She prepared herself. Before battle she used to rouse her spirit with thoughts of her parents kneeling in their beautiful garden, the pride and envy of their street. Others of the neighbourhood kneeled with them, while pigs (her memory actually depicted them as beast-faced animals in men"s clothes) went up and down the line, killing in Vous"s name.
This time she thought of something else: of one day looking back on this moment as the most decisive in all the war, a thin thread bearing the weight of all history, when a barefoot woman with a rock in her hand used it to cause an avalanche of events, pouring down on the whole castle to bury it forever. She had that thread in her hand now. She must not let go.
For a while the better lit pa.s.sage seemed safe enough, silent and deserted but for a not-too-distant clunk, clank, sc.r.a.pe. Then she was at another dead end. Four groundmen nattered quietly while they expanded the tunnel with tools. Their expert hands seemed to make the stone crumble away as if it were soft soil.
Their overseer lay with his back to her, one leg crossed lazily over the other. He had a sheathed sword at his side and a long forked prod. The scene was so reminiscent of the groundman art she"d seen it was disconcerting: this kind of thing actually happened? She"d always thought the little people somewhat demented.
She moved closer, at first unsure why the groundmen didn"t simply run from their lazy captor. Then she saw the square metal device which held all four of them around their bleeding ankles. Similar to traps used in hunting, it allowed them only a forward shuffle. Backward motion would cut into their feet.
One pair of candle-bright yellow eyes turned her way, though she was sure she"d not made the faintest sound. Then another. All four paused in their work and stared. The overseer lifted his prod, debated for a moment between offenders and despite their having quite frantically gotten back to their task plunged it into the thighs of the groundman on the right. The victim squealed pitifully. The rest worked at feverish speed.
The overseer didn"t get so far as drawing his sword before she swung down the rock, then swung it again to make certain. The groundmen didn"t turn as his body slumped to the ground, not until she"d taken off his sword belt and strapped it around her own waist. They spared her a glance then kept working as though one overseer had simply been exchanged for another.
She reached for the keys hooked around the dead man"s belt and said, "I think we can be of use to one another. Do you agree?"
2.
They had walked for at least two hours and the little creatures" grat.i.tude had only just begun to lose its hyperactive zeal. Thankfully. It was touching at first to have them pause every few paces to embrace her legs, but soon she"d had to keep in check the urge to kick some sense into them. "Let"s just get moving. Please. That"s the best way to thank me," she repeated through clenched teeth.
The groundmen"s bright eyes found secret pa.s.sages she"d never have seen, where what looked like a wall was actually an empty s.p.a.ce. She might well have pa.s.sed dozens of these earlier without knowing it. With the same ease they spotted old traps, long ago set off but still best avoided. Now and then were parts they had to tunnel through, digging holes in dead ends with the tools they"d kept from their enslavement. The way the stone seemed to melt and crumble in their fast-moving little hands indicated there was more at work than just the small picks and hammers. She"d heard no talk that these creatures held a kind of magic about them, but it could be nothing else. Soon they were well away from those districts under castle control and into other networks, long abandoned. These were not made for human travel, and in parts Siel had to crawl to fit. There were no light-stones. She could see nothing but the thin gleam leaking into the gloom from her companions" eyes.
"We are going deeper," she said. "Why? I asked you to take me to the surface."
"Bad up there," said the most vocal of them, the one who had been jabbed by the overseer"s p.r.o.ng. "Bad things, up now."
"Bad things? What bad things?"
"Your word. Tor-men-tor. We say, bad things. Up now, above. In trees."
"How can you tell where they are?" she said. "You have been enslaved for years. Weren"t you cut off from the outside world? Where do you get your news?"
A little laughter broke out. She heard one of them patting the wall. "This! Stone tells. Tells lots. Feel it. Touch it. All up there, comes through here. Here!" Pat, pat. "Just faint. But we feel. All time, while we slave, we know what pa.s.s, up there. Big war. They think we blind, dumb. It"s fine, make us slaves."
"They make slaves of us too," said Siel. "Of other big people. Have you not felt that going on up there?" The groundmen made sounds like they didn"t believe her. "It"s true. Some big people are very bad, some are good. We are trying to kill all the very bad ones. You can help us. We would like that very much. The world would be better for everyone."
There was a very awkward silence. "You, our friend," said one of them, turning to embrace her knees rea.s.suringly and nearly tripping her in the process. "You are. Not them."
She took this as a request to cease that line of conversation. They had evidence of one non-evil human being, so there must be just the one, which was her. Flattering, kind of. "Do you know where the Tormentors come from?" she said, suddenly wondering how valuable this friendship could become.
"We know."
"Do they come from the castle?" she said.
"Not there."
"We can show. Is far. Long way."
She asked them to describe it but they wouldn"t; the bad things came from "far away" and that was all. "Some close by now," one said in a grim voice. "They move, still. Feel it?"
"Nearby?" she said, alarmed. "Where?"
They nattered to each other briefly. "We show. Come. Is down from here."
