Orconomics: A Satire (The Dark Profit Saga Book 1)

by J. Zachary Pike

  Chapter 2

  The Freedlands’ eastern regions were dominated by great forests, from the chilly Pinefells in the northeast to the verdant Green Span in the southeast. The northwest was renowned for harsh mountain ranges with names like the Ironbreakers and the Black Cliffs, jutting from the mainland into the frothing waves of the Greencurrent Sea. The southwest of the mainland was splintered into tiny islands and peninsulas, with swift, salty rivers and stagnant swamps running between them. In the middle of the Freedlands, the great Plains of Bahn spread for leagues. From the plains’ center, Mount Wynspar thrust upward like the gnarled toenail of some long-buried titan, and all along its southern slope sprawled Andarun, the highest city, the gleaming gem of the Freedlands.

  Legend held that Andarun had once been the greatest city on Arth, in the early ages when it was the high seat of the kingdoms of the Sten. Then the Sten betrayed the rest of mankind and were subsequently wiped out in retaliation. The armies of Man were quickly driven away by a dragon, which was followed by hordes of Lizardmen, who fell to the Gremlins, who were slain by an Ogre tribe, and so on and so forth. By the time the Freedmen liberated the city from the rule of Ogmar the Mad, one could barely walk down Central Avenue without tripping over a priceless relic from a long-faded conflict. Of course, no one could even venture near a sewer grate for fear of giant spiders or Venomous Scargs or any of the other monstrous denizens that had never fully been expunged from the city.

  Ironically, these ancient threats were key to Andarun’s rapid gentrification. Dangerous monsters and abundant treasure attract heroes. Wealthy heroes in need of gear attract merchants. Well-to-do merchants attract industry. Industry needs workers, who need developers for housing, who need builders and laborers, who need services. The ancient ruins beneath Mount Wynspar fertilized a blooming economy on its surface. Within an age, Andarun was again the greatest city on Arth, this time built atop the most deadly dungeon on Arth.

  In Andarun, one could wake a nameless fear or two just by digging a wine cellar.

  “The city’s built on big steps carved into the mountain back when the Sten were around,” Gorm told Gleebek as they made their way through Andarun’s crowded streets. “The lowest step is called the Base, and the top is the Pinnacle. Every step starts in the Ridge,” he said, pointing to the rough cliff face that cast the western side of the city in shadow, “and ends at the Wall.” He turned and pointed to the giant stone edifice that made up the eastern mirror of the Ridge.

  “A zabba,” Gleebek said with a low whistle.

  “Aye. The Wall and the Ridge cast long shadows down here on the lower steps. But Andarun rises to their tops, so up near the Pinnacle, where the uppity-ups live, the Wall ain’t much taller than a hedge. Good views, I’m told.”

  “Da grongo?”

  “Everything’s better by the Wall—the view, the light, the smells. Course, everything’s more expensive too. Makes Andarun almost like a map of society, ye see. The higher up the mountain ye go, the higher your status. The closer to the Wall ye are, the more money ye have.”

  “Grong, da nub’root Hupsit—”

  “So if we get separated, head down toward the Base and west to the Ridge. Eventually, ye’ll come here.” Gorm rounded a bend and gestured down an alley that was deeper and darker than most swamps.

  “Ga’pab?”

  “Welcome to the Underdim,” grinned Gorm. “They don’t get any more Ridgeward or Baseward.”

  Gleebek shivered and peered into the gloom. “Guz pabbo.”

  “It’s one of the worst neighborhoods in Andarun, and that says something.” Gorm started to trundle down the alley and into the Underdim. “Course, that means it’s where ye’ll be most welcome.”

  When he’d been on the road to Andarun, walking with Gleebek had earned Gorm withering stares, whispers, and more than a few unwelcome offers from aspiring heroes to eliminate his Goblin problem. Here in the Underdim, nobody looked twice at him for walking alongside a Goblin. Shadowkin, as the cursed races were collectively known, were common down in Andarun’s Baseward tiers. There were few people in the narrow streets, but a large part of them were Orcs, Gnolls, Kobolds, Goblins, and Gremlins.

