"Yes, that's all great," Chester said. "But what if it closes up again? What then?"
"I suppose it could — after many thousands of years."
"Knowing my stinking rotten luck, it'll probably be today," Chester muttered dolefully. "And I'll be squashed like an ant."
"Nah, come on, the chances of that happening right now are pretty small."
Chester grunted skeptically.
13
In a cleverly disguised entrance in the empty cellar of an old almshouse up in Highfield, not far from Main Street
, Sarah stepped into an elevator. She slung her bag down by her feet and, hugging herself, made herself as small as she could. Backing into one of the corners, she looked miserably around the interior. She loathed being confined in the constricted space, with no means of escape. The sides and roof of the elevator were panels of heavy iron trelliswork, and the interior had been coated with a thick pasting of grease, the remaining traces of which were spiky with dirt and dust.
She heard a brief, muffled exchange between the Styx and Colonists hanging back in the brick-walled chamber outside the elevator, and then Rebecca entered, unaccompanied. The girl didn't give Sarah as much as a glance as she swiveled sharply around on her heels, one of the Styx ramming the gate shut behind her. Rebecca pushed and held down the brass lever by the side of the gate and, with a lurch and a low grinding noise from above, the elevator began to descend.
As it went, the heavy trellis cage creaked and rattled against the sides of the shaft, this din punctuated occasionally by the grating squeal of metal on metal.
They were being lowered to the Colony.
However much she tried to contain it, a new sensation was building in Sarah, pushing up against her fear and anxiety. It was anticipation. She was returning to the Colony! Her birthplace! It was as though she had suddenly been given the ability to go back in time. With each foot the elevator dropped, the clock was speeding in reverse, regaining hour after hour, year after year. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she'd ever see her homeland again. She'd dismissed the possibility so irrevocably that it was hard for her to grasp what was now happening.
Taking several deep breaths, she unclenched her arms and straightened her back.
She'd heard about the existence of these elevators, but had never actually seen, let alone ridden in, one before.
Sarah rested her head against the trelliswork and, as the cage bumped its way down, watched the side of the shaft. The glow from Rebecca's light illuminated it, revealing that it was pocked with innumerable regular henpeck gouges. These were a testament to the work gangs who had dug their way down to the Colony almost three centuries ago, using only rudimentary hand tools.
As the different rock strata flashed by, giving up their brown, red and gray hues, Sarah thought about the blood and sweat that had gone into establishing the Colony. So many people, generation upon generation, had toiled for all their natural lives to build it. And she had rejected it all, fleeing to the surface.
At the top of the shaft, now several hundred feet above her, sound from the winch raised in pitch as it shifted up a gear, and the elevator accelerated in its descent.
This mechanical means in and out of the Colony was a world away from the one she had taken for her escape twelve years ago. Then, she had been forced to climb the entire way, using a stone staircase that spiraled up a huge brick-built shaft. It had been long and arduous, especially because she'd been hauling young Seth after her. The worst part had been her final emergence into the open air onto a rooftop via the inside of an age-old chimney stack. As she had scrambled to get some sort of bearing on the crumbling, soot-coated sides, all the while dragging the crying and confused boy behind her, it had taken every last drop of her strength to hold on and stop them both from slipping and tumbling down into the well below.
Don't think about that now, Sarah scolded herself, shaking her head. She realized how utterly spent she was from the day's events, but she had to get a grip. The day was far from over. Focus, she urged herself, glancing at the Styx girl traveling with her.
Facing away from Sarah, Rebecca hadn't moved from where she stood just inside the gate. Occasionally scuffing her shoe against the steel plate that formed the floor of the rattling cubicle, she was clearly impatient to reach the bottom.
I could deal with her right now. The thought suddenly forced itself into Sarah's head. As the Styx girl didn't have her escort, there would be nothing to stop Sarah. The notion gathered momentum, and Sarah knew she didn’t have much time before they arrived at the bottom.
