by Adele Abbot
Ponderos nodded and they left the spiral, stumbling along the darkened tunnel until they reached a chamber which echoed and re-echoed their steps.
“To the right here,” said Roli. “The water is hot so do not wade in too deeply.”
They paddled through the margins of a pool of steaming water for a thousand paces until they could step up onto a high shelf of stone which Roli had spied on his earlier visit.
“Quiet now,” he said in a whisper. “They are coming.”
Alarmed and almost giving voice to a startled cry, Ponderos crowded back into the shadows where the shelf met the ceiling. Calistrope did likewise and as the sound of insect feet scraping on the rock floor became distinct, so did Roli.
A minute later, a glow became evident. Two of the six guardians carried bowls of the luminescent fungus aloft—a mistake on their part for the brightness so close to their eyes made it difficult to probe the shadows. They passed the humans without pausing.
“They will be following our earlier scent,” Roli said. “I expect they will go on down to the steam generators before turning back, so now is our best chance.”
The three of them descended into the hot water and followed the group of ants, leaving a path of wet foot marks on the rocky floor. They crossed the gloomy chamber and found themselves on a tiny landing where a narrow arch led onto a closely spiraling ramp.
“There,” said Roli, apparently pleased with himself. “I wasn’t able to check on this level but I guessed it must be the same as the one below, the one we used earlier. I think it’s an emergency way.”
“How do we know it goes all the way up?” Ponderos, as ever played cautiously.
“Feel the draft. The wind is going somewhere, there must be an exit up there don’t you think?”
“As good a reason as any, Ponderos. You have to admit Roli’s instincts in this sort of a situation are better than ours.”
They started up. Roli set a brisk pace but after three or four levels the three began to separate—Roli at the head, Ponderos several paces behind and behind Ponderos, Calistrope who soon began to complain about the ache in his calves.
“Quiet,” commanded Roli after several more levels. “I can hear something ahead.”
They closed ranks and listened. The something that Roli had heard approached: the clicks and scrapes of insect feet on hard rock, a dim light reflected fitfully round the bend ahead.
They turned and started downward. Calistrope was at first grateful that the way was now downward but soon complained as much as before about the effects on his leg muscles. They passed the entrance they had arrived through, lights could be seen in the distance; they passed on. They arrived at the next level, where the boilers were situated more lights coming towards them; they continued on.
Down and down. Behind came what sounded like a gathering army of ants.
Down and down. The air grew steadily hotter, drier and soon they were gasping.
“Listen,” panted Roli. “They’ve stopped.”
“Not surprised,” puffed Calistrope. “Too hot… for them. Addle their brains. Boil them. Let’s… try… through… here.”
Calistrope led the way out onto a balcony, a ledge which wound off into the distance around an immense shaft, so immense that it was hard to make sense of what they were seeing. At length, they grasped perspective, a space furlongs in diameter and leagues deep. They leaned on the balustrade and gaped at the sight—surely the archetype of all steam engines.
Calistrope experienced a strange feeling of déjà vu but try as he might could not expand on the whats or the whys. He resisted an overwhelming urge to stay and examine the workings of this phenomenal machine.
“Shades,” whispered Roli.
Far below were what seemed to be flames, league-long flames leaping and smoking from the mythical inferno, from the very throat of Hell.
Many, many leagues below them were the glowing levels of rock which lay relatively close to the last remnants of the planet’s molten core. Water—hundreds of tons a minute—fell in a continuous roar from higher up. The water spread out, heated by the fierce updraft of energy and much of it was vaporized; even so, a proportion reached the incandescent rocks and in a perpetual explosion, flashed into superheated steam to climb back up the long funnel. The wavering sheets of steam and air refracted the savage light from below, creating the flame and smoke effects.
Equally high above them the vapor with air injected from liquid reservoirs, spewed out through unseen fissures to create the conspicuous plume of steam which marked the mountain.
The noise was deafening, indescribable. The air was almost un-breathable, scorching lungs and skin, drying their eyes and mouths in seconds. They retreated back to the emergency ramp and began to climb slowly back up again. They met no opposition, whatever force had pursued them had melted away as the growing heat became impossible for the insects to cope with.
Their ascent was slow. The three of them were in poor condition after their chase and the effects of the heat. They expended every last erg of magical power they had and still, it was hardly enough.
When they estimated that they had climbed well past the level at which they had entered the spiral, Roli slipped away to find water and provisions. Again his talents as a thief stood him in good stead and he returned with an armful of bottles and a sack of fruit from the ants’ subterranean farm.
They drank thirstily and ate what they could and then Roli said: “Now for the bad news.”
“What?” asked Calistrope as he took another long swallow of water.
“I am almost certain they are still searching for us.”
“Oh no, did you see guards?”
“No. I overheard some people talking about us. Farm workers. They had been questioned.”
“Then let us be off,” said Calistrope. He took three paces and groaned. “It’s no use, I can’t climb another ell. My muscles have stiffened up.”
Dismally, the three sat down with their backs against the wall, too weary to think, too tired to talk until Roli suddenly sat upright. “Magic.”
