“Oil, Dupies,” it cried. “Oil for the Fatwagon. Oh, she screams, doesn’t she? Makes a terrible racket. Laggy Nap. Walla, wallo, holla hello, listen to me come screaming at you. Oil! Oil! Dupies!”
“Patience, patience, Fatman,” came the answering call, evidently the standard reply to all happenings in this place. The Fatman rolled his eggcup backward and forward, sending all the animals into frenzies at the high-pitched sound, until the Dupies ran from whatever place they had been hiding. They bore a can of oil, and a kind of tag game ensued during which the sounds gradually diminished into almost quiet. It was only then that Laggy Nap came forward once more.
“I greet you, Fatman.”
“Oh, I greet you as well, Laggy Nap. Have you a fine cargo for us this time? Something to please them? Something to make the great, tall things happy? I do hope so. They become difficult, Laggy Nap. Sensitive. Given to fits and hurling things at us for no reason. Oh, my, my, my, yes. They need distractions, Laggy Nap, indeed yes.
“I have most of what I was sent for, yes.”
“Most? Do you say ‘most,’ Laggy Nap? Ah, to have only most may not be enough. It is far better to have more, not most. Well, he will be in a temper, you may be sure. Tallman will be in a temper, Laggy Nap. All the Tallmen. All. He’ll tell you so, even if I don’t.” And the Fatwagon rolled away among the towering arches and the mumbling door-faces, exclaiming to itself as it went, careening here and there, light glistening again and again in the gloom from the bald pate of Fatman where he wheeled his way into the shadows.
I heard Izia say to Laggy Nap, “Why will you not let us go outside? We are no good to you here. Let us take the animals outside the walls. We will wait for you there.” Her voice was hopeless, even as she begged.
“I want you here!” he hissed, fingers jumping along the seam of his trousers, tap tap, full of an energy and rhythm of their own. “Here.”
“We sicken,” she murmured. “All of us, animals, all. In here. In the gloom of this place, we cannot help it. We sicken.”
“So, sicken. I care not whether you sicken. Sicken silently. I swear, I will find that Shifter who sold you to me and sell you back to him or have vengeance upon him for cheating me as he did.”
“You were not cheated, Laggy Nap! I have driven your animals across this world a dozen times in the ten years you have had me. Who treats your team beasts when they are injured or ill? Who gets them across fords they will not cross and up trails they will not climb? Who but me, Laggy Nap? You were not cheated.”
“I say I was because you do not give me peace. Now be silent or burn a little.” His fingers tapped a different rhythm, and she caught her breath in sudden pain.
I moved, and Dolwys immediately put one of his great, floppy feet upon mine, half tripping me in the process. I heard him sigh, “wait,” or some such word, blown through his water ox throat. I subsided, frustrated, unable to do more than ache at her hurt. In any case, Nap did no more than twinge at her, perhaps because his powers were much dwindled and perhaps because the careening Fatwagon came barreling out of the dusk into our midst, its occupant caroling madly.
“Tallman’s coming, Laggy Nap. I sent the call, just as I knew you’d want me to, and he’s coming swiftly. Watch the big mouth, now, Laggy Nap, he’s on his way. Come Dupies, come and watch. Tallman’s coming.”
The Dupies emerged from twilight places, chattering at one another like sparrows, patting at one another with their swift little hands, eyebrows cocked and mouths moving, all the time stroking at one another, pausing only to hug and kiss with that same greedy passion they had displayed toward the animals. They paused before one of the mumbling Tower mouths, waited in hushed expectancy. Reluctantly, Laggy Nap took up a position beside them and the Fatwagon rolled to one side. There was a long hush, then the sound of far off machinery in motion, a rumbling which vibrated the ground beneath us and sent all the Tower mouths into fits of grimaces.