14
The Spirit Wheel
Silas ducked through
the low tunnels and strode across underground bridges. He moved so
fast, Kate found it hard to keep up, and when she lagged behind he
dragged her along until they were far enough away from the
red-bricked cavern for her to be impossibly lost.
‘You look weak,’ he
said, leading her through the dark. ‘Weaker than I
expected.’
‘You didn’t have to
kill that man.’
‘I am an honourable
man and honourable men do not lie. You were warned of what would
happen if you drew attention to yourself. The consequences are
yours to bear.’
‘What about
Mina?’
‘Her life was
unimportant and her death was convenient. She knew her time had
come.’
Silas stopped at a
crossroads with nothing but darkness on every side and he stood
there, listening for something, before pulling Kate up a steep
staircase to a pair of arched metal doors. ‘Do you know where you
are?’ he asked.
Kate could barely see
anything up there, but a thin strip of daylight filtered in through
the gap between the doors and Silas let her step forward to take a
look.
‘We’re on the
surface,’ she said.
Kate recognised the
smoky smell of the streets, and the doors looked straight out on to
an alleyway with a cluster of tall black towers gathered at its
furthest end. They could have been anywhere in the city. She had
only seen a small part of it and it had all looked the same to her.
There was no way she could know where they were about to come
out.
‘And this?’ said
Silas. ‘What do you make of this?’
Kate turned, and when
her eyes became used to the shadows again she saw a carving set
into the wall. It was a stone circle, measuring about one foot
across, with a row of circular tiles sunk into a channel around its
outer edge. Each small tile carried a different symbol, and the
large circle in the centre was carved with the shape of a crescent
moon. She had never seen anything like it before in her
life.
‘This is a spirit
wheel,’ said Silas. ‘Part of an ancient system that the bonemen
once used to help people find their way around Fume and the City
Below. Place your hand on the moon and ask it where we
are.’
‘It’s a wall,’ said
Kate. ‘It can’t tell us that.’
‘This is far more
than just a wall,’ said Silas. ‘There are thirteen of these circles
in the City Below, seven in the City Above and four that have yet
to be uncovered, though they certainly exist. Each one of them can
remember more than a single person could experience in ten
lifetimes, and inside each of their hearts is a soul locked away
for eternity to serve the needs of the living. Most of these
circles have gone unused for centuries, the souls within them
knowing nothing but silence. For that alone they deserve your
respect. Now, do it.’
Silas pushed Kate
towards the wall. Her hands went out in front of her, her right
palm touched the moon, and the symbols around the circle began to
move. She tried to step back, but she could not pull away. Her hand
was stuck fast.
‘Stop struggling,’
said Silas. ‘It will only take longer.’
Kate watched as the
stone tiles ground steadily around the circle, sinking back into
the wall one by one, switching places and rearranging themselves,
all of them moving at once. Kate recognised many of the symbols
easily: a book, a bird, a skull, a snake, a flame, an eye, an
arrow, the sun. Then the air rippled gently in front of the stones
and some of them flipped over to reveal secondary symbols on their
undersides, mostly numbers and arrows, as well as more complicated
carvings that she did not understand.
The tiles began to
slow. Kate’s hand still would not come away from the wall and, when
they stopped, one symbol glowed very gently at the top. It looked
as if a tiny flame was flickering behind it, drawing her attention
to a tile carved with a single flake of snow.
‘It recognises you,’
said Silas. ‘That same symbol was found on the coffin where Da’ru
first found Wintercraft. It knows you
are a Winters. And here,’ he pointed to a second symbol illuminated
a quarter of the way around the wheel. ‘A crescent moon. The wheels
use their central carvings as reference points. Simply put, it is
telling you that a Winters is standing by the wheel marked by the
crescent moon. It appears the spirit inside it is still
reliable.’
‘How do you know
about these wheels?’ asked Kate.
‘They are well known
to anyone who has lived in Fume for any length of time,’ said
Silas. ‘When people first moved into the city, they saw them as
wonders and used them almost every day. The technique is very
simple. You interpret the symbols in terms of your question. Each
tile can have many meanings, but the simplest is usually
correct.’
