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I ADMIT IT TAKES a lot to excite me. Not to say that I’m jaded, but Alanna has commented that I’m more a glass-with-a-large-crack-in-its-bottom sort of guy. I just think that if you look out for the stupidity of sentients, no matter what their species, you can’t go wrong. Except today. Today I’m straining to look out of the window as rock flashes past, lit briefly by the cabin’s lights. Those brief flashes and the rumbling sensation that shakes the whole carriage are just intoxicating.
The dwarfs call it a train. A weird mechanical device that runs along metal rails and is powered by water. Well, steam actually. The Sister who visited me did explain it to me, but the technical aspects are a little beyond me. Something to do with heat creating steam which expands, pushing pistons which turn wheels which run along tracks of metal. Then the steam cools back to water and the process begins again. As I said, weird. When wizards and mages have intricate spells to harness ǽther and fly, only dwarfs would think to create something mechanical.
Of course, as they have copper based blood, dwarfs find using ǽther harder than other sentients. Perhaps that’s why they did it. That or they just want to show off. Because, man, I am so in love with this ‘steam’ train. To think only twenty-four hours earlier I had not been aware of such a mechanical beast’s existence. I being Samael Eskilon. One of only two private investigators in the fine city of Pharshan and also a Broken. Someone who cannot use ǽther and is thus unable to use magic of any kind.
The morning before I was ‘resting’ in what I call my upstairs office and Alanna calls my real office. For some reason she has taken a dislike to my downstairs office. Downstairs being the pub. Anyway. I was contemplating the world and its troubles by way of leaning back in my chair, feet on the desk and eyes closed. (Alanna also states that this form of ‘contemplation’ usually entails loud snores. I refute this allegation of course.) Mid contemplation I heard a small cough. Now it may have been possible that I had been contemplating so hard that I did not hear the knock on the door. Nor its opening. Nor, truth be told, the clatter of feet across the wooden beams that proport to be a floor. May not have heard. I admit to nothing.
Considering the small cough I judged that the person here wished me no harm. Certainly you can tell a lot just from a cough, but also by the fact that they had not jumped up and slaughtered me during my ‘contemplation’. I opened one eye and peered under the brim of my hat. A head looked at me from just above the desk. A fine broad head with copper coloured hair that fell in ringlets enchantingly. The expression on said face was less enchanted, with me, and more gloomily pessimistic.
A dwarf. And not just any dwarf but one of the female variety. So rare most folks believe only in male dwarves. I sat up and smiled my warmest and friendliest smile. One that said welcome, unburden yourself here for I am at your service to help in whatever way I can. For decent coin. (The last part is mostly implied, obviously.) You see, female dwarves fall into one of two categories. Future MotherQueens or Sisters. No self-respecting Hive would allow a future MotherQueen out and about. Hence this is a Sister. And Sisters are big deals. Part diplomat, ambassador, historian and spy. With heavy emphasis on the last part.
‘I did knock.’ Her voice was deep and resonated with some invisible cavern far beneath the surface. ‘But your partner did say you probably would not answer so to just come on in.’ There was definitely a smile there and I could imagine them, just two girls having a chat about the lazy male bastard upstairs. Though to be fair I am lazy.
‘How may I be of help, Sister?’ I added extra smarm to her title, emphasising the capital. I may be lazy but I am well read.
She had the decency to look surprised. ‘You are aware of my title, and the pronunciation. Mother was right about you.’
I waited. Most clients after discovering that I am not a complete idiot then go on to discuss their problem. No one ever comes up a flight of, frankly, dangerous, stairs just to have a nice chat with me. I am a private investigator for a reason. Sentients have problems.
‘One of my Sisters has gone missing,’ she said bluntly.
‘Here in Pharshan?’
‘No. Our Hive.’
Well, that’s interesting. I waited.
‘Our MotherQueen is preparing for her passing. My sister is to be the next MotherQueen to our Hive. There is not much time.’
‘And your Hive is where?’
‘We are Obsidian-Carved-Ancient-Mount-Far-Above Hive. We...’
‘Live a good six hundred miles west of the city atop the Aram’s Rib.’ The Rib was a high curve of ancient mountain, most likely formed by an even older volcano millions of years ago. I blew a large breath. ‘Well, I hope your MotherQueen is not too close to death. It’ll take us weeks to get there.’
She smiled sweetly. ‘Actually. About that.’
