He did it like an animal, quick and without thinking. The Kald was
quick, too. It jabbed the wand at Ram, but the little brown man was
coming so fast that it didn't stop him. He must have died in mid-leap,
but his body knocked the Kald over and bore him down.
Ciaran followed him in a swift cat leap.
He heard the hunter grunting and snarling somewhere behind him, and the
thudding of bare feet being very busy. He lost sight of the other Kald.
He lost sight of everything but a muscular grey arm that was trying to
pull a jewel-tipped wand from under Ram's corpse. There was a terrible
stink of burned flesh.
Ciaran grabbed the grey wrist. He didn't bother with it, or the arm.
He slid his grip up to the fingers, got his other hand beside it, and
started wrenching.
Bone cracked and split. Ciaran worked desperately, from the thumb and
the little finger. Flesh tore. Splinters of grey bone came through.
Ciaran's hands slipped in the blood. The grey beast opened its mouth,
but no sound came. Ciaran decided then the things were dumb. It was
human enough to sweat.
Ciaran grabbed the wand.
A grey paw, the other one, came clawing for his throat around the bulk
of Ram's shoulders. He flicked it with the wand. It went away, and
Ciaran speared the jewel tip down hard against the Kald's throat.
After a while Mouse's voice came to him from somewhere. "It's done,
Kiri. No use overcooking it."
It smelled done, all right. Ciaran got up. He looked at the wand in his
hand, holding it away off. He whistled.
Mouse said, "Stop admiring yourself and get going. The hunter says he
can hear chains."
Ciaran looked around. The other Kald lay on the ground. Its neck seemed
to be broken. The body of the squat, dark boy lay on top of it. The
hunter said:
"He didn't feel the wand. I think he'd be glad to be a club for
killing one of them, if he knew it."
Ciaran said, "Yeah." He looked at Mouse. She seemed perfectly healthy.
"Aren't women supposed to faint at things like this?"
She snorted. "I was born in the Thieves' Quarter. We used to roll
skulls instead of pennies. They weren't so scarce."
"I think," said Ciaran, "the next time I get married I'll ask more
questions. Let's go."
They went down the ramp leading under the Forbidden Plains. The hunter
led, like a wary beast. Ciaran brought up the rear. They both carried
the stolen wands.
The hermit hadn't spoken a word, or moved a hand to help.
It was fairly dark there underground, but not cold. In fact, it was
hotter than outside, and got worse as they went down. Ciaran could hear
a sound like a hundred armorers beating on shields. Only louder. There
was a feeling of a lot of people moving around but not talking much,
and an occasional crash or metallic screaming that Ciaran didn't have
any explanation for. He found himself not liking it.
They went a fairish way on an easy down-slope, and then the light
got brighter. The hunter whispered, "Careful!" and slowed down. They
drifted like four ghosts through an archway into a glow of clear bluish
light.
* * * * *
They stood on a narrow ledge. Just here it was hand-smoothed, but
on both sides it ran in nature-eroded roughness into a jumble of
stalactites and wind-galleries. Above the ledge, in near darkness,
was the high roof arch, and straight ahead, there was just space.
Eventually, a long way off, Ciaran made out a wall of rock.
Below there was a pit. It was roughly barrel-shaped. It was deep. It
was so deep that Ciaran had to crane over the edge to see bottom.
Brilliant blue-white flares made it brighter than daylight about
two-thirds of the way up the barrel.
There were human beings laboring in the glare. They were tiny things
no bigger than ants from this height. They wore no chains, and Ciaran
couldn't see any guards. But after the first look he quit worrying
about any of that. The Thing growing up in the pit took all his
attention.
It was built of metal. It rose and spread in intricate swooping curves
of shining whiteness, filling the whole lower part of the cavern.
Ciaran stared at it with a curious numb feeling of awe.
The thing wasn't finished. He had not the faintest idea what it was
for. But he was suddenly terrified of it.
It was more than just the sheer crushing size of it, or the unfamiliar
metallic construction that was like nothing he had seen or even dreamed
of before. It was the thing itself.
It was Power. It was Strength. It was a Titan growing there in the
belly of the world, getting ready to reach out and grip it and play
with it, like Mouse gambling with an empty skull.
He knew, looking at it, that no human brain in his own scale and time
of existence had conceived that shining monster, nor shaped of itself
one smallest part of it.