Authors: Simon Kewin
Finn’s outstretched foot dipped into cold, flowing water. Letting himself down further he found the hard stone of the bottom. He stood knee-deep in the underground stream. Looking up, the entrance to the well was just a distant circle.
‘I’m at the bottom.’
‘Is there a tunnel? A way out?’
Finn felt around with his hand, the stone rough and crumbling beneath his fingers. Upstream. His hand found the lip of the tunnel down which the water flowed. It was low; they would have to stoop, but there should be room to squeeze through.
‘It’s here.’
Diane splashed into the water beside him. He could see nothing of her. But the rush of her breathing was loud and he could feel the warmth from her body.
‘Where?’
Finn fumbled for her hand. It felt cold from the iron of the rungs. He drew her gently forwards in the dark and showed her the low opening.
‘How far is it?’
‘He told me what turnings to take. Left, left, right, straight, right, left.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what he said. Remember it too in case I forget it.’
‘OK, say it again.’
Finn repeated it several times until they could recite the list of turnings together.
‘Apparently they sing it,’ said Finn.
‘I’ll just remember it, thanks.’
‘Ready?’
‘Ready. And if we end back up inside Engn, I will kill you, OK?’
Finn grinned although she wouldn’t be able to see. ‘Agreed.’
She went first. She gasped as she bent down to duck into the tunnel, her side hurting her. She didn’t say anything.
‘You feel along the left wall and I’ll do the right,’ she said. ‘If we miss a turning we’ve had it.’
‘Shame we don’t have a ball of string to find our way back.’
‘Just make sure you don’t miss a turning.’
Crouching painfully, the icy water lapping over their thighs, splashing into their faces, they sidled forwards. The tunnels were regular, man-made, dug out and lined. They smelt of earth and rock. It was utterly dark. Finn opened and closed his eyes but it made no difference. He’d been in tunnels this dark before. When was it? Back home? No, he remembered now. The day he had walked through the postern gate to leave the Valve Hall. It seemed like someone else, or just a story he’d read.
They laboured forwards, stopping occasionally to rest by kneeling in the water. They were soon both shivering. At least there was plenty of water to drink. Finn scooped up a handful now, feeling the cold of it plunging down inside him to his stomach.
‘Here’s a crossroads,’ said Diane from up ahead.
‘OK. So left.’
‘Stay close. We mustn’t get separated.’
They stumbled on and on for an eternity. For long stretches of time they found no other tunnels and Finn began to think they were lost. It was impossible to know which way they were heading. There was just the numbing chill of the water flowing against their legs and the rough stone on their hands. It seemed as if they’d been down there for ever. His back stung sharply with the effort of stooping down. He could only imagine what Diane, her side already painful, was going through.
Eventually, encouraging each other, having to stop more and more frequently, they reached the last turning of the sequence the old man had given them, the last left.
‘What now?’ asked Diane.
‘We get to another shaft I suppose,’ said Finn.
‘OK.’
They set off again. They could do nothing but go on. Finn wanted to stop and rest, lie down and sleep but they couldn’t, of course. They crept along in the darkness, their hands scrabbling along the roof of the tunnel for fear of missing the shaft that would take them back up to the world. After another long, long trudge, doubts began to fill Finn’s mind. The old man had tricked them. They had missed a turning. They were lost now and would die down here, where no-one would ever know. His parents, Connor, Mrs. Megrim: none of them would ever know. He was too exhausted for the thought to seem particularly terrible.
‘Here,’ said Diane. ‘I think it’s here. Feel.’
Finn reached the place where she stood. There was a hole in the tunnel roof, wide enough for them both to stand up in. It was glorious just to be able to stand straight. Finn felt around the walls of the shaft.
‘There are rungs to climb up.’
He peered upwards. Dimly, he thought he could see a lightening of the dark above him. Was it there or was he imagining it?
‘You go first,’ said Diane. She sounded utterly exhausted. ‘I don’t want to fall onto you if I let go.’
‘Let’s wait here for a bit. Get our strength back.’
‘No. Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to stop now.’
‘OK.’
