“They will not go farther, Host Foreman,” the governor said without meeting Viyeki’s eye. “The shame is on me and my house. I should execute them all, but I cannot.”
Viyeki generally did not believe in executing balky workers, especially at a time when trained Builders were in short supply, but he was tempted to make an exception now, starting with the Troop Governor himself.
“Do they not understand their people’s need?” Viyeki added an appropriate edge of contempt to his words. “We are preparing a place for our folk to shelter if the gates fall. If there is no water close to that shelter, not even the Order of Song can save us—they cannot sing it up out of pure stone. Our people will all die gasping from thirst, like the proud walking fish in the ancient stories. Like animals. Even the queen herself!” He narrowed his eyes. “I should have these shirkers dig a pit and cast themselves in. You too, though live burial is better than you deserve.”
The governor fell forward, sprawled on his face at Viyeki’s feet, and moaned. “Take the head from my shoulders, Host Foreman!” he begged. “I have failed you, the Garden, and the Mother of All.”
“And what good would your head do me?” Viyeki fought to keep his peevishness in check. “It is too ugly to make much of a trophy. Get up and tell me why your charges are willing to die instead of obeying orders that come not just from me, but from High Magister Yaarike himself.”
Ruho’o backed slowly into a crouching position. “The workers are frightened, Lord Viyeki. Nobody but the Order of Song ever goes into those depths by choice, and only the Singers ever come back out again. The workers say . . . they say they cannot help themselves. They take a few steps into the downward tunnels and their hearts squeeze like a fist in their chests until they almost swoon. Something is down there.”
“Of course something is down there. Many things are down there. The mountain is ours, though, and nothing down there is to be feared. We have Lord Akhenabi’s word.”
“All the same, there are still four of our engineers missing, Lord, the ones you sent first into the lower tunnels. They did not return. But some of the men say they heard those engineers’ voices. Pleading for someone . . .” The foreman hesitated. “Pleading for someone to come and wake them. That is what I have heard.”
“But you did not hear this yourself.” Viyeki scowled. Perhaps a few executions would be necessary after all.
“No. But one of them, old Sasigi, appeared to me in a dream. I swear it is true! He said that they were all lost in the darkness. A darkness that breathed. And that he feared if he did not find his way out again, it would find him and chew him and swallow him down, and he would never awaken again.”
“Superstition,” said Viyeki, but that did not keep superstitious fear from tickling the nape of his own neck. “A dream, only. I expect more of you than to spread this kind of thing, Governor Ruho’o.” He composed himself. “How many of the men are refusing to do their duty?”
The governor looked at him with something like wonder. “Why, all of them, Lord. I would not trouble you otherwise.”
It was an impossible situation. Viyeki could not help imagining what his master Yaarike would think when he failed at even this less glorious task after complaining about Naji being given the work around the great gates. But short of killing enough valuable workers to frighten the rest into compliance, what could he do? The caverns known as the Forbidden Deeps cut right across the path of the new canal, and it seemed impossible to dig around them swiftly enough to make a refuge ready before the Northmen broke down the gates. Nor was Viyeki such a fool as to completely discount the men’s fears. He knew they had good reasons to dislike the deepest places.
Even after the Hikeda’ya had held Nakkiga for close to fifty Great Years—three long millennia as mortals would reckon it—the mountain still held many secrets. The Order of Song knew some of them, which was part of what gave them such power in the queen’s city, but the mountain had hidden depths that even Akhenabi and perhaps even Queen Utuk’ku herself might hesitate to plumb. Viyeki had felt the terror of those deep places himself in his early years, the freezing claw that gripped the heart and turned all one’s thoughts into leaves swept up in a howling gale. He had even once seen Yaarike himself turn back from a place that he said was “too dark to enter,” though the high magister had held a brightly burning torch. How to force mere laborers?
He could see no other choice. “Go back and keep the men quiet, Troop Governor Ruho’o. Occupy them with some of the finishing work in the tunnels that are already completed. I will devise a solution. And spread no more tales, nor let others spread them!”
“Go back?” For an instant the governor, who had come prepared to be executed for his failure, did not look overwhelmingly grateful that he was being sent back, but he quickly smoothed his expression into blankness. “Yes, my lord. You are very wise. I will do just as you say.”
