I didn’t know what to expect from the whole Undying thing.

A quick trip to Thorr’un heaven before they saw I had an automatic pass to reincarnation? Maybe a little witty banter when the Grim Reaper came to collect my soul and then realized that I was off limits? I had definitely expected it to feel a lot less like a hangover.

At least, if I was dead. I began to suspect that I wasn’t, because my head hurt. And as far as I knew death didn’t hurt. After the dying part, of course.

I extended my senses, trying to figure out what had woken me. I didn’t open my eyes. Opening your eyes usually means light. And light doesn’t feel so good on hangover eyes. My ears twitched — still a weird sensation — picked up the gentle, recognizable clatter of a bowl and utensils being placed on a stone floor. My nose caught the wafting scent of something rich and warm — definitely not shoe-leather meat and old mushrooms. It was a soothing way to wake, especially given the violence of my departure from consciousness. I didn’t trust it. After all, trust was what had gotten me into this mess.

I groaned, loudly, remembering. I can’t believe I’d trusted that goddam—

“Oh, you’re awake.”

My eyes flew open and I sat up so quickly I banged my head on the rocky ceiling of my sleeping nook. “Fucking shitting shit!” My eyes screwed up in pain and I clutched at my forehead, cursing harshly.

“Watch out! Easy easy…” The voice was close, soft and warm. Concerned. Most importantly, the voice was recognizable. I felt a hand on my arm and forced my eyes open to confirm what my ears were already telling me. Despite the pain lancing through my head, my vision was working fine. And by the light of two guttering torches I could see Aleesi’s worried face close to mine.

The orc girl was crouched by the side of my bed, which felt soft and warm under my body. One hand rested on the top edge of the smoothly-chiseled cubby that I’d been lying inside. The other was on my shoulder, easing me back down until I was flat on my back. I opened my mouth to speak, to say something angry and biting and witty.

I can understand you.

The realization hit me like a train and stunned me silent.

“Easy, Jondalar…” Aleesi was murmuring gently, the same tone she’d used to lure me into the clutches of her traitorous tribe. “There you go. Just lay back. Calm down. You’re safe here…”

You want to see calm? I opened my mouth to retort. Then stopped. Closed it. In a game of Survival, information was power. I couldn’t trust her. And this was no game. I swallowed. Carefully now…

“Where am I?” I asked. I’d been on language autopilot since arriving, but I very intentionally focused my tongue and spoke in the gruff, rolling syllables that I now knew were Dwarvish. “What’s going on? What did you do to me? Why did you attack me? Are we safe?” I tried to channel disorientation and panic, knowing that Aleesi couldn’t understand a word I was saying. It wasn’t hard.

I was disoriented. And I was most certainly on the verge of a major panic attack.

“Don’t worry…” The orc girl’s palm was cool and soothing on my forehead. I could feel her brushing back my hair and I relaxed in spite of myself. It had been so long since I’d felt a human touch. Or even a nonhuman one…

I took several deep breaths and then focused, calling to mind my character sheet. Like it had been summoned, the scrolling text popped into my vision. It flickered, then blinked to the section I’d been trying to recall.

Abilities

Linguist: You have an ear for language and a gift for piecing together dialect. If you hear or read a language every day for three days, you will gain the ability to speak, read and write the language with conversational fluency. If you hear, read and speak a language every day for thirty days, you will gain the ability to speak, read and write the language with native fluency.

…

“That’s good, Jondalar. I’m glad you have finally awakened. You’ve been asleep for some time.”

I stopped reading and flicked the sheet away.

I’ve been in Thorr’un for three days… It didn’t seem real, and my mind slashed back through my memories, cobbling together a choppy highlight reel.

I arrived in a castle bedchamber. Saw some dangly duergar dick. Heard Aleesi snarling at her captors. Out the window we went. Did a quick Do Thorr’un spider bites turn you into Thorr’un Spiderman? check. They do not. I had no idea how long I’d been hanging suspended in the spider’s pantry, but then Magnuus arrived. Fight sequence. I carried a curvy fantasy babe to safety like a total boss. Was Aleesi’s drugged-out mumbling enough to trigger the ability? Saved the fantasy babe by teaming up with duergar cult magic. Another fight sequence. More running. Fantasy babe talks me into being a total fool. Fantasy henchman takes me out with some sort of UFC-style rear naked choke. After that…

Vague recollections flickered through my mind. A jouncing journey, upside down, arms and legs flopping. I was too disoriented to do anything but pass out again, my body exhausted and shocked and out of commission.

