Dungeon Lord: Abominable Creatures (The Wraith's Haunt Book 3)

by Hugo Huesca

  “Remind me, Inquisitor, how many men were under your command?” prodded Examiner Harmon, his minotaur-size bent over the tiny carved chair to an almost comical effect.

  “Thirty Inquisitors, Eminence, not counting the Church’s personnel led by Master Enrich,” Gallio said.

  Examiner Harmon was sixty-something human male, with a long, braided mane of gray hair falling over his shoulder and hiding the long scar that snaked through his neck and cheek—a trophy from the Starevosi campaign. Harmon was a war hero, a by-the-rulebook kind of man, someone who would have a kid whipped senseless if the child dared pocket an apple from a market stand. He let no sin go unpunished, which in turn made him the perfect Examiner, and it also gave him a chip on his shoulder against Gallio, the black sheep who had returned to the flock after, famously, refusing to follow a direct command from a superior Inquisitor.

  “And you still allowed yourself to be defeated by a bunch of spiderlings?” asked Harmon. Gallio could imagine the frown in the man’s tanned forehead, but he couldn’t see it—the sunlight turned Harmon into a burning silhouette, impossible to gaze at, almost as if he were Alita’s unrelenting truth made flesh.

  Which was probably the entire point.

  Gallio tried not to grind his teeth. “It was a Dungeon Lord’s ambush, Eminence,” he said. “And we defeated it. A total victory, with no losses for our side and only a few wounded. On the other hand, the Dungeon Lord lost most of the horned spider cluster, and was almost killed during the encounter.” He didn’t mention that it had been his own sunwave which had dropped Edward Wright, although Gallio was still unsure of how that was possible. He could’ve misjudged the distance through the confusion of the moment, but has sure Edward should have been safe.

  “Is that what you call a total victory?” asked a woman’s voice, barely bothering to hide the derision in her voice. Gallio turned to the bony silhouette next to Harmon’s, that of Examiner Bartheny. “You kill a bunch of horned spiders—not exactly a difficult feat for a devoted servant of the Light—yet you fail to strike any blow of consequence. The cluster’s Queen got away, and so did the Dungeon Lord. And they even managed to escape with the assets from Jiraz’ dungeon. Hardly what I’d call a victory.”

  Gallio blinked and took a deep breath to steady his temper. He probably failed an internal Spirit test, because he could sense his blood boil. “With all due respect, Eminence, we did all we could with the resources at hand. I had to make the call between protecting our non-combatants—which included Master Enrich himself—or protecting the Heroes’ plunder. Perhaps we should consult the scripture to see what Alita would think of my decision, although I do think that ‘protecting the innocent’ ranks pretty highly in her mind.”

  “You forget your place, Inquisitor,” Bartheny said venomously. “You are the one under examination, not us, nor our knowledge of the sacred tenets.”

  Bartheny was Harmon’s second-in-command, although not officially, since the Examiners were supposed to be three equals. She was tall, thin, and severe, all sharp lines and disapproving eyes. She was King Varon’s aunt-in-law, and this alone ensured that she’d make Archbishop before long, if she played her cards right. Pacifying Starevos would greatly hasted her advancement.

  “Examiner Bartheny is correct,” said Examiner Hatter, the third and last member of that day’s ugly meeting. Hatter was a portly red-headed elf with just a dash of gnomish blood somewhere in his family tree. The combination gave him an affinity to magic, and he was an accomplished Wizard by his own right. He had a big, round nose and bright gnome-pink eyes that shone with arcane power. He also stank of stale wine and moldy cheese, and was probably drunk up to his ears if only because “Examiner Bartheny is correct” seemed to be the only words he could utter for the duration of the meeting.

  Bartheny shot an openly hostile glance at Hatter, then went on. “And, since you so helpfully brought up the sacred tenets, Inquisitor Gallio, let me remind you that ‘root out evil anywhere it takes hold’ is Alita’s main commandment to her devoted. ‘Protect the innocent’ is a fine and proper moral aspiration, but it’s a subordinate tenet, since the only sure way to protect the innocent is to destroy evil forever, no matter how difficult or costly. This is, quite possibly, the most important lesson an Inquisitor may learn.”

