The Stoneweaver

Chapter 4: Friend

The Dungeon, Skarn soon learned, was not in total darkness. The glowing blue substance was found everywhere, smeared throughout the tunnels. The light from it lasted for days. Even better, you could eat it.

"It's not seared Phondraan bass, but it keeps your blood pumping," the man had said soon after greeting him. "Just don't ask me where it comes from."

Skarn hadn't, but the old man told him anyway. The glowing substance—called guendo—was the byproduct of the gwyrm's digestion.

In other words: gwyrm shit.

The old man had informed him of this interesting fact just as they had come upon a patch of the stuff, in the tunnel that led from Skarn's cell. But learning where it came from didn't stop Skarn from scooping gobs of it into his salivating mouth.

"There's enough water in the guendo to keep you hydrated, too. But you can also find plenty of brackish streams to drink."

The old man's name was Falf. He had been in the Dungeon for over five years. Imprisoned, he said, after he had been caught stealing from the Royal Granary.

Skarn had his doubts that Falf was telling him the truth. Whoever heard of a common thief being sentenced to the Dungeon? Unless he had suffered the same injustice as Skarn had ...

... but Falf came here five years ago. Before the Trade Minister's rise to power.

Whatever his true crime, Falf was proving to be an invaluable guide. Skarn would have been hopelessly lost without him. There were no Guards. "They stay safe behind the Iron Door, the cowards," Falf had said. The prisoners were left to themselves.

Falf was now leading Skarn to someplace called "The Cavern," a large hall where most of the prisoners made their homes. Even murderers and rapists, Falf had said, felt the need for community. A place to call home. The Cavern was the place for trade, talk, and one last thing: hatching escape plans.

"Waste of air," said Falf. "No one's escaped from the Dungeon in fifteen hundred years. There's only one way out, which is the way we come in: the Iron Door, with dozens of Guards on the other side."

No escape. Skarn couldn't accept that. But he didn't press the matter. Instead, he asked, "What do the people trade with? Rock?"

"Just wait and see," said Falf mysteriously. He didn't add anymore. But he did tell Skarn a little about life in the Cavern.

Gang leaders, who seized power and then fell from it on a monthly basis, controlled most of the trade and business in the Cavern. It was important to know who to trade with, who to appease, and who to run the hell away from, said Falf.

There was one law in the Cavern that not even the most dangerous strongman was above. While in the Cavern, everyone must cover themselves in guendo. No lurkers in the darkness permitted. Skarn's face, chest, and arms were streaked with the stuff, though it diminished a little as he continued to gorge on it.

Guendo was also used for navigation through the tunnels. Falf showed him how to read the markers: if guendo was spaced evenly on one side of a tunnel, then it led to the Cavern. "Always remember to keep the marked side on your right, and you'll eventually find a route back to civilization. Or what passes for it down here, anyway."

They stopped once so Skarn could drink greedily from a thin trickle of water. "But never drink from a standing pool, just like above," Falf warned him.

They also stopped once when Falf thought he heard the tell-tale grinding noise of a tunneling gwyrm.

"They can't see, but the bastards can smell like the hounds of Orus," whispered Falf. "It's another reason you keep plenty of guendo with you at all times. The smell of their own shit confuses the monsters."