by Zac Gorman
“She gave me this,” said Iphigenia, pulling out a piece of paper.
She handed it to Thisby, who flipped it over twice just to be certain of what she was seeing. It was an entry form for the Wretched Scrattle.
It looked just like the ones Thisby had seen the men in black, the “buzzards,” carrying into the Black Mountain weeks ago. She’d escorted a large group of them to Castle Grimstone, where they’d had the forms notarized by Marl. Knowing the kind of security the buzzards had been traveling with and the caution they were taking in protecting the forms, Thisby was surprised to see one now.
“How’d she get that?” asked Thisby.
“You know Grunda.”
“I thought I did,” said Thisby.
Iphigenia felt strangely guilty that she’d seen Grunda last. Somehow it felt like a betrayal, even though she was certain that she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Look, Thisby. I’m not sure what’s going on exactly, but Grunda told me she wants you to enter the Wretched Scrattle,” said Iphigenia. “She wants you to win. To become the new Master of the Black Mountain. It’s why I came all the way here. It’s why I escaped from my caravan and risked my life to bring you that entry form.”
Thisby set the form down on the table and slid it away from her as if it was a plate of food she wanted to send back.
“I’m sorry but I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?” asked Iphigenia.
“Because I’m not cut out to be Master,” said Thisby.
“And the current Master is?” asked Iphigenia, the pitch of her voice rising. “Come on, Thisby, that little old blowhard can barely lace his own boots!”
Thisby thought that was a fair point, but there was a difference: the Master was a wizard. Sure, wizards were untrustworthy and clandestine and backward, but in a way that was kind of what made them perfectly suited for the position of Master of the Black Mountain. Thisby was no wizard.
“I’m not saying he’s perfect, but . . .” Thisby trailed off as she tried to get her head around what she really wanted to say. “I’d be no good as a Master. For starters, I’m only twelve, well, thirteen soon enough, but still. I’m good at being gamekeeper. I like caring for the monsters of the dungeon. That’s what I know.”
“Couldn’t you care for them better as Master?” asked Iphigenia.
“I’m not so sure. Masters have to make horrible decisions. They have to do things that I could never do,” said Thisby.
“Or do you just not want to do them?” asked Iphigenia.
Thisby was beginning to feel as if this conversation was slipping away from her. It felt like Iphigenia wasn’t listening to her. She didn’t want to be Master. Why wasn’t that enough?
“When I become Queen, I’m going to have to make hard decisions. That’s what happens when you have power,” said Iphigenia.
“But maybe I don’t want power,” said Thisby. “I’m not you.”
The words felt a bit harsh, but Iphigenia didn’t seem particularly wounded. Instead she sat still and quiet, studying her friend.
“It was important to Grunda,” said Iphigenia calmly.
“Then she should be here!” snapped Thisby.
Her words seemed to reverberate in the silence that followed until they were interrupted by the sound of the innkeeper shuffling through the back kitchen, carrying a tray of clinking glasses.
“I-I’m sorry,” mumbled Thisby, but Iphigenia waved her off.
“No, it’s my fault,” said Iphigenia. “I know you don’t want to think about Grunda right now. It’s just . . . I don’t know why she’s not here, but she clearly thinks this is important. She thinks that you need to become the new Master. She believes that if the wrong person takes control of the Black Mountain, it could mean the end of the dungeon altogether. I’m not going to tell you what to do. It’s your life. You can do whatever you want. In fact, Thisby, listen . . .”
Iphigenia leaned her elbows on the table and grasped Thisby’s hands in a reassuring way.
“I want you to listen to me now, okay? And don’t get upset, and please don’t say anything until I’ve finished what I need to say. Okay?”
She waited for Thisby to nod in agreement to her conditions before she continued.
“I want you to know that you have a choice. I believe in you, Thisby. If you enter the Wretched Scrattle, you will win. You’ll become the next Master of the Black Mountain. And I know for a fact that you’d be a good Master. Thisby, you have all the talent in the world, you can do anything you set your mind to, but just because you can do something doesn’t mean you must. This is a hard choice, but it needs to be your choice.
