‘Should never’ve been made outta glass anyway.
‘Could’ve been shattered by any number of things.
‘Storm, hail, expanding in the cold of Ever-Winter, then contracting in the heat of the Swelter Season.
‘Poor work by the glaziers or short-sightedness by the brainless Mayor at the time …
‘And on and on and on.
‘Some things just can’t be known for sure.’
‘Second one,’ said Nic. ‘Let’s go.’
He took a step but Bruno held him back with words –
‘Wait.’
‘Why?’ said Nic. ‘Don’t be disagreeing, not now.’
‘No,’ said Bruno. ‘I’m not gonna rush just coz ye think the Rebel version is the right one.’
‘I don’t think,’ said Nic, teeth tight together. ‘I know it’s right.’
‘How?’
‘Because, and that’s enough to be knowing.’
‘Because why?’
‘Because … the voice that said it just now was my da. And he never told a lie in his life.’
Bruno could conjure no argument. And still the shouts behind them –
‘This way! To the left-hand side – the steps are smaller! Hurry!’
‘It’s the last one,’ was all Bruno said.
‘What?’ asked Nic. ‘That wishy-washy, on-the-fence answer?’
‘Yes,’ said Bruno, and he moved towards the door, but this time Nic took him by the arm and held him.
‘Tell me how ye know,’ he said.
‘Because it’s the least sure of itself,’ said Bruno. ‘It’s not the Elder version or the Rebel one. It’s the one the Temperate would never expect a Rebel or anyone in Pitch End to go for.’
They stared at one another, Bruno seeing the strain, the effort it would cost Nic to believe Bruno over himself, over his own father, over the Rebels. Stared, brow taut. Then Nic nodded.
‘There they are! Shoot!’
They ran to the door together as gunshots clipped stone at their heels. The door opened onto darkness. Bruno threw himself forwards, Nic slammed the door shut, Bruno leapt for a bolt on the inside, snapping it home.
Fists and boots beat unseen on the other side, words came – ‘There’s another way in there, the Marshall said so. Head back down them steps!’
Only a small time stolen then, but enough to search further. Bruno turned to the dark, listened. Wherever they were was full of an agitated tick-tick-ticking. Nic spun the dial of the miner’s lamp to its loosest. Bruno heard the low hiss of gas, light brightening.
They were surrounded by clock faces. All of Pitch End’s collected time was packed around them, stockpiled, in a room with unknown ends, storms of dust churning in the lamplight.
Tick, tick, tick …
More beats to a moment than needed, clocks not in time together but against one another. Bruno walked to the nearest clock, hands reaching out –
‘No,’ said Nic, grabbing him. ‘We’re here for one thing. And the lamp won’t last long at this strength.’
Bruno’s arms fell, attention too falling to the ground; he saw circular stone plates no bigger than bicycle wheels. He crouched and began to explore the surface with his fingers. Engraved were things Bruno struggled to see.
Nic joined him with their dwindling light.
‘We have to check them all,’ said Bruno.
‘What for?’ asked Nic. ‘How do ye even know—’
‘I’ll know,’ said Bruno.
Bruno blew dust from the first and saw words –
THE ARRIVAL OF THE ELDERS
His fingers gouged engrained filth, stubborn history, and he saw depicted ten tall figures, behind them a vast circle – a sun with broad spokes. Elders, their divine arrival; a gift, a blessing to Pitch End.
‘Bloody sicken ye, wouldn’t it,’ said Nic.
‘Next one,’ said Bruno, crawling to the next, awaiting Nic, needing light however little.
SILENCE AND SEEING
The second of the Eleven Decent Ways written by the Elders: ‘Rightly-obedient silence and rightly-diligent seeing are a Pitch Ender’s greatest virtues, especially if what you don’t say or what you see would be to the continuing support of the Elders.’
No matter how many times he heard or read it, Bruno could never fathom meaning in it.
‘That it?’ asked Nic, so much hope in his voice it hurt Bruno to shake his head no.
But did he even know what he was looking for? He had to hope he would know it when he saw it. If guessing, he would think a stone plate that had some link to the Rebels, something they did that Definitive History tied them to, gave them blame for – that was what they needed to discover.
