Читать книгу Coldmarch - Daniel Cohen A. - Страница 15

We were stuck underground for much longer than expected.

Whoever had built this part of the Coldmarch had used the natural cracks in the land for a foundation, presumably to decrease the amount of actual digging that needed to be done. Since the Builders had used the existing spaces already waiting underground, the way through ended up being complex and disorientating. The compass told me we were zig-zagging back and forth beneath the city, quite often straying from North. Some of the natural cracks in the earth were huge, the size of Cry Temples, with sporadic holes that plunged downwards into a forever sort of darkness. Often in the distance we heard the sounds of rushing water, leaving me to wonder how close we were to the River Singe. We made sure to follow the red alder line painted at our feet so as not to get lost or stray off the designated path. In other sections the walls became incredibly congested, scarred with hundreds of scratches. I imagined the marks were from bodies and supplies trying to squeeze through.

We had no way to tell time in the darkness, but I imagined it was a few days. We stopped to sleep twice, both times finding sanctuary off the path in case the Vicaress had found her way down here. We only intended to rest for a few hours, just to gather our strength, although it was hard to judge how long we slept, since we had to extinguish the lamp each time to conserve fuel. Shilah and I slept with our bodies pressed together, our arms linked, belts looped together. This was both for warmth, but also for safety, in case something foul tried to snatch one of us away in the dead of night. Shilah thought I was being paranoid, but she was the one who’d suggested the knotted belts. I offered to have Cam sleep on my other side, tied to us, but he kept declining, insisting on staying awake and keeping guard. I’d told him this was unnecessary, since he wouldn’t be able to see, but he wouldn’t listen, keeping at the edges of whatever nook in which we took refuge, constantly vigilant.

By the third leg of the trip his eyes were as red as the alder line.

He also refused to eat any more of the figs. They didn’t last long anyway.

Not much was said as we made the journey. There was no reason for the silence, but I had a feeling Cam and Shilah were nervous for the same unsaid reason. None of us wanted to be the one to startle something ancient living down here in the dark. So far there had been no red eyes or grinding of unseen fangs, but anything was possible so far beneath the sands of Paphos. The world was different down here, cool and dark, and apart from the threat of Hookmen and Firegogs, it was a fitting start towards paradise. There was no Sun to bake us dry, no taskmasters waiting to scar our backs, no Nobles using our bodies for their own gain. For the Jadans who took their chances on the March, it would have been their first taste of peace.

‘Do you like being called Jadans?’ Cam asked, his quiet voice thunderous after so much silence. We were trudging through a thin clay corridor with crystal cones hanging above our heads and sometimes reaching the floor. The pointy wedges made it feel as if we were threading our way through a giant mouth. There had still been no sign of the Vicaress on our heels, no flaming dagger in the dark, so we’d been able to slow the pace down a bit. The overall mood had grown a bit lighter, since, despite the constant threat of danger, we had yet to be eaten. Even I was feeling the smallest twinges of hope. Unfortunately, every time my chest tried to kindle the sensations into happiness, all I could think about were the names carved into the ‘lost’ wall.

I examined a particularly thick crystal tooth, wondering what sort of benefit the shiny material might have offered crushed up. Leroi would have known.

‘As opposed to?’ I asked Cam, ducking low as I moved away, so as not to be speared by the tip.

‘Well,’ Cam said, lowering his voice. ‘Since the Great Drought, there’s a negative connotation involved with the word.’

Shilah glared back at us.

‘Not that I think anything is wrong with it,’ Cam said quickly. ‘It’s just that I’ve heard my brother and uncles – and obviously my father – say “Jadan” with such hate. They make it sound worse than saying slave. Is there something else you want to be called? Because I’ll call you that if you want.’

‘What brought this on?’ I asked.

‘I figure if we get out of here alive then—’ Cam got flustered, the crystal cones gently reflecting the redness of his cheeks. ‘I don’t know, I thought that maybe you’d want your people to be called something else. And I could be the one to start it now. It’s dumb, sorry. Forget it.’

‘When we bring things back to how they were supposed to be,’ Shilah said with a snort, ‘just don’t call us Nobles.’

Cam adjusted the bags of supplies on his shoulder so he could avoid a crystal pillar more easily. I imagined the bags must have grown quite cumbersome after so long, not as much as my burden, but unwieldy nonetheless.

‘Just forget it,’ he said.

‘It’s considerate of you.’ I tried to sound consoling. ‘But Jadan is something to be proud of. If anything, we’ll just have to change the connotation.’

