Carnifex (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 1) (31 page)

Cordy was there now, standing over Thumil, the scarolite helm clutched in her trembling hands. The arm holding the axe dropped limply to Carnifex’s side, and the golden glow coming off the blades stuttered and died.

Aristodeus stepped up, took the helm from Cordy. He said something, but Carnifex wasn’t listening. He was appalled by what he had almost done; appalled by the terror on Thumil’s face as he scooted back on his haunches and got to his feet.

Carnifex’s breaths came in strangled gasps. They grew ragged and thin. Every exhalation was a rasping wheeze. He needed air. Shog, he couldn’t breathe.

Cordy moved in close and flung her arms around him. Blood squelched between them. Its cloying stench was thick in his nostrils. It soaked into her wedding dress, smeared her face. Droplets pearled her beard, oozed down her cheeks like tears. And then she started to sob, washing them away into streaks of pink.

Carnifex tried to drop the axe, but it clung to his fingers, as if glued in place by congealed blood.

“The seethers, Cordy.” He hated the way he sounded: frail and broken, like a distraught child. “They fed Lucius to the seethers.” The words burned like acid as they left his lips. Tears welled from his eyes.

“Carn,” Cordy sobbed. “Oh, Carn.”

“It’s going to be all right, son,” Thumil said in a quavering voice. “Just put the axe down.”

“This is what I feared,” Aristodeus said, holding out the scarolite helm like a talisman. “What I tried to avert.”

“Just lay down the axe,” Thumil said, as if that were the only thing that mattered.

Carnifex steadied himself on the warmth of Cordy’s embrace. A breath of air found a breach and rushed into his lungs.

“I can’t.” He tried again to release his grip. “Shog, Thumil, I can’t.”

“Let me put the helm on you,” Aristodeus said, “then you’ll be able to.”

The axe hissed. It bucked in Carnifex’s hand.

He shoved Cordy away before he hurt her. Before the axe made him.

“The helm,” Aristodeus said. “You must wear it.”

Feelers of fuligin quested from the head of the axe, brushing against Carnifex’s skin. Where they touched, they burned like frost. One wormed its way into his eye, and his vision grew hazy.
 

Aristodeus’s voice was a booming roar, none of his words decipherable. Thumil’s robe grew indistinct: frayed tatters of cobweb.

Warmth caressed Carnifex’s fingers. He flinched and focused his eyes. Cordy was holding his hand. He saw her plain as day, her wedding dress streaked and spattered with gore from embracing him.

“Trust him,” she said, imploring him with her eyes. “Trust Aristodeus.”

“I can’t,” he said. He tried to step back, but she tightened her grip.

“Then trust Thumil.”

Carnifex stared at his old friend, his marshal, the Voice. It was like looking at someone he didn’t know. Someone he used to know.

“I can’t,” he said again.

The axe began to glow golden once more.

“Then trust me,” Cordy said.

Without waiting for an answer, she hooked her arm in his and led him along the walkway. The axe was like an anchor, holding him back, but when Thumil took his other arm, Carnifex didn’t resist. He let them half-walk, half-drag him toward the Dodecagon.
 

Aristodeus rushed ahead of them and cleared the way. White-robed councilors emerged onto the walkway and stood off to the sides. Stupid nodded as the philosopher entered the Council Chamber, and then Cordy and Thumil walked Carnifex inside.

“Now!” Thumil barked over his shoulder.

And the door began to grind shut.

THE NAMELESS DWARF

The doors closed with a muffled clunk behind him. There was a succession of thuds, a clang and a hiss, and then the ensuing silence was almost deafening.

The hidden blue glow that suffused the walls of the Dodecagon made it seem colder within than it actually was. Emerald motes swirled in the air, backlit by phosphorescent veins of scarolite. The embossed heads of Dwarf Lords stared accusingly from each of the doors that studded the twelve-sided chamber. To Carnifex, it felt like entering a hall of judgement, where he’d already been tried
in absentia
and found guilty.

“It is worse than that,” the axe said, once more reading his mind. “We have been trapped, sealed in a tomb. There is no way out.”

Carnifex started to pant, faster and faster. He was vaguely aware of Cordy on one side of him, Thumil on the other. Aristodeus turned to face him, holding out the scarolite helm.

“Don’t look at it,” the axe whispered.

