by Mike Wild
“The dungeon,” she said. “I think it’s growing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The dungeon. Growing.”
“You mean the levels? The anomaly?”
“No, I mean the dungeon. You’ve made it part of a neat little acronym, but I don’t think you’ve ever realised what it means. What’s down there is a full-on, full-blown, ‘bugger me if it isn’t a dungeon’ dungeon. Just like out of a game. And anything can happen. Anything.”
Star sniffed. “You say the dungeon is growing? But the anomaly has been unchanged for years. What evidence do you have to the contrary?”
Trix found herself unexpectedly on the defensive. But perhaps only because she didn’t really know how to answer. The growth in the nursery certainly wasn’t enough to convince. And without the ring …
“None. Other than the visions. Visions maybe of things to come.”
Garrison laughed. “‘Just like out of a game,’ she says. ‘Visions maybe of things to come,’ she says.” The laugh turned to a sigh. “May I remind everyone that this is not a game, that this is not Christmas, and that Ms Hunter here is certainly not Ebenezer Scrooge.”
Trix’s blood boiled.
“What is your fucking problem?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know what I mean, Dungeonmaster. You’ve had it against me from the start. You know damn well I’m good enough for master team, yet you’ve knocked me back year after year. I’ve passed—no, I’ve flown through—every evaluation you’ve thrown at me; I’ve scored a hundred percent on physical, psychological, and xenobiological, yet still you don’t consider me good enough to join one of your elite little squads. Is it me that has something to hide, or you? What’s it about, Garrison? Tell me what it’s ab—”
It was only as she was finishing her rant that Trix realised Garrison had been baiting her, and she’d taken the bait without thinking. Maybe a few more hours recovery and she’d have done better, but for now, she knew, she’d blown it. Garrison had her—hook, line, and sinker. He held up his hands. Smiled.
“Mister Star, Ms Uong, it seems to me that what we are dealing with here is a disgruntled employee, wouldn’t you agree? Sufficiently disgruntled, I’d suggest, as to have no qualms about the misappropriation of DragonCorp property. I move that we bring this enquiry to a close.”
“Hey, wait a minute—”
“Unless you wish to tell us the truth, Ms Hunter?”
“I am telling you the truth.”
No one spoke for a moment. Sheila Uong regarded her steely-eyed. Star gave her a considered stare, then sniffed. Then they both nodded. Trix had never seen Garrison look more self-satisfied.
“Your contract with DragonCorp is terminated with immediate effect,” he said. “Access to DOME is rescinded. Security will escort you to the helipad.”
“What?”
“This decision is final.”
Trix felt a hand clamp each of her shoulders. They really meant it. She couldn’t believe they really meant it. She rose to stand between the two ’trols Garrison had summoned into the boardroom and stared him hard in the face.
“This is between you and me. You know it is.”
Garrison smiled. It didn’t seem to be Garrison’s usual smile. “Why would it be between you and me? I’ve hardly met you at all.”
Trix felt a chill down her spine but had no chance to respond, already being escorted out by the ’trols. An elevator ride later she was on the mezzanine, being all but frog-marched to the nearest exonexus pod launcher. Elly, she knew, was following, because she could hear her voice behind.
“Trix, Trix … this isn’t right … We’ll appeal against this …”
Elly always did have more faith in DragonCorp than she did. But in truth, Trix wasn’t really listening. Barely paying attention to the crowd she passed through, their numbers parting, staring, whispering, pointing, her mind was focused on just one question. The question that had been nagging her since she’d first been accused. And now she thought she had an answer. She stopped dead in her tracks, turned to her escorts. “Come on, guys, can I at least get my things?”
“Your things will be forwarded to you.”
“Hey, my pet doesn’t like being called a thing. And if you try to forward him anywhere, he’ll have your balls off, clear? At least let me check he’s okay.”
“I’m sorry. We have our orders.”
“You’d let a small animal starve to death?” Trix shouted as loud as she could. “What kind of inhuman bastards are you!?”
