Second Guard (18 page)

As they circled through a series of passageways, their path dipping down and then up again, Zarif continued to quiz Ory about life underground, the customs of the salters, and the meaning of
each funny word Ory used that they hadn’t heard before. Tali soon found herself so engaged by the boy’s stories that she stopped trying to keep track of the animal carvings above each
tunnel. She had long lost her bearings as to direction anyway, and Ory seemed to know his way around the mines as well as the Alcazar chargirls knew their way around the fortress. Her thoughts
floated to Brindl then, and when Ory finished explaining to Zarif how the salters pumped water into their commodes—Honestly, thought Tali, must Zarif know everything?—she broached the
subject.

“I know a salter at the Alcazar,” Tali said. “I wonder if you know her, Ory.”

“Crunchnuts, I s’pose I know every salter there is!” Ory cried. “What’s her name?”

“Brindl,” Tali answered. “She works for my friend Saavedra, the pigeonkeep.”

“So the pigeonkeep is your friend, but Brindl is not.” Ory stopped in his tracks and looked closely at Tali. “Too salty for you, our Brindl?” he asked.

“Well, I…” Tali felt her face turn red. Even when Brindl isn’t here she causes me discomfort, she thought. “I didn’t mean…”

Ory laughed behind his hand. “You are easy to tease, sun-drenched Tali,” he said. “But tell me, does Brindl still tell whopper great good stories?”

Tali did not know how to answer. Did he actually mean that Brindl, serious and solemn Brindl, was a storyteller? It could not be possible. Even Zarif and Chey looked surprised.

“Is there another salter named Brindl?” Tali asked.

“There is but one brindly Brindl, one one one,” Ory sang. “Do you mean she’s told no tales to you toppers?”

Tali shrugged and looked at Zarif and Chey. Brindl did speak more to them. But even so, Tali thought, she certainly told no “whopper great good stories,” at least while any of them
were around.

“Brindl does not speak much at the Alcazar,” explained Chey to Ory, who looked back at him in disbelief. “We Earth Guilders keep quiet there, toppers and salters alike. It is
our way,” Chey continued solemnly, but then laughed at the horrified look on Ory’s face. “Ory, please tell me you’re not a second-born…the Alcazar centurios
wouldn’t know what to do with you.”

Zarif and Tali laughed as Ory made a face at Chey. “Crunchnuts, farm boy, I’m the seventh-born of my family, and the grit-grittiest one of the bunch! The Alcazar’s no place for
me, I’m too salty for ’em,” said the small boy, with a smug grin. “B’sides, I’m the Diosa’s best messenger, no one goes fast-fastier than me!”

Tali resisted the urge to hug the boy and tell him how adorable he was. Instead, she ruffled his hair and pinched his cheek.

Ory made another face at her. “Just like Brindl, you are. I s’pose you’d like to hear a Brindl tale…it’s a whoppery whopper, it is!”

Tali nodded, while Zarif and Chey raised their eyebrows behind her. “You mean a tale
about
Brindl or a tale that Brindl tells?”

“Both! Brindsome Brin not only tells tales but thinks them up, too! She is a story salter, whopper maker!”

Tali shook her head, trying to place her own image of Brindl in this new light.

“It was the year after my Salt Rite, when this taleful tale begins,” started Ory, his face growing serious, his voice low and dramatic.

Tali stifled a giggle. “That is a good start,” Tali said, and smiled at the boy. “Go on.”

“Well, a few older boys were scaring a few of the firsties,” he continued, then stopped to answer the question before Zarif could ask it. “Firsties is what we call the little
salters after they’ve gone through the Salt Rite.”

“So the Salt Rite is their initiation to the mines, I see. At what age do children begin working the salt?” Zarif asked. Tali exchanged a half amused, half irritated look with
Chey.

“Five years and they are ready to salt,” answered Ory. “Crunchnuts, but you ask many questiony questions!”

“Zarif, in the Earth Guild it is considered bad manners to interrupt a story,” Chey said, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.

“Is that true? I had no idea!” Zarif said, popping a hand over his mouth at his diplomatic error.

“No matter, top topper!” said Ory. “Zarif is a curious cat!”

“Please go ahead with Brindl’s story,” Tali said. “I’m sure Zarif can manage to save all his questions for the end, right, tall topper?” she asked Zarif,
swatting his arm playfully.

