Chapter XLI
“It feels cold, like the taunting waters of the cursed Alluvia,” whimpered Dungo once he was hauled into the city. He looked about anxiously at the bare, imposing walls. “The stone is hard and unforgiving, and it’s cold. The harsh desert sun beats unmercifully upon its subjects, but it calls to me now like a mother’s song. The shifting sands offer soft comfort to the feet, and the open spaces allow a man to breathe. It closes in, and so cold, within this city, and these walls feel like doom pressing in. Oh, for the warm embrace of my desert home again, and the soft touch of the rumidont’s wool! This forbidding structure swallows a man like a deep well.”
Through the window they’d entered a room unusually empty, the prospect of seeing strangers inside the walls frightening most Raspars into abandoning the area for more glutted quarters. Only Rhodan stood before them.
“Thank you for your gracious hospitality,” said Theodoric.
“Aye,” replied the Raspar with a nod.
“Where is my son?” asked Geoffrey huskily.
“Yes, take us to Artur, the wounded man,” said Theodoric.
“Nay.”
“You have our companion, and injured. We must see that he is safe.”
“Lo.”
“Is that all you say? ‘Lo’?” asked Dungo, mightily agitated, letting his outrage guide his tongue. “You can say nothing more for separating us from our fellow in this great undertaking? I declare, I do not trust such a close-mouthed man! If you are no more willing to defend yourself in this hideous stone pit, when you drag away a helpless man and hide him from his compatriots, then you deserve no trust, I say! If you offer no more to justify this untenable action, you clearly know your position can not be defended by reasonable men. Surely you offer something to explain yourself and what has become of Artur?”
“Nay,” said Rhodan.
“Haffa!” Dungo blustered, completely flummoxed. “Why should we remain here? And yet have we any choice? If these Raspars will not talk, and yet we can not recover our Rufoux comrade, we may rot forever in this stone prison. I fear we have fallen into a trap, my friends! I fear we have traded the dangers of the wilderness for a custody of chilly stones and cold shoulders.”
Theodoric gave him a reassuring nudge. “Many birds take a song and make it a noise. Perhaps I should speak for us.”
Sylva showed Dungo a scrap of paper, and drew her hieroglyphs as he watched and nodded; a handful of Raspars began to sift into the room. Her writing caught Rhodan’s eye, and he sidled closer to look over her shoulder, but the others all stood a judicious distance from the outsiders.
“Lo, I am Linus, a minister of the Raspars,” said one.
Dungo sniffed rudely, and Theodoric continued: “I am Theodoric of the Melics. We thank you for your gracious hospitality. Our injured friend is Artur of the Rufoux. Please take us to him immediately.”
“Aye, but at the moment he is receiving care. Already we have used our skills to remove many damn large splinters from his flesh. We will bandage his wounds, and he will rest until he sees the light again. We will take ye to him when he, and we, are ready. Ye must understand that we are under siege, and our regent has determined not to trust any outsider at this most damnably dangerous time. So ye will stay as our guests, but ye will be watched well, and well watched.”
“What do I hear?” asked Dungo, the clicking in his throat betraying genuine encouragement. “A Raspar who talks?”
“Aye, and ye talk too much,” said Rhodan. Linus shrugged.
“To the contrary!” declared Dungo, clicking in earnest, and he drew closer to Linus. “I believe I have met a Raspar to commune with. Ho-Ho! Does not a light break in this pit of doom, now with just a handful of friendly words spoken? Do we not find ourselves in much more a place of fellowship, with the expense of only a little precious breath?”
Geoffrey broke in, his voice thick with anger. “Artur is my son. Where is he?”
“Aye, your only son?”
“No, there are others. What does that matter?”
“Lo, Raspars have but one child.”
This information left Geoffrey cold, but before he could ask what he should do with it, he was cut off. The Koinoni, spinning all the while, had caught the Raspars’ attention, and their odd behavior clearly distressed them. This one clan did the Raspars recognize, and in spite of the shared connection of Yarrow’s tool belt, they had long known to watch out for Koinoni trickery. The spinning only disconcerted them more.
“Lo, what goes on with ye?” asked a perplexed Rhodan.
“Yarrow, speak with them,” said Theodoric, seeing old prejudices arising.
“Zootaloo! I am Yarrow, leader of the Koinoni,” said one robed figure, but the voice sounded different. “We know you cultivate no trust here, for us nor anyone. We well know hatred from throughout the world. But still we have come, not to trade, but to seek an ally in a struggle for life itself.”
Theodoric as well underscored the point at hand. “Artur of the Rufoux is a warrior king, and our leader. We cannot speak as one without him — cut one pea from the pod, and soon all others will spill out. Will your regent speak with us when Artur’s wounds are healed?”
