The Dragon Lords: False Idols

by Jon Hollins

  “I can’t leave here,” said the champion.

  Will tried to process that. “Where?” he said eventually.

  “Here.” The champion pointed to the ground.

  “Your fingers are massive,” Will told him.

  “Like full-grown pigs,” said the champion.

  “Fuck.” Will’s mind was irrevocably blown.

  “You know,” said the champion with another furtive glance.

  “Still no,” said Will.

  “Still?”

  “You still haven’t told me,” said Will.

  “Told you what?”

  “I don’t know,” said Will.

  The champion sat up slightly, shifted his weight. One of his vast legs swung perilously close to Will’s nose. They were propped up on opposite sides of the champion’s chamber, facing each other. Will was vaguely aware that too sudden a move from the champion could end his life pretty quickly, but as a counterpoint … moving seemed really hard right now.

  “Why can’t you leave?” asked Will.

  “Where?”

  “Here.” Will was pretty sure he was right on that one.

  “Who says I can’t?” The champion leaned forward aggressively. Some warning bell tolled in Will’s head, but it had been drowned in a lake of alcohol a long time ago and its sounding was distant.

  “You,” Will said.

  “Oh.” The champion leaned back. “Yes. That’s fair. Lawl says. He said not to leave. Very strict about the whole thing. He’s always strict, he is.”

  “Why?” said Will again.

  The champion shrugged. “His nature I suppose. Though, you know, you know …” He leaned forward. “I wonder, you know, do we worship the gods because of their natures, or do they have their nature because of us worshipping them? I mean, is Lawl the god of law, and therefore we have laws, or do we have laws, and so we have to have Lawl? Did our need create him? I mean, in that case, he’s sort of subservient to us, and it’s all backwards. Right?” He tapped the side of his head with one pig-sized finger. “Right?”

  “No,” said Will. “I meant why does Lawl say can’t you leave?”

  “Oh.” The champion sounded disappointed.

  “Though,” said Will, attempting to rally, “I mean, yeah, that’s totally, you know, like, whoa.”

  “Right?” said the champion again, sounding more satisfied. “But, yeah …” He blinked several times, stared into space. “I can’t leave because … He said I can’t leave because …” He took a big swig. “Gods, he went on and on about it at the time.” He drank again, stared about the room.

  “Oh shit!” he exclaimed, so suddenly Will almost fell over. He struck a gauntleted palm to his helmeted head with a sonorous gong. “The cup. I’m even holding it. Have to stay and guard it. Can’t let … let it leave.” He nodded. “Yeah, has to stay here.”

  “That’s a shit rule,” said Will. He felt expansive and capable of criticizing the wisdom of the gods. “You have to rise up!” he shouted. “You have to rebel!”

  “Shhh!” The champion placed a finger to the shadows of his helmet. “He might hear you.”

  “Yeah!” Will shouted. “Hear me, Lawl! You’re an oppressor. You’re oppressing my friend. He’s awesome and you’re … you’re …” He needed a word. A big word. A damning word. “You’re … not.”

  “Shut up!” hissed the champion.

  “What?” Will said. “You should, like, stand up for yourself and stuff.”

  The champion looked about furtively again. “You know”—he leaned forward, so his face was only a few feet in front of Will’s—“I’m not meant to drink the wine.” The champion pulled back sharply, looking left and right, snapping his head from side to side. Will almost fell into the sudden void before him.

  “You’re …” He furrowed his brow and tried very hard to understand. “The wine … Why would …? Why couldn’t you …?”

  “Shh!” hissed the champion, still looking around wildly. “He might hear you.”

  “Who?” Will was having trouble following all of this.

  “Lawl!” The champion ducked his head as if trying to avoid some invisible cuffing hand.

  “Is he here?” Will searched around. If Lawl was here, then the god might know Lette and Balur were here. And he was pretty sure no one was meant to know that they were here.

  Because …

  Reasons. Probably.

