Redoubt: Book Four of the Collegium Chronicles (A Valdemar Novel)

by Mercedes Lackey

  And the priests, the god-men, would look at the shirts and not at the thin faces, the bony limbs, and tell everyone how lucky they were to have a good master like Cole Pieters, someone who was teaching them a trade, feeding and clothing them. Then there would be a long blather about gods, but not too long, because Pieters wanted them back at the mine. And then the god-man would go have a fine meat dinner with the Pieterses, then go away, and the shirts would be snatched away, and it was all the same again. It was always the same. Nothing ever changed, and no one would come to rescue them.

  “Gabble gabble gabble.”

  He started. That wasn’t the whisper of a ghost, and it wasn’t any of the kiddies or one of Cole Pieters’ sons. It wasn’t even words he recognized!

  “Gabble gabble gabble!”

  He clutched at his chisel and hammer as the mine started to darken and fade around him. What was going on? Was his lamp—

  I left the mine—

  Everything was dark, and he felt as if he was falling. And the back of his head hurt.

  I left the mine. Dallen rescued me. Dallen and . . . and . . .

  He felt someone grab him by the hair. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t even open his eyes. Suddenly he was breathing in smoke, thick, sweet . . . he coughed, but that only drove it farther into his lungs. He tried to hold his breath, but eventually he had to breathe anyway, breathe in great, shuddering gulps of the thick, too-sweet air heavy with the smoke. He thought he might throw up, he suddenly had so much vertigo. He heard someone grunt, and felt himself falling sideways.

  It was dark. There wasn’t much oil in his lamp, and he’d turned it way down. The last one to use it must have taken it off and turned it way up to warm his hands by. You could do that, but it was stupid to. He’d felt when he got the lamp that it was low on oil, but they only got refilled at the beginning of the night shift, and there was no point in asking for more oil So he’d dropped it to the tiniest flame he could and not have it blow out. You didn’t need a light to get to the end of the shaft, and if you were working a poor seam, well, you didn’t need much light for that, either.

  As he knew, this wasn’t a good seam. He’d been taken off Jak’s old seam as soon as he started bringing out lots of sparklies. Davven was working it now, the suck-up. He could chip away at this thing for candlemarks without needing to see, and save the light for when he worked at the thin vein that held the sparklies. You had to cut away the bad rock before you could get to the good stuff.

  He’d noticed on his way out that by his standards, the roof was overdue for a prop, so he brought one in and hammered it in place before going back to work. He arranged himself at the face and began working high, above the seam. He’d work down, in strips, and maybe there’d be something worthwhile when he got to the right rock. He had to bring something out or he wouldn’t get fed at all.

  At least the ghost wasn’t in this seam.

  But suddenly, he began to cramp. Legs, then arms, knotting up in an instant, and so fiercely that it made him cry out. He expected to hear one of Cole’s sons yelling when he did. “No jibber-jabber!” But instead, his arms and legs just burned . . . burned . . . felt as if someone had bound them up.

  “Gabble gabble gabble!”

  His throat burned too. Why did his throat burn? It felt the way it had when he’d inhaled some noxious smoke from when the Pieters boys had been burning a carcass of something that had died and started to rot before they found it. He coughed and whimpered, coughed again.

  It was too dark to see, but again, someone grabbed his head by the hair, this time pulling him up. He opened his mouth to protest, and what felt like the wooden mouth of a waterskin was jammed into his teeth. A few drops of liquid dribbled onto his tongue, thirst overcame him, and he sucked at it, greedily, ignoring the musty, odd taste, bitter and sweet at the same time. He drank worse water every day, water murky and gritty with the waste from the mine, water green with algae from the barrels at the mine-head that were never cleaned, water slimy out of the bottles they were given when they went down to work, bottles that were never cleaned either.

  The hand let go of his hair, and he fell back into darkness. Hot darkness. Hot, sticky darkness.

  So hot.