And so I find myself travelling at almost eighty miles an hour, and can still breathe, mind. The sun begins to settle amongst the tall peaks ahead of us. A brilliant smear of purple across my path. They do say ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight’ but I feel a little uneasy at the omen. As though we are rushing into the pits of Hel. Still it wouldn’t be the first time.
As night falls I feel the train begin to slow down. In the gloom I can sense high peaks of shadow towering above the track all shrouded by the blackest of night. Mel, the Sister who was at my office just yesterday, popped her head around the door to the cabin and said, ‘We will be arriving shortly.’ She seemed to give some thought to her next question. ‘Are you up for a bit of a walk?’
It appears that despite decades of peace amongst the various Hives, no dwarf likes to think of their home as anything less than impregnable. To that end when the steam engine was invented as a means of travelling swiftly through the countryside, and beneath various mountains, the actual point of arriving at a Hive was... debatable. Do any dwarves really want to have a machine that potentially delivers carriage loads of enemy dwarfs to their door?
That is why the end station for the train is downslope of the Hive entrance. Waaaaay down slope. Mel, short for Melodic-hammering-of-three-obsidian-drums, informs me that there are ‘only’ seven hundred and four steps. Uphill. All of it positioned so that defending dwarfs can fire willy nilly on any attackers. What she does not inform me is how steep the &*^%$ & £!& hill is! Nor how narrow the steps.
We arrive at the vast entrance hall of the Hive at midnight. Well, I do. Mel sneaked off to warn people that I was on my way up the very steep mountainside. Then she came back. It’s obviously a weight thing. Dwarves carry less weight due to their size, therefore it's easier for them to climb and skip and friggin’ dance their way up.
The doors to the Hive are wide open and I mean wide. You could drive a trolley bus sideways through the doors and still leave room for a dozen aurochs. The hall is resplendent in marble with carvings on every surface apart from the floor. It is also tall enough that, if they still lived, a fair sized Ent could saunter through with ease. Now I was brought up by my grandmother with a healthy respect for the few museums that existed and I have spent many a happy day wandering around, looking at ancient statues of elves, humans and even orks. The thing about a museum is that they do not prepare you for the full dwarven experience.
These marbles were not the simple plain stone of a museum. They were the fresh invigorating experience that a dwarven artist achieves. Which is to say there is a lot of colour. Every colour. Plus a few I have no name for. The tsunami of steps that sweep majestically down into the vast arena of the hall? Blue, with purple risers and mauve insets. At least the yellow railing stands out, helping me to focus on getting from the doorway to where Mel is standing with a group of her Hive Sisters.
Mel turned as I neared and said, ‘We were just discussing your visit to Mother. She told Obsidian here...’ She nodded to a stout older dwarven woman whose chiselled features did actually look carved. ‘…that she wanted to see you no matter what time you arrived.’
I looked doubtful. ‘It must be after midnight.’
‘Nonetheless she wishes to see you.’
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see a real MotherQueen. Truly, my issue was with the fact that she would be safe within the deepest part of the Hive. For one this old that meant a mile at least. Perhaps more. Climbing down a mile worth of steps did not sit high on any agenda of mine. Particularly after climbing the narrow set of stairs already this evening.
Mel smiled sunnily. I did like her but at that moment there was a patina of hatred creeping in that was frankly justified. ‘We do not have to walk down. We have the variable direction platform that takes you up or down.’
‘The…?’
‘We have a hidden shaft cut into the Hive that can take us to any floor. Gemma here...’ A younger looking woman with glasses and a nervous habit of blinking rapidly when looked at, such as now. ‘…called it a drop. Because it dropped you down from level to level, but no one really wanted to get into something called a drop.’
‘That I can understand.’
The group of women began to stroll vigorously across the vast expanse of the entrance hall. I swear it had at least two different time zones.
I ran to catch up and replied. ‘Well. I suppose if either the elves or humans invented something like that we would see it as lifting us up and down rather than dropping us.’
They all stopped, which meant I almost fell over a dozen dwarven Sisters. I have no idea who was more embarrassed.
‘A... lift,’ Gemma repeated a huge smile on her face and her eyes shone, though still blinked rapidly.
The Sisters led me through the labyrinth that is a dwarven Hive. Fortunately their engineering is first class which meant that the floor was very level. Thus no walking up and down any more stairs. It was just that even on this, the first level, the Hive was massive. A twenty-minute walk to what I assumed to be the centre of the Hive.
