cut for more than half a year.
He barely had time to finish the job before his handlers were upon him. They took him from the cage and soon brought him before the stone beehive. Out in the open air, the old men of the community were sitting in state on ornately carved benches which must have been brought out especially for the occasion.
Togura, naked, stood facing the old men. He was aware that the rest of the community, perhaps three hundred people in all, was gathered behind him, keeping at a cautious distance. He was cold. The sun, withdrawing from the scene, consoled itself with its celsitude. Togura coughed. He wondered if he was coming down with a chill. He coughed again. The old men glared at him.
'I can't help coughing,' he mumbled.
Someone screamed at him.
He tried to hold himself rigid, as if that would suppress his coughing. His fingers made small, meaningless, involuntary movements. The old men sat like statues, saying nothing. There was not a sound from the crowd gathered behind him. He felt unearthly, unreal. Dizzy. The light staggered. He swayed. Then the light ebbed away entirely, and he fainted.
When Togura came to, he found himself lying in a crumpled heap on the ground. One of his elbows was hurting badly, but, rising to a half-sitting position, he found the joint was still functional. A long and entirely unintelligible speech was in progress. It was being given by a wart-faced little man, an undershapen gnomish figure who clapped his hands repeatedly to emphasise the points he was making. Somewhere, a drum was beating.
Togura, sitting up properly, tried to work out what was going on. He nursed his elbow, which made it a little more comfortable, which in turn made him realise just how much of the rest of his body was sore and aching. He felt a little bit feverish. The dwarf, an old, old man whom Togura had never seen before, continued his speech, assaulting the air with his high, harsh, glittering voice. On and one he went, evidently tireless, incapable of being bored by his own words. In the background, the monotonous thung-thung-thung of the drum continued relentlessly.
'Shabana loy, zerd-nek,' muttered Togura, thus giving voice to the worst obscenities available to him in his native patois.
A scream menaced him. He doubted that anyone understood what he had just said – if they had, they would have torn him to pieces – but they were giving clear warning that they were not prepared to tolerate any noise from him at all.
'Well up yours,' said Togura, hauling himself to his feet. 'You can't push me about forever,' he said. His voice, half anger, half anguish, rose to a shout. 'I am Togura Poulaan!' His voice hurt his throat. The rusty sound it made was so strange that it almost frightened him to silence. But he kept going. 'You hear me? I! I am Togura Poulaan. I! I am the son of Baron Chan Pouaan! I! I! I!'
The dwarf, enraged, screamed at him. Togura continued regardless.
'You have brought me here without my consent. You hold me here now against my will. I demand – I demand! – to be returned to my own home immediately. Failing that – '
He was taken from behind by two strong women. As the dwarf capered, dancing out his anger, gesticulating wildly as he shrieked and shrilled in his high-pitched voice, Togura was marched toward the beehive. He struggled all the way.
When they reached the doorway, Togura's resistance intensified. The two women responded by lifting him off the ground and ramming his head into the stone roof. Stunned, with thick blood trickling down from a cut on his scalp, he stopped fighting. He made himself a limp deadweight, pinning his hopes on passive resistance. It was useless. They womanhandled him down the hallway without any trouble at all. His feet, bumping him over the stone floor, were getting hurt. He had just decided it would be better to cooperate when, without any warning, they let him go. He fell face first to the stone floor.
He was in a hot, close room which stank of rot, filth, slime and decay. A roaring fire was cackling-clakling in the centre of the room. The old men came crowding into the room; the women, as if dismissed, departed. A door was thrown open on the far side of the room. A strange door, for it was small and circular. Half a dozen of the old men grabbed burning brands from the fire and menaced Togura. Warily, he eased himself round the room, forced toward the circular door by the threatening flames. The old men shouted to each other in high, excited voices. Their eyes gleamed with unhallowed joy.
Togura knew there was something terrible beyond the circular door. It was the source of the stench which filled the room. Reaching the door, he glanced inside. He saw a circular room with a stone ledge running round the wall and -
With a shout, the old men came hustling forward, jabbing at him with their burning brands. Togura leapt through the door and almost went hurtling into the pit which lay beyond. He scrabbled for balance on the narrow stone ledge, slipped, saved himself, was jabbed by a burning brand, crawled along the stone ledge circling the room, then, when out of reach of the old men, stopped to take stock of his situation.
Some of the old men came crowding in through the circular door to watch. One or two of them threw their burning brands into the pit; something in the pit creaked or groaned with a noise half owl, half pig. Togura looked down.
On looking down, Togura saw a stinking confusion of rubbish crowding the pit below. The reek was appalling; it stormed his senses and laid siege to his sanity, slapping his naked body in hot, putrid waves, cramming his nostrils with its intolerable unclean insinuations, clambering into his lungs and making him want to vomit. He screamed at the smell, but it it not go away.
The old men bellowed and cheered. Another threw his burning brand into the pit, stirring up more noise down there. Quite apart from the burning brands, the pit was lit, toward the bottom, by its own clear, harsh, unwavering light; despite the illumination, Togura could not make much sense of its jumbled contents.
Togura looked around, examining the massive stone-block walls, which had been built without mortar. The circular walls rose sheer toward the sky. Peering upwards, he saw that the room was open to the sky. If he had to, he should be able to climb the wall, if these old men would go away and leave him in peace.
As Togura was so thinking, he looked down again, and saw what seemed to be a snake. It was in amongst the rubbish. It was weaving slowly. But it was too hard and bright to be a snake. And too long. It seemed to be some kind of tentacle. And it seemed to be made of metal. A metal tentacle?
Yes.
Having made sense of that detail, he slowly began to make sense of the others. And began to realise what he was looking at.
Down in the pit, those dark-stained filthy bubbling things, crusted with scabs and writhing with degenerating fluids… they were not random assemblages of rubbish. They were bodies. Human bodies. Gleaming, convoluted metal penetrated their flesh. The metal hummed softly.
As Togura watched, one of the slowly-weaving metal tentacles kissed a body and tasted it. The body flinched. Somewhere in the degenerating mass, an eye closed. Then opened.
'They're still alive!' screamed Togura.
Hearing his scream, the old men began to laugh. They cackled with unconcealed glee, jeered at him and at their victims, who endured a slow, agonised death of endless torment, decaying while still alive.
Then they left, scrambling out through the circular door. They closed it behind them. Togura crept along the stone ledge, reached the door, and hammered against its unyielding timbers, crying for mercy.
It did no good.
Nobody answered.
Nobody came.
He was on his own.
Shuddering, he yielded to urgent necessity and voided his bowels, adding marginally to the stench which pervaded the room. He moved to a cleaner spot and sat down to think. One last drop of blood fell from his bleeding scalp to the stones, which were scalloped and sculpted in a most peculiar way.
What now? He decided he should think, and rest, then try to escape. Rest! It was easy to say, but almost impossible to do. His body was trembling uncontrollably. He could not keep himself from looking down into the pit. Remembering how he had almost fallen into it on first entering the room, he could not keep himself from imagining his own body already pierced to a scream and beyond by hard metal shafting into his armpit, his omphalos, his… his…
