The Carpet People Read online

  He lifted four Deftmenes on to Roland’s back and sent the horse after the carts, then struggled through the flow to the hall. Glurk had been forced almost to his knees, his face purple, the veins throbbing in his neck.

  Snibril grabbed an arm. ‘Come on! The whole building is going to go!’

  ‘No,’ came the low growl. ‘Pismire and the others are still in there.’

  Another tremor shook the hall. A pillar cracked, and Glurk grunted. ‘Get out of the way!’ came a whisper from deep in his throat. ‘It’s going to go.’

  The rock shook underfoot.

  ‘I’ll . . . I’ll get some people with beams and things!’ said Snibril. ‘We’ll soon have you out! Don’t go away!’

  Glurk grunted as Snibril hurried away.

  Pismire appeared through the smoke, a scrap of his robe tied over his face, shepherding some bewildered revellers in front of him. He pushed them out under Glurk’s arm.

  ‘What are you doing, still here?’ he said.

  ‘Goin’ to be in a story,’ said Glurk.

  Bane groped his way out of the billows, a rag pressed over his mouth. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘Brocando’s got the secret door open.’

  ‘Help me with this idiot,’ said Pismire.

  ‘Looks wedged to me,’ said Bane.

  ‘Gonna be a hero,’ said Glurk.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Pismire. ‘That’s what comes of listening to stories on an empty head. Stupid idea, anyway, wedging yourself under the door like that. . .’

  Glurk turned his head with difficulty.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Boneheaded, I call it,’ said Pismire. The ceiling at the end of the hall collapsed.

  ‘Why, you daft . . . old . . .’ Glurk began. He rose on one knee, then on both, then slowly raised the beam above his head. Then he stepped forward and waved a finger under Pismire’s nose.

  ‘I saved a lot—’ he began. Then he toppled over.

  ‘Right, it worked. Grab him,’ said Pismire. ‘That wall’s falling in.’

  They took an arm each, and stumbled out of the way as the lintel thudded into the floor, splitting it. Pismire squinted at the roof.

  ‘Quickly!’

  Brocando was standing by the door to the stairway.

  ‘Come on!’

  Glurk started to cough. Pismire pushed a rag into his hand.

  ‘Put it over your mouth and nose,’ he said. ‘Damp cloth. Helps with the smoke. Important safety information.’

  ‘Tastes of wine,’ said Glurk thickly, as they half-pushed, half-carried him through the doorway.

  ‘Only thing there was,’ said Pismire. ‘Now . . . down!’

  The whole roof fell in.

  They ran down the steps, the others carrying Glurk between them like a battering ram. The roaring died away and all that could be heard was the thudding of their feet on the stone.

  ‘Not out of the hairs yet!’ panted Brocando.

  ‘What . . . mean?’ puffed Pismire.

  ‘No torches!’

  Pismire only had enough breath left to grunt.

  ‘!’

  They piled into the little door at the bottom of the steps, and lay panting in the blackness.

  ‘Well, there’s no going back up,’ came Brocando’s voice. ‘The door’s under a mound of rubble now.’

  ‘Do you think you can find the way to the statue in the dark?’ said Bane.

  ‘That was the first time I’ve ever been down here!’ wailed Brocando.

  ‘But there must be other entrances,’ said Pismire.

  He thought of the deep crevasses and windy caves of Underlay, and the stories of the creatures that dwelt there. Of course, he didn’t believe in them. He’d told them, because the handing on of an oral mythology was very important to a developing culture, but he didn’t believe in supernatural monsters. He shivered. He hoped they didn’t believe in him.

  In the darkness he heard the creak of the door.

  ‘If we keep together and test every step, we should be safe,’ came Brocando’s unsteady voice. ‘There’s four of us. What would dare attack us?’

  ‘Lots of things.’

  ‘Apart from them. ‘

  Glurk got heavier and heavier as the hours passed. They edged him along narrow paths in the dark, and dragged him through what felt, to judge by the change in the air, to be large caves. They carried him head first and feet first, sometimes propping him up against a hair root while they inched hand in hand along strange paths. They scrambled among thick roots and crept around holes so deep that a warm wind rushed up from them.

