by Ian Graham
‘What are you doing?’ asked the old man. ‘No: wait—I recognise you!’ He raised his hands. ‘By all that is good, I am here with most famous man in Druine! Or the most notorious— but then, what is the difference between fame and notoriety … except approval?’
Ballas glared balefully at him.
‘Oh, do not be angry! I am pleased you are here. The Pilgrim Church is not my church. My religion is gakria. It is a far better faith, for it requires no faith at all. Everything is proven. One need not speculate, need not imagine. And besides—’ he smiled a smile of absolute innocence ‘—one can learn much more from the wicked than from the good. Why? Because truly wicked men are rare. One seldom has the privilege of encountering them. They say the rebel leader Cal’Briden was wicked: and now they say that you are wicked too. What was your crime?’
Without answering, Ballas drew his dagger and jammed it between two floorboards. Working it back and forth, he prised a board up far enough to slip his fingers underneath and tore the floorboard out. Blackness lay below. He ripped up the neighbouring floorboard.
‘Clearly, your crime wasn’t verbosity,’ muttered the old man. ‘And, to be honest, it hardly matters. For a crime is but the symptom, or manifestation, of the stuff of true interest: the mind, the life, of the criminal.’ He put the visionary’s root in his mouth. Then he chewed slowly, luxuriantly.
Ballas pulled up floorboard after floorboard, until he had made a large gap. He took a lantern from a niche and lowered it into the dark underboards space. Five feet below lay a rock door. In the centre rested a jagged-edged stone, the size of a cauldron.
Gripping the floorboard edges, Ballas lowered himself through. Setting the lantern on the ground, he gripped the stone. Grunting, he heaved it aside, exposing a wide hole, through which he pushed the lantern. The flickering light shone out along a tunnel, cut through dark rock. Rising, Ballas hauled himself back up through the gap in the floorboards.
‘I’ve found them.’ Pointing to Elsefar, he added, ‘You first.’
The quill-master passed his crutches to Heresh. Gripping Elsefar’s tunic collar, Ballas lowered the cripple through the gap. Clambering back down, the big man took hold of Elsefar again, this time manoeuvring him into the stone tunnel. Elsefar, his legs near-useless, sagged against the tunnel wall.
He recoiled, crying out. ‘There is something in here! Something that moves …’ He dropped to the ground. ‘Sweet grief …’
‘What is it?’ asked Ballas.
‘I do not know,’ replied the quill-master. ‘On the wall … there is something on the wall. It is … writhing.’
Gripping the lantern, Ballas squeezed through the opening and on into the tunnel. Lantern light shone out. Ballas froze, perturbed. The walls rippled. The darkness seemed to swell and recede. He moved the lantern closer.
Countless lizards clung to the wall. Pale-fleshed, sleekbodied, their eyes white globes, they froze in the sudden light. They plastered not only the wall but the sewer ceiling. Their spraddle-fingered hands gripped the stone.
Elsefar sighed. ‘Reptiles,’ he said simply. ‘Damned reptiles … Never have I seen the purpose of such things. They are revolting.’
Heresh passed Elsefar’s crutches down through the opening. Ballas gave them to the quill-master, then climbed back into the room above.
‘Go down,’ he said, passing the lantern to Heresh. The red-haired woman disappeared through the gap in the floorboards.
Crask leaned close to the old visionary’s-root-loving man. The old man spoke softly to the eel-catcher. Scowling, Ballas said, ‘Crask, over here. We have to go.’
The old man talked for a few seconds. Then Crask moved away. The eel-catcher disappeared through the floorboard-gap.
Ballas felt the old man’s gaze upon him. Brown-tinged saliva trickled from the corners of his mouth. He chewed slowly on the visionary’s root. His eyes—tiny, almond-shaped—stared fixedly at Ballas. They had a trance-like glaze. But also an alertness, a vigilance. It seemed that while the old man stared at Ballas, he also stared beyond him: he was seeing both Ballas and something else.
Scowling, the big man turned away. He slipped through the gap in the floorboards, then squeezed through the opening into the sewer tunnel.
