by Doug Niles
As presented as law in Edict Number Four, the king high thane shall, in due time, appoint her successor as thane of the Theiwar clan.
Stonespringer Edict Number Eighty-one:
Regarding the Corrupting Influence of Graven Images
Commencing immediately, all public images portraying the former leaders of Thorbardin, as well as those busts and statues of both historical and personal significance displayed within private dwellings, are to be destroyed. It is known to all that, as mandated by Edict Number Twenty-two, all images carved in stone to portray beings who are not dwarves—the most notable being the statue of the former elf king Kith-Kanan—have already been destroyed.
But Reorx has shown me that this destruction is insufficient. So long as we admire the graven visages of our former heroes, we are unable to move into the future of new might, new greatness, and new leaders.
The Public Guard enforcers of each clan will be responsible for tearing down any statuary on exhibit in public locations. Each property owner is required to destroy any privately held images. Such destruction must be accomplished by the end of the year; after that time, all such property that is discovered will be confiscated and its owners arrested for violation of this edict.
Stonespringer Edict Number Eighty-two:
Regarding the Primacy of Reorx
Reorx has long been the favored father of all dwarfkind, but he is displeased to see that small shrines dedicated to other gods—however secondary to his primacy—have various places of honor in Thorbardin. No such religious center, temple, shrine, or altar to any god other than Reorx shall now be tolerated.
Citizens coming upon such shrines shall immediately report their existence to the clan thane. It is the thane’s obligation to see that the blasphemous site is shut down, the shrines to other gods destroyed.
Any dwarf caught worshiping at such a site or carrying any talisman or sign associated with any god other than Reorx shall be put to death by slow strangulation.
Stonespringer Edict Number Eighty-three:
Regarding the Elimination of the Aghar Race
Gully dwarves are a bane on the existence of the true dwarf races. For too long these “gullies” have been tolerated, working their mischief, spreading their diseases, and stealing our food, our goods, and, indeed, our honor. To the eyes of Reorx, a state of war has always existed between his hard-working, devoted children, the mountain dwarves, and these bastardized pests who have so long infested this nation.
To this end, the Aghar “gully” dwarves are banned from Thorbardin. Those who do not leave within one week are sentenced to death. Death may be administered by any male or female dwarf of clans Hylar, Daergar, Daewar, Theiwar, or Klar.
At the discretion of the clan thane, a bounty not to exceed five steel pieces may be paid for every Aghar head produced at the clan bounty house. The bounty is limited to adult gully dwarves; the little nits who survive, assuredly, will not be long for life.
It is hereby announced that the gully dwarf “thane,” Grumple Nagfar, has already been put to death. His throne has been removed from the Council of Thanes, never to be restored.
Such edicts are written be decree of the king high thane, and to all Thorbardin they shall be known as law.
Signed
King High Thane Jungor Stonespringer
ONE
SCUM GUTTERS OF AGHARHOME
Plop.
Gus watched the globule of sludge fall from the ceiling, plummeting—as he had known it would—straight down onto Pap’s bald, wrinkled pate. The ball of gooey liquid exploded noisily, spattering Mam and Birt. But most of the gunk ran down Pap’s face or draped his very prominent ears like the draperies that used to ornament Thane Grumple Nagfar’s palace. (Gus had seen the palace once when Thane Highbulp Nagfar, drunk, had fallen down outside the drain hole that was his palace entrance, and Gus, who also was drunk, had tripped over the thane and tumbled down the slick and slimy shaft.)
Just as he had anticipated the sludge’s fall, Gus knew what would happen next.
“Move!” Pap snapped, roughly elbowing Mam from her small rock and sidling sideways to claim the newly vacated seat. His own perch, the largest rock in the entire Fishbiter household, he left unoccupied.
Mam kicked One Eye (Birt was his real name, but the family called him One Eye ever since that thing that happened when the brothers were fishing) over and took the space on the floor where he had been sitting. It was the only flat spot on the rocky, rubble-strewn floor of the lightless house, so she settled herself there with a stern look at Birt, Ooz, and Gus.
