Chapter 22
Highbulps Lost and Found

“I thought you were watching her!” Graywing’s Feral eyes blazed with fury. He towered over Dartimien the Cat, hovering in rage to confront the smaller man nose-to-nose. “I turn my back for a moment, only for a moment, and you lose her!”

“Back off or you’ll lose that yammering tongue, barbarian!” the Cat snarled, not giving an inch of ground. “Don’t blame me if you can’t keep track of your women. I was busy looking for a way out of this place!”

The stairs Dartimien had found, leading upward from the great catacombs beneath Tarmish, had brought them into a labyrinth of interlaced tunnels—sewers and storm drains for the city above. It was a maze of buried pathways, some wide and some narrow, most dark and winding, many rambling aimlessly, and all ripe with the accumulated refuse of generations of Tarmish history.

A gaggle of gully dwarves had followed the three humans up from the catacombs, it seemed the dim little creatures were everywhere, and these scampered here and there, exploring. Normally, the dim-witted little people were terrified of humans. The gully dwarves were, in fact, terrified of nearly everything, at first sight. But they were as adaptable as they were dense. Once having become accustomed to someone or something, anyone or anything, and accepting its presence, they merely assumed that it had always been there and was simply a part of the mysterious world in which they lived. Gully dwarves had been known to tolerate the presence of humans, goblins, turkeys, an ogre or two and even, now and then, a dragon, once they became accustomed to its presence.

For their part, humans generally paid no more attention to gully dwarves than they would to any other vermin. They were, after all, only gully dwarves—a nuisance, but seldom worth worrying about.

The tunnels wound and intersected, lighted only by occasional small grates, iron-barred and opening into the courtyards below the tower. There in the daylight, beyond the stone-bound slits, armed men marched and scurried, some of them searching for others, some locked in combat with those they had found. Gelnians and Tarmites, the warriors of the Vale of Sunder seemed oblivious to all but their ancient feud. Here and there, the seeps from above were red with fresh-spilled blood. And beneath it all, the sewers wound here and there in reeking gloom.

In such surroundings Graywing the Plainsman—skilled tracker and pathfinder of the wild lands—was hopelessly confused. His was a world of open skies and long winds. The cluster and stench of cities left him disoriented. So the city-born Dartimien, to whom sewers and rancid alleys were second nature, had taken it on himself to chart a path that might lead to an exit.

But at an intersection of several tunnels he had paused to read the markings on a wall (accompanied by an interested gully dwarf or two) trusting to the sound of the plainsman’s boots to lead him to the others. He had followed the sound, and found Graywing. But the plainsman was alone. There was no sign of Thayla Mesinda. They realized simultaneously that the girl was missing, when each discovered that she wasn’t with the other. The two warriors faced each other angrily in the dim light of a sewer channel, while here and there frightened gully dwarves scurried for cover.

“I should put my blade through you, alley cat,” Graywing blustered.

“Shake that fist in my face again and you’ll pull back a bloody stump,” Dartimien purred, razorlike daggers appearing in his hands.

“First you’re hovering around her like a starved hound at a feast, then the minute I turn my back you lose her!”

“Who was hovering? Me?” Dartimien’s tone was scathing. “From the minute you first saw that girl, you haven’t had your wits about you! I never saw anything so pathetic!”

“I told you to look after her!”

“You ordered me to leave her alone!”

Among the nearby shadows, small voices whispered among themselves. “Why Talls hollerin’ on each other? Gonna kill each other?” “Who knows?” “Who cares?”

Growling like feral beasts, the two men glared at each other, then lowered their gazes. “This isn’t doing us any good,” Graywing said. “Where could she have gone?”

“Obviously not where we did,” the Cat admitted. “Back where the tunnels met, when you came this way, was she with you?”

“Of course she was! She … well, I thought she was, anyway. She was chirping about seeing light down one of the corridors, but …”

“But you weren’t listening,” Dartimien sighed, turning away. “You never listen!”

