The Delving

by Aaron Bunce

  Thorben slapped his bag, but his knife was gone. Iona had taken it. His arm started to shake, the dreygur’s weight increasing as the other beasts crawled atop it, pushing its snapping teeth closer to his neck.

  His hand fumbled over the bag of relics, the flap popping open all on its own. He jammed his fingers inside, hoping desperately that something, anything could help. Metal clinked and rattled together, and he felt something soft, like leather, but then his fingers brushed against something smooth and cool. It vibrated, humming with untold destructive potential.

  Thorben wrapped his fingers around it and pulled, relics rattled onto the stone as the hammer pulled free. Its glossy metal shone even in Myrddin’s distant glow, its handle vibrating, quietly begging him to bring it to bear.

  Trapped in such close proximity, Thorben swung the hammer up into the dreygur’s face. The creature snapped back, but tipped forward once again, snapping and snarling with even more fervor.

  Thorben hit it again and again, but he couldn’t generate any swing or power. His mind filled with the memory of Gor’s destructive display in the shantytown – the noise, dust, and debris – the unimaginable violence needed to tear through solid rock.

  They’re dwarves…their tools would be for working the rock. His arm started to give out, just as Thorben flipped the hammer around and swung it against the opposite wall.

  He registered the impact, a bright flash burning in his vision. The exploding stone pushed him violently against the wall, smoke choking him, dust and grit filling his eyes. His head rang, and he tried to speak, felt his mouth moving, but couldn’t hear the words. It was another few moments before he made sense of anything.

  Thorben rolled over, coughing silently. He crawled up a step, fighting to regain control of his senses. Everything was white, but a black ring developed on the edges, slowly, painfully closing in. He could see again, but barely, and turned down the descending stair. A fist-sized chunk of the passage to his left was gone, dust and debris still falling from the hole.

  A mass of twisted, tangled bodies churned just down from him, their pale flesh pocked with dozens of bleeding wounds, shards of fragmented rock still lodged in place.

  Thorben untangled his limbs and pushed towards the light, Myrddin’s arms waving at him, his lips moving. He understood what he wanted, even if he couldn’t hear his words.

  The dweorg was a dozen paces away, and then closer. Thorben turned as the dreygur untangled and came forward. He shielded his face and swung the hammer down into the ground. The head hit a smooth stair, the hammer ringing against his palm. He felt the ground shake, the dust and shattered pieces of rock hitting his shins and arms, but managed to protect his eyes this time.

  Thorben shoved his body up another step, and then another, coughing and sputtering. The ringing in his ears started to subside, the beasts’ shrieks and cries rising up in a bone-chilling chorus. The first hammer blow had wounded them, stunned them even, but they were still coming. They would never stop coming.

  He managed to get his feet under him and kicked upwards. He could see the stairs now, Myrddin’s light bathing the top of the stairwell with his glow.

  Step – push.

  He was just paces away, his hands scrabbling against the smooth stone, clawing and searching for a hold…anything he could use to pull himself the rest of the way.

  Step – push.

  He was trapped in a nightmare, his legs refusing to move him, to propel him away from the horror, but this wasn’t a dream. Thorben clawed at the air just as the dwarf jumped back. His hand hit something solid – warm and soft. Jez was there, in the opening, both hands wrapped around his. She pulled and he moved, the last length of stairs passing beneath, no floating, beneath him.

  The world seemed to tip forward and his balance shifted, Thorben almost falling over the last step. They were moving, running, bouncing off hard walls, an impossibly bright light just ahead. He shielded his eyes but Jez wouldn’t let him stop. She pulled on his arm, wrenching him through a wide archway.

  Thorben caught sight of Myrddin straight ahead, the dweorg standing at the podium, his hands hovering over the three keys, the wooden barrels glowing warmly. He looked back to find the shiny gate descending, thick metal bars dropping over the dark passage, but it was moving slow. Pale things moving beyond the gate, and Thorben pushed to his feet, holding the hammer ready.

