‘Yes,’ Zaahir agreed cheerfully. ‘You’ve been walking in circles for some time now.’
My eyes snapped up to him, shaking off the haze of sleep. ‘Are we lost?’
‘You are.’ Zaahir smirked. ‘I know exactly where I am.’
My anger carried me to my feet, so that I was looking him in the eye instead of grovelling on the ground before him. ‘I want you to take me to the prisoners inside this mountain,’ I snapped. ‘And you agreed to do what I wanted.’
Zaahir nodded pensively, seeming unmoved. ‘You do want that, don’t you,’ he said. ‘But you’re also frightened of what you’ll find there. You don’t really want to know which of them is alive and which is dead. You’re afraid of knowing that. Or else you could have found out by now, little truth-teller.’ He was right. All those nights in the desert, I had held my tongue against checking on the others. Finding out if I could say out loud, Ahmed is still alive. Shazad is still alive. ‘You don’t really want to find out if maybe they wouldn’t be dead if you hadn’t taken quite so long to get to them. You want them all to still be alive. And they won’t be. See, daughter of Bahadur, you want so many conflicting things that I could lead you in circles around this mountain forever. Towards them, then away from them, then back towards them. Round and round and round we go.’ He spun his finger in a circle in the air above us. ‘Where she’ll drop dead, no one knows.’ Zaahir looked suddenly more dangerous than he had before. The way the light shifted around him seemed to show a glint of madness across that immortal face. ‘I could leave you under this mountain to die, hopelessly lost until you starved. Wouldn’t that be a nice revenge on my jailer Bahadur when he next came back to check on his prisoner – if your body were waiting for him instead?’
It occurred to me, not for the first time, that letting Zaahir out and putting my faith in him was an unbelievably stupid thing to do. But I’d done it now. I would have to play this game with him. And I wasn’t going to die down here. Not without saving the others. If nothing else, I knew I didn’t want to die.
‘Yeah, well, good luck with that.’ I tried to sound flippant, like I wasn’t gambling for my own life. ‘See, Bahadur is locked up right now, so chances are it’d be a while before he’d find me. Decades. By then I’d probably be nothing but bones. He might not even know it was me.’ He probably wouldn’t care either way. I didn’t say that though.
Zaahir’s unblinking stare didn’t even pretend to be human as he took in what I had said. I expected frustration at this foiled revenge. ‘Well, then.’ he spoke finally, and as he did his face suddenly split into a genial grin that was somehow more disturbing than his unblinking stare. ‘I’d better do what it is you want, then.’ He raised his hand, casting light on another branch of the tunnel that I hadn’t seen before. ‘This way, daughter of Bahadur.’
*
We’d been walking for hours more when I finally heard something up ahead. I drew my mind away from my aching, exhausted body to listen. It sounded like the ringing of hundreds of tin bells. The kind Aunt Farrah used to call everyone in for dinner.
I quickened my pace. We were near something. I wasn’t sure what, but it was something other than darkness and stone. As we kept moving, I became aware of a light up ahead. Not the sort of glowing starlight that came off Ashra’s Wall – a more natural one. Like the fire of torches or oil lamps. I was practically running now. Towards the clang of metal and the faint flicker of lamplight, until finally the tunnel opened up into an immense cavern and I stumbled to a stop.
If we were being swallowed by the mountain, then we’d finally reached the stomach. The tunnel had spat us out on to a ledge that dropped off so suddenly I’d almost stepped right off it. The cavern we’d emerged into was vast, disappearing into blackness far above us. And below, in the faint glow cast by the torches affixed to the wall, I saw the prisoners.
They were chained together like cattle. Bound up in iron, hands and feet linked to each other. Each of them had a pickaxe, and they were hewing at the rock at their feet. Swinging their axes down over and over again, metal clanging against stone noisily.
I remembered what Leyla had told me. Her father had sent them here because he was searching for the Destroyer of Worlds.
There was a different quality to the darkness inside this mountain. It wasn’t dark here like a solitary desert night or the inside of a prison cell. The air was a thicker more viscous sort of dark. A more purposeful dark that seemed to curl around me, encroaching not just on my body but on my mind and my soul.
