got my boat?'
Oreb fluttered onto Auk's shoulder. 'Find Silk?'
'You got it.' Carrying Chenille, Auk strode across the quay to eye
the open water between it and the boat; it was one thing to spring
from the gunnel to the quay, another to jump from the quay to the
boat while carrying a woman taller than most. 'Get that rope,' he
snapped to Incus. 'Pull it closer. You left too much slack.'
Incus pursed his lips. 'We cannot _possibly_ disobey the instructions
of the goddess.'
'You can stay here and wait for whoever she's sending. Tell him
we'll meet up with him in Limna. Me and Jugs are going in Dace's
boat.'
The old fisherman nodded emphatically.
'If _you_ wish to disobey, my son, _I_ will not attempt to prevent
you. However--'
Something in the darkness beyond the last tank fell with a crash,
and the scream of metal on stone echoed from the walls of the
cavern. A new voice, deeper and louder than any merely human
voice, roared, '_I bring her! Give her to me!_'
It was that of a talus larger than the largest Auk had ever seen; its
virescent bronze face was cast in a grimace of hate, blinding yellow
light glared from its eyes, and the oily black barrels of a flamer and a
pair of buzz guns jutted from its open mouth. Behind it, the black
dark at the back of the cavern had been replaced by a sickly greenish
glow.
'_I bring her! All of you! Give her to me!_' The talus extended a
lengthening arm as it rolled toward them. A steel hand the size of
the altar from which she had fallen closed about Chenille and
plucked her from Auk's grasp; so a child might have snatched a
small and unloved doll from the arms of another doll. '_Get on my
back! Scylla commands it!_'
A half dozen widely spaced rungs of bent rod laddered the talus's
metal flank. Auk scrambled up with the night chough flapping
ahead of him; as he gained the top, the talus's huge hand deposited
Chenille on the sloping black metal before him.
'Hang on!'
Two rows of bent rods much like the steps of the ladder ran the
length of the talus's back. Auk grasped one with his left hand and
Chenille with his right. Her eyelids fluttered. 'Hackum?'
'Still here.'
Incus's head appeared as he clambered up; his sly face looked sick
in the watery light. 'By--by _Hierax!_'
Auk chuckled.
'You--You--Help me _up_.'
'Help yourself, Patera. You were the one that wanted to wait for
him. You won. He's here.'
Before Auk had finished speaking, Incus sprang onto the talus's
back with astonishing alacrity, apparently impelled by the muscular
arm of the fisherman, who clambered up a moment later. 'You'd
make a dimber burglar, old man,' Auk told him.
'Hackum, where are we?'
'In a cave on the west side of the lake.'
The talus turned in place, one wide black belt crawling, the other
locked. Auk felt the thump of machinery under him.
Puffs of black smoke escaped from the joint between the upright
thorax and long wagon-like abdomen to which they clung. It rocked,
jerked, and skewed backward. A sickening sidewise skid ended in a
geyser of icy water as one belt slipped off the quay. Incus clutched at
Auk's tunic as their side of the talus went under, and for a dizzying
second Auk saw the boat tossed higher than their heads.
The wave that had lifted it broke over them like a blow, a
suffocating, freezing whorl that at once drained away; when Auk
opened his eyes again Chenille was sitting up screaming, her
dripping face blank with terror.
Something black and scarlet landed with a thump upon his
sopping shoulder. 'Bad boat! Sink.'
It had not, as he saw when the talus heaved itself up onto the quay
again; Dace's boat lay on its side, the mast unshipped and tossing
like driftwood in the turbulent water.
Huge as a boulder, the talus's head swiveled around to glare at
them, revolving until it seemed its neck must snap. '_Five ride! The
small may go!_'
Auk glanced from the augur to the fisherman, and from him to
the hysterical Chenille, before he realized who was meant. 'You can
beat the hoof if you want to, bird. He says he won't hurt you if you do.'
'Bird stay,' Oreb muttered. 'Find Silk.'
The talus's head completed its revolution, and the talus lunged
forward. Yellow light glared back at them, reflected from the
curved white side of the last tank, leaving the Sacred Window empty
and dead looking behind them. Sallow green lights winked into
being just above the talus's helmeted head, and the still-tossing
waters of the channel congealed to rough stone as the cavern
dwindled to a dim tunnel.
Auk put his arm around Chenille's waist. 'Fancy a bit of company, Jugs?'
She wept on, sobs lost in the wind of their passage.
He released her, got out his needler, and pushed back the
sideplate; a trickle of gritty water ran onto his fingers, and he blew
into the mechanism. 'Should be all right,' he told Oreb, 'soon as it
dries out. I ought to put a couple drops of oil on the needles,
though.'
'Good girl,' Oreb informed him nervously. 'No shoot.'
'Bad girl,' Auk explained. 'Bad man, too. No shoot. No go away,
either.'
'Bad bird!'
'Lily.' Gently, he kissed Chenille's inflamed back. 'Lie down if
you want to. Lay your head in my lap. Maybe you can get a little
sleep.'
As he pronounced the words, he sensed that they came too late.
The talus was descending, the tunnel angling downward, if only