“Aye, and that remains to be seen,” said Linus. “The regent is still in mourning for her father, the regent Wessex, sent into Gryphon’s hell by the giants. She will decide when and if she will meet with ye before your departure. For the time being she extends to ye a bloody act of mercy, the protection of the Eternal City. Ye shall find food enough to stuff your bellies in the lower floors. But see that ye do nothing full of deceit, ye bastard burglars, for Raspar eyes will watch each of your every moves.”
Linus disappeared through the door, and the sojourners could see lines and lines of Raspars filing past in the hallway. Geoffrey turned his anger upon the wall as he banged a fist against the unfeeling stones. In frustration he repeated, “Why have I waited?” Franken approached and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Come let us see what to find for to eat,” he said.
“Yes, we would all do well to have a decent meal,” said Theodoric. “A woodsman will chop his blade flat if he doesn’t stop to sharpen it. Don’t you think so, my dear Dungo?”
“Quite, quite so. Let us follow after that fellow Linus. We have much to say with each other, I do believe. And, ho-ho! Did you bring any of that excellent bee milk with you? I dare say he would be quite delighted with that …” Dungo’s voice trailed off as he and the others made their way down the hall. Sylva alone stayed behind, gently held back by Rhodan.
“Lo, I have seen your drawings, and their beauty is striking, but I do not recognize them. What do ye draw with your tool upon this odd fabric?” he asked.
Sylva wrote something on the paper and showed it to Rhodan.
“Nay, but I do not understand. The lines ye draw form no plant nor animal, no city nor mountain, and certainly no human.”
Sylva pointed to her mouth and shook her head.
“Lo, what do ye mean? Ye can not speak?”
Sylva drew a simple profile of a woman with her mouth open. Then she added, proceeding from the mouth, the same letters she had first written. Yet when she showed Rhodan the illustration, he still looked puzzled.
She worked her jaw dumbly like a puppet, splaying her fingers in front of her mouth to indicate sound coming out. Then she emphatically indicated the paper once again.
“Nay! Ye talk in this silent way?” Rhodan marveled.
Sylva made another picture, a crude rendering of Dungo, with the same letters entering his ear.
“Aye, and your leader understands. Unbelievable! What an incredible art! Often have I wondered at what lay outside the Raspar city, but never did I imagine words wrought like sculpture. Just as I thought, even the greatest Raspar scholars have much to learn outside the stone walls.
“Lo, I must know your name! I must learn this amazing skill ye have mastered. Come, we Raspars have much of our own artwork for ye to see! Let
me show ye. Lines, lines like the ones ye draw, but they form beautiful figures and scenes. Rumidonts and thylak, like they might come right off the walls and walk the land! Come, I will show ye!”
Rhodan took the Bedoua maid by the hand and led her to the closest stairway. Down several floors they descended, until the light dimmed nearly to extinction. Rhodan carefully guided her down the twisting steps as they became more dark and damp. At last they could go no further, and Sylva could feel soft, rolling dirt beneath her sandals. Rhodan vanished into the darkness for a moment but returned with a brightly burning torch.
“Lo, these catacombs run under the city,” he said. In this one place did the Raspars not congregate in large numbers; indeed, Rhodan and Sylva were quite alone. “Follow me.”
With nobody to answer, Rhodan produced a running commentary as they walked along: He had never before talked so much. Sylva ran her fingers over the etchings upon the walls as Rhodan pointed out the major works of generations of Raspar artists. She marveled at the reliefs carved lightly into the stone walls, and felt utterly lost in the winding tunnels that for years had been Rhodan’s prison and home.
“Lo, this relief depicts one of the early Zardracons,” Rhodan might say as he held the torch up to a painting. “Here he appeals to Gryphon for the defense of the Raspars. Gryphon appears as this sunburst. Ye will never see a likeness of Gryphon, for nobody knows what he looks like.
“Aye, these tunnels run throughout the foundations of the city. Many reach even to the outlying countryside. One tunnel runs west so far that even I have never explored its entire length. Lo, see this drawing — it portrays a tunnel running under a body of water. I often wonder what it could be.
“Aye, the catacombs spread like spider webs, and many end in rooms. Our regent Wessex now lies in such a room, he and many others, put there only today. We lay our dead in the catacombs, but like the city itself, the tombs grow too crowded.
“Lo, when the city filled thousands of years ago, the Zardracons ruled that every Raspar couple could have but one child. In that way they guaranteed the Eternal City would never shrink too small for us. So every couple may bear one child, no more.”
As they walked the musky halls they came upon one of the dank rooms, and by the light of the torch Sylva could see tiny skeletons piled high. Every skull she could see bore a gaping gash in the forehead. Her shocked eyes met Rhodan’s.
“Aye, every couple may keep one child. All other younglings are forfeit — they are killed. One named Severus does it — it is his duty — he is now completely mad.”
Rhodan fell silent for a moment.
“Lo, my sister lies here.”