“It is me, Princess,” Binabik gasped. He had climbed up onto Sea-Arrow’s railing. He stooped for a moment and vanished, then reemerged, only his eyes clearly visible in the blood and earth that smeared his face. He thrust the butt of a long spear down for her to grasp. “Take this. Do not let them become close!”
She grasped the spear, then was forced to turn and sweep a half dozen of the things against the barrow wall. She dropped one of the torches. As she bent, another of the shriveled creatures pranced toward her; she speared it as a fisherman might. It wriggled on the spearhead, slow to die.
“Simon!” she shouted. “Where is he?” She picked up the second torch and held it toward Binabik, who had ducked down into the boat once more, and now stood with an ax clutched in his hands, a weapon nearly as long as the troll was tall.
“I cannot be holding the torch,” Binabik said breathlessly. “Push it into the wall.” He raised the ax over his head and then jumped down beside her.
Miriamele did as he said, jamming the butt of the torch into the crumbling earth.
“Hinik Aia!” Binabik shouted. Qantaqa backed up, but the wolf seemed reluctant to disengage; she made several snarling rushes back toward the chirping creatures. While she was engaged on one such sortie, another swarm of the things scurried around her. Binabik swept several into bloody ruin with the ax and Miriamele fended off others with jabs of the spear. Qantaqa finished her engagement and swept in to finish off the raiding party. The rest of the crowding creatures sputtered angrily, their white eyes gleaming like a hundred tiny moons, but they did not seem anxious to follow Miriamele and her companions as they backed toward the hole.
“Where is Simon?” she asked again. Even as she spoke, she knew she did not want to hear the answer. There was a kind of cold nothingness inside her. Binabik would not leave Simon behind if he still lived.
“I am not knowing,” Binabik said harshly. “But he is beyond our power for helping. Lead us into the air.”
Miriamele pulled herself up and through the hole in the mound. She emerged from the darkness into the violet of evening and a chilly wind. When she turned to extend the spear’s haft down into the barrow for Binabik to clasp, she saw the creatures capering in impotent anger around the base of Sea-Arrow, their shadows made long and even more grotesque by torchlight. Just before Binabik’s shoulders rose to block the hole, she caught a momentary glimpse of her grandfather’s pale, serene face.
The troll huddled before the paltry fire, his face a soiled mask of loss. Miriamele tried to find her own pain and could not. She felt empty, scoured of feeling. Qantaqa, reclining nearby, cocked her head to one side as if puzzled by the silence. Her chops were sticky with gore.
“He was falling through,” Binabik said slowly. “One moment he was before me, then he was gone. I was digging and digging, but there was only dirt.” He shook his head. “Digging and digging. Then the boghanik came.” He coughed and spat a glob of mud onto the fire. “So many they were, up from the dirt like worms. And more were coming always. More and more.”
“You said it was a tunnel. Maybe there were other tunnels.” Miriamele heard the unreal calmness of her voice with wonder. “Maybe he just fell through into another tunnel. When those things, those ... diggers ... go away, we can search.”
“Yes, with certainty.” Binabik’s voice was flat.
“We’ll find him. You’ll see.”
The troll ran his hand across his face and brought it away smeared with dirt and blood. He stared at it absently.
“There’s water in the skin bag,” she said. “Let me clean those cuts.”
“You are also bleeding.” Binabik pointed a stubby black finger at her face.
“I’ll get the water.” She stood on shaky legs. “We’ll find Simon. You’ll see.”
Binabik did not reply. As Miriamele walked unsteadily toward their packs, she reached up to dab at her jaw, at the spot where the digger’s claws had raked her. The blood was almost dry, but when she touched her cheeks, they were wet with tears—tears that she had not even known she was crying.
He’s gone, she thought. Gone.
Her eyes blurred so that she almost stumbled.
Elias, High King of Osten Ard, stood at the window and stared up at the pale, looming finger of Green Angel Tower, silvered by moonlight. Wrapped in silence and secrecy, it seemed a specter sent from another world, a bearer of strange tidings. Elias watched it as a man who knows he will live and die a sailor watches the sea.
