But Jak hadn’t died here. Jak had died of eating something bad, up on the surface. Probably those berries. Mags knew they were poison, they all know those plump, dark berries were poison. Jak knew too. But when you were starving and a bully had stolen your bread, maybe those berries were a little too tempting.
Maybe Jak was here because Mags hadn’t shared with him.
This was a good seam. Why hadn’t Jak managed to bring out enough sparklies to get him extra bread? He should have been able to.
Mags’ tapping released a chunk of rock. There was nothing in it that he could see, but it wasn’t waste—it would go up to the hammer-mill and the sluices. He set his chisel into a good spot and began tapping again. One more sparkly and he’d get a second slice of barley bread with his broth.
Jak could have done that every day in this seam.
“If ye were hungry, ’twas yer own fau’t,” he said, under his breath, as the sad eyes watched the back of his head. “Ye hear me? Lookit this seam! Yer own fau’t.”
That was what Master Cole said all the time. It was easy enough to earn bread, all you had to do was work for it. It was another lie of course, because if you found yourself in a really good seam, Cole would switch one of his sons to it. But that was what he told the ghost, lying to it as he and the rest were lied to. Maybe Jak even believed that, seeing Mags pulling out the sparklies now.
There were two sounds in the mine where he was, the tapping and the steady drip of water. They provided a counterpoint to his own tapping and his muttering to the ghost. The rock fractured suddenly and dropped off the face, and there, catching the light was another yellow sparkly; not very big, but Mags’ sharp eyes never missed a sparkly. He pulled the rag he kept wrapped around his throat off, folded it a few times and set it on the floor of the tunnel just under the stone. Setting his chisel as delicately as he could, he began flaking bits of rock from the face around the sparkly. A tap, a pause to check his progress, another tap, another pause. It was serious, intense work. One slip of the chisel, and there would be nothing but chips and a beating.
The feeling of eyes on the back of his neck suddenly intensified, and he felt a cold hand touch the middle of his back. He jumped, the chisel slipped, and the stone shattered.
Hoping the Pieters boys hadn’t noticed the change in rhythm, he shoved the chips with the rest of the waste for the sluice and went back to cutting the rock face.
But now besides the sweat of terror of the ghost, he was drenched in the cold sweat of fear of a beating. “What’d ye do thet fer?” he whispered harshly. “Ye want me t’die too?”
Yes. . . .
He almost froze. So Jak was after—what? Company? No, he and Jak had barely exchanged a few words, ever. No, it had to be something else. It had to be about what he was.
Yer Bad Blood, boy. Yer Bad Blood, and it’s damn lucky for you that yer here, an’ we can put ye to work an’ keep those idle hands busy, or ye’d be dancin’ at rope’s end already.
He could hear that in his mind, hear what Cole Pieters said of him. Was that why the ghost was haunting him? Because he was Bad Blood?
Out of the kindness, the pure kindness of my heart, I took ye. No one else wanted ye, not even the godly priests. They all knew what ye were. They all figgered one day ye’d turn on ’em. I’m a bloody saint, I am, fer takin’ a chance with you.
Did he deserve this miserable excuse for a life? Did he deserve to be dead?
Or should he just have died with his parents, and all this time the gods had been trying to kill him, and he just wasn’t cooperating with them and dying proper-like?
To hell wi’ ye, gods! Ye sendin’ ghosts t’do yer work now? Tap, pause. Tap, pause. He put his nose as close to the stone as he could and still see, examining the rock minutely.
To hell with gods. To hell with what they wanted. To hell with Jak and his sad story. There were no good stories here. Every kiddy here was unwanted, burdens on their villages, bastards left on doorsteps, kiddies left orphaned—they arrived, more often than not, with tear-streaked faces, and most of the time, their faces remained tear-streaked, day in, day out. There was little enough to be happy about here. Good days meant someone found food in the pigs’ buckets before the pigs got their slop. Good days meant you hurt less. Good days meant one of the god-men was going to visit, and you got put into long shirts made of sacks that you pulled on over your rags so it looked like you had clean clothing. The shirts itched, but you weren’t allowed to scratch. And you got two slices of bread and better soup, made with peas, and just for that night you didn’t sleep hungry. Those were good days, and they didn’t happen often.
