Taste of Lightning (28 page)

With a violent wriggle, Skir threw off the guards and brushed down his robes. He extracted the copper circlet from his pocket and placed it on his brow. Then, with his head held high, he marched out of the room and down the stairs to Wanion.

CHAPTER 16

The Songs of Fire

‘SLOWLY – very slowly,' warned Beeman. ‘In its current state, the Broken Fire is extremely volatile. If it's shaken about, or squeezed, or, gods forbid, set alight, it will go up like a volcano.'

‘Maybe it's lucky we don't have a candle.' Perrin's teeth flashed white in a nervous grin. ‘What are we looking for?'

‘A bundle about this big.' Beeman indicated an object about the size of a loaf of bread. ‘Perhaps bigger. I'm not sure how much Bettenwey's got.'

‘Don't seem like much,' said Tansy.

‘Enough to destroy half of Gleve,' said Beeman grimly.

‘Go, go, go,' muttered Perrin, but he gave Tansy a reassuring smile before they descended into the darkness.

Tansy put her hand to the wall as she felt with her foot for the next uneven step down. Beeman's big, warm hand was on her shoulder, and Perrin was beside her, humming softly. She smelled clean soap and sweat and a faint whiff of hair oil. How in the world had he found hair oil? Suddenly she felt giddy; the thought that something terrible might happen to Perrin was worse, much worse, than the thought of anything happening to herself.

‘Perrin!' she whispered. ‘Be careful!'

He squeezed her arm hard. ‘You too.'

The darkness opened up ahead. There was a smell of cold stone, and a slow, erratic
drip . . . drip
echoed from a far corner of the cellar.

‘This isn't right,' murmured Beeman. ‘This space is too big. The Broken Fire should be tucked away somewhere smaller, more secure.'

‘A hole in the wall?'

‘Yes, maybe. You check that side, I'll check this side. Tansy, you check the floor.'

‘Be careful,' said Tansy in a whisper. She felt the sudden vacancy on either side of her as Beeman and Perrin slipped away. She spread her arms wide, groping in the dark. A thought flashed through her mind:
this is how Elvie feels, every
day
. How could she bear it, this crushing darkness?

And then she heard a faint hissing, rustling, like silk rubbed against silk. ‘Beeman?' she called, her voice shrill. ‘Is that it, the Broken Fire?'

‘Ssh!' It was Perrin, on the other side of the cellar, his voice low. ‘Snake. Quiet, don't move.' He began to sing.

Tansy froze, balanced on her right toe, left foot behind her, fingers stiffly spread. Perrin's chantment flowed past her, soothing and persuading, and Tansy heard the soft rasp of the snake's skin as it slid across the stone floor, drawn toward the steps, gliding up and outside into the night.

‘It's gone,' came Perrin's voice in lazy triumph.

‘Good,' said Beeman dryly. ‘But be careful. There may be others.'

Shaking slightly, Tansy dropped to her hands and knees. The ground was cold and damp and rough. It
felt
like snakes. She crept forward, sweeping the stones with her fingertips.

‘Beeman?' It was Perrin. ‘I think I've found something.'

‘Found what?' Beeman's voice was sharp.

‘A hollow place – like a little tunnel – there are stones missing from the wall.'

Tansy heard Beeman's cautious footfalls as he crossed the cellar. ‘Yes,' he whispered. ‘That's the place.'

Tansy edged her way toward their voices, holding out her hands until she brushed the cloth of Perrin's shirt. At once his warm arms wrapped around her, and he tucked his chin onto her shoulder. Beeman grunted as he groped inside the hollow.

‘Can't – reach. It's too deep.' He swore. ‘And I can't see if it's even in there.'

‘It is,' said Perrin. ‘It must be.'

‘But I can't reach,' said Beeman.

‘My arms aren't any longer than yours,' said Perrin. ‘And Tansy's certainly aren't. We'll have to get a stick or something.'

‘We are not going to
poke
at Broken Fire with a stick!' growled Beeman.

Tansy asked quietly, ‘How – how big is the hole?'

‘About as big as this,' said Perrin, making a circle around her with his arms. Then, ‘Oh . . .'

‘Maybe I could wriggle in.' Tansy tried to make her voice calm.

Beeman didn't notice the catch in her throat. ‘Yes. Good girl. Come here.'

