The High House (28 page)

He crawled through a particularly narrow way, while a protruding nail tore at his shirt and scratched his back, halting him. He tugged, the cloth ripped, the nail bit deep, then came free, making him groan. He crawled between the boards. Beyond, the tunnel widened slightly, though it became no taller. He pushed ahead and his hands struck stone. Brushing the perspiration from his eyes he saw solid masonry before him, and no exit to either side. He stared in despair, speechless, and pressed his hands helplessly against the rock.

His brother elbowed through the narrow way and was soon beside him. Duskin moaned softly. “What now?”

“We have to go back and dig through the sand,” Carter said. “Dig our way out.”

“We can’t dig our way through that collapse! That’s asinine!”

“It’s all we can do!” Carter cried. “Unless you have another suggestion!”

His brother glared at him and he glared back, all their fear turned to anger.

Duskin lay his forehead in the dirt. “Sorry.”

Carter softened and nodded. “Would you like some water?”

They both took a brief swallow from the canteen, wiped the dirt and sweat from their eyes, and looked around.

“We just have to dig our way out,” Carter said. The resolution gave him courage.

“Perhaps we could dig our way up from here.”

“But we don’t know how much rubble is above us. We could be wasting our strength. And there is so little room to maneuver.”

In answer Duskin pulled himself onto his back. “Perhaps if I could reach up through the cracks, feel around a bit.”

He pushed his hand between two boards and thrust upward to the elbow. Carter could see nothing, but after sifting the wreckage for a time Duskin said, “I’ve pressed aside a metal sheet. I see light above us!”

Carter twisted himself sideways to catch a glimpse, and saw the faint glow of diffused sunlight.

“If we disturb it, the whole pile may collapse on us,” he said. “I could use the Word Which Brings Aid, but who would come, I wonder?”

“Or what?” Duskin asked. “We just have to shift enough away so we can crawl out.”

“Very well, but let me dig while you slip back down the passage.”

“I want to help.”

“I’m not being heroic. If it collapses you need to be free to drag me out.”

While Duskin reluctantly retreated, Carter turned onto his back and cleared away a few loose stones. A solid piece of masonry blocked any path to his left, but to the right the debris was smaller. Dust rattled into his eyes and mouth; a small rock rolled down and grazed his forehead, making him yelp in surprise. He saw he would have to clear the lesser debris away over a wide area, to prevent it from filling up the opening. It was slow work, reaching between metal bars and boards, and he spent almost an hour on that.

Afterward came more dangerous work. With the hole widened, he had room to half sit and push through the rubble. His first attempt brought masonry and wood tumbling all around him, while he guarded his head with his hands. A metal pole crashed down, its end landing in the middle of his stomach, knocking him breathless. For a moment he thought he had been run through.

Duskin crawled in and freed him from the pole. When he had recovered they found the hole had widened, though a wooden post still lay across its middle. Together, they raised themselves on their elbows and tried to push it aside, but it withstood them. Finally, they could do nothing but use the knives from their packs to carve their way through it. There was only room for one to whittle at a time, and they had to work with arms outstretched, tiresome labor. By switching off, they finally severed it after more than two hours.

Carter was then able to rise to his knees and push more of the debris aside, lighter materials that gave way easily.

He pulled himself up by his arms where he could finally see out. The roof of the corridor had completely collapsed and he looked onto the story above, its doors opening almost comically into empty space. As he pulled himself out, a piece of heavy masonry slid toward the hole. He threw his weight against it, bringing it to a halt, and crawled from the opening.

As his brother pulled himself up, the masonry slipped again, and Duskin was pinned at the waist for a terrifying moment, until both men brought their weight against the stone. They pushed it away, and he climbed out. Steadying one another, they scrambled to the side of the corridor where they rested on a heavy timber lying atop the ruin.

They wiped their brows and looked around. The sunlight entered the corridor through broken windowpanes along the left wall. The rubble lay as far as they could see in either direction, as if some great explosion had ripped the ceiling away.

“It goes on forever,” Duskin said, awe in his voice.

They looked at one another, their faces begrimed with dust and sweat, and Duskin began to laugh softly. The mirth was suddenly contagious, and Carter chuckled as well, even as he said, “We are two very stupid and lucky men.”

