Something flickered across the man’s face, but whatever it was had gone before Garth could recognise it.
“Is anything wrong?” Jack called, half rising from the circle of the guards. “Is he being insolent?”
“No,” Garth called hurriedly. “No. I am tired, that’s all, and I was resting before stitching the man’s wound.”
“Then hurry,” grumbled Jack, “for we have three other gangs for you to treat.”
Three more gangs? Garth almost collapsed at the thought, then, surprised, leaned back. Something approaching sympathy was shining from the man’s—Maximilian’s—eyes.
“Stitch my wound and then leave me,” he said softly. “There are others who need you, boy.”
“My name is Garth.”
“I do not need to know your name,” the man rasped, his hostility returning in the space of a breath. “I will never see you again. Now stitch me up and leave me.”
“Garth,” Garth said determinedly, “Garth Baxtor. Son of Joseph Baxtor.”
Again something flickered deep in the man’s eyes, but he turned away without answering.
Garth finally let his hands slip from the old scar. Somewhere beneath there the Manteceros yearned for freedom. He reached for his suturing gear and closed the man’s wound. If he had survived that horrific burn then he would survive this.
By the sun above, Garth thought suddenly, his fingers stilling, how long has he been down here?
The man’s arm tensed, and Garth hurriedly finished the job. As he tied the last knot, Garth touched the man’s arm again. “What are you doing here, Maximilian? You belong beyond the hanging wall.”
The man’s head turned back to his, and Garth realised that beneath the grime coating the man’s face were the most compelling blue eyes he had ever seen. “Your Touch has made you dim-witted, boy,” the man whispered fiercely. “There is nothing beyond the hanging wall. Nothing.”
“I—” Garth began, but the man continued, seizing Garth’s hand in his own.
“There is nothing beyond the hanging wall. No hope, no joy, no existence beyond what I currently enjoy.”
Garth winced at the intonation placed on that last word and at the denial he could feel swamping into him from the man’s flesh.
“Above me lies only blackness. Behind me lies only blackness. Before me lies only blackness. My life is gloam and pain, and then yet more gloam tempered by a little more pain.” He paused, and when he resumed, Garth could hear and, more terribly, feel the total despair of this man’s soul. “There is no outside world. Once I believed in it. No more.” He paused, then finished on a whisper. “No more.”
Garth’s face set into stubborn lines. “You are Maximilian, rightful King of Escator.”
The man’s teeth bared once more in a parody of a grin. “I am Lot No. 859. I always have been and I always will be. Now, go!” He pushed Garth away from him. “Go!”
Somehow Garth got through the rest of that terrible night. From that anonymous cavern in the ground where rested Maximilian, King of Escator, Jack dragged Garth to three more sites, all similar, all with chained gangs of nine men. Some men Garth could save, some he could not. But whoever’s face currently swam before his, all he saw was the face of the man with the aquiline nose and the dark blue eyes that stared into his so fiercely…the man with nothing but despair where his soul should have flourished.
How…what was he doing in the Veins?
Whatever had warned Garth to say nothing to Jack continued to prod him. Several times he opened his mouth and turned to the guard, only to turn away when Jack asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
What was he doing in the Veins?
The young boy, lost in the forest. Seized by unknown assailants, the Manteceros scorched from his arm by some unimaginably cruel hand, then thrown down into the Veins. Safe. Hidden. As good as dead. Simply Lot No. 859.
Garth was ready to swear that whoever had thrown him down here probably thought him dead many years previously. Who would think that any man could have the reserves of strength and courage and even heart to survive seventeen years in the Veins! No wonder the man no longer believed in the outside world. He had lived the greater portion of his life in darkness—did he remember anything about the outside world? No wonder the man refused to respond to his name.
Maximilian.
“Maximilian,” Garth whispered softly to himself, almost as a mantra. If Maximilian could survive seventeen years below, then he could get through the night.
