“Shut up, broom-face.” A pause, then a husky whisper of triumph. “Got it!”
Gragelouth retracted his tongue, licking his lips as he smiled gently at Buncan. “That was something of a strain.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
The merchant shifted against the floor, unable to sit back up. “What, and have one of you cubs perhaps give it away? Besides, I honestly did not know if I could reach the buckle, bound as I was. I am not one to raise false hopes.”
“Hurry up!” Squill admonished his sister.
Her fingers worked the blade back and forth. “Want me to drop it? Then chew your whiskers and leave me alone.” Squill went silent, but it required a distinct effort of will.
The guard dozed on, oblivious to the silent struggle taking place practically under his nose.
What seemed like hours passed. Finally Neena’s arms gave a visible twitch and her hands came around in front of her. She barely paused long enough to rub circulation back into her wrists before starting on her leg bindings. The work went faster now that she didn’t have to worry about dropping the knife.
Once free, she tiptoed silently around the inner edge of the tent to come up noiselessly behind the guard. Buncan gave a little jerk as she used the knife. The unpleasant business quickly concluded, she immediately set to work on the thongs binding Gragelouth.
“Oi!” her brother exclaimed. “Wot about me?” “You can just lie there for a minim, mister always-in-a-hurry.” Squill glared at her and gnashed his teeth, but quietly. The merchant was soon loose. Avoiding her brother, who tried his best to bite her on the leg as she stepped past, she set to work on Duncan’s bonds. Only when he and Viz had been released did she at last turn to Squill.
Buncan nudged the motionless guard with a foot as he strapped on his sword. The thick woven that soaked up most, but not all, of the meerkat’s blood. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”
She didn’t look up from her work. “From me dear oP mum. She always told us that academics should be grounded in a good practical education.”
As soon as he was free, Squill favored his sister with a threatening glare. But instead of assaulting her he limped over on tingling legs and kicked the dead guard square in the face. Blood spurted. Buncan frowned. “There’s no need for that.” The otter smiled thinly up at him. “Cor, I know that. I just did it for me own personal pleasure.” As he drew back his leg for a second kick, Buncan stepped in front of him. “C’mon. We’re a long ways from being out of here.” Squill hesitated, then nodded and hurried to salvage his own belongings from the pile.
Viz was stretching his wings, fluttering into the air and then landing to rest. “We can’t leave without Snaug.” The tickbird shook his head dolefully. “I can’t believe they got him drunk. He’d been doing so well.”
“Doubtless he thought he could handle it.” Gragelouth was philosophical. “A common misconception of those overly fond of the bottle. Do not be too hard on him.”
“Maybe rney didn’t get him drunk.” Buncan slipped the duar over his shoulders. “Maybe he was drugged.”
Viz brightened. “I hadn’t thought of that. I made the obvious assumption.”
“We all did.” Buncan stroked the duar in anticipation. “We’re not going to be able to just walk out of here, free Snaugenhutt, and ride out through the break in the rocks. Too many guards and chanters around. But right now surprise is ours. We’d better make good use of it.”
“Spellsinging, yes,” said Gragelouth enthusiastically. “But what form should it take?”
Squill stepped forward. “Leave it to Neena and me.” His eyes flashed.
Buncan’s fingers strummed the double set of strings. At the center, something fiery flared. The otters murmured one very angry sentence.
A globe of reflective flame leaped from the duar’s nexus, floated like a bubble across the interior of the tent, and burst against the far wall. Concentric ripples of silver fire expanded outward from the hole in the wall like ripples in a pond. Gragelouth looked delighted.
“My, but aren’t we incensed?”
Squill and Neena stood side by side, fingers entwined, bobbing in time to Duncan’s music. This time no grins were in evidence as they sang. Viz settled expectantly on the merchant’s shoulder as they followed the highly focused human and otters outside.
Not far away Snaugenhutt lay on his back, still clad in his armor. His feet thrust into the air, front and rear securely bound at the ankles. Heavier thongs crisscrossed his exposed belly, binding him to the earth.
Viz glided over to land on the ground next to his associate. The tickbird turned his head sideways as he examined his friend and companion.
“How you feeling?”
