Saash was watching them, too. After a while she glanced over at Rhiow and said silently, We’re all going to die down here, aren’t we? It’s not just me.
No, Rhiow said, I’d say not. Odd, how when it could have been just her, she would almost have welcomed it. But no, Rhiow thought to herself, that’s never really been an opportunity. We’re in conjoint power at this point, “roped together” as the ehhif idiom would have it: what happens to one of us on this job, we’ve always known would happen to all of us… She wanted to laugh a little at herself, except that she felt so dead inside. And here I was so worried about being shy an extra life. It’s going to be a lot more than that, soon.
Urruah, pacing along with them, looked ahead at Arhu and Ith, and lashed his tail in a meditative sort of way. He wouldn’t eat, he said.
No. That was interesting. He didn’t sound very happy, either … not like that other saurian we heard talking about their “Great One.”
Saash looked thoughtful. Neither did the saurians who were watching that one work, she said. They are individuals, Rhi…not everyone has to be completely enthusiastic about whatever’s going on down here.
All right, I know what you mean. It’s just… it’s hard to think of him as one of us. But he is … he wouldn’t have been given the Oath, otherwise. And he definitely has a troubled sound.
They walked a little way more. Rhiow was still worrying in mind at the tone of Ith’s voice. Sweet Iau, she thought, I’m so tired.
“Ith,” she said suddenly.
He looked at her, as if surprised anyone besides Arhu would speak to him: and Arhu looked, too. “This way,” he said. “A long way yet.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Rhiow glanced at the others. “Let’s stop and rest a little. I’d like to get the rest of this mess off me; the scent is potentially dangerous. And we can all use a breather…”
I was wondering when you were going to suggest it, Urruah said, somewhat caustically, as he glanced around them, and then flopped down right where he was. We don’t all have your iron constitution.
We don’t all constantly load ourselves up with stuff from MhHonalh’s, either. You should try cat food sometime. I know a good dietetic one…
Urruah made an emphatic suggestion as to what Rhiow could do with diet cat food. Rhiow thought his idea unlikely to be of any lasting nutritive value. But she grinned slightly, and then turned back to Ith, who had hunkered down next to Arhu, by the wall of the long corridor where they sat. Arhu looked once up and down the corridor with a listening expression, then started washing.
“Arhu?” Rhiow said. “Anything coming?”
“Not for a while yet,” he said, not looking up from washing his white shirtfront, now mostly pink.
“All right.” Rhiow looked over at Ith. “You are hungry, aren’t you?” Rhiow said.
Pause. “Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you eat, back there?”
A much longer pause. Arhu, in the middle of a moment’s worth of washing, glanced up, watching thoughtfully.
“Because there was no one to force me,” Ith said. “Workers are not given food often … but when it is given them, they must eat; if they are reluctant, they are forced… or killed. Warriors, also, are forced … or killed. If one will not eat and do one’s work, whatever that might be … one becomes food.”
“And you were about to…”
A very long pause, this time. “I looked about me,” Ith said, very softly, “and realized I did not wish to be food.” He stopped, and actually suited action to words, glancing around him guiltily as if afraid someone would hear; the sentiment was apparently heretical. “It seemed to me that there should be another way for us to survive. But if ever one spoke of such possibilities, one was found mad … and immediately sacrificed. People would say, “The flesh tastes better when the mind is strange …’ And they would laugh while they ate.”
Rhiow looked at Saash, who shuddered, and Urruah, who simply made a face. “But I wanted to live my own life,” said Ith, “not merely exist as meat in some warrior’s belly.” Another look around him, guilty and afraid. Rhiow found herself forced to look away in embarrassment. “A long time I kept my silence … and looked for ways to come away from the depths, some way that would not be forbidden. There were no such ways; all roads are guarded now, or sealed… Finally I thought I would even try to go to the Fire and end myself there, rather than be food. I was going to go … I knew the ways; like many others I have gone out to gaze at the Fire, never daring to creep close… Then the voice spoke to me.”
“ ‘All roads are guarded,’ ” Urruah said. “How did you get out, then?”
“I—” Ith hesitated. “I stepped—between things, I went—”
“You sidled,” Arhu said. “Like this.” And did it where he sat, though with difficulty.
Ith’s jaw dropped. Then he said, “Even here, it is hard.”
A second’s look of concentration, and he had done it, too: though, as with many beginners, his eyes were last to vanish, and lingered only half-seen in the air, a creepy effect for anyone who didn’t know what was causing it. Then he came back, breathing harder, and folded his claws together, possibly a gesture of satisfaction.
“Down here, yes, it’s tough,” Rhiow said. “It’s the presence of the Fire down below us, and of other lesser ones like it. They interfere. It will become impossible, as we go deeper.”
“But I did it there,” Ith said, looking at her suspiciously. “My work is down deep; I fetch and carry for the warriors who are housed in the delvings some levels above that Fire. To come away I had to come by the guards who watch the ways up out of the greatest depths. It… was hard, it hurt…”
“The cheesewire effect,” Urruah muttered. “Too well we know. But you got out anyway.”
“I passed many guards,” Ith said, looking sidewise at Urruah. “None of them saw me. Finally I came up here, where no one comes except workers who are sent under guard; they all passed me by. And I went where the voice told me to wait… and you came.”
“Great,” Urruah muttered. “He can sidle where we won’t be able to. This is so useful to us.”
“It might be,” Rhiow said softly. “Don’t laugh.” But she looked at Ith uneasily. If we needed proof, we’ve got it now. A saurian wizard…
Saash looked at Ith, then glanced at Rhiow. You’re thinking he’s responsible for what’s been going on with the gates? It’s crazy, Rhi. Ith hardly knows anything. He barely seems to know as much about wizardry at this point as Arhu did when we found him.