by Paul Stewart
He held her gaze for a moment, and was pleased to see her face colour blush-red beneath the freckles. Lowering her eyes shyly, she approached the spot where Micah and Eli were sitting.
‘You are my guests,’ she began, and Micah noted how she looked at Eli, but not at him. ‘I shall show you to your sleeping place, and serve you at table, but first …’ She caught Micah’s eye and the blush deepened. ‘First, I shall show you where you can bathe, and I shall bring you dry clothes …’
‘Bathe?’ said Eli, and whistled through his teeth. ‘That’s a rare luxury in fullwinter for kith such as us, eh, Micah, lad?’
‘And welcome for it,’ Micah observed.
The pair of them climbed to their feet and Micah was suddenly aware of how rough and rugged the two of them must look in their wyrmepelts and heavy boots beside these neat, clean, grey-cloaked folk. He felt a certain pride and swagger as he followed Cara across the cavern, past the children, who looked up at him, wide-eyed and wondering.
At the far end of the cavern, hanging from a rod, was a pleated wyrmeskin curtain, which Cara pushed aside. As she did so, light came flooding into the dimly-lit cavern that bathed Micah and Eli in a curious rose-blue glow.
‘Come with me,’ she said.
Twenty-Six
She led them down a short tunnel and out into another cavern, even larger than the first. Beneath their feet, the floor was lightly strewn with chopped straw and barkchip that crunched beneath their feet and lent a musky fragrance to the air. Micah frowned. There was something else besides. And as he looked more closely, he made out a fine web of lucent fungus growing upon the scattered vegetation, and realized that it was these shining filaments that illuminated the cavern with the rose-blue light.
The glowing floor lit up the limestone formations. Stalagmites and stalactites blazed like torches, while the flowstone that encased the gypsum bedrock glowed like candlewax. Light was carried up towards the vaulted ceiling high above, where sparcrystals glittered.
‘This is the great chamber,’ Cara was saying. ‘It’s where we gather – specially in fullwinter.’
Micah could see men and women, little more than shadowy silhouettes against the glow, in various parts of the cavern; alone or clustered together in small groups. Some were standing, heads lifted, eyes closed and palms upraised. Some sat crosslegged in circles, their heads bowed together, almost touching. Others lay on the floor, staring unblinking at the ceiling in awestruck contemplation, while solitary figures wandered slowly about in their grey cloaks, their heads down and hands clasped behind their backs, gently murmuring, and the sound was like a hive of smoke-lulled bees.
As Eli and Micah followed Cara through the chamber, she drew their attention to the entrances of other caverns leading from it.
‘Up yonder is where the elders meet,’ she told them. ‘Beyond that, the eating chamber. And there, and there – and there,’ she said, pointing to various points at the sides of the cavernous hall, ‘are the sleeping galleries, and the kitchens, and …’
‘Welcome, strangers,’ came a soft voice, and Micah turned to see a tall bearded figure stepping towards him from the shadows.
The man was smiling, his face beatific, and prominent teeth seeming to glow in the rose-blue light. His features had the weatherbeaten look of a seasoned weald traveller, and when he raised a hand in greeting, Micah saw he’d lost two of his fingers, perhaps to a gutting knife or a wyrme snare.
‘Or should that not rather be, welcome, friends?’ the man corrected himself. ‘For, as the prophet has taught us, are not all strangers simply friends we do not yet know?’
Micah nodded awkwardly and, as the figure shrank back into the shadows, turned to Eli, who looked back at him, shifted the heavy backpack about on his shoulders and shrugged. He glanced at the girl, but she avoided his gaze and instead addressed Eli when she spoke.
‘Ezekiel endured many trials and tribulations before he came to us. But now he has found peace, Maker be praised.’
She turned and, indicating for them to follow her, headed off along a narrow tunnel to their right. The same unearthly glow illuminated the hewn rock. Moments later, the tunnel turned and they entered a dome-shaped cavern that echoed with the sound of water, sluicing and bubbling and splashing over rock.
Before them was a dark pool, its surface blurred with twists of steam that glowed pink and blue. The air was warm and moist and smelled faintly sulphurous.
