Then he heard footfalls coming toward him. Remembering Trixin’s warning about guards, he blew out the candle, flattened himself against the passage wall, and held his breath.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“RAFFA? It’s me—it’s Jimble.”
Raffa exhaled hard. He lit the candle again and saw the gleam of Jimble’s blond hair.
“Trixin sent some food for you,” Jimble said, holding up a small pail.
Raffa took it from him and pulled out a piece of hard crackerbread. He bit off a corner and softened it in his mouth. It was salty and wheaty and good.
“She said she don’t know what you’re doing and she don’t want to know, either,” Jimble went on. “But whatever it is, she said I’m to help you, so long as you don’t get me arrested.”
Raffa was silent for a moment. Trixin had heard him say that he wished he knew Gilden better and that Kuma were here to help. She had sent Jimble for both reasons. She didn’t want to take part herself, for fear of losing her job, but Jimble didn’t have a job to lose. Raffa had been right to trust her—she was steady upon solid.
“You do, don’t you?” Jimble asked anxiously. “Need my help?”
Raffa nodded. “We have to stop a wagon.”
He described his plan in more detail as Jimble led him back through the passage. They made a turn before reaching the entrance they had used earlier in the day.
“This will take us a bit closer to the ferry landing,” Jimble explained.
They walked for a while longer, then stopped at a set of stairs so steep it was almost a ladder.
“Wait here,” Jimble said, “I won’t be long.”
He was up the stairs quick as a squirrel, then vanished from sight. True to his word, he was back soon enough, leading a whole pack of children, who all climbed nimbly and silently down into the passage.
Raffa counted seven of them besides Jimble. They looked to be anywhere from about nine years old to fourteen or so, boys and girls, tall and short, thin and stout, the full range of skin colors from freckled-pale to deepest blue-black.
“These here are my chummers,” Jimble said to Raffa, keeping his voice low. “You don’t need to know their names, and they don’t need to know yours.”
Jimble was clearly relishing the intrigue, and Raffa could hear a trace of Trixin’s bluntness in his voice.
Then Jimble turned to his friends. “Ears, everyone, and Raffa will tell you—”
“I thought we weren’t to know his name!” one of the girls exclaimed in a loud whisper. The whole group tittered, and Jimble’s face went scarlet.
Raffa stepped forward quickly. “It’s okay, Jimble. It’s better they know who I am so they know what they’re getting into. I’m Raffa, and the guards are looking for me. If you help me, you could end up in a good tremor of trouble yourself. Anyone wants to leave now, go ahead and nothing against you.”
He waited a moment. Nobody moved.
“Name’s Davvis,” said a tall dark boy. “Jimble says you need our help, that’s enough for us.”
The others all introduced themselves. After Raffa explained what needed to be done, a lively discussion followed; the group seemed expert at conversing in whispers. Raffa wondered whether he was doing the right thing, putting his faith in those he didn’t know. His expression must have given him away, for Jimble caught his eye and gave him a quick wink.
As the talk continued, Jimble leaned toward Raffa and said, “Every one of us knows the others, back to front. We might seem all raggedy-taggle, but you’ll see how good we do together.”
Looking at the faces around him, Raffa saw nothing but concentration and interest. If enthusiasm could guarantee success, he thought, there was nothing this group couldn’t do.
Raffa lurked beside the road between the northern ferry landing and the slums. He was torn between regret and relief that he himself would not have an active part in the plan; everyone had agreed that it would be best for him to stay out of sight as much as possible.
Jimble and his friends were posted at various points along the roadside. Raffa waited, all twitch and jitter. To calm himself, he took out the perch necklace and stroked Echo awake.
The sun had nearly fallen; it was the bat’s feeding time. Raffa watched Echo swoop about for a few moments. Then Echo flew back to him and landed on his sleeve. In the bat’s mouth was a large half-eaten insect.
Echo clicked, and dropped the bug into Raffa’s hand. “What—” he started to say.
