Six of the seven team members would have to act as fuse lighters. Toroca, of course, was going to be one of those. It wouldn’t do to order others to perform a task he was reluctant to undertake himself.
From his vantage point, some hundred and thirty paces up the cliff face, he could see two of the other fuse lighters. But three more were hidden amongst the rocks. The only way to do it was to shout off a countdown.
"Five," yelled Delplas.
Toroca fumbled with the wooden match.
"Four."
He stuck the match against a rock. It didn’t take.
"Three."
He tried again and this time it spluttered to life.
"Two."
The wind was stronger than he’d thought. It blew out the match. He scrambled for another…
"One."
…struck it, shielded the flame, and…
"Zero."
…touched it to the fuse, which began to burn with an acrid smell. He watched long enough to be sure the fuse wouldn’t blow out, then, as fast as he could, scrambled down the steep rock face, climbing ropes providing handholds where the rock itself would not. Once on level ground, he ran, tipping forward, his thick tail flying out behind, his back parallel to the dirt. To his left, two odiers were likewise running with all their strength; to his right, three more. Toroca was counting in his head; the fuse should burn for twenty more beats.
Delplas had used a lot of powder; they’d have to run as fast as they…
Toroca tripped, his toeclaws having caught in a small crevice in the ground. His body slammed into the hard, cracked dirt, his chest riblets pressing in.
Dazed, he tried to make it to his feet, then realized there was no time.
He rolled on his side, looked back. Delplas was the only one behind him still, but now by only a body-length or two. Her face was a mask of concern.
And then the powder ignited, like thunder, each cone exploding at almost, but not quite, the same instant. The face of the cliff seemed to shatter, like an eggshell, then hang, suspended for a half a beat, and then, and then, and then…
…tumbling and falling down, thousands of slabs of gray shale, a massive cloud of dust blowing off to the west, a hail of pebbles raining out of the sky, even this far away…
…wingfingers startled into flight…
…and to Toroca’s shock, a previously unseen herd of wild runningbeasts stampeding away from the cliff’s base.
Toroca brushed himself off and got to his feet. Delplas, mouth open in a loose grin, held up both hands, her badge of office, intact.
The dust cloud was incredible, and the stench of blackpowder filled the air. When it finally cleared, Toroca’s jaw dropped wide open.
Half the embankment had been reduced to rubble. Protruding from what was left of the cliff face was a vast rounded structure, the size of a very large building, made of the enigmatic blue material.
*37*
Capital City
Out on the street, Afsan couldn’t see the crowd, but he knew it was there nonetheless. He could smell it, smell the pheromones of every single one of the passersby. How many? He couldn’t say. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands. The pheromones weren’t just the normal bodily scents, either. He was used to the occasional stuff of a female in heat, or a female about to lay eggs, or an individual of either sex primed for the hunt, or the unmistakable signal of one torpid after a large meal.
But these pheromones were different.
Fear.
Claustrophobia.
A sense of being trapped.
They washed over him, chemical waves. And he — even he, scholar’s scholar, the palace’s foremost intellectual — was not immune to their effects.
The tips of his fingers tingled, his claws itching in their sheaths, eager to pop out into the light of day. Whether those around him were showing the same restraint as he, keeping their claws hidden, he had no way to tell, With each step, he felt his torso tipping forward, as if into the horizontal posture of territorial challenge. He pulled himself right again and again, but the tipping was becoming more and more pronounced.
Muscles in his throat were contracted, held rigidly under conscious control. His dewlap felt as though it was ready, at any moment, to balloon up into a great ruby ball.
And there was a strange sensation, a working of muscles, inside his head. It finally came to him — his eyes would have been darting left and right, nervous, scanning … if he’d had any eyes, that is.
He knew he should get out of there, get away from the crowded streets, get back out into the countryside, to Rockscape, perhaps, where the steady breeze from off the water would blow fresh air onto him, air free of pheromones, free of tension.
The clicking of toeclaws on the paving stones was like hail: a constant rat-a-tat, an unending barrage. How many feet? How many Quintaglios? How big a crowd?
He tried to calm himself, to think soothing thoughts. He thought about the stars, the beautiful stars … the stars he had intended to devote his life to studying, until he’d lost his sight. Afsan shook his head, clearing his mind. Try again. He thought about Dybo, his oldest friend, his greatest supporter … who had allowed his blinding. No. He thought about Novato, lovely Novato, brilliant inventor of the far-seer, and that one magical time when their bodies had come together, that glorious night that led to the existence of his children, Haldan and Galpook, Kelboon and Toroca, Drawtood and Yabool, Dynax and little Helbark, who had succumbed early on to illness. Wonderful children, brilliant children, so many children, children everywhere, underfoot…
Afsan found his body tipping far forward again. He forced it erect, forced his tail to touch the ground…
…and someone stepped on it…
…and that was it…
Afsan felt the change in his body, felt instinct rising up, taking hold.
He swung around, his torso coming forward as he did so, his tail lifting, his body bobbing up and down, up and down, the challenge upon him, dagamant seizing him.
