Angel Arias (13 page)

She felt around again. The rope that disappeared down into the hole seemed to be tied to a pipe set into the wall of the closet. Checking that the knot was still tight, she pulled on it. Then she gripped it hard and let herself down. The sides of the hole were rough, scratching along her waist, and she was not used to holding her own weight. The strain was too much and her hands slipped.

Jarrold was ready for her and caught her in a bear hug. He let out an
ooof
of impact but kept his balance. After a moment, he set her down next to him and fumbled inside his coat again. This time he produced a candle and flint. The candle was broken but the flint still worked and the little pool of light it cast was enough for them to see each other.

They were standing on a bed of dirt that stretched ahead into a tunnel of darkness with no feature. To the sides of her, she saw the base of wooden pillars. Even when she had climbed out of the cave system to the surface of Ruzalia’s island, Naif had never felt so closed in and confined.

‘We’re in among the foundations of the house,’ he said. ‘Further along is the tip of a stanchion. When you crawl under that, you’re on the bridge.’

‘What’s a stanchion?’

‘I don’t know, but that’s what Gurney called it. He got all excited. He says the bridge underneath is nothing like the bridges we build. He says it’s from another time. Another civilisation that was smarter than ours.’

‘If they were smarter than ours then why are they dead?’

‘Maybe they’re not. Maybe they just left.’

‘They just left a whole city?’ Naif felt a chill of wonder at the secrets of the past. Had this place been connected with the sunken city of Cheong? Or the Golden Spiral?

‘I dunno, but the structures are different. You’ll see. We’d better move before the candle burns down.’

He stooped and began to walk forward.

She copied his movements exactly, nervous of what she couldn’t see beyond the candlelight.

It was colder down here, as if the earth around her was laced with ice. It seeped through Jarrold’s fleecy shirt, leaving her shivering. Despite the pain of the blisters she was grateful for the boots. So many things were making her anxious now that her belly ached.

What had Markes told the wardens? Had they hurt him? Would they be able to free him and find the Elders’ meeting in time? And what was happening on Ixion?

A familiar heat soaked though her.
Lenoir.

She could almost smell the strange wild scent of him; see his long, lustrous hair and sublime face; hear his sibilant and powerful voice.

She shook her head to make the image go away.

‘It’s here,’ said Jarrold.

She squinted ahead to what looked like a wall of mud and rock. Something metallic glinted on the ground, embedded into the foot of the wall; a material that she’d never seen before.

‘What is it?’ she asked him.

‘That’s our way down onto the bridge.’ He shifted the candle to one side of his body. It threw light on another large disc of the same metal which jutted out of the mud wall like a fungal growth. ‘Behind there. Watch.’

He moved towards it and then suddenly disappeared.

Naif stood alone in the dark, unable to see anything. She forced herself to stay calm, waiting. Jarrold wouldn’t leave her here. He would come back.

Long uneasy moments passed before she saw the candle glow and he finally reappeared.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘The candle blew out and I couldn’t get it to relight. Come on.’

She stepped quickly over to the metal disc. From where she’d been standing it looked like it was embedded in the mud but as she came closer she could see a large gap behind it.

‘Tricky, isn’t it. We got this far and thought it was the end. I had the creeps about being down here but Gurney wanted to look closer at the metal. When he came up close on it, he saw the gap.’ Jarrold’s expression was full of awe. ‘If he hadn’t done that we’d never have found our way onto the bridge.’

He turned around and the candlelight began to bob and waver.

This time Naif put her hand on his sleeve.

He stiffened. ‘What?’

‘I don’t want to lose you in the dark again,’ she said.

His shoulders relaxed. ‘Good idea. Don’t know if I’ll be able to keep the candle alight. Last time we had a lamp. Should be able to find the way though. It’s dead straight and there are some funny plants growing in there that glow a bit. Tricky bit is at the start, so go slowly.’

He beckoned her, then squatted down to crawl through the gap. Once they were both on the other side of the wall they were able to stand properly upright. Naif felt a greater sense of space here even though she couldn’t see more than a little way in front. In fact, all she could see was a jumble of mud-covered metal, almost like a ladder with the rungs spaced far apart.

‘Gurney said he thinks this is a giant stanchion which holds the bridge upright. The bit poking through the mud that we just passed is a piece that’s broken away from it. See that hole?’

He pointed upward and lifted the candle so she could see. The extended light showed a tear in the metal, up high. ‘Lucky for us, we’re going down not up.’

Then he lowered the light to near his feet. The large steps disappeared into the dark. ‘I’ll have to put the candle out to climb. It’s forty steps down to the bridge surface, count them as you go. I’ll be right in front of you.’