The rhino looked away. “They offered me a drink. Some kind of fermented lizard milk or somethin’. I was thirsty.”
“Maybe a bit too thirsty?”
Snaugenhutt’s voice was uncharacteristically muted. “Maybe. I don’t have that much. There must’ve been something in it.” Buncan had to admit as he continued to strum the duar that the rhino did not sound drunk.
The music and conversation alerted a startled guard who was sleepy but not asleep. Hie ground squirrel barked a challenge in Viz’s direction. Viz ignored him as he spoke to the merchant.
“Hey, Gragelouth! You can help here.” The sloth waddled over and began applying the blade of his larger knife to the rhino’s bindings.
By this time the agitated guard was yelling for help. Sleepy, half-clad figures came stumbling out of nearby tents. Buncan and the otters ignored them. A lambent, silvery mist now all but obscured his busy fingers.
Chi-churog emerged from a large tent opposite the recumbent Snaugenhutt. The First Rider of the Xi-Murogg reached back as someone within handed him a curved sword. He waved it over his head as he started toward the escapees.
“You have ruined the timing and dishonored the Ceremony! Now we will have to wait another day.”
Viz rose and darted at the meerkat, easily avoiding the sword stroke aimed in his direction. “Sorry, rat-face. We’re out of here.”
Chi-churog paused as armed males gathered around him. “Am I to be moved by your serenade? Your story did not impress me. I, Chi-churog of the Xi-Murogg, am not one to be frightened by the desperate warbling of inept troubadours.”
“Who’s inept?” Buncan shouted challengingly. The otters were no less irate.
“Stomp ‘em in the ground, cut ‘em to pieces
Kick ‘em in the ‘ead, make ‘em all dead
Grind ‘em into powder so their fields can be fed
With their own blood, hey
Turn it to a flood, say
Turn the ground to mud, yea
Let Snaugenhutt trample
Everyone who tries to flee ,
Start with that one as a bleedin’ example!”
But Snaugenhutt’s thongs didn’t fray and dissolve. No invisible, impenetrable wall materialized to protect them from the now fully awake and furious villagers. No enraged dragon or other powerful defender appeared to challenge their approaching captors.
As Chi-churog and his mob of heavily armed villagers lurched forward, long snouts twitching, eyes full of murder, Buncan began to feel concern. Playing faster did nothing to alter the status quo, nor did the most violent imprecations the otters could improvise.
“For this outrage,” Chi-churog declared, “the traditional butchering will proceed simultaneous with the collection of blood. This so that you may see for yourselves as you die with what skill our females wield the ceremonial knives. Consider it a special honor which . . .”
That’s when the ground began to shake.
Well, not to shake, really, but to tremble, as if the earth itself had been agitated by the otters’ lyrics. Buncan considered slowing the music, but he had to keep up with Squill and Neena, who were spinning insults and threats as fast as they could think of them. Maybe, he thought, he should have been paying more attention to the content
of their rap than to the approaching Xi-Murogg. How dangerous a condition could they conjure? He wailed away grimly at the duar.
By now the surface was shaking sufficient to bring Chi-churog and his people to a halt. A poorly posted tent collapsed nearby, sending its dazed occupants stumbling out into the night. An apprehensive Gragelouth plied his knife as fast as he could. Snaugenhutt’s front legs were free, and he and Viz were working frantically on the back pair.
The tickbird kept glancing worriedly in all directions. “Hurry up, merchant. Something’s happening.”
“I am as aware as you.” Gragelouth sawed at a stubborn thong.
“This spellsinging?” Viz fluttered above bis friend. “They have it under control, don’t they? They know what they’re doing, don’t they?”
“More or less.”
“More or less?”
“It seems to be something of a hit-or-miss proposition. The sorcery always works. It is the results that are unpredictable.”
As if to punctuate the merchant’s observation, the earth promptiy gave a thunderous belch, tossing the sloth to the ground. Feet freed, adrenaline pumping, Snaugenhutt rolled forcefully to his left, ripping the pegs that held the thongs across his belly out of the dirt. He stood erect, shaking himself like a dog after a swim. His iron scutes clanged violently, sounding the bells of the Church of the Contumacious Rhinoceros.
