by Zac Gorman
Everybody else had fallen as well, and they lay sprawled out around her, with the exception of Donato, who’d already pulled himself up to his feet and was leaning against a piece of a metal gate that had nearly impaled him moments ago. He made eye contact—singular—with Thisby and winced, apparently pretty banged up himself. Vas lay unmoving, and Thisby could hear Bero groaning behind her. But there was another noise. One that she couldn’t place.
It sounded like drops of water on a hot pan. Or maybe it sounded more like a wet log thrown into a hot fire? Thisby listened closer. Hissing. It was definitely hissing. Hissing was never a good sign.
She clambered to her feet using only her left arm, as even the slightest pressure on the right sent shooting pain all the way up into her neck. Donato, who must’ve heard the hissing as well, drew his sword and stood protectively over Vas’s unconscious body.
“What is that? Basilisk?” he whispered to Thisby.
She listened carefully. The hissing grew louder.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s no basilisk. Could be new.”
“Great,” said Donato.
Thisby genuinely couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.
The sound had begun to wrap around them like a slowly tightening noose, causing them to inch closer and closer together, huddled for safety beneath the lonely pillar of light. Thisby stared so hard into the pitch-black room beyond that her eyes began to play tricks on her. It was a phenomenon with which she was all too familiar. She knew that if you stared too long and hard at the dark, it began to move of its own accord, strange shapes would emerge, things that weren’t really there would reveal themselves. Usually, it was only an illusion. But now, it was impossible to tell what was real and what wasn’t.
There was definitely something out there. That much she knew. It was what she didn’t know that frustrated her. If she only knew where she was, if she only knew what they were dealing with, she might be able to formulate some sort of plan.
“Mingus, glow!” Thisby whispered, but the only response she got in return was a pained little squeak. “Mingus! Come on!”
“I—I can’t!”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” rasped Thisby.
“I don’t know! I just . . . I can’t! I’m really freaking out right now, okay? I’m dealing with some pretty heavy stuff! Just this morning I thought I was a regular old slime. Now everything’s so confusing. What am I? Why am I here?”
“Seriously? You’ve gotta deal with this right now?”
“It’s like, you think you know who you are . . .” He trailed off.
“Ugh! Never mind!” said Thisby.
She unshouldered her backpack, threw open the flap, and began to dig around the inside with her one good arm. Every time her broken arm moved, she winced with pain and she had to fight back the urge to scream, but at last Thisby found what she was looking for. Donato looked over his shoulder just in time to see the gamekeeper flipping through a notebook.
“Some light reading?” he scoffed as the hissing sound grew louder and more irritable.
Thisby ignored him. She propped the book open on top of her backpack and turned the pages with her left hand until she found what she was looking for . . . a map.
“If I can figure out where we are, I might be able to get us out of here,” she said.
“Wait. I can help, too,” groaned Bero.
He stood up groggily and opened the small spell book he kept tucked into his belt. Using the lone beam for light, he read aloud from its pages. Within seconds, the room in which they stood was flooded with an incredible white light that settled down into a soft fireplace glow, which seemed to emanate from both everywhere and nowhere at once.
It took Thisby’s eyes several seconds to adjust, and when they did, she realized the room in which they’d landed was a grand old dining hall of sorts, frozen in time mid-banquet. Long tables were set with plates of fossilized food, while fully clothed skeletal guests sat behind them, still clutching their goblets in eternal reverie. Nearby, a grand hearth was littered with the embers of a fire that hadn’t burned in centuries, and at the front of the hall, upon a small stage, sat a quartet of the dead, holding musical instruments whose notes had been lost to the crescendo of time. There was one other feature of the room that caught her attention—and perhaps it was the first thing that should have been mentioned—a colossal snake whose body was easily thicker than the trunk of a large oak tree had completely encircled the hall, blocking every exit.
Chapter 13
“Lindorm!” bellowed Donato.
