Time's Dark Laughter Part 10

Ollie opened to the last page. He hadn't been able to speak since entering the cave, but hi the book, he found his words: "It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done. It is a far-"

"That's enough, that's enough. I'm so sick of that line I could puke," rang a third voice. "What's the Word?"

Ollie shouted out, "The Word is One." It was the Scribes' responsive call to one another since the beginning of Time, since the first Word. And though Ollie didn't consider himself a Scribe, he knew their ways welL And suddenly, the cave was alight with the flames of six torches. Four men and two women climbed down the rocks to ground level. Each carried a torch and a c.o.c.ked crossbow. The leader was a robust young man with silver hair and a bold voice. He extended his hand to Jasmine as she stood.

"Delaney," he barked jovially.

She could see he was still sizing her up as his comrades hung back, so she didn't want to get up his guard with too many questions. "Jasmine," she replied. "And that's my friend, Ollie." Ollie nodded warily. Jasmine continued. "We're here revisiting our past, you might say." She had an ear for the vernacular of whomever she was speaking to, and unconsciously fell into it as a sort of disarming camouflage. She went on: "But as often as I used to come here, I never knew of any other entrances like the ones you came out of."

Delaney laughed. "Well darlin*, whether you used to come here or not, these are our caves now, and if you'll just give us your weapons, there won't be any room for misunderstandin's."

Ollie tensed again, but it was too late: the intruders were close now, all with crossbows trained. Reluctantly, he and Jasmine divested themselves of their knives.

Delaney went on. "Not that I don't trust you, mind. Anybody who can read is all right in my book. It's just that we'll be takin' you through some sensitive areas, and it's best no one else gets the wrong idea. Right?" He started steering Jasmine toward Ollie, and then both of them toward a small hole in the wall that she had never seen before. Delaney kept up his chatter as, one by one, the captors and captives entered the constricted tunnel mouth. "Well, come on, then. Nothin' to cry about. You're just in the hands of a few good Books."

"What were you doing in our cave?" demanded David. He stared at Ollie.

"We didn't know it was yours," the boy responded. His voice was slow, and quiet as a sheathed knife. Jasmine sat beside him, and around them stood six Books. An oil lamp illuminated the eight figures; beyond, all was darkness, crossed with the echoes of lapping water.

"The owners.h.i.+p of the cave is not an issue," said Paula. "The question remains, What were you doing there?"

"The owners.h.i.+p of the cave, it seems to me, is very much relevant to its occupancy," Jasmine replied. "I discovered that hideout a hundred years ago. I provisioned it, I secured it. What we were doing there is our affair. More to the point is, who the h.e.l.l are you?"

Delaney laughed. The others remained impa.s.sive.

"A comic Book, she is," muttered Michael.

There was a silence, and then Jasmine spoke again, her tone more accommodating. "Look, we're wasting time. Here's the truth-"

"Jasmine," Ollie cautioned.

'This is getting us nowhere." She shook her head. "We're here, and that's that, Ollie. Besides, these people might even help us."

Addie nodded. '"Ollie trusts no one," Jasmine added.

"A frequently necessary but nonetheless always corrosive virtue," commented Delaney.

"But our time is at a premium," Jasmine went on, "and I've seen enough to trust you with this much. Ollie's brother, Joshua-my friend-we believe to be under the influence of the rulers of The City With No Name. We think he's there now-a prisoner. We intend to infiltrate the City and free him."

David began picking at his writing-callus. "Impossible," he scoffed.

"Hear her out" At the mention of Joshua's name, Paula's interest grew.

"Oh, it's quite possible," Jasmine a.s.sured them. "In fact, the cave you found us in was the same cave we hid in five years ago after a similar mission, when we freed Ollie, here. I'm still baffled how you found the cave."

"Your presence there triggered an alarm in our guardroom. We know all the caves under these cliffs, for miles around," Paula explained. "They all connect-"

"Paula . . ." David warned.

"These people are friends, David. Are you too dense to feel that?"

Michael whispered to Ellen, "Delaney said they were Bookish."

"They don't look Bookish." Ellen remained skeptical.

Paula resumed her explanation to Jasmine and Ollie. "The caves all connect through underground tributaries of the river. These catacombs go on for miles. We haven't really even begun to explore them all."

"It could take years," David appended.

"So how'd you do it, sport?" Michael asked Jasmine. "Last time, I mean-get into the City and find your people."

"The tunnels, of course. And these maps." She pointed to the sanitation maps Delaney had confiscated in the hiding-cave. "They mark every room in the City, with its disposal chute to the tributaries belowground that are used as sewage ducts."

Michael studied them more closely now. "Look, she's right. With maps like this we could put a few Bookworms right on the money. Look, here, here's the Queen's Chambers marked clear as day."

"There is no queen, though," Jasmine said. "That's just made up . . ."

"There is a queen," Paula corrected. "And it's she who must die."

