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Without thinking, Hubley kicked hard in the darkness at the thing that grabbed her. Her heel ground against flesh and bone.
A hand almost as cold and hard as a Dwarf’s clamped across her face. “None o’ that, missy,” hissed a voice even icier than the hand. “I don’ wanna hurt ya.”
Having seen just enough of their attackers to know they were only sissit, she kicked him again, harder this time, and cracked her elbow against his stony gut. Although she wasn’t quite able to squirm free, the sissit’s grip loosened.
“Avender, help!” she called, hoping the current hadn’t swept him away.
Something hard smashed against the side of her head. Pain worse than anything she had ever imagined flashed from her skull to her toes. Dimly she felt the sissit catch her as she went limp, and sling her across his shoulder.
“What about the one I killed?” rasped another voice. “What if he wakes up?”
“He can’t wake up if ya killed him, ya geep,” answered the sissit carrying Hubley.
“That’s right, ya killed him, Obo,” said a third.
“But what if there’s more?” whined the one called Obo.
“We’d o’ heard ‘em by now if there was,” answered the first.
“Can we eat this one?” Obo pleaded. “I’m hungry.”
“No.” The first sissit’s voice spat through the dark like a snapping goose. “Back to camp. We’ll have our fun when we got more time.”
“Right, Corns,” the second agreed. “It’s just like the boss said. Ship’s gotta come t’ the light, with humans on ‘em, an’ this is the place t’ catch ‘em. Too bad the river took the big ‘un, but at least we got yours.”
Somehow Hubley managed not to pass out as the sissit splashed across the stream. Her head throbbed; she felt almost too weak to breathe. Briefly the creatures debated who would carry her, before she ended up dangling like a doll from the arm of a much larger and fatter sissit than the one who had captured her. Her head lolled and her feet dragged on the tunnel floor, which sent fresh waves of nausea rolling over her. The sissit had said Avender was dead, but maybe if Hubley did something she could save him. She was a magician, after all. But she had to act quickly. All that cold water would drown him if she didn’t do whatever it was she was supposed to do soon. She pictured herself sliding out from under the sissit’s doughy arm and creeping back to the stream. Her mother would be there, and together they would find Avender, and everything would be fine.
She came fully awake to the slap of the sissits’ soft, fat feet against the stone. The clothes on the one carrying her smelled like laundry that had been left wet and unwashed for a month; what was underneath smelled even worse. In the thin light that trickled back from the sissit in the front, she saw the one carrying her was the last in line. She had no idea how far they had come from the stream, but knew she had to get back. Even if Avender couldn’t help her, her mother and Mims were somewhere close on the Backford Way.
Her head throbbed again as she pushed against the sissit’s heavy arm. Her throat thickened, and she lay back down.
“Corns.” The sissit carrying her stopped in the middle of the path. “The human’s movin’.”
“Put her down, then, ya cob. Let her do her own walkin’.”
“That’s right. Let her walk.”
The sissit carrying Hubley set her on the ground. Her head still throbbed, and her legs weren’t strong enough for sitting, let alone standing up and walking. With her back to the tunnel wall, she regarded the sissit who had captured her for the first time.
The one who’d been carrying her was the biggest. An immense, fat creature, he stood taller and wider than Redburr in human form. Rather than looking like a shaggy bear, however, he looked more like a two-legged pig. Not a single hair glossed the pale dome of his head, which was covered with fresh cuts and old scabs, purple bumps and bruises. His great, flat nose took up half his face, a pair of tiny eyes set close above. Without the benefit of eyebrows or even much of a forehead, those eyes looked like a pair of pale buttons glued to a fat man’s belly. Arms as long as his legs hung nearly to the ground, the fingers on his hands turned back instead of in toward his tree-thick thighs. One broken tusk curling up along the side of his mouth gave him an oddly thoughtful air.
His fellows were different. One of them had eyes set slantwise across his face, above and beside his nose, and two right hands. The one called Corns carried a small candle-lantern, the holes in the lantern’s sides as oddly-spaced and jagged as the holes an idle child might poke in a piece of paper with a penknife. Odd sprays of light shone across his bony body, which was as different from the two fat sissit as a string bean from a pair of pumpkins. His knees and elbows stood out from his arms and legs as thick as knots on a piece of string.
