by John Shirley
Rook? Yes, yes. Be patient. Her part in this saga comes next. Truly. But just one more ale …? Certainly this tale’s worth that?
Thanks.
So there I was, dead of drow poison. Or so you’d expect. But it wasn’t a lethal potion the drow had coated her bolts with—just one that places its victims in a deep slumber. She was after slaves, not corpses.
I woke up with a jolt, screaming at the agony of Gamlin binding my wound. The bolt had passed completely through the muscle of my thigh, he told me. I’d lost blood, but not enough to kill me.
As he worked on my leg, Gamlin gave me the bad news. While we’d lain unconscious, Araumycos had started to grow back. Already the upper portion of the shaft was thick with new growth that was starting to weave itself together up near the top. If we were going to escape, we had to hurry. Even with the magical rings that were shielding our minds—purchased at great expense, and with great complaint from Farrik—I could feel the tickle of Araumycos trying to take root in my thoughts.
Farrik, meanwhile, was beside himself. As Gamlin tended me, Farrik sloshed back and forth through the muck, shouting that I was in league with the drow, that I’d deliberately led him and his brother into a trap so I could claim all the rock gourds. I shouted back as best I was able, in my weakened state. If that had been true, I pointed out, I’d have helped her finish off the two of them, not taken a wound that came near to crippling me.
He shot back that I was a stupid human who’d underestimated my accomplice. That drow always turn on their allies, and can never be trusted. I shouted back that I was a dwarf. And so on.
It was Gamlin who told the two of us to shut up, that we were wasting valuable time. I glanced at where he was pointing. Above us, some of the strands of fungus had grown as thick as my arm. One had sprouted a puffball. As Farrik also turned his glance upward, it darkened from white to orange and then burst, releasing a tiny puff of spores. Each of us held his breath as long as we could, but eventually we were forced to gasp for air. The spores were spread pretty thin by the time they reached us. Even so, that gasp of breath had an aftertaste like blue cheese. Some of them rooted. I can feel the scars from them still, every time I draw too deep a breath, despite the healing draughts we drank. If I ever were to venture back into Araumycos, I’d wheeze like an old man. Like I was telling you when I first began this tale, even the smell of a mushroom—
All right, all right. Don’t be so impatient. Let me finish.
So there we were at the bottom of the shaft, with the fungus growing back fast. There was still a gap in the growth overhead, but it would be a tight squeeze at the top. Worst of all, we’d have to leave the motediscs behind. We had a fortune right in front of us, neatly piled up—and no way to get it home.
I couldn’t believe my eyes—my future lay at the bottom of a fungus-encrusted shaft. I couldn’t return to my apprenticeship at the quarry—not without returning the missing motediscs. That wouldn’t have mattered quite so much if I’d struck it rich, of course. I would have paid for them—double their value. But now I’d be branded a thief.
It was enough to make even the stoutest dwarf weep.
While Farrik complained and I tried to shout sense into him, Gamlin searched the drow’s body, trying to figure out which of her trinkets had allowed her to levitate. He found one of those medallions the drow are so fond of, but couldn’t make it work. Little wonder; even if he had been able to speak the language, he didn’t know the command word. Meanwhile, Araumycos continued to grow. By the time Farrik sputtered to a stop, the opening at the top of the shaft was even narrower. We’d have to hack our way out.
There was one consolation, I told the twins. They could each carry a couple of rock gourds out if they emptied their packs. Enough to cover the cost of the mind-shielding rings and healing draughts Farrik had purchased for our expedition, plus a little profit for each of us on the side. Enough to keep us fed and in ale for a month or two, while we figured out what to do next.
Farrik asked what I’d be carrying. I pointed out I’d have a tough enough climb without a heavy pack on my back. My injured leg was going to give me trouble. In fact, it was already stiffening up. If they wanted to reduce my share as a result, I told them, that was just fine with me.
Farrik looked ready to agree, but Gamlin shook his head and said we’d better hurry, or none of us would get out of there with anything.
