“He did not harm his hitch,” said one. “I would have killed mine had they disobeyed me. Why did he not kill his hitch?”
“Mad,” said the other. “He was mad. Sometimes we go mad, you know. They say so.”
“I would have killed them,” replied the first. “Mad or not.” They moved away from the pit and were gone. I caught a Dupey eye upon me with Mavin’s keen intelligence behind it.
“We have spent time enough here,” she hissed.
There was the matter of the Fatwagon, which should be left in a place it would not attract attention. There was the matter of the arches behind which the watchers lurked. She knew this as well as I, and we sought a solution to the dilemma. We found it at the base of the metal cage, a slight declivity in the pit wall, a space large enough to hide us as we Shifted. When next the moveable cage fell and rose, we rose with it, hidden beneath it like a false bottom to the thing. Once the space around the pit was empty, two Tallmen came into being and moved away to the fringing corridors. When we had found a secluded place, we stopped to set some plan of action. Tallman had believed what he had told us. He had not known the name “Himaggery” or “Windlow.” He knew only that a certain cargo was ordered for them, that it would go behind the inner doors to them, to be used in certain ceremonies which were to happen soon. He knew only that the monsters were created by them, in order that the monsters could be watched by them.
They made things, things which were sent out into the world to be sold or given away by the Gifters. They needed pawns to serve them, so pawns were brought in through the mumble mouths. Tallmen were created by them to maintain the corridors, to maintain the portals, to repair things which broke. “But we cannot,” he had said pitiably. “No one knows how to fix them.” They did not talk to Tallmen, except to give instructions. This Tallman had not been through the inner doors; he did not know what happened there. We asked what friends he had? None. What acquaintances? None. Surely he slept somewhere, in some company? No. At most, they could gather in pairs. Why sleep in company? Why eat in company? One slept wherever one was.
We had asked him how he had learned to speak? Surely he remembered a childhood?
At that his eyes had rolled back in his head and he had trembled like a drumhead. Mavin had said sadly, “Let it go, Peter. I do not know whether it was born of human kind, but it has been changed beyond recognition. This is only an empty vessel, drained of all but limited speech and directed action and fear of pain. Let it go.”
That was when we had let him go.
Now we leaned against a wall and considered. Somewhere in this tangled, underground labyrinth were the inner doors the Tallman had spoken of. Somewhere in this web of a place we would find some answers, but we would not find them standing against a wall. We would have to follow some of them. “I will not do this,” Mavin said with asperity, “mock that unfortunate creature by saying them. They are magicians, and so I will say.
“Say away,” I commented. “Particularly if it will help some.”
Easier conceived of than accomplished. There were none of the magicians about. Perhaps it was not a time they moved about. Perhaps the earlier occurrence had been a random happening with little chance of repetition. We wandered, baffled and frustrated. Bells rang. Machines wheezed and gulped. Tallmen moved quietly past. Silence came.
“Perhaps it is night outside,” said Mavin. “These beings must once have lived beneath the sun. Perhaps they keep its time still.”
“If that is so, they maybe sleeping rather than watching what goes on around them. And if that is so, then we might risk other bodies than these.” We hesitated, wondering whether it was wise to take the risk.
At last she said, “If it finds us anything, it is worth it. I will go left, you right, as fast and as far as possible. Meet here when they begin to move about again.”