Under Gornstock Read online

  Under Gornstock

  by

  Clive Mullis

  copyright 2019 Clive Mullis

  All rights reserved

  Table of contents:

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

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  Prologue

  Gornstock sits on the bank of the Sterkle, a wide flowing river which feeds into the Blue Sea on the island of Inglion. Founded by Morris Dancers, the city is still subject to its rules and regulations and the rancour hasn’t gone away.

  There is a rent in the fabric of time and space that allows Gornstock’s universe to peek into other universes: the little blue planet of Twearth being just one little blue planet among countless other little blue planets — all of them just a shadow away.

  Chapter 1

  Gleb Ironcrust didn't so much hear the snore as feel it, the vibrations enough to stir him from his repose. One bloodshot eye opened and peered into the gloom. The uncomfortable pillow might be on the soft side, but the mattress made up for it, being nice and firm; however, the blankets, smelling of wee, were not of the highest quality.

  The one eye struggled to focus: blinking madly, it stared into what seemed to be a cracked mirror, with two evil eyes staring back, but those eyes had a little black point between them, sprinkled with straight looking wires, and behind them, a grey blob with a bit of string stuck on the end. The black bit twitched and the wires danced. Gleb reached out his hand and the rat showed its teeth, then it scarpered, scuttling off down the alley after a less lively adversary.

  He yawned and felt his pillow, a crumbling doorstep with lots of flaky bits, which had caught up in his beard. The blankets turned out to be some urine-ridden flattened cardboard boxes which he had pulled over the top of him to keep out just a little bit of the chill, the mattress being the alley itself — he’d slept in worse places.

  He rolled over, probably not his greatest idea, especially when lying in an alley, in The Warren, in the city of Gornstock. He received a wash that he hadn't envisaged as he tipped into the gulley, luckily it had been raining and the rain had washed all the little turds down towards the river, the early morning giving the clue that the open runnel had yet to be filled by the neighbourhoods’ emptying of their night-time productions.

  Groaning and swearing, Gleb climbed to his feet and wrung out his beard. He stamped a bit, hoping to get a little circulation moving and took stock of his surroundings, trying to remember how he’d got there. He used the facilities, giving the runnel its first proper use of the day and then stomped up the alley with his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

  The gloomy alley gave out into a narrow cobbled street between two red-brick houses that had seen better days, which matched the rest of the street, teetering on the edge of decrepitude. He scratched his head as the vague memory began to fire up a few more neurones and before long he had a bit of a picture. He stood in the Warren, the second-worst slum in Gornstock, only supplanted by The Brews, which actually aspired to be a slum.

  Alcohol had played a significant part of how he arrived here, wherever here actually was; the Warren definitely, but which part? He hoped to find a dwarf entrance, but his brain failed to instruct him: he didn't recognise this bit at all.

  As he stomped off down the street, the memories flooded back. He started off in The Black Nag and then The Foundry, and then The Spanner and Nut before moving on to The Wardens Arms for a game of dice. He thought hard, sure that he had forgotten one, so he began to count them on his fingers until he remembered the missing one: The Ring, where he had taken part in the throwing contest, the dwarf throwing contest, the dwarf in question being himself. He made a few dollars out of that, he recalled, and he nearly always had a soft landing in the compost. He then got lost as he tried to get home, eventually giving up when he found himself in a little alley with a welcoming doorstep. It had been a good night.

  It started raining again, the droplets pinging down like shards of ice. A crack of thunder boomed overhead and the patter of rain became a sudden deluge — like walking in a waterfall. As Gleb got to the end of the street, he vaguely recognised the avenue that adjoined it. The press congregated here: Pleet Street pumped out newspapers like there was no tomorrow, the high grey stone buildings hiding the printing presses and journalists offices behind a façade of gentility. He stood at the corner and watched as carts screamed down the street, desperate to get their bales of trash journalism into the hands of a gullible populace: a race with no quarter given as the drivers cracked their whips and grimaced with determination. Getting the first edition of the papers delivered quickly meant bonuses, so pedestrians had to be vigilant, and preferably not hungover.

  Gleb stepped out onto Pleet Street and immediately wished he hadn't. A puddle pooled in the road just where he stood on the pavement. The tidal wave of water hit him full in the face.

  ‘Bastard,’ he yelled, shaking a fist at the back-end of the cart, receiving a one-fingered salute in reply.

  The rain suddenly eased off as if making a mockery of it all. He stood dripping water and then turned to walk on just as another cart hammered by — hitting the same puddle with the same result.

  Gleb seethed in indignation as the puddle of water transformed into a shower. He spat out the brown sludgy liquid and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, leaving a wet greasy smear on his coat. He sniffed and then began to walk again.

