by D. P. Prior
“Now this I wasn’t expecting,” Aristodeus said as they approached. His gaze was fixed on Nameless. “You weren’t meant to awaken without… ah!” His eyes flitted to Shader. “Of course.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Well, they said there was trouble. But how can we turn this to our advantage?” He pursed his lips and clicked his fingers. “Could work in our favor, I suppose. A moment, please!” he yelled over their heads.
Nameless turned to see Grago emerge from the ravine wall at the front of the Red Cloaks. Thumil pushed through beside him.
More doors were opening all around the level, and from one came a group of white-robed councilors. Cordy was with them, her blonde hair and beard making her stick out like gold in gravel. She flicked an anxious look Nameless’s way, but it was to Thumil she ran.
“What do you mean, ‘of course’?” Shader said. “He wasn’t meant to awaken without what?”
“His voice,” Thumil said, as he drew near, hand in hand with Cordy. “Only Aristodeus’s voice could break the spell.”
“Must be the accent,” Aristodeus said. “No other explanation for it. Dear old Maranore. Starting to miss the motherland yet?”
Shader frowned. Something had rankled him. It was easy to understand. The bald shogger had that effect on people.
“Accent or no accent,” Nameless said, “I’ve a bone to pick with you, laddie.”
He took a step toward Aristodeus, but Rhiannon barged past him, sweat beading her forehead, drenching her robe.
“Give it to me,” she demanded. “Now.”
The philosopher narrowed his eyes, an enigmatic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Rhiannon clenched her fists. She was trembling, though it didn’t seem to be from fear.
Aristodeus let out a chuckle. He reversed the sword and handed it to her. As it passed beneath the arch, red flames flared along its blade.
Aristodeus worked his jaw and gave a slight shrug. “You should be more careful where you leave it. An unpleasant weapon, but it wouldn’t be the first.” He cocked a look at Nameless.
Rhiannon caressed the sword but stopped when she caught Shader watching her. With a sullen scowl, she maneuvered it into the scabbard on her back and folded her arms across her chest.
“Laddie,” Nameless said, tapping the side of his helm, “it’s taking things too far when I can’t get this shogging thing off, even for a flagon of ale.”
“I’m sorry,” Aristodeus said, producing a pipe and popping the stem in his mouth. “Too dangerous.”
“The black axe…” Nameless said. The shadow-formed weapon he’d found in Gehenna.
Within the ambit of the helm’s theurgy, the axe’s hold on you is weakened. Wear it, and the glamor will be broken.
He recalled the philosopher saying that to him, before lowering the helm over his head.
Nameless saw flashes of the axe, sometimes black, sometimes golden, but always there was blood. He remembered watching it carried away, encased in crystal. Whatever it was, whatever it was supposed to have done to him, he was free of it now. Or was he? Had he not felt it earlier, still calling to him like a flagon of Urbs Sapientii mead?
“Don’t worry, the axe is in a safe place,” Aristodeus said. He patted his toga. “Anyone have a light? No, of course not.” He sighed and thrust his pipe away. “At least, safe while you wear the helm. The link must not be re-established.” He cast a look at the assembled dwarves. “They’d never allow it, in any case.”
“Then destroy it,” Nameless said. Something like a ripple passed across his heart. Destroy the axe? Is that what he wanted? What he really, really wanted?
“Can’t be done,” Aristodeus said. “Least not yet. Give me time, and I’ll work it out.”
“What about grub?” Nameless said. “A dwarf needs meat and bread and steaming bowls of salty broth. It’s not like I’ve got any spare.” He patted his belly. “If you don’t get a move on, I’ll be a bag of bones in next to no time.”
Aristodeus held up his hands. “I’ll come up with something. I hadn’t expected you to awaken. I suppose I could…” He scratched his beard. “Yes, that would work.”
“What, laddie? What would work?”
Before Aristodeus could answer, Shader broke in with a question of his own. “You knew about Dave, didn’t you?”
Aristodeus looked perplexed. “Dave?”
“The hunchback that led us here from the Sour Marsh. Was he part of your meddling as well?”?
