Runemarks (9 page)

3

It was lucky for Maddy that she was a sensible girl. Anyone else might have tried to feel their way through the unlit passageways, moving blindly further and further into the tortuous guts of the Hill. Or called for help, bringing who knows what from the darkness.

But Maddy did not. Though she was afraid, she kept her head. Her glam was used up, which was bad enough, but she was almost sure that sleep would replenish it—sleep and (if she could get it) food. The short tunnel in which she had taken shelter seemed safe enough; it was warm and there was a sandy floor. Groping her way, she found it again and settled there to rest.

She had no idea what time it was. It could be night in World Above or even morning. But here there were no days, and time seemed to have a life of its own, stretching like a weaver’s thread into a loom that wove nothing but darkness.

Tired as she was, Maddy was certain she wouldn’t sleep. Every few minutes the floor trembled beneath her, dust fell from the ceiling, and there were other sounds, rustlings and patterings just outside the tunnel mouth that to her overstretched imagination sounded like giant rats or great cockroaches chittering over the fallen stones. Still, at last, her fatigue got the better of her fears. Curled up on the floor with her jacket around her, she slept.

It might have been three, or five, or even twelve hours later; there was no way of telling. But she felt rested;
Sól
at her fingers shone out without a moment’s hesitation, and although she was hungry—and fiercely stiff from lying on the floor—she felt a rush of pleasure and relief as the colors sprang to life around her once again.

Standing up, she looked out from the tunnel’s mouth. She could see that the darkness was not complete. There was no phosphorescence in the walls at this lower level, but the red glow from the caves was more noticeable now, like a reflection of fire against a bank of low cloud, and the violet signature she had followed so far was brighter than ever, leading straight toward the distant glow.

Of Sugar there was no sign, except for a signature too dim to be of use. It was likely that on his return, he might give the alarm, but that couldn’t be helped. No, thought Maddy; the only thing she could do was continue downward, following the direction of the violet trail, and hope that she might find something to eat—her last frugal meal seemed a very long time ago now.

Beyond the cavern the passage branched out into two forks, one larger than the second, still lit with that dim, fiery glow. Without hesitation Maddy followed it; it was warmer than in the higher caverns, and as she moved gradually downward—the incline was small but unmistakable—she thought she could hear a sound, far below her, like the low
hishhh
in the shells One-Eye brought her from the shores of the One Sea.

Coming closer, she realized that the sound was not constant. It came and went, as if carried on a gusting wind, at intervals of five minutes or so. There was a smell too, which grew stronger as she neared its source, a curiously familiar laundry smell with an occasional whiff of sulfur, and now there was a film of steam on the walls of the passage and a new slickness to the floor, which suggested that she was approaching its source.

Even so, she must have been walking for almost an hour when the passage came to its end. During that time there had been several small earth tremors, which had caused no damage, the rushing sounds had grown progressively louder, and the air was fugged with steam and fumes. The glow came brighter now—bright as sunlight but bloodier and less constant—bright enough to obscure any colors, if there had been any to follow.

Instead Maddy followed the light, and as the passage opened out, she found herself entering a cavern larger than any she had ever seen or dreamed of.

She guessed it to be close to a mile in width, with a ceiling that soared away into shadow and a floor of cindery, tumbled rock. A river ran through it—she could see a gully at the far end of the cavern into which the water disappeared—and in the center, there was a round pit with a furnace at its heart, clearly the source of the reddish light.

As she stepped into the cavern, there came a rushing sound, and a great plume of steam, like the boiling of a million kettles, erupted from the fire pit, sending her scurrying for the safety of the passageway. The laundry smell intensified; sulfurous steam enveloped Maddy in a burning shroud, and the fissures and passageways of World Below shrieked and bellowed like the pipes of a giant organ.

It lasted a minute, maybe less. Then it was over.

Cautiously, over half an hour, Maddy crept closer to the pit.

