‘Like conjuring outside Coyle’s house.’
‘Exactly. I needed an excuse to remain in the square all day long, and a woman who plays at magic tricks is too easily branded a witch. There are times, too, when I move around the city as myself, listening to women’s gossip. Switching between man and woman helps me stay anonymous, a handy thing for a spy.’
‘A spy,’ I repeated. ‘That’s quite a job to entrust to a woman.’ And one so young, I might have added. She was barely five years older than me.
‘In Erebis Felan, women choose their own lives; if we want to be soldiers, spies, adventurers, all that matters is skill and courage.’
What a strange land that must be, where women could be anything they chose. I quite liked the idea. Given such a choice, what would I be, I wondered.
But such imagining belonged to a faraway land, one I might never see. There was something closer to hand that meant more to me: with Geran among us, I was no longer the only female, whether the others knew it or not. Since leaving Greystone, it seemed I had been dependent on one man or another, Tamlyn especially; and the more he became obsessed with his sword, the more helpless I had felt. There had been times when I’d doubted the path ahead, as though I had lost my way altogether.
Now, this: Geran, my saviour in the square, was a woman, little more than a girl like me. There was something heroic about her, too, and that gave me strength. I could feel confidence, hope, courage flowing back into me. We women would play our part in Lucien’s rescue, side by side with Tamlyn and Ryall.
16
The City of Lost Souls
With the rushlights soaked in tallow and drying on a rack, there was little to do but wait until darkness let us move around the streets more freely. It wasn’t just Tamlyn’s face that would get us arrested any more — Coyle’s men would be searching for me and for Ryall, as well; perhaps even Geran if the black-bearded chamberlain had guessed she had helped me escape from the square. She, he … Watch your words, Silvermay, I reminded myself.
I dozed a little through the early evening, and so did Tamlyn and Ryall, I discovered, when I awoke and found them stretched out nearby. Miston and Geran had gone upstairs, so their talking wouldn’t disturb us. Miston was asking her about the Felan, I supposed.
They were still huddled around the table in whispered discussion when I climbed the stairs in search of something to eat. Whatever they were talking about, the conversation ended abruptly when they saw me.
‘It’s after midnight,’ said Miston. ‘Wait another hour and it will be time to go.’
‘The City of Lost Souls,’ I said, uneasy at the thought of entering that strange world.
‘There are no ghosts in the old mines, Silvermay,’ Miston assured me, ‘only people like you and me whose lives have become a kind of hell. It’s not them you should worry about, but what you’ll face if the boy is a captive among them. Coyle won’t give up such a prize without a deadly fight, we can be sure of that.’
The boy, a prize — I wished he would call Lucien by his proper name, or at least speak about him as a human being instead of a trophy to fight over.
Tamlyn joined us, taking a seat at the table. He was close enough for me to reach for his hand, close enough to share a few quiet words, yet there was a distance between us that couldn’t be measured in inches or feet.
The smell of cooking brought Ryall from the cellar. Once he was seated, the servant brought plates once more. There was little talk. Each of us was wondering whether this would be our last meal before we, too, became lost souls — the ghostly kind that could not return to life or our loved ones.
Our cautious journey through the streets of Vonne was easier than we’d expected. An omen of what was to come? We could only hope so.
As Geran had predicted, I’d quickly become accustomed to the touch of material around my thighs, and I was even tempted to run for a short way just to experience the freedom that pants gave to my legs. I’d swapped my shoes for a pair of the servant’s boots and these were more suited to the purpose, too: sturdy rather than dainty. I had even practised a deeper, gruffer voice, in case I had to speak up for myself in front of a guardian.
Tamlyn led the way, guiding us with signals we had agreed on and choosing our route according to whom he spotted loitering on street corners, rather than heading straight for our destination. At last he pointed to an alley up ahead and whispered, ‘We’re close. Twenty paces in from the street, the alley widens into a stone staircase heading downwards in a squared spiral. There is no rail — be careful you don’t fall.’