Ballas took the map from Elsefar. He peered at it in the lantern light. It was neatly drawn, in bold black ink. It showed the city’s outline and, within it, the sewer system. Ballas grunted. Despite Elsefar’s immaculate quill-work, the map wasn’t easy to read. The sewer system was fantastically complex: a near-undecipherable jumble of tunnels.
In his mind’s eye, Ballas worked out a route through the sewers. Glancing at the scale, he calculated that they had to walk roughly five miles. He didn’t think their progress would be brisk. The sewer ceiling was so low that he had to stoop. It would be impossible to carry Elsefar, so the quill-master would have to move himself along. Eventually, they would emerge on a tract of moorland, half a mile beyond Granthaven. And then … Ballas hadn’t looked that far ahead. For the time being, he had to concentrate solely on escaping from the city.
They made their way through the sewers. Elsefar moved with surprising speed. Noises reverberated through the tunnel, Every sound—every footfall, cough or crack of Elsefar’s crutch on the stones—echoed, once, twice, thrice. Lizards twitched on the walls and ceiling. There were also spiders, nestling in the split bricks. Bred in a lightless world, they were as pale as the lizards. Crask appeared intrigued.
This sewer,’ he said, ‘is a world within itself. And these lizards and spiders depend upon one another for survival— even though each is the other’s predator. The lizards are of the crenkali breed. They dine upon insects and arachnids. The spiders are movvali—or something similar. They are parasites; they feast on the lizards’ blood. And they also use the lizards as, ah, hatcheries. They inject the lizards with their eggs—which, as spiders’ bodies are warm, soon hatch. The infant spiders, trapped within the lizard, have to eat their way out. In doing so, they obtain much-needed nourishment. For the lizards, it is an agonising death. But for the spiders, a healthy start to life.’ He scratched his jaw. ‘Eventually, one species will gain the upper hand. The lizards will eat all the spiders. Or the spiders will kill so many lizards that there won’t be enough of them left for the spiders to lay their eggs in. The surviving species will leave the sewer. They will live elsewhere. But eventually they’ll come back, for their prey will also have returned. And, once more, their grisly partnership will continue. This cycle will recur over and over, for ever. There will be warfare, then peace; warfare, then peace.’ He shook his head, wonderingly. ‘Such things amaze me. Tell me, Ballas: do such things not interest you?’
Ballas shrugged. ‘Should they?’
‘You are from Hearthfall,’ said the eel-catcher. ‘I recognise your accent. It is farming country, is it not? They call it the Agrarians’ Province. I understand it is a place of remarkable beauty. And peace.’
‘I grew up on a farm,’ Ballas agreed. ‘But animals don’t interest me.’
‘No?’
‘I lived among them,’ said Ballas. ‘They didn’t seem strange. Or exciting. Just ordinary.’
‘Ah, that is where you and I differ,’ said Crask. ‘I was raised in a city. There were few animals. There were birds, of course: crows, magpies, pigeons. And the occasional tatty, threadbare fox. But nothing of genuine interest. So the natural world was foreign to me. It seemed exotic, thrilling. Even the marshes, with its eel populace, never ceased to delight me.’ He looked to Ballas. ‘Why did you leave Hearthfall? I cannot understand why a man would quit such a place. Did you offend someone, hm? Sleep with another man’s wife? Brawl with the shire-reeve?’ He laughed at the archaism: there hadn’t been shire-reeves since the Pilgrim Church had gained control of Druine.
Ballas did not laugh. A memory swam into his consciousness. He saw his home: a white-walled farmhouse, set amid fields of cattle. It was a hot day: sunlight winked through the smooth straw-th
atch. The grass glinted, each stalk glass-bright. The front door stood open, revealing a patch of cool interior shade. A wolfhound snoozed by the doorstep, its fur a steely grey blue. Ballas could taste something … could taste steak, covered in rich gravy. He had just eaten his midday meal. Now it was time to bring home the supper. In his right hand he held a fishing rod. Over his shoulder he wore a leather bag, crammed with lures and spare line. He shouted a farewell to his mother, who was inside the cottage. Turning, he walked through the village, and climbed the steep slope to Knucker Pond, where Druine’s finest trout flickered from bank-shadow to surface and down again …
In the sewer, Ballas halted. He felt sick. Panic flooded up from his guts, locking his limbs, making his skull feel unbearably light. Sweat broke out on his brow. Suddenly weak, he leaned against the wall.
