‘Probably not.’
‘I always sensed the dead. Even when I was very young, I could feel them. I got driven out of a lot of places before the Woodlouse-kinden took me in and trained me. No one better for that than the Woodlice. They understand everything there. I wish I’d never left.’
‘Why did you?’
‘Because I thought I had a duty, to the dead, to the living. I thought I was needed, to mediate between the two. And now I’m in a place where the living live like the dead and the dead themselves are gone beyond, utterly consumed . . . I’m sorry, Messel.’
Che started. She had almost forgotten their guide, but the blind man shifted and shrugged.
‘What a world you must come from,’ he said softly, an unplumbed depth of longing in his voice. ‘As for mine, I have no illusions.’
At first it seemed that they were travelling to Cold Well simply because, in all this vast, hostile and inbred world, there was no other landmark on their maps. Messel’s agitation increased as they closed the distance, though, and even on his face Che could make out a certain furtive look, a need for them to hurry towards some deadline he had refrained from mentioning.
In that place, suspicion came easily.
As they stopped to camp after the second span of dayless travel, she cornered him, dragging him away from the others to the edge of their firelight, aware that Thalric and Tynisa would leap to her defence if she encountered some betrayal.
‘So tell me,’ she challenged the blind man.
‘I don’t understand.’ He was a remarkably poor liar.
‘What’s waiting for us at Cold Well?’ she pressed.
‘You wanted to see . . .’ Messel’s words petered out.
‘Who knows we’re coming? You’ve sent word ahead to the people who live there?’ Abruptly she was certain of it. ‘What’s waiting for us, Messel?’
‘Sent to them? No, no,’ he insisted. ‘But there is one . . . a mentor, one who you must meet. The Teacher, we call him. One who still tells the oldest stories. One who spoke of the sun to me once; yes, he did.’ The word was given great ritual significance that matched Messel’s evident lack of understanding of what such a thing as the sun could possibly be. ‘Him, you must meet, if you are to do anything, if anything can be done for you . . . He, only he.’
‘But he’s not of Cold Well.’
‘He is of all places – a traveller, a wise man,’ Messel insisted. ‘And, yes, I have sent word. I have left markings and messages since I found you, only for him. And he is coming. He is coming back to Cold Well for you, only for you.’
She opened her mouth then to gainsay him, to refuse to place her hand in the trap. The echo within her mind called back, And then what? Where will you go, without him? What have you left to trust, if not this blind guide?
After resting several times, they heard Cold Well before they saw it. The sound rang out across the stony expanses, cutting across the murmur of running water. They heard a disconcertingly domestic sound: hammer on anvil, as from any forge anywhere.
Cold Well was a wound. That was Che’s first thought. It was a gash in the earth, jagged edged and organic, and it had been eaten there by human occupation, as though the mere presence of people had corroded the rock like an acid.
Approaching the settlement at one of the points where a narrow track led, switching its way down, she saw how the miners had made this place their own. The walls of the pit were lined with round gaps like eye sockets, level after level of them, the inhabitants carving out their own community from the walls of the grave they had been set to dig. How many? She could see hundreds of openings and no hint of how deep they went or the numbers they housed.
She did not realize how much light there was until she let her Art slip. She had assumed that the locals had as little use for illumination as eyeless Messel. Instead, though, firelight glowed from most of the entrances – the same weird hues as before, nothing so wholesome as wood providing the fuel, but still a sign of warmth and life in this barren wilderness. Deeper in, there were greater fires, too. Che could look down and see vast glowing vats, streams and strips of incandescence that were being constantly renewed as they cooled. They were smelting there, an operation of a size to gladden any Helleren mining magnate’s heart.
‘What is it they make here?’ she wondered, and Messel went still and looked back at her as he was about to start on the downward track.
‘Tin, copper, iron,’ he explained. ‘Salt-coal as well, though some must be brought in. Swords and armour for the armies of the Worm. Food for it in a good year. Sometimes food in a bad year too. We starve, then, some of us.’
They were all holding back at the lip, unwilling to let themselves be drawn into the pit. Che was looking beyond, trying to make out more details of the scurrying figures who were bustling about the smelting works, ascending or descending the steep paths, but the glare of those fires was dispelling her Art.
‘I see no guards.’ Thalric, relying on the firelight, had made more headway. ‘How can you have a slave town with no garrison?’
It was hard to tell what Messel thought of that, but his reply was hushed. ‘They come, often. For their tax and for our work.’
‘But you’re making swords,’ the Wasp pointed out. ‘Can you not fight?’
‘Fight the Worm?’ the blind man murmured, as though the concept was something he did not quite understand. ‘It has been tried, in earlier generations. Not since then. The price . . . the Worm is many. The Worm is . . .’ A shudder went through him. ‘The Worm is in all of us.’
That pronouncement transfixed them, all trying to grasp just what horror he intended, but he said no more. Indeed, having spoken even that much seemed to give him pain. His lack of expression was maddening.
‘Why have you brought us here, Messel?’ Tynisa challenged him.
‘Why did you come?’
Her sword cleared its scabbard, but then Maure was holding a hand up. ‘Please,’ the magician said. ‘We have come because we are strangers here, and we seek help. I beg you, tell us now if there is nothing to be had here. We’ll just . . .’ And her words failed her, because what was it they could ‘just . . .’? Where else could they go, in this abyss?
‘Help,’ Messel echoed, and began moving down again. ‘There may be help. I hope we may help each other. What else to hope for, in this place, but help?’
‘How much do we trust him?’ Tynisa murmured.
‘A cursed sight far less than just five minutes ago,’ Thalric spat, then glanced around. ‘And where’s that sneak Esmail?’
Che snapped out of her scrutiny and glanced around. The assassin was nowhere to be seen.
‘Just that, sneaking,’ Tynisa confirmed. ‘He’s been here before, remember. He was feeding us from these people’s pockets until Messel came. I reckon it was quick in-and-out stuff, and not too far in, even then. But he’ll be keeping an eye on us, don’t worry.’
‘And how much do we trust him?’ Thalric demanded.
‘Enough,’ Che decided, fighting a battle with them now that she had already lost against herself. She set off after Messel boldly, knowing the others would follow in her steps.
Messel’s progress was halting, stopping and starting at no apparent stimulus as though trying to put off the moment when his arrival was noticed. But now the locals were making their appearance. What passed along the rows of eyesocket-like holes was nothing more than a murmur, but it served to populate each hole in turn. It was only moments before their arrival was the focus of a grand and near-silent audience.