  “A lesson which you failed,” said Examiner Harmon, rattling his fingers on the long marble table. “Even when the Militant Church kindly sent you to Starevos as a chance for you to come to this realization on your own.”

  Gallio straightened his back. “Eminences, with all due respect—”

  “You keep saying that,” snapped Barthen. “Apparently you think it replaces showing some respect.”

  “With all due respect,” Gallio repeated through a clenched jaw, “our detachment was under-manned since the start. We’ve been walking blindly through Dungeon Lord lands for months on end, with no aerial support, barely any runes, and shoddy magical weaponry. This ambush, or something like it, was bound to happen. As such, I believe it was payback for Jiraz’ defeat. We were lucky it wasn’t worse.”

  He couldn’t avoid the resentment coming through his voice. It had been Harmon’s call to send Gallio’s detachment without even a single griffin.

  This was the reason Gallio was happy to remain a lowly field agent of the Inquisition, while the Examiners, Bishops, and Archbishops played at their games. Politics muddled what should have been simple: Destroy evil. Protect the innocent. Kill the Dark’s servants.

  But it was also the reason the Examiners could toy with him like he was a straw doll in the hands of a child.

  Or like Murmur toying with a stranger from another world.

  “Enough,” said Examiner Harmon, his cruel eyes barely visible under the great bulk of his face. “We’ve heard enough. You came here to make yourself responsible for your mistakes, like befitting someone of your rank, Inquisitor.” Harmon’s scar turned a shade of purple. “And because of that, the Examiner Heads of the Inquisition dictate that you should be stripped of command, until—and if—you prove yourself worthy.”

  Gallio lowered his head. He’d seen the decision coming for a while now—Harmon had only been looking for an excuse, and eventually he would find one. But still, the demotion hurt. It was like suddenly being stripped of his clothes and cast out into the cold. It reminded him of his exile, and the way the other Inquisitors had looked at him when he’d boarded the ship that brought him to Starevos—no longer important enough for the Inquisition to spare the cost of having him step through a Portal.

  He wondered if the guards behind him would look at him the same way those others had, back in Heiliges.

  Probably not, he decided. After all, this time, he was still an Inquisitor. He could still cast a sunwave, a feat that only a chosen few could perform, regardless of their ranking. It was Alita herself that decided who held her blessing, not Harmon or any Archbishop, no matter how much they’d love to think they did.

  He let himself drop to one knee and saluted the Examiners. “As you command. I shall face this punishment and learn this lesson you’ve set for me.” He held Harmon’s gaze, letting him know he wasn’t defeated.

  “We are not done yet,” said Bartheny, clicking her tongue. She nodded to the guards behind Gallio, and one of them hurried outside. “Command of the Hoia Inquiry is to pass under a new Inquisitor, one appointed by us. You’ll remain his service and follow his orders with the respect due to a superior officer. You’re on thin ice, Inquisitor Gallio. One more failure, and I doubt Alita herself will welcome you back into the fold.”

  Examiner Hatter sighed, then gave a wet burp and massaged his belly. “She’s right, you know,” he told Gallio with a sad nod. Bartheny’s eyes widened with disgust. It looked like she had been close enough to Hatter to taste that burp.

  Gallio decided that maybe he liked Hatter, after all.

  The clanking of metal alerted Gallio of the guard’s return. Inquisitor Oak—the stiff, tall kid under Gallio’s com
mand— followed the man.

  Oak gave Gallio an ashamed nod. Gallio returned it, albeit confusedly. What was Oak doing here?

  “Inquisitor Oak is, as of now, the new commander of the Hoia Inquiry,” announced Examiner Harmon, as if he was emitting a divine verdict from his tall chair.

  Gallio’s mouth parted in disbelief. “Oak?” he asked, almost as if speaking to himself. “But he’s too young! He will only get himself killed—”

  Oak’s ashamed expression turned sour, his cheeks flushing. “I’m as capable as any, I assure you.”

  Gallio cursed inwardly. Through his carelessness, he’d lost what little goodwill Oak had had for him. “You don’t understand—” he began, trying to fix his mistake. They want to set you up, he thought desperately. You have never faced a Dungeon Lord before, you don’t know what that’s like.