  * * *

  Mags worked away at the sluice. It was hot, so hot. In summer, working the sluices was the best job. There was sun and fresh air, and if you got hot you just splashed some water over you, but for some reason, the water was just as hot as the air today, and splashing water over himself didn’t make any difference. It was hard work, right enough, swirling the heavy pans of gravel around and around in the running water, and his arms and back ached something terrible. He felt all cramped up again, but at least he wasn’t hungry. And it was no worse than mining the seam. It was summer, and this must have been afternoon shift. He couldn’t remember. It would be work for long hours, because this was the afternoon shift, and work didn’t stop till the sun went down. Well, that wasn’t so bad. You didn’t really want to go to bed early in the summer, when you could sluice in the sun and let the heat soak into you, especially after a turn in the mine in the cold. Even if the sluice water was as hot as the air right now.

  Piles of rock pounded into gravel at the hammer mill were brought here after sorting. Master Cole’s daughters and youngest sons did that; a lot of sparklies were pounded out by those hammers, fracturing the rock around them but not the crystals themselves. The kiddies got the gravel when the Pieters siblings were done with it. The sorting house was a pleasanter place by far than the sluices. You were allowed to sit down. The doors and windows stood open to the breeze in summer. There was a fire in there, come winter. The only time the kiddies ever saw a fire was when there were leaves and trash being burned or they took a turn as a kitchen drudge because a drudge had took sick. The sorting house was clean and bright, and the work was just tedious, not back-breaking. But, then, that was to be expected, since the Pieters kids served there . . . and it was rare indeed that anyone else got a turn in the place. Usually old man Cole or his wife or one of the older boys would bend their heads to work there before they let a kiddie in the door. It had happened once to Mags’ knowledge, the year that an ague and a flux went through the whole place, carrying off two Pieters kids and several servants, but leaving the mineworkers oddly alone. Maybe even a fever realized what a misery their lives were and figured they had enough punishment.

  Or maybe the gods were bastards.

  It was so hot today!

  Mags stood at the head of the third sluice, with his back to the afternoon sun. Not a good position on a day this hot, but the bigger, tougher fellers got the spots in the shade. He got the pan that had been left by the kiddie on the last shift under the sluice, scooped up enough to cover the bottom from the gravel pile next to him and began swirling the gravel in the running water, watching for the glint of something colored and shiny.

  So hot . . . so hot . . . almost as hot as it had been that night, on the roof.

  Wait, what roof?

  Because he remembered a roof, remembered crouching up there, in a place where no kiddie was allowed to be, but it was night. It was night, and the stars were hidden behind a cloud, and there was that watching, the same as the ghost in the shaft, watching him . . . but he ignored it because it had been doing that for days now, and nothing had ever happened. Everyone said it would fade eventually, then go, as the ghost lost its hold on the world.

  Everyone said so. Even Dallen.

  Dallen? Who’s—

  He kept his nose on his business, sending the gravel down the sluice when it was panned out, concentrating on the sweat trickling down his back as a counter to the cramps and numbing of his hands and arms, and the overpowering heat, and watching in that peculiarly unfocused state that let him spot the tiny sparks of color and light that others missed. The little wooden dish at his side filled steadily.

  But who’s Dallen?

  * * *

  The pain in his back and ar
ms was nearly unbearable. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d hurt this bad, not ever. It felt as if someone had tied his arms behind his back and left them there, and they were cramping. Yet, somehow, his hands and arms were doing the job they were supposed to do.

  Supposed to do? How could his limbs hurt this badly and still be working, as if the pain belonged to some other body?

  Someone had been working his seam last night. Which meant that it might need a support. The cripples that worked the night shift were mostly crazy as well as crippled, and they weren’t nearly as particular about safety as he was. He was back in the good seam again, which meant that . . . that ghost might be there. He tried not to think about it, found that he couldn’t, and instead just whispered to it in his head, over and over. I ain’t hurt ye. I ain’t th’ one t’blame. Go haunt th’ one thet is. He didn’t dare say anything out loud. The Pieters boys were working nearby and might hear him. He knew they were certainly listening to make sure he kept working. That was why Davven got pulled off this shaft. He’d only worked enough to ensure he got double bread, then slacked off.

