by C. M. Gray
'She's right. We have to get past. The tunnel is quite a bit further down the street… part of the old drainage system…' Elisop's voice trailed off as he saw the others looking at him. 'What?
'Why would we need a tunnel? Where does this street take us?' asked Pardigan.
'The street takes us directly to the back entrance of the pit, but we don't want to go there,' said the little spy. Thunder rumbled close to the city and a flash of lightning lit the alley showing a frown of confusion on Elisop's face. 'The pit is an awful place, and it will be swarming with pitmen… nasty brutes with short capes and…'
'… big floppy hats,' finished Mahra.
'Yes, that's right! We certainly don't want to meet them. The tunnel will take us under the pit, right down to the bridge.'
'So we have to get past them?' confirmed Quint.
'Best we do, it's safer than the main road, and we don't want to go…'
'Come on,' muttered Quint, leading them closer to the growing sounds of fighting.
Three of the pitmen were now down. Two were silent, but the other was screaming, holding a hand to the side of his head where blood dripped through his fingers. The three that remained were losing and being forced back down the street, although they possessed the weapons, the grey men were dodging and weaving about them easily avoiding them whilst landing blow after blow on the pitmen.
'This is taking too long, I'm going to end this,' said Mahra, and before anyone could say anything, a black panther ran down the street and launched itself at the pitmen. She struck one, paws outstretched in the square of his back, sending him flying. When she landed and growled at them, the others immediately broke and fled.
The tall grey men remained eyeing her warily in the faint light from the discarded lanterns. Behind her, the others edged past and ran on down the street as Mahra resumed her human shape.
'Good luck,' she muttered, before chasing after her departing friends.
Sensing a friend in a hostile city, the tallest fighter raised a hand before following his companions and melting into the shadows.
* * *
Chapter 16
Voices in the Dark
Left the Bolt yesterday. It's
cold and wet, Bartholomew is
driving us all potty!
Heading back to The Esmerelda,
should be there in two days.
Did you manage to get
the skulls yet?
Source be true,
Tarent
Quint read the message again before passing the Book of Challenges to Mahra. 'There's a message from Tarent, they're out of the Bolt and heading back to the ship.' Mahra took the book, read it, and passed it over to Pardigan. It was hard to be enthusiastic when you were wet and shivering from the cold.
'So what are you going to write back? We still don't have the skulls,' said Mahra looking thoroughly fed-up as she wrapped her cloak tighter about her. A dim glow globe hovered over her, casting its feeble light on the group.
Pardigan handed the book back to Quint. 'But we know where they are… or at least we think we know where they are.' He cast an uncertain frown at Elisop. They were resting now, and the little spy was sitting with his back to the slimy curved wall of the tunnel, chattering happily to himself. Pardigan shook his head, dumbfounded. He reached up and brushed his hand against the ceiling, absently studying the closely fitting brickwork. It was soft, and bits came away, falling down on him, so he hastily ceased his exploration, the tunnel was obviously on the verge of collapse.
To enter, Elisop had led them to a heavy wooden cover in the centre of the street close to the back entrance to the pit. They had pried it up, worrying all the time that the pitmen would see them, and then clambered down a fixed wooden ladder. The wide tubular tunnel they entered had turned out to be one of the cities large crumbling drains and, unfortunately, was still very much in use. Along the base of the drain, slime, mud and sewage ran in a black gloopy stream with smaller pipes set at different levels every few paces adding their own deluge of filthy contents to the flow. When they could they had walked at the side, ducking and weaving around cascades of evil smelling liquid, but in the parts where it ran deeper they had to get in and wade up to their knees. Elisop had already been told several times what they thought of his route to the river, and none of the comments had been good. He had long since given up on the others and begun exchanging animated conversations and arguments with himself.
Pardigan crouched down and watched the current exchange with a smile on his face.
'The King must hear of this threat to the Realm immediately!' Elisop's face was set in a determined frown.
The frown turned to a look of utter dejection, 'But we're trapped in a filthy drain with a gaggle of horrid children, and they aren't being nice.' He sat bolt upright, once more the bold strong spy.
'Nevertheless, it is the children that hold the answer.'
'The answer?'
'The answer, to be sure!' He was fidgeting as his characters argued back and forth, jumping from one to the other, with sometimes a completely different personality butting in to offer a different opinion entirely.
'Well, I think you're both on the wrong track. We should kill the children and…' Elisop cast a fearful glance across to Pardigan who was still watching, intrigued by the exchange.
'Shhh, he watches!' whispered Elisop pulling his cloak about him.
The conversation continued but in whispered tones so Pardigan could no longer hear. He shivered, the drain was even colder, wetter and smellier than the street, but at least there were no pitmen. No pitmen, but there were voices, whispering voices, and they were starting to upset him.
When they had first entered the drain system they had supposed the scuffling sounds they had first heard were no more than the rats, but when they heard talking and then a light was seen, plus further on they found the remains of a small fire; they knew they weren't alone. They called out, but whoever was there was scared and obviously didn't want anyone to find them.
Now it was closer, it was the sound of singing, a single child's voice slowly repeating the same short verse.
