After they had walked a bit farther—Tailchaser relying on minute changes in the air temperature and pressure to guide them in what he hoped was the correct direction—he worked up the courage to try to draw the so-far-amiable Skinwretch out.
“How are the ‘final preparations’ going, eh? I’m afraid I’ve been involved in some ... er, rather important things up ... up aboveground.”
“Nobody tellsss poor old Ssskinwretch much,” complained the Toothguard, “but I hear many thingsss. Great movementsss, a great uneasinesss ... I heard two of my brother guardss whisspering not long ago that sssoon the sssurface will be breached!”
The surface ... breached? Fritti did not like the sound of that. Some terrible, incomprehensible thing was about to happen, and apparently he and a scatter of stuttering Rikchikchik were the only creatures who could do anything about it.
No, thought Tailchaser, correcting himself, I can do nothing but find my friends, and probably die with them.
With the mobilization of Vastnir, escape would be unlikely for one, let alone three or four. No, further hope—and a tenuous one, at that—rested on the leaping backs of squirrels, and a jaded, unconcerned Court.
“Star-face! Creeping, skulking star-face! I’ll have his heart out!” Yowling, Scratchnail had stopped in his tracks, whipping his black muzzle from side to side. Fritti realized with a start that although Scratchnail was mad and Skinwretch blind, he did have a white star on his forehead; he would be easily recognized by any of the mound’s more discerning occupants below. As Skinwretch soothed the raging Clawguard, Fritti dipped his head down and rubbed his brow in the dust. Blinking the dirt from around his eyes, he straightened up.
I hope that will hide it, he thought—or at least obscure it enough that it will pass unnoticed. I will never look like a Clawguard, but at least I can hope to look like a nameless slave.
The hairless one had coaxed Scratchnail into a walk again, and though the Claw made strange, whining noises, he did not disrupt their course again for some time.
Tailchaser’s directional sense seemed to be working. He began to see signs of increasing traffic in the shafts they were following—stronger and more recent scents came from the side passages. Fritti began to think about finding his captive friends. He knew that he could travel quickly and safely only in these outer, mostly unused byways; once he was into the active heart of the mound his deception would be of no use.
The sound of harsh voices came suddenly from around the curve of their path. Scratchnail—as if in some kind of anticipation—chose this moment to lie down, spreading his large, dapple-bellied body across the tunnel floor. Tailchaser looked wildly about, and after a long moment spotted a tiny tunnel in the wall they had just passed. Grating, sneezing laughter echoed up the shaft as he leaped back and squeezed himself into the small space, which turned out to be a crevice—and a cramped one. He heard the laughing voices stop, and the heavy pad of approaching paws. Then they spoke, in the unmistakable snarling idiom of the Clawguard.
“What’s this? What’s this great load of unburied me‘mre doing in the way?” There was a sharp bark of amusement, then another, equally unpleasant voice said: “It’s obvious somebody needs skinning around here, by the Great One! Who’s responsible?”
Skinwretch spoke up in an aggrieved tone. “Pleassse now, massterss. Do no injury! Asss you can sssee, I am in the company of two very important membersss of your brotherhood! Tell them, Tunnelwalker!”
“Two!” laughed the first Claw. “I see but one— and a great, boneless wreckage he looks to be, too! What do you see, Riptalon?”
“Exactly that. A useless hulk and a little, squirming blind mole. Unless I miss my count, Shredfang, that makes but two. The little Squeaker’s lying to us!” Skinwretch gave a whimper of fear, and Fritti heard the two Clawguard move closer.
“Lying to Guards on the Lord’s business. I think we’ll make him jump for that, don’t you?”
“Tunnelwalker! Sssave me! Sssave us!” The Toothguard’s voice rose hysterically, and Fritti, crouched in his shallow niche, held his breath.
A muffled groan rose up, and then Scratchnail’s droning voice: “Tailchaser! Star-face did it! No, Lord Huh ... Lord Heart ... Hearteater, not the burning! My ka ... no! Ahhhhhhh!” His voice rose into a keening wail. The two Clawguard made sounds of surprise.
“By the Blood-light!” grunted Shredfang. “It is a Claw!”
