The Merchant Adventurer Read online

  The corridor bent at a right angle; Relan skidded to a stop. The stone work was more finished in this part of the cave system. The rough edges had been broken off and, here and there, there was evidence of polishing and brickwork. It gave Relan the impression they were getting somewhere.

  He held up a hand so Boltac wouldn’t run past him. But when he looked back he realized how silly the gesture was. Boltac was limping down the corridor, panting heavily and dragging his sack behind him. When he saw that Relan was looking at him, he nodded weakly and raised a hand.

  Relan drew his blade carefully, not making a sound. Then he peeked around the corner very slowly. His jaw dropped. He retreated back into the passage.

  “Pssst,” Relan said as he waved frantically to Boltac, “Hurry!”

  “Ennnnnn-heh,” said Boltac, as he put on all the hurry of which he was capable. By the time he caught up, Boltac was panting so heavily that Relan was afraid it would give them away.

  “Shhhhhh!” said Relan.

  “Kid. I… ain’t… made… for running,” said Boltac between gasps.

  “Look!” Relan commanded. Boltac raised his weary head, and they both peered around the corner. This time it was Boltac’s turn to drop his jaw.

  He had thought they were in a large space before, but when he saw the massive passageway around the corner, Boltac realized how wrong he had been. Here, underground, was a thoroughfare wider than any street in Robrecht. It looked to have been hewn from the living rock itself. Large interlocking arches graced the ceiling and descended in a series of columns that punctuated the center of the corridor.

  Through this gigantic passage, Orcs walked up and down the angled passage, leading wagons as they traveled. On the far side of the passage, Boltac could see that the tiny hallway they were in continued on. Between them and the other side was a space five wagons wide, filled with Orcs. But these were not the snarling, ravening, bloodthirsty creatures that had descended on Robrecht. These Orcs looked positively… industrious?

  “What are they doing?” Boltac wondered aloud.

  On one side, a steady stream of Orcs descended in well-gruntled, torch-carrying groups of two or three. Closer to them, the crack of a whip and straining grunts announced the approach of a heavily laden wagon. Boltac and Relan retreated into the shadows of the passage. From the corridor below, a team of four Orcs, yoked like oxen, came into view pulling a crude wagon up the slope behind them.

  The wagon was filled with raw ore of some kind. By the light of its foul, pitch-smoldering torches, Boltac and Relan could see that a fifth Orc sat on the cargo with a whip.

  Crack! Went the whip. “Horrrrrk!” complained one of the haulers. And the wagon rolled on.

  As the back of the wagon disappeared up the passage, Relan said, “If only…”

  “Forget it kid, we gotta find another way.”

  “But there are so many of them… did you know there would be so many?”

  “What, you thought this was going to be easy? I told you we were probably going to be killed. So quit your whining. Let’s go back the way we came.”

  “We should go home,” said Relan.

  “What happened to the brave Adventurer?” asked Boltac.

  “I can’t kill so many. I, I, I, I…”

  “C’mere for a minute.”

  “Go back? But what if we run into some of those things?” said Relan, fear freezing him on the spot.

  “Orcs?”

  “Yeah, Orcs.”

  “Well, there’s a lot more of them out there then there are behind us.”

  Relan swallowed and his face went pale.

  “C’mon, cheer up. You’re gonna get another chance to be a Hero. Most likely, more chances than you want.” Boltac turned back. He threw his torch down and stomped it out against the floor. From his sack, he produced the Magic Lamp of Lamptopolis. As he touched the lamp, it began to glow; Relan thought it seemed brighter than before. Boltac drew the shutter on the lamp until only the barest bit of light was spilling out. “Quietly now,” he said.

  As they made their way back down the hallway, Boltac spotted a small side passage that had not been visible when they came from the other direction. It was cut into the rock, leading away from the main tunnel at a 45 degree angle.

  When he heard the shuffling, hissing noise coming from in front of them, Boltac didn’t have to think twice. He turned towards the small passage saying, “C’mon, this way.”

  Relan didn’t argue.

