“What brings you here?” I said.
Bolton leaned forward. “I need to talk to you about the girl.”
“What?”
“Anna Stapes and the boy, Utta Long.”
How would Bolton even know that the girl and her friend were my prisoners? Who had been sending him information? I supposed that Chief Reginal could have been the culprit, but that didn’t make me feel much better. As far as I was concerned, the less the academy knew about my affairs the better.
“Well, well, well,” I said. “The girl’s not long in shackles and here you are, sniffing around like a hog. A welcome hog, but still a hog.”
“Spare me the compliments, Beno. I don’t come here to get my ego massaged. As it happens, I already had business in a town across the wasteland, and being so near, thought I’d drop in on an old student and say hello. Now, I’ll need to take the girl and boy with me when I leave.”
“She’s going nowhere, Bolton. At least, not with all her limbs intact. She came here to set fire to my essence vines and destroy me!”
“Oh, Beno. Don’t be so melodramatic! Let’s not pretend you are a saint. You’re a dungeon core, not a…I don’t know…healing core, or something.”
Healing core? Did Bolton also know about Namantep?
“Yes,” he carried on, “Your nature is to destroy. You are the opposite of Core Jahn, who found destruction so difficult, yet his soul sings when he creates things. I have to tell you, of all the cores from your academy class, Jahn is the one who I never thought I would be proud of. As dim-witted as they come, that boy, and yet look at him now. Look what he’s accomplished with the town above us! His love for construction is a stain on the reputation of the Dungeon Core Academy forgers, of course. Sometimes you have to hold your hands up, though. We picked the wrong soul to raise from death when we chose Jahn.”
“He makes me wonder just how many cores are out there doing things that have nothing to do with the academy.”
“I wouldn’t know, Beno. As long as our cores can learn how to murder a hero or two, that’s all the academy cares about.”
“Then what’s your interest in Anna and Utta?” I Said.
“Hmm. A delicate matter. A diplomatic one. The Dungeon Core Academy and the Chosen One School’s dealings with each other are very complex and almost impossible to navigate through. There are things they provide us that the academy finds invaluable, and things we give to them. In turn, the school caters to the Heroes’ Guild, and so on, and so on. This whole thing is an intricate structure, rather like a chain linking all of the animals together so that there is a complex system of nourishment and nutrition, where if one is removed, the whole system fails.”
“A food chain.”
“Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for.”
“Why should I let you take her? I’m not an academy core anymore. I’m a core completely devoid of ownership, and I don’t see why I should let you take anything or anyone one out of my dungeon.”
“Because, Beno, though you no longer belong to the Dungeon Core Academy, do you not think that we build a system of security into the cores we forge? A method by which, if a core were to act in a way that threatened the academy or the wider world, we could make that core cease its dangerous activities without suffering the consequences of us having to fight the damned thing? A kind of underlying protection that we can employ in such times of need?”
“A safety net.”
“What is with you and your chains and nets, Beno? Have you developed a fetish? But yes, that is what I mean, I suppose.”
“You’re telling me that the academy has a way of destroying me?”
“Do you think we would create things like you without ensuring that we can stop you if something was to go wrong?”
It was chilling to think that the academy had power over me as a core even after I had left them. Then again, was I surprised? Not when I really thought about it.
“What the academy have forged, can also be unforged. Free core or not,” said Bolton. “It might be tiresome having to remove you from this place, but once we have you back in the academy forging room…”
“You’re threatening me?”
“No, Beno. This is a statement of the retribution the academy intends to inflict if you try to resist complying with our desires.”
“Right. A threat, then. Hmm.”
So Bolton was going to take the girl and with her, he’d take away my chance of using her powers to strengthen my dungeon. The worst thing was I couldn’t do anything. He wasn’t bluffing about the academy having a way to destroy me. They weren’t stupid. Cores are dangerous, and those who forged us would make sure they could end us if they needed to.
I couldn’t go up against the academy, but could I go up against a man? Bolton was alone here, after all. Maybe a little test would tell me if there was a way to get to him. I didn’t know if I would even want to harm Bolton if it came to it, but I would feel better if I had the information.
“Even in your overseer capacity, you are just a man now, aren’t you, Bolton? You used to be a dungeon core, but you earned a new resurrection into human flesh, and human flesh is what you remain.”
“Is this some kind of threat, Beno?”
No, he didn’t betray a thimble of fear. Bolton must have known for certain that I could not harm him. It would be useless to pursue the idea further.
“Just me thinking aloud.”
“You ought to watch that. Thoughts are like exotic birds and have a tendency to flee when they are let out of their cage.”
“Fine, Bolton. Take the girl. She annoys me anyway.”
“Tell me,” said the overseer. “What did you plan on doing with her?”
“The usual, I suppose. Have her melted in the alchemy chamber and feed her essence dust to one of my monsters.”
“You haven’t changed a bit. You always had the best instincts of any of my students, even if you sometimes allow a little of your human past to shine through.”
