‘Humph!’ said Barklice, setting off into the dusk to make sure that Brief and the others would not lose their way at the very last, for it was hillocky and confusing thereabouts, and leaving a few more signs would not go amiss.
When Barklice was gone, Master Stort picked up the flexible kettle and made his way towards the lake.
But finding himself alone for the first time in the Devil’s Quoits, it suddenly occurred to him that it might be a good use of his time, before darkness fell, to try to work out again exactly how the two circular henges ran, and especially where their north-eastern entrance would have been. For all scholars know that was always the place of greatest change and power in a henge: the true portal.
‘Hmmm!’ he mused, as he ascertained the north-easterly point, and saw that it must lie some way out under the lake that had partially flooded the site.
Making a brew seemed suddenly unimportant, so he put the flexible kettle on the ground so that he was free to pursue his thoughts without its further encumbrance.
‘Hmmm,’ he murmured again, his mind becoming dangerously active.
There was a good deal of rubbish scattered about, such as jagged bits of wood, pieces of rusting metal, thick plastic worn ragged by the wind, a rusty bicycle wheel, and much else.
He impulsively picked up a piece of oily polystyrene, and his humming grew even more urgent.
He looked at the subtle ridge of the henge, much cut into by diggings, and followed it as best he could towards the lake. He next found a tube of metal but, shaking his head, he threw it aside. Then some string, which he kept.
Hum-hum-hum he went, bending down to pick up a coil of plastic tube, the kettle now completely forgotten.
‘Yes, most certainly!’ he cried out with sudden excitement, some new purpose having taken root in his mind. ‘I do believe I could, and before Mister Barklice returns. I should think he’ll be none the wiser!’
With an expertise born of more than twenty years making contraptions, he went to work on the bits and pieces he had found. Then he did what he always did when a new idea for an invention came into his mind, and the wherewithal to achieve it was immediately at hand: he turned a full circle, as happy as a child at play.
A few minutes later, his new invention completed, he advanced towards the water. He placed his contraption on the ground and removed all his clothes, down to his all-in-one undergarment, and laid them on a plastic bin-bag to keep them clean and dry.
He then picked up the contraption and advanced into the water.
The only sign of recent activity he left behind was the fire Barklice had made, which now smouldered and sparked, and the kettle support sticks, from which no kettle hung.
It was as well that Barklice went back because Brief, Pike and Jack had stopped, tired from their journey and puzzling about exactly how to find the Quoits.
‘Ah, my dear Barklice!’ cried Brief with relief, when he saw him. ‘We were just debating which way to turn . . .’
He suddenly stopped speaking, his friendly expression turning to extreme alarm.
‘Where’s Stort?’ he continued in a lower tone.
‘Safe and well and making a brew for us all,’ said Barklice hastily. ‘He promised me not to leave the henge.’
‘Hmph!’ muttered Pike.
‘Make haste, make haste,’ said Brief, ‘for if we lose Stort in this terrain, it’ll be a long time before we’ll find him.’
Barklice quickly led them back to the standing stone, already regretting that he had left the young scrivener to his own devices.
‘He’ll be there, I’m sure of it,’ he kept saying, but with a growing doubt.
‘How much further, Barklice? Hurry, hurry!’
‘Over this hummock and you’ll see him . . .’
The top of the standing stone came into view.
‘Mister Stort,’ he cried out, ‘we’re here!’
Which was true, they were, right in the centre of the Devil’s Quoits.
But the fire had gone out and the kettle, for some strange reason, lay abandoned upon the ground near the lake.
Of Stort there was no sign at all.
53
INTO THE CITY
These two keepers of the East Gate, who gave Katherine and the Fyrd with her such an intimidating welcome, were Bilgesnipe. They had the pale, greasy look of subterranean waterfolk who get too little sun, but it was their burly size and ironic good cheer that set them apart from the humourless rule-bound Fyrd.
