The Maid Is Not Dead

When the dungeon was opened to the public, many in the Guild feared the death toll would spiral out of hand. Thankfully, reality didn't turn out quite so badly. Human beings were not moved solely by greed, but most of us possessed also a healthy amount of cowardice. That was not an insult, generally speaking. How could the living go on living if they didn't know fear and recognize their own limits?

Amateur raiders were quick to abandon endeavors that their senses insisted were beyond them, and few dared to wander deep enough into the mountain maze to come across anything truly deadly. The first gander at the undead of Arden was generally enough for a person of standard sensibilities to review the balance of risk and reward. No promise of silver meant much if you never got to spend it.

But those who did survive their maiden battle would be slightly bolder the next day. And not everyone fought with a sword in hand. Craftier beginners sought to mitigate the risks by offering services as bag-carriers for the legitimate adventurers, or cooks, or armbearers, or map-makers, reviving many forgotten roles from the early days of the Guild. But that wasn't to say there weren't casualties. Baloria had been misrated from the beginning, after all.

Under the stony spine of the Ursus range sprawled a den of evil, where not even veterans were safe.

I couldn't claim I was above caution myself. I had to treat each trip like it was my very first one, with the appropriate wariness, with the appropriate cowardice. Your mind firmly in the present moment. Outside concerns didn't belong in this pandemonium. Thankfully, top-cass maids were well trained in mindfulness. When I donned my uniform, I would put personal affairs out of my mind, shed them metaphorically alongside the civilian garb, and so I did today as well. Or, I thought I did.

Today, there would be no going back till I found the connecting bridge at last. I was confident I was getting close, if the map and my prior observations in the field were accurate. The broad avenue I had discovered the other day was very close to the district border, and the gate had to be somewhere in its vicinity, if not at the end of it, then on the floor directly below. I had to confirm the state of the market bridge, even if it took a night or two inside the dungeon.

Why go that far?

Why was I whipping myself so, anyway?

The answer had clarified itself over the trip uphill. I was not looking for the crossing to claim the reward, that was for sure. I never intended to report the discovery through official channels to begin with. Money and fame were altogether needless for a humble maid. More trouble than they were worth. But, astonishingly, I realized returning home to the Empire was not the most pressing motivator anymore either. A cause more pressing had emerged as of late.

Not the King, not the Guild, not duty——I needed it for me.

If I brought home the discovery of the century, surely nobody would remember nor question my weird behavior as of late.

I didn't want to give any comment on that topic, as I wouldn't have known what to say.

No, it was best that the whole incident was buried and forgotten.

I could say I came across the bridge purely by chance, and hand over the map I'd sketched on the way here, as if it were indeed only the ripe fruit of diligent land survey. The Guild would respect my wish to remain anonymous. The explorers' life would be made easier, the King would be happy he didn't need to pay the bounty, and we could all go back to life the way it was before, before I had to go and make a mess of it. We could again sit and laugh at the same table and innocently ponder what to do tomorrow. As if it could last. As if those days could never come to an end.

Was I quite sane? Really, what was going on with me?

At some point or another, I had assigned the label of "home" to two entirely different locations in my head.

What was that, if not an outright treason? Yet, it couldn't be denied. A clear, undeniable conflict of interest had emerged.

No, no, no. Don't think about that. Not here. Not now.

I was down in the northwestern corner of the fourth layer of Arden and went to stand on the edge of the floor to take in the immense depths of the Vein at my feet. Every artificial thought and contrivance seemed to sink and vanish into the bottomless nothingness under the mountain and only clean, spotless black remained. Only the titanic, unfeeling, uncaring ancient oblivion of the dwarf realm. It helped put my mind at ease. Instead of terror, I felt pure gratitude for that absence of life I faced.

You couldn't behold such an overwhelming emptiness and not end up emptied yourself, removed of excess.

From somewhere below carried the loud hum of water pouring unchecked into the abysses. I made a rough sketch of the prominent landmarks visible from this position in my notebook. No trace of life or motion could be sensed anywhere in the vicinity. Then the moment of tranquility passed, and it was time to move on.

