The dunes of Doralice seemed endless. When night fell I finally just crawled to the top of one of the taller ones and lay down among the sea grass. The stars were magnificent, so perfectly clear you could see the space around them. I held the monkey cane across my chest and wondered what had happened in the mine that day, who had finally turned to salt and how it might have affected Matters's mind.
It was all very amusing until I heard the first howl. After the fifth howl, I could tell the dogs were drawing closer and closer from every direction and seemed to be converging on me. I grabbed the pages under my arm and held the cane up in a defensive posture. In moments, though, I could see the absurdity of my position. I had to get off the dune or I would be trapped.
I slid down the side and landed softly on the sand below. Once I had my feet beneath me, I began to run. The valleys of the dunes echoed with the barking of the wild dogs, and I had no idea where I was going. All I could think of was the demon attack I had been through with Bataldo and Calloo, and the sounds of the approaching beasts filled me with terror.
I expected at any moment that one would leap out of the sea grass at me as I rounded the turns in the sandy labyrinth. My leg muscles were burning, and I could hardly draw breath, but I fled until I tripped and landed with my face in the sand. I could see nothing, but I heard the low chorus of dogs begin to build around me.
As I stood, I waved the cane in front of me to ward them off. They began to snap and growl. Clearing the sand from my face, I saw what seemed a hundred pairs of yellow eyes bobbing in the shadows. Their upper incisors were like down-curving tusks, and their ears came to sharp points. They leaped forward. I shouted and swung the cane, and they jumped back. I had to keep turning inside their circle to try to stare them down all at once.
It became clear to me very soon that they were more than willing to let me stew there until I was weakened by fear. I had no choice but to comply. To make matters worse, a few had begun running laps around the outside of their circle, always counter to the direction I was turning. Trying to keep them in view made my head ache. I could hear them breathing heavily, a kind of weird, hungry laughter.
I turned for hours, to the right, to the left, and then I turned inward, spinning a glimpse of Aria moving amid the dogs. When I blinked she disappeared, but soon after her, I saw young Ives fall through the ice. I could feel the pack sense my confusion, because things got suddenly quiet. Trying to keep my sanity, I cut to ribbons with the cane a phantom of the mayor as he lurched out of the night, arm reaching forward, a perfect black hole in the middle of his forehead.
It leaped on my back, driving me to the ground. I could feel it snapping at my ear, trying to get to my throat. Covering my face with one arm, I rolled over and stabbed it with the end of the cane so hard I heard ribs cracking. It yelped and leaped off me. The next one was already on its way. I heard it running before I could turn to see. There was just enough time for me to hoist the cane up like a club and swing. The ivory monkey bit down into the dog's eye as my boot came up for the jaw.
I had sustained quite a few bites and scratches, and also wounded a good number of them, but near dawn, a shot rang out from the top of a nearby dune and the explosion chased off the dogs. I wasn't sure at first if it was another apparition or really Corporal Matters and Silencio coming toward me. The corporal wore no wig, and through his closely cropped hair I could see a suture that cut a longitudinal hemisphere across his scalp. He carried two pistols, both of which were aimed at my heart. Silencio followed close behind, carrying a rope.
"You've got a mother lode of sulphur to dig, Cley," said Matters. He looked down at Silencio and said, "Tie him up."
The traitorous monkey tied my hands behind my back and then wound the rope three times around my neck, leaving a long leash in front by which he could lead me. When he was done with the job, he clapped and did a back flip. Matters ordered him to bring the cane which was covered with dog blood. Silencio tugged me by the neck and brought the corporal his stick. I thought he was going to cry when he saw the condition it was in.
"I'd love more than life itself to beat you this very moment, Cley, but I'm saving you for something finer," he said, controlling his obvious anger. He walked close behind me with one of the pistols trained on the back of my head. Silencio led the way, the end of my leash over his shoulder.
"The monkey tracked you for a case of Three Fingers," said Matters. "After you're gone, he'll need it to console himself."
"What was all the business with the wigs, and the night watch and day watch?" I asked. I had nothing to lose. We trudged along the shoreline back toward the maze of dunes that held the mine. Silencio pointed out to sea, and I caught a glimpse of a kraken's tentacle as it curled beneath the waves.
"I'll give you some business," said Matters and shoved the barrel of the gun up under my ear.
"Your head has been tampered with by the Master, hasn't it?" I asked.
"If you consider a pound of brass gear work tampering," he said. "But tell me that your head hasn't been tampered with."
"I can't," I called over my shoulder.
"My brother's got the same setup, springs and the like, but his runs counterclockwise to mine," he said.
"What brother?" I asked.
He struck me across the back with the stick. "You think you're so smart, Cley. My mind is going to eat you alive," he said and swung twice more.
Silencio led us up through the dunes and, by some miracle route he knew, brought us to the opening of the mine in less than an hour.
"Now, Cley," said Matters, coming up close behind me, "I've been having nightmares about demons and ice, and I expect not to have them this evening. By sundown you'll have literally baked to death."
I was going to plead for my life, but before the words could make their way out, the butt of the corporal's gun smashed the back of my head, and I found I was already gone. In the dark distance where I was huddled, I felt my body being dragged and then the unbearable heat of the mine enveloped me.
I woke, screaming, to find my feet and hands bound and each roped tightly to metal cleats that had been pounded deep into the sulphur of the path. I lay outside my miserable tunnel, my head on the down slope, my eyes looking up to see, through the mist, the upper rim of the pit. Halfway to the top on the spiral path, I saw the doll-sized figure of the corporal across the abyss. He stopped in his ascent, turned to me, cupped his hand to his mouth, and yelled something. I thought he was going to yell, "The mine is the mind," but he didn't. It had more syllables than that, yet came across as a frantic grunting that he kept up until he had breached the top of the mine and disappeared.
Without the benefit of being able to keep moving, the mine was an oven. The heat built up in me quickly, and it was not long before I could feel my skin begin to lightly sizzle on the hot stone of the path. The sweat bubbled away in pools of evaporating steam. My tongue and throat soon became parched.
I tried to think what I could do, but all my plans gave way to an overwhelming weariness. I soon reached a point beyond pain where I felt nothing. The mine was cradling me in its warmth, but I fought to stay awake by trying to read the inscriptions above the tunnels on the opposite side of the hole. I located Barlow and went on from there.
Then I heard something, the sound of a voice far off. I searched all around before staring straight up. There was Silencio, dancing on the rim of the pit. He was screaming and waving as if trying to tell me something. "The damn monkey is more insane than Matters/' I thought to myself and could not help but laugh, drawing in great clouds of the noxious mist.