It had the desired effect—people suddenly clamouring about to see what the fuss was, getting in the way of the ’trols. It gave Elly the chance to catch up and Trix to lean into her ear.
“How much did you tell Garrison about what happened in the Grimrock that day?”
“Nothing. It was done and dusted, so why should I?”
“You weren’t questioned about what happened on the levels?”
“Trix, I wasn’t there.”
“Any of your people?”
“No.”
“So no details were exchanged? At any time?”
“None.”
Trix nodded. Because that was the thing. If the artefact had been removed from her before she’d ended up in medlev—if it truly was missing—how in the hell had Garrison known it was a ring?
“Elly—something’s wrong. I need to get out of this.”
Elly gave her a considered look. “You do.”
“Find a way for me not to reach the helipad with a one-way ticket out of China. Or to an unmarked grave.”
They arrived at the launcher. That each cage carried but one person presented a problem for the ’trols, but the plan was for one of them to travel in the first cage, Trix in the second, and the second ’trol in the third. The points were set to deliver all three to the very top of DOME. Once there, Trix knew, she’d be bundled aboard a V-TOL. She stared at Elly as she was shoved inside her pod and the door clanged shut and locked behind her.
Elly leaned in. “I’m sorry things turned out this way,” she said. She took Trix’s hand. “No hard feelings, I hope.”
“None,” Trix said, taking the pod master key Elly proffered. “See you around.”
Her cage exploded onto the surface of DOME and was immediately tracked in the path of the one before it. Another cage appeared behind her. There was a gap of perhaps thirty feet between each. The ’trols were concentrating more on hanging on for dear life than watching her. After all, it wasn’t as if she could go anywhere.
Trix waited until her pod reached the first point, and then, as it was clamped to be flung upwards to the v-tol pad, unlocked the pod door and flung herself onto the point itself. It was a greasy, oily, downright dangerous place to be, but she straddled it until it had whipped her out of view of her escort pods. It all happened so quickly that neither ’trol noticed her departure, and she wished she could see their faces when they arrived at the platform.
But there were other things to do. Trix dropped from the point onto the surface of DOME and, suitably oiled, began the long slide downwards.
There were people she needed to see. And she knew where to find them.
They called it Diablo.
V
Diablo
Trix’s arrival in Diablo was a trifle unorthodox. Few batted an eye, though, as she dropped out of thin air to land with a cacophonous clatter and curse amid a pile of trash cans sitting in the shadow of DOME. They were equally unconcerned when she rapidly departed the area, jinking in and out of the alleys between huts in an attempt to lose the ’trols already on her tail. The people of Diablo just went about their business. Their own business. Diablo was like that.
The shantytown whose ramshackle, colourful buildings circled the battleship-grey mass of DOME like a mismatched belt did not officially exist. It had nothing to do with either it or DragonCorp in any form. Both tolerated its existence—which was to say they hadn’t torn it down—but
this was a little unjust as, in a sense, Diablo had greater claim to its location than they did theirs. Diablo had been here before DOME had barely been conceived, let alone built, and it was the latter that had invaded it, not the other way around. Its origins lay in the supply tents that had serviced the anomaly back in the military days; when the military had moved on, other suppliers had moved in. Their logic was simple: having heard of the nature and unpredictability of the environment of the anomaly, and that it was to be opened for exploration to those who could afford to pay, they knew there would be a burgeoning market for more traditional weapons, more traditional tools—armour, too, for those who wished to look the part. These were not novelty items that they intended but the real thing—a reembracing of the original crafts—blacksmiths, armourers, apothecaries and the like delivering equipment and supplies for use in what was, for all intents and purposes, a medieval existence.
Diablo had grown some since. Become a home to many. An accepted part of the landscape. There was even a kind of commerce between it and DOME. A few of its merchants had negotiated deals with DragonCorp whereby they took possession of the magical artefacts the corporation’s research team had deemed common or duplicated or—for its own reasons—of no use. Thus it was that clients’ chosen battle kits could, if they wished, be augmented with magical swords or gauntlets, helmets, belts or charms, though due to incompatibilities between the various enchantments, it was usually safest not to overdo things. At Strombold McFee’s, the longest established smithy in town, the man himself had begun work on a method of stripping the artefacts down to incorporate multiple boons safely into his own goods, but it was slow, unpredictable work. It was to Strombold’s that Trix made her way now.
