Other rustlings, other sounds. It was as though the cavern walls had come alive. Serpents of great and simply large size, serpents the size of ordinary snakes, and serpents the size of worms, squirming out of open tunnels and tunneling themselves out of rock. Bits of rock dust fell here and there as serpents broke free of the honeycombed rock. The slithering grew louder and louder and was accompanied by hisses as the serpents broke into the cavern.
"Oh, Kian, Kian, hold me! Hold me before it's too late!"
He did, trembling and shaking. Any moment a head might emerge at their backs. Any moment a serpent might set its freezing eyes on them. Once discovered, they would be gone. There was nothing to prevent their being snapped up, chewed, swallowed, digested, and made physically a part of these monsters. Magic gauntlets, sword, and shield were as little protection as their clothing. There was nothing to do but stay hidden and wait.
Plop! Plop! Plop! The sound of serpent bodies sliding, gliding, falling onto rock. This huge cavern that had seemed so much like salvation from pursuit had turned out to be the most dangerous place of all!
He held her tight, no longer daring to speak any word. It was amazing that the serpents didn't smell them, but perhaps the odor was too diffuse to alert them. But any sound now—
After a time he found her face turned to his. Silently, he kissed her, and it was very sweet. Perhaps they would soon be horribly dead, but at the moment they were wonderfully alive.
Herzig came as fast as his short legs could carry him. The flopear motioned to the body on the ground, and he pulled up by it and looked down. Danzar, he thought, staring into the wide features of the unconscious man. His club lay near his hand, but there was a bruise on his forehead.
"Herzig, do you think they have a way of deflecting the serpent eye?" Kaszar asked. Kaszar was bending over Danzar, his stubby fingers lifting his eyelids to reveal the whites.
Herzig snorted. "With a bruise like that? No, if they could resist the eye, they would have taken him with them. Look here in the dirt; tracks of two mortals."
"Then Danzar got careless?"
"Yes. Never underestimate a mortal. They are stupid, but some are less stupid than others."
"Like Rowforth?"
"Rowforth, their king of Hud, is too cruel to be entirely stupid. Not stupid but not wise, and not what mortals call good!"
Danzar groaned and looked out again through his eyes. "Ohhh," he said, his hand going to his bruise. "Two mortals. A man and a woman. I thought to club the woman dead, but he threw a stone to distract me and then swung without looking at me."
"He swung without looking?" This was very interesting. Suggestive of a power, if not actual magic.
"Yes, his shield. He swung around fast and the shield caught me so fast I didn't see it. And my knee—he grabbed my knee, so that I fell. I never expected such coordination when I thought him done for."
Herzig nodded. He didn't really like fighting mortals. They were so frail, for the most part, and few were worthy of joining in the cycle. It had been an act of kindness to put those two into the ancestor, just as it had been pity for a wretched creature that had driven Gerzah, Gerta's mother, to mate with one and bear it a child. But mortals by and large were untrustworthy, as that one had proved to be. Poor Gerzah had joined an ancestor early, and her daughter, Gerta, was without mate or child. That was what came ultimately of kindness to mortals. Still, as it had turned out, Gerta's mortal heritage enabled her to understand mortals better, and so she was good at helping them recover. That had been most useful in the case of the mortal John Knight.
Kaszar pointed to an opening in the rocks. It was an old ancestor tunnel rather than a natural opening. A pair of footprints were clearly in the dust in the tunnel's opening.
Herzig delivered himself of a long, painful sigh. Such stupidity just wasn't possible! But there it was—they had entered the domain of the ancestors. Deep in the ground the ancestors would find them and devour them, and then, just as food eventually became flesh, they would become part of the cycle.
"Should we go after them, Herzig?" The question, Herzig thought, was really quite rhetorical.
"Why? You know what will happen to them."
"But should it?" Kaszar's face flashed with anger. "These mortals, a part of our ancestors, joining in the cycle?"
