6. Tooth and Dagger

The bored-looking clerk led the motley group through a labyrinth of dull grey corridors. The Colosseum’s interior had a musty, stale scent, as if even the air was being held prisoner down here.

Johannes and Valerios took the lead - Johannes peppering their guide with questions - while Caela checked on Lux and Rose, bringing up the rear. Lux was in surprisingly intact shape, while Rose, though limping, waved away concern.

“I’ve seen worse, believe me. And Lux’s fancy light trick fixed up my arm.”

Caela gave Lux a questioning look, to which he only mouthed, Later.

At one point, they passed an intersection in the otherwise featureless corridors. One path sloped downwards - a wide, shallow ramp down to further depths - while the clerk kept walking toward a narrow passage.

“What’s down there?” Johannes asked casually, indicating the descending path.

Theodesia barely looked. “Nothing,” she replied, stretching the last syllable out with theatrical indifference.

Valerios leaned down from on high to come ear-to-ear with her. “Not even the animals? Fearsome beasts that can’t manage stairs, or tiny passages such as this one?” For his part, he was already having to duck through doorways.

“No,” Theodesia insisted, adding enough ‘o’s to the word to make even the least observant person suspicious.

“Anyway,” she continued hurriedly, “this door ahead is the prisoners’ quarters.” She halted before a thick door, banded with iron, and produced a heavy key from an overburdened keyring. The lock clicked open with a metallic groan.

Beyond was a long, dim hallway. Dozens of people were shackled to weighty chains bolted into the floor. The only privacy afforded to them was behind a stone partition that stank like a chamber-pot. The prisoners came in all shapes, sizes and ages, but they all shared an air of bedraggled defeat.

All except one.

At the far end of the corridor, the masked fighter they’d seen earlier sat patiently in their manacles. They waited, still as a statue, as far from the other prisoners as possible. It was hard to tell who was staying away from whom.

Johannes turned to their guide. “Thank you. We would now like some privacy while we peruse, if you please.”

The clerk scrunched up her round face. “You’re not allowed to be down here unsupervised.”

Johannes smiled indulgently, drawing a small leather pouch from his inner pocket. “Quite right. But here is a hundred pieces’ worth of gold dust.”

The clerk snatched the small bag, inspecting its contents suspiciously, then tossed him the keys.

“Leave them outside when you’re done.” With that, she departed in a swish of her robes.

Valerios raised a bushy eyebrow. “Coin solves a lot of problems here, it seems. I’m impressed. I did not take wizards for the wealthy types.”

Johannes nodded sadly. “Indeed, there’s a good reason why we alchemists aren’t the richest people on the continent. You see, it’s a problem with gold - it’s very etherically expensive, and therefore the mass-value-time ratio - I call it the Tyrol Ratio - is very large.”

He looked at his baffled audience, and his reminiscent smile turned to embarrassment.

“So we’d best hurry - because in about an hour’s time, that clerk is going to open the bag and find a handful of sand.”

–

The group sprang into action, scouring the nearby corridors for any traces of the animals that Mene had mentioned. It didn’t take long before Lux and Valerios returned with troubling news.

“I was correct,” the big man announced, twisting his moustache, “but there is a problem. At the bottom of that slope is a steel door. Not even I could break through without an army of builders, and I am yet to acquire one of those.”

“I could open it.”

For a moment, the newly-formed party stared at each other, trying to figure out which of them had spoken. Feeling eyes on her back, Caela turned. Behind her, the cloaked prisoner sat, head tilted.

“Did you say that?” Caela asked.

The prisoner nodded, their face unreadable behind the serene expression on their mask.

Caela approached, noting the poorly-veiled curiosity of the other prisoners. They cringed as she entered arm’s reach of the incognito figure, but Caela knelt down beside them without fear. The mask turned slightly, just enough to regard her from the corner of its blank gaze.

“They’re afraid of me.” The voice was an indeterminate rasp, a permanent stage-whisper. “They think I’ll do something to you so I can escape. I killed one of them today.”

Caela studied them. It was true that they looked the part of the shadowy killer. Their hood and mask covered every identifying feature. Even the eyeholes were shrouded in fabric, so she found herself staring into expressionless black voids.

“That’s okay,” she murmured. “You’re all forced to fight. I’m guessing they kill anyone who refuses.”

Her eyes dropped to the rusted chain that linked the figure to a ring on the floor. Without thinking, she reached out to touch the chain, gauging its strength.

“I saw you fight. You finished it quickly. You didn’t want to play with them for the master’s entertainment.”

