17• DIVING DEEPER
Joe bowed and gave his hands a fluttery flourish as he ushered the boys forward through the door. “Welcome to Joe’s Divin’ Station!”
The word stuck in Ark’s brain. Diving? He always enjoyed his swims in the remote cruck pools hidden high in the canopy — there was a perfect spot where the water was cool and the fish ticklish on the toes. He often liked to venture there on his own, to spy out the darting kingfishers and share his lunch with the squirrels. But those days, filled with lazy sunshine filtering through green leaves, were long gone. He had a feeling that this was diving of a different sort.
Mucum had gone quiet, and Ark looked around him in awe. The station was a huge hollow cavern at least half a mile across, sides sloping in toward the roof way above. They must be near the bottom of the trunk, deep in the heart of the tree. Light was provided by various pools of what looked like water but had to be liquid gas. Flames danced and twisted on the shimmering surface, filling the cavern with an acrid smell. And throughout, a tangle of enormous tubes twisted out of the cavern floor and made its way up to the roof and beyond. A forest inside a tree.
Ark stared at the liquid, mesmerized. “We … we’re not going to swim in those, are we?”
“Ah, no,” chuckled Joe. “That be liquid gas! We be goin’ down them pipes. “We call ’em Xylem. Oi found yow in one of ’em.” He pointed at the boys, then back at the tubes as if Ark and Mucum were simply another product of mother nature. “Theys are part of ’Er Maj’s plumbin’ system! Water ‘n’ gas! The stuff of life! Yow lot up top have it easy. Weren’t for us, yow wouldn’t be livin’ so snug!”
Mucum still stared. This was an unwoodly place. On the far side of the hall, partially obscured by the forest of Xylem and the single huge column of heartwood that supported the roof and the tree above, they could see and hear rumbling conveyer belts.
Joe explained the process that began with his fellow mineral miners reaching deep beneath the earth, led by the living tree roots to excavate rich seams of copper, lead, and iron-bearing lode. Once transported up into the station, the ores were separated out, using giant magnets, before their long trip by dumbwaiter and barge to the Blacksmith estates down south.
“Isn’t the earth” — Ark almost whispered the word—”only on the other side of these walls?” His eyes scanned the cavern without seeing any doors. In his mind, he pictured a foggy mud-swamp punctuated by the rearing arrows of smooth-skinned trunks.
“That’s as may be!” said Joe. “We don’t bovver wiv the outside, and the outside don’t bovver wiv us! We got mussels, motherwater, fishies, and all sorts of fungus and moss to eat. What more can an old boy like Joe ’ere want for? Anyways, there’s lots to do. Those up top need their pots ‘n’ pans to cook their grub in, and their knives and swords for ’oo knows what. Us Rootshooters be the boys and girls for the job!”
As Joe spoke, his workers gathered around in the green-tinged light to view the two visitors. They were all as tall as Joe, stretched out like the tree roots they worked inside, and each with the same pale skin, bleached through lack of daylight. With their loose white shifts, they could have stood in for a gathering of ghosts. Some of them wore goggle pieces that magnified already enlarged eyes.
“Wot’s yow?” said one of them.
Ark gave his name.
“And wot be one of ’em?” It was a woman who spoke, curious, as if the boys were an entirely new species.
“Plumbers,” said Mucum. It was bad enough when Flo looked down at him. Now they were surrounded by even taller adults.
“Awww!” she laughed. “Yow be one of us, then!” It seemed they passed the test.
Several bells went off at once.
“Kit up!” announced Joe, suddenly businesslike. “We got yow some kiddie-size ones, moight fit!” He vanished for a minute, reappearing in a black suit that stretched tight over his thin frame. The other Rootshooters were also reclothing themselves. “Give these out, our girl!”
Flo stepped forward to hand each of them a floppy rubber suit that resembled a deflated balloon.
“You really need our help?” Mucum took the suit reluctantly. As far as he knew, Plan B didn’t involve going off exploring with a bunch of rubber-clad eels.
“Yas!” said Joe.
