I like to hang out in the dining room. It's between the workshops and the bedrooms, so everybody's always coming through, picking up a bite. They let the jaguars wander around, and the bear, and of course, all of the dogs and rabbits.
The next floor up is the hospital, and that's depressing. I don't have a bed, not yet, but I will someday, if I'm good. But for now, sometimes I have to sleep in the hospital, if there isn't any room in the barracks. It's kind of creepy up there. And the floor below the dining room is the depot, and I don't mind the sun, not so much, but below that are the workshops, and you have to walk that hall to get anywhere else in Workpuzzle. And that hall is really creepy. Erush says I should respect the dead, but every time I walk down that hallway, there are more coffins, and they're spreading toward the stair like something liquid, and I think someday they're going to reach the stair and keep going and just, like, spread out, and fill the entire Mythical Dimensions, flowing out across the continent until they reach the ocean and then reaching across the ocean floor.
Except everbody is up here in the dining room today, everybody except the soldiers, who Ber has gathered downstairs for something separate, and Minkot, who just put the last stone in the wall. I guess that's a big deal, so Mosus has all us gathered here for her speech, and she's just begun, shaking hands, and she was sitting on the Duke's throne, which doesn't seem right to me, but I guess we don't have a Duke anymore, and she stands up and says, "Today, The 14th of Felsite, in the year 276, we have begun a new era at Workpuzzle," when the horn blows, and everybody shuts up, and the horn blows again, and I guess the goblins are back, but it's going to be different this time, right? Because of the wall? And I squeeze Erush's hand, hard, but of course he doesn't feel it, and he just kind of sucks in his breath.
* * *
Erush Swamfloor is probably my weirdest friend. He just hangs out in the dining room. He knows everything there is to know about meat. It all just tastes like quarry bushes to me, but Erush tells me that Workpuzzle has the finest kitchen anywhere, that caravans used to come leagues out of their way for a taste of our roasts, that they'd bring us exotic meats and cheeses in the hopes that when they returned, we'd give them a taste of the dishes we had prepared with what they had brought. They would show up one year with llama cheese, and Alath, who was still cooking back then, and still alive too, before that goblin's curse came true, would say, "I had an omelette once of llama cheese, turkey hen eggs, and prepared ewe heart, and I swear, it almost made my heart stop," and the next year, the caravan would pull up into the depot with more llama cheese, and with a caged turkey hen, and sheep organs packed in ice, and Alath would give each of them a small bowl of llama cheese stew, and tell them, "I hope it curbs your appetite, it was really something of a failure on my part, a bit of valley herb is what it really needs," and the next year the caravan would be carrying bushels of valley herb.
Erush likes to watch me eat, but I never see him eat. I don't know how he eats. His left hand is twisted, atrophied, and he doesn't have a right hand. His whole body is criss-crossed with scars like a puzzle with all the pieces just mashed together. I wonder if somebody feeds him? Does he just bury his face at the table, like livestock at a trough, when no one is looking?
Once I asked Erush what he does.
"I was a butcher, when we had livestock."
"Do you mean the dogs?" I asked.
"No, we don't eat dogs. After the lifestock, I was a swordsdwarf, and a judge. It was I who ended the terrifying reign of Stakud Ceilingunions, Tyrant of the Guinea Cocks, and it was I who struck down Mato Systemthieves last year, and Stozu Dungeonearth three years ago. Didn't you know that, Vucar?"
"I was only 7 then. What do you do now? Don't you have a job? Everybody has to work."
"I'm employed as a trainer of the social skills to the children of Workpuzzle."
But none of the other kids talk to Erush. Erush barely knows how to talk. They make fun of him to his face and he doesn't even realize it.
* * *
I asked Atir about Erush once. Atir only has one hand too, and she can't walk without a crutch, but she still works. She gardens, down in the cavern. Atir was here when they Struck Earth. I asked Atir why Erush doesn't have to work once. Atir said, "Everybody has to work." That's all she would say.