“I try. Listen; if you have to take the girl, can you at least give me an hour before you do? She has promised to remove a spell that she cast on one of my kobolds.”
Bolton looked concerned. “Wylie? Tomlin? Tarius? Maginhart?”
It was strangely heart-warming that he knew the names of all my creatures. “Shadow,” I said.
“Of course. Do what you must without hurting the girl, and then I will be off. But hurry up.”
“Thank you, Bolton.”
The overseer paused in the tunnel archway. “Are you happy, Beno?”
“Happy? That’s a strange question from you. What is happy, anyway? A phantom state that everyone chases and few ever catch, and those who do find that it is fleeting, and they must begin the chase anew? I’m busy, Bolton. That’s much better than happy. I set my sights on the things I want, and I either get them or I don’t. That’s as much as I can promise myself.”
“Where do your sights lie now?”
I thought about my dungeon. Yondersun. Hogsfeate. The dreams I had of spreading my influence further and further.
And then I saw my demented dungeon mates’ faces in my mind as I unmade them, putting them out of their misery.
“I’m not sure my sights lie much further than this room,” I said.
“You are part of the Yondersun council, are you not?”
“You’ve been talking to Reginal and Galatee?”
“The chiefs and I get on rather well. What’s the problem, Beno? It shouldn’t be an issue to take on another role, especially not with the influence it might bring.”
“That was what I thought. But it turns out that when I nurture one interest, my other interests begin to wither.”
“You know,” said Bolton, “We don’t just close our eyes and point at the nearest corpse when we decide whose soul to forge into a core. We choose our people carefully. Even Jahn, who is a disappointment when it comes to dungeon building but is beginning to show a genius for construction.”
“I know, I know. I should stick to the reason I was forged. To taking care of my dungeon.”
“You have seen my point, understood it, yet you have sprinted in the opposite direction. Only certain people are chosen to be cores. Ones who displayed a talent for certain qualities. A master core must be able to divide his consciousness, Beno. A dungeon can grow to the size of a country, and many groups of heroes will attack it at once. A core in charge of such a dungeon cannot hope to survive if he tries to handle one threat at a time.”
“What are you saying?”
“That you have advanced enough, Beno, that you should take the next step. You have killed enough heroes, reached a high enough level, that the power is already in you. But it is like an itch; attention needs to be drawn to it before you take notice.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Take your core vision,” said Bolton. “You can cast your core vision as a picture of light, yes? And you can cast one core vision next to another, allowing you to watch, for example, your loot chamber and your core chamber at the same time.”
“I have been able to do that for a while.”
“And I have been an overseer for much longer than a while. I look at a core, and it takes me but seconds to see their potential. Their ability. I look at you, and I see that you have advanced, but you don’t realize it.”
“Advanced to what?”
“Just as you can cast several versions of your core vision and watch several chambers at once, so can you do the same with your mind, Beno.”
“I can separate my thoughts?”
“It should not be beyond a core at your level to control several chambers. To divide his thoughts and tackle several problems at once. Once a core kills enough, gets strong enough, he no longer needs to be linear. Try it, Beno.”
“How?”
“Cast a few core visions. Show me your alchemy chamber, loot chamber, and your arena.”
I did so, projecting three rectangles of light in front of us, each showing a different part of my dungeon.
“Good. Now, why not construct a mana lamp in each room, at exactly the same time?”
“I…can’t do it.”
“You’re thinking in straight lines. You’re rooted in a human’s form of thinking, Beno, and yet you haven’t been human for a long time. Think like a core.”
“I am a core!”
“Then think like one!”
I tried again, but attempting to hold three separate chamber visions in focus and draw essence to conjure three things at the exact same time was impossible. It was as if my mind resisted being divided, and it turned into a chaotic mess. Soon, my mind was a swirl of images, of words, of my own thoughts.
“I can’t do it.”
“Perhaps you aren’t as advanced as I thought. I am not infallible, either. Perhaps all those years in the academy, when I thought I sensed potential in you…”
I knew Bolton was trying to prod me, but the problem was that it worked. As my old mentor, he’d always had that kind of hold over me.
Damn it, I wouldn’t let him leave here thinking I had failed. But how could I untangle my mind?
And then I remembered the skill Razensen had taught me.
Remembering his lesson, I used the Bogan Mind-Settle technique. It was enough to clear my head so I could really focus. Now, when I looked at each chamber vision and thought about what I wanted to do, there was no mess of light and noise.
I concentrated on the three chamber visions.
I felt something inside my core. A shifting, almost. I could do it.
I pictured the three separate chambers in my mind. I had three separate thoughts in my core all at once, and yet I was somehow able to hear each of them individually and follow the thought chain of each one simultaneously.
I gave three separate commands, at exactly the same time. Three chunks of essence let me. And then, in a split-second, three new mana lamps glowed on the separate chamber walls in my core visions.
So that was my problem. It wasn’t that I had been spreading myself too thin by extending my influence out of the dungeon. It was that I hadn’t truly been thinking like a core. My inner core had advanced through dungeon building and hero slaughter, yet I hadn’t stopped and contemplated it. I hadn’t let my core mind catch up with my advancement.
