‘I can still hear it,’ Huxyl said, clutching his amulet.
‘Just echoes,’ Tooms said.
‘Sounds big,’ Huxyl insisted.
‘Troggoth, maybe.’ That was Guld. Big Guld, with hands like spades and a face that had been broken so many times that it no longer hung quite right. Guld had been born in Ghyran, but claimed to be from Azyr. He even tried to put on the accent. Tooms, who had been born in Azyr, found it irritating, but said nothing. Just like he said nothing about the sword Guld carried, even though the big man ought to have known better. Then, Guld wasn’t a proper underjack. None of them were. Not like Agert. Not like Tooms.
‘I heard there were whole packs of them, down this deep,’ Huxyl added, nervously. ‘Think that’s what Agert was looking for?’
Guld spat. ‘Maybe. Not like troggoths to leave no sign though.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Tooms said, again. More firmly, this time. Curiosity got you dead in the deep dark. You started to wonder, and then you started to fear, and then the dark took you, because you were too busy searching the shadows instead of paying attention. ‘We keep moving. Cathedral Hill is a day’s walk from here. Let’s go.’
‘Never been this deep before,’ Huxyl muttered, as they started forward again, still walking in a loose single file. Tooms glanced back every so often, keeping them all in sight. You had to look in every direction at once, down here. ‘Smells strange.’
‘Clean, you mean,’ Guld said. ‘Ever known a troggoth to leave things smelling clean?’
Tooms sniffed the air. They were right. Where was the slightly acrid odour of human waste and ash, the hot tang of a city’s effluvia? It smelled like a forest. But Greywater Fastness was far from any forest. The blasted mire that surrounded the city was barren and flat, thanks to the cannons of the Ironweld, and the pyre-gangs who burned back the vegetation. And oh, the trees didn’t like that, did they? Nor what lived in them.
A chill ran through him, at the thought. He wondered if they had anything to do with Agert’s disappearance. He shook his head. It didn’t matter.
Underjacks had a job, and they did it. At least they had. These days, they didn’t seem to do much at all. They hid in the substations – the outposts that hugged the city’s great sluice-gates – and pretended to patrol, before tramping aboveground to waste their pay in brothels and dreamweed dens.
And now Agert was dead. No. Not dead. Missing. And not just him. Poor folk from the rookeries, and canal-men. Hundreds, even. A drop in the bucket, in a city of teeming millions. Agert had seen that something was wrong, and now Tooms saw it too. Someone had to deal with the problem. That was what underjacks did. They dealt with problems no one else could deal with.
‘We should have found some sign of them by now,’ Guld said, as if reading his mind. ‘It’s been almost three days. Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?’
‘I’m sure,’ Tooms said. Agert would have walked against the current, from the Old Fen Gate to Cathedral Hill. That had been his weekly route since before Tooms had first come down into the soup, and only a fool deviated from his route down here.
‘How do you know?’ Guld pressed. Guld liked to push. Liked to argue and bully. Tooms knew his type. Knew, too, that he’d eventually crack, in the dark. ‘How do you know we’re going in the right direction?’
In reply, Tooms gestured to the water. Moving south, away from Cathedral Hill and the great cistern there, down towards the canals. ‘Because that’s where the water circulates from.’ Tooms turned and pointed upwards. ‘It pours down from the sluice-gates and fills the deep cisterns, before being circulated back through these tunnels and into the canals.’ He paused. ‘You’d know that if you were a proper underjack.’
Guld shook his head. ‘Water doesn’t always flow the right way, down here, these days.’
‘It’d be flowing right if you’d done your jobs,’ Tooms said, not looking at him. Underjacks were meant to maintain the tunnels, as well as keep them clear of vermin. That was why they patrolled, looking for signs of weakness in the city’s roots. ‘Instead of hiding in your substations, and pretending the rest of it didn’t exist.’
‘We guarded the Old Fen Gate, that’s our job. Agert had no right, taking Samon and the others out into the dark. That’s not procedure…’
Before Tooms could reply, someone changed the subject. ‘Have you noticed there’s no rats?’ A young voice. Thin. Dayla, another Ghyranite. ‘Usually, there’s rats.’
‘What?’ Tooms asked, looking at her. Vine-like tattoos marked her skin, and one of her eyes was the colour of milk. She wore a frayed uniform of ochre and grey, and carried a short-barrelled handgun, the stock cut down. Tooms had laughed, the first time he saw it. The only thing more useless than a sword down here was a handgun.
‘No rats,’ she repeated. ‘No little grey squeakers, no big black creepers. Agert said…’ She trailed off, uncertainly.
Tooms frowned. There were always rats, down deep. Wherever men went, there were rats. When the rats left, it meant something was wrong. ‘What did he say?’
‘That he’d been seeing fewer of them. Like something was eating them. Like maybe whatever was taking people took the rats first.’
Tooms grinned mirthlessly. Guld and the others traded glances. They were scared. They were right to be. But when in doubt, it was best to keep moving. ‘Come on.’
‘Keep moving.’
‘Round and round, up and down. Whatever you do, keep moving.’
Agert’s voice, echoing in his head.
‘Agert,’ Tooms moaned, dragging himself – being dragged – along the passage. Where was Agert? Had he found him? He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember anything. Hadn’t he been in the water? When had he gotten to his feet?
‘This is a kindness.’
Her voice echoed in the spaces between the silences, drowning out Agert’s. Or maybe just in his head. His head hurt. Like it was full of broken stones, all pressing against one another. What was she talking about? What kindness? There was no kindness, here. Just the dark, and the water.
He clutched his stomach, feeling as if he were about to split open. Soft things moved beneath his skin and he tried to laugh, only it came out as a high-pitched whine. He’d heard a dog whine like that once, just before the rats had got it.
But there were no rats. No noise. It was quiet, but for the murmur of the water, leading him on. Leading him up and down, round and round.
‘This is a kindness. Do you see? It will be better, this way.’
Tooms slipped. Fell. Water surged up to draw him down, like the arms of a lover. He forced himself back up – no, was drawn up, ripped up, torn loose and set adrift. Momentum carried him against the wall, and he felt softness under his battered hands.
The walls around him were slick with it, climbing and creeping, floating on the water. Soft, soft. A vibrant patina of mould. Puffballs that had once been rats burst quietly at his touch, and hazy spores danced on the wet air, riding the currents upwards and downwards through the city’s depths. He felt them alight on him, and he shoved away from the wall, keening. Feeling the things inside him respond to their touch.
Something wet on his face. Not water. His vision blurred, and bled. The air and the water were one, tied together by a storm of spores, circling him.
Round and round.
Anemone-like filaments waved lazily in the wet air.
