Angel Arias Page 11

  The mantelpiece clocks sitting on the shelves were much more ornate; gilded and carved so intricately that even now she wanted to stop and run her fingers over them to feel the little curves and dips. All of them made clunking noises as their mechanisms shifted, making it sound as though the room were alive.

  As they reached the front door, it seemed that every clock in the shop began to chime. The noise made Naif clench her teeth. She wanted to run from it, and pushed against Jarrold’s back, hurrying him to unlatch the front door.

  Outside, the night-lamps mixed oddly with the dawn light, casting a dull yellow glow into the growing pink of the sky.

  ‘That way,’ whispered Jarrold, pointing to what Naif thought was the west side of the prayer space. ‘Keep to the edges.’

  He began to jog. Naif kept up with him at first but by the time they reached the opposite side of the square, she had a pain in her side and her feet hurt from slipping in his ill-fitting shoes.

  ‘Jarrold, have – to catch – my breath.’

  He stopped and looked back across the square. The sky was definitely lightening. They could make out the signs on the nearby buildings, and the squat wooden seats that dotted the square.

  ‘Just for a moment.’

  But as he spoke the hounds swarmed into the square from the Clockmaker’s shop and milled around the doorway, barking.

  ‘They’ve scented us!’

  He grabbed Naif’s arm and hauled her down a street to the west. Though not much taller than her, his solid frame was built for power, and he half-carried her along.

  They passed a mixture of homes and shops, but before long the buildings turned solely back to homes. Like Jarrold and Emilia’s house they were tall, narrow places with neat gardens and stone fences.

  Naif ran until she thought she’d be sick from it. Her feet screamed in agony now, rubbed raw against the old, stiff leather.

  But Jarrold wouldn’t let her stop until they reached a miserable-looking street where the cobblestones were broken apart and piled into mounds, making it near impassable. He urged her behind a barricade of logs and wooden barrels and then over a crumbling wall.

  The house on the other side was mired in a build-up of thick mud, and mildew grew up the walls in grey swathes. In the pre-dawn light the garden was nothing more than rubble.

  He ran up the steps to the front door and wrenched it open.

  Naif limped after him. Once she was inside, he pushed the door shut and barricaded it with a broken chair that lay on its side nearby.

  ‘They’ll search to the west of Deope. They won’t think we’re in here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Naif, catching her breath.

  ‘If we go under Deope we’ll get to where Markes is by midsun.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll know where Oracion is?’

  Jarrold shrugged. ‘P’raps.’

  ‘Let’s hurry then. How do we get down there?’

  ‘That’s the best part.’ He passed her an apple from inside his jacket and she tucked it in her coat. ‘Right here.’

  He strode off down the corridor to the stairway. Before reaching it, he stopped short at the under-closet, a small, dark room of the kind that Naif’s mother kept their extra winter blankets and wet-boots in.

  He slid the door across. Inside was inky dark.

  ‘There’s a hole in the floor here. We’ve got a rope attached so that you can slide down, to underneath the house. It’s a bit hairy,’ he said. ‘Just make sure you don’t let go of the rope until your feet touch the ground. There’re potholes all over the place. Some of them are really deep. Maybe down to the underground water table.’

  ‘Water?’

  ‘Well, it would be, I expect. The bridge was built for people of the old city to cross a river. That’s why we’ve got so many good wells in Grave. We’re sitting on top of it.’

  Suddenly the floor beneath Naif didn’t feel so solid.

  He noticed her hesitation. ‘You want me to go first? Might be better anyway. I can catch you as you come down. I’ve done this before.’

  Naif nodded. ‘Please.’

  ‘Don’t expect to come out the other end clean.’ He gave her a grin.

  She returned the smile and then frowned. ‘Jarrold, are you sure Emilia will be all right? What if they ask questions about where you are?’

  He hunched his shoulders, his face taking on the same guarded look it did when Naif had last mentioned her name.

  ‘She’ll be fine. Father is an Elder; they will not harm her.’ He said it in such an angry, disgusted way that it didn’t reassure Naif at all. ‘Now, come on, in case they take it into their heads to be brave and follow us.’ He crouched down. ‘Make sure you slide the door shut after you come through. You can lock it from the inside. Just slot the peg into the loop. We made that,’ he finished proudly. ‘That way no one can follow us down.’

  Then he was gone, slipping through the hole in the floor almost as nimbly as Liam had done into the storm drains.

  Naif crawled into the space and felt around with her hands until she found the gap in the floor. She fumbled with the door, sliding it across and slipping the peg into the loop as Jarrold had told her to. It was odd to think that while she’d lived her whole secluded life as a Seal, Liam and Jarrold had each been exploring underground parts of the city.

  ‘Naif?’ Jarrold called up.

  ‘I’m coming now.’

  She felt around again. The rope that disappeared down into the hole seemed to be tied to a pipe set into the wall of the closet. Checking that the knot was still tight, she pulled on it. Then she gripped it hard and let herself down. The sides of the hole were rough, scratching along her waist, and she was not used to holding her own weight. The strain was too much and her hands slipped.