  “Fuck!” shouted the champion, who flailed in an attempt to curl up in a ball at the end of the chamber with one hand over his head. “I didn’t do it!” he shouted. “It was him!” He pointed a massive finger at Will.

  “The fuck?” asked Will, still looking around. The chamber was still empty.

  The champion looked up and about. “Wait …” he said. “You said Lawl was here.”

  “I asked if he was here.” Will was at least 90 percent sure that was true. There was a fog in his mind that was eating up memories with a voracious appetite.

  “Gods,” said the champion in a ruffled tone. “If he catches me …” He shook his head. Then they drank some more.

  “Have you ever seen him?” Will asked.

  “Who?” The champion’s head was nodding now. He sounded sleepy.

  “Lawl,” Will said and yawned.

  “No.” The champion shook his head slowly. “He just, you know, created me, and dumped me here, and then his instructions rang out in a voice like, you know, thunder and shit. But then, you know, it’s been eight hundred years, and a man gets thirsty.” He shrugged. “Why?” he asked.

  “Oh.” Will shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just …” He shrugged too. “I was thinking, his fingers must be like cows or something.”

  The champion nodded ruminatively. “Yeah,” he said, but it was clear his heart wasn’t in it. Then with a noise like the end of the world he stood up. His armor clanked and clanged as he bounced off the walls, trying to prop himself up on unsteady feet.

  “Got to go piss,” he rumbled. He still had in his hand, Will noticed, the golden goblet containing Barph’s Strength.

  Something fought through the fug of inebriation and sleep in his mind. Some mighty lone warrior of a thought battling desperately to make its way to the forefront of his cortex.

  The chalice! He had wanted to get the chalice away from the champion. That was why he had come here. That was it! He had known he had known.

  “Can I,” he said, not making eye contact, and sweating profusely, “grab a sip while you’re gone?” He held out a hand for the chalice. “I’m parched.”

  The champion hopped from foot to foot. “Can’t let it out of my sight,” he said. “Got instructions. Wait till I get back.”

  “Aww come on,” Will wheedled, but the champion was ignoring him. He squeezed into the shadows between two pillars and Will heard his heavy footsteps retreating away. Apparently there was some tunnel Will had been previously unaware of.

  “Pssst!” A hiss came out of nowhere. Will stared about, trying to place the sound in his mental lexicon of noises, as much as in the space around him.

  “Pssst!” The sound came again. It was, he realized, coming from the archway through which he had entered the chamber. He stared hard at it, forcing his eyes to focus.

  Lette! He could see Lette! Pretty, wonderful, smart, funny Lette.

  “Hey!” he called out, waving both hands. “You’re here!”

  “Shut up, you idiot,” came the hissing reply.

  Oh, Lette always made him smile. He worked hard and eventually picked himself up off the floor and stumbled over to her.

  “Hello!” he said, beaming, holding his arms out wide for a hug. She and he had always used to hug. They never hugged anymore. He should change that.

  “Oh gods, you’re drunk.” If Will hadn’t known better he would have thought Lette looked disgusted.

  “I know,” he said happily. “It’s brilliant.”

  “You drank the … Barph’s blood or whatever?” Lette peered over his shoulder
.

  “Yes!” Will was so happy to talk about that, and to talk about it with Lette. Smart, brave Lette. “You look pretty,” he told her.

  Lette sighed through gritted teeth. “The Barph’s Strength. Did it make you … I don’t know stronger? Tougher?”

  “It made me feel great.” Will put a companionable arm on Lette’s shoulder. “You should come in and try some.”

  Lette shook his hand off. “So it’s just made you enormously drunk,” she said. “Fantastic.”

  “No,” said Will. “No, no, no. Don’t be sad. Don’t be sad, pretty Lette. Be happy Lette. Happy, pretty Lette.” That felt nice in his mouth when he said it. So he said it again. “Happy, pretty Lette.”

  “Shut up, you arse,” Lette told him. “Do we need to steal this goblet or not? Can you steal it?”

  “I love you,” said Will. She was being very mean to him, he thought, and here he was being so nice, and he loved her. But maybe she didn’t know, so he had thought he should tell her so she did.

