B00DW1DUQA EBOK (36 page)

‘Good bye, Tom,’ he said. ‘Thank you. For everything. I’ll get you out of here, I promise I will.’

Tom shook his head. ‘You won’t, Finn. You’ll just get yourself killed.’

Finn turned to go. They had to leave, now.

‘Finn?’ said Tom.

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you, too.’

‘For what?’

‘For your stories. For everything. You’ve kept me alive, too, you know.’

Finn was about to reply when a cry went up from the portly Ironclad. He’d spotted Graves trundling the empty churn towards the water. Perhaps he suspected some escape attempt. Perhaps he just saw a worker doing what he wasn’t supposed to. In any case, blowing his metal whistle, the shrill piping sound echoing around the cavern, the Ironclad lumbered over to Graves. From all around the wheels other guards converged too, carrying whips or muskets or grapples, ready to suppress the trouble, the riot, whatever it was. Finn caught a glimpse of Graves, stranded in the open as the Ironclads converged on him, comically clinging on to his churn. He wouldn’t live long after this. Finn felt neither remorse nor jubilation. Escaping was all that mattered.

He had to hurry now. He walked briskly towards the wheel, dodging past all the workers who were hurrying to see what was going on. In a moment, Finn reached Diane standing at the wheel. She looked nervous, shaky, unsure of herself.

‘Come on,’ said Finn. ‘We don’t have much time. Follow me.’

He led her around the wheel they had been recaulking and on to the next one. This ran at full speed: immense, terrifying, churning through the water of the river, lifting the great, streaming buckets of water upwards towards the surface. They ran around to the far side, the camp out of sight. Spray lashed into their faces. Finn tried to dry his hands on his sodden clothes.

‘Up there,’ he said. ‘We need to climb the frame.’

‘What?’

‘Hurry. Come on, we can do it. It’s just like climbing a tree.’

He pulled himself onto the lowest spar of the wooden framework that supported the great wheel. Although the frame of the wheel and the drive mechanism were made of metal, the cradles in which the wheels were mounted were all wood: a nest of thick, round beams lashed together with ropes or pinned with iron rivets the size of Finn’s arm, reaching all the way up to the roof of the cavern. He could feel the framework swaying and creaking in time to the turning of the wheel. He reached down to haul Diane up. The stretch of it clearly hurt her but she pulled herself onto the lowest beam. Finn set off, shinning his way up a diagonal spar.

‘We’ll never make it to the top,’ said Diane. This close to the thunder of the water and the wheel she had to shout to be heard.

‘No need!’ replied Finn. ‘We just need to get up a short way. It’ll be safer then.’

They climbed for several minutes, Finn helping Diane as much as he could, repeatedly glancing down, expecting to see the Ironclads. They were still within easy range of a musket. He tried to climb faster but the smooth wood was slick with water. They were taking too long. They had to try it now.

He helped Diane onto a horizontal beam and stood for a moment to catch his breath. In front of them, so close he could reach out and touch them, the vast wooden buckets full of frothing water roared past his face.

‘There,’ he said. ‘This is it.’

‘The buckets? You plan to grab hold of one and ride it up? That’s crazy. You could never hold on long enough.’

He turned to look at Diane. She was soaked, her black hair plastering her face.

‘No, that’s not it,’ he said. ‘You’re right, you couldn’t do it by holding on. But you don’t need to. If you time the jump properly you can jump into the bucket. Into the water. Then you’ll be taken all the way up, out of the caves, up to the surface.’

She looked upwards, then back to him. ‘But you don’t know what happens up there. Where the water goes.’

‘It must empty out somewhere. There’s so much of it with all these wheels running, it can’t just be sent straight to the boilers can it?’

‘It’s a terrible risk, Finn. I don’t like it.’

‘It’s the only chance we’ve got. It’s this or die in the mines. Believe me, I’ve never found another way out in all this time.’

He tried to sound as confident as he could. In truth, he was racked with doubts himself, and terrified at what he was suggesting. If they missed their jump they would be mangled by the wheel. And of course he was only guessing what happened up on the surface. They could easily be crushed or drowned or boiled. But it was their only chance. Diane glanced between wheel and ground, unsure, terrified of either prospect.

