The Dungeoneers

by Jeffery Russell

  It had been the last of them. The things didn’t seem to have much in the way of autonomy and without Alaham around to send in reinforcements the attack was over.

  And Ginny was gone.

  Durham was captured.

  The rest of the team was lost, scattered through the dungeon, maybe some of them dead as well. Thud let his head sink to the catwalk, the wood rough against his forehead. Around him the boneworks whirled on, clicking its secrets.

  -18-

  Durham stood next to Alaham’s throne, watching the boneworks spin before him. He’d considered sitting on the throne, as it was the only seating option available that wasn’t the floor or the altar but a quick examination of the throne’s seat suggested that Alaham had spent many years sitting there while his mortal form was still in the process of decaying away, leaving a residue of goo that made sitting an unappealing prospect. The robed figures circling the dais didn’t seem to be paying him much attention. The altar was stained with a color that Durham tried to convince himself was spilled coffee. A cloud of flies did their strange whirling dance over the altar and throne but Durham felt better standing next to them than to the silent necromancers.

  The details of the machine were difficult to make out, the lighting leaving most of it shrouded in spinning shadow. Consequently he was rather startled when the gear in front of him rotated Ruby into view. She was in a rib cage that hung below the gear, looking even more annoyed than usual. The cage opened as she rotated over the dais, dropping her onto the edge next to the figures. Her fingers scraped on the stone as she tried to crawl away from them. Durham ran forward and grabbed her under her arms, pulling her away and to her feet at the same time. They ran to the altar where Ruby spent a moment brushing and straightening her scapular, catching her breath before looking his direction. At his feet.

  “What is that?”

  Durham was left with his mouth hanging open. He’d been expecting a different greeting and had been preparing to say something along the lines of, “Yes, I’m glad I’m still alive too”, “You’re welcome” or “Yes, I’m alright” or even, perhaps, “Nice to see you!”

  He looked down.

  “That’s Squitters. He’s Alaham’s dog.”

  Squitters pranced a few steps and wagged his tail.

  Ruby pursed her lips disapprovingly, squinted suspiciously at the candle wax coated skull on the arm of the throne and then around at the hooded figures encircling them.

  “And that’s Alaham,” Durham said, pointing at the skull, feeling that it was rather more important than the dog. “He said he had things to think about and has just been sitting there ever since.”

  Ruby pressed her finger briefly to her lips, indicating silence. She picked Alaham up from the arm of the throne and thumped the skull hard against the arm’s edge, knocking off the candle and most of the wax. She held it out to Squitters.

  “Here, boy! Fetch!” She sent the skull rolling briskly across the dais, Squitters scampering after it. Durham’s face was frozen into the sort of expression one might have while watching someone wave their genitals about at a wedding.

  “Listen,” she whispered. “That’s not Alaham. None of these are.”

  Squitters scampered back with the skull. Ruby wrestled it away from him and threw it again, further this time. Squitters was after it instantly.

  “But I talked to…” Durham began.

  “No,” Ruby said, still whispering. “You talked to Alaham’s voice in your head, yes? It was Alaham but he wasn’t in the skull. He can control any of them, animate them…” She paused to throw the skull again. “…see through their eyes, but they’re not actually him. It’s a puppet show. He’s still hidden away somewhere, toying with us. He can observe us through any of the skulls, including these two,” she said, as Squitters returned with the skull in his jaws, tail wagging furiously. She threw it hard this time, off the edge of the dais. Squitters charged after it, leaping into the darkness to follow. A barely audible clatter reached them a moment later as Squitters met the ground somewhere below.

  “Always wondered if dogs were actually that stupid,” Ruby said.

  “You just killed Alaham’s dog,” Durham said.

  “It was already dead, idiot.”

  Durham swallowed the lump in his throat. He’d rather liked Squitters. “Alaham probably won’t be happy about that.”

