"And then he called for Harllo! He wants Harllo! And I come to get him and you"re stopping me and when he hears-"
He got no further as the man who had struck him now grasped him by the throat and dragged him to his feet. "He won"t hear nothing, Venaz. You think we give a f.u.c.k about Vidikas having a f.u.c.kin" duel? Killin" some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d for what? Our entertainment?"
"He"s turnin" blue, Haid. Better loosen yer grip some."
Venaz gasped an agonizing lungful of air.
"Get it right, lad," Haid went on, "Vidikas owns owns us. We"re pieces of meat to him, right? So he puts out a call for one of us and for what? Why, to chew it up, that poor piece of meat. And what, you think that"s a f.u.c.kin" good idea? Get outa my sight, Venaz, but you can count on me rememberin" this." us. We"re pieces of meat to him, right? So he puts out a call for one of us and for what? Why, to chew it up, that poor piece of meat. And what, you think that"s a f.u.c.kin" good idea? Get outa my sight, Venaz, but you can count on me rememberin" this."
The pack was huddled together now, white-faced, but among some of them there was something rather more calculating. Was this the moment to usurp Venaz? The three men went back to working on the axle. Venaz, his colour returning to normal, dusted himself off and then set out in a stiff-legged march towards the tunnel mouth. His pack fell in behind him.
As they plunged into the cool gloom Venaz wheeled. "That was Haid and Favo and Dule, right? Remember them names. They"re on my list now, all three of them. They"re on my list."
Faces nodded.
And those who had been weighing their chances each realized that the moment had pa.s.sed. They"d been too slow. Venaz had a way of recovering, and fast, scary fast. He was, they reminded themselves yet again, going places, without a doubt.
Harllo slid along the vein, feeling with his bare stomach the purity of the black silver and, yes, it was was silver and where had it come from when all they"d been working for so long was copper up on the skins and iron down deep? But it felt so beautiful, this silver. Better than gold, better than anything. silver and where had it come from when all they"d been working for so long was copper up on the skins and iron down deep? But it felt so beautiful, this silver. Better than gold, better than anything.
Wait till he told Bainisk and Bainisk told the foreman! They"d be heroes. They might even get extra portions at supper, or a cup of watered wine!
The chute was narrow, so small they"d need moles for weeks before it got worked out big enough to take the pickers, so there was a good chance that Harllo would be seeing and feeling a lot more of this silver, every day, maybe.
And all that trouble from before would go away, just like that he knew it would- "Harllo!"
The voice whispered up from somewhere behind his feet, reminding him that he was still head down and that could be dangerous. He might pa.s.s out and not even know it. "I"m all right, Bainisk! I found-"
"Harllo! Get back here right now!"
A shiver ran through Harllo. Bainisk"s voice didn"t sound right. It sounded . . . scared.
But that wouldn"t last, would it? Not with the silver- "Hurry!"
Moving backwards was never easy. He pushed with his hands, squirmed and pressed his toes against the hard stone and then extended his heels. There were leather pads tied to his feet for this purpose, but it still hurt. Like a caterpillar, gathering up and then pushing, bit by bit, working his way back up the chute.
All at once hands grasped his ankles and he was being roughly dragged.
Harllo cried out as his chin struck an obstruction and when he lifted his head up the top crunched on rock, sc.r.a.ping away skin and hair. "Bainisk! What-"
He fell free of the chute, thumping down. The hands released his ankles and now grasped his upper arms, lifting him to his feet.
"Bainisk-"
"Shhh! Word"s come down someone came to find you from the city."
"What?"
"Vidikas killed him in a duel and now he"s called for you to be brought to him. It"s bad, Harllo. I think he"s going to kill you!"
But this was too much to hear, too much all at once someone had come who? Gruntle! And Vidikas had . . . had killed him. No. He couldn"t have he didn"t- No. He couldn"t have he didn"t- "Who was he?" he asked. "Who was he?" he asked.
"I don"t know. Listen, we"re going to escape, you and me, Harllo do you understand?"
"But how can we-"
"We"re going deeper in, to the Settle-"
"But that"s not safe-"
"There are huge cracks on that side some of them, they got to go right up and out, lakeside. We get there, and then along the sh.o.r.eline, all the way back to the city!"
They had been hissing back and forth, and now they heard shouts echoing down from the main pa.s.sage.
"Venaz that figures, doesn"t it? Come on, Harllo, we got to go now now!"