It was down in the cavern where I asked her. There are walls there too, but the cavern rises high above the walls, raised in rough stone, and you can smell the underground sea to the north, and the cobwebs collect in every corner. They built those walls years ago, when the goblins came and stopped stopping, and the caravans started stopping, and the mausoleum begun to reach toward the stair, to coagulate out of the scattered coffins pushed into corners, stone beds owned by people I forgot or never knew, people that died before I was even born.
Erush isn't the only dwarf named Erush. Erush is named Erush Swamfloor, which is kind of funny, I guess, but there's also the Canyon of Seeds, who is kind of a war hero, and I guess there used to be a bunch more Erushes, and they were all swordsdwarfs, all together in one unit. Erush Girderscholar, who is the Canyon of Seeds, almost came unscrewed, and the Duke took him out of the squad and put him in the garden, which was supposed to be good for his nerves or something, and the Canyon of Seeds always tells the truth. He was down there in the garden when I asked Atir about Swamfloor, and I noticed Girderscholar listening. So I asked him later, when I snuck in early and nabbed a dorm bed next to his before most folks were done with dinner.
"Swamfloor and I were in the same unit, the Spotted Pages. When the vilers started coming-- really coming in earnest-- there was a good defense at first. Nice, tight, controlled. Bridges closed, the Moist Paints took to the towers, the colossus was shown, and Ber's dicers cleaned up after most of the siegers lost heart. We were in fine shape in those days, plenty of bolts stockpiled, fresh squads of dwarfs that had been training together for years. But there were a few goblins to the southeast of the keep that never retreated, and the Duke wanted them gone, so he sent the Pages down. We were green then, and the Duke wanted to see us tested. Erush Eastspears the Lacy Misery of Sabres earned his name leading us then, and lost it a month later, forgotten to starve, banging on the keep's walls. Erush Swamfloor earned his name too, in a way. The vilers were swamp whisky and we were just watered sunshine. We outnumbered them five to one and it's not by Shesam that any of us lived. Swamfloor was never the same. He used to be handsome, did you know that?
"They tried everything after he got out of the hospital. Duke gave him a desk job for a while. Couldn't hold a pen. You know that tower on the south of the keep, with the steep drop? Tried to get Swamfloor involved on some renovations on it, but Swamfloor was too smart for that. You ever hear of Ral Distancetown? The Poet of Bravery? Finest marksdwarf in Workpuzzle, until some viler's arrow blew through his spine, and stupid Ral, too proud for a crutch, or maybe we just never had the wood for one. Ral was the last dwarf to attempt renovations in that south tower. Swamfloor never was much with a sword, but he's smart enough to look after his own skin. You want to know why Swamfloor doesn't work? Because he knows that the second he does, there's going to be an accident. All he is around here is a mouth to feed, and that's just because he's too stubborn to let them sew it shut for him. Just watch-- bet you bolts to baubles he'll be the only one to ever leave this place."
* * *
There was supposed to be a big speech, something big culminating in raising the bridges, but with the horns, there wasn't time. Somebody ran for the levers, and Mosus tried to act like everything was fine, but you couldn't even hear what she was saying over the grinding of stone against stone.
And then it was only afterward that I really realized. That was Udib's horn that had blown, the horn of the last real champion of Workpuzzle, a finer shot than even Ral had been, some said, and leader of the Moist Paints. And we all sat there watching Mosus talk but who even knows what she was saying because all we could hear was the sound of the Paints abandoned out there, wall finished, bridges raised, and everywhere, everywhere beyond the walls, a sea of murder. Mosus was saying how it was all going to be different now, better, while I heard Udib screaming, and Ast, and Dumed, wooden crossbows splintering against iron shields, and of course that snicker-snatch, snicker-snatch, so quiet you might miss it. I guess this was what we working toward for so long. Mosus tried to look proud of herself but didn't do a very good job of it.
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Topic: Welcome to Workpuzzle! Please take a crossbow and two (2) capybara bone bolts. (Read 2143 times)