“Here.” Corns came back down the path, his lantern swinging from a gnarled hand. His toes looked even worse. “Yer walkin’ now, see? No more shirkin’. Even cows walks t’ the slaughterhouse.”
“That’s right.” The one with two right hands nodded his head. Given the arrangement of his eyes and her own wooziness, Hubley wasn’t exactly sure whether he was agreeing or disagreeing with the leader. Either way, it made her dizzy just looking at him.
“Wish I had a cow,” said the large sissit.
“You are a cow.”
As he spoke, Corns grabbed Hubley and pulled her sharply to her feet. His grip was hard and dry as bone, much different from the large sissit’s moist, spongy hands.
Her head spun. After a couple of wobbly steps she would have sat down again had Corns not still had hold of her arm.
“None o’ that, missy. I’ll knock yer head again, if ya don’t do what I say.” Corns raised his fist menacingly. Up close it looked more like a misshapen mace than a hand.
Hubley swallowed and made an effort to stand straight. She had already made up her mind what she was going to do. Her head still ached, but she found it was starting to clear. When it did, she knew which spell she was going to cast. One she had known for years. Fooling a bunch of stupid sissit wouldn’t be hard at all.
Surprisingly, she wasn’t afraid. The sissit were almost comic, creatures out of one of Hern’s bedtime tales. Hubley had never taken those stories seriously, not even the ones where they ate careless children, because Hubley knew she wasn’t like other children. Or most adults, either.
They set off again down the passage, Hubley walking between Righty, as she decided to call him, and the one she guessed was Obo. Corns still led the way. Sparks of light fluttered like moths across the rock walls from the swinging lantern. Though her head still hurt terribly, Hubley had recovered enough so she could walk without too much weaving back and forth.
When she thought she had recovered enough to run, she whispered her spell.
“Make me dark as caves at night,
Keep me from the sissits’ sight.”
She stepped to one side. Righty lumbered past her before he noticed the change.
“Hey?” The awkward sissit stopped in the middle of the passage and scratched his head with both right hands. “Where’d she go?”
“What d’you mean, where’d she go?” Glaring at his companions’ stupidity, Corns turned around.
“Don’t blame me,” said the giant. “I didn’ touch her.”
He might have, though, as Hubley scooted past him along the side of the wall. Obo was wide, but not so wide that he took up the entire tunnel, no matter how much he stooped.
Past the sissit, Hubley’s footsteps echoed loudly off the walls as she raced up the passage.
“What’s that!” Corns’s voice rattled along the tunnel like an avalanche of marbles.
“What’s what?” asked Righty.
“I don’ see nothin’,” grumbled the giant.
“She’s gone ‘visible! Quick! We gotta catch her! If she gets back t’ the ship, the Boss’ll have our skins for boots!”
“I still don’ see nothin’.”
Hubley ran as fast as she could but found she couldn’t run very far. Her head hurt worse than ever, and she soon caught a stitch in her side. Looking back over her shoulder, she found the three sissit already in pursuit. Corns, especially, was flying down the tunnel. Like a spider missing half its legs, he scrabbled along on all fours, running high up the side of the outer wall every time he rounded a turn, the lantern rattling as he carried it between his teeth like a dog.
Shrinking down to the floor of the tunnel, Hubley hoped they would pass her by. Normally no one ever found her when she turned invisible. But things were different here in the Stoneways. With no place else to go, the sissit knew she couldn’t be anywhere but ahead of them. Unless they ran right past her. Then she might actually have a chance to get away.
Corns, however, had already figured that out. Stopping his reckless rush, he called back to his fellows, “Righty. You take the right side of the tunnel. Obo, you go left. Whatever ya do, don’ let her get past ya.” A thin smile creased his face until his cheeks looked as knobby as his knees. “I’ll take the middle. And I’m gonna turn out the light, too. Let’s see how the little lady does in the dark.”
The sissit’s cheeks bulged as he blew out the candle in the lamp. The tunnel dipped back into darkness. Hubley, huddled as small as she could on one side of the passage, tried not to breath. She couldn’t think of a single spell that would help. Most would only give her away. What she really needed was the traveling spell. How many times had she heard her mother say the ability to travel was the best thing about magic? Well, that was certainly true now. It would serve her parents right if she ended up in some sissit’s stew pot.
