by Zac Gorman
“It’s not going to hold much longer,” he whispered.
Iphigenia nodded. He was right. The gate was barely hanging on at this point, and it seemed likely that one more hit would be all it would take. They were too late to save the gate, but it was a mixed blessing. What was left of the blackweave gate was the only thing holding back the army of Deep Dwellers, but without the blackdoor beads that Thisby had taken with her, it was also their only way out of the Deep Down.
A horn sounded.
The sea of monsters that filled the room began to part as a small group of Deep Dwellers made their way through the crowd. Something was off about them, though. A figure that seemed far too normal, too human, was walking out in front of the group. Iphigenia strained her eyes to get a better look, but Catface saw it first.
“Isn’t that—”
“Ingo!” exclaimed Iphigenia.
Ingo led a small company of Deep Dwellers up to the front of the machine, which stopped swinging for the first time since they’d entered the chamber. In fact, all activity seemed to suddenly cease. Iphigenia watched her brother ascend a small flight of stairs onto a makeshift stage. He turned to face the crowd, beaming with delight. The crowd looked on in silence.
“We need to get closer!” whispered Iphigenia.
Catface began to slink closer to the stage as the audience watched her brother with rapt attention.
“Today!” said Ingo triumphantly, pausing for effect as he liked to do. “Today you cast off the bonds of subjugation, the bonds of oppression! Today you take your rightful place back in the mountain—the mountain that by all right belongs to YOU!”
The crowd roared its approval.
“What the heck is he doing?” whispered Iphigenia.
“I don’t know,” replied Catface.
“The mountain belongs to you! Yes, YOU! RIGHT THERE!” he said, pointing to a random Deep Dweller in the crowd. “Of course it does! It belongs to you, and you, and you, and you! Not to any Dünkeldwarf!”
The crowd hissed angrily at the mention of that name.
“I know! I KNOW! The Dünkeldwarves built your prison! They built the blackweave gate that held you, and then what did they do? They left you to rot in it! And who helped them build it? The goblins! Your jailors! All of them! But you know who’s even worse than them? The monsters who have lived above you for centuries, lording their freedom over you!”
The crowd booed and hissed even louder. He was whipping them into a frenzy.
“This is your mountain! It certainly doesn’t belong to any . . .” He paused. He was relishing this moment. “. . . MASTER!” He spat the word with disdain.
The crowd was frothing mad. Some of the Deep Dwellers had begun to throw things indiscriminately at the mention of the Master’s name.
“The Black Mountain belongs to YOU! IT BELONGS TO ALL OF YOU!” said Ingo.
The crowd exploded into cheers. Ingo paused and soaked it in. He had a way with speeches. He always had.
“And now, with one final swing of the Hammer of Righteousness, we will smash open the gates of our prison once and for all! On my mark! ONE . . . TWO . . .”
Ingo raised his arm and the crowd roared in anticipation. They roared so loudly, in fact, that if you had unnaturally sharp hearing, you could have heard them in the next town over.
This was not an exaggeration. It was however, the reason why all the dogs in Three Fingers had begun to spontaneously howl in unison, much to the confusion of the local citizenry. Over the next few weeks, the incident became so publicized that a special inquisition was formed to investigate the bizarre occurrence, but despite putting their brightest minds on the case, nobody in Three Fingers ever managed to come up with a feasible explanation for the phenomenon. They did manage to execute several people on suspicion of witchcraft, however, so it wasn’t a total loss.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT!” screeched a familiar voice over the din.
Ingo froze, his arm suspended in midair, and looked up to see his sister racing down the side of a cliff with an anxious-looking giant cat in hot pursuit. At least, he thought it was his sister. She was much filthier than he’d remembered his sister ever being, and she was carrying a backpack that had to be at least three times her size.
The crowd parted, partially out of sheer shock, and the raven-haired girl, stumbling under the weight of her oversize backpack, found her way onto the stage. She approached Ingo, out of breath, and he waved away the guards who tried to intervene.
“Iphigenia?” he said. “Is that really you?”
