by D. P. Prior
Shadrak took a razor star from his baldric and continued in the direction the dwarves had just come from. The passageway dropped down three stone steps after twenty feet and did the same after the next twenty. He passed a number of tributary corridors but kept to the main artery. Gradually, the illumination from the walls increased, until up ahead it was as bright as day. A lone dwarf stood guard outside an iron door on the right, and opposite him there was a metal panel set head-height for Shadrak, and eye-level for a dwarf.
Shadrak slowed to a creep on the tips of his toes, drawing his arms inside the cloak and ducking his head so that the hood obscured his face.
The dwarf remained stock-still, but his eyes began to flick this way and that. Shadrak paused, wondering if he’d been seen, but then the dwarf bent down and tugged a flask from his boot, took a swig, and replaced it.
Shadrak closed the gap between them, quiet as a mouse, and when he was within touching distance, he let the razor star clatter to the floor. The dwarf started and then bent to get a good look at it, and in that instant, Shadrak grabbed him by the head and gave a short, sharp twist. There was an answering crack, and then he lowered the body to a sitting position beside the door. He scooped up the razor star and took a closer look at the panel.
It seemed to be a cupboard of sorts, and much to his satisfaction, it had a keyhole. He unfurled his tool pack and selected a curved pick, fiddled about in the lock until it clicked, then pried the panel open.
“Well that was easy,” he muttered, grinning that he’d struck gold first time.
Shader’s gladius lay within, which told him the iron door opposite must be the cell they were holding him in. He reached out and took hold of the pommel, and he yelped, snatching back his hand as if he’d touched a hot stove. “Shit, shog, and bollocks!” he said, skipping back and almost tripping over the dead dwarf.
He approached the sword again, this time with more caution, and took hold of it by the scabbard. Breathing a sigh of relief that he didn’t receive a second scorching, he slung the sword-belt over his shoulder and turned his attention to the iron door.
It was your typical cell door: narrow observation grate and a huge rusty lock. Predictably, the guard had the key on his belt, and the door gave a resounding clunk when he inserted it and turned.
“You can thank me when we get out of here,” he said, throwing back his cloak and slipping into the cell, pulling the door shut behind him. “Oh, shog, it’s you.”
“Miracles never cease,” Rhiannon said. She was seated on a stone bench, manacled hands hanging between her knees. “Thought you’d be halfway back to the marsh by now, looking for your plane ship.”
“Chance’d be a fine thing,” Shadrak said, kneeling so he could examine the manacles. Stone, which was different. Lock looked pretty simple, though. He took a needle from his tool pack and inserted it into the tiny keyhole. A wiggle and a click, and it snapped open. “I was hoping to find Shader.” He made short work of the second manacle, and Rhiannon let them drop to the floor, rubbing her wrists.
“Me too,” she said, “rather than the milksop wearing his clothes.”
“I was gonna ask about that,” Shadrak said.
“Yeah, well don’t.” She wiped her face, flicked the sweat from her fingers.
Shadrak frowned at her as he stood. She was drenched, beads of moisture standing out on her forehead like a circlet of diamonds. He stepped away.
“Don’t worry, it’s not catching,” Rhiannon said. Her eyes fell on Shader’s gladius hanging from Shadrak’s shoulder. “Where’s mine?” She surged to her feet. “You got it, didn’t you?”
“Still on the walkway,” Shadrak said. “I got distracted.”
“You got what? What are you, a shogging imbecile?” Rhiannon started for the door.
“It ain’t going nowhere,” Shadrak said. “The dwarves are scared shitless of it. First, we get Shader, then we get the sword.”
“Wrong,” Rhiannon said. “Sword first, then Shader.”
“Shader.”
“Sword, you stunted shogger, or do I have to beat the crap out of you again?”
That was it. Shadrak had had enough of the bitch. He whipped out two knives and stepped in fast. Rhiannon gasped and backed up against the door.
“What was that?” she asked, pressing her ear to the door and holding up a hand.
“Shog off,” Shadrak said. “Think that’s gonna work on me?”
“Quiet,” she said. “I can hear footsteps.”
