Page 81 of The Dungeon Book

When you grow up, you must find a home, or build one, to keep those you care for safe. One day, every child, no matter how strange, no matter how unprepared they might feel, must claim their place. Even if they return, through long peregrinations and unlikely corridors, to the home of their childhood they once knew, they must make it theirs and so make it anew.

That is what Bait thought as she ran to claim the throne. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the gargoyle at the window, but Old Throte was too slow and she was too goblin-clever to be caught by him.

But it was a trap.

Chains of blue fire blazed, and dragged her back.

Orphir stepped past her and sat down on his throne. Bait had not seen him since she was two years old, and though the wizard had changed greatly in that time – his hair whiter, his robes finer, his paunch stately and distinguished – she knew him in an instant, and hated him with all the fierceness of a manticore. She hated him for his smug self-assurance, for what he’d done to her family, for the way he sat in the throne as if it was an imposition on him to be there.

“Throte?” he called.

The gargoyle climbed in through the window.

“You were very slow, Throte.”

The gargoyle ground out a response. “As you say, Master.” Grit fell from his teeth.

“Unforgivably slow.”

“As you say, Master.”

“Take this,” and he pointed at Bait, “and bring it to the Wychwood Door. You will find my mortal servants there. Give her, alive and intact, into their custody. Do not harm the mortals, but slay any others who stand in your path. Do not tarry or stray from the path. This I command by my authority as Master of Tower and Dungeon alike. Do you understand, Old Throte?”

“I understand,” groaned the gargoyle, “and I am bound to obey, by the Rules set down by Yrn Kyos.”

“Good. When that task is done, return to this tower. Climb up to the highest pinnacle, and throw yourself off into the chasm below.”

“Master . . .” said Throte, “my wings are broken. I cannot fly.”

“Should you survive the fall, crawl back up and try again.”

Once more, Old Throte carried her through the Dungeon. His stone grip was unbreakable. She called out, her cries echoing through the deserted halls, hoping some Denizen would come to her rescue. She called for the minotaur, but the minotaur was lost, and few creatures in the Dungeon could match the gargoyle’s strength. The ghast was far below, the dragon dead. No rescue came for Bait.

She begged Throte to let her go.

“I cannot,” he said, “the Rules bind us all.”

“But the stupid Rules will get you killed!”

“The Rules are greater than I am,” he said. “It is not in me to break them.”

“You bent them for me before!”

“I did,” he said, “and I hope some good comes of it, even if I do not live to see it.”

Then sunlight, a light that burns away illusion and enchantment and leaves only the stark undeniable reality. A dozen armoured guards waited there to receive the prisoner. A dozen RATS, and one old man.

She did not recognise me.

And why would she?

After all, she had never seen me in the flesh.

CHAPTER TWELVE

To explain, I must go back to what happened after the RATS looted me from the Dungeon.

Like Bait, they threw a bag over my head and brought me down the road to Dunshelm. Unlike Bait, I was all head; unlike Bait, I was no valuable hostage to be treated gently. I was loot. I shared my sack with a few glowing mushrooms, the claws of a broken gargoyle and some ancient scrolls from the temple quarter. At the keep, I was dumped with a trove of other trophies on a table in the South Tower.