Gatekeeping was not their preferred occupation, but the watery dangers onto which the East Gate led were such that it had been decided by the community of Old Brum that they must, from time to time, do their duty and make sure that newcomers were properly briefed on how to conduct themselves safely through the tunnels.
Streik and the other Fyrd made a show of pushing the protesting Katherine through East Gate very roughly. The Bilgesnipe were not impressed.
One of them loomed near and said, ‘Yer’ll kindly treat that wyfkin with respect, gennelmen, or we’re going to have a falling out.’
Streik was not easily intimidated, but he could see Feld disapproved of his roughness and was not going to start a fight on someone else’s ground. He fell silent at once, and Katherine thought it wise to do the same.
The gates were locked and chained behind them and she knew it was now going to be even harder to escape but that she must still try. But how? She did not know where she was, or where she could go. She knew only that, tired though she was, she must stay alert, learn as much as she could about where they had brought her, and choose her opportunity to escape carefully.
The gate itself led into a high-arched vault which ran beneath the railway lines. The Fyrd stood about for a while waiting for one of the gatekeepers to get something from a room nearby. She couldn’t see what was inside this room, but she felt a blast of fresh air from it, and a strange twittering sound.
The far end of the vault was blocked by a roughly made brick wall about ten feet high, with a gap between its highest part and the ceiling. From over the top of this came deep reverberant sounds of machinery that were painful to the ears. There was a human-scale grey door which had a danger warning in red on it, and a skull and crossbones symbol.
When the gatekeeper reappeared, he was carrying three strange lanterns, from which came the same twittering sound she had heard earlier.
These lanterns were divided into two halves: the top part holding a thick candle surrounded by hinged shutters to block off its light if necessary, while beneath it was a little cage in which, to her amazement, she saw a yellow canary which sang and twittered constantly.
He eyed the group appraisingly and eventually gave one lamp to Feld, with the words, ‘You lead, brother!’ and another to Streik saying, ‘And, brother, you follow!’ The third he gave to the one guarding Katherine and said, ‘Whoever this sister be and though she has prying eyes, she walks free for herself through the tunnels, all else being a danger to herself and everyone. Understood?’
The lantern holders nodded silently. The grip of the one holding Katherine briefly grew tighter on her arm, from nerves she guessed, and then quite slack. Obeying the Bilgesnipe’s direction he eventually let go altogether.
The Bilgesnipe’s eyes were puffy and piglike and his looming presence powerful, but Katherine decided that his occasional glances in her direction were not unkind, as if he was trying to convey to her personally through his words something which was quite different from their actual meaning.
‘Listen you all to my briefing,’ he began, ‘for I am Tirrikh, boatman and temporary gatekeeper, but that don’t mean I don’t know what I should, so you’d do good to remember that, understand?’
As he said this, his eyes caught Katherine’s, and by the way he said ‘understand’ she guessed he wanted her to remember his name and to pay special attention to any double meanings his words might suggest.
As if in confirmation, when she nodded very slightly, he returned the c
ompliment with the faintest of smiles, though by then his eyes were moving elsewhere.
‘The East side tunnels are the most dangerous in Brum, and yer got to go through ’em to get to the new city. It be raining and that means the water’s on the rise and that puts the spirits of the water in mischievous mood, so don’t you dally, brothers and sister, don’t you dawdle. When you get going you get fast and you look sideways and anon but you don’t look back.
‘You stay between the white lines, as Meyor Feld here knows only too well, eh!?’
Feld had got too confident on one occasion and deviated from the lines to peer into a side-tunnel and in no time he was lost. It was Tirrikh who had rescued him ten hours later, very cold, very hungry and utterly disorientated.
‘Now, if one of you is fool enough to fall behind and get separated the rest of you do not go looking for him. That brother’s thenceforth on his own and will deserve what he gets for his foolishness. Yer all got that?’
The Fyrd grunted in assent.
‘Mind you, that’s not to say help’s not at hand because it may be. But then it may not. So don’t go missing in the first place and yer’ll not have to worry about it, will yer?’