The eruptions occurred at regular intervals—Maddy guessed every five minutes or so—and she was soon able to recognize the signs and get under cover when danger threatened. Even so, the going was not pleasant; the air was scarcely breathable, and soon Maddy’s shirt and hair were stuck to her skin with steam and sweat. There must be an underground river, she thought—maybe even the river Dream on its way down to Netherworld—meeting the cauldron of fire as it passed, each element fighting to dominate the other until at last they burst forth together in a spume of superheated air.

Still, she never thought of giving up. There was something in the fire pit, some force that drew her as surely as a fish on a line. This was no trick, she told herself, nor was its power anything she had encountered before. Whatever it was, it was very close, and Maddy had to curb her impatience as she inched her way forward.

Once more the geyser burst forth. Maddy, now less than twenty feet away, felt the blast in the small of her back and, as soon as it began to die down, crossed the remaining stretch of rocky floor toward her goal. She stepped up onto the lip of the well and, shielding her face with a fold of her jacket, looked straight into the eye of the pit.

It was smaller than she had expected, no wider than a foot across, and as round and regular as a water well. Her eyes had been deceived into thinking it larger by the intensity of the furnace within, and it was lucky for Maddy that she had covered her face, for already her vision was blurred, like that of someone who has looked into the noonday sun.

Jed Smith’s forge was a candle in comparison; here, metals and rocks bubbled like soup a thousand or more feet below the lip of the pit, and the stench of sulfur came to Maddy on a column of air so hot that it crisped the hairs in her nose and raised blisters on her unprotected hands.

She bore it for less than five seconds. But in those seconds Maddy saw the heart of the mountain, burning brighter than the sun. She saw the sink through which the river drained and the meeting of forces within the pit. And she saw something else in that fiery throat: something blurred and difficult to see but that spoke to her as plainly as the signatures she had followed through the passageways.

The thing was not large—the size of a watermelon—and was roughly rounded in shape. It might have been a lump of glowing rock, suspended by who knew what forces in the gullet of the pit.

Surely there could be little hope of recovering anything from such a hiding place. The most skilled climber could not reach it; even assuming he could somehow withstand the blaze, the geyser would shoot him back out of the pit like a cork from a bottle before he had covered half the distance.

Besides, any fool could see that the thing was caught fast: a flexible webwork of glamours and runes bound it tighter than the strongest of chains.

As she watched, the rock seemed to glow even brighter, like an ember beneath the blacksmith’s bellows. A thought as absurd as it was troubling struck her—
It sees me
—and looking down into the pit, she could almost believe she
heard
it now—a strong, soundless call that seemed to drill into her mind.

(
Maddy! To me!
)

“The Whisperer.”

Now she began to move away, breathless and almost fainting from the heat, once more using the rocks and hollows of the cavern for shelter. She could do no more for the present. All she could hope for was to recover her strength and try to think of some kind of plan or, if she could not, to find her way back to the Red Horse and tell One-Eye that, whatever his disappointment in her failure to bring back the Whisperer, he could at least be fairly sure that no one else would ever lay hands on it.

It was cooler at the edge of the cavern, and the air, though noxious, was easier to breathe. Maddy rested there for some time, letting her eyes adjust once more to the gloom. There were smaller caves set into the cavern’s sides, some barely alcoves, others as large as fair-sized rooms, which might give reasonable shelter from tremors and eruptions.

In one she found a trickle of clean water and drank gratefully, for her thirst had begun almost to equal her hunger.

In another she found a vein of dull yellow metal almost as thick as her arm running through the wall.

And in the third, much to her surprise, she found a stranger standing with his back against the wall and a loaded crossbow pointing straight into her face.

4

For a second or two she was confused. The figure in the shadows seemed to have no shape, no substance—all she could see was his eyes and a slash of light across his mouth that flickered and glowed. But if her mind was fuddled, her
hands
seemed to know exactly what to do. Impulsively she raised them and, without a moment’s hesitation, cast
Kaen
—Wildfire—as hard as she could into the stranger’s face.

Why Maddy had chosen that particular rune she could not have told you, but its effect was immediate and devastating. It struck her would-be attacker like a whip, so that he dropped his crossbow with a howl and fell to his knees on the cavern floor.

