The heroes fell silent as they started up the spiral staircase. Gorm was relieved to find that the glowing water had remained outside the tower, and they progressed quickly and quietly up to a second landing, where he led them out onto dry stone.
“If Johan knew about the barrier, that means he’s been here before,” said Laruna as she exited the staircase.
“But why did he want to get into the prophetic vault?” asked Heraldin, following.
“No idea.” Gorm pulled a thick, square packet wrapped in brown paper from his red rucksack. “Safest to assume it’s for no good, and that we’ve only so long before he knows it fell. We alert him too soon, and he can go after the dragon, frame her for burnin’ all them citizens, get whatever he was after, and get away with it all.”
“Then we probably shouldn’t take these stairs into the middle of the palace,” Laruna noted.
“Aye.” With the package appropriately positioned by the rear of the bottom step, the Dwarf stood and tucked a small, brown cylinder into his belt pouch. He pointed to several upper walkways extending from the staircase. “We’ll take a side passage to somewhere above the Ridge, sneak back into the city, and get ready to strike a decisive blow.”
“How does one prepare to fight a king in his own castle?” asked Heraldin.
“With numbers.” Gorm was already headed along the path.
The bard and weaponsmaster shared a puzzled glance. “Numbers?” said Heraldin.
“We just reached the heart of the biggest dungeon on Arth and found out there’s no loot.” Gorm took a deep breath, and felt a spark of excitement travel down his spine. “It’s time to get finance involved.”
“It all comes down to the money. That’s the thrice-cursed unfairness of it, but it’s a truth nonetheless.” Duine Poldo’s whiskers bristled as he spoke. “With a paid advocacy team and a—”
Feista Hrurk shook her head and set the arbiter’s letter down on her desk. “The guild won’t take my case, Mr. Poldo,” said Feista. “I spoke with Jirada of the Bone Eaters at work; her son was slain by gold-hounds two years ago. She spends every giltin she earns on lawyers and advocates, and the guild won’t take her case. They protect their own, Mr. Poldo. The pups and I are not their own.”
“Perhaps,” said Poldo. He sat and listened to the laughter of the children playing Orcs and Humans outside, broken by occasional shrieks as one side inflicted mock atrocities on the other. His hands curled and uncurled at the thought of Hristo Hrurk’s death, and the loss it had inflicted upon Mrs. Hrurk and her pups. There had to be a way to help. “Perhaps if I reached out to my acquaintances at Fordrun and Hawks, we could—”
“No,” said the Gnoll, shaking her head.
“Well, it might work,” the Gnome said. “It really is all about who you know.”
“No, Mr. Poldo. It really is all about what you are.”
“My dear, I—”
She silenced him with a glance. For a long time, they sat unspeaking as the sounds of the bustling home wafted up from beneath them.
Mrs. Hrurk spoke first. “You are a good man, Mr. Poldo. The very best Light—the very best of the Children of Light that I know. And I know you mean to help. You have helped so much, and we are all grateful. I am grateful. But there are some things you cannot fix. If you could… if you could snap your fingers and bring my Hristo back, and punish the heroes who took him away, if you had that magic and used it for me… then I would still be as a pebble caught in a wheel, bouncing wherever your people sent me. You would just be bouncing me in a better direction.”
She stared out the window down at the street below. “My Hristo died because he crossed the wrong Lightlings; no, because he crossed the street in front of the wrong Lightlings. My children and I were given a second chance because I met the right one. At times it feels like everything we lost and had and lost again came not from what we did, but what your people did. And though I have worked my paws to the bone, and though I have built two careers and raised three beautiful pups, at these times I still feel that I live in a Lightling’s world, and that I can only have what a Lightling chooses to give me.”
She turned back to him, the fur around her eyes damp with tears. “You cannot fix that, Duine. It speaks well of you that you would try, but you need to know that it hurts just that you would have to. If you bring in the best lawyers, it is another reminder that I could not. If you get justice for Hristo, it is another thorn in my heart. You cannot give me victory, because a victory unearned is not a victory at all.”
Poldo tried not to bristle, but he was unaccustomed to problems that he could not solve. “So you just, what, sit here and think of how unjust everything is?”
She looked at him with kindness and mercy; the look a priest gives a wretch with a self-inflicted wound on the temple’s doorstep. “Every day. I do my best, I fight on, I work as hard as anyone I know, and then I sit down and think about the injustice of it all every day.”
The Gnome bit back his response, his reasons that he could be more effective, and swallowed them all in a ragged breath. He recalled telling Thane that the evil that was hardest to spot was the one lurking in his own good intentions. It took a bit of thought to come up with words that felt right. “I am sorry. For the things I can’t help, and the ones I could do better. May I… may I sit with you for a time?”
She smiled and took his hand in her paw. “I’d be glad if you did.”
They sat together for a moment—just a half minute or so of somber reflection and welcome companionship. And then, because the universe is just as full of cruel irony as any other kind, there was a rapping on the windowpane. They tried to ignore it for a time, but the messenger sprite was determined enough that the glass panes began to rattle and shake under the weight of its siege.
“Perhaps the sprite has an extra-strong seeking enchantment,” Poldo mused.
Feista frowned and stood. “Her lady must think it’s urgent,” she said, but when she opened the latch the pink sprite buzzed past her and landed on the desk in front of the Gnome.
“Duine Poldo of Silver Guard Securities?” squeaked the sprite.
“Formerly of Silver Guard Securities, yes,” said Poldo.
Upon that confirmation, the sprite placed its hands on the area its belt might be and leaned back. When it spoke, its tiny voice had dropped an octave and developed a hint of Scorian brogue. “Mr. Poldo, I ain’t got many connections in securities, and I need one now,” it said. “I saved your life once in the lair of Benny Hookhand, as ye’ll recall, and now I’m callin’ in a favor. Meet us at the main offices of Warg Inc. It’s a matter of urgency.”
The sprite hadn’t stopped speaking before another, this one from Lady Asherzu herself, flew in the open window and landed in front of Feista. “You are needed at the main office,” the tiny, pink figure intoned in the Orc’s voice. “And I know you have contact with the Gnome called Duine Poldo. If you can find and bring him, make every effort to do so.”
Three more sprites were already lining up behind it. Feista looked at Duine with regret in her eyes. “I think we had better leave, Mr. Poldo,” she said.
“Yes, Mrs. Hrurk,” he said, finally releasing her paw. “Whatever this is about, it seems rather important.”
“Oh, it’s always important. Always urgent, they say. Everything’s the worst thing. Every priest thinks a loose toenail on their idol is the end of the world.” Theological Support Friar Brouse’s grumbled litany did not pause as he marched up to the back of the crowd gathered around the square in Sculpin Down. Cowl down and shoulders hunched, he trundled into the mob, a dingy phalanx breaking the siege line. “And who do they want to fix it? Who else? Sprites all hours, screamin’ crystals, everyone wailing like it’s all on fire, and it all comes down to me. And I tells ’em, I says it needs to be high priorities. I says, but they never listen. They just says—”
“Yes! Finally! Come quickly!” The gaunt face of Ignatius loomed as the onlookers suddenly parted. The old priest’s long beard swayed to and fro as he did an impatient dance over the cobbles. “Hurry! You must hurry!”
Brouse paused long enough to bunch his face up into a deep scowl. “Yeah, that’s what they all say,” he muttered as Ignatius started pushing his way through the citizenry. “I’ll remind you, mister sir, that the crystalline matrix is for emergencies only!”
The old priest suddenly whirled and grabbed the friar by the shoulders. “This is an emergency!” he shrieked. “Someone isn’t dying!”