Slowly, the mask nodded. Caela offered a faint, sympathetic smile.

“You called out to us because you want to help open the door. In exchange for your freedom.”

Another nod. Then, cautiously:

“You don’t know that I won’t run once I’m free.”

Caela tilted her head.

“Please don’t?” she offered.

There was a pause. The mask appraised her for a second, before nodding once again.

“Okay.”

Caela leaned in to inspect the manacles - only for the figure to rise in one fluid motion. She jolted back despite herself, but the stranger simply twisted their hands, which popped out of the metal rings as easily as slipping off a bracelet. They massaged their wrists, then looked innocently up at their would-be rescuer. Caela realised that they really were small - shorter and slighter even than her.

They rattled the empty handcuffs casually. “These cheap bracelets were never the problem. It’s the guards on the way out that I couldn’t handle alone.” There was a touch of bitterness in their voice.

Caela touched her cheek in brief amazement. “What are you, an escape artist? Did you get put in here for sneaking into places you shouldn’t have?”

The cloaked figure cracked their knuckles.

“Something like that.” They hesitated. “It doesn’t matter. But you can call me Hellebore.”

—

By the time Caela reached the door, Hellebore trailing quietly at her heels, the others had been struggling with it for a good few minutes. Lux, Rose and Valerios were straining against the heavy door like a team of oxen. Their teamster, Johannes, was content to inspect the surrounding steel wall with some interest.

“Perhaps I could transmute this steel to a baser material, like stone,” he mused.

“How,” Lux gasped, feet trying to find grip on the tunnel floor, “would that help?”

“It wouldn’t, I imagine.” Johannes chuckled to himself. At the sound of approaching footsteps, he turned, brow furrowing as he took in her cloaked shadow. “Caela, someone appears to be following you.”

The others stopped fighting the door and turned to look, all wearing various levels of confusion as Caela ushered her new friend forward.

“This is Hellebore! They said they could help us open the lock.”

There was an awkward pause. Valerios tightened his grip on the hilt of his nearest sword. Rose looked bemused. Only Lux offered an automatically polite, “Hey, Hellebore.”

Hellebore’s mask tilted slightly, taking in the doubtful faces with a glance, then ignored them entirely, heading straight for the keyhole. They crouched a little to squint into its mechanisms, gloved fingers tapping thoughtfully on the metal.

Speaking more to the lock than the people behind them, Hellebore offered their prognosis.

“The bolt’s solid, but the mechanism’s child’s play. I’ll need something thin and strong. Wire, maybe.”

The group exchanged glances, patting their pockets, until Hellebore glanced over their shoulder and pointed directly at Johannes.

“Your spectacles.”

Johannes shrugged and handed them over, squinting without them.

Hellebore turned the frames in their hands, considering, then nodded. “I’ll need to break them,” they announced.

Caela considered that sometimes it was better to seek forgiveness than permission - though Hellebore didn’t seem to be asking for either. Nevertheless, Johannes looked quietly pleased with himself.

“By all means. It is a trivial repair job.”

With a purposeful twist, Hellebore snapped two lengths of metal from the spectacles and set to work. Caela leaned in to see how they were doing it, but all she could catch was the occasional flash of silver. In less than a minute, they muttered, “Got it.” They heaved on their tools, the lock producing a very promising clunk.

Hellebore straightened up, dropping the remains of Johannes’ glasses in his waiting hand. He inspected the fragments, clicked his tongue, and then pinched two broken edges together. With the other hand, he retrieved a palm-sized crystal orb, holding it aloft as he spoke a few words in a language that was alien to Caela.

When he let go, the break had vanished. The metal was smooth again, barely scratched.

In a moment, all damage was repaired. Johannes replaced his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, smiling proudly at the onlookers.

“Trivial, as I said. Come, let us go.”

With a firm push from Valerios, the unlocked door swung open, and the investigators pressed on.

It grew darker as they descended, the corridors clearly less well maintained. The air was clammy and cool against their skin, thick with a smell Caela couldn’t quite identify - a mix of rot and something strangely chemical. Every sound they made echoed back at them from the bare stone walls.

“Quiet!” hissed Hellebore, the second time one of Valerios’ spears scraped against the stone with a horrible screech. The big man grumbled, but Caela saw him hunch a little more, taking careful effort to place his feet down more quietly.

The winding slope led them further and further underground, until it abruptly levelled out. The corridor opened into a wide, low room, which appeared to be some kind of workshop. Most of the floor space was occupied by tables laden with glassware, scientific tools, and pungent ingredients. The centrepiece was a large metal slab, on which lay a huge furry shape. A giant wolf, completely immobile.