Three days… The realization struck me again. Time was different down here. No sun. No moon. No clocks. I had lost all ability to keep track of time. Or maybe, born into a world dominated by smart phones and digital timepieces, I’d never really had that ability in the first place.

“I brought you something to eat.”

The mention of food made my stomach rumble, and I blinked back to outer awareness. I sat up slowly as Aleesi stood. She bent, picked something up from the floor, and came back. I watched her, the torchlight giving her figure a dangerously fascinating outline. To my surprise, she wore something not too dissimilar from what I’d roughly fashioned out of spider silk. A simple loin cloth of white leather with a fringe of long, white strands that swished around her legs when she moved. A band of pale cloth across her chest that stretched to accommodate her breasts, a similar tasseled border that only covered enough to draw attention to her smooth abs.

The girl held the bowl out to me as my bare feet hit the floor. The stone was smooth and flat, like tile. The bowl was full of some sort of stew. Thick and rich. I was too hungry not to eat. Three days and all I’d eaten were a couple seared mushrooms. The stew was delicious. Brown broth, with little bits of meat and something that crunched like a parsnip or carrot between my teeth.

“Thanks,” I mumbled in Dwarvish. It was all I had time to say in the span it took the carved spoon to enthusiastically travel between my mouth and the bowl and back.

“You’re welcome,” Aleesi answered in her own language.

It was strange, knowing that social pleasantries didn’t need to be translated to be understood. But I didn’t ponder it. I ate, thinking that Aleesi must be Thorr’un’s Gordon Ramsay. Or maybe I was just hungry.

“I’m sorry for what we did to you.” The orc girl sat back on the floor several feet away, her knees curled up to her chest. She hugged them. It made her look strangely… uncertain. “It was the only way Bulgan would consider bringing strangers back to the haavun.”

Odd, I thought. The word hit my ears and jumbled as my internal translator tried to find a word to match. It came down somewhere between tribe, home and city, with several associated emotions tied into it. Shoveling food into my mouth was good, not just because I was hungry. It was hard to resist the instinctive desire to respond in conversation. A spoon in the mouth stifles the urge.

The girl scowled, then gave me a worried look. “Please do not be angry with me, Jondalar. I truly believe it was the only way. Behind my people’s walls we are safe from the bogaddah.”

My translator whirred between my ears. Small, sneaky, vicious, twisted race. I guess Magnuus was wrong. Orcs and goblins really didn’t get along. Speaking of Magnuus… I had a vague memory of the duergar’s angry voice calling out in the dark. My thoughts jumped.

“Magnuus?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at the girl. And then a bolt of worry. “Webster?!” Strange, I thought. I’ve never really cared about animals before.

Names were safe. They wouldn’t give anything away.

“Webster…” Aleesi smiled, gestured toward a huge stone door in the far wall. “I know not where you found such a marvelous pet,” she continued, “but I like it very much.” I didn’t answer, and she examined my face carefully.

Aleesi’s eyes grew uncertain. “Magnuus…” She paused, then shook her head.

I couldn’t tell if she meant he was dead or that she couldn’t tell me, and I had to clench my jaw to keep from asking. I could sense there was something she wanted to say. “I wish we spoke the same tongue, Jondalar. You seem a good man. Worried for your friends, even though you know not what has befallen you.”

A good man… I almost snorted in amusement. Not something people back home would have called me. If there were people left, back home… But I did nothing, just swallowed.

“I saw you fight the bogaddah,” the young woman continued. “It seems you are a brave warrior. A strong fighter. And yet stupid. Clueless. Unlike anyone I know here. You are strange in so many ways.”

Clueless… I thought. Maybe because I thought that doing the right thing for once wouldn’t just fuck me over. My spoon clattered at the bottom of an empty bowl. I found my hands with nothing to do. Luckily, I wasn’t the one in charge. Aleesi pushed herself to her feet, fringed outfit swaying.

