by D. P. Prior
He turned his head and squinted into the flickering orange light coming from a fire—one of Silas’s, by the looks of it, but bigger than usual, and with a spit long enough to roast a horse.
Roasted horseflesh. The thought sent another pang of hunger through his belly. That sounded almost as good as… as good as… roasted human. Or better still, raw.
The cyclops was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, completely absorbed in Silas’s dodgy book. Its great unlidded eye was roving back and forth feverishly, and every so often, the giant would lick his thumb and turn the page.
“Nils,” Silas whispered from the left. “Are you all right?”
Nils didn’t rightly know how to answer that. He was burning up, shaking from head to toe, but he knew he’d be fine, if only he could sink his teeth into salty, bloody flesh.
“Nils.” Silas prodded him this time.
Nils turned to face him and licked his lips.
Silas must have seen something strange about him, because he went even paler than usual and scooted away on his backside. He cocked a thumb at the cyclops and mouthed something about trouble, but Nils was too hungry to take much notice.
“Aha!” the cyclops boomed. “Found what you were looking for. Told you I was good at finding things with this here eye. Knows a lot about zombies, this Blightey of yours. Knows a lot about all manner of unpleasant things. Sure he wasn’t from Qlippoth?”
“He’s dead,” Silas mumbled, and then said a little louder, “No, he was from Urddynoor, though he’s supposed to have come here at some point.”
“Fascinating,” the cyclops said, still mesmerized by the text he was reading. “Has a lot to say on the making of zombies, but then goes on to tell you how to unmake them, and how to cure infection caused by their bite.”
Silas was up in a flash. “Let me—”
“What, and spoil my fun?” the cyclops said. “We cyclopes are a magical race, you know. Runs in our blood. Always like to keep on top of new spells and the like, and this one,”—he gave them both a look that was as hungry as Nils felt—“looks like it might turn bad meat good, if you get my meaning.”
The cyclops held the book in one hand and made gestures in the air with the other. His thick lips moved in silent agreement with whatever sorcerous words he read upon the page.
A chill wind blew across Nils’s flesh. The blood in his veins turned to icy slush, and then he was up on his feet and feeling as right as rain.
“I’m fine,” he said to Silas. “I feel fine.”
“Great,” Silas muttered. “Now he can eat us.”
“What?” Nils turned from Silas to the cyclops.
A sickening grin spread across the giant’s face, and his lips parted to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“Now don’t go getting yourself all scared,” he said. “Ruins the meat; makes it all tough and stringy.” He closed the book and stood to his full height, towering above Nils and Silas.
“Why don’t we talk about this?” Silas said.
“Shhhhh.” The Cyclops placed a finger against his lips. “Quiet now, my lovelies. Come to old Rumgorkin.”
He took a lurching step toward Nils and reached down with a shovel-like hand.
Nils dropped to his arse and scrabbled away. “No, don’t. Wait. Just wait up.”
Rumgorkin’s other hand snapped out and grabbed Silas by the hem of his coat. The wizard slipped out of the sleeves and backed alongside Nils.
The cyclops advanced another step. “Come on, my sweetmeats, no point in strug—”
“Hi, honey, I’m home.”—A voice only slightly less booming than the cyclops’s own, but definitely female.
“Huh?” Rumgorkin wheeled to face the steps that led down from the entrance.
A massive one-eyed woman stood there, leaning on a sharpened stake that appeared to have been crudely cut from a long branch. Her breasts were swollen sacks, heaving in a way Nils found strangely hypnotic.
Apparently, so did Rumgorkin. The cyclops licked his lips and walked toward her with a big stupid grin on his face.
“Miss me?” the cyclops woman asked, blowing him a kiss.
“But—”
Swift as a striking serpent, powerful as a titan, the woman twirled the stake in the air and thrust it straight through Rumgorkin’s lone eye.
The cyclops staggered away, flailing with his arms, screaming as blood spurted in great gouts as high as the cavern ceiling. He dropped to his knees then toppled over backward, twitched a few times and was still.
