by Tanith Lee
But before he did, Soporo had tipped him and crashed against his legs. Cirpoz plunged headlong with only a yelp, a winded grunt. It was Vinka who squirreled over him and smashed down the stone over and over on his head with all her panther’s strength. Stormy, going after her, had to push her aside in order to finish the work.
Sure enough, now there was a dead man sprawled there, his brain-case stoven in. No gold though. That was kept in the wagon.
She had slept in snatches through the night, on the inn bed. Sometimes talking in her sleep, but not knowing it. She had not been certain her captor would not change his mind and return. (Once a girl had come in to see to the brazier and startled her.) Today she felt very little. Cirpoz might conduct her back to Belgra Demitu, and her enemies and un-friends there. Or he would carry her on, away to other enemies and unfriends. What did it matter? This was how the world was.
Candacis nursed her melancholy. She sat in the wagon as she had yesterday, seeing none of it. As for the dwarf people, they were like figments of a dream.
Now, in the forest clearing, a huge soundlessness gradually communicated itself to her. No wind, no movement, not even the croaking of a raven. Cirpoz and his slaves all gone somewhere. She had not … paid attention.
Candacis, on her knees, moved to the wagon’s back. If they were gone, she might run away. That is, she might walk away, without speed or intention, the world being all alike and all nothing in its bleakness. Probably wolves would meet and devour her. At least they would do it only in order to survive—but was this true of everyone?
As she put her hand on the leather flap, it was pulled open. How limber and noiseless they could be, these dwarves, like cats. She had not heard them, even this one as he jumped onto the box.
He looked up sternly into her eyes.
A child-short, black-haired man, with a jagged beauty she glimpsed abruptly, and half-averted herself from, as if from an old, familiar pain.
Stormy said, “He’s dead. The master. He would have cut your throat, but it’s him instead. Now the wagon’s ours, and everything in it. But we have a difficulty, being subhuman underlings.” He said these two words without rancor or hesitancy. He said them with steely pride.
This made her glance back into his eyes.
He took this heeding for inquiry.
“Our kind can’t own anything. We can only be owned. But you’re an ordinary woman. So, you can own us. Be the mistress. Then no one will cause problems. Do you want to go back to your palace?”
“No,” she said. It came from her without her intending to speak. It was more an inverted gasp. (Less to her even than to him, her status.)
“Good. Then we can go on to Korchlava, or to the mines there. That’s employment for us. We’re inspired at mines. Better than at the Sin tableau for lords.”
She shook her head slightly. He saw she was shocked and not properly in her right mind. Stormy said gently, “We won’t hurt you. You can help us out. We’ll take fair care of you.”
But then he, too, looked away, to hide the burning fury he felt, saying such things to her, as if she were anything he could ever take seriously or truly care about, like one of his own.
III.
THE GREAT RIVER WHICH SWEPT below Korchlava city began in the marble hills above. The city knew it as the Chlav. In the hills, in the very depths of them, it had another name. Like the mines themselves.
“Welcome to Elusion. What’s your business?”
“My lady, over there, and that I speak for, brings us to work here.”
“Your lady, not your lord?”
“Master’s dead. Her father. Wolves ate him in the forest. It upset her.”
“It might.” The man who leaned by the high rock gate picked his teeth, letting the dwarf wait. At length: “And that’s her there, in the wagon?”
“Yes, my sir.”
“With your ladylove.” He meant Vinka, cuddled in close to the girl. The guard stared on for some moments. Men did become fascinated by Vinka, but not in any nice way. “Well,” elaborated the gate man, “this is Elusion. If your fine lady, who scorns to come over here, wants you filthlings to work in the mines, then she must pay her tribute. We have royalty of our own, below ground. Have you heard? Speak up.”
“The king,” said Stormy. His voice was flat, respectful.
“The king! That king in the city—oh, he takes the stone and the gems, by Blessed Marusa. But he’s not ruler, not in the hills. Not under the hills.”