They had called him The One in his youth, the greatest hunter since the Original Five. Even blind, even in a fury, even getting on to middle age, he still had the moves, still had the timing. He could hear the breathing of the one nearest him, short, sharp intakes, as if that person, too, was fighting to retain self-control. It was a male, Afsan knew at once, the pheromone unmistakable.
"Good Afsan," said the voice, trying to sound soothing but the tone curdled by fear. It was a voice he recognized, a person he knew. Pod-Oro, aide to … to … Afsan’s mind was fogging, his intellect ebbing … to governor Rodlox of Edz’toolar…
So much the better.
Afsan lunged forward, arms outstretched. His hands connected. A shoulder beneath his left, a haunch under his right. Oro was completely horizontal himself, in a pose of challenge. His head would be right about…
Afsan felt his own skin tearing, Oro’s claws slicing through his upper arm. It didn’t matter; the pain didn’t really register. All that mattered now was the kill…
As long as he was in partial physical contact with Oro, as long as he could feel a limb or a bit of his torso, Afsan could extrapolate where the other’s vulnerable parts would be.
The One.
Afsan’s torso shot forward and down, bringing his head in low, jaws agape.
The crunch of neck bones.
Teeth popping from their sockets. And the taste of blood, hot and surging … Oro didn’t even scream as he died. His body just fell to the stone roadway with a dull thud.
And then Afsan felt hands upon his back.
He wheeled again.
The madness had begun.
*38*
Fra’toolar
Toroca had hoped at most to find a few more artifacts. He’d never expected anything like this. Whatever the vast structure was, it was still half-buried in the cliff face. It was big enough to be a large building or a temple or even a great sailing ship. Only one thing was clear at this point: the object was blue, the s
ame cool blue as the small artifact Toroca had found earlier. Ignoring the stench of blackpowder, Toroca moved closer, the rest of his team following behind.
The structure was completely outside of Toroca’s experience, he kept staring at it, trying to fathom what it was, but it just didn’t fit anything he’d ever seen before. The thing was roughly ovoid, assuming the part still buried curved back the way the exposed part did, but it had many projections and its surface was corrugated in some places, fluted in others.
Just getting up the rock face was treacherous. So much new debris had been laid down, and it had had no time to settle. But he couldn’t wait.
Toroca and his surveyors spent the rest of the afternoon clambering around, examining the exterior of the vast blue structure. There was no direct way to associate such a massive object — some thirty paces high — with a single rock layer, but it was made out of the same blue stuff as the original six-fingered artifact, and that had been excavated from the layer immediateh below the Bookmark layer, so it seemed likely this vast structure dated from the same period.
Finally, a shout went up. "Over here!"
It echoed badly against the cliff face and had to compete with the sound of crashing waves from the beach below. At last Toroca located the source. Delplas was gesticulating wildly. She was perched at the edge of the visible part of the object, where the blue matenal jutted out of the cliff. Toroca scrambled across the rock to join her, almost tumbling down the embankment in his eagerness to get there.
She was pointing at an inlaid rectangle in the blue material. The rectangle was twice as high as it was wide — or twice as wide as it was high; no one was yet sure which way was up for this vast object. A prominent series of geometric markings appeared in a line embossed across the short dimension of the panel. Beneath it was an incised rectangle where, perhaps, a sign or note had once gone. "It’s a door," said Delplas.
Toroca was elated. It did indeed look like a door. But his elation is short-lived. "Where are the hinges?" he said.
"I think it’s a sliding door," said Delplas. Such doors were common on cabinets: two sliding panels could be staggered to cover the entire interior, or both pushed to the same side to leave the other half of the inside exposed.
"Perhaps," said Toroca. "But how do we slide it aside? There’s no handle."
Delplas’s face fell, too. "Hmm. That does pose a problem doesn t it?"
"We can’t blast through that material," said Toroca. He drummed his fingertips on the hard blue surface, so solid, so unrelenting…
Something gave.
Just a little, a slight movement, as he tapped against the incised rectangle in the center of the door panel. There was a hollow behind it. The rectangle wasn’t inlaid in the door material, Rather, it was tacked overtop of it, held in place with the same clever little gray clips that had sealed the two halves of the original hemispherical artifact Toroca had found.
"Help me with this," said Toroca.
Delplas stood there, not understanding.
"Come here," snapped Toroca. "Help me open this panel."
"There’s not enough room for both of us…" she said.
"Don’t worry about that, for God’s sake. It will only take a moment to try. Come here."
She seemed dazed.
"Here! Come on. You can go hunt afterward, but this will take more than two hands." At last she moved closer. "Thank you," said Toroca. "Now, pry your fingerclaws in there, and there. No, like this. That’s right. Now pull."
"Nothing’s happening, Toroca."
"Keep trying. Pull!"
"It’s stuck…"
"Pull!"
"My claws are going to tear out…"
But at that moment that panel did pop forward, revealing a rectangular hollow within the door. It was filled with crumbling bits of corroded metal, at least some of which had been iron, or an iron alloy, judging by the orange color.
"Was that a lock of some sort?" asked Delplas.
"Whatever it was," said Toroca, "it’s rusted away. Maybe it was some sort of recessed handle."