“It’s Scratchnail!” Riptalon gasped nervously. “He is proscribed! The Lord of All punished him. We should not touch him!”
“Pfauggh! You’re right. This place stinks of the unclean! The shame of it! And that mewling blind worm ... come, let’s be off.” The disgust in Shredfang’s voice did not disguise the fear that whimpered beneath. Swift, padding footfalls passed by Tailchaser’s crevice and faded down the corridor.
Fritti waited for what seemed like a very long time, then stepped gingerly back out into the tunnel. Skinwretch’s furless shape was huddled over the supine black form of Scratchnail ... and for a moment Fritti was oddly touched. Then the Toothguard swiveled his ruined muzzle around, and the sensation vanished in a cascade of revulsion.
“Who‘sss there?” Skinwretch called.
Tailchaser made a hesitant noise in his throat, then said: “Why, Tunnelwalker, of course. I have been off exploring some spur tunnels. I just passed a couple of my fellows. Did you meet them?”
“They threatened usss!” panted Skinwretch. “They were going to kill usss! Why did you leave?”
“I told you!” said Fritti, feigning anger. “Now, get up—and get him up too. I have important things to do, and I am only helping you because you are so pathetic and incapable. Now, are we going to get padding or not?”
“Oh, yesss, Tunnelwalker! Come, Ssscratchnail, get up now.”
With Tailchaser leading, and Scratchnail trailing reluctantly, the mismatched threesome moved on into the heart of gathering forces.
27 CHAPTER
Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
Nor with a Stone—
A Whip so small you could not see it
I’ve known
To lash the Magic Creature
Till it fell
—Emily Dickinson
Strange things were happening in the world above the labyrinth. Distant cries and lights made the night Hours mysterious and unsettling. Felas gave birth to kittens too unusual to survive, and Prince Dewtreader of Firsthome made dire pronouncements. Many Folk were afraid. The ground everywhere felt unsolid—shifting and treacherous.
The Eye opened to its fullest a complete sun-turn earlier than expected, and hung red and swollen in the sky. Meeting Nights were full of unanswerable questions and nameless fears. Blind Night, the night of greatest darkness, was coming. Some whispered that this time the darkness would bring the os.
The os was on the tongues of many, and in the minds of more....
Below the ground, the Great One on his carrion throne of death and dying worked a web of curious forces. Energies beat and pulsed through his seat of power so intensely that sometimes the air itself in the Cavern of the Pit became as solid and resisting as water. Strange images waxed and waned, flickering at the edge of vision like lightning on the eyelids of a sleeper. At times, now, none but the Boneguard could attend the Lord of All, and the Claws would stand muttering in the tunnels outside the Master’s cavern.
Even Tailchaser, on the periphery of Vastnir’s main arteries, could sense the imminence of ... something. Scratchnail had ceased talking altogether—mumbling and howling alike—and plodded along with a dull, lifeless sheen on his deep eyes. He stopped incessantly to scratch, gouging at his dark fur with crimson claws until it seemed he must draw blood. Fritti understood. His skin, too, was crawling.
The trio had paused by one of the main passages, looking down a dark, sloping access tunnel to the broad causeway below. Teams of Clawguard marched purposefully by, or harried fainting, stumbling prisoners. At Tailchaser’s side Skinwretch
cocked an ear to the sounds of pads scuffling endlessly past.
“Aaaahh.” The Toothguard beamed, his scarred face crinkling into a complexity of lines. “Hear that? Lisssten. Great thingsss are afoot ... great thingsss.” The naked snout took on a dejected cast. “The unfairness of it. That a faithful sservant, sssuch asss I ...” He made a sniveling sound. Fritti, worriedly watching the Clawguard legions, nodded his head distractedly—forgetting momentarily that the other could not see him.
“I was born to sserve the Lord of All,” Skinwretch lamented. “How could I have been brought to thiss low essstate?”
The Toothguard’s reproachful words finally sank in. An idea began to form in Tailchaser’s mind.
“Skinwretch, I have something important to tell you,” Fritti said in a low voice. “Let’s move back up the corridor a bit.”
