Читать книгу Shade’s Children - Гарт Никс, Garth Nix - Страница 15

CHAPTER SEVEN

After a single, bewildering night in the Submarine, Gold-Eye found himself outside again soon after dawn the next morning. Under the finger wharf, up to his armpits in extremely cold sea water.

This time his rags were gone, replaced with the dark-green coveralls the others wore. From his wide leather belt a sword and other equipment hung, including a length of rope, added to the basic equipment after the team’s recent experience. His hair was also greatly changed; he had practically none left. Just a thin layer of fuzz remained after an electric razor had removed months of hair and matted dirt.

Ella, Drum and Ninde were there too. Uncharacteristically quiet, in Ninde’s case. She stood as far away from Drum and Ella as she could and didn’t look up at anyone.

They waded in silence to the drain entrance, where Drum helped everybody up from below and then clambered up himself with the assistance of all three pulling on one thigh-like arm.

“OK,” said Ella, taking out her Myrmidon witchlight and squeezing it on. “Flashlights on? All working? Good. Now, we’re going to take the Main Drain to the Main Junction, then South Drain Twelve. We’ll have to count manholes from the junction – Ninde, I want you to do that to check me. We’ll exit at manhole twenty-seven, which is inside the University grounds.

“If we get separated for any reason, you’ve got two choices. If you’re not hurt and you think everyone else will make it, aim for the South Drain Twelve rendezvous. Otherwise, return to the Sub and report to Shade. Any questions?”

“Yes,” said Gold-Eye, mindful of Shade’s instruction that it was good to have questions. “How tell which drain?”

“Good question,” said Ella. “I forgot you’re new. Look over here.”

She walked a little further up the drain, adjusting her stance to the curve of the tunnel and the patches of ambitious green slime that left the water to climb up the walls. About ten feet in from the entrance, she held the witchlight up to illuminate a bronze plaque.

Looking closer, Gold-Eye saw that it read, ADIT 10 EAST. PCW.

“Ten East is what we call the Main Drain,” explained Ella. “It leads to the Main Junction – which we’ll pass through – and becomes Ten West. For all the other drains, we use the exact names on these bronze plates – which are always this high and located about this far in from any junction or outfall. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” confirmed Gold-Eye, with a noticeable rise in confidence. He’d thought they all just memorised the entire storm-water drain grid and had extraordinary senses of direction – even down here in the dark, watery corridors.

“OK. Check swords,” said Ella, drawing hers half out of the sheath to make sure it ran free. The others copied her action, Gold-Eye somewhat nervously. He’d been given it the night before by Sim, the cheerful older boy who seemed to look after an awful lot on the Sub, not just new arrivals.

Gold-Eye had had half an hour of practice with the sword the night before, but it was still the sharpest, heaviest weapon he’d ever handled. The steel blade was etched with gold in swirly lines that Sim had said “disrupt the creatures’ electromagnetic nervous systems.” He’d laughed and nodded when Gold-Eye had asked, “Does that help kill him?”

“Everybody ready?” asked Ella as Gold-Eye finally managed to put his sword back into the sheath. “OK. I’ll go first – then Ninde – then Gold-Eye. Drum, you take rear guard. Let’s go!”

Her words echoed into the dark tunnel ahead and were lost in the soft burble of the descending waters. The four followed the echo, the gold pool of witchlight and the harsh white beams of the flashlights, bobbing and spinning as they jumped from side to side along the tunnel, seeking the best and fastest footing.

An hour later Ella called the first rest break. It was hard work walking in the tunnel, with one foot always higher up the curve and many patches of slime to jump over. Then there were the junctions with lesser tunnels, to be waded across using ropes or linked arms. Always there was the oppressive darkness, the sudden heat as hot water flowed in from a side tunnel – and the fear when the burbling water rose to a roar, fear subsiding as the water returned to its steady flow.

They rested in a small chamber above the tunnel, reached by a rusty steel ladder that rose up through the ceiling of the tunnel and on up another twenty feet. Remnants of pre-Change times filled it, arcane objects known to them from videos and training lessons: a mildewed map of the drains on the wall, next to a pictorial calendar of naked women, now clothed in mould; two hard hats on hooks; an open tool kit on the floor, filled with rusted objects.

“We’re pretty close to the Main Junction,” Ella said as she handed out bars of chocolate. These were still pristine in their foil wrappers, despite a fifteen-year wait on supermarket shelves, a wait broken only when they were retrieved by the teams Shade sent scavenging.

“There are two upper walkways well above the water – in addition to the walkways around the sides, which tend to be a bit submerged. We’ll be taking those. So we’ll stop a bit short to listen for Myrmidons, let Ninde concentrate, and so on. If you have any of your visions, Gold-Eye, speak up.”

They ate in silence after Ella spoke, sipping from their water bottles. It was hot and airless in the room and Gold-Eye felt himself drifting off into sleep. As his head nodded forward, he felt the familiar grip of the soon-to-be-now – but just as the vision was about to come to him, Ninde shook him and it was lost.

“Come on!” said Ninde, switching on her flashlight. “We’re going.”

