| |
SOMETHING WAS GOING on. Tali noticed Amber was almost silent, monosyllabic at most. After a hurried breakfast, they were ushered back into the hallway to stand by the stone counter that served as Tuf’s guard station. It quickly transpired that they had been summoned. The Council had reconvened. A decision had been reached. Once they were sitting on the benches in the hall, the same formalities were observed. However, this time everyone seemed at a more heightened state of urgency. And when the Stone-speaker’s voice echoed off to silence, this time, the distinctive crack-boom echoed out twice, quickly. Then everyone in the chamber began to hum. An eerie low drone built up a resonance in the chamber’s massive space.
The Stone-speaker began again, “The Council has spoken. After deliberation, a decision was reached. As it has been since the annals of Stone began, it falls to me to speak the sentence. We meet in all solemnity to do the gravest task that can be done...”
Before Dun’s stomach could fall too far, a loud female shout rang across the humming in the chamber. “Carvers!” Tali’s voice almost tore as she projected, to cut through the massive sound of the drone. She had done enough though, as the humming stopped short.
“What is the meaning of this?” the Stone-speaker screeched, apoplectic with rage at having been interrupted. “A female may not speak here!”
Tali didn’t feel the need to stop there, though. “The carvers!” she said, finding her feet now.
“Who speaks our name and why?” came the distinctive high clear voice of Lord Marble, the Carvers’ Protector.
“We have found something important. A piece, lost from your records. If you execute us now, you will never know of it. Only we can show you!” Tali sounded triumphant.
Dun shared the elation, the first he’d felt in many spans and from beside him he heard a quiet “Yes!” from Padg. Now the chamber had a different kind of silence; not ominous, but warmed with a faint hope of their escape.
It was the kind of silence, Tali decided, that she enjoyed. It was not, however, long-lived.
“I declare this council session adjourned! Take them away!” the Stone-speaker commanded.
Dun, Padg, and Tali were bundled back toward their cells. Padg couldn’t resist a comment. “Well, Tali, if your plan was to make the Council unspeakably angry, I’d say part one was working. What happens in part two?”
The comment earned him a growl from Tali and a poke in the ribs from his guard. Padg considered it worth it; he hadn’t felt so cheerful in spans.
They were in their cells only briefly before Tuf arrived. “I must take you to Skarn. Come now.”
In Skarn’s chamber, when they arrived, Dun could hear the shuffle of feet. Skarn was pacing. It seemed that the impact of Tali’s performance had rippled throughout the Stone-folk in quick time. When he spoke his voice was taut. “Tell me what you know.”
“No.” Tali was quiet and defiant.
A crack that echoed around the chamber was followed by a half whimper from Tali. Dun felt sick; Padg felt incensed; both stood.
“Sit down!” Skarn barked. No one moved.
“Sit,” Tali said gently. Then she turned to Skarn. “Really, as a civilized folk, is that the best you can do?”
“I could have your two friends tortured until you do tell me.”
“We both know that’s desperation talking. Currently, you’re planning on executing the lot of us. What exactly have we got to lose?” she said. “Here’s how it’s going to work. You are going to tell your masters that we will be taken back to where we were found, and we will lead you from there. Any more violence or threats of violence—we don’t go. Any sense of us being tricked—we don’t go. We are civilized folk, you are civilized folk. Let’s behave that way.”
“Tuf!” Skarn shouted. “Take them back to their cells.”
It didn’t take long before they got a response to Tali’s bold move. A deputation arrived in the corridor. It consisted of Lords and Dukes and various hangers-on, judging by the fuss and bustle. Tuf explained as he opened Dun and Padg’s cell.
“You are to take Lord Schist and a deputation from each tribe to show them whatever it is you claim to have found. If this turns out to be a trick, then you will be thrown back in the cells immediately and you will return to the next council session for sentencing.”
“Seems fair enough,” Padg said.
“There is a palace guard cohort to lead us to where you were found. Everyone follow their instructions carefully; we are going somewhere uncharted and dangerous. We wish to keep everyone safe. Does anyone have any questions?” Tuf said.
Silence was his answer.
“Then let us go.”
Dun realized he was suppressing excitement. This was the first opportunity they had to experience some of the Stone-folk’s homeland. Prior to that point, the extent of their range had been cells and council chamber, which wasn’t far on balance, and the small part of forgotten territory they were returning to. They climbed a helical staircase, and Dun couldn’t help but marvel at the eons of craft that had gone into making it. Every piece carved from solid rock, so the legends of the Stone-folk seemed to say. It was an awesome achievement.
