She motioned Glim back, but the fellow’s gaze snapped over to them, and he stopped licking the cable.
“Lady!” he exclaimed, in the same dialect she’d heard before, bending his head and battering his forehead with his knuckles. “Lady, this isn’t at all what it looks like!”
Annaïg just stared for a moment.
“Lady?” the man repeated. She saw fear in his eyes, but puzzlement as well. Clearly he thought he knew who—or more likely, what—she was.
The man’s eyes widened further and he stepped back as Glim emerged.
“What is it, then?” Annaïg asked, trying to sound haughty. “What is it if it’s not what it looks like?”
“Mistress,” the man replied. “I hope you understand what you saw just now was just appearances. I wouldn’t actually—”
“Lick the cable? That’s exactly what it looked like you were doing.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a funny accent, lady. Some of the words are strange. I’ve never heard them. And your companion …”
“Who are you?” Annaïg asked, feeling her feeble attempt at a bluff crumbling.
“Wemreddle,” the man replied. “Wemreddle of the Bolster Midden, in fact, if you must know.” He lifted a finger and shook it. “You’re not supposed to be here either.” He waved violently at Glim. “And there’s no such thing as you, you know. No. No such thing as you. You’re the ones they’re talking about. The ones from outside. From down there.”
“Look,” Annaïg said, “we don’t mean anyone any harm—”
“No, listen,” Wemreddle said. “I’m of the Bolster Midden, didn’t I tell you? What business do I have with them upstairs? Sump take them and keep them. But come on now. I’ll get you safe and cozy. Come on with me.”
“He’s not armed,” Glim lisped, in their private cant. “I can kill him.”
“You’ve never killed anyone.”
“I can do it.” There was a new hardness in his voice.
Wemreddle stepped back. “I mean to help.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate all this,” he said. “I hate them at the top of the chutes. And you—you might be able to help with them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“This new place. You know things about it? The plants, the minerals, the ways of things. They say you flew here without wings.”
“I know a little,” she said.
“Yes. That’s powerful knowledge. Enough to change things. Will you come?”
Annaïg looked sidewise at Glim, but his expression offered no opinion.
“This might be what we’re looking for,” she told him.
“I can’t follow him. What’s he saying?”
“I think he’s with some disenchanted group, a resistance maybe. They want our help against another faction. We can exploit this, as Irenbis did the various factions of Cheydinhal.”
“Irenbis?”
“Irenbis Songblade.”
“That’s from a book, isn’t it?”
“It’s a chance, Glim. You agreed we have to do something.”
“Something it is, then,” he replied.
SEVEN
“What is that?” Annaïg asked, trying not to gag at the stench. Her belly was already empty and her throat and chest ached.
“That’s the Midden,” Wemreddle said. “Of the four lower Middens, Bolster has the richest scent.”
“Rich?” Annaïg drew another breath, this one worse than the last. “I wouldn’t describe it as rich. How far away is it?”
“We’ve still some way to go,” Wemreddle said. Then, defensively, “If you wouldn’t say rich, then what? Savor the layers of complexity, the contrast of ripe, rotten, and almost raw, the depth and diversity of it.”
“I—”
“No, no, wait. When we’re there you’ll understand better. Appreciation will come.”
Annaïg somehow doubted that. It seemed more likely that her lungs would close themselves and suffocate her rather than take in any more of the waxing stench. As they progressed, the floor and walls of the tunnels became first slick and then coated in a dank, putrid sheen, and she began to picture herself climbing up through the bowels of some enormous beast.
“What is this place?” she asked. “Where is it from?”
“This place?”
“The whole—island. Floating mountain, whatever you want to call it.
“Oh. You mean Umbriel.”
“Umbriel?”
“Yes, Umbriel, it’s called.”
“And why is it here?”
Again he looked puzzled. “Here is here,” he said.