The Island Under the Earth (10 page)

The small brazier glowed like the red eye of a beast in the dimness. A tiny spoonful of gum cashubite fell upon it, melted immediately, and spread over the circumference of the so small bed of coals, dimming it; but before the circle could be completely covered the gum began to crackle and hiss and bubble, burst into flames, immediately ceased to flame, and sent up a dense cloud of thick and reeking bittersweet smoke. Dellatindílla opened his mouth and distended his nostrils and made a sucking, gasping sound, flapping his hands so that the cuffs of his wide sleeves flapped like the wings of a birdeating bat. Down beneath him one of his dwarfs repeated the gestures over an imaginary brazier.
“SSSsssFFFFffffnnnhhh,”
went Dellatindílla. He held his breath, pinched shut his nostrils, staggered. His eyes rolled. His chest heaved. His cheeks puffed in and out — Finally he gave a shuddering cough, smoke ran out of his mouth and nose in thick coils, and he gasped and drank in air. Two feet from the ground the tiny figure dressed in shining black, huge and shining black eyes, danced and sucked and gasped and pinched and choked and puffed and staggered and coughed.

“Ahhhh …” whispered Dellatindílla. And “Ahhhh …” whispered the dwarf. “It hurts my throat,” said Dellatindílla, in a hoarse croaking voice. “It hurts his
throat
,” said the dwarf, nodding his head and pulling a sympathetic face. Dellatindílla leaned his hands flat on the table where, upon a sheet of beaten bronze, rested the tripod which held the tiny brazier. A few thin fumes still curled up, and these the eunuch inhaled.
“Hhhmmm …”
he moaned. And “
Hhhmmm
…” moaned his mite.

The comprador sat in his chair, the dwarf sat at his feet. Something moved through the silent house, but they did not hear it. Something slipped through bars, but they did not see it. Something slid through air-vents, but they did not scent it. Something moved through the silent house, but nobody knew it was there. Presently the master of the house arose and charged the brazier with fresh coals and the coals with more gum cashubite. Again the gum melted, crackled, hissed, bubbled, flared, smoked; again the user bent eagerly over the fumes and eagerly took them in. And again the dwarf, his eyes rolling and glittering, repeated all his movements and gestures and sounds. This second time, however, in that darkened room, rich with thick fabrics encrusted with richer stones, it seemed that the bittersweet smoke went down more easily. The dwarf had scarce an excuse to cough above once or twice, and long he sat before his master’s feet, his large eyes closed so that only a slit showed open to glisten in the light of the small lamps. A third time Dellatindílla dipped his small spoon into the small jar of gum cashubite and a third time he let the gum fall upon the glowing coals. This third time he breathed in the thick-rolling fumes as though they were the freshest air and he rolled them upon his tongue as though they were a most delicious vintage.

He sat back in his chair for a hundred thousand years and watched four hundred thousand seasons unfold before him, burgeon and flourish and decay. Then for another hundred thousand years he communed within himself. Then he opened his eyes. “Ah … that is good …” he murmured in a faraway voice. “…
good
…” a voice echoed and echoed with the sound of small bronze bells. “That makes everything worthwhile,” said the comprador, with a voluptuous sigh. “…
worthwhile
…” sang the bells.

“I have bales of precious wares …”

“… precious wares …”

“I have bags of precious stones …”

“… precious stones …”

“I have silver and have gold …”

“… have silver and have gold …”

“I own houses, lands, and ships …”

“… lands, and ships …”

“Men envy me and fear me …”

“… envy me and fear me …”

“I do not lack for wealth …”

“Wealth.”

“I do not lack for power …”

“Power.”

“I lack but the Cap of Grace …”

“Grace.”

“Had I but the Cap of Grace …”

“Grace.”

“If I had the Cap of Grace …

“To wear upon my head …

“If I had the Cap of Grace to wear upon my head — ” The eunuch opened his eyes and they shone red, red, red.
“I would not be as I am now!”
he screamed, leaping to his feet.

“Nor I!”
screamed the dwarf.
“Nor I! Nor I! Nor I!”