“If you insist, Madam Sundrenched,” Zarif replied, narrowing his eyes at her in mock animosity.

“Yes! Yes!” cried Ory. “So Brin figured a way to get back at the boys who were frightening the firsties with stories of Saqra, the evil one who likes the taste of blood. Legend
says that Saqra comes once every century to quench his thirst in the mines, snatching salters in the shadows. The older salters had told the firsties that Saqra liked their blood the best, the
blood of little salters, fresh and sweet. They told the firsties that the time had come for the Saqra to return, and that their days were numbered. I wasn’t scared, of course, but the other
poor firsties, they nearly wet their pants with frightful fright,” Ory said, shaking his head like an old man.

“That night, topside in Zipa, Brin prepared a chicken for her mother and saved the blood. Then, she asked me to light the path for her back into the mine. She wrote each of the
teasers’ names on the wall…in blood! Each day a new message appeared, scrawled in Saqra’s hand, about how parched he grew and how soon he would come to slake his thirst! By
week’s end it was the older boys who cried to enter the caves and the firsties who giggled, each one having helped Brin in his turn!”

Zarif chuckled in appreciation. “How clever of Brindl to turn their ghost stories against them,” he said.

“How did the older boys act when they found out?” Tali asked.

“Crunchnuts, who would ever tell them?” Ory asked, and then he tilted his head back and cackled loudly, holding his stomach and closing his eyes. Tali noticed that he still managed
to keep walking without missing a step. When he finally stopped laughing, he sniffed a bit, then said, “I miss Brindly Brin, I do, I do.”

Suddenly the dark tunnel opened into a busy thoroughfare. Tali stood with her mouth agape and looked to her friends. Even Chey seemed surprised by the sight in front of them. A giant corridor
bustled with hundreds of people, as if suddenly they were in one of Porto Sol’s busiest markets, only underground. Dozens of packhounds lumbered among the crowd, pulling heavy carts filled
with salt and even people. Ory laughed at his new friends’ startled faces.

“We salters have good secrety secrets, don’t we, top toppers?” he said, bouncing on his toes.

“Where, exactly, are we?” Tali asked, finally closing her mouth but unable to pull her eyes away from the bustling scene even to look at their excited young guide.

“This, Sun Girl, is called the Necklace. You know the Queen’s Paseo that circles Tequende like a spoked wheel?”

“Yes, of course,” Zarif said. “We all traveled it on our way to the Alcazar.”

“I have never seen it, truth told,” Ory said, “but they say this is the salters’ version. From this giant ring you can get to much of the realm…and
fast.”

“I see,” Zarif said, his eyes bright with understanding. “But even so, it seems impossible that it will reduce the journey to Zipa by two full days. We still have much walking
to do,” he said, shifting the pack on his back.

Now it was Tali and Chey’s turn to smile, for they had figured out what Zarif had not.

“Not if we go by packhound wagon, right, salty salter?” Tali asked, turning to Ory, who now skipped around them, almost dancing in happiness.

“That’s right right right! Now comes the fun part!” he cried, motioning them through the crowd to a building on the other side of the corridor.

The building turned out to be a stable, where dozens of enormous packhounds were being fed, brushed, and tended by several young girls, who giggled and waved when they saw Ory. The stable owner
raised an eyebrow as Ory and his topside companions approached her, but she greeted them politely and gave a quick whistle to the stablegirls as soon as she saw the pendant around Ory’s
neck.

“It’s the mark of the Diosa,” Ory explained as he held up the pendant, anticipating Zarif’s question. “Whoever wears 190 it must be given all aid and assistance
throughout the mines,” he continued as the girls bridled the dogs like horses, though rather than being strapped around their heads, the bridles were buckled around their muscular torsos. Six
packhounds were then harnessed to a wooden cart, lined on each side by a bench, each bench just big enough to fit two people.

“Where does the driver sit?” asked Zarif, as the four of them squeezed in. Zarif and Tali took one side together so that Chey’s larger body would have more room across from
them with little Ory.

