Geas of the Black Axe (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 2)

by D. P. Prior

  “Just beer, lassie,” Nameless said.

  “Beer for breakfast?”

  “And why ever not?”

  With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, she filled him a flagon and set it on the counter before him. He paid for it with the coins Aristodeus had given him, then carried it to a nook over by the hearth.

  As soon as they realized he meant no trouble, the punters went back to their breakfasts of eggs, ham, and kaffa.

  Nameless suppressed a pang of envy as he set his beer down on the table and stared into the froth.

  And stared, and stared.

  RUGBEARD’S WAY

  “What do you mean you can’t use it?” Aristodeus was saying to Shader as Nameless entered Queenie’s Fine Diner to the accompaniment of the tinkling bells above the door.

  Aristodeus was red-faced, and spittle flew as he raged. Nameless had never seen the philosopher’s eyes so wide, so bloodshot, so… haunted.

  Thunder rolled outside the window, and lightning sheeted upward into the sky. It had started when he left the Mermaid and begged directions to Queenie’s, and yet no rain had fallen as he made his way back.

  “Well?” the philosopher said, stabbing a finger at the gladius sheathed at Shader’s hip.

  Cords stood out on Shader’s neck, and his cheek twitched. But despite the fact he looked ready to carve Aristodeus up into pieces, he turned away. It wasn’t so much suppressed anger, Nameless realized: it was shame.

  Nameless made his way to the bar and plonked himself on a stool next to the scruffy waster who’d been slumped unconscious in the very same position before they’d left to rescue Shader.

  Rhiannon hovered by the latrine door, still looking green as grass. She sneered at Aristodeus, flicked her eyes in Nameless’s direction, then looked down at her feet.

  “So, we’re shogged, is what you’re saying?” Shadrak said. He was leaning back in his chair, feet crossed on a table. He eyed the crust he’d been nibbling, snorted, and tossed it over his shoulder.

  The kitchen doors swung open, and Albert backed out carrying a steaming dish in each hand.

  “Best I could do at such short notice,” he said, turning to see who was listening.

  No one was.

  Nameless leaned over to the unconscious punter and whispered, “Did I miss anything, laddie?”

  The punter grunted and turned his head to get more comfortable.

  And Nameless nearly fell off his stool.

  It was a dwarf. And not just any dwarf: it was someone he thought he knew. Or had known. A bulbous nose, purplish pigmentation to the cheeks; a crop of unkempt hair and a matted gray beard. And he stank. At first, Nameless thought it was the moldering stench from inside the great helm, but now he was sure it was coming from the dwarf. But what was his name? He knew he should remember, like he should have recalled the names of so many others they’d left behind at the ravine. Like he should have recalled his own.

  The dwarf gazed at him with rheumy eyes. He propped his head up on one arm and belched. Even the great helm offered no protection against such a rancid burp.

  “I know you, son?” the dwarf said.

  “I know you,” Nameless said. “I just don’t know who you are.”

  The dwarf peered round at the others in the diner, taking it all in with a bored expression. “That don’t make a whole lot of sense, knowing someone but not who they are. Tell me, son: you made it out of the ravine. Did anyone else survive?”

  “Rugbeard!” Nameless said. “Your name is Rugbeard.” The night warden of the mines, and one-time teacher of the Annals. He knew there was more, too: something about metal weight plates for training with.

  “Take that there helm off, son. Let me get a look at you. I could swear I know your voice.”

  Nameless sighed. “I can’t.” He indicated where the helm was fused to his neck. “I can’t remove it, see.”

  Rugbeard frowned and worried his lip. “How’s that, then?”

  Nameless looked round at the diner, caught Aristodeus glancing his way. He decided not to answer. He didn’t really know what to say. Everything was still a blur of conflicting images, and while he was piecing together the past, how could he be sure what was real and what was an invention of the black axe? And how much of what Aristodeus had revealed to him was simply for the purpose of manipulation?

