by Prior, D. P.
Thumil’s golden helm was bobbing back through the mass of Red Cloaks. Before Carnifex could lead Kal to go and meet him, a sniveling voice had him turning back toward Aristodeus, Lucius, and Rugbeard.
“You know, I don’t believe in coincidences, either,” Baldar Kloon said, emerging from the throng with two other Black Cloaks flanking him.
“Oh?” Aristodeus said.
“Explain to me, philosopher, how it’s all peace and quiet round here, then you show up and this happens.”
“You think I had something to do with it?” Aristodeus sounded both incredulous and angry.
“Either that, or you knew what was about to happen,” Kloon said.
“What, and then came for a front row seat?” Aristodeus said. “That really is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard today.”
And yet Carnifex couldn’t help wondering if Kloon had a point. All that talk about seeing patterns, and yet when everyone else was starting to discern one, Aristodeus played the coincidence card. But why? What would he have to gain from being here when the golem attacked? If anything, his presence had been crucial. If he’d not shared the secret of cutting out the letter and changing ‘truth’ into ‘death’, the creature might still be on the rampage. But all that did was make it likely the philosopher was a force for good, rather than the menace Kloon seemed to imply. Or was he? Clearly, Aristodeus knew a lot more than he was willing to let on.
“Either way, you two are coming with us,” Kloon said, indicating for his men to arrest Aristodeus and Lucius.
“Now don’t be absurd,” Lucius said, starting to back away.
Kloon grabbed him by the collar. “Absurd, is it, fatso?”
Carnifex stepped in and punched Kloon so hard his head snapped back, and he pitched to the floor.
The other two Black Cloaks drew their swords.
Kal moved to intercept them.
“That’s enough!” Thumil yelled, jogging toward them.
The Black Cloaks hesitated, each eyeing the other for what they should do next.
Carnifex hefted his pickaxe to his shoulder and advanced on them.
They both retreated a pace.
“Marshal,” Aristodeus said, “there seems to have been a misunderstanding.”
“I’ll say.” Thumil glowered at the Black Cloaks, and they visibly wilted.
“Pick Kloon up and take him with you. Councilor Grago will get my report on this incident, mark my words.”
They did as he told them, and carried the unconscious Kloon up onto the platform and toward the train.
“Suppose you want me to drive the shoggers,” Rugbeard grumbled, not even waiting for an answer as he shuffled after them.
“Diplomatic as ever, eh, Carn?” Thumil said.
“He grabbed my brother.”
Lucius nodded his thanks and his relief. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t,” Carnifex said. “But it brought a tear to my eye when he called you fatso.”
Lucius sucked in his gut. “Is it that bad?”
“Laddie,” Carnifex said, “you’re the scholar of the family, the font of all knowledge. You don’t need me to tell you.”
Lucius frowned and worried his lip. “Best lay off the pies, then.”
“Right,” Thumil said. “No need for you boys to hang around here.” He clapped Kal on the shoulder and narrowed his eyes with approval at Carnifex. “You did well, and you should get yourselves cleaned up. When I’m finished here, I’ll need to debrief you before I make my report to the Council.” He let out a long sigh, looking suddenly weary. Whether from the incident, or the prospect of another grilling by the Council, it was hard to say. “And Carn,” he added, “Don’t forget Cordy’s bash tomorrow night.”
—The launch of the new beer.
“Sorry, Kal,” Thumil said. “You’re on duty, but life, as they say, goes on. It’ll take more than a golem and the shogging Krypteia to stop what she has planned. Kunaga’s Ale House at suns down, Fexy. Don’t be late.”
KUNAGA’S HOUSE OF ALE
Kunaga was a legendary hero and a baresark to boot, a rare example of what the wild dwarves could become when they cooperated with civilization. The tavern was aptly named, Carnifex thought as he pushed through the ironbound door: you needed to be a hero to survive such a den of violence and iniquity as Kunaga’s House of Ale. Either that, or a Ravine Guard. He and Thumil frequently came to the lower levels to unwind after a day’s work, and though the locals didn’t exactly like it, they’d grown used to it, and tolerated their presence.
