Thisby Thestoop and the Black Mountain

by Zac Gorman

  “Amazing! With these you could watch the whole dungeon from one room!” shouted Ingo, delighted.

  “Oh, but I can do far more than just that! Just you wait!”

  Ingo picked up a crystal ball and gazed into it, his eyes wide with wonder. He was really laying it on thick.

  “Brilliant,” said Ingo.

  The Master looked beyond pleased with himself as he poorly feigned humility with an awkward bow. Iphigenia thought his ego might burst through his skin and do a little jig on the carpet right there in front of them.

  “You’re too kind, Your Highness! But please allow me to show you how this machine really works!”

  The Master scurried up a ladder with surprising agility and climbed into a little bucket seat attached to the side of the gigantic golden contraption. He pulled some levers and the machine bent to his will, rotating in jerky movements, its gears clanging. To the surprise of the royal twins, the walls of the room itself began to rotate, shuffling the crystal spheres like billiards balls until one of them reached a chute down which it slid. At the bottom it was loaded into the base of the strange contraption. The noise of the machinery grew so loud that Iphigenia couldn’t even hear herself be unimpressed. The Master climbed back down the ladder, grinning his toothy, sharklike grin from ear to ear.

  They walked into the room, and even Iphigenia—though she’d never admit it—was impressed by what she saw.

  “THOSE CRYSTAL BALLS, YOU SEE, ARE SIMPLY A POWER SOURCE!” he shouted over the din.

  Unlike his sister, Ingo was watching the little red-faced man with rapt attention.

  “THIS MACHINE IS THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT OF ALCHEMY AND MAGIC IN THE MODERN WORLD! COME! LOOK!”

  He led them over to the opposite side of the room where an empty golden doorway, leading to nothing but more solid stone, was set up against the wall and tethered to the machine with several glass tubes. Iphigenia hadn’t been able to see this from the opposite side of the room, as it was hidden by the machine. Despite her better judgement, she was starting to find her interest—well, not piqued maybe, but perhaps gently nudged. A strange black jelly filled the tubes, and suddenly the empty golden doorway was no longer empty.

  Inside the doorway was a rocky stone cavern bathed in orange and yellow light. Through it ran several thin streams of red lava, erratically dividing up the cave floor like the veins on a witch’s leg. Iphigenia could feel the heat radiating from that room, through the doorway and into the room in which she stood. She moved closer and stretched out her hand.

  Carefully, slowly, she extended her hand through the doorway. It was like sticking her hand into a hot oven, the heat quickly becoming almost unbearable. She reached farther in, unable to resist the temptation, and prodded a nearby stalagmite with the tip of her finger.

  “Ow!” she cried.

  She sucked at her burnt finger as the Master came whirling around from where he was fiddling with more knobs.

  “What are you doing!” he chided. “Of course it’s hot!”

  Suddenly, he remembered that it was the Crown Princess, the Heir to the Throne of Nth, who he was scolding as if she were a petulant child, and he quickly regained his composure.

  “I mean, what shame it would bring to this dungeon if Her Majesty were to befall a tragic accident while under the supervision of such a lowly subject to the crown as myself?”

  Iphigenia ignored him and looked at her finger. It was red and painful. Wherever that doorway led, it was no illusion. It was as real as the room in which they were standing.

  “Wonderful,” said Ingo, ignoring his sister’s pain. “Just wonderful!”

  The Master looked pleased that he was off the hook for yelling at the Princess and beamed back at Ingo.

  “It’s a blackdoor,” said the Master. “And it’s the secret to how I manage the entire dungeon! With this machine, I can create a doorway to anywhere in the mountain! All I have to do is call up the proper scrying sphere—the, ahem, crystal balls you see lining the walls of this room—and I can create a doorway that I can simply walk through to be in that location instantly! Not to mention that the scrying spheres are quite good for spying as well, you know.”

  Ingo was delighted, and his delight pleased the Master to no end.

  “But what if you were down in the dungeon and had to get out?” said Ingo.