On the wagon, the girl sat with her face half-turned away. It was her usual pose. Stormy felt he could identify her better from that colorless smooth cheekbone, the wide plait of black hair, than any feature of her face. Except, maybe, her eyes. But Vinka was acting a lady’s sweet pet, flicking little shy glances at the guard of the gate. The others had stayed in the wagon, unseen.
“So,” said the guard, “once you’re in, the prince’s men will take your tribute. But here, I take it. You don’t look wealthy. She doesn’t, your mistress. What’s her name?”
“Mistress is Coira.”
“Oh, some wild name, that. What is she, a jumped-up whore? Three gold coins you can give me. Then you can go through.”
Stormy looked timid, and went again to the wagon. He called up softly and Soporo, still unseen, pushed out the money. It was not gold, but a small bag of copper and silver. They had agreed beforehand, if there was this kind of demand, not to let on they possessed anything significant.
Trudging back to the guard though, Stormy prepared himself for a kick or blow. He was always the front man on such occasions. Soporo or Greedy could get careless, and Proud, tall and blond, could appear too … proud. As for the woman they had made their owner, God knew what she would have done. Nothing—everything—the wrong thing.
“Is this all you can offer me?”
“We regret. As you said, master my sir, we haven’t much.”
“Wolves eat that too? Your wagon, perhaps I’d like that.”
“It’s not handy. And the horses, look at them. They have the wet cough.”
“They look like that, I agree. What about your lady, then. If she wants you in, what’ll she give?”
Stormy crossed himself. “She’s still grieving for her chewed dad.”
The guard balked. He had found a larger piece of silver in the bag. “Get in, then. Go on with you. Don’t waste more of my time. Remember, our own prince will require one-twentieth of any find in the mines.” He meant, what Stormy would, of course, illegally keep back from his mining, stolen from King Draco. “And you’ll need another coin, too. To pay the ferryman.”
Stormy had heard of some of this, in towns below Korchlava they had passed through. But he blinked nervously.
“This is Elusion,” repeated the guard. “And down there in the dark is Hate River. What else, in the Underworld?”
The Underworld—Elusion, the classical Hell.
These mines and quarries bored far into and below the surface of the hills, just as the wide river, turning to pour underground, carved through and through them. And here the Chlav became the River Hate—Stugus, Styx.
Beyond the gateway in the side of the hill, the track ebbed down into darkness. To the dwarves, this was an accustomed environment. If they had ever feared it, in childhood, say, no qualms remained. All mines represented a form of safety, for in them they had grown skilled, and adapted better than ordinary men. Always superior, here they realized their power.
But this girl who they must keep as protectress, who had said she would be called Coira, she might be afraid.
“There’ll be lights presently,” Tickle told Coira.
“Will there?” Coira did not sound anxious. She was always calm, deadly so. Her calm was her carapace, and this they knew.
The wagon juddered over flints and rocks. There was the smell of the white dust which descended from the upper quarries. Then, as the last daylight was sucked away, some torches appeared around the shoulder of the passage. And the scene they lit
was fantastic enough.
Above, the belly of the hill rose high, and below the track ended on a shore of boulders and other debris, which in the glare of the torches was winking and glinting, as if the stone was pierced with eyes. At the shore a river moved by, sluggish, night-black, gleaming. It stretched away to either side, off into the darkness, nor was any farther shore to be seen.
Coira looked at it. She had read once of the River Styx, by which souls of the dead were conveyed into the Land of Shadows. Here it lay.
She felt cold, not on her skin, but under it. Where had she come without protest now?
There was a strange dim animal noise, indecipherable but growing louder. Just then a light began to appear out of the nothingness. It came gliding across the River Hate.
By now all the dwarves had jumped down from the wagon. Only Coira still sat above the horses, as if they were really hers.
A large, round-sided boat became visible, with two or three lanterns slung from its prow. The sounds rose from this boat. As it was rowed to the shore, Coira could see men packed on the deck, jostling and calling. One was singing.
