Blessedly, only one of the current crew had died recently; this batch appeared to be fairly hardy. No one spoke of the tunnel; it was forbidden, under pain of death, to do so outside the tileworks. The tileworks itself was merely a front for the digging, which took place all hours of the day and night.
The front of the foundry, known as the anteroom, held a small forge and some ceramic kilns for firing the tiles and pottery which was sold throughout Yarim and Roland. The first- and second-year apprentices served there, learning to mix and measure the slip, to trim the molds and shovel the heavy pallets of tile from the smaller furnaces.
The real work took place in the rear, behind the great double doors, in the firing room where the larger ovens and vats were. The third-, fourth-, and fifth-year apprentices lived and worked in this place, pouring and baking drainage tiles and paving stones. The more artistic work was done in the foundry’s wings, where the journeymen lived and worked. Sixth-year apprentices, as well as sevens in their journeyman year, spent their days serving the end of their training under the masters of the craft, learning the delicate intricacies of architectural drawing and hand-painted porcelain.
For a brief time in his fourth year, Omet had served an overseer’s rotation among the first- and second-year apprentices, supervising their work. Quickly he had learned the most important lesson of supervision: put the whip to those lower than you on the ladder. It had been an easy few months, and he looked forward to returning to the indolence of supervision when his journeyman year was over. Once the profession in which he was training had been a vocation, an artistic calling. Now Omet hated tile, hated the hard work of pouring and baking, trimming and hauling, hated the red clay that stained his hands and arms the color of dried blood.
And Omet hated the new apprentice.
Esten’s voice reverberated up from the well shaft.
“Done.”
Omet continued to gather the battered tin plates from the filthy hands of the diggers, watching silently out of the corner of his eye as two of the journeymen dashed to the well and lowered down the hook-stick.
Esten’s head appeared a moment later; one of the journeymen offered her a hand and hauled her over the edge of the well shaft. She brushed the loose clay from her dark clothing, the same plain black shirt and trousers she always wore on her monthly inspections, and shook her long, black braid. Her face molded into a glittering smile as she turned to the small group of a dozen ragged souls, huddled against the far wall of the foundry, surrounded by the armed journeymen.
“Well done, boys; you’re doing very well,” she said soothingly. The eyes of the children, the only thing visible in the fireshadows from the open kilns, blinked in their dark red faces.
She strode to the bag she had left by the door, snatched it up, and returned to the group. Almost every thin limb retracted as the boys recoiled at her approach. Esten opened the sack and dug deep, then drew forth a handful of sweetmeats and tossed them into the trembling crew. Instantly cacophony erupted, and she laughed in delight.
“Aren’t they sweet?” she said to the journeymen, then crouched down to get a better look at the individuals of the group. “Omet, where’s Tidd?”
Omet felt his throat go drier than Entudenin. “Dead, mum,” he said. The words came out in a croak.
“Tidd, dead? Dear me.” The glittering smile vanished, and Esten surveyed the group more closely. “What a shame. He had a fine sense of direction. Hmmm, now, who can we make chief?”
A forest of sapling limbs shot up and began waving desperately, accompanied by thin cries for selection. Esten’s smile returned, and she stood.
“That’s my boys! Such an enthusiastic lot. Let’s see, Haverill, Avery, no, you’re blind as a bat, aren’t you, dear? Jyn, Collin, no; Gume, hmmm, not you, either; you’re always doing everyone else’s work; much too soft-hearted. Hello, Vincane, who have we here?” She stopped in front of a small, yellow-haired boy, with large eyes and an angled face, trembling violently, his arms wrapped around spindly bent knees.
“That’s Aric,” Vincane crowed importantly. “He’s new—in for Tidd.”
“Well, you weren’t much of a trade, were you, lad?” Esten turned again and smiled down at a tall boy whose hair had once been white-blond, but now bore the same red filth as the others. “Ernst—what about you? Would you like to be crew chief?”
The tall boy smiled broadly, showing the few remaining teeth he had. “Yes, mum.”
