She strode to the bag she had left by the door, snatched it up, and returned to the group. Almost every thin limb retracted as the boys recoiled at her approach. Esten opened the sack and dug deep, then drew forth a handful of sweetmeats and tossed them into the trembling crew. Instantly cacophony erupted, and she laughed in delight.
“Aren’t they sweet?” she said to the journeymen, then crouched down to get a better look at the individuals of the group. “Omet, where’s Tidd?”
Omet felt his throat go drier than Entudenin. “Dead, mum,” he said. The words came out in a croak.
“Tidd, dead? Dear me.” The glittering smile vanished, and Esten surveyed the group more closely. “What a shame. He had a fine sense of direction. Hmmm, now, who can we make chief?”
A forest of sapling limbs shot up and began waving desperately, accompanied by thin cries for selection. Esten’s smile returned, and she stood.
“That’s my boys! Such an enthusiastic lot. Let’s see, Haverill, Avery, no, you’re blind as a bat, aren’t you, dear? Jyn, Collin, no; Gume, hmmm, not you, either; you’re always doing everyone else’s work; much too softhearted. Hello, Vincane, who have we here?” She stopped in front of a small, yellow-haired boy, with large eyes and an angled face, trembling violently, his arms wrapped around spindly bent knees.
“That’s Aric,” Vincane crowed importantly. “He’s new—in for Tidd.”
“Well, you weren’t much of a trade, were you, lad?” Esten turned again and smiled down at a tall boy whose hair had once been white-blond, but now bore the same red filth as the others. “Ernst—what about you? Would you like to be crew chief?”
The tall boy smiled broadly, showing the few remaining teeth he had. “Yes, mum.”
“Good, good! Then come, lad, and we’ll go back to the tunnel and discuss the direction I want you to take this month.”
After Esten had returned from the well shaft, and the child miners had been lowered back in, she went to the door and took her coat from the peg rack near it, then left through the double doors without a backward glance. Omet caught fragments of her parting words to the journeyman in the anteroom.
“Have you seen how tall Ernst has gotten? What are you feeding him?”
“Same as the others. They scrap for it. We don’t dole it out or nothin’.”
“Hmmm. Well, that might be a problem soon. Tell the apprentices to be certain to guard that well shaft and to keep listening. We’ll decide what to do next month—if we haven’t broken through yet.” Her smile glittered in the dark shadows of the firing room. “I suspect it’s a moot issue. Have the journeymen summon me immediately when the time comes.”
“Yes, mum.”
In the distance Omet heard the door open, and the whine of the winter wind that lingered after it slammed shut. After a moment, he realized that the soft keening was no longer the voice of the wind, but came from the well shaft. Then it was gone.
6
At a distance it was difficult to tell whether the tile foundry was in full operation or all but abandoned. Smoke rose from the open chimneys near the center of the building, but after two hours of observation, no one came or left the complex. As night began to fall the furnaces continued to fire, but still no one came.
“Strange,” Rhapsody commented from behind the broken wall where they had set up their observation. “Do you think it’s a foundry run by ghosts?”
Achmed waved her to silence, trying to follow the pattern of the tainted heartbeat within the brick-and-mortar building. Though he could only feel it intermittently, he could sense that it was slowing somewhat, as if preparing for sleep.
The sky was dark now in the grip of winter; the wind had grown cold with the coming of night. Rhapsody pulled the edges of her ghodin closer to keep them from flapping in the high breeze.
Smoke from the fires still rolled heavily in the air, but now dispersed somewhat, chased by the insistent wind. The cloud-covered sky reflected the light of the fire which flickered now in distant inner windows.
Achmed rose from his crouch and unslung the cwellan. “Stay here. I’m going to scout around. Remain watchful.” He waited until Rhapsody nodded her understanding, then disappeared into the nickering shadows.
The anterior wing of the building was dark and silent. Achmed edged his way along the southeastern wall, the side of the foundry that did not abut the longer wings. Slatted windows whose use was solely ventilation were the only openings in the long mudbrick wall.
There was a small service door on the other side of the building, closer to the long wings. Achmed eased through it quietly and closed it quickly behind him.
The anteroom of the foundry was unoccupied. Two large kilns stood, open and cold, with racks of fired bisque pots and bowls. Long tables, thick with ceramic dust, bore other pottery in various stages of completion. Vats of paint and covered barrels of lacquer filled the room with an unhealthy stench. Achmed could tell without difficulty that the wares in the room could not possibly be the sole output from the constantly burning furnaces.
Carefully he skirted the heavy tables, being vigilant not to leave footprints in the dust that covered the floor, and sidled up to the heavy brass-bound door he had seen in the shadows at the back of the anteroom. The door was solidly closed; Achmed rested his hand on the roughhewn wood and felt heat beyond it. Light flickered in the space beneath it.
Achmed took off one of his gloves. His fingers studied the heavy iron hinges in the dark and found them corroded and heavy with rust. They will undoubtedly groan upon opening, he thought. He leaned against the door and exhaled.
The path lore he had gained crawling within the bowels of the Earth had given him a second sight of sorts, a disorienting vision of the given direction he was seeking. He had not made the attempt to use it to track a heartbeat until now.
Achmed closed his eyes and loosed his second sight. The room around him appeared in his mind’s eye, the tables covered with greenware and fired bisque, the pots of paint gleaming dully in the dark.
The heartbeat of the demon-spawn swelled in his ears and throbbed in his skin. His stomach clenched, nauseated, preparing for the jolt as his vision sped away, turning from the room, and through the door, tilting at a strange angle as it did. The search did not take long.
His inner sight blazed into the room beyond the door, a cavernous chamber, obviously a firing room, with three enormous ovens, burning low and steady, before which rested numerous wire racks, empty now. A sizable cast-iron bell was attached to the wall past the open door. With a shuddering lurch the vision stopped.
Achmed inhaled shakily, trying to hang on to the vision. The shadows from the open kilns spun crazily around and about, flickering over the landscape of the room. The floor beyond the doorway was littered with pails and poles with hooks, coils of rope, molds and various tools. The vast room held five enormous vats of thick liquid, each suspended between stone columns and bubbling over piles of firecoals, next to which were mounds of red dirt. Near the vats were three cots, on which, under blankets, lay three bodies, spent in sleep. One was in the process of rolling over.
The vision jolted again, and the color of blood filled his mind as the alien pulse that his own now matched rose to a heavy crescendo in his ears. As if his head and shoulders were being turned by invisible hands, his perspective shifted to the cot to the left of a dark alcove, and moved in closely to see a dark head beneath a thin blanket, as the thudding grew louder. The color of blood appeared before him, dousing his view in a red haze. Then the vision vanished.
Weakly Achmed mopped the beads of cold perspiration from his brow, took several deep breaths, then crossed the room silently and slipped back out the door into the night.