  Lette closed her eyes.

  “You’re so awesome,” Will said. “And you’re smart, and you’re, like, really good at killing things, which is scary but also awesome. And you’re pretty. And you make me laugh. And you make me happy.” He grinned at her.

  Lette’s eyes were still closed. Perhaps she wanted to kiss. Will closed his eyes just in case too. He puckered his lips.

  There was no kiss.

  He opened his eyes again. Lette was looking at him, but not with her familiar disdain. It was something more akin to … sadness maybe? Not quite.

  “I love you,” he told her again.

  “I know, Will,” Lette said quietly. “Of course I know. But I’m not going to have that conversation with you here, not when you’re in this state. And certainly not when you’re unlikely to remember anything I say to you.”

  “You’ve got such a great memory,” Will told her, full of passion.

  Lette made fists. “Gods, I swear, if you weren’t good-looking I’d have killed you a thousand times over.”

  Will wasn’t sure what to make of that so he just puckered his lips again.

  “Look,” Lette said, “I know you’re hammered, but can you get that goblet or can you not?”

  A thought struck Will. “Where’s Balur?” he said.

  Lette groaned. She looked over his shoulder, back toward the hidden tunnel where the champion had disappeared. “I don’t have time …” She shook her head. “He’s gone and had an idea. He’s made a plan. And we all know how well that went back in the Vale, but the truth is—and gods, I am only saying this because you have zero fucking chance of remembering it—he is bigger than me, and if he wants to go, I can’t stop him without cutting his hamstrings, and as satisfying as that would be, it would be counterproductive at the bottom of a labyrinth of stairs. So, he’s gone off to try to stir up the kobolds. He thinks a stampede down through this chamber will be a good distraction. Which it will be, except mostly it will distract us from being alive.”

  “I like Balur,” said Will happily. The big lug was out there, doing what he could for the team. He had great attitude. “Not as much as I like you,” he added in case Lette got the wrong end of the stick.

  “Just shut up and listen,” Lette said, but not unkindly. “I need to know if you know a way to get Lawl’s champion to give up that goblet fast. And I really need you to come through for me here.”

  Will tried very hard to concentrate. Lette needed him now. “Did I ever tell you,” he said, “that I have always been really into how long your fingers are?”

  Lette slapped him. “Focus, you jackass.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Slipped out.”

  Will tried. He really, really tried. “You could … when he sleeps,” Will managed. “You’re all like …” He pantomimed tiptoeing, overbalanced, and crashed into a wall.

  “Thank you for that flattering portrayal,” Lette said. “But I saw how fast he grabbed you when you tried to take the chalice. I’m not going to hang my arse out for him to swat.”

  And that made Will think about Lette’s arse, and more precious seconds were lost.

  There was a noise from the far end of the tunnel down which the champion had disappeared.

  “Screw it,” said Lette. “He’s coming back. Gods, maybe Balur’s stupid plan will even work.”

  Gods piss on it. Will needed this. He needed this plan. He needed Lette to be impressed. He needed to show that she should love him back.

  “Lawl,” he blurted out as Lette turned away.

  She turned back. “What?”

  “He’s scared of Lawl. Terrified. He shouldn’t have drunk Barph’s Strength. He wasn’t meant to.”

  “Okay.” Lette nodded, looked over Will’s shoulder in the direction of the champion. “So …”

  “Erm … Erm …” Gods, this was unfair. Will was horribly, horribly drunk. He wasn’t meant to think when he was this drunk. He was meant to laugh and sing, and piss his own pants. He was supposed to be a glorious firecracker in the night. Sober things were being demanded of him.

  “Be Lawl,” he said. “I don’t know. He doesn’t know what Lawl looks like.”

  “Trust me,” said Lette, “I am not going to pass muster. I’ve got tits for starters.”

  “Don’t tell me about your tits,” Will pleaded. “Not now.”

  She slapped him again for good measure. It helped a bit. There was a stumble and a groan from the shadows behind him.

