Six Moon Dance (45 page)

When Ashes came in, they were still bent beside the fire, side by side, cross-legged and silent.

He regarded them narrowly. “Well?”

The first thing they needed, so Bane had decided, was information. “What’d you bring us here for?”

“You’re family,” said Ashes, hanging his jacket on a peg set into a tent pole. “You’ll want to be in on family business.”

“Don’t exactly see it that way,” said Bane, carefully expressionless. “Don’t see much great future here. Not exactly what you promised. No reason to have killed
her
, if this was all we did it for.”

“No women here,” Dyre added in sulky explanation. “No sex machines. No hot baths. No massage. I had a look at what they was roasting on the fires, walking over here, and it’s not food, it’s garbage. You promised us good stuff, all kinds of good stuff.”

“You had your good stuff with Marool,” said Ashes. “I promised you good things while you were with her, boys. I said, you get yourselves educated at House Genevois, and I’ll situate you at Mantelby Mansion. Well, you got situated there, one way or t’other, and you got good stuff, too, don’t say you didn’t.”

“A few days,” grated Bane. “And why her? Why not somebody we didn’t have to kill? Somebody we coulda stayed with?”

Ashes said angrily, “I told you why, boy. She needed killing and she’s the only one couldn’t smell you. That job’s over and that future’s gone a begging. You don’t want the good life any more than the rest of us do, but before we get it, first we got to clear the way! So, you’ve done the first part and killed one that needed killing.”

“We killed her cause you told us to!”

“Well, I’m your daddy. I got that right.”

“I been wanting to ask you, how come she couldn’t smell us?” asked Bane, eyes narrow.

“Dingle. She used it when she was a girl. Ruined her sense of smell.”

“Well, then, we’ll find us some other women used Dingle. She couldn’ta been the only one.”

Ashes sat down in the only chair the tent afforded, a folding affair of rawhide and curved sticks. “Well, not the only one, no, but women who use Dingle are mostly the ones too ugly to dowry for. Or they’re sterile. Or they’re crazy. Or all three. Once in a great while there’s one like Marool, but it’s rare.”

“There was our mama,” said Bane, watching his father narrowly. “Could she smell you?”

Ashes was momentarily silent. “Well, no. But her and Marool were the only ones I ever found.”

“But it just happened Marool was the one stole us away from you?”

“Right,” said Ashes, busying himself with his bootlaces. “We all three knew each other, me and Marool and your mama. And Marool was jealous of your mama having my babies. So, when your mama died, she stole you away. And she was goin’ to have a daughter for me, but she didn’t. But I found you, so it all turned out all right.”

“Maybe,” muttered Bane. “Maybe it did.”

“So what’s the family business?” asked Dyre.

“Why, boys, this whole world is our family business! It belongs to us! We was here first, and we’re going to take it back!” Ashes lay back in the chair and stared at his sons through the smoke of the fire. “We’re going to take it back, kill off all the timrats, kill off all the settler men, all those g’family men. We’ll keep the women. Some of them, anyhow. Whichever ones we can fix like we did Marool. We’re going to build a race of giants!”

“Is this all of you?” Bane asked, gesturing to indicate the camp. “All that’s left?”

Ashes stared into the fire. “No. There’s others. Bigger. Meaner. Sometimes they come to the edge of the light and we talk. They’re with us.”

“How come they don’t live here?”

Ashes made a peculiar face, a kind of chewing, as though trying to swallow something that wouldn’t go down. “They … they got changed in the pond. Really changed. They’re too big for camp, for one thing, and there’s nothing … nothing much we can talk to them about now. They’re like … only set on one thing.” He got up, started to speak, then thought better of whatever he’d been going to say. “Later,” he admonished. “We’ll get into all that stuff later.”

Bane shook his head, showing his teeth. He wasn’t going to let go. “So, how come you’ve waited all this time? It’d a been easier when there wasn’t so many settlers, wouldn’t it? It’d a been easier when they just first arrived. You shoulda done it then, killed the men, took the women, got your own daughters, like you planned. I mean, those, out there, they say you planned daughters, right?”

