“I’m going to sit for a moment,” she called over her shoulder.
There was a faint noise in the distance as Longinus stopped.
“Is it the blood?” he asked, his voice echoing along the tunnel with a tremor.
“No, no,” she lied, “it’s completely stopped now. My feet are just tired.”
She sat, although it was more of a slump. The movement sent a fresh trickle of blood down her arm. Somewhere in the dark, she heard Longinus sit down too.
“We can’t stay too long,” she said, more for herself than for him. She could feel herself getting drowsy.
“What does it matter anyway?” echoed Longinus’ disembodied voice. “She’s already won. She always wins. There’s nothing left for me up there.”
“That ain’t true.”
“She’s taken everything. She’s taken the Viper from me. Even you.”
“Me? No, look I told you, I ain’t never working for her, alright?”
Rory wondered what that left her with. Years of dreaming, of aiming towards a single goal, and it had disappeared like smoke on the wind. She no longer knew whether she even wanted to be a warrior now. She didn’t know anything anymore, she just felt tired. Tired and cold.
“Why can’t you say her name?” she asked, to try and keep herself awake.
There was a long pause.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t pry,” she said.
“My first memory is of her,” Longinus replied in a low voice. “With a knife. At first it would only be a knick here, a little cut there. I was too scared of what she would do if I told Mother, so I kept it hidden. And then when I was seven…”
Silence fell, and Rory felt her head get heavier. Maybe if she slept just for a little…
She snapped her eyes open.
“We’re moving on,” she said. That was easier said than done. The cold was spreading to the rest of her body and her head felt so light it was as though it was no longer attached to the rest of her.
“What’s the point?” said Longinus. “There’s no way out, we’ve been going around in circles. If we’re going to die down here we might as well die comfortably.”
“Like hell I’m dying in the tunnels. Ain’t even any monsters or ghosts,” said Rory, trying to drum up some cheek as she pulled herself up to standing. “Right disappointment if you ask me. Starmoles are probably eyeless to stop them from seeing how boring the tunnels are.” Her words sounded flat to her ear, like an out-of-tune instrument.
She shivered and swayed dangerously on her feet. In the distance, Longinus didn’t move.
“You know,” she said, “if you invented the Viper, then Myran can’t take him away from you.”
“Of course she can. If everyone in Damsport thinks he killed the Marchioness, I can’t be the Viper anymore. She’ll have soiled him. He’s not… He would never do something like that. And please stop saying her name.”
“Sorry.”
Something flashed in Rory’s dozy brain, the edge of an idea, and then it disappeared just as quick. She shook her head through the molasses of her dizziness. It had been something about killing, something about the Marchioness. The world was going to be watching, watching…
It disappeared again. Focusing was becoming harder.
“Come on,” she said. “There has to be an exit somewhere. Starmoles come and go from the tunnels all the time.”
“All the entrances to the tunnels are sealed to stop anyone from getting in and dying down here. There probably isn’t a way out,” Longinus said bitterly.
“Yes there is, and we’ll find it. We’re turning right.”
Rory picked up the vapour lamp and tripped forward, her feet clumsy.
* * *
When Rory heard the first squeak, she froze. It came again, a little further ahead. She lurched forward, pushing past the dizziness. A few more steps, just a few more. She wasn’t walking now so much as shuffling. Her mouth was drier than the sandstone around her.
At last, something small and white appeared in the yellow circle of her lamp. The red feelers on its snout, in their star formation, wiggled as it sniffed the air. Behind the snout, the head was perfectly white and perfectly smooth. Starmoles didn’t even have eye sockets.
Rory went to it and it tried to escape. Drawing on every last ounce of strength she had left — which really wasn’t much — Rory pounced and managed to grab it. She held it in her hands, squealing and squirming, and she could have cried with relief.
“What’s going on?” came Longinus’ voice.
“I found a starmole,” she replied.
She undid her belt, securing her sheathed dagger to the silk line around her waist, and tied one end of the belt around the starmole’s neck in an improvised leash. With any luck, it would lead them to a way out.
She returned the creature to the ground. It mewled in protest at first, grabbing at the leash with its little paws, but after a while it fell silent. Rory waited. The starmole sniffed the air with its feelers and then shuffled forward. Rory followed, relieved that it walked slowly enough for her to keep up without any trouble.
It led them down the tunnel and right at the next junction. A few yards after the junction, it got confused and turned left straight into the wall. Rory didn’t have the energy to try and correct its path. She watched apathetically, waiting for it to bump into the stone. Maybe this wasn’t as good an idea as she had thought. She didn’t know how much longer she could go on, but at this rate she —
The starmole disappeared into the wall. Rory could feel it tugging at the leash still, and then it looked as though the starmole was in the stone. Or rather, as though a flat version of it had superimposed itself against the wall.
“What the—”
She stretched out her hand to touch the wall and, to her surprise, only touched air. She stepped forward and saw herself reflected all around.
Mirrors.
Lots of very cleverly arranged mirrors, to create the illusion that the wall was uninterrupted. Rory would have admired the construction if she wasn’t so weak, and if it hadn’t nearly kept her and Longinus trapped in the tunnels.