The serpent’s head rose slowly from between two tables that were closer to the center of the room—and thus herself—than Thisby had hoped. The lindorm was nearly identical to a black snake, with the exception of the two long, curved horns that protruded from its massive head. Hissing angrily, the lindorm reared up so high that its horns scraped against the vaulted ceiling, knocking loose centuries-old mosaic tiles that fell like glittering rain. The monster’s jaws split open both up and down and left and right, revealing fangs dripping with bright green saliva.
Unlike the hodag, Thisby had heard of lindorms, although she’d never encountered one in person. Up until a moment ago, she hadn’t even been completely convinced they were real. Lindorms were something of an urban legend down in the dungeon. Once in a while, a ghoul would wander too deep into the mountain and boast about running into one, but Thisby never put much stock in that kind of gossip. The two-hundred-foot snake towering over her was a sort of indisputable truth, however.
“Run!” yelled Donato.
Ignoring his own advice, the hunter hopped up onto a nearby table and charged directly at the nearest part of the thing, his sword in hand. The lindorm responded with a lightning-quick strike, smashing the table clean in half. Donato leapt to an adjacent one just in time and continued his sprint toward the creature, finally reaching it and managing to sink his sword deep through the lindorm’s scales. Thisby expected to hear it to cry out in pain, but shockingly, it barely seemed to notice. The lindorm reared back for a second strike. By sheer luck, Donato avoided the creature’s fangs but was knocked prone as the side of the snake’s boulder-size head collided with his left shoulder. Donato’s sword remained where it was, jutting out of the monster’s side.
A flurry of glowing blue darts sailed over Thisby’s head, and she turned to see Bero, spell book open, chanting and pointing dramatically. The blue darts shot from his hand and collided with the lindorm, exploding into little puffs of glittery sparkles that were more decorative than effective.
“I said, ‘RUN!’” shouted Donato from the ground.
He hopped up to his feet, wrenched his blade free from the lindorm’s side, and began to slash wildly, putting as many nicks into the monster’s scaly hide as he could manage.
“Take Vas! Go! I’ll hold it off!”
Vas had finally begun to wake up on his own due to the commotion, and Bero helped him the rest of the way to his feet. Vas threw his arm around the bigger man’s shoulder, and together the two of them began limping toward the far end of the room, as far away from the head of the creature as they could get. Thisby was watching them climb over the lindorm’s tail and wondering how she could do the same with her broken arm, when she heard a scream from behind and turned.
The lindorm had Donato in its jaws.
His sword had clattered to the floor beneath where he’d been lifted into the lindorm’s jaws, and Thisby darted forward and picked it up.
“What are you doing?” shouted Mingus in her ear, but he was drowned out by the pounding of her own pulse. His voice sounded far away. Underwater.
Thisby stood in the center of an endless whirlpool of scales.
Using her one good arm, Thisby drew the sword back like an ax and swung it as hard as she could into the lindorm. It was no use. The blade rebounded like she’d struck a steel beam, and the vibration shocked her hand so badly that she immediately dropped the sword. For the next few secon
ds, the hunter continued to struggle hopelessly against the monster’s jaws, but the fight was over. The lindorm’s fangs sank into him again, and there was one last, horrible scream before Donato vanished for good, down the creature’s throat.
Mingus’s voice faded in from somewhere very far off until Thisby could just barely make out what he was screaming. It was the word run over and over again. The moment the word finished its long journey from her ears to her brain, her legs kicked into gear without waiting for a second opinion.
The lindorm hissed at her and struck. Thisby slid beneath a nearby table and moments later the table was gone, exploding into a shower of wooden shards and plates of petrified food that rained down over her as she crawled back to her feet and continued to run. She wove in between tables and chairs as the lindorm gave chase. Somewhere up ahead, she could hear Bero and Vas yelling, but it was impossible to make out what they were saying.
