They turned upstream, and reached the site by the middle of the day.
It was a Lothan Aklun structure, all right. That much was clear from the strangely organic shape of it, the melding of the recognizable and the bizarre. The building stood near the bank of the river, shaded by trees but with a clear stretch of beach and a series of ramps leading from the water up to its riverfront side. The beams of the frame looked to be thick tree trunks, irregularly shaped and even knobbed at the base of chopped-off limbs. All this was clear on the framework, atop which the walls and roof of the place draped like a loose skin. Or so it looked from a distance, as they stood warily contemplating it.
From up close, the skinlike material was as solid as stone, as smooth as glass. And inside… inside brought back memories that Tunnel had not turned over in his mind for some time. The white walls, the slick floors, the strange, unnatural scent in the air. The instrument panels, levers, and all manner of devices, many-limbed things that stood like spiders. Dead spiders, but ones that could spring to life at the touch of a Lothan Aklun hand. Tunnel tried to see only what was here, unused and abandoned and powerless. This was not a place he had ever been to. It was larger, with different instruments, but the memories came anyway, visions of that other place and of the things done to him with tools somehow kin to the ones here. Young Tunnel, having his tusks fused right into his skull, the pain of it, the utter calm in the face of the Lothan Aklun woman who worked over him… Nothing had ever frightened him more than that calm.
Fortunately, he was not a child anymore. He slammed his two mallets down on their heads, their shafts standing upright. “This is it, then? Not so much to see.”
The vessel messenger had wide-spaced eyes and the tattoos of the Fru Nithexek, the sky bear. He seemed nervous inside the building, looking around as if he feared the old inhabitants might return at any moment. “It wasn’t that I’d never heard of this place before. I had. You can see it from the river. Once I floated by in a shell from the Sky Isle, but that was at night and the Lothan Aklun still worked the place. With them around it was a place to avoid. When I saw it this time, though, I knew things were different. Can’t just leave it here for anybody to find.”
“Anybody other than us, you mean,” Tunnel said. He studied the panels and levers closely, without touching them. “What does this place do?”
As simple a question as it was, none had a ready answer.
“You don’t know what it does?”
The messenger walked in a nervous circle. “If you mean exactly what does it do, I can’t say, but over there”-he pointed toward the riverfront side of the structure-“are bays that open onto ramps that lead into the water, a deep cove. I think they built the soul vessels here. Or built them elsewhere and brought them here for servicing of some sort.”
“Maybe they put the souls inside them here,” one of the youths said.
The rest let that sit untouched. One of the other youths rubbed his nose. Potemp cleared his throat and looked at his feet.
“Yeah,” Tunnel said, sniffing the air, “this place doesn’t smell good. Back up.” He bent his legs slightly, gripped the shafts of the upright mallets. His gray arms bulged as he raised them, the striations of his forearms twitching with the effort. “Back, back.” The others retreated, and he went to work.
He swung the mallets in wild arcs, smashing the panels, snapping levers clean off. Bits of the stonelike material flew in all directions, twirling in the air and skittering across the floor like shards of glass. The two-armed attack was not easy, but he kept at it for a time, knowing the others were watching him in awe. Tunnel liked being strong. Might as well show it.
When the strain started to pain his shoulders, he flung one of the mallets away. He took the remaining one up in a two-handed grip. Just as impressive, really, as each blow now carried double the force, the whole of his arms and massive back and stout legs combining to drive the steel where his mind willed it.
Sometime later, he paused. He balanced the mallet upright and stood with his hand propped on the end of the shaft. Glistening with sweat, heaving in great breaths, he surveyed the damage he had done. Pretty good damage, he thought. To the watchers, he said, “Let’s have a fire.”
L ate the next day, a league vessel made its appearance. It slid silently atop the water, cutting the current with its sleek lines, effortless. Unnatural. Potemp had warning enough to move the antok well back into the woods, out of hearing and sight and smell. Tunnel and the others watched the ship from the woods behind the burned-out shell of the demolished structure. The ruins still smoked, hot with glowing coals.