And then he would rise to the surface and let the light wash over him and everything below would seem but a nightmare to be easily brushed away…
…except that the fact that Maximilian laboured beneath his feet would never, never go away. And so he toiled through the night.
“Garth,” his father said, and Garth’s head jerked up. Father?
“Come,” Joseph said gently, seeing the darkness and pain hovering in the corners of Garth’s eyes. “We have done what we can for the moment. See? Here is the cage. Lean on me, yes, that’s it. Ah, we rise—feel it? Shush, Garth, shush. It’s over now.”
No, Garth thought as he leaned against his father and wept, it’s only just beginning, but how do I tell him that? How do I tell him?
SIX
LIFE AND WORK IN THE VEINS
Garth did not tell his father about his meeting with Maximilian. He knew what Joseph would do. He would go straight to the appropriate authorities, inform them that Maximilian, rightful King of Escator, lay beneath their feet—and then both he and Garth would themselves be condemned to the Veins for the rest of their lives.
Garth realised that someone in authority knew of Maximilian’s existence. Had to, surely, and until Garth knew who that someone was, knew who was safe to confide in and who not, he was not prepared to tell his father.
It was too risky, too dangerous.
But what to do?
The questions kept Garth awake at nights.
The pipes had remained clear, and within twenty-four hours the mine had been pumped clear of the sea water and the tunnel that had been broached was sealed with explosives. Once the danger had, literally, receded, Garth and his father spent most of their days down the Veins, attending the more routine injuries and the vivid and virile fungi that afflicted prisoners doomed to labour in the damp, sulphurous air of their eternal night.
Each further day he spent down the Veins Garth kept expecting to run into Lot No. 859 again, but they never went back to the section Jack had taken him to the first night, and apparently Lot No. 859 toiled nowhere but.
And now the weeks were sliding away. In his first few hours down the Veins Garth had prayed that he could escape as soon as he could; now he was desperate to stay…stay until he had something, some understanding of what it would take to get Maximilian out.
The first time he’d thought that, Garth had paused over the prisoner’s arm he was currently scraping free of the red and orange fungus that thrived among the gloam. Free Maximilian? Yes, that’s what he wanted to do. Get him out.
How?
Garth needed to talk to Lot No. 859 again. Maximilian must have some idea of who it was that had cast him down here, and might even have some idea of what it would take to escape.
Then why hadn’t he tried before now?
Yes, he had to talk to Lot No. 859 again. But Garth would only lose himself if he tried to find Section 205 by himself. What…ah!
“Jack,” he said on his third to last day as they were waiting for the cage to take them down; Joseph had already been down the Veins an hour. “Do you remember that first night I arrived?”
Jack grinned. “It made a man of you, that night.”
Garth forced a smile to his face. “You took me to a number of gangs. The first. I left a good pair of suturing forceps there.”
“By the gods!” Jack swore. “No doubt one of the prisoners swiped them! You’re a young idiot, boy. They’re undoubtedly planning to stick us with those forceps in a
n attempt to escape. Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”
“I only just missed them,” Garth lied, hoping Jack would believe him. “Section 205, wasn’t it?”
Jack narrowed his eyes at the youth as they waited for the cage to rattle and screech its way to the surface “You’ve an uncommonly good memory for a boy.”
“Oh,” Garth said brightly, “Father always makes me recite lists of herbs and powders every day. A good memory saves me from a good beating.” He stepped inside the cage.
It satisfied Jack, but he was still disgruntled. Section 205 was a good walk through the Veins. “Are you sure we can’t send one of the guards after them?” He slammed the cage doors closed and set the contraption in motion. In an instant they were hurtling downwards.
Garth swallowed. No matter how many times he travelled this cage he could not get used to its crazed dive through the earth—nor to the stench that met his nostrils when he reached whatever level he had to work on that day. “My responsibility,” he said. “Besides, I’d like to check some of those wounds. One of the men had a particularly bad knee. I’d like to make sure they’re healing well.”
