Black they were, pale faces showing like moons against the dark, bodies and limbs hidden beneath the straight black dresses they wore, hair and ears hidden beneath square black caps which rode upon their heads like balanced boxes, held there by tight cloths which came down over the ears, under the throat, down the back of the neck. Around each wrist was a metal band, and upon each hand a fingerless glove. Against all that black the fingers squirmed like worms in gravesoil, and the faces peered at us without expression. We backed away, gibbering in our pretended fright, and one of them spoke.
“Well, Shear, monsters escaped from the pits? How come here? And why?”
“I have no idea, Dean Manacle. None. But they are not going from the pits, you will note, but toward them.”
Mavin chose this moment to say, “Oh, Dupies need to talk to Tallman, good Tallman will help Dupies. Dupies got into the mumble mouths, we did, came to find Tallman.”
“Oh, do not be in a temper, great sirs,” I managed to gulp. “The calling machine did not function, and we have word.”
“Dupies say ‘Patience, patience’,” Mavin went on, wickedly. “Fatman says we must find Tallman, oh, good Tallman, to tell Dupies what to do.”
“Creatures from some portal,” said the one called Shear. “That is why they go toward the pits. Creatures from some portal who have come into the base in search of their hitch.”
“An inescapable hypothesis, Shear. Also, an interesting occurrence. One worthy of note. Perhaps a small monograph? However, practicality dictates that they not be allowed to remain here. Will you call for removers?”
“Certainly, Dean Manacle. As you wish.”
It was as though they heard nothing we said, as though we had chirped like birds or howled like fustigars to make some general noise without content. Mavin realized it as soon as I did, and we both subsided into meaningless babble. They took no notice of this, either. The one called Shear fiddled with a wrist band, poking at tiny knobs upon it with a fierce display of concentration which even I could recognize as mannered. Who were these strange ones? Mavin made a face at me from Dupey’s left head and went on with the nonsense sound she was making. The two before us continued to converse as though we were not there.
We had not long to play this game. A shrill shrieking set Fatman’s ears on edge. I damped the sound, a sound which seemed to accompany every machine which moved in this place. A little cart came gravely around a corner, ridden by two replicas of Tallman, or perhaps by one replica and Tallman himself. It did not matter, for the one called Manacle made it clear there was no difference, no distinction.
“Tallmen! There are two monsters here, probably from a portal. See they are removed and that the Tallman responsible is sent to the pits.”
The Tallmen did not reply. I began to understand that the black-dressed ones, who must be those magicians we had heard so much of, did not hear words unless spoken by one of their own kind. The treelike figures merely unfolded themselves from the cart and reached toward us with their hands. A bolt of force, small and controlled, but nonetheless painful, struck us both. We cried out, both Dupey heads in unison and Fatman in shock and surprise, a long harmonic of anguish. We moved in the direction indicated.
“Tallman,” I cried, “Fatman has news, news, listen Tallman to what Fatman has to say.”
One of them spoke, not quite the voice I had heard before. “Hold your noise, monsters. We are not your hitch. He will be found, you may be sure, and disciplined beside you in the pits. Were you not told never to enter the labyrinth! You were told. All the hitches are told. Now you have made them angry.” Another, totally gratuitous, bolt struck us from behind though we were moving as rapidly as possible. I conceived a hatred for the Tallmen in that moment. Vengeance would have to come later, however, for now it was enough that we were being escorted into the maze. I comforted myself with this while Shifting my burned flesh about. The bolts had been painful enough, but they had not done any real damage. The Tallmen did not speak between themselves. All was quiet except for the shrieking wheels of the cart, the drip of water from the ceiling, the moody sighing of the ducts. Soon the ceilings began to rise; we came to larger spaces; we encountered other carts and other black-clad magicians striding along the corridors without seeming to notice what went on around them. Then, almost without warning, we were at the pits. They opened before us, broad and deep as quarries, sheer walls dropping into a swarm of ceaseless movement as of a hive of insects overturned. A cage of metal stood at the pit wall, tall metal beams which reached from the pit floor to the ceiling far above, and within this square of beams a smaller cage was suspended. We were forced inside; the door was shut behind us; the endless machine shriek began as were lowered into the swarm where a thousand creatures like ourselves flurried in ceaseless agitation. The door opened to let us out, and we moved hesitantly into nightmare. Beside me I heard Mavin’s voice from Dupey’s throat. “Gamelords! What madness is this?”