Page 99 of The Dungeon Book

Messengers rode out in haste. Bells tolled in the castle chapel, soon echoed by church bells in Lastease and beyond. So the sad news of the passing of the king spread across the land.

I must confess I thought it was an alarm.

After finding Bait’s cell empty, I’d skulked around the castle cellars for a bit, unsure of what to do. My courage fled. I tried not to panic. I think I kept talking, my old patter coming back to me so that the guards would not notice anything was awry. My mouth muttered nonsense while my fresh brain reeled.

How had she escaped? The walls were stone. The door, solidly shut and bolted from the outside. There was nowhere in the room for anyone to hide, not even clinging to the ceiling like some overgrown spider. Had her Dungeon-honed senses found a secret passageway?

Had some other force spirited her away? A spell? Had Neb had ignored my sage counsel and mounted a rescue mission? But that just moved the impossibility from one adolescent to another.

Where had she gone?

Had Orphir done away with her?

What if Orphir thought I’d engineered her escape?

What should I do? Flee, I thought. Escape the castle before they catch you. I’d emptied the coffers into my own bag, so I had money. I could beg, borrow or steal a horse and be off down the road before I was caught. There’d been a time when that was second nature. Orphir and I would run some con, then vanish into the night before the town guards could catch us. Why was I finding it hard to run this time? I had legs again, what more did I need?

I left the cellars and skulked in a doorway instead. I hid my face from the courtyard, for some of the Denizens there had known me when I was Master. I watched the main gate of the castle, trying to summon up the courage to just walk out and never look back. The threshold seemed an impossible barrier, and I cursed my cowardice.

Then I heard the bells, and thought that it was too late. They’d discovered she was gone. Soon they’d know that I’d visited her cell; they’d blame me for her disappearance. I’d get the punishment without even getting the virtuous satisfaction of helping Bait escape, which was the worst of all possible outcomes. To be sent to the gallows for actually committing a crime is one thing; to be wrongfully accused of performing a good deed, and then executed for it – it was galling. It was intolerable. It was in keeping with the luck I’ve had throughout my life and undeath and life again.

One of Orphir’s RATS – your standard-issue murderous adventuring type, all black leather and big sword and a face even his mother would disown – came looking for me. In truth, he’d been sent by Orphir to fetch me, but in my discombobulated state I feared he had murderous intent. When I spotted him, I ducked back indoors, hiding in the shadows.

I took refuge in the kitchen. I cadged a tray of breakfast from a passing servant and sat down at a long table with other late diners, though none were technically as late as I.

The food helped. Ballast in my belly stabilised the outside world.

Maybe Bait had escaped, I told myself, scraping the thought across my conscience as generously as I buttered my toast. If she’d escaped on her own, then I was free to flee on my own, too. She clearly did not need my help, I told myself. I could do nothing for her.

Bait had not escaped. At that moment, she was five levels above me, in the princess’s chamber.

The princess – you, that is – was insensible in the wardrobe. Bait told me that you held on to consciousness long enough to bear witness to your father’s passing. It was terribly touching, she said, a shining testament to filial love and duty, and she deeply regrets not being able to share in your grief. She may not have used those exact words.

Bait, you see, expresses grief in strange ways. Such as hiding you in a wardrobe and posing as you when the servants came. She sent them away, and told them that she would speak to Chancellor Orphir in a few minutes, once she had composed herself, and she should not be disturbed by anyone of lesser rank. We can assume that the servants mistook Bait’s demeanour for that of a young woman trying to mask her grief with a mantle of duty, whereas in fact she was already thinking of pulleys and tripwires.

Even by the standards of the smaller Denizens, goblins are not physically potent. Kobolds have hides of horn and copper; hagworms are mostly gristle and slime-matted hair. Goblins – and human children – are squishy. But in trap-making goblins have no equal. They can rig up a concealed dart thrower or a swinging axe blade connected to a pressure plate before you can say “what was that suspicious click?”

A part of Bait’s plan, in so much as she had one, was inspired by your own actions. Everyone in the kingdom, even us Dungeon-dwellers, had heard the tale of Aldebara’s Mercy, when you took advantage of a lapse in the Chancellor’s attention to send a message to the generals, and arranged for the rebel barons to escape the snare Orphir had set for them. Bait intended to play as you and wield your royal authority. Guards, seize him, off with his head and so forth.

The other part of Bait’s plan was all goblin. A strand of rope strung across the door, a slippery smear of oil at the top of the stair opposite, a cunning system of hooks and strings, and a heavy chain attached to the ceiling.

Imagine it – Orphir comes blustering up the stairs, huffing and puffing, his brain buzzing with a swarm of problems, not a house of cards but a whole dynasty of them, a sprawling metropolis of stacked contingencies. Gather the magic to fuel the spell to fix the changeling to secure the loyalty of the lords to secure their armies to crush the rebels to control the kingdom and so on. His mind is in the middle of next year, and he’s not paying attention. Everyone around him is just a disposable minion, and he is master of it all.

He opens the door.

Click.

The chain’s released, swinging like a pendulum. The weight of it catches him in the chest. Not enough to kill him, not enough to wound, but enough to wind him, enough to stop him casting a spell – and enough to knock him back to the topmost step of the stair. The greased step.

He slips.

He falls.

He lands with a skull-shattering crack.

Glee.

Imagine it.