  “At a guess,” Rugbeard said, “I’d have to say you was one of Droom’s boys. It’s in the way you speak, but it’s in the width of your shoulders, too. More than that, there can’t be too many helms like that one you’re wearing. Not made of scarolite. Only one I know of was in Droom’s possession. But there’s no way in shog’s cesspit you could be Lucius. That there stool would have broken under his weight, and he’d have been waving a book under my nose and wanting to debate about stuff that was authentic and stuff that weren’t. No, you have to be the other one. Thingy…” He idly picked up an empty bottle and studied the label, as if he could find the name that had eluded him there.

  “Lucius is dead,” Nameless said.

  Rugbeard dropped the bottle atop the bar, then slammed a hand down over it to stop it from rolling.

  “Dead? Lucius?” He closed his eyes and sighed. “How many more? How many fell to that butcher’s axe?”

  “You were there, Rugbeard. You must have seen what happened.”

  “No, I was not there. Soon as it started, I got out. Thing is, after arguing so much with Lucius about those passages in the Annals, the ones he said were genuine, but I said were fake, I went and had another look at them.”

  “Lucius was right?”

  Rugbeard looked at him as if he were an idiot. “No, Lucius weren’t right. I was. But the important thing is, stuff the fake passages said, stuff no one would have took to be true, had been born out by what we’d seen in the mines.”

  He peered long and hard at the great helm, as if willing Nameless to remember.

  And he did: bits and pieces. He remembered riding on the train to get to the headframe. He remembered Rugbeard driving.

  “Golems, son,” Rugbeard said. “We’d already seen golems were real, and when whistles were peeping all the way down to the floor of the ravine, when horns were blasting, and more Red Cloaks than I’ve seen in my entire life were forming up on every single walkway, I knew the slaughter was coming. It was written on the page, son: a butchery among the dwarves so terrible that hardly anyone survived. The Corrector, they said did it. A tyrant come to punish us for our sins.”

  “And Lucius knew this?”

  Rugbeard shook his head. “He was too wrapped up in fairy stories about the Axe of the Dwarf Lords. He never mentioned no Corrector to me. I bet he didn’t even read that far ahead. That’s the trouble with scholars these days: too specialized. Eyes only for what takes their interest.”

  “I remember nothing about any Corrector,” Nameless said. “Just a butcher. And people did survive. Lots of them. When we left Arx Gravis, there were Red Cloaks all over the place.”

  “Maybe the Annals got it wrong, then,” Rugbeard said. “Or perhaps it hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Oh, it happened, laddie, I can assure you of that. Just not the same way.”

  Could it be that Aristodeus had averted a much greater catastrophe? Maybe fate wasn’t set in stone after all.

  Rugbeard reached over the counter for a cask of mead. Albert scowled at him from across the room, and Rugbeard withdrew his hand as if slapped.

  As the poisoner-cum-chef stalked back toward the bar to keep an eye on his stock, Aristodeus sucked in a long breath through his teeth and asked Shader, “What have you done?”

  “Nothing I haven’t done,” Nameless threw across the diner at him. “Nor most of the people in this room, if I’m right.”

  Aristodeus shot him an irritated glare and then fixed his eyes on Shader once more.

  “I killed an defenseless man,” Shader said.

  “So shogging what?” Shadrak said. “Scut had it coming. Did for the other one myself.�
��

  “It was more than that,” Aristodeus said, taking a step closer. “You’ve killed before, and the sword didn’t reject you.”

  Shader closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was looking right at Nameless, pleading with him to say something; to understand.

  “It was the rage,” Nameless said. “Same as with me.”

  “No,” Shader said. “Not the same.”

  Nameless stood. That sounded like a criticism. And he was only trying to help. “What’s that supposed to mean, laddie?”

  “This is the Sword of the Archon, not some demonic axe.”

  “Meaning?” Nameless crossed his arms.

  Albert gave a delicate cough. “I take it no one’s hungry, then. Such a waste of good chowder.”

  Rugbeard raised a shaky hand. “Bring it here, sonny, and grab me another beer, while you’re at it.”

  “Meaning, the sin is all mine,” Shader said.

  Rhiannon scoffed. “Here we go again.”

  Shader flashed a look at her, and she instantly lowered her eyes and pulled up a seat at the bar on the other side of Rugbeard. Nameless resumed his stool as Albert plonked down the food in front of Rugbeard, complaining as he filled a tankard from a keg.

