15
The ground beneath the ground was uneven, and Jack was still unsteady on his feet. Cinderhouse needed to help him occasionally when it came time for them to pick their way over broken stones or across overfull streambeds. They left a trail of Jack’s blood behind them, and he imagined each drop that fell from his wrists blossoming from the dark soil into tall black flowers, screaming and swaying like sirens. Jack was dismayed by how much muscle tone he had lost. He assumed his coordination and strength would return, but it would clearly take some time. Cinderhouse had given him his jacket, with the black darts dotted across the front and down the sleeves, but Jack was still naked from the waist down. His legs were skinny and scratched. Cinderhouse carried both the lantern and the black medical bag from the cell.
They found a shallow place and crossed an underground pond, small darting white creatures swarming around their ankles and between their toes. They walked through dense catacombs, human bones stacked high and deep, skulls piled high over their heads, and into a large open chamber that Jack imagined was the inside of some enormous whale carcass, grey wooden ribs arcing above them.
There they found the man’s unconscious body. Cinderhouse ignored it, walked right past it and started up a staircase that he said would lead them to a higher tunnel, but Jack stopped, his hand against the wall to help hold him up. He stood over the body and watched the man breathe, his chest rising and falling arrhythmically. There was a gash in the man’s head and his leg was badly broken. Dark sticky blood had pooled beneath him, but the wounded leg had begun to clot.
“Who do we have here?” Jack said.
Jack barely whispered, but the chamber caught his question and bounced it around the walls until it boomed down at Cinderhouse. The bald man turned and stood next to Jack, looking at the other man’s still and silent form, the legs and arms splayed across the cobblestones like those of a snipped marionette.
“He’s nobody,” Cinderhouse said. “An irritant.”
“Oh, but I like irritants,” Jack said. “For instance, I’ve become quite fond of you.”
Cinderhouse scowled, but accepted the insult. “He followed me down here. He was in Bridewell.”
Jack lowered himself slowly to his knees with a grunt and bent over the unconscious man. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and sniffed the man’s face, squeezed his mouth open and smelled his breath, sucked in the air from his lungs. Jack smiled and looked up at Cinderhouse.
“What was his name? Did you know it?”
“He called himself Griffin.”
“You say he was in the prison with you?”
“Yes. He was.”
“For how long was he there?”
“Not long. I know I saw him there the day before we escaped.”
“But not before that? How odd.”
“I don’t know,” Cinderhouse said. He squinted and scrunched his features so that he looked like a child trying to remember instructions. “I don’t think I saw him before that.”
“Almost as if he arrived just in time to escape, would you say?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“That’s all right,” Jack said. “Of course you don’t, my lovely little fly. Don’t trouble yourself.”
Cinderhouse smiled weakly, unsure of whether he had disappointed Jack. Jack stared down at Griffin and reached out, gently probed the wound on his leg. Griffin stirred and groaned in his sleep. Jack put his lips to the unconscious man’s ear and murmured. “Exitus probatur,” he said.
“Ergo acta probantur.” Griffin’s voice was thick and gravelly, but Jack heard him clearly.
He looked up at Cinderhouse and grinned. “Do you know what we have here, Peter?”
Cinderhouse shook his head, thoroughly confused.
“We have another acolyte. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Is it?”
“Oh, yes,” Jack said. “Very wonderful, indeed. Why is he bleeding? Did you do this to him?”
Cinderhouse took a step back. “He attacked me.” His voice was filled with fear.
“But you got the upper hand, did you?” Jack didn’t wait for the bald man to answer. “Help me here,” he said. “Don’t worry, little fly. Here, get him under the arms, lift him up.”
“Let’s leave him here,” Cinderhouse said. “He’s of no use to us.”
“You will do as I tell you.” Jack’s voice came from somewhere deep in his chest, rumbled up and out and surrounded the bald man with his anger and his authority. His head swiveled around to Cinderhouse, and his eyes flashed with rage. His lips drew back in a snarl. With an inaudible grunt, Jack pulled himself to his feet so that he towered over Cinderhouse. “You will never question me again. You will do exactly as I say at all times.”
Cinderhouse’s eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open. A runner of drool escaped his lower lip and spooled off his chin. He stood still and useless, confused for a moment, then nodded.
“I hate to have to raise my voice to you, Peter,” Jack said. “You know that, right?”
Cinderhouse nodded again.
“Good,” Jack said. “Don’t give me a reason to be displeased with you and we will get along together like the best of friends. Always the very best of friends.”
Cinderhouse handed the lantern and bag to Jack, then bent and hoisted Griffin’s upper body.
“That’s my boy,” Jack said. He was tired. Standing so quickly and raising his voice had exhausted him. His knees were sore and wet from the damp ground. His wrists and ankles were torn open, the bloody imprint of his shackles pressed deep in his flesh. The weight of the lantern pulled at him and he thought he might follow it and sink into the dirt. He didn’t think he had any inner reserves of strength left, but he did not want Cinderhouse to see how frail he really was. For all his stupidity and his weakness of will, Cinderhouse was still a predator and would be sure to take advantage of any shift in their balance of power. Jack gestured toward the tunnel they had come through.
“Carry him.”
“He’s heavy. I don’t think I-”
“Then drag him.”
“But that’s the way we came.”
“Are you arguing with me again, fly?”
“No, not at all.” Cinderhouse cowered.
“Then go. I will follow.”
Cinderhouse put his head down and maneuvered Griffin’s body around, twisting the insensible convict’s legs unnaturally, then shuffled backward across the chamber and into the tunnel. Jack had meant for Cinderhouse to be facing forward; he wanted to use the wall to hold himself up and he didn’t want the bald man to see him doing it.
He closed his eyes and drew himself up to his full height and followed along behind Cinderhouse and Griffin and did not reach out for the wall and did not think about food or water or any of the temptations that would weaken him more than he was already weak. He didn’t see the catacombs as they walked through them a second time, didn’t feel the blind white creatures beneath his feet as they forded the pond again, didn’t hear Cinderhouse gasping and grunting in the dark as he staggered with Griffin’s body over tumbles of rock and dirt and bone.