Grak: Private Instigator (Orc PI Book 1) Read online

  I assumed most of the visible machinery were transport devices that routed goods wherever they were going in a seamless wave of gnomish organizational expertise.

  I could only imagine where all this frenzied motion was going and how the movements were tracked.

  The gnomes probably had their own deranged Construct managing all the materials’ movements for them.

  Crates, barrels, boxes, beams, cages, carts, sacks, and drums whooshed through the air along trajectories that would surely kill any unsuspecting visitor not on an executive tour.

  Who needed security when the air was filled with flying objects being teleported from here to there without regard to anything or anyone in their way?

  Arcwhistle, who was standing beside me as I took all this in, was almost as amazing as the warehouse itself.

  Hovering in the air before me, Arcwhistle appeared to be a fly suspended in the middle of a spider’s web.

  He was a gnome of indeterminate age, with greyish white hair and a unibrow thick enough to sweep the floor. His bulbous nose moved animatedly as he gestured excitedly, highlighting the warehouse’s key points and capabilities. His small frame was suspended within an arachnoid exoskeleton that probably allowed him to flit between the moving boxes and equipment as naturally as a bee buzzing between flowers. Right now, its legs held him suspended in mid-air above me, perched between spiraling ladders that seemed to go nowhere in particular.

  “As you can see, Mr. Grak…” Arcwhistle had been speaking for some time, but I had not been paying attention.

  “Grak. Just Grak,” I interrupted as a particularly cumbersome supersack arced pendulously through the air, sweeping through the spot I had appeared in but moments before.

  “As you can see, Grak,” he amended before continuing, “the DUMP…”

  I interrupted again. “The dump?”

  “The Dynamic Unified Mobility Process,” clarified Arcwhistle.

  Really?

  How could gnomes say their unfortunate acronyms with straight faces?

  Arcwhistle was still talking. “The DUMP ensures the efficient movement of goods throughout Alyon’s economic system.

  “Without the DUMP, goods would become clogged, stagnating in place, and the economic process would not flow.

  “Hence, the DUMP is absolutely vital to a living, viable economy.”

  I could not argue with the importance of a good DUMP.

  But I thought better of mentioning it.

  Arcwhistle began rattling off technicalities that made about as much sense as gnomish acronyms. “The DUMP uses a transdimensional matrix to link nonlocal storage facilities.

  “Movements through the system are guided by a level N2.171 third-order Construct capable of visualizing the entire interdimensional spatiotemporal manifestation plane.

  “Product quality is likewise ensured not only by the timely transfer of goods but also by a Type II quality optimization subroutine founded on top-tier metamagical logic circuits.”

  I blinked and squinted, trying to snap myself out of the stupor that Arcwhistle’s words had put me in.

  I felt like I had been punched.

  In the head.

  Repeatedly.

  “Hold on a second.” I raised a broad, callused hand and waved it drunkenly in the air. The gesture was as much to return myself to full wakefulness—and perhaps to ward off his verbal attack— as to get his attention and force him to stop speaking.

  I tried to muster enough will to make the motion look purposeful.

  I did not know how much more touring I could take before I collapsed unconscious to the floor.

  I decided that if ever I needed a building secured, I would fill it with gnomes instructed to talk at length to any intruders unfortunate enough to make it inside. I would ask the gnomes to speak passionately about their favorite technical subject to anyone who came within hearing distance. The gnomes would work alongside their indecipherable machinery, equipment that could do more harm in the cause of helping than the most dangerous of weapons.

  “Yes?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows quizzically, high enough that the hairs got tangled in his bangs.

  As Arcwhistle relaxed his forehead and lowered his eyebrows, I decided that his unibrow acted like a very effective comb.

  “You’re telling me that all the goods that come through here are scanned for quality? What happens to the goods that don’t pass?”

  “Of course! Not only are they scanned for quality, they are evaluated for safety across several dimensions, ranging from species tolerance to likelihood of cataclysmic destruction. Additional parameters include magical anomalies, infectious agents, curses, taint, societal risk, potential interactions, and good taste…among many others.

  “The Construct handles the evaluations.”

  I grunted, “And what happens to the goods that don’t pass muster?”

  “They are rejected and disposed of most carefully,” he answered with confidence.

  “And how is this rejection and disposal determined?” I asked before he could give a dissertation.

  “Generally, by the Construct.”

  “And what if it’s not handled generally?” I pushed.

  “Discretion is given to the operators and is a reward for diligence,” he added.

  “And how is this means of disposal determined?”

  “Whatever means is the most efficient…and fun.”

  Great. We were giving gnomes the freedom to dispose of potentially dangerous goods by choosing whatever method was the most fun.

  This made perfect sense.

  To gnomes.

  10

  “Could you show me how this disposal process works and where it takes place?” I asked.

  “Disposal is a rather rare occurrence.”

  I looked around. With all these goods whirring, buzzing, and teleporting frenetically through the cavernous space, only a small portion was defective or dangerous?