The knife was still in Sarah's handbag — for some reason the Styx hadn't taken it away. She regarded the bag where it lay by her feet, gauging how long it would take her to retrieve the weapon. No, too risky. Much better, a blow to the head. She balled her hands into fists and then opened them again.
No!
Sarah checked herself. Allowing her to be alone with the girl was a demonstration of the Styx's trust. And everything Sarah had been told seemed to fit together, to be true, so she'd decided to go along with them for the time being. She tried to calm herself, taking some more deep breaths. She raised a hand to her neck, tentatively probing the swelling around the self-inflicted wound.
It had been a close call — she'd started to push the knife into her jugular with the desolate intent of sinking it up to the hilt. But with Joe Waites screaming and pleading like a madman, she'd stayed her hand. She'd been prepared to go through with it: She'd lived with the certainty that at some point the Styx would catch up to her. She had rehearsed her suicide in one form or another a thousand times before.
With the knife poised and the silent audience of Styx and Colonists lining the walls around her, she'd listened to what Joe and Rebecca had to say, telling herself that a few more seconds wouldn't make any difference to someone who was already dead.
But then, the story they had told her bore out what was written in the note. After all, the Styx could have executed her there and then in the excavation. So why go to all that trouble to save her?
Rebecca had recounted what had happened on the fateful day Tam lost his life. How the Eternal City had been blanketed in an impenetrable fog and the viperous Will had set off pyrotechnic devices to attract the Styx soldiers. In all the confusion, Tam was drawn into the middle of an ambush and, mistaken for a Topsoiler, had been killed. Worse still, Rebecca said there was a strong possibility that Will himself had wounded Tam with blows from a machete in order to leave him behind as a decoy for the Styx soldiers. Sarah's blood boiled at this. Whatever had happened, Will had saved his own worthless skin, forcing Cal to go with him.
Rebecca also said Imago Freebone, a childhood friend of Sarah's and Tam's, had been present at the incident. According to Rebecca, he had since gone missing, and she could only presume that Will had something to do with this as well. Sarah saw tears in Joe Waites's eyes as Rebecca spoke about this. As a member of Tam's little gang, Imago had been Joe's friend, too.
Sarah couldn't begin to comprehend Will's callous lack of regard for his own brother's life, let alone his murderous behavior. What sort of devious, conniving animal had he become?
Once Rebecca had finished telling her the chain of events, Sarah had asked for a moment alone with Joe Waites, and the Styx girl, much to Sarah's amazement, had granted it. Rebecca and the complement of Styx and Colonists dutifully withdrew from the underground cavern, leaving them together.
Only then had Sarah lowered her knife. She sat in the empty armchair next to Joe. The two of them had talked rapidly while Rebecca and her escort waited in the tunnel leading to the bone pit. Joe retold the tale in rushed whispers, corroborating everything in the note he'd left and the version of events Rebecca had just given. Sarah needed to hear it again from start to finish, form someone she knew she could trust.
When Rebecca returned, she made Sarah a proposal. If Sarah was prepared to join forces with the Styx, she would be provided with the means to track down Will. S
he would be given the opportunity to right two wrongs: to avenge her brother's murder and to rescue Cal.
It was an offer Sarah couldn't ignore. Too much was left undone.
And, now, here she was, in a metal cage with her avowed enemy, the Styx! What had she been thinking?
Sarah tried to imagine what Tam would have done if faced with the same situation. But it didn't help, and she became agitated, picking at the clot on her neck, not caring in the least that it might cause the cut to open up and start bleeding again.
Rebecca half turned her head but didn't look toward Sarah, as if she could sense her turmoil. She cleared her throat and asked softly, "How are you doing, Sarah?"
Sarah stared back at the Styx girl's head, at the raven-black hair that spilled over the immaculate white collar, and spoke, her voice finding a new aggression.
"Just dandy. This sort of thing happens to me all the time."
"I know how difficult this is for you," Rebecca said soothingly. "Is there anything you want to talk about?"
