Dungeon Masters

by Mike Wild

  They exited the yurt as if they’d had every right to be in there, emerging onto a thoroughfare teeming with purposeful figures. They weaved through the busy flow, keeping their heads down—Yuri’s chin, anyway, was flopped on his chest—and found themselves in the unusual position of classifying the creatures in whose midst they walked by their feet. Many were booted and human-like—a surprising number—but there were also reptilian feet, stone feet, bark- and moss-covered wooden feet, twisted goblin feet, tentacular feet that weren’t feet at all. Trix was reminded of the moment weeks before—the moment when this had really all began—when she and a ’trol had sidestepped that golem on the mezz. Except this time the golem that pounded by was real. It was odd. Many of the types of creature they passed, they’d fought; many of the creatures, in turn, had fought each other—some, until now, they’d thought natural enemies. They should have been in the middle of a lion’s den, but there was no sense of threat or danger, at least not in the immediate vicinity. Instead, there was a desperate camaraderie, a shared purpose between them, and that purpose was directed wholly towards the battle lines—whatever force was assembled across the chasm, it had united these disparate things in a single cause.

  The sounds of that battle grew louder as they drew closer to the centre of the camp but were partly drowned out by activity all around. Their path to the fountain had brought them to a concentration of blacksmiths and armourers, the former hammering weapons in great showers of sparks, the latter beating dents and holes from breastplates and helmets—goblins at a nearby tub first washing from them blood and gore. Warriors waited to retrieve their repaired kit, gesticulating and shouting, seemingly planning strategy to enact upon return to battle, while nearby, amputees were ferried from bloodied surgeons’ yurts to be hastily fitted with replacement limbs, wooden or metal, before being slapped on their backs and sent hobbling back to the front line. There was an urgency—a last gasp urgency—to this that the military part of Trix’s mind found disturbing. Whatever battle these people were fighting, they were losing.

  She ducked as something exploded nearby, close enough to make people stumble, and chunks of steaming, glistening gore rained down, forcing a quick cleaning of work spaces. Cries from all around added to the cacophony, and Trix shot a glance over Yuri’s shoulders.

  “Ralph, any idea what’s happening here?”

  Apart from everything blowing up or bleeding, the old man knew little more than she. He’d been straining to interpret from context and what he knew of the languages heard, but the living dialects put an interesting spin on things. Everything was coming too thick, too fast, with so many variations it wouldn’t have been easy work in his study, but here, near impossible. Still—“Bits … pieces … generalisations …”

  “And?”

  “Chaos is coming, Patricia. Utter chaos.”

  They found the fountain. Except from their very first sight, it looked unlikely to be of any use. For one thing, it was already packed with wounded, hardly any space unoccupied, and for another, the water itself was bereft of the glow it should have had. Instead, it was a muddy brown colour, its surface flecked with blood clots, and though there was still a slight fizz of blue where injured body parts listlessly stirred it, the blue itself seemed as sickly as the groaning forms doing the stirring. Ralph eased himself through the bodies and dragged a palm through the water, testing it.

  “Drained of magic,” he said. “How long before it revitalises—if it revitalises—impossible to tell.”

  As Ralph spoke, Yuri collapsed fully, joining the other waiting bodies on the ground around the fountain. Trix probed his makeshift dressings, found them soaking. Yuri himself was as cold, white, and damp as a freshly laundered sheet. She looked imploringly at the old man, but all he could do was shake his head.

  “Maybe I can help.”

  The voice, speaking English, came from behind them, surprising both, but for Trix it was a double whammy. She thought for a second that the speaker had to be Ian. But instead, when she turned, found herself gazing into the face of a scarred and heavily disfigured man she didn’t know. But he was human, and he appeared to know her.

  “You’ve lost some puppy fat, Trix.”

  She stared. Saw something beneath the disfigurement that made her heart thud. The battered old medical bag in his hand confirmed it. Her words seemed unreal as she spoke. “Doctor Jackson? Steve Jackson?”

  “In the flesh.” Jackson smiled, running a finger down a great groove that ran the length of the right of his face, obliterating one eye. “At least what’s left of it.”

