The Dungeoneers

by John David Anderson

  WHY WIZARDS SHOULDN’T CARRY SWORDS

  The next morning brought both stew and conversation left over from the night before. The dining hall hummed with accounts of the attack on the castle, each version a revision of the last. In the latest telling, there were at least three hundred orcs, the wall of stone was twice the size of the castle, and Tye Thwodin had actually bested two orcs by smothering them beneath his armpits. And yet every conversation eventually circled around to Grahm Wolfe.

  “I heard he was on a quest to find the entrance to the fabled mines of D’al Mordain.”

  “No, you idiot; he was scouting out prospects along the Gray Hills.”

  “Everyone knows he’s been hunting the lair of the Spider King.”

  Nobody could stop talking about him. Even at Colm’s own table. Quinn, as it turned out, was quite an expert on the mysterious ranger.

  “Haven’t you spent any time in the library?” he said, explaining how he had nearly finished both Master Fimbly’s A Brief History of Dungeoneering and Rolf Timlinsire’s Who’s Who of Adventurers in the short time they’d been here.

  “I’ve been busy picking locks,” Colm said.

  “Making butterflies,” Serene added.

  Lena didn’t comment. She was staring dreamily at her knob of bread.

  “So you’re saying you hadn’t even heard of him?”

  “Is it that surprising that I never heard of one guy?” Colm said defensively.

  Quinn actually stopped eating, spoon hovering over his bowl. “One guy? Are you kidding? Grahm Wolfe is probably the most feared ranger in all the land, not to mention he’s Tye Thwodin’s closest companion. Without him, there probably wouldn’t even be a legion.”

  “Right,” Colm said, then shook his head. “Why is that again?”

  “Rangers are scouts,” Serene explained. “They are responsible for finding the dungeons and lairs and vaults where treasure might be held. And because they venture into these places alone, it is often considered the most dangerous class of adventurer to aspire to.”

  Quinn nodded in affirmation. “Once a ranger discovers a dungeon, he marks it and then reports back so a full-fledged exploration party can go tackle it and take its treasure.”

  Colm hadn’t really thought about it before—how dungeons were discovered. He just kind of assumed you fell into them, like Master Thwodin had so many years ago—or were pushed into them, like he had been. He didn’t know somebody actually went out and searched for them.

  “Grahm Wolfe is as close to family as Master Thwodin has left,” Quinn said. “He’s practically Tye’s son.” The mageling took another bite of roll and then launched into a tale of how a ten-year-old Grahm had been found sneaking around this very same castle one night, back before the guild was even founded. Tye Thwodin captured the boy, gave his ears a good boxing, and demanded to know if he was looking for treasure. Supposedly the response from the boy was “Food, but treasure will do.” In return for a hot meal, the boy explained that his parents had been killed by ogres, and that he had been traveling from town to town, begging, borrowing, stealing, and fighting for his livelihood.

  “So Tye Thwodin took him in, and when he formed the guild three years later, Wolfe was his first and best trainee,” Quinn concluded. “He’s the reason Master Thwodin is so successful.”

  “And you really believe all of that?” Colm questioned, remembering what Finn had said about the ranger—chest-hair nets and tree-bark swords.

  “There are lots of stories about Master Wolfe,” Serene said. “They can’t all be true.”

  “Exactly,” Colm said.

  “Then why was he being chased by a hundred orcs?” Quinn prodded.

  “It was only fifty,” Colm countered. Though that’s easy to say when you are watching from the rooftops.

  “Whatever. I’m telling you, there are plenty of nasty things out there that would love to have Grahm Wolfe’s head on a pike. He must have found something out there,” Quinn said. “Something worth drawing that kind of attention.”

  “Remind me never to get that famous, then,” Colm said, earning him nods of agreement from Serene.

  Across the table, Lena sighed.

