The Dungeoneers

by Jeffery Russell

  “Durham.”

  “Sitting next to a dwarf is not without its own hazards and I tend to avoid it as well. In any case, no one who isn’t a dwarf speaks Kheldurn and they go to great effort to keep it that way. Allows them to speak freely amongst themselves anywhere they go. One of the more serious crimes among the dwarves is teaching Kheldurn to a non-dwarf.” She started writing in her journal again, as if making note of this. “Regardless, they all speak Karthorian like you do. Or at least something that occasionally resembles it. You’ll have no problem speaking with them. It’s unlikely that they’ll speak Kheldurn where you can hear them.”

  “They have a unique accent,” Durham said.

  “Yes. Dwarves are quite good at mimicking human accents and, when they learn a new word, learn the accent of whomever taught them the word at the same time. These particular dwarves have been all over the world and learned to speak in a hundred different cities. They consider all pronunciations equally valid and switch between them at whim.” Ruby pointed at a spectacularly rotund dwarf, possibly the first person Durham had ever seen who was actually wider than he was tall. “Gong there, for instance, managed this morning to say the word 'lollygagging' with a different accent on each individual syllable. Truly a remarkable feat. Gong is the head of the Vanguard team. First group into the danger spots. The dwarf over there in the top hat is Thud. He’s the head of the company.” Durham looked where she was pointing. Even without the top hat Thud would have been easy to spot. He strode through the courtyard alternating between calling out instructions in a booming voice and roaring with laughter at brief snatches of conversation with those he passed, his long black coat swirling. The other dwarves seemed to orbit around him.

  “Those seem unusual names for dwarves,” Durham said.

  “Expert on dwarven names, now are you?” Ruby arched an eyebrow. “Many are earned names. Dwarves are quite taken with giving themselves new names as tributes to notable deeds. Or sometimes because they just like the sound of them. Gong took his name from a sound he managed to produce from a troll’s head, so I’m told.”

  “Thud too?”

  “Short for Thaddeus. Seems he’s not fond of his full name.”

  “Ginny!” Thud yelled from across the courtyard, waving at a nearby dwarf laden with tool-chests.

  Based on the name, Durham half expected Ginny to be female but Ginny sported a trim pointy beard and a neat mustache.

  “Reporting, sir!” Ginny said, in a female octave.

  Durham shot a questioning look at Ruby.

  “Dwarves are sequential hermaphroditic parthenogens,” Ruby said, anticipating his question.

  “What?”

  “They can change back and forth from male to female and are capable of fertilizing themselves to make more dwarves. They exhibit what we regard as male characteristics, typically, but some favor a more feminine approach.”

  Durham sat with his mouth hanging open. Ruby poked him in the tongue with her quill feather making him gag and sputter.

  “So, Ginny is, what, short for Regina? Virginia?”

  “I rather think it's long for 'Gin',” Ruby answered. “She’s head of hazard team and Thud’s second.”

  “So, the changing sex thing. How does that work? Does it take a while or is it the sort of thing that might happen in the middle of a conversation?”

  “Hard to say,” Ruby said. “Does she need to clear her throat or did she just become a male? Is he just pausing for thought or did he just impregnate himself mid-sentence?” She shrugged. “Dwarf physiology isn’t really my field.”

  “Is there an easy way to tell?”

  “Which sex a dwarf is at the moment? Not that I’m aware of but I haven’t managed to think of a situation where it would matter, either, so I’ve not dwelt on it much. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a great deal to make note of in my journal.” With that she went back to writing. Durham took the hint and moved to the next wagon in line. It was full of metal boxes and weapons wrapped in oilcloth which turned out to not be quite as comfortable to sit on as the sacks of grain. It also had what appeared to be a fully functional smithy crammed onto the back of it.

  He felt that he’d completely fumbled the conversation with Ruby which didn’t come as a surprise as it was the first conversation he’d had in seven months. It was an experiment he’d devised. When one’s job consisted of standing in one place for a long period of time, one tended to have time to do a bit of speculating. It had occurred to him that, as a guard, the majority of his daily interactions with people consisted of the same few phrases uttered over and over, everyone mindlessly following a script that allowed them to avoid any actual interaction.