  “Our decision is final,” said Harmon.

  “Unless you wish to hang up your sword and return to Heiliges,” Bartheny said. “We could have a merchant ship ready for you this very night, ready for free passage back home.” She smiled with fake kindness, like she’d made him an offer too good for him.

  Gallio’s insides twisted with anger. “That won’t be necessary, Eminence,” he told her. He looked straight at the silhouettes of the three—Harmon’s bulk, Bartheny’s rigid posture, and Hatter’s ample chin resting on a bored fist. “Am I free to go?”

  Harmon waved at the door with a careless gesture. “You are dismissed. Inquisitor Oak, remain with us for a bit longer, if you please. We must discuss your new responsibilities.”

  Gallio saluted, although no one was looking at him any longer, as if he’d dropped from reality after they were done with him. And, in a way, for people like them, he truly had disappeared. He had been a small, unseemly stain in their orderly organization, so they’d simply reached down and flicked him away like one might a fly.

  He missed Burrova.

  It was a lonely walk, out into the open exterior corridor over the mansion’s garden, then down a long spiral staircase with burnished brass handrails. The steps were made of beautiful white stone infused with black veins and flecks of silver. Stepping out the stairs into the garden was like coming down from the Argent Plane into primal Ivalis below just as it was before the Light came and issued order and warmth into wildlife in the times before the Age of Myths.

  Gallio had once walked among the gardens of Cildel, the royal stronghold, back when he’d taken the Inquisitor’s oath for the first time. The Pledging was a special occasion, a yearly event where the Militant Church presented its best acolytes to the King and the good people of Heiliges, so that they could learn the faces of their future protectors. King Varen himself had cast his golden sword over Gallio’s shoulder and given him his blessing, his steel-gray eyes shining silver under the Heiligian blue skies. Gallio could recall many details about that day: five-year-old Prince Varon hiding in his mother’s skirts and chewing thoughtfully on a wooden toy, the soft whispering of the fountains mixing with the song of the garden’s cicadas, and the pride in his own chest threatening to burst out like a balloon.

  Becoming an Inquisitor had been his lifelong dream. The Militant Church took on many children, but few were suited to take the Oath. Those who were worthy became the people’s protectors, defenders of the Light, a bulwark against the encroaching darkness that threatened to drown good and beauty everywhere.

  Gallio wasn’t sure when the Harmons and the Barthenys of the Inquisition had drowned his childhood ideals with their scheming and plotting, but it had been long before his exile.

  Today, he recalled something else about that day. When compared with Cildel’s ordered rows of carefully trimmed flowery mead—its orchards with their golden and red apples, and its dovecotes of white pigeons—this mansion’s garden was as wild and shoddy as a kaftar’s cottage.

  Apparently, the gardeners of Mullecias Street had a fundamental disagreement with those of Cildel about what made up a tasteful trim, because every noble house and mansion preferred this unkempt style. The Starevosi nobility’s architecture was rough on the outside, naked stone and iron fences contrasted against an opulent interior, with open stone corridors surrounding a jungle of a garden. Wild Plekthian cushions tall enough to hide a lion fought for sunlight against pink caladiums and palm trees from distant shores of places whose names Gallio knew only from Bardic tales.

  On Mullecias Street, seemingly the only function of gardeners was to ensure the plants didn’t kill each other or poison the soil. According to Alvedhra, who knew more of plants and soil than he ever would, Constantina’s air was so salty that the fact the nobility and the merchants managed to maintain any kind of exotic gardens at all was proof enough of their riches.

  Gallio suspected there was something to be gleaned from the contrast between these two gardens he’d encountered at very different times in his life, and his mixed feelings about his role as an Inquisitor.

  But he wasn’t in the mood for deep realizations. What he really wanted was to go back in time, find Ioan, Kes, and Alvedhra and go achieve the fabled advanced drunkenness status that Marya insisted her brew could deliver like no other in all of Ivalis.

  Marya’s tavern had burned to the ground, just like his former life.

