Rebellion (Chronicles of Charanthe #1)

by Rachel Cotterill

  Chapter 14

  After a quick stop at the market to stock up on food, Eleanor made her way towards the main road southbound out of the city. There was a continuous stream of traffic between Dashfort and Almont, and surely someone would offer her a lift sooner or later. She spent the first half of the morning standing by the side of the road, just beyond the city gate, trying to attract the attention of a driver. After the twentieth cart drove straight past her she grew impatient and started walking.

  Eventually, as the sun was beginning to dip behind the trees, a small convoy rattled past.

  "You alright?" a young man shouted out, slowing his horses and leaning over towards her.

  "I could do with a lift," she said. "If you didn't mind."

  He reached out a hand to her and she managed to scramble up onto the cart as it continued onwards.

  "We'll be stopping soon, for the night," he said as he urged his horses back to a faster pace to keep up with the rest of his party. "Do you want a ride all the way to Almont?"

  "Just about half way, I think," she said. "I'm trying to get to the Silver Forest."

  "It's a big con," the young man said. "It's not silver at all – just green, like normal trees. You should come on to Almont with us, we'll be just in time for the carnival."

  "Carnival?"

  "Yeah, it all starts on the equinox – we should get there by the second or third day, if we don't slack off. And we won't, with the carnival ahead of us! Dancing in the streets, all night long... much better than that lousy forest."

  She couldn't deny she was tempted, and a short detour probably wouldn't ruin her plans. But she wanted to get the maze out of the way as soon as possible – there would be plenty of time for carnivals later. "I wish I could," she said. "But I'm, uh, meeting someone. When's the next one?"

  "Next year – it runs for a few days from the spring equinox every year. Have you really never been? You mustn't miss next year."

  She travelled with the convoy for two more days before her companion dropped her off at the side of the road and pointed her down a track which branched off between the trees.

  "Just don't blame me when you're disappointed," he said with a wink. "And promise you'll dance with me at the carnival next year!"

  "I'll try," she said, though she had no idea what she'd be doing this time next year. It felt so far away – she had a whole life to create before then.

  She started along the road wondering what she was looking for. If the Silver Forest was in no way silver, she wasn't sure she'd know when she'd reached it – or where she'd find the maze within.

  After a further two days' walking, she was beginning to get seriously worried. She'd passed no signs and no settlements. Had the young trader's directions been wrong?

  The track was getting smaller and more overgrown by the day, winding between tree trunks into woodland so thick that only a little light filtered down between the branches. If there'd been any forks in the trail she would've turned back to try another direction, but however insignificant this track appeared it was the only one she'd seen.

  A couple of days later, however, the track disappeared completely.

  After an almost-sleepless night in the undergrowth, she decided it was time for a rethink. She was following Raf's directions to look for the maze – the third piece of the Association's jigsaw puzzle. Logically, that meant that some number of students must make this journey every year, and even if it had been months since the last person had passed this way there should still be some signs of their passage.

  She dropped to her knees and began to study the ground, working gradually outwards in small circles from the spot where she'd spent the night. Her own careless passage the previous evening had disturbed a large strip of ground, but eventually she found the sign she'd been looking for – a faint heel-impression in the soil, the remains of the mark left by a foot too large to be her own.

  Following in the direction pointed by the footprint, she worked her way forward on hands and knees, encouraged each time she found another imprint. And a couple of strands of blue thread, caught on a bramble a few yards further into the forest, lifted her spirits even as the thorns snagged her skin.

  As she inched along, something hard beneath her knee caused her to yelp in pain and she reached down to move what she assumed was a stone. It was cold to the touch, though, and embedded deeply in the ground. She turned to study the object, using her knife to scrape back soil from what, it turned out, was a metal ring.

  With a triumphant feeling rising in her chest she got to her feet and hauled on the ring, moving out of the way as a section of ground swung upwards. A trapdoor – of course! She was a little embarrassed that she hadn't predicted it. Below ground was the most obvious place to hide something in a place like this, at least if you had the vast resources that the Association seemed to have at its disposal.

  The trapdoor opened only part-way, making an opening just wide enough for her to slip inside. She lowered herself into the hole, the trapdoor pressing down on her back as she slid further, searching with her feet for any kind of steps but finding only a tunnel of earth. Unable to reach any further without allowing the trapdoor to close, she dug her toes into the soil and took hold of a handful of roots, testing to make sure it would hold her weight.

  In the darkness she scrabbled for reasonable hand- and foot-holds to lower herself down the tunnel, and she thought she was being careful but somehow she missed her footing and fell. She wasn't sure how far she dropped but she crashed painfully to the ground, thankful that the landing was on earth rather than rock.

  She reached out for the walls, but found nothing within reach of where she'd fallen; she seemed to be in some sort of cavern but with no light it was hard to judge the size of the space.

  Wary of the uneven ground, she crawled forwards until she reached the wall, then stuck one of her Tarasanka throwing knives into the ground to mark her place and began a slow circuit of the space in which she'd found herself. By the time she finally returned to her starting point and sheathed the knife again, she'd identified three passages leading outwards, approximately evenly spaced, and a small rivulet of slightly acrid water from which she refilled her flask.

  Unable to identify any way to choose between the different passages, she simply continued round until she reached the first opening again. She had only a couple of day's worth of food left; there was no time to waste on excessive thinking.

  The ceiling in the passage was just high enough that she could stand without needing to bend, and with one hand on each earthy wall she began taking careful steps into the maze.

  She moved as quickly as she dared, conscious that time was of the essence but wary of potentially deadly surprises lurking in the darkness.