And the priests, the god-men, would look at the shirts and not at the thin faces, the bony limbs, and tell everyone how lucky they were to have a good master like Cole Pieters, someone who was teaching them a trade, feeding and clothing them. Then there would be a long blather about gods, but not too long, because Pieters wanted them back at the mine. And then the god-man would go have a fine meat dinner with the Pieterses, then go away, and the shirts would be snatched away, and it was all the same again. It was always the same. Nothing ever changed, and no one would come to rescue them.
“Gabble gabble gabble.”
He started. That wasn’t the whisper of a ghost, and it wasn’t any of the kiddies or one of Cole Pieters’ sons. It wasn’t even words he recognized!
“Gabble gabble gabble!”
He clutched at his chisel and hammer as the mine started to darken and fade around him. What was going on? Was his lamp—
I left the mine—
Everything was dark, and he felt as if he was falling. And the back of his head hurt.
I left the mine. Dallen rescued me. Dallen and . . . and . . .
He felt someone grab him by the hair. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t even open his eyes. Suddenly he was breathing in smoke, thick, sweet . . . he coughed, but that only drove it farther into his lungs. He tried to hold his breath, but eventually he had to breathe anyway, breathe in great, shuddering gulps of the thick, too-sweet air heavy with the smoke. He thought he might throw up, he suddenly had so much vertigo. He heard someone grunt, and felt himself falling sideways.
It was dark. There wasn’t much oil in his lamp, and he’d turned it way down. The last one to use it must have taken it off and turned it way up to warm his hands by. You could do that, but it was stupid to. He’d felt when he got the lamp that it was low on oil, but they only got refilled at the beginning of the night shift, and there was no point in asking for more oil So he’d dropped it to the tiniest flame he could and not have it blow out. You didn’t need a light to get to the end of the shaft, and if you were working a poor seam, well, you didn’t need much light for that, either.
As he knew, this wasn’t a good seam. He’d been taken off Jak’s old seam as soon as he started bringing out lots of sparklies. Davven was working it now, the suck-up. He could chip away at this thing for candlemarks without needing to see, and save the light for when he worked at the thin vein that held the sparklies. You had to cut away the bad rock before you could get to the good stuff.
He’d noticed on his way out that by his standards, the roof was overdue for a prop, so he brought one in and hammered it in place before going back to work. He arranged himself at the face and began working high, above the seam. He’d work down, in strips, and maybe there’d be something worthwhile when he got to the right rock. He had to bring something out or he wouldn’t get fed at all.
At least the ghost wasn’t in this seam.
But suddenly, he began to cramp. Legs, then arms, knotting up in an instant, and so fiercely that it made him cry out. He expected to hear one of Cole’s sons yelling when he did. “No jibber-jabber!” But instead, his arms and legs just burned . . . burned . . . felt as if someone had bound them up.
“Gabble gabble gabble!”
His throat burned too. Why did his throat burn? It felt the way it had when he’d inhaled some noxious smoke from when the Pieters boys had been burning a carcass of something that had died and started to rot before they found it. He coughed and whimpered, coughed again.
It was too dark to see, but again, someone grabbed his head by the hair, this time pulling him up. He opened his mouth to protest, and what felt like the wooden mouth of a waterskin was jammed into his teeth. A few drops of liquid dribbled onto his tongue, thirst overcame him, and he sucked at it, greedily, ignoring the musty, odd taste, bitter and sweet at the same time. He drank worse water every day, water murky and gritty with the waste from the mine, water green with algae from the barrels at the mine-head that were never cleaned, water slimy out of the bottles they were given when they went down to work, bottles that were never cleaned either.
