Mercadian Masques

Chapter 18

The two guards lounging about the lower story of the Magistrate's Tower were drunk. Duty shifts among the city guard were observed rarely, if at all, but yesterday Samanalashakal had had the bad luck of beating the sergeant at a game of bones and tosses. This morning when Sama entered guard headquarters, he found the sergeant waiting for him, an unpleasant grin on his face.

That was how Sama came to be sitting on the first landing of the tower, passing a wineskin back and forth with Dromelasthamarab. Above them, the sun rose slowly in the sky, and the shadow of the tower thinned and disappeared entirely, leaving them awash in brilliant light.

The heat made them even more thirsty, so they drank to quench their thirst, and then they drank to forget their troubles, and then they drank because the wine was plentiful and good and neither cared anymore.

Indeed, Sama was so intoxicated that he almost did not notice the small green form that descended the tower steps, poking and prying, flicking long greasy fingers into the nooks and crannies of the staircase and sucking greedily on them. Eventually, the goblin bumped into one of the guard's legs and started back.

Sama and Drome drew aside from the door, their hands rising in clumsy salutes.

The goblin stared at them.

In their sodden haze, they noticed he seemed reluctant to give the counter salute. "Enter, Master," Drome said, bowing deeply.

The goblin seemed to take the invitation as a command and scuttled through the dark door they guarded.

Drome laughed and seized the wineskin from his compatriot. "Here's to the-" he used a vulgar Mercadian term for goblin, one that was carefully kept from earshot of the green race "and may he fall down the stairs and break his neck!"

Sama grabbed for the skin and missed, almost tumbling off the balcony. "Go to the Nine Spheres! Don't shout that stuff so loud, or you'll get us in hot water!" He rubbed his eyes, and somewhere in his wine-soaked brain a worry stirred. "Wasn't that one awful small?"

Drome shook his head and hiccuped. Belching loudly, he sank back into his seat. "Who cares? They're all green buggers! Look a' me! I do my job, and wha's it get me? Nothing! Because green buggers are the ones that count. I been fifteen years in the guard, getting nothing but trouble. 'Cause I won't kiss up, tha's why. Know why I don' get ahead?"

" 'Cause you don't kiss up?"

"Damn right!"

Squee, meanwhile, was intent on following the trail of a bug-not just any bug, but an enormous insect. Squee's nose fairly quivered in anticipation of the delicious treat. His senses, poor of sight but keen of smell, drove him onward. The bug-almost three inches long, with a thick, juicy-looking body and long feelers protruding from its head-scurried along, heedless of its pursuer. His nose to the ground, Squee headed down a short passageway, through another door, and along a hallway. His light footsteps could scarcely be heard. He almost had it now. Just another few feet, another few inches, another- Thump!

His head struck hard stone, and he fell sprawling. He had run squarely into a brightly patterned mosaic. Similar bright patterns flashed dizzily within Squee's head. After a few moments, he was able to rise and look about. His quarry was gone. "Damn."

The passage bent left, and Squee blinked away the flashing tiles. Curious to see what might lie beyond, he ambled along the corridor to a flight of stairs that descend in a great sweeping curve. In three gentle turns, it reached a large doorway with a decorated lintel in a pointed arch. Squee pushed open the doors and found himself in a big chamber, empty except for a singular platform at one end.

A more discerning observer would have considered the room a shrine, altar to an unknown god. Squee considered the room merely inviting. He pushed and poked at the strange carvings on the altar. One, done in colored stone, depicted a large snakelike creature with a snouted, horned head. Outlined in flashing gems, its horns caught his attention. Without conscious thought, he touched them and was surprised to feel the stone beneath his feet move.

Hinged to pivot, the altar swung back slowly to reveal a broad stair plunging to unknown depths. Dark, deep places were good for bugs. This place didn't look oozy-dark, deep, and oozy was the best-but dark and deep was good enough. There was sure to be plenty of fat grubs and worms below, a tasty midday snack.

