I followed Mul-Al-Ka and Mul-Ba-Ta into a damp, high, vaulted chamber, unlit by energy bulbs. The sides of the chamber were formed of some rough, cementlike substance in which numerous rocks of various sizes and shapes inhered as in a conglomerate mass.
At the entrance to the chamber, from a rack, Mul-Al-Ka had taken a Mul-Torch and broken off its end. Holding this over his head he illuminated those portions of the chamber to which the light of the torch would reach.
'This must be a very old portion of the Nest,' said Mul-Al-Ka.
'Where is Misk?' I asked.
'He is here somewhere,' said Mul-Ba-Ta, 'for so we were told by Sarm.'
As far as I could tell the chamber seemed empty. In impatience I fingered the chain of the translator I had had the two Muls pick up on the way to Misk's prison. I was not sure that Misk would have been allowed to retain his translator and I wished to be able to communicate with him.
My eyes drifted upward and I froze for an instant and then, scarcely moving, touched Mul-Ba-Ta's arm.
'Up there,' I whispered.
Mul-Al-Ka lifted the torch as high as he could.
Clinging to the ceiling of the chamber were numerous dark, distended shapes, apparently Priest-Kings but with abdomens swollen grotesquely. They did not move.
I turned on the translator. 'Misk,' I said into it. Almost instantly I recognised the familiar odour.
There was a rustling among the dark, distended shapes that clung to the ceiling.
No response came from my translator.
'He is not here,' proposed Mul-Al-Ka.
'Probably not,' said Mul-Ba-Ta, 'for had he replied I think your translator would have picked up his response.'
'Let us look elsewhere,' said Mul-Al-Ka.
'Give me the torch,' I said.
I took the torch and went around to the edges of the room. By the door I saw a series of short bars which emerged from the wall, which might be used as a ladder. Taking my torch in my teeth I prepared to climb the set of bars.
Suddenly I stopped, my hands on one of the bars.
'What is the matter?' asked Mul-Al-Ka.
'Listen,' I said.
We listened carefully and in the distance it seemed we heard, incredibly enough, the mournful singing of human voices, as though of many men, and the sound was as we determined by listening for a minute or two gradually nearing.
'Perhaps they are coming here,' said Mul-Al-Ka.
'We had better hide,' said Mul-Ba-Ta.
I left the bars and led the two Muls to the far side of the room. There I directed them to take cover as well as they could behind some of the conglomerate material which had crumbled from the wall and lay at its base. Grinding out the Mul-torch on the stones I crouched down with them behind some of this debris and together we watched the door.
The singing grew louder.
It was a sad song, mournful and slow, almost a dirgelike chant.
The words were in archaic Gorean which I find very difficult to understand. On the surface it is spoken by none but the members of the Caste of Initiates who use it primarily in their numerous and complex rituals. As nearly as I could make it out the song, though sad, was a paean of some sort to Priest-Kings, and mentioned the Feast of Tola and Gur. The refrain, almost constantly repeated, was something to the effect that We Have Come for Gur, On the Feast of Tola We Have Come for Gur, We Rejoice For on the Feast of Tola We Have Come for Gur.
Then, as we crouched in the darkness of the far side of the chamber, the doors opposite us swung open and we observed two long lines of strange men, marching abreast, each of whom carried a Mul-Torch in one hand and in the other by a handle what resembled a deflated wineskin of golden leather.
I heard Mul-Al-Ka draw in his breath quickly beside me.
'Look, Tarl Cabot,' whispered Mul-Ba-Ta.
'Yes,' I said, cautioning him to silence, 'I see.'
The men who came through the door in the long mournful procession may have been of the human kind or they may not have been. They were shaven and clad in plastic as are all Muls of the Nest, but their torsos seemed smaller and rounder than those of a human being and their legs and arms seemed extraordinarily long for their body size and the hands and feet seemed unusually wide. The feet had no toes but were rather disklike, fleshy cushions on which they padded silently along, and similarly on the palms of their wide hands there seemed to be a fleshy disk, which glistened in the blue light of the Mul-Torches. Most strange perhaps was the shape and width of the eyes, for they were very large, perhaps three inches in width, and were round and dark and shining, much like the eyes of a nocturnal animal.
I wondered at what manner of creature they were.
As more of them filed abreast into the room the increased torchlight well illuminated the chamber and I quietly warned my companions to make no movement.
I could now see the Priest-Kings clearly where they clung upside down to the ceiling, the great swollen abdomens almost dwarfing their thoraxes and heads.
Then to my amazement, one by one, the strange creatures, disdaining the bars near the door began simply to pad up the almost vertical walls to the Priest-Kings and then, astonishingly, began to walk upside down on the ceiling. Where they stepped I could see a glistening disk of exudate which they had undoubtedly secreted from the fleshy pads which served them as feet. While the creatures remaining on the floor continued their mournful paean, their fellow creatures on the walls and ceiling, still carrying their torches, and scattering wild shadows of their own bodies and those of swollen Priest-Kings against the ceiling, began to fill their golden vessels from the mouths of the Priest- Kings. Many times was a golden vessel held for a Priest-King as it slowly yielded whatever had been stored in its abdomen to the Muls.
There seemed to be almost an indefinite number of the Muls and of clinging Priest-Kings there were perhaps a hundred. The strange procession to and fro up the walls and across the ceiling to Priest-Kings and back down to the floor, continued for more than an hour, during which time the Muls who stood below, some of them having returned with a full vessel, never ceased to chant their mournful paean.
The Muls made no use of the bars and from this I gathered that they might have been placed where they were in ancient times before there were such creatures to serve Priest-Kings.
I assumed that the exudate or whatever it might be that had been taken from the Priest-Kings was Gur, and that I now understood what it was to retain Gur.
Finally the last of the unusual Muls stood below on the stone flooring.
In all this time not one of them had so much as glanced in our direction, so single-minded were they in their work. When not actively engaged in gathering Gur their round dark eyes were lifted like dark curves to the Priest-Kings who clung to the ceiling far over their heads.
At last I saw one Priest-King move from the ceiling and climb backwards down the wall. His abdomen drained of Gur was now normal and he stalked regally to the door, moving on those light, feathery feet with the delicate steps of one of nature's masters. When there several Muls flanked him on either side, still singing, and holding their torches and carrying their vessels which now brimmed with a pale, milky substance, something like white, diluted honey. The Priest- King, escorted by Muls, then began to move slowly, step by majestic step, down the passage outside of the chamber. He was followed by another Priest-King, and then another, until all but one Priest-King had departed the chamber. In the light of the last torches which left the chamber I could see that there remained one Priest-King who, though emptied of Gur, still clung to the ceiling. A heavy chain, fastened to a ring in the ceiling, led to a thick metal band which was locked about his narrow trunk between the thorax and the abdomen.
It was Misk.
I broke off the other end of the Mul-Torch, igniting it, and walked to the centre of the chamber.
I lifted it as far over my head as I could.
'Welcome, Tarl Cabot,' came from my translator. 'I am ready to die.'
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