by Prior, D. P.
“Theurgy?” Carnifex said. He looked from Thumil to Cordy, then glared at Aristodeus. What had the shogger done? What had he done to Yyalla’s helm?
“Lore,” Aristodeus said. “Homunculus lore. Always be prepared, I say. For anything.”
Carnifex shrugged his arms free of Thumil and Cordy. “You knew this would happen?”
A flash of impatience crossed Aristodeus’s eyes. “I glimpsed it, yes. But I thought it could be averted. Time is tricky like that. The Demiurgos is tricky. In case of last resorts, I worked with a group of dissident homunculi, the Sedition, got them to make the helm into a ward… and more besides.”
Cordy tried to take his arm again, but Carnifex brushed her off.
“More? What more?”
It was Thumil who answered. “Grago wants you dead. And he’s within his rights, just by virtue of you leaving. But when the blood started flowing, there was no answering him, and the entire Council agreed. They call you the Ravine Butcher, Carn. They think you’re a monster.”
“Then you must get out of here,” the axe said in Carnifex’s mind. “I told you, it’s a trap.”
Carnifex turned to the doors they’d entered by. Were they truly impregnable? He hefted the axe. There was only one way to find out.
“Wait,” Thumil said. “It’s going to be all right. I persuaded them there was an alternative.”
“Only because I gave you one,” Aristodeus said. “Again, with the help of the homunculi.”
Cordy steepled her hands in front of her face. When Carnifex flashed her a look, she dipped her eyes. Either she was ashamed, or afraid.
And then Carnifex made the connections. “A fate worse than death. You want to strip me of my name.”
“It’s the only way, Carn,” Thumil said. “I’m sorry.”
Carnifex pressed his head against the scarolite of the doors. It was all he had left, his name. He’d lost his pa, his brother, and he’d never even known his mother. A dwarf with no name was accursed in the worst possible way, an outcast, untouchable. The shame would be unbearable.
“Then kill me. Let the Council kill me.”
“No,” Aristodeus said. “You are too valuable.”
That’s what he’d said before. But valuable to whom, and in what way?
Slowly, Carnifex turned away from the doors. “Why? I am a nobody. A butcher. What makes me so important? Why keep me alive?”
Aristodeus closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. “Because I believe he was right—the homunculus who spoke to Droom. Salvation will come from Yyalla’s womb, Carnifex Thane. I can’t say how, exactly, but I just know that it will.”
“How do you know?” Carnifex said. “The same way you saw this happening and did nothing to prevent it?”
Aristodeus’s eyes snapped open. “I tried. And I’m sorry, I failed.”
“Or you were outwitted,” Carnifex said. “Didn’t you say it was like a game to you? A game between you and the Demiurgos. How do you know he won’t outwit you again?”
“I have not been outwitted,” Aristodeus said. He rolled his eyes. “The future is not set. It’s vague. I only catch glimpses, and sometimes every turn we take leads to the same place.”
“We have to hope,” Thumil said. “It’s all we have.”
“No, you’re wrong,” Carnifex said. “Wrong about me. If this is true, if all this is true, what I did out there in the ravine, you can’t risk keeping me alive.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Aristodeus said. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s Lucius for going into Gehenna in the first place. You were just trying to save him.”
Carnifex took a step toward him, and Aristodeus backed away. “Don’t you go blaming my brother. He was a victim in this. Rugbeard was right: the Annals must have been altered.”
“I agree,” Aristodeus said. “As do the Sedition. The homunculi are the spawn of deception. Trickery is second nature to them. And with their lore, they have the means.”
“Lucius wasn’t the only victim,” Cordy said.
“Indeed,” Aristodeus said. “That thing you hold, Carnifex—that axe: do you truly believe the Pax Nanorum—the Peace of the Dwarves—would induce you to such atrocities?”
“Against demons, yes,” the axe whispered in Carnifex’s mind.
“You are not capable of slaughter,” Thumil said. “Violence, yes, when it’s called for. But unbridled slaughter? A massacre? Not the Carnifex Thane I know. Not Droom’s boy. Not Yyalla’s.”