* * *

There was nowhere to camp in the ruined corridor, and they stumbled across the rubble another hour before reaching an archway partially blocked by debris. They lugged a heavy cornice aside and squirmed through the narrow opening at the top, into a pristine corridor undisturbed by the anarchy at its threshold. Despite frequent examination of the map, they had found no recognizable markers to indicate their position. Though it was early afternoon, the passage was windowless dark, and they agreed to camp. Discouraged, exhausted, they flung themselves beneath a stair, ate an indifferent meal, and crawled into their bedrolls. Carter scarcely remembered lying down before falling into a slumber disturbed by dreams of crawling through tunnels. He woke more than once to find his hands digging the air.

An unfamiliar voice and a soft tapping against his boots roused him the next morning. “Terribly sorry,” the stranger said. “But you must move along. We are scheduled to polish here this morning.”

Carter sat up in alarm, and pulled himself from beneath the stairs, his hand on the revolver in his pocket. He faced a short, barrel-chested man, old but stout, who held himself with military stiffness. He wore the dark blue trousers, jacket, and cap of a uniform, though one adorned by neither marks nor insignia, and for an instant Carter thought it might be the Bobby. But his round face displayed the candid authority such as might be found on a railroad conductor. His hair and handlebar moustache were silver, his eyes flat brown. “I am truly sorry,” he said again, “but it just isn’t done. We brook no vagrants in Kitinthim. If you need food and shelter for a night we can provide it, but loitering is out of the question. Looks bad, you know.”

Duskin awoke with a start, rose up, and banged his head against the stairs. He clutched his wounded skull, moaned, and growled, “Who are you?”

“Spridel, Guild-Guide for the Order of Dusters and Burnishers of the Seven Halls of Kitinthim, appointed by the king himself thirty-four years ago, and still serving to the best of my capacity. But I should ask the questions. After all, you would want to do so if you found me bounding about in your country without an invitation. Who are you? Where do you go? Honest answers for honest inquiries.”

Carter and Duskin rose to their feet. “Carter Anderson, Steward of Evenmere,” Carter said. “This is my half brother, Duskin.”

Spridel looked them over carefully, ignoring Carter’s outstretched hand. “Steward of Evenmere is it? Quite a claim. Quite a claim indeed. I’m the Queen of Fis and Amithaine myself. Does the Steward always travel in such elegant garb?”

Carter glanced down at his tattered clothes and shrugged. “He does if he has crawled beneath half a mile of rubble.”

“You came through the Fallen Way? If that was possible, it would explain your appearance. And what would the Steward be looking for in Kitinthim?”

“We want to reach Arkalen, but the main doors out of Kitinthim are blocked. Frankly, we’ve lost our way.” Carter drew out his maps and showed Spridel their course.

“Ah, but the map, fine as it is, is wrong,” Spridel said. He indicated two corridors. “These do not intersect as it shows, and the Fallen Way has changed many of the old routes. There was a fire, long ago, and if the firemen of Ooz hadn’t come, all of Kitinthim would have gone to the flames. Things aren’t as they once were. You’ll have to come with me then. I will set you on the proper course.”

Sensing no deception in the man, Carter and Duskin quickly packed their things and followed.

“We haven’t seen anyone else in Kitinthim,” Carter said.

“You won’t see many. Mostly the workers are left, the carpenters and plumbers, the servants and the blacksmiths. And, of course, the Guild of Burnishers. We run things now, and try to keep everything in tip-top order for the return of the king.”

“When are you expecting him?” Duskin asked.

Spridel paused in the hallway so quickly that the men nearly ran into him. He arched his eyebrows from beneath his cap and said, “Why, never, of course. Do you think we’re fools?” then turned and continued on his way while Duskin and Carter exchanged puzzled glances.

They passed a pair of men scouring a wooden stair on their hands and knees, both dressed in the same uniform as Spridel, who spoke a few words of encouragement, though they neither looked up nor responded.

