B00dw1duqa ebok, p.25
B00DW1DUQA EBOK, page 25
The master looked sad now, disbelieving, as if Finn was to be pitied. He sighed. ‘Finn Smithson, you have been tested and you have failed. You could have been a master, could perhaps have joined the Inner Wheel one day. But instead you have rejected us and everything we have offered you. You are to be sent to the mines immediately to work out the rest of your days.’
The master sat back, his face disappearing back into the shadows. Finn looked around for someone, anyone to help him.
‘No, please.’
The masters of the Inner Wheel of Engn spoke no more. Finn’s arms were seized, a Silverclad soldier on each, and he was half-dragged, half-lifted out of the stone circle, out of the chamber.
He was taken through another metal door and down into a cramped little room somewhere beneath the masters’ chamber, bare except for a large circular hole in the ground, like a well. A well or a mine shaft. The Silverclads thrust him towards it. Finn struggled, but it was no use.
He peered into the hole. The lights in the room illuminated a sloping chute that led steeply down into the darkness. He felt heat blasting up at him from somewhere down there, as if the chute was used to tip coal into some deep furnace. Distantly he could hear sounds, clanks and bangs, the thin wordless shouts of people from far below him.
He struggled again but the Silverclads were too strong. They pushed him forward and Finn found himself half-falling, half-sliding, spinning and crashing, down into the darkness of the mines of Engn.
Chapter 24
Mrs. Megrim stopped to lean on the stone wall of the blacksmith’s cottage. Her hips always ached first thing in the morning. They hadn’t been the same since her fall. The day Finn had left. Maybe she’d cracked some bone and it had healed askew. Still, it hardly mattered now.
While her breathing slowed she studied the garden in front of her. They’d only been gone six months, Ida and Dan, but with the summer riot of growth and colour left unchecked, the garden was now a tangled mass of greenery. She doubted the two of them would ever return. They’d wait there forever outside the walls of Engn, hoping for some glimpse or mention of Finn or Shireen. Not that she blamed them. She’d thought about doing the same when Tom and Rory had been taken. But in the end she’d decided she’d be more use back here, running the line-of-sight.
She sighed and, leaning heavily on her stick, set off up the lane. As it curved round a bend, she half-expected Finn to come careering round into her. She smiled to herself at the memory of that day, Finn so wide-eyed and out of breath, terrified at the sight of her. She felt the familiar pang of loss. She missed the boy almost as much as her own children. Was he dead by now? It was possible. The messages back from the wreckers were so scarce. Years could go by without a reply, and even when she did hear something, it was some unimportant scrap of information about someone she didn’t know. Still, they kept each other informed, all the line-of-sight operators. All those they trusted. And just occasionally, a scrap of useful information got through, and someone somewhere in the valley would learn the fate of a loved one. They were still alive; they were dead. People were grateful for the news either way.
She had never heard a whisper about either of her own children. It was a cruel fact, especially when people accused her of knowing everything that went on. She’d had a few mentions of Finn in the year he’d been gone. Sightings, reports of him making his way in Engn. Then it had all cut off. Six months ago, at about the time his parents had left. There was some talk of a sabotage attempt, a fire, then nothing. He’d disappeared. She sighed again. She’d tried everything to protect him, but she’d failed, just as she’d failed to protect her own children. Maybe she should go and camp outside the walls along with all the others after all. She wasn’t achieving anything back here, was she? A few secret messages. They were hardly going to bring Engn crashing down.
The first few workers were already out in the Baron’s fields, wading through the early-morning mist, scythes over their shoulders, to begin the day’s harvesting. She hadn’t protected Connor, either, had she? Still, she’d always had doubts about that one. Could never tell if he was his father’s son or his mother’s. A strange pairing, those two, but love was love. They’d stayed together, despite all the doubts. The Baron who despised Engn and whose family had a long history of sympathy for the wreckers. His wife from a family with ancient connections to the original builders of Engn. And where did that leave Connor? Which side was he on? Finn had trusted him completely. She just hoped the boy hadn’t been misguided. Connor had done well in Engn, by all accounts, risen rapidly through the ranks in part because of his mother and her family. But what his real attitude towards Engn was, she had no idea.