  “Fuck it,” Lette said again. “I’ll try and work with—”

  “He knows what Lawl sounds like,” Will said. “A voice like thunder, he said. Sound like that.”

  “How …?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Buddy, what are you doing?” The champion’s voice suddenly rolled down the length of the hall behind Will.

  Lette flinched away. Will fought for control of his bladder.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly as he turned around. “What are you doing?”

  The champion’s glowing red eyes narrowed within the confines of his dark helm. Will tried to meet the gaze, but focusing his eyes was a very difficult feat right now.

  The champion took a slow step toward him and raised an accusing finger.

  “You,” he intoned, “are drunk.”

  Will felt his bowels quiver. Then he raised his own finger, pointed. “You’re drunk,” he said back.

  And then the champion threw both hands up and wide. “Come here, you,” he said. “Best drinking buddy, ever.”

  42

  Bar Brawl

  Glancing quickly over her shoulder, Quirk checked the exits of the Callibian Temple in the Ninth District of Vinter. Her pulse was coming fast now. Sweat beaded her forehead in what she could only assume was the most obviously suspicious way possible. Temple guards wearing the High Priests’ colors moved through the crowd of worshippers, eyes searching.

  She wished Afrit was there. She hadn’t realized how dependent she’d become on the woman’s companionship. But ever since things had gone to total shit back in Tamathia, it felt like they’d been together in this. And, true, she had grown a little tired of the academic at times, but right now a familiar face would be reassuring.

  But Afrit was not here. Afrit was over in the Sixth District, with her own team of drunken Barphists, slowly slipping into temple slaughter yards. She was, in fact, performing the part of the plan Quirk had come up with. And that left Quirk here, two districts over with a bunch of drunken strangers in tow, about to execute a plan that gods-pissing Durmitt had come up with. Durmitt!

  And she knew at an intellectual level that it was a good plan. She had looked it over a dozen times the night before, probing it and testing it for holes. And she had been the one to suggest that she spearhead it. It was a job that fit her skill set. And she knew that working together, combining their ideas and talents, they were stronger.

  But gods piss and shit all over everything, this plan was also a paper-thin s
ack of weasel turds.

  She took in a rapid breath, tried to calm herself. This was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

  A hand touched her on the shoulder. She whirled round, palm already smoking, ready to melt flesh from bone.

  It was one of Firkin’s followers. A short, red-faced man called Bebbel. Quirk was somewhat pleased to see that he looked almost as sweaty as she felt. “It’s time,” he hissed, and then pushed past her and off into the crowds.

  Quirk’s fear dug deep and found a way to intensify.

  The Callibian Temple had the honor of being positioned opposite the main temple guard barracks in the heart of Vinter. Uniforms were everywhere. Even the majority of the worshippers here not in uniform were likely guards, or the family of guards. Or just folk who really, really liked guards, and thought they had good ideas, and were generally of the opinion that anyone attacking them ought to be dealt with fairly severely using pointy bits of metal.

  Above her head, the temple bell began to toll. And Bebbel—curse his red, sweaty face—was right. It was time. This was the inciting incident of the whole uprising. She had no leeway to be late.

  She checked her position. She was, as close as she could judge, at the dead center of the temple. She looked up. The Callibian Temple had been named after one of Vinland’s great generals. A man of great renown and religious zeal, who had significantly expanded their territory several hundred years back. To echo this sense of expansion, the interior of his temple was one massive open space. Pillars dotted it, but as she craned her neck back Quirk had a clear view all the way to the roof. The dome above her had been delicately painted, scenes of battle and drinking intermingling with each other. It was a glorious thing, one of the true artistic beauties in Vinland, one that had largely survived by merit of being out of reach of all the drunken idiots beneath it.

  Quirk sighed ruefully. But she had a world to win. She took a breath, looked around.

  There were guards everywhere.

  Gods.

  The bells tolled again. Again. She was running out of tolls.

  Were physicians absolutely certain that it wasn’t possible for a person to melt entirely into sweat?