Shadrak listened. She was right. Someone was coming down the corridor.
“Hey, Grik,” a voice said. “Grik, wake up. I’ve got you some nosh. Drosa from Pigs in Pastry sends her regards. Got you some ale, too. Well, it’s Ironbelly’s, but it’s better’n nothing.”
Shadrak slipped his daggers back in the baldric and ushered Rhiannon away from the door. He pushed it open a crack. A scraggly-haired red-cloak was leaning over the dead dwarf, proffering a pie and a frothing flagon.
“Grik? Come on, mate, no sleeping on the job. Grik? Oh, my shogging—”
Shadrak darted through the opening and yanked him inside the cell by his beard. The flagon clattered to the floor, and the bread landed in the dead dwarf’s lap.
“Shut the door,” he told Rhiannon.
“Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me,” the dwarf squealed. “I ain’t done nothing. I was just bringing grub for… Poor ol’ Grik.” He started to sob.
Shadrak slammed him up against the door and wedged an elbow into his windpipe. “The other prisoner—the man with the hat and the long coat—where’d you take him?”
“I didn’t take him nowhere. Honest, I didn’t.”
“Then let me rephrase,” Shadrak said, taking out a punch dagger and holding the tip a hair’s breadth from the dwarf’s eyeball. “Tell me where he is.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” the dwarf stammered. “I just got here.”
“But you know this place, know where prisoners are held?”
“Yeah, but—”
Shadrak rammed his knee into the dwarf’s groin, causing him to double up and spit his eye on the blade. His scream was so shrill it made Shadrak want to smack him in the teeth next. Blood streamed from the dwarf’s skewered eye, drenching his beard.
“Stop it,” Rhiannon said.
“You wanna find lover boy?”
“Shog you. Leave him alone. He doesn’t know anything.”
The dwarf whimpered and fell to his knees, clutching at his ruined eye. “Please. Please!”
Was it the dwarf whining, or Kadee? Shadrak shook his head. Right now, he couldn’t give a shog who it was. She weren’t gonna do this to him, no matter how much he missed her. He was an assassin, not a Dreamer. Eingana’s scaly hide, she’d make him a shogging Nousian next.
“Tell me where they took him,” Shadrak insisted. His blood was up more’n it should’ve been. Had been ever since the Archon stopped him leaving, but he’d kept a lid on it till now. Sooner they got Shader out, sooner they could get this shogging Gandaw business sorted, and then he was off.
“I don’t know!” the dwarf cried.
Shadrak kicked him in the head, and the dwarf toppled over sideways.
“Then guess.”
He hunted about in his tool pack for a scalpel and held it up as he crouched down beside his shaking victim.
“Go on. I’ll give you three chances, and I’ll know if you’re making it up.”
THE NAMELESS DWARF
Shader swayed out of the way of a clumsy haymaker and circled behind the dwarf. A grunt echoed from within the black helm, which swiveled side to side, hunting for him. If he’d had a weapon, he knew he’d be wise to strike now. The dwarf seemed drowsy, rusty from so much time chained to the bench. Given a few more moments, though, he might well warm up, and then there was no telling what he could do. The problem was, Shader had nothing, save for the chain linking his wrists together, but he could hardly strangle an enemy whose head and neck were enca
sed in metal—if indeed it was metal; it had more the texture of stone. And then, of course, there was the morality of striking from behi—
The dwarf shuffled round to face him, inclining the helm to one side, gauging his every move. Boulder-like shoulders rolled backward, then he brought his hands together in a thunderous clap, while stomping his boots on the stone floor. He shook his helmed head vigorously, grunted, growled… then sighed and squatted down.
Shader retreated, weaving to the right, trying to remove himself from the helm’s narrow field of vision. This time, however, the dwarf tracked him with ease, rising from his squat to stand lightly on the balls of his feet.