A blur of movement told Nameless Shadrak was circling behind Aristodeus.
“The demon that triggered the arch,” Thumil said.
Nameless spun to face him. He’d forgotten the Voice was there. Forgotten the councilors and the hundreds of Red Cloaks still filing out onto the walkways.
Demon? A demon triggered the arch?
At the request of the Council of Twelve, Aristodeus had rigged the arch with homunculus lore, so that it would blaze red if anything from the Abyss were to pass through.
Thumil looked drawn and haggard, and in the stark light of the two suns, his patchy scalp was starting to rival Aristodeus’s for sparseness. Cordy squeezed Thumil’s hand, and he immediately straightened up, as if drawing strength from her.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know,” Shader said.
“All I know is that the alarm was triggered, and my presence here was required.” Aristodeus shrugged, and did a good job of looking perfectly innocent.
Steel glinted behind the philosopher. Nameless caught a glimpse of pale skin, pink eyes. Shader saw it, too, gave the slightest shake of his head, raised his fingers. He clearly thought Shadrak might do it. Might do what a lot of people probably wanted to do.
“It was a demon, right enough,” Grago yelled, storming toward them.
Aristodeus glared at him and held up a finger.
Grago’s stride faltered, and he came to a stop. The other councilors gathered around him, straining to catch the conversation.
Thumil glanced at Cordy. They both looked haunted, as if they’d woken within a nightmare. All this talk of demon hunchbacks was creeping up Nameless’s crotch, too.
“I’ll admit it does smack of my style,” Aristodeus said, stroking his beard. His voice remained even, but the blood had drained from his face. His eyes seemed darker, somehow, and he was blinking furiously. “But I have no knowledge of…” He trailed away, and his expression was that of a man starting to realize he’d been had. “The enemy is cunning, more so than I could have imagined.” He narrowed his eyes. “But I am better.”
“Boo!”
Aristodeus shrieked. He clutched his hands to his heart and cursed.
Shadrak threw off his hood and stepped from behind him, sauntering back through the arch. “Don’t get too cocky, now, mate.”
Nameless clapped the homunculus on the back. “Laddie, you might be a runty, bloodthirsty little pipsqueak, but I think I’m warming up to you.”
Grago took that as his cue. He jabbed a finger at Aristodeus. “You, sir, have some explaining to do.”
Aristodeus blinked, and his eyes came sharply back into focus. “Is that so, Councilor Grago?”
“It most certainly—”
“It was me that persuaded them to let the Nameless Dwarf live.” Thumil released Cordy’s hand and approached Aristodeus.
Grago ceded him ground and looked back at his fellow councilors, raising an eyebrow.
“You told me there was a way to end the slaughter,” Thumil said, “and I believed you.”
“And I was right,” Aristodeus said.
All around the ravine, phalanxes were forming, and Black Cloaks began to appear on the plazas across the way, taking aim with crossbows.
“Do you remember what you did?” Thumil asked, moisture rimming his eyes.
“Some,” Nameless said. Disconnected scenes, most of them bloody. Bit by bit, though, the connections were becoming clearer, the awful narrative of what had transpired. He’d thought he was slaying demons that
had infested the ravine, but in reality, they had been dwarves.
“But not all?” Thumil said. “That’s good. I wouldn’t wish that burden on you. My point is, I was desperate.” He turned back to Aristodeus. “Desperate enough to believe you.”
“The killing stopped,” Aristodeus said.
“You were family to me, Thumil,” Nameless said. “Even with the madness upon me, some tiny part of me still recognized that.” Then to Cordy he said, “And I trusted you, lassie. Trusted you enough to let Baldilocks put the helm on me. I think I wanted to be stopped. More than that: I think I wanted to be killed.”
“And so you damned well should be,” Grago said.
Weapons clashed against shields in affirmation.
Grago nodded at his fellow councilors.
Nameless recognized Old Moary, the very definition of indecisiveness. He saw bespectacled Dorley, Castail, Tor Garnil, and they all looked flustered.
Grago beckoned to a Black Cloak in among the reds, and within moments, a knot of Ravine Guard was advancing.