Toroca placed his fingers on the lip of the depression and, bracing himself against the rocky slope, pulled to the left with all his might. Nothing.
"Maybe it slides the other way," said Delplas.
Toroca tried pulling to the right. "I think…"
"It didn’t move," said Delplas.
"I felt it move," said Toroca. "It shifted, ever so slightly. But it did shift."
There wasn’t room enough in the indentation for two pairs of hands. Toroca stepped aside and Delplas gave a healthy yank. "Maybe," she said doubtfully. "Maybe it moved a little."
Toroca leaned in close, examined the remnants of whatever metal device had been hidden behind the little panel. "Maybe the door’s jammed on the metalwork. Get Greeblo."
Greeblo was the oldest member of the survey crew, and, therefore, the largest and strongest. Delplas returned with her a short time later.
"It’s seized up," said Toroca. "Perhaps with your strength…"
Greeblo, about twice Toroca’s bulk, bent in low to examine the mechanism. The lip was fairly thin — no need for thick structures when building out of this fantastic material. "I’ll slice my hand off if I pull with all my strength against that edge," she said. She fished a calibrated tape out of one of the pockets on her geologist’s sash and made some measurements of the little declivity, the lip, and so on. Then, without a word, she turned to leave.
"Where are you going?" demanded Toroca.
"I’ll be back," said the oldster.
And she was, about half a daytenth later. She had with her a wooden block, rather hastily carved. Greeblo fitted it over the lip, giving her a decent handhold. She then gestured to Toroca and Delplas to stand well clear. Greeblo dug in her heels and yanked against her handgrip with all her might. The door did shift slightly. She yanked again. Toroca could hear the sound of groaning metal. Another pull. And then a loud snap. Toroca thought for a moment that Greeblo had broken her arm, but no, the snap had come from within the wall of the object. The door panel was shifting slowly, until, at last, at long last, a tiny sliver of darkness appeared along the left edge. Toroca let out a whoop of victory. Greeblo gave one more giant yank. About a handspan worth of darkness was exposed now. Greeblo collapsed, exhausted. "You’ll have to get others to do the rest," she said.
Toroca did just that. Now that there was a gap down the entire long dimension of the door, he was able to get six hardy Quintaglios to move in and yank in unison. The territorial instinct would be flying high in such close proximity to others, but the anger could be taken out on the physical task at hand.
The door moved. Not quickly, and not far, but it did move, until, at last, it seized up again and no amount of pulling would shift it any farther. It was about halfway open, enough for a Quintaglio of Toroca’s age, and maybe others a few kilodays older, to slip through, but poor Greeblo would never be able to make it.
The sun had already slipped below the top of the cliff — opening the door had taken most of the afternoon. Toroca managed to squeeze sideways into the dark chamber, bending his tail painfully as he did so. The floor was tipped at an angle, but it was still quite acceptable for standing.
"Well?" called Delplas.
"It’s dark in here," said Toroca, his voice echoing. "I can’t see a thing. Someone get me a lamp, please."
A few moments later a lit oil lamp was passed through to Toroca. Delplas craned to see in the half-open door. "Well? Well?"
Toroca’s voice, still echoing, was heavy with disappointment. "It’s an empty room. Nothing more than that. Just an empty room. Big enough for maybe two people, assuming they could stand to be this close to each other."
"There’s no door? No hallway?"
"Nothing, except some grillework on the walls," said Toroca. "It’s just a cubicle; maybe a closet or storage locker."
"Nobody," rumbled Greeblo, "puts closets on the outside of buildings."
Toroc
a was quiet for a moment. Then: "You’re right, Greeblo! The far wall isn’t a wall at all; it’s another sliding door, just like the first one." A pause. "I wonder why anyone would put two doors so close together. It’s got a similar rectangular panel in its center, but this one’s covered with some orange paint and bold markings. This panel’s smaller than the one on the outside; the clips are closer together. I think I can get it off myself. Let me — there, it’s off. So that’s what the metal thing is supposed to look like!"
"Do you want me to come in as well?" asked Delplas.
It was an unusual question. There wasn’t enough room to observe proper territoriality with them both in there. Delplas must be mightily excited indeed.
"No, that’s all right. It’s pretty straightforward, really — just an articulated handle of some sort. I’m opening the door now."
There was a soft scraping sound, then a strange musty odor.
"It’s…"
Not another word from Toroca.
The flame from the lamp went out.
"Toroca! Toroca!"
Toroca slumped against the wall.
*39*
Capital City
There were only a few ways to quell dagamant. The first was simply to let it run its course, but that would mean many, many dead. The second was to terrify those who were aroused, for fear made different instincts come into play; it was the panic caused by a landquake that had put an end to the great battle in Capital City’s central square sixteen kilodays ago, after all. And the third way, which sometimes worked and sometimes did not, was to shift the individual bloodlust of the territorial fever into the collective, cooperative bloodlust of the hunt.
Dagamant spread on the wind, pheromones touching it off in one Quintaglio after another. Dybo had ordered his imperial staff to prepare for the eventual riots the population surge would cause. The question now was whether anyone who had been part of those briefings was still in enough control to actually enact the plan.
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