  Jarrold was ready for her and caught her in a bear hug. He let out an ooof of impact but kept his balance. After a moment, he set her down next to him and fumbled inside his coat again. This time he produced a candle and flint. The candle was broken but the flint still worked and the little pool of light it cast was enough for them to see each other.

  They were standing on a bed of dirt that stretched ahead into a tunnel of darkness with no feature. To the sides of her, she saw the base of wooden pillars. Even when she had climbed out of the cave system to the surface of Ruzalia’s island, Naif had never felt so closed in and confined.

  ‘We’re in among the foundations of the house,’ he said. ‘Further along is the tip of a stanchion. When you crawl under that, you’re on the bridge.’

  ‘What’s a stanchion?’

  ‘I don’t know, but that’s what Gurney called it. He got all excited. He says the bridge underneath is nothing like the bridges we build. He says it’s from another time. Another civilisation that was smarter than ours.’

  ‘If they were smarter than ours then why are they dead?’

  ‘Maybe they’re not. Maybe they just left.’

  ‘They just left a whole city?’ Naif felt a chill of wonder at the secrets of the past. Had this place been connected with the sunken city of Cheong? Or the Golden Spiral?

  ‘I dunno, but the structures are different. You’ll see. We’d better move before the candle burns down.’

  He stooped and began to walk forward.

  She copied his movements exactly, nervous of what she couldn’t see beyond the candlelight.

  It was colder down here, as if the earth around her was laced with ice. It seeped through Jarrold’s fleecy shirt, leaving her shivering. Despite the pain of the blisters she was grateful for the boots. So many things were making her anxious now that her belly ached.

  What had Markes told the wardens? Had they hurt him? Would they be able to free him and find the Elders’ meeting in time? And what was happening on Ixion?

  A familiar heat soaked though her. Lenoir.

  She could almost smell the strange wild scent of him; see his long, lustrous hair and sublime face; hear his sibilant and powerful voice.

  She
shook her head to make the image go away.

  ‘It’s here,’ said Jarrold.

  She squinted ahead to what looked like a wall of mud and rock. Something metallic glinted on the ground, embedded into the foot of the wall; a material that she’d never seen before.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked him.

  ‘That’s our way down onto the bridge.’ He shifted the candle to one side of his body. It threw light on another large disc of the same metal which jutted out of the mud wall like a fungal growth. ‘Behind there. Watch.’

  He moved towards it and then suddenly disappeared.

  Naif stood alone in the dark, unable to see anything. She forced herself to stay calm, waiting. Jarrold wouldn’t leave her here. He would come back.

  Long uneasy moments passed before she saw the candle glow and he finally reappeared.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘The candle blew out and I couldn’t get it to relight. Come on.’

  She stepped quickly over to the metal disc. From where she’d been standing it looked like it was embedded in the mud but as she came closer she could see a large gap behind it.

  ‘Tricky, isn’t it. We got this far and thought it was the end. I had the creeps about being down here but Gurney wanted to look closer at the metal. When he came up close on it, he saw the gap.’ Jarrold’s expression was full of awe. ‘If he hadn’t done that we’d never have found our way onto the bridge.’

  He turned around and the candlelight began to bob and waver.

  This time Naif put her hand on his sleeve.

  He stiffened. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want to lose you in the dark again,’ she said.

  His shoulders relaxed. ‘Good idea. Don’t know if I’ll be able to keep the candle alight. Last time we had a lamp. Should be able to find the way though. It’s dead straight and there are some funny plants growing in there that glow a bit. Tricky bit is at the start, so go slowly.’

  He beckoned her, then squatted down to crawl through the gap. Once they were both on the other side of the wall they were able to stand properly upright. Naif felt a greater sense of space here even though she couldn’t see more than a little way in front. In fact, all she could see was a jumble of mud-covered metal, almost like a ladder with the rungs spaced far apart.

  ‘Gurney said he thinks this is a giant stanchion which holds the bridge upright. The bit poking through the mud that we just passed is a piece that’s broken away from it. See that hole?’

  He pointed upward and lifted the candle so she could see. The extended light showed a tear in the metal, up high. ‘Lucky for us, we’re going down not up.’

  Then he lowered the light to near his feet. The large steps disappeared into the dark. ‘I’ll have to put the candle out to climb. It’s forty steps down to the bridge surface, count them as you go. I’ll be right in front of you.’

  He put one hand on the broad rung before him. Naif calculated that the distance between each step was almost the length of her body.

  ‘If I fall . . .?’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘You might land on the bridge. But you might not.’

  ‘What’s below the bridge?’

  ‘Maybe the river, though by rights it should be silted up.’

  ‘What happens when we get down onto the bridge?’

  ‘There are stanchions like this one all the way along the bridge under Deope. Some you can climb, others you can’t. One takes you up near the Holding House.’

  ‘How did you find it?’

  He pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Been down here a few times now. Wasn’t going to tell Emilia that.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have believed you anyway,’ said Naif, remembering Emilia’s reaction.

  ‘Probably not. Gurney and I climbed as many stanchions as we could. Some just hit a mud ceiling.’

  Naif took a deep breath and reached out to grab hold of the rung. ‘I’m ready.’

  Jarrold nodded and then blew out the candle.

