'Hackum, there's something I've got to tell you, but I can't yell it.'
'He can see us, Jugs. Only we can't see him. Not even the bird can
see him from here where it's brighter, looking into the dark.
Where's your launcher?'
'I had to leave it with Stony. Patera didn't want me to go. I think
he thought I might try to kill them with it once I got off a ways.'
Auk glanced to his right, hoping to consult Bustard; but Bustard
had gone.
'So I said, we're not going to do anything like that. We don't hate
you. But he said you did.'
Auk shook his head, the pain there a crimson haze. 'He hates me,
maybe. I don't hate him.'
'That's what I told him. He said very well my daughter--you
know how he talks--leave _that_ with us, and I shall believe you. So I
did. I gave it to Stony.'
'And came after me without it to tell me about the shaggy doors.'
'Yes!' She drew nearer as she spoke. 'It's important, really
important, Hackum, and I don't want that cully that knocked me
down to hear it.'
'Is it about what the tall ass said?'
Chenille halted, dumbfounded.
'I heard, Jugs. I was right there behind you, and doors are my
business. Doors and windows and walls and roofs. You think I'd
miss that?'
She shook her head. 'I guess not.'
'I guess not, too. Stay back where you'll be safe.' He turned away,
hoping she had not seen how sick and dizzy he was; the darkening
tunnel seemed to spin as he stared into its black maw, a pinwheel
that had burned out, or the high rear wheel of a deadcoach, all
ebony and black iron, rolling down a tarred road to nowhere. 'I
know you're in there, Gelada, and you got the old man with you.
You listen here. My name's Auk, and I'm a pal of Urus's. I'm not
here for a row. Only I'm a pal of the old man's, too.'
His voice was trailing away. He tried to collect such strength as
remained. 'What we're going to do pretty soon now, we're going to
go back to your pit with Urus.'
'Hackum!'
'Shut up.' He did not bother to look at her. 'That's 'cause I can
get you through one of these iron doors down here that you can't
solve. I'm going to talk to 'em in your pit. I'm going to say anybody
that wants out, you come with me and I'll get you out. Then we'll go
to that door and I'll open it, and we'll go on out. Only that's it. I
ain't coming back for anybody.'
He paused, waiting for some reply. Oreb's bill clacked nervously.
'You and the old man come here and you can come with us. Or let
him go and head back to the pit yourself, and you can come along
with the rest if you want to. But I'm going to look for him.'
Chenille's hand touched his shoulder, and he started.
'You in this, Jugs?'
She nodded and put her arm through his. They had taken perhaps
a hundred more steps into the deepening darkness when an arrow
whizzed between their heads; she gasped and held him more tightly
than ever.
'That's just a warning,' he told her. 'He could have put it in us if
he'd wanted to. Only he won't, because we can get him out and he
can't get out himself.'
He raised his voice as before. 'The old man's finished, ain't he,
Gelada? I got you. And you think when I find out, it's all in the tub.
That's not how it'll be. Everything I said still goes. We got a augur
with us, the little cull you saw with Jugs here when you shot at her.
Just give us the old man's body. We'll get him to pray over it and
maybe bury it somewhere proper, if we can find a place. I never
knew you, but maybe you knew Bustard, my brother. Buck that
nabbed the gold Molpe Cup? You want us to fetch Urus? He'll cap
for me.'
Chenille called, 'He's telling the truth, Gelada, really he is. I
don't think you're here any more, I think you ran off down the
tunnel. That's what I'd have done. But if you are, you can trust
Auk. You must have been down in the pit a real long time, because
everybody in the Orilla knows Auk now.'
'Bird see!' Oreb muttered.
Auk walked slowly into the deepening twilight of the tunnel. 'He
got his bow?'
'Got bow!'
'Put it down, Gelada. You shoot me, you're shooting the last
chance you'll ever get.'
'Auk?' The voice from the darkness might have been that of
Hierax himself, hollow and hopeless as the echo from a tomb. 'That
your name? Auk?'
'That's me. Bustard's brother. He was older than me.'
'You got a needler? Lay it down.'
'I don't have one.' Auk sheathed his hanger, pulled off his tunic,
and dropped it to the tunnel floor. With uplifted arms, he turned in
a complete circle. 'See? I got the whin, and that's all I got.' He drew
his hanger again and held it up. 'I'm leaving it right here on my
gipon. You can see Jugs don't have anything either. She left her
launcher back there with the soldier.' Slowly he advanced into the
darkness, his hands displayed.
There was a sudden glimmer a hundred paces up the tunnel. 'I got
a darkee,' Gelada called. 'Burns bufe drippin's.'
He puffed the flame again, and this time Auk could hear the soft
exhalation of his breath, 'I should've figured,' he muttered to
Chenille.
'We don't like to use 'um much.' Gelada stood, a stick figure not
much taller than Incus. 'Keep 'um shut up mostly. Wick 'bout
snuffed. Culls bring 'um down 'n leave 'um.'
When Auk, walking swiftly through the dark, said nothing, he
repeated, 'Burn drippin's when the oil's gone.'
'I was thinking you'd make 'em out of bones,' Auk said
