The sun, sparking the cold air and striking diamond gleams from the snowy ground, had passed the meridian and was beginning its winter-rapid descent when the gray fela stopped her careful treading and tipped an ear toward the earth. She was motionless for long seconds-as if the wind from the mountains above had frozen her, fur and bone, where she stood. Then, shaking her head gently, she lowered a snuffling nose, breathed for a moment, then suddenly canted her ear again. As if satisfied, she extended her paw, tapped softly on the crusty snow and began to scrape away the cold white skin of the sleeping earth.
Once through the powdery shell, she lowered her weight onto her back legs and began to dig in earnest. The soil was near-frozen and her paws stung, but she continued her rapid movements, sending flurries of mud and rock up from beneath her tail.
The Hour passed, and Roofshadow began to fear she had sensed incorrectly. The ground was hard-packed and firm; most of her small, slender form was below the hole's rim when, without warning, a spading paw thrust through the bottom of the pit into emptiness beyond.
Warm, fetid air rushed up through the aperture, and she reared back in surprise. This was what she had sought, though. She grimly resumed digging. A short span of scrabbling and she was able to pass her head and whiskers through the opening. When she pulled her front paws through she felt a surge of panic as. for a moment, she was suspended over nothingness, dangling helplessly. The unknown darkness below her became a bottomless abyss. Her weight pulled her back legs past the crumbling rim of the hole. She fell onh a moment, then touched lightly down on the loam on a tunnel floor.
She turned her eses briefly back to the hole above her, which glowed with the light of the setting sun. It seemed a very small hole now, although it was not very far away. It was not far away, but it was behind her.
Head down, green eyes wide to gather what little light there was in this dark, unfriendly world, Roofshadow padded silently down into the earth.
CHAPTER 23
Fear death?-to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face.
–Robert Browning
Limping through one of the immense, stone-arched chambers, the ragged group of cats shuffled slowly toward the digging tunnels. Tailchaser searched the bobbing sea of hopeless animals for Pawgrip. He located the small, wiry cat at the rear of the marching party, and slowed down his already leaden pace until Pawgrip caught up.
"Hullo, Tailchaser!" Pawgrip said, a faint echo of his former sprightliness. "You look a little stronger. How does that shoulder feel?"
"Better, I suppose," said Fritti, "but I doubt it will ever truly heal." He raised and shook his front paw experimentally.
"Well," said Pawgrip in a conspiratorial tone, "I got a message to that fellow in the upper Catacombs. He sent back to say that he hadn't seen your friends, but he'd keep his eyes open." Pawgrip gave a weak smile that was meant to be encouraging. They were passing beneath one of the huge inner gates now, and had to lower their voices to a whisper. The tunnel walls had become closer, and their speech reverberated in a manner sure to attract unwanted attention.
"Thank vou for trying, Pawgrip," said Fritti. "How is Jumptall feeling this morning?" The Meeting Hall delegate had refused to rise for work the last two times, and as a consequence had also not eaten. Badly, I'm afraid. Just lies there, and says if he rises he'll lose his tail name."
They walked silently for a moment in the midst of the emaciated, staring-eyed cats. Hulking Clawguard nalked the perimeter of the disheartened procession, occasionally moving forward to threaten or prod.
“Jumptall is going to die soon," said Tailchaser. In the world above he would have been amazed to hear someone say such a thing in so calm a voice.
"He is no longer strong enough to live," agreed Pawgrip. "His tail name is all he has…"
In a cave on the rock wall above the Greater Gate, Roofshadow looked down upon the charnel life of the mound.
Dulled by the strain of countermanding her instincts, tired and frightened, she had groped her way steadily down into the throbbing center of the mound.
When the tunnel had ended precipitously, on the wall of the Greater Gate chamber, she had suddenly seen the entirety of the wrong, the os. The misshapen guards and sick and dying prisoners below, the weird lights and noxious heat of the air-all this had struck her like a palpable blow as she reeled above the cavern.
Unable to catch her breath for a moment, she stumbled back from the lip of the cave and slumped, a shuddering mass, to the darkened floor.
Far behind her, close to the surface, the pale, twitching nose of one of the blind Toothguard had detected a strange thing: an unauthorized tunnel opening to the world above; the soil was newly disturbed.
Escape attempts were frequent, of course, but invariably they failed. This seemed different, though. The keen nostrils of the hairless creature who had discovered the hole perceived a curious fact: something had been digging in, not out…
Somewhere deep in Vastnir, a shape appeared from one dark hole and entered a darker one. Heat and air currents led the shape to what it sought.
"Master Hisssblood!" it called. There was a pause, then:
"Sssskinwretch, I have long sssince ceassed to be entertained by your annoying presssence. I think I ssshall finally make an end of you."
Even in darkness, the shape's discomfort was recognizable.
"Pleassse, Lord, don't do anything foolissh. I bring you important newsss!" Another long silence, and Skinwretch could smell and feel Hissblood's approach as clearly as the Folk aboveground could see in the broadest daylight. He resisted the impulse to flee.
"What could you tell me that I might possibly find of value,'you old ssslobberer?"
Hissblood's tone suggested imminent, painful death, but Skinwretch recognized his opening and plunged in: "Only thisss, most wonderful Lord, only thisss: sssomething hass tunneled in to Vassstnir! Ssssome-thing from the sssun-world! I found the place where the thing entered, above the Greater Gate!"
Hissblood approached, until the heat of his breath raked his cowering subordinate.
"And why ssshould I care?" the leader of the Toothguard spat-but now there was a subtly reserved edge to his voice. "I sssuppose you have told even thing that waJkss. crawlsss or digsss between here and the lower Catacombss?"
"No. great Massster!" uhined Skinwretch, pleased that he had guessed correcty. "I came ssstraight to you!"
“Fetch me Nuzziedark. You are sssure it wass an entrance tunnel? If you have misssled me…!"
"Oh, no," hastened Skinwretch, choking with fright. I’m posssitive, Lord. Absolutely sssure."
“Then I shall call on Basssst-Imret," said Hissblood in a cold, satisfied voice.
'You will involve the Boneguard?" quailed Skinwretch. Hissblood's teeth snapped, drawing blood trom the furless skin.
"Imbecccile! How dare you even draw breath in my presssence? Get out of my ssmell, you lick-ssslobberer. Get Nuzziedark, then go and crawl under a ssstone sssomewhere until I have forgotten that you exissst!"
Gasping, Skinwretch fled back into the lesser darkness. Hissblood licked his naked chops.
Trudging back from the excavations in the company of the other tunnel slaves, a bone-weary Tailchaser looked up to see the dark figure of Scratchnail pacing beside him, cruel smirk thinning his black lips.
"Mre'fa-o, star-face," said the Clawguard mockingly. "How are you getting along in your new home?" Tailchaser did not answer, but continued walking. Scratchnail did not seem offended.
"Still have your pride, do you? Well, that, too, will be attended to-I haven't forgotten you. Not at all." Scratchnail stopped for a moment to stretch, his mottled belly touching briefly on the cavern floor. Finished, he caught up to Fritti again in an easy lope.