  26

  Asarah followed Samga out of the dark cell. The passageway outside was just tall enough that Samga could walk with the tips of his pointy ears just brushing the ceiling, but Asarah had to duck to follow. After a short distance, the passageway opened up into a larger cavern. This larger cavern revealed itself to be a tunnel. As they headed upwards, she could see many other tunnels leading off in all directions.

  She was soon distracted from underground geography by the large number of Orcs moving through the passage. Some carried picks and shovels, others crates and barrels, and one pair of the creatures carried a third who had obviously been hurt. As they crossed to the center of the passage she could see a steady stream of wagons, each pulled by a team of Orcs. Full ones headed up. Empty ones headed down. What were they mining?

  Even though all of the Orcs gave her the same unnatural, unpleasant stare, after a while they seemed perfectly normal to Asarah. She noticed that all the Orcs had slightly different colorations; like brutish snowflakes, no two were alike. Their snarls, barks, and grunts did not become attractive, but she was shocked to find that she was becoming accustomed to them. How could a whole new species have a life below the ground that no one knew of?

  A small knot of Orcs walked past holding a log, lashings, and quite a lot of firewood. Other than the wagons, this was the only wood Asarah had seen down here. What did they need it for? And how far down were they, anyway? She had so many questions. She tried one of them on Samga: “What’s going on?” she asked, gesturing to the wood.

  For a few steps, Samga didn’t answer. The more-grey-than-green of his back hunched a little as he shuffled his way through the tunnels. Samga spoke, but he didn’t slow or turn back. She hurried alongside him so she could hear his words.

  “Adventurers. Trespassers. They killed The Master’s favorite Troll. The Master doesn’t know about it, but when he finds out, he will insist that they be roasted on spits. I do not want to be roasted on a spit also, so I have ordered the spits prepared for roasting early.”

  “Roasting?” Asarah asked, trying not to wince.

  “The Master doesn’t like raw meat.”

  “He is a cannibal?”

  “What does ‘cannibal’ mean?” asked Samga.

  “He eats people.”

  “No, The Master is a good Master! He gives the people to us. ‘Course, we like them raw, but The Master must have his fun.”

  Asarah didn’t ask any more questions. They came to a large arch in a formation of granite. In the arch was a huge door flanked by gigantic torches. Samga did not knock but opened the door and held it, waiting for Asarah to walk through.

  When she did, Samga said, “Master, I have brought the girl.”

  From behind his desk, Dimsbury shot a foul look across the room. Banishing her tattered appearance from her mind, Asarah smiled. She had come a long way since her girlish days. The endless toil of keeping an inn had cut lines into her face, more from laughter than from frowns, but they betrayed her age. Even so, she was still very attractive. In some ways, more attractive than she had been as a girl. She hoped that his would be enough.

  “Do you like my accommodations?” Dimsbury asked, still looking at her intently.

  Asarah scanned the clutter of the round room. It was certainly the nicest decorated cave she had ever seen, but it was still a cave. Her eye was drawn to the disturbing-looking flame that danced in a gigantic glass receptacle. She didn’t like looking at it, but somehow she couldn’t look away. It was every color a
nd no color at the same time. It flickered and danced, and seemed always just slightly out of focus. As she stared at it, she became queasy.

  “You are a brave woman to stare so boldly into my flame. There are not many who can tolerate the sight of it for so long,” said Dimsbury, stepping out from behind the desk and moving to stand close behind Asarah.

  Asarah forced herself to keep looking at the eerie flame. She asked, “What is it?”

  “What isn’t it? That is the better question. It is the source, the power that binds and fuels all Magic.”

  “Is such power dangerous?” she asked, thinking that she was playing to his vanity.

  “In the wrong hands, power is always dangerous.”

  “There is a more powerful Magic than this,” she said.

  “And what is that?” the Wizard asked.

  “The force which draws Man to Woman,” said Asarah, turning to face him and lean her ample bosom towards him as if it were an offering or a weapon. “You are a,” she paused and bit her bottom lip, “powerful man. You take what you want. And you have taken me. Because you need a beautiful woman to bring comfort and pleasure to your life.”

