Offended, Fatty moved forward in the crowd to distance himself from Hatch. He cast the Shrike with the black mark a curious, sidelong glance, as if the things Hatch was saying were pure poison and not to be tolerated.
“Watch out,” thought Copernicus. Individual ideas were not appreciated among the Shrikes, and Hatch was clearly an unusual member of the species. He almost seemed to have emotions. Copernicus decided he would stay near Hatch and hear what he had to say.
By now the Shrikes had entered a long auditorium, at the end of which was a raised dais. The ceiling was very high, and it could have been a lovely room if not for the lack of natural light and the absence of any artistry in the bare, industrial architecture. They all took seats on stone blocks and waited expectantly. Copernicus found it an easy task to hide in the crevices beneath the stone seats, and he stuck close by Hatch as the rebellious Shrike found his seat. A low thrumming began as all the Shrikes flapped their stubby wings in unison, and clacked their beaks. Strange electricity in the air made their fur stand on end, like sharp spikes. Copernicus noticed that while Hatch flapped his wings dutifully with the rest, no sound emerged from his beak.
Finally, with a crescendo of clacking and shrieking, a figure emerged abruptly onto the dais. Copernicus raised his head gently to see who it was.
It was doubtless the largest Shrike he had ever seen. Fully double the size of its brethren, this Shrike was hideous in every aspect. In fact, it was less a Shrike than a Fantastic Grout—a horrible amalgam of the species without any of the warmth or charm of Fantastic Grouts Copernicus had known. Aarvord, he thought pitifully, where are you, and what is this thing?
The Shrike-Grout stood there stupidly, and Copernicus wondered if it was the Supreme Leader of this group. It certainly seemed menacing enough. But, no. In the next moment, a small and wiry Shrike with great, bushy eyebrows stepped onto the dais, and brushed past the creature. He spoke in a squeaky voice.
“Behold what we have done!” he screamed, gesturing to the Shrike-Grout with a great sense of propriety. “We have succeeded!”
The entire auditorium erupted in a chorus of clacks and shrieks. Most of the Shrikes leapt to their webbed feet in order to better view the creature, and Copernicus was lost beneath stamping fur, feet, and feathers.
“Be seated!” ordered the bushy-eyebrowed Shrike and they obeyed, as one.
“It is stupid, yes. But it does what we ask of it,” said Bushy (Copernicus had already named him). And Bushy poked at the Shrike-Grout and commanded, “Cut!” He handed it a length of board.
The creature extricated a ragged, bony saw from beneath its feathers—something made of bone and hide and sinew—and it sawed the board neatly in half.
The Shrikes erupted again as if they had seen a particularly pleasing circus act.
“Stupid, awful things!” thought Copernicus. “Don’t they want to know how this thing was made. It doesn’t seem right, not at all. And why bother cutting wooden boards? What purpose could it serve?”
“This is but the beginning!” howled Bushy. “This is the beginning that will lead to the release. For you know what is next, my friends. You know what we are working on, tirelessly, night and day. What all of us are working on. A Went that will obey us. Those earthbound creatures, with no imagination,” he sneered. “Those pitiful plants. For they are nothing more fancy than that, my friends. Plants! Much as the vines and tendrils that do our bidding!”
The Shrikes stirred and muttered, angry now. Their Went prisoners had frustrated them, and now they wanted satisfaction. Copernicus watched Hatch, and saw that he seemed almost caught up in the fervor—but not quite. Hatch’s eyes appeared as glassy as did the others, true, but he did not sway in his seat as the others did. He was quite, quite still. And, as Hatch watched the creature on the dais, Copernicus thought he could see his beak twitch with disgust. “He thinks it’s wrong, too,” thought the snake. “He knows that this isn’t right.”
“It will not be long, my Shrikes,” said Bushy. “You have been faithful and tireless. You have tried everything within your power. Some efforts have been close. All have eventually failed. Until now. This—” he paused dramatically. “This will be the final effort.”