Mucum held up the way too short skin. “There’s no way I’ll get into this!”
“Oi’ll ‘elp yow,” said Flo, stepping forward.
“Nah. Don’t you worry yerself.” Mucum blushed as he turned away and tried to squeeze himself into the suit.
Five minutes later, they were both zipped inside their clammy kit and walking with Joe toward a stepladder leaning against the side of one of the bigger Xylem.
“Yow looks wonderful! A bit on the small side maybe, but no matter!” said Flo to Mucum with an admiring stare.
His arms and legs stuck out like bare twigs. “It’s very comfortable, ta.” Mucum felt as if the rubber was trying to strangle his whole body.
“Oi wish I could be comin’ with yow! Be careful, ‘cos if yow come to ‘arm, moi mossy heart’s gonner break!” Flo clasped her two bony hands together as if in prayer.
The rest of the Rootshooters gave a murmured “Aahh!” in unison.
Mucum was more than worried as he tried to avoid Flo’s moony eyes. “Yeah. Righto.” He wished Joe would get a move on.
“Yow looks wonderful!” mimicked Ark with a whisper.
Mucum tried to dig his elbow into Ark’s arm, but the smaller boy easily darted out of his reach, an impish smile on his face.
Before they ascended the ladder, Joe grabbed two long rubber tubes, connecting them to holes at the back of the boys’ suits. Ark’s gaze followed the line of the tubes to the other side of the Xylem, where a machine resembling a crude bellows was manned by two huge insectlike creatures walking around a well-trodden circle. In the dim glow of the liquid gas, they reminded him of something he’d seen before, but in a very different place and on a much smaller scale. He couldn’t believe it! Surely they weren’t giant water boatmen, like those that skittered across the cruck pools high in the canopy?
Once Joe was connected, he pointed at his mouth, making circular motions. Air supply. He climbed the ladder, and the boys followed. At the top, there was a small opening in the tube. Joe leaned through it and peered down into the Xylem before easing himself through and disappearing from sight.
Ark felt a tug on his air supply pipe, and Flo motioned that he should follow Joe. As he squeezed through the opening onto a small ledge inside the cool, slippery Xylem tube, a damp smell of rain and sky rose up through the darkness that dropped away sheer below. Ark gulped. There was no safety ladder, no gaslights to help them on their journey. The thought of all that empty space made his head spin.
Once Mucum had joined them, Joe attached a brass shield to the opening. The world closed off around them, except for a small hole for their air supply pipes.
“Yow might need these.” Joe handed them two long pieces of thin, multicolored tubing with a trigger at the end. “Two between us should be plenty!”
“Amazing!” said Ark, admiring the way these strange objects shimmered like miniature rainbows.
“They be forged from fire opals, dug from the deep!”
Mucum peered in the hole at the top of one of the tubes.
“Do yow really want your head blown away?” shouted Joe, pushing the end of the tube away. “It’s a gas harpoon!”
“Keep yer hair on!” said Mucum, before remembering that was probably not the best way to address a bald Rootshooter. “Wot’s it for?”
Joe pointed over the edge of the hole and down into the blackness. “Worms!”
Mucum laughed. “Oh yeah. Sure!” There were sunny afternoons he’d skived off at the scaffields, watching farmers digging the soil. Those little wrigglers that turned up under the spade were hardly of the killer variety.
Joe grabbed Mucum’s shoulder until the boy almost winced. “Mealworms! If yow see
’un, aim for the mouth and pray to yowr godly Diana that yow live to tell the tale!”
Both boys looked into Joe’s fishlike eyes to see if he was joking. He wasn’t.
One of the gang pulled out a watch piece and checked the time against the printed tide table next to the porthole.
Joe rested his hand against the slightly hairy outer surface of the Xylem. “Never forget, the Tree’s alive, boyo. And She loikes a drink, just like yow and me. She goes reg’lar as clockwork. Tide’s out now. Get it wrong and, well, Oi’ve lost a few of moi best that way. Yow were dead lucky last toime.”
Ark remembered the night before, clinging to the ladder, feeling Mucum’s quivering bulk above him, hearing the click of mussel shells amongst the whispering greenery, and behind that an ominous groaning from the depths, as if the tree itself was taking a breath before all holly let loose. Dead lucky.
Joe’s colleague gave the thumbs-up. It was time.
“Geronimooooo!” Joe shouted, and vanished into the deep.
Although Mucum was terrified, he wasn’t going to show it. “Right, Malikum. You went first last time. My go.” He pushed hard off the edge and was instantly gone.
Ark turned to Flo. “I’m not feeling too well, actually. Maybe I can stay here and …”
Flo smiled back sympathetically. “Yow be fine, little ’un! Now off yow goes!”
Without warning, Ark felt a shove in his back and he, too, plummeted, trying to keep his feet below him but having no idea in this pitch-black free fall which way was up and which was down.
18• A CUNNING WAY THROUGH
Gold was an interesting metal. Petronio realized that Maw must have its own version of the Rootshooters. But gold was gold, whoever dug it out of the dirty ground. And it was gold that had reflected back the glint in the Commander’s eye the previous night. The word more also had magical appeal.
The fog had finally lifted and sunlight beamed down on the high woodway. Mercury picked up on Petronio’s mood, galloping south along the reverberating planks and eating up the miles with sheer joy.
Petronio’s mind still dwelled on his extraordinary meeting with Flint. Had it really happened? The most powerful man in the North discussing the future of the country with a fourteen-year-old boy?
The silence had been excruciating, the gold ingots that lay on the table stamped with the insignia of Maw unarguable evidence of treachery. Petronio’s eyes had flicked around the room, trying to make out the man by his surroundings. The wall of books suggested that he read as well as he spoke. As he waited, Petronio noticed for the first time that the other walls were lined with swords and hauberks of every size, knives, crossbows, beautifully polished brass knuckle-dusters, whips, and bats studded with sharpened spikes. This was no display of antiques. The art of injury was Flint’s business.
The Commander could have summoned his sergeant and had the boy marched off to the dungeons for a spot of light torture followed by a nice public hanging to literally kick-start the day. Instead, he spread his hands as if to say, So?
The tension in the room deflated. Petronio realized he’d been holding his breath. Now he saw that Fenestra’s reading of politics was sharp. Though the King was good at talking about loyalty, the rewards were not so easy to determine. Without the army, the peace of many years would not have been achieved. Quercus seemed to have forgotten those who had given him their allegiance, maybe not deliberately, but the results were the same: Pay was atrocious, and the food for the rank and file not worthy of being turned into compost. Also, it was clear that the Commander had a weakness for the luxuries of life. Treachery was less of a risk and more of a done deal.
Now Petronio was invited to speak, to fill in the gaps around the edges of all that shimmering gold. Petronio’s words had been committed to memory. Paper messages would have been a danger. Fenestra had told him the basics of the plan only. She’d said that too much information was dangerous. To whom? Didn’t she trust him? All Petronio knew was that Flint was to assemble a band of his best men ready for the night of the Harvest Festival, five days hence. As long as they followed the Commander and not the King, all would be well. The details could then be worked out when Flint next came south.
“It’s not long,” said Flint.
“Long enough,” Petronio answered.
“I have to work out which of my men I can trust. Some will stay loyal to their country, though low wages and even lower morale can play havoc with a sense of duty. My old friend Quercus has forgotten to whom he owes the years of self-satisfied peace.”
Petronio could see where this was leading.
“And so,” Flint continued, “I shall need further funds to facilitate proceedings.”
“Of course. Lady Fenestra has instructed me to do all I can to help.” With a flourish, a second purse was produced and tossed toward Flint, who caught it deftly with one hand.
“I don’t know what magic you perform, boy. But as long as you pay, I don’t care whether you were mothered by the Raven Queen herself.”
At that, they both smiled. Grasp Senior would have taken the Commander’s words as a compliment.
Petronio was no longer just a messenger boy. Flint offered him another drink and swept the ingots off the table and locked them carefully away in a chest.