He didn’t. He stared instead at the debating table, at the twelve empty seats. Would it have made much difference to the city if those seats were always vacant, if there was no Council of Twelve engaged in endless debates that led nowhere, changed nothing?
 

Or is that what they really did? He no longer knew. The things he’d seen outside in the ravine, in the bowels of Gehenna, he couldn’t tell truth from deception anymore. What if the councilors were the demons in charge, divvying out dwarves to be fed upon, just as they had ensured the fair distribution of tokens?

“It’s all right, Carn,” Cordy said. She went to stroke his forearm reassuringly, but her fingers met the clotting gore that caked his skin. He felt her stiffen, but she didn’t recoil.

“You’re quite safe,” Aristodeus said. “All you need to do is let me place the helm over your head.”

Carnifex flinched and pulled back.

Thumil gripped his arm tight. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, son. We’re here, Cordy and I. We’re both here with you.”

“It’s a trick,” the axe said.
 

Could the others hear it? Carnifex didn’t think so. None of them reacted to what he heard in his head.
 

“It’s just you ma’s helm,” Thumil said.

“It’s special,” Aristodeus said. “It can help you. See the letters? ‘Thanus’. Old Dwarven for ‘Thane’.”
 

“It’s the same helm your pa kept,” Thumil said. “The one he brought out every year on your birthday.”

“Yyalla’s helm,” Cordy said. “The helm of a Dwarf Lord. It will protect you, protect us all. But only if you wear it. You must wear it, Carn.”

“Lies,” the axe said. “Don’t listen to them.”

“Within the ambit of the helm’s theurgy,” Aristodeus said, “the axe’s hold on you is weakened. Wear it, and the glamor will be broken.”

“More lies,” the axe said. “Remember what you saw when they first stepped out onto the walkway? That was the truth. This is an illusion cast by the black skull masquerading as your mother’s helm.”

“Theurgy?” Carnifex said. He looked from Thumil to Cordy, then glared at Aristodeus. What had the shogger done? What had he done to Yyalla’s helm?

“Lore,” Aristodeus said. “Homunculus lore. Always be prepared, I say. For anything.”

Carnifex shrugged his arms free of Thumil and Cordy. “You knew this would happen?”

A flash of impatience crossed Aristodeus’s eyes. “I glimpsed it, yes. But I thought it could be averted. Time is tricky like that. The Demiurgos is tricky. In case of last resorts, I worked with a group of dissident homunculi, the Sedition, got them to make the helm into a ward… and more besides.”

Cordy tried to take his arm again, but Carnifex brushed her off.
 

“More? What more?”

It was Thumil who answered. “Grago wants you dead. And he’s within his rights, just by virtue of you leaving. But when the blood started flowing, there was no answering him, and the entire Council agreed. They call you the Ravine Butcher, Carn. They think you’re a monster.”

“Then you must get out of here,” the axe said in Carnifex’s mind. “I told you, it’s a trap.”

Carnifex turned to the doors they’d entered by. Were they truly impregnable? He hefted the axe. There was only one way to find out.

“Wait,” Thumil said. “It’s going to be all right. I persuaded them there was an alternative.”

“Only because I gave you one,” Aristodeus said. “Again, with the help of the homunculi.”

Cordy steepled her hands in front of her face. When Carnifex flashed her a look, she dipped her eyes. Either she was ashamed, or afraid.

And then Carnifex made the connections. “A fate worse than death. You want to strip me of my name.”

“It’s the only way, Carn,” Thumil said. “I’m sorry.”

Carnifex pressed his head against the scarolite of the doors. It was all he had left, his name. He’d lost his pa, his brother, and he’d never even known his mother. A dwarf with no name was accursed in the worst possible way, an outcast, untouchable. The shame would be unbearable.

“Then kill me. Let the Council kill me.”

“No,” Aristodeus said. “You are too valuable.”

That’s what he’d said before. But valuable to whom, and in what way?

Slowly, Carnifex turned away from the doors. “Why? I am a nobody. A butcher. What makes me so important? Why keep me alive?”

Aristodeus closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. “Because I believe he was right—the homunculus who spoke to Droom. Salvation will come from Yyalla’s womb, Carnifex Thane. I can’t say how, exactly, but I just know that it will.”

“How do you know?” Carnifex said. “The same way you saw this happening and did nothing to prevent it?”

Aristodeus’s eyes snapped open. “I tried. And I’m sorry, I failed.”

