Chapter 1
A great many things had happened in the seasons since the wandering tribe of Bulp came to This Place. There were a great many things that no one really understood, things that were mostly unpleasant and invariably confusing.
Other Aghar had been in this place then, but as slaves, tormented and abused by horrible creatures beyond anyone’s understanding. Misery and death had lurked everywhere in the Promised Place, and the newly-arrived followers of the Highbulp Glitch I, Lord Protector of Anyplace He Happened to Be, had spent a long and miserable time hiding in holes and cracks that even the other gully dwarves of This Place had not found.
It was a time of torment, and of fear, and some had been lost. Then other kinds of people had come and gone. There had been several kinds of humans, whom the Aghar thought of as “Talls,” and various other large animals, creatures and unthinkables. The stink of magic and the clamor of battle had filled This Place and always there were the ugly things that had lizard faces, dry, crackly voices and seemed determined to do harm to every creature they encountered.
People and things had come to the place some called Xak Tsaroth. They had come, they had fought, and then they had gone away, and the Aghar-the wandering tribe of Bulp and many others who had happened to join them- had suffered through it all the only way they knew how. They hid, cringed and lurked in the darkest places. They fled in panic when they could, and groveled when all else failed, and waited for the turmoil of war to recede from This Place.
Some other clans-those that had already been there when the Highbulp Glitch I led his people in tumultuous descent into the place long seasons before-had fled the Pitt entirely. Many of those who fled eventually returned, though fewer in number and more confused by what was going on outside of Xak Tsaroth than by what was going on inside.
Things happened everywhere that defied Aghar understanding.
Whatever it had all been about, though, it seemed to be over now. Some parts of the Pitt were still littered with fallen weapons, mummifying corpses of various kinds and the odd heaps of dust that had once been the ugly lizard-things. With the return of some normalcy, Glitch I had taken it upon himself-since nobody else seemed to care one way or another-to declare himself Highbulp of all survivors, ruler and lord protector of all the miscellaneous clans.
It didn’t matter much to anyone else. Any High-whatsit was of little practical use to the Aghar-whom others called gully dwarves-and was generally a nuisance. But somebody had to be the High-whatever, and as long as
How long had it been since the invasions and the fighting had ended? No one knew for sure, except that it was before yesterday, which put it into the distant past along with other things not worth remembering. So most of them had put it out of their minds and gone back to the pressing tasks of today-foraging, scrounging, keeping the stew pot going and now and then considering ways to keep the Highbulp from becoming grumpy.
At the moment, that involved coming up with a throne for him to sit on.
Somewhere along the way, Glitch had gotten the idea that he was a great and majestic personage. He had once had a personal dragon-according to him-and had led his people to the Promised Place, which was now This Place. He was therefore a legend, at least in his own mind, and was becoming a real nuisance about it.
He had already changed his regal designation from “Glitch the First” to “Glitch the Most, Highbulp by Persuasion and Lord Protector of This Place and Everyplace Else that Mattered.” And that was only the beginning.
He had demanded attention, which he sometimes received if he shouted loud enough. He had demanded a crown, to the point that some of them finally made one for him. He had demanded a personal flag, which he didn’t yet have, and now he was demanding a soft chair. Great rulers of mighty nations sat on soft chairs, he reasoned. Therefore he should sit on a soft chair.
Now that things were quiet again, and he had nothing else to think about, Glitch had become obsessed with the idea of a special place to sit. He complained constantly, every time he decided to sit down.
“Rocks!” he would grumble. “Alla time sit on rocks.
He had become such a nuisance about it that even the Grand Notioner, old Gandy with his mop handle staff, had lost patience. “Why don’t Highbulp go find sand dump an’ sit on it?” he confronted his liege. “Ever’body tired of hearin’ you gripe.”
“Highbulp need th … thro … sof’ chair!” Glitch snapped at his chief counselor, his eyes slitted and his crown of rat’s teeth aslant. “Kings got thro … thr … those things. Highbulp good as kings. Who else ever had personal dragon? Highbulp want a whatsit … a
“Highbulp wouldn’ know throne if he saw one,” Gandy pointed out.
The Lord High Protector of Everybody in This Place glared at him. “Would, too. Throne sof’ chair. Highbulp need sof’ chair.”
“Rats,” Gandy muttered, turning away.
“What?”
“Rats. Stew pot runnin’ low. Need rats an’ stuff. Got no time for Highbulp now. Everybody busy with own rat killin’.” Gandy turned and stomped away, muttering to himself. “One thing then ’nother. Want new name. Got new name. Want crown. Got crown. Now want throne. Highbulp a real nuisance.”
A hunting expedition had just returned from somewhere. A dozen or so Gully Dwarves carried bundles of whitish roots, some unidentifiable greens, a clutch of freshly-bashed subterranean snails and other odds and ends they had found. All the edible forage was dumped into stew pots, the rest tossed aside for later inspection. At one of the stew pots, Gandy noticed, the Lady Bruze was examining the contents with a frown. “Too much snail,” she muttered. “Need more rat. An’ mushroom. Need mushroom.”
She searched about for her husband, a sturdy gully dwarf called Clout who was considered Chief Basher for the clan. Finally she found him, sound asleep in the shadows, cradling his bashing tool in his arms.
She went to him, stood over him for a moment, frowning, then kicked him in the ribs. “Clout wake up,” she demanded.
Abruptly awake and confused, Clout sat up, flailing about him with his bashing tool. Bruze dodged the swinging stick, got behind him and kicked him again. “Clout!” she snapped. “Wake up! Clout a sleepy lout. Wake up! Go find fresh rats for stew.”
Clout rubbed his eyes, yawned and got to his feet. “Yes, dear,” he said. With a longing glance at his sleeping place, he padded off toward the dark caverns where the best rats were usually found.
Gandy had watched with interest. Now he leaned thoughtfully on his mop handle and muttered, “Sof’ chair not what Highbulp need. Wife what Highbulp need. Somebody keep him in line.”
However, he did spread the word again. “Anybody find sof’ chair, bring it back for Highbulp. Might shut him up for a while.”
And those who heard told others. “Some clown gripin’ ’bout need sof’ chair. Anybody see a sof’ chair anyplace?”
“Nope,” most said. “For who?” some asked.
“For what’s-’is-name. Th’ Highbulp. He want sof’ chair.”
“Why?”
“Dunno.”
Most of them promptly forgot all about it. The whims and notions of High-whatevers were rarely worth
