"Sit down," Auk told them again. "We're all tired out-shaggy Hierax knows I am-and we've probably got a long way to go before we find dinner or a place to sleep. I got a few questions for Urus here. Most likely the rest of you got some too."
"I
do, certainly."
"All right, you'll get your chance." Auk seated himself gingerly on the cold floor of the tunnel. "First, I ought to tell you that what he said's lily, but it don't mean a lot. I know maybe a hundred culls I can trust a little, only not too much. Before they threw him in the pits, he used to be one of 'em, and that's all it ever was."
Incus and Hammerstone had sat down together as he spoke; cautiously, Urus sat, too, after receiving a permissive nod.
Auk leaned back, his eyes shut and his head spinning. "I said everybody'd get their chance. I only got this one first, then the rest of you can go ahead. Where's Dace, Urus?"
"Who's that?"
"The old man. We had a old man with us, a fisherman. His name's Dace. You do for him?"
"I didn't do for anybody." Urus might have been a league away. Hammerstone's voice: "Why'd they throw you in the pit?" Chenille's: "That doesn't matter now. What are you doing here, that's what I want to know. You're supposed to be in a pit, and you thought I'd been in one. Was it no clothes, like Auk said?" Incus: "My son, I have been
considering
this. You could
hardly
have foreseen that I, an augur, would be
armed."
"I didn't even know you was one. That cully Gelada, he said there was this long mort, and a little cull with her. That's all we knew when we started pullin' lights down." "It was this
Gelada
who shot the bone arrow at
me,
I take it." "Not at you, Patera. At her. She had a launcher, he said, so he shot, only he missed. He's got this bow pasted up out of bones, only he's not as good with it as he thinks. Auk, all I want's to get out, see? You take me up, anyplace, 'n that's it. I'll do anythin' you say."
"I was wondering," Auk murmured.
Incus: "I
fired
twenty times at least. There were
beastly animals
, and
men
as well." Chenille: "You could've killed all of us, you know that? Just shooting Auk's needler like that in the dark. That was abram." Hammerstone: "Not me." "If I had
not
, my daughter, I might very well have died
myself
. Nor was I firing at
random
. I
knew!
Though I might as well have been
blind
. That was
wonderful
. Truly
miraculous. Scylla
must have been at my side. They
rushed
upon me to kill me, all of them, but
I
killed
them
instead."
Auk opened his eyes to squint into the darkness behind them. "They killed Dace, maybe. I dunno. In a minute I'm going to see."
Chenille prepared to rise. "You feel awful, don't you? I'll go."
"Not now, Jugs. It's still dark back there. Urus, you said your culls took down lights. That was to make a dark stretch here so you could get behind us, right?"
"That's it, Auk. Getada got up on my shoulders to pull four down, 'n Gaur run them on back. They spread out lookin' for dark. You know about that?"
Auk grunted.
"Only they don't go real fast. So we figured we'd wait flat to the side till you went by. Her, I mean, 'n this runt augur cully. That's all we figured there was." "And jump on me from in back!" "What'd you of done?" (Auk sensed, though he could not see, Urus's outspread hands.) "You shot a rocket at Gelada. If it hadn't been for the bend, you coulda done for our whole knot." "Bad man!" (That was Oreb.)
Auk opened his eyes once more. "Three or four, anyhow. Hammerstone, didn't you say something about a couple animals Patera shot?"
"Tunnel gods," Hammerstone confirmed. "Like dogs, like I told you, only not nice like dogs."
"I got to go back," Auk muttered. "I got to see what's happened to the old man, and I want to have a look at these gods. Urus, you're one, and I did for one, so that makes two. Hammerstone says Patera got a couple, that's four. Anybody else do for any?"
Hammerstone: "Me. One. And one Patera'd shot was still flopping around, so I shot him again."
"Yeah, I think I heard that. So that's five. Urus, don't give me clatter, I'm telling you. How many'd you have?"
"Six, Auk, 'n the two bufes."
"Counting you?"
"That's right, countin' me, 'n that's the lily word."
"I'm going back there," Auk repeated, "soon as the lights get there and I feel better. Anybody that wants to come with me, that's all right. Anybody that wants to go on, that's all right, too. But I'm going to look at the gods and see about Dace." He closed his eyes again.