Gold-Eye followed her with the pressure of an unrealised vision throbbing at his temples and a sick swirling emptiness in his stomach. His glimpses of the soon-to-be-now were nearly always warnings of something bad about to happen – but not always. For a moment he considered telling Ella, but decided against it. Maybe he had felt like he was about to have a vision only because Ella had mentioned it…

But when they started walking along the drain again, the vision did come back. Gold-Eye let out a yelp and nearly fell against Ninde, who just managed to hold him up.

In his head, Gold-Eye saw water rushing along two tunnels, filling them both completely, speeding along in a frenzy of white froth – then cascading out into an enormous pool where many tunnels met. Trapped in his vision, Gold-Eye still realised that this was the Main Junction and the great rush of water was filling it. In moments it would begin a mad, headlong rush towards the sea. Along Ten East. The Main Drain.

“Water!” he shrieked, coming out of the vision. “Flood!”

Even as he cried out, a rumbling, deep roar vibrated through the tunnel, displaced air rushed past their faces – and the first small wave heralded the smashing waters to come.

“Back!” shouted Ella. “Back to the ladder!”

The others had already turned and in a second were running, dancing, slipping back along the tunnel. The sound of the water behind them rose as they ran, and the waves were soon slapping the backs of their knees and then their backs – and still the main flood was building in the surge reservoir they knew as the Main Junction.

“Up! Up!” Drum called as Gold-Eye arrived panting at the ladder. Holding the steel upright with one hand, he picked Gold-Eye up with the other and practically hurled him through the hole in the ceiling, and Ninde after him.

Then, with a ferocious, frothing howl, the flood hit.

Water geysered up the ladder shaft, exploding around Gold-Eye and Ninde as they desperately climbed higher. For a second, both were nearly plucked away, nostrils, mouth and lungs filled with forced water. Then, as quickly as it came, the water disappeared, leaving them coughing and crying on the ladder.

Ninde’s flashlight still hung on its cord around her wrist. She fumbled her light downward, but it illuminated only the subsiding waters. There was no sign of Ella or Drum.

“They’re gone,” she sobbed. “Gone.”

Gold-Eye heard her faintly, the words fuzzy in his water-logged ears. He felt weak, unable to speak, barely capable of holding on. His hands hurt, the knuckles cracking, unable to relax his deathly grip on the worn steel rungs.

“We shouldn’t have come out,” Ninde sobbed. “I knew it was wrong…”

“Ninde…” Gold-Eye said, suddenly less worried about himself as her muttering and crying rose in intensity and volume. “Ninde!”

She stopped in mid breath, choked and broke into a fit of coughing. When it stopped, she seemed calmer. Gold-Eye felt calmer too, as if his state of mind was directly dependent upon hers.

“Ninde,” he said again. “Can you do… mind-listen… people?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Ninde said, half coughing the words. “They’re drowned. I can’t hear what dead people think!”

Gold-Eye said nothing. Ninde coughed a few more times, then said, “I suppose I could try. Not from here, though.”

“Safe to go down?” asked Gold-Eye. He couldn’t see past Ninde.

“Yeah,” replied Ninde, shining her flashlight down again. “I guess… I guess it was a quick one. The water looks about w-waist high.”

“We go then?” asked Gold-Eye. “Look for Ella and Drum?”

“I suppose,” said Ninde doubtfully. She withdrew her elbows, which had been locked around the rungs. “I guess if it was the other way around, they’d look for us. And Drum is very strong. If they hung on to the ladder for long enough…”

She started climbing down, Gold-Eye following close behind – and then suddenly stopped, just at the top of the tunnel.

“What?” asked Gold-Eye anxiously.

“The last part of the ladder’s missing,” Ninde replied, her voice flat. “It’s just broken off. We’ll have to hang and drop.”

“Wait!” cried Gold-Eye as Ninde prepared to lower herself from the last rung. “Rope! We use rope!”

ARCHIVE MISSION ORDERS 3651 • STELO

Stelo:	You want us to what?
Shade:	Capture a Winger.
Stelo:	How?
Shade:	The tethered goat.
Stelo:	What?
Shade:	It’s an old trick, used for capturing wild carnivores. Tigers, for example. You tether a goat to a stake. When the animal comes to eat the defenceless goat, you kill or capture it.
Stelo:	We haven’t got a goat.
Shade:	No. It’ll have to be one of your team. Pretending to be hurt or unconscious – to attract a Winger.
Stelo:	Great… How do we stop the rest of the flight dropping in?
Shade:	Simple. Have the decoy lie somewhere only one can land. In between a fence and a building, perhaps…
Stelo:	I don’t like it.
Shade:	I need a Winger to examine. Theoretically they’re too heavy to fly. I need to find out how they do… It’s very important to the struggle, Stelo. And the tethered goat will work.
Stelo:	Have you used it before?

Shade:	Yes.
Stelo:	Did it work?
Shade:	Oh, yes. Not with a Winger, but we got a Tracker once.
Stelo:	Whose team did it?
Shade:	No one you know, Stelo. Long before your time, my boy. Now, I want you to get started tomorrow…