Chapter Seventeen
Order cannot last. All arrangements are temporary.
Build all the walls you wish. Forge the thickest chains. Light all the torches.
Walls crumble to ruin. Chains break. All torches gutter out.
In the end, the dark below claims you.
Or, to see it another way: the Dungeon rises.
The minotaur’s wild charge across the courtyard snapped chains like cobwebs. The Denizens broke free, and from my vantage point atop the wall I saw it all.
Only-Sister sprang upon the RATS. She picked one up in her jaws and shook him until he was all loose and messy.
Goblins swarmed out, their clever fingers undoing locks and chains.
They went capering across the rooftops, laughing and looting.
By contrast, the kobolds had got a taste of military discipline, and formed into little knee-high battalions, marching smartly into battle against the few defenders of the South Tower.
The mimic mimicked a siege catapult with enthusiasm.
The trolls, as one, picked up their umbrella and made a wobbly but still terrifying move towards the main door of the keep.
“Hold it steady!” “Oh, my toes are poking out!” “Left a bit! Left a bit!” – only to the ears of the humans, those were trollish roars.
Mistress Clove met them in the shadow of the doorway, and led them down into the kitchen.
Some kobold pulled the blindfold from Balor, and he lit up like a firework, eye-beams blazing in every direction. Gloop leapt into the air like a silver splash. Hagworms and stirges fluttered about, driving the last of the RATS from the field.
But mightiest of all was the minotaur. He was much too large to enter the South Tower, but his headlong hornlong charge cracked it open. He tore at the breach, pulling masonry apart and widening the gap until he could reach inside with both hands.
He picked up Bait and Orphir.
One of the minotaur’s hands was very gentle.
The other was not.
Orphir would never have a second life as a talking skull, or anything else for that matter, unless one can come back as a sort of malignant smear.
With his unbloodied hand, the minotaur cradled Bait like a child.
He bowed his head. His broken horns were like a crown.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
“No,” she said.
And that was that.
Those few soldiers and sycophants still loyal to Orphir took what loot they could carry and fled the castle.
They did not get far, for the rebel army was waiting in the trees.
All that remained was for the rebels to seize the castle and capture the king, but Neb urged them to wait.
He and Sir Rudyard and a few other rebel leaders crept forward to spy on the castle.
No lights burned in the windows of the dark fort.
Dread swept over the rebel scouts, save perhaps Neb.
The gate of the castle was shut, but as they watched, they saw it shudder as some mighty force struck it from within.
One blow, and the wood splintered! A second, and iron bent!
A third, and the gate burst open, and out came the strangest procession that any of them – save Neb – had ever seen.
Balor the Squinter bobbed at the head of the mob like a many-eyed lantern, followed by a cloud of flapping stirges and a slither of hagworms. Goblins darted in and out of every window and doorway they passed, making merry mischief and leaving behind all manner of traps.
Wraiths danced in the shadows. There went a pack of trolls, wearing the finest dresses looted from your wardrobe.
There went Only-Sister, with Mistress Clove riding on her back.
In one hand, she bore her favourite cauldron from her old kitchen, brimming with Gloop.
In her other hand, she carried a skull, and she waved me around with such abandon that I felt quite sick until I remembered I no longer had a stomach.
And there, towering over the rest of the mob, bellowing wildly in the Dungeon Tongue, was the horned minotaur.
In his arms he cradled a precious bundle, wrapped in rags.
All was cacophony and chaos, a writhing gibbering howling mass of wild magic and things with teeth.
It seemed as though all the Denizens were there, and some no doubt thought it was a mercy that such things are normally cloaked in darkness under stone.
Swiftly this procession slithered and trampled and scuttled and flew through the town, then proceeded up the road that leads through the woods to the mountain and then down, down, down in the Dungeon.
The cacophony faded into echoes. Silence crept back across the surface land with the fall of night.
A single light was kindled in a high window of the keep.
The rebels crept into the castle, fearful as mice.
No, fearful as adventurers on the threshold. They had seen a host of monsters march out of Dunshelm; indeed, the courtyard was still awash in troll dung and blood and other gory horrors.
Nala awaited them there. She bore a borrowed sword in one bandaged hand; the other was occupied holding her skirt clear of the troll dung.
She threw down the sword.
“I’ve been instructed to ask for peace,” she declared, “on behalf of the royal forces.”
“Where’s the king?” demanded one of the rebel barons.
“King Arus is dead. So is Chancellor Orphir,” said Nala. “But the Princess Aldebara awaits you in the great hall to discuss terms.”
Only you didn’t, of course.
We took you with us, down in the dark.
You did not fall ill because of a flaw in your creation.