  “Good,” Ruby said. “But unlikely. He can just put the thing back together again. Meanwhile, he’s not going to be able to spy on us with it and those others are too far away to hear as long as we keep our voices down. Over here—” she gestured for him to follow and stepped between the throne and the altar where the two fly clouds blurred together into perfect storm conditions. “The noise will help cover our voices.” She spat out a fly then pulled her scapular up to cover her mouth. “Now, I’ve figured out part of this charade but I still don’t know why. You say he talked to you. Tell me everything he said. Sorry. Hold off on that. First tell me why you aren’t wearing any pants.”

  “I had to cut them off and they were soaked with blood.”

  “Fair enough. Now, what did Alaham say?”

  “He said that he hired the dwarves to bring me here because he’s retiring. Wants to travel. And that he’s giving this dungeon to me. Because I’m his heir.”

  Ruby let out a cackle of laughter. She pressed her fist to her mouth to cut it off.

  “I think it’s safest to start with the base assumption that everything he told you was a lie,” she said. “We may find a jot of truth between the lines, though. You being his heir, as a start. You said that you never knew your parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the dwarves felt that a potentially serious liability?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not exactly poking any holes in that theory, are we?”

  Durham was silent, awash in unjust guilt.

  “What else did he say?”

  “Something about a ceremony and a big magic thing that he’s going to do now that I’m here.”

  “Hmmm. Now that sounds like it might have a grain of the truth.”

  ᴥᴥᴥ

  Thud did not allow himself to mourn for long.

  He took stock of his situation. His pack was somewhere far above, lost somewhere in the machine. His arms were too weak to even think of climbing to retrieve it, however. He still had his mace but could barely lift it. His duoculars were laying nearby, one of the scopes crushed, its lens shattered. Bones, some broken and splintered, lay scattered across the walkway. He could feel his blood, in a tickling trickle down his back and soaking into the waist of his kilt. He pulled his jerkin off and then his under-tunic, his pale skin almost seeming to glow in the dim light. The under-tunic was already sodden with blood but he tied it tightly around himself anyway, binding the wounds on his back as best as he could. The pain had turned into a teeth grinding sting, waves of heat searing through him with each heartbeat. He tugged his jerkin back on and laced it tight to help keep the bandage in place. It was tight enough to make it a nuisance to breath but at least he was still breathing.

  He struggled to his feet and made his way to the rail where he’d last seen Ginny. It was made of two rows of femurs, end to end, scapula spacing the rails apart, gaps between for the teeth of the gear. The bones were wet with blood, a spatter of red out onto the catwalk where he stood. His brow furrowed. The blood didn’t look right. He crouched and touched his fingers to it. It was thin, watery. He sniffed his fingers.

  Tea.

  Not blood.

  Ruby’s red tea that she’d shared with Ginny. And there, caught between two of the scapula, Ginny’s wineskin.

  “Ginny!”

  “Down here, boss.” Her voice was thin.

  He poked his head over the edge of the catwalk. Ginny was twenty feet below on top of a vertical spindle, cradling her arm and rotating slowly as the spindle turned.

  “Wotcha doin’ down there, lass?”

  “Thinking you was
dead. Glad you ain’t. Wouldn’t happen to have a rope handy, would ya?”

  “Naw, lost me pack. I can climb down to ya though, maybe.”

  “Can’t say the spot has much to recommend it.”

  “How bad are ya hurt?”

  “Don’t rightly know. All my bits are still movin’ but everything hurts like a hangover. Arm got a bit squished but I don’t think it’s broken. You?”

  “I’m leaking a bit and’ll have a nice new set of scars to show off come Honor Day but there’s enough o’ me left to keep breathin’.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Thud’s shoulders slumped. “Dunno. Think we’re on the losin’ end of this one.”

  Ginny snorted. “Not ‘til we’re all cold and dead. Relentless assault? Instant death? All odds against us? Just another day at the office, boss.” A grin split her beard. “This dungeon played its hand but we’s still kicking. We’re the godsdamned Dungeoneers, boss. Time to show this place what for.”

