Chapter Three #4
“Anyway,” I continued, “petty spells are all that anyone can manage in this age of the world. Maybe there was once an age of sorcerer-kings and wonder-workers, but that age is past. It’s my considered opinion that half the histories are bunk.
Old Pentsable may have believed them when he was drunk, but in the sober light of historical enquiry—”
Let me add yet more context: Master Pentsable was the wizard who initiated both Orphir and myself into the arcane arts.
A lovely old man, but when it became clear that magic involved vast amounts of mental effort, the focusing of the totality of one’s will, and all manner of sacrifices and exceedingly precise ritual to evoke the smallest supernatural effect, Orphir and I decided on a simpler method of conjuring wealth.
We waited until Master Pentsable’s head drooped into his grimoire and he began to snore, then liberated everything of value from his little cottage, sold what we could and set ourselves up as travelling fortune tellers, medicine sellers, eminent astrologers, alchemists, wizards, exorcists, prognosticators, removers of warts, physicians extraordinary, cosmic sages, wonder-workers on commission.
It turned out to be a short road to the assizes and the noose.
“My contention,” said Orphir, “is that the histories are largely correct, but that the wizards of old spent most of the magic, and we’re left with the inert dregs. That wonders were once possible, but are now unaffordable. Our collective inheritance is spent. All the magic’s gone.”
“A sad state of affairs,” I said, returning my attention to the rope. In retrospect, I should have realised that Orphir was on to something, but my mind was occupied by the thought of the noose that likely awaited us at the end of the road.
“But there might be some lost coins still out there, so to speak. Buried treasure troves. Money hoarded in a secret place. Coins lost under floorboards or down the back of the settle.”
“And in this metaphor, the couch is . . .”
“The unknown regions where no man goes, where no one has looked under the cushions of reality in generations. Unmapped wilderness, perilous lands and suchlike.”
This was, I thought, a singular couch.
Around a mouthful, I said: “That’s as maybe. But the quality of money, dear Orphir, is that it’s portable. One can take a coin to market and buy what one desires. What good to us is magic in some far-off wilderness?
It’s possible that the rope in my mouth impeded my lyricism, for Orphir did not respond, but fell deep into thought.
“My patience,” interjected the minotaur, “is not inexhaustible. Get on with the tale.”
A crowd had gathered at the assizes to see the king’s justice done.
Orphir and I were the main attraction, and hence we were kept until the end.
One by one, the thieves, rapists and murderers were tried, sentenced and hanged.
I have seen horrible things in the dark depths of the Dungeon, but few as ghastly as what I saw that afternoon under a dull grey sky at Crowhaven Cross.
As our doom approached, I composed what I felt to be an eloquent and persuasive argument for our innocence. From what I recall, my point was ?
“Irrelevant,” interjected the minotaur.
Before I could speak, Orphir fell to his knees before the judge, and dragged me down with him.
He pleaded guilty (on my behalf, too!) to the charge of sorcery, and begged that the sentence of death be commuted to a lifetime of service in the border watch.
The same option had been offered to one of the sheep thieves – a giant of a man, hairy and battle-scarred, the sort of fellow you would not merely cross the street to avoid, but leave town entirely – and he had turned it down, preferring the quick end of the noose to freezing to death on the frontier.
To this day, I’m convinced that the judge only agreed because it amused him.
He took one look at Orphir and me – a scrawny pair of ne’er-do-wells, neither of whom had ever done an honest day’s work – and decided that we’d suffer more on the road.
“To the border with ye!” he roared, and so the king’s justice was done.
Back in the cart for us, and off down the road to the borderlands.
I thought the last item of business in our relationship would be deciding which one of us ate the other when we ran out of food in some border fort.
But Orphir was still convinced that we were on the path to greatness.
On the long trek to the border, he chewed over tales that Old Pentsable had taught us.
“It’s written that the Master Yrn Kyos had a tower in the mountains above a ruined city. Cornelius, I’m willing to bet that ruined city—”
“You have made that bet,” I grumbled, “with our lives.”
“That ruined city is the old capital of the Elder Empire—”
“The one that was buried in an earthquake sent as punishment for their sins?”
“The very one.”
“What of it?”