“I was so listening! She has a lovely voice! But I assumed she was talking to some of these Aghar.”

Dartimien sneered. “You were listening to her voice, and paying no attention to her words? Well, she’s gone now, and that’s that. Too bad, but those things happen. I think there’s a main outfall ahead a few hundred yards. We may have to bend some bars, you ought to be useful there, at least, but it’s worth a look.”

“We’re going back,” Graywing said.

“Don’t be ridiculous! That girl could be anywhere by now. She’s probably been caught and killed.” Bits of grit cascaded from the roof of the tunnel, and the paving above thundered with the sound of many running feet. Distantly, there was the clash and clatter of a full-scale battle being waged. “We have to get out of here. Come on, now. Let’s find that main grate.”

“I’m going back,” Graywing repeated, drawing his sword. “Thayla needs me.” Without another glance he strode past Dartimien and headed back down the tunnel.

“Fool,” Dartimien snarled. “Alright, so she’s pretty, but she’s just a woman. The world is full of women. You’ll just get yourself killed.… ” He let the words trail off. Graywing was already out of sight, around a bend. Dartimien shook his head. “Gods,” he muttered. “Why should I have to bend bars by myself? That’s brute work. That big oaf is better at such things than I am.” Cursing under his breath, he set off after Graywing.

Behind him, a gaggle of gully dwarves tagged along, keeping to the shadowed places. They weren’t the least bit interested in tall people’s doings, but it was in their nature to follow whoever happened to lead. Right now the only people doing any leading seemed to be these incomprehensible Talls.

Where tunnels intersected, Dartimien found Graywing crouched, studying patterns in the mud. “She was here,” the plainsman said, not turning. “I knew she was right behind me. But when I went this way”—he gestured back the way they had come—“she went off to the right. Up that rising tunnel over there.”

“Stupid,” Dartimien hissed. “That’s only a storm drain. It leads right up to the inner courtyard, not fifty yards from where we found the opening down into the catacombs.”

“How would she know where it leads?” Graywing snapped. “She followed it because there’s daylight ahead there somewhere. Look. You can see it from here.”

“I can also hear the clash of weapons from here, and smell the stench of fresh-spilled blood.”

Ignoring him, Graywing rose to his feet and headed up the tunnel.

“That barbarian is crazy as a loon,” the Cat muttered. “You’d think he’d never seen a woman before.”

“Sap’s runnin’,” a small voice beside him said.

Dartimien scowled at the grimy little creature. “Butt out,” he snapped. “I don’t need an explanation of the facts of life, and certainly not from a gully dwarf.” With an oath he strode away, following Graywing.

“What Tall say?” Pad asked, cocking a brow at the confused Blip.

“Said he don’ want facks ’splained,” Blip said. “Was jus’ tryin’ tell him Sap ran off.”

“Where Sap go?”

“Prob’ly downstairs,” Blip answered. “Prob’ly tellin’ ever’body where Clout is.”

“Where Clout?”

“Upstairs,” Blip said. “Sap heard him holler.”

With nothing better to do, the remaining gaggle of gully dwarves headed up the tunnel, where the humans had gone.

At the top of the tunnel, Graywing peered out into the main courtyard of Tarmish from the shadows of a broken grate. Beyond, armed men slashed and hammered at one another, their cries blending with the ring of steel on iron. Thayla Mesinda had definitely come this way. There were distinct marks where her small slippers had climbed the last few feet of incline, and a small handprint in the grime of the tunnel wall where she had pushed through the gaping portal.

He was bracing himself for a charge into the open when Dartimien came up to him. The smaller man looked past him and grunted in distaste. “I guess you’re planning to run right out there and join in,” he said.

“Those aren’t real soldiers,” Graywing growled. “Just Tarmites and Gelnians, fighting one another. They always do that. They always have.”

“So which side do you plan to be on?”

Graywing ignored the question. “I don’t see any mercenaries out there. Do you?”