Maddy was almost as stunned as he was. She had acted on pure instinct, with no anger and no desire to harm. And now that she could see him more clearly, she was surprised to discover that her assailant was not the giant super-goblin she had imagined, but a slim red-haired person not much bigger than she was.

“Get up,” she said, kicking the crossbow out of his reach.

“My eyes,” said the stranger behind his upflung arms. “Please. My eyes.”

“Get up,” she repeated. “Show me your face.”

He looked no more than seventeen. His red hair was tied back, revealing sharp but not unpleasant features, now drawn with pain and distress. His eyes were streaming, and there was a vicious welt across the bridge of his nose where the mindbolt had struck, but otherwise—to Maddy’s relief—there seemed to be no lasting damage.

“My eyes.” In the light from the distant fire pit they were a curious, flaming green. “Gods, what hit me?”

In all events he was no goblin, but Maddy could tell at once that he was not from the valley, although there was nothing outlandish in his bearing or dress. A little ragged, perhaps, as if he had traveled rough; his leather jacket was deeply stained, and his boots were worn thin at the soles.

Slowly he got to his feet, squinting at Maddy, one hand lifted defensively in case of another attack. “Who are you, anyhow?” His accent marked him as a stranger—a northerner, from the Ridings perhaps, judging from the color of his hair. But Maddy, who had initially been alarmed at finding him, was now surprised at the depth of her relief. To see another human being after so many hours alone in the caverns was an unexpected joy, even if the stranger did not share it. “Who are you?” he repeated sharply.

Maddy told him.

“You’re not with
them
?” he said, jerking his head at the upper levels.

“No. Are you?”

“You’re a Fury,” he said. “I can see your glam.”

“A Fury?” Maddy looked at her runemark and saw it glowing dully on the palm of her hand. “Oh, that. It won’t hurt you, I promise.”

She could see the stranger was not convinced. Every muscle in him seemed tensed, as if he were uncertain whether to run or fight, but his eyes stayed fixed upon Maddy’s hand.

“It’s all right—I won’t spell you. What’s your name?”

“Call me Lucky,” he said. “And keep your distance.”

Maddy sat down on a rock by the entrance. “Is that better?”

“For now, yes.”

For a moment they faced each other. “Do your eyes still hurt?”

“What do
you
think?” he snapped.

“I’m sorry,” said Maddy. “I thought you were going to shoot me.”

“You could have
asked
me instead of just belting me in the face.” Cautiously he fingered his damaged nose.

“I know a runecharm that would help.”

“No thanks.” He seemed to relax a little. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

Maddy hesitated for only an instant. “I’m lost,” she said. “I came here through the Horse’s Eye and got lost in the tunnels.”

“Why’d you come?”

She hesitated again—and decided on a half-truth. “Don’t you know?” she said. “The whole Hill’s a giant treasure mound. Gold left over from the Elder Age. Isn’t that why
you
came here?”

Lucky shrugged. “I’ve heard the tale,” he said. “But there’s nothing here. Nothing but trash and goblins.”

He had been hiding out in the tunnels for nearly two weeks, Maddy learned. He had entered World Below from the other side of the mountains, beyond Hindarfell; had evaded capture several times on his way before finally running into a posse of goblins who caught him and took him to their captain.

“Their captain?” said Maddy.

He nodded. “Great big vicious brute. Seemed to think I was some sort of spy. When I told him I was just a glassblower’s prentice from up the Ridings, he flew into a rage and swore he’d starve the truth out of me. Then he shut me up in a hole and left me there for three days.”

On the third day Lucky had got lucky. In the floor of his cell he had uncovered a grating, once the opening to a drainage tunnel, through which he had managed to escape. Famished, filthy, and afraid, he had stolen what he could from the goblins’ stores before finding his way to relative safety, where he had been hiding ever since, living on fish and fresh water from the river, plus what was left of his stolen supplies.