The eunuch pressed his hands to his head and screamed again, and screamed again, and screamed again. The dwarf pressed his hands to his head and shrilled and shrilled. Howling and howling, the eunuch leaped from wall to wall and from panel to panel and tore at the gem-embroidered hangings and tore them down and trampled on them and spat upon them and kicked at them and spurned the gems beneath his feet. He thrust out a hand and a dread accusing finger and opened his mouth again and then his face changed. The finger trembled, and the lips did, too. “Did I say that?” he asked. “Am I saying it? Have I yet to say it? Was it said to me? What will be said?” Slowly bewilderment was replaced by a slow, shy smile which grew into a look of totally awe-stricken wonder, and, “Grace, grace, grace,” he murmured. The dwarf threw back his head and roared with laughter. “And you are also right!” cried his master, and he laughed and hooted till he held his sides.

Presently the laughter died away into chuckles. Dellatindílla said, “Listen.”

He said, “Captain Stag goes into the half-hills; right?”

“Right …”

“Tabnath Lo follows after Captain Stag; right?”

“Right …”

“And a certain evil augur and a certain little dwarf goes after Tabnath Lo; right?”

“Right …”

“Shall we rise and get us ready and go and follow after them?”

“YES!” cried the dwarf. “KNEEL!” cried the dwarf. The eunuch knelt. The dwarf mounted upon his shoulders. “RISE!” The eunuch rose up as though in sections … up … up … up … up … up … The walls of the room slowly faded away. White lines of stars slowly etched across the ceiling and the ceiling itself ebbed and was gone. The folds and hummocks of the drapery upon the floor became hills and valleys, the gems stitched into them began to glow with the thousand eyes of the half a thousand creatures of the night. Up and up they trudged and trudged they up and trudged and up and up and up they trudged and trudged and up and down though up and up …
“Where is Captain Stag, Captain Stag?”

“At Hobar’s House, Hobar’s House, Captain Stag!”

“Where is Tabnath Lo, Tabnath Lo?”

“Far down below! Far down below!”

“And the other dwarf is where?”

“By the homophage’s lair! Oh, brother mine, beware! beware, beware!”

Oh, brother mine! Beware … beware … beware….

“And the choicest precious stones?”

“Where the watchdog keeps his bones.”

Oh, brother mine, beware, beware! Beware….

The night seemed to tremble with unease. The white starlines flickered uncertainly. The eunuch lifted his limber legs more slowly and put them down with less assurance. The dwarf rolled his glistering eyes. At length the eunuch said, “Why did you ask about the choicest precious stones?”

The dwarf declared, “I neither asked nor answered.”

“You did ask. And I answered.”

“I did not ask and certainly I did not answer.”

With a gasp his master tore the dwarf from his shoulders and held him at the level of his furious face. “If I did not ask and if you did not ask, then who asked?”

And the dwarf declared, “If it was neither you nor me it then follows that it was not we.”

He dropped to the ground, which suddenly ceased to be the soil of either hill or dale but was the tapestry-strewn floor of the room. The stars vanished, the walls returned, the gems were gems again, and by no means the most precious, choicest gems, either, and Dellatindílla seized up the tripod and the circle of bronze beneath it and beat upon the one with the other, crying, “Thief, thief, ho, ho, thief, thief, thief! Rouse the house! Churls, thralls, bondsmen, servants, all who eat my unstinted bread and salt, ho, up! Up! Up! Up! Ware thief, stop thief, catch thief!”

And the round of beaten bronze echoed, echoed, Thief!

Echoed: thief … thief … thief …

Echoed: thief …

• • •

But the dog, when they found him, was dead.

The dog lay dead upon his bones, where Zorbinand the Thief had killed it with one blow from the inner side of his left foot as it lunged forward at him, mouth open for an alarm it never gave. And Zorbinand was up in the rafters, so deep in the rafters that the spiders never came there, and in one hand he held the sack with the most precious stones and one by one he put them into his mouth and then he took the dish which had contained the dog’s water (fortunately it had seemed a cleanly dog, for Zorbinand was naturally fastidious) and he took a mouthful of it and he swallowed. After a while there was no more water. Neither was there any more of the most precious stones. Carefully, Zorbinand the Thief placed the sack in the dish and set them both carefully upon a ledge. He had no use at all for them, and if one thing had been condemned — at the College of Thieves — more than another, it was the wickedness of wanton theft.