The entrance to the City of Lost Souls was concealed in this back alley, but it wasn’t secret. How could it be when it was surrounded by streets and houses where people went about their daily lives? I noticed, though, that they were the dingiest streets and the poorest houses I had seen in Vonne. Many made do with a tattered sheet for a door and others barely had walls at all. But even this proved better than the world we were about to enter.
Moonlight followed us down the stairs, showing the way well enough to reach the bottom without the need for a torch. Where the staircase ended, an opening in the rock glowed with a weak yellow light, a welcome of sorts. We hesitated, and in those moments two figures appeared. On seeing the four of us, their bodies tensed and they immediately pulled hoods over their heads, then passed us without a word, making for the stairs.
Welcome? Perhaps not.
Tamlyn took the lead again and headed into the gaping mouth from which the two figures had emerged. I don’t mind admitting I wasn’t eager to be second in line, but I didn’t want to be last either, so once Geran had followed Tamlyn, I left that job to Ryall. Moments later, the first shock of our new surroundings hit: bones lined the walls, thousands of them, stretching as far as I could see. Miston had warned us that the ancient mines had been used for burying the dead, but the reality was much grislier than his description had suggested. The flesh was long gone from the bones, thankfully, but someone had tidied them, like a good housewife, so all the long legbones were stacked together, like firewood, all the arms, the ribs, the feet also stacked. Worse, the skulls were piled up like melons, their eyeless sockets staring into eternity, the grin of their jawbones mocking us as we passed.
‘Will it be like this all the way?’ I whispered.
‘You should hope so,’ said Geran. ‘None of these can hurt us.’
‘I don’t know about that. I can feel the scars in my mind already.’
Geran was right, though. Frightening as the bones of the dead could be, they were no match for the living in this City of Lost Souls. As we hurried by the last of the bones, I heard murmuring voices ahead and the tunnel opened out into a space supported by pillars that rose into the darkness above our heads. Not just our heads — there were many people in this wider space; some crowded around a fire, holding chunks of food over the flames with the aid of long-bladed knives.
‘These are the stone columns I remember,’ Tamlyn told us. ‘See how square they are, cut with chisel and pickaxe. The space all around was stone once, too, before it was carried away in blocks to the surface. The columns are what holds up the ground above us.’
‘And the buildings, too,’ said Ryall.
We moved off in a line between the columns, although there were more and more obstacles now: people lying in our way, asleep, dead, who would know? No one seemed bothered to check; no one spoke much to others around them; and when a woman did speak to us, she didn’t seem to know who she was talking to.
‘Have the birds come back?’ she asked. ‘I went with them once, you know, to their winter feeding grounds. Flew alongside them, I did.’ And she flapped her arms vigorously as though they were wings.
‘Shut up, you cuckoo,’ called a voice from close by.
The bird lady let her wings drop back to her sides and stared at me with eyes that ached with sadness. I saw now that her dress was filthy, and the longer we stood near her, the more the stench of her unwashed body assailed my
nostrils.
‘Keep moving, Silvermay,’ said Ryall, pushing me from behind. ‘If we stop for every mad person we meet, we won’t get far.’
There were makeshift shelters thrown up between the columns: a blanket hung over rope strung from pillar to pillar, or simply a nest of musty rags. Hanging from every second column was an oil lamp, offering what light it could. Wherever I looked, desperate eyes stared back, watching these strangers in their world. Finally, I knew what Miston had meant by the term ‘living hell’.
I could not judge how deeply we had penetrated into this nightmare. Every minute seemed like an hour, but in terms of distance it could not have been far. We made slow progress, until Tamlyn spotted a man watching us from behind yet another pillar.
‘You there,’ he called in a voice I barely recognised. Its tone was one I could imagine coming from his father’s mouth.
The man behind the pillar showed an inch more of himself.
‘Come out. I won’t hurt you as long as you answer my questions,’ said Tamlyn.