Without warning a strident horn sounded in the auditorium. “Intruder alert! Release the Balehounds!” shrieked a high Shrike voice. Copernicus stiffened. He must get out, quickly, but there was nowhere to go. He had but one choice, and it was a dreadful one. A gate opened at the side of the auditorium, as the Balehounds were released from their keeps. Their claws skittered over the stone floor. Copernicus knew that there was one thing that they loved above any other meal, and that was snake. There were so many of them. Copernicus twitched in terror, and then he did the only thing he knew he could do. He shot up the stone seat and tucked into the feathers and fur of Hatch.
“Please,” he whispered. “I am a friend. Do not turn me in.”
Hatch did not move or even acknowledge that Copernicus had climbed atop him. Copernicus took this for assent. It was the only option he had at that moment.
But much to his surprise, he was not the intruder they had been seeking. From the safety of Hatch’s feathers, he could see the Balehounds drag a form from beyond the curtains that rimmed the dais. Someone had been hiding in there, and it was Aarvord. The Fantastic Grout looked thin and unhappy, but none the worse for wear—except for the fact that a Balehound’s teeth were hooked around one of his arms. Copernicus shuddered, and the Shrike whispered two words: “Stay still.” Copernicus relaxed, hoping that he was really with a friend. A dubious friend, perhaps, but the best this place could offer.
Aarvord was pulled forward onto the dais and the Shrike-Grout looked at him dully.
“Stop this thing!” shouted Aarvord in his greatest booming voice. “This is wrong!”
The Shrikes shrieked with laughter. Copernicus felt a wild exultation; his friend was not a traitor! His friend would stand up for what was right!
Aarvord—in fear or else in rage—extracted every one of his tools at once, from the glowing appendage on his forehead to the saw-like protrusions on his arms. Bushy stood next to Aarvord, and he looked puny and weak in comparison with a Fantastic Grout in his fearsome, full bloom.
But the Bushy Shrike was not deterred. “What shall we do with this interloper, this escapee, who dares to interrupt our ceremonies? What shall we do, friends?”
The response of the Shrikes was immediate and unanimous: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”
Copernicus tucked his head low into Hatch’s feathers; he could not bear to watch this. Why had Aarvord hidden here, of all places? Why sacrifice himself to these stupid creatures? Coper vaguely wondered how Aarvord had escaped, and where his sister might be.
“Better still,” said Bushy. “Let them kill each other, for we have little more use for this oddity.” He gestured at the Shrike-Grout, which did not seem to acknowledge or understand. “Better yet, a test. Let us see how it will do our bidding. Let it prove its loyalty.”
Bushy approached the Shrike-Grout and said slowly, “Kill the interloper.” The Shrike-Grout seemed to perk up. It looked at Aarvord with menace. But it was clearly a stupid thing, and lacked any hardened battle skills. Not that Aarvord had ever engaged in more than fisticuffs, thought Copernicus dully. If this other creature had been bred for war, then Aarvord would be outmatched. Despite this, his friend had puffed himself up to an enormous size and his face was almost unrecognizable in its bloated, furious aspect. He looked a bit like Hen-Hen, thought Copernicus.
The Shrike-Grout may have been mentally dull, but it lashed out with sudden quickness and Copernicus gasped. Aarvord barely parried its initial thrust with a saw-toothed blade that emerged from somewhere near its elbow. There was an almost metallic clang, and the Shrike-Grout was deterred. Aarvord had released a shield of bone near his breastbone, just in time.
Copernicus wished he could help, but he knew that to leave the safety of Hatch’s feathers was certain sacrifice. (The Balehounds
still sniffed noisily up and down the auditorium, as if they had just caught the scent of snake.)
The ugly fight continued, with the Shrike-Grout battling lazily, like an automaton—trying one trick after another. Aarvord did not attack but merely deflected each blow. The Shrike audience watched from their seats, as if at a particularly diverting theater performance, none rising to assist or even cheer on their pathetic creation. They made small clacking sounds of appreciation for the spectacle.
Aarvord, on the defense until now, suddenly struck out with a huge, spatulate paw and knocked the Shrike-Grout clear off the dais. It fell to the feet of the Shrikes in the front row, rolled into a ball, and let out a howl of anguish that was partly Shrikish in its shrieky, clacking manner and partly the mournful groan of a Fantastic Grout in terrible pain. The latter half of its cry of pain struck Copernicus to the core, and he quivered inside Hatch’s feathers with fear and rage. The Shrike-Grout did not move to continue the battle but, still, the Bushy Shrike prodded at it with a short stick.