She could only imagine what an open sore Connor’s loss must be between his parents. Still, it was none of her business.
The autumn sun was peering out over the mountain-tops now. She welcomed the first rays of warmth on her face. Her bones gave her less trouble in the summer heat; it was the long, cold winters she dreaded. Some nights she stayed at the Switch House, sleeping up there on a makeshift cot, rather than facing the morning walk through ice and snow. Flane kept the roads in good order now, to be sure, but she didn’t trust her own limbs any more. She couldn’t heat the Switch House for fear of warping the lenses, but enough layers and she could keep warm enough. And she wasn’t the first to camp up there. Shireen had loved to do that when she’d first helped out, thinking herself so important guarding the Switch House overnight. Mrs. Megrim smiled at that memory, too.
Of all those who had been taken, only Shireen was still alive, so far as she knew. News she’d only just heard. It had been such a stroke of luck for her, being taken directly into the Directory. It happened, sometimes. A clever girl, of course, just like her brother. It was just a shame Finn had ended up among the masters and their ridiculous games. But maybe Connor would be able to look out for him. Maybe.
She began to shuffle her way up the spiral path to the Switch House. The poplar trees at the edge of the fields cast vast shadows right across the hill and the hut. It looked like being a sunny day at least. Something to be grateful for. At the top, she unlocked the door and stepped inside. She glanced around the familiar, gloomy interior, checking everything was in order. Then she set about opening the view ports and lining up the ‘scopes, ready for the day.
The first message came through from Engn almost immediately. As happened every day, she felt a thrill of combined anticipation and dread. Perhaps, today, she’d hear something. News about Rory or Tom. Or Finn. But, as ever, it was just the automatic timing message, the one broadcast to all Switch Houses so that everyone across the land operated on master Engn time.
She adjusted the wheels of the little clock on her desk, then sat and waited for the first calls to route. Within minutes, they started to come through. The familiar, humdrum messages about the weather, and the harvest, and who in the valley had been seen walking out with whom, and who had fallen out with whom.
She worked dutifully away all day, making sure each message reached its intended recipient.
Chapter 25
‘Get up. Get up and dig.’
The Ironclad whipped his cane down onto Finn’s bare back. Finn grunted but barely moved as he lay there in the dust, one eye to the ground. The pain was sharp, his back red raw, but one more cut made little difference. In any case, he was too exhausted, too sick. His body cried out for him to rest, sleep, but the Ironclad wasn’t going to let him. They couldn’t stop working just because they were ill, nor because they were injured or starving. They had to dig and dig and if they stopped they were beaten until they started again or died from the injuries inflicted on them.
With a raw grunt of effort, teeth clenched, Finn rocked over onto his knees and, eyes still shut, lifted his hand-axe to hew at the rock-face in front of him. He had no strength; the metal axe-head skittered off the rock and down uselessly to the ground.
‘Harder! Fill the trolley with ore.’
Another stinging crack across his back. Finn didn’t respond, didn’t look up. He heaved up his axe again and threw all his strength into hacking at the rock in front of him. This time it gave way, a small landslide of dust and stones tumbling down to engulf his knees. Despite the filthy rag around his face he tasted rock dust, parching his mouth even more. He sometimes thought the dust would dry him out completely, leaving him a desiccated husk of bones on the cavern floor.
‘Again!’
With a snarl, Finn attacked the wall, angling the end of his axe upwards at the unsupported, overhanging rock. He had learned, over the months, that this was the way to do it. Once you had the initial breakthrough at the foot, the rock above it came loose more easily. The risk was that it all came down at once and engulfed you. More than once he’d been set to work on a rock-fall like that, picking away at it until he found the soft body entombed within.