The king’s chamber was as disorderly as an animal nest. The bed in the middle of the room was naked but for the sweat-stained pallet; the few blankets that remained lay tangled on the floor, unused, home now to whatever small creatures could bear the chilly air that Elias found more a necessity than a comfort.
The window at which the king stood, like all the other windows of the long chamber, was flung wide. Rainwater was puddled on the stone tiles beneath the casements; on some particularly cold nights it froze, making streaks of white across the floor. The wind had also carried in leaves and stems and even the stiffened corpse of a sparrow.
Elias watched the tower until the moon haloed the angel’s silhouette atop the spire. At last he turned, pulling his tattered robe about him, his white skin showing through the gaps where the threads had rotted in their seams.
“Hengfisk,” he whispered. “My cup.”
What had seemed another clump of bedding wadded in the corner of the room now unfurled itself and stood. The silent monk scurried to a table just inside the chamber door and uncapped a stone ewer. He filled a goblet with dark, steaming liquid, then brought it to the king. The monk’s ever-present smile, perhaps a little less wide than usual, glimmered faintly in the dark room.
“I shall not sleep again tonight,” the king said. “It is the dreams, you know.”
Hengfisk stood silently, but his bulging eyes offered complete attention.
“And there is something else. Something I can feel but cannot understand.” He took his goblet and returned to the window. The hilt of the gray sword Sorrow scraped against the stone sill. Elias had not taken it off in a long time, even to sleep; the blade had pressed its own shape into the pallet beside the indentation of the king’s form.
Elias raised his cup to his lips, swallowed, then sighed. “There is a change in the music,” he said quietly. “The great music of the dark. Pryrates has said nothing, but I know. I do not need that eunuch to tell me everything. I can see things now, hear things ... smell things.” He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe, leaving a new smear of black among the countless others already dried on the cloth. “Somebody has changed things.” He paused for a long moment. “But perhaps Pryrates isn’t merely hiding it from me.” The king turned to regard his cupbearer with an expression that was almost sane. “Perhaps Pryrates himself doesn’t know. It wouldn’t be the only thing he doesn’t know. I still have a few secrets of my own.” Elias brooded. “But if Pryrates doesn’t realize how ... how things have changed ... now what might that mean, I wonder?” He turned back to the window, watching the tower. “What might that mean?”
Hengfisk waited patiently. Finally, Elias finished his draught and held out the cup. The monk took it from the king’s hand and returned it to the table beside the door, then moved back to his corner. He curled himself against the wall, but his head stayed up, as though he waited further instruction.
“The tower is waiting,” Elias said quietly. “It has been waiting a long time.”
As he leaned against the sill a wind arose and set his dark hair fluttering, then lifted some of the leaves from the floor and sent them whispering and rattling around the chamber.
“Oh, Father ...” the king said softly. “God of Mercy, I wish I could sleep.”
For a horrifying time, Simon felt himself drowning in cold, damp earth. Every nightmare he had ever had of death and burial flooded through him as dirt filled his eyes, his nose, pinioned his arms and legs. He clawed until he could not feel his han
ds at the ends of his arms, but still the choking earth surrounded him.
Then, just as abruptly as the earth had swallowed him, it seemed to vomit him out once more. His legs, kicking like a drowning man‘s, were suddenly thrashing without resistance; an instant later he felt himself tumbling downward in a great avalanche of loose soil. He landed heavily, the breath he had held so long pushed out of him in a painful hiss. He gasped and swallowed dirt.
He was on his knees for long moments, choking and retching. When the flashes of light swarming before his eyes began to disperse, he lifted his head. There was light somewhere—not much, but enough to show him the vague outlines of a rounded space only a little wider than he was. Another tunnel? Or just a pit down in the depths, a grave of his very own where the air would soon give out?