The hand let go of his hair, and he fell back into darkness. Hot darkness. Hot, sticky darkness.
So hot.
* * *
Mags worked away at the sluice. It was hot, so hot. In summer, working the sluices was the best job. There was sun and fresh air, and if you got hot you just splashed some water over you, but for some reason, the water was just as hot as the air today, and splashing water over himself didn’t make any difference. It was hard work, right enough, swirling the heavy pans of gravel around and around in the running water, and his arms and back ached something terrible. He felt all cramped up again, but at least he wasn’t hungry. And it was no worse than mining the seam. It was summer, and this must have been afternoon shift. He couldn’t remember. It would be work for long hours, because this was the afternoon shift, and work didn’t stop till the sun went down. Well, that wasn’t so bad. You didn’t really want to go to bed early in the summer, when you could sluice in the sun and let the heat soak into you, especially after a turn in the mine in the cold. Even if the sluice water was as hot as the air right now.
Piles of rock pounded into gravel at the hammer mill were brought here after sorting. Master Cole’s daughters and youngest sons did that; a lot of sparklies were pounded out by those hammers, fracturing the rock around them but not the crystals themselves. The kiddies got the gravel when the Pieters siblings were done with it. The sorting house was a pleasanter place by far than the sluices. You were allowed to sit down. The doors and windows stood open to the breeze in summer. There was a fire in there, come winter. The only time the kiddies ever saw a fire was when there were leaves and trash being burned or they took a turn as a kitchen drudge because a drudge had took sick. The sorting house was clean and bright, and the work was just tedious, not back-breaking. But, then, that was to be expected, since the Pieters kids served there . . . and it was rare indeed that anyone else got a turn in the place. Usually old man Cole or his wife or one of the older boys would bend their heads to work there before they let a kiddie in the door. It had happened once to Mags’ knowledge, the year that an ague and a flux went through the whole place, carrying off two Pieters kids and several servants, but leaving the mineworkers oddly alone. Maybe even a fever realized what a misery their lives were and figured they had enough punishment.
Or maybe the gods were bastards.
It was so hot today!
Mags stood at the head of the third sluice, with his back to the afternoon sun. Not a good position on a day this hot, but the bigger, tougher fellers got the spots in the shade. He got the pan that had been left by the kiddie on the last shift under the sluice, scooped up enough to cover the bottom from the gravel pile next to him and began swirling the gravel in the running water, watching for the glint of something colored and shiny.
So hot . . . so hot . . . almost as hot as it had been that night, on the roof.
Wait, what roof?
Because he remembered a roof, remembered crouching up there, in a place where no kiddie was allowed to be, but it was night. It was night, and the stars were hidden behind a cloud, and there was that watching, the same as the ghost in the shaft, watching him . . . but he ignored it because it had been doing that for days now, and nothing had ever happened. Everyone said it would fade eventually, then go, as the ghost lost its hold on the world.
Everyone said so. Even Dallen.
Dallen? Who’s—
He kept his nose on his business, sending the gravel down the sluice when it was panned out, concentrating on the sweat trickling down his back as a counter to the cramps and numbing of his hands and arms, and the overpowering heat, and watching in that peculiarly unfocused state that let him spot the tiny sparks of color and light that others missed. The little wooden dish at his side filled steadily.
But who’s Dallen?
* * *
The pain in his back and arms was nearly unbearable. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d hurt this bad, not ever. It felt as if someone had tied his arms behind his back and left them there, and they were cramping. Yet, somehow, his hands and arms were doing the job they were supposed to do.
Supposed to do? How could his limbs hurt this badly and still be working, as if the pain belonged to some other body?