"Yes," Sarah replied. "You insinuated your way into the Burrows family. You were in the house with my son for all those years."
"With Will — yes, that's right," Rebecca said without any hesitation, but ceased the constant scuffing of her shoe on the iron floor.
"Tell me about him," Sarah demanded.
"What will grow crooked, you can't make straight," the Styx girl said, letting the phrase hang in the air as they trundled downward. "There was something a little strange about him, right from the word go. He found it difficult to make friends and became even more withdrawn and distant as he grew older."
"No question he was a loner," Sarah agreed, recalling the times she had watched Will as he went about his digs.
"You don't know the half of it," Rebecca said in a slightly tremulous voice. "He could be rally scary."
"What do you mean?" Sarah asked.
"Well, he expected everything to be done for him: his laundry, his meals… everything, and he'd fly off the handle at the smallest thing that wasn't just as he wanted it. You should've seen him — one moment he was fine, and the next he'd completely flip out and go into a horrible rage, screaming like a madman and smashing up the place. He was forever getting into trouble at school. In a fight he had last year, he beat up some of his classmates really badly. They hadn't done anything to him! Will just lost it and laid into them with his shovel. Several had to be taken to the hospital, but he wasn't the slightest bit sorry for what he'd done."
Sarah remained silent, absorbing what she'd just been told.
"No, you have no idea what he was capable of," Rebecca said softly. "His adoptive mother knew he needed help, but she was too bone idle to do anything about it." Rebecca slid her hand over her forehead as if the memories were causing her pain. "Perhaps… perhaps Mrs. Burrows was the reason he was like he was. She neglected him."
"And you… what were you there for? To keep tabs on him… or to catch me?"
"Both," Rebecca answered dispassionately as she twisted at the waist to regard Sarah with a steady gaze. "But the priority was to get you back. The Governors wanted you stopped — it's been bad for the Colony to have you unaccounted for. A loose end. Messy."
"And you've managed to pull it off, haven't you? You even got me alive. They'll be delighted with you."
"It's not like that. Anyway, it was your decision to come home." There was nothing in Rebecca's manner to suggest she was gloating over her success. She turned back to the gage again. Every so often, bright illumination from the entrances to other levels flashed before her, reflecting in the lustrous sheen of her jet-black hair.
After a pause, she spoke again. "It was quite something to survive for all that time, always keeping one step ahead of us and rubbing shoulders with the Heathen day in, day out." She was silent for several seconds. "It must have been hard for you, away from everything you knew?"
"Yes, sometimes," Sarah replied. "They say freedom has its price." She knew she shouldn't be opening up to the Styx girl, but she felt a grudging respect for her. Because of Sarah, Rebecca had been thrust into the alien place that was Topsoil. And at such a tender age. Almost the whole of the girl's life had been spent on the surface as she lived in the Burrows household; to say they had something in common would be a rank understatement. "What about you?" Sarah asked her. "How did you get by?"
"It was different for me," Rebecca replied. "Living in exile was my duty. It was a bit like some sort of game, but, all through it, I never forgot where my loyalties lay."
Sarah shivered. Although it seemed to have been uttered without reproach, the comment was like a blow, striking at the very kernel of her guilt. She slumped back into the corner of the elevator and wrapped her arms across her chest again.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The creaking and rattling descent of the elevator continued.
"Not far now," Rebecca eventually announced.
"I have one last question," Sarah shot back.
"Sure," Rebecca replied distractedly as she glanced at her watch.
"When this is all over… when I've done what I have to… will you let me live?"
"Of course." Rebecca spun daintily around and turned her bright eyes on Sarah. She smiled broadly. "You'll be back in the fold again, back with Cal and your mother. You're important to us."
"But why?" Sarah frowned.
"Why? Isn't it obvious, Sarah? You're the prodigal daughter." Rebecca smiled even wider, but Sarah couldn't reciprocate. Her mind was awash with confusion. Maybe she just wanted to believe what the girl was saying a little too much. A voice of caution nagged her insistently, setting her nerves on edge. She didn't try to stifle it. She'd learned from bitter experience that if anything seemed too good to be true, then it almost certainly was.