  Gallio found his last remaining friend waiting for him by the garden’s fish pond. Alvedhra was wearing her civilian outfit—a white cotton shirt buttoned up to her neck, with long sleeves that hid her wrists, linen pants, and sandals. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her step unsure. Despite the Clerics clearing away her poison, whatever those kaftar had used to put her down had struck her like a mace to the head. Even days after the ambush, she was still showing the aftereffects.

  “You look like dung,” Alvedhra told him as he approached. “If you need some sleep, I found a concoction that works like a charm. You should try it.” She grinned, and for an instant she was back to being the freckled Ranger apprentice under Ioan’s tutelage, madly stricken with the broody avian mercenary that had arrived in Burrova looking for work.

  “I may take you up on that,” Gallio said.

  Alvedhra was tossing bread from a cloth bag into the pond, to the delight of a school of dish-shaped, rainbow colored fish. Gallio stepped next to her and watched the fish fight amongst themselves for every tiny piece.

  “The Examination didn’t go well, did it,” Alvedhra said after a while.

  “And where did you get that impression?” Gallio asked.

  “For starters, you keep looking at my fish like you want to sunwave them.”

  Gallio blinked, then brandished a stern finger at her. “Don’t be silly. The sunwave is meant only for the enemies of the Light. Although—” he narrowed his eyes at the pond “—those fish do seem a bit suspicious. I wonder if they’ve paid their tithes lately.”

  Alvedhra barked a laugh. “Just say the word and I’ll go gather firewood for the pyre.” She tossed a handful of bread at the fish, then pocketed the bag and turned to Gallio. “So. What happened?”

  “Well, it turns out I’m no longer your superior officer.”

  He told her the rest in broad strokes, trying to keep his personal feelings about the Examiners out of it—she was still his apprentice, after all. By the end, not even years of martial discipline could keep his shoulders from slumping a bit.

  “There has to be a mistake,” Alvedhra said after he was done. “The ambush clearly wasn’t your fault. Why would the Examiners act like that?” She stroked her chin and pursed her lips in frustration. “We’re all on the same side.”

  Gallio shook his head. “That’s the problem. An Examiner is really an Inquisitor’s Inquisitor. They’re technically outside our order, but since they only answer to the Archbishops, they’re free to do as they wish.”

  The Militant Church’s hierarchy was relatively straightforward. It had three branches. The “Church” dealt with the congregation of the Light, the teaching of the holy tenets, and the spread of the religion across Ivalis. The “Mi
litant” part meant that, in cases of war, it was the duty of the Church to summon and lead the armies of Heiliges. And finally there was the “Inquisition” whose sworn mission was to look deep into the hearts of men and destroy the evil they found there, one way or the other, in order to stop the corruption of the Dark from taking over the world.

  The leaders of the Militant Church were, in descending order of importance, Alita herself, her seven holy consorts, her Holy Avatar—which hadn’t incarnated in centuries—and then the minor Light gods in an awkward sort of “revered elder” position. After the divine came the mortal leaders. The King was first… in theory. Then, at the same level of authority were the Archbishops, leading the Militant Church on the day to day, the Supreme Inquisitors, and the Knight Generals who commanded the Heiligian army.

  The Examiners were Inquisitors, but their duty was to ensure the integrity of the Inquisition itself, and to protect it from Dark corruption. They didn’t answer to the Supreme Inquisitors, but to the Archbishops, and were hand-selected from their positions in the other two branches. Harmon, for example, had been a Knight Captain, then a member of the Royal Guard before his summon, and Bartheny had been a Bishop.

  “Then you should write to the Archbishops,” Alvedhra said. “Present your case to them. They’re the best of us, aren’t they? Surely they’ll see that the Examiners got a bit… overzealous.”

  Gallio grinned mirthlessly. It was strange seeing how someone as grizzled and street-smart as Alvedhra could be so naïve in some matters. But could he blame her? He had trained her in the ways of the Light. She saw the Militant Church as how it should be, instead of how it actually was.

  Who was in the wrong? Despite her age, Alvedhra had succeeded the trails of the Inquisition, her training as a Ranger speeding her along the initiation and basic training, and her devotion earning her the favor of Alita herself. Perhaps she’d be casting sunwaves before long.

  It was clear that the Light rewarded devotion. The only question left was why Gallio himself was worthy of the sunwave.