Jinx On The Divide (27 page)

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He leaned his head over the shaft and listened. Sinistroms had very sharp hearing, and after some concentrated ear work, he reckoned he could hear something breathing. He took a deep breath and shouted, "Oy! Are you in charge of the elevator?"

There was a sudden snort, as though whatever it was had just woken up. Then there was some rustling and grunting, and the sound of something clearing its throat. Then whatever-it-was yelled, "Going up!"

After a moment or two something metal started to clank its way upward, accompanied by a cloud of rust particles and a lot of screeching.

When the cage arrived, it looked as though it had been designed by whoever had dreamed up the library -- in other words, it might have designed itself if that were possible. There were no right angles anywhere, and the threads of the mesh sides seemed to cross one another at random. Grimspite stepped into it rather tentatively, and the gate snapped shut behind him like a trap. On closer inspection, the grille did look like teeth -- those curved needle-thin spikes that belong to very deep-sea fish. The cage started to descend, and everything became incredibly dark.

The dark didn't usually bother Grimspite. He had very good night vision -- as long as there was
some
light. There didn't seem to be any at all down here. He felt the walls closing in on him. It was the way he used to feel when he'd been sent back into his pebble. Crushed. He didn't like this. He

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didn't like it one bit. Every second was taking a minute, and every minute was taking an hour. The cage didn't descend at an even rate, either -- it jerked and wobbled and speeded up and slowed down for no apparent reason. He began to feel a bit seasick.

After an eternity, the absolute black lightened to gray. Gradually, the light increased until the cage shuddered to a halt at the bottom of the shaft. Three flaming torches were fixed to the rock wall, throwing a sickly yellow light partway down two tunnels. The nasty fish-mouth gate opened, and Grimspite jumped out of the cage and onto solid rock, and looked around.

The creature that confronted him was something he'd never actually seen before, although he'd heard about them. It was huge. It was mean. It was a troggle -- he'd heard it called a troll in the other world. It sat there and stared at him with its little ice-blue eyes, the chain that worked the elevator looped over its shoulder. It obviously hauled the cage up and down all by itself, for there was a faint sheen of sweat on its skin. It would hate the daylight, so a career as an elevator operator down here was ideal.

"Hello," said Grimspite, unsure how to tackle this.

The troggle grunted. Its lips hardly moved, although its yellowish tusks quivered slightly. It had a square flatfish snout, and big pointed ears that stuck out at an angle. Its hair was thick and a dull brownish-gray, like old rope, and it had two knitting needles stuck behind one ear. It had the most muscular body Grimspite had ever seen on a two-legged being, which may have been why it didn't seem bothered by the sight of a sinistrom.

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[Image: Snot.]

It really is awfully ugly,
thought Grimspite -- and then he felt guilty, for he knew he wasn't exactly the epitome of beauty himself. He tried the lightweight approach. "Nice elevator," he said.

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"Snot," said the troggle.

"I suppose it
is
a little rusty," conceded Grimspite. "But you handle it very well."

"My
name's
Snot," said the troggle. "Or Mr. Snot, if I don't like you. What's yours?"

"Grimspite," said Grimspite.

"Bad luck," said Snot.

"Sorry?"

"Having a horrid name like Grimspite."

Grimspite decided not to pursue the matter. "Had many visitors today?" he asked.

Snot held up two fingers.

"And which way did they go?"

The troggle pointed to the right-hand tunnel.

"Thanks." Grimspite seized one of the torches in his mouth, and headed off into the gloom.

He came to the end of that tunnel fairly quickly, which was depressing, so he went back. The troggle was leaning against the elevator shaft, knitting. Grimspite had intended to slip into the other tunnel as surreptitiously as possible, but Snot looked up and saw him.

"That's nice," said Grimspite, pointing to whatever it was the creature was making.

The troggle held it up. It was a gauntlet. He wasn't knitting with wool at all -- he was using a ball of wire.

"Is it for you?" asked Grimspite, edging around so he could get to the second tunnel.

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The troggle shook its head.

"Who's it for, then?" asked Grimspite. Nearly there. "Squill's daughter. For training fire-breathers."

"Fire-breathers don't bite."

"The females do."

Grimspite couldn't think of anything further to say, but he was in the right place now, so he said good-bye and trotted off down the second tunnel. At one point the tunnel forked, but the new passageway looked like a natural feature of a cave system, and Grimspite wondered if it came out somewhere else entirely. He continued along in his original direction.

He saw the flickering of the other torch as he rounded a bend. It occurred to him that the owner of the torch would be able to see
his
torch as well, which kind of lost him the element of surprise. He felt like a complete idiot. He should have known better, he really should. He stopped, wondering what to do.

"You may as well keep on coming, now that you're here," said Snakeweed's voice. "I've got you covered with my wand, whoever you are. Turn tail and flee, and I won't answer for the consequences."

Grimspite had no option. If Snakeweed used his wand in this confined space, there really would be an avalanche. He was surprised Snakeweed hadn't realized this. He turned the corner and stepped into the light. The tunnel widened out into a cave here, but it was a dead end. The cave was full of

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wooden boxes, all labeled, and the walls were decorated with pictures painted directly onto the rock.

"Grimspite," said Snakeweed. "Well, well."

"Hello, Snakeweed," said Grimspite, laying down his torch. "The spinning-wheel hex didn't last, then."

"Someone used a powerword," said Snakeweed.

Grimspite felt depressed all over again. "Me," he said.

"You?
That was remarkably irresponsible of you, and remarkably lucky for me."

Grimspite decided to change the subject as quickly as possible. He glanced around. "So what's all the secrecy about?" he said.