It was not a small detour. She soon regretted agreeing to it as they went further and further below, down long stretches that were almost vertical, with the help of stone grooves functioning as ladders. The little people climbed down the vertical rock faces as though their hands could stick to stone at will. The air grew clammy and cold. Siel had an indefinable feeling that she, indeed any living thing, should not be here, that these parts of the world had not been made for her. The groundmen however seemed unconcerned, chatting happily in their incomprehensible speech until one long final descent when they ceased all talk.
"Here," one whispered, crawling with Siel over a raised hump of smooth icy rock shaped like a wave. Its crest looked down over a wider pa.s.sageway cut into the stone. There were small lightstones very spa.r.s.ely placed along the secret highway. Not much could be seen. "Slaves make this," a groundman whispered in her ear. "Long time back. Big long road. When road done, they kill slaves. No good, big people."
A foul and familiar smell was in the air. She fought not to cough. There was a sound of wooden creaking and cracking, hints of something moving along directly beneath them. Then came a flash of blue light which hurt all their eyes, making even the groundmen reel back in surprise. It had come from the tip of a short staff, held by a castle grey-robe who had not been visible before. Its flare was like a small lightning flash which revealed three Tormentors. They were smaller than those Siel had seen invading Elvury from the high inn"s window.
More bright flashes some distance away showed another grey-robe, surrounded by three of the creatures which he prodded along like someone steering cattle. "Where do they take them?" Siel whispered as quietly as she could.
"North. All north. Big under-country, there. Near castle. They fill it. Hard to do. See? Lots dead!"
She did not see. "Dead? Big people you mean, in the grey robes? The ones who try to move them along?"
"Dead. All up and down road. Hard to move bad things. Kill movers. Kill everyone. But they keep on, to bring more, more. Always more. What plan? We can"t see. This," it patted the stone wave they all lay upon, "don"t say what big people think. We leave here now. Must!"
It was no small relief to be out of earshot of the quiet insistent creaking sounds of death creeping beneath the world. For a long time after they"d left that spot the sound still seemed to be in her ears.
3.
Their way had climbed for uncounted hours when Siel"s body at last refused to go further. She slept, though claustrophobic nightmares made her regret it. The groundmen gently woke her and she went from one such bad dream to another.
A draft indicated they"d come through the cramped s.p.a.ces into a more open area. Glittering light far ahead had the groundmen excited and rushing off. When she cried out, "Come back!" one of them returned to guide her along the raised path, which even with eyes well accustomed to the dark she could barely see at her feet. "What"s got into your friends?" she said.
"New picture," he said, impatient to rush off for a look. Before it the other little people were talking in awed, hushed voices. It was a spectacular display of glowing patterns cast on a flat, forward-tilted slab of wall. She had to laugh for a moment when she saw that it depicted Eric.
Eric"s face, unmistakeably. A group of little people surrounded him, kneeling in reverence. "Why laugh?" one of the groundmen demanded, the first time any of them had spoken to her with anything like anger.
"I know him. That"s a companion of mine." They looked at each other uneasily and didn"t speak. Their body language was difficult to read but she had a sense they felt she had lied. "His name"s Eric. He"s-" (Was there harm in revealing it? she quickly debated.) "-he"s from Otherworld. A Pilgrim."
There followed several minutes of fast conversation between the groundmen, of which she understood not a word or even its mood.
"Where is he?" said one of them at last.
"A strange tower. Far to the south. I should be there with him. I was abducted." She described the location as best she could remember. They quizzed her for a while. Many of their questions she could make no sense of and couldn"t answer. "Why do you ask all this?" she said. "Why is he in this art?"
"Message," said one of them, nodding at the portrait of light. "He free us. Free all of us. Make everything good. This picture is message-picture. Eh-Rick, you call him?"
"Yes."
"Not his name. Says here, name H"lack-til. Your word, Shadow."
She looked at the portrait"s eyes. They were Eric"s eyes, not Shadow"s dead little pits. She had seen a similar picture before too. Where?
It took a minute for her to find the memory: around the campfire, asking Eric about Otherworld. He reaches into his pocket, into that small leather purse of such fine make she wonders if he may be a prince back home after all. He pulls out a thin object, a card with his likeness perfectly replicated. So perfectly she gasps in amazement. He explains how such pictures are made but she doesn"t understand. This groundman portrait, she was sure, had been copied from his likeness on that little card.
She remembered further, hearing Eric"s account of his travels with Case, about the groundmen who"d trapped then released them, taking the little card with them! She kept the laughter inside this time, but it wasn"t easy. Something on the card, in either its picture or the Otherworld runes it bore, had convinced the little people Eric (or Shadow) was their saviour.
So there were two decent big people, at least. She supposed that to them it must have made sense that the two good ones knew each other, for they seemed to accept her story. She wondered if this could be played on. "Eric Shadow is turning a lot of the big people into good people," she said. "You can trust anyone he works with. He has a way of changing people"s minds. Your people and ours can do much good, if we work together. We can mend our wounds. Make all the world as beautiful as your art, above ground and below."