The nose of the boat dredged itself up on the stones. The passengers sprang down. They were all types of men and a couple of women were with them, dressed alike in garments strapped round by leather. They had sacks and bags tied to their persons, each packed full. They were cheerful, going up to the world of the sun for a day, or forever.
A few jeered at the wagon and the dwarves. One man whistled shrilly at Vinka, and another grunted like a pig at the girl. But their disembarking minds were already far ahead of such things, up in the daylight. Anyone encountered down here, in the hour of holiday, was discounted.
The horde rushed by and was gone. Only the waddling boat remained.
It was not Death who was the ferryman, but three squat hulking men, one almost a dwarf himself. They threw out a ramp and roughly helped lead the unwilling horses on board. The wagon was secured on a platform bobbing at the rear. Coira, having got down, gave the crew her hands and let them pull her too up onto the deck.
She and the dwarves stood silent; the three ferrymen and their rowers were silent always. Only the water gulped against the boat.
As the shore folded back with its torches, all vestige of light seemed to die. It was indeed a kind of death, and unarguably a descent.
But then, after a time, everywhere beyond the boat’s lanterns, twilight seemed to evolve.
Coira stared up. This dusk even had its impoverished stars. They must be plates or veins of metal in the cavern roof high overhead. They shone for a moment, then went out, and others shone instead.
Why have I let them bring me here?
But it did not matter where she went. All the earth was alike.
Nevertheless, Coira glanced at the faces of the dwarves. She was an alien among them, as she had always been alone among others. Yet their unspoken survivalism, their apparent sense of an aim, had caught her attention. During the grim winter journey, they had behaved toward her as adults might with some helpless child they had adopted in an indifferent charity. They gave her privacy wherever they could, brought her water, offered her food, even put it into her hands. Sometimes they talked together, apart from her. Tickle might say a word or two, usually of reassurance. Stormy informed Coira of their traveling plans, which town or village they might go into, or must avoid, as it had a chancy reputation. They were, in their own manner, very worldly-wise, while Coira knew nothing. But she could see they considered all but themselves inferior. When Proud now and then showed her some nearly sycophantic kindness, tucking a rug about her shoulders, putting a stalk of ginger into her wine at an inn, she saw these were not the gestures of an ingratiating servant, but of one who rather pitied her hopeless state.
Vinka was the only one who seemed sometimes lured by Coira. Vinka would slink against her, or into Coira’s arm, like a silky affectionate cat. It seemed best not to resist these attentions. The dwarvixen would gaze at her, on and on, then shake her head, averting herself as if from an imperfect mirror.
Now their faces were all alike, set like granite with their purpose. How Coira envied them their purpose.
She herself had never found any goal—not after her first goal, which had been to reach and be at one with the Woman, who subsequently was not to be her mother. If Coira had had a goal, would she have been less easy prey for Ulvit, and so for Ulvit’s plot to be rid of her?
What do I want? I too have wanted to live, to survive, I suppose, ƒor here I am.
She had said she would be called Coira, not by the princess-name of the palace. The dwarves simply accepted that. Of course her royal name might be noticed, so near to the king’s capital, if only as unsuitable for a merchant’s daughter who put her slaves into the mine to earn bread.
Sometimes, on the journey, she missed the palace. How curious. She missed the warm bed, but also the way the light came in at her window, the sound of birds, and the ravens and crows in winter. She missed gathering and preparing herbs, their aromas, the way their colors changed—although she had never really cared for their properties of healing and harm.
What was she? Nothing, nothing. But, she was young.
Standing on the ferryboat of the River Styx, alone among the dwarves and the silent crew, Coira felt this symbolistic death, and lashed out desperately, suddenly against it. No—I must have something! Oh, give me something—what can I have?
Yet to what was she crying out? To the Christ, obdurate with selflessness on His cross, or the gods of the savage wood?
