by Ian Graham
‘Damn it all!’ shouted Crask. ‘You have doomed the lot of us, Elsefar! You should’ve known the map was only half-useful! And when Ballas gave the bloody thing to you … Sweet grief: yon should have noticed there was something wrong! You should have seen—’
‘It would be wise,’ interrupted Elsefar, ‘to keep your voice low. Better if we don’t make it too easy for the Lectivin to find us.’
‘If I were to shout, if I were to beckon it towards us, it would make no difference. Hunter-caste Lectivins are practically blind. They follow scents—and soul-glow.’
‘Soul-glow … ?’ The quill-master frowned.
Crask nodded, angrily. ‘When a Lectivin imbibes visionary’s root, it is capable of sensing the light of a man’s soul. To him it shines as strongly as torchlight.’
‘It is foul luck,’ remarked the quill-master, ‘that he will have followed us through a gakria den. It seems that, in escaping the Wardens, we have helped their most dangerous weapon.’
‘The Lectivin would’ve already had visionary’s root,’ said Ballas. ‘The Church gives it to him, I reckon. He was eating it at the Penance Oak. None of this is important. Not now.’ He looked around. ‘We have to find a way out.’
They stood silently. In this featureless underground maze, where no sun shone nor moon glowed, it would be treacherously easy for them to lose their sense of direction. Ballas tried to think. Near the sewer exit, he’d perhaps see a little light from the sky. Maybe outdoor noises—bird-song, wind blowing across grass—would drift through the passage. But that was a long way off, Ballas thought. They might still be miles from the way out.
He clenched his jaw. ‘We’ll have to take a chance,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to make a guess at the right way, and hope we’re lucky.’
He looked at the three passages. Each seemed no more promising than the others. Shrugging, he stepped into the left-hand passage.
‘Wait!’ said Crask, urgently.
Ballas halted.
Crask pointed to the central passage. ‘This will lead us out of the sewers.’
‘Have you been eating gakria?’ asked Elsefar sardonically. ‘Are you being guided by a vision?’
‘A vision? No. Merely a lizard swarm.’ He gestured at the ceiling. Lizards surged into the passageway. ‘Their senses are extraordinarily acute. They will be able to smell the outside world. And it is to the outside world that they are fleeing.’
Ballas raised his eyebrows. ‘So, Crask, you do have a use, after all.’
They hurried along the middle corridor. Elsefar gradually became a burden in Ballas’s arms. Ballas’s muscles were tiring, and the quill-master seemed to grow heavier and heavier, as if he were turning to lead. Sweat prickled Ballas’s forehead. He breathed in thick, sullen gasps. A peculiar tension seized Elsefar’s body. The quill-master knew he was an encumbrance. Perhaps he was afraid that Ballas might drop him. More likely, he feared he would be abandoned—tossed away, like cargo from a sinking ship.
‘Remember that you need me,’ he told Ballas quietly. ‘Remember that in me all hope is invested. Without me, you shall never set foot in Belthirran.’
After a time, a sliver of light pierced the dark. They halted. Ahead, a heap of rubble blocked the passage. Overhead the ceiling sagged: at some earlier time, it had half collapsed. Light slid through a small gap in the tumbled brickwork. Pale lizards squeezed through the opening. Breathing deeply, Ballas smelled wet grass. Sodden soil. The sharp tang of frost.
He set Elsefar down on the floor.
He started clearing away the rubble. He seized brick after moss-tufted brick, tossing it back along the corridor. A dull thunder of echoes rang out. For a moment Crask and Heresh didn’t move.
‘Help me!’ shouted Ballas.
As if a spell had been broken, father and daughter joined Ballas in his labours. They worked quickly, vigorously. The brick’s sharp edges cut their hands, yet they toiled on. As they did, the lizards continued disappearing towards the sunlight. They brushed Ballas’s skin. They clambered over the big man’s hands. Those that dropped from the ceiling and found themselves upon the floor clambered over him. Their tiny feet clawed the back of his neck. Padded over his head. He ignored them.
The gap widened. Light poured into the passage. Eventually, there was space enough for Ballas to squeeze through.