“Longinus,” she called. “The wall to the left has an opening in it, but mirrors make it look like it’s solid.”
She moved as far down as she could, until the edge of the light circle was only just touching the tunnel that Longinus was still in.
“Feel your way along the wall and you’ll get to a gap,” she told him. “Can you see it?”
“Your arm, your —” Longinus retched and heaved.
“Alright, I’ll move further on, just follow my voice.”
The starmole seemed eager to keep going through this new tunnel. It sloped softly downhill, and the air quickly became cooler. The slight added strain on Rory’s legs from the slope was making her head worse. She stopped, leaning a hand against the wall.
“Are you behind me?” she called.
“Yes, I’m in the new tunnel,” came the shaky reply.
“Alright then. We’re gonna be fine.”
Rory peeled herself from the wall and continued after the starmole.
Chapter 34
The tunnel eventually opened up into an enormous chamber with high, vaulted ceilings supported by a forest of pillars arranged in perfect rows. Rory gaped. The chamber was filled with water, still and black, reflecting the pillars above so that there appeared to be more pillars beneath them and a vaulted floor.
They were in the old underground cistern.
A pale, silvery light floated about the cistern, bright enough that Rory’s vapour lamp wasn’t needed, and she turned it off. Without the light from the lamp, the cistern became a still world of black, grey, and silver.
With some difficulty, Rory knelt on the ground and reached a hand towards the dark water. It was cool against her skin and she cupped her hand to her face, drinking greedily. Ripples spread through the water, shattering the reflection.
The starmole tugged at the lead, making mewlin
g noises. Rory could see that it wanted to climb up into a tunnel to the left, but it was far too small for her and Longinus, and she pulled back on the leash. The starmole whined, but it stayed still. Rory could see a walkway along the edge of the cistern, and she directed the starmole towards it. There had to be some sort of access to the cistern from above where the water was pumped up to the city.
A glance over her shoulder showed her that Longinus had also arrived. Just as she had, he reached down to the water and drank greedily. It was going to be more complicated now that there wasn’t the darkness to hide her bleeding from him. At least for now he was far enough back that he wouldn’t be able to see her too clearly.
Rory walked past endless rows of pillars, the starmole snuffling in front of her. Eventually, she found what she was looking for: a wooden walkway, ugly and out of place amongst the ethereal beauty around them, stretched out across the water to the middle of the cistern. She could just make out a wide tube that rose from the water, no doubt a pipe to feed the city’s water pumps, and welded onto it… Yes! A ladder.
Rory released the starmole, and as she stood up once more, a thicker trickle of blood washed over her arm, dripping audibly onto the ground by her boots. She swayed and almost pitched over into the water.
“Just a little more,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
She tried to raise her left arm but it hung slack by her side. That was going to make climbing the ladder a bit of a challenge.
* * *
Rory stood as far from the wooden walkway as the silk line tied around her waist would allow. The rest of the line trailed all the way back to the start of the pontoon. Longinus was a few yards further away, hesitating. To see them both, it would be hard to work out who was in worse shape. Longinus was shaking, and every few minutes covered his mouth with his hands as he dry heaved. His skin was grey and there were deep circles under his eyes.
In short, he looked about as good as Rory felt. She clung to the wall with a shivering hand.
“Longinus, we have to move. I’m not in a very good way.”
Every time she moved, a fresh wave of blood cascaded down her arm. She fancied she could feel it ebb out of her. The thought almost caused her to faint, and she sagged against the wall. The silk line went taut as Longinus tied the other end around his waist.
He then ripped his right sleeve off and tied it around his mouth and nose, no doubt to try and keep the smell of blood away. Although it was doubtful he could smell anything, covered in vomit as he was.
“I’m ready,” he said, his voice muffled.
Slowly, he made his way to the ladder, Rory following at the end of the line. Then he began to climb. Rory inched forward, making sure the line was neither too taut nor too slack. The focus this required felt like the hardest thing she’d ever done. She stared at the rope, blinking at it stupidly, forgetting every so often what she was doing.
Finally, she reached the ladder. Longinus was high up ahead and the line was taut, yanking her upwards. She put a foot on the first rung, and stretched out her right hand to grab another. Her left arm was still useless, hanging at her side. Now was the tricky part. With the line to Longinus pulling her up, she leaned into the ladder, doing her best to keep her balance with her feet on the rung below. Then she let go of her right hand, and as quick as she could, grabbed hold of the rung above. She missed and swung away from the ladder…and grabbed again, this time catching the rung. The metal felt cool beneath her fingers.
The line went taut and it helped pull her up. Then she repeated the process for the next rung.
They made good, if slow, progress. Rory began singing tunelessly to herself.
“The seagull sweeps over the beach,
The beach of Cantaloupe Island he sweeps,
Slow and steady, fast and smooth,
Searching for something of silver and blue.”
Suddenly she had the irrepressible urge to giggle. It bubbled up in her throat, coming up into her mouth and nose. It was a crazed giggle, but it wouldn’t go away and she laughed and coughed as she reached for the next rung.
* * *
Rory came to, swinging through the air on the end of the silk line, with Longinus yelling up ahead.