Here is a vista which runs like a tunnel through the forest. None has planned it, perhaps no eye has ever regarded it as such. Assume that a regarding eye is at one end of it. At the other, a long, long way off, the details of land- and of woodscape vanish finally into blurs and masses. Now, suddenly, the regarding eye (if there be one) sees something flashing a way off there in the blur of distance and the mass of green, of green-yellow, and green-blue. It flashes, it vanishes, it comes like a spark and it goes like a spark. Now it comes again into view and now it stays a while in view and now it is larger, a flash of gold, and then it is gone again. Perhaps if it is in the air it has vanished behind intruding trees or hillocks. Or, perhaps, if it is on the ground, it is lost to sight by reason of dips and vales and dales and glades. Now it flashes into sight once more and now it stays in sight and now it grows almost to recognition: it is a rider upon a horse. The rider’s hair floats like a streamer, like a banner the rider’s long hair whips about in the currents of the air; the horse’s four limbs seem as much off the ground as on. Nearer, nearer, larger, larger — where are they going? Are they — ? Is it a they? It is not. There is no horse, no rider. It is a centaur, all of gold. And when the figure all at a gallop strikes a beam of light on its swift way through the pillars of the forest, how it blazes in that instant, how it shines and glows and dazzles. It is a female of the Six-limbed Folk, gold and golden from mane to tail, golden eyes and golden pelt. She does not look behind her; is ought pursuing her? She does not look from one side to the other; is she pursuing ought? Larger and larger she grows and now sound is added to sight, as though hidden in the forest a drummer with flashing hands and tautened palms strikes an accompaniment. Whence comes she? Whither does she go? — neither stopping nor slowing nor pausing as she goes — all swift flight and flashing limbs and floating hair and glowing golden eyes. She draws near, she hurls by, a leaf falls from a tree and staggers in the quickened air. The drumbeats diminish. The leaf settles softly on the ground. The shaft of sunlight shines uninterrupted as before. Slowly, the imprinted turf returns. And all is still. All is still.

“Up the tree,” said Gortecas, reaching round and pulling Mote from off his back, the cowl and cloak gaping empty and flaccid where the dwarf’s body had bulged and shaped it. The dwarf blinked and winked. “
Up the tree
. …” he sang. His fingers reached. Then they contracted.

“Up the
tree?
” he demanded. His feet kicked and his arms reached for the augur’s shoulders, but the augur held him out and hoisted him towards the branch. “Up,” the augur said.
“Up — ”

“But I don’t
want
to go up,” Mote protested, his eyes rolling fearfully. “I don’t
want —
” The augur gave a pinch and a twist. The dwarf cried out. He threshed about. Another pinch and another twist. The dwarf, with a hiss, grasped the branch. His foot missed the augur’s eye by an inch. The augur laughed, but his cold eyes and thin lips did not seem the least amused.

“Up, abortion,” he said, sneering. “Up and up, as far as you can go, and then espy out the land and tell me what you” — he stepped back hastily, avoiding a huge glob-ble of spit — “can see.”

For a while there was no sound save the sissing of the mite’s breath and the clip-clip of his shoes striking upon branch and trunk. Then there was a hoop and a slither and a scramble and another hoop: then a grunt. A piece of a limb came down, bouncety-bounce. The dwarf’s voice was shrill with fear. “I’m not going up!” he cried. “And I’m not coming down! I’ll stay right here and you can just go back and … and …”

“
‘And’? ‘And’?
And whilst I’m going back, ho what? If a tree-tyger or a drone-buzzard comes along, hungry — eh?”

“Don’t!”

“Don’t what? Don’t come back if I hear you crying,
Hellp!
hey? If the drone-buzzard or the lion wants some tender little dwarf cutlets for its supper — hey?
Up!
” he cried, so sudden and so savage that the mite Mote gave a convulsive cry and shuttled farther along the bole. “Up, up, confusion’s get! And let me hear no further word from you until you have espied somewhat to see!” And with brutal strokes he kicked upon the tree and he cried the word
Up
without cessation or pause.

Hiccupping his indignation, his terror, his dismay, the dwarf gripped each limb and branch tenaciously as he made his way higher; wished that he were sixlimbed, but with all of them hands; whispered to himself his complete disillusionment. “I thought it would be pleasant to take this trip,” he complained; “it isn’t at
all
pleasant. I thought it would be nice to get away from my brother and my master: it isn’t at
all
nice. I was assured I would
enjoy
it in the woods: I’m not enjoying it at
all
in the woods. And I always thought that the augur was so congenial — and
he isn’t congenial at
all,
at
all,
at
all! I’m not even sure anymore that he’s the same augur … he looks the same … but he
doesn’t
look the same…. He seems the same … but he
doesn’t
seem the same….” The dwarf scowled in bepuzzlement. The tree trembled to the kicks of the man below. The dwarf gasped and clutched the branches.