Squee scampered swiftly down the steps. The stairs were steep, but steep was good because it meant you got to the bottom quicker. Even so, it seemed to take a very long time. Miles of stairs. It would've been nice if they'd made these stairs straight up and down-then you'd get to the bottom real fast.

Voices echoed up to Squee from around a bend. Some instinct for self-preservation made him slip into a convenient niche and stand as still as he knew how. Ears pricking, he listened to the voices as they drew closer.

"… two weeks at most?"

"Not bad, but is not it possible that the schedule could be moved up to allow for a completion date in one week?"

"Is that not only possible but desirable? Will I not attempt to finish by this date? Do not the workers require some extra… encouragement?"

There was a long, drawn-out chuckle accompanying this last remark. Two dark figures brushed by the hollow where Squee stood concealed, trembling for reasons even he did not understand. The voices faded into the distance.

"Has anyone discovered what has become of the prisoners?"

"Has the master not sent them to gather the stones for him?"

"Are they not stupid pawns?" Their laughter retreated with them.

Silence once more mantled the stairs. Slowly, Squee extricated himself from the cleft in the wall. He was not sure of the entire import of what he had overheard, but he would try to remember it to recount to Hanna.

In fact, it was tempting to retreat back up the stairs and tell her now. At the best of times, Squee was a coward; he remained in Weatherlight's crew only because he amused Sisay and Gerrard. Still, the goblin had virtues even Sisay and Gerrard did not suspect. The events of Rath had deeply stirred him, and after the scolding he'd received from Gerrard, he took pride in his fierce loyalty to Weatherlight and Dominaria. Though fear nudged him back up the stairs, duty pushed him forward. Duty won.

Squee headed around the corner. A few minutes brought him to another doorway-this one even larger than the first. He slipped through it, moved to one side, and gasped in wonder.

He was standing on one side of a vast underground cavern, miles across and miles deep. Huge stone columns descended through the space, joining ceiling to floor. In some places, the columns had been carved out, and light gleamed from windows within. Scaffolds ran around the columns, and huge horns projected outward from them in a stony thicket. Catwalks clung to stalactites and stalagmites. Aerial platforms and bridges stretched across the huge, dark reaches.

"What kinda place is dis?"

It was like staring out through a nighttime thicket and seeing a complex of cobwebs joining thorn to thorn. Globe lights gleamed like golden dew along the webs. Humans, Kyren, machines, and… other things ambled spiderlike on the walkways. Some folk carried supplies. Others bore tools. Still more clambered over great, hoary things that seemed like flies caught in the giant web.

They were not flies, though. They were ships-aerial ships, most of them larger than Weatherlight. Vessels hung from the jutting thorns.

Squee had discovered an enormous underground hangar, bristling with piers and moored airships. Long and sleek, with wings of skin and carapace shells, the vessels reminded Squee of something… his small brain wracked itself trying to remember what. Then he seized upon it: the ship they'd met on Rath-Predator. That was it! Some of these ships were even larger than Predator.

Squee had once thought Weatherlight the mightiest warship. Then, they encountered Predator on Rath. Now, though, amid this multitude of mammoth vessels, Weatherlight seemed a grain of sand on an endless beach.

There were ships with two and three masts, ships whose foredecks were bigger than the entire deck of Weatherlight. There were ships that seemed to move even as they stood still. All were coppery brown or black in color. The larger ships were moored, floating impossibly in the air, line after line, layer after layer. Several smaller dinghies busily ferried workers and supplies about the hangar. Workers moved from ship to ship, ignoring the vast space over which they hung suspended.

Cannons jutted above and below decks on those ships closest to Squee. Curious, he left the wall and trotted across the stone floor toward a rail.

Squee was out in plain view before he thought better of it. He skidded to a halt, freezing in fear. A pair of human workers approached. He was sure they would haul him away. Instead, they merely bowed deferentially as they passed by.

It was good to be a goblin.