And all the while, still the frantic chorus of tick, tick, ticking …
THE RUINING OF MOUNT TOME
Bruno’s gasp drained him.
He fell beside the circle of stone and final (he thought forgotten) words returned, which he said aloud:
‘Beneath a painting of Mount Tome – a place where any Pitch Ender can seek safety, seclusion, peace – the locksmith’s sanguine son found a box, and knew it as his father’s from the symbol upon it. And he knew that inside would be what his father had lost, what he would soon rejoice at being reunited with.’
‘Is it … ?’ asked Nic. He awaited Bruno’s consent. Bruno nodded. Nic drove his knife downwards, blade sinking to the hilt into the rim of the stone plate.
‘Wait,’ said Bruno. ‘I want to see it properly.’
‘Why?’ asked Nic.
‘Because,’ said Bruno, ‘I just need to know.’
Fingers working to remove more dirt and dust, the scene below THE RUINING OF MOUNT TOME: a sharp, jagged blade of lightning striking from a storm cloud, leaving the familiar sharp, jagged summit … the cloud bore the word REBELS.
‘Ye think that’s true?’ said Nic, working to pry the stone circle free. ‘Only made-up lies.’
‘The Tall Tale that got us here is made up too,’ said Bruno.
‘Not the same,’ said Nic.
Bruno didn’t disagree. Instead he moved, letting Nic work.
‘Help me,’ said Nic, as the circle of stone lifted a little, then Bruno helped to push it aside.
No surprise – darkness below.
Nic unscrewed a bulb from the miner’s lamp and let it fall – down a drop like a well, losing light as it tumbled, casting swift shadows on packed walls. Bruno counted slow, reaching ten before he heard a splash.
‘Must be right down to the old mines,’ said Nic.
They looked at each other.
Nic found another rope in his satchel, another crook of metal on the end that he fastened to the stone lid, the other end around the stem of the miner’s lamp. He lowered it in, two bulbs left.
‘Go,’ he told Bruno.
From the descent before, Bruno remembered Nic’s advice – hands apart, hold tight – and was better able now. He edged down the rope, lamp at his feet, eyes examining the contents of the well. Deep stone shelves surrounded him, curving with the wall. Everywhere were loose papers folded, not just yellowed but browned, green, even, with the creep of mould; books denied covers, edges singed like escapees from a blaze; much more paper in rolls, bundled away like obsolete maps of forgotten countries, string noosed around.
Bruno turned and the miner’s lamp flicked its gaze onto copies of the Pitch End Journal, its light carelessly browsing, touching past headlines, whole shelves devoted to storing and not destroying like Pitch End had been told.
The rope shuddered, Bruno looked up – Nic was descending too.
‘It should have the Rebel symbol on it!’ Nic called down.
Bruno’s fingers found his father’s medallion and he pressed it between thumb and forefinger to impress its image on his mind. He had to focus on the winding keys, wrench attention from all else – all that he wanted to read and know, pluck from the shelves and devour, learning what was hidden, what was denied every eye in Pitch End on Elder O
rders.
‘See it anywhere?’ asked Nic.
Then an explosion above –
Bruno and Nic stopped, listening to the advance of time – tick-tick, tick-tick …
Shouts, an order of, ‘Another load of explosives!’
‘Is there not a key for this other way in?’ they heard an Enforcer ask.
‘Temperate Thomas has it and we’ve no time for going to get it. Now pile up those explosives good and tight!’
How many more minutes?
Then something –
Bruno’s attention snagged, not on the Rebel symbol, not on a box, but a book, the title in a familiar hand, silver on black –
Without Time
The End of Ageing – A Proposal
By Dr Jonathan Bloom
‘Did ye find it?’ Nic demanded, rope conveying upwards Bruno’s stopping, his sudden attentiveness.
Bruno reached for the book. He dragged it free, one-handed, cobwebs clinging. He thought of adding it to his satchel, thought of tucking it under his arm, into the waistband of his trousers, any way he could bring it. It opened in his hand like a mind heavy with secrets, showing Bruno a meticulous, hand-drawn diagram: the Clocktower, eight smaller clock faces sketched in and around. Handwritten beside in a hurry was –
Talent & Time, most powerful thing (so said Arthur Pitch)
Time in physical form will aid in the imagining of it?
Pocket watch for a heart?
Bruno sought more words but the page was darkening, lamp almost empty and Nic crying above, ‘What are ye doing? Do ye see it anywhere?’
Another explosion, not muffled now, and the Marshall’s voice clear – ‘Move the wreckage outta the way, be getting in there!’
Bruno turned the page and on the back saw more words –
have already identified a number of bright, healthy young subjects of on which experiments can be carried out. Rebel parents more than willing to
‘Bruno!’
Nic’s bare feet struck Bruno’s head and Bloom’s book was knocked from his hands –
‘There!’ cried Nic, pointing towards the shelf where Bloom’s book had been; a dark box, Rebel symbol embossed in dull silver. Bruno reached for it, took it on fingertips, in one hand –
The shelf cracked, spat dust and Bruno thought of the whole place failing without Bloom’s book, crumbling like a bridge with the keystone snatched.
Another crack to the shelf above –
Bruno looked up, saw dark faces around the circle like numbers on a clock, aiming, firing –
Nic shouted, ‘Drop!’
Bruno loosened his grip and let the rope rush through his hands. Torn skin, papers fleeing shelves like leaf fall –
Nic’s feet slammed again against Bruno’s scalp and then deep cold as he hit water, Nic a tick later, grabbing for Bruno and bringing them both to the surface. Like pennies dropped in a good-luck well – I wish, I wish, I want – the water popped around them with gunshots.
Nic said, ‘Under. Follow me.’
But Bruno didn’t. Knew he couldn’t. Holding his breath and not knowing when he’d have another?
‘Bruno,’ said Nic, and he took Bruno’s face in his hands. ‘Ye have to. Can’t let them win, remember?’
Bruno looked at him, and didn’t know how to prepare himself.
More gunfire and Nic jerked forwards, shoulder struck –
And it was Bruno who acted. He took Nic’s hand and pulled him under, plunging together with the box of winding keys tight under his arm, Dr Bloom’s book nowhere in sight but dominating Bruno’s thoughts, looming in the dark, wondering space behind his eyes.
XXV
Blood and Fire
All of Bruno was grazing stone, his bare feet insensible, his satchel anchoring him, the box with the symbol of the Rebels under his arm another weight. Forwards
in the water a little but downwards more, with all Bruno’s thoughts on how little longer he could hold his breath and how far off the surface might be. Then Nic helped – he kicked out hard. The water around them clouded. Bruno tried to see the extent of the wound in Nic’s shoulder.
Soon Bruno could go no further, and his mouth itched open, lungs burning, and he saw Nic’s mouth open too in exclamation, bubbles exploding from his lips as he took Bruno under the arms and kicked as both throats flooded with water –
Bruno returned to air and spat, retched, Nic still with a hold on him and demanding from somewhere close but sounding distant – ‘Ye okay?’
Bruno didn’t answer. He was trying to bring himself back. Eventually, he nodded. He looked up and saw flames imprisoned, heard a sound like laundry wild in a gale. He wiped water from his eyes – a drain above, a way out, fire beyond.
‘We’re in Old Town,’ Bruno managed.
He noticed beams bracing the walls around them, bloated, and tools studding the surface of rough rock – axes, picks, their handles, all abandoned there mid-work. Bruno remembered, having heard (how else but in whispers in the Hedge School playground?) of sudden floods that had ended mining in Pitch End. He’d listened to Sabitha tell with relish of the drowning, bodies never found, men lost and families incomplete above ground. The Rebels had been responsible, she’d put about. More lies in life, he thought, and anger made Bruno shake himself out of reminiscence, focus on what needed to be done presently.
‘We need to climb,’ said Bruno, firelight fingering metal rods fixed to the walls.
Nic looked up, slowly, then nodded. ‘Gimme the box,’ he said.
‘But I can—’ he started, but Nic’s hands went out for it and Bruno had to give. Nic lifted his bag around it, tugged the twine to tighten and began his climb, one-handed, the other arm loose, dark with blood. Bruno was close behind, clothes worse than a weight, all of him dripping like something being wrung.