A small flame seemed to have sprouted from the loose mound of soil upon which he crouched. That was the source of light. When he could force his trembling limbs to move, he crawled toward it and discovered that it was the tip of one of his torches, the only part of the burning brand that had not been buried in the great fall of earth. As carefully as he could, he worked his hand into the loamy earth and freed the torch, then flicked off the clinging dirt, cursing distractedly when he scorched his fingers. When it was as clean as he could get it, he turned it upside down so that the small flame could spread; soon the glow widened.
The first thing Simon saw was that he was indeed in another tunnel. In one direction it led downward, just like the one he had entered from the barrow, but this tunnel had no opening to the world above: the end was just beside him, a featureless spill of dirt, a great blunt nothingness of damp clods and loose soil. He could see no light or anything else beyond it; whatever gap he had fallen through was now choked with earth.
The second thing he saw was a dull glint of metal in the pile of dirt before him. He reached to pick it up, and was distractedly disappointed at how easily it came loose, how small an object it was. It was not Bright-Nail. It was a silver belt buckle.
Simon lifted the mud-smeared buckle up to catch the torchlight. When he wiped the dirt away with his fingers, he laughed, a harshly painful sound that died quickly in the narrow confines. So this was what he had risked his life for—this was the lure that had dropped him into the prisoning depths. The buckle was so scratched and worn that the markings were only faintly recognizable. Some kind of animal head was at the center of it, something square-snouted like a bear or pig; around it were a few slender things that might be sticks or arrows. It was old and meaningless. It was worthless.
Simon plunged his torch handle into the ground, then abruptly scrambled up the mound of soil. The sky must be somewhere above. His terror was growing strong. Surely Binabik was digging for him! But how would the troll find him if Simon did not help!? He slid back a cubit for every cubit he scrambled at first, until he found a way to move without dislodging so much soil. At last he climbed far enough that he could lay his hands against the loose earth at the tunnel’s end. He dug there frantically, freeing a shower of dirt, but more dirt kept appearing to take its place. As long moments passed his movements became even more uncontrolled. He tore at the unresisting earth, gouged it away in great handfuls, bringing down avalanches of soil from above, but all to no effect. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the beads of sweat until his eyes stung. There was no end to it, no matter how he dug.
He stopped at last, shuddering, covered in settling dirt almost to his waist. His heart was racing so swiftly that it took him a moment to realize that the tunnel had grown darker. He turned to see that his heedless digging had almost buried the torch once more. Simon stared, suddenly afraid that if he crawled back down the slope, down the pile of loose earth, sliding soil would cover the flame completely. Once extinguished, there would be no re-lighting it. He would be in complete and utter blackness.
He carefully freed himself from the small landslide that prisoned his legs, moving as delicately as he once had while stalking frogs across the Hayholt’s moat.
Gently, gently, he told himself. Not the dark, no. Need the light. There won’t be anything left for them to find if I lose the light.
A tiny avalanche was stirred. Clods of dirt went tumbling down the pile and a small slide stopped just short of the flame, which wavered. Simon’s heart nearly stopped.
Gently. Gently. Very gently.
When his hands pushed into the crumbly soil beneath the torch, he held his breath; when he had lifted it free, he let the breath out again. There was such a narrow line—really only a fraying edge of shadow—between the darkness and the light.
Simon went through the process of cleaning the torch all over again, singeing the same fingers, cursing the same curses, until he discovered that his sheathed Qanuc knife was still strapped to his leg. After saying a prayer in gratitude for this, what seemed his first piece of luck in some time, he used the bone blade to finish the task. He wondered briefly how long the torch would continue to burn, but pushed the thought away. There was no chance of clawing his way out, that seemed clear. So he would move a little farther down the tunnel and wait for Binabik and Miriamele to dig down from above. Surely they would be doing so soon. And there was plenty of air, when he stopped to think of it....
As he tipped the torch over so that the whole head caught fire once more, another patter of dirt came tumbling down the slope. Simon was so intent on what he was doing that he did not look up until a second fall of earth caught his attention. He held up the torch and squinted at the plugged end of the tunnel. The dirt was ... moving.