  He’d narrowed it down to thirteen words and phrases and had determined to see how long he could get away with using them exclusively. ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ were the obvious ones, though he freely allowed variations such as ‘Yes, sir,’ or ‘No, ma’am’, figuring that the content of the message remained the same. Likewise with ‘Halt’ and ‘Stop’. ‘Hello, how are you’, ‘I’m fine’ and ‘Have a nice day’ were his power phrases. Those three alone managed to do over half of the daily work. ‘Move along’ was a good one to use if the other person showed any inclination to say something that would require a response not on the list. ‘One of those, please’ served well for buying anything and ‘Thank you’ was enough to conclude those interactions. ‘I don’t know, ask him’ was a suitable response to most questions, both answering and diverting the questioner to whichever random bystander Durham had indicated. Phrase eleven was a bit of a wild card, allowing him to state whatever amount someone had to pay to enter the city. This one was particularly important as padded fees were the majority of any city guard’s income. City entrance fees, taxes collected, bribes, merchant incentives and stolen property recovery. No one joined the city guard to become rich—the main appeal for most of the guards was being given a big stick. The one slightly enviable aspect of Durham’s posting was that it afforded a steady income from the regular flow of sheep coming through the gate. One copper thumb per head in entrance tax, one copper per dozen as a “counting fee”. The twelfth was another wild card, being the interrogatives: who, what, when, where, how and why. Durham’s thirteenth phrase was the least used in conversation but was the phrase Durham used more than the other twelve combined.

  “Bugger it.”

  As with any experiment, ideally one learns something from the results. The success of Durham’s conversational study had taught him two things. First was that he led a spectacularly uninteresting life. Second was that he was a spectacularly uninteresting person.

  ᴥᴥᴥ

  There is a distinct evolutionary advantage to being fuzzy, as much of the mammal kingdom had discovered, particularly when you wanted a human to scratch your back. The dwarven evolutionary tree had embraced this concept wholeheartedly only to discover that once you started talking and expressing opinions a human’s desire to scratch your back became directly inverse to how fuzzy it was.

  From his new perch on the armory wagon, Durham was attempting to determine just how many dwarves there were. He was finding it difficult as the majority of them seemed comprised entirely of leather and hair and all of them were strutting about, constantly disappearing and reappearing from behind different wagons or weaving amongst the shaggy oxbears as they were harnessed. He had more luck once he turned his attention to the wagons. Most of them were loaded already, piled high and tarped in a manner that didn’t leave much space for passengers. The bench on the front of each wagon had room for two which, with ten wagons, indicated between ten and twenty dwarves.

  “Oi! You there!”

  Durham looked down to see a dwarf, which wasn’t too much of a surprise, given the circumstances. Apart from his kilt the dwarf wore only a leather harness, displaying a physique like an early draft from a sculptor that worked with meat and hair. The morning was chilly and Durham had to consciously avoid staring at the dwarf’s nipples.

 
“You riding with me?” the dwarf asked.

  “Is that okay? Is this your wagon?”

  “Aye to both o’ your questions.” The dwarf thrust his hand up. “I’m Clink.”

  Durham had to lean to a precarious angle in order to complete the handshake.

  “Durham.”

  “Watch yer butt back there. Lotsa pointy bits. A deep shaft better than some of the other wagons, however. Least you ain’t riding with the chickens.”

  “I’ll manage,” Durham said, carefully leaning his official guard stick in a place where it would be easy to get to. He was surprised that he was going to get to ride in the wagons at all. Caravan guards typically had to walk alongside doing their best to exude menace. The realization came to him that there were no other caravan guards in evidence. There were a few guards on the wall above the courtyard gate, leaning on the parapet and watching but obviously on post. Come to think of it, the dwarves didn’t look much in the need of guarding.