Crask frowned. ‘Something troubles you?’
Ballas did not reply. He could hardly speak. His heart hammered, his breathing came in stuttering gasps.
‘You … you are not ill? The blood has gone from your face. Oh, sweet grief: this is a poor moment—’
‘Shut up,’ said Ballas heavily. ‘Shut up, about lizards and spiders and … I don’t want to listen to your talk. You chatter like a bloody housemaid.’
‘I was merely breaking the silence,’ said the eel-catcher, stunned.
‘I’d rather have silence than your pissing chat.’ Ballas wiped a hand across his mouth. He forced from his mind the images of his home. Pushing himself away from the wall, he continued walking.
For a long time, they pressed on. Ballas looked carefully at the map, over and over. One sewer passage was indistinguishable from another. If they were to become lost, there would be little hope of regaining their bearings. It was as if the architects, whilst designing the sewer, had wished instead to fashion a labyrinth.
They walked on in silence. Ballas’s anger at Crask’s questions and the memories they had provoked had brought a dark mood down on the group. No one spoke, for no one dared: Ballas’s sudden anger had shocked them. This surprised him. A short time ago, they had watched him slay two Papal Wardens. They would’ve noticed how little he cared for their suffering. Yet this did not startle them. Ballas glanced at Crask and Heresh.
They have grown used to me, he thought. And perhaps they have grown used to their circumstances. He thought back to the evening on the river bank when Heresh had told him he disgusted her. How quickly that has changed, woman. How rapidly you have come to understand that this is not a world for the soft-hearted.
As they proceeded, their footsteps were the only sounds— those, and the crack-crack of Elsefar’s crutches.
Until Ballas detected a different noise. Something distant, something scarcely audible.
‘Wait.’ He halted the group.
‘What is it?’ asked Elsefar. The quill-master was sweating with exertion: he had found the walking difficult.
‘Be quiet,’ murmured Ballas. Tilting his head, he listened to the sewers. For the first time, he noticed a faint movement of air—a breeze rustling through an opening far away. Concentrating hard, he heard something else.
Footfalls.
Their muted echoes drifted through the sewer tunnel. They came from further back along the way the group had come. They were being followed, Ballas realised. By four, maybe five men, moving at a slow jog.
Ballas turned to the group. But, listening, they too had heard the echoes.
‘Wardens, surely,’ said Crask, licking his lips.
Ballas nodded.
‘What ought we do?’ asked the eel-catcher.
‘We can’t outrun them,’ said Ballas.
‘No?’ asked Crask. ‘It seems only one of us is too weak …’ He looked at Elsefar.
The quill-master nodded. ‘I ought to ask you to go on without me and save your own skins. That’d be noble, wouldn’t it? The stuff of poems and songs. But Ballas will not permit it. Why? Because he is kind-spirited? Because he and I are friends?’ He shook his head. ‘He needs me. He needs to know what Iknow. I still haven’t revealed the name of the mountain-guide—the man who can take him to Belthirran.’
‘Such information will be useless if you are dead, Ballas,’ said Crask. There’ll be other people who know of this guide. Other people who know of other guides, some more reliable, perhaps …’
‘We won’t leave Elsefar,’ said Ballas flatly.
‘Ballas—’ began Crask.
‘We will not leave him,’ repeated the big man, irritated. ‘There is no need to.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ asked Crask. ‘We are miles from the way out of these damnable sewers. Miles. What should we …’ Sighing, the eel-catcher closed his eyes. ‘We are to fight, yes?’
Ballas nodded.
‘Forgive me,’ said Crask, ‘but you test yourself too often. There’ll come a time, soon enough, when your luck runs out. You’ll grow tired, or careless, and—’
Ignoring him, Ballas unfolded the map. He scrutinised it for a few moments. Then he started off along the passage. ‘There is a good place further on,’ he said.
He led them to a point where the passage divided, one branch heading to their left, the other to their right. Ballas inspected both branches, finding the one to the right slightly wider. ‘I’ll stay here,’ he said. ‘The rest of you, get into the other passage. When the Wardens get here—’ he indicated the fork ‘—they’ll pause, wondering which way we have gone. While they are doing that, we strike—understand?’
