Asarah followed Samga out of the dark cell. The passageway outside was just tall enough that Samga could walk with the tips of his pointy ears just brushing the ceiling, but Asarah had to duck to follow. After a short distance, the passageway opened up into a larger cavern. This larger cavern revealed itself to be a tunnel. As they headed upwards, she could see many other tunnels leading off in all directions.

She was soon distracted from underground geography by the large number of Orcs moving through the passage. Some carried picks and shovels, others crates and barrels, and one pair of the creatures carried a third who had obviously been hurt. As they crossed to the center of the passage she could see a steady stream of wagons, each pulled by a team of Orcs. Full ones headed up. Empty ones headed down. What were they mining?

Even though all of the Orcs gave her the same unnatural, unpleasant stare, after a while they seemed perfectly normal to Asarah. She noticed that all the Orcs had slightly different colorations; like brutish snowflakes, no two were alike. Their snarls, barks, and grunts did not become attractive, but she was shocked to find that she was becoming accustomed to them. How could a whole new species exist entirely below the earth? And with no one knowing of them?

A small knot of Orcs walked past holding a log, lashings, and quite a lot of firewood. Other than the wagons, this was the only wood Asarah had seen down here. What did they need it for? And how far down were they, anyway? She had so many questions. She tried one of them on Samga: “What’s going on?” she asked, gesturing to the wood.

For a few steps, Samga didn’t answer. The more-grey-than-green of his back hunched a little as he shuffled his way through the tunnels. Samga spoke, but he didn’t slow or turn back. She hurried alongside him so she could hear his words.

“Adventurers. Trespassers. They killed The Master’s favorite Troll. The Master doesn’t know about it, but when he finds out, he will insist that they be roasted on spits. I do not want to be roasted on a spit also, so I have ordered the spits prepared for roasting early.”

“Roasting?” Asarah asked, trying not to wince.

“The Master doesn’t like raw meat.”

“He is a cannibal?”

“What does ‘cannibal’ mean?” asked Samga.

“He eats people.”

“No, The Master is a good Master! He gives the people to us. ‘Course, we like them raw, but The Master must have his fun.”

Asarah didn’t ask any more questions. They came to a large arch in a formation of granite. In the arch was a huge door flanked by gigantic torches. Samga did not knock but opened the door and held it, waiting for Asarah to walk through.

When she did, Samga said, “Master, I have brought the girl.”

From behind his desk, Dimsbury shot a foul look across the room. Banishing her tattered appearance from her mind, Asarah smiled. She had come a long way since her girlish days. The endless toil of keeping an inn had cut lines into her face, more from laughter than from frowns, but they betrayed her age. Even so, she was still very attractive. In some ways, more attractive than she had been as a girl. She hoped that this would be enough.

“Do you like my accommodations?” Dimsbury asked, still looking at her intently.

Asarah scanned the clutter of the round room. It was certainly the nicest decorated cave she had ever seen, but it was still a cave. Her eye was drawn to the disturbing-looking flame that danced in a gigantic glass receptacle. She didn’t like looking at it, but somehow she couldn’t look away. It was every color and no color at the same time. It flickered and danced, and seemed always just slightly out of focus. As she stared at it, she became queasy.

“You are a brave woman to stare so boldly into my flame. There are not many who can tolerate the sight of it for so long,” said Dimsbury, stepping out from behind the desk and moving to stand close behind Asarah.

Asarah forced herself to keep looking at the eerie flame. She asked, “What is it?”

“What isn’t it? That is the better question. It is the source, the power that binds and fuels all Magic.”

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“Is such power dangerous?” she asked, thinking that she was playing to his vanity.

“In the wrong hands, power is always dangerous.”

“There is a more powerful Magic than this,” she said.

“And what is that?” the Wizard asked.

“The force which draws Man to Woman,” said Asarah, turning to face him and lean her ample bosom towards him as if it were an offering or a weapon. “You are a,” she paused and bit her bottom lip, “powerful man. You take what you want. And you have taken me. Because you need a beautiful woman to bring comfort and pleasure to your life.”

“Is that right?” Dimsbury asked, not pulling away.

“And you are afraid…”

Dimsbury snorted in disgust.

Asarah moved closer and continued, “…afraid that I will fear you because of your great power.”

“You don’t fear me?” Dimsbury asked with an air of bemusement.