Jack mumbled to himself, but he nodded his head, and Garth relaxed in relief. He hoped that Lot No. 859 hadn’t been moved to another gang.
Luck was with him. They found the gang working a slope relatively close to the main shaft.
“Halt!” Jack called to the two guards standing watch over the gang. “Is this the Section 205 gang?”
They nodded, and Jack waved Garth forward. “The lad claims to have lost some forceps back a couple of weeks or so when he treated this lot. Search them.”
Garth winced, but there was nothing he could do. The two guards searched with enthusiasm, although there were few places a man could hide a pair of forceps wearing only a loincloth. Frustrated, eventually the guards stood back.
The line of prisoners stood sullen and resigned. Such searches were not uncommon.
Jack shrugged. “They could have hidden it anywhere along this tunnel.”
“Well,” Garth said slowly, “perhaps I dropped it elsewhere.”
“What?” Jack exploded. “I am not going to drag you about the entire cursed Veins looking for your forsaken pair of forceps!”
“No,” Garth hastened. “No, I don’t expect you to do that, Jack. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. Well,” his eyes slipped along the line to the last man, “perhaps I’ll just check their wounds while I’m here. Make sure there’s no fungus.”
Jack threw up his hands in despair, but he did not stop him.
Garth sidled past before he could change his mind. He examined each man thoroughly, laying his hands on their half-healed wounds, sending as much healing through his Touch as he could manage. They’d had to go through the ignominy of a search for the sake of his lie, and it was the best he could do for them as recompense.
There, the last in line, as before.
“Maximilian,” he whispered.
“I am Lot No. 859,” the man replied woodenly as Garth probed his wound with his fingers. Surprisingly his wound had completely healed, unlike those of the other men in the gang.
“You wear the Manteceros underneath the scar,” Garth said rapidly, softly, “and I, at least, believe in the world beyond the hanging wall. I am going to get you out of here. Back into the world where you belong. Tell me what to do.”
“I am not—” the man started to say again, but now it was Garth who interrupted.
“Tell me!” And the Touch burned fiercely from his fingers.
“I am not worthy,” the man mumbled reluctantly, his blue eyes wide.
“Why not?” Again the Touch flared.
Something in Lot No. 859’s mind stirred. “I am not Maximilian. I am a changeling.”
“A what?”
But now Jack was shifting impatiently and waving at Garth to leave the man, and Garth could not waste any more time. “You are Maximilian and I am going to get you out of here. Now, what can I do? Tell me!”
The man’s head dropped. “Find the Manteceros,” he mumbled, reluctantly and almost inaudibly. “The Manteceros will confirm the true king, none other.” He lifted his head, and Garth thought he could see a gleam of teeth. “He will not help me, though.”
“Who put you down here?” Garth whispered frantically, wondering when Maximilian would give him something to work with. “Who? You must know something!”
Lot No. 859 hesitated, resenting the strange memories that flickered at the touch of this boy’s hands. “There were voices. Shouts.” He shuddered. “But only one name. Furst.”
“What are you doing down there, boy?” Jack called. “Are you coming or not?”
“The man’s wound has broken open again,” Garth called in what he was amazed to hear sounded like a relatively normal tone. “I’m almost done.”
“Furst,” he said, his tone low now as he bent back over Lot No. 859’s arm. “All right, I have that. But what do you mean, ‘find the Manteceros’? The creature is only a legend…isn’t it?”
A muscle twitched beneath the man’s eye, and he mumbled a strange verse that Garth only barely caught.
“Come wind and fire and swollen sea,
Come fates that tear the sky from earth.
Release the dream; come, set him free,
So he can test the king’s true worth.”
“The dream?” Garth quickly wound a rough bandage about the man’s arm, even though his wound had healed cleanly.
Lot No. 859 grinned, but his smile was dark and humourless. “The Manteceros is a dream, boy. As is everything beyond the hanging wall. Everything is a dream. Everything. Nothing exists any more.”