  Despite the excitement of the previous evening, the morning schedule was the same as the day before. A painful lecture on the continued failed exploits of pioneering dungeoneers from Master Fimbly, followed by a torturous lecture on the dangers of regenerating mushroom monsters by Master Bloodclaw, followed by a marginally useful demonstration on knots by a seemingly distant and more reserved Finn. By the end of the morning, Colm had learned that no amount of armor can protect you from a vorpal blade, that mushroom monsters are, in proven fact, inedible (even if you could catch one to eat it), and that it’s almost always easier to cut a rope than to try to untie it. All useful information, of course, but Colm found he was learning almost as much just by listening to the conversations of the dungeoneers he passed in the hall. Finn was teaching him to keep his ears pricked.

  “Information is often more valuable than gold,” Finn told him. “You’d be surprised how much you can learn just by standing in the shadows and keeping your mouth shut.”

  So in between training, Colm practiced eavesdropping on conversations. By the end of the morning, he had learned that Master Velmoth had finally broken down and guzzled one of Master Merribell’s elixirs, effectively ridding him of his bunny ears but giving him terrible indigestion. He learned that Phoebe Flaxfire, a guild member for three years, was accidentally hexed by one of her own party during a combat exercise and was slowly turning into a dandelion. He even learned that Master Fimbly was taking herbal supplements to try and grow his hair back, though it seemed to be going straight to the stuff in his ears rather than on his crown.

  He didn’t learn anything more about Grahm Wolfe, however, except that nearly every female trainee in the castle was jealous of Lena because she actually got to ride on his horse with him. Nothing about why the orcs were chasing him or where he had been or what he and Tye Thwodin had been whispering about by the stairs. Whatever it was, it clearly was none of anybody else’s business.

  Colm did learn one thing that turned his ears red, though: that Herren Bloodclaw, goblin expatriate and master of the dungeon beneath the castle, was already busy planning the next round of trials.

  Colm didn’t even make it inside Finn’s workshop before sharing what he’d overheard.

  “Trials!” Colm blurted out.

  The rogue grinned. “Oh, those. I’m surprised your friends didn’t say anything about them, though I suppose you are all a little fresh still. Yes, the trials are a tradition here. They’re a lot like your initial test,” Finn explained. “Only harder. And with more chances to hurt yourself. But they are nothing to worry about.”

  Colm thought about the bolt of lightning that had nearly fried half the hair off Quinn’s skull during that initial test. It seemed worth worrying about. “They are called trials,” he said. “They are not called trivial-little-things-you-shouldn’t-concern-yourself-over.”

  Finn shrugged. “They happen a few times each year. Renny reconfigures his maze a little, then we toss you and your friends in and watch the clocks. The party that makes it through the fastest gets the prize.”

  “The prize?” Colm repeated, his interest finally overcoming his initial unease.

  “Treasure, of course,” Finn replied. “Of some kind or another.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “Well, of course it’s dangerous,” the rogue scoffed. “But in all the time the guild has been around, we’ve had very few fatalities.”

  Colm still stood in the doorway, propping himself up. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me I could die taking this test?”

  “You could die falling out of bed,” Finn said, reaching over and pulling Colm inside. “Trip over a stone and impale yourself on a tree root. Choke on a piece of rancid meat. Every step through life is a tenuous one. But you won’t,” Finn concluded. “Because you’re
smarter than that. And because you have me to train you.” He pushed Colm toward the Door of a Hundred Locks and then sat down at his desk. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes, lock number five. Be careful with this one. Last time I picked one of these, a swinging scythe nearly took off my head.”

  Colm quietly unpacked his picks and laid them all out in front of him, but he wasn’t ready to concentrate on the door quite yet. “So it’s a competition?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “It’s a chance for you to put your newfound skills to use. To see how well your party works together. To get a taste for what the real thing is like.”

  “So there will be traps?” Colm asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And monsters?”

  Finn gave Colm a thoughtful look. “It won’t do you any good to worry over it,” he said. “It’s still a few weeks away. By then you will know everything necessary to get out of Renny’s dungeon in one piece. I promise.”

  Colm nodded and tried to focus on what he was doing, tried not to think about all the things that devious little goblin might think of to test them with. He flexed three fingers and took a deep breath, then inserted his diamond pick into lock number five, feeling for the pins, trying to push them into place. Traps and monsters. Whatever it was, it would likely be quite a bit more intimidating than the Overseer and his scorched pants. Colm gave his attention to the lock.