I asked, ‘How old is the Hive?’
Mel answered obliquely. ‘Our present Mother is the Hive’s fifteenth Matriarch.’
Shit. A regular house trained dwarf can live over a hundred years. Their MotherQueens? Two hundred plus? ‘Almost three thousand years?’
Mel smiled warmly as though I’d passed a test. Dwarves love math so I probably proved that I was at least an intelligent ape.
‘A little more,’ she added, still mysterious.
The Drop was obviously hidden. Again no respectable Hive would openly show a rival Hive how to bypass all of their intricate traps and murder rooms. Along an unassuming corridor merely resplendent in marble friezes of battle scenes, Gemma suddenly stopped and quickly wove an elaborate pattern of taps along one particularly gruesome scene. A section of wall slid out and back revealing a selection of wide ‘drops’.
Another weave of taps on numbers and the doors to one of the variable-direction-platform-that-takes-you-up-or-down opened. There was that slight hesitation that only occurs amongst the more well brought up sentient where we all waited for someone else to make the first move. Finally we entered. The doors closed and we descended. As the Hive was over three thousand years old, we descended a lot. For a long time.
Eventually we came out into a plaza. It was huge. There were apartment buildings four and five storeys tall (and I mean storey as a human/elf size not dwarven) and the roof was lost far above them. The air was crisp and fresh. The lighting a diffuse glow that did not distract from the ambience. Considering we were at least a mile or two below ground the temperature was warm but not hot. A perfect summer’s evening. Beneath tonnes of rock.
A wide avenue, with barely concealed defences, led through the living quarters of the Sisters. There could be no doubt where it led. Here gold took precedent. Inlaid into marble in patterns that defied the eyes and bedazzled the senses. Ahead was the MotherQueen’s apartments. The palace, if you will.
The facade was amazing. But that was all it was. A facade. Behind it would be a killing field. A last ditch attempt by the Hive’s warriors to protect the MotherQueen. Her own residence was entered only through one of the Sisters’ apartment blocks. We descended a little further. The smell of milk and babies became stronger despite the fact that I had been informed that the MotherQueen had not had a brood for a good five years.
At last, behind a plain doorway, we entered into the Chamber. Both the place where the MotherQueen gave birth and where she lived. Her existence was centred on carrying, birthing and rearing dwarves. There may be the odd bit of diplomacy but essentially she was a living incubator come nanny. That did not mean that she was in any way not to be respected. As I said the MotherQueen also handled diplomacy, mostly through the Little Sisters, but hers was the last word. Always.
The doors opened onto her side. Dwarven queens are huge. Even by elven/human standards. Even by ork frankly. She was probably close to nine hundred kilograms. A lot was hidden behind the llestr bwydo which literally meant the feeding machine. Dwarven mothers have broods of up to a hundred or more, depending upon how many Little Sisters are born that batch. A hundred males and a handful of sisters.
The men have little choice to their upbringing because each batch is genetically altered by the Mother to react to any upcoming needs. Yes, I said upcoming, because MotherQueens have a form of precognition that enables them to tailor each batch to whatever event will befall them in a decade or two. Say she senses that they are going to hit a complicated bit of rock? Well, the next batch will become engineers. Food shortage? Farmers.
Of course there are philosophical questions about all of this. Say two widely separated Hives both suddenly have a number of warrior batches. Twenty years later the hollows of the Hives echo with young men arm wrestling with each other and staying too long in the sauna. They meet. They go to war. Thus precognition works. Or does it? After all a war was predicted, just not who was to be fighting whom. And two Hives full of strong young dwarves just itching to fight and just sitting there waiting? Who can actually say? This is why philosophers never get asked to all the great parties. They’re too busy sorting out dwarven existential conundrums.
Back to the MotherQueen. The llestr bwydo was a dwarven machine unlike any other. It may be alive although there are sections that are definitely dwarf-made. A combination of grown frameworks and technologies still unseen outside of a Hive. The MotherQueen sat partially contained by it for most of her existence, where it literally grew into her and then took over part of her bodily systems. Specifically the creation of a hundred plus foetuses from one fertilised egg and a whole feeding system. After all, not even a dwarven Queen wishes to have a hundred teats.