Despite its impressive size - it must have come up to Valerios’ shoulder - the beast still managed to look mangy and pathetic, covered as in patches of furless skin. Caela’s heart broke to see its plight. Another creature of the wild, warped and corrupted.

She noticed a bundle of tendril-like pipes hanging from the ceiling, disappearing into the wolf’s folded mass. She traced the snaking tubes back to some kind of hub, a mess of valves and plumbing fittings. The tubes re-emerged, ending up at a giant wooden crate shoved into the corner. Its robust surface was stencilled with red paint in an unrecognisable, spiky script. Caela couldn’t imagine how hard it had been to squeeze the box down here, even with the widened path they had taken.

They had barely taken a step into the workshop when a door on the far side opened, and a trio of tiny figures ambled out, mid-conversation. Their lime-green robes contrasted greatly with the heavy leather gloves, aprons and mesh-visor helmets that they wore. Caela judged them to be gnomes from their stature, but couldn’t make out anything else under this bizarre uniform.

As soon as the door had cracked open, she had naturally ducked behind a nearby barrel, gratified to see that Rose had dived under a table and Hellebore had similarly vanished into their own hiding place. Unfortunately, that had been the limit of the group’s stealth instincts.

The lime-green trio stared, startled, at Johannes, Valerios and Lux.

There was a moment of unbearable silence.

Then, one of the robed figures screeched. “Intruders!”

Immediately, all three ‘intruders’ began yelling conflicting exclamations. Their explanations or threats came too slow as the two other gnomes took up the alarm, scuttling behind some benches at the back of the room, tipping them over for cover.

The first gnome ran over to the hub of pipework and heaved on a valve, the pipes gurgling terribly as they filled with liquid. They rattled and shook, and in turn the body of the wolf began to shake too. It spasmed violently, then crawled to its feet, slow but inexorable. One scabbed paw tugged against the pipes attached to its underbelly, ripping them free. Each one was tipped with an enormous brass needle that flicked droplets of a pink jelly as they swung away.

The cries of the gnomes were finally drowned out by a piercing howl from the wolf-thing, full of ear-splitting harmonics. The beast opened its long jaws to reveal a second set of teeth gnashing inside, flecked with saliva and more pink goo. It took a heavy step off the slab.

Caela tore her gaze from the slavering monster at a sound behind her. Johannes had clicked his fingers, producing a wisp of flame that danced on his fingertip. Methodically, the wizard lit his pipe and took a deep drag. Then, his eyes widened as the flame ballooned in size and he hurled it into the room.

BOOM.

A wave of heat blasted across them. The explosion sent tables and glassware flying. Both sides began flipping tables to use as cover, reeling from the shockwave.

“Damn it, wizard, are you trying to kill us all?” Rose panted, turning back to them.

While his back was turned, a stormy mass burst forth from the clearing dust, ramming into Rose and driving him back to the floor. It was the wolf - or at least, the front of the wolf.

Caela’s gaze travelled from its crocodile muzzle back down its impossibly long torso, which had unwound like a spring when the beast lunged. Now, it seemed to stretch at least forty feet between each set of mangy legs. Rose roared in pain as the wolf’s claws raked across his bare belly, pushing its snapping muzzle away from his head with all his strength. Globs of hot spittle fell onto his face, which was rapidly turning a strained red.

Caela ducked just in time as something went whizzing overhead. It smashed on the wall behind her with a crunch of glass, leaving a sizzling stain that bubbled into the stonework.

“Oh dear,” came a low voice at her side. Johannes had his back against the same table, glasses askew but pipe still clenched in his teeth. “They seem to be throwing acid.”

He clicked his fingers, producing little blue sparks. “And that opening salvo was rather taxing on my reserves.”

Caela cocked her head at him, already unslinging her bow from her shoulder. “Do you have enough to keep them distracted?”

Johannes pushed his lopsided spectacles back up to the bridge of his nose. They glinted in the eerie light as he nodded.

“Trivial, my dear.”

His palm filled with azure sparks, like a handful of flitting butterflies. He closed his fist around them and twisted to hurl them over the table. The sparks ignited into a shower of tiny cracking fireworks.

Caela sprang up, bow drawn and ready. Steadying herself on the rim of the barricade, she let off a hail of arrows towards the cowering alchemists.