“No, maybe they all left. Civil wars don’t pay very well. But there are some real hoodlums around somewhere. There were icemen in Chatara Kral’s camp. Those brutes are here if the Gelnians are. They don’t ever walk away from a fight.”

“Vulpin has some personal guards, too,” Graywing added. “I saw them when we first arrived. They looked like cave vandals. Real elite killers. But I don’t see them now.”

“They’re wherever Vulpin is,” the Cat said. “Look. Graywing, I hate to dash you with cold reality like this, but neither of us will profit from this mess. Whatever you were promised for bringing that magician here, you’ll never collect it. And I most certainly am no longer in Chatara Kral’s employ. The best thing either of us can do is turn around, find that outfall port, and get away from this place while we still have our skins.”

“You go, then, if you want to.” Graywing barely glanced at the city man. “Thayla needs protection, and I mean to protect her.”

“From everyone but yourself, I suppose. How chivalrous of you. Anyway, you don’t even know where she is.”

“I’ll find her,” the plainsman growled. With a lunge and a Cobar war cry, he launched himself through the broken grate and into the thick of the fighting beyond.

“Fool,” Dartimien sighed. His feral eyes narrowed as he watched the plains warrior cutting his way through the midst of battle. The barbarian’s sword was a bright blur, dancing around him as though it had a life of its own. Its blade flashed from bright steel to bright blood, singing its song of chaos as it clove through the packed combatants. Graywing’s flaxen hair and beard whipped in the wind as he dodged this way and that, making for the base of the tower. Beyond, in the shadows of the tall, tattered structure, figures appeared at a breach in the wall, paused for a moment, then filed out of sight, into the base of the tower itself.

“Chatara Kral,” Dartimien muttered. There had been no doubt of identity. The Gelnian regent’s brilliant armor was like no other. And with her were four of her personal guards, hulking icemen with brass-bound shields and great axes.

For a moment, in the intervening courtyard, the path behind Graywing was clear, swept clean by the ferocity of his charge. Then he seemed to be swallowed up in the crowd as howling Tarmites and Gelnians closed in around him.

“The gods must love fools,” Dartimien hissed, filling his hands with daggers. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many of them.” With a snarl as fierce as any cat’s, he vaulted through the broken grate and into the fray.

*  *  *  *  *

Soft, slanting sunlight washed the wooded hillsides west of the Vale of Sunder, filtering through the umbrella of leaves to paint myriad, flickering patterns on the forest slopes beneath. Soft breezes in treetops made the patterns dance, a subtle, intricate kaleidoscope of tiny motion obscuring the huge, graceful movements of the creature beneath the high boughs.

In her first life Verden Leafglow had shunned the daylight. A creature of stealth and deceit, she had preferred the dark hours to the bright. But now she found that the sunlight was a comfortable warmth, and the Tightness of it reminded her of how much she had changed in recent times. She was not the same dragon she had been, either in that past life or in the early portions of this one. Rippling scales that had once been emerald green now were a rich brown in hue, iridescent across the warm spectra with overtones of scintillant gold.

Little by little, the god Reorx had worked his magic upon her, always by her own choice it seemed but never with any clear options in that choice.

In her dreams and her deepest soul the visage of Reorx spoke to her. Free will, it said. The poisons of evil remain, and the antidote lies not in the frozen serenity of blind good. The true enemy of evil is free will. They must resolve their conflicts in their own way, and you must wait.

Your task is not the disorder of human minds, Verden Leafglow. Your task is greater. There is an evil beyond evil, an ancient grotesquery left over from other reckless games, long ago. That is your mission, Verden Leafglow. You will know when the time is at hand. You will have the chance to prove yourself.

Prove myself to whom? Verden’s question raged in her mind, for a god to hear if he cared to. I have nothing to prove!

Prove yourself to yourself, the dream-response came, quiet and sure. You chose to cast off your subservience, Verden. You rejected evil.

Evil rejected me! I only accepted that.

And craved vengeance, the dream-voice pointed out. As you still do. Crown your vengeance with wisdom, dragon. The true punishment of evil is its failure to succeed. You made a choice and a pledge, Verden. You chose free will, and rejected evil.