“We have none,” Calistrope pointed out wearily.
“Where have we found magic, in the past?”
“At Jesm, at Lelaine’s village—a little, at the village near the wasps’ nest, at home.”
“Exactly. Where there are people! At Jesm there were seven thousand, at Lelaine’s village maybe a thousand, at the wasps’ nest—several thousand, don’t you see?”
“It depends on what I am expected to see.”
“People must make magic. There is something in the human body which makes it, like tears or digestive juices. Perhaps most people make a little too much and it accumulates in the ether around the community.”
Both Calistrope and Ponderos were silent as they considered this. Eventually Calistrope nodded. “It makes a great deal of sense. However, is there relevance to our present situation?”
“Magic would help us a lot.”
“It would repair our exhausted bodies, we could refresh our muscles.”
“It could be used to bewilder the ants if they seek us out.”
“Well, yes. Go on, I’m sure this is not just a what-if exercise.”
“Do you remember the dormitories, where the farming people sleep? We could join them, pretend to be the same. Even work in the farm for a time.”
“Aha! Accumulate magic,” Ponderos frowned as he thought about it. “It would be a slow business, assuming your theory is correct.”
“It doesn’t matter if his theory is wrong,” said Calistrope. “We can hide there in plain sight, now that the ants have actually searched there. Can you imagine them searching in the same place twice? No. We can wait until we are recovered and the hue and cry has died down. Then we leave in a dignified manner, when we are ready.”
And so it was. They waited until the current shift was finishing and quietly joined the column of workers returning to the dormitory. Roli filched some of the coarse drab clothes from
a laundry and later, after he and the other workers had slept, they shared breakfast and filed out to the plantations of marrows and mushrooms where they copied their new comrades in caring for the plants.
Roli and the mages stayed for eight work shifts. As Roli had suggested, there was a weak energy reservoir in the surrounding ether and as Calistrope had pointed out, if there was still a search going on, it did not return to the farm. When the time was ripe, they simply walked away.
The overseer worker ants seemed to enter a sort of coma state when they were not shepherding the humans. Calistrope, Ponderos and Roli left part way through a sleep period, ignoring the immobile ants and once again, used the emergency ramp to escape. On this occasion, they had had the foresight to take water and provisions with them and they climbed steadily, stopping at intervals to eat and drink.
They climbed for most of a day before stopping for an extended period of rest. Supplies were running low and Roli, once again a thief, left them to find provisions. The boy returned almost at once, running, agitated.
“They have seen me and recognized me, I’m sure. We must go on at once.”
The other two, got to their feet and at a fast pace, set off up the ramp again.
“What caste of ant saw you?” asked Ponderos as they went.
“Some of the smallish type. Like Suqe. When one saw me, they all turned and stared.”
“We may have a good lead on them then. I think they will organize guards to do the chasing.”
They went on, conserving their energies but losing no time either.
“Thank the fates,” called Ponderos who was a little in the lead. “This is the top, I think.”
Certainly the ramp came to an end and a narrow doorway led through into a dark cavern. Water raced along in front of them and from their right came the sound of a mighty waterfall, in the dull light, the water was a leaden expanse, its velocity disguised by the smooth monochrome surface.
Ponderos, who had Voss’ light globe, held it up high.
“How far across do you think it is?” asked Calistrope.
“Impossible to say. I cannot discern the far side, the light goes nowhere.”
Calistrope stretched out his arms, strained as if he were pushing against a solid wall. A sheet of white light erupted from his fingers and arched away across the water, reflecting from the surface and shining on the rough stone of the cavern roof. “I think that’s the last of my magic.”
“A league, at least,” answered Ponderos.
Calistrope shook his head. The waterfall we hear must be where it goes into the recycling shaft. We would be swept over before we could swim across.”
“If we could all swim that far,” added Ponderos gloomily. “Come, we shall have to go upstream, see what we find.”
They hurried on and behind them, a furlong distant, there was the suggestion of light. Guardian ants, they surmised, carrying the glowing fungi to light the way. They increased their pace until forced to stop by another watercourse, smaller than the mighty river to their right, a tributary in fact.
“Marvelous,” Ponderos grinned. “We can swim across here and it will stop them following us. We shall be safe.”
Roli paled as he saw the water. “I cannot swim so far. Not halfway, not a quarter. You must go on without me.”
Ponderos looked at Calistrope. Instant understanding passed between them. Ponderos took hold of Roli’s right arm; Calistrope, the left. Without allowing time for Roli to realize what was happening, they plunged into the water and swam strongly into the current. Roli twisted and struggled, swallowed water and screamed again and again until abruptly, it was born in upon him that he was not drowning; that in fact, the far shore was coming closer and he could feel the river bed beneath his feet.
They climbed ashore and looked back. The guardians were standing in a row on the farther shore. As they watched, one ant trod carefully into the water—just the front legs. A second climbed on top of the first and climbed over it until it was floating with the first insect holding its back pair of legs firmly in its mandibles. A third ant repeated the exercise, a fourth, a fifth…
Calistrope, Ponderos and Roli were already running by the time the ant bridge had reached their side and the first ant was clambering over the backs of the others to dry land. The humans could probably outdistance the ants while they had the energy to run but insects are notoriously persistent and in the long run, the humans knew they were doomed to failure unless they found an escape route.