"The cycle has seasons," Herzig replied. "We are none of us but ourselves, and yet making up ourselves are all our past ancestors. Mortals are the same way but don't realize it. On the next cycle it won't matter. Do you ever wake to remember tunneling, Kaszar? No, nor do I. The lives of ancient serpents are not a part of our daily existence."
"Uh," Kaszar said. He nodded, seemingly mollified. He reached out, grasping his leader's shoulder. His face smiled, widening his mouth. "I've heard it before, all my life, but I have to be reminded."
"We're none of us dirt, Kaszar, and all of us are dirt. Mortals as well as serpent people."
"Yes. That is true."
"What do you want to do about those mortals? Now that you have been reminded of what they are and what we are and of the endless cycle governing all?"
Kaszar took his hand off his leader's shoulder and walked to the tunnel's opening. He funneled his hands around his mouth and shouted in: "Mortals! We are coming to get you, Mortals! Run! Hide! Run until your hearts burst! We are coming, Mortals! We are coming!"
Herzig glanced at Danzar on the ground and found the big club-wielder smiling broadly in satisfaction. He helped him to his feet. Then all three left the tunnel to the ancestors and to the very temporary mortals therein.
Heeto watched from concealment in the rocks as the flopears left the vicinity of the tunnel. He had watched as Kian and Lonny ran into the tunnel to hide, and he had seen the three flopears talking and now leaving. They would be back, he thought, with help.
Should he go down there and try to get the two strange young people out of the tunnel? No, he knew he hadn't time. It was sheer chance that he had remained undiscovered as flopears had raced by his hiding place.
"Heeto!"
He turned to see Jac on his mare. Jac had ridden up behind him, knowing where he was, coming to him by way of the cutoff route that few actually knew about.
"Heeto, we're not winning," Jac said. "Too many flopears joined the soldiers. We can't get John Knight from them. We can't slip into Serpent Valley and get the weapon. We're beaten, Heeto, beaten!"
Heeto looked at the master with sorrow. He had been against the ambush all along, knowing as he did that flopears were too near and too numerous and far too magical. Against the soldiers alone Jac and his men and the magical gauntlets might have a chance, but once the flopears came, the fight was done.
"Master, Kian and Lonny are in that tunnel. Three flopears have just left."
"Then they are as good as dead," Jac said. His face showed his sorrow. The lady, Heeto understood, had been special to him.
"Kian knocked a flopear down with his shield, Master. Then the two others came. The two who did not see them, but I know they know they are there."
"Good man, that Kian. Young, but good. It was the gauntlets that did it, of course. They did the fighting and they struck the flopear."
"I know."
"The flopear was caught because he thought he was fighting a man. Had he known he was fighting magic, it might have been different."
"That must be," Heeto agreed. "But the serpents—the gauntlets can't overcome them! Not down in their own realm!"
"Come."
Reluctantly Heeto let his master take his hand and lift him up onto the front of the horse. He had always found riding uncomfortable. More so this way, half lying on the neck of the mare.
The horse walked at a slow pace back the way it had come. Soon they came out of the brush, and dead and dying men were everywhere. Some were like statues, frozen in place by some absent flopear's stare.
Jac called to Matt Biscuit, who was helping a man who had been wounded in the arm by an arrow. "Start rounding up the survi
vors! We're going back to the Barrens."
"We lost, didn't we?" Biscuit demanded. "All because we trusted that foreigner! Him and his magic gauntlets and his hero father and brother! I knew it was a mistake!"
"We had to try," Heeto's master said. "Now at least we know Rowforth can enlist flopear help. Knowing that, we know what we're up against and who we fight."
"We! How many do you think you have left? Maybe twenty men, and half of them wounded. You think you'll take over a kingdom with that?"
But the master simply kept riding, acting as if he saw no death and hadn't heard a word of Biscuit's.
