by DB King
Chapter 27
Ben and the duelists stayed below to help organize the slum-dweller army into work gangs. Kairn also remained to keep an eye on the Gutter Gang and oversee the cleanup effort. Marcus, Jay, and Anja climbed up the ropes that the dwarves had dropped, through the gaping hole in the ceiling and out into the pale afternoon sunlight.
They were in the Wasteland, in the center of a large ruin. Digging tools and blasting machinery was scattered about. It was clear that the dwarves had set up a work site here to excavate into the Underway.
Ella flew up through the hole, and she brought Hammer with her, carrying him in her arms. For such a small creature, she was remarkably strong. The dog seemed unimpressed at being carried up by the faerie, but he submitted to it. As soon as they were up, he jumped out of her arms, ran about in circles a couple of times, then shook himself thoroughly before walking off to sniff around the new ruin.
Marcus settled himself on a stone and leaned back. He was tired now that the magic had left him. He yawned, then gave himself a shake and looked at Anja. She took a skin of water from her belt and handed it to him.
As he drank, his final magic status updates flashed up in front of him. At the end of the fight, he had used magic fast and furiously, and he was pleased to see that he had received upgrades to a bunch of his spells, including a very welcome upgrade to the elemental water ability which had come from healing so many people. He grinned as he realized he had reached level 2 in his water spell and his two main buff spells, and had gained a small boost toward the next level in all of them.
Elemental ability: Water
Current Mastery Level: Apprentice
Level progress: 5%
Progress to Journeyman level: 5%
Spell: Hero’s Might Level 2
Level increase: 4%
Progress to next level: 4%
Spell: Fleetfoot Level 2
Level Increase: 6%
Progress to next level: 6%
“So,” he said to Anja after he’d finished looking at his status updates. “Are you going to tell me how you managed it?”
She grinned. “It was Xeron’s fault. He let the gossip mill hear his name. The word on the docks was that he was planning something big, and his money was everywhere, buying weapons and hiring mercenaries, and paying bribes to the city guard for information. Ben and I were up in a Merchants’ Town tavern when we ran into your friends the duelists. It was a bit awkward at first, but we got talking and pretty soon we realized that Xeron was up to something and it was focused on the Underway. We decided to team up and try to find out more.”
“I’m glad that you’ve made friends,” Marcus said, “but how did you get the slum-dwellers to come and help you?”
“I’m getting to that!” Anja said. “The first thing that happened was Xeron buying wargs from an ork trading galley. That looked bad, and we became sure that something big was coming. We worked hard to find out more, and then we learned that a few days back, a ship full of mercenary dwarven miners arrived at the King’s Dock, full of stories about how they had come to capture a rebel grove faerie and bring her back to Doran. Then we put the pieces together. A dungeon typically has a faerie, and you have a dungeon, so…”
Ella shuddered. Marcus looked at her, but she shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said. “Go on with the story.”
“Well, after that, we just had to keep an eye on the dwarves. It was easy enough, actually, because they were very loud and made a great stir everywhere they went. They camped up in the ruins on the edge of the Wasteland, and started bringing their mining machinery in. The thing is, to bring that machinery in, they had to come through the slums. One piece of kit—that big cart you see over there—was too wide for a street, and so they sent a demolition team in to destroy the houses on either side to widen the road. You can imagine the reaction.”
Marcus certainly could. The slum-dwellers may have been poor, underfed, and ground down, but they were fiercely proud and independent. To have a gang of dwarves come through demolishing homes would be intolerable to them. Of course, Diremage Xeron would not have known that, having never spent any time in the slums. Likewise, the dwarves would not have known that, since they had just arrived from Doran.
Marcus nodded. “I imagine that afterward, it wouldn’t take much to rouse them.”
“That’s right,” Anja said. “All we had to do was tell them we were going to get the dwarves. They just needed a bit of leadership. Once the five of us went to the slums, they were roused, and they came out in their hundreds.”