  “How can this be?” I asked skeptically. “There is so much moving through here. Surely, quality issues are common.”

  Arcwhistle puckered his lips and lifted his thick unibrow reprimandingly. “The vast majority of goods moving through here have already been scanned upon arrival to Alyon, have been created with magical precision, or have been previously evaluated and are circulating safely through the system to the appropriate destination.

  “We live in a highly efficient, highly effective society, Grak.”

  Clouds of boxes flying through the air like an addled swarm of bees did not strike me as particularly efficient or effective.

  Despite the chaos I saw going on around me, I decided not to argue.

  “I would still like to see how dangerous goods are handled.”

  With no visible guide steering the process, I imagined a crate porting endlessly through the system with no final destination, one meaningless, forgotten fragment in a sea of gnomish confusion.

  “We may be here all day,” he cautioned.

  “I have time.” I crossed my thick arms with finality.

  If needed, I could always take a nap.

  In fact, that was an excellent idea.

  As if reading my laggardly thoughts and offering their opposite, Arcwhistle suggested, “We can continue your tour while we wait.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ve seen enough for now. I’ll wait.

  “You can wake me up when there’s something to see.”

  Before Arcwhistle could protest, I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes.

  It had been a long day.

  And there was more to come.

  “Grak! Wake up, Grak!”

  A thick line of drool had trailed down my chin, wending its way tremulously from my thick lips to the cool floor supporting my smashed cheek.

  I sat up.

  The drool came with me.

  After wiping my mouth tactfully on my shoulder, I mumbled around lips slurred by sleep, “What is it?”

  “We have a dangerous item in
the system that needs to be neutralized! Come on!”

  Without waiting for me to fully wake, Arcwhistle loped away on his gangly spider legs, his body undulating sinuously up and down as the wiry legs carried him away through the warehouse with surprising speed.

  Shaking my head to wake up faster, I lumbered behind him, trying to keep up, doing my best to overcome both the inertia of my mass and my grogginess of mind.

  Neither was very quick to move.

  I really had no idea why we were running.

  Items zipped, zoomed, and popped by all around.

  This whole warehouse was filled with items that were porting into and out of position faster than I could register.

  Why couldn’t we just teleport to our destination?

  What would happen if something teleported inside me?

  Was the Construct actually making sure we were as safe as the goods?

  I really needed to stop thinking these questions.

  “Arcwhistle!” The building’s space was so vast, my voice returned no echo.

  The gnome stopped reluctantly some distance ahead of me. His scurrying pack of hectic legs had widened the gap between us considerably. If I had not called for him to stop, I might soon have lost track of him amidst the visual confusion of all the flying objects, one dust mote lost within a hurricane.

  “Yes?” he called back quizzically.

  At least he’d stopped.

  “Can we not just teleport?”

  “Excellent suggestion, Grak!”

  Why had it taken me, the person least qualified to do almost anything, to make the suggestion?

  When I finally managed to catch up with him, I was breathing heavily, about as heavy as some of these crates looked.

  Not waiting for me to fully recover, Arcwhistle pulled from a small pouch at his waist a large straw decorated with tinsel and something that looked like a mixed drink umbrella perched at the tip. As he began the invocation for a spell, I realized this was either his wand or some random found objects that he pretended were one.

  After a stylish flourish and a muttered phrase of utter nonsense from Arcwhistle, the air wavered and rippled before us. Without pausing, Arcwhistle stepped through as soon as his incantation was complete.

  I hurried to follow, lest I be left behind in a warehouse with no end.

  I needed a straw like his.

  Unlike the warehouse we had just left, which had no discernable boundaries, the chamber we arrived in was a room with a defined space. If the warehouse was a vast pocket dimension greatly extending the space available to Alyon, then this room would be but a minuscule compartment in its potential region. The scale was probably a bit like my apartment was, relative to the Undercity.

  The room was filled with two things—gnomes and arcana.

  There were Paratechnologists of every shape and sort gathered like an audience to witness some macabre spectacle. Gnomes were floating in the air on wings, bubbles, and flying craft. They walked, lumbered, and rolled on various mechanical contraptions. A rare few were even standing on their own two feet. Some looked like gnomes, others looked like things gnomes might dream of becoming, and some looked like things gnomes might make while they were dreaming of things to become.

  Glyphs, runes, symbols, and formulae covered the walls, floor, and ceiling and floated in the air. If I had been a wizard, a really good one, I could have read the room’s purpose from all the gathered power expressed in those symbols.

  Since I wasn’t a wizard, I based my opinion on the seething wall of darkness enclosed in a shimmering well of force at the room’s center.

  This room contained a portal to hell.

  I did not know which hell. There were too many to keep track.

  The Abyss was, after all, a bottomless well of Darkness.

  Wherever that door led, it was not a place I wanted to go.

  Our world is protected by an array of seals to prevent large-scale demonic incursion from the nether realms. Small portals like this through the protective barrier are possible, but they are difficult to manage and maintain, requiring tremendous energy and skill.

  The positive is that hordes of soul-devouring Chaos-spawn cannot come through such limited gates.