Thisby skidded to a dead stop, her path blocked by a tree-trunk-size section of the lindorm’s body. There was no way over it, at least none that would be quick enough for her escape, so she turned, half expecting to see the lindorm’s open jaws coming for her, but instead she was greeted by an uncomfortable silence. The head of the beast was nowhere to be found. Black coils wrapped around her like rope on a large spool, where she was the axle. The lindorm’s body completely encircled her.
She stood in the center of an endless whirlpool of scales. She could see its ribs rising and falling with each breath. Feel the waves of its movement. It was hypnotic. From where she stood, there was no way of telling which end was the front and which end was the back, so there was no way of knowing where its head might emerge. Thisby spun around at each slight variation of sound: every clattering of a plate or fork, every loose mosaic tile finally breaking free and dropping to the floor. She turned so quickly that she began to feel dizzy.
“What do we do?” begged Mingus.
The question was largely rhetorical, which was one of the reasons why Thisby was so shocked to hear what came next. It wasn’t the main reason.
“Yoooooou diiiiiiiiieeee,” hissed the lindorm in a voice that seemed to come from everywhere all at once.
Thisby was so simultaneously startled and relieved to hear the lindorm speak that she almost laughed. If it wasn’t for poor Donato, she very well might have. There was still a good chance that she wouldn’t make it out of this alive, but at least now there was hope. There was always hope when you had a chance to talk things over.
The coils continued to swirl around her as she struggled to find the right words.
“Lindorm,” she said. It was as good an opening as any. “We’re not your enemy.”
The lindorm contemplated this.
“You’re in my nesssssssst.”
“It was a mistake! We fell through the ceiling!”
“Yessssssss, the Overssssseeeer,” hissed the lindorm with contempt. “Shhhe put the hole. Shhhhe is to blame. But no matter. You came through. You mussssssssst die.”
Thisby felt dizzy again as she turned around and around in order to discern where the voice was coming from.
“Can we talk face-to-face? If you’re going to kill me, it only seems fair.”
Thisby felt the most delicate change behind her, almost like the most delicate breeze. She wouldn’t have even noticed except that it caused the tiny hairs on the back of her neck to stand up. She turned to see the lindorm reared up so high that its horns almost touched the ceiling again. It stared at her intently. Its body had stopped moving.
“Faaaaaaaaair,” it said.
Thisby tried to stop her mind from racing. She’d been in worse situations before, and she knew that panicking never helped anything. All she needed to do was come up with some sort of bargain. Something to which the lindorm couldn’t say no. Something clever. Something cunning. Something brilliant.
“Please don’t kill me,” said Thisby.
“Whhhhaaaat?”
“Please don’t kill me.”
The lindorm paused. Perhaps it was considering her plea or perhaps it was simply stunned by the frankness of it.
“Whhhhhhy not?”
Thisby had to admit it was a fair follow-up question, despite not having an answer ready. She didn’t know anything about lindorms in particular, but she mulled over what she’d gathered so far. She knew that the lindorm didn’t like the Overseer. That was obvious. Also, Thisby had lived her whole life in the dungeon and she’d never seen a lindorm. Not once. That was no easy task for a monster its size. That meant it valued its privacy.
“Because,” she said, “if you let me go, I’ll win the Wretched Scrattle and become the Master of the Black Mountain. And when I do, I’ll make sure this room is sealed off and you never have to see me or anybody else ever again.”
“Annnnd ifffff yoooou loooosssssssse?”
“If I lose, then you let one free meal get away. But you already ate my friend, so I don’t think you’re hungry. You only want to kill me so I don’t come back. But the only way you’re going to make sure that neither I nor anybody else ever comes back is to give me a chance to win. So let me go. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
There was a long silence as the lindorm considered the bargain.
“Whhhhhhy shhhhhould I trusssst yoooooou?” it hissed.
“Because I’ve been playing nice up until now.”
The lindorm swooped down until it was directly in front of Thisby, daring her to make her next move.
“I haven’t said anything about the fact that you called this your nest.”