I pledged it only to myself!

Then you owe it to yourself, the voice said, seeming amused.

Verden shook herself, chafing at the torment of the uninvited voice which goaded and guided her. Impatiently she stirred her great body on the forested hillside. But even as she spread her languid, lustrous bronze wings to catch the patterns of the forest sunlight, she growled deep within her mighty chest.

I could just blast them all, she thought to herself, angrily. Those humans—those petty, soft things—I could kill them all without effort. Her huge fangs glinted at the thought, and her talons twitched. Deadly vapors trickled like foul smoke from her nostrils, and a powerful, devastating dragon spell formed itself in her mind.

But in her dreams a voice like distant thunder, silent beyond her own ears, spoke. Your magic is of this world, Verden Leafglow, just as you yourself are of this world. The thing you must defeat is not. Prepare yourself, Verden Leafglow. Your test is at hand.

Deep inside she knew that whatever was going to happen, whatever task the god had set her to do, it would come very soon. It had already begun. Spreading gold-brown wings, her rear talons thrusting with huge, powerful grace, the dragon launched herself once more toward the battered fortress of Tarmish.

*  *  *  *  *

In the deepest caverns beneath Tarmish, the combined clans of Bulp were settling in. Foragers had found a seep that provided an adequate water supply, and there were miles of crevices, tunnels and vermin-infested sumps to be explored, not to mention the most productive pyrite mine any of them could recall having seen.

Nobody knew why the Aghar were so enchanted with pyrites. The sulphur-colored iron nuggets, found here and there in old limestone formations, were useless as far as any other race of people knew. The metal melted poorly, tolerated little stress and had few of the qualities of good iron. But it was yellow, it was shiny and to the gully dwarves it was a fine treasure.

While various members of the clans foraged for food, all of which went into a new batch of stew that some of the females were brewing in makeshift pots over a central fire, others continued to clamber here and there on the west wall, gouging out chunks of pyrite-laden stone to be delivered to the former Highbulp Glitch, who was happily embarked on his new career as Keeper of Shiny Rocks and Other Good Stuff.

Everybody in the place knew where Glitch was. He was where the shiny rocks were being assembled. But when Sap descended from places above, looking for him, he couldn’t find him.

Even the Lady Lidda, pulled away from supervising the stew by Sap’s complaints, was a bit mystified. Glitch should have been right there with the shiny rocks. That was where she had last seen him. But now there was no sign of him.

Within a few minutes, every gully dwarf in the immediate vicinity was busily searching for the ex-Highbulp, peering into every corner, crevice, crack and shadow in the area. As minutes passed, some of them wandered off, forgetting what they had been doing.

But others kept up the search at the Lady Lidda’s insistence. Having her husband retire from being Highbulp was one thing. Having him simply disappear was another, and she was becoming very concerned until she noticed that the largest pile of fresh pyrite was quivering. She stepped close to it, scratching her head in puzzlement as its top shifted slightly and a few bits of stone rattled down its slopes.

Then, distinctly, she heard a snore. It was a snore she recognized, and it came from the pile of shiny rocks.

“Bron!” she called. “Get over here!”

When Bron was at her side, she pointed at the pile of stones. “Dig,” she said.

“Okay,” Bron said. Using his broadsword like a spade, he began to dig, flinging pyrite pebbles this way and that. He had reduced the pile by a third when the remaining top of it shivered, parted and a disheveled head poked through from beneath.

“What goin’ on here?” Glitch demanded.

“Ol’ Dad!” Bron pointed at the head, then squatted for a better look. “What you doin’ in there, Dad?”

“Dunno,” Glitch admitted. “Sleepin’. I guess.”

Hearing the patriarch’s voice, Sap hurried over from across the cavern. “There Highbulp,” he pointed.

“That not Highbulp,” the Lady Lidda corrected him. “That jus’ Glitch.”

“Glitch not Highbulp?”