  “Is that right?” Dimsbury asked, not pulling away.

  “And you are afraid…”

  Dimsbury snorted in disgust.

  Asarah moved closer and continued, “…afraid that I will fear you because of your great power.”

  “You don’t fear me?” Dimsbury asked with an air of bemusement.

  “No. The force which draws a Woman to a Man is stronger than fear.” She leaned in to kiss him. Her full red lips moving in an approximation of hunger. Closer. Closer. Until, in the last millimeter, Dimsbury erupted in laughter. The torrent of his foul breath poured into her face as if he were a sewer.

  Asarah recoiled in shock. Was everything in this dungeon gay?

  “You think that… excuse me,” Dimsbury struggled to repress some very undignified giggles. Then he sighed and looked around for someone to share the joke with. But there was no one. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I am as serious as I am beautiful,” Asarah said, almost choking on her own disgust for her words. But she had turned it over and over in her mind. Seducing this man was her only chance of getting out of this alive.

  “I mean the thought of it! Really, it is too much.”

  “Isn’t it?” she said, flashing a great deal of leg through her torn dress and hating herself for it.

  “No, no, I mean, the very idea! You are a serving girl, an entirely different species from one such as I. The idea,” he barked another laugh, “that I–I? A scion of a noble house could take as consort something like you? It is laughable, really. You are to me as,” he indicated the parade of heads that adorned the wall behind his desk, “well, as I said, a creation, or another species. We could no more mate than could an eagle and a, a, a snail!”

  Confused and not a little offended, Asarah asked, “Well, if you don’t want to ravish me, then why have you brought me here?”

  “It was not to shatter your Princess fantasy, I assure you. I have brought you here to be my cook,” said the Wizard.

  Asarah stood with her mouth hanging open so long that the Wizard felt he must clarify things for the simpler mind in the room. “Sandwiches, dear lady, I have brought you here to make me sandwiches.”

  “Sandwiches? You think I’m making you SANDWICHES!?” said Asarah with the fury of a woman who thought she had wanted to be scorned, but had just changed her mind. “I AM NOT A SERVANT!”

  The Wizard looked at her for a moment. Then he gave her a smile that was anything but reassuring.

  “I am glad you said that,” said Dimsbury.

  “Because now you see that I am no servant or serf?”

  “Well, now we have the question out in the open, at least.”

  “It’s not a question. I am no servant. I was mistress of my own inn and free house before you burned it to the ground.”

  “Yes, I am sorry about that. I am fond of the occasional overly flamboyant gesture, you know. But let us put the past behind us and start anew.”

  Asarah looked at him skeptically but said, “Ooookay. Try me.”

  “You call me a Wizard. And so I am,” he indicated his surroundings. “As you can see I am a Master of Arcane and Powerful Forces, the workings of which you cannot possibly hope to understand. But, you are a clever girl…”

  Asarah winced. He said “clever girl” in the tone of voice one might use to praise a prize horse or a well-trained dog. If this jackass was trying the smooth talk, it wasn’t working.

  Dimsbury charged on heedless of the effect he was having. “So, I believe you can understand the importance of my work here. Work that, if you chose to join the team, you would be supporting in a vital, culinary role.”

  “You see, I am not merely the cliché of some maladjusted character living in the bowels of the earth twisted and bent on revenge. Nor am I a mere conjuror,”–and here he threw up a burst of flame into the center of the room–“although revenge and conjuring are well within my capabilities.

  “I am a creator, a researcher, a man who delves deeply into the very fabric that binds our realities together.”

  You’re a guy who certainly likes to talk about yourself, Asarah thought.

  “And I am father, to my awkward children. Isn’t that right, Samga?”

  “Of course,” Samga said.

  “Father? Of all of these… these?”

  “Orcs, I call them. Yes, I made them. All of them.”

  “What are they?”

