The Valley of Thunder

by Charles de Lint

  There was no question. But he wished there was some way that she could learn the truth, could know that he hadn't come all this way on false pretenses, his life a lie.

  She would not meet his gaze anymore, so he returned his attention to the man behind the desk.

  "What do you mean to do with us?" he asked.

  That is the question, isn't it? What would you do in my circumstance?"

  Clive shrugged, pretending a nonchalance he didn't feel. "It would depend upon now I would expect my lies to best serve me—if I were a man such as you, which I am not."

  The man behind the desk smiled. "Ah. So you mean to continue to press your claim—that you are the true Folliot, and I the pretender?"

  "I know who I am." Clive replied.

  "Yes, of course you do. The trouble is, we do not."

  "That is not my concern. You can believe me or not, but who I am will not change."

  "Oh, yes. You assume Clive Folliot to be an honorable man, so you mean to play your role to the end, not giving an inch. What will you do next? Challenge me to a duel to settle our differences—the winner being he with the greater skill?"

  Clive could not hide the momentary hope that leapt inside him. With sword in hand, just the two of them, he and this fat man with the look of a friar about him. how could he not prevail?

  The man behind the desk laughed. "Poppycock! I saw the videotape of your workout with Naree this afternoon. You're very skilled, but it means nothing. Might does not make right. Truth does."

  "You're frightened," Clive said. "The real Neville Folliot—my brother—never refused a challenge in his life."

  "Then this 'brother' of your imagination is a fool, something Neville Folliot—myself, sir—most assuredly is not."

  Clive nodded. Fine. If this was how the game was to be played, then he would play along.

  "You've had your fun with us." he tried, "now, why don't you let us go peacefully on our way? We've certainly no reason to remain here to cause you any further trouble—not with our quest still unresolved."

  "I can't very well have you wandering about the Dungeon besmirching my good name, now, can I?"

  "What do you want from us?"

  "Your true identities—the real reason you've come to this place."

  Clive realized that there was nothing more he could say. He could argue forever, but it would do absolutely no good.

  He glanced at the others in the room. Guafe still glared at the man behind the desk, the metal dome of his head gleaming under the lights, one mechanical hand twitching at his side. Finnbogg stood with his head bowed, awaiting his judgment at the hands of what he thought were the spirits of the dead. Keoti, standing stiffly beside the desk, now wore a stranger's mask on her features. Clive remembered the softness of her lips, but there was no memory of them in the thin, hard line they now formed. Behind him, he could feel the weight of the guards' gazes, prepared for any untoward move.

  Smythe stirred beside him. "And what then?" he asked the man behind the desk.

  "What do you mean?"

  "We give you what you want to know—then, what happens to us?"

  "I might simply set you free."

  Clive frowned at his companion, but Smythe turned his head slightly away from the desk so that neither the man behind it nor Keoti could see him give Clive a wink.

  "Well, then, gov'nor," he said. "I suppose we'd better come clean. Now, Finn and our mechanical friend here are just what they say they are—or, at least they are so far as we know, for we only met 'em on route, as it were. 'Course, Guafe's got a mind as busy as a hurry-whore—it never stops whirling—so who knows who he really is. or what he's thinking, if you follow me?"

  "Yes, yes. I'm not so concerned with them, except insofar as their plans coincide with yours."

  "Well, I'm getting to that now, gov'nor. I'm not a man of many morns. I speak to the point and do what needs doing straightaway—no sense in making folks wait, that's what I always say. I remember a time in Newgate, when I was sitting in for a pint with a couple of the lads, and Casey, he turns to me and he says to me, like, 'Jim, when you take on a job, you do it quick, and you do it right, or you don't do it at all.' A right good bit of advice, that. Well, I look him straight back in the eye—don't I just?—and I says back to—"

  The man rapped the desk top with his fist. "Will you please get on with it."

  "Easy now, gov'nor. Don't be such a surly boots. A proper tale takes time to set up. as I'm sure you know. You don't go rushing blindly in, or the tale will just lie there looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm—all pitiful and forlornlike."