Ishtat soldiers came ashore, too many for them to confront. Staying hidden, Tunnel watched them kick through the ashes. Later, a leagueman-cone headed, robed, and unarmed-came across on a skiff and inspected the site. It was not the same one who had ordered Skylene shot. If it had been, nothing would have stopped Tunnel from rushing him, mallets swinging until he bashed the man to pulp. He almost did so anyway, but Skylene had not sent him out to die.
He’s a lucky one today, that one, Tunnel thought.
“We were just in time,” the messenger whispered. “Just in time.”
They stayed in hiding throughout the day, watching. By the time the last skiff had returned to the anchored vessel, it was clear the leagueman had gained nothing. After sunset, Tunnel and the others came down into the ruins carrying armfuls of branches. They collected driftwood from the shore. Using a coal from the ruins they got a new fire going on the beach. They fed it until it blazed and then proceeded to dance around it. They shouted out toward the vessel, seeing its deck brimming with onlookers. They yelled taunts across the water at them, declaring that this ruin was the work of the Free People of Ushen Brae, saying that this was their land and would be forever more. The league would gain no footing here. The People would not allow it.
And then, with a flash of inspiration, Tunnel turned around, shoved his thumbs inside the waist of his trousers and pulled them to his knees. He waggled his bare bottom in the torchlight, shouting over his shoulder instructions for what the leagueman could do with his ass. The others did the same, all of them offering their buttocks with rebellious glee.
“Leagueman,” Tunnel yelled, “here’s my ass! Here’s Tunnel’s ass. I pinch it for you.” So saying, he did so.
The others added their own takes on the theme. They all howled with laughter, so caught up in the moment that they retreated from the shore grudgingly and only after the rain of Ishtat arrows shot from the boat became too heavy to chance further.
T unnel arrived back at the Free People’s compound in the middle of the night. Without pausing to rest or even to wash the grime of his work and travel from his face, he went to Skylene. Her caretakers greeted him grimly at the door, then stepped aside to let him visit her in solitude.
She lay as he had left her, propped up on pillows, with a blanket pulled up to her shoulders. Lowering himself softly to the edge of the bed, he could smell the sickness on her. It was there in the tang of her sweat, in the spoiled scent of her sheets, and in the fetid stench of the festering wound in her chest. The crossbow bolt that Sire Lethel had so casually set in motion had punched right through her left breast, ripping apart tissue, fracturing a rib, and leaving a dirty, oil-smeared puncture wound that quickly turned bad. He had looked upon it before he left; he did not want to do so again.
Skylene opened her eyes. She smiled at him, warmly enough that Tunnel wondered if she was getting better. But when her lips released the curve, her face looked even more drawn, lined, and thin than before. She asked, “Did you destroy it?”
Her voice sounded dry. Tunnel poured from a pitcher of mint water on the bedside table. He moved the glass toward her, saying, “Nah, nah,” when she tried to take hold of it. Big armed and shouldered as he was, with large- knuckled hands that made the glass seem a child’s toy, he touched the rim to her lips with delicacy. He did not answer her question until after she had taken a few sips.
“We did. Smashed it up good. Built a fire. It was a fine show.” He detailed what they thought the relic was and told of their encounter with the league ship. By the end he was on his feet, his bottom pointed toward her as he repeated the taunts he had shouted over his shoulder.
It hurt Skylene to laugh, but she did so anyway.
“Are you getting better?” Tunnel asked, sitting beside her again.
Skylene set a hand on top of his. Her touch was hot, dry. She meant it to be comforting, but it felt wrong. He felt the fever burning in her. He almost pulled his hand away. “The others are looking after me. They brought a healer from the Kern clan. She was very kind, but her poultice had fennel seeds in them. You know I can’t stand the
