkably more powerful than his appearance.

  “He has a small, weak clan camping near the surface, along the ratkin road,” Gib said nervously, remaining bowed.

  “Why did you go near the roadway of the ratkins?! Does not my hard work on treaties hold any ground in this stone realm?!”

  “We haven't seen any ratkins in months. We followed this uppity from their camp. Didn't mean to go so far.”

  “Just because you haven't seen any…”

  “Artofessor, we, my people, defeated the ratkins in a great battle a year ago,” Alfred said.

  The gnomes all gasped.

  “Who interrupts me in my own chamber?! Who but an uppity to come here to lie to us and make us go against our fair treaties with the ratkins and goblins?! Are you a warmonger from the surface, like your forefathers? Are you here to cause us trouble with our friends?! We live in peace here, in prosperity, in our Underworld, unaffected by the oppressive filth of the uppities!”

  Alfred was amazed at the Artofessor's speech and could see why he was their leader. “No, no, I didn't know one could make treaties with evil... vile... wicked creatures.”

  “Pffffffffffftttt...” Pep covered his mouth.

  The Artofessor stopped and glanced at the gnomes hitting each other to be silent. His eyes glanced to and fro and then returned to stare at Alfred, who looked back at him uncertainly.

  “So, you don't know about making treaties with evil, vile, wicked creatures? Do you?”

  “Uhm, nope...” Alfred shrugged.

  “Tell me, uppity person, what is your name?”

  “I am Alfred, King Alfred of the Northern Kingdom, of Grotham Keep!” Alfred stood tall and gave a kingly look.

  “A boy king?”

  Alfred nodded and looked up, calculating whether this was an insult or a compliment.

  “A boy king? Tell me, boy king, know you the evil, vile, wicked ways of Crusaders? Who are so greedy as to take lands and mines and the riches of the gnomes in the hills? And to be so greedy and vile that they used ancient magics and cursed the gnomes to bitter darkness, to the Underworlds? Do you not know that there, frozen in petrified terror, are the lost king and queen of the Hill Kingdom?!”

  The gnomes all got down on one knee and bowed their heads.

  To King Mohten and Queen Uhlah

  Lost in stone cursed by light

  Down deep we go, hide we must

  Cursed from the Crusaders

  In sleep we trust.

  It was a sad somber recital by the gnomes, with deep baritones and slow intonations. Alfred looked at the king and queen. They looked as if they were burning while they held each other. They were definitely turned to stone.

  “If it wasn't for the Silver Merchants, who saved us and gave us time to flee to the caves, we’d all have been burned! As our king and queen burned, the Silver Merchants fought the curse and enchanted us with protections. We fled into the caves, all the gnomes, and hid here in safety from this eternal curse upon us! A curse put on us by you and your ilk!!!”

  “I do not know what you are talking about!” yelled Alfred, stunning everyone including the guards. “I've never heard of such a curse! Our people do not know of curses and would never do anything like that to anyone.”

  The Artofessor licked his lips as a small creepy mouse might. The gnomes looked at each other, wondering which one should nudge Alfred to shut up. Glaring discreetly at his brethren, Gib got them to keep still and remain kneeling.

  “We are fighting the evil that surrounds us! If anyone could cast a curse, it would be the evil witch Gorbogal, not us!” blurted Alfred.

  A collective gasp from gnomes suddenly filled the chamber. Alfred stopped, stunned and looked at the gnomes. They all looked up at him, scooting away just in case.

  “How dare you speak so of the one who let us pass through her goblin hoards and ratkin raiders. She gave us this chance to survive deep below. As long as we obeyed the borders of our realms, we would not get hurt. No warmonger like you could come and cause us a curse of defeat or oppression!”

  “You live in a deep prison, a dungeon where you all suffer from horrible food and squalor and dirt! You made a deal with a witch!!”

  “Silence! Or shoot him!”

  The Artofessor grabbed the railing. The stone troopers raised their weapons toward Alfred, and the other gnomes lowered themselves even below their one knee. The troopers glanced at each other, breaking their stolid look.

  The Artofessor leaned over the balcony. “Your lies, we were told, would come!!! You are just an uppity folk liar! You want our riches and our mines and our Underworld realm! Take him to the prison!! We will drop him in the eternal chasm when the goblin and ratkin ambassadors arrive!!”

  Even as the guards rushed up to take him in heavy shackles, all were shocked by King Alfred's sudden outburst, “What a horrible little pathetic liar, who manipulates and lies to your own people! There is no curse. It is a lie! A lie created by the Silver Merchants and YOU, THE ARTOFESSOR!!!”

  Gib and Pep stared wide-eyed. The Artofessor stepped back, as if he were having a heart attack, then stepped forward to watch as the guards quickly shackled and manacled poor Alfred.

  He slobbered in furious anger. “The proof is our very own queen and king there! They turned to stone! Now, who is the liar?!! Let us not wait but kill him now!!!”

  “No milord!” Gib suddenly stood up.

  All looked at him, including the Artofessor, who looked ready to execute more if needed.

  “The ambassadors will be here soon! They must see this! It will solidify your position, not just with them, but with all of us here who saw how you dispensed with this uppity one!”

  The Artofessor wiped a long drool
off his measly chin and gave a malicious grin amidst his furry face. “Yes, yes, the ambassadors must see this... AND our gnomes... yes, the gnomes must see this, our strength in the Underworld, our alliances, and how I saved us all, of course.” The Artofessor bowed and backed away into the darkness.

  Gib and Pep turned to see Gup and his stone troopers enter, ready to take Alfred. There was a long stare between Gib and Gup.

  “Back off, little brother, if you know what is good for you,” said Gup. He and his troopers were armed with spring-loaded tubes, metal arrows and intricately wrought steel plates. And their pickaxes were quite extraordinaire compared to the average well made gnome pickaxe.

  The guards pushed Alfred roughly out of the chambers and down a steep ramp. The gnomes wanted to follow, actually concerned for Alfred. Gib raised his hand and his crew settled down. Gup sneered and turned, taking Alfred away.

  The stone troopers led Alfred down a long ramp to a set of thick cage doors bound by thick iron. Alfred looked with a leer, peering down along the floors. Gup could not quite figure out what he was doing. He was being led to his imprisonment and doom. With the layers and layers of bars and gates in this dungeon, no person could escape.

  “No gnome and especially no over-sized uppity boy-man such as yourself can escape these prisons!” Gup said.

  “Oh, I agree. No man can,” Alfred smiled haughtily.

  Gup did not like this. So he smiled himself when a scary squat Prison Warden took Alfred into the pentagon shaped prison ward. It had a walkway linked to other cells and other nefarious chambers. In the center of it was a vast abyss emptying into some eternal bottomless chasm. It had no walls or rim. The walkway around the prison was narrow.

  “Is this where you throw me? Down there?” Alfred said with an angry defiant look.

  “Yes, you uppity,” said the ugly fat pustule-ridden Prison Warden, “in a ritual of desecration to your very soul so you feel eternally doomed! And the goblin and ratkin ambassadors will be here to witness your eternal demise!” His skin was sickly and bulbous. Raised diseased sores oozed from all his facial features. As thrilled as the Warden was to see someone else suffer, Alfred could tell he suffered from his own sick malignancies.