Bare feet scuffed close by. A nose sniffed. Screwing her eyes tight, Hubley tried to remember how she had made the spell that had taken her to Malmoret. She had been scared then, and she was scared now. But that wasn’t the trick. She had been asleep then, asleep and dreaming of the place she would rather have been. If that was the secret, she was never going to be able to use it now. No way was she going to fall asleep with three ugly sissit hunting for her in a pitch-black tunnel.
“Gotcha!”
Knobbed fingers tightened around her shoulder. The sissit jerked Hubley roughly to her feet. “Little witch.” Cold spit spattered her face. The smell of spoiled fish lingered on Corns’s clammy breath. “No more tricks.”
Blinding light burst behind her eyes as the sissit’s clublike fist smashed against her cheek. Her jaw stung; warm blood trickled down her chin.
“Any more witchin’ from you and you’ll get a lot worse than that. Unnerstand?”
“Yes.”
“How’d she do that?” Obo’s voice sounded querulously from the air above her head. “How’d she disappear?”
Steel and flint cracked in the darkness as Corns struck a light. A brief flame arced evilly below his face as he used his glowing tinder to relight the lantern. “With a spell, dummy. How d’ya think?”
“Only big humans do magic. Ain’t that right?” Obo’s tiny eyes squeezed even smaller as he tried to figure things out.
“Guess that’s diff’rent, now. This one ain’t full grown.”
“That’s right. Not full grown,” Righty agreed.
“Here. Gimme your belt.”
The knobby sissit reached toward his larger companion.
“What’s gonna hold up my pants?”
“Yer hand. Come on, we’re late getting’ back already.”
“That’s right. Don’ wanna be late. Might miss grub.” The giant untied the rope around his waist and handed it to Corns. His pants, stretched up and over the widest part of his belly, looked in no danger of falling down. All the same, he gripped the top firmly.
“You got a belt,” he complained. “Ya coulda used yours.”
“Mine ain’t big enough.”
Fashioning a quick noose, the sissit looped the rope around Hubley’s neck and jerked it tight.
“Ow.” The girl loosened the greasy coil with her hand.
Grinning, Corns tried to pull the knot tight once more, but Hubley stopped him by keeping her hand inside the noose.
“Let’s see you try and get away now, missy,” he said with a nasty grin.
Hubley had half a mind to turn the rope into a snake, just to see the look on the creature’s ugly face. Only her jaw still ached, and the cuts on her cheek stung every time she spoke. She’d get him later, when she had a better chance. Plum had taught her an interesting spell once. Her mother had sent her to her room for an entire day the last time she used it, but this time there would be no objection at all.
With Corns leading the prisoner at the end of her leash, the party continued on. Hubley soon noticed that, whenever they encountered a branch in the road, the sissit chose the one that led down. No longer was she headed toward the surface. Apparently the secret camp the sissit kept mentioning was closer to the bottom of the world than it was to the top.
Corns kept the pace brisk. Righty trudged along easily enough behind them, but the giant often found the going tough, especially when the roof of the tunnel dipped. Though he slouched, and spent most of the time leaning on his knuckles, he still knocked his head against every uneven spot in the ceiling. Each time that happened he grunted and winced, his tiny eyes nearly disappearing inside his enormous face. Hubley started cringing herself at each hollow knock on the stone behind her.
By the time they came to another stream, Hubley had started to believe Avender really had been killed. Otherwise, she was sure he would have caught up with them long before. And where were her mother and Mims? The fact that no one had rescued her yet scared her more than all Corns’s threats and blows. Despite appearances, the sissit might not be as pathetic as they seemed.
Following the water upstream, they reached an apparent dead end. A small waterfall poured loudly out of the rock into a shallow pool. Moisture glistened on the cavern walls. Hubley wondered if they had come here to rest before continuing on.