The axe hissed with derision. “It only takes one thread to pull on, and their whole argument will unravel. That is not really a helm, remember: it’s a skull. An ebon skull of the Abyss.”
“How can I know?” Carnifex said. He hadn’t intended to speak aloud, and Cordy must have thought he was responding to Thumil.
“I believe as Thumil does, Carn. You are Yyalla Thane’s son. Droom’s son. And you are my friend.”
“But the blood…” Carnifex spread his arms for them to see. “And outside, rivers of it pouring from the walkways.” The waters of the Sanguis Terrae must have run red with it. Now there was an irony too grim to be a coincidence: the name meant ‘Blood of the Earth’.
“Carnifex,” Aristodeus said, “what you hold is not the Pax Nanorum. It is a copy, a fake, forged by the homunculi on the instructions of the Demiurgos himself.”
“Hah!” the axe said. “See how he twists reality to suit his purpose. It is the helm that is from the Abyss, not me. Ask him. Ask him how he came by this knowledge.”
“Did your dissidents tell you that?” Carnifex said.
Aristodeus nodded.
“Ask him how he knows they are not deceiving him, too,” the axe said.
Carnifex did, and Aristodeus replied, “Because they have rejected the ways of their people. They have seen where deception leads, and they have rebelled against the Demiurgos.”
“And you’re sure of that?” Carnifex said.
“Of course I am. What do you take me for?”
“That’s enough, Aristodeus,” Thumil said. He made a placating gesture with his hands. Carnifex didn’t miss the surreptitious glance his way. Thumil was scared of him being riled again.
So, Thumil believed he was a monster. Believed the slaughter was for real.
Carnifex gave each of them a long, hard stare. The arguments on both sides had holes in them he could drive a cart through, and yet he couldn’t even trust his own eyes. He’d seen Kal as a demon, and nearly killed him. Thumil and Cordy had appeared as deathly revenants, but in the proximity of the helm, they had reverted to normal. Aristodeus: a gigantic ghoul one minute, a bald shogger the next. It was more terrifying than any army of demons; more terrifying even than the crimes he might just have committed. Was he crazy, deluded? Was he the victim of illusion? But whose illusion? The demons’ or the axe’s? There had to be some way to know. If a dwarf didn’t know his own mind, couldn’t tell friend from foe, truth from a lie…
Suddenly, the world had no substance for him. His beliefs, his experiences, the life he’d lived—no more than patterns of shifting moonlight on the ravine walls.
He looked at Thumil and Cordy in turn, squinted at them as if he might see through any cracks in the illusion.
“How do I know?” Carnifex said. “How do I know it’s really you?”
They exchanged looks. Was that worry in their eyes? Confusion? Or was it something else they were communicating? Some secret message he wasn’t party to? It wouldn’t be the first time. They’d deceived him before.
“More than deceived,” the axe said, as if it were a part of him, enmeshed with his thoughts and knowing them without him needing to give them voice. “They betrayed your friendship.”
The truth of those words burned in his chest. His heart responded with thunderous strokes that reverberated through his skull. His head began to throb. Even the soft blue light from the walls was an assault on his eyes.
“You’re afraid right now,” Thumil said, “but we can keep you safe.”
He took hold of Carnifex’s arm again, and Cordy took the other.
Carnifex pulled free of Thumil and shoved him off. Aristodeus scuttled back to the far end of the debating table.
Cordy, though… Cordy still clung to the arm that held the axe. The haft seemed to writhe in Carnifex’s grasp. It seethed and twisted and bucked. Cordy met his gaze unflinchingly. He raised his free hand, clenched it into a fist.
Thumil cried out and stepped in, but Cordy yelled at him to keep back. She stared and stared into Carnifex’s eyes, letting him see her sincerity. Willing him to. His fist shook. She didn’t even blink. Emotions scudded like clouds across her eyes: fear, grief, sorrow, regret. There were flashes of anger, of frustration, of hurt; but behind them all came the unwavering promise that she would keep him safe, that she was his friend, that she loved him.
“I’ve got you, Carn,” she mouthed, without relinquishing her hold over his eyes. “If you let me, I will carry you through this, and I will not drop you.”