‘We cherish our hot spring here in Deephome, for its waters are both cleansing and health-giving. But be warned,’ she added, her nose crinkling with concern, ‘the water is hot.’ She gestured toward the far end of the pool, where a trickle of water poured down into it from the lowest of a series of rocks that jutted out like supplicant hands and sent up clouds of billowing steam. ‘So it’s best to bathe over yonder, where cold water mixes with the hot.’
Micah nodded. ‘I been so cold of late, there were moments I feared I might never be warm again,’ he said to Eli, who had removed his hat and was flapping it in front of his face.
The hot pool looked so inviting that Micah could hardly wait to plunge into its steaming waters. He undid his belt and pulled the wyrmeskin cape over his head, and was reaching up and fumbling with the buttons of his shirt with clumsy fingers when he heard Eli clear his throat.
Micah looked up to see the girl Cara blushing furiously and averting her eyes.
‘I … I’ll go fetch clean clothes,’ she told Eli and, still avoiding looking at Micah, she turned away crisply, a hand raised to her face.
Micah watched her, this shy kithgirl, as she hurried off. He saw how her long auburn hair was contained neatly within the confines of the tight bonnet; how the heavy folds of her homespun skirt flapped about her legs, concealing her figure; how she couldn’t seem to risk meeting his gaze.
And he thought of Thrace.
Twenty-Seven
Micah sat himself down on one of the stone benches that lined the cavern walls and, lifting his feet up, one after the other, slowly removed his boots. He wiggled his toes, which were dirty and wrinkled, and he winced at the pungent odour that rose up from them. He stood up and pulled off his jerkin, his shirt, emptied the pockets of his breeches, then folded them neatly and added them to the pile.
He was tired. Bone-tired. His body ached from the nightmare trials of the past few days.
He looked down at himself, his chin pressed against his chest. His body was pallid through lack of sun, grimy through lack of washing and thin through lack of food, and he barely recognized it as his own. There was downy hair on his chest which he had not noticed before, and dark bruises from the beating he’d taken in the winter den. He traced his fingertips lightly up and down the slatboard ribs, and grazed the circle of the old scar where the kinlance had penetrated …
Where was Thrace now? he wondered. Where had she and Aseel gone?
Wyrmes and their kin wintered in pinnacles and high peaks near thermal vents and hot fumaroles far from the trails of the kith. Most likely she would be up there now, distant and out of reach in the vastness of the weald. And he would never see her again.
Micah sighed.
She had shed a tear when she had departed. The sight of it had made his heartbeat quicken and, for a moment, he had dared to believe that she might stay with him. But she had not. Eli had been right. Thrace had never been more than on loan to him. Her true kinship was with Aseel. The old familiar ache in his chest returned.
‘You coming in, Micah, lad?’ Eli’s echoing voice enquired, and was accompanied by the sound of splashing and swilling.
Dragged from his thoughts, Micah looked across at the pool. Eli was standing at the far side beside the trickling stream, neckdeep in the steaming water.
‘How is it?’ he called back.
‘Hot water in fullwinter?’ said Eli. He raised his arms above his head and sank down slow
ly beneath the surface, then, in a stream of bubbles, burst back up again. He wiped his face. The blood and soot fell away to reveal a heavy bruise over one eye and a scabbed cut to the jaw. ‘Just about as good as it can get, I’d say,’ he murmured, and he leaned back against the side of the pool.
Micah got up from the bench and crossed the cavern to the water’s edge. There were steps cut into the rock, which led down into the pool. Micah descended them. The rock was warm on the soles of his feet. Halfway down, his left foot splashed into the water that lapped the step, and just for a moment, he couldn’t tell if it was freezing cold or scalding hot. Then his foot started to tingle and itch, and he withdrew it smartish, and sucked in air between his teeth.
‘It’s boiling,’ he muttered.
‘You get used to it,’ said Eli, dunking back under the water.
Micah placed his foot down a second time, and set his right foot next to it. He stood there, waiting for the sharp burning sensation to subside, then took another step down, and then another. As he went deeper, the water seemed to grip his legs, tightening around his ankles, his calves, his knees. He reached down and swirled the water about, mixing the hot and the cold together as he continued to the bottom of the rockcut stairs, where he bent his knees and submerged himself completely.