The cyclops woman took a step into the cave and collapsed. The air about her shimmered, and she shrank, until lying on the floor, sweat-drenched and clearly at death’s door, was Ilesa.
NAMELESS
“Shadrak?” Nameless said through a muddle of dreams and stillborn thoughts. “Shadrak, is that you?”
A short figure leaned over him, shadowy at first, but slowly coming into focus within the gloaming of returning consciousness.
Not Shadrak. Abednago.
“Is it…? Did I…?”
“It is. You did,” the homunculus said. “You are all I hoped you would—”
Nameless grabbed Abednago’s ankle and flipped him onto his back. He rolled on top of the homunculus and delivered a cracking blow to his mouth, then stood and dusted himself down.
The Axe of the Dwarf Lords lay upon the charred floor of the corridor amid a pile of ash. Instinctively, he held out his hand, and it flew to his grasp.
“What…Why?” Abednago whimpered, wiping blood from his split lip.
“You knew about that thing,” Nameless said. “Knew, and still let me go in there.”
The homunculus rose shakily to his feet. “It had to be done. Had to. This is the only way.”
“Only way to what?”
“To save your people.”
Nameless rubbed his stubbly chin, ruing the day he’d chosen to have his hair and beard shaved. What did it matter if he eschewed the style most befitting a dwarf. Like so much he had done, it had been a stupid idea, a great dramatic statement that was as meaningless as it was pathetic. It was in his blood, the nature that had brought the dwarves to the brink of destruction. He should either put up or shut up. Denying the truth was an affront to all he believed in.
“What do you care about my people?”
The golden dweomer from the axe dimmed and then died out, leaving it a dull gray, not dissimilar to any other axe he might have found in any half-decent armory. Except for the etchings on the blades, the script upon the haft. Was it really possible that there could be no deception this time?
Abednago seemed about to say something but then looked away, contemplating the broken throne on the dais. When he finally spoke, he may as well have been talking to himself.
“The creature was called the Destroyer. No one else could even wound it, let alone defeat it. What did you do?”
Nameless shrugged. “Buggered if I know, laddie. Reckon it was more the axe than me. I hit the shogger with all I had, but it kept on coming. At first, the axe shone golden, but it was the silver fire that did it.”
“So, the Pax Nanorum accepted you. Good. That is very good.”
“Yes, well, whatever it did, I have no idea how to do it again. Far as I’m concerned, it’s just dead metal now.”
Abednago nodded absentmindedly. “And did the king say anything to you?”
“Aye,” Nameless said, regretting his final words to the skeleton. “Think I disappointed him. He had no idea of the time that had passed. He seemed to think the city had risen.”
“As indeed it has now,” Abednago said. “The dwarves’ final defense was to sink Arnoch. The engineering was staggering, even by the standards of my people. Truly staggering. When it became clear that there was no hope of surviving the Destroyer, a few thousand were selected, men, women, and children, and sent to found a new community far from here. Still others were sent to a secret place, where the Destroyer would never be able to reach them, should it ever
surface from its watery tomb. Those who remained fought to the death, and at the last, King Arios sent Arnoch to the ocean floor.”
“But why? What did he hope to achieve?”
The homunculus made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “The entire city is encased in a crystalline globe. For centuries, it stood, an island upon the sea, unassailable to even the most horrific of the Cynocephalus’s nightmares. With each new encroachment on the mainland, the dwarves would set sail in their stone ships and drive back the darkness. They were dreamed by the Lord of Aethir to combat his own abysmal dreams, to keep his madness at bay. But the Cynocephalus is his own worst enemy. His mind is riddled with self-destruction, and so he dreamed a creature to hunt down the dwarves, a creature so terrible that nothing could stop it. Perhaps he overlooked the stubbornness of his guardians, though, for the dwarves would not give in. They vowed to take the Destroyer down, even at the cost of their own civilization. It was a brave stand, a foolish one perhaps, but today, it has been vindicated.”
Nameless gave a bitter laugh.