“There’s another way out of this that I don’t think you’ve considered. You could leave the Black Mountain and never come back. I’d find a position for you in the castle. You could be the gamekeeper there—sure, horses and peacocks aren’t as exciting as nightmares and cockatrices, but I’d make sure you had everything you ever wanted. Before you make your decision, I want you to really, truly think about your options. I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, but you do have them. You have a choice.”
Thisby sat quietly, her head buzzing with everything Iphigenia had said. She loved the dungeon. It was her home. But images of her living in the castle, of an endless slumber party with her best friend, of the rich food and lush lawns and cozy beds bullied their way into her mind. Did she actually want to be Master? No. Not necessarily. But if Grunda was right and being the Master meant saving the dungeon, was it really a choice at all? If it meant giving the monsters who lived there a better life than they had now, that was all she really wanted.
“Iphi,” said Thisby, squeezing her hands. “I don’t want to be Master. But I can’t just walk away. I’ll do it. I’ll enter the Wretched Scrattle.”
“You’re sure?” asked Iphigenia softly.
“It’s my home,” said Thisby.
Iphigenia smiled at her and released her right hand. Thisby lifted the quill from the inkpot, and without any further hesitation, she signed the form.
Marl took the last sip of sweet red tea and scowled at her empty cup. The Wretched Scrattle was set to begin soon, and she needed tea to think.
“You,” she called to the ghoul who she’d worked with every day for the past week but couldn’t remember the number of. “More! Tea! MORE. TEA. Are you stupid or something? Go!”
She snapped her fingers repeatedly at the ghoul until he slunk out of her chamber dejectedly, mumbling something vulgar under his rancid, undead breath. Marl pretended not to notice. There was no use in chastising him now. He was the last ghoul in the entire castle who knew how to get from her office to the kitchen and back again without getting lost, and she depended on him far more than he depended on her.
Before coming to the castle, Marl had never been so . . . uncomposed. For twelve years, she’d studied psychometry at the Grand College of Arcanology—go, Werewolves!—the best magic school in all of Nth, perhaps the entire world. She’d been near the top of her graduating class and had even been voted “Most Skulky” by her classmates. After graduation, she’d spent six years as a spy for the court of Nth, installed deep undercover in the kingdom of Umberfall, and in all that time she’d never missed a beat, never lost a moment of sleep. She’d sacrificed everything for her career, for Nth, and this was her reward. Finally she was in a position to make herself insanely wealthy and leave it all behind like a thief in the night, but something was nagging at her, some awful little voice in the back of her mind.
It wasn’t her conscience. At least she was sure of that. In all her years as a spy, doing dirty work for the Nthian crown, she’d realized that she must’ve been born without one of those and was thankful for it. They seemed like awful little nuisances. No, this voice was definitely something else, something coming from outside like the voice that had pointed her to the book about the Wretched Scrattle in the first place, but whatever it was, it did seem rather insistent on unnerving her.
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nbsp; You’re never going to make it out alive, it said. That money doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the dungeon. Leave. That kind of thing. It was all very annoying. Especially because the voice that seemed so intent on driving her away didn’t seem to realize that she was just as eager for her departure as it was, probably more. Marl hated it here. It was the worst place she’d ever lived—and that was saying something.
Umberfall had been a miserable place. A totalitarian nightmare where every person was born into slavery and had to work to earn their freedom . . . which, naturally, no one ever did. Each day she witnessed the horrors of starvation and pestilence and hatred and war. And yet, she’d begun to miss her life there. She’d had friends at least. Being at the top of the Black Mountain was the loneliest place in the world. She rarely even dressed for work anymore, and she hadn’t skulked through the shadows in weeks. What was the point in skulking without a proper skulkee to skulk around with?