  Between the Ridge’s shadow and the walls and other buildings rising above it, it was never really day in the Underdim. Even at midmorning, a handful of crude torches illuminated haphazard rows of shacks. A few of the older hovels had been built atop rooms hewn from the granite side of the Ridge, but most were cobbled together wherever building materials could be scavenged. The streets were surprisingly clean, save for a few bleached skeletons lying in the gutters. Nothing edible lasted a night on the Underdim’s gravel roads.

  This was where you dropped a body that would never be found. This was where you sent a man you didn’t want to hear from again. This was where you holed up when you needed to be unseen for a while. Or, Gorm thought, this was where you came to find someone who had done all of those things.

  There were few bars around, and all of them were private venues. Those denizens of the Underdim who could afford to drink didn’t like doing so in the company of strangers. If you passed out in the wrong company or the wrong place, you weren’t going to wake up. It took Gorm some searching to finally find a flimsy shanty with dim light leaking through holes in the wall and the clinking of tin tankards sounding from within.

  A peephole slid open as Gorm and Gleebek approached. “Password?” barked a gruff voice.

  Gorm punched through the frail door, grabbed the lookout, and slammed him against the doorframe three times. “That work?” he said.

  He heard the hurried sounds of a lock working, and then a battered-looking Gnoll opened the door. He stood a head shorter than Gorm and wore a thick, crimson coat below a hound’s face that looked like it had been banged into a doorjamb even before Gorm had banged it into a doorjamb. His hackles were up, but his tail was between his legs as he muttered, “I’ve got papers, hero. I’m not a foe anymore.”

  “And I ain’t a hero anymore,” said Gorm cheerfully, brushing past the Gnoll. Gleebek scampered after him.

  “Bar” would have been too generous a term for the establishment. A few wagon wheels and broken axels had been fashioned into makeshift tables. Lonely figures huddled on large rocks placed around the tables. Behind a bar constructed from an old door stood the barkeep: a thin, bespectacled man above the counter but a tremendous serpent beneath it. A sign hanging from the decrepit rafters proclaimed the establishment as “Angusss’s.”

  “Ye must be Angusss,” said Gorm, stamping up to the bar.

  “Anguss,” corrected the serpentine barkeep, polishing a glass. “The middle ‘s’ is silent.”

  Gorm tried not to scowl, but failed. Naga were very particular about their mispronunciation. “I’m looking for the Mask. Any idea where it is?”

  “Maybe I know sssomething; maybe I don’t,” said Angusss.

  “Maybe this’ll help.” Gorm plunked a single giltin on the table.

  The Naga eyed the thin golden coin, unimpressed. “You made quite a ssstir on your way in,” he said, nodding to the Gnoll sulking by the door.

  “It’s all relative. Compared to how I’ll leave if’n ye don’t help me out, that was downright chummy.”

  “Big talk for a man with only one ssovereign to ssspare.”

  “Fine,” said Gorm, fishing a second coin from his belt pouch. “Two giltin. Who is he these days?”

  “Three.”

  “Two and a complete set of internal organs.”

  “I’ve got enough internal organs.”

  Gorm patted his axe a couple of times. “And ye’ll answer me if ye care to keep it that way.”

  The Naga flicked a forked tongue over his teeth, considering; then he snatched the coins from the bar with the tip of his tail. “I hear he just got back from a job up in Ssscoria with Damrod the Eye.” He resumed his work with the dishes. “On an unrelated note, I hear a Dwarven blacksmith by the name of Foblerson up in Lowly Heights is away
on business.”

  “And the Eye?”

  “Away on more business, they sssay.”

  Gorm thanked Angusss, left the bar, and made for the stairs on Mycen Avenue. The stairway up the mountain passed through a small arch in the Wall at the edge of the Base, guarded by a couple of bannermen. Gorm kept his eyes firmly on the timber and iron steps as he passed them.

  It was only one tier up and a couple of blocks Wallward to Lowly Heights, but the residents clearly thought they were halfway up the mountain. They were the sort of folk who believed in hard work and clean living. The houses were just as slapdash as those in Underdim, but most had a coat of whitewash over their ramshackle exteriors, and all of them had a neatly trimmed strip of lawn in front.

