by Aaron Crash
Gharam slurped. “It would be nearer to Gulnash the Betrayer. If he heard such a powerful weapon were on hand, he might come for it. Already, it has been said he’s delving into artifacts that might help him conquer the entire Blood Steppes.”
“So Gulnash is important enough to have a title. Who did he betray?” Ymir asked.
“He betrayed the laws of our people and the laws of the Pits. He is a rogue dog that needs to be put down.” Gharam’s fury was so savage, he came close to snarling.
The clansman listened carefully, soaking up the information. Ymir’s cunning mind put her on edge. If the merfolk did attack, she would put him on the front lines. He might make the difference between life and death. She had a heady sense of excitement fill her, part panic, part longing for battle.
Ymir nodded. “Then we don’t want the Fractal Clock anywhere near Four Roads. To move it to another stronghold on the coast would be equally foolish. However, we should tell everyone that we are moving it. We make a big show of the Fractal Clock leaving this college, but we keep it here. And we wait. We prepare. When the attack does come, we gather our warriors and we strike. They will come up the Sea Stair to the Flow courtyard. We’ll have a strike team, me and my princesses, in the Librarium Annex. We’ll hit the merfolk from behind. Gharam, his guards, and the faculty who can fight will hold the Librarium Citadel. The rest of the students and staff will move to the Form housing in the northern part of the campus. That would be the safest option.”
Della smiled.
Gharam let out an appreciative grunt that turned to laughter. “Asshole, bastard, or ahmer fucker, you are a wily fiend, you are, Ymir, son of Ymok. It makes me almost wish I didn’t hate you.”
The clansman laughed a little at that. He kept his eyes on Della. “Can we get help from the Sorrow Coast Kingdom?”
She let out a tense breath. “If we did that, we would be jeopardizing the trade agreements they have with the merfolk. No, I like your plan. I can’t ask you and your women to risk yourselves like that.”
“We’ve risked ourselves for less, I assure you,” he said. “I will get their consent.”
The big orc guffawed. “All you’ll need is Gatha. She’ll kill a hundred mermen if only to limber her muscles up for the real fight.”
Della wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. She furrowed her brow. “When do we think they’ll attack?”
Ymir had the answer. “When the Lover Moons are in the sky, the Warrior and the Artist, kissing each other’s bellies. That will be the week of the Third Exam. That’s good, because there won’t be any classes. I would request you move my exam to the next week. You don’t want me trapped in the Flow dungeon when the battle breaks out.”
“We might push out the exams for everyone.” Della frowned. “I will not discuss this with Beryl. I will warn Marrib Delphino, when he visits his niece, that he would be foolish to attack our school. We have powerful sorcerers here.”
“And Gatha the Igptoor.” Gharam’s spit dripped from a tusk. “Gatha has not known defeat.”
Ymir didn’t quibble. Instead, he smiled. “Gharam, I’d like to see your wife Gurla fight. She is a mean thing. Working for her, I would imagine she could defeat the entire merfolk force with a broom handle. As for your wife Korga, well, I would suggest she wear a cuirass. For support.”
The Princept readied herself to get between the professor and the scholar, but Gharam again laughed. “You all talk about my Korga’s big green tits, but I say let them flop. They are one of the great treasures of this school. You are all jealous.”
Ymir smiled.
Then Gharam remembered himself and gave Ymir a glare. “I won’t be sorry to see you take a trident to the chest. It’s only a matter of time until you meet your end here.”
Ymir lost his smile and turned to meet the orc’s gaze. “I met my end when I was cursed with magic. Now? All I care about are my princesses and this school since for now, it’s my home. I will do what I believe will benefit the things I love. If I’m to die in service of that, then I will consider my death good, whether it be by Marrib Delphino’s trident or by magic gone awry or even by the sword of Della Pennez.” His next words were for the Princept. “I didn’t see it, but I heard of your fight with Gharam. You weren’t wrong about your skill.”
“I wasn’t wrong,” Della agreed. “Perhaps we three will be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder when the time comes.”
Ymir sighed. “And yet, you still won’t tell me what the Fractal Clock does. Or what killed the merfolk in Old Ironbound when they won the citadel.”
