by D. M. Almond
“Well, don’t just stand there looking like a turnip, ye idjit,” an old cracked voice hollered, “show the damn mayor in!”
Hablson dashed past the curtain and threw them a toothy grin. Pulling the curtain wide, he waved them on. Fimbas pointed at his two soldiers and then tapped a finger toward the floor before entering the room. Logan followed him and was pleasantly surprised to see how tidy and clean the round bedroom was kept. The fact that the room was packed with belongings did not keep it from being immaculate. All of it—the rows of knickknacks displayed on wall shelving, a small bookcase of gnome-sized tomes, a vase filled with delicately tied scrolls, and some interesting masks that hung over Gophlin’s bed—was completely dust free.
Logan could not help but grin stupidly when he heard the finch singing through the open circular window across from Gophlin’s bed. The old gnome was propped up with thick pillows behind his head and lower back. From mid-chest down, he was draped in layers of quilting and sheets. One look at him was all Logan needed to believe he was the oldest gnome alive. His nose was just as large as any other gnome Logan had met, but it drooped, and only a few stray grey whiskers were left on his bald head. Deep crow’s feet came from the corners of his eyes, and he was as thin as a skeleton. Logan felt bad that they had disturbed this frail old man, who was surely on his deathbed.
It was probably for the best the old gnome did not know what an unbelievable wreck the rest of his house had fallen into. At least he’s got such a happy tune to listen to, Logan thought, taking in the finch’s chirping.
A brown leather boot flew from Gophlin’s hand, hitting the window frame and sending the finch flying away. “Shut yer damn mouth, ye flying rat!” Gophlin yelled.
Fimbas ignored Logan’s startled look and walked over to the left side of the bed. “Good afternoon, Gophlin, it’s nice to see you’re still in high spirits.”
“Yeah yeah,” Gophlin grumbled. “What do ye want from me, Mayor?”
Fimbas feigned surprise at the gnome’s greeting. “Since when can’t I stop by and visit an old friend?”
Gophlin snorted so loud it sounded like something might be lodged inside his nose. “The only truth in that sentence is that I’m old,” he grumbled under his breath. Gophlin jabbed a hairy finger at Logan. “Since ye be letting Falians drag their dirty boots through me house, that’s when.”
Logan was taken aback. The last thing he wanted to do was cause trouble. He shot Fimbas a questioning look, offering to leave, but the mayor shook his head and winked.
“Come now, Gophlin,” Fimbas said, “surely you’ve heard the stories of Brillfilbipp and his Falian sidekick?”
Gophlin paused with mild surprise, appraising Logan with rheumy eyes. He scowled. “Bah, let the human stay then.” His words were callous, but it was plain the gnome’s curiosity was piqued. “So out with it already, what ye want from an old sod such as me?”
“My grand-da,” Fimbas said, “when he was still alive, bless his soul, he used to be your friend, correct?”
Gophlin nodded politely.
“When we were wee little children, grand-da used to tell us you were among the first settlers to found Dudje.”
Gophlin waved a hand as if shooing away a fly. “Old news that. Dudje been around for ages now, and likely it’ll be here for years to come yet. As long as you idjits don’t screw it all up.”
“But you were here in the beginning?” Fimbas pressed. Though Gophlin was widely known to be the oldest gnome in Dudje, having outlived most of his kin, no one was quite sure what his actual age was.
“Just said as much, didn’t I? Was me own da what designed the Town Hall and constabulary, wasn’t it?”
Fimbas gave a slight bow. “A remarkable feat indeed.”
Gophlin narrowed his eyes, studying the mayor. “Why ye actin’ like ye don’t know all this, Fimbas? What are ye really on about today?”
“I want to hear about Ul’kor.”
Gophlin flinched as if someone had slapped him. He rubbed his cheek with one hand and his shoulders sagged a bit. “Dark stuff, that. Not the sorta tales to be told under the wee hours of night.”
“It’s only midday, Gophlin,” Fimbas said, pointing to the open window. “Geez, you really do need to get out more.”