The brothers set to work, emptying their packs and filling them with rock gourds. Meanwhile, I felt around for the rock gourd I’d spotted by the light of Gamlin’s blue fire—the one we’d missed. Might as well add it to the pile, I figured. One day, if we were lucky, Araumycos might die back again. Then we could come back and collect our reward.
My hand brushed something solid. I felt holes in its smooth, rounded surface. It was lighter than it should have been, I thought, as I pulled it from the muck. It felt thin and hollow. A moment later, I saw why. It wasn’t a rock gourd I’d found, but a skull. Slimy fungus dribbled out of the eye sockets and down my arm. The jawbone hung by a thread.
I nearly dropped the skull in disgust. Then I looked a little closer. The skull had a thick forehead, broad cheekbones, and a squarish look.
He—or she—had been a dwarf. Whoever it was had died some time ago, for there wasn’t a scrap of flesh or beard clinging to the bone.
If we didn’t get moving, we’d wind up just like him.
I placed the skull on top of one of the piles of gourds while Gamlin and Farrik were busy tying their packs shut. They glanced at it, but didn’t say anything. They were too busy grunting under the load in their packs. I wondered how they’d be able to climb.
They managed it somehow, sweating under the strain. I had a harder time of it. Even without a pack, I spent my climb gritting my teeth at the pain of my wounded leg and trying not to faint.
At the top, we had to cut our way through. Having no pack to impede me, I clambered over the edge first, squeezing through what opening there was. Behind me, Gamlin and Farrik struggled, their bulging packs caught on the lattice of fungus. I looked down the corridor that led out—and saw that it was completely plugged. We were trapped!
I was starting to shout this to Gamlin and Farrik when something strange happened. The fungus that plugged the corridor quivered, then suddenly died back, leaving a gap.
Out of it stepped a drow. Black-skinned, gaunt-faced, she stared down at me with all the solemnity of a Deep Lord about to make a judgment.
I struggled to my feet, convinced for the second time that day that I was about to die. My mace was on my belt; I’d needed both hands for the climb. There was no way I’d undo the lashings in time.
Instead of attacking, however, she beckoned me forward. So startling was it, I took a step back, nearly going over the edge.
Behind me, I could hear Gamlin and Farrik sawing their way through the fungus. Getting out with their backpacks on was more important, it seemed, than hastening to my aid. Or maybe they hadn’t spotted the drow yet.
I noticed that she carried no weapons, wore no armor. And she’d still made no move to harm me. Nor did she look exactly as a drow should. Drow women are tall, but this one somehow seemed stretched thin, oddly jointed. Her white hair stood out from her head like old straw, but her hands disturbed me most. They were all wrong: only three fingers, the outer two more like hooks, the middle one straight, and all tipped with claws.
I suddenly realized what she must be. Not a drow at all. A soul, taken at the moment of death, kept warm for days or years or centuries in Bane’s chill embrace, and spawned in a new form that was wholly unlike whatever body it had inhabited before.
She nodded, as if she’d heard my thoughts. “Will you help me, Daffyd? Lay at least part of me to rest?”
I asked how she knew my name. It was one I’d left behind when I departed the Rift. Even Gamlin and Farrik didn’t know it.
She touched her chest with a claw. “Ironstar,” she whispered. Then she pointed at me. “Ironstar.�
�
I shivered as I realized we must have been fated to meet. Just like me, she’d been … reforged. But not by Moradin. Instead she’d been cast in the form of a race any dwarf would attack on sight.
Bane had played an even crueler joke on her than Vergadain had on me.
“Will you help me?” she repeated.
I wet my lips. Helping her would mean climbing back down that shaft. If it had been Gamlin’s or Farrik’s body lying at the bottom of it, I wouldn’t have given it a moment’s thought. But she was a stranger to me.
I stared at the revenant, wondering what kind of person she’d been as a dwarf. Had there been kin who’d mourned her, or had she been a clanless outlaw? An honest person or a rogue? Then I realized that I might as well ask the same questions of myself.
Whatever she’d been, it didn’t matter. Dwarves take care of their own.