Soon, they met other workers patiently restoring lustre to the drab boards. The woodwork already buffed shone brilliantly, while the portions yet undone marked decades of neglect. The men themselves seemed wholly dreary, their faces pale, the hair of even the youngest thatched gray, their eyes gray as well, drained of all color, as if in burnishing the wood they had stripped their own glow away. They did not speak while they worked, nor sing, and Carter thought a prison sentence no worse than being among them. Only Spridel seemed cheerful, humming a soft, tuneless song that his workers ignored.

They marched up a flight of steps, then along a shining corridor. “This will take us over the Fallen Way,” Spridel said. “You will be able to see it all from above.”

They soon intersected the destroyed corridor, and Spridel brought them to its brink so they could witness the rubble below. They thought they recognized the place where they had exited the tunnel. A wooden walkway bridged the span, and they crossed it and continued on.

“It’s as if the whole floor was simply cut away,” Carter said. “What caused it?”

“Surely the Steward would know,” Spridel said.

“I haven’t been Steward long.”

Spridel pondered a moment, his eyes searching the past. “It was the anarchists, as you might imagine. They unleashed a Dark Beast from a hidden door, a creature never meant to walk beneath the sun. I was a young man then, recently come to the Guild, but I was on the floor when it reached these halls, and I saw. The king himself met it where the way is now fallen, armed with Narchaldeth, an enchanted blade from old. The force of their combat was like two gods; the light was fantastic, streaks of color unlike any I saw before or since. But I fled, as did we all, when the house shook and the plaster crumbled, so I never saw the corridor collapse, but they say it went with heat and fire, and those too close were slain. When it was done, both the king and his enemy were gone, taking the entire corridor with them. Things were never the same thereafter, as if a bit of darkness had fallen into Kitinthim. People began to drift away. The members of the king’s court disappeared with him, and what became of them none know, but others began departing after that. The kingdom fell into ruin, and the Guild of Dusters and Burnishers runs it now.”

“How do you live?” Duskin asked. “Men can’t eat polish.”

“Folk still farm the Terraces in the west, and we keep the marketplace well burnished in exchange for meat and corn. They still feel loyalty to the palace, though it’s mostly a sham now.”

By noon they reached quarters more richly arrayed: white marble busts in the halls, heavy, braided curtains on the windows. The corridors were polished mirrors, banners of azure and argent draped the walls depicting a silver bear silhouetted against a blue moon. Yet the banners were soiled, frayed at the edges, and there were cobwebs in the corners. That, and the sparsity of servants, spoke of too much labor for too few workers.

The passages were curled maple from floor to ceiling. Carved bears marched along the windowsills, and the travelers soon stepped into a chamber with long tables and low benches, reminiscent of Viking halls, but resplendent with more gold and jewels than the northmen could have known. The centerpiece was an enormous sculpture of ebony, tinged in darkest blue, covering a wall fifty-feet broad and just as tall, depicting in intricate detail the lives and times of the Kitinthim people. The figures themselves were each less than a foot tall, so that without a spyglass the highest were only dim outlines. A golden glass dome etched with flowers and bears illuminated the chamber and warmed the dusky timbers. After a moment, Carter realized that two enormous doors stood nearly hidden in the intricacies of the carving.

“Drath!” Spridel called to a servant fussing about the tables. “We have company! Lunch for three.”

Spridel flung himself down upon one of the benches and bade Carter and Duskin do the same. Drath vanished but soon reappeared with another servant carrying steaming bowls of potato soup and hunks of freshly baked bread. There was butter and honey, and hot tea over all; the men fell silent, giving all their attention to the meal.

Spridel himself took meager mouthfuls and watched as they dined. “Has it been awhile since you’ve eaten?” he asked.

Carter and Duskin, suddenly aware of their slaughter of the meal, looked at one another and burst into laughter. “We’ve had little hot food the last few days,” Carter said. “Dried meat, stale bread, and moldy fruit. They promote scant appetite. But this is a marvelous hall; Kitinthim must once have been great indeed.”

“At the very top of the Kingdom Carving, as we call it, is depicted the coming of our ancestors, the Laubenthal, into Kitinthim. We drove out the barbarians who lived here then, and our first king, Abcell the Illustrious, set up his palace in this very place. As you can see, we have been here a long time, and there have been wars and deeds done. Though few of us remain, we were once a proud people.”