Page 103 of The Dungeon Book

I did not know if unmaking my conjured body would also destroy the older wild magic that animated my skull. There was every possibility that I might die heroically, and I’d like that taken into account. Indeed, as my body melted, everything went dark, and I thought, this is it. Goodbye, goodbye. Farewell, oh world, I do regret many things, but not this.

Then I thought wait, actually I could have just robbed magic from the South Tower instead of heroically sacrificing myself. I do wish I’d thought of that earlier.

Then I thought, I’m having a lot of thoughts for a dead man. I wonder why I can’t see anything.

The reason was that my eye sockets were full of what I shall tactfully describe as goo. The minotaur reached down and plucked me from the wreckage of my own body, and with his long cow tongue he licked me clean. I was a bare skull again.

With infinite gentleness, he placed me atop the roof of the stables.

Out of the way, where I would be safe.

Very carefully, he stepped over Nala’s unconscious form.

Then he tore the castle apart.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Order cannot last. All arrangements are temporary.

Build all the walls you wish. Forge the thickest chains. Light all the torches.

Walls crumble to ruin. Chains break. All torches gutter out.

In the end, the dark below claims you.

Or, to see it another way: the Dungeon rises.

The minotaur’s wild charge across the courtyard snapped chains like cobwebs. The Denizens broke free, and from my vantage point atop the wall I saw it all.

Only-Sister sprang upon the RATS. She picked one up in her jaws and shook him until he was all loose and messy.

Goblins swarmed out, their clever fingers undoing locks and chains. They went capering across the rooftops, laughing and looting. By contrast, the kobolds had got a taste of military discipline, and formed into little knee-high battalions, marching smartly into battle against the few defenders of the South Tower. The mimic mimicked a siege catapult with enthusiasm. The trolls, as one, picked up their umbrella and made a wobbly but still terrifying move towards the main door of the keep. “Hold it steady!” “Oh, my toes are poking out!” “Left a bit! Left a bit!” – only to the ears of the humans, those were trollish roars. Mistress Clove met them in the shadow of the doorway, and led them down into the kitchen.

Some kobold pulled the blindfold from Balor, and he lit up like a firework, eye-beams blazing in every direction. Gloop leapt into the air like a silver splash. Hagworms and stirges fluttered about, driving the last of the RATS from the field.

But mightiest of all was the minotaur. He was much too large to enter the South Tower, but his headlong hornlong charge cracked it open. He tore at the breach, pulling masonry apart and widening the gap until he could reach inside with both hands.

He picked up Bait and Orphir.

One of the minotaur’s hands was very gentle.

The other was not.

Orphir would never have a second life as a talking skull, or anything else for that matter, unless one can come back as a sort of malignant smear.

With his unbloodied hand, the minotaur cradled Bait like a child.

He bowed his head. His broken horns were like a crown.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

“No,” she said.

And that was that.

Those few soldiers and sycophants still loyal to Orphir took what loot they could carry and fled the castle. They did not get far, for the rebel army was waiting in the trees. All that remained was for the rebels to seize the castle and capture the king, but Neb urged them to wait. He and Sir Rudyard and a few other rebel leaders crept forward to spy on the castle. No lights burned in the windows of the dark fort. Dread swept over the rebel scouts, save perhaps Neb.

The gate of the castle was shut, but as they watched, they saw it shudder as some mighty force struck it from within. One blow, and the wood splintered! A second, and iron bent! A third, and the gate burst open, and out came the strangest procession that any of them – save Neb – had ever seen. Balor the Squinter bobbed at the head of the mob like a many-eyed lantern, followed by a cloud of flapping stirges and a slither of hagworms. Goblins darted in and out of every window and doorway they passed, making merry mischief and leaving behind all manner of traps. Wraiths danced in the shadows. There went a pack of trolls, wearing the finest dresses looted from your wardrobe. There went Only-Sister, with Mistress Clove riding on her back. In one hand, she bore her favourite cauldron from her old kitchen, brimming with Gloop. In her other hand, she carried a skull, and she waved me around with such abandon that I felt quite sick until I remembered I no longer had a stomach.