Snakeweed smiled. "This," he said, and opened one of the boxes.

At first, Grimspite didn't understand. The box was full of artifacts -- knives, crossbows, cooking pots, belts, jewelry, jackets, hats. It took him a moment to notice that the clothing was multicolored. Then it took another moment or two for him to register how strange this was. Grimspite had spent a whole year in the other world, so he'd grown used to people wearing all the colors of the rainbow if they wanted to. But in this world, the tangle-folk wore only green, the ragamuckies brown, the japegrins purple, the lickits white, the diggelucks gray.... He sat back on his haunches, thinking.

"Curious, isn't it?" said Snakeweed. "Now look at the paintings."

Grimspite turned his attention to the rock walls. There

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were scenes of everyday life, depicted in bright lively colors --- hunting scenes, gathering scenes, dancing scenes. But the subjects weren't japegrins or lickits or tangle-folk -- they were a mixture of all of them. Some had red hair, some blond, brown, black ... and they all had pointed ears.

"I don't understand," said Grimspite.

"Neither did I, at first," said Snakeweed. "I've spent the whole night down here, thinking about it. At least, I assume I have -- is it day yet?"

"Midmorning," said Grimspite. "So what was your conclusion?"

"That this cave system was home to a people who existed a long, long time ago. There's another tunnel, but it's fallen in. This cave would have been much easier to get to, in the past. All these boxes contain the things this society left behind. I think there must have been a big spitfire eruption, and they decided to leave -- as quickly as they could."

"I don't understand the necessity for all of Squill's secrecy."

Snakeweed laughed. "These people were the common ancestors of all of us -- well, not you, you're a shadow-beast. I mean the japegrins, the tangle-folk, the diggelucks -- we're all related."

And suddenly, Grimspite understood. "Wipes out japegrin superiority in one fell swoop, doesn't it?" he said. "If a ragamucky had the same great-great-whatever grandfather ..." He laughed. "How do you justify treating your

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distant cousin like trash? Oh, yes, I can see why Squill wanted to keep
this
secret. But what about you, Snakeweed? How are
you
going to use it? Are you going to bury it as well, so that japegrin dominance continues to get worse and worse until you -- well, you rule the world?"

Snakeweed coughed, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and blew his nose one-handed. He kept the wand pointing at Grimspite with the other. "Some rather interesting things have happened to me since I came out of my enchanted sleep," he said. "But I wouldn't expect a sinistrom to understand."

"Try me."

"I think I should probably just kill you."

"Funnily enough, I was thinking exactly the same thing."

"I'm the one with the wand," said Snakeweed.

"And I'm the one with the teeth," said Grimspite.

"And I'm the one with the pair of very sharp knitting needles," said Snot, appearing behind them. "I'm not having someone firing a wand down here -- whatever next? I'm going to send you both straight back up to the surface, where you belong, and the guard can deal with you. You don't have the faintest idea how to behave yourselves underground. I bet neither of you can even knit."

And before either Grimspite or Snakeweed could really take this in, the troggle had picked them both up, one under either arm, and was carrying them back toward the elevator shaft.

"More than my job's worth to have you two kill each

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other," said Snot. "Squill would have me tortured. He'd send me up to the surface and tie me up in the open air on a horrible sunny day, when there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Probably in the spring, when the gorsit's in flower. Ugh."

"Squill's resigned, Snot," said Snakeweed, twisting himself around and trying to reach his wand.

"Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?" said Snot, shifting Snakeweed slightly and flicking the wand away with his thumb. "And it's
Mr.
Snot to you now. Can't abide the spring. All that birdsong. All I want is a nice dark hole and a lot of gray. Lovely color, gray."

Grimspite was feeling very pleased with the way things had turned out. Once in the elevator cage, he would still have his teeth, but Snakeweed didn't have his wand anymore. The odds were definitely in his favor.

When they got to the bottom of the shaft, things didn't work out quite like that. Snot threw Snakeweed into the cage and shut the door. Then he dumped Grimspite on the floor, held him in place with his foot, got out his knitting needles, and proceeded to knit a muzzle with his ball of wire. He cast off with a sigh of satisfaction, severed the end of the wire with his tusk, pushed it onto Grimspite's snout, and twisted the trailing ends into a knot. Then he hobbled his legs together. After that, he opened the cage door again and dumped Grimspite inside. "That should take care of both of you," he said, looking pleased with himself. He looped the elevator cable over his shoulder and started to pull.

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Things got dark once more very quickly. Grimspite was feeling irritated with himself -- immobilized by a troggle. It was so demeaning. He dare not change into lickit form, because he would be the wrong shape for the muzzle and the hobbles, and they would cut into him.

"The last time we met," said Snakeweed, out of the gloom, "you told me you'd come to rip me apart. And then you didn't. Why?"

"I don't really like extreme violence anymore," said Grimspite. "On second thought, though, I'm prepared to make an exception in your case."

"And I don't like being ruthless anymore," said Snakeweed. "However, I'm prepared to make an exception in
your
case."

"You don't like being ruthless anymore?" said Grimspite sarcastically. "That's about as likely as a sinistrom losing its stink!"

"Or its interest in disemboweling things."

"There was a reason for that," said Grimspite. "I was separated from my pebble, and I got free will. I really am not the person I was."

"I'm not the same person, either," said Snakeweed. "And there's a reason for that, too. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the disemboweling, Grimspite -- based on the fact that you put me into an enchanted sleep in that castle, when you could have ripped me to shreds and hung my intestines from the curtain rod. Now I want you to listen to
me.
I may