Dragons of War (41 page)

The pack of small animals clustered inside an open drain at one side of the great piazza of statutes. There were only four ways down into the underground city, four staircased ramps that went down many turns, all cut through solid rock. At the end of the stairs and ramps lay the Nexus Halls and the four labyrinths of the Tetralobe.

Lessis stared for a moment at the enormous statues. They meant to generate a sense of pride and strength, to uplift the servants of their power. Instead, she saw only brutality and massive egoism. How could they not see the wrongness in what they did? Their intelligence was plain to see, terrifying, in fact, but how could they misuse it as they did? Lessis had fought this enemy for centuries, but she had never understood its deep motivation. The gigantic statues did not unlock the secret for her. Such minds remained incomprehensible to Lessis of Valmes.

Ribela had dismissed most of the rats. From here they could take only a handful. Their best chance of descending lay with the carts taking food and supplies below to the underground city.

At the entrance to the downward ramps were squads of imps under the command of dour men who examined everything passing with a keen eye.

Darkness fell and the light coming in through the ceiling apertures of the Square faded, but the traffic to the Tetralobe continued unabated. They waited patiently until it was dark and a wagon, laden with fresh scrolls, quills, and ink pads, halted beside their hiding place. The mouse and the three rats scrambled aboard and hid themselves from view.

A moment later the wren flitted aboard.

They entered the Tetralobe.

The wagon descended to the Nexus Hall of the Third Level, a vast enclosure set beneath a ceiling covered in glittering purple glass. Light was let in through shafts set in the ceiling. Traffic of all kinds thronged here, at the nexus of the Tetralobe. The Nexus Halls connected the four separate systems of passages, avenues, halls, cells, which swelled out into the natural cave systems below.

The wagon of scrolls joined the traffic and slowed. At no more than a shuffle, they crossed the Nexus Hall and entered a wide avenue space. Now the high ceiling was simply bare grey rock, into which were set glowing globes every one hundred feet. To either side were the facades of commercial enterprises, intermixed with those of bureaus of the administration systems. Men and women, all wearing the grey or black clothing that seemed all but universal in Padmasa, strode the pavements busily.

Alleys ran down breaks in the ranks of these building facades, and their wagon turned into one and came to a halt outside a worn-looking entryway. Frayed wooden doors crashed open, and three old slaves emerged. They were the remains of men, spirits crushed long ago. They wore grey loinclothes, black slippers, and little else. Their pale skin was wrinkled with age. They began to unload the cargo.

The mouse and the rats slipped off the side of the cart and darted inside the open door. Within, they found deserted hallways and empty offices. The mouse, escorted by the rats, slipped along the corridor, investigating each office. The wren darted ahead.

On the wall in one office was a chart, a map of the Tetralobe for messenger use. While the rats explored the office, the mouse and the wren examined the map. Both were fluent in the tongue of Padmasa, a special language designed from the beginning by the Masters to emphasize their power.

They discovered that they were in the North Lobe, on Level Three. They memorized the map's important features.

They moved on and came to a busy area. Men were at work in the cubicles, processing scrolls. In other places small groups of men gathered to talk. Occasionally there was a woman among them, but this was primarily a world of men.

It was difficult to move around in these areas until they discovered a way to get into the system of ventilation ducts. Set into both floor and walls, with vertical shafts connecting every fifty feet, this system gave complete access to all parts of the office complex. Air was constantly driven through the passages by some unknown means. In every room there were vents, covered by grilles of metal, that exchanged the air constantly. It made for a great warren. They smelled native rats several times and took care to go around them. There were also predators: a species of miniature cats that roamed these narrow passages. They had a close call at one point with one of these, but distracted by the wren diving at his eyes and uncomfortable with two large buck rats at once, the cat backed off and slunk away into the dark.

