Another Day, Another Dungeon

by Greg Costikyan

  "It hardly need be said," said Veronee, "that our cause has its opponents."

  "My lady," said Timaeus thickly, "I shall do whatever I can to aid you."

  Romantic sap, thought the baroness. Caught up in the baroness's tale, Timaeus had hardly noticed when they began to climb Collin Hill. And here was her town house.

  "I would appreciate it if you would stay for the night," said the baroness. "Under the circumstances, I believe it would be reassuring to have a man about the house."

  "Of course," said Timaeus.

  "This is Rupert," said Veronee, waving at the butler. "He will get you anything you need. You'll forgive me for a few moments? I have some things to attend to." While Timaeus examined the bookshelves, she motioned to Rupert and headed to the door from the room. "Has Cook begun supper?" she asked.

  "Yes, my lady," Rupert said. "But I believe a guest can be accommodated."

  "Good," said the baroness. When they were out of the room, she closed the door behind them. "Forget supper," she said in low tones. "Prepare to flee."

  "My lady?" said the butler, raising an eyebrow.

  "I have killed the grand duke," she said. "I believe the palace has a fair idea that I am responsible."

  Rupert blanched. "Yes, my lady," he said faintly. "I shall prepare the carriage at once."

  "Good." "Shall I tell Cook?"

  "Mmm? Ah . . . no." Cook, unlike Rupert, had no value except as a servant. Moreover, she knew too much. Best that she burn with the house. "I understand, my lady," said Rupert. "Will that be all?"

  "Better see if Timaeus wants something," said Veronee. "Slip something in his drink to make him . . . suggestible."

  "Very good, my lady," said Rupert. Veronee descended into her cellars.

  "Go to the crypt," she told the lich. "Tell those fool orcs to leave their prisoners and—"

  "I've been," whispered the lich. "Pardon?"

  "I went to check on those idiots," the lich hissed. "Capturing the thief and the barbarian was a pain in the neck. Or the upper thoracic region, at any event. I wanted to make sure they hadn't escaped."

  "And?" "They had." "Who had what?"

  "The crypt was open and the orcs were gone," the lich whispered. Veronee blinked. "Any sign of a struggle?"

  "No obvious bloodstains."

  "Damn," said Veronee. "Well, no matter. I know where the statue is. We're going to obtain it and flee."

  "Flee?" "To Arst-Kara-Morn."

  The lich shuddered. Well, it would make a change. "What about your mission here?" it hissed.

  "I've been compromised," said Veronee. "We have several spells to prepare. I need fresh zombies to lift the statue into the coach. I need demonic horses to pull us faster than pursuit can follow. And I need to burn down the house."

  "Burn it?"

  "Too much evidence to destroy any other way," she said, waving at the cellar that surrounded them.

  "How do you propose to do that?" asked the lich.

  Veronee smiled tightly. "I have a . . . cooperative . . . fire mage upstairs," she said.

  "Ah," said the lich. That ought to do the trick. Fire mages tended to explode at death in any event. A properly handled sacrifice ought to work wonders.

  "Come," said the baroness. "Let us begin."

  There were four kittens in the cage. They mewled piteously as the baroness unlocked the door. She picked one up and held it to her cheek. "Puss, puss, puss," she said. The tiny cat rubbed its head against her cheek and purred throbbingly.

  The Fifth Frontier Warders were three hundred strong. They'd left the few horses they had at home; cavalry is good for scouting and cowing unarmed crowds, but horses are vulnerable to spells. In a magic-heavy urban combat zone, infantry's the thing.

  Major Yohn surveyed his troops. They were in a loose tortoise, overlapping shields, spears forward. He fretted about magic. With magic, a wizard can deliver a great deal of energy at a single place and time, to devastating effect. Consequently, dispersal is sensible whenever magic is expected.

  But infantry is most effective en masse. Infantry delivers its energy at the point of its spears and the edge of its swords. The more spears and swords per cubit of frontage, the more damage it can do. Concentration of force at the point of the enemy's weakness is the essence of its strategy.

