Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [321]
A female ancipital entered the cell, moving with the gliding movement of her kind. Without hesitation, she and Lex lifted the paralysed Billy and carried him into the narrow passage now revealed. She closed and bolted the panel door behind them.
The palace contained neglected passages in plenty; this one, in its unfinished state, gave every appearance of having been neglected for centuries. The two great ahumans filled it.
Phagor slaves were as common about Matrassyl Palace as phagor soldiers. When employed as stone masons, for which work they had a rough aptitude, they had walled in a retroversion in the great walls, roofed it over, and utilised it as one of their own convenient ways about the building.
Billy, in a state of paralysis, but still conscious, found himself being carried down stairs that went back and forth as if forever denied an exit. His head dangled over the gillot’s shoulder, knocking against her shoulderblade at every step.
At ground level, they paused. Damp hung in the air. Somewhere out of his sight, a torch smouldered. Hinges squeaked. He was being lowered down into the earth through a trapdoor. His terror could escape only in the faintest sigh.
The torch appeared as his head fell back, to be eclipsed by a shaggy head. He was somewhere underground and three-fingered hands were clutching him. Mauve and red pupils glowed in the gloom. Sickly smells and shuffling sounds surrounded him. A trapdoor slammed, its echoes shuttling away into distance.
His viewpoint showed little more than a monstrous back. Another door, more waiting, more stairs, more insane whispers. He passed out – yet remained aware of jolts of descent which continued for uncounted time.
They were making him walk like a drunken man. His feet were dead. Of course – they had drugged his food. Head rolling to one side, he gathered that they were in a large underground chamber, moving along a wooden walk set near the ceiling. Banners hung from the walk. Below, humans in long garments congregated, barefoot. He recalled their name in a moment: monks. They sat at long tables, where phagors in similar garments served them. Memories returned to Billy Xiao Pin; he recollected the monasteries under the hill where he had bought a waffle. He was being taken through the maze of holy ways carved in the rock beneath JandolAnganol’s palace.
The walking revived him. Two phagors escorted him, both gillots. Probably Lex had returned to do duty for the chancellor, who would now be asleep. He gave a feeble call to the monks below, but nobody heard him in the babble of voices. They left the lighted space.
More corridors. He tried to protest, but the females hustled him on. By his side, a band of carving braided the stone wall. He tried to grip it; his hand was snatched away.
Down again.
Total darkness, smelling of rivers and things unborn.
‘Please let me go.’ His first words. A gate opened.
He was marched into a different world, an underground ancipital kingdom. The very air was different, its sounds and stinks alien. Water lapped. Proportions were different: archways were wide and low, cavernous. The way was rough and uphill. It was like climbing into a dead mouth.
Nothing in the Avernus had prepared Billy for this adventure. Crowds of phagors were gathering to inspect him, thrusting their cow faces into his. They jostled him before a council of ancipitals, male and female. In niches round the walls were stacked their totems, aged phagors sinking further and further in tether; the oldest totem was like a little black doll, almost entirely composed of keratin. Leading the council was a young kzahhn, Ghht-Yronz Tharl.
Ghht-Yronz Tharl was no more than a creaght. The dense white coat over his shoulders was still red-tipped. His long curving horns were painted with a spiral design, and he kept his head thrust