He stopped and groaned and whispered, “My goodness!”
I placed a hand on his side. “What is it, Colonel? For a moment there you sounded quite different. Are you in pain?”
“Harrumph! There is something crawling around inside the old noggin. Makes it awfully hard to order one’s thoughts, what! It is a—a—a waiting. A gathering. A preparing.”
“Is it sentient? An individual? Here in Phenadoor?”
“Yes, old thing. There.” He pointed up to the left. “It emanates from that direction. What! What! Humph!”
“Colonel, the Quintessence suspects that a hidden presence in the mountain is controlling the Divergent. Is that what you sense? Could you lead me to it?”
“I rather think I could, yes. Humph! That’s if I can keep my bloomin’ wits about me and stay on the straight and narrow. It wouldn’t do to be subverted! Not at all! What! What! Just not cricket! Not cricket, I say! Give me a moment, would you?”
I waited while Spearjab sat hunched over, his four eyes closed, his mouth quivering with effort. When he finally spoke again, his voice was slurred.
“Difficult. I feel—divided. Divided, I say! But we can proceed. I should warn you, though—it’ll be jolly dangerous.”
“We have no choice, Colonel. We are caught up in some sort of vast plot. My and Clarissa’s transportation to Ptallaya, the dwindling of the Aristocrats, the murder of Yarvis Thayne and the attempt on Clarissa’s life, the increasing numbers of Divergent Mi’aata—all these things are connected, I’m certain. But to what end, and who is responsible?”
“Quite! Quite! But our absence will be noticed. The bally fiends will search for us.”
“Then we must move fast.”
Spearjab looked at me. His speech became less strained. “I say, in New Yatsillat, I was thoroughly miffed to see so many Aristocrats taken by the Blood Gods. But what ho! What ho! Now I know they weren’t taken at all! They are all here—here, I say!—but the poor blighters aren’t aware of themselves. They can’t recall their past existence. I’ve been fortunate, what! In remembering your language, I’ve remembered myself, and I’m thoroughly grateful, old thing. Thoroughly! Now the great revelation—the secret of our origin—must be shared with all the Mi’aata, hey? First, though, I want to know what infernal rotter is meddling with my mind! Harrumph! Follow me. Tally-ho!”
He crawled to one of the other openings and stepped through into the narrow tunnel beyond. I followed him up its steep incline, heading toward the heart of the mountain.
“A question, Mr. Fleischer,” he said, after a few moments had passed.
“Yes?”
“That word I used. What in the name of the Saviour is cricket?”
We climbed for what felt like hours. The tunnel twisted and turned, sometimes angling upward so sharply that it was almost vertical. Occasionally, other passageways branched away from it, and, eventually, we entered one of these and continued on. Being too narrow for regular use, these channels through the rock and crystal were uninhabited and we encountered no other Mi’aata, though on a number of occasions we caught glimpses, through crevices, of populated corridors.
Undetected, we pushed on, drawing upon reservoirs of strength we hadn’t even suspected in ourselves, through gleaming gem-encrusted burrows and along lengthy passages of bare rock, completely unlit, groping our way forward until something twinkled in the darkness ahead and we emerged into another stretch of glowing crystals.
Despite being dressed only in the ragged remnants of my trousers, now little more than a loincloth, I perspired freely—and bled, too, for sharp edges sliced at my skin and I suffered many knocks and scrapes. Most of all, I was afflicted with thirst, and by the time Spearjab announced, “What! What! We are close, old chap! Very close! We’ve just passed into Zone Four. Humph!” I felt I might lose my mind if I didn’t find water soon.
We came to a narrow opening on our left and my companion directed me to look through it. I did so, and the sight that met my eyes was overwhelming. The cleft overlooked a vast illuminated cavern, so large that the far distance was somewhat obscured by the intervening atmosphere. Hundreds of buildings, tall and pointed, rose into the air, many storeys high but still not so tall as to come near the roof that arched overhead. Ramps spanned the distances between the structures, and wheeled vehicles—they were too far away for me to make out their design—traversed them. Other vessels flew between and around these elevated thoroughfares, making the whole settlement a hive of activity as thousands upon thousands of