Invisible gusts of heat rolled from the caldrons scattered about Hazar's basement kitchen. One human only was present to supervise these, the most demeaned of the Ajaj. Obese and sweat-stained. Cockle, the chief cook, reclined on a stool near the far wall.
Higher than Castor's waist, the edge of the wort bin presented the Ajaj with yet another obstacle on this his first day of kitchen service. Straining forward to the limit of his reach, his fingertips touched the end of one of the cylindrical yellow-gray roots. The vegetable wobbled. Under the prodding of Castor's questing fingertips it bumped forward over its hair-fine filaments until it was fully within his grasp. Shifting his weight backward, Castor allowed his soft-furred stomach to slide across the edge of the bin until he had moved far enough for his feet to touch the floor again.
Wheezing heavily. Castor pushed himself back from the box and stood up straight. A momentary wave of dizziness rocked him. He shook his head, clearing it, then paced across the overheated kitchen to the caldron where the midday stew was already beginning to boil. A few feet from the kettle Castor hesitated, then changed direction and headed for the cutting board. His tread made no sound except for the occasional clicking of his toenails against the stone floor. He raised his right arm toward a six-inch-long knife hanging from a peg on the wall.
A stunning buffet sent him spinning across the floor. "Just what do you think you're doing, you furry little sneak?" Cockle growled.
Castor turned and forced his eyes to refocus. Cockle stood aroused and belligerent in front of the preparation table. A roll of illusion-plant leaves hung from the overseer's mouth. His pale, sparsely haired belly protruded from the inadequate confinement of his shirt.
"I was merely going to trim the tendrils from the wort root," Castor said in a voice that seemed to him too calm to have issued from his own lips.
"For Lord Hazar you trim the tendrils. Everyone else takes what they get. That stew's for the guards. They'll eat whatever's in there and like it. And while I'm giving you a lesson, here's another: guards like wort root. As a matter of fact, they love it better than meat or anything else. They're always begging me to put more wort root and less meat into the stew, so you go back to the bin and get five or ten more. And don't never go near those knives again without asking me first. Well, what're you waiting for? Get to work!"
"There aren't any more. The bin's empty."
"Buster," Cockle shouted, "do I have to do everything around here? Have you let us get low on supplies again? What's this about no more wort root?"
An old Ajaj, crippled in the left leg, limped painfully forward. Head down, shoulders bent in what appeared to be a permanent cringe. Buster approached the kitchen steward. The grizzled white fur around his muzzle twitched with fear.
"Send somebody out to the depot to get some more, you old fool! It'll go hard with you if you don't return in time to finish dinner. Here, take this smart aleck with you." Cockle placed a meaty hand on Castor's shoulder and shoved him across the room, then grunted and ponderously reseated himself upon his overseer's stool.
"Yes, my lord, of course, my lord," Buster responded. "Come along. Castor."
Buster led Castor down the hallway and up the flight of stairs which separated the scullery from the alley near Hazar's quarters. With a nod from Buster the doorkeeper slid back the portal.
"Where are we going?" Castor asked once they had left Hazar's apartments behind.
"To Topor's supply depot," Buster replied. "Don't you know where the food bins are?"
"Until today I was a senior empather. The closest I got to Lord Hazar's food supply was the luncheons given to me during the term of my duties."
"Well, then, a bit of a lesson's in order, isn't it?" Buster limped along the outer ring road at a brisk pace. "This street we're on is called the First Circle, although it's not a circle at all but a series of five straight stretches which parallel the five-sided walls beyond. The five first lords, Hazar, Nefra, Topor, Bolam, and Zaco, retain for themselves the quarters bordering the city's five gates."
"Why are the most powerful Gogols housed at the edge of the city instead of its center?" Castor interrupted. "It doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't make sense to a Gray," Buster responded. Already he had lost some of the feeble appearance he projected in the scullery. Now, by indefinable means, his gait had become stronger and his visage had taken on a sly, hardened aspect. "A Gray thinks only of security, of safety. The higher the status of a Gray, the deeper his tunnels, the thicker his walls, the more he hides himself from the outside world. The Gogols, on the other hand, think in terms of power.
"He that controls the gates controls the city. Also, if worse comes to worst, he who lives on the outside wall can flee. Ah, that's heresy to our people, the thought of fleeing one's home, running out into the open country. But not to a human. The lords' main enemies are within the city, not without. There now, up ahead, the street to the left, we go that way."