“Moonwing!” Echo squeaked triumphantly.
“Truly?” Raffa examined the bug; it was some kind of moth, with dark wings and pale crescent-shaped markings that did indeed look like little moons.
Echo made a chittering noise. Raffa could have sworn he was laughing.
“Okay, Echo,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “Moonwing.”
Echo ate the moth with relish. “Tasty,” he said happily, and flew off again.
Then Raffa remembered a promise he’d made and not yet kept. He spent the next several minutes searching the ground in the fading light, glad to have something to do other than wait. He found not two but three good-sized beetles and tucked them in the pocket of his tunic.
A sharp whistle sliced through the air: the signal from one of Jimble’s chummers that the wagon was approaching. Raffa drew back a little farther away from the road, every one of his muscles taut. He realized then that he would far rather endure the stress of action than the helpless anxiety of watching.
Jimble darted into the road several yards in front of the wagon, then tripped and fell.
All according to plan.
“My leg, my leg!” Jimble screeched.
The driver jerked the horse to a halt and jumped down from the seat. She hurried to crouch beside Jimble in the road.
“Oh, shake it all!” the driver exclaimed at the sight of the blood dripping down Jimble’s leg. The blood was real . . . and fake at the same time: Jimble had borrowed Raffa’s penknife and nicked his knee in advance.
Now he was wailing his head off.
“We need to get you off the road,” the driver said. She grabbed him under the armpits and began dragging him to the verge.
With the driver distracted, one of the smaller of Jimble’s chummers scurried to the back of the wagon and lowered its tailgate. Two others moved into position, armed with botanica supplied by Raffa: burstbean pods and lumen husks. The pods would explode noisily while the lumen husks emitted flashes of phosphorescence. Their purpose was to startle the horse. When it reared, the wagon would be jerked and tossed. With the tailgate lowered, the load of fish would spill onto the road, ready for the next step.
The two chummers began throwing a barrage of pods and husks against the wagon wheels.
POP! POP! CRACK! FLASH!
But the horse was old and well-trained. It did nothing more than stamp its feet and snort at the disturbance.
The wagon didn’t budge.
More pods and husks were thrown with the same result, except for one thing: This time, the driver noticed. “What in the name of the Quake—?” She started to stand up.
“No, no!” Jimble shrieked. “Don’t go! Don’t leave me!” He clutched at the driver’s leg.
As Raffa watched in helpless alarm, he was furious—with himself. His instincts had been sound: He should never have trusted such an important task to a bunch of kids he didn’t know. He realized that he wasn’t being entirely fair: Jimble’s friends had performed their assignments perfectly. The horse’s stolidness was hardly their fault.
But Raffa pushed that thought behind his utter dismay. Now he would have to wait until tomorrow evening for another attempt. And it wasn’t just the wagon. Garith would have to risk making a second cinder as well. . . . And what if the Chancellor launched her next attack during the day?
A sudden moment of silence: Jimble stopped wailing to take a breath. Raffa saw a look pass between him and Davvis, who was loitering near the wagon. Then Jimble began screaming ev
en louder.
“I’m dying, I’m dying! My leg, it’s going to fall off!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the driver said, raising her voice above Jimble’s screams. She crouched again to examine his leg. “It’s barely more than a scratch—”
Meanwhile, Davvis had crept up to the horse. Raffa couldn’t see what Davvis was doing, but whatever it was, the horse responded at once.
It gave a high whinny that sounded almost like a laugh, then pranced forward a few steps as Davvis leapt out of the way of its rear hoofs. The wagon jerked and lurched—and, at last, the huge pile of fish poured out onto the road.
Raffa wanted to jump and clap and cheer. They had done it! And he was glad none of them could see his face reddening in guilt over his momentary loss of faith.
“Whoa now, steady!” the driver cried out as she leapt to her feet and grabbed the horse’s bridle. Her efforts were considerably hampered by Jimble, who clung to one of her arms.