“If I am right, there’s enough magic there to make us both kings in our own right.”
“Get on with it,” said the minotaur.
I shall spare you the sufferings of our posting to the border watch, although we were certainly not spared them.
My feet might be long gone, but I still remember the toe-biting cold, the bitter nights spent staring into the dark, watching for foes.
Orphir grew ever more obsessed with his plan to desert and set off into the mountains in search of lost magic.
I was convinced that this would end in our grisly deaths—
“And you were right,” said the minotaur.
—but I was of the opinion that we should eke what worldly pleasures we could from our posting before we bade a final farewell to all hope.
By the end of the third month at the keep on the borderlands, even I – I who have found fascination in crumbling plaster, and infinite delight in my own witticism – could endure no more.
We convinced some of the more, ah, capable and conventionally violent guards to join us.
Under cover of darkness, we abandoned our posts and set off into the mountains. I thought we would perish.
Instead, we found the Dungeon.
To my eternal chagrin, Orphir was right.
There was indeed magic lodged in the arse-crack of the world.
Incantations that never worked for Old Pentsable had power here.
Drunk on our new-found sorcery – we had nothing else to get drunk on – we explored what we could of the Dungeon.
Between the swords of our rapidly diminishing cadre of comrades and our newly strengthened spells, we assembled a fine pile of slaughter-bought loot.
I argued that we should take our winnings and return to civilised lands – there was the matter of the commuted death sentence for illegal sorcery, and the second death sentence for desertion, but I hoped all that could be cleared up with some judicious bribery. But Orphir would not let it go.
“The Tower of Yrn Kyos! Power beyond price! We could be lords, Cornelius! Our words would shake the heavens! We could bring back the age of sorcerer-kings!”
We formed a compact, a sworn brotherhood of two, and promised one another that we would for ever share power, wealth and knowledge, and not allow anything to come between us.
Thus fortified, we returned to our quest. We and our surviving adventurers found the eastern levels of the Dungeon, and there we found a long stair leading to the tower of the Dungeon Master.
I adjudge you are not familiar with the life and works of Yrn Kyos, so I shall briefly elucidate his tale.
Yrn Kyos was among the last of the sorcerer-kings of old, mighty wizards who ruled the lands of men.
The present dynasty of kings, by the by, is descended from the leaders of the revolt against their wizardly overlords.
Yrn Kyos, it seems, was a man after my own much-missed heart, for when he sensed that his spells were no longer as potent as before and that trouble was brewing, he fled into the wilderness and established a lair atop a dungeon.
Anyone seeking out Yrn Kyos with murderous intent would first have to pass through the labyrinth of monsters and traps.
With his dwindling sorcery, Yrn Kyos shaped the Dungeon, making his tower the keystone of the whole place.
I’m not sure what became of Yrn Kyos in the end –
“I asked about Orphir,” said the minotaur, “and you have brought me on an interminable digression.” His vocabulary had improved as he gained more confidence in the Dungeon Tongue. He rose and held me out over the chasm.
“Wait!” I cried. “I’ll skip to the end.”
At the very summit of the tower was the throne of Yrn Kyos, the very seat of the Dungeon Master.
Poor Orphir was briefly delayed, so I got to the throne first and claimed the tower – on behalf of our partnership, of course.
I had no intention of betraying the man I thought was my good friend.
Why, I appointed him my Grand Vizier, my Senior Adviser, my Deputy Dungeon Master.
Together – as equals! – we tried to recover the lost magics of Yrn Kyos.
But we had limited success, and I suspect he grew frustrated.
In fact, I knew he became frustrated.
The clue was when he murdered me.
“Where,” growled the minotaur, “is Orphir now!?”
“He’s been gone for years. He left the Dungeon soon after Bait arrived – likely just after he afflicted you with your condition. You must have interrupted him as he was packing to leave. Why, if only you’d waited a short while, you’d have missed him entirely and never been curs—”
The minotaur clamped my jawbone shut with his thumb.
“Orphir,” he growled, “is gone?”
I could neither speak nor non-verbally express agreement.
“I cannot slay him. He is not within reach of my axe.”
I radiated sympathy as best I could, until he released my jawbone.
“Where he’s gone,” I said, “I do not know and cannot guess.”