They passed through lanes of homes, where Dun could hear the flurry and blather of everyday life: the shouting of cubs, the shouting of mothers after their cubs, the aroma of some kind of sweet-smelling powder accompanied by an odd, stone-scraping noise. They climbed over a bridge that arched sharply upward as they walked it. Beneath the bridge, he could hear the ding of metal on rock face. Was it mining? Carving? They crossed a space that Dun’s air-sense told him was pretty large, seemingly packed with noises and smells that resolved themselves into a market. Dun listened hard to try to make out what was being sold. He tried to make out the smells of the food, all of which smelled much more palatable than the fare they’d been offered since being there. They passed schools of cubs echoing a list from a teacher, a family arguing, soldiers being drilled, and an eerie stone-clomping sound; some kind of work bashing stones together? Dun couldn’t even guess.
Slowly, the signs of civilization dwindled to just the faint moan of air movement through distant passages. The smells faded from life to staleness, abandonment. The passages slowly leveled, then eased downward as they went on, and Dun’s sense of direction was told him these passages were more curving too, as if they were moving in some huge arc. He imagined them as a stylus inscribing the tail of some serpentine, mythical beast. If it was a creature of stories, then its tail was forked. There were many choices of passage as they continued deeper into the dark reaches of the Stone-lanes. Sometimes the guards stopped and conferred. This really wasn’t somewhere they came often, Dun thought. After much deciding and backtracking they reached another set of stone stairs, wide and straight this time. Dun felt dust shushing under his feet and listened to the hushed chatter of the party and the sound of fingers being run across stone, as they realized the walls on either side of them were intricately carved.
“Please don’t touch the carvings,” Tuf said. “They may hide traps or triggers for things we have not yet investigated. Stay close and try to remember how dangerous this place is.” He sounded tense.
The staircase was long and massive and it took a good deal of careful time to get the party even halfway down.
Then Tuf began again, “Now we will need to lead everyone one at a time across this last landing. It is very important you follow your guide closely; there is a trap here and it is dangerous. Follow my instructions and everyone will be safe.”
So the nobles and the hangers-on were led across the landing one by one and eventually Tali, Padg, and Dun. Dun instinctively felt his throat tighten, and he could remember the sinister smell in his nose from last time they were here.
Once they had reached the bottom of the stairs, Tuf spoke to them, “We have arrived. Lead us to this place you have found.”
So with a guard holding each of them, to prevent escape, they returned to the breach in the wall and the huge wall carving beyond it was just how they’d left it. Tali and Dun just had time to remind themselves of the strange shapes and the story they might tell before the quiet cold voice of Lord Schist’s advisor, Obsidian, spoke out, “Lead me, Bridge-folk, to where you strayed. What did you find, I wonder?”
They led him to the stone face with the series of carvings. They heard the hiss of his old fingers, running the grooves and edges of the stone. He muttered under his breath, but his quiet, steely voice meant it was hard to make anything out at all. Dun thought he heard him say, “Can’t be...” or another word that might have been “fakery,” but he was too distracted to tell. Now he was here at the carvings again, he knew there was something the shapes should be telling him. Something very important he had all the facts to piece together, but couldn’t. It was something about that recurring motif, the odd curved shape, and the two figures on it. He needed to talk to the others about it, share their ideas, but his thoughts were disturbed by Obsidian’s call across the chamber. Even Obsidian shouting was oddly quiet.
“Where is that historian? What’s he called? Gneiss? Come here. And a carver. Lord Marble, who is Master Carver now after Tuck-pointer’s death?”
“That would be Bolster, wise Obsidian.”
“Is he here?”
“Yes...”
“Then send him forth. Quickly now.”
They came to the wall too. This time, some of the thoughts and conference were loud enough to hear.
“No, it is genuine. Feel the quality of the grain, the chisel strokes, firm, even, smooth.”
“Countless eons old, before the Stone annals of our time.”
“Do you know what it depicts?” It was Obsidian’s voice this time.
“We would need more time to study.”
“You have a suspicion?” the historian asked.
“There is a possible...” Obsidian said, almost to himself. Then aloud to the chamber, he said, “Lords all, we must leave now. Guards, take the prisoners and have their sentence carried out.”
“But Counselor Obsidian, surely Lord Schist must be present for a sentence to be passed?”
“Take them and execute them!”
“It will take a little time to prepare the Stone Maw.”
“Do it as fast as you can. Go! Now!”