The water wrapped itself around him, hugging him, cradling him; hot, but not too hot now, for he had got used to it. He sat down next to Eli on a ledge cut into the side of the pool and closed his eyes, and it was like he was a flatwyrme in fullsummer, basking on the rock, the heat gently warming him through, from outside to in, soothing his knocks and bruises.
‘Here,’ said Eli, ‘I found this on the side,’ and he handed Micah a broad flat slab of pale yellow soap.
‘Thank you,’ said Micah.
The soap looked pearly, smelled of coaltar and almonds, and felt gritty on his skin as he rubbed it against his neck, his armpits, up and down his legs and through his hair, before slipping down under the sudfleck surface and rinsing it off. Around him, the water smudged with milky brown as the dirt of several weeks lifted from his skin and floated to the surface.
‘Feels good, don’t it?’ came a voice that was quavering and cracked.
Micah and Eli both turned, surprised, to see an old man emerging from the dense steam at the far end of the pool. Only his head was above the water, thinning grey hair plastered to his scalp and sunken blue eyes twinkling eagerly.
‘Well, don’t it?’ he asked again. ‘To wash away the filth of the past feels good.’
‘A rare treat in fullwinter,’ Eli replied, and Micah nodded his agreement at the man, who rewarded him with a beaming smile.
‘Not here in Deephome, it ain’t,’ the old man said, and as he took a step forward the water waked at his jutting chin. ‘In Deephome, you can bathe every day if you have a mind to.’ He threw back his head and cackled. ‘And I, brother Absolom, have a mind to! I soak my old bones most days in the hot spring – though I don’t recall meeting you before.’
‘My name is Micah, and this is Eli,’ said Micah, smiling. ‘We’re new to Deephome. We’re—’
‘Just resting up for a night or two till the weather improves some,’ Eli interrupted, with a glance at Micah that warned him not to be too forthcoming with a stranger.
‘Pleased to meet you, brother Eli, brother Micah,’ said Absolom, his blue eyes smiling. ‘Though take the advice of an old scrimshaw carver who’s seen more seasons in the high country than most,’ he continued, fixing Eli with an intense stare. ‘Travelling in fullwinter is as foolish as sticking your head in a strangle-snare. Stay until the thaw and accept the hospitality offered to you by the prophet.’
‘Kilian,’ said Micah.
‘Indeed,’ Absolom said, nodding earnestly. ‘Brother Kilian is a true stone prophet. He cares for and protects all in Deephome. Thanks to brother Kilian, we have all we need and nothing to fear, and he asks only obedience in return.’
‘Obedience,’ said Eli, turning and wading across to the far end of the pool where the water was at its hottest. ‘Reckon that can be a high price to pay.’
‘Not for an old weald traveller like me,’ Absolom chuckled. ‘I’ve been in more scrapes, backstabbings and trailwhacks than I care to remember, and I have the scars to prove it.’ He stood up and Micah saw the nubbed lines and ridges that crisscrossed his chest. ‘But ever since I happened on Deephome, the prophet has kept me safe, and for that I am happy to do his bidding …’
‘As we all are, brother Absolom,’ came a soft voice, and Micah looked round to see Cara standing at the cavern entrance.
She had clean clothes in her arms, which she placed on the stone bench beside Eli and Micah’s soiled ones, before withdrawing.
Micah stepped out of the water, his body glowing with warmth, and shook the water from his limbs. Crossing the chamber to the bench, he picked up a linen towel and dried himself off with it. Then he slipped a crisp undershirt over his head. The material was soft and smelled fresh, like new mown hay, like rainfall. Micah hadn’t had anything so clean next to his skin for longer than he could remember and he thrilled at the sensation.
Beside him, Eli grabbed a towel of his own, dried his body, then put the linen aside.
Micah grabbed the neatly folded homespun breeches and stepped into them, pulled them up. He slipped the fustian waistcoat on. He did up the buttons, enjoying the soft snugness of the material, and was just reaching for his boots when he caught sight of Eli and stopped.