"Good man!"
"Yeah, bird, he was." Auk waited for someone to speak, but no one did. "Urus, they threw you in the pits. Do they really throw them? I always wondered."
"Only if you get their backs up. If you don't, you can ride down in the basket."
"That's how they feed you? Put your slum in this basket and let it down?"
"'N water jars, sometimes. Only mostly we got to catch our own when it rains."
"Keep talking."
"It ain't as bad as you think. Anyhow mine ain't. Mostly we get along, see? 'N the new ones comin' in are stronger."
"Unless they get thrown. They'd have broken legs and so forth, I guess"
"That's lily, Auk."
"Then you kill 'em right off and eat 'em while they're still fat?"
Someone (Incus, Auk decided) gasped.
"Not all the time, 'n that's lily. Not if it's somebody that somebody knows. We wouldn't of et you, see."
"So you got stuck in a pit, riding down in this basket, and you're a bully cull, or used to be. Found out they'd been digging, didn't you?" Auk opened his eyes, resolving to keep them open.
"That's it. They meant to dig out, see? Over till they fetched the big wall, then down underneath, deep as they had to. Ours is about the deepest, see? One of the real old 'uns 'n one that's near the wall. They'd dig with bones, two culls at once, 'n more carryin' it out in their hands. The rest'd watch for Hoppy 'n tramp it down when it was scattered 'round. They told me all about it."
Hammerstone asked, "You hit this tunnel when you went to go under the wall?"
Urus nodded eagerly. "They did, that's the right of it. They told me. And the shiprock-it's shiprock there, it is in lots of place-it was cracked, see? 'N they scraped the dirt out, hopin' to get through, 'n saw the lights. They got wild then, that's what they said. So they fetched rocks 'n chipped away at the shiprock, just a snowflake, like, for your wap, fill you can wiggle through."
Incus grinned, exposing his protruding teeth more than ever. "I
begin
to comprehend your plight, my son. When you had
accessed
these horrid tunnels, you found yourself
unable
to reach the
surface.
Is that not correct? The fact of the matter?
Pas's
justice on you?"
"Yeah, that's it, Patera." With an ingratiating grimace, Urus leaned toward Incus, appearing almost to abase himself. "Only look at it, Patera. You shot a couple friends of mine just a minute ago, didn't you? You didn't lend 'em no horse to Mainframe, did you?"
Incus shook his head, plump cheeks quivering. "I thought it best to let the gods judge for
themselves
in this instance, my son. As I would in
yours,
as well."
"All right, I was fixin' to kill you. That's lily, see? I'm not tryin' to bilk you over it. Only now you 'n me ought to forget about all that, see Patera? Put it right behind us like what Pas'd want us to do. So how about it?" Urus held out his hand.
"My son, when you possess such a needler as
this,
I shall consent to a truce
gladly.
"
Auk chuckled. "How far you gone, Urus? Looking for a way out?"
"Pretty far. Only there's queer cheats in these tunnels, see? 'N there's various ones, too. Some's full of water, or there's cave-ins. Some ends up against doors."
Chenille said, "I can tell you something about the doors, Hackum, next time we're alone."
"That's the dandy, Jugs. You do that." Painfully, Auk clambered to his feet. Seeing that the blade of his hanger was still fouled with blood, he wiped it on the hem of his tunic and sheathed it. "Things in these tunnels, huh? What kinds of things?"
"There's sojers like him down this way." Urus pointed to Hammerstone. "They'll shoot if they see you, so you got to keep listenin' for 'em. That was how I knowed he was a sojer in the dark, see? They don't make much noise, not even when they're marchin', but they don't sound like you 'n me, neither, 'n sometimes you can hear when their guns hit up against 'em. Then there's bufes, what he calls gods, 'n they can be devils. Only this cull Eland caught a couple little 'uns 'n kind of tamed 'em, see? We had 'em with us. There's big machines, sometimes, too. Some's tall asses, only not all. Some won't row you if you don't rouse 'em."
"That all?"
"All I ever seen, Auk. There's stories 'bout ghosts 'n things, but I don't know."
"All right." Auk turned to address Incus, Hammerstone, and Chenille. "I'm going to go back there and have a look for Dace, like I said."