He put one hand on the broad rung before him. Naif calculated that the distance between each step was almost the length of her body.

‘If I fall . . .?’

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘You might land on the bridge. But you might not.’

‘What’s below the bridge?’

‘Maybe the river, though by rights it should be silted up.’

‘What happens when we get down onto the bridge?’

‘There are stanchions like this one all the way along the bridge under Deope. Some you can climb, others you can’t. One takes you up near the Holding House.’

‘How did you find it?’

He pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Been down here a few times now. Wasn’t going to tell Emilia that.’

‘She wouldn’t have believed you anyway,’ said Naif, remembering Emilia’s reaction.

‘Probably not. Gurney and I climbed as many stanchions as we could. Some just hit a mud ceiling.’

Naif took a deep breath and reached out to grab hold of the rung. ‘I’m ready.’

Jarrold nodded and then blew out the candle.

N
aif waited until she heard Jarrold count out loud that he was on the second step, and began her descent. At first she hugged the rung with both arms, lowering herself slowly towards the next one. But she found that her feet didn’t reach.

She changed her grip so that only her fingertips held the rung and fully extended her arms. This brought her feet in contact with the hard metal.

On the next couple of steps, she tried swinging down. It was terrifying dropping into the darkness but it brought her into firm contact.

She counted in her head as Jarrold counted aloud, staying two or three steps behind him the whole way. It wasn’t until her feet were finally on the bridge and she was standing next to him that her heart stopped pounding wildly.

After a moment or so of catching her breath she became aware that she could see a little, even though Jarrold hadn’t relit the candle. The blackness was less black and there were shapes ahead of her. The light, she found, came from near her feet.

Jarrold struck his flint and the candle flared. The light patches vanished.

‘What are they?’

‘It’s mould, I think. Or something like that, Gurney said. Doesn’t smell too good if you squash it.’

Naif shivered and rubbed her arms. ‘It’s so cold down here.’

‘Yeah. Let’s keep moving.’

They walked along a mud-laden surface that was as broad as several sett roads laid side by side.

Naif looked up. There was space above her but how much she couldn’t tell. More than in the tunnel before. ‘I don’t understand why there’s such a gap above us. Why haven’t the houses fallen through?’

‘Gurney thinks the bridge was in two layers. The houses are resting on a mound of dirt that’s held in place by the first layer of the bridge. We’re down on the second layer.’

‘But how would you make such an enormous structure?’ Naif knew nothing of roadways and buildings, but even on Ixion, among the grand church buildings, there was nothing as huge or strange as this bridge appeared to be.

Jarrold shrugged. ‘All I know is that we built homes on it. And that we can get up near where Markes is if we go this way.’

Markes
.

As she thought of him, her sense of urgency grew. What had the wardens done to him?

They walked on in silence, the candle flickering light far enough ahead that they could see where to put their feet next. It was better to concentrate on each step than to contemplate where she was, under the earth, with the weight of many houses above her.

After a while, Jarrold stopped. ‘I’ll have to blow the candle out again. We need it to see our way back up into the other house and it’s nearly burned down. We’ll have to use the mould-light the rest of the way.’

Jarrold blew out the candle and they stood together in silence waiting for their eyes to adjust to the dark.

The glow of the mould returned and the path ahead of them lit with a dull patchwork of orange, greens and yellows.

Jarrold moved forward again, stepping between the dull puddles of light. ‘Your brother went to Ixion?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s why you went there?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What’s it really like? I’ve read the confetti.’

‘Ixion isn’t as it seems. It’s dangerous.’

‘I’m not frightened.’ He tossed the comment over his shoulder and she believed him. He was like Joel.

It made her grab his arm and stop him. ‘Jarrold. You don’t want to go there. There’s a battle going on between the Night Creatures and us. That’s why I’m here.’

‘A battle?’ He sounded thrilled by the idea, not deterred. ‘Tell me about it.’

Naif made an impatient noise. ‘After we find Markes.’

‘Promise.’

‘Yes,’ she sighed.

He turned and continued walking. Naif struggled on behind him, her feet becoming more painful with each step. She wanted to take the boots off but knew the cold and the sharp rocks and shards of dark metal littering the mud would hurt them more.

‘Here,’ he said eventually, pointing ahead.

But she could already see it; a dark criss-crossed column rising in front of them.

Jarrold stopped and relit the candle. With the brighter light, he showed her the rung arrangement and how best to grip it. ‘It’s harder going back up, unfortunately. I’ll stay one rung ahead and pull you up, if you can’t do it.’