Thumil was already on his third mead when Carnifex found him at the bar. Normally, they’d have come together, but tonight, Thumil had insisted on helping Cordy set up for the launch of her family’s new beer. The Kilderkins had been preparing for weeks, and had arranged for a coordinated tapping of kegs in select taverns about the city. Most were on the upper levels, where her aunts and uncles did the majority of their trade. Her cousins took the middle tiers, and Cordy got Kunaga’s, as near to the bottom of the ravine as a half-decent dwarf would dare venture. Still, Cordy didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she’d already made herself at home.
She was down the far end of the bar, telling the landlord, Brol Farny, how to do his job. Farny was a scut and a shogwit, but he knew how to tap a keg and pour a flagon of ale without spilling a drop. Nevertheless, Cordy had him cowed like a mangy cur, and he was hooked on her every word, no matter how many times she repeated herself.
Thumil ordered a mead for Carnifex, and as the bar wench poured it and plonked it down on the counter, he raised an eyebrow and shook his head.
“I tried telling Cordy Kunaga’s was too rough a shunt-hole for her to promote the family beer. It would have made more sense for her Uncle Gornon to set up here and give her some swanky tavern on the seventh.”
Carnifex snorted a laugh and took a slurp of mead. “She listen?”
“What do you think?”
Cordy chose that moment to shove Farny out of the way so she could heft a keg of ale onto the counter. Farny started to cuss her out, but bit his tongue when she eviscerated him with a glare.
“Well, laddie, I have to say, she seems to have blended in rather well.”
Thumil watched her with evident admiration. “Always said she had a trickle of baresark blood in her. Anyone so much as looks at her the wrong way, they’ll be cleaning their teeth with a brush up the backside.”
“Aye, she was the terror of the Ephebe, that’s for sure.”
“Listen, son,” Thumil said. He nodded to the bar wench, and she bent down, coming up with a double-bladed axe held in both hands. The blades gleamed from where they’d been polished to mirror-brightness, and the haft glistened from a recent oiling. Thumil took it from her and lay it on the bar. “Consider it a late birthday present. Can’t bear seeing you axe-less, and the thought of you with a spear or a sword is enough to make my beard molt.”
“Thank you, laddie. I was starting to wonder what I’d use. My pa insisted on taking the scarolite pick to work with him this morning. Said they don’t have enough to go around as it is.”
Thumil took a long pull on his mead, then turned on his stool to watch the people coming in. It was still early, but Kunaga’s was already filling up.
“Your brother helped me choose it,” Thumil said. “Fresh from the forge. Lem Starkle’s smithy. Best there is.”
“I’ll say. Must have cost a year’s worth of tokens.”
Thumil grinned as his eyes roved the ale house. He nodded at those he recognized, which seemed to be pretty much everyone tonight. “Let’s just say, Lem owed me a favor.”
“And Lucius helped pick it out, you say? I’m surprised it wasn’t a pastry cutter.”
“Nearly was.” Thumil grew swiftly serious and swiveled back round to face the bar. “I needed an excuse to get him away from his philosopher friend for a while, so I could find out what’s going on.” He dropped his voice to barely above a whisper. “The Council’s spoo
ked about the golem. More spooked than I’ve ever seen them. Grago’s out for blood. He’s swallowed that idiot Kloon’s paranoia about the golem just happening to appear right after Aristodeus shows up. Kloon’s recovered, by the way. You didn’t break anything. Thought you might want to know.”
“I’ll have to work on my punch,” Carnifex said. “Far be it from me to agree with that shogger, but Kloon does have a point.”
Thumil shook his head. “No, there’s something missing; something we can’t see. I agree, Aristodeus knows more than he’s letting on, but being behind the incursion? I don’t think so. Neither does your pa, by the way. I hung around at the headframe till he came in for work this morning.”
“You did? Don’t you ever sleep, Thumil?”
