‘What about the Dak who was following us?’ Jez asked. ‘Will they let him through?’
‘A Dak on his own? He’d be lucky if he got out alive. We’ll take a different way out; he’ll never find us.’
Slinkhound beckoned them on impatiently. They followed him down a dark corridor and around several corners before the passage suddenly widened out into a gaping hole in the rock. Daubed around the edge were crude symbols in Samarlan script.
‘What does that say?’ Jez asked Ashua.
‘It says “Welcome to the Underneath”,’ she replied.
‘I thought we were already in the U nderneath.’
‘Nah,’ said Ashua, as they passed through the hole. ‘That was just one of many routes to get here.’ She threw out her arms. ‘ This is the Underneath.’
The crew stumbled to a stop. Jez’s eyes widened as she looked out and up.
‘Bugger me,’ said Malvery, quietly.
Ashua shook her head with a smile. ‘Tourists.’
Eleven
It was an underground town, built of wood and rope, spanning the cavern like a twisted web. The terrain was extremely uneven, plunging and bulging and thrusting up great stalagmites, but the town had conformed as best it could. Huts and shacks crowded into every available niche. Buildings piled up against the walls, the lower ones supporting the ones above. Rope bridges crisscrossed in the air, reaching across terrible drops, linking perch to perch. The cavern roof was lost in a haze of petrol fumes from generators that powered the weak and yellowed floodlights which bathed the town in a queasy glow.
Crake stared. He was amazed that a place as tumbledown and precarious as this had survived long enough to grow to such a size. It was cool and dim, so torches and lamps and oil-drum fires burned everywhere, despite the inflammable nature of the place. The town planners deserved hanging as well. Assuming anyone had planned this place, which he doubted. It must have grown like a mould.
He tutted to himself. Don amp;rs f duri hequo; t be a snob, Grayther . But he couldn’t help it. He was an orderly man, and the chaos of Samarla in general – and this place in particular – offended his sensibilities.
Slinkhound led them down a slope and through a cluster of dwellings. There was activity all around them, though nothing like the free-for-all on the streets above. They passed a stall, little more than a table by the side of the trail, trading in scavenged junk and rags. The owner was haggling with a customer, and ended up swapping a dried strip of unidentifiable meat for some bits of fabric. Men nearby were helping a fellow untouchable put together a clumsy shack. Others sat around a fire, passing round a dirty bottle, smoking and talking.
Crake looked about uneasily at the people of the Underneath, and received suspicious gazes in return. The poverty of this place intimidated him. Especially since these people didn’t seem broken and weary like those above, but defiant and possibly hostile. Crake had been brought up an aristocrat, and he’d never been entirely at ease around poor people, who were prone to rough jokes or explosive and bewildering violence.
Nevertheless, he was excited. They were going to see a sorcerer. A real, live Samarlan sorcerer. Crake had only read about them in books. They were the daemonists of the South, who practised the Art without the use of devices and machines. Crake wasn’t sure how much of it was superstition and quackery, but the scientist in him was eager to see one at work.
Beyond the cluster of dwellings, they came to a sagging hut which stood on its own. Slinkhound spoke to Ashua and then went inside, pushing through the curtain that hung over the doorway. Ashua turned to the crew and said:
‘Now we wait.’
Frey was eyeing the hut uncertainly. ‘Are you sure about this? I mean, wouldn’t I be better seeing a doctor?’
‘A doctor would tell you to chop that bugger off,’ Malvery slurred drunkenly. ‘Might as well see what this feller can do.’
‘There’s another reason I brought you here,’ said Ashua. ‘I didn’t want to tell you before, ’cause it sounds… well, unlikely. But that thing on your hand? I’ve heard of it before.’
‘You have?’ Frey asked eagerly.
‘The black spot. Means you’re marked for death. The Sammies say ancient sorcerers used it to deter thieves or something.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, it’s just a legend. People say all kinds of shit, especially here.’
But Frey had latched on to the idea. ‘You reckon it’s some kind of curse?’
Ashua looked embarrassed. ‘Sounds stupid when you say it like that, right?’
Frey seemed to brighten. ‘So it means I won’t lose this hand?’
‘I’d say it means you’ll die horribly instead.’
Frey thought about that, then grinned and gave a little laugh of relief. ‘I was worried there for a minute,’ he said, looking fondly at his hand.
‘Cap’n?’ Jez asked with concern in her voice. ‘You did hear the bit about dying horribly, didn’t you?’
Frey was aware that everyone was looking at him, and became defensive. ‘Look, I’d rather be dead than maimed, alright?’
Ashua thumbed at Frey. ‘Narcissist,’ she said to the crew in general.
‘Old news,’ Crake replied.
‘She keeps calling me that!’ Frey complained. ‘What does it mean ?’
‘It just means you’re exceptionally brave,’ Crake lied smoothly.
‘Oh,’ said Frey. He puffed up a little and glanced at Ashua. ‘Thanks.’
Crake gave Ashua a hard look. She rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut. One day the Cap’n was going to catch on to Crake’s habit of mocking his limited vocabulary, but it wouldn’t be today.
Slinkhound emerged from the hut and beckoned Frey and Ashua inside. He waved at the rest of the crew, as if to say: not you. Crake was alarmed. He wasn’t coming all this way only to stand outside.
‘Cap’n! Let me come too! I have to see!’ It came out sounding rather more desperate than he intended.
Frey looked at Ashua, who said a few words to Slinkhound, who tutted and waved him in.
‘ Let me come too,’ Pinn mimicked sourly in a baby voice. ‘Why does he get to go? Kiss-arse.’
‘Excuse me?’ Crake said as he passed. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak Moron.’
It was a cheap rejoinder, but it pleased him nonetheless. He went through the musty curtain and into the hut, leaving Malvery struggling to prevent Pinn drawing his pistol.
The interior of the hut was squalid and cluttered with macabre totems. Skulls and jars of pickled animal foetuses made for a sinister motif, and the air stank of smoke and incense. There was no furniture beyond the mats on the rough plank floor, and a bed of mouldy straw in the corner.
Sitting cross-legged in the centre of the room was the sorcerer. He was an untouchable like the rest of them. His skin was a deep black and his face marked in white but, unlike the people outside, he was obese. Long grey hair, matted into dreadlocks, hung over his face and spilled onto his belly. His filthy beard tangled with the mass of beads and totems hanging around his neck. He wore an animal-skin waistcoat, hanging open to allow his gut to protrude, and a loincloth tied up like a nappy. Despite his size, his leathery skin hung off him in folds, and his face was a maze of fleshy chasms. He was slouched forward and appeared to be asleep, or comatose, or dead.
Crake was less than impressed. He’d been expecting someone fiercely intense, a wild-eyed savage of some kind. Instead he’d found a giant bearded raisin.
Slinkhound motioned for Frey to sit down in front of the sorcerer. Frey did so, though he didn’t look keen. Crake wasn’t surprised. He could smell the sour-milk reek of the bloated man even over the incense.