When I glanced up into her face, I could see her rolling her eyes. “Males,” she muttered, shaking her head. Her hair had been redone, intricate braiding that fell down one side of her face. “I swear that Urg sired you all the same. And here I thought we were having a moment.” She held out her hand.

I blinked. I handed her the bowl.

Aleesi snorted and shook her head. She bent, set the bowl on the floor, and held out her hand again.

Oh. I took it, glancing away. Her palm was cool and smooth as she pulled me to my feet.

“Come.” She accompanied the word with a gesture. “It is time to go before the Juunta and decide what is to be done with you.”

* * *

Aleesi snagged the torch on our way out, pushing on the stone door with her free hand.

I was watching carefully, but couldn’t see a handle, a lock, or even a keyhole. The door was big, built for people half again as tall as any human. It swung open easily. As we passed through, I realized that the stone must be at least a foot thick but my guide hadn’t seemed to push with even the smallest effort.

And then we were outside.

The sound hit me first, and my heartrate immediately tripled. My eyes twitched, left and right. My breath came fast between my lips. People. Dozens of them, hundreds. Nearby. It was the sound of a living city, something I hadn’t experienced in… a while. Only instead of car horns, blasting radios and lively Spanish chatter, I heard the clank of weapons, the rattle of wood on stone and rolling voices calling out in the flowing, guttural tongue I was beginning to think might be…

Orcish…?

The smell came next, sitting in the still air. Harsh and hard, the scent of unwashed bodies. I may have visibly flinched at the overwhelming stimuli, because Aleesi looked back with concern. Her hand grabbed at my wrist and pulled me closer. I felt the heat of the torch on my face. Despite the assault on my senses, though, we were almost alone. A high wall surrounded the courtyard where we stood, torches lighting a path to our right past the shapes of tall, regularly-spaced buildings. We seemed to be at one end of a long compound.

The young woman looked up into my face. “Easy, Jondalar.” The coaxing voice again. “Come on. Just follow me.” She pulled me along and I followed numbly, battling the instinct to tear free and run.

Where would I go, if I ran? We were still in the dark. Deep below the earth. The air had the same weight, and the feeling of pressure hadn’t left. Like millions of tons of stone were pressing down over my head. It was hot, too, several degrees warmer than comfortable. I glanced back at the building we’d left, and stopped stock still.

I had been sleeping in a giant tomb.

The mausoleum was at least twenty feet tall, the door we’d come through proportional to the high walls and the wide front. Over the door, chiseled into the marble lintel, was a line of angular runic script that I felt like I should be able to read, but couldn’t.

What the hell…? I froze long enough for my arm to yank taut. I stumbled after Aleesi, who didn’t look back.

“Come on…” she grumbled. “We’ll be late.”

Where the fuck are we? I followed my captor, focusing on breathing. My pulse pounded in my temples, my eyes picking out details as we marched down a ruler-straight path. The row of buildings we passed — tall, rectangular, evenly-spaced — were all the same as mine. All tombs. All with similar carvings over the doors or along the walls beside the entrance.

On the other side of the wall, the sounds of the city grew louder as we marched deeper into the compound. We began to pass groups headed in the other direction, several of which seemed like patrols. The orcs, skin the color of dark green algae shining in the torchlight, all stood aside for us. Unlike the group we’d first met, none of these soldiers were wearing armor, just knotted cloths around their waists and various belts or webbings to hang their weapons.

I realized why as I began to sweat. It was hot down here.

I had a million questions, but breathing seemed more important. The warm air stuck in my throat, and I wanted to growl at myself to get my shit together. But I also didn’t want to show any weakness. My free hand clenched, fingernails digging into my palm, while Aleesi pulled me along by my other wrist. Then, rising out of the gloom ahead, I saw our destination.

It stood at the end of the row of huge tombs, a wide, low building with fluted columns out front. It was built of the same huge slabs of white stone as the mausoleums, but the walls were covered in chiseled writing. It flowed in a waterfall down the sides, uninterrupted. We walked up the broad front steps, past a pair of guards carrying tall, wicked-looking spears with leaf-shaped blades. They made me remember Thorn, and I was relieved to see the ring on the finger of my free hand.