  It was a conundrum for which there was no single solution, Yohn knew. Each situation had its optimum response, its own best combination of concentration and dispersal. His lieutenants had been for a dispersed approach, house to house fighting across the parish. That, Yohn knew, would lead to casualties. Too, it might drag on for days. The quicker he could restore order, the higher he would rise in the estimation of the court.

  And Yohn was sick of being known as some backwoods bandit hunter. Suppress unrest in full view of Castle Durf, and his star would rise.

  A massed formation was required. So he made the best compromise he could. The wards were out.

  At each corner of the formation, and at several places in between, minor adepts raised standards. Each standard was a regimental icon, many times bloodied; each had been raised in many battles, in many lands. Each was rich with tradition, honor, and, more important, mana. The traditions, the antiquity, invested them with power.

  They were the poles across which the Fifth Frontier strung its spell. For the Fifth Frontier had no great wizard, no collegiate magister, no major adept. It had only a few minor talents, a few traditional wards; and the voices of three hundred men.

  In unison, they chanted the Words, the Words of power. Other than the adepts, no man had any inkling of the meaning of the Words. No single man contributed a tenth, a hundredth of the energy a single trained mage could have brought to bear; for few of them had the slightest magical comprehension.

  But there were three hundred of them. Together, they forged a spell of considerable power.

  Yohn prayed it would be enough.

  He was in luck. The rumor of the statue was spreading across the city still; but those at the center of the maelstrom had already learned that the statue was gone. Yohn did not have to contend with the Boars, Ross Montiel's disciplined goons, Veronee's zombies, or demons; they were gone. Only a dozen or so other groups remained, each after an object of fantastic value. An elven ship's crew, now fighting only for survival; a shadow mage, skulking through the alleys and sending out shadows of daggers to destroy those in his path; dockyard toughs, down to a disciplined core, holding number twelve at the moment and sifting desperately through the rubble in search of something no longer there; twenty disciplined Hamsterian soldiers, in civilian garb, bearing forged papers, out to collect an item that would bolster the lord mayor's dubious claim to the rule of all humanity; a gnomish artificer with small but deadly clockwork dragons to do his fighting, hoping to obtain a lifetime supply of athenor to fuel his devices, . . . and others. Many others.

  But none, any longer, with the magical prowess to break the wards of the Fifth Frontier.

  The Fifth Frontier marched down Thwart. The opposition melted before them. Here, quite evidently, were the grand duke's men, out to restore order to a parish that was now largely ruins.

  Oh, they took casualties. The Hamsterian soldiers stood their ground and fought, convinced that the Athelstani had discovered their mission and would show no mercy. They died to the last man, taking a good dozen of Yohn's men with them. And several of Yohn's officers died with mysterious stab wounds in their backs. But the shadow mage gave up when he realized he could not hope to rout so large a force.

  There were fools who loosed a quarrel before they realized what they faced. There were those who panicked and fought when they might have surrendered. But within two hours, Yohn controlled Five Corners.

  XVII

  From the kitchen at the rear of Veronee's town house ran a simple wooden stair down to an innocuous root cellar. There, Cook stored potatoes, root vegetables, and the dried mushrooms the grand duke insisted on giving Veronee from time to time. A door from the root cel
lar led to a disused wine cellar. The wine cellar held dusty wine racks and a few bottles of wine; Veronee drank very little and kept only meagre stock to meet the needs of her occasional guests. The previous owner of the town house had been a lover of wine; he had died accidentally in a particularly ghastly way -coincidentally, shortly before Veronee bought the place. Or not so coincidentally, actually.

  At one corner of the root cellar, a trapdoor lay under a pile of enormous dried mushrooms (a subspecies of Lycoperdon giganteum, a full four feet across at the crown). Under the trapdoor was a spiral stair.

  The stair ran down a circular shaft that a cooperative earth mage had dug through the sand underlying Veronee's house. The mage, too, had expired of unnatural causes at an early age, a fact the baroness found propitious, as she had no desire for others to learn of her subterranean secrets.

  At the foot of the stair was Veronee's workroom. It was a large chamber, lit by tapers affixed to the earthen walls. The floor was a wooden platform suspended over the earth on blocks of stone. About the walls were bookshelves, several inches inward from the earth itself, avoiding direct contact with the soil. Worktables and chairs were scattered about the room. Cages stacked against one wall held small animals for Veronee's use.