Squee continued toward the rail. En route, he came across two metallic beings-squat, roughly spherical, with a variety of legs extending in many directions. They stank of oil, and liquids flowed through tubes that bounded their bodies. The creatures' eyes jutted on long stalks and rotated slowly to look at him.

Squee squealed in alarm, cowering as the metal spiders scuttled up to inspect him. Feelers, pincers, and antennae methodically prodded the shivering little goblin. He'd spent his life poking bugs, but now the bugs were poking him. The scent of oil was overwhelming as they bent over him.

"Squee wasn't doing nothing," he said defensively.

Neither creature gave the slightest heed. The one on his left put out a long, jointed feeler and touched the goblin. A sharp, brief pain, like an electric shock, coursed through Squee's veins. Then the two beings turned toward one another. The one that had touched him reached out an arm to the other and inserted it into an available socket in the top part of its spiderlike body. There was a long moment of silence between the creatures, and then they moved away, apparently satisfied.

Squee heaved a sigh of relief and proceeded on his way, licking his arm. "Least Squee didn't get ate."

He reached the rail. A ship slowly and gracefully rose just beyond. It glided through the air like a fish feeling its way through unfamiliar waters. Its decks were crowded with workers-Kyren, human, and otherwise. The craft passed overhead and moved through an enormous arch on the far side of the cave, disappearing from Squee's view.

He rose to his feet, rubbing his head in a desperate attempt to stimulate his thought processes. "Gotta follow da boat," he muttered to himself, scurrying after the ship.

As much as possible, he kept within the great shadows along the edges of the cave. He rounded the arch, raced along a huge passageway, and then emerged through a second doorway into another chamber, equally large.

Here he saw additional lines of ships moored, their runners resting on the cave floor. There were fewer here than he'd seen in the first cavern, but the size of the complete fleet was immense beyond his imagining.

Stunned, Squee wandered down aisle after aisle of vessels, staring, stroking, tapping, poking. No one questioned him, no one stopped him. There were fewer workers here, but those who did pass between the ships carried bundles and boxes of supplies, which they were loading onto the ships.

Then he saw the ship-Weatherlight, resting on her landing spines. She was moored there in the midst of the fleet. She seemed small and delicate next to the bristling monsters around her, but just now, Squee could think of no more beautiful sight in all the worlds.

"Squee found it! Squee saved everybody all over again! Gotta go tell Hanna!" A loud growling in Squee's stomach reminded him he'd not had a full meal in some time. With a pang, he thought of the huge bug he'd been pursuing earlier. "Get sumpthing ta eat and tell Hanna 'bout all this."

Squee's mind, as Hanna had once remarked to Gerrard, rarely had room for more than one idea at a time. Now all he could think of was a plate of tasty grubs and worms. Turning his back on the fleet, he headed back the way he'd come. Indeed, he was so intent on thoughts of eating that he paid little attention to where he was going and ran full-tilt into the stomach of a creature coming from the opposite direction.

Whuff!

Squee sat down quickly and looked up, a whine already forming on his lips.

A pair of Kyren looked down at him. Goblins might have looked alike to other races, but to each other, they were as distinct as goats and chickens. With a sinking feeling, Squee recognized the Kyren advisor to the chief magistrate, the one who'd insisted that Squee be made a captain in the Mercadian guard. Now the Kyren advisor was staring at Squee with a look both surprised and disapproving.

From his years of service aboard Weatherlight, Squee was thoroughly familiar with that look and was generally adept at evading its consequences. He rose, wheeled to one side, and dove across the cavern floor in a movement that ended in a roll and jump. With a loud parting squeal, he dashed into the passageway. Behind him he heard shouts and the beating of flat, flabby feet against the stone. As the sounds became more distant, Squee gave a gurgle of triumph.

Something slammed across his chest. He fell backward, striking his head against the stone floor. As blackness closed around him, he saw dimly the form of a Phyrexian dock workerbig, ugly, and dead looking.

"Phyrexians… h-here!" Squee stammered.

The monster's club struck him again. Squee slid across the floor and lay still, feeling the long arms of darkness embrace him.