The woman bowed, moved out of the chamber through a door at the far side, taking one of the torches with her as she went. A kind of gloom fell in the chamber, a heaving dusk, the thick breathing of Blourbast filling it as might the petulant waves of a foul and polluted sea.
Mavin waited for that breathing to soften before creeping down the stairs and into the chamber. She was invisible against the shadows, silent as a shadow herself, as she crept around the chamber and to the door Pantiquod had left through. She eased it open, but it shrieked at her, and she found herself confronting the mad eyes of the little thrilpat, shut in with the Ghoul and dying on the floor.
"Harrah?" from the bed. "Who's there? Come into the light, you vermin."
She did not wait, but oozed through the crack and pulled it shut behind her, hearing the whisper, "Run, run, run," as she ran indeed, down the long way which arched into emptiness before her. What she had heard had been enough to give her an idea. Now she had only to find the place the shadowpeople were kept. After all, had not the Fon told her to do some service for them? What better service than to save them from this place?
Which was easier thought of than accomplished. Pantiquod walked for a great distance, through balconies which stretched over vast audience halls, down twisting corridors, up curved flights of stairs and down similar ones, but at the end of it she came only to a wing of the place devoted to suites of ordinary rooms, small kitchens, servants' quarters, more luxuriously furnished bedrooms and sitting rooms among them. Here there was a certain amount of coming and going, and Mavin's journey was interrupted by the constant need to hide. After the fifth or sixth such occasion, she decided that too much time was being wasted. It took only a little creeping and spying to see what livery the servants of the place wore, and then only a brief time more of experimentation to shift into that livery and guise. Thereafter she walked as a servant, obsequious and quiet, so ordinary about the face as to be anonymous. Pantiquod entered a set of rooms which were evidently set aside for her use, and did not emerge from them. She was obviously alone, and there was nothing Mavin could overhear or oversee to her advantage.
Well then, one must risk something. She returned the way she had come, stopping at the first large hall in which there was any appreciable traffic. "I have taken a wrong turning," she said to an approaching servant. "I was told by the woman, Pantiquod, to carry a message to the guard of the chambers … below. Where the shadowpeople are.''
The servant stopped, stared, at last opened his mouth to show a tongueless cavity there. Mavin's first reaction was to run, or to vomit. She restrained herself, however, and grasped the man firmly by one shoulder. Do you understand what I say?"
He nodded, terrified.
"Do you know the place, the door?"
He nodded again.
"Then lead me there. You may return here and none know the difference."
Still fearful, shivering, the man set out at a run, Mavin striding alongside. They twisted, turned, then the man stopped just before coming to a corner and pointed around it, keeping well back, face white and contorted. Though she had no Demon's talent for reading minds, his was easy to read. "You were down there? That's where they cut out your tongue? I understand. Go." And he scurried back the way they had come, in such frantic haste that he stumbled, almost falling.
Mavin lay down upon the floor, peeked around the corner from floor level. At the end of the hallway was another of the guarded grills like those at the tunnel entrance to Hell's Maw. Before this gate, however, was no casual assembly of guardsmen but an armed line of Armigers, shoulder to shoulder, naked swords gleaming in their hands, a line of lounging Sorcerers behind them, blazing with power in that silent place.
"Oh, pombi piss," she muttered. "Filth and rot and foul disaster." Then she simply lay against the wall, exhausted, unable to think what to do next. How long had it been since she had had anything to eat? How long since she had slept? Probably a full day. They had had breakfast the day they entered Pfarb Durim. She had not eaten after that. Nor slept. She sighed. Well enough to know the way into the dungeons, but no help if one were too weak to go there. "Food," she murmured. "Food first. Then whatever comes next."
She cursed herself tiredly for not having brought the food which Windlow had offered. What food she might find here in the depths of Hell's Maw had little likelihood of being healthful. "You are too rash, my girl," she lectured herself in silence. "You have done well so far, but what have you had to oppose you? A few old lechers in Danderbat keep, that's all. Now, here you are, run off in a sudden frenzy without any thought at all." Sighing, she rose and went skulking off in search of something to fill her empty belly.