Somewhere beneath the hail of arrows and thrown bottles, Lux heaved on a gauntlet sticking out of the rubble. Feeling his muscles strain with the effort, he levered Valerios back onto his feet. The larger man rocked forwards, nearly bowling him over. Underneath dust-bleached eyebrows, Valerios’ eyes were glazed, and he had to put one hand on a buckling table for support. Lux looked up at him, concerned.

Like a slip of shadow, the masked fighter Hellebore serpentined through the chaos towards them. Their porcelain mask as impassive as ever, they reached a soft-gloved hand towards Valerios. Their quick fingers glided over the forest of blades strapped to his back, deftly extracting a relatively normal-sized dagger. Lux felt a flash of uncertainty, remembering what they’d done to the man in the arena, but Hellebore spared him only the briefest of glances.

“Your friend’s been knocked into next week,” they rasped. “Don’t expect any help from him.” Dagger in hand, they vanished back into the maze of debris.

Right. Or from you, either.

Lux put his back to Valerios’ bulk, feeling the reassuring warmth of Candlelight coat his sword as he turned his attention to the man pinned beneath the wolf’s paws. Rose was still struggling to escape, teeth the size of carving knives gnashing inches from his throat.

Lux stepped forward, flashing blade held aloft. “Here, boy!” he yelled, but the beast spared him no more attention than Hellebore had. Its yellowed eyes, maddened with rage or hunger, didn’t even look his way.

“I guess no one taught you to heel,” Lux growled.

Candlelight flared as he slashed at the beast’s hind leg, which buckled with a horrific sizzle of burned flesh. Snarling, the beast finally turned from Rose, leaving him gasping on the floor as it lunged for Lux. He sidestepped back, slipping on the half-burnt parchment littering the floor, then charged forward again. He swung wildly, each strike scattering a spray of glowing sparks, but the snakelike torso slipped away from each impact. It was impossibly fluid and agile, boneless as a reed.

The wolf-thing reared back like a cobra, twisting up until its head grazed the ceiling. Saliva dripped from its slavering jaws. Then it descended like a meteor, crashing into Lux’s shield again and again, whipping back elastically each time he tried to retaliate.

Just as he was beginning to think it was hopeless, a sound rang out, sonorous and deafening. It seemed to resonate through the room, through his very bones.

Caela, still raining down an overhead barrage, shot a flask clean out of the air. This was not a use she’d expected to find for her grandfather’s hunting lessons. As the flask’s contents rained on the screeching alchemists, she turned to pinpoint the source of the noise.

It was Valerios, and he was armed. A thick-bladed scimitar hung from a silver chain, looped in his gauntleted hands. The blade glinted in the dim room as if a dozen sunbeams converged upon it. The chain vibrated restlessly, as if it was ready to leap into action of its own accord. Somehow, the jingling sounded like a million bells.

“In the Kingdom of Valerios,” he intoned, with the weight of a preacher, “We give unto others more than they give you. If they give charity, give back more. If they give terror, give back more.“

He began to swing the blade like a pendulum, in wider and wider arcs.

“Are its strikes too swift, boy?” he asked Lux, who stood dumbfounded. “Then we will make its end swifter.”

Valerios heaved on the swinging blade, whipping it around his body in buzzing silver arcs. Every scything rotation sent another glassy peal into the room. He strode forwards, in the eye of a metal storm, towards the wolf creature.

It snapped at him, but recoiled as its snout was stung by the blurred blade. The mangy torso stretched away, backing up against the wall, but Valerios’ advance didn’t falter. When the beast could retreat no further, it screeched in pain as the blade slashed into its flesh, tearing its body to ribbons. The sound was awful - not like a wolf, or any natural creature. A death cry forced through a throat distorted beyond recognition.

Caela squeezed her eyes closed until it was all over.

The room fell silent. In the stillness, the survivors climbed to their feet, checked over their injuries. Valerios’ eyes flashed triumphantly, despite the blood trickling from his hairline. Lux supported Rose, whose shredded chest was already a web of healing Candlelight.

Rose looked around, counting heads. “Where’s our ex-con?” he asked weakly, mustering a smile.

“Don’t call me that,” came the terse reply. Hellebore pulled their dagger from the last alchemist, wiping it on the lurid green robes before handing it back to Valerios without a word.