  “They’re coming. Faster! Faster!” he yelled, although he could barely hear his own voice. He screamed it again and again, falling back. The monsters were coming, but they staggered and clawed at something. Still, the door was closing too slowly. They would slip through. They would get out.

  Thorben half turned. It was the light from the broken door. It was painful to him. To them it must have been excruciating. He crossed the distance in a few painful steps and swung the hammer. The first strike vibrated up his arm, a small crack forming along the remaining door. The stone was beyond solid – imbued with some form of magic.

  He swung the hammer again and again, using his whole body in every strike. Finally, the slab shook and fell away, a deluge of blinding light spilling over him.

  Thorben spun, holding an arm up to shield his eyes. The sunlight hit the gleaming gate, but he squinted through the glare. The dreygur were there – blurry, pale figures shrieking and jumping around, writhing like butter in a hot skillet, but then they were gone, streaking back into the dark. He dropped to his knees, letting the hammer fall to the ground and watched the gate crash against the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Reborn to the Sun

  Thorben sat in the sun for what felt like days, the warmth on his skin the most wonderful thing he’d ever felt. His eyes eventually adjusted to the bright light streaming through the widened door, the entrance chamber dimming, while the cursed passage beyond the gate slipped into inky shadows.

  He found Jez collapsed on the ground not far away, her back turned to the gate. She opened her eyes and caught his gaze, but didn’t speak. A moment later she turned away, and stared at the open door. She sniffed, making an obvious effort to hide her tears, but Thorben pretended not to notice. She’d earned them, and so much more.

  They stayed there until the sun grew dim, the shadows in the chamber lengthening dramatically. Thorben stretched his legs, cursing the pain, and despite his desire to stay on the ground and rest, he stood. He went outside and gathered some wood and kindling, the river providing a wealth of dried flotsam washed up from higher tides.

  Thorben built a fire in the middle of the chamber and pulled his bag open. He lit the fire with his broken flint and steel, and sat down to rifle through everything else. Jez appeared quietly at the fireside, neither speaking nor appearing with any fanfare. He let her sit in silence, understanding all too well the grief she was struggling to process. Nothing he could say would bring her father back, so there was nothing for him to say.

  He drew out his change of clothes, the shirt and trousers rumpled but mostly dry. Thorben pulled his tattered shirt off and tossed it onto the fire, before pulling on the cleaner one. He reached back in the bag, found something slender shoved in the corner, and pulled it out.

  “It was hers…my Lynheid’s. She gave it to me that day…the last one, when her ma took her away for the last time,” Myrddin said. The dweorg sat next to him, his short legs crossed together, the tip of his beard resting in his lap.

  Thorben held the brush up in the firelight. It was silver and highly polished, although heavily worn in spots. An intricate pattern adorned the back – a beautiful, spiraling flower. He turned it sideways, appreciating the magnificent craftsmanship.

  “I crafted that with my own two hands…smelted the silver, carved the casting, and sang the metal into shape. It was one of the few things her ma let me give her. A Stonesinger’s duty is to their people, you see. We weren’t banned from having families, but it was discouraged. Our life was one of sacrifice and service. I weren’t much of a father, because of it, weren’t never around
to be one. When I was, I was distracted…always thought that I would have time to give the child what she needed later. We were at war, after all. I thought I would have time to be a father after the fighting stopped, but then it did, and more responsibilities came. And more. And then more. I kept putting her off until there was no more time. Then she was gone.” Myrddin gazed at the fire, his voice even hollower than usual.

  “I will go to Braakdell and deliver these, as you’ve asked,” Thorben said, lifting the necklace away from his chest.

  “Hmm?” Jez asked, lifting her head groggily off the ground.

  “I was just, well…” he said, but handed the brush over for her to see. She accepted it, her dark eyes roaming over the shiny metal, but then looked up, and cursed.

  Myrddin looked from Thorben, to the girl, and back. “Can she see me now?”