The Fyrd shifted about like naughty schoolboys; Katherine grinned to herself. She was beginning to like the Bilgesnipe.
‘Now to creatures in the tunnels. They’re about, trust me, and it’s not good at the moment, for rain makes ’em wild and panicky and therefore dangerous. Rats of course and feral cats and dogs all abound on this side of Deritend, so watch it. Light and noise is good as it scares ’em off afore you ever see ’em. Sticking together is good too because they think you’re one big animal, that’s the way to work it, but if you find yourselves alone, brothers, and you too, sister, come to that . . .’
Again he glanced at her, again she sensed his words were special for her.
‘. . . if yer’n do stray enough to wander, then beware especially of tomters. Very fast, very savage, very nasty. They’ll have yer protuberances for breakfast if yer fool enough to stare ’em in the eye, so don’t.’
Katherine looked mystified.
‘You’ve not heard of ’em, then, that’s evident! Creeper jipers, that’s bad! Our oriental brothers breed ’em out of ginger toms and bull terriers. You’ll know them by their rank odour. Move quick but not jerkily, sing a song and, I repeat, never look a tomter in the eye, and they’ll not harm you. They’ll sniff about, they might gnaw a bit but . . . well, just go careful with ’em. Half a ton of tomter hanging on to yer tallycans is no joke.’
Tirrikh grinned and winked a piggy eye.
‘Next, watch out for the water, ’cos it’s cold and fierce and unpredictable in these parts. Only us bilgyboys truly understand it, because it’s a thing supped in mother’s milk and learned in youth, and by the time you touch my age yer losing touch. Know this: it’s alive that water and it wants you. It’ll rise up and try and topple you; it’ll send waves higher than the bridge you’re standing on, to try to sweep you off; and sometimes it’ll flood a place so fast that all you can do is grab one of the stirrups we set in the walls, at regular intervals, and hold your breath. We call those flash floods upanddowners. Take a deep breath, don’t let go, just wait for the down, and hope for the best.’
The canaries twittered loudly as if they had been forgotten.
‘And finally, the air. Flooding clears the system of the usual gases but if the birds stop singing it means oxygen’s low. When that happens get out of there quick ’cos yer judgement’s soon going ter be suspect. If yer can smell the gas go high; if you can’t, go low. Right, Meyor Feld, that’s my briefing about done, yer can take ’em on through!’
He went to the other door, unlocked it and opened it just a crack, letting them slip through one by one, shaking their hands as they went, Feld passing some money to him as he himself went through.
‘Oh, yes, yes, yer really most welcome brothers!’ Tirrikh rasped, ‘And you too, sister!’
He held her hand tight in one of his, and covered it with the other and came closer. It was not his fishy breath she remembered after but the way his hands were protective of her, and affirmed by touch his now whispered words: ‘We’re watching yer, sister Katherine, ’cos it’s good they got yer here, very good, and my name be Tirrikh and my mate be Maqluba, and those names count for more than groats in these festy parts! It’s an honour to be the first Bilgesnipe to welcome yer to Brum! We’ll get word to yer and hope yer find what yer looking for.’
‘Word about what?’ asked Katherine, greatly cheered by his words.
But the Fyrd behind shoved her forward before Tirrikh could say more and she found herself in a dank and echoing place, its walls covered in dirty cream-coloured tiles. She could almost smell the Fyrd’s nervousness.
‘They’re a funny lot, they be,’ said Streik, mocking Tirrikh’s accent. ‘As for tomters, lads, don’t you believe it. They put that about to scare the shit out of you. I’ve never met anyone who’s ever seen one, let alone had his tallycans toddled!’
‘That’s enough, Streik,’ said Feld, cutting their nervous laughter short. ‘Right . . . we do this last part of the journey quickly, efficiently and with no messing.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ they shouted.