Instead of stopping, Corns walked straight into the small cascade. Stumbling a bit as she tried to keep from being soaked, Hubley followed at the end of the rope. Beyond the curtaining water another small tunnel narrowed down into the darkness. The smell of wet sissit filled the cramped space as the last two members of the party squeezed into the passage. Obo squirmed along on his belly as the way became so tight that even Hubley had to crawl. The loop of rope hung slack between her and Corns, who had gone back to creeping on all fours like a spider, knotty elbows and knees rising above his skinny back.
He stopped before a large rock that blocked the way. Using his swollen knuckles as a knocker, he rapped on the stone. One, two, three. One, two, three. It wasn’t a complicated signal.
There was no immediate answer. Righty crowded behind Hubley, his flesh as cold and flabby as Obo’s, who huffed and puffed as he squeezed through the passage behind them.
Rocks scraped. The blocking stone slid slightly to the side, exposing a dark opening above one corner. A pale, two-fingered hand wiggled through the gap to get a better grip on the rock. From the other side a voice barked orders; with a great deal of grunting and scraping, the stone was pushed aside.
As soon as she entered the new cave, Hubley started coughing. Thin smoke from an oil lamp on the far wall filmed the air. Its hissing light revealed half a dozen figures slumped around the low room, and, standing in front of a hole in the floor, a sissit whom Hubley almost mistook for human. Beneath a felt cap, dark hair dangled over his pale forehead. His eyes were both in the right place, and his nose, though large, was not horribly so. A few black teeth lurked behind his flabby lips, the lower of which glistened like the walls in the cave outside. If not for his hands, which boasted a pair of thumbs and four fingers between them, Hubley might even have been fooled.
“It’s about time, Corns.”
The knobby lieutenant ducked as his dark-haired chief raised a hand to strike him. The blow was checked, however, as he caught sight of Hubley. The chief’s watery eyes widened. Like his fellows, he lacked eyelashes or brows, despite the hair on his head.
“What’s this? A human? You found a human? An’ a female, too. I don’ believe it. Did my ship come in?”
“Yup. It’s tied up on the Lamp jus’ like ya said. Two humans on it, an’ we caught ‘em at the river.” Corns, no longer fearful of being struck, pulled Hubley forward by the rope. “We had to kill th’ other, though.”
“Why didn’t you bring it back so we could eat it?”
“We lost it in the water. Obo hit it too hard. But this one oughta taste just fine. It’s young and tender.”
“That’s right. Young and tender.” Pushing into the crowded room, Righty pinched the prisoner with one of his right hands.
Hubley recoiled, but not before stamping hard on one of the sissit’s broad, flat feet. Laughter like strangled hiccups popped out among the others.
“Yeah,” said the chief. “It is young and tender. But ya shoulda brought the dead one. We coulda eaten it first. This one’ll have t’ squeal some before there’s any chewin’.”
Reaching for his cap, the chief bowed to his prisoner. Only, instead of lifting his hat in salutation, he clapped it firmly to his head.
“Welcome, human,” he said. “I’m Locks. Before we eat ya, please be my guest. And don’ worry, there’s plenty o’ fish, so we prob’ly won’ be eatin’ ya for a while.”
Hubley didn’t find this the most welcoming invitation she had ever received. All the same, she remained less terrified than she might have been, despite the sting of Corns’ blow on her cheek. There was something hapless about the sissit, for all their fierce hunger. And she still had a trick or two up her sleeve before she was really going to start worrying about the stew pot.
“It needs watchin’, that one.” Corns nodded in Hubley’s direction. “It knows magic.”
Locks’s face twisted like kneaded dough. “Magic? It’s not old enough to know magic.”
“That’s right. That’s what we thought.” Righty’s head bobbed up and down.
“She went away an’ we couldn’ see her at all.” Obo popped through the entrance like a cork pushed into a bottle, then single-handedly rolled the stone gate back into place.
“I don’t believe it,” said Locks. “None o’ you was payin’ attention. She’s not big enough to cast no spells. Are ya?”
The chief turned on Hubley with a savage eye.
“I can too do magic,” she said before she had time to think better of it.
“Ya turned invisible?”
Locks’s tone suggested he might be interested in a demonstration, but Corns didn’t like the idea at all.
“Don’ let her do it again!” The gnarled sissit sprang forward, pulling the noose tight around Hubley’s neck at the same time. “She almost got away, first time she tried that trick.”