Not entirely defenseless, at least. My mind began to contort, trying to formulate some kind of plan, but I stopped it. Wait, I told myself. Get where you’re going. Analyze. Then act.

Through the front door. Again, larger than life. Built to impress, or for someone impressively big. The entry hall beyond felt like the lobby of an expensive apartment building that had spent several hundred years uninhabited. Give my home back on earth a couple centuries, and it might feel something like this. Another pair of stone double doors up ahead, these ones closed. I heard sounds beyond, and I swallowed. It was the rumble of a crowd.

More guards, whose dark eyes flicked to me before bowing their heads respectfully at Aleesi’s approach. They pulled the portals open.

On the other side of these doors, a mob.

I froze as the sound hit me, my feet rooting themselves to the tiled floor. Aleesi yanked but I didn’t move. So many…

A hundred orcs, at least, milling about in the middle of a tall, square atrium. They grumbled and rustled, weapons clinking at every hip or on every broad, muscular back. Male and female both, athletic figures that melded together into a single, frightening, undulating mass. The roof disappeared overhead, and the smoke of dozens of torches drifted away like the souls of escaping ghosts.

My guide yanked again. “Come on,” she growled, definitely impatient now.

Abruptly, I felt the prick of something sharp against my lower back. I sucked in a breath, flinching forward. Over my shoulder, I saw one of the two guards had leveled his spear. He stared at me impassively with dark eyes. His jaw was set, though, and I could see his big hands were tight on the shaft of his weapon.

I followed Aleesi on her next tug.

The crowd pulled back as they noticed our entrance, people nodding respectfully to my captor. To me, they gave me only dark, inscrutable looks. Murmurs swept through the tight-packed crowd as we passed, blending together in a menacing undertone. In the center of the atrium, down several broad, shallow steps, was a large square block of stone, and the alley formed by green-skinned bodies led us right to it. Unlike the smooth, white and silver-veined marble floor, this stone was a stark grey.

“Stay here.” Aleesi dragged me to the stone and pushed me toward it. She seemed to have grown impatient with me, and wouldn’t meet my eyes when I looked into her face. I sat on the edge, curling my bare toes into the stone floor, realizing I’d woken up without my boots.

On all sides, the crowd came to a hush.

Shit shit shit shit. My jaw tightened and I gripped the edge of the block tightly. I was the center of attention. And I did not like it. I wondered how long it had been since I’d seen so many people in one place. I’d never been much for big group events, parties and the like, but this wasn’t a party. And the mood was not festive. Strange, alien faces melded together in a wavering mirage. There was a space of half a dozen feet on all sides, but I felt like the mob was close enough to touch. Then, I looked beyond the crowd. Above them.

On each side of the open space, a pedestal rose five or six feet in the air. I craned my neck to look around, clambering up onto my stone seat. The pedestals weren’t empty. They were occupied by frightful figures, looming over the gathered crowd. Rough, tribal masks hid their faces.

On the platform across from the entrance stood a massive male even more built than the rest of the musclebound warriors. His mask was oval-shaped, pointed at the bottom in a long triangle. To his right, a female. Her hair was dark and long, braided in dreadlocks that fell all the way down her back. A round mask completely hid her expression. The masks looked like they were made of wood, or even stone, carved with simple eye and mouth holes. Another male, this one’s mask with two curved horns, stood on a pedestal we’d walked right beneath when we entered. He crossed his arms, forearms corded and bulging.

What on Earth is going on?

When I looked back down to ask my guide, though, Aleesi was gone. Disappeared into the crowd while my back was turned. Crap. I might not trust the girl, but she was the only character I knew in this alien theatre. And this was the second time she’d abandoned me.

Then, a hush settled over the murmuring mob as the massive male at the head of the room spoke. I turned back to face him as his deep, hollow voice filled the packed atrium.

“The Juunta is complete. The People are gathered. It is time to address the matters at hand. It is time to question. It is time to condemn.”

I tried to steel my nerves, but my stomach did a flip flop maneuver like a fish out of water.

What the hell had I gotten myself into?