“Crunchnuts, dark topper!
I’m
the driver!” laughed Ory, as his passengers looked at each other in alarm. “To Zipa!” shouted Ory, and the packhounds
dutifully set off down the corridor. They trotted slowly through the busy intersection, though Tali noticed that the dogs clearly followed a track that must have been reserved for packhound wagons.
Not more than a few minutes passed, however, before the crowd dispersed and the packhounds picked up speed as the track opened up before them. The dogs seemed thrilled by the prospect of having a
journey ahead and passengers to carry. Tali thought of Boulder, and how invigorated he became whenever they went to see him, how much he loved to show off his skills. The same seemed true of this
team of dogs, who navigated the road with ease. What remarkable beasts, thought Tali as they raced into a dark tunnel.

The well-lit, wide corridor of the Necklace was replaced instantly by a dark, eerily lit shaft, which shot straight ahead for a hundred paces or more. Suddenly, the dogs veered to the right so
fast that Zarif landed in Tali’s lap. “Oomph!” he groaned, trying to pull himself off her and regain his dignity. Chey sat across from her, one arm holding tightly to the side of
the cart, the other splayed across a delighted Ory, who seemed to have no fear of being flung out of the cart. Tali noticed a handle embedded into the wooden rail next to her and she grabbed it
gratefully, while Zarif meanwhile found a handle of his own.

As soon as Tali got used to whichever direction they were heading, the dogs would veer off just as quickly into another unexpected turn. After a huge drop so steep that Tali was afraid the cart
would gain more speed than the dogs and run over them, the team raced across a rickety bridge that swung perilously under their weight, ready to crash into the deep ravine below. Tali hated herself
for the unexpected scream that slipped through her lips.

Ory, on the other hand, looked as if he was having the time of his life. He did not hold on whatsoever and let his body move with the movement of the cart like a leaf on a gusty day. He threw
back his head and howled at the packhounds, who howled in return. Their twenty-four paws made a rhythmic sound on the salty path, reminding Tali of the drums played on festival days. Occasionally
one dog would bark at another, and Tali wondered if it was some type of warning or even an encouragement.

Much to her relief, the team began to slow as the path widened and they entered another bright corridor busy with people. The dogs trotted straight up to a stable where waiting stable hands
quickly unharnessed them, while Tali and her fellow passengers climbed out of the cart to stretch their legs. As Tali watched the eager hounds take turns refreshing themselves at a trough of
crystal-clear water, she realized how thirsty and hungry she herself had become. As if reading her thoughts, Ory held up his salted emblem, and a young girl in the crowd pushed a handcart over to
them. She passed a gourd of cold lemonsong to each of them, then pressed into each of their hands a baked tart still warm from the oven. Tali let the pastry melt in her mouth, savoring the delicate
taste in wonder. Even Nel would be hard-pressed to compete with these underground bakers, she thought. Zarif tried to pay the girl with change from his leather pouch, but the girl waved away his
generosity and bowed politely before disappearing once again into the throng.

A few moments later, they climbed back into the cart, which had been harnessed to a fresh team of packhounds. Once again, Ory shouted “To Zipa!” and the dogs took off down the
corridor and into an adjoining tunnel. This time the shaft was wider and better lit, though Tali soon wondered if the earlier darkness had been a gift in disguise. When they flew over another
rickety bridge, Tali closed her eyes, afraid to look down at the crevasses, gaping at them like hungry mouths.

Finally, the dogs began to slow.

“We are nearing Zipa,” Ory said in a quiet voice.

Tali breathed a sigh of relief, but glanced worriedly at the little boy in front of her, who now looked subdued. Perhaps he’s sad that the journey is over, Tali thought, leaning over to
smile at him and pat his knee. Ory did not return the smile or even look her way. His eyes instead were open wide and riveted on something behind her. He’s frightened, she realized as a
tingle crawled up her arms and neck. She turned her head slowly to look over her shoulder. Another tunnel entrance had been carved out of the earth, but this one seemed swallowed by darkness. The
animal marking above it had been chiseled away, and boards had been nailed across the blackness of its open mouth.

“Where does that tunnel lead, Ory?” she asked, shivering.

“Nowhere. They say whoever enters it never returns,” the boy answered solemnly.

As they passed the tunnel, Tali could not help but follow it with her eyes, as the Diosa’s words came back to her:
The Darkness I speak of, daughter of the Sun, lies coiled in the
shadows of the deep.

“I’m sorry, Ory. A cave-in?” Chey asked, giving Ory’s shoulder a squeeze.

Of course, Tali thought, shaking her head. The tunnel caved in. Perhaps it was the accident Brindl had mentioned. No wonder Ory was frightened.