“You will come with us,” the Nariscene said. Two of the squat, pale, uniformed men stood behind it holding rifles. Ferbin and Holse dressed in their preposterous uniforms. “Bring possessions,” the Nariscene told them. Holse picked up both bags.
A small wheeled vehicle took them a short way up another spiral ramp. More doors and dimly lit tunnels brought them to a greater space, still dark, where people and machines moved and a train sat humming, poised between two dark holes at either end of the chamber.
Before they could board, the floor beneath their feet shook and a shudder ran throughout the huge chamber, causing people to look up at the dark ceiling. Lights swayed and dust drifted down. Ferbin wondered what sort of cataclysmic explosion would be felt so far beneath this much rock.
“Embark here,” the Nariscene told them, pointing at a shuttered entrance into one of the train’s cylindrical carriages. They heaved themselves up a ramp into a cramped, windowless compartment; the Nariscene floated inside with them and the door rolled back down. There was just enough room for them to sit on the floor between tall boxes and crates. A single round ball in the ceiling, guarded by a little metal cage, gave out a weak, steady yellow light. The Nariscene hovered over one of the crates.
“Where are we going?” Ferbin asked. “Are we going to see Xide Hyrlis?”
“We do not know,” the Nariscene said.
They sat breathing the stale, lifeless air for a while. Then there was a lurch and some muffled clanking as the train moved off.
“How long will this take?” Ferbin asked the Nariscene.
“We do not know,” it repeated.
The train rattled and buzzed around them and they both soon fell asleep again, to be woken from the depths once more, confused and disoriented, and hustled out — knees and backs aching — down a ramp and into another squat vehicle which took them and the accompanying Nariscene along yet more tunnels and down another spiral to a large chamber where a hundred or more tanks of liquid, each twice their height, glowed blue and green in the general darkness.
Each tank held the bodies of a half-dozen or so of the short, stubby-looking men, all quite naked. They looked asleep, a mask over each face, hoses snaking up to the surface of the tanks. Their bodies were quite hairless and many had been badly injured; some were missing limbs, some had obvious puncture wounds and others displayed extensive areas of burned skin.
Ferbin and Holse were so fascinated looking at this unnerving, ghoulish display that it was some time before they realised they appeared to be alone; the little wheeled vehicle had disappeared and seemingly taken the Nariscene with it.
Ferbin walked over to the nearest of the tanks. Close up, it was possible to see that there was a gentle current in the pale, slightly cloudy liquid; tiny bubbles rose from the floor of the tank and headed to the sealed caps of the cylinders.
“D’you think they’re dead?” Ferbin breathed.
“Not wearing those masks,” Holse replied. “They look a bit like you did, sir, when the Oct were healing you.”
“Perhaps they are being preserved for something,” Ferbin said.
“Or medicined,” Holse suggested. “There’s not one without an injury I’ve seen yet, though many seem to be healing.”
“You could say we’re healing them,” someone said behind them.
They both turned. Ferbin recognised Xide Hyrlis immediately; he had barely changed at all. Given that nearly a dozen long-years had passed, this ought to have seemed strange, though it was only later Ferbin realised this.
Xide Hyrlis was a tall man by the standards of the dwarfish people hereabouts, though he was still shorter than Ferbin or Holse. He was dense-seeming somehow, and dark, with a broad face, a large mouth with teeth that were both too few and too wide, and bright, piercingly blue-purple eyes. His eyes had always fascinated Ferbin as a child; they had an extra, transparent membrane that swept across them, meaning that he never had to blink, never needed to stop seeing the world, however briefly, from the moment he woke to the moment he slept (and he did little enough of that). His hair was black and long and kept in a tidy ponytail. He had a lot of facial hair, neatly trimmed. He wore a better-cut version of the grey uniform worn by most of the people they’d seen so far.
“Xide Hyrlis,” Ferbin said, nodding. “It is good to see you again. I am Prince Ferbin, son of King Hausk.”
“Good to see you again, prince,” Hyrlis said. He looked to one side and seemed to address somebody they could not see. “The son of my old friend King Hausk of the Sarl, of the Eighth, Sursamen.” Hyrlis returned his attention to Ferbin and said, “You are much grown, prince. How are things on the Eighth?” Holse glanced at Ferbin, who was staring straight at Hyrlis. “Ferbin was a hip-high child, last time I saw him,” Hyrlis added to whatever imaginary being was at his side. There really was nobody else anywhere near them, and nothing obvious that he could be addressing.
“I have much to tell you, Hyrlis,” Ferbin said, “little of it good. But first, tell me how I ought to address you. What rank do you hold?”
Hyrlis smiled. He glanced to one side. “A good question, don’t you think?” He looked at Ferbin. “Adviser, you might say. Or Supreme Commander. It’s so hard to know.”
“Choose one, sir,” Holse suggested. “There’s a good gent.”
“Allow me,” Ferbin said coldly, as he looked at Holse, who was smiling innocently, “to present my servant, Choubris Holse.”
“Mr Holse,” Hyrlis said, nodding.
“Sir.”
“And sir will do,” Hyrlis said thoughtfully. “It’s what everybody else calls me.” He caught some sudden tension from Ferbin. “Prince, I know you’ll only ever have called your father ‘sir’ since your majority; however, humour me in this. I am a king of sorts in these parts and command more power than ever your father did.” He grinned. “Unless he’s taken over the whole Shellworld, eh?” He turned his head again, “For yes, such Sursamen is, those of you slow to reference,” he said to his unseen companion as Ferbin — still, Holse thought, looking a little glassy-eyed — said, “As I say, sir, I have much to relate.”
Hyrlis nodded at the bodies bobbing gently in the tanks behind them. “Captured enemy,” he said. “Being kept alive, partially repaired. We wash clear their minds and they become our spies, or assassins, or human bombs, or vectors of disease. Come. We’ll find you a place to flop. And better clothes. You look like twig insects in those.”
They followed him to one of the open-sided runabouts, and as they did, dark figures left various shadows all about them, dissociating from the darkness like parts of it; humans in some near-black dark camouflage suits and armed with ugly-looking guns. Ferbin and Holse both jerked to a stop as they saw the four shadowy figures closing swiftly, silently in on them but Hyrlis, without even looking round, just waved one hand as he took the driving seat of the little wheeled vehicle and said, “My guard. Don’t worry. Jump on.”
Once he knew the dark figures were no threat, Ferbin was quite pleased to see them. Hyrlis must have been talking to them for some reason. That was a relief.
Xide Hyrlis kept a very fine table beneath the kilometres of mountain rock. The chamber was dome-shaped, the servants — young men and girls — glided silently. The stone table they sat around was loaded with highly colourful and exotic foodstuffs and a bewildering variety of bottles. The food was entirely delicious, for all its alien nature, and the drink copious. Ferbin waited until they had finished eating before telling his story.