‘This is a kindness.’
Her voice beat at the air like sweet rain, singing a gentle song. He wanted to scream, but his voice was gone. Just like Agert was gone. Just like Skam and Guld and all the rest.
Gone.
Tooms awoke.
He did not otherwise stir, but instead scanned his surroundings. Just in case something had crept up. Skam was supposed to have woken him, but the Aqshian was nowhere in sight. Tooms rose slowly to his feet, drawing a knife.
The lantern still burned, casting flickering shadows on the walls. They’d made camp in a wide alcove, set back from the water. They were close to the Cathedral Hill cistern, and the water was deep here, and the current was fast, running north. But he could hear distant splashing – and something else. Almost like – singing?
Quietly, he woke the others. Questions followed, but he ignored them, instead, searching for any sign of what might have happened. But the only thing he found was Skam’s axe, lying beside the lantern. As if he’d forgotten it.
‘I knew it.’ Guld frowned and flexed his big hands. ‘I knew it.’ He looked at Dayla, who sat hunched and silent, cradling her handgun as if it were a talisman. Tooms watched them both for a moment. Then he turned away, straining to catch the sounds he’d heard earlier. But it was gone, lost to the water’s murmur. He let his hand trail through the water and ran it through his thinning hair, cooling him. The tunnels were humid at the best of times, and sweat had soaked through his clothes.
It was quiet. Tooms had always preferred the quiet. That was why he’d taken a job down in the deep dark in the first place, despite the smell. Down under the streets, where the sky was stone, a man could think. Up there, with the smoke and noise, you were lucky if you could hear anything other than the city, humming its tune.
Down here, all there was to hear was the water. The water flowed everywhere beneath the city, from one side to the other, round and round it went. And if you followed the water, it always led you right where you wanted to go. That was what Agert always said.
He heard it then, a snatch of sound, soft, high and sweet. Like a woman, singing to a sleeping child. He strained to listen, despite himself. If he could hear it, he might know what had happened to Skam. Or Agert.
Why had Agert come all this way? Had he heard the singing, and decided to investigate? Or had he found the mould? Or maybe both. The singing rose and fell, and he wondered that none of the others seemed to hear it.
Maybe they did, and they were just pretending not to.
‘What do we do now?’ Huxyl asked. ‘Should we go back?’
Tooms looked at him, water dripping from his face. Huxyl looked away. Tooms grunted and stared at the water. A scattering of gold and orange spores floated on its surface, riding the current. He saw patches on the walls that hadn’t been there when they’d made camp. Whatever it was, it was spreading. ‘Time to break camp.’
‘You mean to go after him?’ Dayla asked. She sounded frightened.
‘I mean to go after them all. You don’t leave a man in the dark.’ Underjacks couldn’t count on anyone but other underjacks, down in the dark. You’d brawl with each other, even steal from each other – but you never left someone in the dark. Never that.
Not unless there was no choice.
He stepped down into the water. The current shoved against him, and tiny islands made of spores swirled about him. They formed strange shapes as he swept them from his path. Almost like faces.
Out in the dark, the singing swelled and stretched into silence. The others fell silent. Tooms frowned and looked at them.
‘On your feet.’
‘On your feet, friend.’
Tooms surfaced, water streaming from him. He’d fallen again, though he couldn’t remember when or how. Agert’s voice – or maybe Skam’s, or Guld’s – echoed through his head. Beneath the words, someone was singing.
‘Up and down, round and round.’
‘No,’ he croaked, gripping the wall, trying to hold himself in place. ‘No, no farther.’ He could see his surroundings, though there was no light. Everything had a damp sheen to it, as if he were peering through wet glass. His throat felt raw and full, and there was a taste on his tongue that he could not name.
He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t find the air to do so. He felt hollowed out and full all at the same time, and wondered if Agert and Dayla and the others had felt the same. As if he were coming apart at the seams.
‘Not yet, just a bit farther,’ she said. ‘It is a kindness, really.’
‘No.’ He bent his head and leaned against the stones, feeling the rhythm of the city. The heartbeat of the beast. Life, but not as most knew it. A life of stone and steel, of pulsing smoke-stacks and clanging hammers. Greywater Fastness lived.
‘It doesn’t,’ Agert said, only it didn’t sound like Agert. Her words, his voice. ‘But it will, in time.’
Tooms closed his eyes, trying to ignore the feather-light touch of spores as they choked the air of the passage. Great clouds rose from the water and drifted along, following him – or maybe leading him on. He couldn’t tell anymore. He didn’t know what he was doing or where he was, only that he had to get back. Back to the light. Back above.
They had to be told. They had to be warned.
He stumbled on, shoulder dragging against the wall, leaving a smear of something that glistened in his wake. But he kept moving, following the current, hoping it would take him where he needed to go. Just like Agert always said.
‘Follow the current.’
Huxyl was the next to disappear. Dayla followed soon after.
The Chamonian had followed a sound around a corner, and vanished. Dayla had slipped and fallen. By the time they reached the spot, she’d gone. There one moment, gone the next. But her voice was still there, and Huxyl’s, calling to them from far away. Skam, too. All three of them singing, somewhere in the dark.
Guld said he couldn’t hear it, but Tooms knew he was lying. He could see it, in the way Guld jumped at every sound, and muttered under his breath. He was saying prayers, but not to Sigmar, like a proper Azyrite. To another god, one whose name was all but forbidden in the city, and for good reason.
Tooms said nothing, though. He was having a hard time focusing on anything but putting one foot in front of the other. Sweat stung his eyes. It was hot, down here. Hotter than it should have been, and the air was thick with gossamer spores, dancing on humid currents.
The stones felt strangely soft beneath his feet, and the lantern flickered like it was struggling to stay lit. Overhead, the city went on about its business. There was a rhythm to it. Noises slipped one into the next, until it sounded as if all of the realm were in uproar. Greywater Fastness clanged and groaned throughout the day and into the night. It was a beast of iron and smoke, always hungry, always growling. And the deep dark was its belly.
Only now there was something in its belly – an infection. A tumour. It needed cutting out. Tooms knew that. Every underjack knew that. You found infection, and you cut it out. That was their duty. That was their honour. He glanced back at Guld. At least it had been, once. Tooms felt old and worn down, and wondered if Agert had felt the same. Things had changed, and the city wasn’t what it had been. Nothing was what it had been.
‘What do we do?’ Guld whispered. ‘What do we do now? We can’t keep going.’