“No. The force which draws a Woman to a Man is stronger than fear.” She leaned in to kiss him. Her full red lips moving in an approximation of hunger. Closer. Closer. Until, in the last millimeter, Dimsbury erupted in laughter. The torrent of his foul breath poured into her face as if he were a sewer.

Asarah recoiled in shock. Was everything in this dungeon gay?

“You think that… excuse me,” Dimsbury struggled to repress some very undignified giggles. Then he sighed and looked around for someone to share the joke with. But there was no one. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am as serious as I am beautiful,” Asarah said, almost choking on her own disgust for her words. But she had turned it over and over in her mind. Seducing this man was her only chance of getting out of this alive.

“I mean the thought of it! Really, it is too much.”

“Isn’t it?” she said, flashing a great deal of leg through her torn dress and hating herself for it.

“No, no, I mean, the very idea! You are a serving girl, an entirely different species from one such as I. The idea,” he barked another laugh, “that I–I? A scion of a noble house could take as consort something like you? It is laughable, really. You are to me as,” he indicated the parade of heads that adorned the wall behind his desk, “well, as I said, a creation, or another species. We could no more mate than could an eagle and a, a, a snail!”

Confused and not a little offended, Asarah asked, “Well, if you don’t want to ravish me, then why have you brought me here?”

“It was not to shatter your Princess fantasy, I assure you. I have brought you here to be my cook,” said the Wizard.

Asarah stood with her mouth hanging open so long that the Wizard felt he must clarify things for the simpler mind in the room. “Sandwiches, dear lady, I have brought you here to make me sandwiches.”

“Sandwiches? You think I’m making you SANDWICHES!?” said Asarah with the fury of a woman who thought she had wanted to be scorned, but had just changed her mind. “I AM NOT A SERVANT!”

The Wizard looked at her for a moment. Then he gave her a smile that was anything but reassuring.

“I am glad you said that,” said Dimsbury.

“Because now you see that I am no servant or serf?”

“Well, now we have the question out in the open, at least.”

“It’s not a question. I am no servant. I was mistress of my own inn and free house before you burned it to the ground.”

“Yes, I am sorry about that. I am fond of the occasional overly flamboyant gesture, you know. But let us put the past behind us and start anew.”

Asarah looked at him skeptically but said, “Ooookay. Try me.”

“You call me a Wizard. And so I am,” he indicated his surroundings. “As you can see I am a Master of Arcane and Powerful Forces, the workings of which you cannot possibly hope to understand. But, you are a clever girl…”

Asarah winced. He said “clever girl” in the tone of voice one might use to praise a prize horse or a well-trained dog. If this jackass was trying the smooth talk, it wasn’t working.

Dimsbury charged on heedless of the effect he was having. “So, I believe you can understand the importance of my work here. Work that, if you chose to join the team, you would be supporting in a vital, culinary role.”

“You see, I am not merely the cliché of some maladjusted character living in the bowels of the earth twisted and bent on revenge. Nor am I a mere conjuror,”–and here he threw up a burst of flame into the center of the room–“although revenge and conjuring are well within my capabilities.

“I am a creator, a researcher, a man who delves deeply into the very fabric that binds our realities together.”

You’re a guy who certainly likes to talk about yourself, Asarah thought.

“And I am father, to my awkward children. Isn’t that right, Samga?”

“Of course,” Samga said.

“Father? Of all of these… these?”

“Orcs, I call them. Yes, I made them. All of them.”

“What are they?”

“An alchemy of fungi, mineral, and pure Magic. Things made, not born. And surprisingly faithful servants. They are my greatest work, to date.” He gestured to the wall above his desk. Asarah realized that the heads mounted in a semicircle were, indeed, Orcs. It was a sequence, moving from Dimsbury’s crude and puny first attempts, to brutishly strong examples, to a head that looked very much like the creatures she had seen in the halls. But at the far right, there was an empty mounting plate.

“What’s the empty one for?” asked Asarah.

“Oh, that’s for Samga. Someday, he will go there. He is my finest work, almost like a son to me.”

Asarah looked at Samga. This revelation didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. Of course, Samga was an Orc, a horrible thing, but Asarah felt a moment of pity for him all the same. She turned back to Dimsbury and said, “Yeah. Son. I can see the resemblance.”

“Really? How strange, we look nothing alike. You are a curious creature. Now that you have some sense of the importance of my work, let us talk about the terms of your employ.”

Asarah drew in a breath and was just about to give the Wizard a furious piece of her mind when there was a pounding at the door.

“Come!” said Dimsbury.