  “I get to take me rest for a bit now,” Clink said as he climbed up and positioned himself on the wagon bench. “Advantage of having a two ale bladder, I s’pose. Up before everyone else so I got me work done early.” He gestured at the oxbears. “These are the ladies that’ll get us where we’re going. That’s Left Butt on the right and Right Butt on the left. I was standing in front of the wagon when I named ‘em so the names made a bit more sense at the time, even though I was looking at their heads.”

  Durham considered that. “You could switch them, maybe.”

  “That’d just confuse the poor dears. See, Right Butt don’t see so good out of her right eye. She hears Left Butt on that side and it spooks her just enough to keep her moving. When she’s nervous she flicks her tail back and forth. It gives Left Butt a tickle now and then and that spooks her just enough to keep her moving. If I swapped ‘em around we’d never get anywhere.”

  “I meant maybe you could switch their names.”

  “Last thing we needs is two oxbears having an identity crisis. They don’t mind if you call ‘em Arby and Elbe, though, if that makes peace with your propriety.”

  Durham nodded, as if this was somehow valuable information. “I’m surprised you didn’t call them Left Ass and Right Ass.”

  Clink shook his head. “Too obvious. I feel that the avoidance o’ the overt pun adds an element o’ mystery lending depth an’ obscurity to the name’s humor.”

  “Arby and Elbe it is, then,” said Durham.

  Another dwarf arrived at the wagon and clambered up. He had a tiny face, wizened and dark, almost lost in a large black hood and was holding an apple in his mouth to leave his hands free.

  Clink waved his hand. “This is Cardamon. Cardamon, Durham.”

  “Mmmph,” Cardamon said, shaking Durham’s hand. His hand was tiny and felt like soft leather. Cardamon sat, tugged his hood over his eyes, propped his legs on the foot board and began snoring, apple still in his mouth.

  “Cardamon ain’t much for talking until around noon or so,” Clink said.

  Durham saw that most of the other dwarves were aboard their wagons as well. The few still on the ground began directing the procession with elaborate arm gestures as the caravan slowly began to move forward.

  “Forward Butts!” Clink called and with a lurch and a creak their wagon took its place in line. They moved through the gate, rumbled across the drawbridge and into the cobbled streets of Karthor. It was early enough that traffic was still light—mostly street merchants lugging their wares to their stalls. They stopped and stared as the dwarves passed, some even cheering and waving. Dwarves weren’t a common site in Karthor. Most of the residents had never even seen one outside of a traveling circus and were perhaps assuming that that’s precisely what their caravan was. The dwarves returned the waves cheerfully. Durham basked in the bit of reflected glory, imagining that their audience was envious of his being part of the procession. He even tried a wave or two before realizing that no one was paying him the slightest bit of attention.

  He sank back against the side of the wagon, deciding to try and get comfortable instead. The roads around Karthor were well patrolled and it would be at least mid-afternoon before they reached anywhere that would potentially require a caravan guard. They passed through the dawn gate. The air was cool and crisp, the horizon over distant farm-clad hills tinged pink with the fading remnants of the sunrise. Smooth roads and oat fields as far as the eye could see.

  -3-

  He had to appropriate a new ride after lunch. Cardamon was now driving the wagon he’d spent the morning on and Clink was in back working the smithy. Durham wasn’t sure what Clink was actually doing but it involved a lot of sparks and loud hammering. He’d guessed that he’d be able to find a more comfortable ride than the 'hard, metal, spiky things' wagon and had selected one that was loaded mostly with barrels. His new driver had given him an amiable nod then turned his attention back to his oxbears. They were still rolling their way through farm fields and thatch-roofed villages and the ruts of the track were still reasonably smooth. He'd managed to swipe a few eggs from the chicken coops on the ninth wagon to make up for the lack of lunch. Eggs, apparently, weren't a traditional part of dwarven cuisine and Goin, the animal wrangler, had seemed skeptical that Durham intended to eat them.

  “Never quite got the taste for ‘em meself,” Goin said. “Like snot when they ain’t cooked and rubbery when they is.”

  “You don't keep the chickens for the eggs?” Durham asked.

  “Well, no. We use the eggs to make more chickens,” Goin said. He paused thoughtfully. “Well, the chickens do, at least. I try to stay out of the particulars.”