Castor turned his head and saw that at the angle where two walls of the inner pentagram normally would be joined there was a street which ran through the walls toward the center of Cicero. Two Gogols guarded the lane but let the Grays pass unmolested after Buster executed a gentle bow. Once out of sight of the guards Buster resumed his monologue:
"The guards know me as Hazar's scullery clerk and so let me pass without interrogation. Look to the right and left and you'll see a bit of Cicero's past. There and there," Buster said, pointing, "see the roughly chiseled stone, the crudely cut blocks? At one time there was a gate here, five gates in this ring of buildings between the First and Second Circles, and five more in the next, on into the center of Cicero. "But the system proved unworkable, too much internal strife. Every lord and deacon and subdeacon and acolyte strove to control a gate and then use that position as a springboard to move outward until at last one of the five main gates themselves was under the wizard's sway. For two hundred years the energy of the Gogols was dissipated in internal struggles.
"Twenty years ago Hazar's father, for a brief period, accomplished a combination of all of the outer lords against all of the inner deacons. Thus they forced the destruction of all of the gates save their own. Now, as a courtesy, the residents of the inner walls are allowed guards in the corridors leading toward the center of town, but two guards only and no gates at all. The whole city is now under the sway of the five lords and the five lords alone. For the first time in decades the Gogols have the energy to turn their eyes outward and make new plans for conquest."
Buster halted at the junction between the First Spoke Road and the Second Circle.
"Now we go left, around the Second Circle, until we come to the next passage toward the center. The street we just left was the First Spoke Road. There is a Second, a Third, a Fourth, and a Fifth Spoke Road between the First and Second Circles. Do you notice the pattern of these streets, by the way?"
"Five streets, five gates. It seems rather straightforward," Castor remarked.
"There's more to it than that, friend Castor. Notice, the five outer gates break the walls at their points. The Spoke Roads penetrate inward at the centers. The next Spoke Road, the Sixth, between the Second and the Third Circles, again breaks the points of the pentagons, and lastly the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Spoke Roads between the Third Circle and the Central Plaza penetrate at the centers. In this way there is no one straight path between the outside of the city and its center. Neither an invading army from beyond nor a fleeing populace from within has an easy route.
"Come, now, I've babbled too much. Hurry. Cockle becomes most unpleasant if his whims are frustrated."
Picking up their pace, the two Ajaj quickly traversed the remaining byways to reach the center of Cicero. A huge circular building occupied the middle of the large paved area known as the Central Plaza. Like everything else in Cicero this structure was divided into five compartments. Limping more noticeably now, face twitching in an occasional grimace of pain, Buster led them around the plaza to a doorway overhung with a banner bearing the image of a loaf of bread. The Grays approached the guarded entrance. There Buster identified himself as Hazar's servant. A human clerk rudely questioned the Ajaj concerning their purpose, authority, and needs. Finally they were admitted and issued wicker baskets with straps that could be attached across their shoulders.
Around the room were bins, barrels, jars, and boxes. Here reposed the fruits of the agricultural Grays' toil. The lords of the city and their household retainers, staff, and guards were allocated a full half of all of the foodstuffs. Next, a fourth went to the inhabitants of the second ring of buildings, an eighth to the subdeacons of the third ring, and the balance to the guildless, patronless laborers of the tenements which dotted the central circle.
Castor marveled at the sheer, vicious efficiency of the system. The more powerful the lord, the more food was available to those in his service. Each individual, therefore, aspired to advance within the ranks of his own house. The head of each house desired to advance into the service of the lords in the next circle outward. Those who failed to cooperate ate poorly in good times and in lean times starved.
Castor and Buster filled their baskets, hoisted their loads, and, after allowing their supply of wort roots to be recorded by the warehouse clerk, trudged back through the streets toward Hazar's quarters.
"How long have you been here, Buster?" Castor asked after a long silence.
"How long? A lifetime… forever. How long is that?
"Have you ever thought about… about doing something about all this?" Castor asked.
"Doing something? Bringing down the Gogol empire with my two bare hands? An Ajaj would, have to be insane to even consider such a notion."
Another tame Gray, just like the rest. Clenching his jaws together to prevent an angry response, Castor grimaced and trudged ahead.
"Of course," Buster continued, a sly smile splitting his lips, "I never claimed to be very sane. I sometimes think the pain in my leg has affected my brain."
"Meaning?"
"I mean," Buster whispered, "ever since a group of the lords' children crippled me for a few minutes of sport, I have been crazy enough to believe that I'd like nothing better than to plant one of Cockle's wort stickers between Hazar's bony ribs."
For an instant a smirk of pure glee flickered across Buster's face, to be almost as rapidly replaced by a subservient expression as the bound wooden door of Hazar's scullery slipped into view.