The sergeant was summoned to give the boy a decent bed for what remained of the night. Somehow, this boy had wormed his way into the Commander’s goodwill. Instinct told the sergeant that whatever message the boy brought, no good would come of it. His foul mood was made worse when he’d been instructed to return the boy’s weapons.
And now, as Petronio sped south on the silver stallion, he was almost giddy with it all, secretly hoping that Fenestra would be impressed by his success.
It was evening when he arrived home, gaslight already compensating for the weakening twilight. Petronio was famished. But to business first.
As he handed the reins to the groom, he spotted Salix marching across the yard.
“Where’s my father?”
Salix glared at him. He might be beholden to the Councillor, but not his useless offspring. “Busy. Not to be disturbed.”
“You know, it might be in your favor to treat me better….”
Salix had a good idea what sort of treatment he’d like to mete out to the pompous toad. It was this boy’s fault in the first place that the plumber had got away. Now Salix was being blamed for yet another vanishing act. Better to keep his thoughts to himself. He strode off to find Alnus and round up the others. The search was not over yet.
The lack of greeting dampened Petronio’s mood, but he wasn’t going to be dismissed so easily. He ran up to his father’s study and burst in.
“Good news, Father!” Maybe, just this once, he might be praised. One look at his father’s face told him otherwise.
“Good news? I’m glad yours is.” Grasp sounded bitter, exhausted. “The boy is on the loose again and you were the one to let him go!”
Petronio was confused. “What boy?” He thought of Flinty and his gang — surely his father didn’t care about the fate of a northern squit?
“Malikum, you idiot! How your mother ever managed to produce such an imbecile!” Grasp sat at his desk, his pencil stabbing a sheet of paper as if it were a prisoner under questioning.
Petronio did a double take. “But he’s —?”
“Dead? Not when I last clapped eyes on him, slipping down a soil pipe like the rat that he is. And while he lives, our plans, and whatever good news you might have brought, lie in jeopardy.” The point of the pencil snapped.
Petronio noticed his father’s bloodshot eyes and unshaven face. He wondered briefly if the Councillor was losing the plot. How could Ark be alive? Salix and Alnus had seen him fly off the edge of the branch. No one had ever fallen off Arborium and lived to tell the tale. If it was a trick, then Petronio was almost impressed. Maybe the little runt did have a few brain cells after all.
Petronio was still bursting to tell his father about th
e Commander but reined himself in. “So, what next?”
“What’s next is that I’ve sent some of my men to protect the King and guard the sewers the boy seems so fond of. The last thing we need is him popping up and filling our monarch’s ears with unnecessary alarm. Meanwhile, I have put word out of a rather large pecuniary reward for any noble citizen who reports the whereabouts of this dangerous radical. Money is always a useful tool!”
Petronio agreed. Flint had been convinced partly by resentment against his exile up north, but mainly by the cold reality of cash.
Grasp put the broken pencil to one side and began leafing through some papers. “The matter is in hand, so you might as well go and do something useful, like homework, for instance. Leave us to deal with the consequence of your inaction.”
The put-down was a signal to leave.
Petronio felt his face go scarlet. He’d gone farther than he’d ever been in his life, faced down a gang of murderous treenagers, inveigled his way into the armories of Moss-side, and convinced one of the most ruthless soldiers in the country to take on their cause, and now he was being dismissed?
“Father, I —!”
Grasp did not even look up from his papers. “What? You wish to tell me you can find the boy and bring him to me? If so, then I shall be pleased. If not, you can go.”
Petronio turned toward the balcony doors, not wanting his father to see the burning in his cheeks. But someone else saw. There in the glass on the other side, a face, mixed with his own reflection.
The doors swung open. Grasp looked up, shocked, his hands instinctively reaching under the desk for the knife he had hidden in case of intruders.
“Do you consider me that dangerous, Councillor?” The voice, though quiet, was sharp enough in its intent.
Grasp removed his hand. “My lady, how did you …?”
“Oh. I didn’t want to trouble your guards, seeing as they are so tired from their labors. I thought I’d let myself in.”
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