Getting there took longer than it should. ’Trols had swept in from the east and west exits of DOME, searching for her, and she spent a good half hour lurking in shadows or doorways before finally negotiating the two hundred yards or so of shops and taverns to the smithy. The delay did her a favour—as she neared Strombold’s, a patrol was just stepping out of its gate, having checked the place over. Trix gave them a minute to wind their way up the street, then slipped inside. A giant wearing nothing but an orange kilt was rhythmically hammering a curved and runed axe into shape. Each blow of the hammer produced a slow plume of blue sparks which hovered and giggled in the air like faeries.
“Hi, Strom.”
“That you they searchin’ for, Trix?”
“Yep.”
“Is it because ye’re an evil and unusually tall goblin shaman wearin’ me dead friend’s skin?”
“Not last time I looked.”
“Perhaps ye’re infected with brain bulge and likely to gnaw off my nackers?”
“Nope.”
Strom nodded. “Then we remain friends, you and I.”
“Appreciate it, Strom. The old man in?”
“When is he ever out?”
Trix smiled, made for the rickety stairs to the rooms over the smithy. The stripping and forging of the bespoke magical weapons was Strom’s job, but the matter of selecting compatible enchantments lay in other hands. Like Elly and herself, the old man had been here since military times, though in his case seconded as scientific advisor in xenolinguistics and hieroglyphics. It was a posting that had eventually turned into a passion for all things dungeon. He’d spent more time through the anomaly than anyone, studying not only rune and language fragments but the menagerie of creatures encountered as well as the magical artefacts and use of magic itself. It was said the old man could tell what type of magic had been used simply by sniffing the air, and Trix didn’t doubt it. As far as she was concerned, he was the foremost expert in anything and everything to do with the levels, and she’d also kind of adopted him as her dad. His name was Ralph Arthur.
Typically, as she trod the creaking top step, Ralph paid no attention, his back to her, absorbed in the work on his desk. Trix gazed around, smiled; the place never changed other than becoming more crowded. Had she not known for a fact it was in the Chinese desert, Trix could easily have thought it his one-time study in the leafy environs of Oxbridge—he’d even installed a holo-window of a sunny grass quadrangle, though it hung askew on his wall and the illusion flickered and flashed, giving the impression there was a storm coming on. But what the storm lit was real enough—shelves crammed with reference books, more in towering, swaying stacks; runed tiles and statuettes of strange design and origin on every spare surface, some reproduced as diagrams or cross-sections pinned to the wall. A blackboard was scrawled thickly with phrases Trix recognised but did not understand—the language of the levels, or, as the old man kept insisting, a language of the levels, for to his mind there had to be many. Pride of place was given to his scroll rack, which contained fifty or so, rolled and pigeonholed. They’d been found during his years on the levels, and Ralph had been allowed to keep them because they were useless to DragonCorp. Unlike artefacts, with their magic bound within them, scrolls weren’t inherently magical but provided only the means to manipulate the levels’ magical fields. The runes and phrases with which they were inscribed, delivered orally and/or by gesture, were designed to weave the spells out of the air, but without the air to weave they were nothing more than scribbles on aged and fragile parchment. Ralph had studied them anyway, identifying some of the spells and mastering the delivery, at least, of some of them. On a couple of occasions he’d even managed to tease a splutter of a spell from magical field residue absorbed into the scrolls before they’d been found. For the most part, though, nada, a situation he’d frustratedly and succinctly likened to ‘having a light switch but no fucking electricity’.
