Thisby Thestoop and the Black Mountain

by Zac Gorman

  The Master quite enjoyed the idea of the Eyes in the Dark—of some vast, timeless evil living beneath the Black Mountain—because that was the kind of thing that drew the really good adventurers to the dungeon. But the truth of the matter was, even if there was something down there, it was well beyond the Darkwell and of no real concern to the day-to-day functioning of the dungeon. Whether it was an undead dragon, who could say? It was a striking image, at least, or as the Master would say, a “marketable” one.

  Regardless, the wyverns fancied themselves direct descendants of dragons because they looked similar to how dragons were often depicted. Only instead of four legs like dragons, wyverns had two legs and arms that branched into wings—like a bat. They were also much, much smaller, if the legends about dragons were to be believed, although as far as Thisby was concerned, wyverns were quite large enough, thank you very much. Thisby was small for her age, but a fully grown wyvern stood at least three times her height—not including their tail—with a wingspan that made it hard for them to fit through most passages in the dungeon.

  Thisby ran her hand along the cool stone at the base of the fountain as she crouched beside it, searching for traces of Iphigenia. The stagnant water that had pooled inside the fountain was so thick with algae that it was practically a solid, and it had the distinct aroma of a sea hag’s bathwater.

  “Look! Up there! The tower!” whispered Mingus.

  Through an open, glassless window in the far tower, Thisby watched a pale figure in an emerald green dress climbing the stairs.

  “YOUR HIGHNESS!” yelled Thisby, forgetting where she was for a moment.

  Iphigenia turned and glared at Thisby before continuing off in huff.

  “She’s going to get herself killed!” said Thisby, turning to Mingus.

  Thisby raced to the tower and up the long, winding stairs. By the time she reached the top, she could barely breathe and looked as if she’d just dunked her head in the fountain. It was possible that she smelled like she had as well, but that’s a rude thing to say, so never mind.

  “STOP!” Thisby wheezed.

  Iphigenia, standing on a narrow walkway, turned around and crossed her arms defiantly. Thisby approached the Princess carefully, as if she were trying to walk toward a pigeon without frightening it away. The walkway was suspended between the towers, well over a hundred feet in the air, and the little guardrails tacked onto the sides looked a bit like an afterthought. It was possibly her imagination, but Thisby swore she could feel it swaying.

  “What?” Iphigenia spat. Apparently all that walking hadn’t settled her down one bit. If there was one thing the Larkspurs were good at, it was holding grudges.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

  “What do you care?” said Iphigenia, walking out to the crossroads directly between the four towers. She looked around, trying to decide where to go next. With a sigh, she placed her hands on her hips and turned back to Thisby.

  “Which way goes to the castle?” she demanded.

  “None of them!” Thisby exclaimed, exasperated. “This room’s a dead end! And you would’ve known that if you’d stuck with me like I told you to!”

  Iphigenia rolled her eyes. “After what you said to me? How dare you speak to your future Queen like that!”

  “You said the dungeon was horrible!”

  “IT IS HORRIBLE! ISN’T THAT THE WHOLE POINT OF A DUNGEON? TO BE HORRIBLE? HOW COULD YOU HAVE A ‘NICE’ DUNGEON? WHAT WOULD EVEN BE THE POINT!”

  “YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO BE SO MEAN ABOUT IT! I LIKE IT HERE! IT’S MY HOME, OKAY? AND I DON’T CARE IF YOU ARE THE FUTURE QUEEN, YOU’RE IN MY HOME, AND YOU SHOULD SHOW IT SOME RESPECT!”

  The girls shouted until they were red in the face.

  They shouted so loud, in fact, they didn’t even hear the whooshing of wings bearing down on them.

  They shouted so loud, in fact, they didn’t even hear the whooshing of wings bearing down on them.

  Chapter 15

  With a shriek that could curdle milk, a large gray wyvern dove for them. Just before the monster’s ferocious talons could rip into Thisby, Mingus flashed a bright green, blinding the beast and causing it to miss. Its claws hit the walkway instead, gouging out chunks of stone from its surface.