More furious than frightened, Chi-churog made an effort to advance over the quivering ground. His people followed reluctantly, then- initial enthusiasm waning fast. They’d advanced several paces when they halted in then’ tracks.
Buncan turned to look over his shoulder. The sun was lightening the eastern sky, but it wasn’t the sun that rooted Chi-churog’s followers in place. It was something that had appeared between the village and the sun.
Two towering buttes looked down into the box canyon. Both were shuddering violently, enormous boulders and slabs of sandstone sloughing from their sides. Buncan remembered how as they’d progressed through the Tamas he and his friends had made a game of finding shapes and outlines and faces in the cold rock.
It was apparent now that they hadn’t imagined those creations.
As more and more stone slid from its shoulders, the outline of a gigantic armored ape became visible. Spikes and blades projected from its burnished armor and a fringed helmet adorned the low-browed skull. Slowly, ponderously, it uncoiled from the crouching position in which it had been trapped for untold eons. An ax the size of a small town dangled from one immense hand.
The second butte collapsed to reveal a great cat of unidentifiable lineage. Its armor differed dramatically from that of the ape but was no less awe-inspiring. As one huge paw thrust a short sword skyward to pierce a low-hanging cloud, the liberated giant let out a roar that reverberated like thunder across the canyon.
Not only was the sight sufficient to send Chi-churog and the rest of the Xi-Murogg fleeing in panic, it was plenty impressive enough to intimidate Buncan as well. Not having enough sense to be afraid, the otters sang on.
Buncan removed his fingers from the duar and waved at them. “Hey, guys, I think maybe that’s enough.” The otters ignored him, utterly focused on their rap. Beyond the sheer sandstone walls, monstrous ape and gargantuan cat were turning curious, unnatural eyes toward the fault sounds emanating from the bottom of the box canyon.
Buncan slung his duar across his back and grabbed each otter by the neck, using force instead of reason to choke off their singing. “I said that’s enough.” He indicated the two titanic figures. “Let’s go.”
Clutching its ax, the ape was leaning over the canyon wall for a better look. As the edge crumbled beneath immense hands boulders crashed into the fields below, smashing fruit trees and threatening to bounce into the village itself. Wailing Xi-Murogg dashed in all directions, not knowing what to do. The riders who moments earlier had been intent on spitting Buncan and his friends were now desperately trying to control their spooked mounts.
“Whoa,” said Squill as Buncan dragged him and his sister toward the waiting Snaugenhutt, “I told you those rocks looked like a monkey.”
“You did not,” Neena objected vociferously.
“Not now.” Buncan shoved them halfway up the rhino’s capacious back. As soon as he followed them and before he was even settled in his seat, Viz chirped into the hairy ear he was holding.
“Now, Snaug! Let’s move!”
With a nod and a snort the rhino turned and rumbled out of the village, heading at an inspired gallop for the cleft in the canyon walls. No one tried to stop him. Once he got up to speed, nothing short of a natural disaster could.
Only a terrified and completely frustrated Chi-churog took a swipe at them with his sword as they hurtled past. The blade shattered on Snaugenhutt’s armor. Their last view of the First Rider saw him hopping up and down amidst the confusion of his panicked village, hurling imprecations in their wake.
A few rocks fell from the rim of the chasm as Snaugenhutt barreled through, but they missed the riders on his back. Of the armed Xi-Murogg who normally guarded the way out there was no sign.
As they emerged into open desert Buncan allowed himself a sigh of relief. “That’s it. We did it, we made it.”
Snaugenhutt was slowing. “Don’t count your retirement money yet, human.”
Off to their left the armored ape stood tapping his massive ax against an open palm the size of a small plateau. The rising sun glinting off his red armor made him look as if he was on fire. Nearby, the sword-wielding giant cat stood surveying the landscape, its pointed ears scraping the clouds. Moreover, they were no longer alone. Snaugenhutt came to a halt. As far as they could see, perhaps a third of the buttes and mesas of the Tamas were coming to life, each one revealing and releasing a different soldier from some long-forgotten war of the titans. One by one they sloughed off their ancient shackles the way a sleeping human might shed a cosmetic mudpack, rising to their feet and stretching mightily in the warming sun. The noise of ton upon ton of cracking, crumbling, falling rock was deafcrumbling, falling rock was deafd from side to side, searching. “Which way?”