  Eventually they sat down for a rest. They were walking endlessly. It wasn’t as if they were getting anywhere.

  ‘What’s below Underlay?’ said Brocando.

  ‘The Floor,’ said Pismire’s voice, out of darkness.

  ‘What’s below that?’

  ‘Nothing. Something has to be below everything else. That’s the Floor. That’s as far as there is. You might as well ask what’s above the Carpet.’

  ‘Well, what is above the—’

  ‘How should I know? We’ve got far too many problems down here right now to worry about what’s up there.’

  ‘The Carpet can’t go on forever, though.’

  ‘It goes on far enough for me!’ said Pismire testily. Brocando felt the air move in front of his face. It was strange, talking to people when everything was completely black. For all he knew, they could be sitting right on the edge of another hole. Everything had to be done by feel.

  ‘Pismire?’ he said.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘What about mouls? Do they come down here?’

  ‘It’s your tunnel. You should know. I can’t imagine why they’d want to, though. I shouldn’t think they’d like it any more than we do.’

  ‘Correct.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Was that you?’

  ‘I thought it was you.’

  ‘Brocando?’

  ‘Pismire?’

  ‘Bane?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You see,’ said Gormaleesh’s voice by Pismire’s ear, ‘we can see in the dark.’

  They didn’t fight. How could you, when you might as easily hit a friend as an enemy?

  It was the darkness that was the worst bit. And then the claws that gripped them, as easily as a child grips a toy.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Gormaleesh, from somewhere nearby. ‘What an unexpected treat.’

  ‘Is my brother with you?’ said Brocando.

  After a pause, Gormaleesh said, ‘In a manner of speaking. Now, you will do what I say. The little king will hold on to Purgish’s tail. The old man hold on to the king’s belt. The Dumii soldier hold on to the old man’s belt. Anyone let go, anyone try to run away, that person is a dead person.’

  Brocando, who could count quite quickly for a king, said, ‘But what about – ow!’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Pismire, who could count faster. ‘Did I accidentally kick you? Well, he’s right. He’s got all three of us.’

  ‘But we can’t leave Gl—ow! Oh. Yes. Of course. Yes, I see. You’re right.’ Brocando’s voice suddenly took on the kind of excited conspiratorial tone that would have made anyone smell a rat who didn’t already smell like a moul. ‘All three of us. Yes. You’ve definitely got all three of us. How well can you see in the dark, incidentally? Probably not one-hundred-per-cent, eh?’

  Oh, no, Pismire thought. How can they not get suspicious after that?

  ‘Ow!’ said Gormaleesh.

  ‘Moul scum,’ said Bane. ‘When I get out I’ll—’

  There was the sound of a slap in the darkness.

  ‘When you get out,’ said Gormaleesh, ‘you will do exactly as I say. Bring them along.’

  Well done, thought Pismire. Bane can count fast as well.

  They were marched in shuffling single file for quite a short time. They must have been close to a way up to the surface. Pismire felt his hands guided to a ladder. We’re goin
g up and out, he thought. If Glurk wakes up, how will he know?

  He climbed a few steps, and then let himself drop again.

  ‘Ow! My leg! Ow!’ The noise echoed around the caves of Underlay.

  ‘What is the matter with your leg, old man?’ said Gormaleesh.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Pismire, and climbed back up the ladder.

  And if Glurk hasn’t heard that, we’re done for.

  *

  It was already night on the surface.

  They’d climbed out into a clearing, a long way from Jeopard. It seemed to be a gathering place for the surviving mouls from the city. The prisoners were tied up with leather thongs and thrown down by a bush. Nearby, a pack of snargs eyed them hungrily.

  The mouls were talking in their own language, occasionally turning to look at the prisoners.

  ‘Can you understand them?’ said Pismire.

  ‘Very crudely,’ said Bane. ‘They’re taking us somewhere. Called . . . gargatass, if that means anything.’

  ‘That’s their word for the High Gate Land, I think,’ said Pismire. ‘Where the Vortgorns live.’

  ‘Them? They’re our mortal enemies,’ said Brocando.