"No, the queen is a hoax, it's the Neuroman Engineers who-"

"But the Pluggers say there's a queen," Paula insisted. "They say they were connected to her brain. They knew her. They-"

"You're hi contact with Pluggers?" Jasmine interrupted. This was an unexpected note, indeed-possibly with great bearing on Joshua's letter.

"Yes, they live down in these caves, too. They first discovered the caves, hi fact, when they escaped from the City . . . five years ago." Paula stopped, caught short by a sudden suspicion. "That couldn't be coincidence-"

"No coincidence," Jasmine nodded. "When Joshua freed Ollie from the City, he liberated as many others as he could-many were those whose heads he unplugged from . . . whatever it was they were plugged into. They fled down the disposal chutes to the tunnels below, as did Josh and the rest of us."

Paula smiled thinly. "Our friend Joshua holds a rather interesting place in the history the Pluggers have written of their exodus-some Pluggers were Scribes, you know, and still set the record from time to time. He's a legend to them now-almost mythological. He's regarded as more than a liberator. Almost a messiah. But at the same time, a devil, a great destroyer of the peace they knew in Communion. He delivered them to a freedom they hate for all they lost. They call him The Serpent.' Apparently the act of being unplugged was accompanied by an all-consuming hissing sound."

"They interest me, these Pluggers," Jasmine mused. "We're trailing one of them as well-Rose. She's also a friend, but she may be involved hi Joshua's recent disappearance. You wouldn't know if she's . . . here?"

Paula shrugged. "She may be. There's a nucleus of about twenty of them. Others come and go. We don't know more-they stay to themselves, mostly, in a section of caves they never let us very far into."

"Can we go see them? They may be able to give us some information."

"Yes, I think so," said Paula.

"There's a lot of things they know that would be useful to us," David interjected, nibbling at his callus. "I think this is information we can barter with. It's something they'd like to know-that their savior-Serpent has slithered back to the castle."

"You'll be sleeping here," said Paula. It was a dry, warm cave, with two blankets and a candle. "The lower levels are actually warmer in this area-because of the hot springs."

"It's appreciated," said Jasmine. "We spent last night cold and drenched."

"How many levels are there?" Ollie asked.

"No one is certain." Paula shrugged. "We're mapping it slowly, but . . ." She tipped her head at the enormity of the task. There was a brief s.h.i.+fting of Earth: the caverns growled; nameless fears rustled, then settled back to ground.

"Very interesting," mused Jasmine. "An entire city of spelunkers."

"What's a spelunker?" Paula asked suspiciously.

"It's just an old word for cave-explorer-you know, mapping tunnels; like what you're doing."

A light filled Paula's eyes. "You mean . . . it's a new word? A real word?"

"Well, it's pretty old, actually. But yes, it's real"

"You'd better come with me," said Paula. She took them up a long curving ledge to an opening in the roof of the adjacent cave. They emerged into a cavern a hundred feet high, whose ceiling and floor were connected by dozens of long columns of touching stalact.i.tes and stalagmites. Paula led the others across the b.u.mpy ground, through a series of winding corridors that ended hi a gradual upgrade. The slope was a dead end, and the three had to drop down a narrow hole by rope before exiting, finally, one level lower, into a huge room filled with people.

Scores of Humans sat hunched over long tables, writing. Paula took Jasmine and Ollie past them all to the far corner, where old Addie was bent over a ream of finely lettered paper, deep in thought.

"Addle," Paula said quietly.

The old woman seemed confused for a moment, then looked up and smiled. "Oh," she murmured, "for a short, sweet second I thought the page was calling me. But it's only you, sweet as you are."

Paula smiled back at the old master Scribe. "Addie, I think Jasmine has a new word. Spelunker. It means 'cave-explorer,' she says."

Addie closed her eyes against distraction, scanning her memory. "Yes," she said, "I think I remember something of the sort. I believe that is correct." She opened her eyes and grinned. "A rediscovered wordl How exciting!"

Paula was pleased. "We'll record it at once." She wasn't all that keen on dredging up old esoteric words; but she had taken a liking to Jasmine and was happy the Neuro-man was lexiphilic.

Jasmine wrote down the word and its definition, and handed it to one of the recording Scribes.

Ollie, hi spite of himself, was just a little jealous. "Oh, Jasmine's very good at parties," he deadpanned.

Jasmine laughed out loud, putting her arm around the boy's shoulder. "I thought you didn't value the Scriptic arts."

"I don't." He almost smiled. "And I don't like the word spelunker, either."

"Neither do I, actually," said Paula. "Sounds rather like an animal I'd rather not step on. But a word's a word, I suppose. Still, it doesn't have much poetic force."

They were walking again, down more convolutions of the cave system.

Jasmine improvised: "There was a spelunker named Jasmine, a rude and notorious has-been . . "

"What's that?" asked Paula.

"Part of an old poem I just made up." The Neuroman smiled.

They reached a rim of rock overhanging a large underground lake eighty yards directly below them, then sat on the ledge and dangled their legs over the sheer drop. Float-nig candles barely moved on the water-flickering reflections hi the still surface, points of breathing light.

