I submitted this for a short story contest back in 2013, featuring my dwarven engineer, Toigan Strongstrata. It's called "The Lute." Enjoy.
"The Lute"
A sound of lute strings. A song played through the halls.
It was strange, Toigan thought, how such little things could trigger such powerful memories. He was sitting at an unused desk in the Engineer quarters at the Auxiliary HQ, writing a stupefyingly dry report when the noise in the outer hall jarred him to another place. The words on the paper, the desk, the ethereal hum of the Machine within the walls, these all fell away in his mind's eye, replaced with the calming sight of dim halls and stone walls.
It was two months ago. He was home, at Ironspike Hall, deep in the forested Silver Marches, far from Sanctuary.
He should have felt comforted by this, but he felt an anxiety like a bird fluttering endlessly in his stout chest - for this was one of the last days of Ironspike Hall's centuries long existence, an entire history carved in stone, about to be snuffed out in an avalanche of screams and blood.
Toigan sweated and toiled in the entrance hall, constructing a trap, surrounded by dwarves engaged in similar efforts - barricade building, adjusting ballista sights, sharpening war axes, grunting out exasperated commands to those too inexperienced or too old to work competently.
The apocalypse - no one referred to it as such in the Hall, for it was naively considered an apocalypse for the surface only; the dwarves would persevere below ground, as they always had - had come a month past, snuffing out the sun and robbing the minds of millions across the realm in a flood of aberrant hordes and their alien masters. And Ironspike Hall held fast, weathering an army of thralls at their gates.
First they collapsed the entrance hall - and the thralls tunneled through. Then they fought the thralls for two days - and lost too many stout warriors, far too many, despite killing hundreds of mindless slaves. Finally, the dwarves went on the defensive, constructing barricades and traps in the front hall to frustrate and stave off the advance.
But they kept coming. Every day, whittling the dwarves down. A few stouts here, some broken barricades there. And always springing Toigan's traps. He felt a smidgen of pride at finally being indispensable. As his father had, he built the traps most of his life, tinkering with wires and springs, pressure plates, false floors, wooden spikes, all meant to dissuade the odd, goblin raid. And the goblins never raided like they used to, leaving Toigan to tinker in his little hovel, unneeded.
The end of the world was almost worth the looks of gratitude, the accolades he got every time a few more thralls were crushed in his traps. He never felt more vital than now, so sharp and aware, so confident!
But it had to end, of course. Toigan became hideously aware of his newly returned worthlessness very quietly, with little fuss. It came, as he sat crouched in front of the last trap he would ever make for Ironspike Hall, as a simple realization.
He had no more wire. False floor? That worked fine - it was made of sheet rock and would collapse into a pit easy as you please once the mechanism was triggered. Hells, that part hadn't been easy, it had involved a day of backbreaking labor actually, but he hadn't needed any stupid special materials for it.
He had needed nothing special except, of course, the bloody wire for the tripping mechanism. No more pressure plates - those had been used up, crushed long ago. And they had no more wire - he had to keep borrowing spools of the stuff from other stouts during the past month, which they gave gladly, until they had no more to give.
He sat there, paralyzed with the enormity of it all, meekly wondering about alternatives until he heard footsteps behind him.
"Toigan? You deaf?" It was Vorlok - a friendly stonecutter until the End came. He wasn't so friendly anymore - a lot of stouts didn't really have a reason to be.
"Yeah," he muttered. "I mean, no, no, sorry. Just, uh, dealing with a problem here."
"Moradin's beard, what're you doing this close to the entrance?" Vorlok stepped up and sniffed the air, scowling. Toigan couldn't really see his expression all that well in the darkness, but Vorlok usually scowled these days, so he figured that was a safe assumption.
"I'm trapping it," he said tightly. "Thralls haven't attacked in a while, so I'm getting ready."
"More like tempting fate. Take a break with me. Dolasa's about to strum on her lute."
"I'd rather get this done first." He shifted back to stare at the mostly done trap. All it needed was wire - and a thrall to trip it, upending him and whoever else was around into a spiked pit. The sound they'd make… the looks of adoration from the warriors…
"Looks done to me," Vorlok declared. "All's it needs is a bit of wire, looks like."
"I'm sorry, who's the bloody professional here?" Toigan snapped.
"Ho, ho, ho, listen to this, he's a professional." Vorlok sighed. "And snapping on a bit of wire takes, what, a minute or two? C'mon back and listen to some bloody music. Get over yourself, eh?"
He rubbed his hands together as if washing them of the conversation, turning and walking back down the torch laden corridor, leaving Toigan to contemplate the useless trap for another moment before he rose to his feet.