He found himself on a circular patch of brickwork. Ahead, the sewer had completely collapsed. The floor lay buried under a weight of moorland earth. The downfallen ground had ripped itself in half, exposing a buried wall of slick limestone, twenty feet high. There were few visible handholds—only the occasional fissure and crease in the stone. Around its upper edge, grass stalks swayed. Beyond them, a grey sky was visible. Drizzle drifted down, prickling Ballas’s face.
The big man blinked.
Heresh pulled herself through the gap. Crask followed. Working hand over hand, Elsefar dragged himself through.
The quill-master gazed at the rock face. ‘What are you going to do, Ballas?’
The big man shrugged. ‘The way ahead is blocked. Perhaps that’s no bad thing. The ceiling’s fallen, true—but by doing so it’s given us a chance of an earlier escape from this place.’
‘How do we get out?’ demanded Elsefar, agitatedly.
‘How do you reckon?’ replied Ballas.
‘Do you expect me to climb? Look at me: do I strike you as someone who can do such things?’
‘In truth,’ said Crask, ‘I do not believe I will manage it. I am not an agile man. My hands aren’t strong and I’ve no head for heights.’
Ballas turned to Heresh. She simply shook her head.
Ballas swore. Then Elsefar, seated on the rubble, said, ‘It is getting closer.’
Ballas turned to him.
The quill-master had grown pale. ‘I can hear it.’
Ballas moved his ear to the gap. There were footfalls—a succession of soft dab-dab-dabs, each one hardly heavy enough to strike an echo but moving briskly, as if their owner were moving as quickly as a cat. Even as Ballas listened, he heard them grow louder. The Lectivin was approaching at great speed.
The others looked at Ballas.
‘We cannot fight it,’ said Crask. ‘We all know that—and you’ve admitted as much yourself. We’ve come all this way, only to be trapped.’ He glanced at his daughter. Grimacing, he tried to put a little resolve into his voice. ‘There has to be something we can do. We mustn’t just accept our fate. It would be … foolish.’
Stooping, Ballas removed his boots. Then his socks. The wet stone chilled his bare feet.
‘You have thought of something?’ asked Crask, unable to keep a note of desperation out of his voice.
Nodding, Ballas approached the wall. Reaching up, he found a fingerhold. He dragged himself upward, then gripped a thin ledge with his toes. Grunting, he reached higher—then fell, his skin sliding on the slippery limestone.
He landed heavily.
He glanced at the others. They stared at him, uncomprehending.
Ballas began climbing once more. This time, he gripped the rocks with a type of delicate firmness. He made himself aware of every fractional loss of grip. Every small slip of his fingertips and toes. He noticed each alteration in the limestone’s texture—its patches of roughness and the rarer areas of glassy smoothness. He climbed slowly, determinedly.
Halfway to the top he heard Elsefar swear.
‘The bastard! He is abandoning us! Ballas: you reeking whoreson!’ The quill-master’s voice rose to a shriek. ‘Have you forgotten what I said? You need my help!’
‘He needs to live,’ Crask corrected him flatly. ‘What use are you to a dead man?’
Ballas reached the top. He dragged himself over the edge, sprawling out on the grass. The moors stretched out around him. After the sewers, the open expanse dizzied him briefly. He got to his feet.
Ballas heard Elsefar screaming from the sewers. ‘I don’t want to die! You pissing betrayer, Ballas! You stinking wretch!’
Ballas swept his gaze across the moors. Ahead, there grew a small copse of rowan trees. Further off, a cluster of Skelfenian pine. One of the trees was lightning-blasted. The bolt had split the trunk, and the greater part of the tree had fallen, remaining attached to the bisected trunk by a flap of rotting wood.
Ballas looked down into the sewer. Elsefar had dragged himself away from the gap. Now he was cowering at the opposite side. Crask and Heresh stood beside him. The eel-catcher gripped the sword that Ballas had taken from the Warden. Both he and his daughter stared at the gap, frightened, expectant.
‘Throw me the sword!’ shouted Ballas.
Crask looked up.
‘Throw me the bloody sword!’ repeated Ballas.
‘Don’t be a fool!’ said Elsefar. ‘Don’t give him our only weapon—our only defence!’
After a pause, Crask hurled the sword upward. It was a weak throw, and badly aimed: the blade clattered against the lock wall, then dropped back down. It missed hitting Elsefar by an inch. The quill-master swore violently. Snatching up the weapon, Heresh tried to fling it to Ballas. Her aim was good, the force of her throw sufficient: Ballas grasped it adroitly by the blade, his fingers clear of its edge, and then strode to the fallen pine.