His fist snapped open. A fine tremor ran through his splayed fingers.
“Carn,” she said, imploring him to believe her. “I will not drop you.”
He lowered is arm to his side. If he could have, he’d have let the axe fall to the floor, but it was as much a part of him as the hand that held it.
“Get him to sit,” Aristodeus said.
Cordy gently led him to the head of the table. Thumil pulled out a chair for him, and almost in a trance, Carnifex lowered himself into it.
Aristodeus came round the table to stand behind him. Thumil and Cordy withdrew. Cordy’s eyes still never left Carnifex’s. She nodded imperceptibly. Reassured him it was going to be all right.
Thumil straightened his blood-spattered robe. His fingers found Cordy’s. They clasped hands.
Carnifex narrowed his eyes. He suppressed the image of bloodshed that sprang unbidden to mind. He looked away, flicked his gaze left to right. Betrayal lurked behind every door. The amber light of the glowstones atop each lintel—he’d not even noticed them while standing—looked as sinister as the blood-hue that suffused the ravine walls. The embossed faces of Dwarf Lords leered in triumph.
And then he looked back at Cordy, and anchored himself on her glistening eyes.
He tensed as he heard the scuff of Aristodeus’s sandals on the floor behind him. When he looked up, it was into the dark interior of the scarolite helm. It was a gaping hole of blackness. A void.
Movement drew his eyes away from it. Thumil stretched out a hand, mouthed something. Cordy put a restraining arm around his shoulders.
There was a collective intake of breath, and then silence as the philosopher lowered the helm.
Carnifex’s thoughts scattered. Memories blinked. The black dog scampered out of the shadows and settled across his vision. As the last crack of light perished, he clutched at his dissolving name. It was there on the tip of his tongue. If he could give it voice… If he could just give it voice…
But it was gone.
A hammering heart. Rasping lungs. Frantic breaths. Stifling. It was stifling. Get it off. He had to get the helm off. Where it touched his shoulders, it softened, then oozed. The skin of his neck grew taut. He felt the scarolite of the helm sucking at it, tugging his flesh, interweaving with it. With a sickening dread, he realized it was enmeshing itself with his skin; that it was becoming a part of him, never to be removed.
The rest was a blur. Hands pried his fingers from the haft of the axe. In his hazy vision, he saw what looked like two homunculi encasing the axe in a block of crystal. One of them called him something as they carried the axe away:
“Nameless Dwarf.”
Was that him? Was that his name? It seemed an odd one. No, he realized with sudden lucidity: a shameful one. A fate worse than death. “Am I a nameless dwarf?” he wanted to ask, but fear of knowing the truth sealed his lips.
He responded to questions that fled his mind like water through his fingers. A song bubbled up from within. He wasn’t sure if he sang it or not.
He was surprised when he saw Thumil there, spattered with blood. Doubly surprised to see Cordy in her wedding dress, more red now than white. What had he said to her? Was she offended. Had she wept or had she smiled, or was it both?
At some point, the chamber filled with white robes.
“Pish,” someone said—Councilor Grago? “Never mind what was said. We are talking about the survival of our race. Risks, Councilor Thumil. The risks must not outweigh the benefits.”
Voices were raised in anger. Seethers were mentioned, and with it came another lucid moment: Lucius. Poor old Lucius screaming as the flesh was flayed from his bones.
“My husband was speaking,” Cordy said in a voice like a whiplash.
Her husband. Was he her husband? Had he been speaking? Another memory reasserted itself: no, that was Thumil.
A jumble of other recollections clamored for attention, got themselves twisted into a great knotted ball.
Conversation continued around him.
“Imbecile!” Aristodeus said. “Typical. Typical of you dwarves. Always throwing out the baby with the—”
“Isn’t that what you did, philosopher?”—A voice like rustling leaves. “Weren’t you once a man of faith, before you became too clever, even for the Supernal Father?”
A gale tore through the chamber, whipping up a vortex of sparks, flashes, tongues of flame. The whole coalesced into a cool conflagration then burst with the brilliance of a thousand suns.