When they had walked back to stand by the stu porous Scratchnail, Fritti said: “You say you are loyal to the ... the Lord of All?”
“Oh yessss!” Scratchnail eagerly affirmed. “It iss my one purpose!”
“Then I can tell you my secret. Do you promise to keep it?”
“Oh, certainly, Tunnelwalker, mossst asssuredly!” Skinwretch bobbed up and down in a horrible parody of trustworthiness. “I ssswear by the Foaming Ssstone of the Toothguard!”
“Good.” Tailchaser deliberated for a moment. “Lord He—the Master—has grave need of information from a certain prisoner. He does not trust his chiefs, though. Some of them, like ... well, if I must say it, like Hissblood, have shown themselves to be unreliable—if you understand me.”
The Toothguard was jiggling excitedly. “Of course! I understand. Like Hisssblood! Exactly!”
“Well,” continued Fritti importantly, now warming to the deception, “he has chosen me to find and observe the prisoner. But no one may know! You can see that it would be ... well, unwise, especially now!” He was a little unclear himself on the logic of this, but Skinwretch seemed enraptured by the idea. “Anyway,” he added, “the Lord of All has chosen me, and I am choosing you. You must find the prisoner for me, and no one must know why, or even suspect. Can you do that?”
“Clever Tunnelwalker. Who will sssusspect old, crippled Ssskinwretch? Yesss, I ssshall do it!”
“Good. The prisoner you must find for me is the fela who accompanied the escaping Tail ... Tail ...” He hemmed and hawed convincingly. “Tail chooser. The one Scratchnail raves about. The fela who was with him survived, did she not?”
“I do not know, Tunnelwalker, but I ssshall find out,” said the blind creature soberly.
“Very well,” said Fritti. “I will meet you on this spot when three work shifts have passed. Can you find it again?”
“Oh, yesss. Now that the Ssscalding Flume no longer boilss my earsss I can find my way anywhere.”
“Move, then, and take Scratchnail with you—only, keep him out of trouble that will draw attention.” Fritti especially did not want to be yoked himself to the powerful, maddened beast—who would be even more of a danger if his memory returned. “And remember,” he added, “if you betray me, you betray your Master. Go!”
Fraught with newfound purpose, Skinwretch hurriedly roused Scratchnail, and the two went trudging away.
Tailchaser stifled an impulsive sneeze of pleased laughter as he watched them disappear. The hardest was yet to come.
With that matter settled, Tailchaser felt his fever-swift thoughts begin to slow down. He was very hungry. This presented a problem. As he stood close to the tunnel wall and watched yet another press gang of captives being herded out to the diggings, he considered his alternatives. He supposed that he could try to stay inconspicuously on the edge of things—stealing a meal here or there, trying to avoid the guards by stealth and speed. Sooner or later, though, he would be caught. There were no free Folk roaming about the mound—at least, none that he had seen. It was courting disaster, and he had a mouthful of trouble already.
Another clutch of prisoners, overseen by a pair of surly. Claws, moved along the passage below him. As they passed his hiding place, one of the slaves near the front collapsed. There was a great yowling and snarling as others tried to leap over the fallen one, and collided with their fellows. The two Claws, red talons shot, waded into the flurry.
Fritti seized this chance, bounding out of the tunnel and moving rapidly toward the rear of the line.
It will be easier to escape from one of these gangs than to live like a Phantom for very long, he decided. Also, who would hunt for an escaped prisoner in a prison cave?
“You little sun-rat!” rasped a voice. Tailchaser looked up into the heavy-jawed face of one of the guards. “I saw that!” the Claw snarled. “Try sneaking off again and I’ll slit you from gorge to tomhood!”
The crush of tunnel salves surged forward again, bearing Fritti along.
Life with the slave gang was not as difficult as it had been before. He was stronger after his interval in Ratleaf; though the hunting had been sparse, still he had eaten better than the poor beasts with whom he was imprisoned. It saddened him to see the misery and suffering around him—but this time things were different: he had joined this press of captives by choice; he was operating in secret. Although his heart warned him against foolishness, he could not help feeling a quiet pride. He had a purpose, and so far he was succeeding remarkably. His luck had been dancing.