Gragelouth cupped his hands to his mouth to make himself heard. “Northwest, Snaugenhutt! Ever to the northwest!”
Viz pivoted on his perch atop the rhino’s head. “Why?” The sloth shrugged. “That is where we must go, and under the circumstances it seems as good a way as any.”
Viz nodded, relaying the instructions to Snaugenhutt. The rhino resumed his heavy-footed lope, heading down a slope in the indicated direction.
As he jogged along, rock spilled from the butte on their immediate right. Something with three heads emerged, unlike anything Buncan had ever seen or heard described. Four legs supported the squat body, and a barbed tail the size of an oceangoing ship whipped reflexively back and forth. Each hand held a club the size of Clothahump’s tree. Espying them, the monstrosity let out a bellow and reached down with a third hand that blotted out the sun as it descended. Even though Snaugenhutt accelerated to his maximum speed, Buncan saw there was no possibility of avoiding those immense fingers. They would smash them flat or pluck them from the ground as easily as he would a flower. Gragelouth was mumbling something under his breath, the otters held each other, Viz bravely elected to perish with his old friend, and Buncan simply shut his eyes.
He felt something massive but controlled patting bun gently on the head. Opening his eyes, he saw that the hand was similarly caressing his companions.
It withdrew, and the apparition straightened. Its subsequent bellowing could, with difficulty, be comprehended.
“FREE! FREE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE BEFORE TIME!” The barbed tail lashed a gully in the ground as the entity’s three heads inclined to stare down at them. “I WHO HAVE KNOWN NOTHING BUT TIME NOW SAY THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME WITH WHICH TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR SONG.”
Squill grinned nonchalantly. “Well, you know ‘ow it is, guv. We just like to sing.”
“Yeah, ‘e’s a real
altruist, me bro’ is.” Buncan threw Neena a warning look. Naturally she ignored him.
All around them, as far as they could see, the liberated giants were embracing. Some were crying pond-sized tears. Others clapped long-petrified acquaintances on the back, sending booming shock waves rolling across the plain.
“I wonder how many have come this way before and remarked on the outlines in the rocks,” Gragelouth murmured, “never dreaming it was not then’ imaginations at work but their perception.”
Since it was apparent they were not about to be crushed into paste, Snaugenhutt saw no harm in slowing to a walk. Shielding his gaze against the rising sun, Buncan spoke to the specter.
“What will you do now that you’re free?”
The three heads replied in chorus. “WHY, RETURN TO WHERE WE CAME FROM, OF COURSE. IF IT STILL EXISTS.”
An utterly unexpected voice bellowed behind them. “I’ll loll you all. I am not afraid of anything, be it god or mortal!”
Squill turned in his seat. “Well, I’ll be double-buggered. Look who’s comin’.”
Waving his sword defiantly above his head, Chi-churog, First Rider of the Xi-Murogg, was galloping in pursuit, urging his nervous blindered mount onward while screaming defiance.
“Illusions!” they heard him howl. “You have manufactured illusions to fool my people! You have disturbed their minds, but you do not fool me! I will cut your heads off. I will have you roasted alive over the cooking fires. I will . . .!”
The armored ape reached over and down. An enormous thumb descended. Chi-churog barely had time to look up and emit a single startled squeak before he was turned into a dark smudge against the earth.
“Bloody effective illusion,” Neena observed demurely.
None of Chi-churog’s fellow villagers seemed inclined to mimic their chiefs action. There was no sign of any further pursuit.
Extending arms the length of rivers, the great creatures linked hands (and in one instance, tentacles) across the Tamas. Ancient warriors of a forgotten titanic land, paralyzed gods of another place and time, whatever they were, they suddenly began to ascend slowly heavenward. Final vestiges of their long earthly imprisonment, a few clinging rocks and boulders tumbled from their sides, plunging to the ground as they drifted up through the clouds toward the intensifying sunshine. As they rose they diminished in size until they looked almost normal, then minuscule, finally vanishing entirely into an all-encompassing sky. Dust still rose from the enveloping rock they had shed.