The Heir of Kayolin

by Douglas Niles

  “I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you,” the priestess returned mildly.

  “But if my name is on a list of undesirables,” he replied, “who knows? Their house may be watched. My father helped me get out of here when the governor and Lord Heelspur wanted my head.”

  “What about friends?” Gretchan asked sensibly. “Some of the people you know, who you trusted—and could still trust. Why don’t we seek one of them out, find out what’s going on, maybe see if they’ll get in touch with your father for us so you don’t walk straight into a trap.”

  “That’s a good idea,” he answered. “I have friends here, and they’d probably be glad to see me. Two of them were real good friends, as a matter of fact. I’d trust them with my life.” He felt a twinge of embarrassment, and shook his head ruefully. “It’s just …” His voice trailed off.

  “It’s just what?” Gretchan pressed.

  He grimaced. “Well, they’re both female, and, um, I was kind of close to them. They’ll be glad to see me, I’m sure.

  “But I’m not sure they’ll be too happy about you,” he concluded glumly.

  The monster inched along, clawed talons scrabbling at the stone floor. Though it had large, multifaceted eyes, it was not hampered by the lightless surroundings. A pair of antennae quivered from the crown of its bulbous head, touching, smelling, and tasting the moldy air. Its legs, all eight of them, stiffened in preparation for a charge as those extra-acute senses told the being that prey was near.

  Behind the creature came another, and another, and still more. The column of huge bugs moved with arachnoid stealth, joined legs smoothly propelling the long, segmented bodies, scuttling steadily forward. Each of them was protected by the armored carapace that was the monster’s natural shield. Despite their insectoid appearance, they moved in unison, like a well-trained company of soldiers.

  They were similar but not entirely identical insofar as the last of the creatures in the file was a bright red in color, while most of the others were pale gray, almost white. Furthermore, while all of the others possessed wide, sharp mandibles, the red one had a smaller pair. That unimpressive weaponry was perhaps balanced by the presence of a bulbous mass underneath the creature’s head. The mass throbbed and wobbled like a living thing and was tipped with a moist knob, almost like a nozzle, which twitched and wiggled hungrily.

  The heads of the monsters bulged grotesquely. The wicked pincers at their mouths were sideways-snapping jaws, and they flexed eagerly on the first of the beasts in the file. That one abruptly stiffened, bringing the column of its fellows to an abrupt halt.

  The monster quivered, sensing, tasting, hungering. It was in a new place, a fresh hunting ground for the creature. It was blessed with the hive memory of all of its kind, and for thousands of years it had dwelled in those deep caverns, far below the surface of the world—a surface that the monster and its fellows had never experienced and would not have tolerated if, by some miracle, they were exposed to the brightness of the sun. But it and its race knew the deep caverns very, very well. For all those centuries, throughout the passing of millennia, it had made the caves its own.

  Until, only lately, new paths had been discovered. Places where there had once been solid stone barriers were exposed as tunnels, new routes through the underground world. The monsters had crept into those new places, exploring, tasting, touching, smelling, and bringing the new knowledge back to the hive. Often those new pathways had yielded prey, and the monsters had carried much fresh meat back to the queen, allowing her to feast on dwarf blood, to grow fat and fertile, and to lay many more eggs.

  The numbers of the monsters had grown great, their teeming masses crawling and clacking and clawing throughout the vast dens of the underworld. Sometimes they ventured too deep into the bedrock, to the realms where subterranean fires heated the rock, so the creatures were forced into retreat, lest they be roasted alive.

  But more often they probed upward, where the new tunnels were being opened, where the dwarves lived. There were many routes to pick from, and all were explored by the aggressive, hungry beasts. They always traveled in groups, and as the queen dispatched them in every direction, the terrain known to the hive steadily expanded. Some of the explorations ended in dead ends or fiery fountains of lava, but many others moved onward and up, probing farther and higher into the realms of the dwarves.

  It was such an expedition that was exploring yet another newly discovered route. The lead monster’s antennae quivered with excitement. It could hear the sounds of laughter and argument and dwarves feasting very nearby. Abruptly those twin sensors stiffened, fully erect, a clear signal to the file behind it.

