The Dwarven Rebellion

by J. J. Thompson

  He heard the distant chime of a bell and looked down the shaft. The lift was already moving upwards and he stood back to wait for it.

  There was no door on the elevator. It was an open metal cage that hung from a massive chain connected to an ancient machine sitting above the shaft. Basic dwarven engineering at its best.

  The cage appeared with a rumble and squeal of metal. A young dwarf with a smooth face was holding the control lever and pulled it back to stop the elevator. He nodded at Hallic as the rogue stepped into the cage.

  “Welcome back, Master,” the operator said respectfully. “Where to?”

  “I need to speak with the guildmaster,” Hallic told him.

  “Very well.”

  The dwarf pushed the lever forward and the elevator began to descend again.

  “He's in his office?” Hallic asked loudly over the sounds of grinding and creaking.

  “Yes sir. Guildmaster Darlheim arrived home a few hours ago. As usual when he returns from a long journey, he's trying to catch up on his paperwork.”

  Hallic chuckled at the operator's dry tone. Rank was important to the members of the guild, but there was a familial connection between all of them. He wasn't surprised by the way the dwarf, still too young to grow a beard, spoke of his superior. It was more affectionate than disrespectful.

  “Which means that he'll be cranky,” the operator added. “As I'm sure you know, Master.”

  “You're right,” Hallic replied with a wide smile. “I'd better watch my step.”

  The dwarf looked at him, his wide brown eyes twinkling merrily.

  “I'm guessing that you are immune to his moods, sir,” he said.

  “No one is immune to Darlheim when he's irritated,” Hallic told him. “Not even me.”

  The operator snorted in disbelief and turned to watch as the levels passed by one by one.

  After a minute or so, the elevator stopped smoothly with a loud clunk. Hallic stepped off of it with a word of thanks and turned to his left.

  The guildmaster's rooms, both his office and his residence, were located near the bottom of the guild. The stone floor, worn smooth over the millennia, led past many doors. The wall to Hallic's left was covered in the carvings so loved by the dwarves. Scenes of battle, ordinary pictures of dwarven life, so many others, could be seen on all of the levels of the guild. Again, for Hallic, they offered a comforting presence because they were so familiar.

  To his right, the same metal railing that spiraled down from the top level of the hall guarded against falls into the depths. Hallic walked over to it and looked down. Even at the bottom of the guild-house itself, the pit continued to drop hundreds of feet into total darkness. No one knew why the ancient builders of the hall had drilled down so far, and only a few of the masters knew what was down there.

  The rogue leaned against the railing and stared into the abyss, lost in thought. The empire was possibly on the brink of civil war and his people might be the only ones who could stop it. It was ironic to him that a group that dwarven society distrusted so much might ultimately be its salvation.

  The blackness below seemed to call out to him and he stared at it speculatively.

  “Do you still sleep your dreamless sleep?” he whispered to it.

  Hallic waited for a moment in silence and then turned away from the brink. It was time to speak with the guildmaster.

  The door leading into Darlheim's quarters was open and Hallic walked in and looked around.

  The first room was the guildmaster's office, but it looked more like a very untidy library. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves stuffed with hundreds of dusty tomes, brittle scrolls and piles of crumpled sheets of vellum. Across from the entrance was a large desk made of iron, painted black. The paint was chipped and faded, evidence of the age of both the desk and the office itself.

  The desk was as messy as the shelves around it, covered with towering stacks of notes teetering alarmingly and a dozen mechanical pens scattered around them.

  Seated behind the desk was a very old dwarf. His wispy hair was pure white and his beard was so fine that it looked more like cobwebs than actual hair. He was thin and small, even for a dwarf; barely four feet tall. And unlike most dwarves, he did not wear armor of any kind. The old dwarf was wearing a thick blue robe as if he was feeling a chill and he muttered under his breath as he read through a long scroll.

  This was Guildmaster Darlheim, the head of the rogues guild. He knew more secrets than any other dwarf in the empire and, with a wave of his frail hand, could send an army of shadowy killers to deal with the guild's enemies. To Hallic, who watched him affectionately from the doorway, he had been like a second father.

  “It isn't polite to stare, lad,” Darlheim said testily without raising his eyes from the scroll he was reading. “I'm not so far gone that I can't hear someone sneaking up on me.”

  Hallic snorted with amusement.

  “I wasn't sneaking,” he replied as he entered the room and sat down on a leather chair in front of the desk. “I was observing.”

  “Good. Because if you had been, I might be tempted to send you off for some remedial training.”

  Darlheim looked up from his scroll and smiled broadly at Hallic. His face was a mass of wrinkles but his brown eyes were bright and alert.

  “How are you, lad?” he asked as he put down the scroll and sat back with a grunt.

  “I'm well, old friend. And you?”

  “My joints ache constantly and my eyes are getting weaker by the day. I'm still alive though, so there's that,” Darlheim joked. “But every time I return from a trip, I'm stuck catching up on paperwork for days.”

  He looked distastefully at the pile of documents on his desk.

  “When did I become an administrator instead of a functioning member of the guild?” he wondered.