  Smythe shot the man behind the desk a quick grin, then plunged on before he could be interrupted again. "So what I'm saying is, though I know who I am, and I know the Cap'n here, the long and short of it is, I don't know these other two lads at all—except for what they've told me, and as Guafe himself's already mentioned to yourself, gov'nor, it could all be a pack of lies."

  "Just tell me who you are."

  "Well, gov'nor. I'm getting to that, aren't I now?"

  "Your names."

  Smythe straightened up. "Well. I'm Jim Scarpery— and that's the truth—and this here's the cap'n of the best band that ever plagued England's roads—Jack Roper. We're highwaymen, gov'nor, and proud of it."

  "Highwaymen," the man behind the desk said. His tone was dry, and he eyed the pair of them with an expression that Clive couldn't decipher.

  Madness, Clive thought. Horace had taken complete leave of his senses. Too many years of dissembling and mimicry had finally made him lose touch with reality.

  But then he realized just what it was that Smythe was up to, and he was hard put to hide a grin. Lord help them all, it was madness. But the Dungeon was a Bedlam house, where perhaps only the play-acting of madness could see one through.

  "The Devil's own, and a pair of the best, gov'nor," Smythe said with a nod. "'Least. we were till that damned blue light snatched us away and brought us here. We ran into your brother in a prison on one of the upper levels and got the whole tale of his search and all from him. Then, when we escaped—leaving him and his sergeant behind, didn't we just?—we thought we'd take their names and continue their quest. The cap'n here always fancied being a major."

  The man behind the desk pursed his lips. Elbows on the desk top, he cradled his chin on his hands.

  "Why" he asked.

  "Well, you know why, gov'nor. Old Clive told us that you knew the tricks of getting in and out of this place. We want to go back home, the cap'n and me—take us a load of booty and stand with both feet firm on England's green shores. There's not much for a good Englishman in this place, be they a highwayman or a peer of the realm—am I right?"

  "He’s telling more lies," Keoti broke in. "They demanded to see you. Why would they take such a chance, knowing you'd see through them as soon as they were brought before you?"

  Smythe never gave anyone else a chance to reply. "Well, we had to, didn't we?" he said. "We had to play the game out. In for a penny, in for it all. There was a chance we could win you over—" he gave the man behind the desk a quick, ingratiating smile "—or maybe catch you unawares and then lean on you a bit till you .delivered us up a secret or two.

  "We’re not greedy, gov'nor—I’ll tell you that straightaway. We didn't want much. Right now, we’ll settle for our lives. We never meant any real harm."

  Smythe bowed his head then and looked at the floor, wringing his hands.

  "You can't be taking him seriously." Keoti said. "The man obviously wouldn't know the truth if he tripped over it."

  The man behind the desk shook his head. "I believe him."

  "Thank you, gov'nor," Smythe told him. "Now, we'd be eternally grateful if you'd just let us go on our way, and we'd never be troubling you anymore, would we. Jack?"

  "Take them away." the man behind the desk said, waving them off.

  The guards marched them out of the office and down the corridor, Keoti and the man behind the des
k following them at a slower pace. Clive leaned closer to Smythe.

  "Well played," he whispered, "but do you think he truly believed you?"

  Smythe shrugged. "I just gave him what he wanted, sah. Think about it—our man there is the pretender. Do you think he wants the Dramaranians to know that? All he wants from us is proof that he is who he says he is—or, conversely, that we're not who we said we were."

  "And now what?"

  "Now we look to escape before we lose our heads, for you can count on this: he won't keep us around."

  "Cap'n Jack." Clive muttered. "Jim Scarpery. Highwaymen."

  "He wanted a tale, and any tale would do." Smythe said, "so I gave him the first that came to mind. I always had a hankering to be considered a bold highwayman."

  Clive thought of the hate for him that was now in Keoti's eyes. "I'd rather you had put your quick thinking to considering a way that they might have believed us."

  "'Father Neville' would never have allowed it." Smythe said.