“Hmph, had all the getting out I can stand for one lifetime.” Gophlin pulled his sheets up higher on his chest as if a cold draft had blown in. “Anyway, what is it ye think I can tell ye about that cursed place?”
“I want nothing more than your story,” Fimbas said.
“Not sure I can relive that level of sorrow in my old age, Mayor. The mere thought of it might stop my slow-beating heart.”
Fimbas rolled his eyes and produced five gold coins. Without a word he set them on the end table beside the bed. Gophlin’s eyes lit up like two candles, glued to the shiny pieces of metal. “Well…I guess I can tell ye a little bit maybe. What did ye want to know?”
“I’ve a sudden deep interest in your last days in Ul’kor,” Fimbas said. “Can you tell me what you remember about the day the great city fell?”
“Aye, but tread lightly here,” Gophlin said. “No sense in stirring up the darkness by throwing around the cursed land’s name left and right.”
Fimbas bowed slightly and moved closer to the bed to hear Gophlin’s tale.
“Wasn’t much in the end, hard to remember everything. It’s the screaming that done stuck in my head for good. Even after all these years I can still remember how awful it was. Not like today. When someone’s in pain, they cry. But this…this was something else. I could tell ye all about how the butcher was being flayed alive next door, and how his screams were enough to give me nightmares for the next twenty years of me life, but ye still wouldn’t understand.
“‘Cause them are just words, fancy-folk talk like we share ‘round here in Dudje. To understand true horror, ye have to have seen the burning eyes of His Dark Majesty staring back out at ye from the flaming corpse of yer mother and brother. Ye see, Mayor, I was only a wee lad when we fled the burning city, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
“It’s hard to recall what happened before then, and sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t born right there in that moment, running barefoot past burning buildings and clutching my da’s hand for me dear life. I knew if I let go even for one moment, that’d be the last I ever saw of him. It wasn’t like Da would have left me to my own. He’d have fought tooth and claw to keep me safe. But there was no way he could’ve held out against those monsters.”
“You mean the cobolds?” Logan asked, forgetting himself. Gophlin tossed him a scowl. “Sorry…go on.”
“If’n I’ve Yer Majesty’s blessing, sure nuff I’ll continue. ‘Course I meant the cobolds, stinkin’ dogs that they are. There had to be thousands of the savages, like they done up and migrated from every corner of Vanidriell to raid our city. I never had no idea so many of the rotten beasts even existed, and from what I gather, they were enough of a force to be reckoned with by their sheer numbers alone. But that wasn’t what gives me the frights at night. It’s the Necromancer and his shadow men that really done it all.”
“The Necromancer?” Fimbas and Logan said as one.
“That’s the one. And if he weren’t enough to frighten ye, there was the army of undead sure to give ye a permanent fright. When we fled that place, me, Da, and my sister Rosie, we never even dared look back, not even once. It wasn’t until we were all the way down the Green Serpent that we turned about to make sure those ghastly things weren’t following us no more.” Gophlin shivered and pulled his blankets closer. Logan felt pity for the grumpy old gnome. He looked so lost and alone, so weak and terrified.
“Gophlin, what can you tell us about the name Hublin?” Fimbas asked.
The color drained out of Gophlin’s face, and he suddenly looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. “How dare ye?” he spat.
Fimbas’s eyebrows knit together. “I don’t—”
“Ye come in here, di
sturbin’ an old man’s rest, stirring up the past without a care in the world. Then ye start throwin’ it in me face?”
“Now, listen, I only meant—”
“I’m done listening to yer nonsense Fimbas Bomble. In fact, I’ve a good mind to throw ye over my lap and give ye a good lashin’ usin’ that name ‘round here!” Gophlin was worked up in a desperate state. His eyes were bloodshot, and a vein throbbed in his forehead. With every word he spoke, spittle flew from his lips.
The curtains pulled back, and one of the soldiers rushed in with his weapon at the ready. “Mayor, is everything alright?”
Gophlin turned his rage on the newcomer. “Ye want a piece of me too, Nancy? Hope ye brought an army to protect ye, ‘cause when I get outta this bed, yer gonna wish ye never been born!”
