“Why do you say all women are whores?” she asked quietly one morning. “Whatever the autarch told you of me, I am not that. I am still a virgin. I was training to be a priestess. The autarch plucked me out of the Hive and put me in the Seclusion.”
Vo rolled his eyes. The iron control that usually governed his every action seemed to grow slack during that first hour of the morning. “Whoring has nothing to do with… coupling,” he said, as though the word tasted bad. “A whore sells who she is for protection, or food, or richer things.” He looked Qinnitan up and down with blank disinterest. “Women have nothing else to offer but themselves, so that is what they sell.”
“And you? What do you sell?”
“Oh, never doubt I am a whore, too,” he said and laughed. He clearly did not laugh very often—it sounded awkward and angry. “Most men are, except those who are born with wealth and power. They are the buyers. The rest of us are their sluts and catamites.”
“So you would be the autarch’s whore, then?” She put as much scorn in her voice as she could muster. “You would hand me over to him, to be tortured and murdered, just to earn his gold?”
He stared at his own hand for a long, silent moment, then held it up before her. “Do you see this? I could snap your neck in a heartbeat, or drive my fingers through your eyes or between your ribs to kill you and there is nothing you could do to prevent me. So I own you. But here in my gut is something that belongs to the autarch. If I do not do what he commands it will kill me. Very painfully. So he owns me.” Vo stood, swaying a little as swells rolled the boat, and looked down at her vacantly, his feverish mood beginning to fade once more. “Like most people, you waste your time trying to puzzle out the meaning of things.
“The world is a ball of dung and we are the worms that live in it and eat each other.” He turned his back on her, pausing only to add: “The one who eats all the others wins—but he is still the last living worm in a lump of shit.”
27. Mayflies
“Some scholars believe that the Elementals may be some other kind of creature entirely, less natural even than the fairies themselves.”
For long moments Ferras Vansen could only sit and stare into the near-darkness trying to understand what had happened. He was weak and queasy and his head was ringing like a bell, a single continuous chime. Chert Blue Quartz stood over him, mouth working broadly, but Vansen could hear no sound.
Deaf, he thought. I’m deaf. And then he remembered the thunderclap that had knocked him from his feet, a crash louder than anything he had heard since the blasting in the pits of Greatdeeps.
He pushed that nightmare memory from his mind and closed his eyes once more. Dizziness picked him up like a boat on a rough current and swirled him around and around. He was suddenly aware for the first time in days that he was really, truly underground—deep in a hole beneath the world, with an unimaginable weight of stone between him and the sun. If only someone would take a giant stick and poke a hole through it so he could see the light again, instead of being lost beneath it… lost, confused, baff led…
“… Throw it farther,” someone whispered. “… Didn’t know…”
Vansen opened his eyes again. Chert was still talking but now he could hear him, although the small man sounded as if he were a hundred paces away. Still, it meant that his hearing was coming back.
The cavern was full of other Funderlings as well, living Funderlings, none of whom Vansen recognized until Cinnabar himself appeared beside him, dressed in armor of a type he had never seen before: the small man was covered with round plates so that he looked a cross between a turtle and a pile of discarded dishes.
“How is he?” the Funderling magister asked Chert. Where had Cinnabar come from? All Vansen could remember was that he hadn’t expected to see him anytime soon. For that matter, it seemed strange to him that Chert Blue Quartz was here as well.
“I think he was deafened by the burst.” Chert’s voice still sounded muffled.
“I’m not deaf,” Vansen said, but the Funderlings showed no sign of having heard him. He repeated it, trying to be louder. It seemed to work because both of them turned toward him at the same time. “My hearing is returning,” he explained. “What happened?”
“It was all my fault,” said Chert, his face creased in worry. “I found some of our blasting powder beetles in the storage hall—we use them to crack rock—and thought, well, I didn’t have a weapon, and it might scare the Qar away, so I brought one. When I got here I saw they were all over you, so I lit it, came up behind, and threw the beetle as far as I could.” He looked chagrined. “My arm is not as strong as it once was…”
“Nonsense!” said Cinnabar. “My men and I would never have arrived in time. Because of you, Master Blue Quartz, the fairies were reeling and confused when we arrived and they couldn’t retreat fast enough. You saved Captain Vansen and quite possibly the temple as well!”
Chert looked surprised. “Really… ?”
Vansen suddenly remembered the last moments. “Where is Sledge Jasper? Is he… ?”
“Alive,” Cinnabar assured him. “Ears ringing like yours, but he is not complaining—oh, no. Too weak to complain, in any case. Some of my men are bandaging him—he leaked a lot of blood, but he’ll live. There is a fighter who would make the Elders proud!”
Vansen could not quite shake the feeling that he was buried beneath a millionweight of heavy stone. He could move, but every part of him seemed misshapen, unfamiliar, and his thoughts were sluggish. “You said this… beetle… was full of rock-cracking powder. Is it the stuff called serpentine or gunflour—the same black powder we use for cannons? Is there more of it?”
“Yes, there’s more,” Chert said. “Nearly another dozen shells in the storeroom, and probably more blasting powder as well. But we have no cannons down here, nor room to shoot them…”
A young Funderling in armor hurried up. “Magister Cinnabar, one of the enemy that was smashed up by the blasting powder… one of those drows… !”
“What, man? Chip it loose and let’s have it.”
“He’s alive.”
Strangely, Vansen recognized the captive. The dirty little man staring resentfully up at him was the one who had tried to stab him, and whose wrist he had snapped. Indeed, the shaggy creature was cradling that arm, which was swollen and bruised.
“Can we speak to him?” Vansen asked.
Cinnabar shrugged. “My men have been trying to. He refuses to answer. We know nothing of what tongue he speaks—he may not even understand us.”
“Then kill him,” Vansen said loudly. “He’s useless to us. Cut off his head.”
“What?” Chert was shocked. Even Cinnabar looked taken aback.
Vansen had been watching the prisoner carefully: the little man had not flinched, had not even looked up. “I do not mean it. I was just curious whether he was only pretending not to understand. We must think of a way to make him tell us what he knows about his mistress’ plans.”