by D. P. Prior
At some point during the night, he awakened. A thrill of energy coursed through his veins, as if he’d been struck by lightning.
Leaving the cave, he took to the road beneath the hills with confident strides, as full of purpose as he’d ever been in his life. He surged into a run, then bounded through the air in long-reaching arcs.
His dream had shown him what he needed to do, what he had been born for.
Salvation would indeed come from his mother’s womb, like the homunculus had told his pa, and a son of Droom would usher in a new age of Dwarf Lords.
RETURN TO THE RAVINE
Raphoe’s silvery face hung directly above the ravine, showing it up for what it really was: a hideaway for skulking cowards, dwarves who’d grown too afraid to reclaim their rightful place in the world. They should have been Dwarf Lords, protecting the weak, reining in the strong. And like the mythical lords of old, they should have driven back the nightmares, not just those that sprang from the tortured mind of the Cynocephalus, but every menace that plagued the people of Aethir: Sektis Gandaw, the corrupt Senate of New Londdyr, the reavers on the Sea of Insanity.
It was shameful, the way the dwarves did nothing, while the lands above Arx Gravis went to wrack and ruin. And it was never going to change, not while the Council of Twelve had their heads up their arses, debating and debating and never doing a shogging thing. Never even wanting to.
Well, all that was about to change.
Nameless craned his neck to angle a look at the moon, check that it wasn’t mocking him. Then, by its light, he gazed down into the chasm.
Silver limned the walkways radiating out from the vast central tower of the Aorta that sprouted from the bed of the ravine. Tier upon tier of interconnected platforms, dimly lit by amber glowstones, shone like the luminescent webs of a gigantic spider.
Moonlight flickered across the ravine walls in an eerie shadow play. In its macabre animation, he saw all manner of ghouls and wraiths, but not the scaled demons he’d seen before, when he’d returned from Gehenna with the axe. He knew them for what they were now: trickery; a desperate attempt by the Demiurgos and his ilk to hide the truth from him.
He felt Pax Nanorum’s pulsing throb, even through the gauntlets. It found its resonant echo in the Lich Lord’s armor, the black plates of which covered him neck to foot and rendered him utterly invulnerable. With his head encased in scarolite above the armor’s gorget, and with the Shield of Warding strapped to his arm, the dwarves could do nothing to harm him.
As wind skirled into the chasm and ebbed away, he entertained thoughts of a second massacre, this time starting at the top and working his way down to the Dodecagon on the seventh level, the seat of the Council’s power. But his dream had given him another way. A better way that involved far less killing. Why would he want to end his people, when he could lead them into a glorious tomorrow?
With that heady thought filling his veins with fire, he studied the walkways below, plotted a passage between them, then leapt from the brink.
He plummeted like a meteor falling from the sky. Wind whistled past the great helm, tugged at the shield and axe. Faster and faster he hurtled, until the seventh level walkway came up to meet him, and he hit it like a thunderclap.
Stone fractured beneath his feet, sending a fault-line all the way to the scarolite door of the Dodecagon. The statues of Dwarf Lords and Arnochian kings wobbled. Either side of the door, the mummified figures of former councilors teetered and almost fell.
The two black-cloaked Krypteia on guard duty gawped, as if one of Arnoch’s gods had just appeared to them.
They wouldn’t have been far wrong.
Nameless strode toward the door.
One of the Black Cloaks raised a horn. His hand shook so much, he couldn’t find his lips.
Nameless flung the black axe. It streaked like dark lightning, sheered straight through the horn-blower’s neck. The other Krypteia threw up his hands, even as the Pax Nanorum reversed in midair and flew back to Nameless’s grasp.
Nameless knew the door could only be locked from the outside—a peculiar mystery of the Dodecagon’s original purpose that no one had shed much light on. He also knew the Krypteia held the means to open it.
Nevertheless, he shoved the trembling Black Cloak against a side wall with the shield and held him there, not firm enough to crush him, but just hard enough for him to think he was being crushed.
