Reclamation(171)

“This is how the Skymen value us,” Eric told him bitterly. “They value us so much that they’ll kill some of us to frighten the rest of us into submission. Come on, Heart.” He turned away. More than just ash stung his eyes now. “We have to find out if Arla is all right.”

“And if she isn’t?”

“Then we go back into the marshes and start looking for her mother,” he said to the empty watch house, “or for her daughter, or for anyone who’s related to her. The Servant went to one Notouch, didn’t he? We’ll go to all of them.” He looked back grimly at the cloud of ash and smoke that had been a city whose name was used as a synonym for defiance. “On our knees, if we have to.”

The toes of Jay’s boots hung over the edge of the second drop. A dim light shone up from the shaft and turned his weather-browned skin the color of dirty paste. At his direction, Arla kept her penlight pointed the other way, so only the dimmest reflection touched the mouth of the well. Jay’s gun peered down the well first, then his eyes followed.

Arla shifted her weight from foot to foot, trying to ease away the feeling of being watched. A shadow drifted up from the floor to the curved wall and paused right at her eye level. It hung there, almost as if it was expecting something.

No shadow did that for Jay. Arla swallowed hard and tried not to remember what Eric had said about finding the Nameless Powers down here.

Jay waved to her frantically. His own shadow made an opaque, black streak over the translucent grey that surrounded them. Arla moved closer to his side, still keeping the light angled away from the well. Jay pointed at the ladder, then at himself, at his torque, back to the ladder, then to her. Then he pressed the side of his index finger against his lips.

Arla nodded, bridling at his insistence of trying to repeat the plan they had already worked out in the middle of the tunnel. Jay would go down the ladder first. If nothing happened, he would signal her through his torque. Arla was to follow, and to stay silent.

Jay bolstered the gun and gripped the sides of the rope ladder where amber blobs of industrial strength glue held it to the tunnel floor.

Arla sat down and switched off the light. Darkness dropped over her. Jay became little more than a silhouette as he took a deep breath and slid himself down far enough to reach the rungs with his boots. She heard the leather creak minutely under his weight, and creak again and again each time his foot settled on a new rung.

Arla wished he could have told her how many rungs there were, then she would have had some idea how long she would need to sit here in the darkness. Darkness itself didn’t frighten her. She’d lived the better part of her life in the nighttime or in shadows. But this wasn’t the living darkness of the Realm’s night, or even the expectant darkness of the void between the stars. This was a muffling, confining darkness that wrapped around her and pinned her down, making it that much easier for whatever waited behind the walls to reach out and take her. The glowing well beside her didn’t help. It just collected shadows around her, as if they were moths coming to peer at a candle.

All at once, Jay’s voice echoed up the shaft. Her disk delivered nothing but a string of nonsense syllables. Arla drew her legs under her. A staccato noise like hail on granite rang against the walls. Light flashed brightly in time with the deafening sound. Arla threw herself away from the edge of the well and pressed back against the shadow-filled wall. She glanced back toward the entrance.

Run? I could, but where to? She gritted her teeth and clutched her sling. What I need is here.

Another flash of light and burst of hail shot out of the well. Then she heard Jay scream.

Arla picked a stone out of the sling’s pouch and crawled over to the well’s mouth. She raised her hand, ready to hurl it down. She peered over the edge.

Below her, Jay slumped against the tunnel wall. His eyes glistened brightly in the reflected light. There was no other movement visible, except for the restless shadows in the walls.

Arla dropped the stone back into the sling. She stuck the straps between her teeth and grabbed the ladder’s rungs. She started down as fast as she could. The ladder twisted and wriggled under her hands and she cursed it under her breath, wishing for the steady metal rungs that had carried her out of Haron Station with Eric.

A shadow shot up the wall and stopped three inches from her nose. Arla gasped and almost lost her grip on her sling. The shadow hung in front of her eyes. Its edges expanded and contracted as if it was breathing. Arla swung her foot around to find the next rung. As her eye level dropped, so did the shadow. Arla felt her pulse flutter like a trapped wasp in her wrists, but she forced herself to keep climbing. The shadow followed her all the way down.