Shadrak pointed his wand at the sky. There was a crack of thunder, and smoke plumed from the tip. The Red Cloaks stopped dead in their tracks.
Aristodeus rubbed his brow and sighed. “No one is going to be killed. At least not here. Not today. But,” he said to the councilors, “if you don’t let these people go, the worlds will be unmade, and if there is anyone left to tell the tale, which I sincerely doubt, your names will be cursed for all eternity. Rather than getting in the way, you should be doing something, anything to prevent the Unweaving.”
“That, sir, is heresy, and you know it,” Tor Garnil said. “It was acting that nearly brought us to the brink of doom before. That is why we can do nothing. Every step we take into the affairs of the world may be a snare of the Demiurgos.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Aristodeus said. “So you don’t even ask someone to pass the mustard in case it’s a trap. I thought Lucius was getting through to you, but you went and had him killed.”
“It was his action that led to the finding of the black axe,” Grago said.
“Yes, well,” Aristodeus said. “I didn’t foresee that.”
Nameless lurched into motion, and every dwarf in the ravine seemed to flinch. Memory bloomed from Grago’s accusation. “Lucius found mention of the Pax Nanorum—the Axe of the Dwarf Lords—in the Annals, in a passage he though was historical.”
“And he was duped,” Aristodeus said. “It shouldn’t have been there.”
“Which is why we have the code of non-action,” Old Moary said. “Even our histories cannot be trusted. I mean, well, the theory, as I understand it, is that a homunculus planted reference to the axe, hoping that someone would be foolish enough to go looking for it.”
“Lucius was no fool,” Nameless said. “His sin was to hope. To hope that the axe was a link to a glorious past, something we could take pride in.”
Through my boys, his pa had said, the dwarves would become like the Dwarf Lords of legend.
“Surely it’s better to fail trying,” Nameless said, “than never to try at all.”
“Tell that to the families of those you slaughtered, Butcher,” Grago said. “I think we can all see where this is leading.”
“I haven’t finished!” Nameless said. “Lucius only sought the Axe of the Dwarf Lords, but you actually did something, Grago. You sent assassins, who fed him to the seethers. He didn’t get to act. You got there first. If you hadn’t killed my brother, I’d never have completed his work for him. There’s no telling how differently things would have worked out then. For all his faults, Lucius was no warrior, so I doubt he’d have made much of a butcher. My point is, you were prepared to act then, but what about now?” He turned his ire on the rest of the Council. “What are you prepared to do?”
Thumil’s face lit up, and he spread his hands. “He’s right. If we do nothing, then we are complicit in the end of all things.”
“How do you know?” Councilor Castail said.
Old Moary scratched his head. “Well, I don’t know. I mean, what if…?”
“Oh, we need to start acting all right,” Grago said, “but in accord with our own reasoning. Our own agenda. I’ve been saying this for years, and yet it’s fallen on deaf ears. Certainty of purpose, a clear vision of who we are and what we want is—”
Aristodeus took his pipe back out and rapped the bowl against the stone of the archway until he had everyone’s attention. “None of us has the luxury to indulge your circular arguments. Whether you accept it or not, Sektis Gandaw has in his possession the Statue of Eingana. Even as we speak, he is commencing the Unweaving.”
All eyes looked to the sky. Besides a few soaring buzzards, there was nothing but an expanse of cobalt and the glaring orbs of Aethir’s two suns.
“Then why are we still here?” Grago asked. “What’s taking so long?”
“It is not a fast process,” Aristodeus said, “unpicking every thread of Creation. And besides, I am reliably informed Gandaw’s plans have been set back, but we do not have unlimited time. A few days, a week at most, and then a great big nothing. When the lights come back on, assuming they do, Gandaw will be at the center of his own universe, and I doubt very much any of us will be perfect enough to feature in it.”
“So, what are we expected to do?” Councilor Castail said. “Trust you again, even after you told us the Ravine Butcher could only be awakened by your voice, and yet here he stands?”
“Do nothing,” Shader said. “Stand aside. Keep out of our way. Is it not action to prevent our going?”
