“Come a little closer so I can see.” The voice was full of wind, horrid and cold. “Only a little closer.”
“Careful,” said the Oracle, laughing. “I would not recommend that any of you leave this gallery. If you come within reach of the mighty madam or the honored sir, they may eat you. They cannot help it, poor dears. They are always hungry.” They moved down the gallery, however. I didn’t need to follow them. I could see the source of the other voice well enough from where I was, though it had its horrific head turned away from me. It was another giant, seated behind the first and faced in the opposite direction, a female, perhaps, though what I could see of the huge face had no delicacy to it and was as obdurate as the first. If they had been standing, they would have been ten manheights tall. They were about seven manheights tall, seated as they were back to back upon a colossal pillar.
“The Backless Throne,” I said, surprised into uttering it half-aloud.
Across the cavern on the gallery the Oracle turned in my direction. It had heard me! Through all that ebb and surge of mighty breathing, it had heard me. I lay quiet, not moving so much as an eyelid, letting the surge of air wash to and fro. With all the echoes in this chamber, it could not be sure. So I told myself.
So I assured myself, sweating, swallowing, trying to get my heart back where it belonged. After a time, it turned back to the others, ribbons quivering as though in laughter, poised in its eternal mockery.
I slipped back into the hall of pillars and worked my way toward them, pillar by pillar, keeping stone between. The damned Oracle might see through my spells. I thought it might see whatever it pleased, quite frankly—but it was not likely to see through stone.
“Storm Grower, mighty madam, may I present your servants.” The Oracle bowed, gesturing to all those on the gallery. “Your most obedient servants.”
“By all the gods,” said Huldra, amazed. “What are you?”
“Oh, do not be offensive,” said the Oracle. “Giant madam may be most annoyed.”
“I am not offended,” said Storm Grower in that voice of horrible wind. Her left arm came up, slowly, like a tree rearing skyward, bent, straightened, its skin like a lava flow, cracked deep, soiled with the dirt of centuries, its huge fingers like scaly pillars with nails twisted and ragged, slowly, slowly, then snapping toward the parapet with lightning motion, missing the parapet by less than an arm’s length so that Huldra stumbled back with a screaming curse, tripping over Bloster and falling full length upon the stones.
Laughter then, monstrous laughter, as though volcanoes amused themselves. The left hand did not fall but stayed where it was, twisting and twisting as though to wring a neck. “I am always glad to educate lesser creatures. I am a giantess, sweet Huldra. Born with my brother many centuries ago in the monster labs of the humans. Reared there for a long, long time. Fled from there by my own courage and resourcefulness ...”
“And mine,” rumbled Dream Miner. “You were not alone.”
“Never alone.” The other laughed, shifting to display the obscene flaps of filthy flesh that bound them together, shoulder to shoulder, rib to rib, buttock to buttock. “No, never alone.”
“Grown to great size and power over the centuries,” thundered Dream Miner. “Grown to a size and power capable of revenge.”
“Handicapped somewhat in that their great size prohibits mobility,” chanted the Oracle. “Otherwise, most puissant, most powerful.”
Storm Grower twisted her fingers once again, and a lightning bolt nicked from the air to the gallery where the Oracle stood, missing it by a finger’s width.
“Subside, beribboned jester, painted riddler. You are useful, but you try our patience.”
“Try our patience,” agreed Dream Miner. “Take those with you elsewhere for a time. We will tell them of our will later. Now we have other matters to see to. Besides, I am hungry.”
The Oracle led them away. There were a number of lighted tunnel openings from the gallery, and into one of these the troop went, shuffling, seeming both fearful and angry. There was no point in following them. They would be returning. There was a narrow crevice to one side of the hall of pillars, one about my size. I decided to explore it, finding that it climbed upward and outward toward the cavern and it had a window in it, a place where the stone had broken.
From this vantage point, I could look over the parapet and down into the cavern. I could see Dream Miner’s feet—not a sight to inspire confidence or good appetite—and a part of the floor of the cavern.
To either side, right and left of the giants, low, long archways curved like bows led off into the darkness.
From the archway at Dream Miner’s right, several dozen long poles protruded into the cavern, their nether ends hidden in the darkness.
Dream Miner reached for one of these. His monstrous arm descended toward the rocky floor; the flesh between the two giants stretched, revealing its leprous, mottled surface, full of crusty sores and small, scurrying vermin; his hand grasped the pole and dragged it forth. Its end was burdened with the body of some large food beast, perhaps a giant zeller.
This spitted beast was thrust into the giant’s mouth and half bitten from the pole, the pole withdrawn like the stem of some obscene fruit. It made two mouthfuls for Dream Miner, two huge, bloody mouthfuls gulped down with much gnashing and masticating.
I put my face into the stone, unable to watch it.
Until this moment I had not seen his monstrous nakedness. He was so stonelike, so monumental, that one did not think of it as flesh. The act of eating, however, with all its
