Underkeeper

“Your failure yesterday cost us nearly forty guards and over two hundred civilians—never mind the property damage!” General Arice accused. Ed stood in front of a large table, where the general sat alongside Count Narald, Lord Magistrate Gerold and Guard Commander Righmond. The commander nodded along enthusiastically with the general, probably hoping to distract from his own total lack of action in the battle yesterday. Iriala sat in a chair off to the side, which made Ed wonder what she had done to get herself invited to this meeting. “If we hadn’t arrived when we did, the entire city might have burned down.”

It was essentially what he’d expected. The royal prick was trying to roll the consequences of his own mistakes onto him.

“Now, listen here,” you pompous asshat, Ed didn’t add. Who said he couldn’t be diplomatic? “The only reason we were spread so thin in the first place was because you insisted that we keep all twelve breaches open, and then at least that many again opened up all over the city as we fought. We were lucky to make it as long as we did with barely 250 people, most of whom were ordinary guards. We wouldn’t have, if several people who weren’t obligated in this matter at all hadn’t stepped up to help. We wouldn’t have even found them all.”

The general scoffed.

“They were kobolds!” Arice exclaimed, as though that excused everything.

The magistrate looked pained, while the count’s expression was resigned more than anything. They knew exactly what had happened, and whose fault it was. But they weren’t going to do anything to help. They needed the army, and they couldn’t afford to piss off the king’s cousin, besides. Ed, on the other hand, was possibly the most officially discredited archmage in the entire realm. He wasn’t a political type, but even he could see that tossing him under the cart here was the only smart play.

But that didn’t mean he had to be gracious about it.

“They’re not just kobolds.” He didn’t bother to keep his tone respectful, though he stopped short of insulting. He wasn’t in the military anymore, but he wasn’t an idiot, either. “They have the backing of an elder dragon. You should know not to underestimate an enemy like that.”

The general’s glare could have soured milk.

“Your incompetence has turned this into a disaster!” he insisted. “The king has probably already heard about it. Now we’ll be forced to commit our entire force and dig those filthy little creatures out. It’s going to take months! We have more important business to be about than cleaning vermin out from under your city!” He was breathing hard, jaw clenching in anger. To Ed it looked like he was about to start foaming at the mouth.

Ed, though, was paying more attention to the words coming out of the man’s fool mouth.

“Wait… you thought you were just going to send in a division to kick the kobolds in the teeth for a few days and move on?” He stopped, eyebrows rising in surprise as he answered his own question. “Ah. You think the Adventurers’ Guild is lying. That there is no dragon at all and practically every mid-ranked adventurer in this city and most of our high-rankers just… died to random kobolds.”

At that, both the count and the magistrate turned to look at the general in evident confusion.

Arice rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, old man. You know just as well as I do that it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Iriala cleared her throat.

“I notice that you haven’t chosen to voice this… opinion in the presence of Branchmaster Ambrose—I expect he would have his own thoughts to share with you in turn,” she said evenly, though her eyes glittered. “More pertinently, are you similarly accusing myself and the scryers of the Mages’ Guild, then? The tunnel complex was designated as a dungeon specifically because of the presence of a dragon.”

The general’s lips pressed together into a line, and for a moment Ed thought the damned fool would actually double down. But directly slandering Count Narald’s court mage and the head of the local Mages’ Guild would be very different than just dismissing a report from the Adventurers’ Guild, especially when the latter were just passing on the reports of some of their politically irrelevant members.

Arice coughed. “Hm. No. Of course there may well have been a young dragon, just as you and your scryers detected. However, that still means the threat from below is greatly exaggerated. You all saw how quickly the attackers broke when faced with a proper defense.”

Iriala inclined her head at him, and then turned her face away, though Ed caught her just barely rolling her eyes. The royal windbag, fortunately, wasn’t looking. Ed sighed to himself, silently counting to ten in his head as he recalled all the reasons it would be a terrible idea to lose his temper in this situation.

“Time will tell,” he said, almost diplomatically. “You’re going down there to root them out now regardless, so there’s no need for all this back-and-forth. We’ll all know the details in a few days, at the latest.”

General Arice huffed in feigned amusement. “We will be going down there—you included. I’m not letting you or the adventurers off so easy. You have a duty to this city! Besides, I want everyone who’s been in the tunnels before guiding my troops.” He fixed Ed with a hard stare. “After all, I wouldn’t want to underestimate the enemy.”

