I followed her, placing Windlow’s blue tenderly in my pocket as I went. The carts were there, just as she had said. Himaggery and I climbed into the foremost one as Mavin fumbled with the controls. It shuddered, made a grating noise, then began to run forward into the mountains.
“Where?” I asked her, seeing the daylight vanish behind us. “Where will you take us?”
“Where the tracks go,” she replied. “The carts came from those cold caverns, they should return there. We need distance between us and this place, and any other way would take too long.”
So we ran off into a half darkness. There were no magicians. There were no techs. We saw one or two Tallmen from time to time, but they stood by the walls as still and silent as trees, but unalive. It was then I began to know that they had not truly been living things¾or not entirely living things. I thought of Tallmen, and I thought of music, and I wondered how those who made the one could make the other. I have not yet made an answer to that.
Somewhere early in the journey, Himaggery began to regain his wits. He wanted to know what had happened, and in order to tell him that I had to tell him everything, Laggy Nap, my journey, Mavin, Izia, the Tallmen, Manacle, Quench … and Didir. We passed one of those dining places once, and Mavin stopped while we raided it. After that, Himaggery seemed to be better, though still rather disoriented and weak. When he asked about Windlow, I could not answer him. I could only look back the way we had come and let the tears run down my face. So it was Mavin who told him, and then there was a silence which seemed without end. Finally he broke it. “So what is happening now?”
“Now we are trying to get away,” I answered. “Flogshoulder will go to the room. He will find it locked. He will return to Manacle, and one way or another, with Committee approval or without it, Manacle will give him the key. Or Manacle will go himself. Whatever occurs, it will not take long. Manacle will believe that Quench is more of a threat than he ever believed the Council was. The defenders are to be used against a threat. So, he will use the defenders.”
“What will happen?” whispered Himaggery from a dry throat.
“I don’t know for sure. I believe that the defenders were never designed to defend the magicians. They were designed to defend Home, wherever that may be. Another world, somewhere.”
“So you’ve figured that out,” said Mavin, drily.
“Yes. The defenders were designed to defend Home against the monsters.”
“Monsters?” asked Himaggery. “What monsters? Who?”
“Oh, Himaggery.” I laughed and cried all at once. “You. Me. Mavin. All the children of Didir. She was the monster, the girl monster, the one the ship brought. Only she. And all those others to watch her and write down everything she did. All of it, the defenders, everything. Just to keep one little woman monster from threatening Home.”
“I thought so,” said Mavin. “I thought that was the way of it.’’
“Well, if you thought so, I wish to heaven you had told me!” I said.
“So what will the defenders do?” Himaggery went on, tenacious as always.
“Destroy the place,” said Mavin with finality. “Destroy Manacle and stupid Flogshoulder and sycophantic Shear, all the Tallmen and the pits, all the monsters¾the real ones¾and machines. Everything. Or so I believe.”
“So do I,” I said. “And we had best be far away when that happens.”
“How far away?”
I couldn’t tell him. Didir had thought only of danger, danger to everything. She had not limited it to a certain circle, a Demesne which could be measured for chill. “Far,” I said. “As far as possible.”
“At least to the end of these tracks,” said Mavin, practical as always. So we rode along the tracks, deeper and deeper under the mountains as Himaggery grew stronger and I felt more the pain of Windlow’s death. Once I thought of asking Mavin whether there was some way out of the place she was taking us, but decided she would not appreciate the question. If there was a way out, there would be a way out. If not, not. My asking would not change it.
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