  The negative is that individual soul-devouring Chaos-spawn can come through such limited gates.

  At that moment, the gathered gnomes were pushing something through the fiendish gate.

  It was a small, benign-looking wooden crate.

  A large black sticker with the word “Rejected!” was stuck to the box’s side. Other symbols were present on the label, but these were too far away for me to discern.

  While the gathered gnomes used their magic to shove the box through the writhing portal from a safe distance, a veritable Cube Gnomeberg contraption was held poised and at the ready, scaffolded around the portal. I had no idea what the device did, but it looked like all the leftovers from a number of yard sales had been salvaged by a blind monkey and put together as confusingly as possible by a drunk goblin. There were winches and pulleys, umbrellas, jackets, tools, balls, sluices, mechanized toys, strings, balloons, tangles of contraptions I did not recognize, and an honest-to-goodness sleeping cat on the thing. It all culminated in a giant red boot adorned with tassels. The boot had been painted with a sign that said, “Eat sole, soulless!”

  Truly, if ever there was a doorframe or doorbell from hell—who knew what this thing actually was—this insane device was it.

  The thing looked utterly pointless.

  Until a demon started trying to come through the gate.

  Then the whole array of random junk burst into frenetically clacking life, sending ropes turning, wheels spinning, and more pieces of random junk than could be found in a dragon’s basement into action.

  As the nose of the crate broke the plane of the gate, the ebony surface warbled out of phase with rational sense perception, jarring my sense of sense.

  And what should be considered safe to look at.

  I closed my eyes briefly to recover.

  When I opened them again, ropey demonic tendrils had wrapped around the box and were pulling it in.

  Before the demon could push through the barrier once the box was out of its path, the tasseled boot spun into motion and kicked the crate forward into the maw of the Abyss.

  With the crate’s disappearance, the air crackled and warped as the gate to the lower planes disappeared.

  All the gathered gnomes clapped and cheered.

  Was this the equivalent of gnomish sport?

  All sense of security left me as I asked Arcwhistle, “What if that thing had grabbed the boot to pull itself out?”

  “The boot is detachable.”

  “And what if the demon just held the boot?”

  “The boot is rocket-propelled and designed to launch away from the portal exit, dragging or knocking any demonic interlopers away.

  “It will also detonate to destroy the demon and the gate from the other side.”

  “But what if the demon gets past the boot?”

  “The entire room is warded to prevent demonic incursion. And these wards will blow up any demons insane enough to risk entering.”

  Emphasizing his point with a wave of his arcane straw wand, Arcwhistle added, “Plus, the gnomes gathered here have enough magical ability to obliterate a band of ravaging demon lords.”

  That, at least, was reassuring.

  I thought.

  “What was in the crate? Why was it being sent away? What was that sticker on the box?”

  “The crate held food contaminated by a demonic presence, one that could make people very sick.”

  Maybe this was it! The source of the monstrous outbreaks! “The kind that could turn people into monsters when they eat it?”

  “No. The kind that could turn people dead when they eat it.”

  That was even worse than the outbreak.

  At least with the outbreak, people got to go crazy and act like a monster before they died.
/>
  “Was that what the sticker said on the side of the box?” I asked Arcwhistle.

  “No. It told demons to eat it.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe the human food will make the demons sick like the demonic food makes us ill.”

  This, I would need to ponder.

  11

  Arcwhistle and I were back in the extradimensional warehouse.

  Having decided to minimize my risk of getting smashed by a runaway package, I was sitting on the floor. I had not found the source of the monstrous scourge here, as I had hoped, but before I left, I had a few more questions for him. “Could the entire show we just watched be staged?”

  “Anything is possible with magic and the right technology,” was Arcwhistle’s reply. “However, given the level of technical and magical sophistication, not to mention the augmentation, of those or any others who may attend such an event, deception is highly unlikely.”

  “What could be done, for example,” I asked, “to avoid a disposal meeting if someone within your organization had nefarious intentions?”

  “A meeting would be avoided if the Construct decided to dispose of the risky goods on its own, or if a Paratechnologist acted likewise.”

  Before I could ask my next question, he added, “However, performing such an event successfully and without detection is also highly unlikely.

  “If a Paratechnologist tried to manipulate the system to allow some hazard through, there are multiple levels and intelligences in the Construct that would need to be fooled and counteracted. Further, the Construct would not allow such dangerous goods to go back into circulation. The level of knowledge and expertise such an endeavor would require is beyond the capabilities of all but Construct-level intelligence.

  “Corrupting or compromising the Construct to allow such an action would, as I said, be beyond almost all mortal agencies.”

  “Is there any way that goods teleported from here could be intercepted before they arrive at their destination?”

  “We know of no way to intercept an instantaneous transmission,” answered Arcwhistle. “The only two potential, but unlikely, possibilities are that the goods would be intercepted upon arrival, or that a teleport is diverted through altering the magic involved in the teleportation. Either means of interfering with the delivery of goods would be detected and counteracted by the Construct.”