“Just as well,” Marcus said. “I think we would probably have prevailed if you hadn’t arrived when you did, but I’m glad we didn’t have to find out. Those dwarves were well-armed, well-trained, and fresh, while we’d been fighting for a long time already.”
Anja smiled. “I should warn you—those slum-dwellers are expecting a reward in gold for helping you.”
Marcus laughed. He would have expected nothing less. After all, trade was in the blood of even the humblest inhabitant of Kraken City. Well, he was the dungeon master. He could arrange a reward for his allies, and more besides. From now on, he would. Use his powers to raise up the slum-dwellers, improving their living conditions and retaining their loyalty.
Marcus stood up on a fallen stone block and gazed around. He looked out over the Wasteland, away off to where the great bulk of Kraken City squatted like a living, breathing animal on the sloping mountain of the island. Beyond, he could catch a glimpse of the sea, blue water gleaming through the haze. Ships dotted the surface of the water in a constant stream in and out of the harbors.
Nearer at hand, the edge of the slum district was a dark and dense contrast against the livid green of the Wasteland swamps. Trails of the ever-present mist hung over the barren land. A group of wights gathered in a clump of trees to his right, watching them warily from a distance.
Down below, from the Underway chambers, he could hear shouting and laughter as the slum-dwellers and the Gutter Gang worked side-by-side to clear away the bodies of the enemy army. He smiled.
“We’ll build a stronghold aboveground,” he announced suddenly, and the others looked at him in surprise. “Too long have we skulked underground, accepting our lot in life. I’ll ally with the slum-dwellers and pay them well to help me build. We’ll make a comfortable place to live, and it’ll be a permanent place for the dungeons, too. Adventurers will come from all around to run the dungeons and make their fortunes.”
He looked around, then gestured at the ruin where they stood. “We’ll begin here.”
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Diremage Xeron watched the play of the firelight along the blade of the knife. He turned it in his hand, a small knife of the kind used to break the seals on letters. The bone handle was a dull yellow, the blade, three inches long, was sharp enough to shave with.
His chair creaked as he sat back in it, looking at the knife edge and thinking, thinking. The comfortable study was warm and close from the coal fire that glowed red in the hearth. The air smelled of the coal fire, of strong spirits, and of incense.
The Diremage was dressed in a comfortable, well-fitting jerkin of red wool and black linen britches. His feet, below his massive desk of dark mahogany, were bare. He was a big man of middle years, solidly built, with a thick neck, a strong jaw, and hands like shovels. Below his high, intellectual brow and sharply pointed widow’s peak, a pair of cold, calculating gray eyes stared steadily out.
Beyond his study window, he could see the trees of his garden, wet in the gray evening. It was wet outside, and cold. The rainy season had come to Kraken City, and the water ran in torrents down the sloping city streets. It spouted from the mouths of the gargoyles on the corners of the more elaborate guild houses and gushed in the deep gutters that ran along the edges of the city streets.
In some parts of the Merchants’ Town, the water had turned the cobbles treacherously slippery, and merchants everywhere were on a con
stant lookout for damp getting into their stock. In the slums below Merchants’ Town, the streets were turned to muddy rivers and the market squares into stagnant pools. At the mighty wharves where the city met the sea, the normal docklands bustle was muted, drowned out by the constant hiss of the relentless rain on the gray stones and the grayer water. Mighty ships sat silent, their bedraggled sails reefed, their decks running with rain. There was not a breath of wind, and no ship could move in or out of the harbor.
Perhaps the cursed rain will drown the wretches in their Underway, he thought bitterly, but he knew it would not.
Nearly a month had passed since the first reports from the battle of the Underway had started to filter up to Diremage Xeron. By the time he had figured out for certain what had happened, the battle had been long finished. Not only had the army that he had sponsored lost the battle, but the Underway dwellers had somehow managed to raise a rebellion in the slum district.