‘We have to try it now,’ said Finn. ‘Let’s hold hands and jump. Then at least we’ll stay together. Whatever happens. OK?’

She thought for a moment more then nodded. She grasped Finn’s hand. He could feel the tension in it, the way it shook. Or perhaps it was him shaking.

He watched the buckets on the wheel, each rising rapidly towards and past them, trying to judge the best moment to jump. The expanse of water in each was clear as it rose at them. They just had to reach that. But if they mistimed it and caught the lip of the bucket they would be scissored in two as it cut past the spars of the framework. They stood there for long moments, repeatedly twitching at what seemed like the right moment, not daring to jump
this
time as each bucket roared past them and upwards. It reminded Finn of something, an old memory, but he couldn’t think what.

A cracking sound near his ear distracted him for a moment. He thought the wood was splitting, perhaps, giving way under their weight. But that couldn’t be right; surely they were insignificant compared to the vast weight of the wheels. The diagonal spar near his head had a great gouge cut out of it, fresh looking. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. He looked down at the ground, confused, and saw the Ironclad down there aiming his musket up at them. The shot had been inaudible against the roaring and creaking of the wheel.

‘Now!’ Finn shouted, gripping Diane’s hand tight. ‘Jump now!’

He leapt into space, tugging her with him into the air. They seemed to fall for a long time. They must have missed the bucket; they would tumble among the wooden spars before smashing into the ground. But then water engulfed him. Finn shot under the surface, his breath taken away by the freezing chill of it. He struggled, confused, kicking out but suddenly unable to work out which way was up. He could see nothing around him except a blur of brown and blue. He no longer held Diane’s hand. Had she made the jump too? He had to get to the surface and find her. They had to be ready for the bucket to reach the top of the wheel so they could get out. He had to breathe. He had forgotten to take a breath as he jumped and his lungs were already screaming in alarm.

He kicked out, hoping he was swimming upwards. He hit something solid with his knee – a wall or the floor? – and tried to push of from it, up to the surface.

For a moment he broke through, a confusion of wooden spars rushing past nearby. He sucked in a gulp of air but he was pulled back down again and swallowed water instead. Then everything went black. Was this what it was like to drown? The swirling water tossed him around and there was nothing he could do.

A hand grasped Finn’s shoulder and Finn, clutching at it, kicked upwards. He broke out of the water and sucked in gulps of air. Diane was there, her head visible and invisible between the waves. Light flooded down from above, brighter and brighter as they soared up to the surface. They were near the top. Somehow the water would be emptied out of the bucket before hurtling back down to pick up more. They just had to escape with it.

‘Ready?’ he shouted across to her. She was too busy trying to stay above the water and didn’t reply. Finn looked up. He could see blue sky now, blindingly bright. They soared past the ground level, past a blur of buildings and towers, the skyline of Engn, and still upwards. The wheels were vast. If they were tipped out of the bucket now they would fall a long, long way.

Distinctly, Finn heard a metallic
chunk
sound. He recognized it from down in the mine.

‘The pivot lock,’ he shouted, trying to explain to Diane what he’d just understood. ‘It must get applied automatically up here. As the wheel turns we’ll be tipped out!’

Panic surged through him. Already he could see the water was no longer horizontal within the bucket but angled towards the far lip as the wheel descended. They were hurtling back towards the ground now, inside a water-filled bucket that was about to pitch them out. He screamed; wanted, suddenly, to stay inside, go back round, anything to avoid what was to come. Water filled his mouth. Coughing, he reached out for the tarred wooden wall and tried to grab hold of it. Of anything solid. But the wood was too smooth and wet and he could get no grip.

The water tipped over the far side of the bucket, then began to flood out. There was nothing he could do to stop himself. Their arms flailing uselessly, he and Diane were tipped into the air, falling inside their own, brief waterfall back down towards the ground. He could make out no detail as he span around. The water would be collected somehow but for all he knew they would be dashed against a grill, or there was a narrow pipe they would simply miss. He tried to scream out but couldn’t.

Then deep water engulfed him once again. He was about to start swimming when his head clashed against something solid, metallic. Reality faded into the distance and darkness overwhelmed him.

‘Finn! Wake up.’

A hand shook him roughly. He opened his eyes but could see only white light. It filled his head as pain: sharp pain. His stomach heaved and he retched, turning to kneel up as he vomited water.

Squinting with one eye he looked to his side. Diane was there, one hand on the back of his head. She looked worried. Exhausted too, her shoulders heaving up and down.

‘We made it,’ said Finn between breaths.

‘Next time you have an escape plan you’re going on your own, hear me?’

‘What happened?’

‘It tipped us out into a channel underneath the curve of the wheel. Didn’t you see?’

‘I hit my head.’

‘The channel emptied out into this reservoir. I thought you’d drowned. I towed you here to the side.’

Finn looked around, the light a little more bearable now. They were on the steeply-sloping stone bank of a vast man-made lake. Nearby he could see six circular entrances, great plumes of water cascading out of five of them in regular surges. Above them were the wheels, the five churning around and the one stationary. Beyond them, and all around the lip of the reservoir, were the familiar towers and wheels of the machine. They were out.

‘Ironclads,’ he said. ‘Have you seen any Ironclads?’

‘None. They probably thought no-one would be stupid enough to try what we just did.’

He grinned at her through the pain. Her words were angry but there was a warmth to them too.

‘It worked though,’ he said.

‘And we nearly died in the process. I thought you
had
died.’

Finn stood to shaky legs and held out a hand to pull her up.

‘I would have drowned without you,’ he said.

She shrugged and stood too, holding her back and wincing at the pain. He wondered what it had cost her to swim ashore and pull him along as well.

‘And I’d still be stuck down there without you. Forget about it. The question is, where to now?’

Finn looked around. They must be visible for miles, two black spots on the grey rim of the lake. They’d probably been seen already. ‘We can’t stay here. They’ll have raised the alarm down in the mines.’

‘Come on,’ said Diane. She led him upwards towards the lip of the reservoir wall. It was hard to climb the steep slope and keep his feet, dizzy as he was. Eventually, grasping for the wall at the top, he lay down to peer over the lip.

The outside world lay before them, the stone ramparts of the reservoir sloping almost vertically down to the ground some thirty of forty feet below. The builders must have decided this was all the wall they needed here. They were right. It would surely be impossible to climb that smooth expanse of stone. At the foot of the wall, far below, the ground was dried mud and then the grass plain began. On the horizon, rising through distant haze, ran a line of snow-topped mountains he didn’t recognize. A string of line-of-sight towers strode off across the plain towards them.

‘It’s too far to jump down,’ said Diane. ‘We’d break our legs.’

She looked thoughtful, glancing up and down the wall. She must have faced many such adventures in the years the Ironclads had pursued her. Finn was glad, very glad, she was there with him.

‘What’s that over there?’ she asked.

‘What?’

Diane set off running along the top of the steep bank, half-crouching and keeping one hand on the wall. Further along was a chain, one end embedded in the bank, its other beneath the water of the reservoir. The two of them half-slid down the bank to reach the point where the chain was bolted to the stone.

It was as thick as Finn’s arm, and very rusty, but it would easily support their weight. If it was possible to haul it up and lower it over the side. Finn walked down the chain to the water’s edge, hoping to see a corroded link at which they could break it. But there were none.

‘Let’s see if we can haul it up,’ said Diane.

Finn returned to the anchor point and the two of them lifted the chain to try and heave it up. They couldn’t move it.

‘Let’s try nearer the water,’ said Diane.

They skidded and slid down to the reservoir’s edge. The chain disappeared into the rippling waters, its rusty links disappearing into the murk after a few yards. If it was attached to something down there, there was little they could do.

Again they heaved, Diane wincing at the pain it caused her. This time the chain moved, two links coming out of the water.

‘Keep going,’ she shouted.

They pulled again and more of the chain rattled out of the water and up the bank. It took a lot of effort; the chain was heavy and soon very slippery. They were both weak. But at least the chain didn’t appear to be attached to anything. After a few minutes of hauling and resting and hauling, the other end was revealed. A hook was attached to the end that must, once, have been attached to something beneath the water.