Gus sighed, watching the inevitable progression of nudges, punches, and kicks as Birt claimed the corner perch formerly occupied by Ooz (Ooz was his real name, but the family sometimes called him Hook Lip ever since that other thing that happened when the brothers were fishing), and Ooz knocked Gus out of his place in the doorway. Rubbing his sore ribs—Ooz punched him in the same place every time—Gus stood up and tried to decide what to do. He looked at the ceiling and saw that the ooze was only slowly beginning to bubble down below the crack; it would be at least two minutes before it fell again. Since his only other choice was to leave the crowded little house, he made his way to the rock that had been vacated by Pap.
He settled himself on the high seat, which was clean since Pap himself had intercepted the plunging sludge. For just a second, he relished the thrill of being high and dry, his rump nestled comfortably in the slight concavity atop the rock. It was nice up here!
“Hey! That my seat!”
Pap lunged to his feet, his face twisted into a grimace of ferocity, both of his teeth showing between his widespread lips. Gus sprang off the rock before the old Aghar’s punch could land, allowing his father to reclaim his chair. Pap glowered menacingly at his youngest offspring until a louse in his beard compelled him to refocus his attention on scratching. Mam, meanwhile, wasted no time in reclaiming her place next to the rock, while Ooz and Birt likewise moved back to their previous roosts. Instead of sitting down himself, Gus looked at the ceiling, where another distended smear of viscous sludge was gathering underneath the wide place in the crack. Soon the mass was too heavy to cling and broke free to tumble straight down toward Pap’s still-moist cranium.
Plop.
Gus decided not to stay around for the next step in the cycle, which was the usual after dinner routine of the Fishbiter clan. For one thing, dinner had taken place a very, very long time ago, and the shuffle and return was starting to get a little boring (though he never tired of watching the sludge spatter as it struck Pap’s hairless scalp). And for another thing, Gus was starting to get very hungry again.
The previous dinner had been the bony carcass of a cave carp that Ooz had claimed from behind an inn in New Theibardin. Of course, all the usable meat had been picked off, but Theiwar cooks were notoriously wasteful. In this case, the head, all the fins, and the tail remained. Furthermore, there had been succulent little bits of flesh between the rib bones of the carp, meat that the cook had been too lazy or impatient to carve out.
As a result, there had been feasting in the Fishbiter household! Well, it was sort of feasting, anyway. At least Pap had eaten like a king; he got the whole head to himself. Mam had claimed the tail, greedily smacking her lips over each morsel. Ooz and Birt got the fins and ribs, and all four of them enjoyed something to eat.
Gus, unfortunately, had been left to scramble for the bits of bone, scale, and gristle that evaded the notice of his elders, though he grabbed one tasty morsel when he fooled Birt into dropping his fin to snatch at a tempting mouse that scrambled over his lap. Of course, the mouse had been only a puff of fuzz tangled at the end of a long thread dangled by Gus, but by the time Birt figured out the ruse, Gus was already smacking his lips, savoring the strong aftertaste of carp. Since Birt would have had to neglect the rest of his feast in order to pound his younger brother, he had to forgo any vengeance in order to protect the remainder of his share.
Even so, Gus�
�s belly was rumbling, and as Pap, Mam, Birt, and Ooz rearranged the seating in the household once again, the youngest Fishbiter ducked his head and exited through the low tunnel that was the house’s front door. He emerged into one of the dingy, filthy alleys of Agharhome, the largest “city” (though nest or den or hive or warren or lair might be more accurate terms) of gully dwarves in the whole of vast, subterranean Thorbardin.
The ceiling, a slanted slab of rock, pressed low over the narrow thoroughfare, which was one of a multitude of similar lightless, stinky, cramped enclosures in the city of the gully dwarves. Dozens of little circular holes led into the bedrock to either side of the alley. These were the doors of houses similar to the one in which Gus and his family lived. Some of them had residents, but a great deal were empty. Hunger, predators, and the deadly gangs of Klar thugs made for short life expectancy for the denizens of Agharhome.