  After several attempts, Colm stopped and sucked on his fingertips. A new set of blisters was crowding out the old ones. His head throbbed. His knees cracked from stiffness. His right ear was sweaty and numb from being pressed against the door’s steel frame. Finn must have noticed him rubbing it.

  “Listening is all well and good,” he said. “Some rogues have to hear it; it’s the only way they work. But sometimes that’s not possible. Ever hear a gorgon scream? Terrible sound. Deafens you for hours. Makes you tear your hair out. You can’t always count on sound. No way can you hear a pin drop when there’re swords clashing and warriors shouting all around you.”

  There was no way Colm could hear anything with Finn constantly jabbering at him, either. But he guessed that was probably the point. He slumped against the door.

  “The man who taught me how to pick . . . his name was Narl. Crazy old man. Deaf in both ears. Couldn’t hear his own name if you or I were shouting it in his face. But he could blaze through nearly every lock on this door like he was picking his teeth. Did it all by touch, see? He had the most sensitive fingers. He could feel a fly’s fart on those fingertips.”

  Colm laughed. He hadn’t ever stopped to think about Finn having somebody like Finn in his life. He had kind of assumed that the rogue was self-taught, that it all just came to him, like intuition, like divine inspiration. But even mentors must have mentors.

  “They have their own memory, fingers,” Finn continued. “It’s funny, but you’ll come across a lock and the moment you touch it, you get that sense. You say, ‘Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?’ And you don’t even have to think. It just all falls into place. You feel it in the ridges, in the joints and the bones and the little hairs that stand on your knuckles. You feel it on the surface and it tingles and travels down your fingers and the length of your arm into your chest and to the very core of you. It’s electric. And it’s instantaneous. And it’s fleeting. But you will come to recognize it, the feel of each lock, the sensation of release. That old man . . . he said he felt closer to some locks than he ever did to a living soul.”

  Colm closed his eyes and turned back to the door. He didn’t put his head against it anymore, operating solely on touch this time. Sensing the vibrations in the pads of his fingers, the subtle shifts, the slightest resistance. Until, finally, something clicked. Colm reached out and tried the handle. The door opened, revealing Finn’s musty old boots for the fifth time in two days.

  “Excellent,” the rogue said, beaming. “See. Told you. Those trials will be as easy as picking a nobleman’s purse.”

  Colm flushed with a momentary burst of pride, then turned back to the door. He could feel Finn smiling behind him.

  He finagled his way through locks six and then seven before Finn said he could stop. Seven was an especially tricky tumbler series, with eight separate levers requiring the use of three separate picks, each set at a particular angle and all at the same time. The slightest slip caused the whole thing to reset. Having one more finger wouldn’t have helped, Colm thought, but having another hand would have been incredibly useful. He said as much to Finn. That they could have done it so much faster working together.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, good rogues are hard to come by these days. Most people would rather be a warrior or a knight than one of our kind. More honor in it, I suppose, though less brains.”

  Colm thought about Lena. She seemed smart. Except when she was running off to fight those orcs last night. That was a little thoughtless. And today at breakfast. And at lunch. And in their last training together—sitting and staring mindlessly out the window. More than once today, he had caught her doodling in a notebook, seen the sketch. A figure in a cloak on horseback, a blade in each hand. Anywhere and Anytime.

  Finn shut the door on his spare boots and handed Colm a canteen—the reward for all his efforts: a swig of lukewarm water. “What do you know about Master Wolfe?” Colm asked after a swallow.

  Finn’s features darkened. It was the same look Colm’s father got when a nail split straight through a heel he was trying to repair. The same look Celia got when his mother asked her to do something around the house. Finn Argos was the only person who reacted to the ranger that way, Colm noticed, and the reaction was instantaneous.