  Then it charged, numerous feet scrabbling across the stone floor, mandibles clacking aggressively at the forefront of its bulbous, hideous head. It rushed from the narrow tunnel into a larger, circular cavern. More than a dozen filthy dwarves sat there, bickering amiably over the flesh of a large cave slug that they were attempting to divide.

  The gully dwarves shrieked and bounced to their feet as the clacking monster burst from concealment, but the creature moved too fast for the hapless fellows. It seized the nearest gully dwarf with its four front legs, pulling the wriggling fellow up to its head. The sharp mandibles sliced though soft flesh, driving the Aghar into a frenzy of struggling. Blood spilled from the deep wounds, but the dwarf’s frantic squirming only made the monster squeeze harder and cut deeper into the captive’s flesh.

  Holding its still-living prize aloft, the monster backed away from the band of dwarves to allow its kin-bugs to attack. The rest of them spilled out of the narrow tunnel one at a time, the whole file following their leader. Each of the giant bugs pounced on a gully dwarf, even as the panic-stricken wretches tried to flee. A few reached the exit, sprinting into the dark tunnel. But their stubby legs were no match for the speeding monsters, and most of the Aghar, when they ran, were caught in the monster’s sharp jaws before they had covered fifty feet.

  In seconds there were only three dwarves still free of the clutching mandibles: a female and two youngsters. With the little ones clutching her grubby hands, she darted away from the obvious exits, sprinting toward a small crack in the cave wall. She had almost reached the safety of that refuge when the last of the monsters, the red one, came into the filthy cavern.

  That crimson arachnid reared upward. The bulbous lump tilted, wet nozzle quivering as it spewed forth a long, sticky strand of webbing. The gooey material shot across the cave and blocked the entrance to the narrow crack. The female Aghar tried to claw it away with her hands, but her limbs quickly stuck in the web. The young gully dwarves shrieked as another strand of sticky web shot from the creature’s throbbing organ. That one struck all three Aghar, wrapping itself across their heads, and though they struggled frantically, their twisting and grappling only further ensnared them.

  The red bug dropped its forequarters so all eight feet rested on the floor, and slowly the web, still attached to the bulbous organ, began to retract. It seemed to suck the strands back into the bulking grotesqueness on its throat, and as it reeled the sticky web strands in, it brought the three gully dwarves, all of them sobbing and shrieking pathetically, right up to its narrow, pinching jaws. With a toss of its head, it wrapped the Aghar even more securely in the gooey web and casually threw the bundle onto its segmented back.

  Finally, with twelve of the monsters each holding a wounded, bleeding, but still living dwarf in its crushing mandibles—and the red one bearing the trio of webbed Aghar—the file of horax started back into the darkness, through the narrow tunnel, toward the hive.

  They would bear their prizes to the queen.

  TWELVE

  TO THE OLD HEARTH AGAIN

  All right. I guess we should head up to my old neighborhood. There’s an inn there where one of my old friends works,” Brandon replied. “Um, they might be able to help.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘she’ might be able to help?” Gretchan, with a twinkle in her eye, asked.
<
br />   “Well, yes I do!” Brandon snapped, dropping a steel coin on the table to pay for their drinks. He stomped toward the entryway, hastened along by her laughter. His ears burned, and he could feel them turning red.

  He wasn’t sure why his face felt flushed, but he was suddenly terribly chagrined about all the carousing and womanizing he’d done in the city, back when life had seemed so much simpler. He and his brother, Nailer, had cut a wide, if shallow, swath through the maids of Kayolin, and truth to tell, they’d enjoyed every minute of it. He tried to console himself with the thought that, for the most part, the maids of Kayolin hadn’t seemed to mind much either. With his brother slain, he realized that the women he had, sometimes, treated rather shabbily were still likely to be his best allies in the city.

  Gretchan seemed in a good mood regardless, humming to herself as they weaved their way through the crowd and left the Deepshelf Inn. She took in the scenery and chattered cheerfully. She remarked about the intricacies of iron tools in one shop and about the orderliness of a clean, bustling factory, glimpsed through a large door, as they made their way down the narrow street and around first one, then another, tight corner.