To himself he thought that he would look out and see if by any chance there were
a very large nut
growing anywhere up here, and if so, might he not cause it to break off and fall upon the hated head beneath. He giggled. “It wouldn’t be
my
fault,” he said, almost gaily. “
Oh
no! Oh
no!
A heek heek heek!”

An irritated voice said, “Haven’t I
told
you children not to come up here and bother me when you’re not invited? Who invited you? Where is your invitation? Tell me. Tell me. I am waiting. Well?”

The dwarf’s giggles choked into his throat and became a very painful and jagged-edged something which had to be swallowed before he could trust himself to speak. “Uck,” he said, after a second. “Ghuck.”

“Not Ghruck,” said the voice, petulant as before. “Ghreck.
Ghreck
. Say it. Say it. Let me hear you say it.
Well?
”

Despite himself, almost, the dwarf heard his voice saying, “Ghreck. I mean Ghruck. I mean
Ghreck!
” And, almost, despite himself, his eyes now almost out of their sockets, he climbed several branches higher; where, squinting with effort, he upheld his hand for another branch, found none, opened his eyes wide once more, and found himself upon a sort of nest or lair or platform: in the middle of which, blinking at him and muttering at him and making a cyclical series of vexed faces at him, was the oldest and ugliest harpy he had ever seen.

“That’s right,” said the harpy. “Auntie Ghreck. And to whom,” she asked, squinting and twisting her withered features, “have I the honor of addressing, little child?”

“Mote. And — ”

“Don’t interrupt, please. Mope…. I don’t know no Mope.”

“It’s Mote, not Mope, and I’m not a little child, I’m a dwarf.”

Auntie Ghreck the Harpy sucked in her lips and chewed upon them, then expelled them with a popping sound, and, “Korf,” she said. “I don’t know no Korf. Who’s your mommyharp?”

Stamping his scuffed shoe, the dwarf said, “I haven’t
got
a mommyharp! I hold you, I’m a — ”

The ancient auntie clicked her tongue and then explored her palate with it, the while making inarticulate noises and waving one wing at him. “Ah, poor thingy!” she said at last. “No mommyharp! A sorrow and a grief! What? What? Don’t tell me. Of course. A dropling. Fell out of its own nest and couldn’t find the way back. What? And no one helped you? A scandalous disgrace, sshh, sshh, don’t say a word, the Wingless Ones shouldn’t be able to ashame us. Never mind, they don’t have to know. Believe me, if so much as an
egg
of mine ever fell out of my nest — what? I didn’t right away fly down and pick it up if it wasn’t cracked? Not like some auntieharps I could mention, if I was so inclined, but no, that’s a funny thing about me, I’m not the kind that puts herself forward: listen. You know how many eggs I’ve hatched? You wouldn’t think it to look at me now …” She suddenly began preening, as suddenly broke off: looked at him with her eyebrows raised and her face thrust forward. “Well?”

The dwarf was suddenly overwhelmed with curiosity. “How many?” he demanded. “How many? Auntie Ghreck, how many?”

For another moment she held her pose unmoved. Then she lifted her pendulous jaw and looked down at him, blearily. “Eight hundred and twenty-seven,” she said, enunciating each syllable. “Seven? Eight? Let be, seven.”

Mote said, genuinely impressed, “Oh my!”

“ ‘Oh my,’ he says. ‘Oh my.’ You think that’s good? You think that’s a good thing? So then tell me.
You
tell
me
.

“Why don’t any of them ever come to visit me?”

Then the nest trembled and shook. Down, down below, Gortecas the Augur had seized a large fallen limb and was striking the tree with all his might, and shouting. Auntie Ghreck flapped her right wing to her heart. “What’s that?” she cried. “An earthflux?”

Inspiration seized the mite. “That’s the giant who’s pursuing me! He’s got an axe — and he’s trying to chop down the — ” The harpy flew up in a flutter of wings and loose feathers and squawks. She swooped on him as he was saying, “ — tree — ” and buried her talons in his clothes, dropped off the edge of her eyrie, plummeted, then soared off and aloft and away.

Down below Mote saw, out of the corner of a bulging eye, the angered augur smiting the tree, as, amidst his blows, he cried out again and again and again, “Up! Up! Up! I say, up!” His figure dwindled and was silent and was gone.