  “What do I know about him?” Finn began. “Not much. I know he spends most of his days wandering through the wilderness sniffing out goblins and ogres and harpies and such, venturing into dark places that no man in his right mind would ever dare venture alone. I know he’s probably single-handedly responsible for the discovery of half of the dungeons in the guild’s archives and that he’s planted more crystal keys than all the other masters combined. I know his horse is named Trample, his bow is named Eyesoar, and his swords have names too. Probably his underwear has a name, though I hope to never learn it.”

  Colm laughed again, trying to imagine what the ranger’s famous underwear would be called. Rosebottom, maybe. Or Fancypants.

  “Truth is,” Finn continued, “Grahm Wolfe spends most of his days out there, digging up secrets. Following paw prints and goblin trails. Always on the lookout for it.”

  “It?” Colm asked.

  “It,” Finn repeated, spreading his hands. “The big score. Some fabled trove that they’ve all heard about in prophecies and bards’ songs and are foolish enough to believe exists, even though there is plenty of treasure right here under these floors.” Finn stamped on the cold stone for emphasis. “Not surprising. It’s hard not to believe in legends when you do what we do. Everything and everyone around here is an exaggeration. Master Velmoth supposedly once conjured a demon from the netherworld, yet he can’t seem to shrink his own ears. Master Stormbow supposedly slew a giant by strangling it with its own ponytail, but she once was bested in single combat by a one-armed man. Master Merribell is a skilled healer and can bless you eight times over, but she’s actually never stepped foot in a dungeon, as far as I know. And Tye Thwodin . . .” Finn stopped and stroked his chin, touching the very edge of his scar. “Tye Thwodin knows what he wants and knows just how to get it.”

  “You make that sound like a bad thing,” Colm prodded.

  “Certainly not. You have to admire what he’s accomplished here. With this place. I’m only saying that nobody is without failings. We all have a weak spot.”

  “Including Master Wolfe?”

  “Wolfe,” Finn repeated, passing one hand over the candle flame flickering inside the skull, nearly snuffing it. “Grahm Wolfe is the one person who’s probably as dangerous as everybody thinks he is. Trying to get a handle on him is like trying to wrest
le your own shadow. And yet he’s the one person around here Master Thwodin trusts above everyone else. He’s earned it, I’m sure, but it’s hard to tell who he counts on, if anyone. I don’t believe anybody makes it in this world alone.”

  “So you don’t trust him?” Colm questioned.

  “I didn’t say that,” Finn replied, then stood abruptly, pulling his cloak tight about him. “I think that’s enough for today,” he said. “Outstanding work. I think even old Narl would be impressed.”

  Colm gathered his things and stuffed them back in his bag, slinging it over his shoulder, and stood in the doorway, one hand resting on Scratch. “I can feel it, you know,” he said. “The lock. I can sense when it’s about to give. Just like you said.”

  Finn nodded, face full of satisfaction.

  “I hoped you might,” he said.

  The stew was especially thick that night, so thick you had to scrape it from the edge of your spoon with your front teeth like furrowing a field. Quinn likened it to eating masonry paste, even as he finished his second bowl. Colm fashioned his into a little mountain and then buried his spoon on top as a flag. “Behold . . . Mount Fungus,” he said.

  The others laughed, even Lena, who seemed to have broken out of her ranger-induced trance. Colm wasn’t sure what had changed but figured he should just let it go.

  Serene didn’t. “So did you get to see your knight in shining armor again today?”

  Lena blushed. “For your information, Master Wolfe doesn’t wear armor. Like most rangers, he finds it cumbersome to fight in all that restrictive gear. And since you asked, no, I didn’t see him. Master Stormbow said he had to leave again.”

  “Leave? But he just got here,” Quinn said.

  “He apparently only came to tell Master Thwodin some important news and resupply,” Lena explained. And change into a new pair of Fancypants, Colm thought to himself. Still, he wondered what the important news might be. Wondered what passed for whispered conversation between those two men in particular. No doubt that would be information worth knowing. “I’m sure he’s out there finding more work for the rest of us,” Lena continued. “The sooner we get into a real dungeon, the better. My father already sent a letter asking if I’ve slain anything yet. I told him I’m working on it.”