“We wanted daughters, sure, but I told you we couldn’t do it back then!” snarled Ashes. “We tried that. Grabbed a few girls outa their houses, took ‘em back in the hills, did ‘em there. We’d just get half done with ‘em, and they’d die! They’d turn blue, try to breathe, then they’d die. I told you, it’s the smell of that pond! Like it smothered ‘em. Took us a long time to figure out how to get around that. Mooly figured out about Dingle. You get on Dingle, it builds up a kind of … resistance to the smell. Dingle grows easy, but back then it only grew far back in the hills. We had to bring it near the cities, plant it there so we could get plenty of it, easy. Then we had to teach people to use it, Wasters and rebels and like that.

“But you get a woman on Dingle, she’ll abort, sure as anything. So, then Mooly had to find some other drug to counteract that effect. That took a long time, boys. That took a long, long time. We tried this and we tried that, over the years. Got to be legendary, we did, for stealing women, but we kept at it.

“So we did that, all of it, nice and slow, and we’ve got you. You’re the proof that it works. When we take over, we’ll take our time, do it right….”

“How you going to do that? Take over?”

Ashes leaned back in his chair, staring at the fire, looking at the boys, then past them, then back at the boys again. “Well, there’s a time coming. We can feel it. Kind of like a call in the bones. The mountains are gonna blow! Then the cities’ll fall, boys. Cities’ll fall. People, they’ll be out, running around in the streets. We’ll be there, waiting. There’s hot springs here and there, we’ll fill them with Dingle. Kill this one, take that one and drop her in a Dingle pot, kill this one, take that one to the Dingle, slow and easy. These folks, they got nothing like an army. Nothing like police. Just those Haggers, here, there, ever-where. But Crawly, he’s as good as a fortress. Webwings, he’s our lookout. Ear, he can hear a moth drop a day’s march away. Tongue, he can taste blood in the air. We’ll manage.”

“When you gonna do it?” asked Dyre.

Ashes looked out the one small window at the sky, pointed westward where four of the moons made a cluster low along the hills, with another one trailing close. “Soon, boy. My bones say soon. They’re all gathering. Real soon.”

“And when we take it over, everything, then we get what you promised, huh?” Bane asked.

“Then you get what was promised you and I get what was promised me, and we all get everything we want. And more.”

O
nsofruct and D’Jevier, together with five sturdy Haggers, waited for Madame outside the gates of Mantelby Mansion rather early on fiveday morning. They heard the carriage wheels approaching from down the hill, then saw the equipage as it rounded the nearest curve and came quickly toward them. Madame was not alone. She was accompanied by one veiled man without cockade and a family man known to the Hags by the cockade as Calvy g’Valdet. He leapt from the carriage and bowed deeply.

“Revered Hag,” he said. “It seems the Hags and the Men of Business are similarly motivated.”

“How did you find out about this, Family Man?” demanded Onsofruct, with a glare in Madame’s direction.

“Do not blame Madame,” said Calvy. “The steward here is Bin g’Kiffle’s son.”

“Of course,” murmured D’Jevier. “We should have remembered that.”

“There was a special meeting of the ECMOB, and after a good bit of talk that achieved nothing, they decided to send me to represent the Men of Business.”

“Why you, g’Valdet?” asked Onsofruct. “Are you now in good odor with your colleagues?”

“No, Ma’am,” he said. “Slab g’Tupoar nominated me. He said that Myrphee was too fat, Sym was too small, Slab himself was too lazy. Estif’s wife wouldn’t let him, and Bin bitches about everything. He said he didn’t much like me, but I got things done. And here I am.”

“Well, if your intention is to find out what happened to the Questioner, your interest is no less justified than ours, though I am surprised at the company you keep.”

“I have known Calvy for many years,” said Madame. “In my opinion, we need him and my well-trusted Simon to assist us in this exploration.”

Onsofruct said stiffly, “If you think it wise, we will not obstruct you. I suggest, however, that the Family Man and Simon replace two of our Haggers rather than increasing our total number.”

“Is the number important?” asked Calvy.

“Not if you are both excellent swimmers,” remarked D’Jevier, rather frostily. “Since Timmys are no doubt involved in this disappearance, we have cast about in memory and fable and find many references to subterranean waters—at least rivers, perhaps even lakes. We are carrying an inflatable boat that holds a maximum of eight.”

Calvy laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that! By all means, let us replace two of your Haggers.”