  Umbrellas were everywhere and the early risers either used a brolly or wore a wide-brimmed hat, all that is, except a certain dwarf whose leather hat had somehow disappeared during the night. His clothes were so wet that the chafing, especially around the groinal area, were making things raw. Gleb dreaded to think what he would find when he got them out to dry.

  Another cart and then a cab continued his drenching but then he grinned to himself as a coach with wide wheels hit a puddle just ahead, sending the said puddle straight towards the two men walking ahead, the inside of the umbrellas acting as a breakwater hurling the water in a graceful cascading arc, hitting them on the back of their heads.

  Pleet Street didn't have an entrance to the dwarf mines, but Shafting Avenue, which lay ahead, did; to get there Gleb had to cross the street, a risky business even at the
best of times. He stopped and turned his head to gauge the traffic just as a cart slewed across the road towards him.

  ‘Getouthebloodyway,’ shouted the driver as Gleb felt the wind from the lantern as it just missed his head.

  ‘Bastard,’ replied Gleb, not for the first time that morning.

  Then there came a lull in the traffic, so Gleb took hold of his life and limbs and took a chance, sploshing across as fast as his little legs could go. Still safe at the halfway point with just another few steps to go, a coach and four approached fast, but there seemed to be enough of a gap, so he took another look, jumped over the sewer gulley and trod on something soft, squelchy and very very slippery: the gulley had overflowed and the contents had escaped its confinement. He went down, arms flailing, legs akimbo and landed flat on his back. A wave washed over him as the oncoming coach went past, oblivious to his predicament.

  The rain may have been a bloody nuisance but the people thought the distraction of watching a struggling dwarf trying to cross the road made it worth their while to stop, to see what would happen next. Gornstock folk were not generally unsympathetic to someone else's plight but it did make for great entertainment.

  Gleb rolled over and scrambled to his feet, just as a cart passed by with a grinning driver. As the cart went by, Gleb ran the last couple of yards to the safety of the pavement. A damp round of applause broke out as he hugged the wall of The Herald in relief. Above him, the gutter gave out and a stream of water hit him straight on the head, engulfing him with the addition of moss and leaves and copious quantities of bird shit.

  Gleb could have had a better start to the day.

  Finally, the sodden dwarf made it to Shafting Avenue, squelching towards the entrance. Dispirited, hungover and just a tad damp, he practically fell down the few steps to the iron-mesh gate which he rattled maniacally until a dwarf appeared on the other side.

  ‘Who's that making all that din?’

  ‘It's me, Gleb Ironcrust,’ growled Gleb.

  ‘What you doing out in this weather? You bin swimming?’

  ‘Ha, ha, bloody ha.’

  ‘You look like a drowned rat.’

  ‘Thanks, but I have in fact been walking. There is a lot of weather out there and most of it is on me.’

  The dwarf guarding the entrance grinned as he picked out his keys, clicked one into the slot and cranked open the gate. A relieved Gleb fell in, finally managing to gain the security of the dry dwarf tunnels.

  ‘Bastard bloody rain,’ he said, dripping wet onto the floor.

  As Gleb headed off into the dark, he heard chuckling behind him; he stopped briefly, turned and shook himself, giving the evil eye. Turning around again, he stormed off, swearing and muttering, mostly incoherently.

  With the all-embracing cocoon of the tunnels, meaning rock and lots of it, he began to relax. Steam rose as the warmth began to ease into his bones and clothes, magnifying the whiff of wet dog, which, for some reason, seemed to come from him. He shrugged, reasoning that soon he would dry out and the smell should disappear.

  A rumble in the distance alerted Gleb to the imminent arrival of the pump-trolley.

  The trolley hurtled around the corner with two young dwarfs propelling the thing, each one pumping a handle up and down which turned the wheels by use of a clever array of gears. They were yelling warnings, trying to make themselves heard above the din of the wheels as they clackety-clacked down the iron tracks.

  Gleb stood with his back against the rock as the contraption whizzed past, towing a truck of worthless rock destined to be dumped in an old disused shaft way down the tunnel. It wouldn’t be long before they would be heading back the same way for the next load, so he decided to dip into an opening and take the stairs down to the lower levels.

  As he walked down, grumbling to himself about the weather, leaving little puddles on the steps, he suddenly grinned at the thought of all the people up top getting soaked through to their skins as they went about their business. What would they pay for a chance to get into the nice dry tunnels and walk to work?

  The echo of the pump-trolley came into his mind and the noise filling his brain turned into a vision where it rained, not wet dribbly water, but coins, lots and lots of them, hundreds and hundreds of dollars, all of it flowing into the coffers of the dwarfs.

  Reaching the bottom step, he then began to hurry, lest the thought slip from his mind, it being a thought of pure genius, a lightning bolt moment bringing clarity into the darkness of the unambitious: a revelation, destined to make them all rich.

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Goodhalgan as Gleb explained his idea. ‘You mean your proposing to let actual people use our tunnels?’