Fimbas waved his man out of the room with one hand while trying to push the old gnome back down with his other. Logan heard Hablson’s footsteps padding down the hall, and the gnome burst in. He took one look at his distraught great-grandpappy and groaned.
“What’s this, then?”
“My apologies.” Fimbas’s voice was almost drowned out by Gophlin’s cursing. “It seems we’ve worn out our welcome.”
Hablson blinked and wordlessly held the curtain open to the side.
Fimbas graciously bowed, and they made a hasty retreat from the house. On the front steps, Logan could still hear Gophlin’s ranting between fits of coughing and wheezing.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Fimbas said, looking deeply troubled. “I’ve never seen the old man act like that.”
“At least we learned some valuable information,” Logan said.
“Oh?”
“Sure, Gophlin confirmed it was an army of cobolds that attacked, and now we know who their leader was.”
“The Necromancer?” Fimbas asked. Logan nodded, but Fimbas looked unsure. “If you ask me, it was that fellow Hublin that really set the old goat off.”
The catacombs were pitch dark since they were built long before the gnomes ran electrical lines around the town and the ancient library’s keepers strictly forbid the use of wall torches. Any visitor to the deep network of tightly packed rooms, all overflowing with withering scrolls and tomes so dusty you couldn’t even tell what color they were anymore, knew that the idea of leaving open flames scattered around the catacombs was as bad as they come.
Bipp had forgotten how much he loved the place. Its smells of old books and promises of lost knowledge were the things that had enticed him to spend his formative years studying ancient lore in the first place. When he and Isaac came down the crooked stone steps into the dank library, he was smiling like a cherub. Two days had passed with them rifling through worn manuscripts and journals, hoping to find some clue about Hublin or the Healer’s stone, or something that would tell them how to get past the barrier.
Logan wandered down periodically, but he never stayed for long. The idea of having to read through mounds of handwritten texts was akin to torture for him. It was just as well. The Falian had no aptitude for this sort of thing, and Bipp was worried he would miss some vital clue anyhow.
Isaac squealed gleefully from an alcove off the main room.
“Did you find something?” Bipp asked, popping his head around a leaning stack of papers.
The mage’s staff glowed a feint grey, and his orange eyes looked back at Bipp. “Why, yes. There is an entire treatise on the Bog at Feather Downs over here.”
Bipp gritted his teeth. “You really have to stop getting distracted. Fimbas said this would be a long shot, and I think if we don’t find something soon, poor Corbin is going to have a nervous breakdown.”
The gleam in Isaac’s eyes faded and he turned away.
Bipp returned to his own pile of books and wiped a layer of dust off the top volume. “Wait…did you say Feather Downs?” Bipp said.
Isaac perked up like an excited puppy and flashed a toothy grin.
“I wonder if there’s any information on King Ul’krin in there. Better at least set that one aside so we can read it when we’re done,” Bipp said.
The mage spread out his robe to reveal he had already tucked it into one of the folds. Bipp laughed and went back to his own search.
Barvilles Haunts and Other Odes to Butter? I’d rather have my tongue pulled out than have to read this, he thought, setting it carefully aside.
The next book had no cover, and several of the front pages were torn out. Bipp ran his stubby middle finger across the first lines of text. Hmph, just another one of them silly fantasy stories Grandma used to love. The memory of that kindly woman sitting by the fire reading her tales of high fantasy brought a warm smile to his face. He pulled out the small stick of charcoal tucked behind his ear and made a note on the top of the front page so any future purveyor would know what it was.
He set the book on his reviewed stack, and the whole thing toppled sideways, spilling across the floor in all directions, taking down several other precariously stacked towers in their wake. Bipp watched in horror as all his hard work jumbled together in one heaping mass of pages and dusty covers. It had taken him days to go through those stacks, and now he had no idea which he had reviewed and which still needed to be.
He heard Isaac chuckling across the room and turned around to scold him. The mage quickly turned away, but Bipp could see his shoulders trembling as he held in his laughter.
