by Paul Stewart
Halfway across the glowing floor, Micah’s attention was grabbed by the sight of a dozen Deephomers – five men and seven women – moving in unison at the centre of the cavern. They were engaged in a sequence of slow movements that were graceful and languid, and demanded balance and coordination. Micah was transfixed by their strange weightless dance.
As he watched, they stepped forward as one, the motion arched and exaggerated. They remained poised on one leg for a moment, before twisting to their right and, arms outstretched at their sides, thrusting the other leg forward in a measured unfurling kick. Then they gathered themselves, leaned forward and, palm flat against the air, pushed one arm out in front of them while the other arm drew back, elbow crooked and fingers splayed.
‘Keep up, Micah, lad.’
Looking round, Micah realized that Cara and the cragclimber were over by the arched entrance. He hurried across to them.
‘Fullwinter is long and hard, even here in Deephome,’ Cara told him as he caught up. ‘The dance occupies the mind and calms the spirit.’
Micah nodded. Deephomers certainly looked absorbed and serene as they turned and repeated the slow sequence of movements once more.
‘Doesn’t do to let down your guard,’ said Eli darkly. ‘Even in fullwinter, there’s always those ready to exploit the unwary.’
Cara looked at him, her blue-green eyes gleaming. ‘The prophet protects us,’ she said simply, and turned away.
On the far side of the arched tunnel, they stepped into a cave that was smaller but no less grand than the cavern they had just left. It was circular and dome-ceilinged. The walls were rippled curtains of creamy limestone that gleamed in the bright rose-pink light emanating from the mattress of straw on the floor. Six sturdy straightback chairs with ball feet and padded seats stood in a circle around the walls and, glancing up, Micah saw that high above their heads, suspended from thick ropes beneath the dome, was a round flat slab of rock.
He shuddered. With its smooth polished surface of black stone, the slab reminded him of Redmyrtle the keld butcher’s table. He looked away, but the image was harder to push from his mind.
‘This is where the elders meet,’ Cara said, and gave Micah a concerned look. ‘But you look tired and hungry. The eating chamber is just this way.’
They entered yet another rock-cut tunnel. The air there droned with low discourse, and smelled delicious.
Micah and Eli followed the kithgirl down a set of shallow stairs and into a sunken cavern that was broad and deep and low-ceilinged. Micah paused and looked about him in surprise, for despite the hushed atmosphere of the place, the eating chamber was all but full. There must have been a hundred or more Deephomers there: men, women and children. They were seated on benches that stood on both sides of a pair of long trestle tables, the two of them set parallel to one another and taking up most of the cavern. There was straw on the floor, but the rose-blue light of its lustrous fungus was supplemented by lamps that stood in a line along the centre of both tabletops. The men and boys had removed their red straw hats, and these stood behind them, propped up against the benches where they sat.
At the right-hand end of the cavern, the ceiling dipped down and the eating chamber opened up into what looked like a second cavern beyond. Flamelight flickered on the walls, and it was from here that the mouthwatering smells were coming – as well as a stream of servers, both boys and girls. They appeared from the shadows, steaming bowls and laden platters balanced on their crooked arms, delivered them to table, then returned with stacks of empty dishes clasped to their chest.
The kitchens, Micah thought. Cara had mentioned them earlier, along with the various other caves and chambers that went to make up Deephome, this vast series of subterranean spaces interconnected by manmade tunnels. It was certainly an impressive achievement, Micah conceded, and around him, Deephomers seemed to be utterly content in this haven from the harsh weald.
‘This way,’ said Cara.
She made her way down the aisle between the two tables, and Eli and Micah went with her. The diners glanced up as they passed, then returned to their meals. Micah saw little curiosity in their eyes.
‘May we sit, sister Abigail?’ Cara asked, pausing beside the hunched figure of a diner.
A middle-aged woman looked round. Her skin was pale and waxen, and there were grey rings under her eyes. Dark smudges on her blouse and skirt suggested a chore she’d been engaged in before being called to supper. For a long moment, she looked at the three of them standing behind her, then smiled and scooted along the bench to make room. Cara gestured for Eli and Micah to sit down, before squeezing herself in between them.