CHAPTER 17
Exits
KIAN DREW LONNY BACK behind a rock outcropping and dared not peek out at the serpents. As near as he could tell, this was a gathering place where they sometimes shed their skins and where perhaps they mated. It could be that they had other things on their minds than feeding, so weren't alert for prey here. After all, how much thought did he himself have of food when he was guiltily kissing Lonny? So maybe the serpents were attuned to prey when on the surface, where living creatures ran, and to silver when tunneling below, and to shedding when in this cavern, and simply had a one-track-at-a-time mind-set. So they might smell the living intruders here but not be hungry, and would ignore them. If so, it was about as lucky a break for the two people as they could ever have hoped for!
His father had talked about an elephants' graveyard, where the beasts came to die, leaving their valuable ivory tusks. But how could there be a serpents' graveyard if the creatures were immortal? Yet how was it known that they were immortal? That could be just another story. Also, what about the little ones? They would have no business coming to a graveyard—and there should be no young in an immortal society.
The hissing and slithering convinced him at last that he had been correct the first time: serpents of all ages gathered here, shed their skins, and mated. Maybe there was something very sexy, in serpent terms, about shedding, so mating naturally followed. Or maybe not—but certainly the shedding occurred here, and that was enough to account for what he saw. After all, if they died here, there should be skeletons, and there were none.
Lonny was trembling within his embrace. Neither of them dared make a sound. Yet eventually one of those sliding silver bodies would come close and discover them. Then his theory about their safety would be tested—and he had little faith in it. After all, even if a serpent wasn't interested in hunting at the moment, it would hardly pass up a couple of succulent morsels that turned up right under its nose.
If they could only get away! But how?
Feeling behind him in the dark, Kian felt no wall. Maybe a passage was behind them? A way to escape?
Or another serpent tunnel, along which might be coming their doom?
He tugged Lonny in that direction, his gauntlets helping him. He had to trust the gauntlets; their guess was at least as good as his!
The serpents were clicking on rocks, hissing, tumbling. What a dialogue they must be having! Maybe this was an annual or a seasonal thing, during which they could renew acquaintances. Well, the more distraction for the serpents, the better.
There was some chance that the two of them could fade back unseen into this unknown darkness. But there was no telling what the tunnel held. If not an oncoming serpent, perhaps a sheer drop-off to some unfathomable depth. Or possibly a dead end.
If he was hesitant, the gauntlets were not. They tugged at him, pulled him, and he followed their lead. The smoothness of the tunnel floor meant there was little to trip them, and the gauntlets apparently sensed in a way he could not the turnings and bends. There was no doubt now: this was a serpent hole. But evidently the gauntlets believed it was unoccupied.
It was terribly black; there was no phosphorescence here. He felt as if he were walking into a wall of black velvet, almost feeling the physical touch of the darkness. Why was there no dim green glow here? Because the monstrous body of the traveling serpent wiped the passage clean?
Gradually the sounds behind them faded, first to a steady spluttering, then to a softer, muted roar. Finally it seemed hardly audible. But this only let the darkness close in even more tightly, as though it was now so thick that not even sound could penetrate it.
They had been walking for what his father would have called miles. Lonny was gradually developing a whimper that tore at him and added to his own discomfort. Even though they were trying to flee death, he didn't want her hurting.
Then, ahead: greenish radiance!
Was it the cavern they had left? Did this winding tunnel simply double back to where they had been? That did not make much sense to him, but his opinion didn't count; what counted was what made sense to the serpents. The persistent gauntlets seemed to slow, perhaps not quite certain, but they did not stop.
Gradually the radiance grew stronger as they emerged from the total darkness. Suddenly there was a big gap in the floor. It cut off the tunnel, and beyond it the wall was blank; the other side of this fault had slid along, taking the rest of the tunnel with it. That must be why there were no serpents here: even they did not care to navigate a discontinuity of this size! It would be easier to use an unspoiled tunnel. Or perhaps they had redrilled it, only to have the fault slide again. Maybe this was a low-silver region, so they didn't bother to maintain the tunnels. The radiance came from the crack.
They stopped. Kian had no idea how to proceed, and Lonny seemed as if she would not dare even try to think of an idea. Were the gauntlets in similar doubt?