“Good, good! Then come, lad, and we’ll go back to the tunnel and discuss the direction I want you to take this month.”
After Esten had returned from the well shaft, and the child miners had been lowered back in, she went to the door and took her coat from the peg rack near it, then left through the double doors without a backward glance. Omet caught fragments of her parting words to the journeyman in the anteroom.
“Have you seen how tall Ernst has gotten? What are you feeding him?”
“Same as the others. They scrap for it. We don’t dole it out or nothin’.”
“Hmmm. Well, that might be a problem soon. Tell the apprentices to be certain to guard that well shaft and to keep listening. We’ll decide what to do next month—if we haven’t broken through yet.” Her smile glittered in the dark shadows of the firing room. “I suspect it’s a moot issue. Have the journeymen summon me immediately when the time comes.”
“Yes, mum.”
In the distance Omet heard the door open, and the whine of the winter wind that lingered after it slammed shut. After a moment, he realized that the soft keening was no longer the voice of the wind, but came from the well shaft. Then it was gone.
6
From a distance it was difficult to tell whether the tile foundry was in full operation or all but abandoned. Smoke rose from the open chimneys near the center of the building, but after two hours of observation, no one came or left the complex. As night began to fall the furnaces continued to fire, but still no one came.
“Strange,” Rhapsody commented from behind the broken wall where they had set up their observation. “Do you think it’s a foundry run by ghosts?”
Achmed waved her to silence, trying to follow the pattern of the tainted heartbeat within the brick-and-mortar building. Though he could only feel it intermittently, he could sense that it was slowing somewhat, as if preparing for sleep.
The sky was dark now in the grip of winter; the wind had grown cold with the coming of night. Rhapsody pulled the edges of her ghodin closer to keep them from flapping in the high breeze.
Smoke from the fires still rolled heavily in the air, but now dispersed somewhat, chased by the insistent wind. The cloud-covered sky reflected the light of the fire which flickered now in distant inner windows.
Achmed rose from his crouch and unslung the cwellan. “Stay here. I’m going to scout around. Remain watchful.” He waited until Rhapsody nodded her understanding, then disappeared into the flickering shadows.
The anterior wing of the building was dark and silent. Achmed edged his way along the southeastern wall, the side of the foundry that did not abut the longer wings. Slatted windows whose use was solely ventilation were the only openings in the long mudbrick wall.
There was a small service door on the other side of the building, closer to the long wings. Achmed eased through it quietly and closed it quickly behind him.
The anteroom of the foundry was unoccupied. Two large kilns stood, open and cold, with racks of fired bisque pots and bowls. Long tables, thick with ceramic dust, bore other pottery in various stages of completion. Vats of paint and covered barrels of lacquer filled the room with an unhealthy stench. Achmed could tell without difficulty that the wares in the room could not possibly be the sole output from the constantly burning furnaces.
Carefully he skirted the heavy tables, being vigilant not to leave footprints in the dust that covered the floor, and sidled up to the heavy brass-bound door he had seen in the shadows at the back of the anteroom. The door was solidly closed; A
chmed rested his hand on the roughhewn wood and felt heat beyond it. Light flickered in the space beneath it.
Achmed took off one of his gloves. His fingers studied the heavy iron hinges in the dark and found them corroded and heavy with rust. They will undoubtedly groan upon opening, he thought. He leaned against the door and exhaled.
The path lore he had gained crawling within the bowels of the Earth had given him a second sight of sorts, a disorienting vision of the given direction he was seeking. He had not made the attempt to use it to track a heartbeat until now.
Achmed closed his eyes and loosed his second sight. The room around him appeared in his mind’s eye, the tables covered with greenware and fired bisque, the pots of paint gleaming dully in the dark.
The heartbeat of the demon-spawn swelled in his ears and throbbed in his skin. His stomach clenched, nauseated, preparing for the jolt as his vision sped away, turning from the room, and through the door, tilting at a strange angle as it did. The search did not take long.