"This is one of my jobs," Paula said. "Making certain the candles stay lit." She liked these people, but wasn't entirely certain how far she could trust them-so she was starting out with small trusts, like what her duties were, or where some of the prettier caves could be found. Presently, she would reveal more of her views on Joshua-how she had seen him save the Mermaid in Ma'gas', how heroic and sad he had seemed, as if he were a living poem depicting the Human race. But they would have to show her a little more of themselves before she opened up that much to them.

"What's the purpose of the candles?" Ollie asked. They appeared quite lovely, like twinkling stars in an upside-down sky.

"To look beautiful," said Paula. "Only that. There is so little beauty in our lives-and beauty is truth, it has been written . . ." Her voice trailed off. The hollowness of these caves, their infinite capacity for emptiness, overwhelmed her at times.

Jasmine remained silent, just watching. Ollie took his flute from his belt and began to play. The longing melody wandered from niche to crevice down the walls of the cave, until it lingered over the water below, where the candle- lights danced to its tune. The three people closed their eyes; and in a moment, each was transported to an eternal, private land of nuance and dream, where no one else could go.

Five figures stood darkly outside the stone door to the Pluggers' section of the catacombs: Jasmine, Ollie, Paula, David, Michael. Moody, tense, they clipped one another with somber glances. The door in the rock opened, and they entered.

They were led silently through a maze of tunnels to a small, warm room with pillows over the floor. They sat and waited. These caves knew waiting and other formless dissatisfactions.

Presently three Pluggers came in, bowed slightly, meshed their fingers in the Sign of the Plug, and sat down. One was Candlefire, Paula's friend, the Nine-p.r.o.ng Plug-ger, one was Starcore, a Three-p.r.o.ng Plugger who was one of the group's leaders; one was Blackwind, a Twenty-seven-p.r.o.ng Plugger whose face was bleak and hollow as his name.

Paula began. "These are travelers from the north. Jasmine and Ollie. Candlefire,'Blackwind, Starcore." Everyone nodded. Paula went on. "They are here to raid the City, to rescue a friend of theirs whom they have reason to believe is now there. A friend ... of interest to us all."

"Of interest to you is no interest to me," whispered Blackwind. He never spoke above a whisper.

"Be still, Blackwind," said Candlefire. "Go on, Paula, who is it they seek?"

David spoke up, smirking. "The Serpent. Your Serpent of Disconnections is alive and well in the City."

"Liar!" rasped Blackwind, his eyes seeming to sink even deeper into the pits under his brow.

"What are you saying?" Starcore interrupted.

"Blasphemy!" Blackwind took a step toward David, who stood with clenched fists.

Michael quickly stood between them. "What he's saying is, sport, maybe we all have reason to pierce the castle's veil now. Maybe this tips the scales. Maybe we can join forces, fight the good fight, and all that."

"Bring Pluggers hi the Bookery and get b.u.g.g.e.ry," David spat.

Jasmine spoke now, her voice quiet, calming everyone back to their places. "Please, I don't want to cause conflict among you. Our mission here is simple, and private. My friend Joshua-Ollie's brother-is being drawn to the City by powerful forces, against his will. He's probably there by now. We intend to enter the City by tunnel, steal him back, and leave. We welcome your help, but will happily act without it." She could see she had walked hi on a tense alliance in delicate balance, and wanted to be sure she wasn't contributing to the imbroglio. Above all, she wanted to avoid a situation in which one faction supported her mission while the other sought to undermine it.

There was a long, considered silence. Finally Starcore spoke. "It's not that simple, unfortunately. Let me explain some of our facts of life to you, Jasmine. May I call you Jasmine? Good, then here's the situation. Our comrades in the Bookery wish to enter and destroy the City-by cunning, since they aren't strong enough to do it by force. We Pluggers are ambivalent about that prospect and, for the time being, have vetoed the Book project. Now, there's only one tunnel that connects us from here to the inner sanctums of the castle-and that's a secret we keep from everyone, including the Books."

"But it's easy to get access," Jasmine said. "You can float down the Sticks River and follow any of the tributaries that dip into the tunnels under the City. Or you can go directly into the tunnels through their exit in the cliff face under the City, at the outflow. That's how we got in last time."

Paula shook her head. "We've tried that. There are electrified wire grids over every port of entry to the City."

"Except our secret tunnel," Starcore added.

Jasmine was taken aback. "That's something new, then. They must've gotten wise after our last invasion." She had suspected there might be additional defenses up now, though, and was glad to know what they were.

Starcore nodded. "Not so simple for you then, either. And now there's the matter of The Serpent. First of all, how do we know this person you seek is The Serpent?"

"All I know is it's my friend Josh. It was he who freed his family from bondage in the castle five years ago-and at that time, along with his friend Rose, unplugged as many Humans as he could from their cables and showed them the way down the chute to the tunnels below."

Blackwind jumped at mention of Rose's name, but said nothing.

"It is The Serpent," whispered Candlefire. His eyes became watery.

"And even if it is," Starcore proceeded, "we don't know that he's actually in the City."

"Yes, we do," said Paula. "I saw him."