The Overending Read online

  “Why is it called the Shèttings,” Bem asked. “Shètting means to enlarge a cave chamber,” Boss explained. “The Shèttings is the biggest room ever made that way. The Wrackshees had it made for their personal use. This is their main operations camp for moving slaves by land.”

  Wrackshees were everywhere—brutish Weasels, Hogs, Beavers, and Squirrels—probably a couple of thousand, Bem thought. She was stunned to see such an encampment so far underground. The horrid odor was matched by the deadly-looking beasts that now surrounded them on all sides. Complete strangers to bathing and sanitation, the Wrackshees camp was filthy to the extreme. Immense heaps of garbage festered beside every tent. Gnawed bones and decaying bits of half-eaten lizards mingled with the leavings of other personal business. As beasts walked about, these soggy slop piles became a horrid mud. There was no furniture, not even tables or stools. Every beast slept, sat, and ate in this oozing muck.

  The heat, which had been increasing steadily, was now awful. “It’s a hellish place!” Bem said, raising her voice, trying to talk to Boss above the noise that completely dominated the place. A nearly ear-splitting hissing, rumbling, screeching reverberated around the cavern. Dense clouds of steam rolled away from what seemed to be works of machinery at the far end of the chamber. It was hard to tell what the machinery was doing; it was too far away, the steam too dense, and the lighting poor. A heavy odor of sulfur made the noxious stench of the Shèttings even more sickening.

  It seemed that every Wrackshee eye followed them as they walked. Malignant grins, showing yellow and black teeth, leered through shaggy beards caked with dried blood. Some beasts had large patches on their bodies where the hair was gone, replaced by masses of scar tissue. “Steam accidents,” Boss muttered when he saw Bem staring. Some Wrackshees snapped chains, whiplike, at them as they passed. One Squirrel, holding a shattered bone in his paws to suck the marrow out, snarled at them, “This might be a bone from a good beast such’in yourself!”

  “Don’t worry,” Boss said cooly. “They won’t touch us. They know me, and as long as we head straight to the Wrack Lord, they allow safe passage. Stray from the path to the Wrack Lord, and they’ll be on us with blades.”

  Walking between long lines of tents spreading out in every direction, Bem was puzzled. “Boss,” she said, “why do they need tents? Why not just hang awnings like at the Grungg Pit?”

  “The Grungg has awnings just to keep the water from dripping on us,” Boss said. “For a Wrackshee, it’s an affront to honor to have another beast look on what he’s got. Look inside a Wrackshee tent without being invited, and you’re a dead beast.”

  The Wrack Lord’s Tronet had a bright lantern suspended above it from a high pole. The lantern, glowing like a ghostly beacon through the smoke and steam, made it easy to find the Wrack Lord amidst the sea of tents. The Tronet, a wooden platform where the Wrack Lord conducted his business, rose several feet above the muck. It was the only thing in the Shèttings to escape the oozing mire. “It’s not because he’s any cleaner than the rest,” Boss whispered. “He likes anyone visiting him to have to look up at him and climb a bit to get to him. Can’t be too trusting if you’re the Wrack Lord.”

  The Wrack Lord was standing on the Tronet, talking to a small circle of Wrackshees. He was an albino Wolf with clouded, pink eyes and a hard, chisled jaw. Small in stature, with an abnormally flattened face and thick neck, his oversize moustache gave his voice a rasping tone.

  “Hold here until he motions for us,” Boss said, stopping where a line of torches blazed around the perimeter of the Tronet.

  “What’s our business with him?” Bem asked.

  “The Miner Bears have a contract with Milky Joe—that’s the Wrack Lord’s name. He’s got a plan to clear out a new chamber to hold new steam lift machinery. We’re here to go over the plans.”

  “What do the Wrackshees need with steam lifts?” Bem said.

  “That’s what all the racket and steam is all about over there,” Boss replied. Looking toward the far end of the Shèttings, Boss pointed to where steam poured off some kind of machinery works. “The Shèttings sits in a place that’s kind of like a cork in a bottle,” he continued. “This is the part of Grand Deep where cold water from the mountains runs underground and meets super-heated rock. That makes explosive steam. Wrackshees use that to power machinery that lifts their slaves through the Grand Deep. Much more efficient than their slaving used to be when they had to travel meandering through the chambers of the cave system. But they’ve got bigger plans now, and they want to build a new lift.”