Nameless raised the axe and slammed it into the scarolite door. The impact rocked the walkway, but the door was unscathed. He hit it again, and one of the statues cracked and toppled over the side. A third strike, and whistles began to peep on the level below, soon to be met by the blast of horns.
It wasn’t right. He’d smashed through the scarolite wall of the Perfect Peak. Why could he not do so here? Was there more to the doors of the Dodecagon than mere scarolite? Some other secret of homunculus lore shared with the Founders, now lost in the haze of history?
The Ravine Guard were coming. He was half-inclined to meet the challenge, but his mission was to save.
“Open it,” Nameless said, releasing the Black Cloak from the pressure of the shield.
The Krypteia’s eyes flitted left and right, as if he thought he might run for it, but then they fastened on the axe. He’d seen what it could do.
He drew back his sleeve to reveal a silver vambrace, touched it to a crystalline panel on the wall, and the door ground upward.
The tramp of booted feet made Nameless look behind.
A platoon of Red Cloaks had responded quicker than they used to back in his day. But then they would, wouldn’t they? After what they’d faced the time death came to the ravine.
Ignoring their challenges, he grabbed the Krypteia by the cloak, swung him around his head, and launched him at the gathering Ravine Guard.
Nameless turned before he saw the result of the impact. The clatter and clang that followed brought a smile to his lips, but then he was through the doorway and once more within the sanctuary of the Dodecagon.
There were twelve walls, and twelve black doors flecked with green that each opened onto a different walkway or plaza. Blue light from an unseen source suffused the chamber. The head of a Dwarf Lord was embossed in the center of every door. They appeared to regard him with pride.
Twenty-four ribs of scarolite stretched from the edges of each wall to meet at a hub of gold in the middle of the ceiling. The hub was molded in the form of twin axe blades, symbolizing the Pax Nanorum, the Axe of the Dwarf Lords said to hang above the throne of the king of Arnoch.
But the architects had got that detail wrong: the Pax Nanorum was black, not golden; and it was here in this chamber, in Nameless’s gauntleted hand, not in the mythical city of origin.
Twelve white-robed councilors stood up from their chairs at the debating table.
At their head was the Voice, Thumil.
A NEW KIND OF RULE
“Thumil,” Nameless said, “how’s that wife of yours? I trust you find her satisfactory?”
Thumil’s eyes flitted to something behind Nameless’s shoulder.
There was a whoosh of air, a concussive clang, and a spray of rock shards that clattered as they hit the floor. A hammerhead by the looks of it. Big one, too. But not big enough to dent the Lich Lord’s armor. Nothing was.
Nameless didn’t even bother to look round to see who’d struck him. He heard the scuff of boots on stone, backing away.
“Close the door on your way out,” he said, without taking his eyes off the Voice of the Council.
Thumil nodded that the unseen assailant should do as he was told.
Muttered voices came from outside, but then slowly, the door began to grind back down. When it thudded shut, the atmosphere in the Dodecagon changed in an instant. Nameless could read it on the councilors’ faces, that they felt it, too.
“Tomb-like, isn’t it?”
No one answered.
“It’s odd how I still can’t remember my own name, but I know
all of you.”
Councilor Castail, every inch a Dwarf Lord in his bearing, and his aquiline nose doing nothing to dispel the impression. Old Moary, so ancient, you had to wonder if he’d known the Founders personally. Yuffie the Corrupt—the epithet was Nameless’s, but if it fit… Councilor Crony, a tattooed brute who everyone thought was half-baresark. Weaselly, pedantic, Tor Garnil; the bespectacled Dorley with a stack of statute books before him; withered-up Jarrol, who can’t have been a day over two-hundred; blubbery Bley; Stang, whom Nameless had only shaken hands with at Thumil’s wedding. They’d been damp hands, as sweat-slicked as Stang’s balding head looked now. Then there was Konin the Gibuna—not that he looked anything like the flesh-eating primates from the foot of the ravine, but when Dythin Rala had been Voice, Konin had allegedly aped his every mannerism, right down to the smoking of a pipe. A dwarf like that could come in handy.