  “Christ, what happened?”

  “I guess I turned to the wrong page.”

  The old joke wasn’t exactly what Trix had meant, but she let it go. This man had disappeared the same day as Ian, and until now he also had been presumed dead, so her next question was a natural one. “Ian, is he with—?”

  “Looks to me what you should be concerned about right now is your friend here,” Jackson interrupted—a deliberate deflection, Trix thought. But he had a point. The whys, wheres, and what-the-fucks could wait: they had a man down.

  “Yuri … can you help him?”

  “I’m a field medic, not a trauma surgeon. Luckily, I know someone who’s … good with their hands. C’mon, help me get him up.”

  Jackson lifted Yuri by one armpit and Trix the other. With Ralph following, they headed back through the camp.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where there’ll be someone able to answer your questions better than I.”

  “Are you talking about Ian?”

  They all ducked as there was an explosion nearby. “No, Trix. No, I’m not.”

  They neared the largest yurt in the camp. Clearly a command or operations centre of some kind, judging from the map tables outside. Those who milled about them were all shapes, sizes, and species. One of them was the golem they’d passed. Jackson nodded to it as they slipped beneath the eaves, and Trix, catching its return gaze, gave it a kind of half smile. Then they entered the yurt proper, and the sounds of the battle faded instantly, far more than the yurt’s thin cloth would account for. Ralph’s eyebrows rose. There was suppressive magic at play in the interior. Powerful stuff.

  Of the four figures gathered round yet another map table (some kind of master-strategy board?), it wasn’t hard to determine which had, or was generating, the magic. One was of the human-like kind, with the violet eyes—a female, hunched in concentration; the second, a spidery, though bipedal, creature; the third, only his head visible, a dwarf. But the fourth was easily the magic user here.

  He—at least the straggly beard that flowed down to knees jointed backwards suggested a he, though on the levels nothing was certain—towered fully four heads above the tallest of his companions, more so if you factored in the height of his hair. Every strand of the long grey mane stood on end, brushing the top of the yurt like the power pole on a dodgem car. And this mane crackled. The palpable power emanating from the figure made Trix’s and Ralph’s flesh tingle, and even more so when they noticed it was animating a copious amount of tattoos—no, runes!—on the figure’s loosely robed, mantis-shaped form. They froze as his gaze turned on them. Jackson placed a hand on Trix’s shoulder, then stepped forward, speaking in a tongue not even Ralph recognised, though at the end was the clearly audible word “humans.”

  The tall figure moved from the table. He spoke as he came, but his words were of a number of different languages, one after the other, as if he were searching for the right one. By the time he’d moved to the side of a cushioned couch and patted it, it was a kind of English, though it came out in an echoing, sibilant hiss.

  “Plaaaace him heeeere.”

  They slung Yuri’s all-but-lifeless form onto the cushions. The runes on his body shifting rapidly, the wizard ran his hands over the wounds. The same glow as from the health fountains followed their movement.

  “Your friend has been careless.”

  “He saved my life,”
Trix said. “Can you save his?”

  “He isssss saved. The wound closed, repaired. Your friend will live.”

  “What? That’s it?”

  “Whaaaat were you exxxpecting?”

  “I dunno—thunderbolts and lightning?”

  “Very, very fright’ning,” muttered Yuri.

  Trix went to him. The Russian seemed weak, dazed, but comprehending. She squeezed his hand. “Scaramouche?” she ventured.

  “Scaramouche, won’t you do the fandango …”

  Trix smiled at the wizard. “Whatever you did, he’s okay. Thank you …?”

  “Torrrrb.”

  “Torb. I’m told you can answer some questions?”

  “Not he,” a voice said. Trix turned to see the violet-eyed female unfurl herself from the table. She was impressively tall—almost as tall as Torb—an imposing sight with flame-red hair and a leader’s battle armour that from its scars and abrasions was clearly more than ceremonial. She dismissed Jackson with a nod. The doctor left without preamble.

  “Jentiss Firemane of the Flaming Mountains,” she said, looming. “My forebears struck the Forges of Kassyll.”