“Get up!” he shrieked. “You have been commanded!”
But the Shrike-Grout only wept piteously.
Bushy turned its face to Aarvord. “You have won the right to kill it,” he said. “Come down and finish your work.”
Aarvord shook his great, froggy head. “I will not,” he boomed. “I will not do such evil.”
Hatch suddenly rose in his seat and Copernicus trembled with fear. Would he be discovered?
“Hail the great victor!” shouted Hatch. “He will be of use to us! He is strong! Hail the great victor!”
The Shrikes around him, stupid followers that they were, also rose, repeating the sentiment “Hail the great victor!” Bushy was clearly annoyed and flummoxed by this turn of affairs, but could do nothing to turn the tide of sentiment. More and more Shrikes rose, parroting the phrase “Hail the great victor!” until the hall was alive with noise and clacking beaks.
“Very well!” screamed Bushy above the rabble. “Very well! They will fight again, in the dawn.” He turned to Aarvord. The Fantastic Grout stood stern against the rising chorus of Shrike-babble.
“It is well you did not kill him at once,” said Bushy in a low tone to Aarvord who shuddered at the threat in his words. “What would your sister have thought?”
“What’s this to do with my sister?” asked Aarvord.
“It is your own kin you seek to kill, friend,” said Bushy slyly. He laughed maniacally as Aarvord turned a darker shade of green and staggered for balance. “We’ll make use of you yet,” threatened Bushy, and gestured to a phalanx of guards. But the guards shook their heads. They had been infused with the chants of “hail the great victor” and like all members of stupid crowds they could not be swayed by reason. The chant continued, inexorably. Louder it grew. Aarvord walked down the length of the auditorium, quickly, faster now, and had left by the back entry before Bushy had whipped his guards into sense. By the time they had the wits to follow the Fantastic Grout, he was gone. Even the Balehounds seemed confused, and bounded to and fro like foolish puppies.
After his departure, the hall was a melee. Shrikes wondered what had happened. How had the interloper chanced to escape? No one seemed to remember that Hatch had made the first cry that announced Aarvord as the victor in the battle. Hatch ran to and fro with the rest of them, clacking and muttering, until Copernicus thought he would be sick from the press and heat of the room. Bushy tried to turn the hall to order, but all was chaos.
Still, the Shrike-Grout lay on the cold stone floor, curled in anguish and weeping. No one paid it any attention. Finally it crawled to its feet and made its bumbling way past the dais, out the nave of the auditorium, and to a door that someone had forgotten to bolt. It went out into the snow and was lost to the whirling drifts.
Chapter Ten: Escape
Tully held the wooden box and it vibrated gently in his hands. He had closed the lid experimentally, just to see what might happen. But, now that it was shut, he could not prise it open again. He felt foolish. What if the box was meant to open only that one time, and would never open again? He tilted it this way and that and suddenly the bee emerged from the small hole.
It preened its wings and wriggled a bit, buzzed once through the air as if testing its flying skills, and landed on Tully’s right shoulder. To his great surprise, it spoke. Its voice was very high and thin, and he had to strain to hear the words. A low buzz punctuated every syllable, making the words even more difficult to decipher.
“I am Nizz,” said the bee. “I am a Dull Bee, and I am not supposed to be here.”
“Tully,” whispered Tully, automatically lowering his voice to match the tiny thrum of the bee. He had not known that Dull Bees could speak. This was yet another strange thing among the mysteries that had been revealed.
“I know your name,” said the bee. “I have watched you. I was swept up in the great flying craft that the Boring Bees made. I did not know their purpose, for they are not of my kind. Their minds were closed to me. Then many died.”
“I’m sorry,” whispered Tully. “I don’t understand why I’m here or what good I’ll do, or why it’s important at all.”
“Don’t be,” said the bee. “You have a task just as we do.”
“Why didn’t you speak before?” asked Tully.
“I had taken a vow of silence,” sighed the bee. “But that is broken now. For what good, I do not know. It was in that other world.”
“In here?” and Tully lifted the box. “What did you see?”
