only assume he was giving her a close look. “To the narrow gate,” he commanded, and then looked up at the top of the wall to be sure he had been understood by those who kept watch there. Prim followed his gaze and saw a row of helmets, strung bows, full quivers. Below were two gates: a wide one bestriding the road and affording passage for even the largest teams and wagons, and another just wide enough for a single soul on foot. The former gave way to the main waterfront street; the latter was merely a doorway into the ground floor of a building that lay inside the wall. How far that building might extend and what might go on in it she had no way of knowing. But several of those helmets were now inclined toward her and she knew she would not get far if she disobeyed. Glancing over her shoulder the way she’d come, she saw that going back was just as likely to draw unwanted notice and arrows between the shoulder blades. Not that she had any thought of doing so. To give up now was to fail in the Quest before it had really got started.
So she walked through it into a sort of antechamber, and then drew up short as she came face-to-face, for the first time in her life, with a Beedle.
She’d seen them depicted in storybooks and tapestries, typically in the background, filling in blank spaces in the artwork, carrying out various none-too-savory tasks under the direction of Autochthons or angels. In one of the rooms in the great hall of Farth there was a Beedle stuffed and mounted. During her brief stopover in West Cloven she had spied them from a distance clambering spiderlike through ships’ rigging that needed mending or crablike over hulls that needed scraping, and of course the row of helmeted guards atop this very gatehouse were all Beedles. But here she was staring one in the face. He was posted next to a doorway that led to a larger room sliced into lanes by long plank tables. He had laid his helmet by and leaned his spear against the wall, but still wore armor of stiff hide divided into overlapping plates, and was armed with what was either a very long knife or a very short sword. Prim had been forewarned to expect a distinct lack of symmetry, and was not disappointed. Beedles came in various colorations and ranged in stature from midthigh to shoulder level compared against Prim and her kin; it all depended on how they were used, and where. But they were invariably bigger on the right side than the left. For the story always told of them was that they had sprung up in Eltown of old, and got to work at such simple tasks as woodcutting, mining, brickmaking, and smithing, but had lacked any real purpose or direction until the Autochthons had shown up and begun looking after them. The Autochthons knew what to do and how to do it, but were not very numerous. So the folk of Eltown—or, after that had been destroyed, of Secondeltown—had become the Autochthons’ right hands. Strong they had grown, and stocky. Intelligence was of little use to them, and some strains could barely say a word, so their heads were small; their mouths more suited to the chewing and swallowing of rude rations than to speech; their ears large, the better to hear the commands issued by their masters. They grew thick hair on their bodies but little on their heads, and they shed it in warm weather, spinning it into coarse bristling ropes of stuff that they used to fashion nests, where they would sleep together in dense snoring and shifting clusters. They were no longer divided into male and female, as copulation served no use that was of any profit to the Autochthons. Their masters might crop their ears, tattoo them, or make any other such alterations that would display their purpose at a glance. Dangerous work killed them or wore them out. They were replaced by new ones sent down from a place, somewhere in the Temple complex above, where newly spawned souls were gathered in and so given shape.
Prim had been taught manners, and so upon coming face-to-face with this Beedle she had to stifle an impulse to bid him good day and make some offhand remark about the weather. But from one who looked like Prim, no Beedle would