  Gorm stopped by a street vendor selling ten-cent beef rolls near a small park, which is to say, a tree and a bench on the side of Mudfog Lane. The hawker’s cart was new and sturdy, but it had been intentionally weathered with sanding paper and a careful paint job to resemble the decrepit crates on wheels Gorm remembered from his childhood. He ordered a beef roll for himself, and then a second for Gleebek after the Goblin gave him a pitiable stare.

  “Can ye point me in the direction of Foblerson’s forge?” Gorm asked as the vendor fished around in the cart for a couple of buns.

  “Half a block Wallward, take a left down Maylie Alley by the rose shop.”

  “Much obliged.” Gorm pulled a shilling from his purse for the beef rolls, and nearly dropped it when the hawker asked for three giltin. “Three sovereigns! The sign says ten cent beef rolls!”

  “Because we’re a franchise of the Ten Cent Transportable Edibles Company,” said the vendor with well-practiced indifference.

  “But a giltin ’n’ a half each? It’s banditry chargin’ so much!”

  “Can’t charge what the market won’t bear,” said the vendor. “Few things in Andarun are cheap, friend. You want these with onions?”

  “They cost extra?”

  “No, sir. Condiments are free.”

  Moments later, Gorm and Gleebek made their way toward Maylie Alley, carefully balancing towering mounds of fried onions, sliced peppers, assorted relishes, and spiced mustard atop their beef rolls.

  Gorm surveyed the streets thoughtfully as he chewed. The streets were thick with Humans, a few Dwarves, and every variety of Gnome, most dressed in the red or blue coveralls of factory workers. A Dwarf in old mail and a Goblin in a cat-pelt loincloth stuck out enough to attract more than a few glares.

  “Listen,” he told the Goblin. “Ye got to learn to keep a low profile, Gleebek.”

  “Grong, nub Gleebek. Tib’rin—”

  “No arguin’. There’s a lot of fish in the sea, and if ye make any waves, they’ll eat you. Got it?”

  “Grot?”

  “Good.” Gorm shoved the last of his beef roll into his mouth and turned down Maylie Alley.

  Foblerson’s forge was little more than a crumbling hearth and an anvil in front of a decrepit hut. Before Gorm approached it, he ducked down a side alley and pushed around to the back of the shack. He had to search through a pile of crates and rags, but eventually he found the nondescript black trunk he was looking for. With a wink to the puzzled Goblin, he pulled a long ruby dress from the trunk, tucked it under his cloak, and headed back to Foblerson’s forge.

  A gnarled, old Dwarf with gray streaks through his braided black beard was trying to beat a piece of iron into submission. The misshaped hunk of metal remained heatedly defiant.

  “Afternoon, Mask,” said Gorm.

  “Name’s Foblerson,” said the smith, without looking up from his work.

  “Is it?” asked Gorm loudly. “Well, Mr. Foblerson, can I ask what ye intend to do with this?” He held the red dress up high.

  A hush fell over the alley. All eyes turned to Gorm and the smith.

  Most of the common folk know little of Dwarven reproduction, as Dwarves are famously taciturn about matters of sex and procreation. However, it is clear to everyone that something is different about Dwarven courtship. There are no Dwarven couples, no visible Dwarven courtship rituals, and, crucially, no Dwarven women. Every Dwarf in existence is male and, by all appearances, solitary, until he shows up with a tiny, bearded baby strapped to his back and flailing a toy hammer. A plethora of humorous theories and jokes about how such a child might come to be born can be heard in any alehouse on Arth, provided there are no Dwarves present.

  Rumors of a Dwarf who owned a dress were certain to draw exactly the sort of attention the Mask loathed.

  “Quit your jokin’!” barked the smith. “And come inside,” he added, under his breath.

  “Thought ye might say as much,” said Gorm, following the Mask into the shack.

  The front room of the smithy was as one might expect: filled with spare tools, dusty ingots, and a number of weapons and tools in various stages of completion.

  “You know what you done?” grumbled the smith as he led Gorm and Gleebek into the dingy back room. “This place was perfect. Foblerson’s out of town for a month. And now I gotta find a new spot, ’cause folks will be poking around and asking questions.” He stepped behind a musty curtain.

  “I’ve come as I need a favor,” said Gorm.