“Sleep? What’s that, then? No time for sleep, with all that’s been happening. Anyhow, your pa: he’s known Aristodeus since before you were born. Said he can’t stand the bald bastard, but that he basically means well. Lucius says more or less the same, though he stopped short of mentioning the lack of hair. Ostensibly, Aristodeus is here to help review your brother’s thesis. You know what it’s about, Carn?”
He didn’t exactly. In one ear, out the other, whenever Lucius spoke about his research, which was all the time, except when his mouth was crammed full of food.
“Something about the correlation of myth and history.”
Thumil nodded. “That’s about what I could make out. He said he started out trying to prove there was no such thing as Dwarf Lords, no such thing as the lost city of Arnoch, but the deeper he dug in the Annals, the more he persuaded himself otherwise. Now he has this obsession about the Pax Nanorum, the Axe of the Dwarf Lords. He wanted me to put in a word with the Council about mounting an expedition to find it!”
“Why you? What makes him think you have any sway over those old codgers?”
Thumil didn’t answer. He stared long and hard into his tankard before setting it down without drinking. “Want to know what the Council’s doing about the golem?”
“I can guess.”
“A sweep of the mines revealed no breach,” Thumil said. “But then, a creature that can pass through granite wouldn’t exactly need one. Aristodeus explained to them—”
“He was there? Baldilocks spoke with the Council?”
“Thick as thieves with them, he is,” Thumil said. “Always has been. The Voice doesn’t exactly like it, but there’s a fair bit of resistance from some of the other councilors whenever the question of excluding Aristodeus is raised. Shog knows how old egg-head butters them up, but it must be good. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s the link between Councilor Yuffie and the somnificus coming in from outside.”
“Lucius with him?”
“At the Dodecagon?” Thumil nodded, and this time he took a drink. “Grago insisted. Had Kloon and his cronies fetch him. Problem was, the more Lucius told them what he’d learned about golems from the Annals, the more Grago’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. I’d say about half the Council were thinking the same thing: that your brother and Aristodeus had something to do with the incursion. Thank shog there’s a smattering of brains among the Twelve, though. Dorley’s a bookworm, and knows Lucius from the Scriptorium. He made it crystal clear what he thought of the idea. And Old Moary knows your pa, when he doesn’t forget. He was actually quite assertive. I’ve never heard, “Well, I don’t know,” brandished like a weapon before. “And then, well, I’ve already told you what Lucius wanted me to put to the Council.” Thumil slapped himself on the forehead, as if he couldn’t believe the stupidity of it. “He only goes and addresses the Voice directly, tries to convince him the golem could be the first of many. He made the Twelve look at the…” Thumil trailed off as a burly dwarf with a salt-and-pepper beard approached.
“Heard about Ming and Muckman, Marfal,” the newcomer said with an appalling lisp, “and all the otherf. I fould have been there.”
Thumil rose from his stool and embraced him. “And you would have, Stolhok, but everyone needs a day off now and again.”
“Even fo…”
“Captain Stolhok?” Carnifex said. “I didn’t recognize you without the cloak and helm. I was starting to think you slept in them.”
Stolhok was dressed in a plain brown tunic and britches, but he still had on his Ravine Guard issue boots.
“Lieutenant Carnifex.” Stolhok stepped back from Thumil and gave a nod of respect. “Founds like you did well back there. How many did we loof, Marfal?”
“Fifteen dead, twenty more seriously injured, and a fair few cuts and bruises. The Krypteia lost a couple, too.”
“Dark dayf, Marfal. Dark dayf.”
Thumil clapped him on the shoulder. “Can I get you a drink, Stolhok?”
“Thank you, but no. Juft came for the free one, and a tiny wager.” He grasped Thumil’s hand, gave Carnifex another nod, then made his way to a round table, where half a dozen dwarves were in the middle of a game of seven-card.
“Didn’t know he was the gambling type,” Carnifex said.
“You’d be surprised. Now,” Thumil said, “where was I?”
“Lucius…”
“Oh, yes. Your brother only goes and makes the councilors look at the passage he discovered in the Annals.”
“The one Rugbeard said didn’t exist?”