  He fetched a timber, but that left him able to carry only his chisel and hammer, He crawled in, found as he had expected that the roof needed shoring, and hammered his timber in place. Then he went to work.

  It was a nightmare. His hands chipped away at the stone, but they felt numb, as numb as if he’d immersed them in cold water, or slept on them wrong and they’d fallen asleep. His arms screamed at him, and his back—

  Finally he couldn’t take it anymore, and the chisel dropped from his fingers as he moaned and his eyes closed. Or had they been closed all along? He couldn’t feel rock under him, it was wood, and it was moving. He wasn’t kneeling, he was lying on his side. And then came that voice again.

  “Gabble gabble! GABBLE!”

  Hands in his hair, and this time as his head was pulled up, he was able to get his eyes open a crack. Dim light filtered through canvas felt like staring at the sun. There was someone between him and the canvas.

  Canvas? Wood?

  Someone did something behind his back, and his arms stopped hurting, his back stopped hurting. He felt first one hand, then the other, pulled around in front of him, as if they’d been tied behind his back. A finger and thumb pressing hard at the hinges of his jaw forced his mouth open. The neck of the waterskin was shoved between his teeth, and he was suddenly aware of that burning thirst. But this time it wasn’t water, it was a kind of soup or broth, salty and meaty, but with the same bittersweet aftertaste that the water had had . His head felt thick, as if someone had stuffed him into a helmet that was too small.

  Helmet?

  He drank, because otherwise he’d choke. He was let fall again, and this time he actually felt something take over him, pulling him back into the mine, and had time to think drug before . . .

  He knelt to his work in the mine, but he could hear Pieters’ sons talking, working away in their seams, and they were scared. Absolutely terrified.

  “I ain’t never seen anythin’ like it,” said Melak, the third son and Jarrik’s junior. “I mean, I heerd the stories, but seein’ one—it ain’t right. It was hot-mad and tryin’ and tryin’ t’get in, and every way it got stopped, it just tried a new one. Smart. Things like that got no right to be as smart as a man.”

  “Ain’t just that it’s smart, neither,” Jarrik grumbled. “It’s got the luck of a devil. Tyndale shot at it, an’ did nothin’ but miss.”

  “It scares me. What’s it want?” There was real fear in Melak’s voice, something Mags was not accustomed to hearing. “Why won’t it go away?”

  “It wants somethin’ here, I guess,” Jarrik replied. “Somethin’ or someone. Either way, Pa ain’t letting it on the property. He swears he’s keepin’ it off.”

  “But how?” Melak almost wailed the words. “Ye can’t shoot it, ye can’t fence it out, and ye can’t stop it! We don’ know what it wants! What if it wants to get in here and kill one of us?”

  “Why would it—” Jarrik stopped.

  “You know why,” Melak said flatly. “You know why. It’s more’n half a spirit, too! It could even be—”

  “Don’t say it!” Jarrik retorted harshly. “Don’t even think it. Let Pa handle it. Let Pa handle it and leave well enough alone!”

  Standing there in the dark, listening them talk about something they feared so much they wouldn’t even put a name to it, Mags shivered. When had this—monster, or whatever it was—turned up and started besieging the mine? Days ago?

  Now a horde of little things began to make sense. The sluices had been left without a Pieters supervising them, and half the older boys were not at the mine for the past couple of days. The girls had scarcely been seen out-of-doors and had quickly scuttled back to the Big House when they did come out. The cooks had been less attentive at the giving out of the food, and a fair amount of cabbage and scraps had been joining the broth in the bowls rather than being husbanded in the pot.

  At least half the workmen hadn’t been visible over the last three days, either.

  This thing they were talking about . . . what was it? A demon?