They set out, each with a lantern, Bainisk taking a coil of rope as well, down through the fresh workings there was no one there yet, as first the air had been bad and then there"d been flooding and only the shift before the last of the hoses was snaked out to see how much more water was seeping back in. After fifty or so paces they were ankledeep in icy water and flows slicked the side walls and drops rained down from the ceiling. The farther in they went, the more cracks they saw everywhere, all sides, above and below proof that they were reaching the Settle, where half a cliff was sinking towards the lake. The rumours were that it was only days from collapse.
The tunnel descended in irregular shelves, and now the water was at Harllo"s thighs, numbingly cold. Both were gasping.
"Bainisk will this go back up?"
"It will, if the water"s not too deep, it will, I promise."
"Why why are you doing this? You should"ve just handed me over."
Bainisk was some time before answering. "I want to see it, Harllo."
"You want to see what?"
"The city. I I just want to see it, that"s all. When I heard, well, it was as if everything fell into place. This was the time our best chance this close to the Settle."
"You"d been thinking about this."
"Yes. Harllo, I never never stop thinking about this." stop thinking about this."
"The city."
"The city."
Something clanged somewhere behind them still distant, but closer than expected.
"Venaz! They"re after us s.h.i.t come on, Harllo, we got to hurry."
The water reached Harllo"s hips. He was having trouble working his legs. He kept stumbling. Twice he almost let his lantern sink down too far. Their desperate gasping echoed on all sides, along with sloshing water.
"Bainisk, I can"t-"
"Drop your light just take hold of my shirt I"ll pull you. Don"t let go."
Groaning, Harllo let the lantern sink into the water. A sudden hiss, something cracking. When he released the handle the lantern vanished into the blackness. He took hold of Bainisk"s ragged shirt.
They continued on, Harllo feeling his legs trailing behind him but only from the hips below that there was nothing. A strange la.s.situde flowed into him, taking away the icy cold. Bainisk was chest-deep now, whimpering as he sought to keep the lantern held high.
They stopped.
"The tunnel goes under," said Bainisk.
"Issallright, Bainisk. We gan stop now."
"No, hold on to this ledge. I"m going under. I won"t be long. I promise."
He set the lantern on a narrow ledge. And then he sank down and was gone.
Harllo was alone. It would be much easier to let go, to relax his aching hands. Venaz was coming, he"d be here soon. And then it would be over. The water was warm now that might be one way to escape them. Do what Bainisk had just done. Just sink away, vanish.
He wasn"t wanted, he knew. Not by his mother, not by anyone. And the one who"d come to find him, well, that man had died for that. And that wasn"t right. n.o.body should go and die for Harllo. Not Gruntle, not Bainisk, not anybody. So, no more of any of that he could let go- Foaming water, thrashing, gasps and coughs. An icy hand clutched at Harllo.
"We can get through! Harllo the tunnel on the other side it slopes upward!"
"I can"t-"
"You have to! The city, Harllo, you have to show it to me I"d be lost. I need you, Harllo. I need you." I need you."
"All right, but . . ." He was about to tell Bainisk the truth. About the city. That it wasn"t the paradise he"d made it out to be. That people starved there. That people did bad things to each other. But no, that could wait. It"d be bad to talk about those things right now. "All right, Bainisk."
They left the lantern. Bainisk uncoiled some of the rope and tied the end about Harllo"s waist, fumbling with numbed hands on the knot. "Take a few deep breaths first," he said. "And then one more, deep as you can."
The plunge into the dark left Harllo instantly disoriented. The rope round his waist pulled him down and then into the face of the current. He opened his eyes and felt the thrill of shock from the icy flow. Strange glowing streaks flashed past, possibly from the rock itself, or perhaps they were but ghosts lurking behind his eyes. At first he sought to help Bainisk, flailing with his arms and trying to kick, but after a moment he simply went limp.
Either Bainisk would pull them both through, or he wouldn"t. Either way was fine.
His mind began to drift, and he so wanted to take a breath he couldn"t hold back much longer. His lungs were burning. The water would be cool, cool enough to quench that fire for ever more. Yes, he could do that.
Cold bit into his right hand what? what? And then his head was lifted above the surface. And he was sucking in icy lungfuls of air. And then his head was lifted above the surface. And he was sucking in icy lungfuls of air.
