A warden approached and bellowed, “You two! Less talk, more work!” He thrust his pikestaff into the small of my back. I jerked and cried out, fell and lay twitching, then recovered, struggled back up, and returned to my labours. As my assailant moved away, I snarled in English, “I swear, if that lout comes near me again, I’ll kill him!”
Tharneek-Ptun uttered a cry of surprise and dropped his tools. The warden turned back at the noise. My companion quickly snatched up his implements and attacked the rock face with overt enthusiasm. It was enough to satisfy the guard, who grunted and wandered away. I waited until he was out of hearing range then asked, “Are you all right, Tharneek-Ptun? You’re trembling.”
No reply was forthcoming and the Divergent Mi’aata remained uncharacteristically silent for the remainder of the shift.
I worked on, the muscles of my arms, shoulders, and back becoming increasingly fatigued until they first burned then became totally numb. It was impossible to judge how long we were at the mine face, but by the time the shift ended I was dazed with exhaustion, half-starved, and barely able to stand.
A siren blared.
“Back to your quarters!” a warden shouted.
We formed a line and began the interminable trek back along the tunnel. Barely aware of what I was doing—focused only on putting one foot in front of the other—I knew nothing more until I found myself standing beside my bed.
Behind me, Tharneek-Ptun stretched his limbs, almost doubling in height, and said, “Gaaaah!”
I spun and looked at him in astonishment.
He touched my shoulder with the tip of a tentacle and said, very quietly, “Get some sleep, old thing. But I shall wake you later. We need a little confab.”
“Great heavens!” I cried out. “You’re speaking English!”
He nodded, then moved to his trough and climbed in.
I stood a moment, my mind reeling, then, unable to remain conscious any longer, collapsed onto my blanket and passed out.
Immediately—or that’s the way it felt—I was jogged back to my senses, opened my eyes, and saw him looking down at me.
“Come with me,” he whispered.
I heaved myself out of bed and looked around. The other Mi’aata were dormant. Tharneek-Ptun took me by the wrist, pulled me to the door, peeked out, saw that no patrols were in sight, and dragged me into the corridor. We moved rapidly down the slope, unchallenged—for, logically, it was the upper parts of the tunnel that were guarded, not the lower—until we came alongside a small opening in the base of the right-hand wall. My companion pushed me down onto all fours and propelled me through before squeezing himself in after me.
“Crawl forward,” he ordered.
With my lassitude quickly dissipating, I moved through the tight, irregular tunnel.
“Not much farther, old chap.”
The passage soon widened into a small asymmetrical chamber—a space of softly illuminated crystal surfaces with three other openings in it. Here we stopped.
“Is it really you?” I asked.
“It most certainly is! New Yatsillat. The City Guard. Old Brittleback. It’s all returned to me! What! What! I remembered it the moment I heard you speak English! Harrumph!”
“Colonel Spearjab!”
“Exactly so! Colonel Momentous Spearjab, formerly Yazziz Yozkulu, latterly Tharneek-Ptun, at your service, old boy! Ha ha! I say, what a rum do! What! What! Look at me! I’m a confounded Blood God! Humph! Humph! Humph!”
“But—but—how?”
As soon as I asked the question, the answer came to me. There could be only one explanation! The Blood Gods—the Mi’aata—didn’t invade the Yatsill at all. Rather, it was a case of metamorphosis. The one transformed into the other. The first didn’t understand the true nature of the second, while the second had no memory of the first.
“How? I have absolutely no idea!” Spearjab responded. “I’m as baffled as can be! Harrumph! But you, old chap—how came you to Phenadoor? Hey? What?”
“Your fellow Mi’aata took Clarissa Stark from New Yatsillat and brought her here. I came to find her.”
“She’s here? Why?”
“To distract the Quintessence, apparently. Frankly, I’m surprised your fellows had wits enough to do it. The Divergent—as the more recent generations of Mi’aata are called—aren’t very rational.”
Spearjab raised a couple of tentacles to his head. His four eyes rolled and squinted. He muttered, “Yes. It is jolly difficult to think.”
“The Quintessence says you are deviants.”
“Pah! Phenadoor’s ruler lacks imagination. He resists progress. He demands that everything be rebuilt over and over and develops nothing new. Here, everything is always the same, the same, the same! That is not Mi’aata destiny! We need to create and explore and advance.