Though he could hear the sounds of hammers striking stone in many other parts of the city, Viyeki thought the Street of Eight Ships, usually bustling with workers and their overseers, was strangely quiet today. It made the constant shuddering boom of the mortals’ mighty ram even more dreadful. The Builders’ order-house was all but empty, and the functionary outside the High Magister’s sanctum told him that Yaarike was out somewhere, supervising one of the many sites where the Builders were laboring to protect the city. Viyeki was frustrated, but since the functionary could not or would not tell him precisely where Yaarike was, Viyeki had already turned to leave when he met High Foreman Naji in the doorway.
Naji, always correctly courteous, made the appropriate gesture of greeting to an approximate equal, reminding Viyeki that whatever he might have been promised, at this point he was only one among several Host Foremen that Yaarike commanded.
“Is the old man in a good mood?” Naji asked.
“He is not here.” Viyeki was suddenly curious. “Is he not at your site at the gates?”
“He has scarcely been there—not for days. Perhaps we have earned his confidence, and so he chooses to spend his time elsewhere.” Naji was an unemotional type, generally uninterested in things he had not already learned, but he was no fool, as his look of deliberately bland inquiry demonstrated. “Why do you seek him?”
The last thing Viyeki wished to do was to talk about his unruly workers—it would have been hard enough to admit it to the high magister. “Nothing—a trifle. How goes your work on the gate?”
Naji made a gesture of sufficiency. “It still stands. But the great bolts are slowly shaking free of the surrounding stone, of course. With all the weight above it, if the gate is not flush, that will put great strain on the lintel.” For a moment he seemed ready to talk about their shared profession, but a sudden look of distrust flashed across his face, and his posture became more rigid. “But are you not in charge of the refuge down in the deeps? What brings you back up to the city?”
“As I said, a trifle—just an idea I wished to discuss with the High Magister.” Viyeki wanted to end this conversation. If word of his troubles with his workers filtered back up to the city, the other High Foremen would see his visit to the order-house for what it truly was—desperation. “If you see our master, tell him I will find him another time.”
Naji looked mollified and his posture became less formal. “As I said, I scarcely see him—he is here, then he is there, as swift and hard to track as a rumor. He communicates with us mostly by messenger. The High Magister complains about his years, but should I ever reach such an age I pray I have even a fraction of his vigor.”
Age does not always weaken its victims, Viyeki thought. Sometimes, as with Lord Akhenabi, it made them more cruel, more dangerous, and more powerful. “These are deadly times,” was what he said to Naji. “Our master gives his all. We can do no less.” Viyeki felt the hypocrisy of his words even as he uttered them and abruptly changed the subject. “And what of the fighting outside the mountain? What do you hear from the Order of Sacrifice?”
Naji shook his head. “Grim things, I fear. The Marshal and General Suno’ku must conserve their forces in case we fail and the gate is breached. So the numbers of those fighting the Northmen are small, yet more of them fall every day, though we can ill-afford to lose even one Sacrifice. But Suno’ku inspires them to keep fighting, and the gates have held for far longer than most thought they would.”
“What do you think of her? Of the general?”
For the first time, Naji’s mask of formality slipped entirely. “I think she is the greatest of us—saving only the Mother of All, of course. We are blessed by the Garden to have her in this dark time. Such courage! But even more, it is a courage that she can lend to others when their own has fled.”
“She is brave, yes. And fierce. I saw her at Tangleroot Castle. And at Three Ravens Tower.” There were moments when Viyeki remembered the bright-haired warrior as he had first seen her there, and he could almost believe that she could save them all. But they were only moments. “I must go now. I dare not leave my governors in charge too long.”
“I know what you mean,” said Naji. “The unsaddled goat quickly begins to bite.” And then he did a strange thing, extending his arm and hand for the other to clasp. “May we both bring credit on our order in this evil time, Host Foreman Viyeki. Who knows when we will see each other again?”
And Viyeki, who had spoken truthfully but spitefully about Naji’s shortcomings many times of late, was shamed. He put out his own hand and clasped Naji’s arm just below the elbow. “Yes, order-brother. May we both make our master proud. And if we do not see each other again in this world, we will meet in the Garden.”
They parted, Naji to his other business, Viyeki back to the depths and his workmen who would not work. And if the High Magister’s wisdom was not available to him, he knew he must solve the problem himself. He owed it to his queen and his people.
As he walked down the front steps of the order-house, the iron ram crashed against the outside of the gates once more, shaking all that was not solid bedrock. Even the bells of the temple towers swayed from the shock and uttered softly, like the moans of frightened children.