Under Fragile Stone (7 page)

So he had taken to wandering instead, exorcising spirits from the land, eventually perfecting the electrical projection method that had made him famous. But his work had resulted in his being exiled from Braskhia. Now, frightened of the esh, driven from his homeland, and under sentence of death from the Myunans, he discovered the land itself was threatening him. Well, he knew enough about the spirit world to understand the nature of his enemy. He would rise to the challenge.

‘Get the trucks started,' he rasped at the nearest disciple. ‘Inform the Provinchus we are ready to take our leave.'

‘Yes, Kalayal,' the young woman answered. ‘Have we been called on to purge another evil spirit?'

‘No. We're not done with this one yet.' 

‘Uncle Emos?' Taya's voice made the Myunan turn around to see her standing with Lorkrin and Draegar.

She was about to say something else, but hesitated when she saw the expression on his face. He noticed how the two children were standing with feet stubbornly planted and how Draegar waited supportively behind them.

‘You'll need tools,' he said to his niece and nephew. ‘Find yourself some steel. I'll make them along the way. And get yourselves some backpacks too. We might be doing some walking.'

He turned away without another word and went back to work. Taya and Lorkrin shared a triumphant look and ran off to find some scrap pieces of steel.

Draegar, who spent his life being ready to travel, saw that Emos and the miners had the loading well in hand, so he took a roll of vellum from a tube in one of his satchels and spread it out on the flatbed of the passenger truck. From the satchel on his right, he took out a bottle of ink and a quill. Then he dipped the nib in the ink and drew a little compass marking north, south, east and west on the top right-hand corner of the calfskin. It was how he always started a new map. He had never been to the Reisenick area that Emos would lead them through. His quill scratched over the sheet, drawing in the mining camp, the mountain and the road to Sestina. The rest of the map was yet to come.

6
T
HE
U
NDERGROUND
W
INDOW

The two Gabbits were having problems with their donkey. It kept pulling at its rope and twisting to the left and right, as if it were trying to escape from the cart. At first they thought it was just bothered by the ever-present insects in the air; the gnats swarmed around it constantly. The two women tried soothing it, then coaxing it, then cursed it when it kept up its pesky behaviour. The donkey brayed back at them, nipping at their hands and craning its neck forward. Curious, the two women fell back to the cart and examined their load, just in case they might have picked up a spidersnake or some
firemites
. But there was nothing alive among the rubbish.

It was late afternoon and they were still a good walk from the thick and tangled woods where their tribe had taken up temporary residence. There were some farms and a
storyhouse
to visit along the way and the donkey was going to wear itself out if it didn’t settle down. Once it stopped
walking
, there would be nothing the women could do to get it to start again until it had rested, and they wanted to get as far along that forest road as they could before dark. The Reisenicks were tolerant of the Gabbits, but some of them were nasty for the sake of it and the two women did not want to take the chance of bumping into them after nightfall.

They slapped the donkey’s flanks and urged it onwards, 
pulling at its halter impatiently. They would give the farms and the storyhouse a miss. The cart was fully laden anyway. They would come back in the morning. The other people’s garbage wasn’t going anywhere, after all.

Paternasse had decided that help was not coming. Whatever hope there had been of rescue had disappeared with the last earth tremor. The crawlspace through to the end of the tunnel was still there, as was the smell of the cave air. While Paternasse was pondering on how to chip away at the crack in the tunnel wall in such a tightly confined space, Nayalla slipped in first and pulled herself up to the end of the narrow channel. Slunching her shoulders, she stuck her head through the crack, and then one arm. Bracing herself on the wall on the other side, she hauled herself through. Mirkrin followed her a moment later.

‘Stone me,’ Paternasse grunted, seeing the Myunan’s feet disappear through the crack – a gap too narrow for a grown man’s head.

‘Hand us through the pickaxes,’ Nayalla called. ‘There’s room to swing them on this side.’

It took some time, but the two shape-changers managed to widen the crack enough for the other three men to squeeze through. They brought with them everything they could salvage from the cart, including a spare bottle of oil for the lamp, some of the men’s packed lunches, and their
canteens
of water. Each man still had his satchel and tools and Noogan and Dalegin had their headlamps lit again. Even so, the group was ill-equipped for exploring caves.