“I’ve been trying to get back aboveground,” he told Maddy, “but every goblin under the Hill’s after me now. They won’t come here, though,” he said, looking beyond her at the glowing fire pit. “None of that rabble ever comes this far.”

But Maddy’s attention was elsewhere. “Food?” she said. “You’ve got
food
here?”

“Why? You hungry?”

“What do you think?”

For a moment Lucky seemed unsure. Then he came to a decision. “All right. This way.” And with that he led her out of the cave and along the edge of the fire pit cavern until they reached a place where the river, running swift and dark from an opening in the wall, had been partly diverted by a fall of rocks.

“Wait here,” he told Maddy. Then he ran up to the water’s edge, leaped up onto a cluster of fallen boulders, and vaulted off into the darkness.

For a second Maddy was alarmed—from where she was standing, it looked as if Lucky had simply flung himself into the rapids. But she could see him now, standing on a flat shelf about halfway into the stream, white water surging around him. He must have known about the shelf, Maddy thought; even so, it was a dangerous move. Still, any fisherman will tell you that river fish love fast water best of all, and Maddy was not surprised when, a few seconds later, Lucky bent down and pulled sharply at something at his feet.

It was a fish trap, cleverly woven from string or twine. Lucky inspected the contents, hefted the net over his shoulder, and returned, moving quickly and deftly over the hidden rocks.

While he was thus occupied, Maddy watched him closely through
Bjarkán
—the magic circle of finger and thumb. She made certain he didn’t see her do it; she didn’t want to frighten him off. Still,
Trust no one,
One-Eye had said, and she wanted to be sure that this glassblower’s boy was all that he appeared to be.

But
Bjarkán
confirmed what she already felt. Lucky cast no colors at all. Her first, fleeting impression—that of someone older, taller, with fiery eyes and a crooked smile—had been nothing but a trick of the light and of her own fears. And as Lucky reached the water’s edge, grinning, with his catch over his shoulder, Maddy breathed a sigh of relief and allowed herself—at last—to unbend.

They shared the catch between them. Lucky showed Maddy how to cook the fish. These were sour-fleshed and bony, with huge, blind eyes, but Maddy ate every scrap of hers, licking her fingers and making hungry little noises of appreciation.

Quietly Lucky watched her eat. The messy business of catching, cooking, and eating the fish had broken much of the ice between them, and he had dropped his sullen manner and become quite friendly. Maddy guessed that he was as relieved as she was to find an ally in the tunnels, and the fact that he had survived here alone for two weeks said a lot for his courage and ingenuity.

In that time, she learned, he had found food and a means of cooking it; he had located a source of good drinking water and a place to wash; he knew where the air was sweetest and had found the most comfortable place to sleep. He had been charting the tunnels too, one by one, trying to discover a way to reach the surface without passing through the great gallery, but so far without success. And all that without even a cantrip to help him.

“What will you do if there’s no way out?” asked Maddy when he had finished his tale.

“Risk it, I suppose. They’ll drop their guard eventually. But that captain—I don’t want to run into
him
again.”

Maddy looked thoughtful. The Captain—she still felt she was missing something, but couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

“So what about you?” Lucky went on. “How did you find your way down here? And how come you know so much about this place?”

It was a fair question. Maddy considered it, and Lucky watched her, not quite smiling, his eyes flame green in the firelight.

“Come on,” he said, seeing her hesitation. “I may not be a Fury, but that doesn’t make me a fool. I’ve seen your glam, and I know what it means. You came here for a reason. And don’t give me that old tale of treasure under the Hill, either. There’s no treasure here, and you know it.”

So he hadn’t believed her. On reflection, she wasn’t surprised. He was too clever to be taken in. In a way, that reassured her. She could use an ally in the caves, and his knowledge and his resourcefulness might well come in handy.

Trust no one,
One-Eye had said. But surely she owed him some explanation, and besides, if the goblin captain
was
the enemy, then there could be no danger in telling Lucky a few things.

“Well?” There was an edge to his voice. “Do you trust me or not?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you—” began Maddy.