And last but not least, Throam Grago, the councilor who would be king. He was barking in the right direction, but he wasn’t the dwarf for the job. Not while there was a stronger candidate.
The councilors’ eyes flicked to one another as Nameless slowly panned the eye-slit along the table, taking them in, judging them wanting or useful. Behind the white-robes, he noticed a slight bulging of the walls. He turned a quick circle, then shook his helmed head.
“You can come out now. We’re all dwarves here.”
Hesitantly, twelve concealer-cloaked Krypteia stepped away from the walls, one for each councilor. They were armed with hand crossbows, but no one had dared to fire. The Krypteia were any number of things, but they weren’t stupid.
“Concealer cloaks in the Dodecagon? What’s this, enhanced security? And I thought they were a rarity, only available to the guards at the top of the ravine. Councilor Grago, have you been placing orders with Gehenna?” Because no dwarf could make such a garment. The ones they had were left over from the time of the Founders, and they had been made by the homunculi.
“We, uh, we discovered a stash of concealer cloaks.”
“You’re lying, of course,” Nameless said. “Which one of you has contacts among the homunculi? You Grago? Thumil, perhaps?”
When no one answered, he chuckled. “It’s quite all right. I’m not chastising you. I actually think it’s a good thing. The Founders were allied with the homunculi, and we should be, too. Only, our alliance must be negotiated from a position of strength.
“Now, tell me, Councilor Grago, are the Black Cloaks still yours?”
Grago had control of the Krypteia, same as Marshal Mordin commanded the Ravine Guard: checks and balances against the power of the Voice.
Grago wetted his lips, exchanged glances with Thumil, and said, “They are.”
“Well, now they’re mine.”
Fire flashed in Grago’s eyes, but he swiftly lowered them and gave a curt nod. He was as pugnacious as a circle fighter, and uncharacteristically ambitious for a councilor—qualities Nameless could use to his advantage.
He took in the bewildered Krypteia with a sweep of the great helm. “Kill Councilor Grago.”
Grago’s head shot up, his eyes aghast.
Crossbows took wavering aim.
“Just joshing,” Nameless said. “Like to know who’s onside. You lads passed with flying colors.”
“What is it you want, old friend,” Thumil said through clenched teeth.
“So, we are still friends?” Nameless said. A thread of violence wrapped itself around the lump that formed in his throat. It coerced him to curse and yell, to accuse of betrayal—with Cordy, if nothing else. His fingers tightened around the axe haft, and the Pax Nanorum moaned in his head, as if it took pleasure from the touch.
And he felt it then, so vividly he could almost see feelers of fuligin passing between the axe, the gauntlets, the armor, and the shield—a web of darkness that contained him like a shadowed womb. He felt their puissance, their protectiveness, their overwhelming love for him.
Thumil shuddered as he sighed. “We will always be friends.”
Nameless stared at him for a long moment, until Thumil looked away.
“Cordy, too?” he asked. “Does she feel the same way? Oh, that reminds me, did Shader’s blessing work? Did she have that baby?”
Thumil closed his eyes and nodded, hands splayed out on the tabletop to take his weight.
“Then why so glum? You should be happy. We all should. That’s what Arx Gravis needs: children. Lots of them, if we are to become great again.”
“That is why you came back?” Grago said, the spark of opportunity in his eyes. “Not to… I mean, not to…”
“Rivers of blood? Is that what you were thinking when I came in?”
Looks passed up and down the table.
“The Butcher returned to the ravine? That was different. I was deceived. A double-deception of the Demiurgos, you might call it. What’s golden was indeed black,”—he hefted the axe, and everyone flinched—“but how better to disguise true treasure than to cast it in shadow? I see it now, clear as day. This,”—he rapped the Shield of Warding with the axe head—“guards against sorcery. It also protects against beguilement. I am immune. Untouchable to the Abyss. Invulnerable.
“But a baby, Thumil: that is wonderful. I must insist on being the soul-father. Tell me you agree.”
Thumil was wide-eyed with shock. “We… We have already named her.”
Nameless felt the rip of betrayal once more, scoring a fissure through his ribcage and tearing at his heart.
