Bad Times in Dragon City

by Matt Forbeck

  But I couldn’t just blow off Johan. In a very real way, he was the last member of Gütmann’s family, and I owed that dwarf more than I could ever repay. The fact that he’d died incurring that debt didn’t let me off the hook for it. It only meant that I’d never get out from under it until the same happened to me.

  “Hold on.” I staggered back into the room and reached under my pillow to where I kept my wand while I slept. You never knew when you might need it in the middle of the night, right?

  Wand in hand, I went back to the window, leaned out of it, and aimed it at the Quill’s front door. A quick unbinding of the spell on the door later, and the lock there opened with a loud click.

  I waved Johan in with the wand. “Give me a few minutes to get cleaned up. Make yourself at home.”

  I ducked back into the room without waiting for a response, closing the shutters behind me. I tapped myself with my wand next and cast a freshening-up spell that left me smelling as clean as the upper reaches of the Crystal River. I wouldn’t normally waste some of my mojo on something so simple as that, but I didn’t have time for a proper bath.

  I finished getting dressed and stumbled down the stairs into the bar’s main room. Johan had already helped himself to a large stein of beer. I would have ribbed him about it, but he’d poured one for me too.

  I slid onto the stool next to him and raised my stein to him. We clanked them together in a wordless toast to friends unforgotten, then drank.

  That was one of the things I loved about sitting at a bar. The high stools lessened the differences in height. It made it a lot easer to see eye to eye.

  “I have to get running to the Academy soon,” I said. “What’s the trouble?”

  Johan grimaced and ran a thick-fingered hand along his beard’s braids. “I came here to ask you for a favor, but believe me, it’ll do you a world of good too.”

  “You don’t need to sell me on it,” I said. Johan had worked his way up to a prominent position in the sales division of the Bricht Stone Company, the oldest and largest quarriers of rock in the city and he had a hard time turning that part of his personality off sometimes. “Just spit it out.”

  “The Brichts want to meet with you. Now.”

  I blinked. “I don’t want to come work for them as a stonecutter. No offense.”

  Johan smiled. “Not the company. The family. They want to see you. They say it’s urgent.”

  I winced. The Brichts were one of the oldest families in the city, and the most powerful clan of dwarves around. They had cut the stone from the mountain to build the Great Circle, along with half the city, and they still made a mint supplying such things to the Dragon Empire and anyone else who could afford them.

  The Brichts were also, it was rumored, connected to just about every kind of dirty operation in the entire town. Nothing happened in the Stronghold without their say so, and they had their fingers stuck deep into the bedrock in other parts of the city as well. The Dragon tolerated them because of their usefulness, and because of that so did the Guard.

  I hated the idea of them, but most of the time that didn’t matter. Other than visiting the Gütmanns — which I couldn’t do any more — I didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the Stronghold. Most of the time, I just steered clear of them.

  It seemed they’d decided that our relationship needed to change, and I wasn’t so sure I agreed with them.

  “Who wants to see me?”

  If it was Henrik Bricht, one of clan’s favored sons, a flock of flying carpets couldn’t have dragged me there. Henrik had killed one of my old adventuring pals — Ames — a while back, and worse yet he’d pinned the blame for it on Kai’s cousin Sig. The only thing I wanted from Henrik was his head on a pike and the rest of him tossed over the Wall as a treat for the zombies out there.

  “The Brichts,” he said. “All of them.”

  I almost choked on my beer. Dwarves didn’t breed all that fast, but there were still dozens of them who laid claim to the name Bricht. “What, they want me as a guest at their family reunion?”

  Johan chuckled. “All right, not every last one of them. Just the ones who count. The Bricht Warband.”

  I slapped my hand on the bar between us. “I’d like to help you, Johan. I really would. But I have more pressing business to take care of this morning.”

  Johan’s face fell. “All right, Max. I’ll let them know.”

  He didn’t get up to leave. Instead he took another long pull from his stein. Then he let out a long sigh, the kind of rumbling, echoing expression of stony angst only a dwarf can properly pull off.

  “Is this going to be a problem for you?”

  He seesawed his shoulders back and forth. “I’m sure I’ll be able to find another job.”

  “They’d fire you over the fact that you can’t produce me right away.”

  Johan’s weak smile never made it all the way to his eyes. “If I’m lucky, sure.”

  “And if you’re not?”

  “The Brichts weren’t happy about me being hauled in by the Guard.”

  “That wasn’t your fault. And I cleared your name.”

  Johan patted my elbow. “And for that, you have my undying thanks. You gave me back my life. I cannot ask you for anything more.”

  “So what are the Brichts worried about?”

  He grimaced, then opened his mouth and gestured at his tongue. Then he filled it with beer again.

  Then I got it. “They’re afraid you ratted them out over something.”

  He nodded.

  “Did you?”

  He snorted. “Of course not. The Guard might have beaten me within an inch of my life, but they never made me wish I was dead. The Brichts? They’re good at that. The best.”

  He reached over across the bar and poured himself another drink from the tap.