With several fierce downstrokes, Ballas hacked the bulk of the tree body from the lower trunk. Then he grasped the upper branches. Turning, he dragged the pine towards the sewer-hole. The tree was extremely heavy. The blood gathered in Ballas’s face; he felt it pulsing under his skin. Pain lanced through his shoulders. And through his fingers where they curled tightly around the branches. He felt as if he were dragging the corpses of a hundred men. Growling, swearing, he hauled the tree over frost-silked grass. Eventually he reached the edge of the sewer hole.
He peered down.
He half expected to find the others dead—or at least to find the Lectivin amongst them.
But they were alone.
‘Turn your faces to the wall!’ he shouted.
‘It is getting close!’ shouted Crask. His voice wavered. ‘It is loud now—it cannot be too far away!’
‘Do as I say, and perhaps you’ll survive,’ called Ballas impatiently. ‘Now: turn your faces to the bloody wall!’
They did as they were told. Crouching low, almost to his knees, Ballas braced his shoulder against the tree trunk’s shattered stub. Grunting, he pushed—hard. His unshod feet slipped on the grass. Cursing, he scrambled back up and tried again. He dug his toes into the frozen earth. Flesh tore. Through his numb skin, he felt the wet warmth of blood. The pine inched slowly forward. The branches inched over the edge of the drop. Then, as if some brake had been released, the tree’s weight shifted over the empty air. The tree trunk rose, and the pine crashed downwards into the sewer hole.
Ballas looked down. It seemed that fortune had favoured the others. The tree had not struck them.
‘You’ll have to climb,’ shouted Ballas. ‘Do you hear? Once you get to the trunk, I’ll help you. Understand?’
They nodded.
‘Elsefar, you go first.’ The quill-master opened his mouth to protest. ‘You won’t need to use your legs,’ shouted Ballas, ‘only your arms. You must havesome bloody strength in them!’
Muttering sourly, the quill-master seized a few branches. Laboriously, he began heaving himself up. Ballas turned and jogged back to the pines. Using the sword, he chopped through a lower branch. When he returned to the sewer hole, Elsefar had almost reached the trunk—from which no branches grew.
‘There’s nothing to grip!’ he yelled.
‘Take this,’ shouted Ballas. He slithered the branch over the edge. It lay within easy reach of Elsefar. But the quill-master seemed frightened to let go of the trunk. Scowling, Ballas said, ‘Grab hold of it, you idiot! Or I’ll knock you off with it!’
Grimacing, Elsefar seized the branch. Stepping back, Ballas hauled him out of the sewer hole. First, the quill-master’s head appeared above the rim. Then, reaching out, he grasped a grass clump and dragged himself on to the flat ground. He lay upon his back, gazing at the sky. His chest rose and fell. ‘That was awful,’ he said. ‘I’ve never suffered such a torture. Not for a long time, anyway.’
‘You’re alive,’ Ballas said. ‘Be grateful.’
‘What do we do now?’ asked Elsefar, sitting up. He wiped his palms on his breeches, an oddly lethargic gesture. ‘Which way do we go? I can see no Wardens—that is something. But they will come here soon enough. We don’t have much time to waste.’
Grabbing his tunic collar, Ballas dragged the quill-master away from the sewer hole.
‘What—?!’ complained Elsefar angrily.
Saying nothing, Ballas took the branch. He lowered it into the sewer hole. Already Heresh had climbed as far as the smooth pine trunk. Without hesitation, she grabbed hold of the branch.
Elsefar sneered. ‘Do not be an idiot, Ballas. You need my help—not theirs. Leave them for the Lectivin. They are nothing to you.’
Ballas ignored him. He pulled Heresh from the hole. She clambered out on to the moorland. She was sweating, yet her skin was pale. She looked anxiously at Ballas.
‘Be quick,’ she said. ‘Please.’
Ballas moved to the edge. Crask was climbing up the fallen pine. He climbed as if it were the most unnatural act imaginable, clutching awkwardly at the branches. He wore an expression of deep concentration. Suddenly, he looked up.
‘It is here,’ he said. ‘I can hear its footfalls. Not their echoes but the footfalls themselves. Sweet grief, it is here!’
‘Get a grip!’ snapped Ballas. ‘Keep climbing!’