  "I know," Clive conceded. "Now, if we can just make an opportunity to escape this mess, rather than getting ourselves in even deeper...."

  But that moment never arrived. They were marched through a number of corridors, taken down many levels in an elevator, then marched down more corridors, until the way was blocked by an enormous metal door. The guards kept them all bunched together until Keoti and the man who called himself Father Neville joined them.

  "I'm not an unfair man," the pretender said. "There's a way to the sixth level through the caverns that you will find behind this door."

  Hope rose in Clive. Horace had been correct. The man had just wanted a tale, any tale, and now he was going to let them go.

  "I might add. however," the pretender went on. "that there are... things in there that enjoy the taste of human flesh." He nodded to the guards. "I wish you luck."

  Like hell you do, Clive thought. He looked at Keoti, but saw from her expression that so far as she was concerned, he no longer existed.

  "You'll pay for this." Clive told "Father Neville" as the guards opened the door just wide enough to push their small company through.

  The pretender came to stand beside the door. "I doubt that," he said.

  It was dark in the cavern—dark, cold, and damp. Clive was the last to be hauled to the door and then pushed inside. Just as the door was closing. "Father Neville" leaned close to the crack.

  "Your brother sends his regards," he said in a voice pitched just low enough to carry to Clive's ears, but no farther.

  Clive lunged for him, but the fat man danced nimbly back, and the great metal door closed with a clang that echoed on and on through the dark cavern in which they were imprisoned.

  Eighteen

  Head pillowed against Sidi's shoulder, Annabelle managed to get in a couple of hours of dreamless sleep before she was awakened by a whooping gang of young rogha who were playing a mad game of tag in the trees around the platform she and Sidi were sitting on. As she watched their acrobatics, her stomach began a series of flips. She quickly reached for the byrr pouch. Taking out a leaf, she began to chew.

  By the time her unreasonable fears had retreated enough to be bearable. Chobba arrived. He swung down from a branch, neatly balancing a tray laden with what looked like little breakfast cakes, fruit, fired-clay mugs, and a steaming pot of tea. The mugs didn't rattle against each other, and not a drop of the tea was spilled.

  "Show-off," she told him as he settled on his haunches in front of them.

  The big rogha grinned. "Sleep hokay?" he asked.

  "I think I'd like to get back on the ground now, if I could." she said.

  She winced as the shrieking troop of children suddenly swooped by again. They didn't so much seem to swing between branches as tumble. Chobba. obviously thinking they were bothering her with their nose, stood up and began to shout at them, until she tugged on his furry arm.

  "No, no." she said. "It's not them—it's just the height. It makes me... sick."

  "Yoo chew byrr?"

  "Yeah, but I still want down."

  "Yoo cat first. Loo-kee cum. Fetta cheef cum. We all talk. Then yoo go. Hokay?"

  "Fetta chief?" Annabelle asked. She remembered him using the term last night, but she'd been too out of it to ask him what it meant.

  "She make fetta." Chobba explained. "Plenty smart."

  "I think he means a rootman," Sidi said. "Someone who makes fetishes and speaks with the spirits."

  "Like a shaman," Annabelle said.

  Sidi shrugged, but Chobba was nodding in response to what the Indian had said.

  "Named Reena." he said. "Fetta cheef. Talk with dead rogha—read sign in root and leaf. Cum plenty soon."

  Drawn by the sound of their conversation. Shriek and Tomàs emerged from the hut. At the sight of the four-armed alien, the younger rogha came bouncing through the tree boughs to peer more closely, scrambling away when she turned toward them, then creeping forward again once she looked away. Shriek laughed at their antics, the high chittering sound cutting across the young roghas' shrieks.

  "Eat—drink!" Chobba said. He sat on his haunches again and pushed the tray forward, smacking his lips. "Plenty good, yuh?"

  Lukey joined them while they were eating, his arrival sparking what appeared to be a good-natured series of teasing remarks that flew between the younger rogha and himself. The children hung from their perches with one hand, or one leg, waving their free limbs as they chattered.

