“Lay sign,” sing the bones. “Pray shrine, weigh mine…”
“Hush,” says Tolp. “They’re coming. I hear them at the end of the tunnel.”
And the light comes nearer as skeleton fingers pass the torch from fleshless hand to fleshless hand keeping pace with those approaching. First legless Laggy Nap on the shoulders of a bearer, a loose mouthed pawn wearing one of the jeweled caps of obedience; then cadaverous Prionde, tall crown scratching the rock above him, deep set eyes scowling over bony cheeks as he draws his robes fastidiously about him; then Huld in trailing velvets which his followers must leap and jitter to avoid. Followers¾a Prince or two from the northern realms; a monstrous Ghoul from the lands around Mip; three or four Mirrormen in the guise of other persons; lastly a scarred Medium who drags a limp body behind. Tolp and the Bonedancer crouch in the redolent dark, drawing no attention. Huld does not look at them when he passes, merely calls into the swampy air, “Let this body be hung with the others.” To which the hideous Medium grunts a response as he lets his burden fall. Then they go on down the tunnel, the torches following them from bone to bone until they pass from sight and hearing.
“Now it’ll stink again,” says the Bonedancer. “Stink for days. If he wants bones on the wall, why can’t I take them from one of the bone pits? Why put bodies on the wall while they stink?”
“This one isn’t even a body, yet,” says Tolp. “Still alive.” He turns the lax form over with one foot to peer blindly down into a child’s unconscious face. “Isn’t even grown. What’d he bring us this for?”
“So you can hang him on the wall and listen to him scream and then cry, then whimper, then sigh, then beg, then die,” says the Bonedancer in a husky chant. “Then rot, then smell, for he’s come to Hell…”
“Why? I just asked why?”
“Because he’s Huld,” replied the Dancer. “Because this is Hell’s Maw.” Silent under the pulsing smoke, he reflects for a time and then speaks again. “I think it would be good for you to take the one who isn’t dead yet out of here. Up to Pfarb Durim, maybe. Leave it on their doorstep.”
“You out of your head, Dancer? Huld’d roast me.”
“Huld’s got lots on his mind. Might not even think of it again.”
“Might not! Might not! And might, just as well. You stick to keeping your bones moving, Dancer. Leave the hanging up to me. Might not! Devils take it.”
The Bonedancer shakes with another long spell, half cough, half laugh. “Oh, old Tolp, you’ll be hung on that wall yourself, don’t you know? You and me. Besides, I’m not keeping the bones moving. Haven’t had the strength for that for a long time now…” His words are choked off by Tolp’s horny hands upon his throat.
“If you aren’t, then who is, Dancer? Who is? Tell me that? Whose power?”
The Bonedancer’s head moves restlessly from side to side between the choking hands. When Tolp draws away, growling, the Bonedancer only mumbles. “Ghostpieces, maybe. Who knows whose power?”
“Abuse power,” cry the bones. “Blues devour. Choose hour.”
Down the black gut of stone the bones cry, gradually subsiding into restless, voiceless motion, finger bones endlessly scratching at the wall, heels clattering on the stones, a ceaseless picking at the iron bands and chains which hold them. One day a skeleton finger will find the keyhole of the lock which binds them, will fiddle with it until the simple pins click and the lock falls open. Until that time, they remain chained to this stone. Pass it by. Go on beyond the last, small skeletons to the oozing stairs. So much I, Peter, have imagined from what I later saw and what Tolp was still able to say. What follows we have been told is true.
At the top of the stairs an anteroom opened to an audience hall, shadow-walled, its ancient stones dimming upward into groined darkness. Many powerful Gamesmen feasted at the lower tables. Huld and Prionde were seated upon a dais, Huld listening to Prionde with a semblance of courtesy, though his impatience could be judged from the hard tap-tap of a finger upon the arm of the massive chair.