Trix’s gaze came to rest on a small pair of eyes squinting at her from a vacant pigeonhole. They blinked before widening with surprise. Then the first followed by the second of two leathery wings unfurled themselves, flapped eagerly, and with graceful motions carried their owner smack into Trix’s face. This was exactly what had happened when they’d met on level 4 two years before. Trix had thought she’d had incoming until she’d realised Puff was just as blind as … something that looked like a bat. She plucked him from her face, sat him on her shoulder, and tickled him under the chin.
“Hi, hun, missed me?”
The bat-like creature nuzzled her earlobe. Cooed like a dove. And changed colour. Twice. This was why Trix only ever described him as bat-like. In truth, she had no idea what he was, nor did Ralph. His conjecture, given Puff was the first of his kind found, was that he had somehow flown up from the much lower levels and had been unable to find his way home. Well—even though it had been a hell of a job to smuggle him past the plugs—he had a new home now.
“I have just been informed you are a dangerous fugitive,” the old man said at last, though still without looking up. “Are you dangerous, Patricia?”
“I’m more than a little cheesed off, if that’s what you mean.”
“Tell me everything that has brought you to this.”
Trix did. The client. The ring. The boffins. The minotaur. The visions in her dream, right up to the moment of awakening. Finally, Garrison’s kangaroo court and whatever the hell it was he thought he was up to. Ralph tensed on hearing the Dungeonmaster’s name—Garrison was the reason he was here, now, rather than still wandering his beloved levels: compulsory retirement a year ago. The old man looked up at last, his mane of silver hair half flopping over a bearded face. Eyebrows rose.
“You appear to be covered in shit.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
He sighed. “Why is it, each time we meet, I am put in mind of a street urchin? No, don’t answer. You cannot remember a thing about the fate of the ring?”
“Bugger all.”
“Well, maybe I can help you there.”
Trix looked quizzically at the old man as he rose to turn on a TV and ancient VCR. “That’s why you wanted to see me, Ralph? To force me to watch Jeremy Irons again?”
“Something like that.”
The screen came to life to sh
ow a fuzzy, flickering image of a levels corridor. Trix wouldn’t have recognised its murals from a hundred other tilesets down there other than for the Bakelite upline on the wall. She knew instinctively this was corridor 2G.
“Ralph, what are we watching?”
“Take note of the time and date code in the top left of the screen. This isn’t long after your scuffle with the minotaur.”
“Scuffle?”
“Pedantry does not suit you, Patricia. But, if you prefer, we’ll call it your arse kicking.”
“Scuffle’s fine.”
“Quite.”
“But what I meant was, what are we watching?”
“Military CCTV. Decommissioned soon after installation due to the usual interference. But never taken offline. Trundling around in a loop ever since, so I suppose the tape’ll snap one day. But not today. Pay attention, now—you’re about to enter stage right.”
Trix didn’t need telling twice. The quality of what she was seeing was awful—degraded tape and interference from the levels frequently cancelling out the image or washing it in chemical colours—but she didn’t care. However Ralph had got this tape, he wouldn’t be playing it if it wasn’t important. Something important from eight weeks ago.
She was reduced to silence as she appeared on the screen. Or, rather, she and the person carrying her battered and bloody body appeared. Entering stage right, as Ralph had said; in other words, from the corridor that led to the nursery through The Faze. Whoever was carrying her had effortlessly negotiated The Faze. The figure’s size suggested a male—the shape, a human male—but anything beyond that was difficult to make out because of his garb, a dishevelled swathe of robes and weapons. Flipping her off his shoulder with ease, he laid her gently on the floor, and then began tending to her injuries, emptying the contents of various small vials and pouches, some liquid, some powder, into her wounds, seemingly in an attempt if not to cure then at least to stabilise them. He did so with a professional touch, more so when he checked her for breaks, rearranging her twisted limbs to make her more comfortable. At one point both she and he jerked violently, and Trix cringed, realising he was resetting a dislocated shoulder. Trix rubbed the shoulder, where there was still a dull throb. She didn’t blame her helper for this, though, because what was clear throughout his ministrations was that he was performing them with the utmost care. Why? Just who the hell was this guy?