“Or you were outwitted,” Carnifex said. “Didn’t you say it was like a game to you? A game between you and the Demiurgos. How do you know he won’t outwit you again?”

“I have not been outwitted,” Aristodeus said. He rolled his eyes. “The future is not set. It’s vague. I only catch glimpses, and sometimes every turn we take leads to the same place.”

“We have to hope,” Thumil said. “It’s all we have.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Carnifex said. “Wrong about me. If this is true, if all this is true, what I did out there in the ravine, you can’t risk keeping me alive.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Aristodeus said. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s Lucius for going into Gehenna in the first place. You were just trying to save him.”

Carnifex took a step toward him, and Aristodeus backed away. “Don’t you go blaming my brother. He was a victim in this. Rugbeard was right: the
Annals
must have been altered.”

“I agree,” Aristodeus said. “As do the Sedition. The homunculi are the spawn of deception. Trickery is second nature to them. And with their lore, they have the means.”

“Lucius wasn’t the only victim,” Cordy said.

“Indeed,” Aristodeus said. “That thing you hold, Carnifex—that axe: do you truly believe the
Pax Nanorum
—the Peace of the Dwarves—would induce you to such atrocities?”

“Against demons, yes,” the axe whispered in Carnifex’s mind.
 

“You are not capable of slaughter,” Thumil said. “Violence, yes, when it’s called for. But unbridled slaughter? A massacre? Not the Carnifex Thane I know. Not Droom’s boy. Not Yyalla’s.”

The axe hissed with derision. “It only takes one thread to pull on, and their whole argument will unravel. That is not really a helm, remember: it’s a skull. An ebon skull of the Abyss.”

“How can I know?” Carnifex said. He hadn’t intended to speak aloud, and Cordy must have thought he was responding to Thumil.

“I believe as Thumil does, Carn. You are Yyalla Thane’s son. Droom’s son. And you are my friend.”

“But the blood…” Carnifex spread his arms for them to see. “And outside, rivers of it pouring from the walkways.” The waters of the
Sanguis Terrae
must have run red with it. Now there was an irony too grim to be a coincidence: the name meant ‘Blood of the Earth’.

“Carnifex,” Aristodeus said, “what you hold is not the
Pax Nanorum
. It is a copy, a fake, forged by the homunculi on the instructions of the Demiurgos himself.”

“Hah!” the axe said. “See how he twists reality to suit his purpose. It is the helm that is from the Abyss, not me. Ask him. Ask him how he came by this knowledge.”

“Did your dissidents tell you that?” Carnifex said.

Aristodeus nodded.

“Ask him how he knows they are not deceiving him, too,” the axe said.

Carnifex did, and Aristodeus replied, “Because they have rejected the ways of their people. They have seen where deception leads, and they have rebelled against the Demiurgos.”

“And you’re sure of that?” Carnifex said.

“Of course I am. What do you take me for?”

“That’s enough, Aristodeus,” Thumil said. He made a placating gesture with his hands. Carnifex didn’t miss the surreptitious glance his way. Thumil was scared of him being riled again.

So, Thumil believed he was a monster. Believed the slaughter was for real.

Carnifex gave each of them a long, hard stare. The arguments on both sides had holes in them he could drive a cart through, and yet he couldn’t even trust his own eyes. He’d seen Kal as a demon, and nearly killed him. Thumil and Cordy had appeared as deathly revenants, but in the proximity of the helm, they had reverted to normal. Aristodeus: a gigantic ghoul one minute, a bald shogger the next. It was more terrifying than any army of demons; more terrifying even than the crimes he might just have committed. Was he crazy, deluded? Was he the victim of illusion? But whose illusion? The demons’ or the axe’s? There had to be some way to know. If a dwarf didn’t know his own mind, couldn’t tell friend from foe, truth from a lie…
 

Suddenly, the world had no substance for him. His beliefs, his experiences, the life he’d lived—no more than patterns of shifting moonlight on the ravine walls.
 

He looked at Thumil and Cordy in turn, squinted at them as if he might see through any cracks in the illusion.

“How do I know?” Carnifex said. “How do I know it’s really you?”

They exchanged looks. Was that worry in their eyes? Confusion? Or was it something else they were communicating? Some secret message he wasn’t party to? It wouldn’t be the first time. They’d deceived him before.

“More than deceived,” the axe said, as if it were a part of him, enmeshed with his thoughts and knowing them without him needing to give them voice. “They betrayed your friendship.”