“Don’t worry, Missum!” called a sweet-faced girl with a crooked front tooth. “We’ll get it all loaded up for you!”
The boys and girls swarmed the wagon and began reloading it. Each of them had a pocketful of the antidote powder, which they surreptitiously scattered on the fish. The fish were wet and slimy; the powder clung, and most of it dissolved quickly into invisibility.
It didn’t take long for Jimble’s friends to finish. By the time they were done, all of them were coated with fish slime and glittery with loose scales. Raffa was glad they were too far away for him to smell.
“All steady, Missum!” the girl reported. Jimble’s wails had subsided to very realistic sobs. He stood and limped a few steps as his friends gathered around him.
“These your chummers?” the driver said. “They’re a good lot. You take care upon caution now—no more running out into the road, hear?”
She flipped a coin at Jimble, whose leg seemed to have made a miraculous recovery: He jumped in the air to catch it.
As Jimble and his friends watched the wagon roll down the road, Raffa hurried to join them. He tried to express his thanks, but they waved aside his words.
“No need for thanks.”
“Good fun, that was.”
Except for Jimble, they all stank of fish, but somehow it didn’t smell so bad when everyone, including Raffa, was grinning broadly. He turned to Davvis. “What did you do to the horse?”
“Oh, that,” Davvis said. “Gave him a little tickle to his—you know, his underparts. Just enough to make him jump.”
Everyone laughed and began clapping one another’s hands in satisfaction. Then Jimble gave a whoop and held the coin aloft.
“Market tomorrow, everyone! This’ll buy comb honey for all of us!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IT was nearly dark now. Jimble’s friends scattered; Raffa and Jimble headed back toward the underground passage. Along the way, Echo flew to Raffa’s sleeve.
“Ouch!”
Jimble turned in surprise.
Raffa lowered his arm to his side, hiding the bat. “Ouch!” he said hastily. “I, er, turned my ankle. I’ll be okay.” He stood on one leg and shook the other in what he hoped was a convincing manner.
“You sounded funny,” Jimble said. “Sorta squeaky-like.”
Raffa cleared his throat and squeaked, “You mean like this? I was just, um, surprised, I guess.”
Jimble giggled. Raffa was relieved that the moment seemed to have passed. He would have to remind Echo about not speaking in front of other people.
“What Davvis done—that was quick thinking, wasn’t it?” Jimble began to rehash their successful mission.
“You were brilliant, too,” Raffa said. “You fooled that driver through and through.”
Jimble looked so pleased that his grin nearly split his face in half.
That’s one thing seen to, Raffa thought. He could only hope that Garith had succeeded with the cinder. The animals wouldn’t be dosed again with the vine infusion until morning, so Raffa would have the night to free them.
Jimble spoke as if hearing Raffa’s thoughts. “What’s next?” he asked, his face alight with eagerness.
Raffa understood all too well how difficult his next task would be; it would be beyond helpful to have Jimble with him. He started to speak, then stopped.
It was one thing for Jimble and his friends to help with the wagon. That had been out in the open, on the road, the nearest guards at the ferry landing well out of sight. If by some stroke of bad luck, the guards had happened on the scene with the load of fish scattered in the road, it would have looked like an accident.
By contrast, the shed compound was isolated, forbidden, heavily guarded. There was no way Jimble’s presence could be explained away if he was caught there with Raffa—and Raffa would never forgive himself if that happened.
So he looked Jimble in the eye and said, “Nothing more until tomorrow. I can’t even see straight, I’m so tired. Will I be all right sleeping here tonight, do you think?”
Jimble’s momentary disappointment was allayed by Raffa’s last question. “Come!” he said. He led the way down yet another short passage. It dead-ended after a dozen paces. A shallow recess in the rock wall, about knee-high, formed a ledge wide enough to lie down on.
“The guards hardly ever come down here at night,” Jimble said, “and if they do you can almost always hear their boots.”
“Why do you know so much about the guards?” Raffa asked.
