21
19 Freala 941
The day Simjans would come to regard as the Day of Terror began with a gentle autumn rain, not strong enough to bother the street dogs, nor to wake the island's citizens from the last peaceful sleep they would know for a very long time.
By dawn, however, the rain had strengthened; and by midmorning it was clear that the Nelu Gila had sent a tempest. The four-month drought was ended, and King Oshiram sent invitations to all the clerics in the city (except the Sisters of the Snake, his favourite courtesan being a severe herpetophobe) to the castle for an interfaith prayer of thanksgiving.
In the poorest district of the capital, which even after five centuries had not quite dispelled the infamy stamped on it by Queen Mirkitj of the Statues, the rain found its way indoors by a million paths. Broken roof-tiles gave it entry to rotting beams; crumbled mortar let it seep into bloated plasterwork. Gutters (those still clinging to the row houses) spat torrents onto the streetcorners, and the streets themselves became rushing culverts. The old sewers were soon clogged and overflowing with filth.
Thunder rolled in from the sea and reverberated on the abandoned heap of stone that was the mad queen's palace of execution. At its height the thunder even penetrated to the undiscovered levels of her prison-kiln, where the Secret Fist of Arqual went about its daily intelligence work; and where, at a still deeper level, Admiral Eberzam Isiq stood in the blackness, holding a metal plate against his chest, counting drops of water as they struck some unseen pool.
Thunder, rain. How cruel, the reminder that such things existed. That above the crimes and atrocities of men there arched a heavens, where the Milk Tree shaded the gods, and angels gathered souls like fallen acorns. What do they do with them? he had asked his mother once. Some they send off on Heaven's wind, to realms we cannot know, she had answered, stroking his hair. Some become the food of the gods, and dwell within them for ever. And a few they rock in their arms, and shelter beneath their wings at night, until they grow into angels themselves. That was all young Isiq had known of death, until his father departed for the Tsordon Campaign, and fell there in the snow — bludgeoned flat by a Sizzy mace, as he learned twelve years later in the Officers' Club. The death certificate had merely read, 'Fallen in defence of his comrades.' The commandant had thought it best to spare his mother the details.
He reached behind him and felt the chamber door. He had fallen in love with it. The door was on his side, while all else conspired in his annihilation.
The statues, for example: they were not the friends he'd hoped for. The farmer, the schoolboy, the blacksmith, the monk: perhaps they had never forgiven him for toppling his woman, shattering her against the stone. And how could he blame them, when he had never forgiven himself? She had been waving to him, before the banister split and she dropped four stories onto marble, her theatre gown rippling like a flare. He had idly considered keeping her home that night, of leaving their infant girl with Nama and pulling her into bed.
The statues would not obey him; their silence made that perfectly clear. Indeed they only spoke now when they didn't think he was listening. But was that malice? Couldn't one reasonably presume that they were as frightened as he was by the sounds from the pit?
For they were back, and getting nearer. High, half-strangled voices, snarls and snapping teeth, and always the digging, scrabbling, scraping of claws. From the moment Isiq had shouted they had been trying to reach him. First they had climbed the shaft beneath the pillar-shaped kiln. He had listened at the tiny window in the kiln's iron door. The beasts had climbed almost to his level, and stopped, thwarted. Some brick iron grillework sealed the shaft. The creatures tore at it, screeching like harpies, and then leaped back into the darkness to seek another way.
That other way was the pit, of course. Just a matter of time. Even now he could hear them, digging wildly at the fallen earth and stone. They would have reached him that first day, Isiq knew, had their eagerness not caused a second cave-in, larger than whatever calamity had first sealed the tunnel at the base of the pit. Not a shriek had followed that thunder of falling rock: only blessed silence. Had the beasts all been crushed? After a time Isiq let himself believe it. They were gone, entombed in the hell-holes that spawned them. Even the statues had breathed a little easier.
Then the digging had resumed, and the maniacal chatter. Snaa! Eat! Egg! None of it comprehensible in the least, except for the perpetual whimper of the beast that called itself a widow and begged for alms. Long hours Isiq sat by the chamber door, a hand on his axe-shaped stone, hardly daring to breathe. His slightest sound raised the beasts to a frenzy.
Sweet isporelli, so yellow and fair
Buy one, ye sailor, for your love's hair,
My love she died, ma'am, died in the spring,
Bless the new angel, bright on the wing.
Isiq's eyes snapped open. The statues were tormenting him again. Cowards, they waited until he slept to hurl their accusations. But there was another sound, no dream but the sound he had prayed for: swift boots in the hall outside. It was Ott's man, come to deliver his meal.
Isiq put down his empty plate and stood. He faced the door, dragging fingers through his matted hair, trying to compose himself (the statues found it hysterical) after months of darkness and grime.
This would be only his second meal since the noises resumed. The first time he had been irrational, kneeling and begging to be released, abject in his fear of the things behind him. No wonder the man had laughed. This time Isiq resolved to stay calm.
He heard the clank of iron keys. 'There are creatures in here,' he said loudly, not waiting for the door to open, for it was never open longer than it took the guard to shove a plate into the chamber and snatch the empty one away. 'Talking creatures, monsters. They're digging a tunnel from the floor below. You can't want that. Aren't your orders to keep me alive?'
When the door opened the light was searing, although it was no more than a dim walrus-oil flame. Isiq recoiled, a cave-creature himself. Holding the light was the same quick, wiry Arquali youth who had clubbed him down with the flask months ago; Isiq recognised the small wart at the corner of his mouth, only visible when he parted his lips to speak. For once the man looked him in the eye.
'Talking monsters!' he laughed. 'That would be you this past week, Admiral. You're chatting with the statues, aren't you?'
Isiq was unsettled. 'Never mind them,' he said.
The guard shook his head. 'That deathsmoke powder's turned your brains to dairy curd.'
'If you'll but listen-'
'Go to the Pits.'
He slid Isiq's dinner into the room with his toe. But before he could slam the door Isiq lunged forwards and caught his wrist.
'Please,' he said, 'they'll kill me.'
The man cursed and wrenched his hand away, then wiped it on his pants as if he had touched something noxious. 'It's rats, you filthy sod, just rats! Calm down and eat if you want to live. And if you ever touch me again I'll see you get nothing but weevils on your plate from here to springtime.'
The door slammed, and for an instant the statues guffawed. Isiq whirled, furious, daring them to continue. Of course they didn't: he had shown them what he was capable of. He bent and found his dinner, wolfed the old bread, drank the sour and mysterious soup, glaring at his unseen foes. He was not sure whether or not they could see him. But he was certain they wanted his food.
He was sucking his fingers when he heard a new and desperate wriggling sound from the pit. At the same time a thought struck him, like a blow from a club. The rats. What had Ott's bit of parchment said? The Nilstone killed all who touched it, save the littlest vermin, who first suffer grotesqueries of change.
Little vermin, he thought. Like fleas, maybe? And hadn't he been chewed alive by fleas, even on the wedding day? They were strangely large, and vicious: he had dug one out of his hair, and the thing had bloodied his thumb.