‘So, there is a
spirit trapped somewhere inside there,’ said Kate. ‘How does it
know my name?’
‘Fume has many
secrets, Miss Winters. It is no concern of mine that you are
ignorant of most of them. Now, ask it if it knows where to find
your uncle.’
‘Artemis?
Why?’
‘Da’ru has sent many
servants and wardens into the City Below these last few days,’ said
Silas. ‘Your uncle was bought at the station and sent down among
them. I believe Da’ru has those people working on something and I
intend to find out what. Ask.’
The tiles moved
immediately without Kate even thinking about it and one illuminated
near the bottom of the wheel: a single open eye.
‘That means “yes”,’
said Silas. ‘If not, the closed eye would have been chosen. Where
is he?’
Kate hesitated, torn
between the danger of leading Silas to Artemis and the need she had
to find him herself. Some of the tiles around the wheel tapped
together but did not move, as if sensing her
indecision.
‘I will not ask you
again.’
Kate had no choice.
Her thoughts cleared and the wheel moved at once. The tiles rattled
and scraped for a lot longer this time, and Kate and Silas watched
as four bright symbols settled together in a group at the top. The
snowflake, a book, a doorway and a key.
‘What does it mean
when they’re together like that?’ asked Kate. ‘Where is
Artemis?’
‘Da’ru has opened
it,’ Silas said quietly.
‘Opened what?’ said
Kate. ‘Where is Artemis?’
Before Silas could
answer, something sharp pierced Kate’s palm from inside the wall,
and the circle released its hold on her. She snatched her hand away
and a bead of blood gathered on the surface of her skin as a tiny
glass point sank back into the centre of the moon, taking some of
her blood with it.
‘What was
that?’
‘A spirit wheel only
tests a person’s blood when they ask about areas restricted to the
bonemen,’ said Silas. ‘A group of tiles are meant to be read
together. The snowflake represents your uncle, the book and doorway
indicate a place of books, and the key means a secret or a lock. If
this is correct, Da’ru has somehow found her way into the bonemen’s
ancient library, one so well hidden that it has proved impossible
to find for centuries. It was said that only the bonemen could ask
the spirit wheels for its location. Da’ru makes every one of her
new servants use one of the wheels, just in case they carry the
right blood to be shown the way. I doubt it is a coincidence that
she found the library the very day your uncle was sold into her
service. And if he carries the blood of the bonemen …’ The wheel
sprang into action and Silas smiled ‘… that means you carry it
too.’
This time it was not
only the outer symbols that moved. The central moon sank back as
well, turning on its axis to reveal a reverse side carved with a
perfect spiral.
‘The blood of the
bonemen is the key to more knowledge than you can imagine,’ said
Silas. ‘Da’ru has been searching for their library for years. It is
no secret that the Skilled already know its location and she
believes they have hidden Wintercraft
inside. I need that book, Miss Winters. We must find it first. Ask
the wheel to show you the way.’
Kate pushed her hand
warily against the stone and the tiles settled into place at once.
Silas studied them closely, but Kate already knew what they would
say. If she was going to hide something important, there was only
one place it would be. In the deepest place, the darkest place.
Four tiles were illuminated: a skull, an ornate number three, a
horizontal line and an arrow pointing down.
Silas translated them
out loud. ‘Third tomb cavern. Lowest level. This way.’
The City Below Fume
was even larger than the one above. Hidden beneath the foundations
of its tall black towers were staircases that curled impossibly far
down into the darkness and paths so narrow they were no more than
cracks in the earth. As they went deeper, those narrow ways widened
into vast chambers linked together by corridors like beads on a
string. More stone bridges hung over dizzying drops and from them
Kate caught glimpses of eerie streets and buildings flecked with
distant lantern light.
‘The Skilled are not
the only people who hide down here,’ said Silas. ‘Keep
moving.’
Silas did not seem to
mind the darkness and the dank that closed in around them. He moved
like a shadow, with a stolen lantern in one hand and his blue-black
sword sheathed at his side; Kate wondered again why a man as strong
and ruthless as him would want to deliberately end his
life.