  “Trix Hunter of the, er, Rainy Pennines,” Trix replied in kind, she hoped. She struggled slightly. “I have a cousin who works in the Co-op.”

  Ralph coughed, but more by way of introduction than anything.

  “Sorry. This is Professor Ralph Arthur. Chair of Xenocryptology, Aberdeen University. And the patient there, Major Yuri Dragomiloff, ex–Soviet Special Forces and now, like me, keeper of DOME.”

  Jentiss regarded her without speaking. Her gaze as it looked down was intense, questioning, and a little amused. Her hair moved as if in a slight breeze, though there was none. Trix felt as if she were being invited to elaborate.

  “It’s … difficult to explain. It’s our place of origin, the home to our band of adventurers. Dungeon Operations and Maintenance Environment. DOME.”

  “Where there is a doorway between worlds. Like War Drobe, yes?”

  “Er … War Drobe?”

  “Yes, War Drobe. Doorway to Narnia. I should like to visit there some day.”

  “Er …”

  Jentiss Firemane stooped so she could stare Trix right in the face. “That was a joke,” she said. “I like to get it out of the way, so that people stop talking to me like I’m She-Ra, Princess of Power.” On the couch, Yuri stirred, and Jentiss smiled. “If it helps,” she went on, “I know everything there is to know about DragonCorp.”

  “Then you have the advantage over me.”

  “Yes,” Ralph chipped in, “we have many questions about your people, your civilisation, your cul—”

  “Where’s Ian?”

  Jentiss looked shaken by Trix’s interruption. It was clear in that moment that she knew Ian; clear also that she knew who Ian was to Trix. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly, “your brother has been missing for some time.”

  “Really?” Trix said. “Then how come we’ve been following his trail and I saw him only a few days ag—”

  She paused. Mind playing tricks again. Not days. Weeks. Weeks since she’d seen him. Weeks in which the world—both worlds—had moved on.

  “What happened?”

  Jentiss took a breath, looked at Ralph. “I must talk with your leader, alone,” she said. The old man bristled slightly but was mollified when Jentiss added, “If you have questions, Professor, there are various books on the shelves over there. If you have our language, you are welcome to peruse them.”

  “Yes, yes, I have some,” he said. “And yes, I would wish that very much.”

  Jentiss turned back to Trix.

  “Walk with me,” she said. “There is much to discuss.”

  XV

  Oh … God

  They exited the yurt and began a slow tour of the camp. Slow, but not leisurely. Fallout from the front line was heavy, and Trix hopped, skipped, and jumped as remnants of bolts or fireballs landed, crackling or burning too close for comfort. Jentiss walked by her side, seemingly inured to it—as if she’d lived with such hazards for a very long time. Looking at how weary were the faces of those dousing the resultant flames, Trix thought perhaps everyone here had.

  She decided to forget Ian for the moment. Hear what Jentiss had to say. Get things in context. Bloody hell, she needed some. And until then, she’d play her own cards close to her chest.

  “Your English is very good,” she said, neutrally. What she meant was, your human is very good. She was still coming to terms with the realisation there were thinking beings in these depths, not just things that wrenched your ribs for toothpicks after tucking into your face.

  “I’ve had teachers, tools,” Jentiss said. “Those who came before you and the tomes they carried to comfort them in the dark.”

  “Hence Narnia.”

  “Yes, Narnia. By your S.C. Lewis.”

  “C.S., but who’s quibbling.” Trix gave her companion a look. “Jentiss, those who came before me … Ian, Doctor Jackson … others of my people … Do you hold them here by force?”

  “Force?” Jentiss barked a laugh, loomed, spoke in a pantomime voice. “You mean, do I have them under an evil spell? Of course not. Over the years they’ve arrived lost, displaced, or saved from peril beyond their ken. All who found themselves in our company stayed of their own free will. Found, shall we say, a vested interest in our struggle.”

  “What struggle? Jentiss, what’s happening here?”

  “We fight to stop something breaking free. Something that has been confined here for a very long time.”

  “So this really is a dungeon?”

  “Of a sort. You stand in Deephold. My world.”

  “Your world?”

