Tall Tales From Pitch End

by Nigel McDowell

  Bruno hesitated. He knew this boy was a Rebel – knew he was suddenly an ally he needed to accept, knew they were linked already through their fathers, part of the same side – but still he felt unsure.

  ‘Ye’re a deep one, aren’t ye?’ said Nic. He smiled. ‘Tell me this then: what did ye see?’

  Bruno cleared his throat. ‘I saw what they’re going to be doing,’ he said at last.

  ‘Ye mean,’ said Nic, ‘what they’ve already been doing.’

  Bruno nodded. ‘Under the Clocktower,’ he said, ‘they took a girl I went to Hedge School with and made her old. And the Temperate became younger.’

  ‘Who was this girl?’ asked Nic.

  ‘The Marshall’s daughter,’ said Bruno.

  ‘Is that right?’ said Nic. ‘They’re getting more desperate if they’re risking upsetting their own supporters.’

  ‘They’re planning to do it to more,’ said Bruno. ‘The Elders are gonna take all the youth from the children in Pitch End, keep themselves young and still in power.’

  Bruno thought he heard Nic swear, low and breathless, the cigarette in his fingers continuing to burn low, sending smoke.

  Bruno went on: ‘The Temperate said something else. Something about restarting the Clocktower, needing the pocket watches, and The Book of Black & White.’

  ‘Aye, Dr Bloom said that the Temperate would try do that,’ said Nic.

  ‘Why?’ asked Bruno.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Nic quickly, and this time he turned away. ‘But if the Elders are after the pocket watches then we have to keep them safe. Dr Bloom said someday we’d need the watches to defeat the Elders. A day that’ll be coming very soon.’

  Nic took one last suck from the cigarette, then flicked it away.

  ‘We need to be going, quick-smart,’ said Nic. ‘Temperate will be making plans – we need to be doing the same.’

  Nic took up a bag of his own – a fold of sacking that might’ve held spuds once, bound with a loop of twine that he slipped his arm through. He said, ‘Good to have ye with us, Bruno,’ and he clapped Bruno between the shoulder blades, like they were very old, very dear friends. He took the blanket from Bruno’s arms, food still inside, and stuffed it into his bag as he started across the cavern.

  ‘Come on!’ shouted Nic.

  Bruno followed but had taken only a few steps; a single drop of water fell from the ceiling of the cavern and the ground itself rippled a response.

  ‘What’s this?’ he fired at Nic.

  ‘That,’ Nic said, the word tremulous with echoes, ‘is something ye shouldn’t have to see.’

  Bruno thought this was no kind of answer so he edged closer, each foot balanced on a mound of rock. Another drop, another ripple. He realised what he was looking at –

  ‘A lake,’ he murmured.

  Then he saw faces in the water –

  ‘What are they?’ he cried, recoiling but almost toppling in too, the sight magnetic.

  ‘What are what?’ said Nic.

  ‘Ye know what – the faces in the water!’

  ‘They’re not in the water,’ said Nic, and his voice this time quivered with more than echoes.

  ‘But …’ Bruno began, then understood.

  He looked up. Fastened to the ceiling of the cavern, their bodies wrapped in swaddling, everything covered but their faces, some with eyes pinned open – the dead. The Forgotten. Some were easier to recognise as bodies than others. Some looked as though they’d long since fused with the cavern itself, were no more than limb, bone; protruding from the ceiling like the barren, jointed roots of something above. Many of them, Bruno noticed, were the size of children.

  He watched the slow drip-drip of moisture from above to below, and shivered. He could never have slept a wink, not even stayed there, if he’d known what was above.

  ‘Cavern of the Forgotten,’ said Nic, suddenly closer. He had a way of creeping up, remaining unseen and unheard even without Talent.

  ‘This is where …’ said Bruno, with an added revelation to follow the rest, ‘where they’ve been taking and storing them, instead of the sea burials?’

  Nic didn’t nod or agree. Instead he dipped down, found a stone on the ground and hurled out into the water. Only then did Bruno get the truest sense of how wide and deep the lake was. The surface crinkled, reflected faces wavering, mouths ruffling like silenced laughter.

  ‘And this is where,’ said Nic, ‘they’ve been hiding all the children.’

