by Zac Gorman
Another veiled threat. They both knew Thisby wasn’t there to deliver food. The Sentinel didn’t need to be fed. He hunted his own dinner in the Black Mountain, and every creature in the dungeon knew to stay out of his way when he was on the prowl.
Thisby stiffened her resolve and tried not to think about the cat, large enough to easily swallow her whole, pacing in front of her as if she were his next meal.
“I need the count,” she said as calmly as possible.
This was her monthly duty, and she hated it with all her heart. On the last day of every month, Thisby would come down to the Darkwell and meet with Catface to receive the count. And every month, Catface would taunt her and torment her until he’d had his fill, and then he’d reply with the same exact thing: ze—
“One,” said Catface.
Thisby froze.
“You mean, ‘Zero,’” she said.
Catface stopped pacing.
“Do I strike you as a creature who says things they don’t mean, Little Mouse?”
“No, but . . .”
“ONE,” he said again, this time making effort to add verbal punctuation.
Thisby couldn’t believe her ears. Never in all her years had anything passed through the Darkwell. The room felt suddenly colder.
“W-what? What could have gotten through? H-how?” she stammered. At any other time, Thisby would have been embarrassed by her voice cracking in front of him, but not when it came to the Deep Down. Not when it came to the place beyond the Darkwell. This was the place where monsters feared to go. This was the basement of the world.
“You were supposed to be guarding it,” Thisby muttered automatically. The moment the words left her mouth, she realized the offense. But the repercussions never came.
“I don’t know . . . ,” he said, trailing off. His brow furrowed. “It must’ve been some type of magic,” Catface concluded, mostly to himself. There was a sort of unspoken question mark dangling curiously at the end of the word magic.
“What happened?” Thisby asked, trying to regain her composure.
“I was hunting. When I returned, there it was. A creature from the Deep Down. A Deep Dweller. Standing right there. Right where you are now.”
Thisby tried her best not to look behind her.
“I never got a good look at it. I ran after it, but it disappeared before I could pounce. Vanished. Magic, most likely. At first I thought it was just an imp that had gotten too brave for its own good, wandered too close to the Darkwell, but the scent of the creature lingered. Its scent was unmistakable. It came from the Deep Down. Somehow it passed through the Darkwell.”
“But—but that’s impossible!” blurted Thisby.
“It should be. But it happened.”
When Thisby was little, Grunda had told her that not even magic could cross the barrier at the Darkwell. Thisby thought about it now and felt foolish. Maybe she’d just been naive. It was likely that Grunda had only told her that so she wouldn’t have nightmares. It could have been a blackdoor, she supposed, but those were created by the Master himself. And how would someone from beyond the Darkwell get ahold of one in the first place?
“And now there is of course, the obvious question this all raises . . . ,” said Catface, interrupting Thisby’s train of thought before trailing off.
He didn’t need to finish his thought. Thisby knew what the question was. If one creature could get through when Catface’s back was turned, how many more could have come and gone? Once a way through the Darkwell had been exposed, what was left to stop dozens, maybe thousands, of creatures from coming through?
“I’VE GOT TO TELL THE MASTER!” Thisby realized aloud.
It wasn’t a thought she was thrilled about. News this bad was bound to end up coming back to hurt her, despite her lack of involvement. The Master was a notoriously poor news-taker, and Roquat would delight in doling out any extra punishments that the Master himself would be too busy to administer, as he always was.
Catface’s big yellow eyes locked on to Thisby.
“Do you think that’s best?” he purred. “After all, with the Royal Inspection coming up, perhaps it’s best that we keep this between you and me . . . at least until we have more information. No reason to stir up trouble.”
It was no surprise to Thisby that Catface knew about the Inspection. Secrets didn’t stay secret very long in the dungeon, and Catface was quite persuasive. She eyed him cautiously. He gave away very little, staring back at her with his big glowing eyes shining in the candlelight.
It was an interesting gambit. He knew that if she told the Master, her life would be unbearable, especially with the Inspection on the horizon. Of course, if she didn’t tell the Master, then they were both in it together. Keeping a lie this size from the Master could very well result in something far, far worse than extra chores if it ever were to get out.
“Why tell me at all, then?” asked Thisby, unable to restrain her curiosity.
A look flashed across the cat’s face that she’d never seen before in all her trips to the Darkwell. It was one she immediately wished never to see again . . . fear.
“Because,” he said, turning away from her, “if something were to happen to me, I can’t be the only one who knows.”
And with that he slunk back into the shadows, leaving Thisby standing alone in the room, standing much closer to the Darkwell than she’d realized.
When Thisby was little, she’d had a recurring dream.
In the middle of the night, she’d wake with a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d try to go back to sleep, but it was no use. The feeling wouldn’t go away. It pulled her to get out of bed, to go out into the hall, like she’d swallowed a bunch of iron and somebody was standing just outside her doorway holding a gigantic lodestone. She was drawn to it; she had no choice. The feeling just wouldn’t go away.
She would feel her bare feet press against the cold, uneven wood as she left her bedroom and walked out across the gangway. Her footfalls were the only noise, echoing softly off the walls of the cave like the sound of a distant drum. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. At the end of the gangway was a platform. At the end of the platform was a ladder. It was a familiar ladder. The ladder she’d climbed twice a day, every day, since she was four years old. Every morning she would climb down three hundred and four rungs into the Black Mountain to go to work, and every night she would climb back up three hundred and four rungs to the relative comfort of her bedroom. In her sleep, she walked to the edge of the platform and stared down.
The ladder descended into a darkened rough stone tunnel about the width of fishing pole, the bottom of which was impossible to see from the top. It reminded her of looking down the throat of a gigantic beast. The stones were its rib cage. The ladder was its tongue. The feeling in her stomach had now grown worse than ever. It was pulling her. Over the edge. Stronger.
“Jump,” it said.
She stared into the abyss for as long as she could manage before the pulling became too much. Jump. Jump. Jump. Jump.
She hesitantly dangled one foot precariously over the edge and felt the cool breeze kiss the sole of her foot.
“More,” the voice said.
The pulling grew stronger.
She lifted up her other heel from the dirty wooden planks.
It was only her toes touching the ground now.
So close.
She leaned forward.
And . . .
She woke up.
Thisby felt the same pulling in her stomach as she approached the very edge of the Darkwell. She didn’t want to look into the darkness. She didn’t want to see if there was something looking back at her from beyond the blackweave gate. She didn’t want to see what was waiting on the other side of the abyss.
But the pulling was strong.
She stepped up to the edge and peered in through the razor-thin gaps between the bars.
Nothing moved. Nothing looked back. Beyond the bars was just . . . nothing. Horrible, silent
, overwhelming nothing.
The trip back to her bedroom was a blur; she ran through the winding corridors and secret passages until her legs felt like they were about to give out. When she couldn’t run she jogged, and when she couldn’t jog, she walked. Hours passed. Outside the Black Mountain, night slowly surrendered to day and all the while Thisby never stopped moving and her mind never quit racing. The exhaustion of traveling for almost two days straight without rest didn’t sink in until she’d crossed over gangways and climbed up the ladder—all three hundred and four rungs—all the way back. When she got there, she pushed her chair up against the door and flopped down on her bed, exhausted. She remembered that Mingus was still in her backpack and forced herself out of bed to get him out. He was sound asleep. She knew this because he’d put in his “sleeping eyes,” little white buttons with lines drawn in a semicircle across them to indicate closed eyelids. The silliness of him putting in fake eyes specifically for sleep comforted her somewhat, but it wasn’t enough.
That night, for the first time in years, the dream came back.
Chapter 5
The carriage came to a stop so abruptly that Iphigenia nearly spilled her sparkling hibiscus tea. The silk and lace decorative pillows that were once neatly arranged to optimize the energy flow of the carriage had been flung from the daybed in such a violent manner that it would take a team of professional carriage pillow stylists an entire afternoon of rearranging to make things livable again. It was more than any sane person could handle.
“Driver!” Iphigenia screeched.
There was no immediate answer from the driver, so she tried again. After three or four more screeches—each slightly shriller than the last—the carriage door slid open and her brother, Prince Ingo, smiled back at her pleasantly. He was as handsome as he thought he was—and that was saying something. He had raven black hair, like all members of the Larkspur royal family, and the kind of face you wouldn’t realize you were staring at until it was too late and you had to fill the resulting awkward silence with a lot of “ums” and “uhs.” Despite being only fifteen years old, Ingo already had received so many marriage proposals that the palace had to employ a full-time clerk to sort through them all.
Iphigenia followed him out of the coach. Her dress was a dark emerald color that intensified her olive skin and long black hair, which was currently pulled back into a series of elaborate interweaving braids. She took Ingo’s hand as she delicately stepped through the mud.
“I hate it here. It’s horrible,” she said matter-of-factly.
She wasn’t wrong. Everything about Castle Grimstone was indeed designed to be horrible. That was the whole point. Of the thirty-three architects who had overseen the construction of the castle, only two of them weren’t criminally insane, and at least one of those two was just never caught in the act.
Ingo beamed at his sister.
“There’s history in these walls!” he exclaimed, gesturing emphatically toward the rotting black walls of the castle.
Iphigenia screwed up her face.
“I think I can smell it,” she said.
A trumpet that sounded as if it’d been stuffed full of wet socks tooted sadly from some distance, and at once a large wall composed of various skulls began to open. Apparently, this was the gate. From the gate, a company of armored ghouls riding monstrous battle boars rode toward the Larkspur twins, followed closely behind by four trolls carrying an ornate wheel-less carriage suspended by wooden poles. The ghouls parted and the trolls stepped through, coming to rest mere feet in front of Iphigenia and her brother. The trolls turned the carriage sideways ninety degrees with a prancing, well-rehearsed sidestep that didn’t quite jibe with their brutish appearance. The door of the carriage creaked open.
Inside was only darkness, and for a moment, everything was quiet.
Princess Iphigenia yawned.
Then with a whoosh, a shower of yellow and green sparks exploded from inside the wheel-less carriage. Skulls made of prismatic smoke swirled around it, yowling at the pain of having been conjured into existence. All four of the trolls carrying the carriage unzipped, starting at the top of their heads and running all the way down to their toes, revealing each of them to be a swarm of locusts who’d been wearing troll-shaped costumes all along. The locusts then burst into the sky to form an undulating cloud above where the trolls had just stood, and from that cloud a lightning bolt struck down and split the carriage in two, leaving in its wake a cloud of unnatural, living smoke that crackled with magical energy.
Iphigenia smoothed out the folds of her dress.
When the smoke dissipated, standing in the spot where the lightning had struck was the castle’s Master, a tiny old man in a black cloak, holding a gnarled staff of yew that on its crown held a glowing red gem. He was grinning from ear to ear, and it looked as if he perhaps had too many teeth. He also appeared to be a little out of breath.
Ingo applauded politely.
Iphigenia watched a moth that had landed on one of the castle’s many protruding iron spikes. It flapped idly.
“Welcome . . . ,” the Master said, pausing for effect and perhaps to catch his breath, “. . . to Castle Grimstone!”
The tour was taking forever. The Master was quite proud of his castle and the history it had seen, but Iphigenia had grown up in a castle. Lyra Castelis, the royal castle of Nth, to be precise. And needless to say, it was a much, much nicer one.
“And over here,” the Master continued, “is where Anouk the Blade met her grisly fate at the hands of one of my many enchanted armors! She thought she could simply sneak in and take me hostage in order to extort the mountain’s great treasure! Fah!” He snorted. “As if nobody had thought of that one before! If I gave up my dungeon’s treasure to the first person who wandered in here and put a dagger to my throat, this whole place would’ve been out of business years ago!”
Iphigenia was getting the sense that this tour was more for the benefit of the Master than it was for her and her brother. He seemed to be enjoying recounting the tales of the many adventurers who’d perished in pursuit of the Black Mountain’s legendary treasure, although it struck her as odd that he seemed reluctant to lead them down into the dungeon itself—the very reason they were there in the first place. In fact, the few times they’d passed entryways or stairwells that appeared to lead down, the Master had given them a particularly wide berth, avoiding even looking in their direction. It reminded Iphigenia of how her family would behave when they passed commoners on the street.
The Master prattled on. Iphigenia let out a loud sigh, which caught a polite look of disapproval from her brother. While it was hard for Iphigenia to hide her disdain, Ingo had no problem whatsoever. Nobody was as diplomatic as Ingo Larkspur.
Ingo could engage in scintillating conversation with royals and commoners alike. He could negotiate sensitive matters of court as easily as he could entertain a barroom of farmers with ribald tales. And when he spoke to you, you felt as if you were the most important person in the world. If anybody were ever born to be King, it was Ingo Larkspur. Unfortunately for Ingo, he wasn’t.
While he and his twin sister, Iphigenia, were born only minutes apart, it was his impatient sister who’d managed to sneak out first, and thus, she was destined to wear the crown when her parents finally vacated the throne. It was a cruel twist of fate that would’ve torn a lesser man apart, but Ingo bore it all with good humor.
Iphigenia Larkspur could not have been more her brother’s opposite. She was impatient and snotty and at times downright mean. She was intolerant of stupidity—and she saw stupidity everywhere. She saw it in the fat red faces of the stammering dukes who attempted to win the crown’s loyalty through bribery and flattery. She saw it in the senseless violence of the commoners who were too busy fighting one another to build a better life for themselves or their families. And currently, she saw it in the tottering old man who wouldn’t stop feeding his ego for long enough to get to the point of this whole stupid visit.
“With a castle this wonderful, I can only imagine the amazing sights in store for us in the dungeon!” said Ingo, sensing Iphigenia’s pending outburst.
“Yes, yes! You’ll see the dungeon, Your Highness. But first, there’s one more thing that I must show you . . . ,” said the Master.
He led them to a large pair of iron doors beneath a black stone archway. There was no handle anywhere to be seen, just a small golden trumpet attached to what looked like a jewelry box that clung to the wall beside the doors. The Master leaned over and mumbled something into the trumpet, and at once the doors began to open. The Master grinned at Iphigenia, proud of his own cleverness.
“It’s a riddle,” he said. “Only those who know True Magic can open it.”
Iphigenia wanted to smack the smarmy grin off his stupid face.
They walked through a series of winding corridors. The walls were made of shiny dark stones that shone eerily in the faint green light illuminating the halls. Bizarre runes were engraved on them. Iphigenia struggled to make out a few of them before ultimately deciding they were complete nonsense.
At the end of the corridor they came to a door blocked by two skeleton warriors decked out from head to toe in spiked full-plate armor. The Master nodded to them and they silently stepped aside. He placed his hand on the ornate door, but before he pushed it open, he paused for dramatic effect. Iphigenia had never wanted to punch somebody in the mouth more than she did right then.
They walked into the room, and even Iphigenia—though she’d never admit it—was impressed by what she saw. The room was completely circular, with a system of moveable ladders and walkways that allowed one to access the higher levels. In the center of the room, an enormous golden contraption the size of several large elephants stacked directly atop one another spun and clicked mechanically, diligently performing its skillful, arcane choreography. Arms branched off it and rotated around in orbits of whirling golden arcs, buzzing as they went.
The walls of the room were lined with crystal balls that appeared cloudy until you came closer, and then strange images would appear: a troll eating its lunch, a fire drake sleeping, a scrawny little girl with an enormous backpack running around frantically.