'The sun has gone; the rain is here,
Oh, come and play with me down here.
The sun has gone; it's night all day,
Why did my mamma go away?'
The sun has gone … '
Hearing such an odd, sad song in the misery of the drain, and not seeing the singer was creepy. They began dreading when the song would start again in that high childish voice, but when they tried to catch up then the voices would still remain ahead, out of sight. After at least a turn of the glass of navigating the tunnels, they found a dry section of the drain and stopped for a rest and another chance to look at the book. There were enough bits of wood and rag to start a small, smoky fire, the only problem was chasing off the dozen or so large rats that were calling the island home and weren't too happy at being evicted, however, the sight of the biggest cat in Bedlam sent them squeaking furiously in retreat.
Quint thought for a moment before gripping his last stub of pencil and licking the end, ready to write. Leaning closer to the fire, he carefully composed his reply to Tarent.
We're resting in a drain under the
city of Bedlam, still on the trail of
the skulls.
We're cold, wet and tired, and
desperately hope to be leaving soon - this
is an awful place.
We're heading towards the river and the
city of Mayhem,
We think the skulls are in the Chaos Temple.
All being well, we'll try to meet at
the boat in a few days.
Source be true,
Quint.
Quint put the book away and stood up. 'Come on, let's try and get out of here.' He turned to Elisop. 'Do you actually know which way we're meant to be heading? There are several tunnels to choose from up ahead.' Pardigan rose next to him and helped Mahra to her feet, but stoppe
d moving as the sound of childish laughter echoed through the darkness.
Elisop, already bordering on complete madness, became even more agitated at the sounds. His head swung rapidly from side to side as he tried to locate the laughter. 'Of course I know the way!' he spat. His voice filled the drain, and the laughter abruptly stopped. 'Follow me!' he cried and was off again. However, within a few steps he stopped, allowing the others to catch up with him. He was stammering incoherently and staring down at something by his feet.
'Nasty, horrible little children… nasty… na… na… nasty…' he muttered.
There, in a small stream of muddy water, was a paper boat. It was almost soaked through and in danger of sinking, yet it was still gamely riding the rapid flow as it bounced against Elisop's boot.
The laughter came again, and Mahra pushed past the quivering spy sending the glow globe a little further on.
'Hello? We won't hurt you, please come out and see us; we need help to find the right way out of here. I think we're a bit lost.' There was silence for a moment, the sound of splashing footsteps and then three small figures stepped out of the shadows, huddling protectively around the dim light of a battered lantern. The two smaller figures were pulling an older boy who seemed somewhat more reluctant to come forward. He appeared to be around ten summers, and his smaller friends probably half that. He was frowning at Mahra.
'What'cha doing down 'ere?' he challenged. 'Nobody comes down 'ere, 'cept us.' The little girl pulled loose from his hand and came running over to Mahra.
'Nella!' the boy made to catch her but held back as Mahra opened her arms in welcome and crouched down to the little girl.
'Hello, Nella,' said Mahra, smiling fondly. 'My name is Mahra. What are you and your friends doing down here?' The little girl looked up and smiled.
'We live 'ere,' she said softly, her Bedlam accent as thick as the slime they were standing in.
Mahra looked about at the foul wet drain and felt a wave of pity for the three children. She held her hand out towards the other two and the little boy ran over, followed, yet still quite reluctantly, by his older companion.
'If yer looking for a way out we can show yer, I s'pose,' said the older boy, still frowning.
'We need to get to the river, past the pit.'
He nodded, turned and the two smaller children followed him as he set off, pulling Mahra along with them. The others trailed along behind as Mahra tried to learn a little of the children's lives.
Apparently, there were several groups of children living below the streets, refugees and orphans from the madness of the city above who could find no better place to go.
'Do you 'ave any food?' asked Nella, looking from Mahra to the others in the group. With a sigh, Pardigan reached into his cloak and pulled out half a pie, recently the property of the palace kitchen.
'That was cooked for the Queen,' he explained, handing it to Nella. Her eyes lit up, and she took it as if she had never seen anything so wonderful, and then broke it evenly to share with her two companions. They smiled happily as they crammed the pie into their mouths, catching any crumbs in dirty hands before stuffing them firmly back in. The others watching said nothing.
When the pie was finished, even the older boy was a little friendlier. He introduced himself as Tad and said Nella was his sister.
'Don't know where our parents are, and we don't really care much neither, they weren't nice.' His face filled with sadness for a moment as he recalled some past memories, then brightened as his attention returned to the present. 'This one 'ere's called, Nipper. We found him down 'ere all on his lonesome. 'Don't talk much. He's got one song he likes to sing, and he laughs a lot, which is a whole lot better than talk when you're stuck living in a drain, eh Nipper?' Nipper laughed, which, despite the circumstances, made them all smile.
'Tad, we need to get to the Chaos temple in Mayhem and our guide here has us lost,' said Quint, ignoring the spluttering of indignation that arose from Elisop. 'Do you know what might be the best way to get there and then get in?' Tad looked at him, his eyes wide with surprise.