They took in the scene around them. There had been 
room to swing the picks, but not much more. The walls on either side leaned in oppressively, rising to meet at a point out of sight above their heads. The air was damp and the grey and orange-streaked walls glistened with moisture; the sound of slow dripping water could be heard nearby.

‘We have water, then,’ Dalegin muttered. ‘That’s
something
at least.’

‘Can take a long time to collect a cupful of dripping water, and our canteens are almost full anyway,’ Paternasse told him. ‘We can’t hang about. This only goes one way. So let’s get crackin’.’

The rugged corridor twisted away downhill. Paternasse led the way with the lantern, his feet finding their way
carefully
on the slippery stone. Their breathing was loud in the narrow space and any word spoken had an eerie resonance.

Mirkrin and Nayalla were in the middle of the group, with the other two miners taking up the rear. She noticed that Mirkrin had a tight grip on her hand and was keeping his eyes on the floor, not looking up. His breathing, too, sounded controlled, as if he were willing himself to relax. She knew then that the cave-in had damaged more than her husband’s body.

‘What the blazes …?’ Paternasse exclaimed.

They jumped down a high step and followed the old miner’s gaze.

The flickering yellow light illuminated a bizarre sight. Off to their left was a large, stained-glass window. They crowded up to it, examining it in disbelief. Stained glass was a mark of luxury; few buildings outside Noran could boast such a thing, and here was one in the middle of a mountain. It was coloured mostly in reds, yellows and greens. The 
pattern was traced in lead, strange flowers over a
background
of leaves. The top was arched, the frame made of what looked like oak, stained with damp and dark with age. The bottom of the window was at waist height, the top out of reach above their heads.

‘Who would put a window in a cave?’ Noogan wondered out loud.

‘Somebody who wanted to believe they could see
outside
,’ Nayalla said, looking at a metal plate that sat in a
shallow
alcove in the wall facing the window. ‘Something burned on this plate to create light, it shone through that window to make it seem like sunlight shining in.’

‘So, what’s on the other side of the window?’ Dalegin asked quietly.

‘One way to find out,’ Paternasse raised his pick to the dirty glass.

‘Don’t!’ Mirkrin stopped him. ‘There’ll be a way in.’

They walked to the end of the passage and came upon a door. It was wooden, the iron hasps rusted through, the wood soft with rot. Paternasse put his hand against it and shoved; the door pulled free of its hinges, but stayed stuck to the frame. Another push sent it crashing to the ground. They walked into the room beyond. And it was a room, not a cave. About fifteen paces square, but quite a bit taller, it could not have been a greater contrast to the tunnel they had just left. The lower walls were flat, carved with intricate images of flowers, trees and other illustrations of the world outside. The upper walls curved into arches that formed the ceiling. Lumps of crumbled wood could have been the remains of furniture, and the doorframe and other features of the room were inlaid with a greenish metal that must 
once have been brass. Cobwebs hung like thin, sticky curtains.

Noogan jumped when he saw an animal in the far corner, but then he saw it was covered in dust. It was a lifelike sculpture of a dog, a wolfhound sitting on its haunches
looking
expectantly at its master.

‘This place is old,’ Paternasse breathed. ‘Must be hundreds of years old.’

‘There’s another door,’ Noogan said, staring at the other side of the room.

‘Let’s go through it, then.’ Mirkrin walked across the room, noting that the floor too was rotten oak. He grabbed the latch of the door. It was made to open in, but the handle came off in his hand. The miners’ picks made short work of the decayed wood and they broke through into a much bigger, more impressive version of the first room.

It was octagonal, with steps down to a sunken section in the middle. There were windows in four of the walls; one of them was broken and behind it was an alcove holding a metal plate like the first one they had found. Here too, there were sculptures of animals, all in materials that mimicked their natural colours. Two cats, one in pitchstone, with its back arched, one in striped sandstone, curled up as if asleep. There was another dog too, a shepherd’s collie, made of marble and quartz, lying on its side, sleepy eyes regarding the room. Around the middle of the room, rusted
wrought-iron
columns extended into the roof. Paternasse went closer to study one.

‘Odd,’ he grunted. ‘Some of the carving at the top looks like stone, some like metal; can’t see where one starts and the other ends. Like they’re growing into one another.’ 

‘It’s just the rust,’ Dalegin shrugged. ‘Makes it look that way.’

‘Don’t know, looks odd to me,’ the older miner frowned.

There were two more doors.