  “I-I-I can hear you, too,” Jez stammered. Her eyes flitted to the brush and back across the fire, to the glowing dwarf.

  “Jez, this is Myrddin. Myrddin, this is Jez.”

  “Hello, it is nice to meet you, finally,” Jez said, and the dweorg nodded his head in response, his bushy beard split in an uncharacteristic smile.

  Jez turned to Thorben and said, “I thought you were, well…”

  “Crazy,” Thorben finished for her, and she nodded.

  They talked quietly together for a long while after that, Jez and Thorben chewing on strips of salted meat and hard, stale bread. They refused to look at the gate as they talked, for more than once he swore he saw the firelight glimmer off an eye in the darkness or a pale streak of darting skin. He didn’t hear anything moving, but now that he’d experienced the dreygur terror in the deep dark, he knew better.

  The night passed quietly, Thorben fighting sleep and the dreams he knew would come. He peeled his body off the stone at the first sign of dawn, scooped the magnificent hammer up and stowed it securely in his bag. Gor’s relic bag flopped around on his belt as he turned towards Jez. He’d forgotten all about it.

  Thorben lifted the leather satchel, his hand passing clean through the opening in the top to a hole torn in the bottom. Every valuable the three guildsmen had found was gone, scattered on the dark stair, locked firmly behind the stout gate, and guarded by hungry terrors. The emptiness inside him deepened. He would leave empty handed.

  At least I have my life, he thought, and for the first time looked to his left, and the pile of dead men. Iona had lured them there under the same pretenses as him, or similar enough – wealth, acclaim, the forgiveness of a debt, or maybe the removal of a brand – and they all died for it. He looked over to Jez, her dark eyes searching his face for a moment before she too looked over to the dead men.

  The girl watched him silently as he worked to pull the dead men off the pile and drag them outside. She followed, her arms crossed defensively over her chest, and stood out of the way as he went back inside and, one by one, pulled the delvers outside, through the short maze, and lay them on the sandy riverbank.

  “It doesn’t feel right leaving them in there, jumbled together…not when we made it out,” Thorben said, straightening after depositing the last man in the line. He brushed his hands off, Jez taking a tentative step forward.

  “W-w-what are you to do with them?”

  He looked over the men for a moment, and although he knew what he wanted to do, he struggled with how to say it. In the end, he decided on honesty.

  “I don’t have a shovel to bury them, proper, but we can honor them in the old tradition of my wife’s people, back when Yarborough was built around the King’s Way Bridge. ‘We came from the waters and in death, are returned’, as they used to say. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother would give their passed loved ones to the river, believing the current would carry their spirits to the afterlife,” he explained.

  Thorben pulled the first man down to the water’s edge. “Mani, take this man into your keeping and cleanse him in your waters,” he said, quietly, and pushed him into the current. He watched the dead man bob beneath the surface for a moment, the swift current pulling him down river before he reappeared, floating like a piece of driftwood.

  Thorben returned to the next man in line and found Jez waiting. He stooped over and started to pull him along, only to have Jez join in and help. They stood above him at the water’s edge – a balding fellow a few thaws older than Thorben – reciting a brief prayer, and gave him to the water, too.

  Jez caught him by the arm as he turned back to the others, the girl’s eyes large and wet with tears.

  “Are they…are they why he did it? Why he…” she couldn’t say it, and Thorben couldn’t blame her. She’d watched her father die. No, she watched her father give his life so she could live. He knew that she was thinking about that very thing, trying to rationalize it, and like he, struggling with the guilt and inadequacy it left in its wake.

  “A good father will do almost anything to keep his children safe,” Thorben said, finally, the words resonating deep inside. Jez sniffled and wiped at her face.

  “Your father might not have been perfect, but he was here for you and your brother. There is honor in that…a nobility, of accepting one’s flaws, but more so in trying to rise above them to provide a better, safer life.” He was talking about Iona, but Thorben realized that he was talking about himself, too. He’d been thinking about it since the previous night, when Myrddin told him the sad tale of his daughter. Yes, he had to return home with empty pockets and nothing to show for his time, but he got to go home. That, in itself, felt like a small treasure, although he wasn’t sure Dennica would completely agree. He’d taken what little coin they had, and had nothing to show for it.