Glumly, Gus started down the lane, descending the steep incline toward the lake, quickly emerging onto a narrow ledge above the water. He looked down to see where the dark waters of the Urkhan Sea lapped against many of the lower tunnels of Agharhome. These points of access were all crowded with hungry gullies, each seeking a lucky chance at a fish, and Gus considered whether he wanted to take his chances at shouldering through the crowd and trying his own fortunes.
Gus was neither unusually large nor unusually small by Aghar standards. He stood about three feet high, with a large nose the prominent feature of his round, weak-chinned face. A scraggly beard grew from that chin, but not thickly enough to mask its recession. His eyes were large and watery, his teeth jutted awkwardly forward from his mouth. He wore a surprisingly nice-looking red silk jacket (stolen from someone’s laundry) but the elbows had worn away on it, and it didn’t quite enclose his protruding belly. His saggy pants were held up by a scrap of rope, and though he wore boots, the sole and the front were missing from one of them, so his large, dirty toes projected into view.
He spotted a throng of Aghar squeezed into the narrow mouth of the ravine directly below him. Only two could actually fit at the water’s edge, where they crouched, hands extended, waiting for a fish. Behind them, the rest of the group pushed and jostled. “Move, you bluphsplunger goot!” one demanded.
“Back up, doofus wandwaver!” another replied, grappling the first. The two wrestlers tumbled down, pushing the two fishers into the water. One climbed out, crawling between the pair who had claimed the shore, shivering and dripping and again jostling for position.
Gus watched for two minutes before he turned around. His family was bad enough. He had no stomach for rough encounters with other Aghar who would invariably be bigger, rougher, and nastier. And the teeming numbers he encountered at every one of these ravines! He couldn’t count very high, but a general guess suggested there were at least two, and two, and two more of them everywhere! Such throngs held no appeal for a loner such as Gus.
So instead of descending, he climbed. It was not too long before he emerged from the small tunnel of the alley into a loftier, though still narrow, passage. This was one of the dramatic clefts that scored the upper surface of Agharbardin, carved into the steep wall of the great cavern that surrounded the Urkhan Sea. As was ever true in Thorbardin, a rock ceiling vaulted overhead, but the ceiling was far above him, allowing a vista that carried far out across the black, still water.
This place was nearly lightless, only faintly illuminated from a few of the old sun shafts that still remained open; the others had long been filled in by debris. The pale beams diffused through the distance, glimmering over a few patches of still water.
It had not always been like this. A half century earlier, the whole shore of the Urkhan Sea would have been aglow with the spillage of light from the many forges, fireplaces, and other fires burning throughout the great dwarven kingdom. In those days the great cities along the lake shore rose up through many terraces on the steep cliffs rising from the water while the great Life-Tree of the Hylar, in the center of the lake, radiated light and warmth from thousands of windows, balconies, and overlooks.
All of those cities were abandoned—ravaged and at least partially destroyed by the depredations of the Chaos War. Vast sections had been hollowed out by mighty fire dragons that had burned tunnels right through the bedrock of the mountain, and in many places those scoured caverns had weakened the surrounding structures catastrophically.
In the center of the lake, where the Life-Tree once had dominated, loomed the most tragic wreckage of the Chaos War and its aftermath. The massive pillar had collapsed, leaving an irregular pile of rocks jutting from the surface. Most Thorbardin dwarves called that place the Isle of the Dead, though to the Aghar it was just the Dead Island. A stub of the great pillar still extended from the lofty roof of the cavern, but it terminated a long way above the top of the island. Every once in a while, new rocks would break free and plummet downward, an unpredictable barrage that ensured the island would not be reinhabited.
Indeed, all the environs of the Urkhan Sea were virtually abandoned; at least there were no proper cities or towns. There were dens of Aghar all around the lake, however, with the largest being Agharhome. Too, there were bands of feral Klar—the wild-eyed, often insane dwarves—who had rejected the new king’s orderly city life to roam free in their vast undermountain realm. But the feral Klar were not interested in cities and only passed through the ruins periodically on their nomadic wanderings.