  Naif waited until she heard Jarrold count out loud that he was on the second step, and began her descent. At first she hugged the rung with both arms, lowering herself slowly towards the next one. But she found that her feet didn’t reach.

  She changed her grip so that only her fingertips held the rung and fully extended her arms. This brought her feet in contact with the hard metal.

  On the next couple of steps, she tried swinging down. It was terrifying dropping into the darkness but it brought her into firm contact.

  She counted in her head as Jarrold counted aloud, staying two or three steps behind him the whole way. It wasn’t until her feet were finally on the bridge and she was standing next to him that her heart stopped pounding wildly.

  After a moment or so of catching her breath she became aware that she could see a little, even though Jarrold hadn’t relit the candle. The blackness was less black and there were shapes ahead of her. The light, she found, came from near her feet.

  Jarrold struck his flint and the candle flared. The light patches vanished.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘It’s mould, I think. Or something like that, Gurney said. Doesn’t smell too good if you squash it.’

  Naif shivered and rubbed her arms. ‘It’s so cold down here.’

  ‘Yeah. Let’s keep moving.’

  They walked along a mud-laden surface that was as broad as several sett roads laid side by side.

  Naif looked up. There was space above her but how much she couldn’t tell. More than in the tunnel before. ‘I don’t understand why there’s such a gap above us. Why haven’t the houses fallen through?’

  ‘Gurney thinks the bridge was in two layers. The houses are resting on a mound of dirt that’s held in place by the first layer of the bridge. We’re down on the second layer.’

  ‘But how would you make such an enormous structure?’ Naif knew nothing of roadways and buildings, but even on Ixion, among the grand church buildings, there was nothing as huge or strange as this bridge appeared to be.

  Jarrold shrugged. ‘All I know is that we built homes on it. And that we can get up near where Markes is if we go this way.’

  Markes.

  As she thought of him, her sense of urgency grew. What had the wardens done to him?

  They walked on in silence, the candle flickering light far enough ahead that they could see where to put their feet next. It was better to concentrate on each step than to contemplate where she was, under the earth, with the weight of many houses above her.

  After a while, Jarrold stopped. ‘I’ll have to blow the candle out again. We need it to see our way back up into the other house and it’s nearly burned down. We’ll have to use the mould-light the rest of the way.’

  Jarrold blew out the candle and they stood together in silence waiting for their eyes to adjust to the dark.

  The glow of the mould returned and the path ahead of them lit with a dull patchwork of orange, greens and yellows.

  Jarrold moved forward again, stepping between the dull puddles of light. ‘Your brother went to Ixion?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s why you went there?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What’s it really like? I’ve read the confetti.’

  ‘Ixion isn’t as it seems. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘I’m not frightened.’ He tossed the comment over his shoulder and she believed him. He was like Joel.

  It made her grab his arm and stop him. ‘Jarrold. You don’t want to go there. There’s a battle going on between the Night Creatures and us. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘A battle?’ He sounded thrilled by the idea, not deterred. ‘Tell me about it.’

  Naif made an impatient noise. ‘After we find Markes.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Yes,’ she sighed.

  He turned and continued walking. Naif struggled on behind him, her feet becoming more painful with each step. She wanted to take the boots off but knew the cold and the sharp rocks and shards of
dark metal littering the mud would hurt them more.

  ‘Here,’ he said eventually, pointing ahead.

  But she could already see it; a dark criss-crossed column rising in front of them.

  Jarrold stopped and relit the candle. With the brighter light, he showed her the rung arrangement and how best to grip it. ‘It’s harder going back up, unfortunately. I’ll stay one rung ahead and pull you up, if you can’t do it.’

  Naif hadn’t considered what it would mean to climb up. She didn’t have the arm strength of a stocky boy like Jarrold.

  He blew out the candle and climbed up into the dark, grunting with the effort of pulling his own weight up. ‘Get your feet on the rung right in front of you and reach upward.’

  She moved closer to the base of the column, stepped onto the metal rung and stretched. If she fell too far to either side she would roll off the edge into nothingness. Their hands touched but her fingers slipped from his and she nearly overbalanced.

  Her heart thumped painfully as she grabbed the side of the stanchion and steadied herself.

  ‘Naif?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ She tried again and this time their fingers locked.

  Jarrold began to heave her up and her feet left the rung. The sensation of swinging free held only by his thick fingers terrified her. His grip on her right hand began to slip and he levered her down quickly.

  ‘I’ll go up top and see if I can find a rope. I’ll be a while. Getting into this house is tricky.’

  ‘Just make sure you come back,’ she whispered.

  He made a rude noise and then she heard him climbing.

  Naif gazed upward for a while and then gave up. She sat down close to the column and drew her legs in to her chest.

  Her thoughts shifted almost immediately to Lenoir. It had only been a week since she’d seen the Riper. But if she dared to be honest with herself, the tight lump of apprehension she’d been carrying in her stomach was partly due to him. He seemed so close to the surface of her conscious mind and he was troubled.

  Naif!

  Naif jerked upright and stiff. He was here. He had to be here. His voice was so clear . . . Lenoir?

  Where are you, Naif?