B00DW1DUQA EBOK (23 page)

He was about to speak when the old man, with a snort, finished his reading. He looked up at Finn. His eyes were so lifeless and cold that Finn suddenly couldn’t speak. If this wasn’t Lud, he might be condemning himself by even saying the name. The old man stood and crossed to a shelf of smaller ledgers, bound with red leather. Finn said nothing. The old man’s back was slightly crooked as he walked, bent forwards, as if he was still carrying the clock. With a practiced heave he pulled one of the books off the shelf, carried it back and slammed it onto the desktop in a small explosion of dust.

‘So. Here you are,’ said the old man. ‘Interesting.’

It was the word he’d used the first time, by the gate. If it was him.

‘What’s interesting?’ asked Finn.

‘Thumb.’

‘Pardon?’ asked Finn.

‘Show me your thumb, boy.’

Finn held his thumb out and the man began to inspect it closely, screwing a brass eyepiece into his eye to do so. Finally he grunted, looked at Finn, and said, ‘Yes, you’re definitely you. So, bright spark, are we?’

Finn wasn’t at all clear whether the old man thought this was a good thing or a bad thing. He examined his thumb but could see nothing different about it.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Quick-witted. Clever with your fingers. Good head for heights. Punctual too, apart from this morning.’

‘That’s all written down in there?’

The man held up his hand to quiet Finn. ‘Brave. Understands the line-of-sights. Smart.
Definite
potential. Definite potential. But where are you to go, that’s the question, eh?’ The old man peered up at Finn, as if expecting an answer from him.

‘I thought, perhaps, I should have gone down the spiral staircase, not up. Down to the mines I mean.’

‘Ah, you want to go to the mines, do you? That could be arranged.’

‘No, I... no. I just thought maybe I’d taken the wrong turning. I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing coming up here.’

‘People your age never do the right thing. You’re all as bad as each other, dim-witted and confused. It’s a wonder any of you survive.’

‘I thought you said I was smart?’

The man grunted and stood, the legs of his wooden chair making a sharp, grating sound on the floor with the sudden movement. He plucked a candle from a sconce and crossed the room. He began to study yet another book. Looming shadows danced around him as he read. Then he returned to Finn, his face screwed up into a scowl of disapproval, beady eyes like those of a bird perched there on the chair. He studied Finn through his eyebrows.

‘Do other people come up here?’ asked Finn. ‘I mean, through the postern gate and up the spiral stairs? Have there been others before me?’

‘Think you’re the first do you?’

‘I don’t know. I just wondered. There was a boy recently. Very tall and thin. Did he find his way up here?’

‘No idea,’ said the old man.

‘Then tell me this,’ said Finn. ‘How do people become masters?’

‘Eh?’

The idea had come to him at some point in his wanderings through the tunnels.

‘Is that it? The tests? The masters need to find
new
masters so they give people useless tasks to perform to see who questions it. Perhaps they find out who would make good Ironclads at the same time too, people who obey orders without question?’ He didn’t add that they might also be weeding out wreckers by looking for deliberate acts of sabotage.

‘Oh, you think you’re going to become a master, do you?’

Perhaps. Was that Connor’s plan? But Master Owyn clearly hadn’t understood about the valves. So maybe there was more to it. And if the old man was Lud, Finn saying he wanted to become a master was not going to help his cause.

‘I don’t know,’ said Finn. ‘I just thought.’ How could he tell what he should do? He couldn’t. It had all been so simple back in the valley. Join the wreckers, destroy Engn. But how did he actually do any of that? It was all so much more complicated in reality. He could only do what seemed to him the right thing to do.

The old man still peered at him, as if reading all these thoughts in Finn’s mind. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a wad of yellow papers. With a metal pen he wrote something very slowly on the top one, before tearing it off and handing it to Finn.

‘You’re to go to the Vault. Take this to them. They’ll know what to do with you.’

‘Is that what the masters said I had to do?’

‘It’s what the book says.’

‘But who writes the book?’

The old man ignored his question. ‘You’ll have to look out for the Ironclads on the way. Hide from them. If you can’t hide, I’d suggest running.’