“You deserve better,” I said. “I’ll see that you get it. By Moradin’s beard, I swear I’ll see your skull laid properly to rest.”
Her mouth stretched to a thin smile. She turned and pressed on a section of the wall. A hidden door swung open. Behind it was a staircase, leading up. The air that rushed from it smelled sweet. It was obviously a way back to the surface. One we’d missed on our way in.
I asked if she was going to lead us out.
She shook her head. “Not until the rest of my bones are recovered can I rest,” she told me. “The orcs scattered them far and wide when Delzoun fell—a final insult to my people. But one day I will find them.”
“Delzoun!” I repeated, incredulous. “But that was … How long have you been searching?”
“Too long,” she said wearily. “And yet, not long enough. The dwarf body has so many bones …” Her words trailed off in a sigh.
Behind me, I heard a shout of triumph. I turned and saw that Gamlin and Farrik had hacked their way through. If they saw me talking to a “drow,” Farrik’s suspicions would be rekindled. But I had to know one thing more. “Who—”
Rook was gone. Already, the hole she’d parted in the fungus was closing.
Gamlin and Farrik struggled up over the edge with their packs and shouted in dismay when they saw the corridor blocked. I showed them the staircase up, and told them it was our way out. They were so relieved they didn’t even ask how I knew. Then I told them what I needed to do: recover the skull, take it to a priest, and give it the last rites.
They thought I was joking. Gamlin actually guffawed. Then they realized I was serious.
Gamlin said there wasn’t time. Farrik said the dead dwarf was no clan of his. When I said the skull had belonged to an Ironstar and that it was our duty, he slid a look at Gamlin. Both rolled their eyes.
They turned toward the staircase, as if there was nothing more to say.
Fine, I told them. They could go on ahead, but I was going back for the skull. I’d catch up to them later, and collect my share then.
I see by your look you can guess what came next. I never did see either of them again. Not during that long, painful climb back up the stairs to the surface, nor back at the town we’d set out from. I waited there for tendays, but they never came.
Maybe someday, I’ll see them again, but if I don’t, it doesn’t really matter. That’s what Moradin’s trying to teach me in this life, you see—to choose my shield brothers more carefully. Or something like that.
Well now. Would you look at that? My glass is dry again. Could you …?
No?
That’s all right. My tale is done.
I know what you’re thinking. You’ll be wondering, about now, why I would tell you all about a fortune in rock gourds that’s just lying there for the taking. Short answer: it doesn’t matter anymore. Gamlin and Farrik will likely try to go back to recover them—assuming they haven’t tried already, which might explain what happened to them. Without Rook’s help it will be impossible. With each step I took up those stairs toward the surface, Araumycos followed. By the time I reached the top, the staircase was plugged solid. Anyone who finds it now will set off puffballs every step of the way.
A revenant isn’t bothered by any of that, of course. And Rook, of course, has some way of making Araumycos die back. Wherever it has, that’s where you’ll find her. If you promise to bring whichever of her bones are there to a dwarf priest, and see that they’re given the last rites—or maybe it’s whichever of his bones; I never did get the chance to ask—Rook will likely guide you to wherever it is you need to go.
All I ask is that, if you do find Rook, you put in a good word for me. Tell her I laid her skull to rest, and had a priest say the proper words over the pyre. Ask her, on my behalf, if she’d mind fetching me a rock gourd or two from that cache, in return for me sending her way someone else who’ll help.
What’s that? The name Rook? Oh, it’s just a name I gave her. Those curved, black fingers of hers, with their claws, reminded me of a rook’s toes. I don’t know what her real name is—was. I’ll bet she doesn’t know, either. That’s the way revenants are, you see. A little vague on the details of their past lives. Kind of like me.
I see you getting to your feet. You’re going? So soon? No more questions?
Ah. I see. You think I spun this tale just to cadge a pint or two of the good stuff.
Not so, my good elf. Not so. Every word I’ve just told you is true.
I wasn’t tugging your beard—not that you have one. What I just told you is the truth. If you want a guide who knows every pace of Araumycos, find Rook’s bones. Help her, and she’ll help you—and maybe me, too, in the bargain.
Just remember one thing. Don’t let her appearance fool you. Regardless of what she looks like, she’s a dwarf.
Just like me.
Lisa Smedman is the author of novels and stories set in the Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Shadowrun, and Deadlands universes. A reporter by profession, she also teaches game theory and video game history at the Art Institute of Vancouver. She also writes history books, children’s books, plays, and screenplays, and has designed dozens of adventures and sourcebooks for various role-playing games over the years. Her website is www.lisasmedman.topcities.com.
THE FOUNDLING
MIKE RESNICK
Charybole was twenty-two years, three months, and six days old when she heard the screams.
She had been grieving, not just recently but for most of her life. A githzerai, her father had been killed by the githyanki when she was seven years old. Her mother had died beneath the awesome gaze of a cyclopean beholder two years later, her body literally melted before the glare of its single eye. Somehow she had survived to adulthood, living in the southern fringes of the Nentir Vale. In the fullness of time she had produced a daughter, a tiny thing on which she lavished all of the pent-up love and attention for which she had never found a recipient.
When her daughter was still an unnamed infant in her arms, she laid her down on the ground, just for a moment, while she filled a gourd full of water with which to bathe her from a nearby stream. She heard the screams a moment later, but arrived too late. An immature, but still heavily armored bulette, that half-snake, half-monster lizard that dwells and travels in the underground, had sensed the infant’s presence and broken through the surface, where it was tearing the child to shreds. She threw herself on the creature fearlessly, but its heavy armor protected it, and after a moment there were no more shrieks from the child. When the bulette finished its grisly feast it turned its attention to the githzerai female who was flailing away at its back and head, and realizing her child was past saving, Charybole backed away. The bulette stared coldly at her for a moment, as if deciding whether she was worth the effort, decided she wasn’t, and disappeared back down its subterranean burrow.
Charybole left the few remains of her child where they were, thereby guaranteeing that some scavenger or other would chance upon them and develop a taste for githzerai flesh. It made no difference to her. Every single thing she had cared about was dead, and she hoped to join them so
on, to see if the next life held more joy and promise than this one did.
Yet the same instinct that makes even a prey animal sell its life as dearly as possible kept her alive, made her go through the motions of living, of eating, of sleeping, so that she could live and eat and sleep through another purposeless day. This continued, day in and day out, week in and month out—
—until the day she heard the wails and discovered a new purpose in life.
It was certainly not one she had anticipated, nor was it one she had prepared for. Had anyone mentioned what she was about to do a year ago, she would have thought they were crazy. But a year ago she had not seen a bulette rip her infant daughter limb from limb.
The cries came from a baby. Curious but cautious, she gingerly approached the source of the sound, and found a baby lying in the grass. At first it looked like a githzerai infant, but then she saw the yellow tint to its skin, and knew it was githyanki. She looked around for its mother, but there was no one to be seen.
They were near a stream, and she wandered over to it to see if the mother was washing herself in the cool, rapidly flowing water. No one was there … but then she saw a single blood-soaked sandal, and she knew what had happened. It was a warm day. The mother had set her baby down in the tall grasses for just a moment while she went to the stream to rinse the sweat from her body. Clearly she had not seen an approaching crocodile as the beast glided toward her beneath the surface, possibly had not known that the local streams were filled with them, and one bite would have been all it would have taken. Most of the local crocs were fourteen to eighteen feet in length, weighing well over a ton, and she’d have been dead, probably bitten in half, before she knew what hit her.
Charybole’s reconstruction of the tragedy was interrupted by increased screaming from the child. She walked over and looked down at it. She had just lost her own baby to a bulette. She knew if she left this one here for more than a few minutes, it would suffer the same fate—or worse, for hideous as it was, the bulette was far from the top of the food chain. It wasn’t its fault that it was born of the githyanki. It needed care, and love, and shelter, and she had all three to give. Finally she picked it up and walked off with it, all but daring any of the creatures of the Witchlight Fens to try to take it from her.