Johannes was inspecting the dead wolf. “Fascinating,” he declared, far too chipper for the sombre mood. “Are these the sorts of altered monstrosities you’ve been hunting? The morphogenic changes are staggering. I wonder how…”

Not quite ready to hear the scientific analysis just yet, Caela left him to it, turning to Hellebore, who had popped up by her elbow as silently as before. “Wait, that’s right - what are you going to do now? After we all get out, I mean. Do you have friends or family you can… I don’t know, hide out with?” She wasn’t sure how these things worked, for mysterious criminals

The mask made Hellebore’s face as unreadable as their tone. “I don’t have family. And I don’t need friends.”

“Oh,” sighed Caela, filled with unexpected pity. “That’s sad.” Hellebore seemed able to look after themselves, but it had to be hard, all alone. Impulsively, she smiled down at them. “Would you like to stay with us?”

Cutting off whatever Hellebore’s response might have been, Lux put one hand up.

“Now, hold your horses,” he said warily. “We don’t know why this person was in prison. We don’t even know what they look like. Could be a famous criminal - a murderer, even.”

Hellebore snorted derisively. “Criminals only get famous when they get caught. You never hear about the most successful ones. Kind of the point.” They shrugged. “Anyway, I was a thief.”

“Couldn’t have guessed,” Valerios muttered, still holding his briefly-borrowed dagger.

Hellebore seemed unapologetic. “Not just sidearms. High-value takes - nobles, merchants mostly. It’s a living.”

Rose chuckled. “Until the law catches up.”

Hellebore didn’t dignify that with a response, their attention still focused on Caela. “But you’ve seen I’m good at it.” Despite their detached tone, she thought she could hear an edge of desperation. “So if this is some job you’re doing, I wouldn’t mind being hired on.”

Caela glanced up at Lux, who was clearly not convinced. “Still, Caela, meanin’ no disrespect, but we can’t keep adopting folks like stray dogs.”

“You didn’t seem to mind.” The remark slipped out before she could help it.

Lux’s eyes widened, blindsided, as Valerios let out a bellowing chortle. Rose doubled over, partly from the pain the laugh caused him.

“She got you there, mate,” he wheezed painfully. “Same goes for me and that wizard-” He looked up. “Wait, now the old man’s run off.”

Caela looked around, surprised, and saw that Johannes had stopped mumbling to himself. Now he stood in front of the tall, crimson-stencilled crate. As she watched, he slowly raised his hand, pressing a palm against its surface. Sliding along the splintery wood, his wrinkled fingers stretched towards a seam…

“Stop!”

Johannes looked down at the elf wrapped around his midsection. Her tackle, with all the meagre strength she could muster, had moved him about an inch away from the box, but the end result seemed more like a child excited to greet their elderly grandparent. Bemused, he patted her coal-black hair as she detached herself.

“Hello there, Caela. My apologies - I was trying to decipher these markings, and found myself a little… absorbed… by this box.” He looked up at the box again, then frowned, fiddling with one of his shirt buttons. He turned to the others, for once seeming highly focused on the present.

“I think we should all stay well away from this box,” he said, seriously.

They gladly took his advice, retreating to the far door, where the alchemists had originally appeared from.

Lux poked his head inside. “It’s messier than a halfling hen night in here,” he called. “I think they were burning documents in a big vat of acid. There’s a cage… hey! There’s something inside.”

All six investigators rushed to enter the tiny office. Caela squeezed between pectorals and pauldrons to reach the front. The noxious-smelling, windowless room was indeed home to several desks, a bubbling cauldron and fragments of half-burned paper. Under one desk, however, was a piece of sackcloth, partially covering the bars of a cage.

Caela twitched the cloth aside, peering in. The cage’s occupant huddled in the far corner.

“It’s another wolf!”

Her companions immediately moved towards the door.

“No, no, it looks normal,” she reassured them, opening the cage latch. The creature didn’t move, still pressed cautiously against the bars. Giving it space, she crouched down and held out a hand, holding a hastily-retrieved strip of squashed bacon.

“You must be hungry,” she said softly, as the skinny canine nosed forwards, hunger overcoming fear. “Poor thing. I bet they were going to experiment on you next.” Tentatively reaching out, she risked a pat of its dull fur.

She gazed into its mournful eyes. “Was that your pack-mate, out there?”

Somehow, she knew she was right. She allowed the hungry wolf to nibble the food out of her hand, its teeth gentle despite being sharp enough to take off her hand. Smiling, she ruffled its mane.

“It’s okay. You can come with us!”

She glanced back at Lux, who seemed to have accepted his fate.

“At least they didn’t do anything horrible to you, boy. You seem normal.”

With the bacon treat devoured, the wolf panted, two tongues lolling out past its yellow teeth.

“…Close enough.”

7. Schoolin' >>