A server appeared behind them at once. He set a platter, two bowls and a jug on the table before them. Micah looked round. The server was young and tall but prematurely stooped. His cheeks and chin were pockmarked. His hands were pink, and looked soft. Micah inspected his own hands – the calloused palms, the chipped and ragged nails, the scarred knuckles. He looked up and caught Cara’s eye, and noted that she had also made the contrast.
‘Guests, sister Cara?’ the server enquired.
‘Guests indeed, brother Simeon,’ said Cara, and Micah heard the ease with which she spoke to this fellow Deephomer, so at odds with her hesitant shyness with him. ‘This is brother Eli,’ she said, and turned. ‘And this is brother Micah.’
‘Welcome to Deephome, brothers,’ said Simeon. ‘And may you enjoy our simple repast.’
Simeon moved off to serve other diners, and Micah looked at the food before him. There were racks of wyrmeribs, slices of salted haunch, blackbread and rootmash, and pickled beets of orange and purple that glistened in spiced vinegar. Micah’s stomach gurgled noisily. He grasped the wooden spoon beside his plate and was about to start eating when Cara reached out and clasped his left hand with her right, and Eli’s right hand with her left, and raised her eyes to the ceiling.
‘For the bounty of the weald and the fellowship of Deephome, we are truly grateful to the Maker,’ she intoned.
Eli bowed his head, but not before shooting Micah a quizzical look from beneath his furrowed brow, which made Micah smile. Beside him, Cara let go of their hands and they all tucked into the food in front of them.
Micah savoured every mouthful. It was a joyous relief from the leathery sechemeat and watery stew of the winter den. Even the pickled beet tasted good.
His hunger seemed to come in waves. After two mouthfuls, he felt sated, his shrunken stomach tricked into believing it was full. After four mouthfuls, his appetite returned with full vigour, and he spooned up more slices of cured wyrmemeat and rootmash. Then his hunger began to diminish as his stomach became fuller and he sat back at last and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
He looked round the eating chamber, and noticed a figure winding his way between the diners, crouching down next to first one Deephomer, then another …
It was Kilian, and Micah was impressed. Rather than sitting at the head of the table and being waited upon, the prophet was passing through the eating chamber, talking to each of the diners in turn.
Micah observed his easy smile, his understanding nods and shakes of the head, and the look of intense concern that registered on his face as he listened to some complaint or petition, only to move on with a reassuring pat on the shoulder or squeeze of a hand once his reply had been accepted. And when, having made his way slowly along the length of the table, Kilian crouched down next to sister Abigail, Micah heard the prophet’s words for himself.
‘You look more rested, sister,’ he said gently.
‘The letting has left me weakened, brother Kilian,’ Abigail told him. ‘Yet with this fine food and drink, my strength is returning.’
‘I’m glad of that, sister Abigail,’ said Kilian warmly. He straightened up and squeezed Abigail’s shoulder. ‘We must all contribute what we can for the good of Deephome.’
‘I know it,’ said Abigail, ‘and I am grateful for your protection, brother Kilian.’
Kilian hesitated, then leaned forward and whispered into her ear. ‘I know you are, sister, but perhaps in future you might change from your soiled clothes before suppertime.’
Abigail flinched, and fingered the smudged stains on her blouse. She looked mortified.
‘Yes, brother Kilian,’ she said. ‘Of course, I’m sorry …’
Kilian patted her back lightly and moved on. He crouched down next to Micah, who turned to find himself looking into the prophet’s smiling face.
‘Sister Cara has been looking after you?’ he said, his dark eyes holding Micah’s gaze.
Micah nodded. ‘She has,’ he said. ‘I have bathed. I have clean clothes.’ He indicated the empty plate before him. ‘And I have eaten better than in longer than I care to remember …’
Micah heard Eli clear his throat, and he fell still, suddenly guilty that the cragclimber might consider him ungrateful for all the meals he’d shared with him in the winter den.
