“The Hightspall we knew, yes.”
“What about Grandys?”
“He’s recruited an army of ten thousand in a few weeks and led them to a succession of brilliant victories. Their morale is so high that in a month he could double that number. But he’s not going to do anything for us.”
All the more reason for Tali to go her own way — to Cython.
“This plan is lunacy,” said Tobry that night. “The matriarchs have had months to put new defences in place.”
Tali, Tobry and Holm were in a large tent on the far side of the encampment from the chancellor’s quarters. In his increasingly reclusive state there was little chance of him catching them, but Tali was keeping as far away as possible. If he heard about her plan he would have her locked away. Though he had threatened to send her to Cython months ago, Tali now knew that he could not have been serious. Not for a second would he risk the loss of her master pearl.
“I know,” said Tali. “But if I can’t save the Pale, who can? Will you come with me — just until I get inside? I… I know it’s a lot to ask, but I need magery to get in — your kind of magery.”
“If you’re determined to go, I’ll go with you, all the way. What have I, a doomed shifter, got to lose?” There was no bitterness in Tobry’s voice now. He had come to terms with his fate.
“I’m coming too,” said Holm.
“No, you’re not,” said Tali. “I couldn’t possibly ask it.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”
“You’ll probably be killed.”
“I’m an old man, and I’ve got much to atone for. It’s my choice.”
Tali wiped tears out of her eyes. “Thank you.”
“How many enemy are there in Cython?”
“Um, before the war, there were about three hundred thousand. But a hundred thousand troops came out, men and women.”
“And most have been joined by their families,” said Tobry. “It’s said that more than a quarter of a million Cythonians came out, all up.”
“So there might be thirty thousand left in Cython,” said Tali, “and a third of them trained guards and soldiers.”
“Ten thousand isn’t many to guard eighty-five thousand Pale,” said Holm. “No wonder Lyf wants to get rid of them.”
“The Pale are unarmed,” cried Tali. “Untrained! They’ve got no leaders and they’ve been bred to be docile and apathetic. I don’t see the threat.”
“But you must see the problem. How the hell are you going to get them to rebel?”
“I don’t know?”
“And if they have to fight — ”
“I’m hoping not to fight — just to make a break for the closest exit.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so,” said Holm, “that’s not a very good plan.”
“I know!” cried Tali, “but it’s the best I can come up with.”
“Putting the escape plan aside for the moment,” said Tobry, “how are we to get into Cython? The defences are supposed to be unbreachable.”
“Holm’s already thought of that.”
Holm went out, shortly returning with a little old man whose back was as curved as a bow. When she’d first met the fellow, Tali had assumed that he never washed, but he was not so much grimy as encrusted with dark grit. His cracked hands and arms, his gnarled and twisted feet, and even the top of his head, were embedded with particles of rock ground into him over a lifetime of labour.
“This is Aditty,” said Tali. His head was no higher than her chest. “He’s been fifty years a miner.”
Aditty did not shake hands, only nodded so stiffly that she heard his neck bones grind together. His breath crackled in his lungs.
“Where have you mined?” said Holm. “I’ve done a bit of delving myself.”
“Wherever there wuz work,” said Aditty. His voice was small, dry and breathless, as if his lungs were as encrusted as the rest of him. “Gold, coal, oil shale, copper, platina, you name it. Don’t pay much, mining. You got to keep going, going…” He trailed off, shuffling his battered bare feet.
“Ever worked in the abandoned mines of old Cythe?” said Tobry.
“’Course. Great miners, they wuz. Took the best ore, though.”
“If we were looking to get into an underground place,” said Tali, “a heavily guarded place, where would we start?”
“Like Cython, you mean?” said Aditty.
“Why Cython, in particular?” said Tali, exchanging troubled glances with Tobry and Holm. Could the secret have got out already?
“You didn’t say mine, you said place. There’s only one underground place I know of.”
“Suppose we did want to get in, secretly,” said Tobry, leaning close to the old fellow, “how would we approach it?”
“Air and water,” said Aditty.
“Can you elaborate?”
“Elab — elab — ?” He went into a fit of coughing that turned his face scarlet and made his eyes water.
“It means explain,” said Holm. “Tell us what you mean by air and water.”
Aditty wiped his eyes. “They got to have fresh air underground, and clean water. Got to get rid of the breathed air and the dirty water, or they die. Big problem, especially air.”
“Go on,” said Tali.
“Can be all kinds of bad air underground. There’s fire-damp: you can’t smell it, can’t see it, but one spark and,” he clapped his hands together, “bang! And there’s stink-damp, like what they burn in the street lights of Caulderon. Not so common, but it’s deadly poison, and it also goes off, bang.”
He paused for a moment, staring at his feet. “Then there’s heavy air, collects in low places. Put a group of people in a hole and they’ll breathe out enough heavy air to suffocate ’emselves.” He looked up, and Tali saw a keen interest in his tired eyes. “If you build a city underground, you got to have good air, lots of it. Where do you get it?”
“An air shaft,” said Tobry.
“An air shaft does for a small mine. But for a city, what runs underground for miles, you need lots of air shafts, one for each area.”
“Why can’t you have a fan in one entrance,” said Tobry, “and blow it through the city and out the other side?”
“Never seen a fan strong enough. Like I said,” said Aditty, “the heavy air builds up quick. You got to get rid of it straight away. Need lots of air shafts.”
“The problem is finding them,” said Holm. “They’ll be carefully concealed — ”
“And guarded,” said Aditty.
“- and the Seethings above Cython is Lyf’s territory. If we try to search it we’re bound to be seen. We’ve got to go straight to the spot.”
“What about water?” said Tali. “It’s not so easy to hide where water goes underground.”
“Water ain’t such a problem,” said Aditty. “Mines often got too much water, though you can’t always drink it. Can be salty. And in a lead or arsenic or cinnabar mine, it’ll kill you quick. But then,” he mused, “just mining lead or arsenic ore, or cinnabar, can kill you quick. Or coal, for that matter. Dangerous business, mining.”
“Can you read mine maps?” said Holm.
“Wouldn’t be in such health if I couldn’t.” Aditty coughed up grit into a grubby rag, inspected it and put it in his pocket.
Tali unrolled another map on the folding table. “This is Cython as it is now. At least, it’s the main level of Cython, where the Pale live and work. And the enemy live.”
“Reliable?” said Aditty.
“It was made for the chancellor before Caulderon fell, from details tortured out of enemy prisoners. I’ve checked it.”
“How did you get it?” said Tobry.
“Snaffled it from his chart room. He had a plan to attack Cython at one stage.”
They gathered around the table and Tali pointed out the main features of Cython — the enemy’s living quarters, the Pale’s Empound where the women lived, the farms, eeleries, toadstool grottoes, heatstone mine, the men’s quarters and the main Floatillery, an underground canal that ran all the way to Merchantery Exit.
Tali produced a second map. It had been drawn in blue ink on fine leather, but was now cracked and worn, and the ink was badly faded.