Perrin released her. Even Perrin didn't know how terrified she was of enclosed spaces; the thick black dark in her mouth, in her nose.

Beeman grabbed her wrist and guided her hands to the hole in the wall. It was about waist-high; no more than two or three of the cellar stones had been removed, and the tunnel hollowed out behind them. It was just big enough for Tansy to squirm inside.

She reached all around the hole with her hands. It was just dirt, soft crumbling dirt. This was awful. She could taste the soil in her mouth: cold, claggy in her throat. She groped desperately with her fingertips, but there was only dirt under her hands. Her head scraped against the roof of the tunnel, and more soil crumbled down into her mouth. Tansy stifled a scream.

‘Little bit further,' she managed to gasp, and Perrin and Beeman held her legs and pushed her deeper down the tunnel. Now just her feet were hanging out; she was almost buried.
Buried alive
. . .
No, no. Don't think like that. It
must
be here
. She groped forward, as far as she could reach. Nothing. Still the tunnel stretched deeper into the earth, narrower than ever. She shifted her hip bones to edge herself further, and then a little further. What if she got stuck in here? What if the walls collapsed? How would they ever dig her out?

Even as she formed the thought, her fingers touched something. A canvas-wrapped bundle. But she couldn't quite close her hand around it. She stretched forward, but all she achieved was to push the bundle a tantalising finger-span further away. ‘No . . . no . . .' she moaned. A single hot tear of frustration squeezed beneath her eyelid.

‘Tansy?'

The voice was so muffled, she couldn't tell if it was Beeman or Perrin. ‘Tansy? Are you all right?'

Tansy took a deep, slow breath, inhaling particles of soil along with the air. She pushed her terror down, held her breath and dragged herself by the fingernails closer to the bundle – closer – she had it. She pinched a corner of the canvas between finger and thumb and pulled it toward her. Stars whirled behind her eyelids; her lungs were bursting. The hole was crumbling in on top of her. She tried to scream,
pull me out!
but the soft gluey dirt choked her mouth, her nose, suffocating her, and the terror rose, and pulled her under.

‘Tansy!' Perrin's voice was frantic in the darkness. ‘She's gone limp, she's in trouble!' He seized her legs and tugged hard.

‘Gently,
gently
!' cried Beeman. ‘The Broken Fire –'

‘She's stuck – Tansy!' Perrin scrabbled around the edge of the hole with his fingernails. ‘Help me!'

Beeman scraped carefully at the loose dirt. ‘Slow down, Perrin!'

Perrin ignored him. He burrowed his arms into the hole. Tansy lay face-down, limp and motionless. Perrin grabbed her around the waist and dragged her out of the hole. He caught her as her body slid to the cellar floor, and carried her to the steps and up into the moonlight. He said, ‘She's got it.'

Tansy's arms cradled a small canvas package to her chest. Beeman prised it free and carried it away to a flat stone where he set it gently down. Perrin lowered Tansy to the ground by the temple's ruined wall.

‘She's not breathing!'

In two strides, Beeman was there; he tilted Tansy's head, and hooked the dirt out of her mouth with one finger. Tansy convulsed, and choked; then she was coughing violently in the circle of Perrin's arms, gasping in the fresh, cool breath of night.

‘I thought – I thought I were going to die.' Tansy shuddered.

‘I couldn't help you, I couldn't do anything! I wished I was an ironcrafter –'

‘You did help, you pulled me out.'

‘But I couldn't . . .' Perrin was shaking. It was the first time in his life that his two gifts, his quick tongue and his chantment, had been utterly useless. When Tansy's feet had gone limp under his hand, when he thought she'd suffocated, and there was nothing he could do to help her – it was the worst feeling he'd ever known.
So this was how it felt to care about
someone more than yourself
, he thought dismally. He knotted his hands around her. ‘You're all right? You sure you're all right?'

‘Yes.' She leaned into him.

‘Then come here.' Beeman's voice was harsh with tension as he turned back to the bundle, and peeled the wrapping from it with swift, delicate movements. ‘You're here to help, not sit around cuddling. Fetch my cloak – over there, where you dropped it, Tansy, there, there! Spread it out. All right. Not too close.' The lump of Broken Fire sat naked on the canvas that had wrapped it; it looked like nothing so much as a formless lump of dough. ‘Now,' said Beeman. ‘I'm going to cut it into pieces.' He drew out his dagger; the blade glinted in the moons' light. ‘If I get this right, it should send the energy of the explosion upward, not outward – it should minimise the area of impact.'

