catastrophically.
In the center of the lake, where the Life-Tree once had dominated, loomed the most tragic wreckage of the Chaos War and its aftermath. The massive pillar had collapsed, leaving an irregular pile of rocks jutting from the surface. Most Thorbardin dwarves called that place the Isle of the Dead, though to the Aghar it was just the Dead Island. A stub of the great pillar still extended from the lofty roof of the cavern, but it terminated a long way above the top of the island. Every once in a while, new rocks would break free and plummet downward, an unpredictable barrage that ensured the island would not be reinhabited.
Indeed, all the environs of the Urkhan Sea were virtually abandoned; at least there were no proper cities or towns. There were dens of Aghar all around the lake, however, with the largest being Agharhome. Too, there were bands of feral Klar-the wild-eyed, often insane dwarves-who had rejected the new king’s orderly city life to roam free in their vast undermountain realm. But the feral Klar were not interested in cities and only passed through the ruins periodically on their nomadic wanderings.
Even though there was virtually no illumination in the vast cavern, Gus could make out some details since light was not, strictly, necessary for deep-delving dwarves to see. The Aghar, like the Theiwar and Daergar, had eyes keenly attuned to the dim conditions of their stone-bordered world. As Gus looked out across the water, he could make out the motionless surface of chilly liquid, black as oil and still as ice. The ruined stub of the Life-Tree jutted from that surface, perhaps two miles away from him.
Beyond the Dead Island and much farther away-about two miles, Gus thought, the upper limit of his arithmetic ability-the vast front of Theibardin rose into view. From an array of docks and cavernous warehouses at the lake level, the great city of the Theiwar spread up the precipitous cliff of the lakeshore. It was dotted with villas, palaces, and temples, all carved from the bedrock of the mountain, each structure positioned to give its dwellers a grand view over the great underground lake at the heart of Thorbardin. Those facades were dark and lifeless as Gus stared, with irregular holes and great gaps showing where the war and its attendant erosion continued to tear away at Theibardin’s foundations.
But everything that happened in ancient times (meaning more than two years ago) was beyond an Aghar’s imagination. In any event, Gus’s attention was directed closer to home. A rivulet of scummy liquid was flowing down the base of the ravine, and he sniffed at it without much hope. The vile brown sludge that flowed there was not, nor had it ever been, a source of food, but he sniffed again, just to be sure. Sighing, he stood and watched the flow go past, moving downward, fast where the ravine was steep, slower where the grade was shallower. It trickled right past the mouth of the tunnel/alley leading to the Fishbiter house. The floor of that side tunnel was about two inches above the flowing sludge. Gus remembered a time when the level of sludge had risen up to that tunnel mouth-it had been an unpleasantly wet and smelly time for the neighborhood.
Just beyond the tunnel mouth, Gus noted, the sludge stopped flowing. Gus knew that place, but he peered at the sight just to be sure. The viscous liquid was collecting in a large holding pond, held in place by a makeshift dam of loose rock that had spilled into the ravine some time about two years ago. Looking up at the cliff wall rising over his head and down at the steep ravine and the tunnel leading to his house, Gus suddenly realized that the sludge pond was poised right over his and his neighbor’s houses.
Then he saw something else-there was someone down there, hunched over, studying something on the ground. Squinting, he discerned the hunched back; large, bare feet; and straggly strands of dirt-colored hair that suggested a female gully dwarf.
“Hey!” he called. “Who you?”
She raised her face, which was even dirtier than her feet. It was centered around a huge and not altogether unattractive nose. “Go away, bluphsplunger stoop!” she retorted.
Instead, Gus skidded down the slope to her side, which was right near the edge of the sewage pond. He saw that she was huddled protectively over the limp form of a skinny, bedraggled, and apparently very, very dead, rat.
“That my rat!” Gus declared boldly, hunkering down next to her.
“Go away!” she repeated, picking up the rat and holding it to her tattered dress. “I call you bluphsplunger stoop! You go away!”
“Who you?” Gus repeated, eyeing the rat.
“Slooshy,” she replied, glaring at him.
“Why you call me stoop?”
She shrugged. “Not know. Bluphsplunger stoop-different one from you-push me down. But me lucky after all; found rat!” She brightened at the thought and held the grotesque rodent out in a filthy paw. “See?”
Gus was tempted to snatch the rat out of her hand, but something gave him pause. “Share rat with me?” he suggested instead.
“No!” she snapped, pulling her hand away just as he made his grab. He got his stubby fingers around the hairless tail. But she had a grip on the body and jerked it away until it flew free from her grasp out over the sewage pond, where it landed with a dull plop. Despite the thickness of the liquid, it immediately vanished from sight, sending only a small ripple to the dam of rocks, allowing a small surge to slip over the barrier and spill toward the lake below.
“Now look! Bluphsplunger stoop! You big humpus maker, you!” she shouted, standing up and stomping her feet.
Gus sat on a rock, trying to ignore his empty stomach and the barrage of creative insults that emerged from Slooshy’s mouth. She knew a number of interesting words, enhancing most with the “bluphsplunger” modifier as she called him a “doofa,” a “goopar,” and a “burfhoofing lumpus.”
But he couldn’t focus on her tirade and, inevitably, was distracted by other things, watching the ooze and the ravine and the barricade of rocks. Many random facts flitted, unbidden and mostly unannounced, through his little brain. He thought of the rat, the tempting morsel flying through the air, the plop in the sludge. The sludge…
The sludge was trying to go down, but it couldn’t because of the dam.
This sludge was just like the stuff that dripped through the ceiling of his house.
All of his neighbors had sludge dripping through their ceilings as well.
The sludge was trying to go down, but it couldn’t because of the dam.
A clatter of rock distracted him. He looked up just as Slooshy threw a small rock, one that had broken loose from high on the cliff. Her aim was good, and she stood right in front of him, so the jagged missile smacked him square in the right eye.
“Ow!” he cried, clapping a hand to his face. Through his other eye, he saw the stone had continued to roll, bouncing over the uneven ground and finally landing in the sludge pond with a smacking splash.
“Stoopy humpus bluphsplunger!” she cried, kneeling to look for another missile.
Still, Gus paid her no attention. He was thinking. The stone, like the sludge, was trying to go down. That idea, for some reason, struck Gus as vaguely important. He watched the ripples from the splash disappear as the rock finally vanished beneath the scummy surface. He didn’t see Slooshy charging him until he felt the punch in his chest, which she landed with both fists. As the blow struck, his muddy boots slipped from the slick ledge he stood upon.
“Ow!” The pain came from his rump as he came down hard on the solid, slippery stone. His stubby fingers clutched for a handhold, but there was nothing to grab. Instead, he skidded off the ledge, bounced painfully off of a few boulders, and tumbled after the stone that she had flung against his face.
“Here! Grab me!” Slooshy demanded, holding out her hand. At the last moment, Gus did, and she yanked him to a stop, his feet and other hand braced against the slime-coated surfaces of the jagged rocks just above the edge of the pool.
Just like the stone, like the sludge, like everything, the gully dwarf had nearly tumbled down.
Everything goes down.
Then Slooshy let him go and squealed with delight as he did a face plant on the scummy rocks. He looked up at her, grinning in excitement.
“Everything falls!” he shouted.
The truth hit him as hard as the rock had, and he gaped at the amazing reality that was made even more obvious by the inexorable force tugging him down the slick stone surface. The girl laughed so hard, she had to sit down, even as Gus felt stunned by the universal truth of his realization. He clawed to hold his position until his nose started to itch. When he released his grip to scratch himself, his other hand lost purchase, and he skidded down
