by Ellis Knox
“Oh, Niki’s all right,” Henrik said. He lay closest to me, with Nik on the farther side.
“Professor,” I admonished, “show some sympathy.”
“Not to worry. He’s putting on a show for them. If they think he’s badly hurt, they may be less vigilant. I do think Cosmas is playing a similar trick—the docile giant. Poor Bessarion, it’s too late for him.”
“What? What do you mean?” The image of the dwarf being ridden down by those horrifying creatures leaped into my mind.
“He’s not dead,” Henrik said quickly. He must have heard my sudden panic. “But he ran, and they see him as a freak, so he has suffered doubly. I heard them shouting neman, neman, a very old word that could mean something like monster. They beat him.”
“Poor man,” I muttered. As prickly and difficult as the dwarf was, no one deserved to be beaten simply for being who they are.
We rattled on in silence for a time, then the professor spoke again.
“They are taking us to our destination,” he said.
“Where is that?”
“To the great light, of course. Has this business addled your wits? I’ve not see the glow since we left. As I can see only where we’ve come from, I deduce we travel in the direction of the light. Urstadt.”
I cocked an eyebrow. The professor was naming things again. He elucidated without needing to be asked.
“Surely the name for the capital of Urland must be Ur-city: hence, Urstadt.”
I made a face, not caring if my exasperation showed.
“I hope we live to see it,” I said.
“I hope we live to tell of it,” Henrik said.
I could think of nothing to add to that. Survival. That was the sum total of my aspirations at the moment. I was sore, thirsty, tired, and very badly frightened. Not for a moment did I think we were being brought anywhere pleasant, nor that we would be freed when we got there. Prison and execution were the most likely of our futures. The memory of the wretch in the maze haunted me.
Hours passed. I ceased trying to mark time or distance. When the cart bounced to a stop at last, dürgar pulled us into a sitting position, then threw a lump of substance into our laps, followed by a kind of water skin. The lump was about the size of two fists, speckled blue and black like rotted cheese. It smelled fetid, as if it had been pried loose from a primordial swamp.
Nik began eating it at once.
I held my own gingerly between my hands, half expecting to see something crawl out of it.
Queller took a bite, swallowed, then said to me, “I very likely am going to die, but they shall have to kill me. I’ve no intention of dying from starvation.”
I took my own bite. It was as chewy as an octopus and bland as paper, which meant it tasted better than it smelled. The skin, I was relieved to discover, contained only water.
Nik looked at me and winked. His face was as slack as ever, his movements slow, and he grimaced often, but the wink told me everything. He was as right as could be under the circumstances. He still had fight in him. The wink helped. If Nik had not given up, I could imagine we were not yet done for.
We traveled again, stopped again. The third time, the dürgar dragged us from the cart and laid us on the ground. They tossed the dwarf down beside us. Cosmas was left on his wagon.
Poor Bessarion. His face was cut on cheek and forehead. Bruises bloomed around his nose and both eyes. A bloody rag around one arm testified to a cut.
And they had shorn him. Badly. Much of his beard and hair were hacked away, as bad a shearing job as I’d ever seen. Patches of hair remained, in varying lengths. Some were matted with blood. He caught my eye and smiled, and I saw missing teeth, but I saw resolution too. Beso wasn’t giving up either.
Monsters. Beasts. Devils. I cursed our captors with all my heart. This was not dominance or discipline, this was wanton cruelty, the kind that is born of fear and hatred. I now had another reason to find a way to survive. I would avenge this maltreatment.
The dwarf himself was less sanguine. He gratefully accepted food and drink. By inches he moved next to Professor Queller, and the two engaged in a long conversation by means of whispers broken by watchful pauses. The dürgar did not want us talking. After a time, exhaustion overcame me, and I slept.
Next day was no better. We shook and bounced in the cart, all of us growing weaker by the hour. I tried to observe my surroundings, but my mind kept drifting into fantasies of revenge so bloody they shocked me. I don’t think of myself as a cruel person, but I dwelt with delight in visions of dürgar burned, stabbed, or torn to pieces. Had I had the opportunity, I truly believe I would have committed any and all of the atrocities that occupied my imagination on that dreadful journey.
In between these fits of rage, I observed the world around me. The first thing that caught my eye was another settlement of gnomes. I could hardly miss it, for the road passed right through the middle of the village. The place was much the same as the one the dürgar had put to the torch, with its flat roofs and tidy gardens. And all its inhabitants tamely lined up, their homes thrown open to their oppressors. This abject surrender disheartened me. I thought of our own gnomes, going meekly into their “safety centers.” I shoved the image away, assuring myself we were nothing like these dürgar.
More villages came and went as the glow brightened around us. The sky above still faded away into empty black, but even the ground beneath us was gaining in color. The light itself was shifting more and more toward yellow.
The road ran perfectly straight. It vaulted over streams, dug through hills, never swerving, eager to reach its destination and contemptuous of obstacles. We passed from beneath the woody roof of a forest and dove almost at once into blocks of buildings.