Something like a tiny black tree pushed up from the soil, flexing flat, slender branches. An instant later another sprouted next to it, then a small lump forced its way up between them. It was a head. Blind white eyes turned toward him and nostrils twitched. A mouth opened in a terrible semblance of a human grin.
More hands and heads were pushing up through the dirt. Simon, who had been staring in shocked terror, lurched up onto his knees, holding his torch and knife before him.
Bukken! Diggers! His throat clenched.
There were perhaps half a dozen in all. As they freed themselves from the loose earth they bunched together, twittering quietly among themselves, their spindly, hairy limbs so intertwined and their movements so twitchingly sudden that he could not count them accurately. He waved the torch at them and they shrank back, but not far. They were being cautious, but they were certainly not frightened.
Usires Aedon, he prayed silently. I am in the earth with the diggers. Save me now. Somebody please save me.
They advanced in a clump, but then suddenly separated, skittering toward the walls. Simon shouted in fear and smacked the nearest with his torch. It shrilled in agony but leaped and wrapped its legs and arms about his wrist; sharp teeth sank into his hand so that he almost dropped the torch. His shout turning to a wordless rasp of pain, he smashed his arm against the wall of the tunnel, trying to dislodge the thing. Several more, heartened by the removal of the flame, pranced forward, piping eagerly.
Simon slashed at one and caught it with his knife, tearing at the moldy bits of rags the diggers wore like garments, cutting deeply into the meat beneath. He drove his other hand against the wall again, as hard as he could, and felt small bones break. The thing that had clutched his wrist dropped free, but Simon’s hand was throbbing as though bitten by a venomous serpent.
He moved back, sliding awkwardly down the slope on his knees, struggling to keep his balance on the loosely-packed earth as the diggers ran at him. He swung his torch back and forth in a wide arc; the three creatures still standing stared back at him, shriveled little faces drawn tight, mouths open in hatred and fear. Three. And two small crumpled forms lying in the dirt where he had kneeled a moment before. So had there been only five... ?
Something dropped from the tunnel roof onto the top of his head. Ragged claws scraped at his face and a hand grabbed his upper lip. Simon shrieked and reached up, grabbed the squirming body as hard as he could, then pulled.
After a moment’s struggle it came free with several tufts of his hair clutched in its fists. Still screaming in disgust and terror, he smashed it down against the ground, then flung the broken body toward the others. He saw the remaining three tumble back into the shadows before he turned and crawled away down the tunnel as fast as he could, cursing and spluttering, spitting to rid his mouth of the vile taste of the digger’s oily skin.
Simon expected any moment to feel something clutch at his legs; when he had crawled for some time he turned and raised the torch. He thought he saw a faint, pale gleam of eyes, but couldn’t be sure. He turned and continued scrambling downward. Twice he dropped the torch, snatching it up as swiftly and fearfully as if it were his own heart tumbled from his breast.
The diggers did not seem to have pursued him. Simon felt some of the fear dropping away, but his heart still pounded. Beneath his hands and knees, the soil of the tunnel had become firmer.
After a while he stopped and sat back. The torchlight showed nothing following in the featureless tunnel behind him, but something was different. He looked up. The roof was much farther away—too far to touch while sitting down.
Simon took a deep breath, then another. He stayed where he was until he felt as though the air in his lungs was beginning to do him some good once more, then held up the torch and repeated his inspection. The tunnel had indeed grown wider, higher. He reached out to touch the wall and found that it was almost as solid as mud brick.
With a last look behind him, Simon struggled up onto his feet. The roof of the tunnel was a handsbreadth above his head.
Weary beyond belief, he raised the torch before him and began to walk. He knew now why Binabik and Miriamele had not been able to dig down to him. He hoped the diggers had not caught Binabik in the barrow. It was something he could not think about for more than a moment—his poor friend! The brave little man! But Simon had his own very immediate problems.