'You want to go to the temple? You mad? Most people that go there are kicking and screaming as they drag them through the doors, that's a nasty place!' As Quint still didn't appear put off by the idea, Tad thought for a moment, his face creasing in concentrated thought. Nella stepped next to Mahra and shyly took her hand.
'Well, if yer really trying to get over to Mayhem, there are two ways of getting across the river. You either use the bridge, but I doubt you lot have passes if you're down 'ere. Yer need passes to go from Mayhem over to Bedlam and the same ter get back again. The only other way is under the bridge, but it's difficult to get down there without being seen.'
'Let's worry about that when we get there, shall we?' said Mahra with a smile. 'Now, how do we get to this bridge and out of these drains?' She squeezed Nella's hand, who in turn began chatting happily with her new friends as Tad led them on.
Pardigan began to lose track of time. Was it morning already in the streets above them, or still night? He shuffled on after the others, tripping and slipping on unseen debris, tired and unhappy that he walked in darkness while Mahra had her glow globe and the children had their lantern. Quint stumbled splashing to his knees in front of him, then cursing as he rose to his feet again, crouching so his head didn't strike the low tunnel roof. They were ready to get out, even if it was only back to the streets of Bedlam once again. The small procession halted and shuffled slowly and then, with a glow globe hovering in the centre, kept carefully to the side of yet another deep well. Torrents of thick dark water was rushing down, falling from some upper level to disappear roaring down into black empty space to exit somewhere out on the river. It wasn't the first they had passed. They took it in turns to edge around while Mahra lit the way with her globe. There was a bewildering warren of twisting tunnels and countless gushing falls of water from overhead pipes to negotiate. Twice they had found the way blocked where the top of the tunnel had collapsed and had to dig their way through by squeezing through the tiny gap to make their way forward.
Finally, with great sighs of relief all round, Tad declared they had arrived close to the river and it was time to go up. He was standing at the base of a rusting ladder and eager to be in the slightly fresher air of the street, Pardigan pushed past him and volunteered to lead the way out.
He clambered up on the slippery rungs to find his way blocked at the top of the ladder by a large slab of stone. Bracing himself and praying the ladder wouldn't give way beneath him, he heaved and managed to shift the slab and slide it to the side. Cold fresh air and the spray of rain met his efforts and with a final shove he was able to squeeze past and emerge into the wet Bedlam night; it was still raining heavily. Thunder crashed overhead as he helped the others up, then Quint helped him slide the stone back into place. They stood gazing around in the darkness, trying to get some sense of where they were.
Thankfully, it appeared that they hadn't been seen as they came out as the exit to the drain was set back from the street in the shadows. It was a cold night with a fierce wind driving heavy rain in squalls down the street. Behind them, water poured from broken guttering, splattering noisily onto the mud so after a cursory glance about, Pardigan led them under the cover of a metal stairway.
'Another lovely night in Bedlam,' he muttered.
'I can hear rushing water, lots of it. The river must be close,' said Quint.
'It's over there, behind the wall,' said Tad, pointing down the lane. 'And the main street over the bridge is round the corner there.' He pointed to their right. Pardigan ran forward to the edge of the building, hearing the noise of lots of voices as soon as he got there. He blinked and became invisible and went to scout around, a few moments later he was back shaking water from his hair.
'Well, it's a bridge, the biggest one I ever saw. It must stretch two hundred spans across the river, there are even buildings on it! It's like a street that continues on over the water!'
&n
bsp; 'Did you see anyone guarding the bridge?' asked Tad.
'There could be. There's a lot of people coming and going, an' a lot bunched round the entrance.'
'The pitmen'll be there, that's where they check the passes.' Tad shivered from the cold and looked up into the rain. 'Don't like it much up here, too many crazy people, it's safer in the drains.' Casting a look at Elisop who was humming to himself, he led them across the narrow lane and leaned over the wall to get a better look at the river. Even in the low light that the windows from the bridge offered they could see thundering water foaming white around the bridge supports. A cloud of spray rose to the base of the bridge, and the noise as they walked closer was deafening.
'I wouldn't want to live on there,' said Pardigan, raising his voice to be heard. He was gazing up at the first of the buildings on the bridge. 'I'd be lying in bed at night wondering when I was going to be swept away!'
They moved further along, approaching the roadway and the milling throng of people that were trying to cross back over to Mayhem. It was like a human river, all piled against the dam of a security check by several pitmen at the entrance to the bridge.
'How do we get down underneath?' asked Quint, and Tad pointed to a gateway close to the first building. Worryingly, it looked extremely close to the pitmen.
'There are several routes down, but from here we should head to those stairs. We have to get through the gate then down the steps to the underside, but there's a lot more people about than when I last tried to do it.' The wind ruffled Tad's hair and he wiped the rain from his face. 'We won't get down there without them seeing.' He glanced across at the two closest pitmen standing at the bridge entrance. They were checking passes held up by the moving mass of people. After the violence of the pit, the crowd was restless, and the pitmen were making sure people kept moving by bullying and pushing them on. The people were cold and tired, and their tempers increasingly short, several arguments were happening at the same time.