  Bruno’s understanding took a moment. But then truth, a horror, came to him: the children the Elders had been stealing youth from, stealing from the town. Small bodies, faces old. His breathing grew louder, hurt his heart. He swallowed and the sound was massive. And eyes more accepting, more willing to see, other things appeared to him – pale, near-silver, like delinquent fragments of moon swapping night sky for seclusion, a cache of objects beneath the water, in the shallows. He moved closer, kneeled to see: a knife with an ivory handle, blade bent in two; a silver Birth Bracelet, the wishes of the inscription lost to age; a doll’s face, porcelain smeared with mud, eyes cracked, sulking and longing for the rest of its body; and picto-frames, many, one in particular double-sided and hinged, two portraits on either side with their gaze meant for one another. Their eyes had been scratched away.

  ‘Objects they usually send off with them to sea,’ said Nic. ‘Or things the Enforcers go and collect after they die so they can be properly Forgotten. All reminders got dumped here too. Precious things to these people. Don’t look like much now though, do they? Just things, no meaning.’ He sighed. ‘Leave the dead where they are’ (spat on his fingers and blessed himself, briefly) ‘and the living, take with ye. On we go.’

  Nic moved off.

  Bruno stared a while longer into the lake, till the surface was composed. Then he turned away, watching where Nic placed his feet, in what way he curved his soles to fit the curve of the rocks, following exactly in his shadow, and not once wanting to look back.

  XIX

  The Tall Tale of the Miner’s Fiery Heart

  Nic led Bruno through passages child-sized – narrow crevasses littered with scraps of light, so cramped they were made to move sidelong in careful steps, grazing knees and elbows. Bruno kept as far behind Nic as he could without losing him. They didn’t speak much, except for some brief exchanges of courtesy, which suited Bruno well – he wanted to think. So much needed dissecting, examining, everything upset by his escape from Pitch End. What had been left behind, what had he set going? What schemes had Temperate Thomas fallen into, what plans? And his mother – what might she now be enduring, because of him?

  A long time of journeying, thinking – Bruno feeling exhausted but determined not to show it – and then a deep rolling sound rose.

  The tunnel widened, the walls laced with white and shimmer, and they took a final corner and were shown a pool polished with light. A tall shaft above told Bruno how far underground they must be, the roaring a bright cascade, dropping, exploding on stone and peppering them with drops like instant diamonds. Bruno found the very sight of it refreshing.

  Nic cast his bag aside, stuck his head under the fall and slipped the ragged shift from his body. He raked his fingers across his scalp, dragging out twigs, tufts of moss, whatever else clung there. The skin covering his chest was drum-taut, the ladder of his ribs clear to be counted, sharp edges at the bottom like a pair of wings itching to tear through and unfurl. The rush of water relieved so much dirt Bruno thought him transformed.

  ‘How long have ye been up here?’ Bruno had to shout. ‘Hiding in the mountain?’

  ‘Do for another while,’ said Nic to himself, stepping out from under the flow, ignoring or just not hearing Bruno’s question. He ran his hands across his head once more, then snatched up his shift from the ground. He didn’t put it on though, just tucked it into his waistband.

  ‘Time to move on,’ he said, bending again for his potato-sack bag.

  ‘How much further?’ asked Bruno. />
  But Nic had passed through the water – a shimmer, then gone.

  Wants to avoid questions, Bruno thought. He followed though, ducking under the water, moving quickly but still getting a soaking, a shock of cold on his scalp and shoulders. He saw Nic far ahead and had to hurry after him.

  Only minutes later and they came to a meeting of tunnels – three ways ahead.

  Nic stopped.

  ‘Which way do we—’

  Bruno began but couldn’t finish. Something he took first for the still-roaring fall of water behind them was following. He turned as sound blasted like a gale through the passage, noise that wanted to move them on, warn them. Bruno stumbled as though shoved, falling against the wall of the tunnel. Then it left, the silence around them like the quivering calm after a storm.

  Bruno turned on Nic. ‘Tell me what that was,’ he said, feeling that no answer was likely, knowing Nic as he did so far.

  ‘Echoes,’ said Nic. ‘We go this way here.’

  He took the passageway right.

  Bruno followed again, demanding, ‘Of what? Who?’