Even though there was virtually no illumination in the vast cavern, Gus could make out some details since light was not, strictly, necessary for deep-delving dwarves to see. The Aghar, like the Theiwar and Daergar, had eyes keenly attuned to the dim conditions of their stone-bordered world. As Gus looked out across the water, he could make out the motionless surface of chilly liquid, black as oil and still as ice. The ruined stub of the Life-Tree jutted from that surface, perhaps two miles away from him.
Beyond the Dead Island and much farther away—about two miles, Gus thought, the upper limit of his arithmetic ability—the vast front of Theibardin rose into view. From an array of docks and cavernous warehouses at the lake level, the great city of the Theiwar spread up the precipitous cliff of the lakeshore. It was dotted with villas, palaces, and temples, all carved from the bedrock of the mountain, each structure positioned to give its dwellers a grand view over the great underground lake at the heart of Thorbardin. Those facades were dark and lifeless as Gus stared, with irregular holes and great gaps showing where the war and its attendant erosion continued to tear away at Theibardin’s foundations.
But everything that happened in ancient times (meaning more than two years ago) was beyond an Aghar’s imagination. In any event, Gus’s attention was directed closer to home. A rivulet of scummy liquid was flowing down the base of the ravine, and he sniffed at it without much hope. The vile brown sludge that flowed there was not, nor had it ever been, a source of food, but he sniffed again, just to be sure. Sighing, he stood and watched the flow go past, moving downward, fast where the ravine was steep, slower where the grade was shallower. It trickled right past the mouth of the tunnel/alley leading to the Fishbiter house. The floor of that side tunnel was about two inches above the flowing sludge. Gus remembered a time when the level of sludge had risen up to that tunnel mouth—it had been an unpleasantly wet and smelly time for the neighborhood.
Just beyond the tunnel mouth, Gus noted, the sludge stopped flowing. Gus knew that place, but he peered at the sight just to be sure. The viscous liquid was collecting in a large holding pond, held in place by a makeshift dam of loose rock that had spilled into the ravine some time about two years ago. Looking up at the cliff wall rising over his head and down at the steep ravine and the tunnel leading to his house, Gus suddenly realized that the sludge pond was poised right over his and his neighbor’s houses.
Then he saw something else—there was someone down there, hunched over, studying something on the ground. Squinting, he discerned the hunched back; large, bare feet; and straggly strands of dirt
-colored hair that suggested a female gully dwarf.
“Hey!” he called. “Who you?”
She raised her face, which was even dirtier than her feet. It was centered around a huge and not altogether unattractive nose. “Go away, bluphsplunger stoop!” she retorted.
Instead, Gus skidded down the slope to her side, which was right near the edge of the sewage pond. He saw that she was huddled protectively over the limp form of a skinny, bedraggled, and apparently very, very dead, rat.
“That my rat!” Gus declared boldly, hunkering down next to her.
“Go away!” she repeated, picking up the rat and holding it to her tattered dress. “I call you bluphsplunger stoop! You go away!”
“Who you?” Gus repeated, eyeing the rat.
“Slooshy,” she replied, glaring at him.
“Why you call me stoop?”
She shrugged. “Not know. Bluphsplunger stoop—different one from you—push me down. But me lucky after all; found rat!” She brightened at the thought and held the grotesque rodent out in a filthy paw. “See?”
Gus was tempted to snatch the rat out of her hand, but something gave him pause. “Share rat with me?” he suggested instead.
“No!” she snapped, pulling her hand away just as he made his grab. He got his stubby fingers around the hairless tail. But she had a grip on the body and jerked it away until it flew free from her grasp out over the sewage pond, where it landed with a dull plop. Despite the thickness of the liquid, it immediately vanished from sight, sending only a small ripple to the dam of rocks, allowing a small surge to slip over the barrier and spill toward the lake below.
“Now look! Bluphsplunger stoop! You big humpus maker, you!” she shouted, standing up and stomping her feet.
Gus sat on a rock, trying to ignore his empty stomach and the barrage of creative insults that emerged from Slooshy’s mouth. She knew a number of interesting words, enhancing most with the “bluphsplunger” modifier as she called him a “doofa,” a “goopar,” and a “burfhoofing lumpus.”