Vorlok was right, in a way. A bit of relaxing music, maybe a shot or ten (unlikely - it was being rationed rather draconianly) of ale, and he'd figure this out. Maybe someone there would have spare wire.
Maybe.
---
Dolasa Brewsong was a venerable old bardess before the End - she'd traveled the realms, gone from Cormyr to Amn and back twice with little but a knife in her boot and a tune on her lute ready to get her out of the worst of situations. She used to sing before her voice gave out some years ago.
Toigan would have loved to hear that voice of hers - a few of the older stouts said it could charm the breeches right off of most menfolk. But it hardly mattered - the strumming was the best part of her songs, her fingers unaffected by age, willing as ever to dance about the strings and produce the most moving of sounds.
He sat down in the Hall antechamber with a horde of other dwarves who were given five minutes of recess every few hours to mingle and listen to Dolasa's music - she sat in the middle of her audience, completely at ease with the attention. Like Toigan, the End seemed to give her a lease on life, a new vitality - she was more needed than ever. Sure, the crow's feet etched tighter around her haunted eyes, but her smile was ready and true as they cheered her on. So was her song, a ditty with bawdy lyrics back when her voice was better for it.
It was hard to be drawn in by it, though. Toigan sat there and brooded, worried over his little trap back in the entrance hall. The plucking of strings lifted his spirits only barely, did little to grant him the burst of insight he needed to fix things. Rope? Too clumsy - wouldn't fit in the mechanism, probably wouldn't fool any thralls, either. They weren't completely stupid, and a full length of rope stretched out wouldn't be hard to jump over.
If he could make the floor a bit more brittle, maybe, he wouldn't even need rope, but that'd endanger the dwarves as well as attacking thralls. He sighed and put his head in his hands, scratching at his bushy, unkempt beard as everyone howled and hooted around him, as Dolasa's fingers played over…
… the strings.
Toigan glanced up, a spark in his eye. His father said it was like Brightmantle's own gleam, and his father had been right.
---
He waited an hour in the residence hall, clinging to the shadows outside Dolasa's apartment.
Toigan was a sneak as well as an engineer. He followed the rules of the Hall, sure. He was better at following those rules than most, actually - he couldn't help that his footfalls were more quiet than most, though, that the shadows claimed him as their own when he clung them. He didn't steal, didn't stalk people. It was just a talent people noticed about him, one that came in handy from time to time.
Like now, for what he was about to do.
Dolasa had smiled to a standing ovation when her song was finished - and gave an encore, as she always did, her creaking voice wavering with gratitude in the audience's love. And Toigan had waited, and he had planned.
She went back to her apartment - most stouts lived communally, like Toigan did. Venerable dwarves got their own residences, though. Like Dolasa. He hated that - that some could have their privacy, not have to deal with anyone else's little problems or antics. Toigan was a dreamer, a thinker - he deserved his own place, where his thoughts wouldn't be engulfed in the noise of others.
When this was over, he'd remind them all of what his traps did, of how many lives they saved. Then they'd give him his own residence. And like Dolasa, he'd be nodded to as he went about his business. He'd be adored by all.
He waited for an hour, clinging to the shadows and letting them envelope him. A pair of dwarves went by at one point, on some business or another. They were older, invalid, so they didn't have to work on the front lines. They passed without even glancing in Toigan's direction. He breathed regularly, occasionally tweaking the unruly hairs in his beard.
After a while, Dolasa appeared outside her apartment, shutting, but not locking, the door behind her. She walked down the corridor with the long strides of one who has traveled the realms. Toigan thought he could hear a small hum from her lips as she vanished from view.
He materialized from the darkness of the hall and quietly pushed her door open, slipping through and leaving it slightly ajar as he went in. She'd snuffed out the candles in here, but he could still make out the details of Dolasa's sculptured walls, her large bed, the shuttered closet, little knick-knacks here and there, keepsakes after a lifetime of adventure. Yellowed song sheets were displayed here and there, of sentimental value from her traveling days.
As he quietly walked through the room, he could tell that some of those sheets had been torn down lately from the scraps of paper still hanging nailed to the wall. Did she need older material now? She played her music daily now, a different song each time.
Time was she could get by with the same stuff playing every week. But with the End bearing down on them…
Everyone had to pull out the stops. Dolasa did, and so was Toigan by doing what he came here to do.
The lute wasn't even hidden, resting comfortably on her bed. He picked it up with almost reverential care - heavier than he expected - and quietly considered what to do now.
He couldn't just pluck the strings out - it'd be quick and easy, but that'd also run the risk of breaking the wire. If he could just break off the bridge of the lute and then thread the string out like that… why, he'd have more than enough for the false floor trap. Probably enough for two traps, even.
