‘Water?’ The pair whispered at once.
They crawled back to the salt face and chipped carefully at it. They worked towards the sound of hissing for over an hour until they could hear it clearly. When Pavo chipped away another shard, the sound changed to a gurgling. Both men yelped as a meagre trickle of crystal-clear, ice-cold water tumbled from the tiny opening, poured across a lip of sedimentary rock and then drained through a crack in the floor. They looked at one another, faces stretched in impossible smiles, then cupped their hands under the stream. Each took a handful and drank in silence, draining every last drop. They did the same again and again until their bellies were full, then they took to lashing the water over their faces and hair, cooling themselves and washing off the grime of sweat and dust. The coldness inside and out was like the most soothing of balms. Pavo wondered at the sound of his and Khaled’s laughter – a salve that helped dissolve his dark thoughts. He hefted his pickaxe carefully to chip more crystal from the opening to the spring, when Khaled grappled his wrist again.
‘No. We are not the first to hear the rushing of water behind the rock and the salt. What trickles through here as a gentle spring might be a torrent behind these crystals. If we mine too far, the tunnel could be flooded in moments and we would drown.’
Pavo tilted his head to one side in agreement, lowering his pickaxe. ‘Aye, a spring will do for me.’ Then he looked to Khaled, grinning. ‘But we must fill our quota of baskets, then perhaps we will be sent back in here tomorrow?’
But Khaled’s grin faded and he looked past Pavo’s shoulder, down the tunnel.
A pair of eyes glinted in the gloom, blinked, then disappeared.
‘Who is it?’ Pavo whispered.
‘Bashu!’ Khaled gasped.
‘A guard?’
‘No.’ A broad grin spread across Khaled’s face, lifting his moustache. ‘Something more precious than a seam of gold . . . a friend!’
The eyes jostled ever closer, then the lean form of a young man emerged into the end of the tunnel. He was handsome, with silver eyes and dark hair swept back from his face. ‘Did I just see that?’ Bashu asked, his eyes glinting as he beheld the trickling water.
‘You can do more than see it,’ Khaled said, gesturing for Bashu to approach, ‘drink your fill!’
The man nodded in greeting to Pavo, then cupped his hands under the water and drank copiously.
Pavo watched him. ‘Khaled, perhaps we should keep this to ourselves, for now?’ he whispered.
‘Do not fear this man,’ Khaled gestured towards Bashu. ‘There was a traitor in the mines recently. A slave who was Gorzam’s dog. He told the guards everything we spoke of. Many I once knew are now dead because of that cur. Bashu here put an end to his deeds.’
Bashu turned back from the spring, grinning, swinging his pickaxe round and cocking an eyebrow towards the tip. ‘Aye, the fool strayed between me and the salt face at the wrong moment, if you take my meaning?’
Pavo nodded. ‘I think I understand.’
Bashu looked to the whip scars on Pavo’s shoulders. ‘You already understand Gorzam’s whip, I see?’
‘That one will push someone too far one day,’ Pavo shrugged and stooped to pick up the basket by his feet, brimming with salt crystal.
Bashu smiled at this. ‘Aye, that will be a fine day!’
Pavo bent double to scuttle back through the tunnel, leaving Khaled and Bashu to talk. He rose as he came to the end of the tunnel and back into the main cavern, then headed straight over to the pulley by the main shaft. For once, the pulley was still. He questioned this for but a moment, dumping his basket to the ground. He found his thoughts drifting. Once more, despite a voice inside him screaming at him to stop, he risked a look upwards. The distant light of day seemed curious and foreign now, so long it had been since he last felt it upon his skin. For just an instant, he let his thoughts drift. That last night with Felicia. His belly full and his heart content. The warm comfort of the bed. Her smooth, scented skin.
A roar of laughter from Gorzam was enough to snap him back to the grim present. The giant guard stood up on a shadowy alcove on the cavern wall, supping the dregs from his cup of water and crushed poppy seeds. It seemed Gorzam needed a regular dose of the mixture – a few hours into every shift. The big guard drained his cup and began to descend a rocky path towards the cavern floor. The man’s usually twisted features seemed relaxed, his eyelids hooded slightly from the concoction. Pavo lifted an empty basket and made to turn for the tunnel entrance again. But he froze, his gaze locked on the lip of the main shaft before him. A salt-coated, blonde mopped figure emerged at the tip of the ladder, coming from the chamber below. His heart thundered.