“Yeah, right,” said Lucky. “I don’t have to be a Fury to see what’s what. I mean, what have I done to make you suspect me? Apart from fishing for you, that is, and showing you where it’s safe to drink, and—”

“Please, Lucky—”

“It’s all right for you, isn’t it? You’re in no danger. You can get out of here whenever you like. Me, I’m here till I get caught. Why should you help me, after all? I’m only a glassblower’s boy from the Ridings. Why should you care what happens to me?”

And with that he turned his back on her and was silent.

Trust no one
. Even now the urgency of One-Eye’s words rang in Maddy’s ears. But One-Eye wasn’t here, was he? One-Eye had sent her under the Hill with no warning and no preparation, expecting her to know exactly what to do. But neither of them had foreseen this—and what was she supposed to do now? Abandon Lucky to his fate?

“Lucky,” she said.

He hunched his shoulders. Even in the flickering light Maddy could see that he was shaking.

“You’re scared,” she said.

“Well,
duh,
” said Lucky. “Believe it or not, being dismembered by goblins wasn’t on my list of priorities for the week. But if you don’t trust me—”

Maddy sighed. “All right,” she said. “I’ll trust you.”

She just hoped One-Eye would understand.

So Maddy told her tale in full—everything she had meant to tell and quite a lot she hadn’t. She spoke of her childhood, of her father, of Mae, of Mrs. Scattergood and the invasion of rats and insects in the cellar—at this point Lucky laughed aloud—of her dreams and ambitions, of her fears. He was a good listener, and when Maddy finally stopped talking, feeling tired and dry-mouthed, it was with the not unpleasant feeling that she had never revealed quite as much to anyone—not even to One-Eye—as she had to this boy.

“So,” he said when Maddy was done. “You opened the Hill. You found your way here”—for some reason she had not told Lucky about Sugar—“and now you’ve found your Whisperer. So what happens next?”

Maddy shrugged. “One-Eye said to bring it out.”

“That simple?” He grinned. “And did he give you any idea of how you were going to work it? Magic rope, perhaps, or a cantrip to make you fireproof?”

Silently Maddy shook her head.

“It’s a glam, isn’t it?” said Lucky. “It’s some bauble from the Elder Age, all bound up in heathen runes. How d’you know it’s safe, Maddy? How d’you know it won’t just zap you into smithereens the minute you lay your hands on it?”

“One-Eye would have told me.”

“Assuming he knows.”

“Well, he knew it was here.”

“Hmm.” Lucky sounded unconvinced. “It just seems rather odd, that’s all. Him sending you down here alone like that.”

“I told you,” said Maddy. “It was safer this way.”

There was a rather lengthy pause. “Don’t bite my head off,” said Lucky slowly, “but it seems to me your Journeyman friend knows a lot about this that he hasn’t told you. First he says there’s gold under the Hill, then he says it’s a treasure of the Old World, but he won’t say what it is, then he sends you in here alone without even a syllable of warning—I mean, didn’t you ever hear the tale of Al-Adhinn and the enchanted lamp?”

Maddy began to feel annoyed. “One-Eye’s my friend. I trust him,” she said.

“Your choice.” Lucky shrugged.

“No one
made
me come here, you know.”

“Maddy, he’s been feeding you tales of World Below since you were seven years old. I’d say he’s got you well trained by now.”

Maddy’s fists clenched, just a little. “What are you saying? That he lied to me?”

“What I’m saying,” Lucky told her, “is that a man may plant a tree for a number of reasons. Perhaps he likes trees. Perhaps he wants shelter. Or perhaps he knows that someday he may need the firewood.”

Now Maddy’s face was pale with anger. She took a step forward, the runemark on her palm flaring suddenly from russet brown to angry red. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Look, all I said was—”

In an instant Maddy’s hand was aflame; a bramble of runelight sprang from her palm. It was
Thuris,
the Thorn, angriest of runes, and Maddy could feel it wanting to bite, to sting, to lash out at the cause of her rage—

Alarmed, she flung it at the wall.
Thuris
discharged harmlessly into the rock, leaving a sharp scent of burned rubber in the air.