Dolasa's songs were nice, but they didn't save lives. Not like his traps did. What he did here wasn't theft, it was more like… reappropriation.
He turned to leave when footsteps outside made him freeze with a tiny jolt of terror. He'd left the fucking door open. He pleaded for whoever it was to keep going, to not stop, to not question this, but that wasn't to be.
He leaped to the side of the room, by the shuttered closet, as the door creaked open. He recognized Dolasa's stout silhouette instantly. She stood in the door frame cautiously, squinting, a harsh frown on her face. How many times had she dealt with thieves in her time? How many had she killed?
Toigan shuddered. Don't be an idiot. She won't kill you. She has to find you first, for one thing.
"Who's in here?" came Dolasa's voice, wavering, but certain.
Toigan flattened himself deeper against the wall, praying for the dark to keep him hidden. Silence overtook the room for a while until he suddenly heard her sure steps treading inside. He heard a low grunt of confusion - she knew the lute was gone.
He waited a moment before peeking - he could make out her heavyset frame, crouched and checking under the bed. Holding his breath, stepping on the heels of his feet, Toigan slinked out of the room, pulling the door an extra crack to let him out… and then he was gone, flying down the corridor, Dolasa's lute clutched like a baby in his arms.
---
When he got back to his trap, he ripped the bridge of the lute off in one fluid motion, threading the wire out with an equally certain gesture. The string twanged forlornly as it came out, the last beautiful sound the instrument would make.
It was a perfect fit for triggering mechanism. He flicked his finger against the taut wire, watched it wobble. A stronger force would snap it easily, sending whoever had to an end as grim and certain as the one that had overtaken the world.
Toigan smiled to himself, but it was a hollow one. His thoughts went back to that room, his overactive imagination coming back to assail him as it usually did. Was Dolasa still in there, looking desperately for her lute? Would she already assume it was stolen, or would she cling to the optimistic hope that it was simply misplaced?
He wondered if what he did balanced things out. Add a few dead thralls, subtract an old woman's passion. Did those scales balance?
He wasn't sure, and he went to bed that night still wondering.
---
The next day, two things happened that Toigan Strongstrata, Spellguard Engineer, could remember with utter clarity. The rest of that day swirled together like a foul smelling concoction.
The first thing was that Dolasa never emerged from her apartment. Everyone sat up and took notice when she failed to appear for her usual music playing. A few dwarves angrily went up to the residence, leaving Toigan to shuffle back into the entrance hall to watch over his precious traps.
The second thing to happen that day was Ironspike Hall's last and futile defense. The thralls never came back through the entrance hall. Instead, their mind flayer masters directed them elsewhere, sent them digging through the earth, through derelict human mines, through natural caves, until they penetrated the thin wall of the Hall itself, completely bypassing the defenses.
Toigan could remember screaming, the meaty noise of weapons striking naked flesh, the smell of unwashed bodies pressing against armor-plated dwarves in a mindless, intractable wave. He could remember blood. He saw, in his mind's eye, the sight of jerking, spastic figures of all shapes, genders, and races, their eyes devoid of intellect and mercy, their forms bewitched with the cruel animation of puppet strings, coming at him through the dim corridors.
He remembered running, skipping over the wire of his precious trap and the sound of the floor collapsing behind him, cutting the thralls off from pursuit, dooming whatever dwarves were still alive in his home.
He remembered, more than anything else, the singular thought racing endlessly through his mind, the thought of Dolasa wracked with agony at not finding her most precious possession, her prized lute, the instrument of all her songs, and that agony being the last thing she ever experienced before the thralls erupted into her room.
---
And he heard music in the outside hall.
Toigan sighed, entered the code to the Engineer quarters door, and stuck his head out. Another man in Auxiliary colors stood there, strumming gently on a lute as a pair of engineers listened. They all looked somewhat harried and furtive, indulging in the kind of revelry that was utterly frowned upon by the Spellguard.
Fighting the surge of memories assaulting him, Toigan raised his voice. "Can you cut that out? Some of us are trying to work here!"
The song cut off - the Auxiliaries glanced at him in terror and scattered before he could identify them - they wore helmets, anyway, so he couldn't. He couldn't care less about ratting on them, though - he just wanted the music to stop.
It'd been pleasant, but he couldn't stand to listen to it.
This story was called "Difference-Similarity," written for a short story contest in 2014 featuring my Ordinant, Blake Kendon. The story prompt called for an image to act as the theme of the story, so that's included, too.
Topic: Creative Writing and EFU Short Stories (Read 4711 times)