At least it would be over soon. Her office was already littered with bags of gold, the entry fees collected from the gullible adventurers who waited outside the Black Mountain even now, eager to rush headlong to their doom. It would be easy for her to steal away now with enough money to sustain herself for years. All she’d have to do was grab a wheelbarrow full of gold and slip out the front door, but she wasn’t trying to just steal enough gold to live like some lazy merchant. Not with all the hard work she’d put in to get herself to where she was now.
Right under the Master’s nose, she’d turned the dungeon into a machine designed to funnel money directly into her own pockets. One of her first scams was the “passage tokens,” which she’d insisted be printed on gold coins. She’d pocketed over half of them herself immediately, squirreling them away into her secret stash and elevating the value of the remainder, which she traded to the dungeon’s more industrious monsters for armfuls of treasure worth a hundred times the value of the small gold tokens.
Then there was the Wretched Scrattle. The greatest money-making scam of all. Twenty-five gold a head—well, minus the five that went to the king—and almost all the so-called “treasure” she was bringing in to entice entrants was fake; wooden coins painted gold, glass gems, and other cheap trinkets. She’d had to hire on extra security to ensure that nobody at the base of the mountain got too good of a look in the wagons on the off chance somebody would recognize the fakes, but that was a small cost, all things considered. And that wasn’t even the best part of it.
At first she’d planned to simply sneak away during the commotion of the Wretched Scrattle, but lately she’d begun to have bigger ideas. When the time was right, she could displace the Master and start a bidding war between Nth and Umberfall for the dungeon’s allegiance. She’d play both sides against each other and make herself infinitely wealthy in the process. It would be risky, but if she pulled it off . . .
You’re never going to pull it off, said the voice.
“Oh, shut up,” said Marl aloud.
There was a knock on her chamber door.
“Did you honestly forget? Four doors down! Make a left! The kitchen is on the right! The tea is in the lower cabinet! Next to the stove!” bellowed Marl impatiently.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said a very human voice.
Her door swung open and in walked an unhappy and alarmingly fastidious woman.
“General Lutgard!” squeaked Marl, rushing to put herself back together.
She shuffled some papers on her desk, ran her fingers through her messy, mossy-green hair, and tightened the belt on her robe, which was perhaps a bit more open than was respectable for entertaining company.
“Overseer,” said General Lillia Lutgard with a lack of inflection so pronounced that its deficit was noticeable in and of itself.
“W-what are you doing here?”
Marl tried to stop herself from glancing around nervously at the bags of gold coins in overflowing sacks scattered around the office. The General walked in and folded her hands behind her back dramatically. It was the pose of a high-ranking officer, and it struck fear into Marl’s sleep-deprived mind.
“I see you’ve made yourself comfortable,” said Lillia, looking around.
Marl’s underarms suddenly felt very damp.
“Yes, well, I . . . the Wretched Scrattle has been a big success!”
“I’d like to speak with the Master,” said Lillia. It wasn’t a question.
“Y-yes. Right. He’s very busy. But I could, um, I could . . .”
Before the Overseer could finish her thought, a blackdoor opened in the center of the room and out popped the Master with a wide grin on his face. He spread his arms in a warm, welcoming gesture.
“General Lutgard, so good to see you!” he said cheerily. “Welcome to the Black Mountain!”
“Master,” the General said formally. “I’m here to discuss—”
“The Princess, I know, I know,” interrupted the Master. “The moment I received word that she was seen heading this way, I sent my best scouts to search for her, my dear General. It’s a real shame. She’s such a powerful, strongheaded young woman. Qualities that will make a great Queen, no doubt, but in youth they can prove quite troublesome.”
Marl cringed. It wasn’t surprising that the Master had hidden this from her—the Master loved to keep secrets—but she hadn’t been told a thing about the Princess going missing near the Black Mountain. This was a power move, plain and simple. Marl gave her most withering glare to the little man, but he didn’t notice. In fact, neither the Master nor the General seemed to acknowledge her presence.
“I appreciate your assistance,” said Lillia.
