She jerked erect, hand on sword. Inyx' s bright blue eyes slowly scanned the dimness of the distillation room. She saw no one.
" Mind' s playing tricks on me," she said aloud, hoping the words would soothe her. Instead, it provoked an answer from her unseen watcher.
" That may be, but you are not allowed to drink from that vat. Only the Wartton are allowed. Please leave."
" Who are you?" she demanded. " Where are you?"
" Please don' t make me get tough. I don' t like beating up on people. But I will if I have to!"
The way the words were spoken, the tone, the quavering inflections told Inyx a different story. Whoever spoke not only didn' t like fighting, he had never done it at all.
" Join me in robbery, then," she said. She drank deeply of the water until she had her fill. All the while the voice blustered and threatened ineffectually.
" How dare you! I shall have to report this immediately!"
" Do as you like," Inyx said. " But we can talk this out if you' ll show yourself. I won' t hurt you. I promise that much."
" Will you take more of the water?"
" I might."
" But you won' t hurt me? And you won' t tell the Warttons what you' ve done?"
" No, I won' t," she said, laughing.
From the shadows of another vat scuttled a brown toadlike creature with a wattle bobbing nervously under its bony chin. Saucer- huge eyes peered at Inyx, trying to evaluate how much she had lied about not wanting to harm it.
" Come along," she said. " Let' s sit and talk." On a level with the creature, she saw it was even more offensive looking and even more harmless than she' d thought on first glance. Tiny fingers nervously twined and untwined and a long tongue flickered out and back as if snaring insects from midair.
" Who are you?" the creature demanded, trying to draw itself up to match Inyx.
" I' m a traveler along the Cenotaph Road. Friends of mine and I entered Yerrary and became separated from our guide, Broit Heresler. Do you know him?"
" Broit? Well, he' s all right, I suppose. Bossy. He thinks he ought to be the head of the Heresler clan."
" He is now. The former clan leader, uh, met with an accident out on the plains."
" Oh."
Inyx frowned. Getting information from this little beast might prove impossible. It didn' t appear too intelligent.
" I' m Eckalt," it said finally.
" Your name or position?"
" My name, of course. My position is obvious. I am director of the distillery."
" All this is yours?" Inyx asked in surprise.
" I built it all. I told those awful gnomes how to get real water from the acid. And how do they treat me? Terribly, that' s how. Without me, they' d die. As it is, they let me distill their water and give me supplies enough to survive. I do have a quite nice pond in the back."
" I' m sure it has lily pads and everything."
" What are lilies?" Eckalt demanded. " Is there another who gets these lilies when I don' t? How dare they! The gnomes misuse me horribly!"
" Why don' t you leave?"
" Where would I go? Yerrary is my home, too, as much as it belongs to them."
" If they aren' t treating you as you' d like, stand up for your rights. Surely, someone as important as you are to the gnomes should be accorded some respect."
" I have a plan," the toadlike being said, rubbing his hands together in a conspiratorial fashion. " I know how to get even with them all. And I' ll do it, too!"
" You' re going to poison the water?"
" Who told you? Who told you?" The creature bounced around on oversized hind legs until Inyx thought he' d jump into a vat of his own water. Then pure panic seized him and he cowered away from her. " You' re a spy. The gnomes sent you to spy on me, to find out my plans. How' d you do it? I demand to know!"
" I' m no spy. It only makes sense that the easiest way of retaliating would be for you to do something to the water. If they rely on you, then you control them. Destroy the water supply and they have to do as you say if they want it built up again."
" They' d never go along with that," the creature said dubiously.
" Have you tried it?"
" Well, no."
" They have sorcerers, don' t they? How likely would a sorcerer be to come down here and dirty his hands with all this plumbing?"
" The Tefize sorcerer is one of the last. All the others got made into corpses. The Hereslers enjoyed that, I' m sure. But Lirory, he' d never even think of it. Sooner would he send some minion out onto the plains to find the naturally occurring pure waters."
" The sweepers?" Inyx pressed on. " Would they do anything to you?"
" They can' t even keep the corridors clean."
" The Heresler?"
" All they do is dig graves and drag bodies about. Frightful people. And they smell bad, too."
" Who else?" Inyx pressed. " Is there any group who could duplicate all you' ve done here?"
" Not in Yerrary."
" See?" The woman didn' t know why she was bothering with the timid little creature. She knew he would never do any of the things he plotted. Still, it intrigued her that such a being proved to be the mastermind that kept a vital part of Yerrary functioning.
And, she had to admit, she had taken a liking to him.
" But there' s another who would make me do it."
" Who?" The way Eckalt spoke of this other person caught her attention. Awe and fear intermixed in a way different from the toadbeing' s talk of the gnomes.
" The Resident of the Pit."
Inyx sat and stared at Eckalt, wondering if the creature made this up. She had heard Lan' s stories of his home world and of how the Resident of the Pit had persuaded him his only escape lay along the Road. It could be no more than coincidence if two beings used the same title.
" He is all- powerful, but he is like I am. He never does anything. He sits and waits and watches. Like I do. He says he is an elder god whose time is past. I don' t believe him. He: he waits for something. I model myself after him and his patience. My time will come, too. Wait and see!"
" I' m sure it will, Eckalt. Where is this Resident of the Pit?"
The toad creature made a vague motion upward and said, " Directions in Yerrary are so confusing. I find the pit now and again, more by chance than anything else. But he is around. He is always in the pit. I don' t think he can leave."
Inyx decided the pit had to be somewhere near. She didn' t think Eckalt was the type to go exploring as she' d done in her modest way. The creature probably traveled no more than a few hundred yards in any single direction from his distillation equipment before hopping back to his lilyless pond and cowering in fear the rest of the day.
" Do you know anything of Claybore?" she asked.
" The skeleton with the mechanical legs?"
" You do know of him," said Inyx. " Tell me all you can of him, Eckalt."
" He and the Tefize are in alliance. It is his assistant whom I dislike. An ugly woman, much like you."
Inyx decided not to take offense. Anyone Eckalt thought ugly might be considered comely by human standards. After all, Eckalt had wattles, was a dun color, and had warts discoloring his skin in a hundred spots. On top of that, he was more frog than human.
" Light brown hair, a certain feral look in her eye? Her name is Kiska k' Adesina?"
" Possibly. The physical description is close enough, but I' ve never heard a name."
" Why does she come here- to bother you?"
" Oh, does she ever bother me!" Eckalt exclaimed. " All the time badgering me about increasing supplies, cutting off water to some clans and aiding others. I tell her it is no good, that my system is perfect as it is. But she always makes suggestions- silly suggestions, too." Eckalt appeared indignant at such effrontery.