‘One of these has got to lead out,’ Paternasse lifted his chin towards them. ‘People lived here once upon a time. They had to have a way out somewhere.’

‘You would think,’ Noogan said, raising his pick. ‘Makes me wonder though; if there were people about hundreds of years ago who could make stuff like this, where are they now?’

Taya and Lorkrin sat with their feet dangling off the tailgate of the wagon. It chugged along at a little faster than walking pace, belching oily smoke and making a sound not unlike an enormous cat coughing up a hairball. They were on the road, off to find a way into the caves that might lead them to their parents. And despite the fear for their mother and father that gnawed at their insides, they were flushed with excitement. Behind their truck, the second vehicle carrying all the equipment brought up the rear, driven by the soldier, Cullum.

‘The smoke smells a bit like fried food,’ Lorkrin commented.

‘It’s the bule oil,’ Taya told him. ‘Reminds you of Ma using it for cooking.’

The thought of their mother caused them to lapse into silence again.

‘What if we don’t get them out?’ Lorkrin said, after another while. 

‘Don’t, Lorkrin. I can’t …’ Taya’s voice cracked and she stopped talking, snuffling instead and wiping her nose on her arm.

Lorkrin gazed morosely at the dry mud road passing by under his feet.

‘Uncle Emos and Draegar will find them,’ he reassured her.

Taya nodded. She wanted to believe it; she wanted to believe that she and Lorkrin would help the men pull back the stone and descend into the caves to bring their parents out safely. She imagined the celebrations and the pride of their mother and father on seeing how their children had helped rescue them. She even smiled a bit at the thought. Then she remembered the last words that she and her brother had thrown at their parents and she despaired at the thought that it might be the last time they would ever see them alive.

Lorkrin looked sideways at his sister’s face and knew what she was thinking. He nudged her with his shoulder and she leaned against him and they both watched the road unwinding achingly slowly beneath them.

Emos spared a glance at his niece and nephew before bringing his mind back to his work. He had still to make their tools, but there was a more urgent task to perform first. He had picked up a piece of quartz and had asked Jube to find him some brass and the miner had obliged by bringing him the melted remnants of two chest handles. Emos did not ask whom the chest had belonged to, but brass handles
suggested
someone of importance, perhaps someone who
travelled
with a lot of clothes.

He was using the brass to make a chain. Mouthing words 
as he worked, his fingers pressed, squeezed and tore at the metal as if it were putty. It seemed to anyone who watched that he had massive strength, but it was an illusion. This was transmorphing, the mental ability of a Myunan to transfer the qualities of their flesh onto other materials. A dark and
forbidden
art in Myunan culture, he had started practising it in a desperate attempt to save his wife from a terrible disease. He had failed, but that had only driven him on and now he was a master of the craft, and he worked the brass as skilfully as a sculptor used modelling clay.

The bouncing and jolting of the truck prevented him from doing any fine shaping, so once he had the rough cut of a pendant done, he put it in his pack and sat back to relax. His eyes fell on Jube, who was peering back through the small window in the rear of the cab in a mixture of horror and amazement. The miner blessed himself with one hand, wiping it down his face and flicking it as if he were throwing away the ‘ungodliness’. Emos did not normally allow anyone to watch him work, but they had no time to spare and he needed to finish this before they reached the border of the Reisenicks’ territory.

They travelled on into the evening, the shadows behind the trucks lengthening and growing fainter as the sun dropped below the hills. Emos called a halt for a while so that the drivers could survey the land ahead one last time before dark and he could finish the pendant. The children watched as he fashioned each chain link into a snake
swallowing
its own tail and then joined them all together. The quartz itself he shaped into a wide, rectangular ornament with cut-out symbols.

The children had spent enough time with their uncle to 
recognise that the symbols were letters of some kind, but could not place them.

‘What does it say?’ Taya asked.

‘It’s Reisenicken, it says “Ludditch”.’

‘What’s a ludditch?’

‘He is the chieftain of the land we’re going to be travelling through. This is a gift for him to show our good will.’

Taya regarded the hefty piece of jewellery with a critical eye.

‘It’s a bit …
chunky
, isn’t it?’

‘He is not a man of refined tastes,’ Emos said, winking at her.

The trucks moved off again. From where they sat, Lorkrin and Taya could see into the cab and noticed that Jube had a necklace of his own, made of small acorns. He fiddled with it any time he glanced back at Emos.