“What else ya know how t’ do?” Locks cocked his head sideways, his watery eyes glittering slyly.
“Not much.” Something in the chief sissit’s look made Hubley more cautious. “Adults don’t trust children with magic, you know. I only know a few spells.”
“Show me.”
Hubley glanced around the room. She needed to show them the simplest conjuring she knew, the sort of magic her father had taught her as soon as she could speak. Anything more powerful would only make them warier of what she might be able to do. Spotting a ratty knapsack lying on the floor, she pointed a finger at it and said, “Fly.”
The knapsack lifted off the floor. The sissit scrabbled as far away from it as they could. Waving her hand, Hubley made the pack float back and forth across the room before lowering it to the ground.
“Told ya,” said Corns.
“That’s right. He did.”
“I believed ya. I just wanted to test ya t’ make sure ya was tellin’ me the whole truth. Make sure ya know better’n t’ hold anythin’ back.” The chief nudged the knapsack with his toes. “Is it still goin’?”
Hubley ended the connection in her mind. “No.”
The bag toppled on its side. Satisfied the magic was gone, Locks gave it a second, more scornful kick, and turned back to his prize.
“Ya don’t scare me, human. As long as we got the front door blocked with that stone, there’s no way ya can escape, no matter how much ya disappear. I’ll keep my eyes on ya, but don’ go expectin’ anything special. Corns, what else ya find out there?”
“Nothin’.” The gangly sissit spat into the wide opening in the center of the floor.
“Any Stoneboys with the ship?”
“Nope. Jus’ the two humans we caught at the ford.”
“That’s right,” piped up Righty. “No Stoneboys.”
Apparently satisfied with this news, Locks nodded in approval. Corns and Righty slouched off to join their fellows, while Obo began scrounging through the refuse surrounding the hole in the floor. Finding nothing to eat other than a few glassy-eyed fish heads, he checked the fishing line tied to his nearest neighbor’s toe. Drawing it up through the hole, he found nothing there either, and turned plaintively to his chief.
“Can we eat the human soon?” he asked.
“No. I told ya, ya shoulda brought back the other one. I wanna ask her questions first.”
Sighing, Obo picked up one of the fish heads and swallowed it whole, bones and all, without even bothering to chew.
Locks picked up Hubley’s halter and led her off to the back of the cave. A ragged curtain separated a small alcove from the rest of the cavern; behind it Locks had furnished his private apartment with several dirty pillows, blankets, and a lamp as marks of his senior status. Hubley, noting the small things crawling among the folds of the blankets, demurred when he offered her a seat.
“I’ll sit then.” Grunting, the sissit settled on the nearest pillow. Vermin streamed out from under him. “No use both of us standin’.”
He poked at a plate on the floor. More insects scuttled off to safety. Dark brown stains coated the chipped dish, but there didn’t appear to be anything on it even a sissit might eat. Snuffling unhappily, he knocked it away.
“So,” he said, looking back up at his prisoner. “Where’d ya learn magic?”
Hubley, never having met anyone who didn’t know who her parents were, saw no reason not to answer the sissit’s question.
“From my parents.”
“Yer parents are magicians? Which ones? Cannapt? Weidel?”
“My father’s Reiffen and my mother’s Ferris.”
“The Wizardsbane? The one who killed the White an’ Black Wizards?”
“Uh-huh.” Hubley nodded proudly. All her life she had been accustomed to people behaving especially nicely towards her once they learned she was the magicians’ daughter. Maybe the sissit would be the same.
Locks’s eyes nearly disappeared into his doughy cheeks as he looked at his prisoner suspiciously.
“An’ ya came down here without ‘em? Why’d ya do a fool thing like that?”
“I’m meeting my mother.”
“Where?”
“Along the Backford Way.”
“Yer ma lives here in the Stoneways?”
“No.”
“So why ya meetin’ her here?”
Hubley shrugged. Her parents’ problems were none of the sissit’s business.
“Don’t ya live with her?” Locks went on.
“Not right now.”
“I thought all ya humans stayed with yer dams till ya was full-growed. Maybe yer getting’ smart now an’ doin’ it our way. No sense in havin’ extra mouths t’ feed when brats can rummage fine on their own. Well, it’s yer tough luck, then, runnin’ in t’ me.”