Della thought that was for the best, all around. Some things this barbarian simply didn’t need to know. “It won’t matter. Marrib would be foolish to attack us. And perhaps we can avoid this whole little war. They won’t attack if they think the Fractal Clock isn’t here.”
“Then it’s settled.” Ymir’s eyes were still an icy blue. Without looking at the orc, he asked, “You haven’t been trying to kill me, have you, Gharam?”
The orc professor laughed until he slurped. “Child, if I wanted to kill you, you would know it, and one of us would be very dead.”
Ymir put a finger to his chin. “You orcs aren’t very subtle. Anything about my assassin, Princept?”
Della shook her head. Her Flow vision hadn’t been very reliable of late. Her divination magic was blurred by events of the autumn, as well as by Beryl Delphino’s sweet kisses. The Princept found a better excuse. “No, Ymir, because of your Tree-damned cantrips.”
Gharam frowned. “If you find out who wants you dead, let us know, lad. No one gets to kill you but me.”
The clansman threw back his head and laughed. “You might despise me, Professor, but I’ve never stopped liking you.”
The Princept was glad Ymir could find humor in his situation. She wasn’t feeling as good about it. And yet, life needed to go on.
They went their separate ways, and Della could return to her reading. That night, after the Solstice feast of salted pork in a sweet sauce, mashed root vegetables, and a spicy rice and vegetable dish, she found herself back in the sixth-floor meeting area with Beryl.
There, she told the mermaid they would be moving the Fractal Clock to the university in Four Roads, and she gauged the mermaid’s response.
Beryl simply said she thought it was a good idea, leaned over, and kissed Della softly, which led to harder, wetter kisses. Was it an appropriate response? Or was there something more sinister behind it?
The Princept would know the truth of the mermaid in thirteen weeks, when the Lover Moons kissed bellies in the sky, the same week as the Third Exams. This year, that came before the most important religious holiday of the year, the Tree of Life Festival, which marked spring. That festival would happen in April after the trouble should be over.
Regardless of her doubts, Della found herself naked with the mermaid. The half-elven Princept finally found her sexual release. Thinking of Ymir pushed her over the edge into the wonder of her orgasm. Beryl might betray her in the end, but for now, the mermaid’s kisses were still so sweet.
Chapter Twenty-Six
TORIAH WELLDEEP STOOD in the Scrollery with Gatha. It was far warmer there, in that dungeon-y place, than it was outside with the February wind blowing, carrying rain and some sleet.
The Solstice Eve cook had been over a month ago. She’d given all of her friends presents, though they were simple little things: a tankard for Ymir, new drawing pencils for Lillee, a dress for Jenny, and more smut for Gatha—a copy of Breecca Pah’s best-known work, The Merry Widows Go Cavorting, to replace the one she’d lost in the earthquake wave.
Tori was wise enough not to look inside. The book had illustrations she’d rather not see.
The weeks of the Solstice holiday break had gone quickly. One thing that was fun—the Morbuskor had started meeting on Thursday nights in the Reception Room of the Imperial Palace. Brodor organized it with the help of the Ironcoats. Buck Minefinder was there, as well as other dwarves in other
grades and colleges. Tori spent most of the time just listening to the talk, setting up the food tables, and cleaning up afterwards. She knew she made her people uncomfortable, so she kept busy, feeding them and laughing at their jokes.
They had xocalati there, but only the straight stuff from The Paradise Tree. None of the Morbuskor wanted to mess with the Amora Xoca.
Speaking of which, they’d sold a pretty fair amount of the aphrodisiac candy during the Solstice break. They’d held some back for special orders, which certain rich students paid more for, twice as much. It was enough money to pay for Ymir’s tuition and half of Lillee’s, but they still needed more for Jenny.
However, Tori had made up her mind—if any of her friends needed help with tuition and rent, she’d force them to take her money. She had more than enough for herself, and she was being paid by the kitchen, though she’d have worked there for free. The Undergem Guild had a hall in StormCry, and she put her job money there. Her father, the thane of the Ruby Stonehold, never missed a deposit. She was rich, and she was relatively happy with her friends, though she was a tiny bit troubled about this Yellow Scorch Ring business.