‘Faster. I want this trolley full when I return,’ the Ironclad said. He strode away down the line of diggers, following the chain that anchored them all together along the face. Sometimes the chain was the life-line they used to haul a digger out from a rock-fall. Sometimes they even came out alive.
Finn swung again, without the strength to angle his blade properly this time. He hit lucky; another flood of dust and rock crashed to the ground, engulfing him for a moment. He worked his way backwards, coughing, spluttering. With an effort he rose to his feet. The cavern lurched around him. He lifted a head-sized boulder and began to lurch towards the waiting trolley.
Half-way there he collapsed. He must have lost consciousness. One moment he teetered along, the next he lay in the dust, his forehead throbbing where he’d struck it. The boulder he’d dropped was sharp beneath his belly.
He felt someone reach under him to haul the rock out. It would be the Ironclad. This would be the end. He was too sick and too weak to care. They would whip him and whip him but there was nothing he could do but lie there and take it. He hoped it wouldn’t take long. Perhaps if he bashed his head against the stone floor some more he could knock himself out again and he wouldn’t know anything about it.
‘Finn, here, let me do it.’
But it wasn’t an Ironclad; the voice was soft, muffled, familiar. Finn felt the boulder being hauled out from beneath him.
‘No, Tom,’ Finn said, his voice a dried whisper. ‘No. You can’t do my work too. You have your own.’
‘My trolley’s full,’ said Tom. ‘Full enough, anyway. I’ll load what I can into yours, OK? You can’t work, Finn. You’re sick.’
Finn looked up to see Tom’s dusty boots walking away from him. The metal trolley boomed as he dropped the boulder into it. Finn crawled back towards the rock-face to collect more ore. Tom easily overtook him.
‘No, Finn. You’ll kill yourself. Look, keep watch. Rest and tell me when the Ironclad is returning.’
Finn looked up at Tom. The man was just walking bones himself. They all were. His face was dust and his clothes, rags. He smiled, briefly, down at Finn, wrinkles cracking the grime about his mouth.
Finn conceded defeat. He couldn’t make his limbs work however much he wanted to. He nodded but said nothing. He lay with one eye sighting along the chain, watching for the return of the Ironclad. He coughed constantly, just as they all did, each cough a sharp pain in his lungs. He forced himself to stay awake. He was just lucky that Tom had been next to him today. Usually when a digger collapsed or died, their companion took their ore and saved themselves a few hours labour. He’d done it himself. Anything to survive. He was just lucky it hadn’t been Graves next to him. Graves would have seen Finn struggling and taken advantage. Yanked the chain to trip him up or called the Ironclads. Life had been better, a little better, in the year before Graves had arrived. The worst of it was, the older boy blamed Finn for his ending up down there. It was Graves who’d eventually found Finn’s message scraped into the lead around the skylight. He made his way through the tunnels only to be caught by the Ironclads. Graves had been there a year now, himself, taking his anger out on Finn whenever he could. It was fortunate, in a way, that they were so exhausted all the time. Graves rarely had the strength to do him any real harm.
When their shift was finally over, Tom half-carried Finn away from the rock-face. Their two trolleys were piled high; somehow Tom had managed to fill them both. Finn just hoped he would have done the same had Tom been sick.
They trudged back out into the main cavern, passing the line of diggers coming in to replace them. No-one spoke. Boyle was among them, staring down at his feet as he shuffled along in the line. Strange, but you could never tell who would survive the mines and who wouldn’t. The ones who looked strong often died quickly while the stick-thin ones somehow struggled on. It was a constant surprise to Finn that he had survived. He’d been sure, in those first, gruelling days and weeks, that he would not. He wasn’t strong enough, he wasn’t cruel enough.
