The Merchant Adventurer (12 page)

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 vented 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.

Dimsbury said, “Creation is a messy business. One makes a great many mistakes, you see. But thankfully, I have a very deep pit in which to bury my failures.”

In the silence that followed the word ‘failures,’ Asarah could hear the crushed corpse of the poor Orc still bouncing off the sides of the pit far below. Each time, the report of it was fainter and fainter.

Dimsbury answered the unspoken question, “Bottomless.”

Samga dragged the heavy cover back into place.

“Samga?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Send out patrols. Catch them. Bring them to me.”

“They might get a bit killed during the catching, my Lord,” cautioned Samga.

“Whatever is left, you bring it to me. And then? We will have them roasted on spits in the main hall.”

“The Orcs won’t like that, Master. Spoils the flavor of the meat.”

“So I am told, Samga, but let that be a punishment for letting these dilettantes through in the first place.”

Samga nodded and turned to go. “Wait,” commanded Dimsbury, turning his attention on the wide-eyed Asarah, who was still staring at the pit in the center of the room.

“You. Yes,” Dimsbury snapped his fingers, “Yoo-hoo.”

Asarah looked at him the way a frightened rabbit looks at a fox.

“Have you changed your mind about entering my employ?”

Asarah trembled while she shook her head no.

“Really? Even after what you have just seen?” Dimsbury asked, more fascinated than upset.

Again, Asarah shook her head. Dimsbury’s eyes darkened, and Asarah knew in her heart that she was going to be crushed and tossed in the pit like the butcher’s scraps.

Dimsbury waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh, very well. Samga, chain her to that table over there. Perhaps boredom will change her mind. And give her some rags so she can clean up the blood on the floor. Excuse me, you stubborn woman, I must return to my work. Be quiet, and I won’t have to waste my time killing you.”

As soon as Boltac and Relan left the main passageway, the tunnel they were following sloped sharply up, then down. As they pressed on it twisted to the right, and then back to the left, as if the creatures that had made it couldn’t make up their mind which way they really wanted to go.

When they came to a split in the tunnel Boltac went to the left. “You’re going left?” protested Relan.

“Shaddap,” said Boltac. Three steps in, the tunnel bent sharply to the left, dropped three feet, and split again. This time Boltac went to the right.

“Are you happy now?” asked Boltac.

“Shh,” said Relan.

“Never mind the melodrama, let’s keep moving,” said Boltac.

“But what if they are following us?”

“Then we shouldn’t make ourselves easy to catch,” said Boltac, quickening his pace. But no sooner had he turned the corner than he came to another forking passageway. This time a passage led off to the right and just a few steps further, they could see it split yet again.

Boltac didn’t break stride as he went to the left again, just to piss Relan off. This tunnel rose steeply and twisted to the right, above the original passage, then dropped into another junction that looked suspiciously like that the one that they had just come from, but that couldn’t be possible.

“Ennh,” said Boltac.

“We’re in a maze,” said Relan.

“No, we’re not, we’re just fine, I know right where we are,” said Boltac, not managing to convince himself or his young Companion. The Merchant turned around and led them back the way they had come, but after three turns, they found themselves back in the same room. Or one that looked exactly like it.

“We’re in a maze of twisty passages…” said Relan.

”…all alike,” finished Boltac. He unslung the sack from his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” said Relan. “We’ve got to keep moving.”

“I’m checking something,” said Boltac, digging around in his sack. “Besides, if all these passages are alike, then it doesn’t matter where we are.”

“Unless we’re being stalked.”

“Ah ha!” Boltac lifted the Magic-detecting wand from the bag. He waved it up and down in the air and then held it in each of the four exits. The wand did not react.

“What?”

“This maze of little twisty passages is just a twisty little maze of passages. It’s not Magic.”

“So? We’re still lost.”

“Yeah, we’re lost, but we’re not completely screwed. A solution exists,” said Boltac holding up his finger.

“And that is?”

“Let’s try always taking the right-most passage.” Relan agreed to this and they set off. They walked for what seemed an eternity, but every junction they came to looked the same as the one they had come from. After an unknowable number of intersections, Boltac muttered, “Twisty maze of little passages.” He said it like the curse that it was.

Relan sat down roughly and half said, half sobbed, “It’s no use. We’re lost.”

“Easy kid,” said Boltac, “It’s an Adventure. It never goes according to plan.”

“PLAN!” exploded Relan. “WHAT PLAN?”

“Shhhh!” said Boltac. “We don’t know where we are. But more importantly, we don’t know where they are.” He sat down next to the young man and said, “We’ll rest here for a minute, get our spirits back.”

He reached into his Bag of Holding and produced a skin of water and some dried meat. He drank some water and passed it to Relan. Relan swallowed greedily and wiped his chin off with his tunic.

For a while, they sat chewing the dried meat. Finally, Boltac said, “Okay, kid, I get that
I’m
an idiot for doing this but, not for nothing, what are you doing here?”

“I want to be a Hero.”

“Yeah, but why? I mean, before, I’d sooner die than be forced to listen to your story, but since we’re probably going to die down here anyway…” Boltac said with a smile.

“Why are you so cheery about it?”