For most of this time, his main source of information had been the notoriously unreliable city guard. Every man who came to him with a report gave an inflated, dramatic account of the city guard’s involvement. However, their accounts didn’t seem to agree. Eventually, from the many contradictory details he heard, Xeron had concluded that the city guard had actually played a small part in the fight, and even that had been ineffective.
Cowards. A waste of money and resources, trying to get them onside. Well, he had money and resources to spare. That was no real loss to him, but he hated waste, and so it irked him on principle.
As for the ratmen and the so-called ‘Sewer Slayers,’ he had been able to get no news from them at all. The ratmen, it seemed, had retreated to their stronghold deep in the Underway, horrified by the losses they had taken. The Sewer Slayers—nothing more than a gang of jumped-up smugglers and petty thugs, in Xeron’s opinion—had also lost men. When his contacts in that group had gone silent, Xeron had begun to suspect that they had sued for peace with the Gutter Gang, and had probably gained it.
His dwarven mercenary team had been obliterated, apparently, because not one of them had been seen since they had blasted the opening into the Underway.
Xeron put the knife down on the table and stood up suddenly. He began to pace the little room, his chin sunk on his chest and his hands behind his back. Outside, the steady patter of the rain on the trees was a constant background hiss. The coal fire popped and muttered in the iron grate.
There was some new power in the Underway. A man, some young man with a scarred face and red eyes. He had a power, a power to create worlds. Xeron had ears everywhere in the city, and his spies brought conflicting rumors from the inns and taverns around the docks. There was said to be a group of duelists who gained great wealth from fighting outlandish monsters at the behest of the young, scarred man.
There was a young man with a scar buying up armor in the Merchants’ Town, and he had been seen in the slums, and on the docks, and going in and out of Salla’s inn, the Ragged Sail. Xeron had set trackers to hunt for the man. One group had almost caught him as he’d come out of the Ragged sail, but he’d given them the slip.
Since the battle, there had been no sign of the adventurers. Now the rumor was that a building had been built in the Wastelands, a stronghold of black stone, surrounded by a ditch and a high wall, and there was an army of slum dwellers living there and protecting whoever was living in the stronghold.
Xeron shook himself and stopped pacing. He walked to the desk, then sat down in his chair again.
The whole thing had started with the robbery from his basement. Almost immediately, after that night, everything had started to go wrong for him.
The worst of it was, he had no idea what had been in that crate! The delivery had come to him with strict instructions that he would not open it on any pretext whatsoever. He’d known about the faerie dust, in the other crates, of course—but that had been a blind, a valuable cargo noised about the port towns to explain the high security. The dust itself was not even the real thing, just powdered salts dyed in vivid colors and wrapped to resemble genuine faerie dust.
But the main crate, the one that all the fuss had been about, had come to Xeron in his role as middleman for the Diremage’s guild. He was in regular contact with his guild, who had their base on the fortress island of Khand, several days sail north of Kraken City. He had received his orders. He was to take delivery of the fake faerie dust, but in the same shipment, there was to be another crate, one that was not to be opened under any circumstances. An envoy from the Diremage’s guild would come to collect it and fly it back to Khand in an airship.
Well, the rainy weather would delay that from happening, but the day could not long be put off. Xeron was desperate to regain whatever had been in that crate, and he was certain that whatever it was, it had gone into the Underway. What could it be? He couldn’t work out the rumors. It sounded sometimes like the old legends of dungeons, but that was absurd. Who had ever heard of a dungeon in this day and age?
More likely it was some kind of magic ring that gave the user the ability to impose his will on the monsters in the Underway. Perhaps it gave the ability to conjure gold—there certainly seemed to be a lot of new-minted golden towers flying about the lower classes of people in the city, to the increasing disquiet of the envoys of the high nobles.
Xeron threw up his hands. He hated the rain. It stopped a man from getting about and doing anything. In the usual bustle of the city, he could have got out and begun making inquiries himself, using a glamor to make himself seem less noticeable to the general public. He should have done that sooner, he realized now.
