Chapter Twelve #3
I told myself that struggling against Orphir was folly.
He’d prepared for this assault for many years, forearming the RATS with knowledge of the Dungeon.
All labyrinths can be overcome if you’ve got a map; if the master of a place turns against it, the house cannot stand.
Orphir had given the book of our ways to his soldiers, and they had used it to terrible effect. The upper levels had already fallen.
I told myself that it would not be so bad to help Orphir.
We’d been friends once, as he’d pointed out.
And, yes, he’d become the tyrannical power behind the throne and pushed the kingdom into disastrous wars and civil strife – but other kings have done all that and worse.
Surely one had to respect his ambition. And why should I not share in his ascension?
He was right – the Dungeon was dank, and gloomy, and wholly lacking in fine wine, soft beds and scantily clad serving girls.
What was the point of sitting atop a huge pile of gold or mastering the secrets of lost sorcery if you could not enjoy it?
We had set out to be master in a strange new underland, but our old land had nice stuff, too.
All I had to do was give him Bait, and we could have the best of both worlds!
I told myself that Bait would not be harmed by Orphir’s experiments.
I could see to that. He’d take a little blood, a whisper of her breath, some tiny portion of her soul, nothing injurious.
Bait had been given every opportunity to reclaim her stolen life, and always she’d returned to the Dungeon below.
This would harm no one, I told myself – and was I not due some reward?
I’d helped keep Bait safe all those years, I’d guided and nurtured her, educated her in the ways of both the Dungeon and the surface world.
Why, if nothing else, I’d never been paid for teaching her.
All those hours surely counted against any moral debts.
And what was Bait to me, anyway?
Arus was her father by blood. Clickglee had raised her as an infant.
Peledon – before his decline – was her protector.
Rudyard, in his capacity as local magnate, was her legal guardian.
She had a wealth of mentors and champions.
I owed her very little – and I had suffered a great deal, all things considered.
She’d been rude, inattentive and troublesome.
I’d only taken her in as a favour to Old Throte, and for that I’d been endangered, nearly incinerated, driven from my tomb.
All manner of indignities had been visited upon me.
As the night wore on, as the sleepless hours slowly ground past, I reconsidered every word the child had ever spoken, everything she had ever done.
All the memories of her mischief and strangeness, all those I poisoned with suspicion.
I scraped out all my sympathy and made her a monster.
I made her a thing of the underworld, and I – I was returning to the light.
When dawn came, I was ready to talk.
“She’ll go to the tower,” I told Orphir.
And I was right.
*
Further indignities befell me. I can mention them only briefly.
Once again, I was stuffed in a sack. I was a small and portable skull no longer, but a half-formed torso can be crammed into a large bag.
I shall not dwell on the interaction between the jolting of the cart, the coarse weave of the sack and the fact that I was still lacking skin over most of my new body.
Nor shall I mention that although Orphir’s spells had provided me with mouth and throat, gullet and belly (I supplied my own teeth), he had not yet equipped me with the other end of the digestive system.
The jolting of the cart had further ill effects there.
RAS soldiers carried me from the village at the foot of the mountain up to the reopened Dungeon Door.
Mercifully, he finished the spell soon after we arrived at my old tomb. He waited so he could draw on the ambient magic of the Dungeon instead of tapping his own stock of sorcery, which rather undermined his talk of brotherhood and partnership.
“You could have done that sooner,” I grumbled, although I cannot deny I was pleased to have knees, not to mention other accoutrements.
“Forging the spell was not easy. The works of the ancients were of little use, so much of you is improvised. Do let me know if anything leaks.”
“A delightful prospect.” I tested my legs, and found that I still remembered how to walk. “To the tower?”
“Not for you, Cornelius. You’ll wait here with these loyal fellows – poor conversationalists, you’ll find, but I don’t pay them for their wit. If your information proves accurate and I secure the child, then we shall all return to the castle. If not, well, you won’t have far to go.”
“Charming. By the by, saying ‘the child’ like that makes you sound unreasonably sinister.”
“The changeling, then,” he said, loud enough for the RATS to hear.
“Her name is Bait,” I insisted, “and she’s not to be harmed. Even if she bites.”
He stopped and picked a silver coin off a shelf. He turned it over in his hand, amused at the profile of a much younger King Arus stamped on one face. He handed it to me.
“Never let it be said, my friend, that you got no loot from the Dungeon.”