Ed grunted in acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything. Maybe he should have just kept his fool mouth shut, like Righmond over there. The guard commander hadn’t said a word the entire meeting. That asshole would have been strung up for cowardice in the army. Here, he was going to walk away clean, because he kept his head down and he hadn’t been in charge of the defense. But there was no point in dwelling on it. Pointing fingers at the damn coward could only make this worse now.

***

On his way out, Ed noticed that the guards, unlike the last time he’d been here, were courteous. One even gave him a nod and opened a door for him as he left the castle. He’d just started down the street when Iriala caught up to him.

“You shouldn’t have argued with him,” she said by way of greeting, joining him as he walked past the guard headquarters into the temple district. “There was nothing to gain. The facts are going to come out as soon as they go in, regardless. And people like that always find a way to get back at you.”

Ed shrugged, scowling. “I had to say something. An honest mistake is one thing. Even just being too risk-tolerant… I can live with that, maybe. Arice back there, though… He got people killed and then tried to pretend he had nothing to do with it. I can’t just let that go.”

Iriala shook her head. “That’s just it. You’re not the one responsible for him. He’s perfectly capable of exposing his own incompetence to the world without your help.”

“Alright, alright. There’s a reason you’re the politician and I’m a glorified wastewater manager, I know.” He waved his hand, discarding the topic. “I’ve actually got another weird situation on my hands, and I was hoping you might help me out. Actually, it sort of affects you too, though I guess in your case it’s a little less direct.”

“Oh? I’m going to have to start charging you,” she teased. “You don’t think I have better things to do than to dig you out of trouble all the time?”

“Iri!” Ed said, with feigned outrage. “We’ve been friends for what, twenty years? Friends don’t keep score.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the papers Bernt had given him from the Solicitors, handing them over. “Take a look.”

Snorting, she took the papers and began reading through them. Ed didn’t explain—she’d ask if she wanted his opinion. Instead, he led her down a street to the right, toward the lower administrative zone, where it met the Upper District.

“Well…” she said after a minute or so of walking. “They’re certainly up to something.”

“Sure,” Ed said. “I got that much. But what? And why?”

Iriala shrugged. “Letting that little imp stick around under a guarantor is… well, I’ve never heard of it before. It must be based on a pretty obscure law. More importantly, I can’t think of any way that it would be good for the Solicitors. Any demon that’s outside of their control is bad for them. If it goes well, it undermines their monopoly on managing extradimensional entities. And if it goes badly, most of the public will probably still blame them for it. The clause about you publicly taking responsibility is supposed to help with that, but who actually pays attention to every announcement and flier that gets put up? It would rope us in, sure, but it doesn’t really help them at all.”

Ed nodded. “So, if Radast dug it up just for us—or Bernt, or Jori for that matter—then we should probably find out why before we do anything else.”

“Well, well. He can be taught.” Iriala smiled. They’d stopped, and she looked up at the ornate and entirely doorless facade of the Solicitors’ offices. “And… I assume you want me to help with that, too?”

Ed shrugged as he led her around the side, where he found an unmarked door—it looked like a servant’s entrance, but he knew it was the only way in or out of the building. “I don’t like guessing. So, I figured we should just ask him. But… I was hoping you’d do the talking. I assume you can’t just, uh, see the answer.”

The archmage shook her head. “No, I can’t scry him at all, or the building in general, actually. Radast is pacted to something nasty from the fifth hell—shadow-type creatures resist divination. “

“It was worth asking,” Ed grumbled. He knocked on the door.

***

Radast, as it turned out, was a youngish man in his late thirties. Ed assumed he must be pretty formidable to run this branch of their organization. Still, his relative youth showed, in his opinion. He surrounded himself with expensive trinkets and dressed like a peacock. But, Ed allowed, maybe he was just being uncharitable. The entire Underkeepers’ headquarters could probably fit inside this one room, and he couldn’t deny a twinge of jealousy at that. The Solicitors were regarded far more poorly than the Underkeepers, but they enjoyed a much nicer work environment.

“Archmages Thurdred and Iriala to see you,” said the charming young woman who had brought them up.

“Wonderful! Thank you,” said the warlock in a confident baritone. He waved her off, and a moment later they were alone.

“How can I help you?” he asked. “We don’t often get visitors here. Would you like something to drink?”