“Ingo!” she yelled and threw her arms around him.
Catface wasn’t granted the same warm welcome, and instead was met with a wall of Deep Dwellers pointing spears in his direction, yelling angrily. Several of the giants stomped over, ready for a fight. Catface backed up and hissed, arching his back.
“WAIT!” Ingo commanded. The Deep Dwellers obeyed, but kept their spears fixed on the enormous cat, who had started pacing nervously back and forth.
“Ingo, we’ve been looking for you for days! What are you doing here?” Iphigenia asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m freeing an oppressed people!” Ingo laughed with a casual air that undercut the fact that just moments ago he’d been firing up an army to go to war. It was possible his nonchalance was phony, a ploy to make himself seem unflappable, but it was just as likely that leading an army to war affected Ingo Larkspur about as much as discussing the weather.
Iphigenia pulled back and looked at her brother, half expecting him to shoot her some sort of sly wink. Something to let her know this was all a trick and they were on the same side. It never came.
“These ‘people’ kidnapped you! They’re going to destroy the dungeon!”
Ingo scoffed. “The dungeon? The dungeon! Seriously, Iphi! Who cares? They’ve been keeping these poor creatures locked away in their basement like prisoners! Yet they committed no crime! And besides, the dungeon is terrible! You know that! If it were up to you, you’d have this whole place shut down! I know it!”
Ingo smiled at her and squeezed her shoulders. He was capable of saying things in such a way that you felt foolish for ever disagreeing with him. Iphigenia felt turned around.
“But these things are dangerous . . .”
“Not with the right leader.” He was grinning ear to ear now. He was about to play the ace up his sleeve. “I ran into your new friend. The filthy dungeon girl. I know, I know! For some reason you two are all buddy-buddy now! I don’t want to question it—look, you’re friends, I get it!”
Iphigenia turned bright red. First with embarrassment, and then with shame for being embarrassed by her only friend.
“Anyway, there was a little misunderstanding, but the short story is that I asked her to be the new Master. Here in the mountain. She can stay here and watch over everyone! I’m not saying I want to be her best friend like you do, but she’s good at her job, I’ll give her that!”
“Stop doing that!” snapped Iphigenia.
Ingo stepped back, nonplussed.
“You think you can make me feel bad because I have a friend? Well, I don’t feel bad! I like her, okay? She’s my friend!”
“Just calm down—”
“No, I won’t calm down! And by the way, you can’t do this! You can’t destroy the dungeon. Maybe you’re right. Maybe the Deep Dwellers don’t deserve to be locked away but—but this is not the way to handle things! War isn’t the answer! It would risk destroying the entire dungeon and everything that lives in it. The monsters up there are living things. Besides, it’s Thisby’s home and you can’t do it.”
“And what are you going to do to stop me?” Ingo scoffed. “I have an army, Iphi. I will kill everything in here if I want. Even your friend. If I feel like it.”
Iphigenia’s mind raced. Her brother’s horrible, cruel smirk cut into her, driving out all rational thought. Standing there, laughing coldly as he discussed the fate of the dungeon, the fate of her best friend, in
front of an army of abominations, she could see him clearly for the first time.
She dug her hand into a side pocket of Thisby’s backpack and withdrew something that looked very much like a knitting needle, barbed on one end. She pointed it threateningly at her brother.
“I won’t let you!” she yelled, frightened at the honesty and desperation in her own voice.
Ingo had heard it, too. For the first time, he looked visibly shaken. It didn’t last long.
He laughed cruelly. “What is that supposed to be? Are you going to darn me to death?”
“I won’t let you hurt Thisby or the residents of this dungeon!”
“Residents? RESIDENTS? They’re monsters, Iphi! MONSTERS! Since when do you care about monsters?”
“I don’t! Not really! But Thisby does, and more important, I trust her. Turn this army around right now and march them back to where they came from.”
Iphigenia stood unblinking, the manticore needle pointed at her brother. Ingo glowered at her, rage welling up inside him. She was trying to take another thing away from him. He smirked. Then laughed. The anger that had built up inside him had melted away and revealed something far crueler at its core.