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Kilian. ‘And you, daughter, you have risen to the task?’
‘I hope I have, Father,’ Cara replied softly.
‘Yet I see brother Eli here is dressed in his old clothes,’ he observed. He stood up and moved on to the cragclimber. ‘I trust you were offered clean ones.’
‘I was,’ said Eli, turning to Cara, then Kilian. He smiled. ‘But I’m more comfortable in these. Just as soon as the weather has cleared, Micah and I shall be on our way,’ Eli said gruffly. ‘Ain’t that right, lad?’
Micah nodded, but inside his heart sank at the thought of leaving this warm safe underground haven, with its hot spring and good food and heady liquor and contented inhabitants, and returning to the unforgiving harshness of the fullwinter weald. And as he pictured the world outside, he was suddenly overwhelmed with weariness. His limbs ached, his eyelids felt heavy, and his mouth spasmed into a gaping yawn that would not be swallowed away.
Kilian smiled. ‘Sleep calls,’ he said, and as he continued along the table he turned and added, ‘You are both welcome to stay as long as you wish.’
Micah could scarcely keep his eyes open as Cara led him and Eli back through the tunnels and caverns. He dragged his feet, he stumbled. The air sparkled and the walls blurred.
‘What’s down there?’ he heard Eli asking, and saw that the cragclimber had stopped and was peering into a tunnel that was narrow and unlit and descended into the darkness.
‘That?’ Cara faltered. ‘It leads to some kind of store place. For old equipment, I think,’ she said. ‘Nobody goes down there, except for brother Kilian once in a while …’
They kept on. Micah’s head swam. And when Cara announced that they had arrived at the sleeping galleries, he stopped and looked ahead of him without comprehension.
They were standing at the entrance to a wedge-shaped cavern, the roof low over their heads but rising at an angle before them. The wall opposite was of banded sandstone, into which lozenge-shaped holes had been cut in rows, horizontal and vertical. The ones at the top were in deep shadow, for the glowing straw was sparse upon the floor and the cavern bathed in gloom. Ladders were propped up against the steep cave wall.
‘You’ll find two sleeping places at the top,’ said Cara, positioning a ladder beside each of two dark openings. ‘They have been prepared.’
Drawn by the promise of rest, Micah stumbled forward. He heard Cara wish him a good night’s sleep, and Eli doing the same, but was too tired to respond to either of them. He climbed one of the ladders, rung by rung, ascending into the welcome darkness, and slid into a deep niche at the top, directly beneath the cavern roof.
There was a straw-stuffed mattress inside it; thick blankets, a pillow of down. Micah pulled off his boots, slipped out of the grey cloak and lay himself down. His head sank into the softness of the pillow and he pulled the covers up to his chin.
He lay on his back in the shrouded darkness, his arms folded across his chest, and as he stared up into the velvet blackness, the faces of Deephomers in the eating chamber filled his head. Untroubled faces. Contented faces. Happy smiling faces. And one face in particular, shy and serious, blushing as her blue-green eyes gleamed.
‘Sister Cara,’ Micah muttered drowsily. ‘Cara …’
His eyelids flickered and closed, and he fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
Twenty-Nine
Micah stirred and opened his eyes. It was the second time he’d woken. Voices had roused him earlier, but he’d rolled over drowsily and drifted back to sleep. Now he was wide awake, and aware that, for the first time in days, he felt fully rested.
He fingertipped the gritty sleep from the corners of his eyes and rubbed his hands over his head, puzzled for a moment at the shortness of his hair. Then he remembered its shearing, when he was seated beside the hot spring, and Cara, the kithgirl who had shorn it.
Shifting onto his front, Micah inched himself forward and peered out of the narrow sleeping niche. On either side of him, and below, were similar holes excavated from the soft sandstone of the cavern wall. He ran his hand over the gritty surface of the rock and noted the telltale chisel marks that grooved its surface. Beneath him, the floor glowed muted rose-blue. He saw no one, and when he listened, the lack of either conversation or snoring suggested the sleeping galleries around him were empty.