They stood next to each other in the narrow shaft, bodies touching, her warmth delicious. He wanted to say something else to her but couldn’t think what. Instead he reached up for the first rung and hauled himself upwards.
They worked their way back to the surface, stepping from rung to rung. It definitely grew lighter as they climbed. Soon, Finn could see the rusting iron rungs and the rough stone of the wall in front of his eyes. Eventually he reached up and hit the wooden planks that capped the shaft.
‘We’re here.’
Diane was still some way below him, pulling herself up one rung at a time, stopping to get her breath back between each. She didn’t reply. Holding tight with one hand, trying not to think of the shaft beneath him, the fall if he let go, he began to pull the wood aside with his spare hand.
The wood slid aside and light slanted into the top of the shaft, temporarily blinding him. Squinting, he peered up over the lip of the well, expecting to see the boots of a ring of Ironclads there, waiting for them.
But the grass plain stretched away unbroken at Finn’s eye-level. No people, no houses were visible. Wherever the Ironclads were, they weren’t here. Finn and Diane had emerged in another deep fold in the ground. Not far away, beyond the rising earth, just as the old man had promised, he could see the top of the wooden line-of-sight tower.
The light had seemed very bright at first, but now he saw it was actually twilight, dusk or dawn. He had no idea how long they’d been down beneath the ground. The low sun glinted off the glass lenses of the ‘scopes in the tower.
‘We’re here,’ he called down to Diane. ‘We made it.’
He heaved himself out and lay on his back. After a few moments, the top of Diane’s head appeared from the hole in the ground. She hauled herself out and they lay there, like fish pulled from a hole in the ice, gulping and helpless.
Diane stood first. ‘Let’s get into the tower. We’re too visible out here.’
Hand-in-hand, they made their way up the grass slope to the tower. They could soon see Engn rising behind them. The sky beyond the great machine glowed with an orangey, sulphur light. The sun was setting. Was it still the same day? Or the next day? He was too exhausted to think straight. Even lying down there by the shaft already seemed strangely distant.
They each peered around nervously as they reached the top of the rise in the ground, conscious they would be visible for miles around, terrified of seeing a troop of Ironclads galloping towards them. Still they could see no-one. The only thing moving were lines of smoke rising straight up into the still air from here and there on the plain, blazing yellow higher up as the setting sun caught them. There must be hovels dotted about everywhere.
The relay line-of-sight tower was huge, seeming to swell in size as they neared it. A framework of lashed timbers, something like the one holding up the wheels, zigzagged upwards to support a wooden hut housing the ‘scopes. A ladder led up to a trapdoor in its floor.
‘It’ll be manned, won’t it?’ said Diane. ‘Someone must operate it.’
‘No. It’s just a relay station. It doesn’t switch, it just picks up signals and sends them on brighter so they don’t decay.’
When they got near enough they could see the ground around the tower was freshly churned up by horses, their hoof prints like large letter C’s, quite clear in the mud. They looked at each other. The Ironclads, or someone at least, had been here recently.
‘They must have come this way while we were underground,’ said Diane.
Finn nodded, saying nothing. The thought of their pursuers riding around somewhere above their heads while they laboured through the tunnels made him shiver. They could only hope the Ironclads had started looking further afield now.
‘Let’s get inside,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, we can’t go any further just now.’
He felt very exposed climbing the ladder, more and more of the wide sweep of the plain opening up around him. Thankfully the darkness was thickening. They might be invisible in the shadows if anyone happened to be looking. So he told himself. The trapdoor at the top of the ladder was padlocked shut with an iron hasp. He hadn’t thought about that. Diane waited for him as he jangled the lock, hoping it might come free.
‘What is it?’
‘Locked.’
‘Can we open it?’
Finn yanked hard on the padlock. The screws holding it to the trapdoor ripped out of the wood a short way. The wood was rotten, poorly maintained.
‘I think I can pull it free.’
He hooked an arm through the ladder to stop himself falling and pulled down as hard as he could. With each tug, the wood gave way a little. Finally, in a shower of sawdust, the padlock came free in his hand. He pushed upwards on the trapdoor, swinging it open into the darkness of the line-of-sight tower. Once inside, they closed the trapdoor shut and sat together on the bare wood of the floor.