“Rory, what are you doing? Grab the ladder — I’m going to slip! Rory! Rory!!”
She blinked, looking around her stupidly. Ladder? What ladder? She didn’t want to grab a ladder. She wanted to sleep.
“Rory!” screamed Longinus.
Metal rungs materialised in front of her, and she reached for them with both hands but only one worked. That was odd. Both legs worked fine though, and that was good.
“You have the ladder? You have it?”
She slipped as she pulled herself to the ladder and her forehead banged into the cold metal. That jolted her awake and she remembered where she was.
“Yeah, I got it now,” she managed. “Sorry, I think I blacked out.”
“It’s fine, just keep going. I can see the top. I’ll pull you up once we arrive.”
After a while, the line pulled at her waist with more insistence, lifting her along. Longinus pulled her out through a round hole by her good arm. She laid on the floor, her head doing all sorts of somersaults.
Longinus crawled off on hands and knees, vomiting violently.
“Just a little more,” she whispered.
Only she found that she couldn’t get up. She felt like a puppet without strings. Her breathing whistled loudly in her ears.
“I…I think I might have lost too much blood…” she told Longinus. “Can you get…Cruikshank. Machinist Crescent.”
Longinus said something, but Rory wasn’t paying attention. She felt like she was floating in a warm bath now, although she was strangely cold at the same time. She just wanted to sleep, to sleep…
Chapter 35
Longinus had only just managed to get up when Rory passed out.
“Rory? Rory!”
He hovered, then crept forward and knelt down next to her. His hand touched a little of her blood.
The world went dark.
He awoke on his back with the dreadful stench of blood in his nose. His stomach immediately began its dance, and he turned and crawled away, towards the door. He couldn’t think of anything save getting out to the fresh air and away from all that blood. Blood everywhere, so much blood everywhere, everywhere.
He reached the door, reached up for the handle, opened it, and flopped out like a dead fish. He laid in the fresh air for a moment, breathing in deep gulps. After a time, he pulled himself up, and returned inside. Rory was still where he had left her, laid on her back. Her face was drawn and so pale, it looked like not a drop of blood remained inside her. Huge circles surrounded her eyes and she looked even tinier than normal. Her entire left arm was red and shiny.
Longinus looked away, coughing to try and interrupt another wave of nausea. He needed to cover up the blood or he wouldn’t be able to function enough to get her help. He looked around the room. The gloom made it hard to see, but he could just make out great shapes moving in the shadows with the smoothness of oiled metal. Pistons pumped up and down with only a faint, rhythmic hiss, drawing water from the cistern below.
He headed towards them and finally had some luck. A large tarp was crumpled in a corner. He would be able to use it to wrap Rory up and carry her to Machinist Crescent. He picked up the tarp and returned to Rory, laying it flat next to her.
He tried dragging her limp body onto it, but the proximity to her wound got too much again, and he fainted once more. Again he came to and crawled outside to grab a few gulps of fresh air, before he returned inside. Even the torn-up sleeve over his mouth and nose wasn’t enough to keep the smell out, and he gagged.
Again.
This time, he didn’t try to move her but first threw the tarp over her. As soon as her wound was covered, he felt better. He tore up more of his shirt and wrapped up his hands so he wouldn’t touch any blood and faint again. Then, he grabbed Rory
through the tarp, and gently turned her onto her front. She was so light, it was like lifting a bird.
Her bloody arm came into view once more, and he turned away, grabbing the edge of the tarp and throwing it back over her. He did the same with the other edge so that she was very crudely wrapped.
It would have to do. He couldn’t afford to waste any more time. He picked her up, tarp and all. Was it even possible to be so light? Was it because of all the blood she had lost?
The thought had him swaying on his feet and he almost dropped her. He headed out, into the early evening light. The sun had almost set and the street was nearly empty. People hurried past when they caught sight of him in his torn-up shirt, covered in vomit, carrying Rory in her tarp.
Longinus quickly got his bearings. They were near Nine, the gods be thanked, and quite close to Machinist Crescent. He moved as quickly as he dared, not wanting to jolt her any more than needed.
They reached Machinist Crescent quickly enough but once inside, Longinus was utterly lost. This was a part of Damsport he had never had cause to go to, and the lack of streets and organisation made it impossible to get his bearings. He kicked at the first door he came across.
A cross-looking man with enormous optics opened.
“Yes?”
“You know a Crackshank, or Crankshank?”
“You mean Cruikshank. Right in the middle of the crescent. You can’t miss her warehouse, great ugly old thing. Red brick.”
The door slammed.
Longinus hurried towards what he hoped was the middle of the crescent. He kept imagining that Rory was getting lighter and lighter, and it was all he could do not to think of the blood oozing out of her.
After a few more attempts at finding Cruikshank, and instead coming across various disgruntled machinists, Longinus finally found her warehouse. He could see what the first machinist had meant: it dwarfed the ones around it, and the bricks were dull and chipped, the mortar crumbling, the roof rusting.
The Viper and the Urchin: A Novel of Steampunk Adventure (Bloodless Assassin Mysteries Book 1) Page 19