The fellow emerged, but stayed a little way off.
‘You are not mad like so many down here, and you don’t have the look of thief about you.’
‘No, master,’ said the man with a bow. He was not a young man, but not old, either. His clothing, while smeared with mud where he had lain down to sleep, wasn’t yet grey with neglect and, as best I could see, there were no holes or tears around the seams.
‘What are you hiding from in the city above?’ Tamlyn asked.
‘I am a tailor, sir. I made a suit of clothes for Lord Kemper. When he didn’t pay, I asked for the money …’ He shrugged uncomfortably.
‘Ah, I see. Easier to kill than pay the bill. It’s a favourite saying among the Wyrdborn.’
‘I wish I’d heard of it sooner, sir. I escaped only moments before his men arrived at my door. If I can stay alive down here long enough, perhaps he will forget about me.’
‘He will,’ Tamlyn assured him, although without any sympathy that I could detect. ‘In the meantime, you can be of use to me. Has Lord Kemper’s rival come this way in recent days? You know who I mean.’
The man immediately looked afraid. ‘I haven’t seen him, sir. Down here, it is better to go about with your eyes closed.’
‘Yet you were watching us just now.’
‘No, sir!’
Tamlyn’s hand moved faster than my eyes could follow, took hold of the man by his throat and pulled him close. ‘You’re lying. Coyle Strongbow came this way not a week ago.’
‘I saw no such face.’
‘A man with his face hidden in a hood, then?’
‘Every man keeps his face hidden in this world.’
‘This one would walk with confidence, carrying a bundle in his arms, a bundle that he kept away from prying eyes.’
To remind the unlucky tailor who was asking these questions, Tamlyn squeezed a little harder. The sickening sound of choking filled the void around us.
‘Let him go,’ I demanded.
Tamlyn didn’t listen to me, for his attempt to scare the man had succeeded.
‘Yes, yes, I saw such a man. A bundle, yes. One fool thought it might contain food and tried to snatch it from him. He’s a dead fool now.’
‘Which way did the hooded figure go?’
The tailor pointed and at last Tamlyn set him free. We’d found the right path, but I was disgusted by the way we had found it.
We travelled only a short distance before we stopped again, but for a different reason. The light came to an abrupt end, as though a wall of darkness blocked its way.
‘What lies beyond here?’ Tamlyn asked a woman who lay listlessly below the last of the oil lamps.
‘No-man’s-land,’ she said.
‘It’s still part of the old mines, though?’
‘I suppose so, but not a part you want to visit. It’s a foul place, haunted — I’ve even heard there are animals you don’t see up in the daylight. Listen.’ She cupped a hand around her ear.
At first, I heard nothing but the coughs and murmurs of the souls who shared this part of the mines with the woman. But Wyrdborn ears were better than mine, as I knew, and so were a Felan’s, it seemed, because Geran stood transfixed.
‘We stay in our own part of these mines and leave them to theirs,’ said the woman.
I strained to hear and gradually the faintest sound drifted out of the darkness. Ryall had picked it out by then, too: a high-pitched hum that could only come from a thousand tiny mouths.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ I asked him.
‘Afraid so. But it’s a good sign, Silvermay. It means we’re on the right track.’
My only reply was a shudder.
‘We’ll need our own light now,’ said Tamlyn, who was already slipping his pack from his shoulders.
‘I hope you’ve got flint, as well,’ said the woman, who clearly thought we were mad to ignore her warnings. ‘If your light goes out suddenly, you’ll never find your way back.’
‘We’ll manage,’ said Geran, and instead of lighting her rushlight from the lamp above the woman’s head, she cupped her hands over it and drew her palms upwards, as though splashing water on her face. Instantly, flames danced into life.
The trick was enough to make the few souls close by move away, even the woman who had warned us of the no-man’s-land ahead. By the time we were ready to set off into a part of the old mines that none of them dared enter, there wasn’t a single eye left to watch us go. It occurred to me as we left that sad world behind that few would remember us a day from now, and none would care if we didn’t return.