The city of bright towers had a dark patch, like a wound in its side. That’s where we entered, a place filled with dark buildings lit only by small pools of light at their feet. At first glance, they might be taken as dwarf built, for they were of shaped stone, gray and black, with flint-colored streaks here and there as a kind of bleak decoration. Even the unpracticed eye soon saw the differences, though, for these buildings were no more than ugly rectangles piled on top of each other, offset, projecting outward or set in, as if built by a child. Where dwarves would build an imposing edifice of clean lines and graceful geometries, here were buildings like untended hedges, stone grown wild.
Here was where the dürgar lived, and here was where we were imprisoned.
A Voice Behind the Wall
Our captors marched us down a dimly lit hall to a wide stone door. Each dürgar carried a spear at the ready; one of these now made a jabbing motion at the open door. Darkness lay within.
Professor Queller started to say something, but Niklot took him by the arm and the two went inside without resistance. The opening was so small, poor Cosmas bent nearly in half to get inside. An impatient guard poked at the ogre with his barbed spear. Cosmas growled but went in. I protested even as I followed. A dürgar jabbed at me with the butt of his javelin so hard I cried out and tumbled forward. The door slammed shut behind and darkness enveloped us.
Niklot cursed our captors and called out to ask if I was hurt, all in the same breath. I assured him I was all right, though I added to myself I would likely have a large bruise on my back. Another injury to repay.
We were thrown into darkness; oddly, that came as a bit of relief. At least we were no longer being struck or threatened. We had only ourselves on which to rely. We were, in other words, on familiar ground. There had once been a time when the blackness would have bothered me, but the long hours spent in the dark earlier served all of us well. We explored our prison by touch, speaking to each other in low voices.
“I am standing,” Cosmas announced, then added, “I cannot touch the ceiling, even by stretching.”
“I found a wall,” Bessarion said.
“Something foul is on the floor,” I said. I was still on hands and knees. “It’s slick. Try not to touch it.”
; I stood and wiped my hands on my pants.
“I’ve got a wall,” Nik said. “You others stay where you are. Beso, you move left and I’ll move right. Count your paces until you reach a corner, then call out.”
By such means we took the measure of the place. It was big—forty human paces by twenty. Beso found a second door on one wall, but it was securely sealed. The room was otherwise quite empty. Except for the slime.
“An odd sort of prison,” Niklot said. We had all assembled at one corner. The fungus or mold or whatever it was lay mostly in the center of the room. We were well content to hug the walls.
“I don’t think it is a prison,” Professor Queller said. He sat at the edge of our group.
“When I’m locked into a room against my will,” Nik said, “I’ll call the place a prison. You may call it what you please.”
“We’re in a warehouse,” Queller continued, as if Nik had not spoken. “Or an armory. Some place of storage.”
“And now it’s we who’ve been stored.”
“That was too easy a joke, Niki,” Queller said. “My observation is significant.”
I could almost hear Nik roll his eyes.
“If this were a jail,” Queller said, “they were keeping awfully tall prisoners. Yet the doorways are made dwarf-size.”
“Dürgar size,” Beso said.
“I beg your pardon,” Queller said. “In any case, the door scarcely matches the room. We have been all around the room and have found no chains, no rings for chains, no means of securing anyone. This place could hold a score of prisoners. What guard would enter a room of twenty unchained men? As a final point, if it were needed, we’ve seen dürgar justice. They kill those who oppose them. They might maim for a lesser offense, but they do not waste resources on prisons or prisoners.”
We were all silent.
“What?” Queller said.
“No one spoke, Uncle. We’re waiting to know if you are done.”
“Odd,” Queller muttered.
“That we wait?” I asked. “Do you really think us so rude?”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I thought . . . . Well and so. Yes, I am done. Are you convinced?”
“Oh, utterly,” Niklot said. “And yet, here we sit, imprisoned but not in a prison.”
“Exactly.”
Nik chuckled silently. I felt his shoulders move.
“There it is again.”
“Uncle?”
“Quiet, please. I may move about; don’t be alarmed, but do keep quiet.”
“Uncle? What are you up to?”
“Hush!”
I strained my ears, trying to picture what was going on. I heard Nik’s breath close to my head and the deeper breathing of the ogre at my other side. Images of a predatory beast moving in the darkness set my heart racing. I no sooner scornfully pushed away that thought than I imagined insects—dark, scuttling things with venomous fangs.
“Hello. Yes, I hear you.”
Professor Queller’s voice came from some distance away.
“What do you hear?” Beso asked, anxiously.
“Do not speak,” Queller hissed at us. “Again, please.”
This was not addressed to us. We stayed silent. Shuffling and tapping sounds came through the darkness.
“Better. And again?”
More movement.
“What is it?” I whispered, at last unable to keep quiet. The very air seemed filled with threat.
“He hears someone,” Cosmas said at my other ear. He spoke in a low voice; ogres cannot really manage a whisper.
“Silence!” Queller roared at full volume, like a thunderclap after all the whispering.
“No, sir, not you. Again, please. I can’t quite reach.”
I remained silently baffled.