  Jentiss smiled, wearily. “I have not left in so long that it feels that way. That, I, too, am imprisoned. But my real world—the world outside—is Yillarnya.”

  Trix’s sense of the unexplored couldn’t help but kick in. And knowing about the outside might help her weigh up the inside. “Yillarnya?”

  Jentiss sighed. “I yearn for it each day, each night walk it in my dreams. The Mirror Mountains to the north; south, the Singing Sea. Far west, the Golden Steppes, and east, up high, the Shining Bells. Twixt, such wonders—the Jellant Jungles, the Mechanical Halls, the Zirith Cascades. The great cities of Scarth, Tendrilla, and Boon. A thousand villages, ten thousand caves, ruins and tombs waiting unexplored. Then, still, ports with passage to the skewed continents of Exaspar and Rhiona, the Flayed Frontier, Basrat As-Was. And here, at its very heart, Deephold, an ancient underground fortress become sanctuary, then cage for the evil that would destroy it all.”

  “And this evil is?”

  “Kh’Borian Everlasting. Deliverer of Doomsday. Bringer of The End.”

  “Okay, well, he sounds a right barrel of laughs. Jentiss, are you saying this dungeon is for just one man?”

  There was a pause as their path took them directly behind the front line. Patches of shimmering blue force field—constantly broken down, constantly replenished—thrummed under the impact of projectiles, physical and elemental, mere yards from their heads. The greatest danger to Trix’s mind, though, came from finding themselves dodging shouting weapon masters and stepping over recoil ropes for ballista and trebuchet, as well as bypassing columns of sorcerers supporting each other with hands planted firmly on each other’s backs. No, more than supporting. The sorcerer at the front of each column was expending so much power—in returning fireballs, lightning, or other elemental forces—that his magical reserves were in need of constant replenishment by those behind, and a bright lance of power ran through them all, from last to first. Occasionally, when it became too much for the first sorcerer, he fell back to the rear while the next in line stepped up to continue the assault. It was an endless cycle charging the air to such a degree that Trix’s hair frizzled.

  “Essentially, yes,” Jentiss answered. “But not a man. A godleech.”

  “A whatleech?”

  “Two thou
sand years ago, the most powerful tier of magic user in our world. Able not only to channel the yon-rah—the essence of the gods—but actually drain it, absorb it, in order to empower themselves.”

  “Didn’t your—er—gods have something to say about that?”

  “The yon-rah lost was nothing to them. But to a godleech, it was everything. It granted them unprecedented ability, transformed them into devastating weapons on the battlefield.” The warrior woman pulled a face. “Also into creatures of supreme arrogance.”

  “A ‘that would be telling’ kind of arrogance?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Let’s just say I think I’ve had a whiff of this guy.”

  “Then you know both our worlds are in danger of being obliterated.”

  Trix stopped in her tracks. “Whoa, whoa, whoa … obliterated? This is the vested interest you mentioned? Jentiss, you’d better tell me just how powerful this Kh’Borian is, what he’s up to, and while you’re at it—” she pointed across the chasm at the attacking horde “—what the sodding hell that lot have to do with it.”

  Jentiss nodded. “Basrat As-Was was simply Basrat, back then. Kh’Borian, not Everlasting. Merely the most hubristic of the godleeches. He believed there was no limit to the yon-rah he could drain; he would see himself a true god. From his thaumatory on Basrat’s Red Plains, he attempted to make it so. To drain more and more. And in doing, drained more than he should.”

  “Something happened?”

  “Storms. Such storms as Basrat had never seen. Storms unleashed by a god beginning to feel Kh’Borian’s presence. Yillarnya’s armies were despatched to the Red Plains as soon as the cause became clear, but the ride took days. By the time they arrived, the yon-rah being drawn from the heavens was in such flow that it prevented approach. Some called it a pillar, others a conduit; whichever it was, its energy was enough to melt the flesh from the bones of those who ventured near—others it drove insane. It wailed a lament, it is said—the saddest lament of all—yet in its midst, Kh’Borian laughed. A bloated thing, beyond mortal, he had managed to survive to a point where the god was in danger of becoming the weaker, struggling in his grip. And still Kh’Borian fed.”