This was how Namantep had survived. She was a much older core than me, and she’d already mastered the technique. When Dullbright had attacked her, she’d split her core consciousness, surrendering part of it to death and keeping part of it dormant and hidden.
I stared at Bolton. Since I don’t have eyes, most people would not know just how intensely I was glaring at them, but Bolton was an overseer. He knew.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t thank me. I didn’t bring you to this level; everything you have done since leaving the academy got you here. All I did was show you the signposts that you had so willfully walked by. Of course, if you had graduated from the academy and stayed in our employ, I could have shown you this before. Even a graduated core needs a mentor, Beno.”
“Whose fault is it that I didn’t graduate?”
“Blame. Such a funny thing, isn’t it? Rather like an arrow pointed at your own head.” He stood up, his leather boots creaking. “I’ll take the girl and leave. Keep well, Beno. I mean that.”
CHAPTER 17
Shadow woke up on the floor of an empty chamber with a pounding head, a sore leg, and a cramp in her stomach. There was a bowl of cave shrooms beside her, but the bitter smell made her retch. Getting to her feet, she felt a dull pain in her thigh, and saw that it was bandaged. A faint floral smell came from it, no doubt from some kind of alchemical concoction.
She began to recognize her surroundings. The vaulted ceiling, excavated with precision by Wylie’s mining team. The smell of mud and sweat and blood. The drip-drip of unseen dew from some unseen part of the chamber.
She was home, of course. Back in the dungeon. Where else would she be? But that being the case, why did she feel like she’d spent some time away from it?
She tried to remember what she’d done last night.
Nothing.
She strained to think about the week before.
Nothing.
Where were her memories? The last thing she remembered was killing Sir Dullbright on Beno's orders and then leaving Hogsfeate under the shroud of night. After that, her mind was empty.
She left the chamber and headed into a tunnel. There were arrows scratched into the ground.
“Hello?” she said, getting no answer but her own voice echoing back at her. “Core Beno? Tomlin? Wylie?”
No answer. No answer, and no memories. She felt so alone, for some reason. Even here, in her own home.
She followed the arrows. They took her along a cramped tunnel that curved left, went straight for a while, and then looped right. She called out every so often but got no answer.
Had something happened to everyone? Had a bunch of heroes finally defeated Core Beno once and for all, and not content in just taking his loot, had also destroyed him?
As much as she’d wished that upon her master at times, she’d never truly wanted it. Though he had his faults, he’d been making an effort with her, hadn’t he? In turn, she’d resolved to make an effort with him. The idea that he was gone…that everyone was gone and that only she had been spared for some reason…
Yes, she felt alone. Truly, and utterly alone. There would have been a time when Shadow would have found the idea liberating, but for the first time in her life, the idea of being alone wasn’t a dream, but a nightmare.
She followed the tunnel until finally, it took her to a place she recognized well – the loot chamber. The largest, widest chamber in the whole dungeon. Usually the scene of activity. Situated in the middle of the dungeon, it acted as a crossroads for all her dungeon mates as they went about their daily tasks. No matter the time of day it would be alive with chatter, with the sounds of Wylie rebuking his miners,
with the Dark Lord making a withering threat toward someone, with Gary and his band practicing their songs.
When heroes came it would be alive with a different noise. The delightful sounds of heroes dying, of Beno cackling as he claimed victory, and sometimes even the sound of heroes rummaging through the loot chest, having defeated Beno and claimed his treasure as their own.
Today, it was dark. Silent. Empty.
The dungeon as she knew it was gone.
She stepped into the loot chamber, already deciding that she had better go to the town above and see if…
“Surprise!” shouted dozens of voices.
Mana lamps sparked to life along the walls, lighting up one by one like eyelids opening to reveal bright eyes.
Four beasts came tearing toward her, their eyes black and furious, their tongues hanging over giant teeth. They leaped at her, and Shadow fell under their weight.
Within an instant they were upon her, covering her in drool. Shadow felt her heart swell.
Her hounds. Her faithful hounds! Why did she feel like she had been away from them for so long?
Somewhere beyond the sea of fur, a lute string twanged, and rhythmic beats were being pounded out on a tambourine.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Gary. “Brecht, Fight, Death, Kill, and I have composed a new ditty for the occasion of Miss Shadow’s return to us. We call it…”
“Fight!”
“Death!”
“Kill!” said the beetles.
“Alas, most of our compositions are named alike.”
The music played, and Shadow found herself being helped to her feet by Wylie.
“Feeling okay, Shadow? Wylie missed you!”
Her dungeon mates crowded her, each of them asking for a hug one after the other. Before now, Shadow would have rather kissed a cow’s arse, but she found herself smiling at each squeeze. Last was Tomlin, who approached her warily.
She could see he was unsure how to act. She held back the sarcastic words on her tongue and spared him the indecision. “It’s good to see you, Tomlin,” she said.
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