The Philosophical Strangler by Eric Flint

After Shelyid came me and Jenny and Angela. Eagerly charging off to adventure.

Oh, sure, I tried. I hate to admit it, given my reputation for firmness with womenfolk, but they hadn’t paid my protests any attention at all.

Then came Hrundig and Magrit and the Cat. The mercenary was as grim as ever—he still hadn’t said a word. Magrit was her usual foul-mouthed self. Wittgenstein rode on her shoulder, making occasional comments on the plight of salamanders in a human-dominated ecosystem.

“Hadn’t been for that fucking comet,” I heard him mutter, “we’d still be running the show. Wouldn’t be any of this derring-do nonsense, let me tell you. Just loll about in the swamp, gobbling insects.”

The Cat, as often, was off in her own world.

Finally, Greyboar and Gwendolyn brought up the rear. They weren’t talking anymore. Just walking alongside each other, holding hands.

Lester and Eddie and Frank came along, too, for the first part of the trip. It turns out that you can enter the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the dungeons of New Sfinctr from any of the main branches of the Underground Railroad.

So our adventure started right there in our own basement. Lift the hidden hatch to our stop on the Railroad, down the ladder, and off you go!

The first problem we faced was plowing through the mob of dwarves down there. I knew Jenny and Angela had turned our house into the main Railroad station for the whole city. But I hadn’t ever gone down there myself. So I wasn’t prepared for the population density.

“There’s half the miserable dwarves in Grotum down here!” I cried, surveying the scene.

Dwarves, dwarves, dwarves. All over the place. Crammed into every nook and cranny of every little grotto and room carved into the bedrock. Papa dwarves, mama dwarves, baby dwarves. All wrapped up in blankets and rags and gathered about little pots of food. (I didn’t inquire about the food, and who paid for it. I didn’t want to know.)

“Well, of course there’s a lot of dwarves!” snapped Jenny.

“What did you expect?” demanded Angela. “You know the pogroms are getting worse!”

Well, yes, I did. But it’s none of my business, that.

Gwendolyn spoke up. “There’s also the new secret camp which the Ozarines are building in the Baronies. Project Nibelung, they call it. They’re rounding up dwarves all over the subcontinent and shoving them into that hellhole.”

I maintained a discreet silence, here. I happened to know about that little business, on account of—well, never mind. Let’s just say they don’t call Shelyid “The Dwarf From Disaster” for nothing.

In the end, I shut up. Jenny and Angela tended to tolerate my own little quirks (rational self-interest, I call them), but they did get testy on the subject of dwarves. And those callous souls—rational men, I called them—who ignored their plight. Hey, look, I was sorry the little buggers got such a raw deal. But a guy had to look out for himself, push comes to shove. You started standing up for dwarves and, before you knew, it you were in the crapper yourself.

Eventually, we made our way through the mob and started down one of the Railroad’s branch lines. The one leading to Blain, I think. There wasn’t much to see, even if the lighting had been better than the occasional lantern on the wall. Just a narrow tunnel carved through rock, with a couple of wooden rail lines running down the center. At one point, a train came through, and we all had to press ourselves against the wall. The adult dwarves hauling the carts paid us no attention at all. The little dwarves riding in them stared at us like apparitions, but they remained silent.

Okay, okay, dammit. I admit the dwarves got a really crappy deal. As bad a taskmaster as Zulkeh was, Shelyid was probably better off sticking with the wizard than being on his own.

Finally, we stopped. Eddie and Lester and Frank did some odd things at a section of the wall that looked like any other section, and within moments the wall opened up. A narrow passageway appeared, leading off to no place I wanted to go.