  Two doors led from the workroom: one to the room where Veronee kept her records, and the other to a smaller chamber containing prison cells.

  The baroness had reason to hold people occasionally, usually prior to involving them in her magical preparations.

  The prison chamber had another door; it led to the catacombs themselves. This served a dual purpose: as a bolthole through which Veronee might flee if the authorities should descend unannounced, and as a means for her servants to visit the city surreptitiously. The prison chamber also contained a small stair, leading to what Veronee called her morgue: little more than a pit, it was used to store corpses until needed.

  From the records room, a short stair ran to Veronee's bedroom. Veronee forewent the traditional coffin in favor of a comfortable feather bed; a pillow filled with earth sufficed to provide contact with the soil in which she had been buried, one of the unhappy requirements of her current . . . incarnation.

  Veronee stood in her workroom. A corpse, fairly fresh, lay on the table before her. In her hand was a kitten. She raised a knife high and plunged it down. She spoke Words of power.

  She tossed the dead kitten over her shoulder and completed her spell. The corpse rose from the worktable and stumbled over to join five other zombies in front of a bookshelf.

  The lich entered the room, dry bones piled like firewood in its brownrobed arms. It tumbled the bones onto Veronee's table. "That's the lot," it whispered.

  "What?" said Veronee. "Only seven?"

  "I haven't had time to fetch more bodies," whispered the lich irritably. "We used up most of the morgue in the fight at Five Corners."

  "Very well," said Veronee. "It will have to do." She went to the cages. A large rat stared at her malevolently. She preferred more tractable animals but had exhausted her supply of kittens and puppies. Rats were smart; they weren't trusting.

  She reached into the cage. The rat struck at her hand, but she was too fast. She grabbed it by the neck. It struggled fiercely.

  She spoke a Word and went to the worktable. She picked up her knife and spoke again. The bones rustled.

  Halfway through her spell, a pounding noise came from her prison chamber. She was so startled that she almost lost her concentration. Determinedly, she focused on the spell. She spoke faster; gradually, control returned. The pounding noise continued as she completed the spell.

  The lich moved toward the prison chamber to take a look. When Veronee finished, she ran to join it.

  At the far end of the chamber, a heavy door barred the way to the catacombs. An axe blade protruded through the door. The blade pulled out, readying for another swing.

  "I believe we have company," whispered the lich.

  Her mind awhirl, Veronee slammed and bolted the door between the workroom and the prison chamber. Who was out there? Sir Ethelred was, no doubt, dispatching men to arrest her even now; but soldiers would come through the streets. Would they not?

  She whirled on the zombies. "Kill anything that comes through that door," she said, pointing to the door she'd locked. They moved to form a semicircle around it.

  "Come on," she snapped to the lich. Both of them ran for the spiral stair.

  If the attackers weren't men from the palace, who could they be? No one else knew about the catacombs . . .

  Except those damned orcs.

  They skittered upward, the lich's foot bones clanging hollowly on the metal stairs. "Those orcs," Veronee gasped. "They've betrayed me." "Ah," whispered the lich. They came to the root cellar. "But to whom?" "To Pratchitt and the barbarian, fool," she snarled.

  "Shall I close the trapdoor?"

  "No," Veronee said. "I have to think." Pratchitt and the others must be attacking below. The zombies would hold them off for a while. But how would she get the statue into her carriage without zombies to lift it?

  Timaeus, thought the baroness. An excellent idea. What a pleasure it would be to use the fool against his friends.

  "Those zombies won't hold them long," the lich whispered. "Very well," said Veronee. "Get Cook."

  "Ah," said the lich. It shrugged and climbed the wooden stairs to the kitchen.

  While she waited, Veronee cursed herself for her stupidity. The orcs were both stupid and greedy: cleverness could outwit them and gold could buy them. She had been foolish to leave them unattended.

  Still, she thought, if I ever encounter Garfok and Drizhnakh again, they will wish they were dead. Then, after a while, they'll wish they weren't dead.