Shader darted back the other way, but the dwarf exploded after him with unimaginable speed. He turned his head away just in time, and the dwarf’s fist struck the wall. Blood sprayed from ruptured knuckles, but he didn’t seem to notice. Shader twisted aside from an uppercut that would have shattered his jaw and stumbled toward the door. The dwarf closed down the space between them like a seasoned boxer, and there was nowhere left to run. Without a sword, Shader knew he didn’t stand a chance. He’d never faced anyone so fast—save maybe for Bardol Shin en route to Pardes; but Shin hadn’t had the dwarf’s prodigious strength to back up his speed. Shader was fast himself, and he could probably duck and dive a few more blows, but sooner or later he’d tire, which was something he couldn’t imagine happening to the stocky powerhouse glaring up at him through the narrowest of slits.
Glaring, but not attacking.
“Do I know you, laddie?” the dwarf asked.
“I—”
“Thought you were that shogging philosopher, but he’s a crusty bald bastard, and you must be half his age with ten times his hair. Funny thing, that. Could’ve sworn I heard his voice. Must’ve been dreaming.”
Shader tried to will his body to relax, but his eyes roved of their own accord to the dwarf’s blood-speckled arms. “I am Deacon Shader, a knight from—”
“Never heard of him. Gods of Arnoch if I can remember the name of the bloke I was swinging for, but I’m sorry I mistook you for him. Can’t see shog out of this helm, and what with that and the daze of sleep, dwarf’s bound to make mistakes. Am I forgiven, laddie?”
“Of course,” Shader said, hoping he didn’t sound as relieved as he felt. “This philosopher you mentioned, his name wouldn’t happen to be Aristodeus, now, would it?”
The dwarf rattled the chains dangling from his wrists. “Aye, that’s the shogger. Tricked me, he did. Tricked me and trapped me.” His hands went to the sides of the great helm. “Feel different, though, since waking up. I feel… less angry. Less scared.”
Shader couldn’t imagine him being scared of anything, and if this was him being less angry, he’d hate to see what he was like before. He supposed the blood spatters on his hauberk, boots, and arms offered some indication.
“It was Aristodeus who put you here?” Shader asked.
“Aye. Him and the council. Shoggers would’ve killed me if they’d had their way. Can’t say I blame them, either. After what I’d done…” He lowered his head, and his voice choked away.
So, Aristodeus had a foothold on Aethir. Was there nowhere free from his influence? “I know him,” Shader said.
The dwarf looked up, his eyes invisible, inscrutable, through the blackness of the helm’s slit.
“I once considered him a friend and mentor, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Ah, he means well, laddie. He might be a lying, cheating, flatulent windbag, but his heart’s in the right place. Least Thumil thinks so, and that’s good enough for… Oh, my shogging nugget-sack! Thumil and Cordy—they were in the Dodecagon when I was trapped.” He rapped the helm with his knuckles and then raised his bloodied hand to the eye-slit. “Ouch, that smarts. Must’ve cut myself.” He shrugged and carried on. “They stood up for me, even after everything. Shog, I wanted to die, wanted to die so much, but they still cared.” He went silent, his massive shoulders bunching up around the sides of the helm.
“Thumil?” Shader prompted. That had been the name of one of the white-robes outside, the one with patchy hair.
“Councilor. The best of ’em,” the dwarf said. “Though I would say that, because I served under him when he was Marshal of the Ravine Guard, and because he is… was my friend.”
“Sounds to me like he still is,” Shader said.
The great helm pivoted left and right. “Loyal to a fault, ol’ Thumil, but he knows. He knows.”
“Knows what?” Shader asked.
“More’n I do, that’s a fact. It’s like my memory’s a book telling the story of my life, but someone’s taken an inkwell and splattered every page with black splotches. Some of it’s still there, but other bits are missing. I see snippets—most of ’em bad—but I can’t piece it all together.”
Shader nodded then made his way to sit on the bench. “Well, it’s not as if we’re going anywhere soon. Why don’t you tell me about yourself? It could help.” He wanted to believe he made the suggestion out of compassion, love of neighbor in the Nousian sense, but he knew himself better than that. If he was going to get out of here, he needed help, and what better ally than this monstrous dwarf? Clearly, he was a force to be reckoned with, and chances are he knew his way around the city. If he could get Shader to the council, maybe they’d listen. Once they knew of the threat, it was inconceivable they’d not get involved. And if all else failed, he might at least know a way into the tunnels Gilbrum had spoken of.
