by Zac Gorman
The current Master wasn’t a great wizard, but he did have a knack for history. And one of the first things he realized during his ascension through the ranks of the dungeon—where he began as a lowly floor mopper—was that most of the former Masters met their ends while in the dungeon itself. The solution was simple, as far as he was concerned—avoid the dungeon and stay alive—and so far, it’d worked quite well.
The trick, of course, was figuring out how to manage an entire dungeon without ever setting foot inside it. The solution came quite accidentally when he found an old room, long untouched, that had once belonged to the original Master of the dungeon, Elphond the Evil. Thousands of years ago when Elphond created the dungeon, he’d begun work on a system that would allow him to travel anywhere in the Black Mountain instantaneously. He called it the blackdoor. Mysteriously, despite the machine being finished, it was never turned on—that is, until the current Master got his hands on it.
With the blackdoor beads at his disposal, the Master was able to send out his agents into the dungeon in his stead. He could even create temporary exits in the side of the mountain for his minions to slip out into town whenever he so wished. All he had to do was wait in the relative comfort of his castle for reports to come in. Most important, he would never have to go down into that vile dungeon and risk his life doing dangerous or menial tasks again. It was a perfect system. Almost.
Thisby walked back into her bedroom and set Mingus on the table. She shook her head solemnly at Iphigenia.
“What are our other options?” asked Iphigenia.
“Not many. My secret path under the castle is still open, but that leads out to a sheer cliff face. We could try to send Shabul for help. He’s the guy who delivers my herbs and—you know what, never mind. Besides, he won’t be here for weeks and—”
Iphigenia finished her sentence, “And by then it’ll probably be too late.”
Thisby sat at her desk and thumbed through her notebooks, trying to think of a plan. There had to be a way into the castle, somehow. The Master was diligent, she knew that. All the obvious ways would be blocked. There had to be some secret. Something she was missing.
It was early evening when there was a knock on Thisby’s door. Before she had time to respond, the door swung open and a small old goblin trundled into the room.
“Grunda!” shouted Thisby, jumping from her desk and wiping the drool from the corner of her mouth—she’d fallen asleep on her books again. Most of her notebooks were severely drool stained for this very reason. The goblin looked at Thisby and then at the Princess.
“Oh, right!” said Thisby, “Sorry! Grunda, this is—”
“There’ll be time for that later! Right now you girls need to come with me. There’s somebody you need to meet.”
Grunda waddled down the hallway ahead of them, lighting the way with a small glowstone that she’d tied to the end of a stick. She paused in front of a seemingly normal rock wall and tapped three times. The wall opened.
Thisby recognized it as goblin magic. The goblins had their own way of doing things, and as close as Thisby and Grunda were, Grunda still had her secrets. Thisby respected that. It was just the way it was with goblins.
Thisby and Iphigenia had to crouch to make their way down the small, crude tunnel, which seemed perfectly sized for goblins and little else. At the end of the hall was a tiny room with some sparse goblin-sized furniture, a table and several small chairs, one of which—surprisingly enough—was currently being occupied by a large, gangly human man.
“Hello again!” he said brightly, struggling to set down his tiny teacup on its tiny saucer.
He was all knees and elbows crouched in the goblin’s chair and made quite the spectacle of himself, stooping awkwardly so as not to bang his head on the ceiling.
“I thought I told you to go home,” said Thisby. There was something undeniably motherly in her voice. Iphigenia smirked.
“I meant to, really I did!” said the man. “Only I got lost, see? It wasn’t my fault! Really!”
“Iphigenia, this is Gregory. He’s an, uhm . . .” She hesitated, “I suppose you’d call him an adventurer, who I met in the dungeon earlier. Gregory, this is . . .”
“Well, I know who you are!” exclaimed Gregory. He shot to his feet but made it less than halfway before his head collided hard with the low-hanging ceiling. There was a sickening crunch, which Thisby hoped was the ceiling. Amazingly, Gregory didn’t seem to mind, and turned his doubling over in pain into an awkward little bow that he punctuated with a nervous “M’lady!”