Calistrope skidded to a stop on the water worn rocks before he consciously realized what his eyes had seen. “There,” he shouted, breathless. “Is that a doorway?”
It was. By good fortune, the Mage had noticed it even in the dimness, a huge arched doorway let into the side of the cavern. Now they had stopped, it was obviously artificial, cut smooth and vertical into the worn and chipped rock wall. There was every possibility that the entrance would lead them from the cooking pot to the dinner plate but there was no time to debate the possibility. They rushed through and were even more thankful to find on the inside a pair of stout doors opened flat against the interior wall.
They pushed them shut. They were made of metal and incredibly heavy, they closed with a great clang, giving the three of them a sudden feeling of safety.
“Is there a locking bar?” asked Calistrope looking wildly at the inside of the doors.
“No,” said Ponderos. “Find some stones to hold them closed.”
There was very little light. Stones of any size were few and far between but they found a half dozen or so and piled them up against the doors and used smaller ones as wedges, driving them tightly under the lower edge.
“Thank Destiny,” gasped Roli, his back to the door.
Bang! They started and then realized that it had been an echo of the doors’ closing reflected from some far distant part of the space they had entered. A moment or so later there came a whole regiment of echoes. Bang! Bang! Bangangng!
Like every place they had seen within the mountain so far, this was huge. Ponderos turned away from the doors and looked around the gloomy place. Lit dimly by the glow from strings and curtains of the same moss and lichen which illumined the ants’ catacombs, it was just possible to guess at a cathedral-high roof far above them.
“The ants aren’t going to get through those, surely?” Roli asked in disbelief.
“They surely will. Nothing is more certain. Pressure of numbers will push them open and if not, they will chew away at the stone to either side or underneath,” Calistrope looked this way and that but the floor was unnaturally flat and bare. “Any more stones?” he asked. “Anyone see any more?” Their feet kicked up a fine dust in little puffs but beyond an occasional pebble or a collapsed skeleton, there was nothing.
“Bones?” Said Calistrope to himself. Bones? “Bones,” he shouted. “There are bones here and there, find the strongest you can, we’ll brace the doors as well.”
But even as he said it, there was a groan of tired hinges and one of the door panels swung open by a hand’s breadth. Ponderos heard the sound and whirled about to slam the door shut again. “Go on,” he shouted. “Get away from here, I’ll hold them closed as long as possible then follow you.”
Ponderos leaned against the doors and felt the insistent pushing of the guardian ants on the other side. After a second’s pause, Calistrope nodded and he and Roli set off at a run. A minute passed, another, a third and the pressure behind the doors began to build up. Ponderos’ muscles bulged.
As the others ran into the gloom, there came a rushing sound above them, a flutter. Not the steady hum of dragon flies nor the dipping darting whine of mosquitoes, this was a ragged, flapping; a thousand scraps of parchment racing through the air just above their heads.
Back at the doors, Ponderos could feel the panels pressing against his hands and arms, pushing him slowly across the floor. A dozen pairs of unblinking bright eyes looked through the widening gap. He drew in a huge breath and heaved the doo
rs shut once more then turned and bolted after the others, following the dimly visible footprints in the dust.
Close above him, he also heard the uneven beating of thin wings and turning as he ran, saw a cloud of black scraps silhouetted against the bright opening between the double doors. As their erratic flight took them closer, Ponderos saw the doors begin to close once more and just before the bright bar of light vanished completely, he saw a half dozen of the flying creatures dart between them.
“Something seems to worry the ants,” said Calistrope, catching and steadying Ponderos who was still trotting with his head turned back towards the now vanished opening.
“Certainly does,” rejoined Ponderos. “I wonder what they are.”
“Bats,” said Roli.
Calistrope asked, “Mm? Bats? And what are bats?”
“Flying animals. Tiny, size of your thumb.”
“Animals,” Calistrope was hardly convinced. The only animals around Sachavesku were those which he had grown in his vats over the years. There was a small herd of unicorns and four pairs of very small elephants, one or two others which he had seen in old books and had taken a fancy to. “They exist in the wild? Are you sure?”
Roli nodded. “I saw them around the Raftman’s Ease while you were sick. When the air was thick. After rain, sometimes. Jiss showed me their roosting places.
“Well, well. Still, those weren’t the size of my thumb,” he nodded in the direction of the doors.
“Perhaps they’re better fed.”
Calistrope did not find it an amusing remark.
“Ponderos. How about a light?”
“I don’t know Calistrope. We’re almost certain that it needs a large number of people to generate a field of power, and there aren’t many here,” Ponderos held up his hand and a tiny flame grew from the tip of his index finger. “You see?”
“I know all that. But we do have a certain globe of light tucked away in your coat pocket. No?”
“In my… Aha. Well yes, of course.” Ponderos reached into first one pocket then another and finally, the last pocket, the pocket which held the globe.