His inner sight blazed into the room beyond the door, a cavernous chamber, obviously a firing room, with three enormous ovens, burning low and steady, before which rested numerous wire racks, empty now. A sizable cast-iron bell was attached to the wall past the open door. With a shuddering lurch the vision stopped.
Achmed inhaled shakily, trying to hang on to the vision. The shadows from the open kilns spun crazily around and about, flickering over the landscape of the room. The floor beyond the doorway was littered with pails and poles with hooks, coils of rope, molds and various tools. The vast room held five enormous vats of thick liquid, each suspended between stone columns and bubbling over piles of firecoals, next to which were mounds of red dirt. Near the vats were three cots, on which, under blankets, lay three bodies, spent in sleep. One was in the process of rolling over.
The vision jolted again, and the color of blood filled his mind as the alien pulse that his own now matched rose to a heavy crescendo in his ears. As if his head and shoulders were being turned by invisible hands, his perspective shifted to the cot to the left of a dark alcove, and moved in closely to see a dark head beneath a thin blanket, as the thudding grew louder. The color of blood appeared before him, dousing his view in a red haze. Then the vision vanished.
Weakly Achmed mopped the beads of cold perspiration from his brow, took several deep breaths, then crossed the room silently and slipped back out the door into the night.
Rhapsody studied his face as he drank from the waterskin for a moment, then rummaged in her pack for her tinderbox. She struck the flint and steel until it sparked, then lighted a short wick, which she held up before her eyes as she looked him over.
“You don’t look well. Are you all right?”
Achmed wiped the water from his lips. “Yes. Are you ready?”
“Yes. I’ve got some anise oil; it should soothe those angry hinges.”
He capped the skin and returned it to his pack. “There are ropes you can use to tie up the apprentices—if that’s what they are. Get the spawn first. He’s the one on the cot to the left of the alcove in the back, the one with the black hair. I’ll take care of the other two—the blond brat and the one with no hair.” Rhapsody nodded. “And Rhapsody—if he causes you a moment’s danger, kill him, or I will. That was the bargain. Is it still understood?”
“Yes.”
Achmed studied her face for signs of distress, but saw none. It made him breathe easier than the moment before. Ever since the death of Jo she had seemed more reserved, more pragmatic, as if the role of the Iliachenva’ar, the bearer of the ancient sword of starfire, was beginning to weigh less heavily on her. Still, there was something behind her eyes he could not fathom, almost as if something was missing. He pulled up his hood and unslung his cwellan.
He was still feeling weak from the vision, possibly even from the arrhythmia, but he had to get through this, had to finish it, for all their sakes.
At the slight nod of his head, Rhapsody pulled up the hood of her cape and followed him into the dark foundry.
The door into the back section opened without a whisper of sound. Rhapsody had oiled the hinges and whispered the name of silence in a soft roundelay as Achmed lifted the latch and eased the heavy wooden panel into the chamber.
The fires of the kilns roared in greeting, shining off Rhapsody’s face. The leaping flames cast sheets of bright light around the room for a moment, illuminating its contents.
Racks of tiles and sacks of grout stood against the walls. There were shelves of supplies and foodstuffs in the far corner, forming a labyrinth of shadows in the room. A deep alcove was recessed in the wall at the back, behind the cots of the three apprentices.
Rhapsody held up the length of cloth Achmed had given her to use as a gag, signaling her readiness, and received a nod in return.
Like quicksilver Achmed glided through the flickering shadows to the cots of the two apprentices who slept to the right of the alcove. A coil of rope lay near the beds; he whisked it from the floor, slashed it into pieces and tossed one to Rhapsody, then turned to the task of binding the sleeping boys.
He bent over the first, a tall, thin lad with wiry blond hair, and pressed a finger against the artery in his neck. As the boy’s eyes flew open and he opened his mouth in a gasp for breath Achmed wedged the gag in, pushing it roughly but not enough to cause choking. Before the apprentice could exhale his hands were tied behind his back.
“Don’t move,” Achmed murmured to the other apprentice, a bald boy whose eyes had opened at the sound from across the room. He was concentrating on finishing his task, but could tell from the noise behind him that the demon-spawn was giving Rhapsody some difficulty.