Someone had been working his seam last night. Which meant that it might need a support. The cripples that worked the night shift were mostly crazy as well as crippled, and they weren’t nearly as particular about safety as he was. He was back in the good seam again, which meant that . . . that ghost might be there. He tried not to think about it, found that he couldn’t, and instead just whispered to it in his head, over and over. I ain’t hurt ye. I ain’t th’ one t’blame. Go haunt th’ one thet is. He didn’t dare say anything out loud. The Pieters boys were working nearby and might hear him. He knew they were certainly listening to make sure he kept working. That was why Davven got pulled off this shaft. He’d only worked enough to ensure he got double bread, then slacked off.
He fetched a timber, but that left him able to carry only his chisel and hammer, He crawled in, found as he had expected that the roof needed shoring, and hammered his timber in place. Then he went to work.
It was a nightmare. His hands chipped away at the stone, but they felt numb, as numb as if he’d immersed them in cold water, or slept on them wrong and they’d fallen asleep. His arms screamed at him, and his back—
Finally he couldn’t take it anymore, and the chisel dropped from his fingers as he moaned and his eyes closed. Or had they been closed all along? He couldn’t feel rock under him, it was wood, and it was moving. He wasn’t kneeling, he was lying on his side. And then came that voice again.
“Gabble gabble! GABBLE!”
Hands in his hair, and this time as his head was pulled up, he was able to get his eyes open a crack. Dim light filtered through canvas felt like staring at the sun. There was someone between him and the canvas.
Canvas? Wood?
Someone did something behind his back, and his arms stopped hurting, his back stopped hurting. He felt first one hand, then the other, pulled around in front of him, as if they’d been tied behind his back. A finger and thumb pressing hard at the hinges of his jaw forced his mouth open. The neck of the waterskin was shoved between his teeth, and he was suddenly aware of that burning thirst. But this time it wasn’t water, it was a kind of soup or broth, salty and meaty, but with the same bittersweet aftertaste that the water had had . His head felt thick, as if someone had stuffed him into a helmet that was too small.
Helmet?
He drank, because otherwise he’d choke. He was let fall again, and this time he actually felt something take over him, pulling him back into the mine, and had time to think drug before . . .
He knelt to his work in the mine, but he could hear Pieters’ sons talking, working away in their seams, and they were scared. Absolutely terrified.
“I ain’t never seen anythin’ like it,” said Me
lak, the third son and Jarrik’s junior. “I mean, I heerd the stories, but seein’ one—it ain’t right. It was hot-mad and tryin’ and tryin’ t’get in, and every way it got stopped, it just tried a new one. Smart. Things like that got no right to be as smart as a man.”
“Ain’t just that it’s smart, neither,” Jarrik grumbled. “It’s got the luck of a devil. Tyndale shot at it, an’ did nothin’ but miss.”
“It scares me. What’s it want?” There was real fear in Melak’s voice, something Mags was not accustomed to hearing. “Why won’t it go away?”
“It wants somethin’ here, I guess,” Jarrik replied. “Somethin’ or someone. Either way, Pa ain’t letting it on the property. He swears he’s keepin’ it off.”
“But how?” Melak almost wailed the words. “Ye can’t shoot it, ye can’t fence it out, and ye can’t stop it! We don’ know what it wants! What if it wants to get in here and kill one of us?”
“Why would it—” Jarrik stopped.
“You know why,” Melak said flatly. “You know why. It’s more’n half a spirit, too! It could even be—”
“Don’t say it!” Jarrik retorted harshly. “Don’t even think it. Let Pa handle it. Let Pa handle it and leave well enough alone!”
Standing there in the dark, listening them talk about something they feared so much they wouldn’t even put a name to it, Mags shivered. When had this—monster, or whatever it was—turned up and started besieging the mine? Days ago?
Now a horde of little things began to make sense. The sluices had been left without a Pieters supervising them, and half the older boys were not at the mine for the past couple of days. The girls had scarcely been seen out-of-doors and had quickly scuttled back to the Big House when they did come out. The cooks had been less attentive at the giving out of the food, and a fair amount of cabbage and scraps had been joining the broth in the bowls rather than being husbanded in the pot.
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