“You don’t know nuttin, kid? This is an Adventure. Of course, my favorite Adventures are trading expeditions, but same thing. And the First Rule of Adventures is: They’re always miserable. If you expect that–if you expect the worst–then you have a much better time of it.”

“You mean like my feet and those boots?” Relan said, wiggling his bruised and battered toes.

“Ah, that’s nothing. Once, we got enveloped in a dust storm coming out of Shatnapur. The winds blew for three days. We had no idea where we were going. Even the damned camels got lost. We were out of water for three days before we found an oasis. Hell, oasis, that’s being generous, it was a puddle of muddy water. Some of the camels wouldn’t even drink from it. But I drank. Felt fine for about an hour. Then I shit myself all the way to the next well. Eh, it was awful. My camel went from sand colored to Boltac’s Bowels Brown. Terrible.”

“That’s awful.”

“That’s Adventure. Why d’ya think I own a store?”

“Because you’re old and fat and mean.”

“I wasn’t always old and fat, y’know. And someday, if you’re very, very lucky, you’ll be old and fat like me. And you might not mind so much.”

“Not me,” said Relan, “I’m out to make a name for myself.”

Boltac stretched his legs out in front of him, and lowered the shutter on the Lantern so that a faint red glow filled the room. The Merchant stared into the gloom for a long time. Then he said, “Once, long before you were born, I carried a sword for a living. From far to the north. I first came to Robrecht from Mercia. To conquer the wilds and make a name for myself.”

“But you don’t look Mercian.”

“I’m not. Not exactly. My tribe is, well, we’re scattered. My family traded in the Mercian Empire, but weren’t exactly citizens, you see. So my dream was… well, same as your dream. I was going to go out in the world and prove myself to be strong and brave. Make a name for myself. Earn the token of citizenship. And then… and then I don’t know what.

“My father thought I was an idiot. And it took me years to realize he was right. The day I mustered out for that long march south, he said, ‘Boltac, you’re a trader, a Merchant, it is in your blood. Someday, remember it and learn to be happy.’

“I told him I was going to be a soldier and make him proud. His eyes filled with tears when he told me that killing would never make him proud. That I should be a Merchant, keep a store, raise a family, know something of life before I died. Add something to the ledger of the world, rather than take, take, take.

“I don’t remember exactly, but I suppose I said something much like you did. Called him old and fat, probably called him a coward… ehhh. He was a lotta things, my old man, but he wasn’t a coward.” Boltac shook his head and looked away for a long time. “Anyway, I never saw my father again. I came south. I think I imagined we would conquer the Southron Kingdoms single-handedly. There were four of us in the 7th Repreitors. We were thick as thieves and twice as greedy.

“Athos, he was a scout. And far south of here, just coming out of the mountains, he was scouting wide on the left flank of the army. And he came across an ancient city, crumbling on the edge of the jungle. Of course, there was no one there. But there was the promise of riches. The untold riches of an ancient civilization. You don’t have to be a Merchant’s son to do the math on that one.

“We bribed the lieutenant. I was a supply sergeant, so I got us what we needed. And off we rode, bold as Heroes.”

“Did you find riches, powerful weapons, jewels?” asked Relan, his eyes wide with greed and Glory.

“What we found was jewel-encrusted death. I was the only one who made it out alive. I lifted a terrible sword from a funeral bier, and as soon as I drew it, the sword attacked. Not me though. The cursed thing welded itself to my hand and went after my Companions. Within minutes, they were all dead, and I was alive.”

“It wasn’t my fault, but I never forgave myself. Of course, I couldn’t go back, not with all of them dead. So I deserted. Six months later I heard that the army had been destroyed, broken against the White Walls of Yorn. So I came to Robrecht, which wasn’t under the Mercian Empire at that point and, well, the rest, as they say… “

Even as he said this, Boltac recognized that it wasn’t the whole truth, but it was as much of the truth as he was willing to tell.

“What happened to the sword?” asked Relan.

“I carried the awful thing with me in my travels. Thinking that the power and the skill of the sword would make me a mighty robber. It saved my life with some bandits, but in the end the screams, the memories of the faces of the men I had killed, especially my comrades in arms–who had become my family after I abandoned my own–I couldn’t bear the touch of the thing.

“I threw it in the deepest part of the river Swift, and I have not drawn a sword since that day. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t care if I never draw one again.”

“After you kill the Wizard you mean?”

“I don’t want to kill anybody.”

“But he is a terrible man!”

“Fine, you kill him.”

Relan thought on this a while and said, “With such a powerful sword, you could have been a King.”

“Nah, kid. They don’t let guys like me be King. Not even in fairy tales do guys like me get to be King.”

“Why? Can’t anybody be a King?”

“You gotta better shot of being King than I do. Farm Boy turns out to be a prince, that’s a great story. Merchant? Nah, that never happens. Not in a million years, kid. And y’know–”

Boltac put a finger to his lips and looked up sharply. Relan heard it: something moving through the tunnel. The sound of strange, scraping footfalls and a hissing. In the passageway they had just come through they could see the flickering orange glow of torchlight. It grew brighter and brighter. Something was tracking them.

Boltac whispered, “Draw your sword. This is where you get to be a Hero.”

“What?” whispered Relan.

“Listen,” said Boltac, “Here’s how we’re going to do this.”