The End of the Game (45 page)

“Do you bring us to the Throne by some servants entry?” the Duke demanded. “Is this the honor done the Duke of Betand?”

“Oh, Duke, my love, be not offended. There are only three entries to the Backless Throne! One from the center of the Great Maze, and we have not the time to take that path. One from the charnel houses outside Morp, where provender for the Great Ones is prepared, and we have not the stomach for that one. And this one. Of the three”—the Oracle giggled in a shrill mockery of amusement—”this is the safest.” Morp? Again Morp. I thought the people of Bleem had done well to escape when they had. I doubted their young had been useful as servants. Morp had an evil reputation. There was an entrance there. So. And another entry from the center of the Great Maze. I made a mental note, hanging back at a turn of the narrow path, waiting for them to get farther ahead.

The way ended at a tunnel mouth, a gaping hole between two tumbled pillars that once had been carved in the likeness of some great beast. I identified claws, horns, a vast bell-shaped ear. Obviously this route had been more used in ancient times, and I wondered why it had fallen into such neglect, but this question, like others, had no time for consideration. The Oracle had plunged into the darkness.

“Leave the guards to guarding, good friends. Come along! We are no doubt eagerly awaited!” Well, I had half anticipated some such problem when the hiding spell was set; now I reinforced it, binding it more closely about me. When I drifted from the trees and among the surly Tragamors and Armigers, they noticed me no more than they did the wind. Though I had taken little enough time, the others were far ahead, down distant turnings of the tunnel way.

Since that time I have often pondered over my heedlessness. I think it was the label set upon Huldra that did it. She was a Witch. Wize-ards had nothing to fear from Witches. They were a minor Talent, no more, and nothing to worry us. Never mind that sendings had come from her; never mind that Queynt had taken the trouble to point out she had more than mere Witch’s Talent to her; still I thought of her as a Witch. This is the trouble with too much Schooling. One learns to manipulate the labels in a way that the Gamesmistresses approve, and one doesn’t realize that things do not always act in accordance with the labels in the real world. One doesn’t realize that the labels, come to that, are often wrong.

Be that as it may, and even though I knew better, I had taken no steps beyond a simple hiding spell; there are a dozen forms of Egg in the Hollow, and I had used the easiest—to protect myself. It worked well enough against the guards, and I didn’t think beyond that. Ahead of me were the ones I followed, and that is all I was thinking about.

Fortunately, there were no side ways, no mazes to confuse. One way, one way only, the dust of the tunnel clearly marked by their footprints. I sped after them, risking a wize-art light from fingertips to show the way. I heard their voices, extinguished the light, slowed to their pace. Now they were dawdling, moving without haste.

“Is this the way guests of the Throne are greeted?” Huldra, more than merely annoyed. Sharply irritated; perhaps suspicious. “Hauled through dusty tunnels, league on league?”

“Oh, lovely one, why say guests’? Are there guests honored in the great audience hall? Do plenipotentiaries arrive with their steeds all caparisoned, bringing gifts from potentates afar? Guests? Did you imagine you were asked as guests?”

“What then?” Dedrina, stopping dead at the center of the tunnel. “If not guests, what?”

“You should not imagine these are my words, dear friends, not my language at all, who am the perfect fount of diplomacy—but if asked—as indeed I have been — I would wager the word used by Storm Grower would be “lackey”. Dream Miner might say more than that, though both grow laconic with the passing centuries. Still, “lackey” will do.”

“Lackey!” The Duke spat. “I have long been a faithful friend of the Backless Throne!”

“You have long”—smiled the Oracle—”been a well paid puppet. Ath hath the Merchant here,” in bitter mockery of the Merchant’s lisp. “Come now. It is not wise to linger. Should Storm Grower grow impatient, we all know what consequence might follow.” This was sobering. For the first time, I began to worry. I had assumed what the Duke had assumed: he and his party were guests and would be treated with some degree of courtesy. If they were at risk, then so was I.

They wound deeper under the earth, down twisting ways. Above us, I later learned, the Great Maze stretched its illimitable hedges; around us worm holes opened into the tunnel, admitting odors of swamp and jungle, hill and moor. They had walked half a day away with me scurrying in their wake when I began to hear the sound, the susurrus of the sea, the ebb and flow of waves upon a shore.

