Redoubt (21 page)

Piles of rock pounded into gravel at the hammer mill were brought here after sorting.
Master Cole’s daughters and youngest sons did that; a lot of sparklies were pounded
out by those hammers, fracturing the rock around them but not the crystals themselves.
The kiddies got the gravel when the Pieters siblings were done with it. The sorting
house was a pleasanter place by far than the sluices. You were allowed to sit down.
The doors and windows stood open to the breeze in summer. There was a fire in there,
come winter. The only time the kiddies ever saw a fire was when there were leaves
and trash being burned or they took a turn as a kitchen drudge because a drudge had
took sick. The sorting house was clean and bright, and the work was just tedious,
not back-breaking. But, then, that was to be expected, since the Pieters kids served
there . . . and it was rare indeed that anyone else got a turn in the place. Usually
old man Cole or his wife or one of the older boys would bend their heads to work there
before they let a kiddie in the door. It had happened once to Mags’ knowledge, the
year that an ague and a flux went through the whole place, carrying off two Pieters
kids and several servants, but leaving the mineworkers oddly alone. Maybe even a fever
realized what a misery their lives were and figured they had enough punishment.

Or maybe the gods were bastards.

It was so hot today!

Mags stood at the head of the third sluice, with his back to the afternoon sun. Not
a good position on a day this hot, but the bigger, tougher fellers got the spots in
the shade. He got the pan that had been left by the kiddie on the last shift under
the sluice, scooped up enough to cover the bottom from the gravel pile next to him
and began swirling the gravel in the running water, watching for the glint of something
colored and shiny.

So hot . . . so hot . . . almost as hot as it had been that night, on the roof.

Wait, what roof?

Because he remembered a roof, remembered crouching up there, in a place where no kiddie
was allowed to be, but it was night. It was night, and the stars were hidden behind
a cloud, and there was that
watching,
the same as the ghost in the shaft, watching him . . . but he ignored it because
it had been doing that for days now, and nothing had ever happened. Everyone said
it would fade eventually, then go, as the ghost lost its hold on the world.

Everyone said so. Even Dallen.

Dallen? Who’s—

He kept his nose on his business, sending the gravel down the sluice when it was panned
out, concentrating on the sweat trickling down his back as a counter to the cramps
and numbing of his hands and arms, and the overpowering heat, and watching in that
peculiarly unfocused state that let him spot the tiny sparks of color and light that
others missed. The little wooden dish at his side filled steadily.

But who’s Dallen?

* * *

The pain in his back and arms was nearly unbearable. He couldn’t remember a time when
he’d hurt this bad, not ever. It felt as if someone had tied his arms behind his back
and left them there, and they were cramping. Yet, somehow, his hands and arms were
doing the job they were supposed to do.

Supposed to do? How could his limbs hurt this badly and still be working, as if the
pain belonged to some other body?

Someone had been working his seam last night. Which meant that it might need a support.
The cripples that worked the night shift were mostly crazy as well as crippled, and
they weren’t nearly as particular about safety as he was. He was back in the good
seam again, which meant that . . . that ghost might be there. He tried not to think
about it, found that he couldn’t, and instead just whispered to it in his head, over
and over.
I ain’t hurt ye. I ain’t th’ one t’blame. Go haunt th’ one thet is.
He didn’t dare say anything out loud. The Pieters boys were working nearby and might
hear him. He knew they were certainly listening to make sure he kept working. That
was why Davven got pulled off this shaft. He’d only worked enough to ensure he got
double bread, then slacked off.

He fetched a timber, but that left him able to carry only his chisel and hammer, He
crawled in, found as he had expected that the roof needed shoring, and hammered his
timber in place. Then he went to work.

It was a nightmare. His hands chipped away at the stone, but they felt numb, as numb
as if he’d immersed them in cold water, or slept on them wrong and they’d fallen asleep.
His arms screamed at him, and his back—

Finally he couldn’t take it anymore, and the chisel dropped from his fingers as he
moaned and his eyes closed. Or had they been closed all along? He couldn’t feel rock
under him, it was wood, and it was moving. He wasn’t kneeling, he was lying on his
side. And then came
that voice
again.