  You know what it is.

  The Pieters boys had their own store of tales that they told, pretending to tell them to each other but really doing it to scare the kiddies working the seams. Most of the stories were about awful things down here in the mines. There were the ghosts of anyone that had died down here, and Mags knew of some few. These ghosts went about looking for someone who was the exact age they had been when they died—and when they found him, they would tear him apart trying to figure out a way into his body. Like Jak. Jak, who had been lurking, trying to figure out if Mags was the right size, the right age, the right person to take over.

  You know it isn’t that.

  There were the Knockers, twisted up little dwarfs no taller than your knee, but monstrous strong. They would wait until everyone was preoccupied and then just snatch a kiddie, grabbing him in his seam before he could utter a sound, bashing his head in with his own hammer, then dragging off the body to eat.

  You know it isn’t that, either.

  There were the Whisps, ghostlights that would lead you into dangerous parts of the mine, then drop a rockfall on you. They’d do it by putting you to sleep, then getting you to walk in your sleep to where they were going to kill you.

  Wake up, Mags, you know what it is!

  There were the Horrors, which got into your head and made you crazy, like the night-shift cripples. When the Horrors got you, all you saw were black things coming at you, all claws and red eyes, and you’d drive your head against the wall of the shaft to try to get them out, or you’d make a cave-in yourself to try to stop them, or if they managed to bring you above the ground, you’d throw yourself down the well to be rid of them.

  But every one of those was a monster in the mine. What about out of it? What was roaming about out there that was so scary the Pieters boys wouldn’t name it, wouldn’t describe it, and didn’t have any bragging ideas on how to get rid of it?

  Suddenly, he didn’t want to leave at the end of the shift.

  But you didn’t have to be afraid. Remember!

  No, he was afraid that whatever it was, it would be up there. Waiting. Watching. The Pieters boys said it was looking for someone. Some sort of devil. Mags didn’t believe in gods, but he believed, most fervently, in devils.

  And if a devil had come here, there was likely only one person it had come for. Well, two, maybe, except the boys were saying that Cole Pieters was driving the thing off himself, so it hadn’t come for Master Cole.

  All right, then. It had to be coming for Mags. Because Mags was Bad Blood. It would grab him and drink his blood to make itself stronger. And then it would carry him away to torment him forever.

  It isn’t a devil. It isn’t a demon.

  It’s coming for you, but not to torment you.

  He shook his head violently. It was as if there were some other part of him, ta
lking to him. Some part of him that remembered something important, but what was it?

  Drugged. You’re being drugged. Every time they give you something to drink or something to eat, you’re being drugged. That smoke—it was probably a drug too.

  Wait—what?

  The mineshaft had gone away for a moment. There had been—someone. And that voice saying things he couldn’t understand.

  He shook his head again. This was all wrong, his head was all messed up. Maybe he’d gotten some taint in his soup, a bit of bad mushroom. It had to have been some sort of fit, this other part of him talking to him, talking nonsense.

  At least his arms had stopped hurting.

  Then he thought about that devil out there, and he was terrified all over again. It was coming for him, it was coming for him, just as it had come for him on the roof.

  Like the thing on the roof! That’s what happened! Remember! Fight this and remember!

  His heart raced, and he was sweating. And it was so hot! The mine had never been so hot. He couldn’t figure it out. Why was the mine so hot? It was always the same temperature. It had never been hot before.

  He was held in a strange paralysis of fear; he couldn’t lift his chisel, and no one was coming to check to see why he wasn’t working.

  If anything, that was even stranger than the gabbling voice. The Pieters boys had ears like owls; they heard everything, and, most especially, they were listening for what wasn’t happening—the steady tap-tap-tapping coming from ten different shafts. So why weren’t they checking on him?

  He realized at that moment that there was no sound of the others chipping away at the rock either. In fact, there was no sound at all. Just the terrible heat and silence. And in that heat and silence, his lantern went out.