So, his people had something in common with the legendary heroes of Arnoch after all, even if it was just their bloody-mindedness.
A thought suddenly occurred to him. “The survivors of Arnoch: do they endure? Did they survive here in Qlippoth?”
The homunculus shook his head, and Nameless felt his hopes dashed. “They did not remain in the lands of nightmare, for to do so would have been the end of them, much as it may now be.”
Nameless scowled at the cryptic answer. “Speak clearly, or not at all.” Where he came from, folk called an axe an axe and had done with it.
“We are kin, your people and mine,” Abednago said. “Though many among the homunculi would deny it at all costs. We share a common ancestry.”
“Kin?” Nameless looked into the homunculus’s inscrutable eyes and felt cold fingers inching their way up his spine. “No, the dwarves of Arx Gravis are just the results of Gandaw’s meddling. He molded us from humans brought from Urddynoor.”
“Melded would better describe it,” Abednago said. “Melded you with the blood of the homunculi.”
Nameless couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He recalled the pain Shadrak went through upon learning of his origins as one of the spawn of the Demiurgos. How could such a thing have been concealed from the dwarves all this time?
Abednago gave the slightest of nods. “My people may be deceivers, but they are also obsessed with purity. Many could not abide the thought of our blood being tainted with that of another race. That is why they sought to destroy you.”
Nameless choked back his anger. He had no right to it.
“They inserted accounts of the false Pax Nanorum into the Annals of Arx Gravis,” Abednago said. “The weapon itself was inspired by the original, though it was forged from the lore of the Abyss. Their intention was for a dwarf to destroy the entire race; a dwarf more gifted than the rest. A special dwarf. It was the same ploy used by the Cynocephalus agains the Jötunn.”
The fire giant Sartis had used the dog-head’s gauntlets to wipe out his own race, and he had never forgiven himself for it.
Nameless had so many questions, but each was dashed like a breaking wave as the next formed in its wake.
“But why…” he struggled to find the words. “Why did Sektis Gandaw make us a mockery of the dwarves of Arnoch? Why not leave us in the form of humans, or even homunculi?”
Abednago sighed and steepled his fingers. He looked down at his feet, and when he raised his eyes once more, there was a new depth of sorrow in them.
“You are right to believe Sektis Gandaw shaped what the dwarves of Arx Gravis became, but you are wrong about their true origins. Gandaw brought many people from Urddynoor. My people share his guilt in that, for we piloted the plane ships that carried them to Aethir. The dwarves of Arx Gravis, though, were molded from different matter. Remember, the blood of the homunculi runs in your veins, like a fault-line at the core of your being. Your people were not aware of this. Is it not possible they were deceived about the other half of their ancestry, too?”
Nameless’s mouth hung open as he finally pieced it together.
“The dwarves. The refugees from Arnoch…”
“Were the founders of Arx Gravis,” Abednago said. “You are born of the race of heroes.”
Nameless’s mind was awash with the implications of what Abednago was telling him. It all made sense, like the missing piece of a puzzle that had niggled away at the deepest stratum of dwarven consciousness for untold centuries.
But one thing still troubled him.
“Why? Why did he do this to us? Why taint us with the blood of…” The words trailed away when he caught Abednago’s wounded expression. Nameless grimaced. He hadn’t meant to offend the homunculus.
“Sektis Gandaw couldn’t tolerate mystery of any kind,” Abednago said, looking away. “He loathed the denizens of Qlippoth with all his being, for he had not created them; nor did they fit his theories of the cosmos. He would have unwoven the dwarves along with all of Creation, had he possessed the power at the time. Instead, he decided to use them in an experiment on my people, whom he also did not comprehend.”
Abednago fixed him with those deep, starry eyes.
“Gandaw’s way was always to vivisect mystery with the aimless blade of his warped science. I suppose he thought that, besides learning something of the homunculi in the process, he might also sow the seeds of the dwarves’ destruction within their own blood.