“I—I mean, Your Highness!” he blurted.
For a moment, Thisby had forgotten Iphigenia was royalty. They’d been through so much together that she’d started to think of the Princess as just Iphigenia.
Grunda motioned for them to take a seat and offered up some tea, which Iphigenia accepted courteously. Thisby wondered if she should have done the same.
“There’s no time to waste! Tell them about what you saw, Gregory,” said Grunda once everyone was settled. “Tell them from the beginning.”
“There’s no time to waste! Tell them about what you saw, Gregory,” said Grunda once everyone was settled. “Tell them from the beginning.”
Gregory told the story about the Darkwell and the abduction of Catface. He told them about the squat, ugly man he saw leading the monsters and the magical doors they opened in the ground. Thisby couldn’t believe her ears. She’d never liked Catface, but being attacked like that, especially by Roquat and whatever those things were, it made her feel sick to her stomach.
“You don’t think . . . ,” said Thisby.
Grunda nodded.
“Deep Dwellers? But how?”
“I don’t know,” said Grunda.
“It sounds to me like they used blackdoors.”
They all turned and looked at Iphigenia, who’d been quietly sipping her tea up until this point. She dabbed delicately at her mouth with the corner of her napkin.
“Yeah, but . . . I mean, the Master controls the supply of blackdoors, right? There’s no way!” blurted Thisby.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she continued. “It was Roquat.”
“But why? And how?” asked Thisby.
“I’m not sure why, but it has something to do with why he took my brother, I know it. As to how, I mean, he has access to the castle, right?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Thisby trailed off. She wasn’t quite sure why, but something felt wrong.
Grunda walked around with the teapot and refilled Iphigenia’s cup. The steam curled up in little wisps that Iphigenia gently blew away before taking another sip. Grunda eased herself back into her chair with a groan. Her knees weren’t quite what they used to be.
“There’s another problem with that theory,” said Grunda, glancing at Mingus out of the corner of her eye. “I’ve been in this dungeon a long time, you see. I was here when the blackweave was first placed atop the well.”
Thisby looked shocked.
“Really?” she asked.
“I know, I know! Ol’ Grunda looks pretty good for her age!” She shot a playful wink at Iphigenia, who smiled back at her. “But I was there! Well before the new Master’s time. Another age . . . ,” she added wistfully.
“Up until that point, the Sentinel’s job had been a lot harder. It was up to him to keep the Deep Dwellers out. There was a regular gate, of course, but then there was an uprisin’, and next thing you know, suddenly a regular ol’ gate and a big dumb cat didn’t seem quite good enough anymore. That was when the Master commissioned the blackweave from the Dünkeldwarves. What was left of ’em at least.
“It was their gate, you see, but what sealed it off good and proper was goblin magic—as well as some other less important magic, I suppose—but goblin magic nonetheless! I was privy to its creation and I knew its secrets. It was more than just a gate. Not even magic could penetrate its surface. It created a barrier that permanently separated the Deep Down from the rest of the dungeon. Not e
ven portals could pass from one side to the other, and that includes blackdoors! Blackdoors are impressive magic, but at the end of the day, they’re still just portal magic. In my day, portal magic was a dime a dozen. Most people didn’t even walk across the room to use the pot! They’d just use a portal . . .”
Thisby gave her a sideways stare.
“Anyway, the point is that no simple blackdoor could’ve possibly gotten through the blackweave into the Deep Down—that is, unless . . .” She let it hang in the air a bit too long.
“Unless what?” asked Thisby impatiently.
“Unless something had already broken the Darkwell’s magic spell,” she finished, and took a long sip of tea.
“How would that happen?” asked Iphigenia.
“Something had to pass through the gate already.”
The room fell silent. It was an impossible riddle.
