The Hunter (24 page)

Only Batta Flor remained alert, prowling the perimeter of the enclosure, scanning the rocky walls carefully. Apparently he
did not find what he sought and this seemed to please him, for only when his inspection was finished, did he join the others.

“What were those things?” demanded Carn.

“You said there would be more,” Keri added, her statement sounding more like a question.

“Yes, many more,” Batta Flor said with a sigh, “although I did not think to meet them so soon. We were lucky to have escaped
without harm. My people call them
shadows because they have the ability to change color at will, blending in with their surroundings so that they are nearly
invisible. They are very dangerous and hard to kill. Their skin cannot be penetrated by any but the very sharpest of spears
and their teeth and claws can easily kill an adult Madrelli.”

“How can they be killed?” asked Braldt, more interested in knowing what would dispatch them than what would not.

“There are not many ways to hurt them,” Batta Flor admitted reluctantly. “Fire is effective as is trickery for they are not
very smart. Also speed, for as they do not think fast, it is sometimes possible to flee before they decide to follow.”

“What do they eat?” asked Keri, beginning to regain a little of her color. “We’ve not seen another living creature on this
mountain and there’s hardly any grass or foliage for them to graze.”

“They are not interested in grasses or foliage,” Batta Flor replied with a grim smile. “They are meat eaters; they prey on
the flesh of living beings. They climb the cliffs in search of nesting birds; they are very fond of eggs. But mostly they
hunt the Madrelli, and when all else fails, each other.”

Keri shivered and fell silent.

“And you say that we will encounter more of them,” pondered Braldt. “Is there any way that we can avoid them?”

“No,” said Batta Flor, “for our course will take us into the heart of their territory, inside the mountain itself.”

His words were met with silence as Braldt, Keri, and Carn stared at him in disbelief. “In…inside the mountain?” said Keri
as though hoping she had misunderstood him.

“I think that it is time that you told us the whole story,” Braldt said grimly. “There is too much here that is unknown. If
there are any more surprises such as these shadows, I would prefer to know before I encounter them.”

For once Carn did not have anything disagreeable to add and placed his arm around his sister’s shoulders to lend her strength,
for he too was well aware of her weakness. He
and Braldt had often played upon those fears when they were children, putting insects and small, harmless snakes in her bed
and making frightening sounds in the middle of the night, but this was a time for strength and courage, not fears, and even
Carn had the sense to realize it.

“This mountain,” began Batta Flor, “as well as many of the smaller peaks you see, were formed during the birth of the world,
or so the hard ones have said. Deep within the earth at the heart of the world is a great fire, hot enough to melt rock. I
know that such a thing is hard to believe, but I have seen proof of it with my own eyes and so will you. When the fire burned
very hot, sometimes, as with a pot atop a fire, it boiled over. Thus were our mountains formed, the hot rock inside the earth
heaved upward and poured over the edges.

“This happened many, many times, and each time the flow stopped and the rock cooled, the mountain grew taller and taller.
But the boiling rock did not always follow the same course, sometimes the pressure was not so great and the flow did not rise
to the top. Other times, the hardened rock above formed too hard a cap to penetrate and the flow found other points of escape.

“As you have seen, the rock is brittle and porous.” Batta Flor drove the point of his dagger into the ground and dug out a
chunk of the grey rock that he crumbled between his fingers to demonstrate his words.

“So what does this have to do with us and the shadows?” demanded Carn.

“What it means is that the mountain is honeycombed with tunnels and passageways, the hollow tubes formed by the flow of molten
rock that remained and hardened in place after each eruption. These passageways are now home to the shadows and many other
such creatures; they are also the only way that remains to approach the flooded chamber.

“Here, I will show you.” Batta Flor scraped the ground before them smooth with the edge of his hand, then drew the outline
of the mountain. “Here, at the base, is the entrance to the chamber, where the river now flows. The
river has its source here at the. peak,” and as he spoke, Batta Flor drew a circle on the top of the mountain.

