Mara kissed the top of his pod, then dashed out of the growth chamber. She bolted through the corridor and into the elevation shaft, grabbing a cudgel from the shaft’s platform floor. After rapping on a metal plate that hung from the wall, she shouted into a tube that ran down the shaft. “Chazaq! It’s Mara. I need to go down three levels.”
The platform eased downward. As the descent paused intermittently, Mara imagined the huge giant at the bottom letting the rope slide through his massive hands, grabbing it every few seconds to keep her from plummeting all the way to the brick-making kilns, a forbidden zone for all the girls.
Sulfur fumes assaulted her nose, intensifying by the second. When she reached the third quarry level, she jumped out and swiveled her head. A glow from the nearby magma river illuminated the enormous cavern, but it flowed behind a granite wall, safely away from her sensitive eyes.
“Paili!” she called. “Are you down here?” Three girls walked by, each carrying a bucket of wet rocks, but only one turned to look at Mara. With her glazed eyes and dirty chin and sweat dripping from her stringy hair, she seemed more dead than alive.
Mara pulled her coif from her pocket and mopped her brow. The heat was more oppressive than usual. “Paili!” she called again, tying her coif and stuffing her hair underneath. “Has anyone seen Paili?”
One girl poked her reddish head out from behind a stone column. “Washing.” She formed her words carefully. “Paili. . is. . washing.”
Mara knelt and untied a cloth from the girl’s ankle. “Taalah, hold still while I have a look at that cut.” The girl’s leg trembled, but Mara held it firm as she eyed a finger-length gash. “It’s still oozing blood, but I think it’s healing.” She reconfigured the cloth to place a clean spot on the wound and tied it securely. “Make sure you soak your ankle in the sulfur springs tonight and wash out the bandage.”
Taalah nodded and pointed. “Paili. . come. . now.”
Mara rose to her feet. Down in the quarry, a little girl skipped along a stony path that ran between a pair of shallow trenches, clutching the sides of her too-long inner shirt as she bounced toward them.
Mara waved at her. “Paili!”
The little girl glanced up and spread out her arms. “Mara!” She ran across a narrow rock bridge that spanned the closer trench and lunged into Mara’s arms. “You back!” she cried, nuzzling Mara’s waist.
Mara laid a hand on Paili’s dark wet hair. “Were you playing in the water?”
Paili shook her head, but when Mara glared at her, her head’s back and forth motion slowly changed to up and down.
“Where’s your over-tunic?”
Paili pointed at the closer trench.
Mara groaned. “Oh, Paili! What am I going to do with you? It’s a good thing Nabal didn’t see you.” She glanced around the cavern. “Where is he, anyway?”
Paili stomped once on the ground. “Brick room. He. . back soon.”
Mara fished in Paili’s pocket and jerked out her coif. “He’s going to catch you someday, and you’ll be chiseling out growth chambers until you wrinkle up and die!” She tied the coif back on Paili’s head and gestured toward the trench. “Come on. Let’s dig up some magnetite.”
She slid down the short slope and grabbed up the dirty, wrinkled tunic. When Paili joined her, Mara pushed the girl’s outer garment over her head and tried to smooth it out, but her hand touched a sticky spot on Paili’s collar. She drew her fingers close to her eyes. “Blood?” She spun Paili around, pulled her collar away from her neck, and peeked down her back. She gritted her teeth and growled. “Did Nabal do this? Did he whip you?”
Paili nodded, whimpering.
“And he told you to wash the blood to hide it, right?”
Paili nodded again.
Mara released Paili’s collar and kissed her cheek. Tightening both her fists, she hissed, “Someday I’m going to kill that stupid dung-eater.” She snatched up a nearby bucket and glanced at the few small pebbles covering the bottom. “Was he mad because you’re behind on your quota?”
“No. . find,” Paili said, turning up her palms. “All gone.”
Mara dug through Paili’s pocket. “Where’s your locater?”
Paili tucked her hair under her coif. “It. . not work.”
“Here it is.” Mara pulled out a glass disk and laid it in her palm, gently swirling the metal filings inside. “It seems all right to me.” She took Paili’s hand. “Come on. Let’s find the biggest strike ever. Maybe Naamah will give us a fig cake with dinner.”
Paili grinned. “Fig cakes!”
Mara eyed the disk while slogging along the trench. As they passed by a trio of laborers digging into the slope, her leg brushed against a kneeling girl and knocked her into a pile of soot. “Oops!” Mara reached down to help the girl up. “I’m sorry!”
The other girl straightened and slapped Mara’s cheek. “You are bad!” she said, pushing her finger into Mara’s chest. “Acacia was good!”
Rage boiled, sending a surge of stinging heat through Mara’s wounded cheek. “Qadar!” she growled, raising a fist, but when Qadar covered her face with trembling hands, Mara let her arm flop to the side. She turned and strode farther down the trench. “Come on, Paili. Let’s go to the new dig area. I doubt anyone’s gone there yet.”
As she marched on, Paili’s gentle hum lilting behind her, the trench sank into a darker region of the cavern. The air grew cold, and the light faded, almost too dim to continue, but as they rounded a curve, new light poured through tiny holes in the floor up ahead. She stooped and signaled for Paili to join her.
The little girl huddled against her side. “Cold!”
“Stay close to me.” Mara hugged Paili and pointed at the holes. “I thought the light meant that the magma river flowed right under us. I guess it doesn’t, or it’d be a lot warmer in here.” She tapped on the rocks and listened. “Sounds solid enough.”
Paili wrapped both arms around Mara’s waist. “Go back. . I scared.”
“It’s okay.” Mara pushed on the ground with her free hand. The rocky layer bent downward, and small cracks etched jagged streaks in every direction. “Hmmm. . Maybe it’s not so solid after all.” Grunting under the Paili-sized load, Mara pivoted on her knees and headed back. “I think we’d better ”
Suddenly the floor crumbled away. “Whoooaaa!” Mara slid into a gaping hole with Paili still latched to her waist. Mara clawed at the sloping sides until her fingers snagged something solid, keeping her from sliding any farther. Pain rifled through her arms as she and Paili dangled over a seemingly bottomless pit.
“Paili!” she screamed. “Hang on!”
Chapter 7
Paili’s arms tightened around Mara’s waist, nearly squeezing her breath away. Grunting and pulling, Mara inched higher. Ignoring her throbbing shoulder, she lunged upward, and her fingers groped for a new handhold until they finally found a sturdy ridge. As she dragged their bodies higher, streams of light flowed past her eyes like windblown fog, filtering into the slope and disappearing. Sounds of snapping arose from below, like hungry crocodiles vaulting to catch hold of her feet. Mara lunged again and caught the upper lip of the pit with one hand, then the other.
“Paili! Climb out!”
Paili clambered up Mara’s back and jumped from her shoulders to solid ground. Dropping to her knees, she grabbed Mara behind her upper arms and pulled much harder than seemed possible for a little girl. Mara dug her feet into the slope and scrambled to safety, then rolled to the ground, puffing.
Paili laid a hand on Mara’s cheek. “You okay?”
Mara rubbed her aching shoulder. “I think I’m okay.” She sat up and looked her in the eye. “What about you?”
“I. . bleeding again.”
Mara scanned her body. “Where?”
Paili showed her a cut on her elbow. “Here.”
Mara eyed it closely. “It’s not too bad.” She looked over Paili’s shoulder at the pit a mere two steps away. She pushed Paili gently to the side and crawled slowly to the edge.