Bruno felt a prickle of heat, and his scalp warmed and face tightened at the flames overhead. Memory took him again, ruthlessly, as he saw himself at four-going-on-five turns, the house in a rage around him…
Nic flung back the grating. The fire bellowed and he vanished upwards. Bruno pulled himself out, crawling and staying that way; fire was the source of the smoke but Bruno saw barely a light. He knew he was inside though. He half-stood, stumbled alone until his hands were reunited with Nic’s, and with heads low, together they searched for their way out.
A wall came and they followed, awaiting a door – when it was touched it crumbled, falling to ash. Out into the street and there was more light to dazzle – fire snatching for stars, flames high and higher the farther Bruno looked, the more he watched…
He saw frantic shadows. The families of Old Town? Would Conn and his Cinder-Folk family escape? Go anywhere at all or just perish in the fire that tomorrow they’d be blamed for alongside returning Rebels and gypsies and all lower sorts the Elders bemoaned as the enduring blight on Pitch End?
‘Move,’ said Nic, and then he coughed so deep it doubled him over. Bruno gave him support and the pair of them turned as one but still there was nothing to see, no way to know where they needed to go. They could only stay close to one another, hope for something.
The Cinder-Folk, thought Bruno, again. Then he remembered the coal, the one Conn had given him. Help (he’d said) for whenever Bruno needed it. If that time was any –
‘Wait,’ Bruno said.
He eased Nic down, twisted out from under his satchel and kneeled to open it.
‘Bruno,’ said Nic. ‘We can’t wait.’
Bruno’s fingers met shingle, the sharp edge of a pic-tograph – he let everything go, even this last. Only finding the Cinder-Folk’s gift was of any consequence.
‘Bruno,’ repeated Nic, his voice faint. ‘Please.’
It came to him at last. Bruno held the coal in blackened fingers, both his gaze and Nic’s resting on it.
Blood. It would work when blood was added, was that what Conn had told him? Without a thought Bruno pressed the coal to the wound on Nic’s arm.
At
first nothing; the flames of Old Town skulking, edging towards them, and the coal remaining dark in Bruno’s hand. Then the touch of blood began to glow, burned white and white-hot but Bruno couldn’t release it, had to hold it as white flame leapt high, a flare that rose and twisted through smoke, one way then another, exploring the air above and finally blossoming, spreading long tentacles. Unlike any flare Bruno had seen fishermen use, it continued its blaze, its disjointed trail like a frozen branch of lightning, its source Bruno and Nic below. Old Town was bleached with its light. Bruno was sure Enforcers would see, but hoped that Conn and his family would see first. But in the end, it was neither –
‘Clegg,’ said Nic, and Bruno was shocked at how weak he sounded.
And then a splutter-grumble that Bruno had already grown to recognise. The smoke was parted as one of the gliders tore through, swooping low, a shout falling from Louise – ‘Get yerselves to higher up ground!’
Then shadows with heavy footfalls approached, that could only be Enforcers. They gave no warning – just began to fire.
Bruno lifted Nic and turned; darkways everywhere.
Words reached for them from behind – ‘There they are! Just ahead!’
Hopeless, thought Bruno. And as he imagined being caught, he saw a single silhouette ahead.
‘Bruno,’ said Nic, trying to press onto him the bag, the box with the Rebel symbol inside. ‘Take it. Leave me and go.’
But Bruno stayed focused on the figure ahead. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not running.’
‘Too right,’ said the voice of the shadow. Conn of the final Cinder-Folk family stepped from smoke. ‘Stay close to me,’ he said. He moved in front of Bruno and Nic, facing the Enforcers.
‘Back!’ one shouted, who must’ve thought himself braver than the shake in his rifle. ‘I said back into yer rotten hole, on the Elder Order! I have a rifle, I’ll shoot it!’
Conn took a step forwards, definite with defiance.
‘I will!’ shouted the Enforcer. ‘I’ll have no choice!’
Coward, thought Bruno. He’ll not mind killing if he thinks he was pushed to it, needs to uphold the ‘Elder Order’.
‘We all will!’ the Enforcer added, hoping for support, reminding Conn he wasn’t alone. ‘We aren’t afeared to fight ye know, not against scum like yerself!’
Tall Tales From Pitch End Page 19