Hubley almost blurted out that her mother was somewhere nearby and sure to find her, then decided it might be better to keep the sissit in the dark. That way he’d be unprepared when her mother and Mims finally showed up.
“Ya fly th’ airship ya come in yerself?” he asked.
“No. Avender flew it.”
“Avender? Who’s Avender?”
“The man your friends killed.”
“Bet ya miss him now.” Licking his fingers, the sissit rubbed them across the crusted plate, then sucked them thoughtfully. “But don’t worry. I’m not gonna let the boys eat ya, least not till ya show me how t’ fly yer ship. Ya do know how t’ fly it, don’t ya?”
Certain that, if she didn’t say yes, she might not last long enough for her mother to arrive, Hubley nodded. The more the sissit chief thought Hubley could teach him, the longer she’d keep out of his gang’s stewpot.
Which gave Hubley an idea.
“I can teach you magic, too, if you want.”
The sissit’s eyes gleamed under hairless lids.
“Yer a smart little missy, ain’t ya. I see the two of us’re gonna get along like bats an’ bugs.”
Bounding up from the bed, he seized Hubley by the hand and threw back the curtain that cut off his part of the cave. “This ain’t food!” he called out loudly to his lolling troop, dragging his captive before him. “You all get that? Anyone touches her, it’s straight to the stewpot for ya.”
Scowls answered Locks’s fresh order. Obo, another fish head poised at his slobbery chin, said, “We ain’t got no stewpot, boss.”
“That’s right,” his droop-eyed companion agreed. “Can’t go into a stewpot if we ain’t got one.”
“Quiet, both o’ ya.” Locks glared at them. “Ya know what I mean. This one’s goin’ t’ teach me everythin’ she knows. With a ship an’ my own magician, I’ll be king o’ the Stoneways by the time we get back north. Ol’ Leadlegs ain’t gonna be able to touch us, ya hear?”
“Sure, boss.” Corns squatted near the fishing hole, his bulging knees nearly as large as his head. “But it’s gonna be hard, sittin’ here wi’ such a tender piece o’ veal just lyin’ there beggin’ for it. How’s about ya give us a little taste, jus’ so we knows what we’re missin’.”
“No tastin’. And no lickin’ neither.” Locks stared hard at Corns till the bony sissit looked away. “Go back to your fishin’. I’ll take care o’ the prisoner.”
Just how Locks intended to take care of her, Hubley never learned. Instead a loud explosion rocked the cave, filling the air with bits of flying rock. Several hit Hubley on her shoulder and side, the ones that missed ricocheting off the walls around her. Behind the splintered stone three figures burst into the room, the first short and the second two tall. Dwarf lamps pierced the oily gloom.
“Findle!” she cried in joy and surprise, recognizing the Dwarf at once. And was one of the two men Avender?
“Stoneboys!” warned Locks. “Get ‘em, Obo!”
Tossing aside his fish heads, the giant sissit stepped in front of the Dwarf. With one upward stroke, Findle ran his blade deep into the creature’s chest. Ignoring the stroke, Obo picked Findle up in a massive hand and tossed him against the wall. Avender and the other human advanced cautiously, ducking under and around the giant’s sweeping attempts to grab them.
Two other sissit seized their clubs and attacked the Dwarf before he could rise. The stranger rushed to Findle’s aid. Unlike Obo, regular sissit were no match for either Dwarf or man, who cut them down immediately.
“There’s no fightin’ Stoneboys!” shouted Locks. Grabbing Hubley around the waist, he carried her to the hole in the floor. “Everybody out the back door. Obo, hold ‘em as long as ya can!”
Like a farmer stuffing a kitten into a sack, the chief thrust Hubley down the well. Scrabbling at the stone, she plunged into darkness. It wasn’t fair! Avender and Findle had been about to rescue her! And where was her mother?
The stone around her disappeared, and she fell through empty air. With a shock that almost knocked the wind from her, she hit water. Bubbles foamed in the gripping cold. Frantically she kicked out with her legs and clawed for the surface, until something heavy fell on top of her and drove her deeper. She thought she was going to die then, her lungs bursting, the water clutching coldly at her clothes.