He examined the cleft more carefully. This seemed to be the same type of moss that lined the cavern walls. The rent in the stone was a fracture that might have been caused by a quake, or by the movement of a gigantic body. It had sundered the serpent tunnel, cutting it off, making it useless. Probably there were a number of tunnels spoiled by such cracks. Odd that the moss grew so freely here, and not at all in the tunnel. Perhaps there was a better supply of nutrients in the air that passed through here. For there was air; he felt its slight, cool motion along the crevice.
By the glow he could see Lonny's frightened, drawn face. "Kian, what—"
"Shhh," he said. It was all he trusted himself to say. The serpents might hear, true, but mainly it was that he needed to appear positive, and anything he said would soon dispel that impression.
There might be a use for this luxuriant moss if it could be carried. The radiance was an inferior light source, but it did permit a limited vision, and it was far, far better than nothing! He drew out his sword from its scabbard, thinking to scrape off a handful.
"Kian," Lonny whispered. "Down there, way down, see it?"
He placed his cheek next to hers, an act which would have been delightful in any other circumstance, and perhaps even in this one, and strained to see what she saw. There was something! Way, way down the narrow cleft he could see a softer, lighter glow. It seemed to come from a series of fist-sized knobs.
"Glowrooms," Lonny whispered. "Flopears use them for lighting. They have them in their cottages and carry them like lamps."
Kian remembered seeing them in the cottage where his father was kept. He knew nothing about them except for what Lonny had said. "I'll get one," he said.
"Be careful!"
"I will. You wait." Worming himself down into the cleft, he banged his head and scraped his back.
Slowly, painfully on hands and knees and sometimes on his stomach, he made his way toward the lighter glow. There they were, clustered about another crack from which came more greenish glow.
Kian sucked in his breath as he saw that the crack opened almost directly below him. Creeping slowly so as to avoid a sudden pitch downward, he was able to see moss-lighted water far below. Another underground river, and this one not of his world. But was the other any different? Did this, too, lead to a Flaw that went not only through this entire world but through many? He had used Mouvar's machine to come to this frame, but it might be that the rivers crossed between frames, too. Mouvar might simply have fou
nd a mechanical and reliable way to do what the rivers and The Flaw did randomly. He shivered uncontrollably as the mental vision became increasingly real. What a vast and complex thing might this system be!
"Kian, can you get it?"
"Y-yes." Her voice brought him back to sanity of a sort. He dared not think about what could happen if rock and dirt gave way almost beneath his face. The crack here was big enough to fall through, he felt, and might for all he knew to the contrary dramatically open up. The fall past glowing walls to the river so far below would surely kill him, and that would leave lovely Lonny with no further help.
Cautiously he cut off the thick toadstools and impaled three of them on his sword blade. Equipped now with a light, he twisted, turned, bruised himself some more, and got his head pointed the right way.
"Kian, I can see you well now! And, Kian, that hole, it goes way down!"
"I know. There's a river below us. Way below us!"
"Oh, Kian!"
"Better not talk! We can't be certain there's not a serpent about." But after seeing that eerie river, he had a notion why there were no serpents here. They must have the same awe of the environs of The Flaw as he did! The crevice had opened the tunnel to the dark river below, and the serpents did not trust that. Smart serpents!
"Y-yes."
He reached the edge of the moss-coated crack and raised the sword with its light. The tunnel continued ahead of the crack, after its jog to the side, he saw now; they had merely to squeeze through and across.
"We have to try going on, Lonny. This tunnel has to come out somewhere." His sword tip scraped the serpent's old roof. "We have breathable air, at least."
He helped Lonny with a gauntlet. They got into the next section of the tunnel, and soon left the crack behind. He was getting tired, physically, and he wondered about Lonny. He looked at her in the toadstool light and marveled at how very dirty she had become. He must be the same way. It was a dirty business, this scrabbling around inside a serpent hole. He wondered if the serpent who had once used this had been the one they had been part of for a time. This tunnel was evidently very old, but so was the serpent.