There was a step behind him and Garth felt a rough hand on his shoulder.
“Boy?” Jack’s voice was tight, almost angry. “How much more of my time must you waste?”
“A dream,” Lot No. 859 whispered. “Nothing but a dream.”
“Sometimes dreams wake into reality,” Garth murmured, then he straightened up and turned about to face Jack. “I’m done,” he said.
Lot No. 859 turned away and grasped his pick more firmly in his hand, putting the boy and his words out of his mind as the feel of the Touch faded on his skin. The memories flickered and faded and he relaxed in relief. They’d been nothing but a dream. Nothing was real but the darkness.
Garth slept badly that night. Every time he drifted off he slipped into nightmares where Maximilian laboured in the Veins below him, the muscles in his arms and shoulder bunching and then relaxing as he swung his pick time and time again into the sticky black gloam-face before him. Towards morning Garth slipped into a deeper sleep, but his dreams only became more vivid, and he woke with a horrified shout when he saw Maximilian’s pick bite once more into the gloam-face only to break through into the glassy green sea beyond. The water surged forth with a vengeful roar, as if angry at this intrusion, and Maximilian bowed his head futilely as he was consumed by the maddened water.
“Garth!” Joseph, who occupied the bunk below his son’s, was on his feet and had his hand on Garth’s shoulder in an instant. “What is it?”
Garth swallowed, then tried to smile for his father. “A bad dream, father. Nothing more.”
“A bad dream?”
“I dreamed of the Veins. I dreamed the sea broke through again.”
Joseph’s hand relaxed a little on Garth’s shoulder. “Well, ‘tis no wonder the Veins give you bad dreams. The first few years I went down I suffered nightmares too. Garth, the horror will never cease, but you will learn to cope with it.”
Garth was silent a long minute, staring at the ceiling an arm’s length above his head. The dawn light was just beginning to creep through the window, and Garth could see cracks in the old plaster spreading like fault lines across the ceiling.
“Father?” he asked eventually, and Joseph, who had been about to sink back into his own bed, stopped at his son’s tone. “Father? Why is it so unfair?”
/> “What, Garth?” Joseph asked softly, although he knew what Garth meant. He had often asked himself the same question as well.
“The Veins. Why are those men condemned to such cruelty in the Veins, never seeing the sun again?”
Now Joseph was quiet a while. “I know it seems cruel to condemn men to such a fate, but the alternative would be to crowd them into prisons almost as dark and cruel as the Veins. Garth, there is nothing we can do about it.”
Garth sighed, and Joseph gave his shoulder a gentle shake. “Come on, Garth. We’re both wide awake now, so we may as well breakfast and go down for our day’s labour. At least we only have today and tomorrow. Then we’re home. Back to Nona and the bright sun of Narbon.”
Garth swung his legs over the side of his bunk and slid to the floor. “Yes, then we’re home.”
Joseph did not miss the slight inflection in Garth’s voice, but he chose to ignore it. Garth would have to come to terms with the Veins in his own way; Joseph could give him support, but little else.
Garth did not see Maximilian again. He thought of little else but the man, but there was no excuse he could use to hunt him out again, and Garth fully realised that to do so would only put Maximilian in danger. Jack had been suspicious enough when Garth had insisted on looking for his fictitious forceps, and Garth did not want to draw further attention to the man.
But soon he would leave, and Maximilian would be left to his continuing horror.
As he plodded up and down the dark tunnels of the Veins with his escort of guards, sometimes ducking his head to avoid the low hanging wall or squeezing through narrow spaces, Garth swore that when he returned next year he would somehow manage to free Maximilian.
A year. He would have to wait a year. Would Maximilian manage to survive a year? Would he still be here when he returned? And how was he going to release him when he found him again?
And what had that curious verse meant? Release the dream, set him free to test the king’s true worth? How was he supposed to find the mythical Manteceros? Questions flew about Garth’s head until it ached—and yet he could find the answers for none of them.