For a long time they roamed through the endless passages. Thousands of people were employed here to drive the empire of the Masters. There was a constant babble of voices in some sections, and complete, austere silence in others. Once they crossed an enormous room, a scribery, with long benches and desks stretched across it on which sat row after row of scribes. Slaves were constantly busy fetching paper and ink and fresh quill for this army of writers. Other men, clad in black, removed the completed writing.

They explored farther and found themselves moving through the ceiling above the administrative offices. In one room there was an argument in progress. They heard a robust drover arguing with a fat man sitting behind a table.

"Down to Deep Five? Not again! You're killing me with this. You know how bad the traffic is down there. It'll take me hours. Whatever they're growing down there, it eats more than it ought to. Smells horrible, too. I've been down there three times today already. Whole load of mangel-wurzels, and then whole corn and then whole oats. My horse is worn. You should send Dizmo."

"Dizmo is on another errand."

"Hah. You and I both know what Dizmo is doing; he's sucking up to the administrater again."

"That does not concern us. The delivery has been requested, and you will make it."

"The horse is worn-out."

"Get a new horse at the depot later. Your horse is old. It is time for it to be fed to the trolls."

"Fine, requisition a fresh horse for me. You think I'll get one? I tell you at the depot, they're thieves. They make off with half the horses that get shipped in here. Probably sell them straight to the troll masters."

The fat man vented an explosive oath. "Get out of here and make the shipment, or I really will report you."

With a few ritual grumbles, the drover finally left the office.

Above his head the mouse and the tiny bird conversed together, and then followed the drover through the air ducts.

He headed down the corridor, trotted down some steps, and went out through a pair of wide double doors, guarded by a squad of six imps, with guard dogs at their side.

Above him followed a procession of small animals frantically running through the ventilation system, trying to keep up. At the outer wall of the office complex, they found the ventilation duct sealed with steel mesh.

Hurriedly they hunted along the wall, running back to the mid-room ceiling junction and then back to the wall again to another well-sealed duct.

Below, they could peer through the openings and see the drover being held up by the imps at the door who inspected for stolen items. The drovers were used to this kind of treatment, and this one leaned against the wall passively as the imps prodded and probed.

They ran back to the wall, and this time found the grate had not been properly nailed down in one corner. They pried it up and leaped down twelve feet to the cobblestones of the outer passage.

They were in a wide street passage, along which there came occasional rikshas but not much else. A small horse was set between the shafts of a large wagon.

The drover clambered aboard and cracked his whip. As he did so, several small rodents sprang desperately across the cobblestones and launched themselves at the running board of the little cart, which was old and worn and offered hiding places.

The cart rolled away down to the depot where it picked up a mountainous mass of dried corn plants, complete with ears and tassles, loaded by sweating slaves. With the cart groaning beneath the load, the horse was whipped up, and very slowly they gained momentum and eventually trundled slowly forward. The pace picked up when they descended on a vast ramp with a very gradual incline that spiraled downward for what seemed like miles. The air at once grew much colder. They were leaving the Tetralobe and entering the upper Deeps.

At last the cart came to a halt by a loading bay. Slaves with pitchforks emerged to unload the whole corn, their breath frosting in the cold air.

The rats and the mouse abandoned the load and sped across the flagstoned floor toward an open drain. They were halfway to safety when a heavyset grey terrier sprang forward and snatched up the hindmost rat and tore it in half.

The other rodents reached the drain but with the terrier right behind. The dog's claws skittered on the stone above the drain while it growled horribly down at the terrified rats running along below. The only thing that saved them was that the drain was partly closed off, and the dog could not insert its jaws through the narrow upper aperture. Then to complete the peril, the first dog was joined by a second and both continued to pursue them.

The wren flew above and behind. The dogs had attracted attention, a couple of imps with long poles in their hands were coming over.

The drain snaked rightward and came to an end over a vertical drop into a pit of nothingness from which came a strong animal smell.