Somewhere down here, I had no doubt, slept the Destroyer of Worlds.
I scanned the crowd, searching frantically for a familiar face. There were far more people than had been taken from us that night. Other prisoners, I guessed, who had been spared execution only to be sent here. I looked for Ahmed, Shazad – someone I knew. But the faces were so marked with dirt and dust that I wasn’t sure I’d know them even if they were right in front of me, let alone when I was searching from up here.
And then, just below me, I saw a soft, childlike face, dirty dyed hair sticking to her cheek, smudged in dust. She was shaking as she tried to raise her pickaxe again.
Delila.
My heart leaped. I had found our prisoners. And at least some of them were still alive. I glanced down. It wasn’t an easy jump, but I could make it. I could leap down and unchain them and then make a run for it if I …
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps. I drew away from the edge as another prisoner entered the cavern, carrying an immense empty wooden bucket in one hand and a torch in the other. As he passed near the line of prisoners, the firelight he was carrying glinted against bronze.
‘You want to see clearly,’ Zaahir said, stepping up beside me. And before I could stop him the glow of his skin grew brighter, casting light on the scene below. There, just beyond the line of torches that illuminated the prisoners at work were hundreds upon hundreds of bronze and clay figures standing in silent vigil.
Abdals.
The sight of them stopped all thoughts of leaping down. I knew what they could do to me if they caught me. And so did every other prisoner here, guessing by the way they worked, eyes down, arms shaking with every stroke into the earth. None of them even looking for an escape.
As I watched, one of the figures wielding a pickaxe collapsed to his knees, breathing hard. He looked skinny and emaciated, like his body had reached the end of what it could do.
Sure enough, he didn’t get back up. One of the Abdals stepped forward.
No. I couldn’t let this happen. I cast around for Zaahir, who was leaning over, watching the scene below. When he caught my eye he raised his eyebrows mockingly. ‘Do you want me to stop it?’
‘Yes,’ I hissed back desperately.
Below, the Abdal rested a metallic palm on the top of the prisoner’s head. The man didn’t try to fight it off or get back up. There on his knees, he leaned forwards until his brow was pressed against the wall. And he prayed.
Zaahir pulled a face. ‘But you also know that stopping him might compromise saving everyone else. And you want that more, don’t you? Dilemma, dilemma.’ I could’ve killed him.
The Abdal’s hand started to glow a fierce red. The man’s praying turned to screaming.
‘Ah well,’ Zaahir said. ‘Too late to decide.’
And then, just like that, the prisoner was ash.
‘Now.’ The Sin Maker’s voice had lost its mockery. He looked on, interested, even as I recoiled from the sight below. ‘That is a novelty.’
I despised him in that moment. But I already knew there wasn’t any easy way out of here. If there was, Shazad would’ve found it and they’d be free. There were so many Abdals and just me.
‘So.’ Zaahir spoke up again. ‘These are the mortals you want to free. Very well.’ I felt the air change around us, like it was solidifying. Whatever Zaahir was doing, I couldn’t stop him now. Watching the prisoners below, I saw a few of them realise that something was
happening, though they didn’t know what. They kept working, but some of them winced, as if they were waiting for something terrible to strike them, bowing their heads in anticipation of a blow.
It was as if the air became invisible hands. I could feel them plucking at my clothes. I could see the chains shifting down below. And then the invisible hands pulled apart the chains like they were nothing but thread.
The shackles fell away instantly, hitting the ground with an impossible clatter that filled the inside of the mountain. It was so loud I feared it would wake the Destroyer of Worlds.
Hundreds of prisoners stopped what they were doing as their shackles fell off, looking around, bewilderment overcoming fear. They stared down at their bare wrists, some of them dropping their tools.
‘There,’ Zaahir said. ‘They’re free. Just like you wanted. I would, however, suggest that they start running if you want them alive.’
The Abdals had been staring on mutely. They were pale imitations of us, only as intelligent as they needed to be to accomplish simple mechanical tasks. They didn’t understand that the humans had been released. But they did understand that they had stopped working. And they knew what to do when they stopped working.