‘Whatever you need,’ Cam said, giving an agreeable bow, as low as he could manage without spilling everything. His eyes went to Shilah. ‘Just let me know.’

I stared back at him, blinking a few times. The lantern light barely reached him, and his shiny yellow hair now looked black from all the dirt and dust it had attracted.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’ I nodded, noting his eyes had moved to the Coldmaker. ‘I believe you.’

I licked my finger and touched the nearest pillar, bringing it back to my mouth. My tongue recognized the delight better than my eyes.

‘Salt,’ I said.

Cam immediately reached up and cracked off the tip of the nearest pillar, stuffing it in the bag. Shilah shot him a look, as if reminding him we shouldn’t be drawing attention to ourselves.

Cam licked his dry lips. ‘When we get to Langria we’ll have to have a feast, and I can say I brought the free Jadans salt from the Coldmarch. As a gift.’

I smiled, although it didn’t climb past my lips.

‘And,’ Cam said with a glimmer of pride, ‘you need salt for the Coldmaker, right? To keep the Charge.’

‘Good thinking,’ I said with a nod. ‘Let’s get a few.’

Shilah shrugged, and we all snapped off a handful of salt each, adding it to Cam’s supply bag. I pressed my hands to my nose afterwards, but there wasn’t any scent.

‘Salt and Abbs and revolution,’ Cam said as we started moving again, following the alder. He immediately stopped and then gestured for Shilah to lead us, giving her a respectably wide berth. ‘It should be quite the feast.’

Our next stop took place beside a tiny stream, which had carved a shallow bed into smooth rock as it cascaded endlessly into the darkness. We’d heard the rushing waters from the alder path and wound our way to its shores to fill up our waterskins. Gentle currents had brushed the endless tunnel wide, making the passage seem both frightening and serene. The waters were some of the most delicious I’d ever tasted, possibly because they’d been kept away from Sun for an eternity. We only needed to add the smallest slices of Abb to get them to cool.

The journey had already begun to thin Cam out, his voice hollow and cheeks sunken. I asked him to sleep. Begged him even. It ended up taking three direct commands to get him to agree to shut his eyes for one hour. I gave him much longer. While he snored, one foot hanging limp in the waters, Shilah and I talked of fragile things. She kept dipping one finger in the water and bringing it over my hand, letting the single droplets fall on the back of my palm. She did this until the puddle at my feet trickled its way back to the source, rarely meeting my eyes as we spoke.

We talked of meeting out in the dunes behind my barracks, when I invited her to join our family, but instead she disappeared out into the sands. She told me she used the Rope Shoes that I’d traded her for the Khatmelon quite a bit, which is something I’d always wondered. We joked about the days working with Leroi back in the Tavor tinkershop, hiding under the floor grate whenever anyone unfamiliar came knocking. We discussed at length all the plants she’d cultivated for Little Langria. About where she got the soil and seeds, and vines. About the humour of the weaver beetles that lived on her persimmons. She asked about the feather I’d scratched into the wall, and I told her about Matty and the board game we were creating; how close we’d come to finishing. About how Moussa, Matty, and I lessened the harsh tinge of the day by playing ‘whatsit’, where we made up stories to go along with the shapes of our bruises. She told me of the time she visited the Hotland Delta, having stowed away on a merchant ship. About how the High Nobles there had a certain ritual that they performed each night to pay tribute to the Crier. Each Sundown they would fold little boats out of Droughtweed and sail them along the Singe, a single Wisp floating in each hull. Shilah’s smirk was stupendous as she told me how she would wait downstream with a net to collect the boats. Over the course of a week she’d made a small fortune.

I told her what it was like with such a large family.

She told me what it was like to live alone.

We didn’t mention my father or her mother once.

Some things can live delicately in memory, but shatter when put into words.

We didn’t have much fuel left for the lantern, so I had to wake up Cam sooner than I would have liked. He whimpered at my touch, but when he grew conscious his face hardened and he sprang to his feet, grabbing our supply bags and empty basket of figs, leading us back to the path.

Finally, after more endless tunnels, the single red line led us to our escape. The sleek and spindly cave once again widened into a proper chamber, funnelling us towards an actual way out. The wooden slab was slanted so much it was nearly horizontal, and no light spilled in through the cracks on the sides, but it looked like salvation nonetheless.

Wiping the layered crust of dirt from my forehead, I debated thanking the Crier for getting us here alive – but I decided that I was only ready to open one door at a time right now.

Cam pointed to the tilted door in front of us and the buckets sitting at its base, lowering his voice. ‘Where do you think it lets out?’

‘Honestly,’ I said, matching his volume. ‘I’ve been so turned around this entire time I have no clue.’