Waves.

Not quite. Not quite that ebb and flow. Two rhythms, rather, running almost counter to one another. One slightly slower. And with the sound the movement of air, laden with that same sweetish-foul stench we had smelled too often upon the road.

Dead things. Decaying things.

Huldra made some expression of disgust. The Merchant said something to her that made me shudder, something to the effect that it would be wisest not to notice the smell of anything she might soon see. They had fallen silent, so I slowed my pace, peering carefully around each corner before sliding around it into the next stretch of rocky corridor. Still that wave sound. The stench stronger. Still those ahead moving in the wake of the Oracle, now taking no notice of either smell or sound.

They came to an open area, perhaps two manheights from floor to roof, that roof supported by several dozen great, rough-hewn pillars, irregularly set, much as though the diggers had left a pillar whenever they felt like it rather than by any plan.

Beyond this hall of pillars was a much larger space.

There was light there, though not much, and the sound of vast emptiness swallowing up the footsteps of the troop. They moved to the left among the pillars, and I to the right, keeping a pillar between myself and them. By this time the sound was enormous, great heavings of air which I felt gust past me in first one direction, then another.

The hall of pillars ended in a gallery, a wide shelf curving high around one side of the greater space. A low parapet of stones set in mortar edged it. The others were looking over this parapet at whatever was below. At one point the parapet was broken as though something had struck it; the stones were tumbled inward upon the shelf. It was here I stretched myself, hidden from the others both by my spell and by the stones, looking out into the cavern.

It was lit from above by a few worm holes piercing the stone. Dust swam in these beams of light, fugitive shining specks to speak of the day. At the center of the cavern a great pile hid the opposite wall, a monstrous, fantastic pile, twisted into organic forms; prodigious legs, monstrous warty arms, folded stone almost like gigantic faces; great jutting plinths of nose above twisted strata of lips. Wrinkled runnels of water-deposited stone above seemed to form gigantic cheeks and eyelids.

Which opened.

I was clinging for support to a block of stone while an enormous eye peered into my own. It did not blink or change expression. Only gradually, as my heart slowed, did I realize it didn’t see me.

The others were at a point far to my left, somewhat around the curve. I could see them easily. The Merchant stood at the center of the group, his long face as impassive as the stones. On one hand were Valearn and Dedrina. Porvius stood somewhat behind them, his face down. The Oracle was some little distance from them, waving and bowing as it made introductions.

“Dream Miner. Honored sir. Storm Grower. Monstrous madam. I bring you once again your servant, Dream Merchant of Fangel. Also, those you have summoned. Betand. Valearn. Huldra. Dedrina. Fop, cannibal, crone, and lizard. An assortment, madam and sir.” The huge stone lips writhed, revealing themselves as flesh capable of great, slow words, like rocks rolling together in avalanche. “If you say “cannibal” as a term of derision, Oracle, you would be wise to say rather less. Some of us eat what we will. So far as we are concerned, Valearn may eat what she likes.”

“Come a little closer!” Another voice, one seeming to come from the opposite wall, enormously booming, higher in pitch. Hearing it, all those present squirmed, feeling the words as an assault. I saw them bend a little, twisting, trying to shed those words.

“Come a little closer so I can see.” The voice was full of wind, horrid and cold. “Only a little closer.”

“Careful,” said the Oracle, laughing. “I would not recommend that any of you leave this gallery. If you come within reach of the mighty madam or the honored sir, they may eat you. They cannot help it, poor dears. They are always hungry.” They moved down the gallery, however. I didn’t need to follow them. I could see the source of the other voice well enough from where I was, though it had its horrific head turned away from me. It was another giant, seated behind the first and faced in the opposite direction, a female, perhaps, though what I could see of the huge face had no delicacy to it and was as obdurate as the first. If they had been standing, they would have been ten manheights tall. They were about seven manheights tall, seated as they were back to back upon a colossal pillar.

“The Backless Throne,” I said, surprised into uttering it half-aloud.