  “And Miner Bears did the cutting and digging, eh?” Bem observed with a cold smile.

  “Don’t start in on me,” Boss said. “Look—my Bears have got nothin’ else. Mining’s gone bad, and this is the only work around. And that nice little town back there would be dust without the silver my Bears have to spend. So—don’t get smart with me about it.”

  “About it? What do you mean ‘it’? It’s slaving, Boss, that’s what ‘it’ is. Why not just say it?”

  “Don’t push it, Bem,” Boss said. “I mean it. One word from me, and you stay here with the Wrackshees—in very unpleasant circumstances.”

  “No beast wants to stay with the Wrackshees, if they can help it,” Bem said quietly. “That’s my point. So I guess we can agree on that.” She lapsed into silence, then said, “One more question, Boss—have you ever seen slaves down here?”

  “No,” Boss replied, “the slaving pens are in the next chamber over, I think. That’s where the new lift will be, but I don’t know much about it yet. That’s why I’m here.”

  The conversation on the Tronet ended and the Wrack Lord called to Boss and Bem, motioning them forward. His invitation to approach the Tronet, spoken in the form of verse, seemed especially sinister to Bem.

  They call me Milky Joe,

  Hear-me-oh;

  Looking down the Tronet

  At all the beasts around me,

  Slave away, my beasties, slave away!

  They’re all bound to me!

  It's there I spy the next ones

  A-looking fear’ed and worried,

  Step on up, my friends, before I

  Grab you and slave you!

  They’re all bound to me!

  First I slaved my mother,

  Hear-me-oh;

  Then I slaved my brother,

  Hear-me-oh;

  When I ask you your business beast

  Hear-me-oh;

  Don’t waste my time,

  Or you’ll be bound to me!

  When Boss and Bem climbed up on the Tronet, Milky Joe nodded toward Bem and said, “Who’s this? Let me see the Scrib.”

  Bem handed over her Scrib. Milky Joe examined it closely, looking back and forth between Bem and the document. “A snake-trapper, eh?” he said at last. “Always wondered about that—how do you trap snakes?”

  “What kind of snake are you asking about?” Bem replied, giving Milky Joe a bored look.

  “I’m the one asking the questions,” Milky Joe snarled. “I asked you how you trap snakes.”

  “And I’m the one trying to answer, Your Paleness,” Bem snarled back, causing Boss to cut her a worried look. “Different snakes are different—don’t you see? So, seeing’s how Your Paleness is impatient, I’ll tell you how to trap a Yii Striker. They’re the most dangerous and difficult to trap, so you’ll see all the best tricks I use.”

  “I’ve never heard of a Yii Striker,” the Wrack Lord said suspiciously.

  “Just about every beast that ever found one, died in the finding,” Bem replied. “So far as I know, I’m the only beast alive that can claim to have successfully trapped a Yii Striker—and, I’ve done it maybe a dozen times.”

  “A dozen times!” Milky Joe said, his evil eyes shining with interest.

  Bem could see his mind calculating the worth of such a skill. “Being the only beast on the planet that ever trapped a Yii Striker, you don’t think I’m only going to do i
t once, do you?” she boasted. “Where’s the fun and profit in that? When you’re on a roll, I say roll as far as you can.”

  Milky Joe studied the brash Wolf cooly. “So, you still haven’t told me how you capture Yii Strikers,” he said.

  “You really want to know the secret?” Bem asked, leaning forward and pushing her face close to Milky Joe’s. Giving him an icy stare, she said, “You want to know, you’ve got to shut up and let me talk. Rule One in trapping Yii Strikers is, don’t ever waste time listening to beasts that know nothing. If I listened to other snake-trappers, I’d be a dead beast now. Because the normal rules for trapping snakes don’t work with Yii Strikers. So, we’ve now stood here yapping for several minutes, and if I was trapping Yii Strikers now, I’d be dead. So, please, no more yapping from you, Your Paleness.” Boss had nearly stopped breathing. No beast had ever insulted the Wrack Lord like this before.

  Milky Joe’s eyes narrowed to a slit. He was trying to decide if he liked this brazen young Wolf, or if he wanted to send a throwing lance through her. Her tough and brazen manner intrigued him. She might be worth something to him. For now, he decided to wait and see what the beast had to say.

