The Carpet People

This was like hunting. You learned about the different kinds of silence.
    There was the silence made by something frightened, in fear of its life. There was the silence made by small creatures, being still. There was the silence made by big creatures, waiting to pounce on small creatures. Sometimes there was the silence made by no one being there. And there was a very sharp, hot kind of silence made by someone there – watching.
    Bane had drawn his sword. Snibril thought:soldiers learn about silences, too.
    They looked at one another.
    ‘Shall we leave the carts here?’ said Snibril.
    ‘Safer to stick together. Don’t divide forces unnecessarily. First rule of tactics.’
    The carts moved on, slowly, with everyone watching the hairs.
    ‘The bushes just up on the right there,’ Bane said, without moving his head.
    ‘I think so, too,’ said Snibril.
    ‘They’re in there watching us.’
    ‘Just one, I think,’ said Snibril.
    ‘I could put a spear into it from here, no trouble,’ said Glurk.
    ‘No. We might want to ask it questions afterwards,’ said Bane. ‘We’ll circle around it on either side.’
    Snibril crept towards the bush around one side of a hair. He could see it moving slightly. Bane was on the other side of it and Glurk, who could walk very quietly for such a big man, appeared as if by some kind of magic in front of it, with his spear raised.
    ‘Ready?’
    ‘Ready.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Bane took hold of a dust frond, and tugged.
    A small child looked up at three trembling blades.
    ‘Um,’ it said.
    *
    And ten minutes later . . .
    A small group of Deftmenes were labouring in the vegetable lines between the hairs. They did not look happy or, for that matter, very well-fed. Several guards were watching them. Even from here, Snibril could see the long snouts.
    Among the hairs was Jeopard itself.
    It was built on a piece of grit. The actual city was a cluster of buildings at the very top; a spiral roadway wound several times around the grit between the city and the floor. It had a gate at the bottom, but that was just for show. No one could have got up that road if the people at the top didn’t want them to.
    There was a movement in the dust, and Glurk crawled up beside Snibril.
    ‘The boy was right. There’s mouls and snargs everywhere,’ he said. ‘The whole place is crawling with them.’
    ‘They’ve got the city?’ said Snibril.
    Glurk nodded. ‘That’s what comes of running around looking for treasure when he ought to have been at home, reigning,’ he said, disapprovingly.
    ‘Come on,’ said Snibril. ‘Let’s get back to the camp.’
    The carts had been dragged into the undergrowth some way off, and people were on guard.
    Pismire, Bane and Brocando were sitting in a semi-circle, watching the little boy drinking soup. He had a bottomless capacity for food but, in between mouthfuls, he’d answer Brocando’s questions in a very small voice.
    ‘My own brother!’ growled Brocando, as the others slipped into the camp. ‘But if you can’t trust your own family, who can you trust? Turn my back for a few days—’
    ‘A year,’ said Bane.
    ‘—and he calls himself king! I never did like Antiroc. Always skulking and muttering and not keen on sports.’
    ‘But how did mouls get into the city?’ said Snibril.
    ‘He let them in! Tell the man, Strephon!’
    The boy was about seven years old, and looked terrified.
    ‘I . . . I . . . they were . . . everyone fought . . .’ he stuttered.
    ‘Come on! Come on! Out with it, lad!’
    ‘I think,’ said Bane, ‘that perhaps you ought to wander off for a minute or two, perhaps? He might find it easier to talk.’
    ‘I am his king !’
    ‘That’s what I mean. When they’re standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment. If you’d just, oh, go and inspect theguard or something . . . ?’
    Brocando grumbled about this, but wandered off with Glurk and Snibril.
    ‘Huh. Brothers!’ he muttered. ‘Nothing but trouble, eh? Plotting and skulking and hanging around and usurping.’
    Glurk felt he had to show solidarity with the unofficial association of older brothers.
    ‘Snibril never kept his room tidy, I know that,’ he said.
    When they got back Strephon was wearing Bane’s helmet and looking a lot more cheerful. Bane sent him off with an instruction to do something dangerous.
    ‘If you want it in grown-up language,’ he said, ‘your brother took over the throne when you didn’t come back. He