* * * * *
Finally the elevator cage thumped against its stops a the bottom of the shaft, jolting its two occupants. Shadows moved outside. Sarah glimpsed a black-sleeved arm as it drew back the trellis door, and Rebecca strode purposefully out.
Is this a trap? Is this it? hammered through Sarah's mind.
Sarah remained within the car, peering down the metal-lined corridor at the two Styx who held back in the darkness. They were positioned on either side of a thick metal door, thirty or so feet away. Rebecca raised her light and beckoned for Sarah to follow, motioning toward the door. The only way out of the corridor, it was covered in glossy black paint with a large zero roughly daubed on it. Sarah knew they were at the bottom level and that on the other side of the door would be an air lock, then a final door, and then the Quarter.
This was it, the final step: If she crossed through that air lock, she was back, and well and truly in their clutches again.
His ankle-length leather coat creaking as he moved, one of the two Styx stepped into the light and took the edge of the door with his thin white fingers, pulling it back so that it clanged against the wall behind. No one spoke as the sound echoed around them. The Styx's black hair, drawn back tightly over his head, had traces of silver at the temples, and his face had a distinctly yellow hue to it and was deeply wrinkled. There were such uncomfortably deep creases on each of his cheeks that it looked as though his face were about to fold in on itself.
Rebecca was watching Sarah, waiting for her to enter the air lock.
Sarah hesitated, her instincts screaming at her not to go through the door.
The other Styx was more difficult to observe, as he remained in the shadows behind the girl. When the light did catch him, Sarah's first impression was that he was much younger than the other man, with clear skin and hair of the purest black. But as she continued to look, she could see that he was older than she'd first thought; his face was lean and drawn to the point that his cheeks were slightly hollowed, and his eyes were like mysterious caverns in the dim light.
Rebecca continued to watch her. "We'll go on. You come when you're ready," she said. "OK, Sarah?" she added softly.
The elder of the two Styx exchang
ed glances with Rebecca, and gave her the merest of nods as the three of them passed into the air lock. Sarah heard their feet clunk on the ridged floor of the cylindrical room, followed by a hiss as the seal on the second door was broken. She felt the gush of warm air on her face.
Then all was silent.
They had gone into the Quarter, a series of large caverns linked by tunnels, where only the most trusted of citizens were selected to live. And a handful of these were, under the supervision of the Styx, allowed to trade with Topsoilers for the basic materials that couldn't be grown or mined in the Colony or the layer below, the dreaded Deeps. The Quarter was something akin to a frontier town, and the living conditions weren't very wholesome, with the ever-present risk of cave-ins and floods of Topsoil sewage.
Sarah tilted her head to squint into the darkness of the elevator shaft above. She realized she was kidding herself if she thought she had any alternative. There was nowhere to run. Her destiny had been taken away from her and placed in the hands of the Styx the moment she'd taken the knife from her throat. At least she was still alive. And what was the worst they could do? Kill her, after they had subjected her to one of their more horrible tortures? The outcome would be the same in the end. Dead now, or dead later. She had nothing to lose.
She swept her eyes over the elevator cage for a last time, then started toward the dusky interior of the air lock. It was approximately fifteen feet long and oval in shape, with deep corrugations along its walls. Using the sides to brace herself as her feet slid on the greasy metal furrows beneath them, she slowly stepped to the open door at the other end, her apprehension mounting.
She leaned out. She caught the abhorrent language of the Styx — reedy, staccato words that ceased as soon as the trio saw her. They were waiting a little distance away on the other side of the large tunnel. As far as the light in Rebecca's hand permitted Sarah to see, the tunnel was empty, with an expanse of cobbled road and then a strip of stone pavement where Rebecca and the other Styx stood. There were no houses; it was a highway tunnel, perhaps connecting to one of the warehouse caverns that were dotted around the periphery of the Quarter.