The woman Pantiquod had looked more or less normal, that is, unghoulish, and she had seemed to live in a part of the caves and tunnels which was cleanly, not smelling of rot and mold. Mavin returned there, staying out of sight, poking about until she found a larder with fruit in it and loaves of bread smelling of the sun. Evidently not all those who lived in Hell's Maw were of Blourbast's persuasion. Perhaps only a few were, or none except the Ghoul himself. She wondered what diet the arrogant Huld had eaten, whether he had been cossetted with dainties from Pfarb Durim or fed from childhood on the horrors of the pit. None of this wondering did anything to destroy her appetite, which was ravenous. The tunnels were chill, and her shifting had drawn what power she carried with her, leaving her weary and weak. After a short rest, she began to feel stronger. "Able to shift for yourself again, girl," she said. "Able to shift." She created a capacious pocket to carry some of the food with her, knowing it might well be a long time before she would find more. She thought longingly of sleep, then rejected the idea. There was no time, not with Mertyn lying sick in Pfarb Durim and the image of Blourbast's ravaged face before her as a threat. Mertyn might come to this if she did not find help for him.
When she returned to the guarded hall it was to find the entrance to the lower realms unchanged. The line of Armigers still stood shoulder to shoulder; the Sorcerers behind them still lounged against the wall. They seemed not to have moved while she had been gone, as though some power she could not sense kept them in that utter stillness and concentration, entranced to their duty. It did no good to speculate. She had to get past them, preferably without alerting the warren to her presence.
Nothing came to her. She peered down the sides of the corridor, searching for any gap in the line. There was none. None. Except above the guardsmen's heads where the corridor arched into gloom above the glare of the shaded lanterns. Stretching from side to side below the vaulted ceiling was a line of wooden beams which tied the walls together, knobby and convoluted in the shadow, for they had been carved into likenesses of thick vines and bulbous fruits with pendant sprays of leaves fanning across the stone walls at either end. She examined them, then began to thin herself, to flow upward, to draw in upon herself while stretching out, becoming limbless, earless, hairless, softly scaled and quiet as a dream, relentlessly pouring up and onto the beam where she twisted about it in a bulky knot no different in outline from the carved vines.
The beam on which she rested was in the cross corridor. Now her serpent's head reached out into the guarded corridor, hidden in the gloom above the light, weaving out a little, silent, silent, until it rested on the next beam and anchored there. A long loop of body followed, knotting and unknotting slowly, moving forward as the sinuous body bridged the shadowy space, beam by beam. At last she lay above the guardsmen, twined onto the last of the beams, her endless neck reaching into the shadow behind them, over the Sorcerers' heads. There was nothing to hold her there except the lintel of the arch itself, and she descended by tiny tentacles sent deep into the mortar between the stones, holding herself to the wall as a vine holds, pulled tight to the rock until her serpent's head could pass through the iron grill, fingerlength by fingerlength. She lay at last beyond the grill and behind the guards, they not having moved during all that time. When the last scale of her tail slipped through the grill, her
head was halfway down the flight of stairs behind, body stretched between the two points like a single reaching arm.
Now she heard again the sounds she had heard on first entering Hell's Maw, the clangor, the heavy pounding, the fragment of birdlike song, cut off abruptly. The stairs wound around a pit, down onto the floor of a well from which more of the arched corridors spread in all directions. The place was lit by the omnipresent torches. There were torches and lanterns everywhere in Hell's Maw, an insufficiency of light in all those depths, a gelid half shade thick with fumes and smoke. After a time she had stopped noticing the light, had only moved through its dusky inadequacy like a fish moving through water, not noticing the medium. Now, however, as she came to the bottom of the well, she saw that one of the tunnels to her left was lit in a stranger way, by a flickering which receded and advanced, receded and advanced, accompanied by a sound as of clattering wooden twigs upon stone. She started toward this way, then stopped as a stench poured out of the tunnel toward her, an effluvium so dense as to seem impenetrable. The wisp of birdlike sound came from behind her, and she turned, seeking the sound, finding any excuse not to go toward that flickering light.