Kate’s reflection
followed her along the windows of a sunken street and twice she
jumped, thinking that the face she could see in the ancient windows
was not her own. She began to sense movement everywhere, in every
shadow, every window, and she could hear strange sounds whispering
on the air. Each time she heard something it became harder to
dismiss it as pure imagination, and when she reached a corner
filled with black windows she heard a shade’s voice clearly for the
first time.
‘Winters.’
Kate felt something
break, as if a barrier had fallen, and a wave of cold wrapped
around her, drowning out everything except the presence of hundreds
of spirits that she could not see. She sensed them as they had been
in life, their stories flashing through her thoughts as
one.
‘… she is listening …’
‘… travelling with him …’
‘… Silas …’
Some of the voices
shrank back in fear as Kate stood still, not knowing what to
do.
‘… he cannot hear us …’
‘… find the book …’
‘… keep it safe …’
‘… she can release us …’
‘… prisoners …’
‘… bound by blood …’
Silas stopped up
ahead and looked back at her with suspicion. Kate forced herself to
catch up, her heart racing as she ran. Ghostly forms gathered in
every window around her, whispering to her, watching her, but she
dared not look back.
‘… guard the book …’
‘… return for us …’
The voices faded as
she left the windows behind, stepping at last into the safe glow of
Silas’s lantern light. ‘You look pale,’ he said.
‘Just tired,’ lied
Kate.
Silas looked back
down the tunnel and saw nothing but the dark. ‘Stay in the light,’
he said. ‘This is no place to be lost on your own.’
After what had
happened in that tunnel, Kate found herself wanting to stay close
to Silas for protection and became worried every time he walked too
far ahead. There was no way to know how long they had been
underground. Other than giving her directions on how to negotiate
difficult steps and corners, Silas did not speak and the silence
was so complete that she could hear her pulse rushing in her ears
as she walked.
‘There,’ Silas said
at last, pointing towards a distant light. ‘We are
close.’
Kate’s heart lifted.
Her only thought was of Artemis being somewhere nearby, and she
followed Silas to the very edge of the tunnel mouth, overlooking
the wide gulf that was the third tomb cavern.
The tunnel emerged
halfway down the side of the cavern and it was so deep that Kate
could not see the bottom or the top. A few graverobbers clung to
ladders and harnesses on the opposite side, dodging swinging oil
lamps and falling rocks as they grabbed on to tiny ledges and
scraped their way into the sealed tombs that had been hollowed out
of its walls. Each one of them looked filthy and wild, and they
crept like spiders through cracked openings in the rock, stripping
them of everything that the dead people possessed and sending them
up in wire baskets to the top.
‘This is where we
climb down,’ said Silas, rattling a long ladder that led deep into
the bottomless gloom.
‘I can’t,’ said Kate,
ducking back into the tunnel.
‘You will, or I will
leave you here and you can try to find your way back alone. I’m
sure those thieves will find your bones sooner or
later.’
Silas stepped
confidently on to the ladder, hooking the lantern on to his belt as
he descended quickly into the dark. Kate looked out over the edge,
clinging to the side of the tunnel mouth for safety. The ladder
looked old, but given the choice between trusting it and being left
there alone, she would take the ladder. Artemis must have come this
way. And if he could climb down that ladder, so could
she.
She swung her first
foot out on to a rung, then the next. The wood felt firm under her
feet and with both hands gripping white-knuckle tight, she trusted
her weight to it and followed Silas down.
Each step felt like
an eternity. Kate had never had a great fear of heights, but this
place was different. It felt as if the depth of the cavern was
making her body twice as heavy, trying to pull her down faster than
she wanted to go. If she could see the bottom it would not be
nearly so bad. Silas took the ladder two rungs at a time, taking
the light further and further away until Kate was hunting for rungs
in the dark. She tried to catch up, gaining confidence with every
step. Then her foot slipped, a rung snapped and her feet flailed
out. She screamed as her hands lost their grip, her fingers slid
from the wood and she fell back, plunging straight down towards the
distant chasm floor.
She fell down … down
… trying to snatch hold of the ladder in the dark. Silas’s lantern
blinded her as she passed it and something tugged hard on her arm.
Silas looked down at her, a strong hand clasped around her wrist.