Crask nodded. The eel-catcher’s skin grew pale. He unsheathed a small knife and passed it nervously from hand to hand. His daughter remained completely calm. Reaching behind her head, she unfastened her loose ponytail. Red hair spilled to her shoulders. She tied it into a fresh, tighter ponytail. Then she disappeared into the passageway. Crask followed her, then Elsefar.
Ballas went into the right-hand passage. He closed the lantern shutters, reducing the light to a frail gleam. He sat on the brick floor. Drawing his knife, he rubbed the blade with his sleeve, polishing away dried blood. His reflection became visible. He gazed at it, seeing how tired he looked. Pouches of loose skin hung under his eyes and, despite the food provided by Father Rendeage, he was still underfed from the time when, with the city gates locked, no food had been arriving in Granthaven. He touched the scar on his forehead. The bruising had subsided. Now the flesh had healed. The crescent-scar was fully formed. Ballas turned the knife, watching his reflection appear, then disappear. He felt tired, but it wasn’t simply the fatigue of physical effort. Everything sickened him. The Church, the Wardens, the Under-Wardens, and every civilian who pursued him. Crask annoyed him; he was a man full of fear, and that irritated him. The eel-catcher tried to control his unease, true. But even this angered Ballas: it merely reminded him that the fear existed. And that, in a man, repelled him.
The eel-catcher’s daughter was a different matter— slightly. She was more decisive, more strong-willed. Yet her inexperience tested Ballas’s patience. She had vigour, but lacked cunning. A part of him acknowledged this was unfair. Living out in the marshes, with no threat greater than the eel-infested waters, how could she possibly have acquired a decent grasp of combat? Nonetheless, she made Ballas bristle with impatience.
And Elsefar—Ballas was unsure what to make of the quill-master. Certainly, he was cunning and self-serving. That was to be expected. But it presented problems. What was to ensure that, once Ballas had taken him to his ‘safe place’, he would reveal the mountain-guide’s name and location? He would reveal a name, for sure. But there’d be nothing to guarantee it was genuine. Ballas might find himself seeking a man who did not exist. And, if he returned to Elsefar’s safe place, intending to exact revenge—Elsefar would not be there. The safe place might simply be a ruse.
A flake of blood clung to the knife blade. Ballas picked it free, then tossed it to the floor. A lizard scampered out of the shadows. It sniffed the flake. Then, deciding it preferred living blood, the reptile climbed the wall t
o a cluster of spiders. It thrust its maw among them, and chewed. Some spiders scattered. Others vanished down the lizard’s gullet.
‘The lives of lizards and spiders,’ came a voice, ‘are almost as barbarous as our own.’
‘Lugen Crask appeared.
‘How many Wardens are chasing us? Could you tell?’
‘Half a dozen, more or less.’
‘Do you suppose they have got a map from somewhere? Or are they merely following us, and trusting in luck?’
‘Just following us,’ grunted Ballas. They won’t have had time to find a map. Not many people know about these sewers. Perhaps the Wardens don’t even realise how much of a maze they are, and didn’t reckon on needing a map.’
‘Six men,’ said Crask, quietly. ‘Do you think we can beat them?
‘We’ve faced worse odds.’
Crask shivered. ‘I’d give anything for a mouthful of whisky.’ He rubbed his arms. ‘It’d make me feel braver.’ He hesitated—then released a slow breath. ‘Ballas, speak frankly. What are you?’
Ballas frowned. ‘A stupid question. I’m a man, being hunted by the Church …’
‘There is more to you than that. I have been watching you. You are a thief and a killer—in both activities you are accomplished—and relaxed, even. And that is what puzzles me. You have a talent, Ballas. A grim and bloody one, perhaps. But your abilities outstrip those of many men. You kill quickly, cleanly. And you think. For any situation, you can come up with a plan. It may be messy and dangerous—but it seems always to be the best plan. And there is—’
‘What I am,’ said Ballas, ‘is my own business.’ He wondered why Crask should be so suddenly curious. Did he believe that they wouldn’t escape the Wardens, and wanted to satisfy his curiosity before he died?
Unprompted, Crask explained.
‘The old man, in the visionary’s-root den, said he had a vision. When he chewed the weed and gazed upon you, I mean.’