  “You know, it’s a big mountain we live on. And in. Lots of places for a dwarf to get lost down there in the depths of the mines.” He sipped at his beer, then wiped the foam from his beard. “Of course, I don’t know any of that personally. That’s just what Henrik told me just before I left.”

  I knew I was being manipulated. I didn’t know for sure if it was Johan pulling my strings or Henrik doing it through him. Either way, I didn’t suppose it made a difference.

  I glanced at the clock over the bar, then reached over and clapped Johan on the back. “It’s earlier than I thought. I should be able to squeeze in a quick visit to the Stronghold.”

  Johan gasped in surprise, then did a poor job of stifling a relieved grin. “Thank you, Max,” he said as I finished off the last of my beer. “I don’t know how I could ever repay you for everything you’ve done for me.”

  I put my stein back down on the bar. Thumper, my bartender, would clean it up later. I got up to leave, and Johan followed right after me.

  “Just give me five minutes with Henrik, alone,” I said with a grim viciousness as we left the Quill and I locked the door with my wand. “Then I think we can call it even.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I have to hand it to the Brichts. They might push people around, using them as little more than disposable pawns in their intricate, long-term power games, but at least they do it with style. Johan led me out of the Quill to a long, veiled palanquin fashioned from black cloth and ebon wood. The veils stood taut as if wired down, but they magically moved aside at Johan’s touch.

  We climbed inside and sat down on the large, round cushions scattered throughout the place, which was upholstered with black leather. The interior had been sectioned off into two areas by another veil. As we made ourselves comfortable for the ride, a dwarf in a black uniform and skullcap pulled back the veil that separated us from the front of the ride and gave Johan an approving nod.

  “To the Clan Hall, sirs?”

  Johan confirmed this with a nod. The driver let the veil drop behind him as he turned his attention forward once more. A moment later, we were climbing into the morning sky.

  “Why would he ask ab
out the Clan Hall?” I said. “Isn’t he just going to have to drop us off at the Stronghold gate anyhow?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Flyers aren’t allowed in the Stronghold. Right?”

  Johan smiled. “Technically you’re correct. The Brichts have a special, ah, dispensation for that.”

  “You mean nobody’s going to stop them, but aren’t most of the tunnels just too damn small for a flyer this size to fit through?”

  He relaxed a bit, happy to chat on a subject something he knew something about — and that didn’t involve him being threatened into dealing with it. “Not in the hands of a driver like Ingo there. He could thread the Dragon’s Spire itself and come out the other end without scorching this thing’s fabric. But the Brichts also have their own private route to the Clan Hall.”

  “Are you serious?” The idea of someone cutting their own secret route through the heart of the mountain and then keeping it for their own private use rather than opening it up to the rest of Dragon City boggled my mind. That kind of thing just didn’t happen, did it?

  “I know, it seems crazy, but the Brichts have been cutting stone out of the mountain for hundreds of years. The place is so riddled with shafts and tunnels that it’s amazing it doesn’t all just come tumbling down.”

  I didn’t find that reassuring.

  I don’t know how we made it inside the mountain. The black veils kept me from seeing too much outside the palanquin. I reached out to pull one to the side once and peek out, but it refused to budge, as if it were made of rock rather than fabric.

  “They’re bulletproof too,” Johan said. “We’re as safe inside here as anywhere in Dragon City.”

  “But we can’t look outside?”

  Johan shrugged. “The Brichts like their secrets.”

  I pointed toward the front of the palanquin. “Is Ingo a Bricht?”

  “Someone has to operate this thing. He’s a well-trusted member of the clan, but his last name’s Dunkel.”

  I nodded, pretending to understand. The dwarves had their own way of doing things. Some called it underhanded — even criminal — but I had to admit it was usually effective. As long as you were on their side. If you happened to wind up facing off against them, I didn’t suspect it would seem fair.

  “So what’s this all about?” The palanquin took that moment to dip forward. The light that had been filtering through the veils vanished as if night had come crashing down over us. We had to have entered the mountain.

  If I’d wanted to turn back, it was too late now.

  Small glowglobes that I hadn’t paid much attention to before now kept the interior of the palanquin lit with a gentle luminance. Johan fidgeted on his cushion. “They haven’t really told me. I just know they want to see you. Bad.”

  I wondered if I’d made the right decision to come with him. I felt sure I hadn’t done anything to piss off the Brichts.

  Lately.

  That I knew of.

  I eyed the veils, trying to see if they really were immovable. My wand might have something to say about that in a pinch.

  Johan put up a hand to reassure me. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong, Max. They seemed eager to meet you. In a friendly way.” He tried to smile, but he was too nervous to pull it off well, and his face looked like he was wearing a rictus grin instead.

  “You’re not helping.”

  “No, really. It’s just that once you wound up with the dragonet attached to you like that, they suddenly got interested in you. They knew that you’d helped me out of that spot, so they leaned on me to reach out to you. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. Honest.”

  I believed him. I just didn’t know if I believed whatever it was his bosses had told him. Deep as we already had to be into the mountain, though, I didn’t see how I had a better option than sticking it through to find out. The palanquin moved far faster than I would have ever dared fly inside of something. Even if I’d have been able to open the veils and get out, I didn’t like the idea of trying to leap off the thing at such speeds.

