But Jarre was frightened, though she couldn’t say of what. Whatever lay beyond was hidden in darkness, yet what frightened her wasn’t a fear of bodily harm or the terror of the unknown. It was the sadness, as Alfred had said. Perhaps it had come from the words he’d been speaking during their long walk, although she was so disoriented and confused that she could recall nothing of what he’d said. But she experienced a feeling of despair, of overwhelming regret, of something lost and never found, never even sought. The sorrow made her ache with loneliness, as if everything and everyone she had ever known was suddenly gone. Tears came to her eyes, and she wept, and she had no idea for whom she was crying.
“It’s all right,” repeated Alfred. “It’s all right. Shall we go in now? Do you feel up to it?”
Jarre couldn’t answer, couldn’t stop crying. But she nodded, and, weeping, clinging closely to Alfred, walked with him through the archway. And then Jarre understood, in part, the reason for her fear and her sadness. She stood in a mausoleum.
36
“This is dreadful! Simply dreadful! Unheard-of! What are you going to do? What are you going to do?”
The Head Clark was clearly becoming hysterical. Darral Longshoreman felt a tingling in his hands and was hard pressed to resist the temptation to administer a right to the jaw.
“There’s been enough bloodshed already,” he muttered, grasping hold of his hands firmly behind his back in case they took it upon themselves to act on their own. And he managed to ignore the voice that whispered, “A little more blood wouldn’t hurt, then, would it?”
Decking his brother-in-law, though undoubtedly very satisfying, wasn’t going to solve his problems.
“Get hold of yourself!” Darral snapped. “Haven’t I got trouble enough?”
“Never has blood been spilled in Drevlin!” cried the Head Clark in an awful tone. “It’s all the fault of this evil genius Limbeck! He must be cast forth! Made to walk the Steps of Terrel Fen. The Mangers must judge him—”
“Oh, shut up! That’s what brought on all this trouble in the first place! We gave him to the Mangers, and what did they do? Gave him right back to us! And threw in a god! Sure, we’ll send Limbeck down the Steps!” Darral waved his arms wildly. “Maybe this time he’ll come up with a whole army of gods and destroy us all!”
“But that god of Limbeck’s isn’t a god!” protested the Head Clark.
“They’re none of them gods, if you ask me,” stated Darral Longshoreman.
“Not even the child?”
This question, asked in wistful tones by the Head Clark, posed a problem for Darral. When he was in Bane’s presence, he felt that, yes, indeed, he had at last discovered a god. But the moment he could no longer see the blue eyes and the pretty face and the sweetly curved lips of the little boy, the High Froman seemed to waken from a dream. The kid was a kid, and he, Darral Longshoreman, was a sap for ever thinking otherwise.
“No,” said the High Froman, “not even the child.” The two rulers of Drevlin were alone in the Factree, standing beneath the statue of the Manger, gloomily surveying the battlefield.
It hadn’t, in reality, been much of a battle. One might hardly even term it a skirmish. The aforesaid blood had flowed, not from the heart, but from several cracked heads, gushed out a few smashed noses. The Head Clark had sustained a bump, the High Froman a jammed thumb that had swelled up and was now turning several quite remarkable colors. No one had been killed. No one had even been seriously injured. The habit of living peacefully over numerous centuries is a hard one to break. But Darral Longshoreman, High Froman of his people, was wise enough to know that this was only the beginning. A poison had entered the collective body of the Gegs, and though the body might survive, it would never be healthy again.
“Besides,” said Darral, his heavy brows creased in a scowl, “if these gods aren’t gods, like Limbeck said they weren’t, how can we punish him for being right?”
Unaccustomed to wading in such deep philosophical waters, the Head Clark ignored the question and struck out for high ground. “We wouldn’t be punishing him for being right, we’d be punishing him for spreading it around.” There was certainly some logic to that, Darral had to admit. He wondered sourly how his brother-in-law had come up with such a good idea and concluded it must have been the bump on the head. Wringing his wounded thumb and wishing he was back home in his holding tank with Mrs. High Froman clucking over him and bringing him a soothing cup of barkwarm[13], Darral pondered the idea, born of desperation, that was lurking about in the dark alleys of his mind.
“Maybe this time, when we throw him off the Steps of Terrel Fen, we can leave off the kite,” suggested the Head Clark. “I always did think that was an unfair advantage.”
“No,” said Darral, the rattle-brained ideas of his brother-in-law making his decision for him. “I’m not sending him or anyone else Down anymore. Down isn’t safe, seemingly. This god-that-isn’t-a-god of Limbeck’s says he comes from Down. And therefore” —the High Froman paused during a particularly loud spate of banging and whanging from the Kicksey-Winsey—“I’m going to send him Up.”
“Up?” The bump on the head was not going to come to the aid of the Head Clark on this one. He was absolutely and categorically lost.
“I’m going to turn the gods over to the Welves,” said Darral Longshoreman with dark satisfaction.
The High Froman paid a visit to the prison vat to announce the captives’ punishment—an announcement he reckoned must strike terror into their guilty hearts.
If it did, the prisoners gave no outward sign. Hugh appeared disdainful, Bane bored, and Haplo impassive, while Limbeck was in such misery that it was doubtful if he heard the High Froman at all. Getting nothing from his prisoners but fixed cold stares and, in Bane’s case, a yawn and a sleepy smile, the High Froman marched out in high dudgeon.
“I presume you know what he’s talking about?” inquired Haplo. “This being given to the ‘Welves’?”
“Elves,” corrected the Hand. “Once a month, the elves come down in a transport ship and pick up a supply of water. This time, they’ll pick us up with it. And we don’t want to end up prisoners of the elves. Not if they catch us down here with their precious water supply. Those bastards can make dying very unpleasant.”
The captives were locked up in the local prison—a grouping of storage vats that the Kicksey-Winsey had abandoned and which, when fitted with locks on the doors, made excellent cells. Generally the cells were little used—perhaps the occasional thief or a Geg who had been lax in his service to the great machine. Due to the current civil unrest, however, the vats were filled to capacity with disturbers of the peace. One vat had to be emptied of its inhabitants in order to make room for the gods. The Geg prisoners were crowded into another vat so as to avoid being placed into contact with Mad Limbeck. The vat was steep-walled and solid. Several openings covered with iron grilles dotted the sides. Hugh and Haplo investigated these grilles and discovered that fresh air, smelling damply of rain, was flowing in through them, leading the men to assume the grilles covered shafts that must eventually connect with the outside. The shafts might have offered a means of escape except for two drawbacks: first, the grilles were bolted to the metal sides of the vat, and second, no one in his right mind wanted to go Outside.
“So you’re suggesting we fight?” inquired Haplo. “I presume these elven ships are well-manned. We’re four, counting the chamberlain, plus a child, and one sword between us. A sword that’s currently in the possession of the guards.”
13
A hot drink concocted by boiling the bark from a ferben bush in water for about half an hour. To elves, the drink is mildly narcotic, acting as a sedative, but to humans and dwarves it merely brings on a feeling of restful relaxation.