He found himself in a short tunnel. He had been told that Chthon consisted of a maze of lava tubes, and intellectually he knew that their formation had been completed many centuries before, but it was hard to be objective. The far end of the passage pulsed with heat, and the roaring sound grew constantly louder, as though the primeval forces were still in motion. But there was no other way to go.
At length he emerged into a larger cross tunnel, a dozen feet in diameter—and was smashed into its smooth wall by a rushing mass of air. Wind—in closed caverns? This was the source of the noise; but where could such a draft be coming from? Somehow his vision of the infernal region had not included this.
Aton braced himself and forged back into the wind, letting it guide his body down the tunnel. The walls were featureless, except for the glow, and the passage was almost exactly circular in cross section. Could it have been excavated and smoothed by an untold era of wind erosion? Chthon was growing stranger yet.
The fierce breeze—thirty miles an hour or more—served nicely to cool his laboring body, giving him at least part of the answer to survival here. But almost immediately he felt its consequence: dehydration. He would have to have water, and quickly, before his body shriveled. Somewhere there should be other people, and suitable provisioning.
Moving along with one hand against the wall, Aton suddenly fell into an inlet. The wind subsided here, and the heat returned; but grateful for the rest, he decided to follow it on down. The passage was small, hardly high enough to clear his head, and opened into another cell or room similar to the one in which he had been deposited originally. A dead end.
He was about to retrace his steps when he realized with a start that this room was occupied. There was a mutter and a stirring, and a shape rose from the curving floor. It came toward him, oddly suggestive and a little frightening, bringing to mind an image from his past; nebulous, a beauty and a horror at once too tempting and too painful to handle fairly. The background howling of air seemed to shape itself into sinister music. Is it the song, he thought, the terrible broken song, the melody of death? Is this my demon, my succubus, come grinning to snatch away my manhood?
A woman’s voice issued from the figure, unctuous yet appealing. “You want to make love to me?” she asked.
Now he could see the outline of a nude female body. Conscious of his own exposure, he held his book protectively in front as she approached. He was uncertain of her intention, and she brushed the book aside and slipped into the circle of his arm. She was confident; apparently she was able to see things more readily than he, in this half-light.
“Love,” she said. “Make love to Laza.” Her naked breasts pressed up against his chest.
He was afraid of her and of his phantasm. Warned by the tenseness of her body, he jerked backward. Her hand came down savagely, the sharp stone in her fist just grazing his cheek. Twice in an hour he had been attacked. “Then die, you bastard!” she cried. “Die, die…”
Her breath caught, choking, and she fled to the far side of her cell, to fling herself down in a shuddering heap. He could still hear her tortured whisper, “Die, die…” Had she really intended to kill him?
He stepped back into the connecting hallway. Laza heard the sound and came upright immediately. “You want to make love to me?” she inquired, exactly as before.
Aton ran.
The main tube went on and on, intersecting numerous cloisters. Some seemed to be empty; others broadcast strange noises, grunts, scratchings. Aton passed them quickly.
Thirst drove him on. The cruel wind chafed at his back, wringing moisture from him. He had kept his shoes, but now he removed them and let his sweat-sodden feet breathe. And pushed on.
At last the sound of voices drew him into a larger cavern. The wind eased slightly, filling more spacious quarters, and the noise diminished. Aton’s numbed senses came back to life. There were several people here, working and chatting idly. In the center of the hall was a large metal device on wheels with a spoked axle rising from the top. Two men were pushing at the spokes and slowly rotating the top as though it were the wheel of a grinder. Nearby two other people squatted against the wall, carving small objects with slender blades. Beyond them a single man flipped pebbles into baskets. All were naked.
Nearest to him was a ponderously genial woman who spotted the visitor immediately. “New man, eh?” she said, using the same greeting he had met before. More trouble?
“Aton Five.”
“You came to the right place,” she said. “Everybody comes to Ma Skinny.”
She laughed at Aton’s blank look. “Naw—it’s ’cause I handle the skins. You’ll be wanting one, ’fore you shrivel. Here.” She went to the central machine. The men stopped their grinding to allow her to remove a bag hanging on a spout in the side.
She brought it to him. “This here’s your skin. You don’t never want to leave it behind.”
Aton took it, uncomprehending. It was made of some sturdy fabric, weighed about twenty pounds, and had straps obviously designed as a body harness. Now he saw that every person in sight wore a similar bag—the only article of clothing. But what was the purpose?
Ma Skinny picked up an empty bag and suspended it from the spout, allowing the men to resume their labor. Slowly it began to fill.
At last Aton caught on. “Water!” he exclaimed, taking the narrow neck of his skin into his mouth and sucking thirstily. The liquid was cool, comparatively, and delicious.
The woman looked on approvingly. “Worth mor’n garnets,” she said. “We just grind it out of the ’denser, here, and everybody’s happy. Just so long’s they stay right side of ol’ Skinny.”
Aton got the message. This woman had power, in whatever subterranean hierarchy existed here.
She went on to introduce the others. “Folks, this here’s Five. These two’re my pushers, this shift, Sam and Horny. Down this way we got ol’ man Chessy. He makes whole chess sets out of broken garnet stone, or whatever it is. Nice work.” Aton nodded, surprised again. Outside, those figurines were worth a fortune, both for the material and the craftsmanship—yet here the artisan was revealed as a gray old man squatting nakedly and poking with a battered knife. “This other’s Prenty to him. They got an understanding.”
The apprentice was a young woman, hardly out of her teens, but quite well formed and pretty. Aton wondered what crime she could have committed to be sentenced to Chthon at such an age. He imagined that their “understanding” was more to gratify the old man’s ego than his romantic prowess. Reputation must be most important here—a good point to remember.
Ma Skinny led the way to the man with the baskets. “Tally, here,” she said. “Good man with figures, good eye for garnets. Don’t cross him.” Tally was sorting the little stones by color: a basket each for shades of red and brown, dimly distinguishable in the imperfect light. An attractive girl resorted them into graduated sizes. “That’s Silly,” Ma said. “Her name, I mean—Selene, Silly. You’ll learn.” The girl looked up and giggled.
“Everybody’s got a job,” Ma finished. “You run around a little, Five, get settled, and we’ll fix you up with something. No hurry.” Too casually, then: “You smuggled in some tools.”
“Tools?”
Her alert eye was on his bound book. She wouldn’t ask the question. Aton opened it. “LOE,” he said. “A text. They let me bring one thing.” She turned away, wordless, disgusted.