‘But can’t you just tell them to leave me alone?’

‘Me? I just wind the clocks. They don’t take orders from me, boy.’

‘What is this Vault? I don’t know where it is.’

‘Don’t know much do you?’

Finn shook his head.

‘Three miles away,’ said the old man. ‘Towards the Hub.’

‘I don’t know the way.’

‘Take the Grand Junction Walkway. That goes straight there. Obviously.’

‘But I don’t know even what
that
is.’

‘It’s a walkway, isn’t it, boy? A big one. Dear, dear, dear, the people they send us these days.’

‘Can you at least tell me which way I need to go?’

‘That door, that door! Up the Drop Tower. Take the lift. Now leave me in peace.’

The old man returned to examining his book. Finn looked across the room in the direction the old man had indicated. He could dimly make out several other doors over there. He thought about asking the man if he could wait until tomorrow. Sleep here, safe from the Ironclads. Weariness weighed him down.

‘Hurry along,’ said the old man. ‘You’re running out of time.’

What did that mean? Was he supposed to perform the tests by a certain hour? Why would no-one explain the rules to him?

He stood. At least he was being spared the mines. Unless the Vault
was
the mines. Before he set off he hesitated, then grabbed more of the bread from the table. He gulped down more water. He didn’t know when he’d have chance to eat again. The old man appeared not to notice.

Finn picked his way between teetering piles of books and papers to the distant doors. There were three the old man could have meant, each a different size, each heading off in a different direction from the angled walls. Finn pushed open the middle one. A narrow, curving room lay beyond, with yet another flight of stairs leading upwards.

He was about to step through, but he couldn’t leave without asking the old man one more question.

‘Please,’ he said, shouting through the gloom to the bubble of flickering light where the old man worked at his desk. ‘Did a master called Connor tell you about me? Was it he who told you what I was supposed to do?’

The old man didn’t reply, simply waving his arm again without looking up. Finn sighed and stepped through the door.

Finn closed the door behind him. At least he couldn’t see any Ironclads. But he couldn’t face climbing more stairs. He was so exhausted it felt like the ground was sucking him down. The old man had talked about a
lift
. Perhaps it was something like the hay-lifts back home.

The tips of his fingers tingled and throbbed from the chain wrapped tight around his arm. He tried to prise it off but the barbed teeth of the grapple were completely interlocked with the chain’s links. He succeeded only in slicing open the tip of his thumb. Perhaps he should have asked the old man if he had a key.

He sighed and set off, walking past the steps, around the tall, curving wall on his right. He could hear a wooden,
clumping
noise coming from up ahead. A little farther around the wall the room ended at another doorway, although there was no actual door. Instead there was a wall which, incredibly, rushed upwards, giving Finn the dizzying impression he was falling. A gap in the wall flashed by, revealing, momentarily, a small recess like a wooden box. It, too, rushed upwards, and then there was more wall. Was this the lift? Surely he wasn’t supposed to jump into the little wooden room as it flashed by? If he timed it wrong he would be cut in two by the wall.

He thought about stopping where he was, sleeping the night here. He worked his way back round to the door he’d come through, thinking he could slip back inside, perhaps, hide in a dark corner the old man couldn’t see. But the door was locked and couldn’t be opened from this side. And if anyone came down the steps he would be trapped. He had no choice.

Going back to the chute, he stood in front of it for long moments, rehearsing the leap he would need to make each time one of the alcoves shot past. The top of one rose into view. Without thinking what he was doing, he jumped.

He was too quick, if anything. He fell a short way to meet the rising wooden floor of the room. His knees buckled as he landed, tipping him forwards. He fell into the corner and huddled there gratefully, afraid of having a leg or an arm severed by the lip of the wall cutting downwards. The alcove shook as it hurtled upwards. It smelt of wax and oil. The feeling of rapid movement made his stomach lurch with alarm. Darkness swallowed him as the lift bore him upwards.