  “They can’t be much different from similar kinds of places where you came from,” Brandon suggested, exasperated by her positive attitude.

  She shook her head. “The delvings in the east, where I grew up among Severus Stonehand’s Daergar, are a lot more primitive than this. And remember, I’ve never had the chance to see Thorbardin.”

  “Yeah, I guess I see your point,” he admitted. For the first time, it occurred to him that Garnet Thax was certainly the most spectacular dwarf delving that Gretchan had ever seen. Once more, he felt guilty about having taken that unique place for granted in the past.

  “Let’s avoid the main road,” he suggested as they passed one of the great, spiraling ramps that connected the many levels of the city. “We can take some of the smaller stairwells that lead up through the city. They’re steeper to climb but a lot more private. I’d hate to run into Heelspur’s Enforcers.”

  They followed a straight and relatively wide avenue away from the central shaft of the Atrium. To either side the smithies and manufacturing centers had given way to small residences, apartments stacked two or three high with small, round doors and, only rarely, a window looking out onto the street. Stone steps led to the higher entrances, which were recessed from the street. The flat ceiling over the roadway tended to be about twenty feet overhead, providing many shadowy alcoves, especially along the top layer of dwellings to each side.

  There were a few dwarves coming and going along the street. Doors opened here and there, and a few young fellows simply sat outside of their apartments and watched the street with hopeless eyes. The dwarves were dressed if not in rags, then in relatively poor and careworn garments. The occasional lamp in the street was dark, as if no one wanted to spend the steel to refresh it with oil. Brandon couldn’t help thinking that the area was a perfect place for spies to lurk or ambushers to hide, and he constantly looked over his shoulder. But honestly, he told himself, it didn’t seem like the kind of neighborhood where they’d run into any Enforcers.

  They came to an arched alcove at the side of the street. Illuminated by low-wick oil lamps, they could see that it entered onto a landing and was connected to a tightly spiraling series of stone steps leading up to the right and down to the left.

  “Here’s one of the stairwells,” he said. “Let’s head up.”

  They entered and climbed for a long time, ascending several hundred feet as they moved from the deep-levels into the city’s midlevels. The stairwell itself was cloaked in shadows except where dim lamps illuminated each of the landings, which provided access to streets, once every thirty or so vertical feet. As Brandon had predicted, fewer dwarves were out and about up there. The ones they met didn’t give them a second glance, though several children gawked as Kondike, eye to eye with them, trotted by.

  “Here we are,” Brandon said finally. Kondike still padded along behind as they emerged into a street and turned toward the Bluestones’ neighborhood. Brandon felt a strange mix of emotions as he noted the familiar locales, the shops and inns he had frequented during most of the years in his life. The streets were lit more consistently there, and they heard loud laughter and crude boasting as they passed one open doorway. Even so, the pedestrians tended to walk with their heads down, avoiding strangers’ eyes. Even if Gretchan didn’t notice anything amiss, Brandon knew the neighborhood, and it seemed a good deal less neighborly than when he had departed the city a year and half before.

  The Cracked Mug was a small and prosperous establishment, offering good food and very good beer at reasonable prices. It was only a few blocks away from the Bluestone family home, occupying a strategic position right at the level’s exit to the main ramp spiraling up from the deep-levels. The two travelers approached it from a back alley.

  Brandon had spent many hours in that place, partaking of the fine fare and pleasantly flirting with the lovely barmaid Bondall Fairmont, who had been one of his first and longest-lasting lovers. As he and Gretchan stood outside the Mug’s open front door, and he smelled the familiar, tantalizing aroma of roasting meat, he felt as though he were a far-ranging traveler who had finally come home.

  “This is a good place to stop and see what I can find out,” Brandon said. Still, some unspoken hesitation held him back, and for a long time he stood on the street, looking at the faded sign depicting a stout beer stein with a jagged break running through it.

  “Hey, daydreamer,” Gretchan whispered, prodding him. “I think you’ll attract more attention standing here in the street than you would if we went inside.”