‘We’re tasked to get this female bundle through in one piece and that’s what we’re going to do without stopping for one second, so don’t fall behind.’
‘Aye, sir!’
They proceeded slowly, along dripping tunnels, over slimy puddles and doing their best to stay within the white lines which in places were barely visible, it was so dark and they so obscure. They heard rushing water ahead but there was none, echoing steps ran past them but they saw no one making them, and right and left turns came at them so frequently they soon lost all sense of direction.
But for the lines, and Feld’s confidence in leading them, they might easily have lost the way, for the candles guttered constantly from the poor air and the sudden and sometimes violent blasts of wind from side tunnels, conduits above their heads and the rusting grilles over tunnels that seemed abandoned and unused.
But from all entrances, and whichever way they turned, there came the sound of running, rushing water and the sense of turbulence and danger.
More than once they came across carcasses of animals long dead and unidentifiable, their fur clotted and mangy, their feathers greasy and dull. From these the odours were thick and cloying, and Katherine covered her mouth and nose, gagging as she passed them by.
The occasional show of light, usually from vents that reached high above into what the Fyrd called the Upperworld or toppermost, played strange tricks which, combined with constant shifts in directions of tunnels and angled walls, created illusions of scale. The most striking of these was when they saw what they took to be hundreds of rats on a pile of rags at the entrance to one of the side-tunnels, brought there by flood water.
When they got close Katherine saw it was the body of a white cat over whose body cockroaches roamed.
Then as suddenly as the journey began it ended. The tunnel sloped up and became drier and there was what looked like artificial light ahead where it split into two. She could hear the sound of voices and of echoing footsteps, hundreds of them.
Perhaps all of them felt a sense of relief and euphoria to have got through the tunnels, because the Fyrd, including Meyor Feld, pushed forward eagerly, taking the tunnel to the left and leaving Katherine and the one deputed to watch her at the point where the tunnel forked.
Katherine did not hesitate. She pushed him forward and tripped him with her foot and grabbed the lantern out of his hand.
Then she ran up the other tunnel towards the lights and the sound of people. She had no plan and had lost all sense of where she was, but felt certain that anything was likely to be better than where they were taking her.
But in that she was mistaken.
She had thought the tunnel led to the lights she could see, but it did not. It came to a
n end, and dangerously, at a wide conduit along which water came rushing. It seemed to run for some yards before turning to the right again through an unlit entrance.
She heard the Fyrd shout behind her and ran the only way she could, holding the lantern up so she could see and realizing very quickly that it was taking her back into the kind of tunnels she had just left behind so thankfully.
She stopped, turned back, and saw she had come through not one but two intersections and no longer knew what the way back was.
She tried one of them, heard voices further down and ran on willing more energy into her legs, and found herself yet more confused in a tunnel that was dark and low and old. Whatever she heard was not there. All was illusion; all confusion.
The canary in the lantern twittered briefly and then fell silent. She saw to her horror that it was dead. The candle guttered and suddenly went out, casting her into total darkness.
She moved forward, hands on the tunnel walls, and as she went she heard the unmistakable sound of something following her which from the sounds it made, and the lolloping slither of its feet, was neither hydden nor human but something worse by far.
54
UNOBTAINABLE
It was pitch dark before Master Brief, Jack and the others finally gave up their search for Bedwyn Stort.
‘He’s done this kind of thing too often before,’ muttered Brief, calling a halt. ‘I swear by the Mirror itself that when he gets back here I’m going to punish him like the worst kind of young apprentice and give him a drubbing with my stave!’
But Brief’s anger hid his genuine concern, for the ground around the Quoits was difficult enough to negotiate by day, filled as it was with loose waste from dredging, and shallow pools dangerous with quicksand, into which each of them had already slipped while looking for the youngster. By night it became totally treacherous.
The area to the south of the Quoits, which Pike took upon himself to investigate, was judged especially dangerous and the search that way had to be cut short when the light began to fade. Since then their searching to the north and shouting of his name had produced nothing.