Cal and Imago were now lying full-length on the ground, peering down into the circular opening as Imago played his light into it. Will crawled over to see what they were looking at. There was a well a good three feet across and then a murky darkness below it.
"I can see something shining," Cal said.
"Yes, railway tracks," Imago replied.
"The Miners' Train," Will realized as he saw the two parallel lines of polished iron glinting in the pitch-blackness.
They pulled back from the hole and sat around it, waiting eagerly for Imago to speak.
"I'm going to be blunt, because we don’t have much time," he said. "You have two choices. Either we lie low up here for a while and then I get you Topsoil again, or—"
"No, not there," said Cal right away.
"I'm not saying it's going to be easy to get you there," Imago admitted. "Not with three of us."
"No way! I couldn't take it!" Cal raised his voice until he was almost shouting.
"Don't be so hasty," Imago warned. "If we did make it Topsoil, at least you could try to lose yourselves somewhere the Styx can't find you. Maybe."
"No," repeated Cal with absolute conviction.
Imago was now looking directly at Will. "You should be aware…" He clammed up, as if what he was about to say was so terrible that he didn't quite know how to put it. "Tam thinks" — he quickly corrected himself with a grimace — "thought that the Styx girl who passed herself off as your Topsoiler sister" — he coughed uneasily and wiped his mouth — "is the Crawfly's daughter. So Tam just killed her father back there in the City."
"Rebecca's father?" Will asked in a nonplussed voice.
"Oh, great," Cal croaked.
"Why's that important? What does—" Will managed, before Imago cut him short.
"The Styx don't leave be. They will pursue you, anywhere you go. Anyone who gives you shelter — Topsoil, in the Colony, or even in the Deeps — is in danger, too. You know they have people all over the surface." Imago scratched his belly and frowned. "But if Tam was right, it means that as bad as your situation was before, it's worse now. You're in the very greatest danger. You are marked now."
Will tried to absorb what he'd just been told, shaking his head at the unfairness, the injustice of it all.
"So you're saying that if I go Topsoil, I'm on the run. And if I went to Auntie Jean's, then…"
"She's dead." Imago shifted uneasily where he sat on the dusty rock floor. "That's the way it is."
"But what are you going to do, Imago?" Will asked, finding it impossible to grasp the situation he was in.
"I can't go back to the Colony, that's for sure. But don't you worry 'bout me; it's you two that need sorting out."
"But what should I do?" Will asked, glancing over at Cal, who was staring at the opening in the floor, and then back to Imago, who just shrugged unhelpfully, leaving Will feeling even worse. He was at a total loss. It was as though he were playing a game where you were only told the rules after you made a mistake. "Well, I suppose there's nothing Topsoil for me, anyway. Not now," he mumbled, bowing his head. "And my dad's down here… somewhere."
Imago pulled over his satchel and rummaged inside it, fishing out something wrapped in an old piece of burlap, which he passed to Will.
"What's this?" Will muttered, folding back the cloth. With so many thoughts racing through his head, he was in a state of confusion, and it took him several seconds to appreciate just what he'd been given.
It was a flattened and solid glob of paper, which easily fit into his fist. With torn and irregular edges, it had evidently been immersed in water and then left to dry, the pieces clumped together in a crude papier-mвchй. He glanced inquiringly at Imago, who offered no comment, so he began to pick away at the outer layers, much as one might peel the desiccated leaves from an ancient onion. As he scratched at their furred edges with a fingernail, it didn't take him long to separate the pieces of paper. Then he laid them out to inspect them more closely under his light.
"No! I don't believe it! This is my dad's writing!" Will said with surprise and delight as he recognized Dr. Burrows's characteristic scrawl on a number of the fragments. They were mud-stained and the blue ink had run, making very little of it legible, but he was still able to decipher some of what was written.
"'I will resume, " Will recited from one fragment, quickly moving on to the others and scrutinizing each of them in turn. "No, this piece is too smudged," he mumbled. "Nothing here, either," he continued, and "I don't know… some odd words… doesn't make any sense… but… ah, this says 'Day 15 !" He continued to scour several more fragments until he stopped with a jerk. "This piece," he exclaimed excitedly, holding the particular scrap up to the light, "mentions me!" He glanced across at Imago, a slight waver in his voice. "'If my son, Will, had, it says!" With a puzzled expression, he flicked it over to check the reverse side but found it was blank. "But what did Dad mean? What didn't I do? What was I meant to do?" Will again looked to Imago for help.
"Search me," the man said.
Will's face lit up. "Whatever he was saying, he's still thinking about me. He hasn't forgotten me. Maybe he always hoped that somehow or other I'd try to follow after him, to find him." He was nodding vigorously as the notion built to a crescendo in his head. "Yes, that's it… that must be it!"
Something else occurred to him at that moment, deflecting his thoughts. "Imago, this has to be from my dad's journal. Where did you get it?" Will was immediately imagining the worst. "Is he all right?"
Imago rubbed his chin comtemplatively. "Don't know. Like Tam told you, he took a one-way on the Miners' Train." Sticking a thumb in the direction of the hole in the floor, he went on. "Your father's down there somewhere, in the Deeps. Probably."
"Yes, but where did you get this?" Will demanded impatiently, closing his hand over the scraps of paper and holding them up in his palm.
"'Bout a week after your dad arrived in the Colony, he was wandering around on the outskirts of the Rookeries and was attacked." Imago's voice became slightly incredulous at this point. "If the story's to be believed, he was stopping people and asking them things. Round these parts they don't take kindly to anyone, least of all Topsoilers, nosing about, and he got a good kicking. By all accounts, he just lay there, didn't even try to put up a fight. Probably saved his life."
"Dad," Will said with tears welling in his eyes as he pictured the scene. "Poor old Dad."
"Well, it can't have been too bad. He walked away from it." Imago rubbed his hands together, and his tone changed, becoming more businesslike. "But that's neither here nor there. You need to tell me what you want to do. We can't stick around here forever." He looked pointedly at each boy in turn. "Will? Cal?"
They were both silent for a while, until Will spoke up.
" Chester!" He couldn't believe that with everything else that had been going on, he'd completely forgotten about his friend. "Whatever you say, I've got to go back for him," he said resolutely. "I owe it to him."
" Chester will be all right," Imago said.
"How can you know that?" Will immediately shot back at him.
Imago simply smiled.
"So where is he?" Will asked. "Is he really all right?"
"Trust me," Imago said cryptically.
Will looked into his eyes and saw the man was in earnest. He felt a huge sense of relief, as if a crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He told himself that if anyone could save his friend, then it would be Imago. He drew a long breath and lifted his head. "Well, in that case, the Deeps it is."