Nizz told him the story from beginning to end, including the last moment when he had led the children from certain danger.
“I knew that if I had not intervened,” said Nizz, “those children would have been lost to that darkness. For all I know now, it is too late.”
Tully gazed at the box in curiosity and wonder, wishing that he could have been the one to enter that strange world. But he was too large to ever fit inside such a tiny space. Only a bee, or someone like Fangor.
“That is all past, though,” said Nizz thoughtfully. “That world is gone, many thousands or even millions of years ago. Those children do not exist, not in this time. I know that now. My visit there was a view only.”
“But why?” asked Tully. “And how did Hindrance design such a thing?”
“Your Went must have been very wise, very special. Or simply lucky enough to find this box. There is deep magic in it. It is what we call a portal key.”
“We?” asked Tully.
“Yes,” said Nizz. “My people know of them, as we see many secret things. There are but a few of them left, because the skills and the magic to build them have been lost for many years. For whatever reason, your Went had one. And she chose to give it to you.”
“I thought that Hindrance had made the box herself,” said Tully a bit sadly. “She was very good at making things.”
“Do not say was,” said the bee. “Your Hindrance is still very much alive. I can sense this, as her touch has been on the portal key. She is nearby.”
“In this building?” said Tully, hope leaping within him.
“Somewhere…close,” said the bee. “It is hard to judge. It could be miles distant. But she is in the northern lands.”
“Could you lead me to her?” asked Tully. “Would you be able to follow…some kind of scent?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Nizz. “It is one of our greatest skills.”
Nizz did not go on, as Dull Bees were not braggarts about their gifts. Hardly so, as they spent their lives in silence. Tully’s confidence soared. Hindrance could be a few days away, maybe less. He could find her. And then he would free her.
Just as Tully was feeling a surge of energy, he saw the shadow of a Shrike approaching down the hall in the dim light.
“Hide!” said Tully to the bee, and Nizz did as he was told and curled up inside Tully’s left ear.
The Shrike stopped in front of the cell and stared at Tully, and the Eft braced himself for a confrontation.
This Shrike had a strange black hatchmark above his eye, which was the only thing that distinguished him from the rest of the Shrike rabble. They were all alike, except for small distinctions like this. This Shrike looked vaguely familiar, but Tully could not place how or why.
Then Tully was not sure if he was dreaming. His friend Copernicus emerged from the Shrike’s furry feathers, dropped to the floor in one quick motion, and slid under the bars of the cell. In his mouth was a small key, and it fell to the floor with a tinny clang.
“Hurry!” said Copernicus. “Use it. Don’t ask questions.”
Tully glanced at the Shrike who stared at him impassively. Was this some kind of trick? Would he be punished? But Coper’s small black eyes spoke nothing but truth and sincerity. His friend would not steer him wrong. Not, Tully thought with a cringe, like Aarvord’s betrayal.
Tully reached through the bars to fit the key into the lock on the other side of the cell door and swung it open. He stepped out, unsure what to say to the Shrike, or even how to make eye contact.
“Thank you,” said Tully quickly, and the Shrike extracted the key without a word, tucking it deep within its feathers. Copernicus leapt up Tully’s leg and hid inside his vest. He hadn’t minded being protected by Hatch, but it was much more comfortable back with his good friend. Hatch motioned with his head down the hallway and Tully, now with two passengers, followed the Shrike, wondering all the while how this had come to pass.
“Coper!” whispered Tully, as they moved down the hallway. “Where are we going?”
“Unknown,” whispered the snake. “But this fellow is good; he doesn’t care for what the others think. He’s clear determined to get us out of here. He thinks what they are doing is bad business.”
“Are you sure?” said Tully, watching the Shrike with interest. Hatch had opened up a metal door in the side of the hallway and was beckoning Tully to follow. Hatch did not seem nervous, but was slightly jerky and hurried in his mannerisms. Tully could only imagine how the Shrikes might choose to torment one of their own that transgressed. Tully ducked inside the door, which was too low for even a low, squat Shrike to enter without crouching. He found himself in a new tunnel, parallel to the first but much more narrow and cramped.
The Hundred: Fall of the Wents Page 12