“Marla,” Thumil said. “We named her Marla, after my grandma.”
“Not Yyalla, then?” After Nameless’s ma. “I thought Cordy would have—”
“She wanted to,” Thumil said. “We both did. But after what happened…”
“You mean, after the butchery?”
Silence crept down from the ceiling to smother them. No one dared speak, and Nameless was left reeling once more with the full extent of what he’d done.
One by one, the councilors lowered themselves into their seats, until only Thumil was left standing.
“We had no soul-father,” Thumil said, the moisture in his eyes glistening in the hidden blue light. “There could have been no one else but you.”
Nameless’s eyes brimmed with tears as he stared blearily out of the great helm. “Thank you. Thank you, Thumil.”
The axe throbbed in his grip. His field of vision narrowed to a bloody line. Rage erupted from every pore.
He wrenched his gaze from Thumil before he acted on the impulse to cut his shogging head off. Every instinct told him to do it; all but one that seemed to come from a well of darkness at his core.
“Now, councilors,” he said in a voice that came out a growl, “things are going to be different round here. Change is coming to Arx Gravis.”
“Well, I don’t know—” Old Moary started, no doubt sensing the beginnings of a new round of debate.
“Real change. Action. Decisiveness. And war.”
“War?” Thumil said. “What do you—?”
“Is that pervert Mordin still in post?” Nameless asked.
“Marshal Mordin commands the Ravine Guard.”
“Good. Summon him at once.”
“Not if your intention is—” Councilor Stang said, leaping to his feet.
The black axe launched itself from Nameless’s hand and exited the back of Stang’s head. Everything from the nose up slopped away to the floor. The jaw remained attached to the body, which crashed into the table.
Nameless opened his hand to receive the returning axe.
“War is indeed my intention. War with New Londdyr.”
THE CORRECTOR
“Ah, Mordin,” Nameless said as the scarolite door ground upward and the marshal ducked inside the Dodecagon. He was wearing Thumil’s old golden helm, and the red cloak of the Ravine Guard.
Mordin’s eyes sought out Thumil. “I was told you wanted to see me, my Lord Voice.”
“You can close the door now,” Nameless said to
the Black Cloaks outside. “No need for anyone else to see this.”
A frown passed across Thumil’s face.
“No need to worry, Thumil,” Nameless said. “You and I are thick as thieves. Yes, we both loved the same woman, but the best man won, eh? And at least Cordy is a woman, not like the wee lassie Mordin here slipped his dwarfhood to.”
“What?” Mordin said.
“She was ninety-six, for shog’s sake,” Thumil said. “We’ve already had this conversation.”
“You have?” Mordin said. “I did nothing wrong, according to the law, and Bethyn is more than happy being my wife.”
“Widow,” Nameless said.
Mordin’s face went pale. He leaned over the debating table to Thumil. “My Lord Voice, just give the word and—”
Nameless ripped the golden helm from the marshal’s head and slung it across the room.
Mordin spun, half-drew his sword, but Nameless grabbed him by the wrist and squeezed. Power flowed through the fire giant’s gauntlet. Mordin whimpered, then squealed, then screamed as cartilage cracked, sinew snapped, and bones shattered.
“Stop!” Thumil cried, coming round the table.
Nameless placed a hand either side of Mordin’s head then slammed his palms together. Everything in between was pulp that shot upwards in a spray, then showered down on the floor.
“All because I nominated him my replacement,” Thumil said, “instead of you.”
“Thought never occurred to me,” Nameless said. “This is all about change. Thumil, consider yourself reinstated as marshal. There’s no need for a Voice anymore. Grago, you will be my right hand.”
Grago stood and gave a low bow. The other councilors looked at him with horror, but Grago’s shrug said he was just being pragmatic, like any shrewd politician.
“Dorley,” Nameless addressed the scholar, who was hiding behind his stack of books. “If we’re going to do this without more blood than is necessary, I’m going to need propaganda: emerging from darkness into light, that sort of thing. A return to Arnoch… Whatever it takes to fire the imagination of the people, fill their heads with dreams of glory.