  Seeing that she had won the first round in this contest of wills, Bem leaned back, pulling away from the face-to-face staring match. “To catch Yii Strikers, you’ve got to sleep in the open in their territory. Lie very still and let them slither up across your body. Don’t move, or you’ll spook them—and that’s the end of you. They like the warmth of a body and they especially like the warmest part of your body, the head. Wait long enough, and be still enough, and they will coil up right on your face and go to sleep. This is the most important part. You’ve got to leave your mouth open wide and breath through your mouth. The Yii Striker likes that warm, moist air. The ol’ snake will just curl up around your open mouth and let its head hang down right into your mouth. You wait until you’re sure as sure can be that the snake’s asleep, and then you slam your jaws shut on the snake’s head. He can’t bite you. You just let him flail his body around until he wears himself out, then you take a knife and cut the body away from the head. Then, you can spit out the head. And that’s how you capture a Yii Striker.”

  The Wrack Lord’s eyes were no longer slits. They were wide open. Boss’s jaw slackened and he looked stunned. Bem shook her head at them, without showing the slightest emotion.

  “What’s the matter with you dumb-wits?” she said at last. “Don’t you know anything about how common beasts earn a living in this world?”

  “I have no more questions,” Milky Joe said at last. He said nothing more to Bem, but it was clear she had passed his review. He turned to Boss. “All right, let’s get on with business,” he said. “We’re putting in a brand new lift system. I need your Miner Bears to enlarge rock channel to the next level. We’re in a bit of a hurry, so I’m willing to pay a little more for a rush job.”

  “Why the hurry?” Boss asked.

  “I’m sure you noticed that there’s a lot more beasts in the Shèttings than usual,” Milky Joe replied.

  “Yes,” Boss answered, “looks like maybe two or three times the usual number of Wrackshees are here.”

  “That’s right,” the Wrack Lord said. “The High One wants to clear out some troublesome bandits and such that are poaching his slave caravans. As soon as the new lift is finished, the Wrackshees will move out in force.”

  “Where will they go?” Bem asked.

  Milky Joe smiled. “So, who’s asking the questions now?” he said. “Well, ask away,” he continued. “I’ll have no answers for you to questions like that.”

  Boss clapped Bem on the shoulder. “That’s right, friend. We’re here to see the job we have to do—let’s get going on that.”

  “Follow me,” Milky Joe said, climbing off the Tronet and walking quickly toward the back of the cave. Boss and Bem followed.

  Clouds of smoke and steam made it hard to see anything very clearly in the cavern. Much that had been hidden came into sight, however, as they approached the rear. Two ranks of Skull Buzzards guarded a rear exit from the cave. Movement from the main cavern into the adjoining one was only through a massive wooden drawdoor. Gigantic in proportions, the drawdoor obviously was designed to allow easy movement of thousands of beasts at a time. When open, the drawdoor was pulled by chains up to the ceiling of the cavern, taking it completely out the way. Despite machinery and pulleys to open the drawdoor, its immense size required the strength of many Buzzards to open it. At the top of a long flight of stairs, another troop of Skull Buzzards operated the drawdoor, raising and lowering it as commanded.

  “They certainly don’t want anyone going through that door without permission!” Bem thought. “And we’re about to find out what’s so awful secret.”

  Milky Joe waited for Boss and Bem at the first rank of Skull Buzzards. “You two go first,” he ordered. “That shows the guards that you are with me, and they’ll let us pass.”

  Walking through the ranks of Skull Buzzards, they ascended the stone steps, passed the guards at the drawdoor, and waited while the door opened. Then they stepped through into a world as different from the one they had left as if they were in a dream. Staring up out of a deep pit dug in the floor of the cave, with an iron bar gate covering the top, were crowds of gaunt, hungry faces; staring black circles of eyes; masses of knotted and shaggy hair. All ages and all manner of beasts—huddled shoulder to shoulder, back to back, packed like grains of rock in a chunk of granite. Even the fearful Wrackshee camp they had just left was more familiar than this hellish place. The weeping and moaning, mingled with the screaming of steam vents made Bem think that even she might be sucked into the deep, deep, deep pit.