That was why Tori had come down to the Scrollery with Gatha. With the Amora Xoca cook over, they had moved on to their next project.
Gatha took Tori to the corner of the Scrollery nearest the entrance. Being underground felt good, normal even. The Scrollery was underneath the Coruscation Shelves of the Librarium. Sunfire lanterns gave the room a soft glow—it was a pretty place, sensual somehow. Gatha said there had been orgies during the reign of one depraved Princept, a cuff-less Ohlyrran who had the entire faculty sleeping together. That all made Tori uncomfortable. But was that why the room seemed warm, the wood a little more polished, and the shelves less dusty? Most of the scrolls were inside what used to be prison cells. Though the place used to be a dungeon and a torture chamber, it sure didn’t feel like that now.
Gatha smiled at her. “You know, when I brought Ymir and Lillee down here, I watched them have sex in my favorite reading spot across the way. Do you want to see it?”
Tori frowned. “Your reading spot? Maybe. Ymir and Lillee having sex? I’ve seen it myself. At the time, I liked it all right. But I wouldn’t want to see it now. Can we get on with this? I’d like the grave-robbing part of my day over and done with.”
The she-orc chuckled. She had her white hair pulled back and braided. Her tunic was a bit too tight, and this one had buttons down the front, most of which were unbuttoned.
The little woman knew why Gatha looked good and why she kept talking about sex—she thought she could trigger Tori’s Inconvenience. Well, that was a laugh because for thousands of years all manner of loremasters had tried to figure out the rhythms of the Morbuskor sex drive. All had failed. It happened when it happened, and that was the end of that particular story.
Gatha bent and touched a circular grate in the floor. “Ymir wanted to come himself to do it, but he has his Sunday ritual. And I wanted to do this before classes started.”
“Cutting it close.” Tori cleared her throat. “Tomorrow second semester begins.” She glanced around. “Should I be here?”
“No,” Gatha said. “But I didn’t want to be here alone. You seem like the least superstitious person in our little group. And no demon has gotten close to you. So, you were my first choice.”
“So you wouldn’t have to do this alone.”
“So I wouldn’t have to do this alone.” The librarian spat out a spell, “Ignis fascinara.” The grate clicked as the tumblers of a lock opened, and she pulled open the grate. Stone steps, lit by Sunfire torches, descended in a spiral.
“Us Morbuskor have our ghost stories and demon stories,” Tori said. “They scared me as a little dwabling. But now? No, I’ve realized the worst has happened, and I don’t need to be scared of much ever again.”
Gatha made a face. “Your people are stupid. I would have you every night if I could.”
The little woman sank a fist on her hip. “Well, that’s not going to happen. Let’s just get on with the grave-robbing.”
Gatha grunted a single laugh. “I like to think of it as grave-borrowing.” She started down the steps.
Tori followed. “Borrowing? You’re not going to give it back are you?”
“Good point.”
Around they went, descending down, deep into the earth. More scrolls, dusty and yellowed, were pushed into square holes honeycombing the wall. And then the tombs started, which were only bigger square holes. Each held a body, shrouded and shrunken.
Gatha stopped. “The scrolls tell stories. The bodies do not. They are husks. Are you afraid?”
“Bless my stone bits,” Tori sighed. “But this feels natural. You know, we had tombs in the Ruby Stonehold. The rich, powerful, and famous were entombed deeper than most normal folks. Why, word has it, under the Undergem Stonehold there’s a whole necropolis that stretches ten miles down. Ordoon Thunderrock is supposedly buried so deep they had to cast Form magic to stop the lava from destroying his grave.”
Gatha smiled. “The Gruul would never bury our dead. We burn them, and the smoke delivers our souls to the very top of the Tree of Life, where we are given new bodies. Some believe that. I don’t. I think when we die, we die. Any meaning there is to our lives is what we do today, here, now.”
“So the bodies don’t bother you?” Tori asked.
“No. They are old books with empty pages. What of you?”