Across the cavern on the gallery the Oracle turned in my direction. It had heard me! Through all that ebb and surge of mighty breathing, it had heard me. I lay quiet, not moving so much as an eyelid, letting the surge of air wash to and fro. With all the echoes in this chamber, it could not be sure. So I told myself.

So I assured myself, sweating, swallowing, trying to get my heart back where it belonged. After a time, it turned back to the others, ribbons quivering as though in laughter, poised in its eternal mockery.

I slipped back into the hall of pillars and worked my way toward them, pillar by pillar, keeping stone between. The damned Oracle might see through my spells. I thought it might see whatever it pleased, quite frankly—but it was not likely to see through stone.

“Storm Grower, mighty madam, may I present your servants.” The Oracle bowed, gesturing to all those on the gallery. “Your most obedient servants.”

“By all the gods,” said Huldra, amazed. “What are you?”

“Oh, do not be offensive,” said the Oracle. “Giant madam may be most annoyed.”

“I am not offended,” said Storm Grower in that voice of horrible wind. Her left arm came up, slowly, like a tree rearing skyward, bent, straightened, its skin like a lava flow, cracked deep, soiled with the dirt of centuries, its huge fingers like scaly pillars with nails twisted and ragged, slowly, slowly, then snapping toward the parapet with lightning motion, missing the parapet by less than an arm’s length so that Huldra stumbled back with a screaming curse, tripping over Bloster and falling full length upon the stones.

Laughter then, monstrous laughter, as though volcanoes amused themselves. The left hand did not fall but stayed where it was, twisting and twisting as though to wring a neck. “I am always glad to educate lesser creatures. I am a giantess, sweet Huldra. Born with my brother many centuries ago in the monster labs of the humans. Reared there for a long, long time. Fled from there by my own courage and resourcefulness ...”

“And mine,” rumbled Dream Miner. “You were not alone.”

“Never alone.” The other laughed, shifting to display the obscene flaps of filthy flesh that bound them together, shoulder to shoulder, rib to rib, buttock to buttock. “No, never alone.”

“Grown to great size and power over the centuries,” thundered Dream Miner. “Grown to a size and power capable of revenge.”

“Handicapped somewhat in that their great size prohibits mobility,” chanted the Oracle. “Otherwise, most puissant, most powerful.”

Storm Grower twisted her fingers once again, and a lightning bolt nicked from the air to the gallery where the Oracle stood, missing it by a finger’s width.

“Subside, beribboned jester, painted riddler. You are useful, but you try our patience.”

“Try our patience,” agreed Dream Miner. “Take those with you elsewhere for a time. We will tell them of our will later. Now we have other matters to see to. Besides, I am hungry.”

The Oracle led them away. There were a number of lighted tunnel openings from the gallery, and into one of these the troop went, shuffling, seeming both fearful and angry. There was no point in following them. They would be returning. There was a narrow crevice to one side of the hall of pillars, one about my size. I decided to explore it, finding that it climbed upward and outward toward the cavern and it had a window in it, a place where the stone had broken.

From this vantage point, I could look over the parapet and down into the cavern. I could see Dream Miner’s feet—not a sight to inspire confidence or good appetite—and a part of the floor of the cavern.

To either side, right and left of the giants, low, long archways curved like bows led off into the darkness.

From the archway at Dream Miner’s right, several dozen long poles protruded into the cavern, their nether ends hidden in the darkness.

Dream Miner reached for one of these. His monstrous arm descended toward the rocky floor; the flesh between the two giants stretched, revealing its leprous, mottled surface, full of crusty sores and small, scurrying vermin; his hand grasped the pole and dragged it forth. Its end was burdened with the body of some large food beast, perhaps a giant zeller.

This spitted beast was thrust into the giant’s mouth and half bitten from the pole, the pole withdrawn like the stem of some obscene fruit. It made two mouthfuls for Dream Miner, two huge, bloody mouthfuls gulped down with much gnashing and masticating.

I put my face into the stone, unable to watch it.

Until this moment I had not seen his monstrous nakedness. He was so stonelike, so monumental, that one did not think of it as flesh. The act of eating, however, with all its gustatory noises, the stinking belch that filled the cavern, the rubbing of the behemothian stomach—all this, all at once, horrifying and sickening both.