Kate reached up to hold on to him with her other hand and he lifted
her up with impossible strength until she was high enough to reach
his shoulders.
‘Climb on to me,’ he
said.
Kate reached out and
wrapped an arm around his neck, bringing the other round to join it
as Silas let her go. She clung on for her life as he continued to
descend, keeping her eyes closed, willing it to be over, until at
last Silas stepped off on to solid ground.
‘There are wise ways
to enter a tomb cavern,’ he said. ‘Falling is not one of
them.’
Kate dropped down
from his back and her knees weakened under her, sending her falling
back on to the floor. She didn’t care. She had never been so happy
to see a pile of rocks and dirt in her life. She tested her wrist
where Silas had grabbed her. A bruise was blossoming around the
bone and it was difficult to move her hand.
‘You were lucky,’
said Silas. ‘An inch further and you would have been out of my
reach.’
He held out his hand
to help her up and Kate saw that he too had not come away
unscathed. His wrist joint looked misaligned, and the bones cracked
loudly as they straightened themselves again, making him wince with
pain.
‘I wish mine would do
that,’ she said.
‘You are not badly
hurt,’ said Silas, pulling her to her feet. ‘Your body will heal
itself just as surely as mine, given time.’
Kate looked around.
The cavern was long and narrow at the bottom, shaped like a long
wave carved into the earth, but there was no sign of any library or
anything else down there. It was hard to see past the chunks of
stone that covered the place and the clouds of dust thrown up by
their feet as they negotiated a path around the edge. It looked
like the graverobbers had thrown anything of low value down on to
the cavern floor, littering it with broken pottery, pieces of wood
and loose dirt and bones excavated from the tombs.
Silas tested every
raised stone in the wall in case it was a handle of some kind and
while the two of them hunted for hidden doors, Kate took her chance
to ask him something.
‘If we do find the
library down here,’ she said, ‘will you help my
uncle?’
‘You will be safe for
as long as I need you,’ said Silas. ‘The same applies to
him.’
‘But if he’s down
here, could you help him escape?’
‘Why would I want to
do that?’
‘You were the one who
brought him to Fume. What if … what if I promise not to try and
escape again. If I get you the book, whatever it takes, will you
help him then? Will you protect him from the wardens? Help him stay
alive?’
‘You will find the
book simply because I demand it of you,’ said Silas. ‘Your promises
mean nothing to me.’
‘I’m just asking you
to let him live. Please. You’ll still have everything you
want.’
Silas lowered his
scarred hand from the wall and turned to face Kate. ‘You are not
responsible for his life,’ he said. ‘We all live and die alone. You
will learn that in time.’
‘He is family,’ said
Kate. ‘We look after each other.’
Silas turned back to
the wall. ‘That is something I know nothing about,’ he said.
‘Families lie. They leave and they forget.’
‘Are you talking
about your family?’
‘I have my crow,’
said Silas. ‘That is the only family I need.’ His eyes were distant
and Kate saw a flicker of sadness within them. ‘We do not have time
for this,’ he said firmly. ‘As long as you obey me, the bookseller
will live. Now do as I say and find this door.’
Kate did not know how
Silas expected her to find a door down there. It was pitch black
and the spirit wheel’s directions had not been very specific. The
fire-glow from the graverobbers’ swinging oil lamps flickered like
stars above them and Silas’s lantern light reflected from tiny
pieces of rough gemstones embedded in the walls, making them
sparkle and move as he hunted for anything that looked out of
place.
They had walked more
than a thousand steps and searched only a tiny fraction of the
cavern when Kate stopped. Everyone who had ever searched that
cavern would have done exactly what they were doing now. They were
going about it the wrong way.
She stood still,
letting Silas wander ahead, and as the light of the lantern moved
further away, she tried to put herself in the place of the people
who had built the city below. Kate guessed that the library had to
be easy to find if Artemis had found it so quickly. Maybe people
with the blood of the bonemen just knew where it was. What if they
were drawn to it but she had not been listening?
‘The spirit in the
wheel deceived us,’ said Silas up ahead. ‘There is nothing down
here. Just bones and rock.’
Kate was not so
sure.