“You see, the nature of my people is deception; it is the stuff we are formed from, but it proved inimical to the founding fathers of Arx Gravis. They were the ones deceived. Maldark the Fallen was deceived by Gandaw, but the dwarves as a race were deceived as to who they really were.”
“But…” Nameless couldn’t grasp the enormity of what he was hearing. “But Gandaw didn’t create the homunculi. Why did he not seek to destroy them as well?”
“It was in his mind. It was ever in his mind, but Gandaw was not the only player. He was as prone to deception as any other human. My people worked with him, served under him, but all the while, he fell foul of a far darker plan than any he could have dreamed of.”
“I don’t understand, laddie.”
Nameless’s head was ready to burst from all the ideas bubbling to the surface. What was he to do? How could he ever hold such knowledge in his head without his skull splitting? He began to reel with giddiness.
“Think only of the moment,” Abednago said. “Even the homunculi cannot fathom all the ways of the Demiurgos. Besides, there are forces in the cosmos that surpass even him. Your path grows clearer, dwarf with no name. You know what you must do.”
“Find them?” Nameless asked. “That’s what I was trying to do. But what if they won’t listen? What if they are still afraid of me?”
“You have the Axe of the Dwarf Lords now. How could they not listen? Find the survivors of Arx Gravis before it is too late and the nightmares of Qlippoth destroy them. Find them, Nameless, and keep alive the legacy of Arnoch.”
Nameless nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “I will try.”
He doubted the dwarves would listen to him, axe or no axe, but he was driven by the need for penance, for some degree of restitution for what he had done, even though there could never be forgiveness.
“But first you must do something for me. If you’ve been watching me so closely, you’ll know I did not cross the Farfalls alone.”
SILAS
“I can’t find it,” Silas protested for the umpteenth time. “When are you going to get it?”
Nils was cradling Ilesa’s head, stroking her drenched black hair. “She’s dying, Silas. You have to try.”
It was worse than that. Silas had read that much on the page the instant he’d snatched up the grimoire. She was turning into a walking corpse, like those back at the village.
He’d found the page immediately, probably as a result of the cyclops marking it with a crease, although
part of him worried that the book might be making things easy for him now. If that were the case, it was as fickle as it was beguiling. Truth was, he’d found the page, but he was damned if he was going to use it. He already felt the pull of the grimoire, felt like it had shackled his neck and tugged on the chains so that he had no choice but to read it. With a supreme effort of will, he closed the book. Supreme. He was the master, after all.
“You gotta keep trying, Silas,” Nils said. “You ain’t even looking.”
Silas started to open the grimoire again, bit his lip, and changed his mind.
He slipped it into his satchel.
“I can’t, Nils. I just can’t.” He got to his feet and backed toward the steps. “I’m sorry. This book’s too dangerous. I’m going to find that cliff, fling it into the sea.”
“No,” Nils said, gently laying Ilesa’s head on the ground and standing. “You owe her.”
Silas almost laughed at that. Would have done, if he’d not been so frightened.
“Sorry,” he said again. “I tried.”
He turned and ran up the steps—straight into an armored chest as solid as a rock.
“Try harder, laddie.”
Silas backed away, hands flying to his mouth, which he knew was gaping like an idiot’s. “Nameless! Oh my word, Nameless!”
The dwarf glowered at him, hefted the axe that was slung over his shoulder. A new axe, by the looks of it, shoddier than the old one, and utterly dull, save for the swirls on the blade and some writing on the haft that was obscured by Nameless’s hand.
“Like I said, laddie, try harder.”
There was no give in his voice, and he seemed immovable as a mountain.
The idea of a spell came to mind, but Silas knew he’d be dead before it left his lips. He’d seen this side of the dwarf before, but he’d never experienced it firsthand.
“I’ll… I’ll do my best.”
“Can’t say fairer than that,” Nameless said, sauntering past him into the cavern.
Nils rushed to the dwarf and embraced him, then quickly drew back and coughed. “Good to see you, Nameless,” he said in a ridiculously deep voice.