The wren dove down and hurled herself at the eyes of the first terrier. With a yelp of dismay, it jerked aside and paused and looked around for the strange attacker. The other dog plowed on barking furiously. The imps with poles were close.

The wren dove again, and this time the dog saw her and his jaws snapped shut far too close. Indeed, one wing feather had been punched like a ticket by his teeth. The wren flew to the edge of the pan and shrieked a warning. The imps with rat-killing poles were coming.

There was nothing for it, the mouse, followed by the rats, hurled itself straight over the edge. The terriers pulled up just short and were barking as the rats fell, spiraling down eighty feet onto a great pile of whole cornstalks.

The wren flew down to join them. They moved at once off to the side of the pile and hid within the corn, which they ate as they hid.

The air was pungent in the extreme. They were in the midst of a herd of cows penned up. A team of sweating slaves were shoveling manure at one end of the space. At the other was a barred entrance. They made their way through the bars, passed down a flagstoned passage, and entered a space broken up into stalls. In every stall was a pregnant cow.

Alas, these poor cows were not with calf. Instead, the malign magic of the Masters had induced them to bear trolls. Every one of these poor brown cows would die in childbirth. Already many of them were in agony from bearing the monstrous, overlarge things that grew in their wombs.

Deep, mournful cries rose up from the stalls of this horrifying place, and Lessis felt her spirit assailed. It was this misuse of the means of reproduction that most fired her rage at the Masters, fueling her lifelong struggle to defeat them. To witness such pain and misery roused the gentle Lessis to a state of hatred.

They entered an experimental area where cows in various stages of experimental pregnancies were trapped in special stalls. A dead cow, her entrails torn out in the birthing process, was being dragged away by slaves with a handcart.

An enormous cry of pain split the air, followed by more, huge trumpeting bellows protesting some terrible agony. There was a silence while they looked to each other. Then came long sobbing wails that shook the timbers in the stalls. This volume of sound was beyond that of mere cows.

They moved toward the source, dodging along the walls, slipping behind the bales of hay. At one point they slipped through a crack in a wall and found themselves in a gruesome storage place for failed experiments. The room was long and lined with racks of cages, where creatures large and small languished. Many were dead, others gibbered in pools of their own wastes. Lessis felt her strength of purpose harden another degree.

They came at length to a broad passage and a gate guarded by imps with spiked steel collars, beyond which came the terrible cries of pain.

The mouse, followed as ever by the two remaining buck rats, darted swiftly across the passage in the lee of a ricksha bearing an officer. The wren slipped aboard the ricksha, underneath, and rode through the gate.

The mouse and the rats found their way in through a drainage pan in an empty stall. The wren found them shortly.

They moved, working carefully through the straw, pausing to nibble on com when they found it. When they had to, they climbed the walls. The wren brought them warnings in good time of cats.

And then at last they found it. In a stall almost too small for her, a great she mammoth was giving birth to a creature almost twice the size of one of her own babies. Her trunk stood out rigid as she screamed her pain. She was dying.

The medical officer, dressed in black with a scarlet patch on his right shoulder, placed an instrument against her heaving side and listened.

She gave another great trumpeting wail, and her ears flapped wildly.

The man stepped back and snapped his fingers. Three imps bearing long flensing knives on poles came forward. Quickly they cut the mammoth open, slicing her belly from rib cage to anus. Her bowels tumbled out along with her final scream. Imps with crowbars came forward to pry forth the obscene thing she had given life to. It came free at last with a gush of blood and fluids. Now the imps pried the limbs open and used rubber hammers to straighten them. One imp jabbed the newborn thing with a sharp spike. It jerked and heaved. Another bent over its face with a clipper and punched a hole in its nose. Another imp threaded a brass ring through the hole. A chain was attached.

The imps tugged, and the thing jerked again and then pawed the air and let forth a hoarse bellow. It came upright and then to its feet. It took unsteady steps while the imps guided it by the chain to the ring in its nose.