As one, hundreds of pale metallic hands raised towards the prisoners, ready to obliterate them.
I felt my heart quicken in fear.
‘Stop them!’ I cried out to Zaahir, not caring about being heard now.
But he just looked on impassively. ‘You said you wanted to free them. They are free. Besides, death is its own sort of freedom. That’s what my brethren dared say to me when they sent your First Hero to her death and locked me up.’
‘You know that’s not what I want,’ I said frantically, staring over the ledge. Some of the prisoners were scrambling to get back to work. Others looked like they might make a run for it, an edge of panic visible on their faces. A few were lifting their pickaxes like weapons, ready to fight, and certainly die. ‘I want to save them.’
‘I know what those creations of metal are,’ he said. ‘I recognise Fereshteh’s soul scattered out among them. What is it that makes you think I would be powerful enough to conquer him when he was among those who imprisoned me?’ He was seeing which one of us would blink first. He wasn’t mortal. He didn’t need to blink. I did.
He wasn’t mortal … but I was. I wondered if I could get a dying wish.
The Abdals were getting closer now, raising their hands, the heat building. And I couldn’t wait any more. I could feel that I was about to do something stupid.
‘If I die down here, then here’s what I want: for you to stay imprisoned in Eremot until the end of time or until you’re sorry for your treason. And I think we both know which will come first.’
I jumped off the ledge, hitting the ground painfully hard. Faces turned towards me as I landed behind the Abdals, wondering what they were seeing. I grabbed a pickaxe that had been discarded on the ground. I swung for an Abdal, striking it hard in the heel again and again until it stopped moving. I dropped back exhausted Another Abdal was facing me, my annihilation ready on its hands. I couldn’t take them all on. I knew that. But I raised the weapon all the same. And then suddenly, like a match coming to life in the dark, Zaahir appeared behind the Abdal.
He placed one hand on to the top of its metallic head.
The Abdal dropped in the blink of an eye. It was like watching the spark of life leave him and be absorbed into Zaahir, a small flame joining with a greater fire. He gave me a sly smile. And then he was gone again in a blink.
It happened too quickly to see. One by one in quick succession the Abdals fell to the ground until, where there had been a wall of soldiers before, there was nothing but metal and clay corpses strewn all over the ground. And prisoners staring on in mute shock, trying to understand what was happening.
‘Amani?’
The voice was so blessedly familiar that I almost dropped to my knees in relief just from hearing it. Like the burden of the Rebellion was being lifted from my shoulders and returned to his. I turned, to see Ahmed standing behind me. He looked nothing like a prince. He was wearing grubby, ill-fitting clothes, and iron cuffs with broken chains hung from his wrists. His face was stained with soot, and he looked like he hadn’t seen a razor in weeks. No one would know him from a pauper on the street.
I dropped the pickaxe, and without thinking, I flung my arms around him, forgetting that he was my ruler. A prince when I was just a bandit. He was alive. And then he was embracing me back. His arms felt thin and weak. But he was alive. When he let me go, Delila was there, tears streaking clean lines down her face blackened with dust, babbling incoherently. Rahim was behind her, looking at me like I’d just materialised from thin air, which I supposed I had, in a way. And there were others, too. So many other faces of rebels I knew well and prisoners I’d never seen before. And some missing faces, too.
I looked around for Navid, Imin’s husband, who had lost his love to the execution block. For Lubna, a rebel who had lost both her children to the Gallan and used to make the best fresh bread back at camp. For Shazad.
‘Where is she?’ I was afraid of the answer before I was even done asking.