  “I’m glad you asked! You see this?” said the Master, pointing to a small slot on the side of the machine. He turned a wheel above it and the doorway snapped shut. The lava-filled chamber that had just been on the other side was gone, and the doorway was once again filled with empty space. The inside of the machine banged and whirred.

  Ingo watched closely as a small black bead tumbled out of the slot and onto a tray below.

  “This,” the Master said motioning to the bead, “is also a blackdoor. Only portable. I call them blackdoor beads. They’re not quite as powerful as the real thing of course. They can only be used once and will only take you to one predetermined location. But still quite handy!”

  “Wonderful! Wonderful! And it will go anywhere?” asked Ingo.

  “Well, yes. Anywhere inside the Black Mountain, at least. There are limits. It can’t go outside, or above, or, uhm, or below . . .” The Master seemed to choke a bit on that last word and turned away from the Prince.

  Ingo changed the subject.

  “You must keep such a brilliant invention under very tight guard!”

  “Oh, um, yes! Yes, of course!” muttered the Master, who brightened again the instant the word brilliant was mentioned in reference to himself. “I strictly regulate the total number of beads produced as well as . . . hmm . . . It’s probably easier if I just show you my bookkeeping methods. You see . . .”

  Iphigenia had wandered off by this point. Partly to look for some cold water to run her burned finger underneath, and partly because she had no interest in this old man and his dumb parlor tricks. Behind her she could hear the machine clank and whir back to life. Ingo must’ve wanted more of a demonstration. Iphigenia sat down on a bench to sulk.

  This was how things were and how they would always be. She loved her brother, but sometimes he drove her crazy. She hated how he pleaded for the approval of idiots, how he’d rather be popular than right. But she knew deep down that this was what it took to be a beloved King—it was what her father said it took, at least, and Ingo would’ve made a beloved King. Perhaps the most beloved of all time. But Iphigenia had been born first. Because she was impatient. Because she didn’t have time to sit around in some stupid womb while the rest of the world passed her by.

  Iphigenia smiled. Maybe it was Ingo they had wanted, but it was her they would get. And it served them right.

  Chapter 6

  Meanwhile, far below the castle, Thisby was rounding the corner on her forty-second straight hour without sleep. The poor, bedraggled gamekeeper’s sleeplessness had nothing to do with nightmares or ominous warnings from giant cats. In fact, she hadn’t even thought about what Catface had told her since the news of the Royal Inspection had first reached Roquat’s nubbly, misshapen ears several days ago. With all the chores Roquat had her doing, there was simply no time for anything but work.

  “The carriage should have arrived by now,” said Mingus with a yawn. “A few hours ago, maybe. Depending on the weather.”

  “I don’t need you to remind me,” said Thisby. “Besides, they have the tour of the castle first. We should have plenty of time before the Inspection starts to get a little bit of that . . . thing? What’s it called? You know what I’m talking about, right?”

  “Sleep?” asked Mingus.

  “Ah. Yeah. That’s it. That’s the one.” Thisby grinned. “It’s been so long, I forgot what it was called.”

  She slumped against the newly scrubbed wall of the gnoll den, her tunic soaked through with sweat, soap, and who knew what else. It’d taken her the better part of the morning to clean up after the gnolls, who had—just as they did in the wild—caked the walls of
their den thick with mud and waste in order to mask their scent. It was hard for Thisby to believe this odor could possibly mask anything. In a stiff breeze she thought she probably would’ve been able to smell it from across the Nameless Sea.

  The grotesque goblin-wolves known as gnolls returned, as she knew they would. One by one, they began sniffing around excitedly, first on all fours, and then walking bipedally when they spotted Thisby. The den leader approached her first, walking upright so that she towered over the diminutive gamekeeper, her shaggy fur bristling.

  “How dare you defile our den, girl! That took us weeks!” the gnoll snarled in her face. Flecks of yellow spittle hit Thisby on her turned cheek. The gnoll leader bared her jagged teeth and produced a low, rumbling growl, while the rest of the pack paced back and forth menacingly behind her. It was quite the show.