Shilah brought the lantern over to the door, where something was written in more alder. As she scanned the lines, her lips moved and I couldn’t help but notice how full and plump they were. My focus shifted to her hair, long and tattered and matted with dirt. And her eyes, spilling over with all the sad things she’d already seen in this world.

‘Imagine if we didn’t have a lantern,’ Cam said quietly. ‘And we had to do this whole thing in the dark.’

‘We almost did,’ I said, pointing to the oil reserves, which were dangerously low.

‘Right now we’re at the edge of the Drylands, just North of Paphos,’ Shilah read. ‘Two days’ walk until the next stop on the Coldmarch. The shack is in the bottom of the three-humped valley, and will be marked by a green streak over the threshold.’ She turned to us with pinched lips, pointing to the empty buckets. ‘It says please take all the water and Cold we need. And may the Crier watch over our family.’

‘Two days.’ Cam did the sums in his head, looking into the bag of supplies. ‘No food, but plenty of water. Should we wait until night-time to leave?’

Shilah peered back into the dark chamber, the shadows flickering and ominous. ‘Not sure we’ll have until night.’

Pressing my fingers against the door, I found that it didn’t have much give. There was no latch to undo, and the hinges told me that it was set up to swing outwards.

‘We need to push together,’ I said.

Gathering ourselves, we gave the door a hard, collective shove. The pressure should have made the wood budge at least, but it was immovable.

‘Is it locked?’ Cam asked. ‘Want to try the trick with Ice in the lock again, Spout?’

I ran my fingernail around the cracks at the edges of the door, noting the gritty sand. ‘I don’t think there’s a lock. Just ten years of sand pressing down on the other side.’

‘You think we’re under a dune?’ Shilah asked, crossing her arms.

‘I took a girl to see the Drylands once,’ Cam said, looking down and scratching the back of his neck. ‘And from what I remember they’re pretty barren, but it’s possible the dunes have shifted.’

Shilah put a hand on the door, as if to ask it through touch. ‘I don’t think it would let out so close to the dunes. Maybe the Khat barred it from the other side when he found out?’

Cam put both arms on the door and shoved again, the vein in his neck showing heavily through his light skin. He started pounding on the door with his shoulder to try to get more leverage, but I quickly put a hand on his arm to stop him.

‘We have to be quiet and strong,’ I said. ‘We don’t know what’s out there.’

We all tried to push at the same time again, but the door wouldn’t budge more than a hair upwards. It was then I noticed the middle of the wood distending inwards, gently caving under all the weight.

‘Wait,’ I said, remembering myself. ‘Let me see that knife.’

Shilah reached under her dress and unstrapped the knife from her thigh. She handed over the blade and I tried not to think about the heat lingering in the metal.

Cam stared at the blade, his eyes softening.

‘In case of the Vicaress?’ she asked. ‘You still think this is a trap?’

‘No,’ I said, going to work on the door’s hinges. ‘I’m just trying to think like an Inventor.’

Leroi had taught me that when it came to tinkering, sometimes the best answer was also the simplest. The door may have been intended to open upwards, but Inventors worked with their own intentions. After a flurry of careful twisting and prising, the hinges groaned, letting me know things were about to give.

‘Get back,’ I warned, heart pounding as I gave the blade back to Shilah and reluctantly handed the Coldmaker over to Cam.

I made the final twists by hand, and the metal cracked, the horizontal door giving way under an explosion of sand. An entire dune practically spilled into the cavern and pushed me backwards. Smacking my head against the wall, everything went a hazy beige as I tumbled to the ground, instantly buried up to my waist.

Things settled, and my head throbbed as I spat the sand out of my cheeks.

Arms threaded beneath mine, helping me up and out of the slice of dune, and hoisting me through the threshold. Shilah said something by way of appreciation, but my head was still ringing too heavily to make it out.

My friends kept a steady hold of both my sides, carrying me back into the glaring Sunlight, where I shook the sand out of my ears. Indeed, we had emerged North of the city, the brown land compact and walkable. There were plenty of boulders for cover, although the air up here tasted more dead and dusty than I was used to. Once I had found my footing, I took a look back at distant Paphos, just barely able to make out the web of streets and monuments and barracks and shops and temples and walled gardens and High Noble Manors and the First Khat’s Pyramid, all built on the backs and blood of my people.

‘Come on, Inventor,’ Shilah said, gripping my elbow. ‘We should get moving. We won’t be safe until we get to that shack.’

I nodded to the city, promising I’d be back to set it free.

And then we marched North.