  The beast screeched angrily and circled back around. The beating of its leathery wings blasted gusts of wind that were strong enough to test Thisby’s balance, and its horrible angry screams made her clasp her ears in pain.

  “This way!” shouted Thisby, desperate to be heard over the noise.

  Iphigenia and Thisby ran toward the tower directly across from them, but before they could make it halfway across the narrow bridge, a second wyvern landed directly in front of them, blocking their path. It let out a cry of victory as the other wyvern circled around and landed behind them. Slowly, the two wyverns began inching forward, snapping their jaws.

  They were trapped.

  “Do something!” yelled Iphigenia.

  Thisby had been in bad situations before. In the dungeon, finding yourself trapped between two hungry wyverns was pretty much par for the course, but this time there was a complication—and it was standing next to her, wearing an emerald green dress, desperately clutching her arm.

  Thisby’s mind raced. Clearly she had no time to get out her notebooks, so she was going to have to do this the hard way. Thisby scanned her memory for things she knew about wyverns. They’re territorial, they hunt mostly at night, they only eat every three days, their favorite food is— Thisby froze. She knew exactly what to do.

  “Open my backpack,” she ordered Iphigenia. Iphigenia opened her mouth to protest at being spoken to like a servant but Thisby cut her off, “Just DO IT!”

  Thisby crouched down as Iphigenia slid behind her and opened the backpack. The wyverns continued to walk toward them, snapping and screeching as they approached.

  “There should be a canvas bag near the top. Get it out and hand it to me!” said Thisby.

  Iphigenia looked into the overstuffed backpack and suddenly felt as if she were living one of those nightmares where she’d shown up at a grand ball being thrown in her honor and couldn’t remember the names of any of the guests, and also, her farthingale was improperly tufted. Inside Thisby’s backpack was an endless labyrinth of pouches, boxes, and bags, each one labeled in a manner so confusing that it might as well have been written in goblin, as far as Iphigenia was concerned. In fact, several of the care packages from Grunda actually were.

  “Where is it? Everything’s a mess in here!” she yelled.

  The wyverns moved closer, calling out to each other excitedly.

  “The bag’s about the size of a watermelon. It has a blue snake and dagger emblem printed on the side. It should look like it’s full of kidneys!”

  Iphigenia held up a bag. “This one?”

  Thisby looked at the bag and shook her head angrily.

  “These are GALLBLADDERS! I said KIDNEYS!”

  “You said it should LOOK LIKE kidneys!”

  “Just keep looking!”

  The wyverns moved closer. The beasts were only feet away now. The rancid stench of their breath combined with digging through bags of organs was making Iphigenia nauseous. The fear of being eaten alive wasn’t helping much, either.

  She tore through the backpack. There were several canvas bags marked with emblems, but none of them seemed like they were full of kidneys. There had to be a better system than this. She tossed several more bags aside until finally, after what felt like hours but was actually seconds, she found it.

  “Here!” she shouted, tossing the bag up and over the backpack to Thisby.

  Thisby caught it and pulled the drawstring. She reached her hand into the bag and pulled out a raw, dripping kidney. Holding it high over her head, she waved it back and forth.

  The wyverns stopped in their tracks and bolted upright like dogs trying to peer over the edge of the dinner table. With every wave of Thisby’s hand, they bent their necks in
the same direction, following the kidney she clutched in her hand, fixated. They even let out a strange little cooing noise.

  She tossed the kidney to the wyvern directly in front of her, and it snatched the organ from the air with terrifying speed.

  “Come on!” she whispered to Iphigenia.

  Thisby reached into the bag and grabbed another one. This one she threw off the edge of the railing between the two wyverns. They both dove for it simultaneously, the larger gray one getting there first. Thisby and Iphigenia hustled across the now-vacant walkway.

  The whole way back down the stairs and out of the roost, Thisby tossed kidneys to the monsters until her bag was nearly empty, finally leaving them the remainder of the bag to finish off. The wyverns were still fighting over it when the girls disappeared out the doorway, back on their way toward the castle.

  They walked in silence for a long time before Iphigenia finally decided to speak.

  “That was clever.”

  “It wasn’t,” said Thisby. “It was just something I remembered.”

  Iphigenia sighed. “Can’t you just take a compliment?”

  “I can,” said Thisby. “When it’s the right compliment. Grunda used to say that cleverness is like magic: at the end of the day, it’s all just smoke and mirrors, a parlor trick meant to impress gullible folks. I’m not clever. I don’t want to be clever. I just take a lot of notes and pay attention.”

  Iphigenia smiled. It wasn’t the toothy kind of smile like her brother, Ingo, might flash to impress the fat-faced dignitaries or cause the young barmaids swoon, but a tight-lipped, awkward smile that she made in spite of herself.

  Thisby smiled back.

  Chapter 16

  By the time they were clear of the wyvern’s roost, it was too late to press on any farther. Even when Thisby was by herself, she always tried to be back in her bedroom with the door barred tight before midnight, when the most dangerous monsters were out and about.

  Unfortunately, there was no way to get back to the safety of her bedroom tonight, so Thisby decided to set up camp. In theory, if they camped tonight, they’d make it back to the castle tomorrow afternoon, and that seemed to be the safest bet. Iphigenia resisted at first, as spending another night in the dungeon wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time, but she was so exhausted that she quickly acquiesced when faced with the alternative of hiking clear through until morning.

  Thisby found a depression made of mud and stone in the side of a hill that overlooked Elphond’s Escape and set up camp. This high up with their backs to the hill it would be nearly impossible for them to be snuck up on in the middle of the night, and the view didn’t hurt either. It wasn’t ideal to spend the night in the dungeon, but if you had to, the Escape was a nicer place than most.

  Elphond’s Escape was an entire level of the dungeon almost exactly two-thirds of the way to the top, and it was unlike any other area in the Black Mountain. Elphond the Evil had been the first Master of the Black Mountain and a wizard of the highest order. He’d built the Escape as a way to house certain creatures who couldn’t thrive in the stony, dark conditions of the dungeon, and in doing so, made certain that his dungeon would contain the greatest menagerie of monsters anywhere in the known world.

  The unwary adventurer who stumbled into the Escape might believe they’d somehow taken a wrong turn and ended up outside. There were plains and forest as far as the eye could see, bright blue skies—during the day, of course—and even a river that tumbled and burbled along until it terminated in a rather large waterfall, which cascaded down through several floors of the dungeon. Birds sang, wild beasts roamed the plains, and of course, fantastic monsters stalked through the woods and thundered through the fields. It was Thisby’s favorite place in the entire dungeon, and it wasn’t the first time she had camped there, although it was the first time she’d brought company, aside from Mingus.

  Elphond’s Escape

  Even Iphigenia was impressed.

  “I suppose not all magic is stupid,” she said.

  Thisby quit digging through her backpack and looked up.

  “No, I suppose not,” she said. “This isn’t like the kind of magic you probably saw from the current Master. This was Elphond’s magic. Old magic. Cool stuff. You know, for a wizard. Do you have wizards back in Lyra Castelis?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Iphigenia with a sigh. “My father’s Grand Vizier is a wizard. Little guy with a beard and awful breath. More into prophecies and giving my father warnings about dark, foreboding omens than he is about doing anything fun. No lightning bolts from his fingers or any of that.”

  “Now, that’s magic I could get behind!” said Thisby. “Flying around, shooting fireballs, maybe even . . . slime healing magic?” Thisby looked over at Mingus but he didn’t react. Maybe he was asleep.

  “Like what?” said Iphigenia.

  “Sorry, inside joke.”

  “Oh,” said Iphigenia, staring up at the ceiling of the cave, which currently looked exactly like the night sky. She recognized a constellation known as the Hunter. A cool spring breeze even washed over them from the valley below and blew her hair around her face.

  Below them, some centaurs galloped across the fields. The one who appeared to be their leader was carrying a lantern and shouting something in a strange language.

  “We’re safe up here,” said Thisby before the Princess could ask.

  After some time, she’d built a small fire, set a few basic bell alarms around their proximity, and removed from her backpack an odd, multicompartmented box that looked a bit like a tiny chest of drawers. Each drawer contained different snacks, some of which she offered to the Princess.

  Iphigenia picked at them carefully.

  “What’s it like to be a princess?” Thisby asked finally, assuming that their awkward silence had gone on long enough.

  Iphigenia paused. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s all I’ve ever been.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” said Thisby.

  Iphigenia looked at the filthy girl shoving some sort of jerky into her mouth.

  Thisby realized the confusion. “Oh, I mean, I’ve always been me!” she said through a mouthful of food. “A gamekeeper, here in this dungeon!”

  Thisby brushed her strawlike hair away from her face and suddenly felt the need to look dignified. It wasn’t a natural look on her. Mostly she just stuck out her jaw for some reason and tried to chew with her mouth closed. It was better than nothing.

  Finally, she swallowed her jerky and continued, “I mean, I like it. I just wish I could get out of the Black Mountain more often, maybe. I’m free to leave whenever I want, actually, but I can just never find the time. Even if I did, where would I go? Still, though, maybe I could travel a bit if I could find someone to take care of the dungeon while I’m gone. The monsters are all right, though, and Grunda’s really nice—she’s my friend, and a goblin. She took me into the dungeon when I was a baby and made sure the minotaur didn’t eat me.”

  “I know the feeling. I can hardly ever get away from the castle. Believe it or not, this is the closest I’ve had to a vacation all year.”

  “And how’s that going?”

  Iphigenia smiled and lay down on her belly atop her bedroll. Since Thisby only had the one, she’d given it to the Princess and opted for some tufted grass for herself. It wasn’t the softest thing she’d ever slept on, but it wasn’t bad. They lay quietly for some time, side by side, staring straight ahead out over the valley. The centaurs had long since vanished into the dark forest in the distance.

  “Nobody wants me to rule,” said Iphigenia, breaking the peaceful silence. “Everybody wants it to be my brother, but I came out first so it has to be me.”

  Thisby kept her eyes fixed on the horizon ahead.

  “Do you want to do it?” she asked bluntly.

  “I don’t have a choice,” said Iphigenia.

  “But if you did, would you want to do it?”

  Iphigenia paused and considered this. She’d never
really thought about it before.

  “Yes. More than anything,” she said.

  “Then you’ll probably be good at it,” said Thisby. “There’s all sorts of different people in this world, people who are naturally talented and people who struggle to tie their shoelaces, but the only ones who ever seem to do anything worth talking about are the ones who do the things they want to do just because they want to do them.”

  “And what about people who want to do nothing?” asked Mingus.

  Up until this point, both Thisby and Iphigenia had assumed he was asleep.

  Thisby laughed.

  “I think most people want to do nothing. They just don’t like to admit it,” she said.

  Something crossed Iphigenia’s mind, and she suddenly rolled over onto her side to face Thisby.

  “What was the deal with that candle the kobold gave you?”

  “Huh?” said Thisby groggily. She sounded like she may have been ready to drift off to sleep.

  “The candle! The nubby little one he gave you the morning after the tarasque attack!”

  “Oh, right,” said Thisby. “I’m not sure. Grunda told me something about kobolds and magic candles years ago, but it’s hazy now. I think it was probably more of a gesture than anything, really.”

  Iphigenia paused.

  “Do you get along with the monsters here?” she asked.

  Thisby had forced open her heavy-lidded eyes and turned to face the Princess as well.

  “Some of them. Some of them are my friends, some of them want to eat me, but at the end of the day, I just try to show them respect and hope they show me the same.”

  Iphigenia was reminded of something similar her father had once said about ruling a kingdom. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the stars. Thisby did the same.