“How can there be a river at the top of a mountain?” Carn asked in obvious disbelief.

“At some point in the past, during more violent times, the entire peak disappeared, destroyed in some eruption, I would imagine.
Since that time, the hollow that remained has filled with rainwater and the runoff from the yearly melting of the snows that
accumulate on Rouen Dor, its sister peak. We have long suspected that there is an underground river that flows through the
mountain as well. All of these waters find their way down through the inner passages and it was their power that turned the
huge machines that extracted the rhodium from the water for the masters.”

“Please explain about these machines,” said Braldt as he studied the drawing. “And tell us what you did to disrupt the flow
of the water.”

“It was simple, really,” said Batta Flor. “Everything was controlled from the chamber, everything. We waited for the end of
suntime, when the flow of water was lowest, when the snow was all but gone from the peaks. There was only one of us Madrelli
on duty, one called Rutha Shan, and he was one who most believed in what we were attempting; we could not have done it without
him.” Batta Flor’s voice sank to a whisper and he regarded the ground in silence. After a time he regained his composure and
continued.

“There were many hard ones as usual, monitoring the machines and the gauges, weighing the rhodium and overseeing its packing.
Rutha Shan let us into the control room. At first the hard ones did not seem alarmed, but then as we began shutting down the
machines one after the other, they realized what we were doing and tried to stop us.”

“What did they do? Are they good with swords?” asked Carn.

“The hard ones?” Batta Flor smiled at the thought. “No, they have no knowledge of weapons, they are but machines themselves.
They sought to bring us under control by means of touch. There is a plate embedded in their hand with which they maintain
contact with the masters. This
plate, in fact any part of their hand, is able to deliver a paralyzing blow that is capable of killing. It stops the heart
with a single touch. Even the slightest touch can bring a full-grown Madrelli to his knees. We knew this and were on our guard
and still they managed to kill more than half of us, Rutha Shan included, before Arba Mintch opened the flood gates.”

“I do not understand,” said Braldt.

“The control room monitored the flow of water,” explained Batta Flor. “Here, in the passage outside of the control room, the
water descended from above. The machines could only take so much pressure; if it was exceeded, they would turn too fast and
destroy themselves. We did not want such a thing to happen for we thought that we might use the machines as a bargaining chip,
a way of dealing with the masters. If the machines were destroyed, we had nothing to bargain with.

“But Arba Mintch realized that the hard ones would win out, they had already killed more than half of us and had succeeded
in sending out an alarm to those others who were in their quarters. He knew that if they joined the fight, our efforts would
be doomed and we would never get another chance to win our freedom. He did the only thing left, he opened the flood gates
that allowed the water to flow as fast as it wished. Even at the peak of suntime, the flow was too great for the machines
and they drove themselves into a tangle of twisted metal. The hard ones were upon us by then and all around me, Madrelli,
friends and loved ones, were dying. Arba Mintch and I were the only ones left and the hard ones were closing in on us.

“Arba Mintch told me to run, to grab onto the ladder that led to the access tunnel above the control chamber. He told me it
was our only chance. I thought that he was behind me, I did not realize until it was too late…”

“He stayed behind,” said Keri, guessing what was to come.

“He stayed behind,” Batta Flor said, still looking at the ground. “I leaped onto the ladder and it was only when I reached
the top and looked back that I realized that he was
not with me. He had returned to the controls and was smashing them to pieces. The hard ones were all around him and he was
beating them off as well. Only when I had reached the top of the ladder and called his name did he reach for that last lever,
the one that controlled the flow of water through the flood gates, that channel that ran through the control room itself and
was only used to avert disaster.

“He smiled at me then, a smile that I will take to my death, and he pulled the lever all the way down. The hard ones were
on him then, for they knew as well as I that it would spell their death, if machines can be said to die. A number of them
reached him, I know, for I saw the sparks shoot from their hands into his body. I believe that he was dead before the water
rose. But even in death he did not release his grip on the lever and the waters rose swiftly, the color of blood, covering
Arba Mintch and the hard ones and the machines, stilling their noise until there was nothing left to see but the rising water
lapping at my heels.