Song led her into a darker way, one smelling of soil, but a cleaner stench than the corruption behind her. Roots dangled through the ceiling stones, brushes of dense hairy fiber dragging across the lean furred form she had taken. Snakes were all very well, she told herself, but stone was cold upon belly scales and the placement of the eyes left something to be desired. A twitter sounded ahead, and she melted into the darkness behind a pillar, searching. Nothing. No, perhaps a tiny movement. A scampering. Song again, a single, disconsolate trill. Then again. Silence. She snaked out a lengthened arm and grabbed into the gloom, then bit back a howl as needle teeth sank into her hand. Fighting down her instinct to drop whatever it was and run, Mavin toughened the flesh around the small thing she had caught and dragged it into the half light.
To stare in wonder, for it was like nothing she had ever seen before. Huge, fragile ears; wide lipless mouth; large dark eyes wild with fury and fear; teeth bared, slender form fluffed with soft fur, crying, crying words … words. She knew in an instant that it was no mere animal she held. The eyes, while frantic, were full of alert intelligence, and the sounds were too consecutive, too varied to be mere animal cries of panic. She sat down on the chill stone and crooned to it, without thinking, using the same tone she had used to Mertyn when he had hurt himself. "Ahh, ahh, it's all right. I won't hurt you. Shh. Shh. See, I'll hardly hold you at all. Now, who are you?"
She asked the question with an interrogative lilt and a cock of her head, waiting for an answer. The little creature stopped shaking and regarded her quietly, chest heaving with enormous sobs, quieting until only an occasional tremor ran through the muscular limbs she held so gently. "Mavin," she used one hand to point at herself. "Mavin." Then she pointed to her captive and cocked her head once more. "Who?"
"Puh-leedle-addle-proom-room-room," it warbled. '' Puh-leedle-addle-proom-room-room.''
Mavin shook her head, laughing. "Proom!" she pointed to him, relaxing her grip. "Mavin. Proom." This matter settled, she sat with the manikin on her lap, wondering what to do next. A final, sobbing breath passed through the creature, then it collapsed into her lap, sighing, such a sigh of despair and sadness as she had never heard. "What's the matter, little one?" she asked. "Are you as lost in this terrible place as I am?"
Proom tilted his head—Mavin was sure it was a "he," though she could not have said why—and thought about this for a moment. Then he reached up to lay one slender, three-fingered hand across her lips. The other he held behind his ear, the delicate pink nails curved above it. More clearly than with words he said, be still and listen. Then he sang, birdlike, a clear warble of sound in the ponderous dusk of the cavern. Mavin held her breath. She thought she heard a reply, or was it only an echo? No, it was a reply, for Proom's hand whipped away from her ear to point into the dark. A reply. There were others here, others in this place, and she knew already that they were not here by chance.
Something tickled at her mind, fled away.
Proom started to leap away, but she held him, placing him on her shoulder as she stood and moved in the direction he indicated. "I'll help you," she said, forgetting everything for the moment except the longing and despair in the little one's voice. "This way?" And she strode into the darkness. Torches were fewer along this way, but she compensated for the lack of light by making her eyes larger, her ears wider, not noticing Proom's astonishment at this, nor his obvious interest as she brought her reaching arms back to a more normal length.
"Andibar, bar, bar," he murmured.
She paid no attention. She was busy listening. They came to a fork in the way and she paused, looking to Proom for guidance. He warbled again, and again she heard a ghostly reply, thin, almost directionless, but Proom seemed to have no trouble knowing where it had come from, for he pointed down one of the branching ways without hesitation. They went on in this way, turn after turn, branch after branch, until Mavin had lost all sense of direction or place. Still, the answering voice grew more distinct each time they turned, and Proom's excitement was manifest as they went into the almost total dark. So it was Mavin almost impaled herself upon the spiked gate before she saw it. It was another of the ubiquitous grilled gates, this one with a mesh so small even a creature the size of Proom could not get through. He had pressed himself against it with a piteous cry, fingers thrust through the mesh as though he would pull himself through by an act of will. She knew he had been this far before. His despair could mean nothing else.