He strolled slowly along the tunnel toward the lingering darkness, not stopping until he reached the point at which the men and beasts shot by Incus lay. Squatting to examine them more closely, he contrived to glance toward the group he had left. No one had followed him, and he shrugged. "Just you and me, Oreb."
"Bad things!"
"Yeah, they sure are. He called 'em bufes, but a bufe's a watchdog, and Hammerstone was right. These ain't real dogs at all."
A crude bludgeon, a stone lashed with sinew to a fire-blackened bone, lay near one of the convicts Incus had shot. Auk picked it up to look at, then tossed it away, wondering how close the man had gotten to Incus before he fell. If Incus had been killed, he, Auk, would have gotten his needler back. But what might Hammerstone have done?
He examined more curiously the one he had cut down with his hanger. He had stolen the hanger originally, had worn it largely for show, had sharpened it once only because he used it now and then to cut rope or prize open drawers, had taken two lessons from Master Xiphias out of curiosity; now he felt that he possessed a weapon he had never known was his.
The radiance of the creeping lights was noticeably dimmer here; it would be some time before the section in which he had left the old fisherman was well lit. He drew his hanger and advanced cautiously. "You sing out if you see anything, bird."
"No see."
"But you can see in this, can't you? Shag, I can see, too. I just can't see good."
"No men." Oreb snapped his bill and fluttered from Auk's right shoulder to his left. "No things."
"Yeah, I don't see much either. I wish I could be sure this was the spot."
Most of all, he wished that Chenille had come. Bustard was walking beside him, big and brawny; but it was not the same. If Chenille had not cared enough to come, there was no point going-no point in anything.
How'd you get yourself into this, sprat, Bastard wanted to know.
"I dunno," Auk muttered. "I forget."
Give me the pure keg, sprat. You want me to window you out? If I'm going to help, I got to know.
"Well, I liked him. Patera, I mean. Patera Silk. I think the Ayuntamiento got him. I thought, well, I'll go out to the lake tonight, meet 'em in Limna, and they'll be glad to see me for the gelt, for a dimber dinner and drinks, and maybe a couple uphill rooms for us after. He won't touch her, he's a augur-"
"Bad talk!"
"He's a augur, and she'll have a couple with her dinner and feel like she owes me for it and the ring, owes for both, and it'll be nice."
What'd I tell you about hooking up with some dell, sprat?
"Yeah, sure, brother. Whatever you say. Only then he was gone and she was fuddled, and I got hot and lumped her and went looking. Only everybody say's he's going to be Caldé, the new Caldé-Patera. That would be somebody to know, if he pulls it off."
"Girl come!"
Never mind that. So now you're going back here, back the way we come, for this Silk butcher?
"Yeah, for Silk, because he'd want me to. And for him, too, for Dace, the old man that owned our boat."
You've snaffled a sackful like him. You don't even have his shaggy boat.
"Patera'd want me to, and I liked him."
This much?
"Hackum? Hackum!"
He's waitin', you know. That buck Gelada's waitin' for us in the dark next to the old man's body, sprat. He had a bow. Didn't any of em back there have no bow.
"Girl come," Oreb repeated.
Auk swung around to face her. "Stand clear, Jugs!"
"Hackum, there's something I've got to tell you, but I can't yell it."
"He can see us, Jugs. Only we can't see him. Not even the bird can see him from here where it's brighter, looking into the dark. Where's your launcher?"
"I had to leave it with Stony. Patera didn't want me to go. I think he thought I might try to kill them with it once I got off a ways."
Auk glanced to his right, hoping to consult Bustard; but Bustard had gone.
"So I said, we're not going to do anything like that. We don't hate you. But he said you did."
Auk shook his head, the pain there a crimson haze. "He hates me, maybe. I don't hate him."
"That's what I told him. He said very well my daughter-you know how he talks-leave
that
with us, and I shall believe you. So I did. I gave it to Stony."
"And came after me without it to tell me about the shaggy doors."
"Yes!" She drew nearer as she spoke. "It's important, really important, Hackum, and I don't want that cully that knocked me down to hear it."
"Is it about what the tall ass said?"
Chenille halted, dumbfounded.
"I heard, Jugs. I was right there behind you, and doors are my business. Doors and windows and walls and roofs. You think I'd miss that?"