Crask did as he was told. As he neared the smooth trunk, a branch broke under his foot. He found himself hanging, his legs scrabbling at empty air. Then he located fresh footholds. He climbed up to the trunk. Ballas lowered the pine branch.
Crask grasped it. Ballas started drawing him up.
Heresh cried out, pointing.
Through the gap clambered the Lectivin, Nu’hkterin. It was dressed identically to how it had been on the evening, many weeks ago, when it had tried to put Ballas upon the Oak. It wore a coarse brown robe, with the hood drawn back. Its pale skull-top glistened as drizzle fell on it. It looked upward. In the dawn light, its stark-boned heavy-browed head seemed dazzlingly pale—as if its skin had been polished bright. Its scarlet-irised eyes flared with some emotion. Anger, perhaps. Or blood-hunger. Its lips peeled back, exposing sharp-tipped teeth … teeth brown-tinged with visionary’s root. It fingered the curved knife hanging from its belt.
It looked at Crask. Then at Heresh.
Then its gaze fixed upon Ballas. Its expression altered. The fire ebbed from its eyes. Its lips slackened, slipping over its teeth. The Lectivin, though of the hunter caste, —though more animal than thinking creature—grew thoughtful.
Ballas met its gaze.
The Lectivin’s eyes narrowed. Its brief reverie lifted. Snarling, it sprang on to the pine. It climbed quickly, its movements spider-like. Its short-fingered hands grabbed branch after branch. Within seconds it was halfway up.
Jumping, it reached for Crask’s legs. Somehow, Crask saw the move. Crying out, he swung his legs upward. The Lectivin’s sharp-nailed hands grasped at air. The creature dropped a short distance, then grasped a branch.
Swearing, Ballas hauled Crask out on to the moor. The eel-catcher scrambled from the sewer-hole, then sprinted away.
The Lectivin had reached the tree trunk. The slick wood scarcely hindered it. Jabbing its fingernails, each as tough and sharp as a beast’s talon, into the hask, it continued climbing. Ballas knew it’d be on the moorland within seconds. And then? Then it would kill them all.
Ballas thought quickly. He gripped the end of the tree trunk. Growling, he lifted it high enough to get a shoulder under it. The Lectivin froze. Swearing, Ballas gave the pine a fierce push. It swung backward. For a moment it stood perfectly vertical: a bizarre parody of a tree, with its root end upward and branch end down. Then something—whet
her momentum or the Lectivin’s weight—dragged it over. It crashed backwards into the sewer hole. The Lectivin, realising that it was about to be crushed, scampered nimbly around the trunk. The tree thundered to the floor. The Lectivin sprang clear, landing upon its feet.
Then it started climbing the limestone wall. Or tried to. Its fingernails prevented it from getting a grip: they skittered wildly on the slick stone. They were too smooth, too inflexible. The Lectivin abandoned its efforts.
Hissing, it gazed upwards. Its eyes flashed with rage. Then it vanished through the gap, back into the sewers.
‘Are we safe?’ asked Crask, approaching cautiously.
‘It has gone,’ Ballas confirmed.
Crask was trembling. When he spoke, the words came quickly—yet he seemed to be trying to slow them down. ‘Historians say that there were no animals on Lectivae. None on the ground nor in the sky.’ Suddenly he laughed. ‘We did it,’ he said, peering into the sewer hole. ‘We escaped …’ Grinning, he clapped Ballas on the arm. ‘You are a piece of work, my friend. Truly—a marvel.’
‘We’d better move on,’ said Ballas, scanning the moorland.
They started out over the frost-clasped grass. Then they halted as Elsefar cried, ‘Wait—what of me?’
Ballas turned. The quill-master was seated upright on the giound.
‘Where are my crutches?’ he demanded.
‘I did not bring them,’ said Crask, shrugging.
‘Nor I,’ replied Heresh.
Ballas stared into the sewer hole. Elsefar’s crutches lay at the bottom, half hidden by the fallen pine. Ballas’s boots were beside them. Scowling, the big man became aware of the frozen grass under his feet. At the moment, he could feel nothing. Soon, though, cold would seep through. His bones would ache. More seriously, if his feet were cut, he might take a blood taint.
Muttering, he strode to the pines. Using his sword, he hacked off two longish branches. Then he proffered them to Elsefar.