Once the egg is fertilised, it travels into the extended womb of the llestr bwydo where it divides and separates into one hundred individual pods. Each pod attaches itself and then grows until birth, moons later. Then the buds that held each little pod in the llestr bwydo become feeding vessels for hungry little mouths. All created by a synergy of woman and machine.
The llestr bwydo here was around a hundred feet in length and swelled up to fifteen feet in height and was probably forty or fifty feet at it widest. The MotherQueen sat/lay at one end. She was dark-skinned, despite having spent all her years inside this very chamber. Bald apart from a topknot of braided green hair that curled down like a forlorn kiss curl.
‘Good morning, Mr Eskilon. I hope your journey was satisfactory.’ Her voice was deep and echoed. Before I could speak she continued. ‘You may leave us, daughters.’
There was a flicker of tension between the women but no one really says no to a MotherQueen. Not if you fancied breathing beyond the next ten minutes. They left and I walked towards her majesty. The sheer overwhelming smell of young life almost took my breath away.
‘I know it is late, but thank you for seeing me before you retire for the night.’ Again the voice resonated within my chest cavity. It felt as eternal as an avalanche. ‘I have given orders that you may sleep for as long as you require. I do not wish you to begin your investigation deprived of rest.’
I might as well get down to business. ‘The future-Queen has gone missing,’ I said.
‘From within the Hive. I have decided to go through the Passage rather than await my allotted time.’
The Passage?’
‘A MotherQueen becomes aware often when her time is nearing. When she will pass from the world as this and become something else.’
‘Ah. Death.’
‘Only as you see it.’
‘And you’re going early? Is that it?’
‘It has caused something of a stir but my daughters, all of them, support me.’
‘Including?’
‘Including Ankaramite-level-beneath-feet. Anka for short. She had no reason to doubt. She was easily the strongest daughter with precognition and could sense what I told her to be true.’
‘Which was?’
‘The reason I was passing so soon.’ She said no more but I could sense that there was something that she was not telling me.
I said as brightly as I could considering it was around two in the morning and was awake but still sober. ‘And the thing you’re not telling me has nothing to do with her disappearance?’
She smiled. ‘None whatsoever. I am pleased to see you are as intuitive as the reports say. I must thank you for your handling of the situation with the Underhill-iron-of-ancient-places-clan-of-the-houses Hive. I am pleased to see that such a diverse Hive has been allowed to thrive, and in Pharshan of all places.’
‘Yes. Well. Life does seem to find no difficulty thriving in the city. And nice redirect.’
The queen sighed. ‘Honestly, there is little to tell you. Three days ago Anka went missing. I believe no one within the Hive had anything to do with her disappearance just as firmly as I believe she still lives. Beyond that I cannot help you.’ She waved a hand to her right indicating a collection of shapes that gleamed in the soft light. Golden things. ‘I am still working on my wy teithio but it is almost complete.’
‘Y?’
‘Wy teithio. The final carriage for my last journey. I need to start within a few days.’ She looked at me and I could see pain and fear written across her broad face. ‘It is not much time but I sincerely believe Anka to be within these caves.’
‘And all I have to do is find her.’ I replied sounding more cheerful than I felt. This was an ancient Hive around two cubic miles in size. Up. Down. Sideways. Every way. Two miles of winding corridors and vast gardens. All built and noted by the very dwarf sitting before me. If she had no idea where her daughter was, what was I supposed to do?
Well, firstly I was to sleep. I was shown to my room. A lavish suite set in soft sandstone carved into swirling patterns. I don’t normally dream but that night was different. Shards of emotions, none positive, twisted my soul, and jagged shapes tore at me. There was one lucid moment where I tripped atop a vast flight of stairs and tumbled. Usually such dreams end with that first vicious jolt on stone, yet this time I felt each step as I fell ever downwards. Blow upon blow. Endless and unrelenting.
Then I awoke and could not breathe. The sheet, wet with perspiration, was wrapped around my neck, and it tightened as I rolled out of the bed. It caught and the jerk to my head woke me fully. Just as the lack of air began to drain my senses. I clawed at the sheet but my hands felt numb and the sheet as tough as ancient leather. Just as my vision darkened I managed to loosen it and felt air fill my lungs at last. Standing shakily I found part of the sheet had somehow become entangled with a post at the end of the bed.
It all looked like one of those crazy accidents but I was not so sure. If there is any sentient built for a little bit of stealthy walking, it’s a dwarf. Tuck one end of the sheet here and gently slip the other end close to my neck and then let a night of tossing and turning work its magic. Possibly. I had also come to the attention of the Scrape god recently. A trickster god ancient even when the old gods were young. Who knows?