  “Me, too,” Rhiannon said, rubbing her stomach and wincing. “Sooner chance it than listen to any more of this shite.”

  “And me,” Nameless said. “Not that I can drink in this thing.” He rapped the side of the great helm then delivered an almighty slap to Rugbeard’s back. “But it’s yours if you’ll lighten the mood with a story. The taller, the better.”

  “There is only so long I will be ignored,” Aristodeus said.

  “Face it, Baldy,” Shadrak said, “your scutting master plan is shogged. Don’t know why you didn’t send an expert in the first place.” He drew his Thundershot and made a show of polishing it with a napkin.

  “Years and years and years,” Aristodeus said, thrusting his face into Shader’s. “Do you think I wanted to train you? Wanted to keep coming back to that stinking little hovel in the armpit of Nousia?”

  “That was it all along, wasn’t it?” Shader said, locking eyes with the philosopher. “I always knew you wanted something from me; something very specific; but you played me so well, got me thinking you were a friend, family, even.”

  Aristodeus turned away. “Oh, I was far more than that to you.”

  “Yes? And what might that have been?”

  Aristodeus flicked his fingers dismissively over his shoulder. “Time is not on our side. Whatever you may think about my motives, it is imperative that you wield the Sword of the Archon. Believe me, nothing else will suffice.”

  “Who says?” Shadrak stood and holstered his weapon.

  Aristodeus threw his hands in the air. “Are you all complete bloody morons?” He whirled on each one of them, eyes blazing with indignation, or maybe desperation.

  “The little fellow has a point,” Nameless said. “You have all the answers, then maybe you’d better start sharing them with the rest of us.”

  Aristodeus tensed, then sighed, and his shoulders slumped.

  “All I can say—and I mean that quite literally—is that I tried once before to stop Gandaw. I…” He grimaced and licked his lips. “I failed. I didn’t factor in the power of Eingana, which he had somehow harnessed. If it hadn’t been for the dwarves—for Maldark—”

  “The Fallen?” Shader said. “What—?”

  Rhiannon cut across him. “So, your plan’s to neutralize the statue with the Archon’s sword. You want to pit sister against brother.”

  Aristodeus rolled his head and looked around, his eyes eventually settling on a chair at Shadrak’s table. He pulled it out and sat down. “Not quite, but almost.” He flashed her a smile that said, “Go to the top of the class.”

  “The statue really is Eingana,” Aristodeus said. “Her fossilized essence. That was Gandaw’s genius: to harness the power of a god.”

  “Eingana’s no god,” Shader said. “Not in the true sense of the word. Neither’s the Archon, for that matter.”

  “Semantics!” Aristodeus said. “The point is, the Supernal Triad have incomparable power, at least in this cosmos. What Gandaw threatens—the end of all things—is madness. He wants to unmake what does not come from him, so that he can make all things anew, with himself as the one and only creator.”

  Albert insinuated his way into the conversation by starting to stack the plates on the table. “Isn’t that what we all want, ultimately?”

  “Weirdo,” Rhiannon said.

  Aristodeus snatched an olive from one of the plates and popped it into his mouth. He chewed noisily.

  Albert cocked his head and watched the philosopher eat, then said, “What I mean is, it’s natural to want to control.” He proffered Aristodeus the last olive, which was accepted with relish.

  “Which is why you’re such a obsessive, conniving bastard, Albert,” Shadrak said.

  “Look who’s talking,” Albert said. “How many times was it you followed Councilor Hordred home till you were absolutely certain of his every habit? Seven? Eight?”

  Shadrak gave a little cough and spoke behind his hand. “Twelve.”

  “My point is,” Aristodeus said, “that Gandaw’s—”

  “A nut job?” Rhiannon said.

  Shader glared at her. He looked about to berate her, but then his mouth dropped open, and he said, “No, he’s been deceived.”

  Aristodeus jabbed a finger at him. “Exactly. Gandaw thinks he’s in control; thinks he’s fathomed everything there is to fathom; thinks he has the perfect plan to unweave the old and create the new, but he forgets what he is. He’s no god. He’s human, and as flawed as the creation he judges so harshly. But more than that, he’s blinded by his own hubris. Yes, he can control Eingana, but does he know what she really is, where she comes from? Do any of us, other than in some loose metaphysical sense?”