Was gone, that is, from the sight and sound of Mote the brother of Atom. Some way off, however, from the site of the harpytree, in a house built of rocks and roofed with grassy turfs, and all so skillfully and cleverly as to make it appear that no house was there at all — there, there, in the cleft of the rocky, grassy clift — someone stirred and someone harkened and someone came slowly out through his bottom scapeway. Someone drifted off from tree to tree and boulder to boulder and boulder to tree to boulder, now slinking, now scampering. Someone whose skin was hot and red, someone whose teeth gleamed white, whose eyes were large and bloodshot, whose lips writhed. Whose tongue licked lips.

Someone who espied out the land and saw the cloaked and cowled figure of Gortecas the Augur.

And somewhere else the figure of Castegor the Augur suddenly stirred and started and looked anxiously, anxiously all around, around, around.

Oh, brother mine, beware! Beware, beware…
.

Tabnath Lo, enwrapped in his own thoughts and contemplations, noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He had, it is true, stumbled slightly, but men sometimes stumble. He had, it is true, been vaguely aware that the sky had lightened, but sometimes skies do lighten. He plodded on, bemused, but not confused. The mute, however, did notice and did observe and did realize that something very much out of the ordinary had happened. Why had the fens and marshes so suddenly vanished away? Why were the shadows slanting differently? Only a moment ago there had been no such fields of flowers large as faces, stretching away on all sides. The flowers seemed to open wide in astonishment as they approached, then to close, fearfully; then to open shyly, then to deepen in color, and then to turn away entirely from them …

… only to open once again and stare upon their backs when they went by — as the mute, by a sudden turnabout, discovered. The flowers seemed then all in a confusion and whipped this way and that, as though in a wind; and a soft rustling susurration filled the air, as though the wind had passed again among them: but there was no wind, and all the air was still. White were the flowers, and pale, pale green; and rose-pale and the lightest shade of lilac and of blue, and … But how their colors deepened as they closed and opened, opened, closed, as they turned and turned about, as they rustled, as they hustled where they grew.

The mute hissed his confusion and concern, he ran a few steps forward and looked earnestly and uneasily into his master’s face. He gestured towards the shadows, towards the sun, towards the curious face-like flowers with their petal-manes and petal-beards, and he hissled and he sissled and he hiss-siss-
hsihssed
. But Tabnath Lo, pacing along, his lower lip tucked beneath his teeth, did not heed him. He did not see the shadow, the ripple, which of a swift sudden swept over the flowers like a sudden riff of wind (there was no wind) and vanished off into the bluegreen distance. But the mute’s persistence at length won its way.

“What?” the merchant asked, suddenly. He stopped. He gazed into his servant’s face. “Eh?” His slow, yet startled look, as like a man waked from a dream or even from a dreamless slumber, followed the mute’s gesture. But all he saw were fields of furled-closed flowers, flowing over rolling hills, away, away, away. “What is the matter?” The mute hissed and gestured, he mimed and he mowed, but he stopped, quite suddenly. He wiped his mouth, threw up his hands, shrugged. Let his arms drop by his side. “Ah …” said Tabnath Lo.

“Let us go on, then,” he said.

They went on, and following the trail, followed a diagonal along the downward slope of the land. Someone hereabouts and long ago had planted velvet trees on either side of the path and these had lately shed their bark; it seemed they did but tread some green soft carpet spread for them and rolling out ahead. And then the carpet ceased and then the land ceased. Broad and shallow steps led down to a landing, cut — like the steps — into the soft and rocky face of the precipice; thence, in the opposite direction, steps went down to a jetty protruding out into the waters of a long and vasty lake … if it was a lake. What was there, far down yonder, beyond those distant islands? — more lake? sea? But no boats at the jetty.

And across from the jetty was another precipice and another pair of steps: At the top was a castle or a fortress or a fortified town or — but Tabnath Lo could not conjecture what else it might be, let alone what it was; it was built more into the side of the precipice than on top of it; and banners waved along its walls and there were many walls, and it seemed to him as he stood and gazed and murmured that he could recall no such place at all, nor lake nor sea nor walled place, nor even (now he came to think upon it) any such fields of flowers or lane of velvet trees — it seemed to him as he stood amazed that a strange and muted music drifted across, rising and swelling and falling upon the breeze, if there were a breeze: great gongs and shawms and trumpets and pipes and kettledrums. He saw no menfigures but he saw a long, long dock at the foot of the hillface.