The dwarf sauntered over and sat beside him. “I’m not sure. I’m thinking there’s things in my noddle I don’t really want to know.”
“Then start with just what’s necessary. Tell me your name.”
The dwarf chuckled. “Ah, you got me there, laddie. Got me good ’n’ proper.”
Shader shrugged his incomprehension, but before the dwarf could explain, the grille on the door slid open. Muffled voices came from outside, followed by a metallic scratching and a resounding clunk. A few more words were exchanged, and then the door opened a crack, and the balding, white-robed dwarf from the walkway backed inside. At his nod, the door was shut behind him and the key turned in the lock, then he faced Shader, gave a lopsided smile and held his palms up apologetically.
“Precautions. I’m sure you understand.”
After what had happened with Dave, Shader could see why the dwarves were being less than hospitable.
“We had no idea—Thumil, isn’t it? About our companion, I mean.”
That wasn’t strictly true. There had been plenty of warning signs, but need had blinded him. Need and a faith that was little better than a patchwork cloak, more holes than tattered fabric. What was it Ludo had said about a snow-covered dunghill? That about summed it up.
Thumil pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. “Kind of played into the hands of the traditionalists. Those of us with a more progressive leaning have been espousing the merits of opening our doors to the world for quite some time, but your friend has probably made sure they are fitted with bigger bolts and reinforced with steel. It’s a rare thing, folk visiting Arx Gravis. Rarer still to have them brought inside.”
“He was a trap,” Shader said, stomach tightening at the memory of what Dave had become, what he’d willfully failed to see. “A deception of the Demiurgos.”
“That’s precisely what we’ve been afraid of all these centuries.”
Shader frowned and looked at his cellmate for an explanation. The dwarf was stony-still, back to being a brooding presence masked by the great helm.
“I see you’ve met,” Thumil said. He scratched at his beard, and a clump of hair came away in his hand. “Tried talking to him?”
“Yes, but—”
“Me too. Used to come daily, when he was first brought here. Then days turned to weeks and weeks to months. I don’t know, I guess I just hoped he’d…” He stopped and stared at the sheared bolts on the floor beneath the bench, his eyes tracking to the loose lengths of chain dangling from
the dwarf’s wrists. The color drained from his face, and he backed toward the door. “What have you done?”
“Hoped he’d what?” The helmed dwarf pushed himself up from the bench.
Thumil yelped, and his knees buckled. His eyes nearly bulged from their sockets, and he couldn’t take them from the black helm. He scrabbled weakly against the iron of the door, as if he had the vain hope of passing straight through it.
“Hoped I’d say something?” The dwarf took a step toward him. “I would’ve, if I’d known you’d been here. Weeks, you say? Months? How long has it been? Forgive me, Thumil, I feel I’ve been dead, and this is my tomb.”
Thumil’s teeth chattered, and spittle sprayed from his mouth when he spoke. “It’s not possible. How can you be awake? Aristodeus said only he could… Oh, never mind. Are you… Are you…?”
“Cured? Well, I don’t feel like you’re all trying to kill me, if that’s what you mean. Not that you were—not you and Cordy. Least not all the time. What I mean is, I think I’m myself. The rage has gone.”
“Yourself?” Thumil said. “You remember who you are?”
“Some. Not all. Not a lot, actually. I was just saying to what’s his name here—”
“Shader,” Shader said, rising from the bench so he could offer Thumil a hand up.
“I know, laddie, I know. Just a bit slow on the recall, is all, but once the cobwebs are out of my nonce, I’ll be right as… right as… You know, Thumil. What’s the expression? Right as mead! Or was it ale?”
Thumil gripped Shader’s wrist, pushed his back into the door, and got his feet beneath him. “You remember your name?”
“That’s where I thought you could help.” He gave the helm a sharp rap. “It’s in here somewhere, I’m sure of it, but it won’t show itself.”
Thumil sighed and lowered his head. “I’m sorry, old friend.”
“But you remember it, surely?” Shader said. “Tell him what it is.”
Thumil looked up, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I can’t.”