  ‘People who lived in the mountain long ago,’ Nic shouted back, not stopping, not turning. ‘From before Pitch End was even created. Dr Bloom called them the Undying Voices. Things said, memories still bouncing around inside the mountains.’

  Bruno felt suddenly colder. He said no more, but moved faster.

  Only minutes further into the tunnel Nic stopped and turned. He had a chunk of griddle-cake in his fingers, the rest bulging in one cheek. He swallowed his mouthful, then dropped the remainder of the cake and shouted, ‘Get down!’

  Bruno fell to the ground just a blink before an arrow would’ve shattered his forehead, striking instead the rock behind. Bruno stayed down, didn’t know whether to crawl or curl up for most protection –

  ‘Stop! Stop it!’

  Nic was shouting – adding his voice to the echoes, the Undying Voices, thought Bruno – still naked on his top half, hands not pulling his dagger from his belt as Bruno would’ve expected (and wanted) but waving above his head.

  ‘He’s a Rebel!’ he shouted. Like an indictment the word repeated and repeated by the echoes: Rebel! Rebel! Rebel!

  ‘It’s fine,’ he told Bruno. ‘Don’t be worrying.’

  Bruno tried not to cower. He followed the direction of Nic’s gaze upward and scanned the half-dark there, but saw no one.

  ‘He has The Book of Black & White with him!’ Nic added.

  No more arrows came.

  The laboured heave of their breathing, both in perfect, anguished time, was the only sound. Nic tugged his shift from his belt, ran it across his forehead, then waved it with limp surrender. Bruno wondered then if he should run. Had they strayed into a waiting group of Enforcers?

  Then Nic called: ‘Dave! Come down and show yerself for Pitch sake!’

  They waited.

  Small, clammy moments passed, and then Bruno heard footsteps – a crunch of stone, a figure moving fast towards him. Bruno got to his feet, weakness bleeding into every bone. Nic didn’t move, didn’t pull his dagger from his belt and Bruno felt a desire to reach out for him, stand behind him even –

  It was another boy, as different to Nic in appearance as Mr Pace had been to the Temperate: hair parted neatly to one side, shirt clean and buttoned to the neck, more adult than child, but with a crossbow in his arms. He made Bruno his target. Bruno thought of Louise, the same way she’d approached, confronted, and he thought this boy may not stop at all, just storm on through him as though he were mist.

  An inch from Bruno’s face the boy halted, pushing Bruno against the wall, the swell of their chests touching. The boy glared.

  ‘He’s Michael Atlas’s son alright!’ cried the boy, voice as loud and harsh as a hammer blow. ‘Look at that sulky oul face on him, just the very same!’

  ‘Steady on, Dave,’ said Nic, settling another cigarette between his lips.

  ‘David,’ said the boy, ‘not Dave. I’ve been telling ye that for how many turns now? Still it doesn’t sink in.’

  Bruno glanced at Nic, repeating to himself: How many turns now?

  ‘Right,’ said Nic, looking away. ‘Well, now ye’ve almost killed him with an arrow and eyeballed him enough – we need to get into the chapel, keep the book safe.’

  ‘Just like that?’ said David, still not looking at Nic, still letting his scrutiny travel over Bruno’s face as though trying to detect a crack, a flaw. ‘Thankfully, yer say-so isn’t the only test for letting someone new into the Rebel Chapel. We’ll be needing more than just a name. No offence, Atlas.’

  ‘Then how’re ye gonna check?’ asked Nic, snapping the cigarette from his mouth, unlit. ‘Slice him open, check the colour of his blood?’

  Nic laughed. Bruno tried not to shudder. Then he had a thought he was pleased with and said, ‘I have this.’ He reached into his shirt and brought to David’s sight the Rebel medallion.

  David might’ve given it half a moment’s consideration, then said, ‘Ye know, that’s just what a rightly-devious person would do: show the medallion quick-smart and think that makes everything good. Well it doesn’t. Not with me anyway.’ He glanced at Nic. ‘Sure, he could’ve stolen that!’

  Bruno closed his hand around the medallion, for the first time feeling it as worthless. ‘I didn’t steal it,’ he said. ‘It was my father’s.’

  ‘I’m gonna ask him some of the Knowledge,’ said David.

  ‘Fine,’ said Nic. ‘Just be quick-smart about it.’

  David shut his eyes.

