Promised (19 page)

She looked back to see if anyone was following her and saw figures down the road. Picking up her pace, she hurried along the contour of the hill in parallel with the wall. Faint reflections of moonlight along the upper edges of the irrigation troughs made a great web in the fields. The troughs rose gradually to converge at a series of junctures, and finally met up with a big pipe in the slope below the wall.

Now she had to hope for a clue to how the others had gone in. Angie had been seen near here.

The ground pitched more steeply beneath her feet as she hurried toward where the main pipe met the hillside. She wasn't exactly sure what she'd been hoping for, but even with a lit candle, she found no gap, no narrow channel she might crawl up.

She set a hand on the cool metal of the pipe, blew out her candle, and headed down the slope several meters to where the pipe opened into the main trough. She crouched down, peering around the edge into the pipe's interior. The darkness was impenetrable. She lit her candle again and held it forward. The inner surface shone with moisture from where water had run earlier, but what struck her most was how narrow the pipe was, not even a meter across.

They couldn't have gone inside
, she thought. There would hardly be room to crawl.

But what if they did?

Water could come pouring down at any time. Her heart began to pound. She could get trapped in there. She had no way to know exactly where the other end led. She didn't even know for certain if Leon, Angie, and Jack had gone up the pipe. It seemed impossible.

Her eye caught on something near her foot, just beside the edge of the trough. She leaned to pick it up, and the instant her fingers touched it, she knew what she'd found: Angie's goggles.

You know you're going to do it
, she thought, and let out a squeak. Just because she was going to go in didn't mean she wasn't terrified.

A noise behind her made her turn. Malachai was advancing rapidly along the hillside with three other men. He had the sense not to call out anything that might alert the guards on the wall, but she knew he would never let her disappear into the pipe if he caught her. She had no time to waffle.

She scrambled into the pipe, thrusting the lit candle before her. Pausing only to settle her satchel high on her back by its strap, she crawled deeper into the sloping concrete cylinder.

“Mlass Gaia, come back!” came Malachai's voice from behind her. Then a grunt.

“I won't be long,” she called back. “I have to get Leon. Chardo Will is in charge.”

“You'll never find Leon! Don't be a fool! You could die in there!”

“I have to try.”

There was another grunting noise behind her.

She kept going faster, finding her rhythm, crawling on her two knees and one free hand. The inner surface of the pipe was a slick beige interrupted only by occasional seams in the concrete where threadlike veins of water gleamed in her candlelight. The air was thin and motionless, so that the wavering heat and smoke of the candle clung around her.

She heard one more bumping noise behind her, distant now, and hurried onward, meter by meter. The narrow space must have been even tighter for Leon and Jack, she realized. She had to go fast. The longer she was in the pipe, the greater were the chances that water would start down the chute toward her, and there'd be no escape.

A faint clicking sounded ahead and she stopped, listening intently. The candle flame burned upright in an unwavering, vibrant yellow. She could hear her breathing, quick and anxious, but nothing more in the close silence. Then another click. Something was happening up ahead. She began scrambling faster, and then she heard the gurgling sound of water. A pocket of cool air moved against her face.

“Wait!” she called. She dropped her candle to use both her hands, crawling in a race, in a blind nightmare of nothingness, terror in her throat. Her satchel slid down, ensnaring her arm, and she stripped it off in alarm. The air grew cooler, and suddenly the pipe began rising more steeply.

She plunged and crawled madly up the pipe, terrified, and a circle of gray appeared far, far ahead.

“Wait!” she called again, screaming.

The trickling noise grew closer. She kept her eyes glued to the gray circle and then she saw something small and black scurrying toward her down the pipe. She raced toward it, hearing a faint rumble of laughter. The mouse ran silently beneath her, a stream of water in its wake, and then Gaia was crawling in cold water.

 

CHAPTER 13

old friends

“
W
AIT!” SHE SCREAMED AGAIN
. “Stop the water!”

She scrambled onward through the increasing water flow, panicking. Did nobody hear her? She screamed again. The gray circle before her expanded, grew brighter, and then, as an onslaught of water deluged down the pipe, an opening suddenly burst wide above her and she stood up into a shower of pouring cold water.

She lunged over and clung precariously to the slippery side of the big funnel that contained her. Blinking back water and opening her mouth wide to gulp in a lungful of air, she looked up desperately. Water was rushing loudly out of another pipe above her, into the funnel, and spiraling down into a whirlpool that emptied into the pipe where she'd just been.

She leapt upward to get a finger hold on the top of the funnel and scrabbled her feet against the side. She slung an elbow over the upper edge and hauled herself out. She toppled in a heap to the floor of a waterworks facility, shivering from residual horror. If Malachai had followed her into the pipeline, he would be engulfed in rushing water by now, as doomed as the mouse. If she had been sixty seconds farther back, she would be dead.

She sat upward. The loud room was hung with pipes that could be swiveled into big vats and funnels like the one she'd crawled out of. The area was deserted, but an open doorway shone with light, and she knew whoever had started the water could return at any moment. Above her, a hatchway was open to the night sky. On instinct, she grabbed the rungs bolted into the wall and quickly climbed up through the hatchway to the roof, leaving the crashing noise of the water behind her.

She hugged her arms around herself, struggling to catch her breath and get her bearings. Dark water gurgled in a series of huge, deep holding tanks to her left, and a pump was chugging a spout of splashing water. She could see downhill to the dark fields she had left below the wall. To the right, below the south gate, spread the dark buildings of Wharfton, and even farther, pinpoints of light shone from campfires in New Sylum.

Gaia circled around. The gleaming obelisk rose from the Square of the Bastion, and the towers of the prison and the Bastion stood behind.

And then she looked up. Half the sky was black, but in the cloudless half, the crescent moon hung serenely, its cusps sharp, and brilliant stars shone as close and clear as she'd ever seen them. She searched for Orion, finding low in the southeastern sky the three distinctive stars of his belt, newly risen. Gaia cherished the memory of her parents in those stars, and at the sight of the constellation, gratitude for their love swelled with her joy in being alive.

She brushed the wet hair back from her face and straightened her soaked shirt.

Hey, Mom and Dad
, she thought, sending her silent voice out into the night.

She missed them, but they were with her, too. And this felt right.

For the first time in ages, the first time since she'd been elected Matrarc, she was consulting no one and acting independently, as herself. The freedom was unbelievably sweet.

Then a startling thought hit her: the freedom must have felt good to Leon, too. Every time he'd tried to take initiative, whether to go after her missing scouts or to protect her coming into Wharfton, she'd told him no. Even the night before, when he'd argued that it was time to prepare counter-offensives for New Sylum, she'd put him off.

No wonder he went rogue,
she thought.

Leon knew the Enclave better than anyone, yet she had dismissed his urgency. That was another mistake she'd made.

Soft, aromatic air stirred in the night, drawing out the moisture from her wet clothes and chilling her skin. She still had to find him. If Angie and Jack weren't with him, she would deal with locating them next.

She would start with the Jacksons and wing it from there.

Traveling at roof level, Gaia picked her way along the water mains that connected the buildings. The trick was to walk slowly and watch her feet on the tread boards alongside the pipes. At one crossing, a girl in red passed below Gaia, triggering a motion-detector on a streetlamp, and Gaia froze until she was gone. A bat whipped into the light and careened away.

As she neared the street to the bakery, Gaia could see the top of the obelisk illuminated in the Square of the Bastion a few blocks farther uphill. Stealthily, she ducked under a roof laundry line and lowered herself down a ladder to ground level. If anyone saw her and recognized her face, she'd be doomed. Shivering in the darkness, she watched the quiet street. The shop windows of Jacksons' bakery were lightless, but around the side, a crack of illumination outlined the drawn shutters. Someone must already be up, working. She tapped lightly on the door. An instant later, the crack of light went out. Gaia waited, hearing nothing, and then she tapped again. A click came from the door, and a dark gap opened.

“Who's there?” came a soft, low voice.

“It's me, Gaia Stone. Is Mace home?”

She was swiftly drawn within and the door closed firmly behind her. Warm air enveloped her, surrounding her with the rich smell of baking bread, and with a pulling noise, the light over the table came on. Mace and his wife Pearl beamed at Gaia in joyful welcome. They reached simultaneously to envelope her a hug.

“Thank goodness!” Pearl said. “I've been dying to see you ever since Mace told me you were back. Are you all right? You're all wet!”

“I'm fine,” Gaia said, grinning. “I can't believe how good it is to be here. How are Yvonne and Oliver?”

“Good. Sleeping,” Mace said.

She couldn't see enough of her friends. Mace's apron stretched across his robust belly, and his strong hands were flecked with dough. Pearl was thinner than Gaia remembered, with new streaks of gray at her temples.

“You're taller,” Pearl said. “And tan. And not a girl at all anymore, I see.”

“What did I tell you?” Mace said. He smiled at Gaia. “Turn around for her.”

“Come on,” Gaia said, laughing.

“No. Let's see you,” he said, taking her hand to twirl her. “I hardly recognized you the other day. What a surprise! Leon didn't tell us you were coming.”

“He's here?” Gaia asked.

A shuffling noise drew Gaia's eager gaze upward. Angie was hunched at the top of the narrow staircase, swamped in an over-large nightgown.

“You're here!” Gaia said, her heart swelling with relief. She looked back, questioning, to Pearl.

“He's gone. He left her with us,” Pearl said

Gaia reached up a hand to Angie. “We were so worried about you, Angie.”

“Leon's mad at me,” Angie said.

Gaia smiled. “I can't say I blame him. Did you follow him in, through the irrigation pipe?”

The girl nodded. “I tried to be quiet, but he heard me.”

“Come down,” Gaia said.

“Are you mad, too?” Angie asked, descending cautiously.

“Mostly I'm relieved. What you did was incredibly dangerous,” Gaia said. She turned to Mace. “Where's Leon now?”

“He went into the tunnels,” Mace said.

“And Jack Bartlett? Has he been here?” Gaia asked.

When Mace and Pearl only looked puzzled, Gaia glanced up and saw Angie's eyes had grown larger.

The girl's voice dropped to a hush. “No. Did he come in, too?”

“He was looking for you,” Gaia said.

Angie looked stricken. Gaia drew her down the last steps and cuddled her into her arms, tipping her cheek on top of the girl's soft hair. “You left your goggles so we could find you, didn't you?” Gaia asked.

The girl nodded. “Just in case. But I didn't think you'd really come. Where's Jack?”

“Nobody knows.” Gaia glanced at Mace and Pearl again. “When did Leon bring her?”

“Early yesterday morning, just before dawn,” Mace said. “He asked us to take care of her until he came back.”

And that obviously had not occurred.

“Where did he enter the tunnels?” Gaia asked.

“Don't get any ideas, now. Smugglers have died down there,” Mace said. “Best to wait here for when he comes back.”

“Could he have been arrested?” Gaia asked.

“No. There was some fuss around the Bastion today, but I didn't hear of any arrests, and I would know,” Mace said.

“How?” Gaia insisted.

Mace glanced at Pearl.

“We have a kind of network now,” Pearl said. “It's complicated. The point is, you should stay here with us. Mace is right about that.”

Gaia felt the absence of her satchel and glanced around the room. “I'll need some candles or a lamp.”

“You're not going. You'll get lost down there,” Mace said.

“I'll be careful. I'll mark my route,” she said.

He looked more skeptical than ever. “With what?”

Her glowing mushrooms were gone with her satchel. “Do you have any honey mushrooms?” she asked.

Mace laughed. “You've got to be kidding.”

Pearl put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Let's get you in something dry. What are these trousers you're in? Is this what the new women are wearing? They look very practical.”

Gaia ran a hand through her damp hair. “You can't distract me. Leon might be hurt down there,” she said. “If you won't help me get into the tunnels, I'll get in by the honey farm. I know there's an entrance there.”