The lindorm opened its jaws and hissed angrily. Flecks of bright green spittle flew at Thisby, and she held up her good arm to shield her face.
“It’s not a threat!” she yelled. “But the only way you’re gonna keep your babies safe is if I win and become the Master of the Black Mountain! I’ll make sure nobody ever bothers you or them ever again! I promise!”
The lindorm closed its jaws, and its body began to move again, this time sliding out of Thisby’s way and revealing an exit on the far side of the chamber.
“Doooooon’t coooooome baaaaaaaack,” said the lindorm.
Thisby wasted no time hurrying toward the exit to join up with Vas and Bero, the excruciating pain of her broken arm returning now that the adrenaline was wearing off. The lindorm watched her go, its eyes transfixed on the small girl and her backpack until the lantern glow disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel.
Iphigenia sat on a hill and watched as big, fluffy clouds drifted over the Black Mountain, casting purple, bruise-like shadows on its deeply pockmarked skin. Nothing grew on the Black Mountain, but it still had a sort of primitive, naturalistic beauty, like the skeleton of some long-dead thing. It would’ve been a perfect opportunity to practice plein air painting but Iphigenia was well aware of her limitations as a painter and doubted she’d be able to do the scene justice. Besides, even if she’d wanted to try, she’d left all her paints back in the capital. So instead she sat very still and tried to imagine what was happening inside the mountain.
She tried to convince herself that Thisby wasn’t somewhere in mortal danger, but her imagination simply wasn’t that good. If there was a person who’d put herself in mortal danger more frequently, Iphigenia had yet to meet them and was certain she didn’t want to. She pictured Thisby hanging from a cliff, running from an angry troll, and being swallowed alive by a wyvern before she stumbled, at last, onto a mental image of Thisby playing piano alongside a long-fingernailed vampire, and the thought made Iphigenia laugh until she forgot the whole pointless exercise. And it really was pointless, which was exactly how the Princess had felt ever since Thisby left for the Wretched Scrattle. As long as Thisby was in there and she was out here, there was nothing she could do.
If Iphigenia was being perfectly honest, she thought that General Lutgard would’ve tracked her down by now. Perhaps Lillia’s mind was so well-honed for strategy that she didn’t have any room left for investiga
tive work. Iphigenia had been staying at the Rat-Upon-a-Cat in Three Fingers under the pseudonym “Thisby Catface” since the Wretched Scrattle began, and she—in case that name wasn’t enough of a clue—hadn’t been trying too hard to remain inconspicuous. She was frankly shocked that outside of the incident that first night, nobody had recognized her since. She figured it probably had something to do with how she was dressed—she’d switched over to a rather drab outfit she picked up at Salty Sam’s—and how long she’d been going in between baths. The lack of a private tub in her quarters, not to mention the lack of handmaidens present to fill it with hot water, cover the surface with rose hips, brush her hair, and present her with pillowy-soft towels the moment she was done had proved to be a fairly effective counterargument to her initial disgust at going more than twenty-four hours without bathing.
Although there’d been some initial excitement at being completely independent in a brand-new place, by the end of Iphigenia’s first full day alone in town, Three Fingers had already exhausted its appeal. That morning, after she’d wished Thisby luck and sent her off to the Wretched Scrattle, Iphigenia had strolled the city, visited the shops, had dinner at the nicest restaurant in town—which was roughly equivalent to the worst restaurant in the capital—and finished her evening with a walk through the meadow to watch the sunset, when at last she’d lain down to sleep in her scratchy straw bed and the foolishness of her plan finally dawned on her. What was she going to do now?
As soon as the next morning, she found herself missing the hustle and bustle of the castle. She missed having work to do. She missed having people to talk to. She missed the feeling of an existence with consequence. Yesterday, Iphigenia snatched up every book in Three Fingers that she could get her hands on, but she didn’t feel like reading. She needed action. She needed excitement. She needed a bath.