17
No-Man’s-Land
I knew one reason why the darkness ahead remained uninhabited — the bats. Their screeching grew a little louder with each step closer, and soon we began to smell something too — it was, faintly unpleasant to begin with, then became a more powerful stink that attacked my eyes as much as my nose.
With tears brimming over onto my cheeks, I walked on another hundred paces before I felt the first crunch under my shoe. A second and then a third step brought the same sensation.
‘What’s that?’ I whispered to Ryall.
Tamlyn and Geran had the lights and they were a little distance ahead of us. It was vital I kept an eye on those flames to avoid becoming lost, but with the stench rising from below and the crunching becoming more noticeable with each step, I turned my eyes to the ground. That was when I saw it.
‘Ryall, the ground is moving.’
‘Can’t be. It’s impossible.’
‘I can see the movement — in tiny waves.’
‘Doesn’t feel that way,’ he said. ‘Bit slippery, but the rock’s solid underfoot. I can’t work out the crunching, though. It’s like autumn leaves.’
But there were no trees down here, so where could leaves come from? Was it the bones of dead bats we were walking on, I wondered. Another shiver pulsed through me.
At least the live bats were out of sight in the darkness and high enough for me to convince myself they would leave us alone. Their squeaking and squabbling made it difficult to think straight, though, and that might have been why I made my mistake. I stopped.
No sooner had my feet remained in one spot for a few seconds than my boots were overrun. I didn’t feel it through the leather, but as soon as the tickling touch began around my ankles, I jumped. Tiny creatures were crawling inside the legs of my pants. I stamped my feet hard and slapped at them with my hands. A scream grew in my throat, a scream that had to fly free so that my fear and disgust could escape with it. I didn’t care who heard it, or what warning it might give to ears a long way ahead … my throat tightened, my mouth opened and … A hand clamped over my mouth at the last moment.
‘Calm down, Silvermay. They’re just cockroaches,’ said Ryall into my ear.
‘Just cockroaches!’ I mumbled between his fingers.
‘Do what I did. Tuck the legs of your pants into your boots,’ he said, and ducked
down to help me, both of us slapping at the loathsome creatures with our bare hands.
Even with the job done, I could feel them running up the outside of my pants. What if I’d still been wearing a dress! They would have crawled up my legs, past my knees, my thighs, onto my body and higher still, running under my bodice until every inch of my skin … ‘Urgh,’ I said, but at least the urge to scream had become just a low growl in my throat.
‘Keep moving,’ said Ryall. ‘That way you’ll crush them before they can crawl onto your feet.’
‘Why are there so many?’
‘They feed on the bat droppings, I suppose. That’s the muddiness we can feel covering the stone.’
Why did I ask? And since the bats were above us, that meant their foul mess could splatter on my shoulders at any moment. Or worse, my hair! Suddenly, it felt as though a luminous target was painted on my head, inviting every bat in the mines to take aim.
‘Urgh,’ I said again. Wasn’t there a dragon down here we could fight instead?
I pulled myself together and followed the flames Tamlyn and Geran were using to guide us, praying that the bats hadn’t spread their mess through every last inch of these mines and this slippery, crunching, crawling, eye-burning torment would soon come to an end.
The light thrown upwards by the torches had been swallowed by the vast darkness above ever since we’d entered the bats’ rookery. Without warning, that same light was reflected from stone only ten feet above our heads. The low ceiling had no appeal for bats, it seemed. None hung above us; and since there were no bats, there were no droppings and no cockroaches to feed on the droppings. We didn’t have to walk much further before the sound of the bats diminished, too, making it possible to speak in a normal voice. ‘The stone here isn’t as good,’ said Tamlyn, holding his light close to inspect it.
While he and Geran checked our surroundings, I scraped the filth from my boots.
Tamlyn Page 17