The dwab shook her head. “Well, the Morbuskor think we’re all just stone anyway, and to be dead means you’re sleeping like stone. You might come alive again, like in lava, or in an underground river, or during an earthquake. The world is always changing. The Tree of Life’s roots reach deep to draw life from the stone. It all changes, and we change too. And if you’re missing a leg? You’ll get a new one made from rock. You don’t need to fear a thing.”
“Not from the dead,” Gatha agreed. “But the living can hurt us and hurt us bad.”
“Which is why you’re igptoor.” Tori tripped a bit on that strange word. “You know, Ymir and the others would welcome you.”
Gatha closed her eyes. “And that idea, too, has grown tiresome. No. Friends are fine, but I don’t want a family. I want you as a lover, but we’re too different it seems.”
“Why me?” Tori asked.
The she-orc opened her rose-colored eyes, and they were too intense to meet. “Because, Toriah Welldeep, you are the kindest, most selfless person I’ve ever met. Even Migdish had her more selfish moments. Not you. Never you. You could never hurt me.”
“I hope that’s true,” the dwab muttered. “Though I’m far from perfect.”
“Perfect enough.” Gatha walked farther down. “And I love your tits. I love tits in general, but your tits are spectacular.”
Tori squinted at all that. “Let’s not get rude, now.”
The she-orc stopped. Above the corpse was a plaque, Sarina Sia, the Princept from 5313 to 5623.
“She’s the Ohlyrran that had the orgies,” Tori said.
“She became Princept when she was seven hundred years old. Near the end of her life, she threw the ttoogs in what she called her pleasure dungeon.” Gatha looked down at the body with what almost looked like affection. “She knew our flesh and bones want to be used. Life longs to be lived. We are here for a short time, and then we are gone.”
“Not gone,” Tori said. “We change from stone to flesh and back to stone. We are the world, and the world is us. So there you have it, Gatha, not gone.”
The she-orc pulled off the shroud to reveal a skeleton covered by paper-thin skin, but the desiccation hadn’t completely removed the flesh. Actually, it looked very well preserved. “Form magic,” Tori whispered.
“Yes, Form magic. I read a book on the biology of the skeletons, and this should only take a moment.” Gatha gingerly adjusted the skeleton’s skull, found the bone she needed, and then whispered, “Lutum lutarum,” to ease the hyoid bone away from the former
Princept’s body. Gatha replaced the covering.
“Do you think this is necromancy?” Tori asked. “Is this dark magic? And should we be doing it?”
The she-orc shrugged. “It doesn’t feel like necromancy. It feels like we are building a weapon to keep our school safe. What we are doing is questionable, yes, but I’ve read Sarina Sia’s journals. She had her critics, especially among your kind and the elves. They called her demonic, but all she wanted was to rejoice in her flesh. I’ve learned that rules are important, yes, but they are guidelines, and one must have a certain moral flexibility.”
Tori and Gatha would turn around there. However, the steps kept descending. How far? Tori was curious. As a Morbuskor maid, she liked to follow tunnels to see where they led. Did they connect to the dungeons in the college towers? If you went far enough, did you come to a sea cave?
Then the dwab thought of Linnylynn Albatross, who said that there were certain corridors at Old Ironbound that led to the Stair, which could take you to any number of worlds. That Linny Albatross was cracked, though.
The she-orc led Tori up toward the Scrollery.
Gatha kept on talking. “So what some people see as demonic is simply different. Be careful of those who court certainty. I’m reminded of Archaka Lawreen, from The Tragedy of Ckaj and Niadne. The priest made an impossible decision, but he believed he was following the gods. It ended in tragedy, but it wasn’t his fault. I’ve had to make such decisions. I’ve had to do something...so wretched, so terrible, Tori.”
The she-orc stopped. They were away from the bodies, among the scrolls once more, and Gatha fell against the stone, visibly shaking.
“What did you do?” Tori asked.
“Nothing. It’s in the past. Let’s just say, taking a bone from someone not currently using it is the least of my sins.”
Once back in the Scrollery, Gatha sealed the cage again. She had the U-shaped bone wrapped in a silken red handkerchief. The pair weren’t done ascending yet. More steps returned them to the ground floor of the Coruscation Shelves.