A long channel crossed the path up ahead, about ten yards long, with what looked like a warehouse area built on the opposing bank. The map suggested there was a stairway on the edge of the perimeter, beyond the warehouses, which was not meant for civilian passage. It was far apart from the main stairway, but could mayhap serve as a shortcut to the floor below. Potentially. And somewhere down there and slightly northward lay the gateway out of the undead city. Simple enough to navigate. I headed towards the brick-framed, grate-floored service bridge laid across the channel.

I was about halfway to the other side when, in my mirror image, a shadow stepped up to bar the way.

The stout, armored shape like an engraved brass bell on two strong feet, toting a heavy, two-sided axe.

"…So it's you."

The undead dwarf warlord made his appearance again after all these months.

The posthumously treacherous revenant of the old dwarven regime, turned into a recurring cast member in the tales of modern-day adventurers. Everyone who managed to reach far enough through Arden was certain to come across this bearded juggernaut sooner or later. None had been able to inflict a serious injury upon the foe, but was either chased away or else met a grisly end. Neither skills nor numbers could move him, his armor nigh impervious to mortal strength.

Among all the cards in the vile necromancer's sleeve, this one was surely the final ace.

It was an encounter I had hoped to avoid, if possible, but whether by skilled guidance, extraordinary senses, or only blind fate, it had found me again. Either I faced the dwarf for once and for all, or gave up on breaking through Baloria altogether. The choice I should take was clear with that. There was no need to ponder twice on it.

I drew my dagger and ran forth.

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Without hesitation, the dwarf warrior rose to the challenge.

Looking at the thing anew, I could only marvel at what a stellar champion it had to have been in life.

Even reduced to a lifeless husk, an automaton of dried-up flesh and fossilized bone, there was unspoken dignity in its movements. A ghost of pride. The rotten hands reproduced the rigid routine beaten into them without any typical ghoulish stiffness, or wavering. There was no heart or soul left in the technique; the technique had developed a soul of its own. A symphony composed by a genius would surely still sound like music, even when played by dead hands.

My eyes couldn't follow the dead dwarf's attacks. Every swing was a galewind of death, a surge of darkness sundering the air between us.

In terms of pure strength or bodily endurance, I was not match for this fiend. But, even at the expense of insulting my opponent, the living and the dead could never meet on an equal footing. The monster's lack of intellect and perception was its one major shortcoming. I could, by logic and observation, read its aggression and foretell what was coming, as if I could predict the future itself, and react accordingly in advance. Even a snail can catch a hare if it knows where the opponent will be and departs early enough.

The usual tricks of veteran combatants, feints, taunts, chain techniques, and such, were not found in a ghoul's arsenal. It couldn't analyze me the way I analyzed it, being only able to vaguely tell my position. Its attacks were simply bodily sequences, quotes stolen from the context, rather like a teacher's demonstration in front of the class, than a fight driven by the will to win.

Because of that—I could match it.

As formidable as the opponent was, I had a chance to win. I wasn't the same maid I was before. Since our first encounter, I had grown better adjusted to the dungeon; the alien atmosphere and strangeness of these halls no longer impeded me; this darkness no longer shrouded my eyes; this silent terror no longer froze my flesh. We could go toe-to-toe, me and this post-scriptum of calamity.

I eluded the heavy axe by a hair each time it came for me, checked it with my dagger, studying the foe's movements, seeking any vulnerability by which to undermine its foundations.

All I needed was to step close enough for my blade to reach its neck, the tiny spot between the chin and the throat guard, masked by the dusty beard. One precise thrust, deep enough to reach the spinal cord, would end it.

As of yet, there was no opening.

The warrior's defense was impeccable.

But perfection did not exist in this world. If only I persisted, a gap was bound to emerge in time.

It was within my ability to win.

I could feel it.

I could win.

I could have won.

—Had I been my usual self.

Had my mind been singularly committed to slaying the enemy in front of me and only that, nothing but that, all else firmly shut outside. As was right and proper. This was an opponent that demanded no less. But that was not me this day. Oh, of all the days we should have our fateful duel, it had to be this day. This particular Tuesday. Here and now, I only had about 15% of myself to give to the hitherto most important battle in my life. No more.

The remaining 85% was all firmly occupied by Vera.