The Master nodded graciously.
“One more thing,” Lillia continued. “The Princess formed a very strong connection with a young girl who works here in the dungeon. Thisby Thestoop, I believe. Your gamekeeper.”
“Hm. The name does sound familiar,” said the Master.
“I’d like to speak with Ms. Thestoop as soon as possible.”
“Ah, but that’s not so easy, unfortunately,” said the Master. “You see, our gamekeeper has temporarily relinquished her post in order to enter the Wretched Scrattle. I received her entry form days ago. Notarized it myself. She’s not here at the moment—tournament rules and all that. I suspect she’s somewhere down among the throngs of people eagerly waiting for the doors to open tomorrow morning.”
Marl’s jaw dropped. She didn’t bother to pick it up.
“She what?” Marl demanded.
I told you you’d never pull it off, said the voice.
“Shut up!” snapped Marl.
The Master and Lillia both turned slowly to face Marl, staring at her as if she were a complete stranger who’d just wandered into the room and interrupted their conversation.
“Excuse me?” said the Master.
“But! I mean, that’s impossible! I didn’t give her permission to take time off to go gallivanting around in the Wretched Scrattle! I never saw her entry form! I demand to see her entry form!”
“It should be in your pile. See for yourself,” said the Master casually before turning back to General Lutgard.
Marl went over to the stack of last week’s entries and began furiously digging through them. There was no way the gamekeeper had entered the Wretched Scrattle. Hadn’t she been working in the dungeon this whole time? How could she not have noticed Thisby was gone? She continued to dig. And then . . . there it was. As plain as day. Thisby’s entry form, which had all the official stamps and stickers and seals and marks.
“There must be some mistake. The documents are magically protected. She cannot enter unless an official member of the royal family approves!”
The Master scratched his chin. “Ah, well, I think that likely explains our current predicament, doesn’t it? Check the bottom. Who signed off on her entry?”
Marl scrolled quickly to the bottom of the form, and her heart sank when she saw the big, unmistakable loopy swirls.
“Iphigenia Larkspu
r,” she whispered automatically.
“For not reporting that right away, I beg your forgiveness, General,” said the Master. “I was under the impression that this had been done through the proper channels.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Lillia. “You’re not the one tasked with serving as a line of communication between the King and the dungeon.”
Lillia shot Marl a pointed look, and the Master stepped forward to bow in a show of humility.
“General. Please forgive her incompetence. Overseer Marl has been overworked on account of the Wretched Scrattle. I’m sure if she’d known Princess Iphigenia was missing, she would have reported it right away. Come. We can use the blackdoor machine to take a quick look around the dungeon. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and spot something helpful.”
With that, he threw a blackdoor bead at the ground and a glowing portal opened before them. The General stepped through without a second look back at Marl and vanished. The Master hung back a moment and turned to the frazzled Overseer.
“I wouldn’t get too comfortable here if I were you,” he said.
The Master stepped through the blackdoor before Marl could respond, and as suddenly as he’d arrived, he was gone. The portal snapped shut behind him.
Marl sat down at the Master’s desk and sighed.
Well, that could’ve gone better, said the voice.
Marl sighed.
“Where’s my stupid tea?” she grumbled.
The morning the Wretched Scrattle began, Thisby dressed, shouldered her backpack, set Mingus’s lantern on its usual hook, and waddled down the creaky stairs of the Rat-Upon-a-Cat, where she found Iphigenia up bright and early, eating breakfast.
“Took you long enough!” said the Princess, setting down her toast. “Come on. We have a lot to do and very little time!”
Thisby was far too tired to argue but managed to stall long enough to snag the as yet unbitten piece of toast from Iphigenia’s plate, so at least she didn’t have to leave on an empty stomach. Outside, the town was deserted. Most of the crowd had already begun the trek to the base of the Black Mountain, and Thisby was finally able to see the sheer destruction that the hordes of adventurers had wrought upon the poor village.
