"A thumb?" asked Gregor. Boots held up her thumb to show him. "Yeah, little girl, I know what a thumb is," he said, smiling down at her.
"Rats have no thumbs and therefore cannot do many things that we can. They cannot make tools or weapons. They are masters of destruction, but creation evades them," said Vikus.
"Be glad, Overlander, if they believe your father can be useful. It is all that will give him time," said Luxa sadly.
"Did you meet my dad, too?" he asked. "No," she replied. "I was too young for such meetings."
"Luxa was still concerned with her dolls then," said Vikus. Gregor tried hard to imagine Luxa with a doll and couldn't.
"My parents met him, and spoke him well," said Luxa.
Her parents. She'd still had parents then. Gregor wondered about how the rats had killed them, but knew he'd never ask.
"Luxa speaks true. At present, the rats are our bitter enemies. If you meet a rat outside the walls of Regalia, you have two choices: to fight or be killed. Only the hope of a great advantage would keep a human alive in their paws. Especially an Overlander," said Vikus.
"I don't see why they hate us so much," said Gregor. He thought of Shed's burning eyes, his last words, "Overlander, we hunt you to the last rat." Maybe they knew how people in the Overland tried to trap, poison, and kill off all the rats aboveground. Except the ones they used in lab experiments.
Vikus and Luxa exchanged a look. "We must tell him, Luxa. He must know what he faces," said Vikus.
"Do you really think it is he?" she said.
"Who? He, who?" said Gregor. He had a bad feeling about where this conversation was going.
Vikus rose from the table. "Come," he said, and headed out the door.
Gregor got up, willing his stiff arms to carry Boots. He and Luxa reached the door at the same time and stopped. "After you," he said.
She glanced at him sideways and followed Vikus.
The halls were lined with Underlanders who watched them pass in silence and then broke into whispers. They did not have far to go before Vikus stopped at a polished wooden door. Gregor realized it was the first wooden thing he'd seen in the Underland. What had Vikus said about something being "as rare as trees"? For trees, you needed lots of light, so how would they grow here?
Vikus pulled out a key and opened the door. He took a torch from a holder in the hall and led the way in.
Gregor stepped into a room that seemed to be an empty stone cube. On every surface were carvings. Not just the walls but the floor and ceiling, too. These weren't the frolicking animals he'd seen elsewhere in Regalia, these were words. Tiny words that must've taken forever to chisel out.
"A-B-C," said Boots, which is what she always said when she saw letters. "A-B-C-D," she added for emphasis.
"These are the prophecies of Bartholomew of Sandwich," said Vikus. "Once we sealed the gates, he devoted the rest of his life to recording them."
"I bet he did," thought Gregor. It sounded like just the kind of thing crazy old Sandwich would do. Drag a bunch of people underground and then lock himself in a room and chip out more crazy stuff on the walls.
"So, what do you mean, prophecies?" asked Gregor, although he knew what prophecies were. They were predictions of what would happen in the future. Most religions had them, and his grandma loved a book of them by a guy named Nostra-something. To hear her talk, the future was pretty depressing.
"Sandwich was a visionary," said Vikus. "He foretold many things that have happened to our people."
"And a bunch that haven't?" asked Gregor, trying to sound innocent. He hadn't ruled out prophecies entirely, but he was skeptical about anything Sandwich came up with. Besides, even if someone told you something that would happen in the future, what could you do about it?
"Some we have not yet unraveled," admitted Vikus. "He foretold my parents' end," said Luxa sorrow fully, running her fingers over part of the wall. "There was no mystery in that."
Vikus put his arm around her and looked at the wall. "No," he agreed softly. "That was as clear as water."
Gregor felt awful for about the tenth time that night. From now on, whatever he thought, he would try to talk about the prophecies with respect.
"But there is one that hangs most heavily over our heads. It is called 'The Prophecy of Gray,' for we know not whether it be fair or foul," said Vikus. "We do know that it was to Sandwich the most sacred and maddening of his visions. For he could never see the outcome, although it came to him many times."
Vikus gestured to a small oil lamp that illuminated a panel of the wall. It was the only light in the room besides the torch. Maybe they kept it burning constantly.
"Will you read?" asked Vikus, and Gregor approached the panel. The prophecy was written like a poem, in four parts. Some of the lettering was odd, but he could make it out.