Page 83 of The Dungeon Book

“Hurtful,” I said. “But not as hurtful as when—”

“We parted on such poor terms—”

“—you threw me into a pit—”

“—that I feel I should somehow make amends—”

“—after murdering me!”

“—recompense, even.”

“Go on,” I said.

“It is good to be the king,” he said, “but better to be the power behind the king. I do what I please, unbound by any law or custom. My knowledge of the Art has grown a hundredfold since we parted, Cornelius. I shaped the affairs of nations. I have taken my revenge on all those who opposed me. Taken my pleasures, too. We set out to find our fortunes, only I succeeded. Now I want to share a portion of that victory with you.”

“Out of the goodness of your heart? I think not.”

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because I know you.”

Orphir swirled his wine, then knocked back half the glass. “I need your help. Just for a while. I can’t fight this damned rebellion when I’m being called to change Arus’ bloody bedpan or mop his fevered brow every five minutes to keep the old coot alive, and I can’t tend to him while I’m needed to oversee the clearing of the Dungeon, and I can’t make use of the magic gleaned from the Dungeon to put down the rebels because I’m too busy keeping the army from collapsing, and so on and so on. No problem is intractable in itself, but I cannot solve one while distracted by the rest. I need . . . what did you once call me? A Grand Vizier. A Deputy Chancellor. An assistant.”

“You have a whole institute full of acolytes.”

“Acolytes and apprentices, yes. But none I can rely on. None who have the long experience and comity of old colleagues. We were comrades once, Cornelius. There’s no one else worthy of my trust.”

“You mean, you don’t dare let any of them look behind the curtain, and see that you’re not the great and powerful archmage. You want me because I already know what you are.”

His voice grew cold.

“You do not know me as well as you think.” He spat a gobbet of phlegm and wine onto my bony bonce, then took a pouch from his pocket. Ground-up dragon bone. Magic radiated from it like heat from a fire. It was power and wonder and mystery in a handful of dust.

He muttered an incantation.

I took back everything I ever said about his skills at sorcery.

Flesh sprouted on my skull like fast-growing moss. A thousand tiny tendrils burrowed into the bone. It tickled as it went, a wave of aliveness washing over my pate. It was a sensation beyond anything humans are equipped to experience. A torrent of muscles and sinews took root in my jaw, and suddenly I had a tongue again, and taste! Light blasted me as eyes grew like pearls in the hollow of my sockets, and mercifully eyelids followed shortly thereafter.

Bones! More bones! Vertebrae, one two three and more. Ribs, how delightful! The hint of a flashed scapula, like a striptease that went much too far only in reverse. Lungs! I am a man who knows what lungs feel like when they fill for the first time. Babies wail when they’re born – I laughed with joy.

I was undeniably grotesque. Still limbless, so I must have resembled a potted plant drenched in blood and giblets, topped with a face that looked like a butcher’s child had been allowed to play with the leftovers. I was not a pleasant sight, but I felt absolutely, transcendently wonderful. I was alive again!

Orphir stopped chanting.

The spell paused. I was unfinished, no more than a half-formed torso and a dizzied head, but alive! I had unsightly gaping wounds where my limbs should go, not to mention my unplumbed fundaments, but magic elided over such mundane issues for now. I was alive!

I took my first proper breath, opened my new mouth, rolled my very first words around my old familiar teeth.

“My old friend,” I said with more enthusiasm than I expected.

Orphir speared a grape on his fork and popped it into my mouth. It was delight on my tongue.

More, I begged him, and he offered me slivers of everything on the table. A bit of carrot nearly broke my mind; it was a mountain of flavours and textures so vast that consuming it was all-consuming. I could divide my existence not into my life, death and rebirth, not by years or decades, but by Before Carrot and After Carrot. That carrot was ruinous with joy, but more was to come. A scrap of meat! A scrap of meat was salt and fire and red life-craving. In tasting it, I ran with every wolf pack in the wide world, with every fanged Denizen in the Dungeon dark.

Water! Ah! Water was joy itself.

“Better than Dungeon dust,” said Orphir, refilling his wine glass. “I will not say we were foolish when we went in search of lost magic, but magic alone will not slake a man’s thirst. In our folly we missed the second half of the formula – turning magic into profit.”