  Bruno thought of sidestepping away. He didn’t like being discussed as though he had no words to say for himself. Nic gave him a look though: a roll of both eyes that said plainly that they should let David have his time, his questions.

  Then David opened his eyes and told Bruno: ‘If ye’ve any notion of the Knowledge, then ye might know some stories, Atlas. Stories only the Rebels knew about, that were passed on from fathers to sons to keep the truth alive under the lies of the Elders. We all know the Tall Tales inside out. And so should you, if ye’ve not been Forgetting like the Elders say, if ye’ve been a true Rebel in Pitch End, searching out things other than what them Elders tell ye. If ye were a good little pupil then ye’ll only have in yer head the rubbish the Elders filled it with. So I’ll make it rightly-easy for ye. Tell me this and no more: in The Tall Tale of the Miner’s Fiery Heart, what creature did that miner meet below Pitch End, and why did he give his heart so easily to it?’

  ‘Rightly-stupid waste of time,’ said Nic.

  ‘Don’t worry, Delby,’ said David, ‘he’ll prove hisself less than stupid. Wouldn’t want to be letting ye down, the son of yer father’s best mate and all.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Bruno then. ‘Stop speaking for me. I know the answer.’ He took a breath, and then told David: ‘The miner encountered not a creature but a woman, the Lady of Lamplight, who had in place of her own heart a small, faltering, flickering flame. She explained that she was dying. Explained that her heart was about to be extinguished forever and that she had a beloved waiting in the world above who she wished to return to, but had fled from because of the dwindling, shameful nature of her heart.’ Bruno paused for a moment, then continued with more confidence:

  ‘The Lady offered an exchange: her heart for his, and she would give him one kiss for his sacrifice. The miner had a beloved of his own in Pitch End but was so enamoured and bewitched by the Lady that when she offered him the exchange, he took the kiss without reservation or hesitation, and he gave his heart to the Lady of Lamplight, taking for his own her small, meagre flame. And so she departed, returning to the world above to seek her beloved, the miner remaining in that tunnel. And it is said he remains there still, waiting for someone to encounter so that he might regain a heart and return to the surface, to his own true love.’

  Could’ve been word-perfect, Bruno thought, straight from the pages of Tall Tales from Pitch End. He hadn’t realised he remembered it, not until th
en.

  Then the (growing familiar) slap on his back from Nic, and words: ‘Well done, Bruno!’ Nic looked to David. ‘All good, present and correct, Mr Gatekeeper! Now let’s go.’

  Nic fastened his arm around Bruno’s shoulders.

  ‘Wait,’ said David.

  He looked at Bruno.

  David’s hand shot out, so sudden Bruno flinched, and then looked down – an offer of a handshake. Bruno took it, and felt his hand squeezed too tight.

  ‘Hope ye’re ready,’ said David. ‘Ready to fight. We’ve got a struggle ahead, difficult choices, sacrifices even. But I say warmest welcome to ye, on behalf of all Rebels here and gone. And outta curiosity – how did ye know that Tall Tale?’

  ‘I read the book of them when I was ten turns,’ said Bruno. ‘I remember things.’

  David released Bruno’s hand. Nic, his arm still across Bruno’s shoulders, pushed him on.

  ‘It’s almost time!’ shouted David. ‘Almost time to finish what our fathers started!’

  And then David was left behind.

  Nic kept his arm around Bruno. If he hadn’t, if he’d abandoned him for just a moment, Bruno imagined he would have been instantly lost – deeper into the mountain, all light quickly gone. He could see nothing and feel nothing but the inflexible guidance of Nic’s arm and the rub of rock against his body. Then there was an ending.

  ‘Where now?’ Bruno asked.

  He felt Nic move away, but bringing him along.

  ‘Should be,’ Nic said, ‘just about … here.’

  He felt Nic descend as though the ground had taken him in one gulp. Then Bruno was pulled down too. A match flared in Nic’s fingers revealing the wall and a small, circular wooden door. Spun threads of thinnest brass branched across the surface, delicate and intricate as web, half embedded and half raised, all with their fine beginnings in a brass lock on the right of the door. Bruno shifted his bare feet, soles getting a grazing but he didn’t mind – excitement was obscuring everything else. He looked closer – chipped into a stone arch curved over the doorway were words: