Blindly, Saria reached around, groping through the darkness. She was in a chamber about half the size of the one she’d slept in. The roof hung low, and when she tried to stand she was rewarded with a sharp blow which made bright flashes burst behind her eyes.
On hands and knees, she explored the small space, eyes straining. There were two openings. The first, larger one opened up at floor level, disappearing behind a boulder. She was about to crawl into it when she discovered the second.
It led upwards from her left, even narrower than the one through which she had just come. The faint whistle of air through it made her decision for her, and after a moment’s hesitation she unslung her water-skin, which had almost snagged on the way through that first tight opening, shoved it ahead of her, then wriggled behind it.
She had to lie flat with her chin tucked into her chest. If the tunnel became any narrower she’d be stuck. Still, she pushed the water-skin carefully, not wanting to risk catching and tearing it on a sharp rock, and followed it up.
The tunnel went on and on, always upwards, and several times Saria paused for a rest, her breathing heavy. During her third break she realised something was different: the feeling of the rock itself. The further she climbed away from the cold walls of the council chamber and its Skypeople tunnels, the more easily the earthwarmth pulsed through the ground. Any contact with the stone, even as it scraped and gouged at her, brought with it a tiny thrill of contact, a sense of energy coursing around her body.
Working in pitch blackness, she wriggled up the tiny fissure by touch alone. The only sensation that held off panic was the constant, cool flow of air onto her face. Other than that, she felt like some kind of snake or lizard, sliding blind through the belly of the Earthmother.
Without warning the stone pressed in again, wedging her in place. She tried to slide backwards but it was futile. Angled ridges dug hard into her flesh and held her secure, the same way that the barbed ends of Gan’s spear had stopped fish from wriggling off and escaping.
Saria let her body go limp. Her cheek fell against the hard floor and a warm trickle of blood worked down the side of her leg. She instinctively tried to reach back and brush at the source of the blood, but couldn’t twist far enough
The darkness was suffocating. Choking, gasping, with the sound of her own tight breathing bouncing back to her from every surface, Saria forced herself back towards calmness, until eventually her breathing settled into a regular rhythm.
She might even have slept for a while, but then she was awake and the rock wasn’t hard any more, but soft and warm. Suddenly the ground wasn’t pinning her but was cradling, holding her. Earthwarmth surged through her and the stone was pliable. She reached forward and pulled and the ground seemed to slip aside and let her through, to close behind her and push, and she slid forwards easily out of the grip of the tunnel, into the free coolness of another chamber. A large one.
‘Hello?’ Her voice trembled. Something about this chamber gave it a different quality. It was strangely reassuring.
‘Hey!’ It didn’t sound like the council chamber, where the hard, faceted walls would refract and echo. Here, her voice was absorbed by the size of the space. And the air was still. For the first time since slipping into the breathing tunnel, Saria couldn’t feel air moving against her cheeks. She was in a cavern large enough to take away the breeze.
After a couple of hesitant steps out into the space she stopped. From the darkness came another sound, a new one, almost a whisper and a long way ahead: the faint clamour of trickling water.
It was easier to crawl, she quickly discovered. On hands and knees the sensation that she might suddenly lose her balance and topple into the dark abated, and slowly she inched across the stone floor, her eyes shut tight, concentrating on that distant splash, her fingers tracing tiny hollows in the stone.
She thought about all the people she had been with these last few weeks. Faces and voices swam into her vision: Ma Lee stroking her hair, Dariand hauling her onto his shoulder for that dash across Silver Lake, Gan and her camels and her dead child, the hollow eyes of Dreamer Baanti and the living ones of Darri.
The sound of the bubbling trickle grew louder until the noise began to chime softly off the walls and roof, and her probing fingers began to detect tiny pools of moisture on the floor.
She rolled onto her back, staring up. The darkness didn’t seem quite as thick, not as complete. With a start, she sat upright.
There was light. Just the faintest glimmer across the high stone roof, but enough to throw a dull silver sheen, which after so long in complete darkness almost burned her eyes. It took a few moments to focus, but it quickly became clear that the light was coming from somewhere ahead, from the same direction as the trickling water. Spurred on, Saria stood and began walking carefully.
She found her way blocked by an enormous pile of rocks and rubble which towered over her She traced back and forth along the length of the blockage, and established that it extended for the entire width of the cavern. A huge section of the roof must have fallen, effectively transforming what had once been a single huge cavern into two smaller ones, in the process shutting out most of the light. At the moment, she was on the wrong side of that rock wall.
Seeing no alternative, Saria found a handhold and began to climb.
The barrier was steep and little more than loose scree which crumbled beneath her grasp and slipped from under her feet. If she fell, not only would she hurt herself but there was a good chance sections of the wall would come down on top of her. Climbing slowly, testing each handhold and foothold, Saria picked her way towards the distant, shimmering ceiling.
At the top of the rock-fall there was only a narrow gap between it and the roof of the cavern. Light seeped through like a silver thread against the darkness. The sound of the water was much louder, and cool, moist air blew through the slit. Saria began to carefully pull some smaller rocks out of the opening, widening it so she’d be able to slip through into the light and, hopefully, to the surface.
