B00DW1DUQA EBOK (34 page)

They filed away towards a rack of iron axes and scrapers and large, leather brushes that were clearly used to apply the tar. Finn took one of each and, following Tom, walked up to the wheel. Graves, some way ahead of him in the line, glanced back at him. Finn looked away. He had more important things to worry about.

They worked all that day, stripping and recaulking three complete room-sized buckets. The wood was green where the water had washed away the old layers of tar and some of it was mushy and soft. The stench of the treacly, black liquid made Finn retch and cough as he worked. He tried to keep his mouth shut as he scraped and brushed but it made no difference. The smell crept inside him. They had to work fast, before the tar cooled and solidified in the bucket. That inevitably meant they all got splashed with it.

At all times they listened out for the bell. The slow, inexorable tilt of each bucket was alarming. Finn felt safest when the wheel was at its lowest point, the high wooden walls on each side reassuring. As the wheel continued to turn, the floor became steeper and steeper and they had to step down onto what had been the wall. Eventually, this became horizontal, then continued to tip, now with nothing to stop them being pitched out. The Ironclad watching from the ground below made sure the scoop was completely recaulked before ringing the bell. Several times they had to work away as the angle of the floor became almost too steep to cling onto. Below them was just the gaping vault of air and the fall down to the distant ground.

Finally, they were allowed to rest, clambering onto the rickety ladders lashed to the wheel’s frame. As they trudged back to their camp, another crew of workers stood in line, waiting to take their place. Finn’s head throbbed from the fumes he’d been breathing in all day. He drank three cups of water but, unable to face any food, lay down to sleep as soon as he could.

Bells awoke him, the same urgent clanging note, over and over. Something was wrong. He sat up, wondering how long he had slept. Of course, it was impossible to say in the eternal twilight of the caves, but he had the impression hours had passed by.

A group of workers stood at the base of the wheel. An Ironclad clanged the bell nearby. Everyone looked upwards. Finn, following their gaze, saw that one of the workers hadn’t climbed down in time. He now dangled from the lip of the tilting bucket, holding onto some ridge in the wood with one hand. Finn watched as tools and then a tub of tar slid down the wooden side of the rising bucket to fall to the ground.

For a moment, he thought the worker up there would survive. He managed to get a grip with his other hand and began to haul himself upwards. Perhaps he could wedge himself into the framework of the wheel until it turned full circle. But that wasn’t his plan. Instead, he began to swing his body to and fro, building up momentum. Then, his legs at full extension away from the great wheel, he let go and catapulted himself into the air, away from the wheel. For a moment he hung there. He surely had no chance of surviving, but Finn thrilled at the sight of him. The man turned like a leaping fish and dove towards the ground.

Except, he wasn’t aiming for the ground. A trickle of water still ran in the channel under the wheel. The sluice-gates were not fully water-tight. The water wasn’t deep, three or four feet at the most, but at least it was softer than rock. That was what he was aiming for.

His aim was nearly perfect. He arrowed vertically down to the water, very fast, surely too fast for such shallows, but on target at least. Then he overbalanced and began to wobble in the air. His side banged into the lip of the channel. He was suddenly a crumpled huddle of rags rather than a diver. He disappeared out of sight. Nearby workers clustered around the channel, peering down. Finn, standing, ran to join them.

‘Stop! Into the next bucket!’ The Ironclad continued to ring the bell as he shouted at the workers. ‘You’re losing time. Begin work immediately!’

The others stopped and walked back to the base of the wheel to begin their shift. Finn carried on, hoping he would be allowed to rescue the man since his shift was over. The Ironclad let him. They probably needed to know whether they’d lost another worker, anyway.

Finn knelt at the side of the channel and peered down into the dark. The spray soaked Finn’s face, making it hard to see detail. He could just make out a formless shape there, bobbing in the water, not moving.

‘Here. I’ve got a rope.’

Tom stood behind him. Between them they let the rope down, dangling it near the shape as if they were fishing.

‘Grab the rope!’ Finn shouted down. ‘We’ll pull you up.’

The body in the water didn’t move.

‘Fall must have killed him,’ said Tom.

‘No. I’m going down to check,’ said Finn.

He hauled the rope back up and tied it around his waist. He wound the other end around one of the vast wooden stays that supported the wheel-housing.

‘Lower me down,’ he said to Tom.

In the confined space of the channel it was instantly darker, the roaring and banging sounds from up above echoing weirdly off the sheer walls, making them seem immediately distant. The stone was thick with green slime. Finn wondered, briefly, whether this was a way out. The water flowing under the wheels had to go somewhere. There had to be an channel leading away underground. Was it like the soak-hole back in the middle of the cavern, completely flooded? Or could there be an air-gap? Could you bob and gasp your away through, get away?

But when he reached the surface of the underground water he could see it was useless. The river entered an underground tunnel, the waters swirling angrily around as if fighting to get away. It was possible the tunnel opened out eventually, but there was no gap, no air to breathe. That wasn’t the answer.

‘Keep going,’ he shouted up to Tom.

The cold water made him cry out as the rope dipped him into it. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been immersed in water. The body bobbed nearby, but it was hard to reach in the whirlpool at the end of the channel. Finn floundered around trying to grab hold of it before, finally, snagging it by its loose clothes. He pulled himself nearer. The man was on his back at least, face to the air. Hard to tell whether he was still alive. Finn thought he saw movement in the hands, a faint gesture, but it may have just been the current. Treading water, he untied the rope and fastened it under the arms of the man. He had to hurry. He was already weary, fatigue making his legs leaden.

‘Pull him up!’ he shouted to Tom.

Finn found a notch in the stone of the wall he could wedge one foot into and another higher up he could hold onto while he waited. Slowly, jerk by jerk, the sagging, dripping body was hauled back upwards to the light.

After a long, long time, so long that Finn began to think Tom had forgotten him, the end of the rope came back down. Finn tied it around himself and, walking up the slimy side of the wall, doing his best to place his weight in footholds in the rock, he, too, ascended.

Back on the surface, Finn kneeled and gasped air back into his lungs. Coughing fits made sucking in enough air hard. A short distance away, four of five people stood next to Tom, also breathing deeply at the exertion of hauling the two of them up. The man they had rescued lay on the ground, unmoving. The Ironclad in charge stood nearby, watching. Finn didn’t know the Ironclad’s name, of course, but he recognized him as one who often manned the wheels. The swell of his stomach stretched the black leather of his armour taut and he wheezed, sometimes, as he walked. It had occurred to Finn more than once that all the diggers together could easily overwhelm him and make their escape. But it wouldn’t do any good. There was nowhere for them to run to.

Finn crawled across to the man they’d rescued. Long, straggly hair covered his gaunt face. Finn pushed it away, thinking to breathe air into the unmoving figure’s mouth. Bring him back to life. It was then that he saw who it was they had pulled up from the water. Saw, that it wasn’t a man after all but a young woman. In the mines it was hard to tell the difference; they were all just half-starved, filthy skeletons.

‘Well, is he dead or not?’

Finn sat her up and, working from behind, tried to pump water from her lungs. The Ironclad grew impatient, smacking his cane against the leather of his boots. He wouldn’t wait for long. Just then, the woman in his arms coughed and spluttered, retching up mouthfuls of water that splashed onto the stone floor.

‘He’s half-dead,’ said the Ironclad. ‘Furnace would be best for him anyway.’

‘No,’ said Finn. ‘
She’ll
be fine. Just needs a night’s rest and she can get back to work on the wheels tomorrow.’

He looked up at the Ironclad. The man’s eyes were invisible inside his helmet. Finn thought he wasn’t going to allow it. Then he relented.

‘He or she, what does it matter? She can rest until her next shift. If she can’t work by then we’ll dispose of her.’

Between them, Finn and Tom carried her back to the beds and lay her down on their own bundled rags. Tom looked questioningly at Finn, seeing that he knew who she was. But he didn’t say anything, simply looking on while Finn tried to make her comfortable. Finn did his best to check her for injuries. There was a great, red mark where her hip had bashed into the lip of the rock as she fell. Other than that she appeared to be unhurt.

As he worked, she opened her eyes to look at him. She raised her hand and put it to his cheek, stroking him with a feather touch.

‘Oh, Finn. Look what they’ve done to you. You were such a fine-looking boy.’

Finn took hold of Diane’s hand and cried with laughter.

They sat together in the hours before Finn had to work, Diane lying on the floor, unable to get comfortable, Finn propped up against the rock-wall beside her. Tom had gone back to bed, saying nothing, once Finn had explained who Diane was.

‘He’s really Mrs. Megrim’s son?’ asked Diane.

‘One of them.’

‘He doesn’t seem as bad as his mother.’

‘He’s not. I mean, neither was Mrs. Megrim really. Once you and Connor had left I got to know her well.’

‘They came for Connor too?’

‘You didn’t know? Of course. That’s why they were there in the valley that day. They hadn’t come for you, they came for him.’

‘Ah.’

She stared up at the cavern ceiling for a moment, as if trying to remember everything that had happened. ‘So you lost both of us at the same time? On the same day?’

Finn nodded. She had too, of course. They all had. It occurred to him only then that this was something else he had in common with Mrs. Megrim, who had also lost two beloved people to Engn on the same day.

‘I’m sorry, Finn,’ she said. ‘I had to leave. I had to try and stay ahead of them. I thought they were coming for me.’

‘I know.’

He glanced down at Diane’s face, cast into half-shadow by the great spokes of the nearby wheel. He was delighted to see her, more delighted than he could begin to say. But the sight of her was also a sharp blow, like being punched in the stomach. He could see she’d been through a lot. He’d thought about her often, imagining her still running free outside in the wilds, always one step ahead of the Ironclads. Or maybe even settled down somewhere, a place far away where the soldiers of Engn never came. He had invented this whole story: her peaceful, happy life deep in the distant woods. Because, somehow, if she was still free, part of him was still free too. Only now it wasn’t.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ve still got this. Remember that day you made them?’

He prised a knotted twist of metal from the seam of his jacket: wire that had once been a ring. ‘It’s a bit battered, I’m afraid. I’ve kept it with me ever since.’

She flashed a bright smile at him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone smiling. She still had all her teeth. She looked so young and alive. He felt as if, briefly, a light had been switched on inside him. A flood of forgotten, glorious emotions ran through him. For a moment, he was Finn again. The real Finn.

‘Still got mine too,’ she said. She fished inside her tunic for a piece of string, pulling it out for Finn to see. ‘I wore mine until they captured me. Hopefully no-one will see it on this chain.’

‘When did they catch you? How long have you been here?’

‘About two weeks.’

‘Two weeks! But that’s fantastic. So, all this time you have been out there, living free. I used to imagine that, and me there with you. It helped, you know.’

‘It wasn’t always a lot of fun. They never let up. I had to keep moving. Still, it was better than being here.’

‘And they brought you straight down into the mines?’

‘Yeah. I guess because I’d run. What about you? Have you been down here all the time?’

The portly Ironclad strode by, casting a glance at them, looking as if he was about to say something. Then he shrugged and walked on. If they wanted to waste their sleeping time talking that was their problem. So long as it didn’t affect their work.

‘It’s a long story,’ said Finn, whispering more quietly. ‘And you should sleep. We both should.’

‘No, tell me everything that happened to you. I can’t sleep. I used to imagine what you were up to as well. I thought
you
had the ideal life, that wonderful cottage with your mother and father, all the food you wanted, safe and secure. The thought of you, you and Connor, kept me going too, I guess.’

Finn shook his head at the irony of it. ‘OK,’ he said, and he began to relate to her everything that had happened since the day she had left.

When he’d finished, she was silent, so silent that Finn thought, at first, she’d fallen asleep after all.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally. ‘For everything you’ve been through.’

Finn shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter now. We’ve just got to get out of here. Now that we’ve found each other we can escape together. Don’t you see? Perhaps this was supposed to happen. Perhaps we were meant to meet down here.’

‘Meant by whom, Finn?’

‘Well, perhaps it’s all part of the plan. Connor’s plan, I mean.’

She leaned up on one elbow, wincing at the pain in her side. ‘You’re not seriously saying you still believe all that, are you? You still think he’s that boy you grew up with, that he’s still on your side?’