She closed her eyes
and concentrated on finding the door. Nothing happened. There was
no sudden pull. No sign to point the way. She opened her eyes again
and found Silas standing right in front of her.
‘You won’t get very
far like that,’ he said.
‘This cavern is old,
isn’t it?’ asked Kate.
‘One of the
oldest.’
‘What did it look
like before the graverobbers came?’
Silas touched the
wall and a fragment of blue gemstone broke off under his hand.
‘Most of it was lined with lapis before they stripped it away,’ he
said. ‘This lowest section is supposed to have been decorated with
a mosaic of an ocean, with fish and other useless things set in
precious stones across the floor and the walls. I never saw it for
myself. It had all been chipped away long before the High Council
got here.’
Kate tried to picture
it as Silas had described. ‘What about light?’ she
asked.
‘It is a tomb
cavern,’ said Silas. ‘The dead do not need light.’
‘But we do. And so
would anyone else who came down here.’
‘If this is your
attempt to waste more time—’
‘Why do the
graverobbers hang their oil lamps down on ropes?’
‘In case they need to
escape quickly from a warden patrol,’ said Silas. ‘They can pull
everything up and be gone in moments. What is your
point?’
‘Da’ru and Artemis
would have carried their light down here, like us. So would the
bonemen.’
Silas looked at the
lantern, then at the walls. ‘I fail to see the relevance of any of
this,’ he said.
Kate grabbed the
lantern and walked back to where the ladder met the floor. A small
metal hook was sunk into the wall beside it and she ran her hand
across the ruined wall, feeling the deep welts in the stone where
the graverobbers stealing the lapis had cut too deep.
‘Where are you
going?’ demanded Silas, already right behind.
‘Everyone assumes the
bonemen wanted to hide the library,’ said Kate. ‘But what if they
didn’t? What if it was just an ordinary place to them in their
time? And when they disappeared, people just assumed it was a
secret place because no one knew how to get into it.’
‘Except for the
Skilled,’ corrected Silas.
‘Maybe. But Artemis
is not one of the Skilled. He can’t do anything any ordinary person
can’t do. If he found it, anyone can.’
‘Why would the spirit
wheels test for the blood of the bonemen if the library was not a
secret place?’ asked Silas.
‘There are places in
the council chambers where ordinary people can’t go, aren’t there?
The council don’t want people wandering around their private rooms;
maybe the bonemen didn’t either. People were able to visit Fume
back then, to come and pay their respects to the dead. What if the
bonemen wanted to keep some areas of the city to themselves? They
didn’t need wardens to stand guard over everything; all they had to
do was restrict information to anyone who asked about
it.’
‘You are making a lot
of assumptions,’ said Silas.
‘The graverobbers
didn’t find the library because they weren’t looking for it,’ said
Kate. ‘And I think the wardens did not find it because they were
looking too hard. Here!’
Silas followed her to
where another metal hook jutted out of the wall just above her
head, exactly like the first. ‘And?’ he said when she pointed to
it, clearly unimpressed.
Kate lifted the
lantern up on to the hook and let it swing there as she studied the
wall more closely. ‘Why would that lantern hook be there if there
wasn’t something around here to see?’ she said. ‘If that mosaic was
still intact, I bet we’d be able to see the door easily, but with
all the damage the graverobbers have done to the walls, no one has
noticed it. The bonemen must have made the door blend in with the
wall and they wouldn’t ruin the look of a mosaic with a big door
handle. So if there’s no handle, there has to be another way to
open it.’ Her hand went to a small black stone, too neat and square
to have been part of the cavern rock, and she pushed.
Something rumbled
gently within the wall, a small door swung slowly back and the
smell of old ink and leather wafted from the depths of a shadowed
corridor lined with books.
The two of them stood
staring into the dark.
‘See?’ said Kate
quietly. ‘It wasn’t so well hidden after all.’
Silas left the
lantern on its hook and drew his sword. ‘Stay close,’ he said,
walking forwards as distant voices carried from within. ‘And say
nothing. Leave everything to me.’
Kate followed him in,
hoping that Artemis was still somewhere inside. Then there was only
the smell of the books, the sprung feeling of a wood floor beneath
her feet and the sound of a lock dropping into place as the door
closed quietly behind them.