After sitting for a while, away from the bed, I showered, a luxury denied me back at Pharshan, and went for breakfast. It was still actually morning and Mel was waiting for me in the vast cafeteria, looking forlorn amongst a hundred or more empty tables and chairs. There was porridge with a selection of jams and honeys, as well as numerous lichen and moss entrees just in case I wanted to go full ‘dwarf’. I did not. Strawberry jam was enough for me.
‘You look rough. As though you did not have enough sleep. We can do this later,’ she said.
‘And good morning to you,’ I replied a little hastily. Adding, ‘The sleep was fine. I had a bad dream which woke me. Just a bad mood.’ I took a mouthful of porridge and continued. ‘I’m good to go.’
She smiled. ‘Then you can start with me. I was the last to see Ankaramite...’ She stopped, not adding the word alive.
‘This was?’
‘Thirdday. I was discussing how she wished to change any diplomatic ties we had. She didn’t by the way. Ankaramite is a steady hand. The transition was... is going to be smooth.’
‘What time did you see her?’ I flipped open my new notebook, (Alanna insisted on them. Said that my ‘verbal reporting needed support’) and wrote things down.
‘One. In the afternoon. I left just before four.’
‘Three hours is a long time to discuss how smooth the transition was going to be.’
Mel fidgeted nervously. Most people do when being interviewed. No one likes to be the focus of attention when some sort of crime has occurred. ‘Actually we gossiped. She wanted to know what the White Port was like and the Spine mountains. If I had climbed to the top of the Spike. What orks were really like. And elves.’
‘Elves?’ I raised a brow imperiously. (It’s what an elf would do, and I am half elf, after all.)
‘You do have a reputation as tree huggers.’
‘Granted. But that’s just because we don’t want to fall out of the buggers.’ Why elves decided that building whole towns and cities amongst trees was a good idea has eluded the finest historians.
‘When did you first realise she was missing?’ I asked.
‘That would be later that evening. She had taken two of her meals in, Tea and Supper at four and six and eight o'clock’s dinner was left outside as she had requested.’
‘Wait. She had three meals from four o’clock?’
‘She had to put on calories for, you know, her job to come?’
Of course.
Mel continued. ‘The carriers were concerned when they returned an hour later to find the meal still outside. Ankaramite had told them to leave the trolley outside earlier but when they knocked they received no answer. They found me and we entered Ankaramite’s suite of rooms. They were empty.’ A solitary tear rolled down her face. ‘We looked everywhere.’ She opened her arms in that universal sign that said ‘what can I say?’
‘I need to see the rooms.’
The rooms were close to the MotherQueen’s chambers. A standalone building three storeys high and about thirty by thirty metres width and depth. A neatly kept garden of colourful lichen undulated like frozen waves around the small palace. Guards stood surreptitiously at various little nooks and crannies giving each a wide perspective across the vast cavern floor.
She saw my glances and said, ‘They have a clear line of sight on all the buildings. Plus there are a few others hidden away up there in the cliffs.’ She pointed them out to me. ‘I have all the reports from that day. They neither saw her leave nor anyone we cannot account for enter.’
‘And apart from hearing her voice no one saw her after four.’ I said it as a statement.
‘That was me. Yes.’
‘Voices can be imitated.’
Mel nodded. ‘Which means Ankaramite could have gone missing just after four.’
‘I need to talk with the sister who brought the meals.’
The ‘sister’ turned out to be three stout males who showed me the very large trolley they pushed back and forth from the vast kitchens on this floor to the Sister’s home. To call the meal big was like calling government bureaucracy useless. Accurate and scary.
The suite of rooms that to me was a vast complex palace had a small veranda where each meal had been left. It was, unfortunately, hidden from the watchful eyes of the various guards. A small concession to privacy that now looked a little lax. My conversations with the cooks told me much the same story as Mel’s. Meals delivered. Left outside as per instruction. Unusual but not unheard of. No one saw her. The meals appeared to have been eaten but no one could actually say if the plates, fourteen—I counted—had been eaten clean or wiped clean. A vital difference that amounted to nothing, really. No matter what time they—whoever ‘they’ were—took the up-and-coming MotherQueen no one entered or left the palace.
TO BE CONTINUED. |
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