But with the rain outside, there was no point. There was nobody in the streets, and even the taverns would be quiet. He could perhaps try to walk down to the Wastelands and see for himself what was happening, but the rain made his glamor magic less effective, and he figured that the folks down there would be wary of outsiders at present.
Anyway, he had some more intelligence brewing, and he wanted to be at home if it ripened. He had been waiting for three nights now for some news from his spymaster, but until now, nothing…
There was a sharp knock on the door.
“Come,” Xeron barked, and the door opened to reveal Charon, his wizened old manservant.
“My lord Diremage, sir, the man Coombs is here to see you,” the old man croaked. Charon the manservant, prim and ever-correct, disapproved of Coombs the spymaster, but Xeron cared little for the opinions of his servants.
“Show him straight in,” Xeron ordered.
“My lord, he is not alone. He has brought another… a very disreputable fellow, sir.”
At last, Xeron thought. Coombs has found someone for me. Perhaps this will be the point where my luck changes.
“Send them both in, Charon, but add some coal to the fire before you do.”
Xeron poured Ashmolean brandy into two crystal glasses, then refilled his own glass as well. Charon replenished the fire and dug at it with a poker to encourage the flames, then retreated, bowing to his master before he exited the room. A minute later, there was another knock, and Xeron opened the door to admit his guests.
Coombs the spymaster was the most unremarkable man imaginable. He was a gray fellow, gray eyes, gray hair, gray skin, and gray robe. His clothing was as unremarkable as his face, neither poor nor rich, neither flamboyant nor overtly humble. Xeron enjoyed the fact that even he struggled to recall Coombs’s face to mind when he was not in the room. He was that hard to notice.
The spymaster entered quietly, nodding gravely to Xeron and gesturing to his companion. The companion was a different sort of fellow entirely. He was noticeable by the dirt on his face, if nothing else, but his clothing was odd. He looked as if he’d recently bought new clothing, but had no idea how to dress well or care for good clothes. He also looked as if he’d immediately gone out on a drinking binge immediately after putting on his new clothes. The colors were garish but spattered with mud. His gut strained the fine but stained fabri
c of his yellow shirt, and his purple silken britches were torn out at the knee.
Xeron looked him up and down, then walked to the sideboard where he picked up the two glasses of brandy. The newcomer’s eyes followed the glasses hungrily as Xeron brought them forward. He handed one to Coombs, who took it delicately. The other he handed to the dirty man, who stammered thanks and tried not to swallow it at one gulp.
“Well, my friend,” said Xeron to Coombs, “are you going to introduce me to our guest?”
“I’m, uh, Arn Longhand,” said the man, before Coombs could speak. “I… uh… I know about the dungeons, about the Underway, about… about the faerie. I know everything, sir. Everything… uh… everything about Marcus the Dungeon Master.”
Marcus the Dungeon Master. The dungeons. The faerie. The faerie!? It was all Xeron could do not to rush over and shake the man by the shoulders and demand he tell everything he knew, now, instantly! Instead, with a supreme self-control, he picked up his own drink and gestured Arn Longhand to an armchair by the coal fire. Then he brought the brandy bottle and placed it on a side table within the man’s reach.
“Take a seat, my friend,” he said smoothly. “Refill your glass. I am so pleased you have come.”
He took a seat opposite Longhand and leaned forward attentively.
Arn Longhand smiled. He had been nervous, but suddenly his nerves melted away. He took a deep breath.
“Much obliged to you, sir, I’m sure,” he said. “I’ll gladly tell you everything I know. But I want something in return, sir, if you understand me.”
“I do indeed,” said Xeron, with a smile. “Tell me what it is you desire, and if it’s within my power, I promise it shall be yours.”
A grin spread across Arn Longhand’s face. “It’s simple, sir. I want revenge. Revenge on him that humiliated me and cast me out. Can you do that for me, sir? Can you grant me revenge?”
Still smiling, Diremage Xeron sat back in his chair.