He wondered how he would know when to get off. Then a doorway flashed by, giving Finn a brief glimpse of a landing with two masters and an Ironclad walking by. Was he supposed to have jumped out then? The lift must be on some sort of belt. When it reached the top it would wrap around and descend again. If he didn’t leave would he be thrown out into the workings or just turned on his head?

The rushing wall began to lighten again. Another doorway approaching. Finn prepared himself to leap out. He wasn’t quick enough. He had a brief glimpse of another figure standing framed in the doorway, surprise and confusion clear on his lined face as he saw Finn. Another master, perhaps, although this one wore orange robes. The master plunged out of sight and the wall returned. This time Finn noticed a small metal plaque on it that said, simply,
Two
. The floor you were approaching or had just passed. He moved as close to the falling wall as he could and peered upwards, waiting for the light of another exit. He saw one coming, the wall lightening to grey. If it was the wrong floor he could always leap back in and ascend further. There was another plaque.
Three
. Finn threw himself towards the light as it sped by. He sprawled on the hard stone of a floor. He tucked his legs out of the way before they could be caught by the lift.

He scrambled to his feet and looked around, his heart pounding. He stood at the edge of a round room. Open arches all around the curving walls let in an icy wind. He looked to be very high up. Within the room, nine or ten people sat in a circle, huddled around a hole that dropped away into darkness. None of them noticed Finn. The only other exit was a square doorway on the far side of the room. He began to creep towards it, hoping to skirt around the sitters without them noticing. He passed underneath one of the glassy orbs set high into the stone of the wall. This one, too, was broken. He could see only his own reflection in it, weirdly distorted as he peered upwards.

A stone channel had been carved into the floor around the lip of the hole: a channel, he saw now, with molten metal flowing around it. The sitters used delicate spoons to scoop up the metal then drop it into the hole. It spat and bubbled and Finn saw one of the sitters gasp and drop his spoon. The man held the back of his hand to his mouth. His hands, all their hands, were mottled with red weals where the molten metal had caught them.

The man glanced across the circle at Finn as he sucked his wounded hand. He said nothing but Finn had the clear sensation of being studied, like the man had deliberately burned himself as an excuse to look up. The others paid no attention, continuing to ladle the red-hot metal into the pit, drop after drop. Finn continued to edge around to the doorway, hoping no-one would stop him or call the Ironclads.

The square doorway led outside onto the grill of a metal platform with five walkways fanning off from it. It was night now, and away from the molten metal, instantly very cold. He was higher up than he’d ever been before. The lights and flames of Engn were all set out beneath him, twinkling away to the horizon like the stars reflecting on water. He felt like he was floating there in the night air, all the roaring and pumping sounds of the machinery hushed by the distance, a little louder then a little quieter as the wind gusted.

What had the old man said? The Grand Junction Walkway. If these were the walkways, then he presumably just needed to take the biggest. But they all looked the same. And it was impossible to tell how far any one of them went. Whether they even went anywhere.

‘Finn.’

Finn span around. The man with the injured hand stood in the doorway, holding his spoon.

‘Finn? It is you isn’t it?’

Something about the man was familiar: his voice, perhaps. He spoke a little like someone Finn knew.

‘I … who are you?’ asked Finn.

The man glanced around, wary. He wasn’t supposed to be doing this. ‘We were told to look out for you. You’ve done well to make it this far.’

‘Who told you? Who are you?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No.’

The man strode up to him and took his hand. Finn looked up at him. The man looked weary, strands of greying hair plastered to his flushed face. But his smile was wide. For some reason it made Finn think of the red apples in their orchard back home.

‘Who are you?’ he asked again.

‘You won’t recognize me I suppose.’

Finn shook his head. He felt very exposed. He and the man would be visible to anyone looking up at them. Surely they could be seen from all over Engn?

‘My name is Rory.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Finn. ‘I don’t know you.’

‘No. I left before you were born. But my mother knows you.’

‘Your mother? I don’t understand.’

But even as the man spoke Finn did understand. He suddenly knew who this was. A memory of his own mother came to him, a day they’d picked blackberries together.
Tom and Rory
she’d said.
Both full of mischief
. Mrs Megrim’s twin boys.