But he’d survived and Boyle had survived. So far. And the boy he knew only as Beanpole was somewhere about, too. Yet Bellow, for all his muscles and his malicious eyes, had lasted only a few weeks before a fall of rocks had crushed him. He’d been one that Finn had helped dig out. Finn had felt sure that Bellow was going to be alive under the rock. A part of Finn hadn’t wanted to rescue him, wanted to leave him safely entombed there. But, of course, the Ironclads had wanted the pile moving. The landslip got in the way and the rocks had to be lugged to the waiting trolleys. They’d dragged Bellow’s body, purple and bleeding, his chest clearly crushed, to one of the furnaces. His front teeth were crooked, broken that day on the Octagon. Croft, too, had come and gone. Beaten to the ground by the Ironclads for some offence. Beaten so badly he hadn’t got up again. It was just a shame Graves was too smart to do something similar.
Now, Finn and Tom fell to the ground, their tattered blankets laid out in rough rectangles on the hard floor in a corner of the main cavern. The great round lights, like trapped, constant suns, swayed to-and-fro far above them, giving everything multiple shadows.
Food and water had been wheeled out to them: a vat of porridge and a tank of gritty, metallic water. The diggers thronged around, fighting with their remaining strength for their share. Finn sat back and watched, too exhausted to join in. He’d seen many diggers die just because they were too ill, too injured, to fetch their own food and water. But he didn’t care. He just needed to sleep.
Tom emerged from the crowd, fighting through with two metal bowls and two metal cups in his hands. Finn nodded his head at the sight, grateful but too tired to say so. Tom kneeled and tipped water into Finn’s mouth from one of the cups, parting his sealed lips so none was wasted, before glugging back great gulps himself. Tom ate his gruel. Finn sipped at his but his stomach lurched at the taste of it and he handed it back to Tom to eat.
They’d known each other since the day Finn had landed in a broken huddle at the foot of the chute. Tom hadn’t recognized him, of course, but Finn immediately saw who he was, despite the grime and his thick, matted beard. Tall and slightly bent over, he had the same open, clever face, the same knowing expression in his eyes. Finn had called to him by name as they sat in the semi-dark a few nights later.
‘It’s Tom isn’t it? Rory’s brother.’
Tom had been eating then, too, sitting alone and shovelling gruel into his mouth with determined, machine-like motions. Finn’s words had stopped him dead.
‘You know Rory? Is he still alive?’
‘He is. At least, he was a few weeks ago. He helped me.’
‘Why? Why did he help you?’
His food forgotten, Tom had shuffled over to sit beside Finn. Finn hadn’t been sure Rory was still alive, of course. There was a good chance he’d been caught by the Ironclads. On the other hand, Finn hadn’t seen him down in the mines. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t there somewhere. The diggings were vast. Still, he liked to think Rory was free, somewhere up above them in the workings. He’d told Tom everything he could recall about his brother.
‘So you’ve seen my mother recently, too?’ Tom had asked.
‘She taught me how to operate the Switch House. We worked together. She was well, the last time I saw her.’ Once again, he didn’t mention his last sight of her. ‘She was well. Bossing me around as much as ever.’
Tom had grinned. ‘That’s good.’
Over the next weeks and months they’d slowly recounted their stories to each other. They were often too exhausted, too sick, so it took time. And they both rationed what they said, out of wariness at first, but then because neither wanted to use their memories up quickly. Each fresh episode, each tiny detail of life back in the valley, was a precious moment lighting up grim days. Finn looked forward to his conversations with Tom like nothing else. He’d been wary, at first, about discussing Connor, Diane, the wreckers. In the end it didn’t seem to matter. What more could the masters do to them? He and Tom shared all their secrets, huddling close to each other on the hard rock.
Most of Tom’s recollections were of life back home. He’d known Finn’s parents, of course. Finn loved to hear these stories. Tom’s time in Engn had been less dramatic than Finn’s. He’d told his story in just a few words, early on in their friendship.
‘Rory and I were separated when we got to Engn and I didn’t see him again. They put me to work in the line-of-sight tower. Because I used to help out my mother, I suppose. But they were obviously keeping a close eye on me. The first hint of something wrong, a message or two mistranscribed, and they pulled me away and brought me down here. Said I’d failed the tests. I’ve been here ever since. I suppose they have to be very careful with the messages.’
‘The line-of-sight tower? Where’s that?’