A light flickered in the one of the ‘scope lenses, the rapid flash of a message being sent out from Engn. He couldn’t interpret it. Either he’d lost the ability to read them or it was encrypted. There was a whole bank of ‘scopes: an array of twelve by twelve, enough for one hundred and forty-four messages to be routed to and from Engn at the same time. As he gazed up at them, more and more lit up, flickered for a few moments, then winked out. It was beautiful to watch, like looking up at the stars twinkling in the sky. He wondered if any of the messages were about
them
, the two who had escaped Engn. Instructions, maybe, to all the Ironclads and masters out there to be on the look out
Catch them. Return them. Kill them.
If so, there wasn’t a lot they could do about it. If they blocked the messages, maybe misaligned the ‘scopes, the masters would soon know someone was in one of the towers.
Finn shut his eyes, listening for sounds from outside, dreading to hear hoofs or voices. There was nothing. The only sound was Diane’s peaceful breathing. He sighed and rested his head on her shoulder.
‘What do you think it’s all for?’ he said. ‘Engn, I mean. What does it do? Why is it here? All that machinery, all that clever complexity. All that effort. I mean, what’s the point of it all?’
He waited for an answer but there was none. Diane was already asleep.
He thought he should keep watch while she slept, peer out of the ‘scope ports for anyone approaching them, But weariness weighed him down, overwhelming him before he could move. Soon he, too, fell asleep.
In the glowing morning light he thought, briefly, he was in the old barn back home, he and Connor and Diane sleeping out there for the night amid the prickly straw. He luxuriated in the still warmth as he emerged from wonderful dreams.
He flickered one eye open. Diane was there, lying a few feet away from him, still asleep. Connor wasn’t there, of course. They weren’t in the barn. Memories of where he really was, of everything that had happened, came back to him like a series of blows to his stomach.
He stirred and, walking on his knees, crossed to peer out of one of the unoccupied ‘scope ports. Outside it was bright sunlight, a hot day on the great plain. Shimmering in the distance he could see the next relay tower, part-way to the blue mountains. The shifting air would play havoc with the line-of-sight images. A day like this meant messages were often slow. There had to be a good chance someone would come to recollimate the lenses. He peered to each side of the tower, the tiny holes affording only a very restricted view. He could see no-one. So far, at least, they had survived. It was incredible. They had escaped Engn and lasted a night without being caught. As far as he knew, that had never happened before.
He crossed the dark, dusty interior of the wooden house, careful not to nudge any of the ‘scopes, to peer out the other way, back towards Engn. The great machine stretched from horizon to horizon in the sunlight as if nothing had happened, as if unaware he and Diane had fled. Smoke rose from its stacks and vents. Sunlight glinted off its housings and wheels. Nothing at all had changed.
‘What’s happening?’ Diane stirred in the darkness behind him, her voice groggy.
‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘No sign of anyone. We’re safe so far.’
‘Good.’
Finn turned to stare back into the dark interior of the hut, Diane invisible in the gloom after the bright exterior. They still hadn’t agreed where they should go next, of course, what they should do.
‘We need to drink and eat,’ he said.
‘What time do you think it is?’
‘Hard to say for sure. The sun’s well up. Mid-morning maybe?’
‘It’s too dangerous to go out there during the day. We should wait until it’s dark, then set off for the next tower. Perhaps that way we can get all the way to the mountains. Maybe find food and water along the way.’
Finn didn’t reply. He busied himself working his way around the room to peer out of the other ports.
‘Finn?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you agree? That’s what we should do?’
Finn shrugged. It was pointless, he knew. She couldn’t see him.
‘It’s a good plan,’ he said. It’s the only way to get across the plain. But I’m not going, Diane. I’m going to try and get back inside.’
‘But it’s madness, Finn. They’ll just catch you again. I don’t know what they’ll do to you this time but it will be worse, far worse, than the mines.’
She might be right. And he didn’t have any idea about how to get back inside, let alone about destroying the machinery once he was there. For some reason none of that seemed to matter. He had made his mind up. Made it up a long time ago.