Rab shook his head. "She doesn't understand. I believe she's a little hurt."
"She will recover."
He turned back toward the camp.
The tery stayed with the tribe during its leisurely eastward trek. He continued to avoid Adriel, however, forcing himself to ignore her hurt and spread his company among the rest of the psi-folk. He did so not only because Rab suggested it, but because proximity to Adriel had become so achingly painful.
He would walk beside one of the Talents for a while and pretend that he was practicing his speech. He'd point to an object and call it by name, or point and pretend he didn't know what to call it and induce the Talent to tell him. He was fully accepted by everyone now because of his heroic rescue of Rab and Adriel, and within a matter of days the psi-folk seemed to be subconsciously convinced that he was more of a burly aborigine than an animal. Everyone delighted in working with Jon to increase his vocabulary.
Jon hated it.
Before he had met Rab it had been almost amusing to play the dumb animal. Now things were different. Now he found the role degrading. He wanted to belong, to be accepted as the thinking, feeling, rational being he was. He too awaited Tlad's return to give the psi-folk — and himself — a direction other than flight, a goal beyond survival.
Rab drilled the archers daily. The march would be stopped in mid-afternoon; after camp was set, targets would be raised. Some were suspended on rope with pulleys for practice against moving targets. Simultaneous volleys were rehearsed time and time again.
Jon often heard grumbling over sore fingers, arms, and shoulders, but he saw significant improvement in coordination and accuracy.
At sunset on the eighth day, Tlad walked into the camp.
Rab immediately drew him aside. Jon the tery followed. He wanted to hear what was being planned and, as ever, knew that he liked being near Tlad.
"Well?" Rab said expectantly when they were out of earshot of the rest of the tribe. "Did you find anything?"
"Yes and no." Tlad looked tired and his voice was strained, as if he recently had been under great stress. "There seems to be no way to get into Mekk's fortress other than a full frontal assault, and you haven't anywhere near the numbers for that. Also, there's no way to get to the weapons cache other than through the Hole."
Rab's face showed his disappointment. "So far you haven't told us anything we don't already know."
"Have patience. I have something."
He unrolled sheets of paper covered with incomprehensible wavering lines.
"What are those?"
"Maps. I've been wracking my brain to remember the maps I'd seen in Volume Five, and finally managed to come up with some crude copies from memory. They give us some idea of what the area around Mekk's fortress looked like before everything fell apart during the Great Sickness."
"But that's all changed now."
"Right. But it shows us a way to get into the Hole without going through the fortress.
"The Hole? Who'd want to get into the Hole?"
"We do. So we can get to the weapons."
"Go through the Hole?" Rab said in an awed whisper. "No one goes through the Hole."
"We have to. There's no other way."
"But it's impossible. We'll be torn to pieces."
Jon broke his silence. "What is this Hole?"
He remembered his mother mentioning it from time to time, but she would never explain anything about it.
"Mekk's fortress is built on the ruins of what used to be the headquarters of the old Teratol regime," Tlad said. "That was where they performed most of their shaping experiments. From what I can gather, all their failures, along with their special experiments, the ones they couldn't risk setting free, went into a sealed cavern below. The special teries were the ones they had shaped inside and out — deformed their bodies without, and drained off all decency, mercy, empathy and compassion from within. They let monstrosity mate with monstrosity in the Hole to form new and even more monstrous offspring. It's concentrated depravity down there."
"It's full of teries?" Jon said. "Why doesn't Mekk eradicate them?"
Rab laughed. "I'm sure he'd like to. And I'd wish he'd try. But he can't risk it. His troops won't go near the Hole and he'd risk a mutiny if he tried to force them. So he's left them alone."
Jon was struck by the irony of it: Mekk the tery-killer forced to live over a huge nest of teries.
"It's hell pure and simple in there," Rab said, visibly shuddering. "I once had a glimpse of its denizens through one of the grates that provide ventilation for the Hole."
"Apparently the Teratols enjoyed watching them," Tlad said, pointing to one of his maps. "And this is where they did it."
Rab and the tery crowded around. Rab seemed to understand the squiggles on the map, but they meant nothing to Jon.
"What's that?" Rab asked.
"A viewing chamber. They built an underground corridor with a transparent wall through which they could safely watch the goings-on in the Hole. That corridor is our way to get to the Hole without Mekk's or his troopers’ knowledge. From there it shouldn't be far to the cache."
Rab shook his head. "Do you know what you're asking? I don't care how near or far it is, it can't be done. The foulest, most depraved teries in existence live down there in constant warfare. The only thing that can bring them together is the sight of a normal human — they will act in concert to pull that human to pieces, then resume fighting over the remains." He lowered his voice. "That is how vagrants and petty criminals in this region are executed — dropped through one of the grates into the Hole."
Tlad grimaced. "They throw people into the Hole?"
"Only those not important enough to crucify."
"Still," Tlad insisted, "it's a risk that must be taken."
"Forget it. I can't ask anyone to go in there."
"Then I can't help you," Tlad said angrily and turned to go.
Jon placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Wait. Perhaps a tery could reach these weapons through the Hole."
"No," Rab said. "Not even you could survive in there, Jon."
"I want to try."
He realized that he wanted very badly to do this.
"Why? You're risking your life."
"It is my life."
Rab waited a long time before answering.
"It could work," he said finally. "But how could one man accomplish anything?"
"He could bring back a few weapons," Tlad replied, "and with those at hand, we could clear a path through the Hole — nothing could stand in our way — and get the rest."
Rab's eyes lit with growing enthusiasm. He put his arm around Jon's hulking shoulders.
"Brother tery, you're about to save the Talents once again." — XVIII-
Later that night, Jon sat by the central fire with Rab and Tlad after the rest of the camp had drifted off to bed.
"Why must it be like this, Tlad?" Rab said softly. He had a pile of small pebbles in his hand and was throwing them into the fire one by one.
"You mean war?" Tlad shrugged. "It seems to be part of the human condition."
"Think so? I wonder. Why must we be out here in the forests struggling to stay alive while Mekk and his priests and his troops are in their fortress scouring their brains for ways to find and kill us?"
"The True Shape sect seems to be at the root of your problem."
"Ah, religion. I could think of a better way to use religion, I assure you. Besides numbers, our greatest disadvantage is that all our religious myths have been turned against us. The True Shape faith says that the Great Sickness was an act of God through which He branded all those who displeased Him. Therefore all those bearing the mark of the Great Sickness are offensive to God and must be eradicated."
"We're all afraid of the strange, the misshapen," Tlad said. "Even you aren't sure your fellow Talents won't reject Jon once you tell them he's human."