Ahmed’s face darkened, and I felt my stomach twist. He didn’t need to ask who I meant. ‘They sent her …’ He stopped, gathering his thoughts, even as my heart sped up. ‘There was a small earthquake, three days ago. A gap opened in the ground, a small fissure, barely big enough to slip through but just wide enough for a small girl. There are soldiers, camped outside here, on the mountain. They’re the ones who are giving orders to the Abdals, and who provide our rations. They threatened to withhold food until we told them what had happened inside the mountain. It was …’ he glanced anxiously at his sister. Delila was looking at her feet. ‘It was Delila who was meant to be gathering provisions that day. She had to tell them truth. They ordered the Abdals to send Delila down into the opening to investigate. But Shazad took her place. The Abdals lowered her down into the mountain. And then –’ my heart quickened – ‘the rope gave way. When they pulled it back up, it looked like it had been cut through by something. And Shazad …’ He hesitated. ‘She didn’t come back up.’
Chapter 25
The fissure in the mountain swallowed the light hungrily as we peered down into it. The place where Shazad had fallen. It seemed like it might go down forever. Except I knew it didn’t because …
‘She’s alive.’ I could breathe easier once I knew that. Once I said it out loud. She might be hurt down there. She was probably starving, since it had been three days, by Ahmed’s skewed reckoning, without any dawns or dusks to gauge the time.
But at least she was alive.
I glanced at Zaahir. ‘I want to get her out of there.’
But Zaahir was just staring incredulously down into the darkness. Finally he spoke. ‘Then I’d suggest you start climbing, daughter of Bahadur.’ He tossed me something, and I caught it mid-air without thinking. It was a tiny spark of fire. I almost dropped it before realising it wasn’t giving off any heat. It didn’t burn my palms, just gave off light.
My first thought was that he was playing cruel games with me again, that this was some trick or negotiation. Then Zaahir took one staggering step backwards, away from the gap in the ground. It was a startlingly mortal gesture. An awkward stumble, as if his body might be made of flesh and blood instead of fire. Like it might know real fear.
Fear of whatever was down there.
And I had the feeling that this time there wouldn’t be any more negotiation. No way to get Zaahir any deeper into this mountain to save Shazad.
So I would start climbing.
I looped a rope around my waist the way I remembered Jin doing once. But my hands were clumsy and unused to it. Ahmed stepped forward. ‘Here,’ he said gently, as if he could read what I was thinking. That I wished Jin were here. Wished I hadn’t left him behind.
‘Thank you,’ I said, letting him tie the knots I didn’t know. When he was
done, he cast it over a hook hanging from the ceiling, grabbing the other end and holding on to it. Rahim took hold, too.
And then I lowered myself into the unknown.
The darkness was somehow different on the other side. In the mines there had been noise and heat, but here there was a stillness to the air. Like it was trying to swallow the light in my hand.
I descended slowly. The deeper I got, the more I felt like there was something watching me. Something breathing down my neck. I turned on the rope, dashing the light around the walls of the fissure. But there was nothing but stone.
Then suddenly I felt a tremor on the rope.
I reached out one hand to brace myself against the wall. But it was no good. The rope was still being fed in behind me. I was about to call up, to shout to Ahmed and Rahim to stop.
But suddenly it was as if a hand were covering my mouth. At the same moment I felt a brush of air on my neck. And then, without warning, I was falling.
The drop wasn’t far, but I hit the ground with violent suddenness. The light in my hand didn’t extinguish as I hit. I grabbed the end of the rope, tugging it to me. It looked like a clean cut, as if by a knife. Just like Ahmed had said happened to Shazad. This was not a snapped rope. This was something else.
There was a noise, as if from very far away, climbing up from the ground.
I was hearing things. I had to be. Or it was a drip of water. Or an echo of my own breathing. Except it didn’t sound like that.
It sounded like someone laughing.
And it made me more afraid than anything I’d ever heard in my life.
Then the light in my hand dashed across a figure curled up on one side, dark hair falling across her face, and I forgot everything else. Even though she looked like she wasn’t wholly there in this darkness. I could only make out the dirty white of her shirt and the darkness of her hair.
‘Shazad.’ I dropped next to her, relief rushing through me. I heard the sob in my own voice. She looked thinner, worn. And her eyes were shut. But she was breathing. I had to wake her up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Shazad, leaning over her. I slapped her hard across the face. She came awake ready to fight – just not in any kind of state to. She flinched against the light. I’d never seen Shazad flinch at anything.
Hero at the Fall Page 20
