“Nothin’ much,” she answered, still smarting. “How come Lady Bruze can throw big weight aroun’ alla time?”
Gandy frowned thoughtfully, then shrugged. “Lady Bruze got Clout,” he said. “Gives her stat … rank … priv … uh, she get by with a lot.”
“Not fair,” Lidda decided.
“Way it is, though.” The Grand Notioner shrugged again. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Lidda want clout, too?”
“Clout already married,” she pointed out. “To Lady Bruze.”
“Then get somebody else,” the Grand Notioner suggested. “Maybe somebody better. You want marry Highbulp?”
“Stop that again! No!”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause Highbulp a lazy, worthless twit, is why not. Highbulp never think ’bout anybody ’cept own self.”
“Yep,” Gandy agreed. “That him, alright. So why not marry him?”
Lidda stared at the oldster. “Can’t stand him, is why. Why else?”
“So what? Nobody can stand Highbulp. Marry him anyway. Do him good, have somebody keep him in line.”
Across the chamber, an excited crowd had gathered. Several gully dwarves had crept into the corridor there, looking for whatever had gone that way. Now they were returning, and they had the thing with them. It looked like a huge spear, and it took several of them to carry it.
“Whoever marry Highbulp be consort,” Gandy persisted.
Lidda turned to him again. “Be what?”
“Consort.”
“What consort?”
“Highbulp’s wife. Got more clout than Chief Basher’s wife.”
“Consort have to put up with Highbulp, though,” said Lidda. She shook her head back and forth. “Forget it.”
She walked away without looking back, and Gandy leaned on his mop handle. “Good choice,” he muttered to himself. “That’n might shape up Highbulp. That’n fulla vinegar.”
Chapter 3
The Aghar scouts recovered the missile-a twelve-foot-long spear of iron with a steel point as wide as a shovel-from far up the “big tunnel” where it had lodged itself in a stone wall after skipping and caroming for several hundred yards. It weighed at least fifty pounds and required four sturdy gully dwarves to carry it back to This Place.
“That thing dangerous,” the Highbulp declared, studying it from his perch atop his glowing green throne. “Where come from?”
“Murder hole up there,” someone pointed toward the far wall with its stone mosaic. They had built up the fires, and the hole behind the iron face up there was visible.
“Somebody throw that thing through that hole?” someone asked.
“Throw itself, prob’ly,” Gandy said, his mop handle staff thudding against the floor as he stepped past the fire, gazing at the hole high in the wall. “Ol’ trap somebody set, for guard big tunnel. Lidda open hole, trap sprung.”
Faces peered with renewed interest at the decorated wall. There were still eight more undisturbed faces.
“More of these up there?” the Highbulp asked.
Gandy squinted at the remaining eight plaques. “Yep,” he decided, “two more.”
They buzzed and hovered around the spear for a time, but could think of no use for it. It was inedible, and far too big for even Clout to use as a tool. Finally, with no better idea in mind, Gandy tied a scrap of stained cloth to the point of it and supervised as a dozen of them hoisted it upright and thrust the butt end of it into a hole in the paving, a few feet from the throne.
“There,” he said, when at last it stood tall and secure.
“ ‘There,’ what?” somebody asked. “What that supposed to be?”
“Flag,” Gandy explained. “Highbulp’s new flag.” He turned. “See, Highbulp? Got new …” He stopped, and sighed. Glitch the Most wasn’t listening. The Highbulp was all tuckered. He lay curled atop his “throne,” asleep and beginning to snore.
“Lidda right,” Gandy growled. “Highbulp a twit.”
The throne seemed happy, though. Beneath the Highbulp it glowed a steady green light, and seemed to pulse a bit, as though it were matching the Highbulp’s breathing.
Gandy frowned, tilting his head as he looked at the throne. He was almost sure that it was growing. It was noticeably larger now than when Lidda had first brought it.
* * * * *
Out of nothingness, she swam slowly into a kind of awareness. Vague, slow dreams drifted around her and she was part of them. More feelings than images, they drifted, curling and coalescing in first one way and then another-feelings of comfort and discomfort, of longing for … something long since gone, and of anticipation of something yet to come.
She floated among the dream-streams, knowing nothing except what they told her. The odd longings were less than memory, but more than dream. They were longings for things past and gone-feelings of freedom and power, of exhilaration and cruel joy, of confrontation and combat, of flying on great wings that ruled the skies above a vast and servile world. The feelings were bittersweet, clouded by a certainty that all of that was gone now, gone forever.
And yet, the other feelings-the anticipations-were warm with promise, as though what had ended forever might still, somehow, begin anew.
Timeless time passed, and the images became more clearly defined. She became aware of herself as a presence and dimly sensed other presences around her, presences beyond the limits of the green universe that was herself, but not far away.
The presences were not like herself. They were lesser things, yet presences. A vague instinct said, these are food, and abruptly she recoiled as though huge, unseen claws had raked her, punishing her for the thought. It was a lesson. Not food, then. Lesser beings, nearby, but not food.
Then why did they matter? The glowing greenness swam and coalesced and within it a darkness spoke to her. They own you, it said. You are theirs. Cold certainty flowed about her. You cannot harm them, the darkness declared. You can only serve them. You are theirs. Soon you will know.
Cruel, cold humor flowed from the darkness. Grow quickly now, it commanded her. Grow and awaken to your destiny. Awaken to your fate. Soon, the essences told her, you will understand. Soon you will know, just as you knew before. And that is when your punishment begins.
As the days passed, what was obvious to Gandy became apparent to everyone else in This Place. The Highbulp’s throne was growing. For a time, this greatly pleased Glitch the Most. With each day, it seemed, his loftiness above his subjects became greater, reinforcing his importance.
The problem was, the Highbulp kept falling off, and the fall was greater each time he did. Sometimes he fell off by his own doing-rolling over in his sleep and winding up in a heap on the hard, cold floor. But now and then the throne trembled and squirmed, and sometimes its violent spasms were enough to throw him from his perch.
It had grown big enough that it was increasingly difficult to get back on top of it when he fell off. “Highbulp need ladder,” he grumped to all those around him after a particularly forceful expulsion from his throne.
Nobody had the slightest idea how to make a ladder, but Glitch the Most was becoming grumpier by the hour, and an inspiration occurred finally, out of sheer aggravation.
It was a gully dwarf named Tunk who came up with it. While he and others were exploring far regions of the Pitt, where inexplicable wonders had been left by the lizard-things and others from the past, they bumped into a giant salamander who had been trying to get some sleep.
Instantly they fled in gibbering panic along a dark tunnel, just steps ahead of the huge, slithering thing with a mouth bigger than they were and teeth as sharp as needles. Giant salamanders were one of the hazards of life in the Pitt. Although the Talls and the lizard-men had gone, there were many other large, unpleasant things living here and there in the rubble of the Promised Place.