Читать книгу Coldmarch - Daniel Cohen A. - Страница 20

Chapter Seven

Split’s hands moved like heat lightning as he scooped out mounds of ash, burned leaves, and slag from the small pit in the floor. Tossing the residue aside, he wiped his hands on his already ruined shirt, leaving long black smudges. The air in the shack quickly became dusty and thick from the flurry of upended Droughtweed remains, making me hold my breath so I didn’t cough or inhale too much. Once the plant touched fire, the smell turned from earthy to sickly sweet. The tang caught in the back of my throat and reminded me of things of which I didn’t want to be reminded.

I looked at the Ice, over which Split had reverently draped his thin sleeping blanket, making sure that it wasn’t sullied by his senseless digging.

Cam leaned in and whispered in my ear. ‘I don’t think this is the time for him to huff Droughtweed and go on some vision quest, Spout.’

‘I’m not sure that’s what’s happening,’ I said. ‘You add leaves to make the slag more potent, you don’t wipe it clean.’

‘You do know your stuff. Can you say something to him?’ Cam asked. ‘I don’t think he likes me very much.’

I nodded, making my tone as gentle as possible. Split’s reactions were interesting to behold, making me wonder if I should have kept the Coldmaker secret.

‘Split,’ I said gently. ‘Perhaps it’s not the best time for that. We should be moving, and it’s best we take our wits along.’

Split had already removed most of the old deposit, and he grabbed a new strip of boilweed, wiping the pit clean. The cleaning didn’t make much sense, knowing from my weeks beholden to the Roof Warden that compounding the grey residue only made the visions and high stronger. He was ruining his supply.

‘Meshua and Ice,’ Split said to himself, his coughs coming out grey. ‘Wits don’t exist any more. So I have to get Baba Levante. I have to get Baba Levante. I made a promise that I would.’

‘Split,’ I said again, hoping the sound of his name might snap him back to reality. ‘We have to get moving.’

‘Absolutely,’ Split said, practically shining the pit now. ‘But first we have to go under.’

Shilah had returned to her place near the Khatclock, scrutinizing the edges for signs of a secret passageway the device might be hiding.

‘Okay,’ Split said, stopping and sitting back on his thin ankles, looking over the pile of ash and slag next to the pit. ‘It’s ready.’

I swallowed, taking a step back. ‘I don’t do that any more.’

I thought back to Old Man Gum from my childhood, curious about what event had sent him over the edge of sanity. We had to respect him, since he was the oldest and most weathered in the barracks, but no one ever took his babbling seriously. Now I had to know, who put what in the ground? Had the crazy loon from my past, with his toothless mouth and wild eyes, known about this Meshua as well?

‘Girl,’ Split said gently, still staring into the pit. ‘Shaylah. You can do it now. Open the clock and give it a turn.’

‘Shilah,’ she corrected firmly.

‘Fine,’ Split said, waving a hand. ‘Just don’t look at me.’

Shilah lifted the glass off the face of the machine. She didn’t seem nearly as lost as Cam and I in all of this. She spun the hands one full rotation in the same way Mama Jana had, and the large Eye clicked open, revealing gears behind. But instead of causing the whole creation to swing forwards, the Khatclock stayed where it was.

The floor opened up.

With an angry creak, the bottom of the Droughtweed pit fell to the side, revealing a tight passageway wide enough only for one person. Thin stairs dropped down into the darkness at an alarming angle, steep and slick.

Split coughed at the wave of dust stirred up by the floor’s disappearance, and gave a satisfied nod, his body visibly loosening. ‘Okay, let’s be quick. They’re going to be coming for us.’

Cam covered his mouth and spoke between fingers. ‘Shivers and Frosts, Spout. What is he—’

Split turned to Cam, his eyes still red and raw. ‘You don’t get to touch anything down here.’

Cam turned up his palms, taken aback. ‘Why are you singling me out?’

Split scoffed, turning back around and threading himself through the hole. ‘Tavors.’

Once the Pedlar had disappeared into the secret chamber, a tiny light blossomed within, casting flickering shadows back up the stairs. Shilah came over and gave the back of my neck a squeeze, her fingers lingering on my tattooed numbers. ‘He’s right. About what we made.’

‘Hmm?’ I asked.

She pointed to the Ice, and then, without another word, followed the Pedlar into the hidden space. Her upright posture was perfect for slipping down the steep stairs, and the grey dust swirled and eddied in the wake of her swift descent.

A sudden gasp returned back up, but it sounded more of awe than danger.

I clapped Cam on the shoulder, finally wanting to smile at the adventure in it all. I should have been dead a dozen times over – we all should have – but my father would have been proud to watch me attempt this Coldmarch. There was no time for me to grieve, so I knew the second best thing was to do his memory proud. Abb had had a great sense of humour, but an even greater sense of story.

‘Better keep those hands to yourself, Tavor,’ I whispered with a smirk, hovering over the open pit listening to the sounds of muffled conversation.

Cam’s face fell. ‘I wasn’t going to touch anything.’

‘I was joking,’ I said as quickly as I could.

‘Oh.’ Cam gave me a sullen look. ‘You seemed serious.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I said. ‘I was just kidding.’

Cam waved it away. ‘No, I know that. It was funny.’

I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re family. I don’t lump you with the rest of— I just—’

Cam’s smile grew wider, but I could see his true expression behind his eyes, as if I’d punched him in the gut, or taken a taskmaster’s whip and added to the scars on his back.

‘It’s okay,’ Cam said.

‘No, we—’ I tried, my stomach sinking. ‘You’re not—’

‘It’s okay, Mic— Spout,’ Cam said with a nod, finding his eyes on the hole instead of my face. ‘Let’s go see what this crazy Pedlar is hiding.’

I pressed my teeth together, promising myself I’d make it up to Cam later. Before going into the chamber I slung the Coldmaker bag over my shoulder, wincing as a metal edge of the machine caught my injured wrist.

‘You can leave it up here,’ Cam said in a gentle manner. ‘I don’t think anyone is going to take it.’

‘I know,’ I said, but couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the machine behind. ‘But just in case.’

Then I proceeded down the stairs, holding the bag close and trying not to slip. Since I only had one good grabbing hand to begin with, I had to keep most of my body pressed sideways for balance, the lips of the stairs scraping into my ribs, worsened by the weight of the machine.

But once I settled at the bottom, I was unable to withhold my own gasp.

The place was a museum.

Or a tomb.

Or a vision.

Or the finest shop, selling equal parts treasure and equal parts dust.

I couldn’t tell.

‘What is this place?’ I asked, clutching my machine close.

This was completely unlike the other secret chamber we’d discovered since starting the March. Even though we’d found spaces with little shrines and gifts from past flocks, mostly those rooms had consisted of crude drawings on clay walls.

This third chamber made the first seem practically empty.

Split’s chamber was the size of a small Cry Temple, the ceiling high enough that even Slab Hagan – the tallest Jadan from my barracks – wouldn’t have been able to touch the top without a stool. Two dark corridors snaked away near the back of the room, dimly lit by a fresh candle flickering on a centre table. Overstocked shelves rose up from every available part of the stone floor, bursting at the seams with artefacts and maps and tapestries and treasures that screamed at us from every corner of the room, dizzying in their array and sense of age. Statues. Beaded clothing. Pottery. Jewellery. Scrolls. Everything down here had a tinge of neglect, but even under the shawls of dust, the items glowed with personality and life.