Thumil nodded and took a sip of mead. “And of course, none of them were familiar with it. Old Moary uhmed and ahed about it, but with his memory, he couldn’t be sure. About the only one who wasn’t shaking his head in disbelief was Dythin Rala, but he always plays his cards close to his chest. Aristodeus was strangely silent on the matter, but even he lost patience when Lucius started interpreting the passage as a prophecy, and floating the idea of an expedition to find the Axe of the Dwarf Lords. Having asked me to raise the issue for him, he went and brought it up himself, and the results… Well, he only has himself to blame.”
“So, my brother was a laughing stock.”
“Not altogether. I think they took the idea that there could be more incursions seriously. They want us to double the guard at the top of the ravine, and Grago’s appointing a team of Black Cloaks to keep watch at the headframe.”
“No harm in that. But they didn’t approve of Lucius’s expedition?”
“Did you think they would? There’s more chance of the Council going after the Sanguis Terrae dragon than the Axe of the Dwarf Lords.”
“And who could blame them?” Carnifex said. “I once knew a fisherman who claimed to have seen scaly bumps undulating through the water.”
“Yes, well, if it’s who I think it is, the only scaly bumps he saw were on the shaft of his dwarfhood.”
Carnifex laughed, but he still felt bad about Lucius being made a mockery of. His brother was about as serious a scholar as you could get, and a word here or there from a member of the Council could see his reputation in ruins.
“Thing I can’t stop thinking about,” Thumil said, “is the look on Aristodeus’s face while the councilors were laughing among themselves, and Lucius was standing there flushed and flustered. All the time everyone was attentive, Aristodeus was as dismissive as they were, but when he thought no one was paying him heed, he was anything but amused. I’d say he was worried. Haunted, even.”
Carnifex shook his head. The bald shogger was up to something, that’s for sure. And if he wasn’t, then he knew something he wasn’t sharing. Problem was, what could be done about it? No, the best thing to do when someone was playing games or keeping secrets, Droom always said, was to let them get on with it, and go about your business as usual.
“What about the homunculus that broke into the Scriptorium?” Carnifex said. “Are they taking that more seriously now?”
“Aristodeus spoke about that, but for all his alleged wisdom, he doesn’t know dwarves; or rather, he does, but he doesn’t get it. The Council’s response to everything is to tighten security and hope nothing else happens. You know how it is: one false move from them, one poor decision, and th
ey think it’ll be Maldark and the Unweaving all over again.”
“Tell me about it,” Carnifex said. “But even they must see it’s getting silly. Lucius has been moaning about it for years, how the Council do nothing. He says the Dwarf Lords were the complete opposite: decisive, certain, and that if they hadn’t been, they’d have lasted less than a heartbeat in Qlippoth.”
Thumil finished off his mead and ordered another. “Yes, well, the Dwarf Lords aren’t real. They’re just a legend, like the Pax Nanorum.”
“Like the golem, you mean?”
“Point taken, son, but you’re being unfair to the Council. They’re just doing what they think’s best to… you know.”
“Keep things stagnant?”
“Safe. To keep the people safe. Make sure we survive.”
Carnifex shook his head at that. Survive for what? Just to go on surviving? “Lucius says there’s more to life than simply enduring. He says there’s a whole world up there just waiting—”
“He’s a scholar, Carn. What do you expect him to say? All that living in books, he’s hardly a guide to what’s real, what’s tangible. I’d like to see him run the city, or you, for that matter. No, on second thoughts, forget I said that. It would be a disaster either way. Lucius would have us all eating three breakfasts before work, which would no doubt involve reading and debating over an early lunch, followed by after work pie and beer, before an evening banquet and a late night supper reclining with yet more books. Within a month, we’d all be so fat, we’d need a bigger ravine, and we’d be blind as bats from all that squinting at letters on the page.
“But if you ran things, it would be worse. You’d have us up before dawn for a forced march of every level, then eggs and kaffa, and hours of lifting weights; next up would be sparring practice at the Ephebe, honing and cleaning of weapons, more eggs or goat rump steaks, more marching… It would be a nightmare.”
Carnifex did his best to look hurt. “You forgot the beer.”