He lifted his head to peer through the eye-slit. Everything behind his eyelids was white, then red, then black as the Void and dotted with pinpricks of silver. He blinked over and over. There was a figure, robed in brown, sunlight bleeding from beneath an all-enveloping cowl.
Was it happening in his head? Was he imagining it?
“So, here at last is our troublesome Nameless Dwarf,” the cowled figure said.
There it was again. That’s what he was now, to these others: the Nameless Dwarf. The only one they’d ever known. Maybe the only one there ever was, unless he’d been right about the baresarks and who they were descended from.
“A time will come…” the cowled figure was saying, and suddenly he—the Nameless Dwarf—was pulled back into the happenings in the chamber, as if by the will of the speaker, or the unnatural timbre of his voice. “… when the name that is not a name will be as cursed as the Ravine Butcher’s, should we allow him to live. About time. About time the dwarves grew a backbone.”
“Nothing is predetermined,” Aristodeus said. “You know that as well as I, Archon.”
Grago puffed up his chest and stuck his nose in the air. “Who the shog are you?”
“Silence!”
There was thunder in the voice that time, and Grago dropped to his belly, along with half the councilors. Thumil and Cordy remained standing, but it looked like she was holding him up.
Aristodeus shook his head and indicated the cowled figure with a hand. “This, dear dwarves, is the Archon. If you still read the scriptures, you’d get some sort of idea of the manner of being he is.”
Flames licked around the edge of the Archon’s hood. “You grow too familiar, philosopher.”
“Quite right,” Aristodeus said. “And we can’t have that, can we? We all know what familiarity breeds.”
The Archon rose into the air and started to circle Aristodeus. “You have picked up the ways of your master, it seems. That doesn’t bode well for you extricating yourself from his trap.”
“Not my master,” Aristodeus said. “And you just watch. I’ll pry open the jaws of his trap sooner or later. Have faith.”
The Archon let out a laugh like a gust of wind. “Faith is something I have never lacked. I wish you could say the same. You are too proud, philosopher, just the way he likes them.”
“Being right doesn’t make one proud. Personally, I’d be more concerned about a Supernal Being who considers himself judge, jury, and executioner, wouldn’t you, Thumil?”
&nb
sp; Thumil looked too cowed to speak.
“Now is not the time to lose your tongue, Councilor Thumil,” Aristodeus said. “There was a vote, remember?”
Grago raised his head from the floor. “Technically, no.”
“What, your fingers were crossed?” Cordy said.
“Uhm, I must just say,” Old Moary said—he was still standing, a be-socked big toe curling from beneath his robe— “there was indeed a majority vote to stay execution. If you ask me—”
“Thank you, Councilor Moary,” Aristodeus said. “Age and wisdom go hand in hand like—”
“You are the Voice of this council?” the Archon said, drifting up close to Old Moary.
“Well, uh, no. I mean, not really. I’ve just been on the Council longer than the rest, but our primary is Councilor Thumil.”
The Archon turned on Thumil, ire suppurating from his cowl in fingers of fire. “Heed my words, Councilor Thumil. If this Nameless Dwarf lives, thousands will die. He is a pawn of the Demiurgos.”
“Not if I keep him in stasis,” Aristodeus said. “Nothing besides my own voice will be able to rouse him.”
“You know this philosopher well?” the Archon asked Thumil.
“Not well.”
“And you would trust him?”
Thumil gave a sideways look at Aristodeus. “No.”
“There!” the Archon said, turning on the philosopher.
“But no one’s killing my friend,” Thumil finished.
Cordy gave his arm a squeeze.
The Archon’s hood shimmered with pent-up flame but then settled back to a dull brown. “I cannot—will not—force compliance. Very well, but on your head be it. After all, it is your head to lose.”
“With all due respect,” Grago said, pushing himself up onto his knees, “Councilor Thumil does not speak for—”
But the Archon was gone, leaving only swirling dust motes in his wake, and then even they settled.
Reality careened once more, and the Nameless Dwarf found himself floundering amid threads and ribbons of conversation that seemed to come from a faraway place.
Thumil’s face passed in front of him. He mouthed something into his beard. It might have been, “Goodbye, old friend.”