  “Don’t happen to have a plan to go with that speech, do ya?”

  “Well, sittin’ here spinnin’ for a few gave me some more time to look at this machine we’re in. Pretty sure I’ve got it sussed.”

  Thud looked up at the incomprehensible contraption of whirling bones. “How do ya figger?”

  “Them hallways we was in ain’t hallways. Well, not as such. The whole point of this machine is to move ‘em around, mostly into places where they ain’t much use as hallways. Don’t know why that is but that’s what it’s for.” She frowned. “Think it also may be a clock.”

  “Not sure what good knowin’ that does us.”

  She grinned up at him again, her face rotating slowly in the dim light.

  “Pretty sure I can break it.”

  ᴥᴥᴥ

  Durham sat on the edge of the stone altar, Ruby next to him. She was frowning and sucking on the end of her quill, her journal laying unopened next to her. The robed figures still circled the dais, backs to them, apparently completely unconcerned with anything that they might get up to. Not that they’d come up with anything to do other than sit on the altar and try to avoid the stained spots.

  There was a scraping noise behind them. Durham turned and saw that the throne was moving. Or, rather, the bones were. They were unknitting, folding out from each other like a flower blooming or hands unclasping, turning the throne from a chair into an array of jabs and spikes, moving apart to reveal a dark hole in the heart of the stalagmite floor. A figure rose from the darkness, smoothly and slowly as if raised by unseen hands.

  The robe it wore had, perhaps, once been a brilliant red. It may have once had intricate gold filigree traced across it in whorling patterns. The sash that bound it may have once hung with silver ornaments. The thing within the robe may have once been human, once had pale skin and flowing black hair, may have once been sane.

  But now it was a thing of rot and tatters. Skull the color of a fish’s underbelly with shriveled raisin eyes gleaming madly in the sockets and a crown of finger bones adorning its pate, raising its rag-adorned skeletal arms imperiously, throwing its head back with a spine curling laugh that echoed through the cavern.

  Ruby bustled over and gave it a swift quick in the shin, cutting the laugh short.

  “Ow!” There was a note of hurt in its voice.

  “The real Alaham, I presume?” Ruby asked. She spat on the floor at its feet.

  “Yes,” it said. “And the occasion warrants a bit more decorum if you don’t mind. Behave yourself or I’ll add you to my collection.”

  Ruby humphed but backed away from him, arms crossed, face glowering. Then she seemed to realize something. Her eyes widened briefly then narrowed into a suspicious squint. “Well, that puts the cob right in the cornhole,” she said.

  Alaham had begun raising his arms grandly again. At her interruption he stopped and put his bony hands on his hips and sighed.

  “There is an order and tone I desire for this ceremony, madame, and you prattling on about cornholes is not in my order of operations,” His voice hissed through clenched teeth. “I’ve been planning this for centuries and if you can’t contain yourself I will have you peeled. I mean that quite literally. You are here for one reason and that is to record what you see in your capacity as a scribe. Get out your book and start writing. I’ll hear no more out of you.”

  Ruby’s mouth twisted back and forth a bit before settling into a rather alarming grin. She retrieved her journal from the altar, extracted a fresh quill from her hair and produced an inkpot from within her robe. She uncorked the top, licked the tip of the quill, dipped it in the ink, opened the journal, poised the quill above the page and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  “Better,” Alaham said after a moment, seemingly mollified. He raised his arms again, quickly this time as if determined to be back on his mysterious schedule.

  “Attend!” he cried. His voice rang out, filling the cave. “The ritual of ages is upon us. All of our work, all of our plans have led us to this moment. Be witness to the dawn of a new era!”