“I left then, finding my way out through the labyrinth of passages in utter darkness. I have no idea how I did so, nor do
I know if I can repeat the journey, for the water accompanied me as I went and there were many times when I did not believe
that I would survive. I have never been so frightened in all my life. If there are gods such as you two-foots believe, they
must have been with me that night.

“I knew that we had succeeded when I emerged from the side of the mountain and saw that the borealis was gone from the sky,
those flickering lights that had masked the night skies and hidden their true beauty for longer than any of us had lived.”

“The God Lights,” Keri said sadly, wrapping her arms around Beast and hugging him tight. Beast flattened his ears against
his skull and looked at her through slitted eyes but made no attempt to bite her, much to Braldt’s surprise. “I cannot believe
that they were as you say. I wish it were not true. They were so very beautiful and it was good to think that the gods had
given them to us as a sign of their love.”

“It was exactly what the masters wanted you to believe,” Batta Flor said bitterly. “Listen to yourself, doesn’t it make
you angry to think that you have been fooled, betrayed, used by another? Tell me, would you have dared to enter these grounds,
dared to visit these God Lights as you call them, this symbol of your gods’ love, had you not been ordered to do so by your
priests?”

“No, of course not, it was forbidden!” replied Keri, stung by the Madrelli’s words.

“Why was it forbidden if it was a sign of their love?” asked Batta Flor, his voice quivering with barely suppressed anger.

“Well, parents forbid you many things that they know will hurt you, especially if it’s for your own good! You don’t know everything!
How do we know it’s like you say?”

“It wasn’t for your own good, you fool, it was for their own good that you were forbidden to enter these lands. How long could
they have controlled you if you had discovered their secrets? How long would they have been able to rape and plunder your
planet if you knew what they were doing? Would you consent to being blown up so that they might extract the very last bit
of their precious metal? And as to proof, well, you shall see for yourself that I have spoken the truth. If there is a way
to reach that chamber, I will take you there, and then you will see that it is as I have said.”

“How do we go?” asked Braldt, speaking quickly to cut off the words that rose to Keri’s and Carn’s lips, for he knew that they
would not take kindly to the Madrelli’s words.

“I do not know that I can find the passage from which I escaped,” said Batta Flor, turning his attention to Braldt. “But I
do not think that it matters, one passage is as good a choice as another. They all look the same from outside and have equal
chances of ending somewhere near the chamber.”

“I do not like this,” said Carn as he fingered his sword and glared at the Madrelli. “How do we know it’s not a trap? He can
lure us inside the mountain and then kill us off one at a time.”

There was some degree of truth to Carn’s words but Keri answered before Braldt. “Don’t be stupid, Carn. We
asked him to take us here. Can’t you see that he likes it no more than we do?” It appeared to be so for Batta Flor looked
extremely uneasy at the thought of entering the mountain.

“How do we guard against these shadows and against the danger of becoming lost in these passageways?” asked Braldt, anxious
to keep his companions busy with real problems rather than dwelling on their dislike for one another.

Batta Flor appeared grateful for the question. Reaching into his pack, he withdrew a handful of sticks, none longer than the
length of an arm, as well as a large clump of yellow chalk.

“Uba Mintch prepared these for us himself. They are branches from the Yuba tree that burn steadily but slowly. They will light
our way down to the chamber and, if we are lucky, light our return. This chalk glows in darkness and can be used to mark our
passage so that we do not become confused. The fire should keep the shadows away, although with shadows it is hard to know.
They are not always predictable.”

“Where do we go?” asked Keri, looking around her as though she expected to see a passage open before her.

“The nearest of the openings is yet some distance above us, we must climb farther to reach it. I would like to do so before
darkness falls. Can you go on?”