Page 72 of The Dungeon Book
She forced herself to read the rest. The letters swam in her eyes, knocked from their neat lines by her pounding heart. Again, the endless salutations and titles, even more larded on this time. Her lips moved as she muttered a translation into the Dungeon Tongue.
. . . His majesty requests and requires the presence of the one who slew the fabled dragon . . .
. . . Honoured and feted as befits a hero of the realm . . . colloquy with the scholars of the Royal Antiquarian Survey . . .
. . . immediately depart for the capital . . .
“You’re leaving?”
“It’s a royal summons. My father and Sir Rudyard say I have to obey. That it’ll be the making of me if I go, and the ruin of me if I don’t.”
“It’s not even your name. It’s to Valourwhatsitius.”
“That is my name. My proper name. Lord Rudyard said it was a more fitting name to wear to court.”
“It’s not you.”
“Yes, it is.” Suddenly, he knelt, the mud squelching under the knee of his new breeches. Clumsily, he offered her the sword. “But you’re the true dragon-slayer. You should be the one going to court. Come with me. It should be you.”
Bait shook her head. To leave the Dungeon – no, not now, not when she’d just won it back. Not when there was so much to do below. Her heart pounded. She had to work very hard to think of words in the human tongue. “Can’t.”
“I’ll take care of you. I’ve gone down the road a little, and Sir Rudyard said he’ll send guards with us. We’ll get to the capital safe, I promise. We could stay with Lady Nala, maybe. See the King’s Palace and the Court of Chance and Courage, and the Glassmarket and – all the places from the stories!”
The merchants and pot-menders who visited Clove’s kitchen had told stories of the capital. The stupid serving girls crowded around them, eager for ragged second-hand glimpses of distant glamour. Bait had stayed aloof, hidden in her little nook, but she’d listened, too. In the stories, the capital was immensely crowded, a swarming anthill of people. The clamour of those crowds crawled into Bait’s ears, into her skull, and they were flying ants. It was very bright, too, of that she was certain, the harsh shadowless burning blazing daylight all through the capital at the centre of the world, and King Arus was there, who might and might not be her father, she might and might not belong there.
She felt like the pit trap had opened beneath her once more, just after she’d found her footing in the Dungeon.
“I’m not going,” she whimpered.
“There’s a whole world out there,” he said, “outside this dungeon. You can’t stay here for ever.”
Bait had faced down dragonfire. She’d climbed the waterfall, braved the haunted halls of the wraith-temple, called unimaginable horrors her friends – but in this moment, such fear welled up in her that she could not stand still.
She tore her hand free from Neb’s grasp and ran past him, into the Dungeon.
“What’s wrong?!”
She fell back against the Wychwood Door, slamming it behind her. Darkness embraced her.
“Bait!” called Neb. He sounded very far away. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”
She tried to answer, but only the Dungeon Tongue came out. I can’t go. I want to belong here. I want this to be home. I want to stay here and hide. Out there it’s all confusing.
“Come back,” he called. He hammered on the door, trying to force it open. “Bait, please!”
She pushed back with all her strength against the door, even though she could not say why. The door stayed shut.
“Why must you always be so strange?” he snarled.
Everything churned. She felt as though she was dissolving – a changeling’s borrowed shape, stolen form liquifying. She spread her fingers out over the cold metal, feeling in the dark the intricate ancient carvings, constant across the centuries. She closed her eyes and thought of Nala’s maps of the Dungeon on their cool blue paper, all that she knew and loved laid out in precise detail.
“I’m sorry!” called Neb. “I didn’t mean that.” He shoved against the door again.
She pressed back harder. Neb stopped.
A moment of silence.
“I’ll come back,” called Neb. “One day, I’ll come back.”