  “If memory serves, wasn't it when the former guildmaster died, after your three-hundredth birthday?” Hallic asked with a wide smile.

  Darlheim gave him a sour look.

  “Don't remind me of my age, youngster,” he said sharply. “I feel it in my bones every minute of every day.”

  He pulled his robe tighter around him.

  “And I'm always cold now. Can you imagine it? A dwarf who gets a chill? It's embarrassing.”

  Hallic crossed his legs and settled into his chair.

  “You're respected by your guild, and you're feared by our enemies,” he said with a shrug. “Isn't that all that matters?”

  “Perhaps,” Darlheim grumbled. “But enough of that. Whining isn't dignified. So, are you here to take my job? It's yours whenever you want it.”

  He smiled slyly at Hallic.

  “We both know who the real master of our guild is,” he added.

  Hallic looked around the room at the dusty shelves and shuddered.

  “No thank you,” he said firmly. “I want you to live to be five hundred, at least. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life reading reports and balancing budgets.”

  “I felt the same way once,” Darlheim told him with a shrug. “But someone has to do it. And next to me, the only one qualified to run our guild is you, lad.”

  “Let's talk about something else,” Hallic told him. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.”

  “Fine. But don't try to avoid the responsibility when it does come,” the guildmaster warned him. “The guild is larger, more complex and more powerful than anyone outside of it realizes. But it must be guided by a firm and steady hand if it is to survive. And that hand is yours, Hallic.”

  Darlheim leaned forward and rested his forearms on his desk.

  “Now, what can I do for you? Besides whine about my own little problems, that is.”

  The dwarves exchanged a grin and then Hallic's expression became serious.

  “The prince has disappeared,” he said. “He's been spirited away, possibly by magic, and we need to find him.”

  Darlheim n
odded and fumbled through the papers in front of him. He picked up a small piece of vellum and glanced at it.

  “I know. I just received this note from a runner a few minutes before you arrived. What does the king want us to do?”

  “Find him, of course” Hallic replied. “And quickly. The treasonous little cockroach will drag our people into a civil war if we don't stop him.”

  “And when we've found him? What do we do with him? It would solve all of the king's problems if we simply eliminated his son, you know.”

  “I agree, but Shandon does not.”

  Hallic stood up, suddenly restless. He crossed the room to the nearest bookshelf and absently began running a finger along the spines of the tomes there. Darlheim watched him intently.

  “His reluctance to take action against Corbin is foolish,” the guildmaster said flatly. “He barely knows his son, and if the boy hadn't come out of the shadows to try to lay claim to the throne, Shandon would have spent his entire life completely oblivious of his existence. And now he is risking the future of the empire to protect him? Why?”

  With a sigh, Hallic turned around and looked at him.

  “Misplaced guilt perhaps? He only dallied with Corbin's mother for one evening and then left her. He never knew that she was with child and the woman never asked him for assistance. She raised her son alone and it was the boy's choice to step forward and tell the world that he was the bastard son of the king.”

  “Why would that make the king feel guilty?” Darlheim asked with a frown. “We both know that Shandon has a good heart. He would have given the boy's mother anything she'd asked for, but she didn't ask. And Corbin blames his father? He is a fool.”

  Hallic wiped his hand on his trousers and walked back to his seat.

  “You really should have someone dust those shelves,” he said as he sat down again.

  “It does occur to me occasionally, but then I get distracted and it escapes my mind again. Too many other things to keep track of, I suppose.”

  “Hmm. Anyway, I agree. Corbin is a vain, pompous idiot,” Hallic said. “The problem is that he has others around him who have fed his ego and pumped him full of his own importance. Left alone, he might have settled for a stipend from the crown and spent the rest of his life drinking in taverns and whining to anyone who would listen about how unfair fate had been to him. But he's been steered toward insurrection and has now convinced himself that he would make a better king than his father.”

  Darlheim laughed harshly.

  “Gods help the empire if that boy ever seizes the throne. He will destroy everything that we've built. We may be fading, but we should be allowed to do so slowly and with some dignity. If Corbin becomes king...”

  “That will never happen,” Hallic told him forcefully. “Never. If we ever reach that point, I'll gut him myself.”

  The guildmaster looked at him skeptically.

  “And how would Shandon react to that?” he asked.

  “He'd have me executed, of course,” Hallic said with a shrug. “If he ever caught me. But to save our people, I would gladly lay down my life. That's something that those who live outside of the guild do not understand. They think of us as thieves and murderers, but we are actually patriots.”

  Darlheim searched through the papers and scrolls covering his desk until he found a piece of vellum that was mostly blank. He picked up a pen and began writing.

  “So, we need to alert our agents across the empire,” he muttered as he wrote. “Find the prince, send word back to headquarters and keep him under surveillance until you arrive, correct?”

  “Correct,” Hallic said. “Also mention the fact that he may have a magic-user helping him. Maybe more than one. So whoever finds him should keep their distance. Just observe him carefully so that we don't lose him again. Shandon does want him taken into custody, so that's something, I suppose.”