  Moments later, the palanquin dipped down at an even sharper angle, then righted itself and slowed. Bright lights shone through the veils once more, but they came at the wrong angles to be natural. We dropped toward the ground as if we were caught in an elevation field, and we came to a stop with a gentle bump. Ingo seemed to know his trade well.

  The veils around the palanquin unstiffened. Ingo pulled aside the one that separated his seat from ours. “We’re here, sirs. And they’re waiting for you.”

  Johan opened the door to the palanquin and stepped out, then held it open for me. I crawled out after him and found myself standing in a vast underground chamber. Glowglobes ringed the walls of the place maybe twenty feet up. It felt like the roof had to be much taller than that, but the lights made it hard to see past them to the ceiling, wherever it might be.

  The palanquin had set down in the center of a sunken landing pad off to one side of the chamber. Low wide stone steps rose up in every direction from where we stood. Statues and carvings covered three of the walls — the ones nearest us — with imagery I knew told the story of the founding of Dragon City. I’d heard it recited many times over the years, but the sculptors who’d rendered these visions out of solid rock had likely borne witness to the events themselves.

  That was always one of the jarring things about life as a human in Dragon City. Compared to some of the people who lived there, I had the relative lifespan of a fruit fly. The things I thought of as history or legends, they’d actually been through.

  Belle was young for an elf, for instance, full grown but not ancient. Her parents, on the other hand, had been here before the city had been founded. They may have withdrawn into the heart of their estate these days, but from what she’d told me, they’d played a large role in the creation of our hometown.

  Being human means that even if you make it to a ripe, old age, the elves and dwarves and gnomes will still think of you as a child. That struck home even harder when I looked past the massive meeting table that stretched across the center of the room and I glimpsed the gigantic door set into the far wall.

  The top of the door towered out of sight, hidden by the darkness beyond the reach of the glowglobes’ lights. Side to side, it had to reach at least twenty feet, and it seemed to be made out of solid stone. How anyone could get such a slab to move, I couldn’t comprehend. It had to involve magic.

  The arch that was the symbol of the Stronghold had been carved into the door’s surface. A massive hammer and pickaxe stood crossed underneath that, the arch framing them both. They’d been inlaid with gold and platinum and rubies and diamonds, and they sparkled in the dim light, seeming to produce illumination from inside. The artisans who’d worked the gems into the design had also enchanted them so that they moved on their own, the rubies mixing with the diamonds to produce flame patterns that reminded me of nothing more than the Dragon himself.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “They’re waiting for us, Max.” Johan jostled my arm and pointed over to the table stretching before us.

  A handful of dwarves stood there staring at us with dour faces. It was hard to tell if they were angry with me or not. Long, braided beards tend to disguise mirth well. That’s one reason why most people think dwarf men are grumpy. They have to smile twice as wide to make an impression through all that bushy hair.

  The table at which the dwarves stood was shaped like a gigantic horseshoe or — as I realized as Johan and I walked closer — the Stronghold arch. Johan guided me right between the two legs of the arch to stand in the center of it. I didn’t like the idea of letting these people surround us, but I figured if they’d brought me there to hurt me they’d have already done it. I was in their hands now, for good or ill.

  The dwarf in the absolute middle of the arch — at its highest peak — stood and stared at me. One of his eyes had gone milky, but the other burned with such intensity that I worried that he might shoot a beam out of it to la
nce me through where I stood. His hair had gone to gray but not yet white, and the braids in his beard were so long that he had stuffed them into his belt for safekeeping.

  It wasn’t until I reached the spot directly across the curved table from that dwarf that I realized the floor inside of the arch was lower than that outside of it. Despite the fact the people standing outside the arch were dwarves, they all looked down on me as if they were giants.

  As Johan came to a halt in front of the old dwarf, he clicked his heels together and gave a deep bow in the manner meant to display extreme deference among his people. I didn’t really feel that way about a dwarf I’d never met before, no matter who he might be, but I went along with it anyhow. Better to be polite when surrounded.

  I recognized him, of course, although I’d never seen him before in the flesh. He had to be Benno Bricht, the leader of the Stronghold. As he glared down at me with sharp, deep-set eyes as black as the darkest mines under the mountain, I could see why. He radiated the strength and confidence of bedrock.

  “Welcome to the Core, Son of Gib.” Benno’s voice rasped like steel on flint. “We are pleased you could find the time to accept our invitation to join us.”

  I glanced at Johan, who kept his eyes trained on the floor. Benno wasn’t talking to him, and he seemed uncomfortable standing at the focal point of the arch-shaped table with me. I didn’t blame him. Any one of the dwarves sitting there could have made his life miserable and short.

  Me, though, I didn’t much care.

  “The pleasure’s mine.” I clapped Johan on the back, and he looked up then, startled. “I wouldn’t have come, but my friend Johan here said it was urgent.”

  Benno squinted at me. “An invitation from Stronghold’s Core isn’t enough to bring you to us? Are you always so casual about such important matters?”

  I shrugged. “What’s important to you may not be so vital to me. I have matters of my own that I need to attend to today.”