  ‘I thought the Dumii were your mortal enemies,’ said Pismire.

  ‘We like to have several mortal enemies at one time,’ said Brocando. ‘Just in case we run out.’

  Pismire took no notice. He was lying a little apart from the other two, and could see behind the snarg pack. In the glow of the moul’s campfire he could just make out a guard lounging by the little overgrown entrance to Underlay, with his snarg tethered to a dust bush.

  An arm was slowly growing out of the bush behind the unsuspecting moul. It stopped a few inches above his head, and carefully removed his helmet. The moul turned, and met a fist coming the other way. The arm caught him before he fell and dragged him into the bush . . .

  A moment later the hand appeared by the snarg, and started untethering it. It looked up, and with horror Pismire saw its eyes narrow. Before it could growl, though, the hand bunched up into a knotted fist and smacked it smartly between the eyes. He heard the creature give a little sigh, and saw it fall over slowly. Before it reached the ground the tether tightened and tugged it into the bush.

  Pismire didn’t know why, but he felt sure that everything was going to be all right.

  Or, at least, more all right than it was now.

  Chapter 12

  All that night they journeyed south. Most of the pack were mounted on their snargs, though the prisoners and their guards had to run along in the middle of the jostling bodies. Dawn came. The hairs around had changed from deep purple to red again.

  The next days merged for the prisoners into one continuous blur of running feet and moul voices. The hairs changed from crimson to orange, from orange to black. Feet blistered and bled, and minds were muddled by the constant pounding. Twice they crossed white Dumii roads, late at night, when no one was abroad, and passed by sleeping villages like shadows.

  And then there was a place . . . above the Carpet.

  The hairs were bent almost double under the weight of the High Gate Land of the Vortgorns. First it was a glimmer between the hairs. An hour later it loomed above them, the largest thing Pismire had ever seen. He had read about it, back in the old days, but the descriptions in the books had not got it right at all. You needed bigger words than ‘big’.

  It looked the largest thing there could ever be. The Carpet was big, but the Carpet was . . . everything. It didn’t count. It was too big to have a size.

  But the High Gate Land was small enough to be really huge.

  It looked quite near even from a long way off. And it shone.

  It was bronze. All the metal in the Carpet came from there. Snibril knew that much. The Vortgorns had to trade it with the wights for food. Nothing grew on the High Gate Land.

  ‘On Epen Ny,’ said Pismire, under his breath, while the party stopped for a brief rest under the very walls of the Land. Brocando had immediately fallen asleep. He had shorter legs than everyone else.

  ‘What?’ said Brocando, waking up.

  ‘That’s the battle cry of the Vortgorns,’ said Pismire. ‘Lots of people remembered it, but not for very long. It was often the last thing they heard. On Epen Ny. It’s written on the Land. Huge metal letters. I’ve seen pictures. It’d take you all day just to walk around one letter.’

  ‘Who wrote them?’ said Brocando, eyeing the guards.

  ‘The Vortgorns think it was done by Fray,’ said Pismire. ‘Superstition, of course. There’s probably some natural explanation. The Vortgorns used to say there’s letters under the Land, too. They dug tunnels and found them. Some of them say . . .’ he concentrated ‘. . I ZABETH II. The Vortgorns seem to think that’s very important.’

  ‘Giant letters can’t just grow by themselves,’ said Brocando.

  ‘They might. Who knows?’

  They looked up at the Land. Around the base of it ran a road. It was wider than a Dumii road, yet in the shadow of that looming wall it looked thinner than a thread.

  ‘Anyone know much about the Vortgorns?’ said Pismire. ‘I’ve read about them, but I don’t remember ever seeing one.’

  ‘Like the Dumii, but without their well-known flair and excitement,’ said Brocando.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Bane gravely.

  ‘Well, living on metal all the time must give you a very sombre and mystical view of life,’ said Pismire.

  ‘Whose side are they on?’ said Brocando.

  ‘Sides? Their own, I suppose, just like everyone else.’

  The mouls milled around aimlessly, waiting for something.

  ‘I suppose we’re waiting to get up there,’ said Brocando, ‘but how?’