“Ow! Hold still, you brat—augh! You bit me!” Achmed whirled in time to see Rhapsody, struggling with the ropes as the boy on the cot scratched at her, pull back and deliver the haymaker blow that Grunthor had been the admiring victim of once before. She used it with similar effect now; the dark-haired apprentice fell back onto the cot with an uuumph! as a sickening crack rent the air. The boy Achmed was binding cringed.
Rhapsody was rubbing the side of her hand. “If you want to keep your teeth, don’t try that again,” she said through clenched jaws.
Achmed took her hand, pulled off the glove and examined it in the inconstant light. “Did he draw blood?” he asked in Bolgish.
“No, but I believe I did.” They glanced back at the apprentice on the cot, sneering through a bleeding mouth.
“Don’t spill that—I need it,” Achmed said, still in the tongue of the Bolg. Rhapsody smiled as she put her glove back on.
The bleeding apprentice struggled to rise, and as he did, Rhapsody belted him again, then sat down on him as she finished tying the ropes.
“Hog-tie—like this,” Achmed called as he bound the blond apprentice’s hands and feet together behind him.
Rhapsody winced. “Is that really necessary? It looks painful.”
“Yes. I’ve seen all three of them glance at that bell more than once. Undoubtedly it would summon reinforcements.”
“What’s in the alcove?” Rhapsody asked as she finished binding the demon’s child, struggling to ignore the deadly look in his piercing black eyes.
Achmed put his finger against the throat of the other apprentice, who was trembling like a leaf in a high wind.
“What’s in the alcove?” he asked in the Orlandan tongue.
The bald boy struggled to speak, but nothing came out. He swallowed and tried again.
“The tunnel,” he whispered.
“Tunnel to where?”
“I—I don’t know.” The boy went white at the expression on Achmed’s face.
“I think he’s telling the truth,” Rhapsody interjected hastily, seeing that the pressure on the boy’s neck artery had been increased. “The tones in his voice suggest that he is. Here, let me finish tying him and you can look into it.”
Achmed rose in disgust as Rhapsody bent down in front of the bald apprentice. He
walked slowly into the dark alcove, empty except for an enormous disk of contoured metal that was propped up against one of the walls, and looked down the hole in the floor.
It appeared to be a tiled shaft, like a that of a well, as deep as two men and narrow, perhaps as wide around as his outstretched arm-span. At the bottom was a dark hole in the southern wall, from which a small intermittent stream flowed. Broken pallets and buckets littered the wet floor. He could see little else in the reflected fires of the open kilns.
Rhapsody bound the apprentice’s hands as gently as she could.
“What’s your name?”
“Omet.”
“Who would come if you rang the bell, Omet?” she asked.
The boy’s expression went slack as he examined her face; then he blinked. “The journeymen. They live in the next wing.”
She nodded. “Why is there a tunnel in your workroom?”
“It’s where the slave boys dig.”
“Slave boys?”
Her question went unanswered as Achmed dropped woozily to the floor.
7
“What happened? Are you all right?”
Achmed reached up and shoved Rhapsody aside impatiently, clearing his line of sight to the child of the Rakshas. The dark-haired apprentice was still hog-tied, glaring furiously, struggling in his bonds.
“Don’t turn away from him, even for an instant,” he snarled.
Rhapsody looped the rope length in her hand, then snapped it suddenly with a whiplike action. It struck the struggling apprentice on the bare leg and elicited a muted howl of anger. The apprentice’s body jerked under the snap of the rope, then lay still.
“What happened?” she whispered again.
“The other heartbeat is down there.”
“In the well?”
“No, deeper within.” Achmed mopped his brow, his face gray in the reflected light of the kiln fires. “This vertical shaft, the well, is just an entranceway. There is a long horizontal tunnel at the bottom—tiled, more than half a league long, a catacomb of some sort. Heads northwest.” He had loosed his sight, and it sped along in the dark, confined space, the vision making him feel claustrophobic, but not as much as the sight of what he had seen at the end of the tunnel.