“Why would I do that? I have an entire army at my command. Why would I listen to you?” he asked, brushing the hair from his face.
“Because I’m your Queen and you’re—nobody.”
“Nobody? Nobody! And you, a Queen?” he said.
Ingo drew his dagger and rushed toward her so quickly she didn’t have time to ready herself. The impact toppled her over onto Thisby’s backpack, and she landed hard, feeling the wind go out of her. By the time Iphigenia realized what had happened, her brother was already climbing back to his feet, and the blood was pooling thick and black on the front of her dress. The wound from his dagger ran several inches deep into her stomach.
Ingo stared down at his sister and felt disgusted. Not with himself, of course, but with her. With what she had made him do. There was a strange feeling just beneath his ribs. He looked down and began to curse very loudly.
From where Iphigenia collapsed, she could see her brother yelling, clutching his side where she’d managed to stick him with the manticore barb, but she couldn’t make out his words. Sound and light blurred together in a warm, hazy fog that made her feel like she was swimming underwater on a midsummer day. Iphigenia was lying on her back. The backpack beneath her made her feel like a turtle who’d tipped over onto its shell, helpless. Up above she saw the Hammer of Righteousness—what a stupid, stupid name, she thought—glinting in the torchlight.
Ingo yelled something, but the sound was muffled, like she was trying to listen underwater.
The Hammer pulled back, back, back . . . and then swung forward in a large shining arc, leaving trails of brilliant light in its wake.
THOOOOM!
Everything shook.
Dust billowed from the ceiling.
And the Darkwell burst open.
Chapter 26
Catface leapt over the guard’s pointed spears and dashed toward the stage. Stray arrows flew by him like a swarm of gnats buzzing past. With one quick movement, he snatched up the Princess, grabbing Thisby’s backpack into his jaws, and jumped away, sailing over the crowd.
Where he landed, the crowd scattered. He turned to see the giants closing in on him, rushing him with their swords and axes flashing above their heads. He looked around the room until he found his path and then exploded into action, jumping from platform to platform, higher and higher, until there was only one last big jump to make.
He coiled down, sinking back against his hips, and waited. Angry screaming came from below, mixed with the confusion and excitement of the gate being opened. He tuned it out.
The Hammer of Righteousness swung closer, carried by the residual momentum from smashing the gate. As it reached the back of its parabolic arch, Catface jumped. He flew through the air, the Princess dangling like a ragdoll from the backpack he held in his mouth. His feet hit the cold steel of the Hammer and scrambled to find something, anything to hold on to. He slipped.
Catface fell splayed over the Hammer as it continued along its path, swinging back toward where the gate had been just moments ago. He tried to find his footing but couldn’t, and before he knew it, the Hammer had reached its apex and begun to move backward yet again. Arrows flew overhead as the Hammer returned to the back of its arch. With each swing of the Hammer—and no one left to power its flight—the momentum had begun to slow dramatically. Each swing took Catface farther and farther away from the leap he would inevitably have to make. He knew he was running out of time.
The Hammer swung forward again. This time Catface managed to find his footing. Digging into the steel with his claws, he crouched in wait until the last possible moment, and when the Hammer swung toward the Darkwell, he jumped.
His claws searched frantically for an edge to catch on and thankfully found a piece of the loosed blackweave gate. It was enough.
Catface pulled himself up through the Darkwell, while down below, the Deep Dwellers had already begun to move their siege ladders into position. It would only be moments now before they began to climb through the gate themselves and start their assault. Catface crawled out through the Darkwell into the basin that surrounded it. He was finally back in the dungeon. Back in his home. It was so familiar, so quiet and peaceful compared to where they’d just been. Up through the Darkwell rose the clamor of war, but it sounded surprisingly distant for something so close, so inevitable.
