Page 48 of The Catacomb King
“Okay,” Hades said.
“And they’re going to have to bond them together afterward inside the shaft.”
“Okay,” Hades said.
“And forgods’sake try and make them uniform!”
Hades looked skeptical at that, but he hustled the workers off to the forge or the foundry or whatever the hell they called the place where they worked this strange material.
That left me to try to explain to the digger-workers whattheyshould do.
They were milling around aimlessly. Some of them had even gotten bored and meandered away. I waved at the godlings in front until they got interested enough to come over to me. These godlings were fairly human-looking, thank goodness, at least in the face and hands. I showed them how they ought to start atthiswall, and dig out and up, toward the northwest. Toward themountain. Eventually, I even got somebody interested enough to find a shovel and start. A few more joined on from there, either from boredom or curiosity or because I kept saying that this was how they were going to getwater, goddammit, water andfood, and they didn’t really seem to believe me but I guess they figured it was worth a shot.
They wereterribleat their jobs.
I got angrier and angrier. They kept falling asleep, for fuck’s sake. Wandering off. Digging in the wrong direction. I knew I was only a human girl, a tribute intended as nothing more than a morsel of food for their crazed god, but come on! Their Prince had told them to listen to me!
I stomped off and found Elke. She was in the far corner of the reservoir and appeared, stupefyingly, to be doing needlework. Had Hades left her here to keep an eye on me? “Where is His Lordship?” I demanded.
Elke frowned. “He ought to be at the foundry, I think. Do you want him back? I will go get him.”
“Iwantto know why he gave me suchidiots! Does he not want his precious water source? Dotheynot want it?”
“They are not idiots,” said Elke. “They are just like this. We are the chaosgötten. Born of the Monarch Himself. We cannot help it.”
“You aren’t like this,” I grumped. “Even His Lordship isn’t.”
“I told you. The blood of our Mother runs strong in him. He is… more like you.” Elke admitted this last part with difficulty. It had to be a shameful thing to say about your beloved Prince.
“I guess. There’s still you, though. You’re all spider-y, but you’re still normal.”
Elke huffed out an unhappy laugh. “I am not normal. But thank you all the same.”
“Come on. You can’t tell me the blood of your Mother runs strong in you, too. Look at you, you’ve got spider-legs. But you’restill, like… organized and nice and helpful. And easy to talk to. Unlike all these other morons. No offense.”
Was she blushing? “No offense is taken, my lady.”
An awkward pause.
She sighed. “There are different ways to seem human. And different ways to seem more like our Monarch. One could say, for example, that you act like a chaosgötter.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Your refusal to do as you’re told,” Elke explained. “To obey the systems set out for you. Also, your temper.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Forgive me,” Elke said, which seemed to be her favorite phrase. “I meant nothing by it. It was only an illustration. A suggestion.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t, really. How dare she suggest that I was like a group of people who would string up dead women in cocoons after feeding their souls to a god? But I didn’t have the energy to deal with it. “I’m sorry for yelling at the workers. But, Elke, I have to get this right. I’ll never see my mother again otherwise. And, fuck, I can’t think, I’m so fucking hungry. What am I supposed to do? What doyouthink I should do? How can I get these godlings to listen to me?”
Elke’s mouth quirked. “His Lordship has been trying to figure out the answer to that question for years.” And then: “I am sorry. I forgot that you have not eaten.”
“It’s fine. I just want to go home.”
But there was nothing Elke could do for me. I dragged myself back to the diggers. Twelve more of them had lain down since I’d left them. I yelled at everyone to get back to work. I even grabbed a shovel myself, no matter what Hades had said. It was the only way to get anything done.
By some miracle, though, by the end of the period of time that everyone seemed to think of as “a working day,” we didhave at least a large part of a shaft running in roughly the right direction. I hated the idea of ceasing work, but it was no use; the godlings were clearly done and could no longer be corralled, and even I was losing steam after two full days without food. Elke shepherded me back to the bedchamber. She left me to my groaning stomach and my thoughts.