You did not fall ill because you lacked something from Bait. You are whole in yourself. She said to tell you that.
You fell ill because you are a changeling, a Denizen. Like us, you are a creature of wild magic, of the old magic, of the forgotten lands below. You must dwell in the Dungeon – for a while, at least. When your strength recovers, maybe you’ll go back above.
Bait knew. She carried you down from the keep and laid your unconscious body down on the last step.
From my perch, I watched the minotaur tower over Bait. He looked down at her, as if seeing her for the first time.
“I remember,” he said, his voice a subterranean rumble, “the dragon’s lair. You rescued me, asked for my help . . .”
“You didn’t know me.” Bait’s face was as still as a mask – and, like everyone else, she was caked in dust and gore – but I knew her well enough to hear the doubt in her voice.
“No. I knew you, I think.” He snorted. “It is hard to remember, but I was angry . . . that you had spurned the light. That my quest was in vain.”
“I wasn’t ready to go—” she began, but the minotaur fell to one knee before her.
“My quest . . . was not yours. I should have . . . I should not have . . .” He shook his head in frustration, and bits of tower fell from his matted hair. “Forgive me,’ he said.
“You weren’t yourself,” she said. “Nothing to forgive.” She embraced him, her arms encircling no more than a third of his bull neck.
“I was to be your champion and defend you against all dangers,” he said, half to himself. “I was to bring you home.”
“I’m coming home,” said Bait, “but not yet. You’ve got to be her champion now.”
“And who will protect you in the realms above?”
“I don’t need protecting as much as you think. I’m not a child any more. And I have friends above, too.”
He snorted. “Cornelius tells me I am made anew. So, if I am a new man, let me swear again: should you ever need me, send word, and above or below I’ll come to thee.”
“Keep her safe until I come back,” asked Bait, “that’s what I need.”
“Hello, Bait,” I said.
“No,” she said.
“I wasn’t myself? Nothing to forgive? Heroic self-sacrifice?”
“No.” She fetched me down off the wall.
“I gave up everything for you. My new body. A not inconsiderable sum of money—”
“None of it was yours.”
She carried me over to the courtyard well.
“If you’re going to throw me into a pit,” I said, “could I at least be thrown face up? A pit with a view would be a fine thing.”
“Princess Aldebara doesn’t know the Dungeon. She needs an education. You’re going to help her.”
“Of course! Nothing would be more diverting! I’ve always thought my true vocation was as an educator, although—”
She would have handed me the Dungeon Book, but – as you’ve doubtless gathered by this point – I have no hands, so she stuck it between my teeth.
I was about to make a counter-argument on how I’d make a truly excellent adviser, a loyal and wise counsellor, the best and most trustworthy of viziers, so perhaps it’s for the best.
“You’re better as a skull,” she said, and I could not argue and do not argue with her.
Then she bade farewell to all the Denizens that crowded around her. The last I saw of her – for now – was as she climbed up the stairs to your old name and life.
And we went down into the dark.
Be not afraid! This realm is strange and perilous, true, but so was the one you leave behind.
I shall be your guide to the lands below, and below you shall recover your health.
I have no doubt you will thrive down here.
I have some experience as a tutor, but, more importantly, I know Bait.
She is a singular child, and as you were made from her, you must certainly be a singular changeling.
Perhaps one day you may choose to return to the lands above, and she will come back below.
But for now . . .
Now this is the Rule of the Dungeon, writ many levels deep.
You who abide here must know it, for this is the Rule you shall keep.
You who dwell here in the darkness, all you who shelter in stone
Know you are bound by this statute, so long as the Dungeon’s your home.
But I must finish Bait’s story, or begin its next chapter. We left her behind at Dunshelm, and we have had no word from the surface since our parting, so this last section I can only guess at. But I know Bait, and I know you, and I know the lands above and below. So here is what I think happened.
She calls them all into the great hall, where she’s seated on a throne.
The chair is strange and uncomfortable. There are lights, candelabra and crystal lamps bright and blinding.
The room fills up, more and more people, until she can hardly breathe.
She feels lost and afraid in this crowd of strangers.
Barons loyal and rebel alike, soldiers, merchant princes, courtiers and clerics, all looking but not really seeing her.
Neb is there, too, which is a comfort, he knows her for who she is, but it is still a thunder of strangers, a hundred-headed hydra of stern faces and demanding voices.
She feels very small against such a foe.
She closes her eyes, sees only darkness.
She kicks off her shoes and feels the cold floor of the castle with her bare feet. Feels the cracks, the gaps between flagstones. She traces them like the endless corridors of the Dungeon, and a thousand paths open before her.
She knows where she is. She’s not lost any more.
And she calls a Levelling.