“A moment, sir. Cosmas, please come assist me. Follow the wall.”
“Coming, Henrik Queller.”
“The rest of you, keep quiet, I implore you,” Queller said in a most peevish manner.
I let that go. He had found someone. Another prisoner, I supposed, which was both welcome and worrying.
A long minute of silence followed. Then Cosmas must have found the professor. There were sounds of movement and effort, huffing and puffing, a sudden solid thump, followed by a shocking curse from Queller. He again implored us to silence.
There followed a long, one-sided conversation that made sense only after it was over and Henrik was able to tell us the other half.
“That,” Henrik began once he had returned, “was Étienne Fournier.”
“What?” I cried.
“Fournier?” Nik cried at the same time. “He lives!”
“He is a prisoner, like us, captured by the so-called Protectors.”
“But he’s alive,” Nik said. “If anyone could do it . . .,” He choked up. This was his hero, come back to life, even if it was in prison.
“What are Protectors?” Beso asked.
“I believe it is another word for the dürgar.”
“What about the others?” Nik asked, still thinking about Fournier.
“Dead,” Henrik says, “or so he assumes. Most never even made it to Urland. That was indeed Fournier’s camp we found, and there was indeed a fight, though not much of one. They were attacked in the night. They never set a guard—why should they? Most were killed on the spot.”
“Poor devils,” Nik said.
“Yes. Étienne blames himself, of course, but worse was to come. His captors were convinced the whole group was a spying expedition. He himself was tortured. He believes his compatriots who survived the attack were also tortured, probably unto their deaths. Those who tortured Fournier himself, though, were not Protectors. They were the masters, Those Who Rule, and they are elves.”
“Elves!” we all cried.
“He was clear on the point, and I should think he knows an elf when he sees one. They themselves do not use the word. They call themselves drow, an archaic word that means … .”
“Left behind,” Nik said.
“To remain,” Henrik said. “Elven is a peculiar language, indifferent to distinctions between nouns and verbs and grammar generally. But the conclusion is clear. Just as gnomes and dwarves ascended to the Surface millennia ago, so too did elves.”
“These are not dwarves,” Beso insisted sullenly, but we ignored him.
“And the drow are those who remained, when the others left,” Henrik continued. “But to return to Monsieur Fournier. As I said, he too was interrogated. He would not describe his ordeal save to say there are worse tortures than the merely physical.”
I shuddered at the implication.
“I asked him why they thought he was a spy. He said their case was muddled.”
“Wait,” Nik said. “He understood their speech?”
“And they his.”
“How?”
“By study. These drow, you see, have been visiting the Surface.”
Henrik waited out our cries of astonishment.
“You ask how. Étienne did not know, but I do. These drow have portals, and I suspect ones far more efficient than the dwarf portals.”
Beso growled a protest.
“Pace, Bessarion,” Henrik said. “We can leave that to one side for now. There is no doubt the drow have one or more portals that allow them to move quickly, perhaps instantaneously, from Urland to the Surface and back again. This is the only way to explain their thorough knowledge of us. And they do so almost invisibly, which is the only way to explain how we have never known it.”
“They’ve been spying on us,” Nik said.
“Indeed.”
“Which is why they assume we are also spies.”
“I agree.”
“But why spy?” I asked. “Why not contact us openly, send emissaries?”
“I believe I know the answer to that as well,” Henrik said. “Upon whom does one spy?”
“Enemies,” I replied.
“Just so. There is only one reason for them to presume w
e are their enemy: they intend to attack us.”
I had grown accustomed to Henrik’s fondness for the dramatic statement, so I pressed him.
“That only pushes back the question,” I said. “It’s still this: Why?”
“You will recall I said Urland is a dying world.”
Enlightenment struck in the darkened room.
“I see.”
“They will have concluded there is no point in asking permission or negotiating. They will want our cities, not our wastelands, and we will not yield our civilization upon request.”
“They think they were found out,” Nik said. “And Fournier did not lead an expedition of scientific exploration, it was a scouting mission.”
“And now,” Henrik added, his voice bleak, “they are right. They have been found out. By us.”
We digested this information in silence that was broken only once.
“They are not true dwarves,” Beso said with resolute insistence. “Perhaps they are not true elves either.”
“What possible difference could that make?” I retorted. I had come to the end of my patience with dwarf piety. “True or First or some other. We’re not ethnographers!”
“No we aren’t,” Nik agreed. “We’re spies.”
We spent hours in that prison, or maybe it was days. Twice the dürgar fed us. Both times they entered with an armed guard who drove us with blows against one wall while someone set down a vat of food. Hunger drove us to be eager for this, even as the beatings made us fear it. It was a particular sort of torture. Did our captors delight in it? I could not say, for they seemed indifferent, treating us no better than one might a captive animal.
From the start Nik had advised us not to use our lanterns (we had two left), nor to take anything else from the bearer bag. The dürgar had not seized it, nor even inspected it. Perhaps they thought it was an item of clothing. In any event, the bag was precious; we would use it only at dire need. So we learned to move about by touch.