There was a momentary hesitation among them, an unspoken acknowledgment that they had not agreed upon a leader for their expedition.

Onsofruct ran her fingers down the seams of her unaccustomed trousers and said, “Madame? D’Jevier and I have seldom been outside the Panhagion since we were children. Do you have experience of this kind of thing? If so, we would be pleased to follow you.”

Madame was herself dressed appropriately for the occasion in heavy trousers and shirt, with stout boots on her feet. She regarded the Hags with some diffidence, saying, “I can’t claim to expertise, though a small group of friends and I have gone on lengthy cave hikes during the summers, exploring some of the badlands west of Naibah. I may have picked up some useful skills. I know that Simon and Calvy have had similar experience.”

D’Jevier nodded. “You are better equipped than we. How do you suggest that we proceed?”

Madame smiled. “By handling a question that arose during our trip here. Calvy and Simon have pointed out that it will be difficult for them to be useful if they keep their veils.”

“We are unlikely to be able to see through them underground,” said Calvy, making an apologetic gesture toward the Hags.

D’Jevier replied, “I have no objection to your removing your veils while on this expedition. It would be foolish to handicap you out of mere custom; Onsofruct and I have quite dependable self-control, and we promise not to assault you sexually.”

Madame merely smiled at this.

Calvy said, “Inasmuch as Simon and I are already carrying all we can manage, let’s proceed with all five of your Haggers. When and if we encounter water, we can decide then what baggage to leave behind, who will go on and who will return.”

D’Jevier nodded her assent, then led them around the house to a side entrance that gave directly upon stairs leading to the cellars. The room below had already been cleared of its sadistic machines, except for piles of scrap, and Onsofruct wasted no time in finding and opening the sneakway door, bowing Madame to enter first.

Madame stepped into the sneakway, looked and sniffed in both directions, and came to much the same conclusion Mouche had come to earlier. “That way goes back up into the mansion. This way leads down. I think we may rely upon it that they went down, though we’ll watch for their tracks to be sure.”

“If you’ll allow me,” said Calvy, drawing Madame out and taking her place in the narrow way. “I have done some tracking, and I am armed, which you are not.”

“Armed, Family Man?” asked D’Jevier, threateningly. “Our laws forbid Family Men carrying arms.”

“A canister of chemical repellant, Ma’am. Useful for dissuading vicious dogs while walking on the streets. And a rather large knife, useful for opening shipping crates. Both are allowed within the regulations. I am also carrying a staff which I have been trained to use.” He turned on the downward way and moved off with Madame and the Hags behind him, then Simon and the Haggers bringing up the rear.

Down they went, as Mouche, Ornery, and the Questioner had gone, making their slow way through the rooty tunnel until it intersected the stream. Because they had lighted their way throughout, they noticed no luminescence. Indeed, they had sent two Haggers back the way they had come, had inflated their boat and were well down the river before they turned out their lights and began to see the wonders of the world around them.

F
or Mouche and his companion, the drift-trip down the big river had seemed timeless. Both Mouche and Ornery had slept for long, lost periods of quiet and peace. Every now and then the boats had stopped at some sandy beached curve and let them go ashore to eat and drink and relieve themselves, and according to Questioner, who seemed to be keeping track, this happened several times each day for several days. They had eaten only a little food from their packs, for Questioner had reminded them they had no idea how long they would be on this journey and thus no idea how long their food would need to last.

“I think we could eat their food,” Mouche had said, indicating the darkness where pairs of silver eyes shone briefly from time to time. “I’ve smelled it, and it smells wonderful.”

“Do not worry over food,” came the voice from the darkness. “You will not be allowed to starve. You must come to the Fauxi-dizalonz in good health. When we come to the sea, we will feed you.”

“How long to the sea?” asked Ornery, somewhat fretfully.

“Long enough to get there,” came the fading voice.

Sometimes they felt that their escorts went away, for a kind of vacancy occurred, as though some essential component of the environment had gone missing, though where anything could go in this dim world, they could only guess. There were folds and cracks in the tunnel walls, and the tunnel constantly changed direction, and any of these irregularities might hide a way in or out just as they concealed the roosting places of many small creatures that plunged out into the air or down into the river, luminous forms that approached and receded, glowing parasols of light, soaring cones, winged diamonds, both above and below, as though air or water made little difference to them.