  Out of sight of daylight there was no way to track the passage of time, so she slept when she was tired, ate (a couple of mouthfuls at a time) when she felt hungry, and for the rest of the time pursued her walk of the maze.

  It wasn't a huge surprise when she eventually found herself back in what she believed to be the same open area where she had started; if the passages didn't connect, she'd had only a one-in-three chance of getting it right first time.

  When it happened for a second time, she even felt a little bolstered by the fact that there was only one route left. Whatever she was looking for, it couldn't be far away now, and she hadn't even come across any unpleasant traps or tricks.

  The third time she found herself back in the cavern, however, she was becoming desperate. She'd run out of food, she was feeling constantly tired, and now she'd exhausted the entire labyrinth of tunnels.

  She sank to her knees to rest, and contemplated climbing back out of the maze to look for something to eat. But she didn't know what distance she'd fallen or how easy the climb would be, and she was sure she must be overlooking something obvious. She'd been around the whole maze – or had she? Feeling around in the dark was time consuming, so she certainly hadn't fully explored the walls as she'd w
alked. Maybe there was another hidden passage somewhere in the darkness.

  She checked the floor of the cavern first, searching for another trapdoor, but found nothing. Then she entered the nearest passageway, running her hands up and down the walls this time as she progressed.

  Before long she needed to stop and rest; the 'days', as she counted according to when she slept, seemed to be passing more quickly and she wondered if her need for sleep was increasing as she grew more hungry. Maybe this was how it happened – one day she'd simply drift into sleep and never wake up.

  As she was dozing off she was disturbed by something crawling over her leg; she reached out and snatched up what turned out to be a rather large beetle. It writhed in her fingers and she was about to throw it out of the way when a vague memory from her schooldays stopped her – all the Empire's native beetles were supposed to be edible. She had no way of cooking, but she was too hungry to be squeamish about that. After snapping off the legs, head, and casing, she was left with a small, chewy morsel that she washed down with a gulp of water.

  Scrabbling around in the dirt turned up another half-dozen bugs. Hardly a gourmet meal, but it was better than nothing and she finally slept with slightly less rumbling in her stomach.

  She continued her examination of the tunnel walls as soon as she awoke, now assessing every grub that she uncovered in hope of finding a few bites to eat.

  She was about to stop for another rest when she was disturbed by what felt like a light breeze ruffling her hair. That was odd: she was quite a distance into the system of tunnels.

  She paused, holding herself totally still – and there it was again.

  Cautiously, she extended one arm above her head. Even when her arm was fully straightened, her fingers had touched nothing; she was beneath an opening in the roof of the tunnel.

  Her optimism revived, she pulled herself up into the second layer of the maze. The floor and walls here were wooden, and the tunnel was high enough only for crawling.

  She was careful not to neglect the roof as she made her way through the next set of tunnels, checking regularly for any gaps above her head. Up was the right direction, after all; she'd need to make her way back to ground level eventually. It took her two 'days' to find the next opening between levels, a trapdoor which opened – worryingly – downwards and guided her into a set of wood-lined passages which, she guessed, must be in some way interleaved with the earthen maze where she'd begun.

  After another day or so she found a vertical shaft and pulled herself up into the third layer of the maze. She had to pull herself along on her belly in this set of even narrower wooden tunnels, shuffling forwards until she put her weight on a wobbly plank.

  The floor spun beneath her; she grasped at the walls but to no avail, and she landed hard a few feet below. The earth beneath her fingertips told her she was back somewhere in the bottom layer of the maze. She got to her feet and pushed at the roof of the tunnel, but there was no sign of the opening she'd fallen through.

  By the time she worked her way back to the narrowest tunnels she was exhausted, and determined not to make the same mistake again. She pulled herself along slowly, with weakening muscles, wary of every tiny imperfection in the boards beneath her.

  When she reached the point where she'd fallen, she pressed her hands and feet against the walls to carry herself across the wobbly section without touching the floor. Applying the same technique every time she came to an unstable area, she eventually came to another gap in the ceiling.

  She clambered up, expecting yet more tunnels, but found herself emerging into a large, rocky cave. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the relative brightness; the number she'd been looking for was painted in large white digits on the ground: 23.

  A metal turnstile at the end of the cave let through a crack of light, and she pushed her way out into the daylight again.

  She found a small spring only a few feet away; this had been planned with the impeccable attention to detail she was coming to expect from the Association's efforts. She leant across the stream, dipped her face to the water and drank until she could drink no more, then sank back to the grass, dripping but refreshed.

  But there was none of the triumph she'd expected to feel. If anything, she was a little disappointed. She'd hoped that, once she had all three answers, a pattern would emerge to help her work out what to do next. But nothing was apparent, whichever number she picked from the code tower's possibilities.

  Disoriented by her experiences in the darkness, she had to work out which way was north from the gradual motion of the sun. After a brief rest, and having found a few leaf-buds to nibble, she settled on a direction and began to make her way through the forest.

  It was a six-day trek before she reached the main road again, and another half-day walking towards Almont before she heard the first cart rattling along behind her. She turned and waved hopefully at the driver, a round-faced woman whose black hair was scraped into a tight knot.

  "Are you okay?" the driver asked as she reined her horses to a standstill. "Need a lift?"

  "Yes please. How far are you going towards Almont?"

  "All the way. Jump up, then." She patted the bench beside her. "Going to the Marble Quarter, will that do you?"

  "Perfect," Eleanor said, though she had no idea what that meant. It sounded suitably grand that it had to be central. And with no other clues, the only thing to do was to follow the legends once more, to the fountain she'd read about in Stories of the Assassins.