"Shh, shh," she said, tugging him away. Pressing herself against the mesh, making her eyes wide to gain all the available light, she could see the latch, high inside the gate. "Nothing to it," she murmured to the little one. "Nothing at all." A finger extended into a tentacle which wove its boneless way through the mesh, pushed upward and outward until the latch opened with a satisfying thock. At first the gate would not move, but then as she threw her full weight against it, it screamed at her and sagged open on rusty hinges. Mavin stopped pushing to listen. Proom pushed past her and ran on down the corridor, the quick birdsong running before him in greeting. This time she heard the answer clearly, no mistake about it and no confusing echoes. Whoever sang in reply sang close before them.
She followed the sound, the two sounds, call and reply, as they grew louder, rounding a dim corner to find herself in a room hung with cages like that one which had held the unfortunate thrilpat, cages hung high on slender chains. They were out of reach of little Proom, no matter how he jumped and warbled to reach his imprisoned kin, and all the cavernous room thrilled with their birdsong twittering until Mavin was dizzy with it.
The song was interrupted by a monstrous clanging, as though from a gong unimaginably huge. All the little people writhed in pain on the bottom of their cages, tiny hands clamped across their ears. The clanging stopped, but the little creatures still cowered, sobbing, Proom also from his place on the stones. From some distance came a burst of evil laughter and the word "Silence … " shouted in a great voice. Then there was quiet, broken only by despairing whimpers from dozens of throats.
Mavin, at first confused by the noise, was now angry. Without stopping to think about it she began to stork upward, taller and thinner, so that she teetered to the height of the cages, then above them where they were fastened to rings in the high ceiling. She began to lower them, one, two, a dozen, twenty. Some of the cages held only one of Proom's people while others held two or three. She let them all down into the troubled quiet, and Proom gathered himself up to move among the cages, whispering, gesturing. He tugged at her ankle, pointing high where the ring of keys hung, and she passed them down to him, almost falling, for she had forgotten what a stiltwalker she had become. She folded into herself, suddenly weak and wan, aware that she had used up her strength and power again, depleted as it was in this chill place. She fished a piece of fruit from her pocket, bit i
nto it, then saw some dozens pairs of eyes focused hungrily upon her. She gave them the other food she carried, watched with amazement as each creature took a single bite before passing it on. The food circled quickly, came back to her to be urged upon her again. She took her single bite and gave it back once more. Proom climbed into her lap and patted her on the head. "Mavin," he said. "Mavin, vin, vin."
"Introductions are all very nice," she said, "but I assume what you really want is to get out of here." She staggered to her feet and went back into the corridor, turning the way they had come. At once a dozen hands patted at her, pushing her in the opposite direction. Proom chattered, sniffed at the air, then agreed, following the others in their scamper toward a break in the corridor wall, thence into root-hung tunnels, and finally between two great knobbly tree roots into a rocky cavern of a different kind. Sunlight came upon them from above, the warm amber light of a distant afternoon. Around them hung icicles of stone, bulging buttresses of rock, walls of ochre and red and a long, straight path leading upward into leafy forests. She found strength she did not know she had to follow them up and out into a clearing among great trees. On a distant hill she could see the bulk of Pfarb Durim rising beyond its walls.
"Ahh?" called the little ones. "Ahh? Ahh?" They looked around, jigged uncertainly, called again and again, in some distress. It was obvious they did not know where they were. They had smelled their way out, but could not identify this location. Mavin hoisted Proom high on her shoulder where he could see the city through the trees. "Durim, rim, rim," he called, leaning down to give a hand up to others of his kindred. Mavin staggered under the load as twenty of them climbed Her like a tree. There was pointing, argument, finally agreement, and most of the burden dropped away and vanished in the brush. Proom waited with her, regarding her with thoughtful eyes. After a time he beckoned, vanishing like the others in the shadow of the trees. The answer came then, simply, as if she had known it for some time. "Shadowpeople," disbelieving, yet knowing it was so. "These are the shadowpeople, and I have already done as the Fon suggested. I have done them a service. Now, shall I follow to see if they will do one for me?"
Tepper,Sheri - The Song of Mavin Manyshaped Page 11