“Gabble gabble! GABBLE!”

Hands in his hair, and this time as his head was pulled up, he was able to get his
eyes open a crack. Dim light filtered through canvas felt like staring at the sun.
There was someone between him and the canvas.

Canvas?
Wood?

Someone did something behind his back, and his arms stopped hurting, his back stopped
hurting. He felt first one hand, then the other, pulled around in front of him, as
if they’d been tied behind his back. A finger and thumb pressing hard at the hinges
of his jaw forced his mouth open. The neck of the waterskin was shoved between his
teeth, and he was suddenly aware of that burning thirst. But this time it wasn’t water,
it was a kind of soup or broth, salty and meaty, but with the same bittersweet aftertaste
that the water had had . His head felt thick, as if someone had stuffed him into a
helmet that was too small.

Helmet?

He drank, because otherwise he’d choke. He was let fall again, and this time he actually
felt
something take over him, pulling him back into the mine, and had time to think
drug
before . . .

He knelt to his work in the mine, but he could hear Pieters’ sons talking, working
away in their seams, and they were scared. Absolutely terrified.

“I ain’t never seen anythin’ like it,” said Melak, the third son and Jarrik’s junior.
“I mean, I heerd the stories, but seein’ one—it ain’t right. It was hot-mad and tryin’
and tryin’ t’get in, and every way it got stopped, it just tried a new one. Smart.
Things like that got no right to be as smart as a man.”

“Ain’t just that it’s smart, neither,” Jarrik grumbled. “It’s got the luck of a devil.
Tyndale shot at it, an’ did nothin’ but miss.”

“It scares me. What’s it want?” There was real fear in Melak’s voice, something Mags
was not accustomed to hearing. “Why won’t it go away?”

“It wants somethin’ here, I guess,” Jarrik replied. “Somethin’ or someone. Either
way, Pa ain’t letting it on the property. He swears he’s keepin’ it off.”

“But how?” Melak
almost
wailed the words. “Ye can’t shoot it, ye can’t fence it out, and ye can’t stop it!
We don’ know what it wants! What if it wants to get in here and kill one of us?”

“Why would it—” Jarrik stopped.

“You know why,” Melak said flatly. “You
know
why. It’s more’n half a spirit, too! It could even be—”

“Don’t say it!” Jarrik retorted harshly. “Don’t even
think
it. Let Pa handle it. Let Pa handle it and leave well enough alone!”

Standing there in the dark, listening them talk about something they feared so much
they wouldn’t even put a name to it, Mags shivered. When had this—monster, or whatever
it was—turned up and started besieging the mine? Days ago?

Now a horde of little things began to make sense. The sluices had been left without
a Pieters supervising them, and half the older boys were not at the mine for the past
couple of days. The girls had scarcely been seen out-of-doors and had quickly scuttled
back to the Big House when they did come out. The cooks had been less attentive at
the giving out of the food, and a fair amount of cabbage and scraps had been joining
the broth in the bowls rather than being husbanded in the pot.

At least half the workmen hadn’t been visible over the last three days, either.

This thing they were talking about . . . what was it? A demon?

You know what it is.

The Pieters boys had their own store of tales that they told, pretending to tell them
to each other but really doing it to scare the kiddies working the seams. Most of
the stories were about awful things down here in the mines. There were the ghosts
of anyone that had died down here, and Mags knew of some few. These ghosts went about
looking for someone who was the exact age they had been when they died—and when they
found him, they would tear him apart trying to figure out a way into his body. Like
Jak. Jak, who had been lurking, trying to figure out if Mags was the right size, the
right age, the right person to take over.

You know it isn’t that.

There were the Knockers, twisted up little dwarfs no taller than your knee, but monstrous
strong. They would wait until everyone was preoccupied and then just snatch a kiddie,
grabbing him in his seam before he could utter a sound, bashing his head in with his
own hammer, then dragging off the body to eat.

