Along, long pause during which that narrow, hooded head bent above Laggy Nap as some great serpent head might bend above its prey. “Killed? How killed? By you?”
“No, Tallman! Never! It was a rockslide on the southern route, in the canyons there. He would go that way, and mindful of your orders, we went with him until we could be sure to take him without injuring him. He went to the canyon wall to relieve himself, Tallman, and the wall broke over him. More rock than the train could move in a season, Tallman. His body, under all that rock…” Nap’s voice faded into uncertainty, and the head above him never moved but brooded still in that unrelenting scrutiny.
“How long ago?”
“How long? Ah, let me think. We have been thirty-five days on the northern route, Izia, wasn’t it thirty-five days? Then there was a space of three days getting back to Betand. Less than forty days, Tallman. Thirty-eight, I would say.”
“Not so long, then, that you could not take a Necromancer there and raise him. Raise this Peter. Find out from his spirit what it was he knew. Not too long for that?”
“Oh, I could do that. Yes.” He gave a little hop, as though eager to be on his way. “I need only to have my power renewed, Tallman. And to unload the cargo.”
There was a silence, a silence which drew out into a swamp of stillness in which no one moved. Laggy Nap himself did not seem to breathe. He might have forgotten how to breathe, so still he was, and when Tallman spoke at last the air came out of Nap as out of a balloon. “No, Laggy Nap. No power renewal this time. We will give you power when you return.”
“But, but…” Teeth chattering, face like melting ice. “How will I keep the pawns in order? How keep the beasts in order, the work done? How keep Izia doing her work…?”
The impossibly tall figure straightened itself. “You will leave the pawns here. They need some pawns. To make blues. For a ceremony. You will leave the woman here. I need a woman for … something. You will take one wagon and go. And you will wear the boots to be sure you return.”
Fatman burbled, chortled, “Boots, Tallman. Whose boots for Laggy Nap? Does Tallman have extra boots he wishes to be used for Laggy Nap?”
And the Dupies, “Patience, patience, Laggy Nap. We will find boots for him.”
Tallman growled something, beckoned to Izia where she crouched ashen-faced against a pillar. She sidled toward him fearfully, and he bent above her. “Take off the boots.”
“They will not come off,” she whispered, hysterical, panting.
“Fool! They would not come until now. They will come off now. Take them off.”
So, she drew them from her legs almost before my eyes, and I could see what had happened to her legs from the years she had worn them, old scars and lines of festering red, a scaly peeling surface where there should have been maiden smoothness. She saw her own legs and crawled away, retching and gasping. Dolwys put his foot upon mine once more, and again I heard that same, sighed word. “Wait.”
It was the Dupies who put the boots upon Laggy Nap, one of them holding him while the other drew them on. When it was done, Tallman tapped at his sides and Laggy Nap screamed.
“So,” said the Tallman, “you will be able to feel my impatience even to the ends of the world, Laggy Nap. Now, unload your cargo and get you gone to do what I have ordered. Go to Betand. Find a Necromancer there. Promise him what you must to go with you to the place Peter was killed. Raise Peter and find out what he knew.”
“What he knew about what, Tallman? Do not be angry. Tell me what is needed so that I may not fail you again. Please, Tallman, tell your good servant what to do.”
The polelike form turned impatiently. “What did the youth know of ‘magicians’? What did he know about ‘Council’? What was he plotting with the wizards? Find out, Laggy Nap. Return here as soon as may be or burn, Laggy Nap. I will not be patient.”
I watched him retreat through the sagging gates, slumping, watched him take the small wain which the Dupies had already hitched for him and mount to the seat, there to hold the reins laxly in his hands as though he had never seen them before. He turned to call rebelliously, “Tallman. Give me Izia, at least. She is good with the beasts and will make sure I reach Betand in time.”
“Go, Laggy Nap. I have another use in mind for Izia.”
The little wagon rolled out through the gates and away down the long line of hills toward the north. Still Dolwys’ foot was upon my own, his jaw next to mine chewing endlessly at nothing. It was hard, hard with Izia lying there not five paces from me, weeping upon her hands, the Dupies capering about her as they made sorcerous motions with their plump little hands.
“Oh, pretty, pretty, all for Dupies, this one. Oh, we will love it to death, pretty legs, pretty legs.”
I shuddered, somehow aware of what it was the Tallman planned, so hideous a thing, and yet it came into my mind as though Didir had plucked it from the Tallman’s head. I would stop it, stop it, but the need was not yet, for Tallman called the Dupies away to unload the wagons which Nap had left behind. They called into play a kind of metal creature with arms and a clattering track for feet which helped them, and Fatman carried some things to and fro. There was ore of a kind so special that they picked up even tiny fragments of it dropped from the sacks; bottles and jars of stuff I did not recognize; long bundles of herbs with an odor which reminded me of Windlow’s herb garden in that land far to the south. Soon they had unloaded all the wagons except the little cold-cart which Nap had told me contained perishable fruits. All the sacks and bundles were heaped on that strange flat car which Tallman had arrived upon.
Now came a strange hiatus.
Tallman went to the cold-cart, walked around it, lifted its covering, touched it here and there. Behind him the monsters wheeled and capered, silent as shadows. The hood hid whatever passed for Tallman’s face, but the angle of his head spoke of concentration. At last he spoke.
“You are a good hitch, you Fatman, you Dupies. I chose well to choose you from the monster pits as my hitch. You did well to warn me that the Trader had not brought everything, Fatman. I had time to find out what to do … what questions to ask.”
The tenor Dupey said, “Tallman? Will they be angry? They will be angry, won’t they?”
The lofty head nodded, once, twice.
“But Dupey still gets the legs, don’t we, Tallman? Dupey gets the pretty legs to have. Oh, we’ll put them in the coldwagon, Tallman. They’ll last a long time in the coldwagon.”
The lofty head turned toward Izia, spoke softly. “I said you would be rewarded, Dupey. So you shall.” Then, voice raised, “Do you know your fate, woman? Dupey does not care whether you know or not, but I enjoy it more when the fate is known and the one shaped like them can suffer in knowing what will happen.” The pole-like form shifted from side to side, as though blown by an unfelt wind. “Dupey has two heads, as you have observed. Two sets of arms, two upper bodies. However, he has only one set of hips and legs. He needs another set, obviously. He prefers a female set, for reasons of his own, eh. Dupey?” The monster capered, patted his cheeks, kissed himself, busied himself about his lower body with both sets of hands. Peter, water ox, could not watch. Dolwys’s foot pressed upon me.
“Give me,” cried Dupey in two voices. “Give me.”
“He has various ways of removing the top half,” mused the Tallman. “Dupey is original, innovative. I have been much amused by watching Dupey.”
“Dupey was saved,” the monster cried. “Saved from the horrid midwifes. Saved to serve Tallman and them. Weren’t we, Tallman? Oh, give me.”