Darkness, the rush and gurgle of water flowing past, seeking to pull him back, back and down. But Bainisk was tugging him along, and it was getting shallower as the tunnel widened. The black, dripping ceiling seemed to be sagging, forming a crooked spine overhead. Harllo stared up at it, wondering how he could see at all.
And then he was being dragged across broken stone.
They halted, lying side by side.
Before too long, the shivering began. Racing into Harllo like demonic possession, a spirit that shook through him with rabid glee. His teeth chattered uncontrollably.
Bainisk was plucking at him. Through clacking teeth he said, "Venaz won"t stop. He"ll see the lantern he"ll know. We got to keep going, Harllo. It"s the only way to get warm again, the only way to get away."
But it was so hard to climb to his feet. His legs still didn"t work properly. Bainisk had to help him and he leaned heavily on the bigger boy as they staggered skidding upslope along the scree-scattered path.
It seemed to Harllo that they walked for ever, into and out of faint light. Sometimes the slope pitched downward, only to slowly climb yet again. Pain throbbed in Harllo"s legs now, but it was welcome life was returning, filled with its stubborn fire, and now he wanted to live, now it mattered more than anything else.
"Look!" Bainisk gasped. "At what we"re walking on Harllo, look!"
Phosph.o.r.escent mould limned the walls, and in the faint glow Harllo could make out the vague shapes of the rubble underfoot. Broken pottery. Small fragments of burned bone.
"It"s got to lead up," Bainisk said. "To some cave. The Gadrobi used them to bury their ancestors. A cave overlooking the lake. We"re almost there."
Instead, they reached a cliff ledge.
And stood, silent.
A vertical section of rock had simply plummeted away, leaving a broad gap. The bottom of the fissure was swallowed in black, from which warm air rose in dry gusts. Opposite them, ten or more paces across, a slash of diffuse light revealed the continuation of the tunnel they had been climbing.
"We"ll climb down," said Bainisk, uncoiling the rope and starting to tie a knot at one end. "And then back up. We can do this, you"ll see."
"What if the rope"s not long enough? I can"t see the bottom, Bainisk."
"We"ll just find more handholds." Now he was tying a loop at the other end which he then set round a k.n.o.b-like projection. "I"ll throw a snake back up to dislodge this, so we can take the rope with us for the climb up the other side. Now, you go first." He tossed the rest of the rope over the edge. They heard it snap out to its full length. Bainisk grunted. "Like I said, we can find handholds."
Harllo worked his way over the side, gripping hard the wet rope it wanted to slide through, but if that happened he knew he was dead, so he held tight. His feet scrambled, found shallow ledges running at an angle across the cliff-face. Not much, but they eased the strain. He began working his way down.
He was perhaps three body-lengths down when Bainisk began following. The rope began swaying unpredictably, and Harllo found his feet slipping from their scant purchases again and again, each time resulting in a savage tug on his arms.
"Bainisk!" he hissed. "Wait! Let me go a little farther down first you"re throwing me about."
"Okay. Go on."
Harllo found purchase again and resumed the descent.
If Bainisk started up again he no longer felt the sways and tugs. The rope was getting wetter, which meant that he was reaching its end the water was soaking its way down. And then he reached the sodden knot. Sudden panic as he sought to find projections in the wall for his feet. There were very few the stone was almost sheer.
"Bainisk! I"m at the knot!" He craned his neck to look down. Blackness, unrelieved, depthless. "Bainisk! Where are you?"
Since Harllo"s first call, Bainisk had not moved. The last thing he wanted to do was accidentally dislodge the boy, not after they"d made it this far. And, truth be told, he was experiencing a growing fear. This wall was too even no cracks, the strata he could feel little more than ripples at a steeply canted angle. They would never be able to hold on once past the rope and there was nothing he could use to slip the loop round.
They were, he realized, in trouble.
Upon hearing Harllo"s last call the boy reaching the knot he readied himself to resume his descent.
And there was a sharp upward tug on the rope.
He looked up. Vague faces peering over, hands and more hands reaching to close on the rope. Venaz yes, there he was, grinning.
"Got you," he murmured, low and savage. "Got you both, Bainisk."
Another tug upward.
Bainisk drew his knife one-handed. He reached down to cut the rope beneath him, and then hesitated, looking up once more at Venaz"s face.
Maybe that had been his own, only a few years ago. That face, so eager to take over, to rule the moles. Well, Venaz could have them. He could have it all.