Iriala smiled professionally. “Thank you, no. We don’t want to take up too much of your time. We just wanted to get some clarity on this… offer here,” she said, holding up the papers. “Guarantorship. I’ve never heard of it before, and as far as I can tell, it’s nothing but an unnecessary risk for your organization—so… why offer it to a random imp?”

As they spoke, Iriala’s eyes stayed locked to Radast’s face, taking in his reaction. Ed tried to follow her example, though he spared a glance for the man’s weirdly moving shadow as well.

An imp was one thing. It was almost a normal creature, if a bit too amoral for normal society. As you went to the lower hells, though, demons became more and more alien in nature. This shadow-thing made his skin crawl.

“Ah.” The warlock scratched at his short beard in apparent embarrassment. “Well. We did our research on the young Underkeeper as soon as we heard of him. His profile suggested that he’s too idealistic to form a pact, which is fine, normally. We would just deport the imp and send him on his way. But… he’s also obviously emotionally attached to the imp, which is both unusual and a more serious problem.”

“How’s that?” Ed asked before he remembered that he was going to let Iri do the talking. Oops.

“Well… it’s complicated. Both he and the imp have gained a bit of notoriety since the debacle in the dungeon a few days ago. If we deported her against his will, he could potentially cause problems for us. Arbitrating looting rights for adventurers and between adventuring parties is a large part of our business” —he glanced over at Iriala—“not to mention our work with the Mages’ Guild.”

Iriala narrowed her eyes. “Why would we…” She snorted. “No. I mean, I’m sure that was part of it, but if you made exceptions like this every time you were worried about potentially upsetting a client or losing a contract, guarantorship would be common in every city in the realm. Come on—out with it. It’s just us here.”

Radast frowned, studying them for a moment. Then he pursed his lips and looked away.

“There’s something going on down below the city,” he said. “I’m not sure exactly what it is, but there are a lot of demons moving around down there. My shadow fiend can sense them.”

Ed blinked, then looked over at Iriala and met her eyes. She shrugged.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “You mean that dragon is down there summoning a demon army to throw at us? Why haven’t you told anyone?”

The warlock’s eyes widened. “What? No! Dragons don’t deal in ritual magic. That’s ridiculous! No. This is something else. Bigger. Maybe something that could rival the shattering of the Madurian Empire. As for why I can’t tell anyone…” His expression turned bitter. “I did. I’ve been writing letters—first to the count, and then to the king directly for over a year. I got responses telling me that hearsay from a demon wasn’t worth their time. They probably think I’m angling for influence, or maybe an official guild charter for the Solicitors.”

“And… are you?” Iriala asked mildly.

Radast scoffed with disgust. “Of course I am! But that has nothing to do with it. We aren’t exactly well-loved, and when our armies start fighting hordes of mad warlocks, we’re going to have mobs of low-browed pitchfork-wielding farmers out there looking for our door. And every noble from here to the Giant Wastes will seize the opportunity to throw us under the cart as a way to distract from their own shortcomings. I would like to avoid that, but for that we need political allies, and we need to improve our public relations.”

“Ah,” Iriala said, a small smirk cracking her expression. “And there’s a new player here in Halfbridge who suddenly became politically consequential. You figured you’d give the public a nice, small, relatively innocuous-looking demon to root for—ideally one that was actively defending the city. Jori is the best candidate. She’s already saved practically the entire surviving Adventurers’ Guild branch here. For that matter, I’m sure people saw her fighting kobolds with me yesterday. And if either of us acts as an official guarantor for her, you get the implied support of both the Underkeepers and the Mages’ Guild, since we’ve all been seen working with her.”

“Ideally your young Underkeeper would just form a pact with the imp,” Radast said to Ed. “But I knew it was a long shot before he even got here, so I prepared an alternative. As far as I know, guarantorship has never actually been used, but it’s very much aboveboard. It’s based on an amendment to the agreement that formed the Solicitors in the first place, over two hundred years ago—at the request of the Mages’ Guild, incidentally, for research purposes.

“One can hope that the young man will… mature in time and form a proper pact. If not, the demon can still be deported at a later date—especially as I hear you can directly track and observe the demon at will. She won’t present a serious risk unless she evolves at least once more, though honestly even a class 4 demon isn’t a match for any archmage. Even in the middle of a war, that will take years—much longer than we need.”

“I see…” Iriala said. “And what exactly would you be willing to offer us in exchange for our support?”