  Thisby took her notebook from her pocket without so much as looking up at the snarling, angry jaws that were mere inches from her face and began to jot some quick notes. The gnoll was incensed. Thisby did her best to ignore it, no matter how much it growled, and kept her eyes glued to her notes. When she was finished, she stuffed the notebook into her pocket and began to casually gather up her belongings. The gnoll chased after her as Thisby moved to exit the den, but the gnoll stopped hard at the edge of the cave as if blocked by an invisible force field.

  Thisby yawned as she walked away.

  “Come back here, human girl! Come back and fight!” the gnoll snarled. But Thisby was already gone. For several minutes after, the gnoll paced angrily at the edge of the cave before giving up and stalking back to its den to begin a long night of gathering more mud and making more waste.

  Thisby crossed DOG PIT off the last line on her list of chores and had to blink several times before she could believe her tired eyes. She was done. Waves of relief washed over her, and she felt as if she might collapse. She closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh.

  “How’d you know they wouldn’t kill you?”

  “Hm?” said Thisby, opening her eyes a crack.

  “The gnolls,” said Mingus.

  “Oh. They won’t attack another creature unless it directly provokes them. You gotta be careful, though. Even looking them in the eye might be considered provocation, so it’s best to just keep your eyes down and walk away silently.” Thisby paused. “Don’t you read the notebooks I loan you?”

  “I do!” said Mingus defensively. “Only sometimes your shorthand is hard to follow.”

  Thisby smirked.

  “That’s an old Grunda trick. When she was teaching me about the dungeon she used to say, ‘Only write down what you want to share,’ but that only works if you’ve got a good memory. Mine’s just okay, I guess. When she realized that I had to write everything down, she thought I might as well make it hard to read.”

  The two went on their way ahead. Despite her exhaustion, Thisby felt lighter than she had in days. She hummed a mindless tune, as she often did, and thought about how nice it would be to finally get a few hours of sleep before the official Inspection began. She was so wrapped up in thinking about her bed that she was startled to look up and find a shaky, thin man pointing a sword directly at her throat.

  “S-s-s-stay b-back! I’m warnin’ you!” he choked out in a thick valley accent.

  Thisby held up her hands in a playful mockery of defeat and eyed the nervous adventurer standing before her. He was probably in his early twenties, quite poor by the looks of his makeshift armor, which didn’t fit him properly, and terribly filthy. Over his shoulder he’d slung a “shield” that appeared to have been crafted from an old barn door. Thisby wasn’t sure his sword was sharp enough to cut her even if he tried. Thisby would’ve laughed, if she hadn’t been overcome with pity.

  “The dungeon’s closed,” she said politely. “Look, maybe if you come back next week I can move you to the front of the line or something.”

  The man stared at her, bug-eyed.

  “Whatchoo mean, the dungeon’s closed?” he asked.

  Thisby was beginning to think this could take a while and potentially cut into her precious sleep time.

  “The royal family of Nth is here tomorrow on a private tour, so I’m afraid we’re not admitting any adventurers until after they’ve left. You know, the last thing they need is a bunch of corpses to trip over.”

  “But—but I’m here to fulfill my sacred mission!”

  “Yeah, well, it’ll have to wait. Sorry.”

  The man looked as if he were about to cry. He lowered his sword and wiped at his nose with his sleeve.

  “What’s your name?” Thisby asked.

  “Gregory,” he said, fighting back tears.

  “Why are you here, Gregory?” asked Thisby. She’d seen so many adventurers die in the dungeon that she wasn’t sure why anyone came down here, let alone a sad sack like Gregory.

  “I’m here to f-find m-my fortune! To start my life as an adventurer!”

  “GRE-GOR-Y?” said Thisby, hitting every syllable in his name like a school teacher reprimanding a child.

  Gregory swallowed.

  “I’m trying to impress a girl,” he said, defeated.

  “Hold on a second,” said Thisby.

  She set down her backpack and began digging through it. Gregory looked nervous and pointed his unsharpened sword in her direction. Thisby had seen more threatening mops.