  “Do you eat the chickens?”

  “Sometimes,” Goin shrugged. “When we run low on frogs. Taste almost like frog, chickens do. Mostly we use ‘em to find traps in the dungeons. Generally not much left worth eating after they find one. ‘Less you want to scrape their bits out from between spikes crusted up with gods know what or who else.”

  Durham had chosen that as his cue to bow out of the conversation to try to figure out how to cook his eggs on the back of a moving cart. He'd settled for holding a torch under a fry pan which produced something unlikely to sway Goin’s opinion on eggs.

  The Crypt of Alaham, Thud had named it. Seeking the Mace of Guffin. Ruby had silently handed him a journal from her satchel as they'd packed up after lunch. Trying to read it while bouncing along in the back of the wagon was making his eggs sit poorly.

  “Alaham, Sorc./Nec., 3rd Karthorian Dynasty, 314-358. First noted in region of Tanahael, 350, became council member of city-state of Tanahael 5 years later. Accused of necromancy by one Lord Wingen of the Tanahael council. Responded by assassinating entire council and reanimating their corpses to declare him king. Reign renowned and feared for cruelty and execution spectacles (ref Scr. Wick III Vol XVII). Purportedly achieved lich status and enslaved ‘dozens of dead', 358. Tanahael later destroyed, purportedly via livestock reanimation (citation needed). Alaham believed responsible. Mausoleum located one league N Tanahael crossroads. Month of Moons, 873; Report re: Radish Wilson, farmer, claiming active undead presence in vicinity of ruins of Tanahael. As of this writing considered to be actively dangerous location. Avoid.”

  He had to sound each word out. Reading skills weren't a notable requirement for city guard duty.

  Durham leaned forward toward the two dwarves riding on the front of the cart in hopes of making it clear that he was talking to them. He'd not gotten their names and had so far been frustrated in his hopes of either of them referring to each other by name in order for him to learn them.

  “I’ve got a question, if you don’t mind. I’m Durham, by the way.”

  “Dadger Ben, acquisitions team and public relations,” the dwarf driving the cart said. He had a wispy white beard and a bald head capped with faded blue tattoos. “Call me Dadger.” He jabbed at his partner. “This here’s Giblets. He’s our geologist. If he don’t know something about stones then it ain’t wort
h knowin’. Pleased ter meet ya.” Giblets gave a backwards wave without looking back. Giblets’ beard was trimmed close to his chin and he seemed to be missing an eye. It was hard to tell as he kept that side of his face screwed into a perpetual squint that obscured whatever might or might not be there. He’d spent the ride so far rocking back and forth on the bench mumbling a barely audible but relentlessly constant stream of what sounded like gibberish. He made Durham slightly nervous.

  “Now, what’s yer question?” Dadger asked.

  “What's a lich?” Durham asked.

  His question was greeted with several seconds of puzzled silence.

  “Yer mean like wot a puppy does?” Dadger finally asked.

  “No, like this Alaham fellow.”

  “Ah, a lich! Ya say the last part like the beginning of 'chicken'.”

  “Chicken lich,” Giblets mumbled. “Now ‘at’d be somethin’.” He spoke like his mouth was full of marbles. Durham was perplexed that he now found himself in his second chicken conversation of the afternoon and wondered if this was the sort of thing that a soothsayer would consider an omen.

  “A lich is an undead type thingy,” Dadger said. “Wizard hides his life somewhere outsides his body, like in a vase or a jewel or somethin' then keeps strutting around in the dead body. Makes 'em tough to kill as you have to find 'n' break whatever it is they hid their life in.”

  “In a prophylactery, it's called.” Giblets said.

  Ruby began having a loud coughing fit in the wagon in front of them.

  “Or transport 'em,” the other dwarf added. “Prob'ly the easiest way rather than playin' at hide 'n' go seeksies.”

  “Transport them?” Durham asked.

  “Yeh, they gots to stay kinda close to their thingmajig or their body just keels right over. 'Course their life is still bottled up somewhere and if they get lucky and get close enough again, well, then you’re right back where ya started.