Naif hadn’t considered what it would mean to climb up. She didn’t have the arm strength of a stocky boy like Jarrold.

He blew out the candle and climbed up into the dark, grunting with the effort of pulling his own weight up. ‘Get your feet on the rung right in front of you and reach upward.’

She moved closer to the base of the column, stepped onto the metal rung and stretched. If she fell too far to either side she would roll off the edge into nothingness. Their hands touched but her fingers slipped from his and she nearly overbalanced.

Her heart thumped painfully as she grabbed the side of the stanchion and steadied herself.

‘Naif?’

‘I’m all right.’ She tried again and this time their fingers locked.

Jarrold began to heave her up and her feet left the rung. The sensation of swinging free held only by his thick fingers terrified her. His grip on her right hand began to slip and he levered her down quickly.

‘I’ll go up top and see if I can find a rope. I’ll be a while. Getting into this house is tricky.’

‘Just make sure you come back,’ she whispered.

He made a rude noise and then she heard him climbing.

Naif gazed upward for a while and then gave up. She sat down close to the column and drew her legs in to her chest.

Her thoughts shifted almost immediately to Lenoir. It had only been a week since she’d seen the Riper. But if she dared to be honest with herself, the tight lump of apprehension she’d been carrying in her stomach was partly due to him. He seemed so close to the surface of her conscious mind and he was troubled.

Naif!

Naif jerked upright and stiff. He was here. He had to be here. His voice was so clear . . .
Lenoir?

Where are you, Naif?

I’m . . . why? Why do you speak to me?
How
can you speak to me
?

The strength of our bond is unusual. I’ve tasted your fear strongly in the past days. Are you safe?

Yes. But what’s happening on Ixion
?

Our brothers have not calmed in the wake of your leaving, as I thought they would. Brand still plots against me. Stay away from here. Be safe, baby bat. Times are dangerous.

Tell me about Joel and Suki. Lenoir? LENOIR!

‘Naif!’ Jarrold’s voice interrupted her thoughts a bare second before a rope dropped down and hit her shoulder. ‘Naif, I found some. Tie it around your waist.’

She jerked back into the moment and began fumbling to tie a knot. With more confidence, Naif reached up to Jarrold. This time his grip was sure and she levered onto the next rung without falling.

He was panting though and had to rest before climbing up onto the next one. By the time they reached the top of the stanchion, Naif’s arms and shoulders ached from being pulled, her legs and arms were scraped from bumping against the rough metal and she was exhausted.

‘Jarrold?’

He was lying next to her in a small mud cave above the top rung, not moving.

She leaned over him, alarmed.

He expelled a big breath in her face and laughed. ‘You’re heavier than you look.’

Naif punched him on the arm. Suki would have had a clever remark to make, but Naif couldn’t think of one. She was desperate to get out; claustrophobia had hold of her now they were in a smaller space again. Darts of panic shot through her stomach. She pushed her fist into her belly to banish them.

Jarrold relit the stub of the candle. His hands were steady. ‘This last bit we need to crawl up the tree root.’

Unlike their descent from the other end of the bridge where there’d been space to move, their path was a tiny tunnel, barely wide enough to fit Jarrold.

Crawling upward, using a long, thick tree root for grip, was the hardest thing Naif had ever done. Each movement strained her muscles to their limit. Roots and rocks scraped her skin and she tasted dirt in her mouth. Her nose clogged with the smell of it and she had to close her eyes to keep them from stinging. Tears poured down her face but she refused to sob. Or to stop. She lost track of time, doing her best to shut Lenoir’s concern out of her mind.

Only when her head brushed Jarrold’s hand did she pause.

‘Wondering where you were?’ he said as he reached down and helped drag her out of the hole.

She lay still for a time breathing and crying silently.

Jarrold let her be, neither speaking nor insisting she move on.

When she’d caught her breath and her senses righted, she became aware that they were in the dark corner of a room lit only by light coming down some stairs on the far side.

‘We made it,’ said Jarrold when he saw her sitting up.

She still couldn’t speak. She swallowed to ease her throat and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes to clear the dirt and tears.

Jarrold didn’t seem in a hurry to move either. Instead, he felt for her hand and pressed some bread into it.

She sucked it for a while until her jaw would work. Once she’d swallowed the crumbling dough, her spirits and energy lifted a little.

‘There’s more food upstairs. Gurney and I left some when we came before. And there’s a bucket of rainwater at the back door.’

She nodded. That was good. She was thirsty.

He handed her some cheese. ‘All we need to do now is get up the stairs.’