“Oh, we have a bit of fun with them, time to time,” Jimble answered. “They don’t seem to enjoy it as much as we do.” He widened his eyes innocently. “But we don’t get into any real trouble. Trixin would skin me alive.”
Raffa chuckled. “Now there’s a truth if ever I heard one.”
Then Jimble frowned. “Been a fair lot of them in the slums lately,” he said. “Guards, I mean. Don’t know why. It’s not like things is any different there these days.”
I was right—there are more guards in the slums now, Raffa thought. Jimble’s observation seemed to confirm Garith’s discovery that the slums were indeed the project’s next target.
“Do you know anything about the northern slums, Jimble?”
The northern slums were not far from the shed compound, and seemed the likeliest place for him to hide after releasing the animals.
“Not much, but what do you need to know?”
“Just that if I ever end up there, is there somewhere to hide?”
Jimble screwed up his face. “Wish Davvis was here. He knows the passages and all, ’cause he used to live there. Wait—I remember. There’s a house all fallen in. . . .”
He proceeded to tell Raffa how to get to the house from the main road. Raffa repeated the directions, then said, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Double thanks for tonight, and tell your friends again, too, will you?”
“I will. Steady sleep to you!” And Jimble scooted off.
Raffa had no plans to sleep, but he needed to eat. He sat on the ledge and rooted through the pail of food Trixin had sent earlier that evening. He ate another piece of crackerbread, a handful of beechnuts, and a few dried plums. As he chewed, he thought about the shed compound and a problem he had not yet solved.
Once he released the animals, he had no way to get them out of the city. If they ran west, as he and Kuma had when they made their escape, they would get to fields and foothills fairly quickly. In any other direction, they would be trapped in Gilden and would surely be either recaptured or killed. Nothing about his task that night would be easy, but this part seemed an impassable obstacle.
Especially on his own.
Sending Jimble home had been the right thing to do, Raffa told himself. He had to repeat it fiercely in his head, to drown out a whisper of regret. And it was less than useless for him to wish for Kuma’s appearance. At best, she might be back at the settlement tonight, but Raffa suspected that she would stay in the gorge for at least a couple of nights, so she could check Twig carefully for any signs o
f illness.
The candlelight flickered, and Raffa tensed immediately. Was there a draft from someone entering the passage? He blew out the candle and fanned at the air blindly to dissipate the smoke.
He strained his ears for several long moments but heard nothing.
The silence and the darkness began to fill him up inside. His reunion with Garith and the camaraderie of Jimble and his chummers now seemed a faded memory. Underground and alone, Raffa felt as if he had been buried and forgotten.
Tears of self-pity smarted in his eyes. He blinked them away angrily. If only he could talk to his parents about everything! He battled against the thought that they could have perished in the fire, but he couldn’t stop the image that filled his mind: a solid wall of flames destroying the cabin—
Raffa sat up straighter. Fire . . .
An idea had come to him, vague and formless at first, then rapidly gaining shape and solidity. If it worked, he could cross two crevasses with one leap.
It seemed that the mere thought of his parents was helping him, even without them being there.
He lit the candle again and headed back through the passage to Jimble’s loose-board entry to the Commons. From there, he went around the long way, staying in the shadow of the Commons wall, until he reached the back of the stables and the path to the shed compound.
Raffa walked through the scrubland beyond the stables. Soon he felt Echo stirring, and he pulled out the perch necklace. A quick look around: The area was deserted. He took the time for what might well be his last pleasant moment of the night.
“Look, Echo,” he said, holding out his hand. On his flat palm were the three beetles he had collected earlier.
“Beetle!” Echo squeaked. “One—two—many!”
He flapped off the perch and circled overhead. Raffa tossed the first beetle into the air; Echo caught it and crunched greedily. The other two beetles went the same way. Raffa grinned to hear Echo’s chitter of delight.
But he sobered quickly, his thoughts back to the task. Echo returned to the perch, and they continued through the brush until the fence around the shed compound came into view.
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