“There’s my recorder,” cried Snark. “Somebody’s looking at my recorder!”
Poracious raised her head and stared at the ex-king. He began to laugh and so did she, neither of them truly amused.
“By Lord Fathom,” he said hopelessly. “We rely on Thosby Anent.”
She repeated the name as though it were an obscenity. “Old Thosby! He had a watchword. What was it?”
“Vigilance,” said Lutha. “Vigilance was his watchword. Chosen more for its brave sound, I’d wager, than for its requirement of diligence.”
Snark was as puzzled by this exchange as I was, but no one took time to explain it. Mitigan and the ex-king hoisted Poracious to her feet, and we went on, stepping over the body of the Procurator. We could not carry him with us.
“Poor old man,” muttered Snark. “All his excitements is over! He wasn’t such a bad old boss.”
We said nothing after that as we struggled endlessly on. Each step became harder. There was pain in my belly, pain in my groin. I felt wetness seeping down my thighs. I wept out of weakness and weariness, wiping ineffectually at the tears. I let myself lapse into dream, making up visions, placing myself back on Dinadh, sitting with Shalumn beside the fire, holding her hand in mine while our children slept warm in the hive.
The vision was ended when I bumped against Lutha, almost knocking her down. Our progress was halted. The sky had lightened. Before us, across yet another of the ramified inlets we had stumbled along through the night, a cliff ran seaward to thrust its rocky jaw into the waves. It looked no different from the dozens of others we had passed, but this particular protrusion seemed to be special. Mitigan was gesturing with the lantern and calling Snark to look where we were.
“We sure didn’t get much forrader,” snorted Snark as she climbed around me. “That’s my own particular tree up there on the rim. All around here’s the caves the shaggies come out of.”
When she reached Mitigan’s side, they mumbled together. I saw her wave her fist at him, and she cried, “There’s food up there. There’s blankets and a stove. There’s stuff we need.”
Mitigan’s scowl was plain in the light of the lantern. “I can climb it,” he admitted.
In the predawn grayness, we could see a faint shadow trail that laddered across the cliff face. Handholds, perhaps. Foot holes. Something arduous and impossible for any normal being.
“You’ll never get me up there,” said Poracious Luv.
“We don’t need to get you up there,” Snark said. “When me and Mitigan can get up there, we’ll lower the stuff down.”
“The tide’s coming in,” said Leelson wearily.
“There’s cover,” replied Mitigan irritably, pointing across the narrow finger of sea at the cliff wall opposite. There was a gap there, a black hole at the top of a rockfall, one layer atop another, almost like a wide flight of giant stairs.
No one moved. We merely stood, staring. Like gaufers, I thought.
“It’s above the tide line,” Snark said impatiently, her tone urging us onward. “Get on! The seaweed tangles don’t go but halfway to the cave door. It’s as safe and dry as anyplace we’re going to come to.”
“I might manage that,” said Poracious in an uncertain voice. She was limping badly, footsore from her many long days on the cliff path. Nonetheless, it was she who led us toward the gap, all but Snark and Mitigan. By the time we’d staggered around the cove and come to the cavern, we could see them far above, like spiders clinging to the cliff face. Day was coming. If there was something following us along the path, we would soon be able to see it.
It was not long before Mitigan came swarming down a rope and Snark began lowering bundles. The last thing down the cliff was a large jar, not unlike some of the pottery made in Dinadhi hives, followed by Snark herself. When she arrived at the bottom, she picked the jar up tenderly and carried it into our cavern before she brought anything else.
“My mother’s bone jar,” she said to me, noting my curious look. “Likely I’m not going back up there. Likely there’s room enough in there for me, too.”
Lutha looked up, startled. I kept my own face expressionless, though I knew our thoughts were the same. It was unlikely there would be anyone left to put our bones anywhere in particular. We, like the Procurator, would probably be washed by waves, dismembered by sea creatures, dispersed by the tides.
Snark brought us blankets and one of the little stoves, which gave us a welcome warmth and light. We huddled around it, all but Mitigan, who remained at the entrance to keep watch for whatever was coming. Something was, we all knew that, and all our eyes shifted to the entrance, then away, then to the entrance again. All we saw was the warrior sharpening his blades, a vague silhouette against the gray spread of a chilly dawn.
Poracious Luv subsided onto the sand with a moan of exhaustion, her head on her knees. I thought she’d fallen asleep, but after a moment she lifted her head and said plaintively, “I wonder if Behemoth is out there, waiting….”
Lutha glanced at the opening, as though someone had sounded an alarm. “Behemoth,” she said in a wondering voice. “An odd word for you to use, Poracious.”
“Why so?” asked the older woman. “A behemoth is a great beast, isn’t it? An old word for some kind of hugeness that lived a long time ago?”
Lutha nodded. “It’s an old word, yes.”
It was a word I’d heard somewhere. “Is it a real word? I mean, does it mean something real?”
Lutha nodded. “It isn’t what it means so much as what it denotes. It means beasts, actually. Plural. But it conveys something more than a mere animal. The connotations are of intractable mightiness, of inexorability and fatefulness.”
Poracious nodded slowly as she slumped,