  “Yep, you’re right,” he agreed, opening the door and holding it so Gretchan could enter first. He took a deep breath and forced himself to pick up his feet, moving through the doorway into the smoky, crowded great room. The ceiling was low, supported by arches carved from the bedrock of the mountain. Most of the tables were occupied, but he spotted a small one in back and ushered Gretchan in that direction. As usual, the dog stayed close to his mistress’s heel, moving nimbly through the crowd.

  They sat down with their backs to the others in the room, though Brand kept his head cocked, looking over his shoulder. He spotted a barmaid—sure enough, it was Bondall—coming toward him and, catching her eye, surreptitiously raised a finger to his lips.

  The pretty maid’s eyes widened momentarily, but she held her tongue as she bustled over to them. She cracked a sly, teasing smile as she spotted Gretchan, while the priestess, for all her bravado, blushed a pale pink.

  “So, stranger, what’ll it be?” Bondall asked before leaning down to rest her elbows on the table. “You do know there are bad ones looking for you, don’t you?” she asked in a quiet voice. Then she winked at Gretchan. “And who’s your friend?”

  “Uh, this is Gretchan Pax. Gretchan, Bondall Fairmont … an old friend,” he growled. “And yes, I do know they’re looking for me. They had my name on a list at the outer gate.”

  “Yep. I guess old Heelspur would really like to put the screws to you. Just when he was claiming his son discovered that vein of gold, you put him on the spot by blaming him for your brother’s murder. Mind you, most of Kayolin believes your version of events—that Heelspur boy doesn’t have the gumption to search the deep delvings, let alone face a cave troll. Everybody knows that he was lazy and a coward to boot.”

  “A lot of good it did me to tell the truth,” Brandon said bitterly.

  Bondall shrugged. “What else were you going to do? Now, do your mum and dad know you’re here yet?” she asked.

  Brandon shook his head. “I was afraid the place might be watched. I didn’t want to go up to the front door without some kind of disguise, and also I thought I should give my folks a bit of warning that I’m here.”

  “Well, let me take care of that warning part,” Bondall said with a grin. But immediately she turned serious. “And hey, it’
s good to see you, but be careful.”

  “I will,” he replied, but she was already bustling back to the bar. Gretchan took his hand and they watched Bondall speak to another dwarf maid, one who was sitting on the customer side of the bar. That female got up to step behind the counter while Bondall bustled out the front door without a backward glance. The fill-in barmaid brought a couple of mugs over to Brandon and Gretchan, plopped them on the table, and went back to the bar without a word or a glance.

  “How’d she know we wanted these?” the priestess asked.

  Brandon, already taking a deep draught of the cold, hop-flavored brew, simply shrugged. “Good camouflage,” he suggested, wiping the foam from his mustache with the back of his hand. “Everyone in here is drinking their fill. We’d look silly sitting here just twiddling our thumbs.”

  Gretchan allowed as how that made sense, though she sipped at her beer with a little more gentility than her companion did. They sat in silence for a half hour, nursing their drinks, until Bondall returned and came straight over to the table. She carried a woolen cloak with a deep, cowled hood.

  “They’re thrilled and can’t wait to see you,” she said. “Not that they aren’t worried for you as well. But here, put this on, and cover your head. Go right to your house, and they’ll let you in.”

  “Thanks, Bondy,” Brand said gratefully, standing.

  “Yes—thank you so much,” Gretchan agreed sincerely.

  “You’d do the same for me,” she replied, speaking to Brandon. Then she touched Gretchan on the shoulder and looked her straight in the eyes. “And you take care of him; he’s a fair catch.”

  “I—I know he is,” Gretchan replied, embarrassed again. “But I don’t think I’ve, um, caught him yet.”

  Bondall merely smiled, a knowing, sympathetic gesture. “Good luck,” she whispered as the couple started toward the door.

  The queen horax lay atop of a vast mountain of eggs, sensing the stirrings of life beneath her. Many of the shiny orbs had already hatched, sending slick neophytes oozing toward the exits from the cavern. They twisted and thrashed, working free of the thick membranes still coating them as they emerged from the eggs, using nascent mandibles to chew a hole through which they could break free from the gummy wrap.