  He nodded approvingly at Shader. “Maybe all that training wasn’t completely wasted. Deception is what underlies this whole bloody mess. Self-deception, yes, but a whole other layer of deception beneath that.”

  “The Father of Lies,” Shader said. “The Demiurgos.”

  “Eureka!” Aristodeus said. A look of relief came over him, and he dabbed at an eye with his finger. He may have been wiping away a tear.

  “Laddies, laddies, laddies,” Nameless said. “And lassie. Much as I’d love to listen to your theologizing all day, this peeling away the layers of the onion doesn’t solve our immediate problem, now, does it?”

  Shadrak gave a slow handclap. “Thank shog for that. At least someone’s got his head out of his arse.”

  “Yes,” Albert said. “I was rather wondering how analyzing Gandaw’s obvious megalomania is going to put an end to what he’s up to.”

  Another crash of thunder shook the windows, and in its wake, the diner was noticeably darker.

  “So, what you’re saying,” Shadrak said, “is Shader’s the only one who can handle Gandaw.” He shook his head, as if at some private joke. “But to succeed, he needs the sword.”

  “If it were a simple matter of fighting prowess,” Aristodeus said, “I’d have finished Gandaw when I had the chance.”

  “Yeah, well maybe you ain’t as good as you think,” Shadrak said. “Maybe I should have a crack at him.”

  Aristodeus slapped a palm to his forehead and pressed his lips tightly together. “Eingana is our problem. How many times do I have to—?”

  “But only the righteous can wield the Sword of the Archon!” Rhiannon said, as if a light had suddenly gone on. “That’s why…” She looked Shader directly in the eye. “That’s why this creep warned me off you.” She flicked a look at Aristodeus.

  “So I’d remain holy,” Shader said, shaking his head.

  “The important thing is—” Aristodeus started.

  “And Rhiannon?” Shader asked. “You think you had the right?”

  Aristodeus pushed himself to his feet a
nd drew himself up to his full height. “This isn’t about you, Deacon,” he said in a voice full of weariness. “We are talking about the end of all things. Sacrifice. If there’s one thing I hoped you’d take from all that Nousian balderdash, it’s sacrifice. The needs of the other…”

  Shader finished for him: “… outweigh the needs of the suffering servant.”

  “Oh, please,” Rhiannon said. “That’s just about love; you know, self-giving love. Least that’s what they said in the novitiate. Not quite the same as you shogging around with people’s lives and expecting them to take it.”

  “You,” Aristodeus said, turning his finger on her and fixing her with a glare, “need to keep quiet.” He raised an eyebrow, and something was communicated between them. Whatever it was, Rhiannon sighed and backed away to the bar.

  Thunder boomed outside, and this time rain began to pelt the windows.

  “Nameless is right,” Aristodeus said. “We need to deal with the immediate crisis. What happens after that—if there is an after that—is a battle for another day. You are the only one remotely close to being able to wield the Archon’s sword,” he said to Shader. “I’ve already tried once.” He brushed his palms together. “And these two”—he took in Albert and Shadrak—“have a trade that’s hardly compatible with holiness. Rhiannon is… well, she’s Rhiannon.” She was pouring herself a beer from a cask as he spoke. “And Nameless…”

  “Why not just spit it out, laddie?” Nameless said. “A murderer? A maniac? What’s the word for someone who attempts to butcher his entire race?”

  Rugbeard stiffened, and he turned wide eyes on Nameless.

  “I was going to say,” Aristodeus said, “that you might have been the perfect choice, had you not had your own brush with the Demiurgos. I’m sorry, Nameless, but the black axe wounded you far more deeply than it did your people.”

  Nameless was barely listening. He couldn’t take his eyes off Rugbeard’s face. The old dwarf hadn’t known. Hadn’t worked it out.

  “Droom used to say,” Rugbeard said. “Used to say…”

  “Salvation would come from my mother’s womb, laddie. I know.” Nameless pivoted the great helm so he could stare at the wall. The rush and patter of rain echoed around his skull. It called to him, lured him back into rivers of blood.