The councilors turned to each other, clearly confounded.
“We only need to enter the mines,” Shader said, “so that we can travel to the roots of Gandaw’s mountain. All action will be ours, not yours.”
Aristodeus was grinning from ear to ear. He gave Shader a knowing wink.
Grago took a stranglehold on his beard and shook his head. “Clever. Very clever. But, is it not the case that willful non-action is itself still an action, albeit a negative one? No, my brother councilors, we cannot let them go, for in doing so, we may still be found culpable.”
“That’s illogical, incoherent, and idiotic, Grago,” Aristodeus said, “and you know it.”
“You’re wasting your breath, laddie,” Nameless said.
“I agree with Councilor Grago,” an enormously fat councilor said. “But it’s more than a case of—what was it you said, Grago?—‘willful non-action’. If we allow these people to enter the mines, we are, in effect, opening the mines to them. We need no more complicated argument. We are prohibited by our own laws from granting outsiders admittance, are we not?”
“Balderdash!” Aristodeus said.
Thumil shrugged. “An excellent point, Councilor Bley, which leaves us with only one solution.”
Expectant eyes turned on him, and Thumil seemed to grow in stature, as if he were marshal once more and giving a speech to the new recruits.
“If we prevent them from leaving, we are guilty of the act of preventing.”
Begrudging nods of agreement.
“If we admit them to the mines, we are guilty of the act of admittance.”
More vigorous nodding this time.
“So, what are you going to do if we ignore you and enter the mines anyway?” Shadrak said, a wicked smirk on his face.
“Then you would be forcing us to act in preservation of the law,” Thumil said. “And if we are forced, we cannot be held culpable. Marshal Mordin.”
“Councilor?” The hard-faced pervert stepped forward and saluted. He had on Thumil’s old golden helm, and a spanking new scarlet cloak.
“Send two platoons to see no one enters the scarolite mines.”
Shader shook his head at Thumil as the marshal issued commands, and a ripple of troop movement ran across the walkways. “And I thought you were—”
Thumil held up a finger. “You are free to go, so long as you steer clear of the mines.”
“Are yo
u an imbecile, Thumil?” Aristodeus said. “Don’t you care about the Unweaving?”
“Shog him,” Shadrak said. “Let’s go it alone, if these scuts are too stupid to do anything.”
“How?” Shader said. “You saw those silver spheres patrolling Gandaw’s mountain. How are we going to get inside?”
Shadrak shut his eyes, as if thinking. When he opened them, he said, “Shogged if I know. Raise an army?”
“Could always try New Londdyr,” Nameless said. Everyone knew it was the biggest city in Malkuth, the upper-lands this side of the Farfall Mountains. “They must have a fair few legions.”
“Actually,” Aristodeus said, instantly brightening, “that’s not such a bad idea. Take an army. Storm the mountain. You never know.”
Shader said, “It’s quicker if you go ahead. Magic yourself there, or whatever you do.”
Aristodeus shook his head. “Can’t do that. I need to prepare for other contingencies. And besides, the Senate and I don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
“What contingencies?” Rhiannon said. “Way I see it, we’re running out of options.”
“There are always options, my dear,” Aristodeus said. “And believe me, this business goes deeper—much deeper—than our current threat from Sektis Gandaw. We must stay one step ahead of the enemy at all times.”
“You’re sure about the mines?” Shader said to Thumil.
“I’m sorry, Shader. We are dwarves. I don’t expect you to understand.”
Shader sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, but he nodded all the same. “All right,” he said, “how far to New Londdyr?”
“Couple of days, at a guess,” Aristodeus said.
Thumil grunted in agreement.
Shader caught Rhiannon’s eye. “Best get a move on, then.”
She held his gaze for a long while, as if considering something.
“Why don’t you come with me?” Aristodeus said.
Rhiannon’s expression would have been less sour if she’d been chewing on a lemon. “You?”
“If our nameless friend here is traveling to New Londdyr, he’s going to have to be fed. I could use some help gathering my apparatus and taking them on ahead to the city.”