You couldn’t pass through to the other side of the gate, not physically nor by magic, unless you’d somehow already gotten through it. It was a paradox. An unsolvable problem. What can pass through an impassable gate? Well, nothing! Obviously! And yet something had indeed gotten through. But how? It made the mystery of how Roquat had stolen the blackdoors seem simple by comparison.
Thisby’s head was starting to hurt. That was the whole problem with magic. It never worked like you wanted it to. It’s not as simple as saying, “Abracadabra! Now this gate is sealed forever!” You need to bake in a logic puzzle. It needs to have a twist.
Thisby thought about what she did know. The gate was closed. It hadn’t been opened. Something had gotten through it. But it didn’t get through with magic . . .
On the edge of her mind a thought began to flicker. However, the moment she looked at it, it darted away, like the little floating dot in her eye that she would catch from time to time.
“With all due respect, how the magic was broken isn’t my concern,” said Iphigenia at last, getting to her feet. “I need to find my brother. If Roquat has him and Roquat is in the Deep Down, then that’s where I’m going.”
“ARE YOU CRAZY?” shouted Thisby.
Iphigenia pulled back as if she’d just been smacked in the face.
“Excuse me?” she said. “The plan all along was to find my brother, and up until right now, you’ve seemed perfectly okay with that!”
“I know that you’ve been in the dungeon for three whole days now and consider yourself an expert, but let me explain something to you . . . YOU DON’T GO INTO THE DEEP DOWN,” Thisby said emphatically.
“Let me put this in a way you might understand. You know the horrible things we’ve seen in the last couple of days? The tarasque, the wyverns, the spectral goat? Those things are scared of what lives in the Deep Down. Terrified of it. We can’t go down there. We’d die. We’d die in the most horrible, gruesome way possible. We’d—” Thisby stopped.
“My brother’s down there,” said Iphigenia.
The room fell silent.
“Look,” said Thisby softly, “even if we wanted to go, we can’t. There’s no way in.”
“Perhaps these would help!” said Gregory enthusiastically, dumping out the contents of the sack Thisby had given him onto the table.
Thisby gawped in disbelief as several portable blackdoors—along with the “wyvern beads”—tumbled out. It seemed impossible, but somehow, there they were. Maybe the Master wasn’t as tight with his security as she’d thought.
Grunda stood up slowly and looked at Gregory, her black goblin eyes twinkling in the candlelight.
“I’m sorry,” said Grunda calmly, “but would you mind getting your rock golem poop off my dining room table?”
Chapter 19
Roquat kicked a tiny, horned Deep Dweller that’d been gnawing on his leg underneath the table. It bounced off the wall, hissed angrily, and scurried away.
“I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain,” Roquat said gruffly, picking at his thumbnail with the tip of his dagger.
The creature sitting across from him blinked several times. It was about as much expression as it could manage. Its face was a pale, featureless white mask from which bulged two black, dead eyes, reminiscent of a shark’s.
“I agree,” hissed the arbiter.
“And what about your end of the bargain?”
The arbiter drew in a long breath that sounded like a snake hissing backward.
“I do not have an end of this bargain, Mr. Roquat. I represent the interests of the King of Beneath the Mountain, the Eyes in the Dark.”
Roquat stood up angrily and jammed his dagger into the table.
“And what about his end of the bargain?” he barked.
The arbiter did not flinch. It was hard to imagine he ever had.
“There are . . . complications. The Darkwell may have been stripped of its magic, but the gate itself is harder to remove than we imagined. And our supply of blackdoors, though we genuinely appreciate what you were able to procure for us initially, is practically drained. Still, with the guardian out of the way, it is only a matter of time before we open the gate. Our deal will soon be fulfilled.”
“Soon!” snorted Roquat. “Hah!”
He walked over to a window and leaned outside. The tower he was in loomed above a decaying town that seemed to stretch on endlessly in every direction, a sea of rotting rooftops. In the few spaces where he could peek between them, he saw the wretched inhabitants of the Deep Down skulking in droves throughout the city. Their malformed bodies comprised mismatched parts shambling forward aimlessly in the perpetual night. The only light in the city came from the occasional torch, struggling helplessly against the darkness, casting eerie shadows and begging to be put out of its misery.