  ‘Well, not only people, anyone really.’

  ‘In our tunnels?’

  ‘Er…Yes. Think about it, all those people wanting to travel across the city. Up there, if they haven’t got their own coach or can’t afford a cab, then they have to walk. We don’t use the top tunnels apart from dumping the crud and we already have some of the tracks. We can make an extra couple of pump-trolleys, bung a few benches on a flat-bed and charge the buggers to go across the city. It’d be a licence to print money, lots of it.’

  Goodhalgan scratched his head and then stroked his beard in thought. Just the mention of money, and lots of it, had given him pause for thought. ‘Run that through me again, Gleb.’

  Gleb did, and as he spoke, more ideas began to flitter through his mind. It seemed as if the proposal had taken on a life of its own, a little kernel of corn had popped and now it exploded into a greater thing, a massive thing, something bigger than the sum of its parts. And then Gleb began to add flavours to the popped corn and then colours, a veritable rainbow of colours, each hue a separate strand mixing with the tastes to produce a whole new culinary experience. It signalled a fresh new initiative, a smorgasbord of tastes and sounds and colours. The idea had taken hold and had now grown out of all proportion. No longer just an idea, it seemed as if it had always been and always will be. The idea had come alive.

  Goodhalgan sat back in his chair and grinned across the table at Gleb. Gleb grinned back as both their heads filled with the vision. They could already see the hordes of people and animals rushing to take advantage of their new travelling experience, and pay oodles and oodles of cash for the privilege.

  ‘We need the Council’s approval though,’ said Goodhalgan, now thinking of the practical side, injecting a bit a realism into the equation. ‘Even though I agree, something of this magnitude has to be agreed by all of us. I’ll convene the Council immediately.’

  The Council convened, the Council deliberated, the Council adjourned to get a few snacks and a few more jugs of dwarf beer. The Council reconvened and agreed that a committee should be set up to discuss and analyse the proposal in more depth, the resultant discussions discussed who should sit on the committee and what expertise they would bring, and they discussed co-opting certain dwarfs who had specialist knowledge on certain parts of the proposal. They then discussed the time-frame and to whom the sub-committee should report to in order to consider the report before reporting to the Council with the findings and/or any sub-clauses, amendments, additional clauses, struck clauses, proposals and or anything which would or could have an impact on the direct constitution, or way of life of dwarfdom in general and how the proposal could affect the dwarf/human/animal relationship and whether this would be detrimental to the whole should the proposal be deemed viable enough to proceed.

  Goodhalgan had heard enough. ‘Who’s king here?’ he asked in exasperation.

  The Council looked up as one.

  ‘Er…You are,’ replied Rigroll, the deep tunnel specialist.

  ‘Good, I thought I’d better check. I am of the opinion that we should start work on this immediately. Hands up all in favour.’

  The Council looked at each other and then raised their hands as one, not a few of them relieved that the king had decided to take the decision out of their hands.

  ‘Un
animous then,’ observed Goodhalgan. ‘Right,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’

  An excited susurration swept through under-Gornstock as the news began to spread. Mining defined the dwarfs, they were used to using picks and shovels, breaking rock and forging tunnels but there was a limit to how much fun a dwarf could have swinging a pick at a rock-face which couldn’t swing back.

  There were several problems to overcome, which wasn’t a problem if you were a dwarf. Dwarfs loved problems. Problems were just solutions which decided to go into hiding. When your life depended on keeping several million tons of rock from crashing down on top of your head, it sort of focused the mind a bit, to the point where complicated algebraic equations had become second nature. It also helped that if the chief engineer got his sums wrong and a tunnel collapsed, the relations of the victims would come and have a very serious word in his ear.

  Goodhalgan had a problem.

  The king stood at the table with the map spread out and mentally began to link all the top tunnels together. He scratched a few lines on the vellum and turned to the chief engineer.

  ‘Seems simple enough.’

  ‘It does,’ replied Treacle. ‘However, that’s the easy bit. The hard bit will be in laying enough track down and making the tunnels big enough for the long-legs.’

  ‘What do you mean? That should be the easy bit. We’ve got the dwarfpower.’

  ‘Making the tunnels is easy enough, but making the tracks is only easy if you have the ore. We don’t have enough ore to make them.’ He thumped a digit twice on the map. ‘We can start here, but we’ll have to stop there.’

  ‘Oh,’ replied Goodhalgan. ‘That might be a problem.’

  Treacle nodded. ‘We might have to think the unthinkable.’

  Goodhalgan’s eyes widened. ‘Surely not?’

  ‘It’s the only solution I can think of.’

  ‘Well, this is more serious than I thought.’

  Goodhalgan stood up and stretched, rubbing his aching back. He stroked his beard and began to pace around the room, coming back to the map every few minutes to see if anything had changed, that the tunnels had somehow become shorter.