“Used to be Highbulp.” Glitch struggled free from the piled pyrites and stood atop them. “Quit, though. Too much responsi … resp … thinkin’. Dumb job. Let somebody else do it.”

“Oh.” Sap thought this over, then asked, “Then who I tell Highbulp stuff to?”

“Got ’nother Highbulp now,” Lidda said. “Go tell him.”

“Okay,” Sap said. He turned away, then turned back. “Who is Highbulp?” he asked.

Several of them scratched their heads, trying to remember, Then Bron snapped his fingers. “Ol’ what’s-’is-name. Uh, Clout. Clout Highbulp now.”

Sap frowned, truly perplexed. “Then how I tell Highbulp ’bout Clout, if Highbulp is Clout?”

“Might write it down,” Scrib offered, but the others ignored him.

“Dunno,” Bron said. “That a real problem. Lotsa luck.” Shouldering his broadsword, the designated Hero wandered off in the direction of the stew.

“What ’bout Clout?” Lidda asked.

“What?”

“What Sap wanna tell Highbulp?”

“Bout Clout,” Sap repeated.

“What ’bout Clout?”

“Nothin’ much. Jus’ know where he is, case anybody want him.”

“Where?”

“Upstairs. Way up high. Heard him.”

“Why Highbulp not in This Place?” a passing gully dwarf wondered. “This place not This Place ’thout Highbulp here.”

“This not This Place?” another said. “Then where This Place?”

“Someplace else, I guess,” Sap reasoned. “Maybe upstairs, where Highbulp is?”

A dozen yards away, thunder erupted and dust rolled as a great gout of loosened stone fell from the vaulted ceiling. Among the rockfall were various screeching miners. All around the shattering blast, gully dwarves scampered for safety. Several of them ran right through the new cook fire, spilling the stew and kicking coals in all directions.

Near the grand column Scrib turned, and ducked back as shards of rock whistled past him.

Out of the roiling dust, disheveled gully dwarves emerged, Glitch among them. “ ’nough minin’!” the ex-Highbulp grumbled. “No fun anymore.”

“Stew all gone,” a gully dwarf lady announced. “Fire, too.”

“This place a mess,” several chorused. “Not fit to live in right now.”

“So what we do now?”

“Better find Highbulp,” the Lady Lidda said. “Highbulp decides stuff like ‘what now.’ ”

Old Gandy, the Grand Notioner, hobbled up, leaning on his mop handle staff. “Guess everybody better pack up,” he sighed. “Highbulp not here, we better go where Highbulp is.”

“Clout only been Highbulp since today,” Scrib the Scholar complained, unhappy at having to leave his squiggles. “Jus’ one day, an’ already gettin’ be a twit. Maybe oughtta have different Highbulp?”

Gandy shrugged philosophically. “One Highbulp jus’ like ’nother. All real nuisance. Anyway, gettin’ hard to keep track of who Highbulp is. Too many Highbulps lately.”

“Always hard to keep track of who Highbulp is,” someone observed. “Who cares, anyway?”

“Prob’ly oughtta write it down,” Scrib said, thoughtfully. All around him, gully dwarves were preparing to migrate.

“Kinda bad upstairs,” Sap warned. Talls havin’ a war or somethin’.”

“No pro’lem,” Pert said, proudly. “Bron take care of us. Bron a hero.”

Bron blinked, considering the enormity of it all. He didn’t want to be a hero anymore. But there didn’t seem to be any choice in the matter. Unhappily, he shouldered his broadsword and headed for the “stairway” to the world above.

“Yes, dear,” he muttered.

The Lady Lidda looked after her son, her head tilted thoughtfully. Little Pert was showing real skill at the care and tending of numbskulls, and it occurred to Lidda that Pert might make a fine consort for a Highbulp. The only problem was, Bron wasn’t Highbulp. Clout was. But Bron had all the makings of a good one. At Pert’s direction, he was leading the tribe.

Gandy was right, Lidda decided. There were too many Highbulps right now.