Solely and completely Vera. Nothing but Vera from beginning to end.

Even as I had the chipped curve of the old axe in front of me, I was looking at the curve of her back. The unladylike way she moved and carried herself, telling the tale of her modest rural upbringing, the harsh life in the country. I recalled the way she showed her teeth when she smiled, bashful about her pronounced canines. Secretly ashamed of being different, but unwilling to ever apologize on it. Being different—but in all the best ways. I recalled Vera on the way to work in a misty morning, dressed in her formal shirt and skirt and necktie, handsome and dashing and so not like herself, and acutely aware of it. Vera in front of the kitchen stove, wearing her leather apron, sampling the pot on the heat, cringing to herself, mumbling oaths, thinking no one could hear or see her. Vera arguing with her little sister, looking and sounding ten years younger, having to be the parent, despite barely meeting the years, but still trying, trying so hard to emulate the one who had brought them into life but was no longer there to guide them. Vera fresh out of bath and steaming, shining, glowing, full of life, her limbs relaxed and face at ease, looking at me. Every once in a while, looking at me. Vera putting on airs. Vera acting cool. Vera with concern in her green eyes, her sharp ears drooped. And I knew then beyond doubt that I was done for.

Instead of winning, I found myself wanting to die.

It was the last thought you should have in a fight with an opponent that outclassed you in virtually every aspect. But it was out of my control.

In my heart, I was defeated before I even set foot in this burg. I didn't want to keep living with this unendurable yearning that could have no answer and led nowhere.

As if somehow sensing the disarray in me, the enemy accelerated. The two-sided axe cut suddenly swifter. My body reacted before my conscious mind. I sensed I wouldn't be able to dodge in time, so I raised my dagger hand to block. To block, not to parry. Taking on a swing of such weight directly—it was folly. It was doomed, but I'd reacted by instinct, not by logic. Since it came to this, I could only try and offset the swing, even if it cost me an arm.

My faithful service blade embraced the descending axe. Then something altogether unexpected happened.

Chik—!

With a light sound, the blade of the dagger broke off. The axe blew it clean away close to the hilt.

How?

I couldn't understand.

Despite the name of the material, weisteel was not actually metal at all, but the processed fiber of the weiss-tree. Intensely hard, yet more flexible than tempered steel. If something had to break in that situation, it should have been my arm bones, not the blade. But the order of things was all backwards.

There was only one way to explain the technical wonder: I'd misjudged my own strength.

Somewhere along the way, before I knew it, I had grown beyond the capacity of the weapon. Stuck between the two violently conflicting forces, the blade was left as the weakest link.

This error of judgment decided the bout. I was knocked off-balance by the rebound, while the enemy remained unfazed. The initial swing missed my shoulder by a hair, but left my flank wide open for the follow-up. The dwarf warrior never stumbled, never took a bad step, and never failed to guard its poise. It would keep swinging to the end of time without ever erring. Such was the essence of true mastery, which death couldn't blemish.

As I stumbled, the dwarf pivoted with no suspense and swung again.

The axe caught my shieldless side. I tried to leap back to lessen the impact, but it helped little. I ended up taking a direct hit.

My dress held. The axe blunted by centuries couldn't cut through the tartarian weave. The only reason I didn't end up in two mismatched pieces on the spot. But several ribs were shattered, my insides bearing the brunt of the murderous blast. Light as a rag, my figure was flung off and far over the railing of the bridge and into the gushing channel, the thick taste of blood filling my mouth and nostrils.

Then I was surrounded by water, rolling and spinning in the cold stream's ride. I had to swim to the bank and climb out before I would be carried off into the void, but that was a tall order for my shattered shell. Willpower alone could only take a maid so far. My body didn't respond at all. My fingers still stubbornly gripped the handle of the broken dagger, though it was now more a hindrance than help to me. The best I could was flap my free hand stiffly up and down, which hardly qualified as swimming. Seconds ran by and I was moving in no direction. Then my sad struggle lost meaning when the water expelled me through the open-end of the channel in a beautifully arcing, glittering torrent. And then I was going into the blackest of voids, its vast maw gleefully gaping and ready for me. Even then, my thoughts were mostly about Vera.