  “That’s the only reason anyone ever sees you.” The smith tossed various articles of clothing out from behind the curtain. A pair of heavy gloves. A leather apron. A jerkin and trousers.

  “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?” mused Gorm.

  “Not half long enough.” Behind the curtain, the Dwarven silhouette was warping, stretching into something lithe and tall. The Mask peeked around the curtain, and Gleebek squeaked in fear. Its face was like an ash-gray canvas, featureless, save for a pair of eyes the color of sunset.

  “Don’t worry,” Gorm told the trembling Goblin. “The Mask never stays his true self for long.”

  Already, the creature’s skin was changing to a pale pink, with oily gray hair sprouting from its head. His eyes blinked and became dark irises, and a new nose and lips were twisting into a deep scowl as a thin mustache sprouted above it. “Nobody’s got a true self,” said the Mask in a new, reedy voice—a bureaucrat’s voice. “Everybody is trying to look like someone else, even to themselves. We’re just more honest about it.”

  “Ha,” said Gorm. “Doppelgangers ain’t honest about anything.”

  “Touché,” said the Mask, ducking back behind the curtain. A moment later he emerged in a neat, dark suit and a pair of stylish silver spectacles. “So, how can I get rid of you?”

  Gorm nodded to his companion. “This here’s Gleebek.”

  “Is he now?” The Mask cast a sideways glance at the Goblin.

  “Gleebek. Da gub Tib’rin.”

  “He needs his noncombatant papers,” said Gorm. “You’re going to sponsor him.”

  “And then you’ll stay out of my face?”

  “Aye, any and all of ’em. We’ll be square.”

  The Mask nodded. “Fine. And who should I go as?” he asked. His face shifted, the nose becoming thick and hawkish, the skin shifting to a ruddy hue, a deep scar tracing over his right eye, an unkempt, rusty beard suddenly spilling down his chest. “Maybe I could go as ye,” he said in Gorm’s voice.

  Gorm shrugged. “Ye want to walk into the guild lookin’ like that, it’s your funeral. Just see that Gleebek gets his papers.”

  The Mask laughed darkly as he shifted back to himself. “Why are you helping a Goblin? Why do you care what happens to him?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “I know you, Ingerson. You don’t stick your neck out for nothing. There must be a reason.”

  “There is.”

  “I’d like to know it.”

  “That’s your problem.”

  “If this goes badly,” the Mask said slowly, “I’ll disappear, and you won’t find me again. This is all on you.”

  “Look, first thing in the morning, ye take Gleebek here into the guild—”

  “Dab Ti
b’rin.”

  “Ye sign his papers as a sponsor, ye leave. He scampers off to, I don’t know, be a shoeshine, and I clank boots out of Andarun. We’ll be done by lunch. What’s to go bad?” said Gorm.

  The doppelganger studied Gorm carefully. “Well,” he said eventually. “I imagine we’ll find out tomorrow.”

  Marten rubbed his elbows as he hopped down off the cart. A cold summer rain chilled the roots of his bones, and the damp alleyway running off one of Aberreth’s back streets offered little by way of shelter. It offered little by way of anything. The alley was nothing more than two granite walls with a couple of yards of cobblestone and a single door between them.

  Marten’s nerves were raw, and there were butterflies in his stomach, but he was fairly certain he had all his angles covered. Not that fairly certain was good enough; fairly certain could get you killed.

  Still, fairly certain was the best he could do. This was his first job without Horold, and the planning had always been Horold’s gig. Marten didn’t like working alone, but nobody was going to associate with someone who owed Benny Hookhand money. Besides, if this job went according to plan, he could pay off Benny Hookhand and have a tidy sum to spare. And if the job went sour, he doubted it could be any worse than what Benny Hookhand did to poor Horold.

  “Best get this over with,” he muttered to himself. Taking another second to steel himself, he hurried toward the small red doorway at the end of the alley.

  The doorway opened to greet him. “Did you get them, Halfling?”

  “Course. Just like I said I would,” said Marten, brushing damp curls from his eyes. Conventional wisdom said that Halflings were called Halflings because they were half as tall as men, although some liked to add that they were half as smart or worked half as much. Of course, people who said such things were half as likely to wake up with their coin purses; most Halflings held notoriously flexible views on the nature of property and ownership.