  The guildmaster put down his pen and gave the rogue a troubled look.

  “I'm worried about this magic business,” he said. “We forgot about the mages and other magical types living amongst our people because the power had been siphoned away from this world. Now that it's back, some will use it for nefarious purposes, as I am sure you know. And we aren't experienced enough with it to counter such skills. Not yet.”

  “I know that. And obviously, at least to me, someone has already used it to aid Corbin. What more they can do is anyone's guess.”

  Hallic drew a long dagger from somewhere inside of his clothes and stared at it thoughtfully.

  “But even mages can bleed,” he said softly. “And if they get in my way, they will learn that lesson.”

  He returned the blade to its hidden sheathe and stood up gracefully.

  “Send out the notices, my friend,” he told Darlheim. “When you get a response, let me know and I'll head out immediately. The longer that brat is allowed to foment chaos and division, the closer the empire will inch toward civil war. He must be stopped quickly.”

  Hallic walked to the doorway, but he stopped when the guildmaster spoke up.

  “When you do leave to find the prince, take Mel with you,” the old dwarf said with a grin. “She'll watch your back out there, and you may need someone you can trust if you stumble across evil magics.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Hallic replied, nodding. “She's more than ready for such an assignment and the girl is smart and devious too. Good call, my friend.”

  “Thank you. I may be old, but I haven't lost my wits just yet.”

  “Not all of them, at least,” Hallic told him with a wink.

  He left the guildmaster chuckling behind him and walked back toward the elevator.

  And now we wait, Hallic thought.

  Hallic's quarters were located several levels above Darlheim's. When he opened his door and walked in, the rogue found someone sitting on his sofa, slowly running a shiv over a whetstone.

  “I don't know why I even bother locking my rooms when I leave,” he said as he closed the heavy metal door and slid a bolt securely across it. “When anyone can just walk into my quarters whenever they want to.”

  “Don't exaggerate, Father,” his visitor said with a smile. “The only person in the guild who can get through the locks you've designed yourself is me, and that's because you taught me their secrets.”

  Mel slipped the shiv into her boot and looked at Hallic intently.

  “How did Darlheim take the news about the prince?” she asked.

  Hallic crossed the room and sat down on a heavy armchair across from the sofa. The room was decorated simply, with a couple of low tables set at either end of the couch, and one shelf of books standing against the wall behind Hallic's favorite chair. The other walls were covered by dark tapestries, their surfaces stitched with abstract patterns in muted colors. Each table held a lamp that glowed with soft yellow light, making the room feel warm and welcoming.

  “He already knew about it,” Hallic replied as he leaned back and closed his eyes. “Someone sent a messenger to him with a report about what had happened.”

  “Typical,” Mel said sourly. “Secrets never stay secret for very long in the guild.”

  “That should be our official motto,” Hallic said, keeping his eyes closed.

  “I thought it was,” his daughter replied.

  Both of them laughed together and Mel took a moment to look at her father more closely as he relaxed.

  She always felt a sense of gratitude when Hallic allowed himself to drop his guard around her. She was the only member of the guild that he truly trusted and, watching him now, Mel felt fiercely protective of him.

  May the Gods have mercy on anyone who ever harms him, she thought as she noticed the lines around her father's eyes. Because I will have none.

  No one, not even Mel, knew how old the rogue really was. And except for those fine lines, Hallic showed no signs of aging. He certainly hadn't slowed down or lost any of his fabled skills.

  “I can feel you staring at me,” Hallic said quietly. />
  “Just admiring the legend,” she replied.

  Her father opened his eyes and she gave him a teasing grin.

  Hallic sighed and sat up.

  “Hardly a legend. Just someone who's fairly good at his job. And speaking of jobs, Darlheim suggested that I take you with me when we get word of the location of the lost prince and I go to collect him.”

  “Did he now? The guildmaster is even wiser than I thought,” Mel told him. “You'll need someone to watch your back, especially if there was magic involved in his disappearance.”

  “Precisely what Darlheim said.”

  Hallic looked at his daughter speculatively and she raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Just wondering if it's wise for both of us to be absent from the guild headquarters at the same time. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I have a feeling that something is coming, something that may threaten the guild itself. And if I'm right, one of us should be here to help in its defense.”

  “A feeling? Really, Father? Since when has the fabled Hallic Barston lived his life based on his feelings?”

  “It's happened more often than you might think,” he replied. “And before you say it, yes I know that the guild is well defended and that it would take an army to breach our defenses. But...”

  “But?”

  Hallic drew his hidden dagger and began to flip it from hand to hand absently, not even looking at it. It was a nervous habit that Mel knew well and she frowned as she watched the wickedly sharp weapon flash in the light. Her father must be truly worried and she knew that it was only because of their relationship that she was allowed to see just how much.

  “It's this whole new element,” Hallic told her. “The magic. If Corbin has a mage or some other caster serving him, it will add a random factor that I do not like. How can we plan for something when we know nothing about it? Yes, magic-users are mortal and they can bleed and die as easily as anyone else, but they have defenses that I have no knowledge of. That concerns me very much.”