‘Should?' squeaked Tansy.

‘Of course, with luck, there won't be any explosion at all.' Beeman frowned; he lowered the dagger and made a slow, smooth incision in the lump, cutting away about a third of its mass. Beeman let out a wavering breath. ‘All right. Now this piece into three. Tansy, are your hands steady again? Lift each piece
carefully
onto the cloak. Perrin, wrap a fold of cloak over each piece. They mustn't touch, understand? If we get this wrong . . . Whoomph. We won't be here to see it.' He brought the dagger down again, steady and slow, slicing the lump into smaller, uneven chunks.

Tansy lifted each small piece with both hands and lowered it onto the spread cloak. Perrin deftly wrapped the folds around it. Rushing cloud obscured one moon, and the first raindrops pattered on the backs of their necks: sparse, heavy, summer raindrops. Penthesi waited nearby, watching, with his head on one side.

‘I wish to all the gods I'd never worked on this wretched stuff,' said Beeman grimly. ‘Ah well. It was a long time ago. I was younger than you, Tansy, and so covered in freckles, everyone called me Trout . . .'

When the last piece was wrapped, Beeman took the unwieldy bundle and wedged it gently but firmly into his rucksack. Only then did he smile. ‘Thank you, both of you. And well done, Tansy. I couldn't have done this without your help.'

‘What now?' Tansy was shivering.

‘We'll take it somewhere safe. I have a bolt-hole in Gleve, some rooms I've rented that Bettenwey doesn't know about. Once we're there, we can chop this damned thing so fine that it couldn't light a candle. And
then
, just to be sure, we'll drown it in the river . . . Come on. Let's go.'

Skir threw open the double doors and marched into the room. Wanion squatted before him on her immense litter, swathed in green silk and cream velvet. Emeralds dripped from her fleshy neck and glittered on her turban. Her eyes were narrow as a toad's before it strikes a fly; she watched his every movement.

Skir knew this, and he tried not to look at Elvie. But he couldn't help it. His eyes darted to where she perched on a stool at Wanion's side. Had she been Wanion's servant all the time? Had she betrayed them to the soldiers that night? But one swift glance convinced him otherwise. Elvie's face was a picture of misery and fear; her hands twisted in her lap in anguish.

Wanion sneered. She nodded to the guards, who retreated from the room, closing the doors.

Skir did not want to look at Wanion. He stared around. He was aware of a horrible smell, the stench of putrefaction, mingled with a sickly sweet stink of incense. The room was furnished with odd pieces from all over the Pavilion, perhaps from all over Gleve.

But there was one item that Wanion had obviously brought with her. It was a gigantic loom, darkened by a huge, half-finished tapestry. That was the source of the smell. Skir stepped closer. And then he saw what the tapestry was woven from.

Vomit rose in his throat, erupted through his nose. His throat burned, he stumbled back. The warp threads were not threads, but strands of strong wire. And the weft –

There were strips of leather that had once been human skin. There were desiccated fragments, some with splintered bones poking through, which had been human limbs. There was hair. There were blackened clots which Skir couldn't bear to look at. Some parts of the tapestry were still horribly moist. Skir pressed his arm against his mouth, fighting the urge to vomit.

‘So, My Lord Eskirenwey,' said a soft, musical voice. ‘You have come to me, after all. I see you have no weapon.' Wanion's voice became a slow caress. ‘We are friends, yes? Welcome.'

Skir fought for self-control. His bold fury drained away; he felt sick and weak. Distant thunder grumbled over the mountains; the glass in the dome overhead rattled faintly. At last he choked out, ‘Not friends.'

‘Then why have you come to me, My Lord?'

Why indeed? What was he doing, creeping around the White Pavilion in the dark? He'd had a bright, vague vision of himself: he'd make a daring escape, surprise everybody, save the day and be a hero. But now he saw that he'd mostly wanted to defy Bettenwey. He'd wanted to appear clever, to show the High Priest that he couldn't be so easily controlled. And here he was, a prisoner again, and prisoner of the most cruel and ruthless person in all the Threelands. He
wouldn't
let her see he was afraid. He squared his shoulders and for the first time gazed directly at Wanion.