It took a long time. The blockage proved wide, and at the top of the pile, without the constant press of tonnes of rocks, the scree was so loosely packed that often as she removed one rock four or five others would tumble into its place. She persisted, and as the light was beginning to fade she pushed the last small boulder out of the way. It tumbled into the illuminated cavern and landed with a splash.
At last the space was big enough for Saria to crawl through. She wriggled forward and looked down into a cavern smaller than the previous one. The vaulted roof was festooned with long fingers of white stone which hung towards the floor far below. The space was almost completely round, and the rock-fall she had tunnelled through fell away into a lake of dark water which filled almost the entire bottom of the chamber. Only a narrow shelf of rock ran around the edge, hugging the walls in a full circle.
The light lanced down in a tight beam from a hole in the roof on the far side of the lake. It looked almost solid, a dazzling, bright spike casting a small, shimmering circle on the water and throwing dancing reflections high onto the stone walls. Saria almost cried with frustration. The hole in the roof was too far up. There’d be no way she could reach it, no escape there.
Climbing down in the light was much easier than going up in the dark. Saria knelt by the lake and sluiced handfuls of water over her face and through her hair. The water was icy, but it was good to wash the sweat and dust from her skin. Then slowly she made her way around the dry shelf of rock towards the beam of light.
The lake was fed by a small stream that ran down the same wall she had tunnelled through. When the roof had fallen, it must have brought an underground stream with it, which over the years had been slowly filling the cavern. It was impossible to tell how deep the water in the lake might be; the light bounced off the surface like a mirror, and the water could have been a shallow puddle no deeper than her ankles, or a bottomless pit.
She wanted to stand in the light, to look up and see the d
ayvault, even distantly. To do that, though, she would have to wade into that black, fathomless water Making her way slowly around the perimeter, she stopped where the light beam was closest.
The water was so still it appeared solid. Saria removed her shoes and hesitantly lowered one foot into the dark surface.
The cold wrapped itself around her ankle, gripping it with icy fingers, and she had to stop herself from snatching it out again. But there was slippery rock beneath her toes and gingerly she lowered her other foot.
For a long time she stood, watching the circular ripples she’d created slide across the surface until they bounced off the far side. Then she slid one foot forwards, using her toes to explore the floor of the lake. She had visions of stepping off a concealed cliff, of the bottom dropping away and her plunging deep into that icy darkness. She focused on the light and inched her way towards it, going deeper and deeper
By the time she had covered only half the distance, the water was well over her thighs, thoroughly soaking her robe.
The lake seemed to level out at waist-deep. She waded out until she stood at the edge of the circle of light and, shivering, reached out a hand, allowing the light to play over it. Her skin seemed to glow in the beam and she flexed her fingers, bathing them in the slightly warm luminosity.
Looking up, she could see the hole in the ceiling. Far above was a narrow, circular tunnel, which started at the roof of the cavern and ran straight up towards the surface. Beyond it, the dayvault was a tiny circle of deepening blue. So close, but at the same time so distant. It might have been another world for all the chance she had of getting to it.
Her robe billowed around her, floating. Tears filled her eyes and she lifted her hand to wipe them away … then suddenly froze.
Voices. Saria thought at first that she must be dreaming again, but men’s voices floated into the cavern, disembodied. It took a moment for her to realise they weren’t in her imagination.
She peered up again. The brightness of the tiny hole hurt her eyes and she had to squint against it, holding up one hand to shield some of the glare. There were shapes up there, people leaning over the edge.
Then something came swinging into the shaft towards her. A tin bucket, tied securely to a long, knotted rope, and her heart leapt in sudden understanding.
Her first instinct was to shout out, to yell for help.
But where would that get (me) she thought. Back to the surface, hut into the waiting hands of Slander’s men. Back to Olympic.
So she didn’t yell. The bucket swung down and plonked into the lake beside her, sinking into the surface and beginning to fill. Saria watched, remembering the heavy boulders that anchored the rope at the top, boulders that would easily support her weight, if only there was some way to keep the rope down here. She toyed with the idea of grabbing the rope and holding on, but even if she managed to anchor it for a while, she knew they’d simply put more people onto it until she was either hoisted up or lost her grip.
Filled now, the bucket jerked slowly upwards. Droplets of water splashed as it swung, catching the light like falling vaultlights. Saria watched it go. Then she became aware that she was shivering and she waded carefully from the lake.
Three more times she watched the bucket drop down and fill, and each time she had to resist the urge to shout. Eventually, the distant echo of voices faded, and she was alone again.
Slowly she eased around the rock shelf until it vanished where the stream ran down the rockfall. Here, one of the large stone fingers from the roof had fallen and lay on its side. Saria ran her hand over it. The stone had a smooth, slippery feel. The piece was longer than her arm, thick at one end, but tapering down to a rounded point no wider than her finger. The thick end, where it had broken off from the roof, was rough and uneven. It was also surprisingly heavy. Saria tried to pick it up, but was unable. When she pushed it, however, it rolled just a little and soon Saria was manoeuvring the long finger of stone along the rock shelf. When she reached the point at which she had entered the water earlier, she set about rolling the stone into the lake, out to the light.