Stormy—she had learned their remnant names—came up to her.
Proud, when he approached, stood as tall as Coira’s shoulder. Stormy’s crown was just above her elbow.
Startled, Coira looked down. The face he raised was much larger than her own, older, and armored as if in a vizor.
“To be safe, you should cover your hair, mistress.”
“All right.”
There was such exasperation in his eyes. He frowned at her. Of them all, he found her a burden.
“Speak to no one in Elusion Town. I’ll talk. I normally speak for all of us. But you’re on your own here, and a woman. The people in the mines—you saw them just now. You take my drift?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t—none of us will let them hurt you. That’s our bargain. But you must do what I say.”
“Yes. Thank you.” She would not call him Stormy. Nor Anger. What had his name been? Had he been given a human name? She had not been able to intrude on him and ask. Or to say sharply, Don’t call me mistress.
She put the plait of her hair up inside the shawl, and wound it close about her head and neck.
When the torchlit quay came in sight it was as grandiose as the awful river.
Cliffs reared up and dissolved in uncharted, smoky space. The rock of the cliffs had sinews and bulging muscles, and split in spots on seams of purest white, like skeletons. Marble was above, with quarries which opened to the sky. Marble was the core of all Korchlava’s fabulous hills. And under that lay gold and copper. iron and silver, and, in sumps and grottoes whose secrets were often gained by murder, precious stones.
Unnatural tints fluttered in the air on the powder of dust. Perhaps they were the ghosts of dead rare emeralds, rubies, amethysts, malachite, and lapis lazuli.
Boats lay idle by the jetty. A shrine had been put there long ago to some saint, who raised a languid blessing hand. But his paint had rusted off and his enamel eyes had been thieved. Serves him right, the Elusians said, this Christian purveyor of poverty, for entering such a sink of riches.
Stormy had paid the crew of the boat.
They went ashore.
It was Proud who assisted Coira; Stormy and Soporo were busy with the fretting horses and the heavy awkward wagon.
Under the cliffs and up and down their shelves, and away and away inside them, rambled the miners’ town. By day (and they kept rigorously to rituals of day and night down here) it was mostly
quiet. But from the galleries and chambers inside the rock came continuous weird ringings and mumblings, like far off bells under the sea, or giants moaning.
How terrible it is, this place, Coira wonderingly thought, as if she were coming awake at last, not out of a dark dream but into one.
A cottage on a hill—this was how Tickle described it, with a bark of laughter. It was a shack of castaway beams from the mines, and stones. However, it looked across the hills of rubble and rock to the valley where the peculiar Prince of Hell, evidently some other thief, had his mansion.
Nothing Coira had beheld was like this vista. But she had been shown very little.
Was it like Hell? If so, the classical Hell of shades and shadows, or the Christian one of flames?
For a fact, there were odors of sulphur in these caverns. But Belgra Demitu had reeked of that now and then from its Oracle. Here phosphorous flared in the dark, particularly near the river. And lanterns and torches, shallow clay lamps, fat candles—these fires, static or mobile, were everywhere.
The mansion of the prince itself blazed with red lights. From this distance, it was vivid as a dying sunset. But the architecture seemed like that of all the dwellings, an amalgamation of rubbish. Less a sunset than a bonfire.
A stream pushed through the rock valley. The Underworldians called it Woe Stream, feeding a pool they called Lethe. Trees grew there—or so it was said by those who had made the pilgrimage to visit the Prince of Hell.
Strangely, a tree of sorts grew by the dwarves’ shack, which stood in an isolated position on its “hill.” The tree, which hung down like a willow, consisted of the roots of a tree which had somehow established itself in the quarries overhead. Its tendrils were ghostly with the marble dust. When vibrations shook it, as off and on they shook all the Underworld, puffs of white breath blew off from it. The shack had, from this, become powdered, too. When the torch was alight by the door, everything shone like the dull, dire stars in the cavern’s roof.