  ‘Dumii patrols have been all round the Land and found no way in,’ said Bane.

  Pismire, who was squinting upwards, said: ‘Ah. But I think this remarkable mechanism is the secret.’

  High above them was a speck on the wall. Slowly it grew bigger, became a wide platform sliding down the bronze. They could see heads peering over the side of it.

  When it landed beside the pack Pismire saw that it was a simple square made of hair planks with a railing around them. Four bronze chains, one from each corner, rose up into the mists. A man stood at each corner. Each one was as tall as Bane. They wore helmets and body armour of beaten bronze, and carried by their sides long bronze swords. Their shields were bronze, round like the High Gate Land itself; and their hair was the colour of the metal. They had short square beards, and grey eyes that stared calmly ahead of them. Too much metal, Pismire thought. It enters the soul.

  ‘Er,’ Brocando whispered, as they were pushed forward on to the platform, ‘you haven’t, er, seen or heard anyone, as it were, following us? Someone, such as it might be, your chief? The big fellow?’

  ‘Not a sign since we left Underlay,’ said Pismire. ‘I’ve been watching and listening very carefully.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘Oh, no. That’s good news. It means he’s out there somewhere. If I had seen or heard anything, I’d know it wasn’t Glurk. He’s a hunter, you see.’

  ‘Good point. Ow!’ A whip stung Brocando’s legs as the mouls led their nervous mounts on to the planks.

  When the last one was aboard one of the bronze guards took a trumpet from his belt and blew one note. The chains around them shook and rattled as they took up the slack and then, with a creaking, the platform swung off the ground and up towards the Land.

  Pismire had been forced up against one of the railings by the press of animals, and so it was that he saw a shadow detach itself from the dust bush by the base of the wall and dash for the rising platform, trying to find a handhold on the underside.

  He saw it leap; but at that moment the platform swung, and he could not see the shadow again.

  Up rose the entrance to the Land, through swirling fogs, and then he realized he was looking out over the Carpet. Beneath him the tips of the hairs glea
med in the mist. It made him dizzy, so he tried to take his mind off things by giving the others a short lecture.

  ‘The Deftmenes say that this Land fell out of the above many years ago. The Vortgorns were just another small tribe that lived nearby. They climbed it, too, and hardly ever come down.’

  ‘Then why are mouls in the Land?’

  ‘I’d rather not think about it,’ said Pismire. ‘The Vortgorns may be a bit dull, but I’ve never understood them to be evil.’

  The platform ground on up the wall until, suddenly, it stopped. Before them was a bronze gate, built on top of the wall. Just above it heavy gantries carried the pulleys that raised and lowered the platform. They were plated with bronze, and studded with spikes. The gateway was spiked, and the portcullis in it was tipped with more spikes. Beneath them, far beneath, lay the Carpet.

  ‘They like their privacy, these people,’ remarked Bane.

  Behind him Gormaleesh hissed. ‘Look your last at your precious Carpet. You will not see it again.’

  ‘Ah. Melodrama,’ said Pismire.

  ‘So you think—’ Gormaleesh began.

  The last word ended on a yelp. Brocando had sunk his teeth into the moul’s leg.

  Whimpering with pain and rage Gormaleesh picked up the Deftmene king and rushed with him to the edge of the platform, raising him over his head.

  Then he lowered his arms, and smiled. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘No. Why? Soon you will wish that I had thrown you over. Throwing you over now would be mercy. And I don’t feel merciful ...’

  He dropped the trembling Brocando by the others just as the portcullis rose.

  ‘I wasn’t shaking,’ said Brocando. ‘It’s just a bit chilly up here.’

  The mouls marched on to the High Gate Land. Pismire saw a broad metal plateau, with what looked like hills in the distance. On either side as they marched were cages, with thick bars. They contained snargs. There were small brown snargs from the Woodwall lands, red snargs from the west, and black snargs with overlong teeth. Whatever their colour, they all had one thought in mind. They hurled themselves at their bars as the prisoners passed.

  On they went, and there were compounds where snargs were being broken in and trained. Further, and there were more cages, bigger than those of the snargs. They contained . . . strange creatures.