  Milky Joe’s rasping voice interrupted Bem’s horror. “Over here,” he called above the noise. Bem turned away from the slave pit and saw the Wrack Lord talking with three other beasts. Machinery was being constructed on one side of the cavern, and they were discussing the project.

  Bem glanced at Boss and was shocked to see tears running down the cheeks of the burly Miner Bear. “So this is what it’s all about,” he said. “This is what my work is all about.”

  “Come on, Boss,” Bem said. “You can’t do anything about it right now. Let’s listen to what Milky Joe has to say—maybe we’ll learn something that can help these poor beasts.”

  “You’re right,” Boss replied. “But I don’t know how I can work for the Wrack Lord after seeing this.” Wiping his eyes, Boss sighed. “All right, let’s go see what that Form of Moving Snot has to say.”

  When they joined Milky Joe, he introduced the other beasts. “This is Brude Blether, Superior Rank Upon Rank of the Royal Engineers; Blind-Ear Nun’See, his Chief of Build Operations; and Whip Runn’ee, Master of Elevating Works.” Bem quickly looked the group over and decided they were a distinctly unimpressive lot.

  Brude Blether was a somewhat pudgy, slightly balding female Digger Hog. Despite her lowly origins, through using the approved conspiracies of the High One’s realm, she had long ago left her humble beginnings behind. The oversized cloth cap she wore, tilted a little to one side, was all the rage among the leading exclusives at Maev Astuté. Luxurious ringlets, made of fake fur, hung down at her temples. An elegant waistcoat, buttoned up nearly to the throat, dark blue lizard-skin breeches, and shoes with silver buckles did little, Bem thought, to offset the fact that Brude was constantly picking her nose. “Fancy clothes or no,” Bem said to herself, “you still look like an idiot when you’re constantly eating nose boogers.” Nevertheless, Brude was the Superior Rank Upon Rank of the Royal Engineers, and in charge of the current project.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she was saying, “this will be the Best-Top-Master-Prime lift you’re ever seen. The Royal Engineers—Commissioned Most Specially by the High One Himself—only do Best-Top-Master-Prime work. Each of our projects has a unique Supremity of its own. In this case, this long vertical shaft, that has so long been seen as nothing more than a curiosity, will becom
e the greatest, fastest lift ever seen. Reports from the Sparrows I have sent to explore the shaft indicate that it runs from the top levels of the Grand Deep all the way down to the lowest. With some excavation by the Mining Bears, it will be perfect for a high-speed lift. The obsolete lift your Wrackshees are using now will look like a toy compared to the new lift with its Supremity. The immense, but barely tapped, steam resources provide plenty of power. But I’ll let Blind-Ear talk about that.”

  Hearing such pompous blather amidst the wailing and weeping of the slaves was almost too repulsive for Bem to take. She was about to walk off by herself and let them jabber on without her, when she remembered why she was there at all. Anything she could learn about the Wrackshee plans might help save many beasts. Doing her best to pay attention, she cut Boss a look of mixed impatience and anger. Their eyes met for an instant, and Bem saw such sadness in Boss’s face that she could scarcely bear to see it. A new-found respect for Boss found its way into Bem’s mind.

  “We are standing on top of the greatest steam resource anywhere,” Blind-Ear began. In contrast to Brude, the Chief of Build Operations, a kindly-looking Hound, wore a simple blue cloth jacket with a pair of flaming-red trousers that puffed out at the waist, then tapered down to tightly cover the legs down to the ankles. His well-worn work boots, coated in muck, indicated that he spent a lot of time with common working beasts—although the cleanliness and good repair of his clothes said he did little actual work. “The steam vent tapped to power the current lift barely scratches the supply. I’ve been in nearly constant meetings for the last two months getting updates on the steam pressure. Every day I update Whip on the pressure readings, and let me tell you, there’s nothing more encouraging than a good pressure reading. Whip will tell you about the progress of the project.”

  Whip Runn’ee, a sullen-looking Raccoon with eyes too close together, wore a passably clean velveteen coat and breeches. A canvas apron, worn hanging from the waist, had several large pockets busting with journals, pencils, and notebooks. For the next two hours, Whip gave the group a full briefing on the planned construction. The briefing actually could have been completed in about thirty minutes, Bem thought, since most of the time was taken up by Whip and Brude’s incessant, pompous talk.