  “How do I know this isn’t a trick?” he demanded.

  Thisby continued to dig, ignoring him. He eventually gave up and sat down on a rock, leaning his sword against the wall as Thisby searched through her bag. Mingus watched him pick his nose for a few minutes before thinking that he should say something.

  “You know, a girl who asks you to risk your life to get treasure from a dungeon probably isn’t one you should be interested in,” said Mingus.

  Gregory watched him out of the corner of his eye.

  “You a slime or somethin’?”

  “Or somethin’,” said Mingus.

  “I seen some slimes earlier. Only they didn’t talk.”

  “I’m special,” said Mingus.

  A noise that sounded like a bagful of jellybeans spilling over came from Thisby’s backpack accompanied by some light, muffled cursing.

  “What color were the slimes you saw? Green? Blue?”

  “Green,” said Gregory.

  “Technically that was an ooze then. The blue ones are slimes. Neither one has conscious thought. Not really. At least, they’re not intelligent like me or . . . well, they’re not very smart. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “You ain’t a slime, then? What are you?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Here!” exclaimed Thisby as she popped out from behind her backpack holding a bag.

  She walked over to Gregory and told him to hold out his hands. Several small glittering stones fell into them.

  “They’re beautiful!” exclaimed Gregory.

  “They’re wyvern beads. Taken from the belly of slain wyvern who’ve swallowed them. They’re extremely valuable and beautiful and best of all, they’ll prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that you not only came into the dungeon but you slew dangerous beasts within. Take ’em back to your girl.”

  Gregory again looked as if he might start crying.

  “Follow that tunnel behind you until you get to a door. Do not go through that door! Make a right instead and follow that to a fork in the road. Turn right. You’ll eventually come to a ladder that will lead you up and out of the dungeon. Getting back down the mountain is up to you.”

  Gregory got up and hurried off, but stopped just at the edge of the tunnel and turned back with a look of deep consternation on his bright red face.

  “How do I know this ain’t some kinda trick?”

  “Don’t come back here, Gregory,” said Thisby, and at that, he was gone.

  Thisby and Mingus continued on toward her bedroom.

  “Wyvern beads?” Mingus laughed after some time had passed. “Weren’t those roc
k golem droppings?”

  Thisby shrugged and the two of them laughed all the way back to her room.

  Thisby awoke several hours later to a banging on her door that was loud enough to wake the dead—and probably did, considering the roomful of zombies sleeping only two floors below her. Before she had time to climb out of bed, her door burst open, and an angry Roquat stormed in, looking as if he’d run the entire way here. If she weren’t so annoyed by his presence, Thisby would have burst out laughing.

  Roquat was dressed in finery that underscored rather than hid the indignity of his true nature. He wore an all-white suit—the color of royalty for Dünkeldwarves—with intricate silver designs stitched into the fabric. His hair and beard were heavily oiled and pulled into a single braid that met below his chin. The suit had probably fit Roquat at some point, but that point had long since passed, and now it looked as if his body were trying to escape through the seams. He moved with an odd, stilted gait that made it appear that with every step, he was afraid his outfit might simply explode off his body.

  It would have been hilarious indeed, had he not stormed into Thisby’s room and immediately begun to throw her stuff around.

  “Get up, you rat! You’re late!” he bellowed.

  He grabbed Thisby by the wrist and dragged her out of bed.

  “Hey!” squeaked Thisby.

  “You’re tryin’ to make me look like a fool in front of the royals, is that it? You want to mess everything up, right? Right?”

  He flung her to the floor roughly amid piles of notebooks from her overturned bookshelf and gave her a swift kick to the ribs with the toe of his massive boots, grunting something at her about being down there in five minutes or else. From her place on the floor, Thisby watched him tug his suit back into place from where it had shifted around his bulky frame and smooth down his black, greasy braid, collecting himself. When his eyes caught Thisby watching him preen, she suspected another violent outburst, but was pleasantly surprised when he instead lowered his gaze and hurried out of her room a bit abashed.