Despite the similarity of their faces and shapes to those of mortals, or even to that of the Hikeda’ya themselves, Viyeki could never quite make himself believe that the Pengi, the Tinukeda’ya changelings, were much more than animals. The oldest Builders in his order claimed to recall a time when even the lowest of them could talk, but it was hard to believe that now. And when he looked into the empty, cowlike eyes of the Carry-men currently standing beside the great capstan as they waited for a command from their overseer, Viyeki found the whole idea even more incomprehensible.
“Step into the cart, please, High Magister,” said a voice behind him. “We have a long journey still to go.”
Viyeki turned to the tall soldier in the silvery dragon mask. “Tell me your name again, officer, so that I may know who to blame if this adventure goes wrong.”
The guard inclined his head. “I am Hamakha First Armiger S’yessu. I am commissioned by the queen herself for special service.”
Viyeki looked at the soldier’s surcoat, at the simple maze he wore as an insignia. “But you wear only the Hamakha helm, not the Hamakha crest.”
“That is why I am called an armiger, High Magister.”
“Then who do you serve? Not Queen Utuk’ku.”
“We all serve the queen, High Magister.”
“Just tell me who has sent for me, rousing me from my home in my hour of rest. If it is the palace, why we are not going there?”
The guard’s voice did not change. “I am forbidden to tell more than I have, High Magister. But you will learn all soon enough if you will simply step into the cart.”
Whatever his summoners planned, it was clearly not meant to be secret. Nearly everyone in his household, his wife Khimabu, his secretary, and many of his servants, had seen the soldier and his labyrinth token waiting at the front door, the token that usually symbolized a summons to the Omei’yo Palace. But the messenger had stated in front of all of them that they were bound for somewhere other than the Maze, and that none of High Magister Viyeki’s retinue could attend him. Khimabu had balked at this, of course, insisting her husband wait until more comprehensible orders were sent, but Viyeki had weathered the deadly court politics of Nakkiga for a long time; he was even a bit intrigued by such an unusual summons.
Still, he did not like the wide, steaming vent that now confronted him here, below the city, or the ancient cart and capstan waiting to lower him even farther into the deeps of the great mountain.
“I cannot believe that the queen would wish to meet me in such a place,” he said.
“The queen is not here, High Magister,” the guard said. “That at least I can tell you.”
“His lordship Akhenabi? High Celebrant Zuniyabe?”
The guard shook his head. “Please, High Magister. The cart awaits us.”
After a long moment’s consideration, Viyeki stepped into the mine cart. The dragon-helmed guard entered behind him and closed the barred door, then gave a signal to the overseer of the Carry-men. The huge creatures, only slightly smaller than wild giants, began to crank the capstan.
The massive ropes creaked as the cart shuddered down into the depths, past level after level, each a dark doorway into the roots of the mountain, where Carry-men and other slaves dug for sulfur and gold. As the cart bumped and shook, Viyeki felt the air grow warmer and ever closer, until it pressed at his ears. There was something else pushing at him too, a discomfort he could queasily detect just at the edge of his senses, but could not identify.
At last the cart groaned to a halt, and the guard in the serpent mask pushed the door open. “Go forward, High Magister.”
The queasy feeling had grown stronger. For the first time, he felt real reluctance. “What about you?”
“I have a passenger to carry back, then I will return for you.” The guard sounded impatient at Viyeki’s hesitation. “You must not fear, High Magister.”
Viyeki got out and walked down the low passage. His trained eye told him it had been cut through the mountain long, long ago, or at least with stone tools, not metal or witchwood as used in more recent eras. The strange discomfort inside him grew stronger, as though he stood in the bow of a pitching ship; the heat of the place brought out sweat on his skin. He slowed, but that did not stem the sensation, so he silently said the Prayer for the Queen’s Strength and continued forward.
The corridor turned and bent, then suddenly opened out into a great cavern, this one untouched by tools of any kind, or so it looked to his practiced eye. Shifting red and yellow light turned the entire cavern the color of fire, and in its center a large crevasse belched steam and smoke, as though he were in some smaller version of the Chamber of the Well. From time to time flames darted upward from the cleft in the stone like the tongue of a hungry dragon. Other than that movement, the rocky chamber seemed empty, though the sensations of heat and oppression had grown even more powerful. He no longer felt only a sickness in his guts, but something stronger, a kind of growing terror that clutched at his chest and dried his mouth and throat.
What place is this? A cavern so far below the excavation levels? No Builder had a hand in this, not in my lifetime.
Viyeki stared for long moments into the shifting light and clouds at the center of the chamber before he realized that a mote of darkness drifting high in the clouds of steam above the crevasse was something more. In fact, it had arms and legs and wore a billowing cloak. The tightening of his chest increased. His heart sped.
Have they hung someone there? he thought in sudden shock. Is this a place of execution? May the Garden defend me, was my family right to fear? Is that why I’ve been brought to this hidden place? He stopped, unwilling to go closer to the pit and the slowly moving shadow that dangled high above it.
“I wonder how long he would fall if I pushed him in,” someone said just beside his ear. “Would he cook on the way down?”
Even Viyeki, veteran of centuries in the conspiratorial darkness of Nakkiga, nearly cried out in horrified surprise. He whirled, his hand dropping to the knife on his belt.
Jijibo the Dreamer stood behind him, Utuk’ku’s strange, many-times-great-grandnephew, his narrow face bobbing up and down.
“Lord Jijibo, you startled me.” Viyeki’s eyes turned helplessly back to the figure hanging so high above them in the wavering haze and orange light. “Who is that? Why was I brought here?”
“Does he truly not know?” the queen’s kinsman said. “I did not think him such a fool. Does he not remember that I told him his family had been noticed?” And then, a moment later, without change of tone: “Yes, I would like to have a dried salmon for my meal today.” Now Jijibo pointed a bony finger toward the dark shape floating high in the plume of steam: “Only look, Magister Viyeki. The answer to both your questions waits there.”
Viyeki stared at the figure. “You mean, that’s not a prisoner?”
“Oh, a prisoner, yes, most definitely,” said the Dreamer. “But not of the sort you mean. Hmmm, hmmm, yes, I do wonder what it would be like to flay all your skin from your body.”
In his previous encounters with Jijibo, Viyeki had learned that it was best to pretend most of the things the mad one said had not been spoken aloud, no matter how dire or shocking. “I still do not understand you, Lord Dreamer. Who has summoned me?”
“I cannot stay to talk, noble Lord Viyeki,” Jijibo said with a touch of impatience. “One day when we are dead, we will all smell like this, did you know? The snake in the apple cart is waiting to take me back to my chambers, you see.” He grinned. The Dreamer looked like something poorly made, his skin pulled a little too tight over his bones, his eyes a little too wide. Even his teeth were crooked. “Look at him frown!” he said. “And he has not even met the whisperer yet. How I would love to have that halfblood daughter of his! I would not take her skin off, no, no. Too crude. How would I learn anything?”
Finished with words, Jijibo then made a huge, exaggerated bow and strode off in the direction from which Viyeki had come, presumably to the waiting mine cart. Viyeki watched him go, confused and disturbed by what Jijibo had said about his daughter. Only a moment later did he hear the other thing that the Dreamer had said.
Whisperer, he thought. Does he truly mean—?