She had been so focused on moving the stone that she hadn’t noticed how dark it was becoming. The dayvault was fading and soon it would be as dark by the lake as it had been in the cavern on the other side of the rock-fall. She wondered what was happening up in Woormra, now that Slander was in charge. If he was letting people go about their usual routines, then a few would come to the well at the end of the day to get a last load of water for the evening. Assuming they did, it would be her last chance to get hold of the rope. Otherwise she’d have to wait until the following night.
In the water the stone was difficult to move. At first she was able to push it using her feet, but it soon became too deep to get sufficient purchase. Finally, she waded back to the edge and pulled off her dress.
Back in the darkening lake, she ignored the cold and the sensation of fear as the water closed around her. Soon she tripped on the submerged stone, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and plunged down.
The coldness made her gasp and the air burst from her, silvery bubbles sliding to the surface, but she was able to reach down, work her fingers under the heavy stone and roll it a decent distance across the bottom of the lake.
By the time she was standing almost directly beneath the well, the pointed stone column under her feet, the dayvault had faded to a deep purple and a couple of vaultlights were visible through the opening. Saria kept her gaze locked on them. The icy water chilled her to her core, the sensation bringing back to her the memory of a coldblood cooling in the twilight. The longer she stood waiting, the colder she became. Shivers shuddered through her body as it tried in vain to warm itself.
She wondered how much longer she’d be able to stand there before she’d need to get out of the water and warm up. Above her the well tunnel had almost vanished now, the ceiling of the cave blending with the black of the nightvault. Only the two tiny vaultlights directly above her gave any indication of where the hole opened up.
Slander and his men must be keeping everyone away from the well. Nobody was coming.
‘Well, lower it down there, idiot!’
The voice floated down from above and rang around the chamber. Startled, Saria strained her eyes upwards into the gloom, and detected the vaguest hint of movement somewhere near the roof of the cave. Her toes curled reassuringly against the sunken rock.
When the bucket arrived at the pool, Saria grabbed the rope, pulling gently to give the impression that the weight of the bucket was still on the line. Whoever was lowering the rope continued to pay out slack into the darkness, until finally, once a large loop was floating on the surface around her, she let go.
‘It’s bloody deep!’ A different voice rang around the chamber. The men must have been looking directly down the well for their voices to carry so clearly.
‘Good water, though.’
‘Yeah. No wonder Slander’d rather have this place for us.’
‘Chuck a couple of rocks down and see how deep it goes, eh?’
Saria’s eyes widened in horror as from above came the clatter of a stone against the walls of the well tunnel. She stared up, trying to see the falling rock before it landed on her. Seconds later a boulder about the size of her fist plonked into the water right beside her. Breathing a quick sigh of relief, she ducked under the water She had to work quickly now, before the men tried retracting the bucket.
Extending the loop ahead of her, she probed with her free hand to find the narrow, pointed end of the rock, then worked the rope underneath, sliding it towards the thick end and wedging it tightly between the rock and the floor of the lake.
Two more times she ducked under, each time working the rope further and further back until, as she was about to dive for the fourth time, the slack went out of it.
‘You want a hand?’
‘Yeah,’ the other man grunted. ‘It’s bloody heavy!’
Saria held on to the knotted leather, adding he
r weight to that of the stone. The rope jerked and flicked in her hands as the two men yanked furiously, throwing their combined weight onto it. A curse floated down.
‘Does it do this all the time?’
‘Buggered if I know.’
‘Hang on. I’ll go get Am.’
A couple of moments later the tugging restarted, even stronger now. Saria clung on as the rock below her shifted. She held her breath. If the rope came out, she was lost; she’d never be able to hold it against the combined strength of three men. Eventually, though, the bizarre tug-of-war ended and the rope went slack.
‘What d’ya reckon?’
‘Dunno. Pretty bloody snagged, I’d say.’
‘Probably that boulder you threw down there, you idiot.’
‘You told me to do it.’
‘So whadda we do, eh? Slander’s gonna kill us.’
‘If he finds out.’
‘Eh?’
‘Let’s just take off and leave it. He’ll think some of the Woormra mob got out and did it. Let him take it out on them. That’s what I reckon.’
‘Good thinkin’.’
‘You two got enough water for the night?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Let’s make ourselves scarce, then.’
The voices faded.
It took all of Saria’s self-control not to go clambering straight up the rope. But she knew it was still far too early. She’d wait until the middle of the night before making her ascent. She stood shivering in the water for quite a while longer, just in case someone else came along and tried the rope. Eventually, the numbing coldness of the water was too much, and she left the rope snagged securely beneath the stone and waded back to the edge.
Standing in the water for so long had left her skin wrinkled and creased, and the moment she was out of it she sank onto the stone shelf and set about rubbing some feeling back into her toes and feet. The throb of blood returning sent shudders of pain the length of her legs. Once she was satisfied that sensation had completely returned, she pulled her still-damp clothes back over her head and sat and waited.
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