. . . he saw the wretched inhabitants of the Deep Down skulking in droves throughout the city. Their malformed bodies comprised mismatched parts shambling forward aimlessly in the perpetual night.
Everything in the Deep Down seemed to be put together incorrectly. A building with no doors might sit beside one made entirely of them. A stairwell might be turned upside down. A bridge might be placed over nothing, while meanwhile an adjacent lake of fire had only a diving board.
A ghoul or a werewolf seems awful . . . until you set foot in the Deep Down. Once a spider with an old lady’s face unhinges her jaw to barf snakes at you, a guy who turns into a wolf doesn’t seem so bad. But it wasn’t fear that Roquat felt as he looked out over these loathsome creatures, only disappointment. The creatures of the Deep Down were quite disturbing, but they were far less impressive than the stories he’d been told as a young boy growing up in the dungeon.
“Do you want to know how I stole the blackdoors?” mumbled Roquat. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I know the secret of magic. I whispered it into his stupid box, entered the chamber freely, and simply took them.”
He watched as a four-legged creature stalked over the rooftops of the town, jumping from one roof to the next, landing silently as if it were hunting.
“People think I’m stupid. But I figured it out. I know the secret.”
The four-legged creature found its prey and dropped down into an alley.
“I should be up there right now, taking my rightful place as the Master! I should be sitting in Castle Grimstone instead of this dump!”
The arbiter blinked.
“THE BLACK MOUNTAIN BELONGS TO ME!” Roquat bellowed.
The arbiter clapped twice sharply and the door to their chamber opened. A long-legged pink creature with a tray affixed to its back entered. Atop the tray were a jeweled decanter and two goblets. The arbiter casually poured himself a drink as he looked blankly toward the fuming Roquat.
“The Black Mountain belongs to me,” Roquat repeated. “It’s mine by birthright.” His tone was suddenly much more somber. He plodded to the other side of the room and gazed out the window, hoping to see something better. It was more of the same. More horror, more dilapidated rooftops.
“The Dünkeldwarves lived in this mountain long before any of the so-c
alled Masters laid claim to it. We were here before the dungeon. We’re the rightful rulers of the mountain.”
“And we,” said the arbiter, “are the rightful rulers of the world.” He took a long sip through the thin mouth-slit in the front of his mask. “And yet here we are,” he concluded, setting the goblet down in front of him.
Roquat stomped over to the table and withdrew his dagger from the wood, leaving behind a deep scar where it’d been stuck.
“I don’t care about Nth! I don’t care about the world! You can have everything else! You can burn everything to the ground, for all I care! All I want is the mountain! I fulfilled my promise! I got you the blackdoors, I delivered the Prince safely to you, I got rid of the cat. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have never even known that the magic on the Darkwell was broken in the first place! I figured it out! Me! I came here to strike up a deal with the Eyes in the Dark!”
“And who do you think willed you to come here?” asked the arbiter. “Do you really believe that you—you—are capable of orchestrating these grand machinations without his voice whispering in your ear? Do you think you are out of the reach of his influence there above the gate? You desire to be the King of the Black Mountain, but you are just a pawn. Worse yet, you are a pawn who is not even aware that the game is happening.”
“I just want what was promised to me! I want what is owed to me!”
“Oh, believe me,” said the arbiter. “You will get everything you are owed.”
The arbiter clapped three times and the door swung open again. This time, four large cloaked figures carrying scimitars entered the room.
“I see,” said Roquat.
The door closed behind them. From the hallway, a servant barred the door and waited. Inside, there was yelling and clanging and the sounds of things breaking. Then there was silence.
And with his final breath, Roquat finally got what he was owed.
Their preparations had been rushed. Thisby had run back to her room to gather a few items while Grunda and Gregory immediately set to work readying food, water, and any other necessities that they might need in the Deep Down. Iphigenia supervised.