You know it isn’t that, either.

There were the Whisps, ghostlights that would lead you into dangerous parts of the
mine, then drop a rockfall on you. They’d do it by putting you to sleep, then getting
you to walk in your sleep to where they were going to kill you.

Wake up, Mags, you know what it is!

There were the Horrors, which got into your head and made you crazy, like the night-shift
cripples. When the Horrors got you, all you saw were black things coming at you, all
claws and red eyes, and you’d drive your head against the wall of the shaft to try
to get them out, or you’d make a cave-in yourself to try to stop them, or if they
managed to bring you above the ground, you’d throw yourself down the well to be rid
of them.

But every one of those was a monster
in
the mine. What about out of it? What was roaming about out there that was so scary
the Pieters boys wouldn’t name it, wouldn’t describe it, and didn’t have any bragging
ideas on how to get rid of it?

Suddenly, he didn’t want to leave at the end of the shift.

But you didn’t have to be afraid. Remember!

No, he was afraid that whatever
it
was, it would be up there. Waiting. Watching. The Pieters boys said it was looking
for someone. Some sort of devil. Mags didn’t believe in gods, but he believed, most
fervently, in devils.

And if a devil had come here, there was likely only one person it had come for. Well,
two, maybe, except the boys were saying that Cole Pieters was driving the thing off
himself, so it hadn’t come for Master Cole.

All right, then. It had to be coming for Mags. Because Mags was Bad Blood. It would
grab him and drink his blood to make itself stronger. And then it would carry him
away to torment him forever.

It isn’t a devil. It isn’t a demon.

It’s coming for you, but not to torment you.

He shook his head violently. It was as if there were some other part of him, talking
to him. Some part of him that remembered something important, but what was it?

Drugged. You’re being drugged. Every time they give you something to drink or something
to eat, you’re being drugged. That smoke—it was probably a drug too.

Wait—what?

The mineshaft
had
gone away for a moment. There had been—someone. And that voice saying things he couldn’t
understand.

He shook his head again. This was all wrong, his head was all messed up. Maybe he’d
gotten some taint in his soup, a bit of bad mushroom. It had to have been some sort
of fit, this other part of him talking to him, talking nonsense.

At least his arms had stopped hurting.

Then he thought about that devil out there, and he was terrified all over again. It
was coming for him, it was coming for him, just as it had come for him on the roof.

Like the thing on the roof! That’s what happened! Remember! Fight this and remember!

His heart raced, and he was sweating. And it was so
hot!
The mine had never been so hot. He couldn’t figure it out. Why was the mine so hot?
It was always the same temperature. It had never been hot before.

He was held in a strange paralysis of fear; he couldn’t lift his chisel, and no one
was coming to check to see why he wasn’t working.

If anything, that was even stranger than the gabbling voice. The Pieters boys had
ears like owls; they heard
everything,
and, most especially, they were listening for what wasn’t happening—the steady tap-tap-tapping
coming from ten different shafts. So why weren’t they checking on him?

He realized at that moment that there was no sound of the others chipping away at
the rock either. In fact, there was no sound at all. Just the terrible heat and silence.
And in that heat and silence, his lantern went out.

Now it was heat, and silence, and darkness.

And he was lying on his side.

How could he be lying on his side?

The surface underneath him was wood, and moving, vibrating, and swaying from side
to side. There was cloth over him. He was sweating buckets now, his clothing was soaked
through and—

Clothing?

He was wearing real clothes, just as the Pieters boys did, not rags. He could feel
them on his skin, even if he couldn’t move his arms or legs or open his eyes.

Where had he gotten clothing?

He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t.

His thoughts seemed to be struggling through thick mud. It was so hard to put them
together.

This couldn’t be the mine. And it felt too real to be some sort of fever dream. Or
if it was a fever-dream, it was so impossible that he must be dying of it.