He walked over to his bed calmly and set the Princess down as gently as possible. It wasn’t much of a bed, more like a well-worn groove where he’d often slept, but it was warm here and dark and out of the way, and at least the ground was soft. It was the least he could do for her. Iphigenia was shaking and bleeding through her dress. She didn’t have long now. He’d seen enough injuries in his time to know that. He tried his best to make her comfortable and then walked back over to the Darkwell.
From here, he’d have a tactical advantage. He knew he’d be able to take out a lot of them as they came up through the well, but eventually he’d be overrun. It was inevitable. The well was big, and no matter how many of them he eliminated, eventually, some would get through. It was only a matter of time before he got tired, and then that would be the end of it.
He peeked down into the well.
Their ladder system was quite clever. It circled the outside of the well so he couldn’t simply knock it over. The Deep Dwellers were much smarter than he’d given them credit for.
He sat upright and licked his paws idly. There was nothing left to do now but wait, so he might as well be well groomed for the fight.
“Iphigenia?” said a small voice.
Iphigenia rolled over and looked at the backpack placed beside her. There was a faint pink glow in the jar that hung from it.
“Mingus?” she said.
Speaking made everything hurt. It felt like her stomach was on fire.
“Iphigenia, you need to open my jar. Can you do that?”
Iphigenia nodded. She was so lightheaded that even this small movement made the room spin. She stuck her hand out to reach the jar but it felt so far away. She forced herself onto her side. Everything in her stomach flared painfully.
She grunted.
“Come on, Iphigenia. You’ve got it,” Mingus said soothingly.
Iphigenia dragged herself over to the jar and pulled it off its hook. With every turn of the lid she felt her guts burn like someone was jabbing her insides with a red-hot poker. Finally, the jar opened. She collapsed onto her back, taking labored breaths and trying not to move her stomach as she did.
Mingus slid to the edge of his jar.
When he’d first escaped from the Deep Down, the only thing Mingus had known for certain was that, more than anything in the world, he wanted to feel safe. He’d lived his whole life up to that point feeling frightened and for once, he just wanted to know what it would feel like to not b
e afraid anymore. For years he’d thought that if he could only make it over to the other side of the Darkwell, there everything would be perfect, and yet, when he got there . . . life was still dangerous, still unpredictable.
It turned out that there was nowhere in the whole world where he felt safe. Until Thisby had given him his jar. He’d never left it by choice before. Thisby had forced him out a few times to clean it, but she had always been there with him, and somehow that had made it not so bad. But here, in the Darkwell, in the place he hated more than any other . . . he quivered.
If Mingus had a heart, it would have been pounding in his ears (if he had ears). All that he had to keep him safe was his jar. It was the only thing he had in the entire world. He couldn’t just leave it.
He paused.
Iphigenia looked at him—the sad little slime, too scared to leave his jar.
“I’m sorry,” she said, closing her eyes.
Mingus watched her for a moment, and then slid out of his jar.
He slid over to her and climbed onto her stomach, just above the wound. Her dress was soaked through with blood. She winced in pain as Mingus settled down on top of her and then, slowly, he began to glow.
The Deep Dwellers made their way up through the well in a fury of flying spears and arrows intended to drive Catface away from the edge, where he stood batting down the overly ambitious creatures who tried to cross the threshold too soon.
Every time he managed to knock down one Deep Dweller, two more took its place, and soon, they were beginning to breach the gate. Catface took a swing at a giant who’d been climbing the ladder and missed wide, snagging his claw on remnants of the blackweave gate. It was the opening the Deep Dwellers had been waiting for. Before he could free himself, twenty or thirty Deep Dwellers scrambled up through the Darkwell, and Catface had no choice but to abandon his post at the top of the gate and chase after them.
With nobody left to guard the Darkwell, it was the beginning of the end.
Hundreds of Deep Dwellers, creatures of all shapes and sizes, flooded into the dungeon, their terrible bloodlust fueled by millennia of pain and torment at the hands of the Eyes in the Dark. They were horrific, unstoppable beasts, out for—there was a flash of light—out for, um—there was another flash of light—horrific, unstoppable beasts out for—there was yet another flash of light.