The cragclimber had ignored the clean folded clothes and instead was pulling on his old gear; the scuffed breeches, the wyrmeskin jerkin and heavy jacket. When he saw Micah watching him, he paused.
‘Not quite ready to look like one of brother Kilian’s faithful,’ he said, ‘however sweet they might smell.’
Micah blushed and, picking up his boots, sat down on the stone bench. In his crisp fresh-laundered clothes, he had to admit he did look like everyone else in Deephome. Yet he could not bring himself to put on the soiled musty-smelling gear he’d arrived in. He pulled on his boots. They, at least, were old and battered and bore testament to the hard trail he and Eli had walked together.
Eli put on his own boots, then gathered up Micah’s old stuff and stored it away in his backpack.
‘I’ll hang onto these for you, lad,’ he said. ‘But humour me by hanging onto these yourself and keeping them close.’ He handed Micah his catapult and hackdagger, which Micah put in the waistband of his breeches.
‘I will, Eli,’ he assured him, though, with the hospitality Deephome had already afforded them, Micah found it hard to believe he’d ever have need of them here.
As if in answer to his thought, Cara’s voice sounded from the cavern entrance. ‘Old Absolom’s a gentle soul,’ she said sweetly, as she peered into the chamber to check that they were dressed, ‘and one of our best loved elders.’
Micah pushed his tangled wet hair out of his face and looked up.
‘You could use a haircut,’ Cara said, blushing.
She entered the cavern, rummaging in the pockets of her skirts as she approached. She produced a bone comb and a small pair of shears, then wrapped the damp linen towel about Micah’s shoulders.
‘Sit still,’ she told him.
Micah closed his eyes, and took pleasure in the soft scratch of the wyrmebone on his scalp and the touch of Cara’s hands as she combed through his hair, working at the tangles, knot by troublesome knot.
‘You have nice hair,’ she observed shyly. ‘Thick and curly.’
It was Micah’s turn to blush as Cara set to work, lifting his hair with the comb and shearing it off, section by section, making it short and even all over, while Eli watched from the stone bench opposite. As the hair fell, Micah remembered the last time it had been cut.
He’d done it himself that time. He had just arrived in the weald from the low
plains. It had been fullsummer and, sweathot beneath his tousled mop, he’d knelt down next to a stream, dipped his head in the cold water, then cropped his hair with his hackdagger. He’d watched the cut hair float off on the surface of the turbulent water, and it had been like shutting a door on his past.
‘Glad the clothes fit,’ Cara observed, breaking into his recollections. ‘They suit you, brother Micah.’
Micah tried not to look at Eli, but he could feel the cragclimber’s blue eyes on him.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But I’ll only have need of them till I get a chance to launder my own undershirt and breeches.’
Eli cleared his throat.
‘As you wish,’ said Cara sweetly. She stood back and admired her handiwork, snipped at some stray strands, then pronounced him done.
Micah climbed to his feet and as he did so, his stomach gurgled and rasped.
Cara smiled. ‘Is that your belly I hear calling for sustenance?’ she enquired.
Micah nodded. ‘Happen it is.’
‘Then we must satisfy its needs,’ she said earnestly. She turned. ‘Eli, are you also hungry?’
‘A mite ravenous,’ Eli replied, getting up from the bench.
Micah picked up the grey cloak lying folded beside him, swung it round his shoulders and toggled it at the neck, but he left the deep red straw hat that was next to it.
‘Follow me,’ said Cara.
Micah and Eli fell into step behind the girl. Micah felt refreshed, clean and sweet-smelling thanks to Cara. As he walked beside Eli, Micah’s nose twitched. The musky odour of sweat and woodsmoke and wyrmeoil that arose from the cragclimber’s clothes was reminding him of the winter den and the world outside.
Thrace came into his mind again, but Micah pushed the thought aside.
Twenty-Eight
Micah and Eli followed Cara down a short tunnel and back into the great chamber, with its high-vaulted ceiling and astonishing carpet of glowing fungus. Checking over her shoulder that they were following, she led the two of them toward an arched entranceway set into the back wall.