Page 41 of The Dungeon Book

It was Nala’s philosophy that all questions were valid, that the search for knowledge should not be impeded by doubt or fear or hidebound custom, and that any genuine enquiry should be answered as truthfully as possible. Conversation with Bait sorely tested Nala’s commitment to that philosophy.

“No more so than average, I suppose,” she answered, then hurried on before Bait could send the conversation down another blind corridor. Nala opened one of the leather-bound tomes. “So much history has been obscured by fear. The Chancellor says that the knowledge of the ancients is a lost treasure, buried in the dark, and it’s our task to bring back the light of learning.”

“So you’re not treasure hunters then?” Bait had seen the adventurers depart, and had felt a sense of foreboding mixed with glee. The adventurers were dangerous, but so was the Dungeon. She remembered the crack of bones in the manticores’ lair.

“My companions,” said Nala ruefully, “are not motivated by scholarship to the same degree. But I was sent here to bring back knowledge, not gold.”

“Hmph.” Bait sat back. When she was queen, she decided, she’d ban adventurers going into dungeons for loot – but scholarship was another matter. The more you knew in the Dungeon, the further you could go. She pointed at one of the illustrations in Nala’s book. “That one’s marked wrong. That’s not the god Hastur. It’s his high priest.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me. The high priest, not Hastur.” The high priest was a Denizen of the Fifth Level. A pleasant chap. You could have quite a nice chat with him from outside the effective range of his life drain. “He’s a wraith.”

“Ealdufrida—”

“Bait,” insisted Bait.

“How long were you lost in the Dungeon?”

“Never.”

“Well, how long were you down there?”

“Years and years. What was the queen like?”

Nala ignored Bait’s question and produced a scroll case. From it, she unrolled a map and spread it out across the table. There, in a grid of black ink squares, was home! There was the Dungeon, all laid out in precise cartography. The Dungeon Door, the Hall of Pillars, the Trapsmiths’ Arcade, the little cistern where they’d kept Gloop, the Buried River. Oh, and there was the Chasm Hall of the minotaur, and Cornelius’ Tomb, and the rest. Corridors she’d walked in the dark now blazed on white parchment. Secret ways laid bare! Homesickness crashed down on her like a collapsing ceiling.

“How much do you remember?”

“Everything.”

Let us leave the poor child in the castle, torn between above and below, and talk about another topic, to wit: me. As you doubtless recall, I’d chosen to remain outside the Dungeon Door in case our Bait came home – a brief and uncharacteristic spate of sentiment. I regretted my decision immediately. At first, the view was an interesting change; instead of the crumbling plaster of my tomb, my eye sockets looked out over the wind-bent sea of treetops, the mist-mantled mountains, the dirt track that wound down the slope, with patches of ancient worked stone poking through like bones, testament to the ancient city that now lay behind and beneath.

Then came the birds. Some damnable bastard of a rook flapped down and pecked at me, as if some scrap of brain remained in the recesses of my skull. He knocked me from my plinth into the long grass. Through resourceful jawboning, I managed to rock myself into a more dignified resting place, although my view was limited to the backside of a gorse bush.

There I remained for several months, while down in the valley Bait terrified villagers (who deserved it), befriended a boy I shall call Valourentius (because it annoys him), attempted the murder of Offa (who didn’t quite deserve it), visited the good squire (fruitless), escaped the murderous paranoia of Mistress Clove (in retrospect, justified) and consorted with enemies (but I’m getting ahead of myself).

That’s a skull joke.

It was in late spring, when the gorse bush had become a riot of yellow-gold that might have been pretty if it wasn’t right in my face, that I heard the tramp of booted feet. There were a dozen of them – feet, that is, which translated to a half-dozen adventurers.

At that point, they still had all their limbs.

I had none at all. My lack of locomotion was an undeniable drawback; I’d grown used to being carried about by Bait. I considered calling out as the adventurers passed by. A hearty “hail fellows, well met”, perhaps, to undercut the strangeness of being addressed by a talking skull. Or I could have played into the guardian of the Dungeon threshold routine, and cried out “abandon hope, all ye who enter here”. A riddle, too, would be traditional, but in that moment the only riddle I could think of was a rude one about onions.

But I had no idea how these adventurers would deal with a talking skull. For every Dungeon-delver like Orphir or myself, who entered the underworld seeking knowledge instead of treasure (although, yes, treasure would not have been unwelcome), there were ten who sought only loot, and to such men a talking skull was just another Dungeon Denizen to be slain.

So, I remained silent.

“The Underhalls of Yrn Kyos,” muttered one, “few have returned alive from this pit.”

I was in no position to disagree.

“Map,” ordered another. The rustle of parchment. “Aye, this is the main door. Gargoyles just inside, alcoves left and right. Hammers out!”

I found this unsporting. When Orphir and I came here, we had no maps, unless you count some fragments of lore we’d pieced together from grimoires and crumbling scrolls. We certainly didn’t have a freshly drawn map with all the perils marked. We blundered around in suicidal ignorance, as is traditional. The quintessence of the Dungeon is its unknowability, the mystery of what’s lurking in the dark beyond the next door. Anything might be down there, peril and wonder entwined for ever.

“Then we make for the stair down to the second level, here. Then along to this well-way – naught to stop us there but goblins. Take it slow and watch for traps. Boar-spears for that part; the little runts hide in holes, it says.”