He pulled himself to his feet and strode to the far corner of the room. To heck with those books for now, he thought. He decided to move on to a different section of the catacombs, far away from Isaac, who was beginning to grate on his nerves anyhow.
A wobbly wooden table rested against the wall with two bound copies of the river codex, an empty inkwell, and a jar of quills, all commonplace items for the catacombs. Any first year Pomk student was charged with hand copying the famous script. Though it was odd that the owner would discard them after so much painstaking effort. Bipp’s own copies of the codex were sitting on a shelf in his study. He turned the book about, admiring the gold filigrees.
They had a good style to their calligraphy too, he thought. Ah, well, upward and onward. Bipp cleared the table off so he could use it as a workstation.
A tall ceramic vase filled with scrolls caught his eye, tucked away in a crooked alcove. Bipp walked over to it and cracked his knuckles. Time for a change of pace. He had been alternating between scrolls and books for the last day since it helped break up the monotony. Going through the scrolls was a bit more tedious. They did not hold up as well as books, and Bipp had to be extra careful when opening them so they did not crack.
He grabbed the vase’s handle and gave it a tug, meaning to pull the entire thing back over to the table. The ceramic scraped across the floor for a couple feet before he had to stop, his heart thundering in his ears and sweat breaking out across his forearms. Damned thing must be made out of lead.
“Having trouble?” Isaac asked.
Bipp grumbled and shook his head, grabbing the first six scrolls he got his hands on and tucking them under his arm. He walked back over to the table and arranged them so they would not roll away. The first three were a series of communications between two merchants in a territorial dispute over the rights to a copper claim. The fourth was a map of what Bipp assumed was the mine in question.
“Nothing but a pile of rubbish,” Bipp muttered, setting the map back with the others. He reached out for the fifth scroll, which was far smaller in width yet three times the length, and carefully pulled it open. The handwriting was done in sans gnome script, an old style of writing that was used by certain clergymen back before the collapse. His finger ran down the immaculate writing as he skimmed the document. Bipp’s eyes grew wide and he whistled.
“Isaac, come over here! I think I might have something!”
In an instant Isaac towered over him, leaning his staff in to illuminate the scroll further. “What is it?”
“Looks like someone�
�s recount of an old Cleric’s Guild hearing,” Bipp said excitedly.
“Hmm, I’m afraid that form of high gnomish is alien to my eyes,” Isaac said, stroking his goatee.
“Not to worry,” Bipp said, “I’m fully versed in all sixteen varieties of gnome dialect, both ancient and current. Look here, you see this word?”
“Yes.”
“It means accused, like defendant or on trial. What was it Logan said Gophlin was raving on about?” Bipp asked. “Some sort of necromancer, right?”
“That’s right. What does the scroll say?”
Bipp pointed to the top and worked his way down as he gave a breakdown of the scroll’s contents. “These are the meeting minutes, as recorded by the Cleric’s Guild. Seems one of their clerics was accused of dabbling in the necromantic arts.”
“Hmm, is that all? Might not mean much. It can’t be that uncommon for a sheep to stray from the path when it comes to the devout, eh?”
“Far rarer than you might think,” Bipp said. “In all of gnome history, I’ve only read of one other who delved in the black arts, and that was from a myth about how the shadows were created.”
“I think I’ve come across the same story,” Isaac said, “except the protagonist was a dwarf. Anyway, what’s this cleric have to do with our search?”
“His name’s Hublin,” Bipp said.
Isaac leaned forward, narrowing his eyes and searching the scroll for some mention of the name. Bipp smiled and pointed at an odd amalgamation of consonants and vowels.
“See here, this is it, H-U-B-L-I-N,” he said, translating each letter for the mage. “Anyhow, it looks like this Hublin fellow was called to stand before the Guild’s Tribunal, to answer some allegations. Apparently one of the younger clerics bore testimony that he walked in on Hublin while the cleric brought a fox back to life. Of course, much like now, necromancy was completely forbidden in those days.
“The crazy thing is this Hublin fellow doesn’t even try to deny it. Instead, he proudly admits his actions, citing them as a divine gift from Ohm. That really sets off the Tribunal. Here, listen to what he says.