  The figures surrounding the dais turned in unison to face inward. They lowered their hoods. Ancient men or shriveled and withered mummies—Durham wasn’t quite sure and had little intention of feeling one for body heat. He wasn’t sure which would be more horrifying—to find their wrinkled sags warm and moist or to find them cold and rubbery. The withermen knelt and bowed the heads forward, stretching their arms toward the lich king. Far below them on the cavern floor Durham could make out skeletal and robed figures gathering. Dozens, then hundreds, streaming out of the darkness, coming up from hidden holes and secret pits. The audience was assembling. A slow drumbeat began somewhere below, deep and hollow. The thin call of a flute joined it, long notes, discordant and haunting. A procession began up the long fight of stairs to the dais. Row upon row of black robed, hooded figures, five abreast. At their fore was a horrible amalgamation of bone, one of Alaham’s twisted creations. A giant lumpen skull atop a ring of a dozen long thin vertical ribs that walked it forward like a stiff-legged spider. They had to have been the ribs of some great beast-a titan whale perhaps-for the thing stood a full three meters in height as it clacked its way up the stairs. It moved with rapid jerky motions as if its limbs simply appeared in each new position with no visible movement in between.

  It arrived at the top and stood before the altar. The figures behind it came to a halt, the stairs choked with their numbers. Alaham turned toward Durham, apparently not having been fooled by his attempt to hide behind the throne.

  “Durham, our guest of honor, come forth,” his voice boomed. The glittering eyes of the nearest withermen told Durham that his choice was to walk or be dragged. He stepped out, legs shaking hard enough that his kneecaps clicked. Alaham gestured towards the ribskull monstrosity. “Please, take your place.” Two of the massive ribs splayed apart, creating a doorway of sorts and Durham came to the horrifying realization that the thing was a walking cage.

  Durham shot a nervous glance at Ruby. She gave a slight jerk of her head, eyes widening meaningfully as if extolling him to do something. She flipped her journal around quickly, then back again, giving Durham just enough of a look to see that she had written a single giant word across the pages.

  “CROWN”

  He took hesitant steps toward the cage but glanced back over his shoulder at Alaham. He was, indeed, wearing a crown. It looked to be made of twenty or so skeletal fingers, arrayed around his head, pointing upward. They were brown and old. Older, perhaps, than any of the other millions of bones within Alaham’s kingdom. He looked to Ruby again but her head was lowered over her journal again, quill feather seeming to dance as she wrote.

  As slow as his steps had been, they had inevitably moved him forward and he found himself standing before the ribskull cage. He stopped, looking back over his shoulder at Alaham.

  “Step in,” the lich said. His voice was as sharp and cold as an icicle.

  “I never believed you,” Durham
said. He turned back and stepped into the cage. The ribs closed behind him.

  ᴥᴥᴥ

  High above the dais, perched on the edge of a bonegear, Thud watched the ceremony through the battered remnants of his duoculars, squinting to look through the one scope that still had lenses. Ginny crouched beside him, sucking thoughtfully on her teeth. He’d climbed down to her and followed her, hopping from spindle to gear to rail until they’d gotten to where they could see Alaham’s throne. He’d seen what Ruby had written and was now intently studying the crown on Alaham’s head.

  “That’s it,” he said. “The crown.”

  “What about the crown?” Ginny asked.

  “Bugger the mace, the crown is the real artifact here. Ruby spotted it.”

  He lowered the duoculars and gazed off into space, thinking.

  “There’s only one thing leaps to me mind and I hopes to all the hells that it aint what I’m thinking.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Bone crown, thousand of animated skellies. What’s that put you in mind of?”

  Ginny swore under her breath. “You don’t think…”

  “Aye, I do. And methinks Ruby does as well. That Alaham bastard has the Crown of the Bonebin. Damn well explains everything, don’t it?”

  Ginny let out a long whistle of breath. “Might be above our pay grade, boss.”

  Thud chuckled. Thousands of skeletons, a lich king, a giant bone machine and only now did Ginny think they might have taken on too much.

  “No, lass,” he said. “That lich got a skull full of rotted brain and he’s made a critical error that’s going to throw his whole damned scheme, whatever the hell it is, right under the minecart wheels.”

  “Oh? What mistake?”

  “He brought us here. And we’re the godsdamned Dungeoneers.”