Where’s Eli? he wondered.
He pulled himself up onto his knees and was reaching back for his boots when something caught his eye – a flash of movement, scuttling out of the shadows below and darting towards the centre of the floor.
It was a wyrme. No, two wyrmes, both of them white and tatterwinged. He had encountered their like before, rawking and screeching as they squabbled over scraps of food in Jura’s cave. So long ago. He watched them, surprised to see similar wyrmes living in this series of caverns and chambers that had been taken and occupied and bent to the will of the men and women who dwelled in them. Most kith would have trapped or hunted such cavern wyrmes, and Micah was impressed that these Deephomers tolerated wyrmes amongst them. Just like kin did …
The wyrmes started abruptly back. Their heads shot up and they looked about them. One of them jabbered, and the pair of them turned tail and flap-ran back into the shadows. Footfalls sounded, and Micah saw wyrmehide boots and breeches and a familiar battered jacket as Eli entered the great wedge-shaped chamber. He looked up at the sleeping niches.
‘Micah? You up yet?’
‘Good as,’ Micah called back.
‘Well, get down here, lad,’ he said.
Micah pulled on his boots, the undershirt and the fustian jerkin, grabbed the grey cloak, then started down the ladder. Glancing around as he neared the bottom, he saw the cragclimber’s face looking up at him. The glow from the floor uplit his face in light and shade which exaggerated the grimness of his expression. His pale eyes looked anxious, expectant.
‘I’ve been having a scout round,’ Eli said.
Micah jumped down the last few rungs and landed with a thud. He turned to Eli. ‘You have?’
Eli nodded. ‘That tunnel. I took a look down it.’
Micah nodded, and knew at once that Eli meant the tunnel they’d passed the previous night; the dark pitchsteep tunnel.
‘What did you see?’ Micah asked.
‘It was dark,’ Eli said, ‘and I didn’t go too deep. But by the looks of it, it drops down a fair ways.’
‘Didn’t Cara say that that there was some kind of equipment store down there?’ Micah asked.
‘Maybe so,’ Eli said, ‘but if there is, it must lie a good deal deeper than the rest of these caverns.’ He paused. ‘I found a bunch of kith clothes, though, piled up a little way down the tunnel, tucked away out of sight. Muddy boots. Worn, trailbattered hacketons and overmantles, the kind trap
pers and gutters and such favour.’
‘Clothes like ours,’ Micah murmured.
‘Looked like it,’ said Eli. ‘Though these were a whole lot more scuffed and scratched than most.’ He reached across and rested his hand on Micah’s shoulder. ‘Perhaps you might like to enquire about them, Micah, nice and gentle like.’ He smiled. ‘From your new friend.’
Micah cringed. ‘You mean Cara?’
‘’Less there’s some other new friend you’ve made I know nothing of,’ said Eli. He rubbed his hand over Micah’s cropped hair. ‘She seems to like you.’
Micah reddened, twisted his head round and pushed Eli away.
‘She does,’ Eli persisted.
‘Her father asked her to look after us is all,’ Micah protested. ‘She don’t mean nothing more by it.’ He turned away, angry with Eli for teasing and embarrassing him, but hoping he might be right – and turned redder still when he saw Cara come walking into the cavern.
‘Sleep well?’ she asked.
Micah nodded. He swallowed.
Cara frowned and looked from Micah to Eli, and back again. ‘If this isn’t a good time,’ she began uncertainly, ‘I can come back later – only breakfast is nearly over …’
‘We thank you, Cara,’ said Eli formally. ‘I for one am ravenous. You hungry, lad?’
‘Yes,’ said Micah. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Then come with me,’ said Cara, turning and heading back to the entrance to the cavern.
The pair of them followed the kithgirl. Halfway across the floor there was a loud clatter. Cara spun round, and Micah looked down to see that he’d tripped over a metal tray that was lying on the straw. It had scraps of bloodied wyrmeskin and glistening fat and lengths of marrow bones upon it, and he realized that it was these the two tatterwinged wyrmes must have been bickering over – and that someone had put them there for them.