  “An alchemy of fungi, mineral, and pure Magic. Things made, not born. And surprisingly faithful servants. They are my greatest work, to date.” He gestured to the wall above his desk. Asarah realized that the heads mounted in a semicircle were, indeed, Orcs. It was a sequence, moving from Dimsbury’s crude and puny first attempts, to brutishly strong examples, to a head that looked very much like the creatures she had seen in the halls. But at the far right, there was an empty mounting plate.

  “What’s the empty one for?” asked Asarah.

  “Oh, that’s for Samga. Someday, he will go there. He is my finest work, almost like a son to me.”

  Asarah looked at Samga. This revelation didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. Of course, Samga was an Orc, a horrible thing, but Asarah felt a moment of pity for him all the same. She turned back to Dimsbury and said, “Yeah. Son. I can see the resemblance.”

  “Really? How strange, we look nothing alike. You are a curious creature. Now that you have some sense of the importance of my work, let us talk about the terms of your employ.”

  Asarah drew in a breath and was just about to give the Wizard a furious piece of her mind when there was a pounding at the door.

  “Come!” said Dimsbury.

  27

  An Orc charged into the room. This creature was squatter and more brutish than Samga, as if a giant sculptor’s thumb had slipped and pressed the clay of him into an awkward wad.

  “Master,” it grunted. “Troll down.”

  “What?” said Dimsbury.

  The Orc gave the Orc-ish version of a shrug and said, “Down. No get up.”

  “You mean dead?”

  “No, down.”

  “Samga, would you please?” Dimsbury asked, with an annoyed wave of his hand. Samga conversed with the Orc in their shared, brutal tongue.

  Dimsbury rolled his eyes and said to Asarah, “I am sorry about this interruption. There are always more administrative tasks wasting my time. Details, meddling Adventurers. And Samga is the only one of them who has any intelligence…”

  Samga had more than intelligence. He had cunning. He had been very careful not to be the one to deliver the bad news about the Troll to The Master. He knew Dimsbury for the violent and tempestuous man he was. Especially when he was not pleased. And this news would not please him.

  All Orcs could talk after a fashion, but Samga was the only one who could talk that The Master had not ven
ted his fury upon. This was because Samga was very, very careful about what he said.

  “Master,” began Samga, “This one says the Troll in the upper passages has been killed. He tells me that there are three Adventurers loose in the lower levels.”

  “The TROLL! BLAST AND SLAPDASH!” Dimsbury roared. “Have you any idea…” he started to say to the Orcs. “No, of course not. You have no idea. You haven’t a thought in your head. You are merely a stomach with legs that walks around making bad choices. My finest creation to date, indeed.”

  Dimsbury turned to Asarah and lowered his voice. “Have you,” he began again, “any idea how hard it is to even find a Troll? Weeks away from work. Finding one, rendering the great big brute unconscious, having him transported here–tremendous expense of time and effort–and now someone has had the temerity to kill my Troll. I ask you, where am I going to get another Troll? At this hour? I don’t have time for this! I don’t have time for any of this!”

  He pointed at the Orc and hooked his fingers so that his hand formed a ragged, palsied, fist-like object. The Orc writhed in pain as, inside its body, its bones were ground together by the unspeakable, sinister forces of the Wizard’s Evil Magic.

  When the Orc whimpered, Dimsbury smiled. Then the corners of his mouth dropped, and he sucked air in between his teeth. As he did this, the Orc’s skin tightened, causing the creature’s eyes to bulge out as if they were about to explode.

  Asarah recoiled in terror from the Wizard’s unspeakable cruelty.

  “Oh no, my dear, you mustn’t worry. They don’t feel pain. Not really. Not any more than a machine or animal does.” There was a terrible juicy crunching noise. Asarah looked away and screamed. She heard a wet slap as what was left of the Orc hit the stone floor. She couldn’t help herself; shaking, she turned to look at the remnants of that poor creature. A low, wheezing moan rose from the fleshy pile on the floor.

  “Dispose of this one, Samga. It is defective,” said Dimsbury.

  Samga nodded. With one arm, he reached down and removed the heavy wooden cover from the floor in the center of the room. Then, with a clawed foot, he kicked the crushed and still wheezing Orc in to the blackness of the pit.