  Thorben knew he had much to answer for, and even more to work towards. He would work twice, no, three times harder to earn a wage for his family – chop firewood, barter, and labor to keep them fed and safe, but he would do it…and without complaint.

  “I miss him,” Jez said, sniffling. Thorben wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

  “I know,” he said, patting her back as her tears finally flowed. She cried for a long time, falling into violent fits where she could barely breathe, only to relax and almost fall to the ground, her voice weak and trembling.

  Thorben held her through it all, patting her back and smoothing her hair. His own tears flowed, despite his best efforts to hold them back. He mourned Iona and Renlo, despite their parts in the whole ordeal. He’d struggled through enough of life’s harsh realities to understand how easy it was to start down the wrong path, each bend and fork in the road leading you further from where you wanted to go or who you wanted to be.

  He was alive, but felt diminished for it, the two men’s sacrifices dimming the sun and lengthening the shadows. Thorben decided that he would honor them, in his way. He wasn’t sure what that was yet, but knew it would come to him in time.

  After Jez’s tears finished, she helped him pull the rest of the dead men to the river. Thorben silently searched them with his eyes before giving them to the water. Some quiet part of him hoped for a sparkle of gold or silver, a necklace or gem-encrusted ring…anything he could barter for coin on his way back through the boroughs, but it appeared Gor and the others had picked them over already.

  They got to the last man – the youngest by far, his brown hair short and unruly, his cheeks peppered with pock scars, freckles, and blood. His eyes were open, light brown, empty and staring, but hazy.

  “I must reconcile with ye,” Myrddin said suddenly, Thorben jumping from the sudden noise. The dwarf appeared from behind a river tree, its narrow trunk bent out over the water.

  Jez looked to him, but then pulled the brush out of her belt, and turned to consider the dweorg.

  “I cursed you down there, when ye tried to open that crypt. I said, and felt, much anger towards ye. I even started to hope that you wouldn’t make it out of there. Then I saw that beast of a man. He would have killed you all.”

  “Yes, he would have,” Thorben
nodded, and looked up. The dwarf’s eyes were different, and it took him a moment to register why. They weren’t just dark, hollow holes anymore, but eyes, light and brimming with emotion. Myrddin looked to Jez for a moment before continuing.

  “You carried forth my Lynheid’s necklace,” the ancient dwarf said, Thorben involuntarily reaching up and touching the mass of charms and necklaces. “But now I see you tending to these poor souls, where almost any other folk would have left them back in that chamber to rot. You honor them, like I did to my dead long ago. You’ve earned the respect of this old Stonesinger.”

  “It just seems like the decent thing to do, after everything that happened.”

  Thorben bent down to move the last man into the river. His threadbare, worn shirt pulled up, exposing his pale belly. The top of a small bag stuck out from the waistband of his pants, the leather drawstring catching the light.

  His fingers twitched towards the coin purse, but looked to Jez, then Myrddin. He flinched, pulling his hand back, waiting for the harsh glare, the admonishment. There was no hulking, sword-toting brute behind him this time, only a dark, gurgling river. Pulling relics from the tomb of long-dead folk at spear point was one thing, but lifting the coin purse from dead men felt wrong.

  “What are you waiting for? Take it!” Jez said.

  “It feels wrong…especially after everything we just went through.”

  “He can’t spend that coin in the afterlife, and the fish in the river definitely don’t need it. You need the money…for your family,” Jez said and reached down, pulling the coin purse free. She shook it and held it out.

  Thorben looked away from her for a minute, but caught Myrddin’s gaze. The dwarf nodded his head towards the offered sack.

  “You didn’t kill that man. You don’t even know who he is. If his coin can feed your family and keep your children warm, then I don’t know a man, god, or dwarf who would condemn you for taking it.”