  Veronee chuckled to herself and readied her silver knife.

  Bony fingers opened the door to the kitchen. A tiny, gray-haired woman looked up tiredly. "Bitch wants you," whispered the lich.

  Cook stood up and sighed. She trudged to the cellar door, muttering something. She climbed laboriously down the stairs, clutching the wooden bannister for dear life. Resignedly, the lich followed after.

  "Thank you, dear," said the baroness when Cook reached the cellar floor. The old woman bobbed in a perfunctory curtsey. "Amatagung!" Veronee shouted.

  Cook looked up with a puzzled expression. With a flourish, the baroness sliced into her own palm, drawing a line of blood. She stepped sideways and began a slow dance.

  Cook, terrified, backed directly into the lich's arms. Its bony fingers grabbed her and held her tightly.

  The baroness's chanting came to a climax. With a single stroke of her knife, perfectly timed with the steps of her dance, she cut Cook's throat. The baroness knelt with the woman on the cold stone floor, sucking greedily at the throat. After a moment, she stepped back, wiped her mouth, sighed with satiety, and finished severing the head, chanting Words of power.

  Finished with her spell, she held Cook's head before her. Blood dripped from the stump of the neck. Cook's eyes moved, looking sluggishly about the room.

  "Good," whispered Veronee. Quickly, she moved to the spiral stair and tossed the head down the shaft.

  "Come," she said to the lich.

  Timaeus tottered around the parlor. The room was spinning. He was beginning to regret having asked Rupert for a whiskey. He'd been drinking all afternoon; the whiskey was proving to be the final straw.

  He tried to focus on the title of a book. He was pulling it off the shelf when the door flung open and the baroness Veronee hurried into the room. "Timaeus!" she cried. "They are here!"

  Timaeus looked up. "Who?" he asked thickly.

  "The servants of darkness!" she cried, taking his hand. "They attack from below. Come, we must flee." She tugged him toward the door. "But my lady," said Rupert, entering the study. "We cannot hope to outdistance them; they have magical steeds."

  "Then all is lost," Veronee said and threw herself into an armchair, weeping. Timaeus stared at her, aghast. Before he could c
omfort her, Rupert spoke.

  "I will stay," said Rupert bravely. "Perhaps by sacrificing my miserable life, I can hope to buy you some scant seconds."

  Timaeus's mind was moving fuzzily, but he had a fair idea what was expected of him under the circumstances. Noblesse oblige, and all that.

  "Nay, faithful servant," he said unsteadily, "attend your mistress. I shall stay and serve what use I may."

  Veronee rose and flung herself into his arms. "Oh, bravest Tim," she said, and kissed him soundly. "I will remember you always." She took his hand and tugged him toward the door. "Come," she said. "They will attack through the cellar, from the catacombs."

  "What?" said Timaeus. "You must face them there."

  "I shall do what I may," said Timaeus. He was beginning to wonder how he'd gotten himself into this one.

  Veronee led him through the kitchen and down into a root cellar. She pointed to the spiral stair. "There is where they will come."

  "Righto," said Timaeus, reaching for his pipe.

  "Then . . . farewell, dearest Tim," she said, kissed him once more, and scurried out the door.

  Garni plunged the axe into the door again.

  Morglop stood with Kraki, right behind the dwarf. Their weapons were out. They were ready to charge through the door.

  Wentworth crouched beside the door, an explosive flask in his hands. Wizards stood in a semicircle behind Morglop and Kraki, readying spells. "They won't know what hit 'em," said one Boar to another.

  Sidney was at the rear with several Boars, guarding the orcs. The last thing anyone needed was to worry about a stab in the back from their green-skinned "allies."

  "It's going," grunted Garni. On his next swing, the door splintered. Spells poured through the opening. The prison chamber resounded with green flashes, red explosions, a burst of yellow light. Arrows shot through the door. Fighting men poured in, swords and axes ready. . . .

  "Is empty," said Kraki with frustration, dancing about the room. He looked distinctly upset.

  Morglop prowled the room, double-checking to make sure that no danger lurked. A spell had melted the bars of one of the prison cells into surreal shapes. Char marks could be seen on the walls.