  "What does that mean, bishii?' Annabelle asked. It was the term that the younger rogha used to refer to the old man.

  Lukey smiled. "Well, they say it means 'hairless ape', but Chobba here told me after I was here a while that it really means 'old fart.'"

  "Bishii, bishii!" the children chorused.

  Lukey stood up and shook his fists at them with mock severity as he tried to shoo them away, but he need not have bothered. The young rogha were already falling silent. In moments they had all fled quickly away.

  Turning, Annabelle saw that it was the arrival of the fetish chief that had sent them scurrying. Taking off right now, she thought, looking at the strange rogha, might not be such a bad idea.

  Reena had no legs, but it didn't stop her progress through the trees. She landed on the platform and propelled herself toward them on her powerful arms. She wore a short skirt of leather, which just covered her leg slumps, and a vest of woven grass, under which her furry breasts bounced. The vest was decorated with beadwork, feathers, and hundreds of tiny bird bones that rattled when she moved. Hanging from her neck was a large, beaded leather pouch. Dozens of bracelets jangled on her arms. Her fur smelled strongly of incense.

  Her face was hidden behind a shockingly ugly mask. The mask itself was wooden—a grotesque exaggeration of a rogha's features—with copper, cowrie shells, and beads covering everything but its crown, which was a square of plain, dark, blue-green cloth. A thick fringe of antelope hair bearded the bottom of the mask, and rising like an elephant's trunk behind the plain crown was a beaded headpiece tufted with raffia.

  She stopped in front of Annabelle and her party, the dark eyes in the eyeholes glittering as she studied the four of them.

  "What does the mask signify?" Annabelle asked Lukey.

  "A spirit of the darkworld that watches you through my eyes." the fetish chief replied. Her voice had a hollow sound, coming out from behind the mast as it did.

  "You speak English?" Annabelle asked.

  Stupid question, she thought as soon as she'd asked it, but Reena shook her head.

  "She doesn't speak your language." that same hollow voice said. "But I do."

  "Ah...."

  Annabelle glanced at Sidi, but he shook his head, understanding as little as she did of what was going on. Neither Lukey nor Chobba would meet her gaze.

  "Who... ah... are you, then?" she asked the voice behind the mask.

  "A spirit of the darkworld."

  Right. Seance time in the jungle. Just what they needed.
/>   "Can you be a little more specific?" Annabelle tried.

  "The darkworld lies all about you—invisible, yet always present. We watch you, through the eyes of our mouthpieces."

  "Like a ghost?"

  "We are not dead, but yes, like a ghost."

  "What's your name?"

  "We don't have names."

  "Then, how do you tell each other apart?" Annabelle asked.

  "We know who we are—that is sufficient, don't you think?"

  "I suppose...."

  "You wish to go to Quan," the voice continued, issuing hollowly from behind the mask, "to enter the gateway that lies there, which you believe will take you back to your own worlds. But I tell you now, Annabelly—" it said her first and surname as though it were all one word "—that if you go on from here, you will never see your child Amanda again."

  "How can you know all that stuff?" Annabelle demanded.

  "From the darkworld, we can see you as you truly are—your complete history as a whole, rather than just the outer face you present to the immediate world around you."

  This was really weird. Annabelle thought. She'd never been one to go in for mumbo-jumbo stuff. Everything had a reasonable explanation. You might not have the right data to work it out at any given time, but you could count on it all making logical sense somewhere along the line. But this... this was just spooky.

  "So, you're reading my mind?"

  "I am reading your essence."

  "Wonderful. And after having a good long poke around in there, the best you can come up with is to tell me that Quail's dangerous? I hate to break this to you, pal, but that's not exactly a hot news flash."

  "I understand your desire to return to your home-world, but you must accept the impossibility of that. The deeper you go through the Dungeon's levels, the more danger you are placing yourself in, and the less chance you have of surviving. Quan is extremely dangerous, but it is nothing compared to what lies in the gateway and beyond it."