"We go," said one of the little people with a note of urgency. "We go quick, now. Find him, this Eh-Rick. This Shadow. He help us!"
TELL US ABOUT THE DRAGONS.
1.
"Was he your father?" said Stranger. They sat beneath the window Siel had broken while Far Gaze slept naked, sprawled on the floor by the steps. Little strings of magic now and then swam to Stranger through the air, though she appeared to do nothing to draw them to her. She twisted them through her long fingers, then they fluttered out through the window like animals set free.
"No, Case wasn"t my father," said Eric. "I"m just a little shocked. I was beginning to think he was indestructible."
"Is there no one else you miss, from your home?"
"That"s the thing. He was my link back to them. I"m beginning to wonder now if that world even exists. I have a million memories of the place, but I don"t know if I"m even real. Every ghost in the haunted woods may think he is still real and alive."
"Don"t speak that way," said Stranger, performing a small gesture with her hands. He"d seen others doing it when they"d pa.s.sed through those very woods. "You"re no ghost. How long have you known Case?"
"Not much longer than you. I used to see him on my way to work sometimes, would toss him ten bucks now and then. He"d give me a chess lesson every so often."
"Chess?"
"A game. You play it here in Levaal, I"m told. Case would be so drunk he couldn"t stand up, but would still beat me. Easily. I think he"d have beaten most people."
Eric shook his head at the sleeping form of Far Gaze, angry at how casually he"d broken the news of Case"s death. Stranger noticed. "Don"t be too angry at the wolf. He has had a hard road. I made it hard. He felt he was protecting you from me all the while."
"Was he?"
She sighed and released a little fluttering string of dark air. "I would say no, of course not. I meant no harm to you. But did Dyan? He tells lies so well. He said he just wanted to watch you." The shrug of her slender shoulders was hardly perceptible. "Maybe he did, at least up until now. What he intends next, I can"t tell you."
"Do you remember summoning wine for Case?"
"Back on the castle lawns? Of course."
"That was one of the things that had Loup convinced you weren"t just an ordinary mage."
"He was right. Summoning a cup of wine from nearby, or summoning an illusory one, those things a normal mage could do. But creating the real thing from nothing is unusual work. I hope you aren"t thirsty. I can"t do such things now."
"Why not?"
She wiped her damp eyes. "Most of it was Dyan"s power. Not all of it. I can still do some things. I am as much a seer as I was, though that isn"t much. And the knowledge Dyan gave will stay with me as he himself fades to memory." Her voice thickened with those words.
"So you could summon a gla.s.s of wine, if you really had to?"
"I dare not try to cast now what he could cast through me. I may succeed, if there were enough power to fuel the spell, but it might hurt or kill me. Dragons have little worry about harm from casting. Their bodies are built to handle it. Ours aren"t, however capable our minds."
"So if you"re a seer, do you have a prediction?"
It was a little while before she answered. "Only that several key people will converge here, in this spot. More than are here now. This tower may have been designed for that purpose, to draw us."
"It all looks like chance to me."
"I feel there are too many of us here already for it to be just chance."
"You also a.s.sume we"re key people."
She laughed. "We are, for we surround you, Pilgrim. More will surely come, and if they do, we will know I"m right. Even the timing of this building"s revealing itself has me curious. Your friends showed up just in time to find it ere anyone else did." She gazed around at the room"s peculiar devices. "It is masterfully built. We are not masters of quick spell-casting, we humans. In that, we are insects to the greater dragons. To a Minor personality like Dyan, we are not insects, but our most powerful caster is still less than him. It is in our slower, more careful craftsmanship that we actually have the dragons" respect. Even though in that craft too, they best us. Small wonder they feel cheated that we have taken their world."
Loup staggered down the steps, yawning and farting. He glanced at Far Gaze"s sleeping form with no more reaction than a grunt, but stood flabbergasted on sight of Stranger.
"h.e.l.lo?" she ventured.
"I knew he was coming," said Loup, nodding at Far Gaze. "What in Inferno"s red blazes are you doing here?"
"I think I am your captive," she said, shrugging. "Although I"ll be an ally if you"ll let me. You"ll have to ask the wolf when he wakes up. He brought me."
"Ehh! So you weren"t an ally before, is that what you"re saying, la.s.s?"
"I don"t know. I thought I was. I might have been wrong."
"You"d judge it better than I," said Loup. "Less kick about you now though, mark me. Oh I noticed you on the road, could feel you about the place even at some distance. It was you all right. Not now though! The fire"s gone out of you."
"Not completely," she said testily.
He laughed. "Oh yes it has, enough for us to handle. You"re not much more than me, now. And not a candle on him." He nodded to Far Gaze. "Maybe you can bless the meals around here from now on." To Eric, Loup said, "Where"s the other la.s.s?"
"Siel? She"s not been here since I woke," said Eric. "And I"m nervous about it. I had a dream where she was far away."