The prisoners, too, could feel the difference in the mound’s atmosphere. The stirring, anxious sense of impending events had beaten them down. No prisoners told stories, or sang. Even the arguments were lackluster, dispirited. Collectively the slaves were cringing; they were waiting for the blow to fall.
One of the other captives told Tailchaser laconically of the rumors among their warders: about the lights and noises in the Cavern of the Pit, and of the assembling of Claws and Teeth into bridling, impatient units who were then sent out to farther tunnels. Trying to appear unconcerned, Fritti milked the prisoner—a one-eyed tabby named Fumblefoot—for more information, but the weary cat had no more to offer.
Fritti had been with the tunnel slaves for two work shifts and his impatience was rising: he knew that his time was running out. All he could think of was the danger that his friends were in. Firsthome and the fate of the Folk had faded from his. memory as useless abstractions. After he left Fumblefoot, Tailchaser sat humpbacked in the corner of the cave until the guards came to drive them forth.
The dirty, back-bending digging time oozed by as slowly as running sap. Although his paws were cracked and bleeding, Fritti dug as though consumed—striving to obliterate the dragging Hours by main force.
When the smirking Claw at the mouth of the tunnel growled down the order to quit digging, Tailchaser and the other weary prisoners began to mount upward. Carefully falling behind, he stopped as the last cat before him strained up over the tunnel rim, then quickly doubled back down the short passage and threw himself to the earth at the end of the hole they had been excavating. He wiggled as far beneath the piles of loose soil as he could and lay quietly.
The sounds of the milling prisoners drifted down from above. For a moment, a burning golden eye looked down into the tunnel, but dirt and darkness hid Tailchaser from all but the closest inspection, and soon he heard the press gang crunching away. He remained silent at the burrow’s end while his heart beat many times, then finally crept cautiously toward the surface.
The small cavern from which the tunnel network led was empty. The dim earth-light revealed no movement but his own. Nonchalantly but rapidly he groomed the worst of the dust from his face, legs and tail, then moved silently out into the larger shaft down which his fellow prisoners and their guards had already vanished.
In the cavern where Pouncequick lay dreaming of the white cat, Roofshadow herself was also finally sleeping. The strain of anticipation—waiting for the return of the vengeful Clawguard—and the enforced helplessness of her situation had worn her down until she could no longer muster strength or worry to resist. Chin on paws
, she had lain for a long time staring at the peaceful, helpless forms of Pouncequick and Eatbugs, and hopelessness had drifted over her like a warm mist. When the guard thrust his malignant head into the chamber he saw all three of the cats lying in deathlike stillness. With a yellow-fanged grin of approval, he withdrew.
Eatbugs’ eyes blinked open. For a moment, while his body still lay slack and motionless, they filled with an intense, cool fire. Then the light flickered in their depths, and seemed to die. The lids sagged back into place, and all was still as stone once more.
Skinwretch was waiting for Fritti when he arrived at the spur tunnel. The Toothguard was doing a little dance of anticipation, his furless tail kinking and wriggling like a drowning nightcrawler. Tailchaser, who had spent what seemed like Eyes and Eyes working his way carefully across the mound to this spot, approached as quietly as he could, only to be greeted by Skinwretch’s shrill, excited hiss.
“Tunnelwalker! Have you come? I have newsss, newsss!”
“Silence!” Fritti himself hissed. “What news?”
“I have found your prisoner!” said the Toothguard gleefully. “Ssskinwretch hasss done it!”
Tailchaser felt the pressing of time. “Where? Where is she?”
Skinwretch grinned, the mouthful of teeth below the scarred snout gleaming crazily. “Not far from here, oh yesss, very clossse. Oh, clever Sskinwretch hass ssserved the Lord of All!”
Trying to keep his patience, Fritti waited with dry mouth as Skinwretch described where Roofshadow was being held. When the eyeless Toothguard had finished Tailchaser began to back away, planning furiously, then suddenly stopped.
I’d better keep up appearances, he thought. This creature is a terrible enemy, but he makes a good ally.
“You have done well,” he told the Toothguard. “The Master will be pleased. Remember, not a word to anyone!”