The Canticle of Whispers (23 page)

There was a long pause.

“You're quite a friend,” Septima said.

Laud refused to reply. For minutes, they were silent, with nothing but the scrape of the rocks as Laud worked them loose, making himself a gap large enough to wriggle through.

Eventually, he was done. He stuck his head through the hole. The tunnel beyond looked stable enough, and a few crystals in the walls were still glowing, enough for him to see the metal tracks continue off into the distance. This was the path Lily's cart had taken.

Laud looked back. Septima was even paler than before now, the brightness in her eyes more clearly pained. He clenched his jaw in frustration. Lily was probably still ahead, tantalizingly close if her cart had stopped working. But he couldn't leave this young woman here, with only her useless friend for company. Someone had to fetch help.

“Can I get back to the Hub this way?” Laud asked Tertius, who was still curled up, leaning against the tunnel wall. No answer. He strode over to him, shouting in his ear. “By all the stars, is there a brain under all that hair?”

“Help is already coming,” Tertius replied, suddenly. “Listen.”

He brushed his hair from his eyes, and stood up. Set into the wall, where he had been leaning, Laud saw a small, round gem, light dancing in its heart.

“Isn't that one of those resonant crystals?” Laud asked, surprised. “Like the one over the Oracle's head?”

“Listen…” Tertius said, gesturing down. Laud crouched, putting his ear against the crystal. As he did—Tertius began to hum, the same sound he'd been making before, but this time, Laud could pick out the tune.

The crystal began to buzz, sounds emerging from its depths.

… I don't care. If Laud and Lily are somewhere down there, behind the rock fall, we're not leaving without them …

That was Benedicta's voice. Laud felt his eyes prickle with tears. His little sister was alive!

The echoes are growing …
That was the Conductor, sounding panicked.
Something is happening in the world above. In your home. The Judges must return to Agora. That is the Oracle's wish.

We're not doing anything that madwoman says!
That was Mark, shouting so loud that even the echo rattled the crystal.
I'm the only Judge here, and I say Agora can look after itself. We came all this way for Lily, and she wouldn't abandon us …

But it may take days to clear the rubble, or weeks! The Oracle is calm now, and she has heard their voices. She knows that Mr. Laudate and Miss Lily are alive. But Miss Lily is still running. You will never be able to reach her …

Laud bit his lip. He was so much closer. But even if her cart had failed, she was getting farther away every second.

“Ben … Mark…” he said, into the crystal. “Can you hear me? I'll go after her … don't worry … I'll find her…”

Tertius stopped humming, and the echoes began to fade.

“They won't hear you,” Tertius said, softly. “Only the Oracle will hear. But the other echoes are growing stronger. You'll be lost in the noise.”

Laud glared at him.

“What other echoes? What are you talking about?”

But even as he said it, the crystal began to resonate again. New sounds were emerging from it. Shouts, screams. The roar of a crowd. They were chanting something.

The Stone … The Stone …

“I don't … understand…” Laud said, trying to hide his unease. “What
is
that?”

“The echoes from above,” Tertius said, his voice shaking. “From Agora. Every voice, raised in terror, and violence. Something has happened in the world above. In your home. Something … terrible…”

The echoes from the crystal grew clearer.

Blood for blood … Death for death … The Wheel turns at last … The Wheel … The Wheel …

Laud pulled away, aghast, but the shouts from the crystal were loud enough to hear, even as he backed away. There were no words anymore. Just screams, and sobs of rage and pain.

“Can't you stop it?” he shouted at Tertius. But the young man was now cowering against the far wall.

“The world is out of joint,” he whimpered.

“The Day of Judgment is coming,” Septima added, her eyes fixed, as though she was repeating something she'd heard, long ago. “And Agora will be the first to burn. The Judges are needed. Find her.”

Laud stared at them, backing away. He wanted to go; he wanted to find Lily, more than anything. But he couldn't. Not like this.

“I … no … I can't … I can't leave my friends … I can't go after her on my own…”

“Find her!” Tertius said, suddenly, his voice joined by a hundred others, filling the air. Every crystal in the tunnel flared with light. And above it all, he heard the sound of the Oracle herself.

Find her!
The Oracle's voice called out.
Find my daughter and bring her home!

Laud pressed his back up against the rubble. Tertius and Septima seemed almost entranced, their eyes glazed. They were no longer speaking. They were wailing, their voices matching the shouts and screams that still rang from every crystal.

Laud turned, fear and determination pushing him onward, scrabbling through the gap he had made.

“I'm sorry Ben, Mark…” he whispered, as he landed on the other side. “I … I can't wait for you.'

And he ran into the darkness.

*   *   *

Hours later, Laud staggered down the tunnels.

Nowhere, nothing, nobody …

He was getting used to the voices by now. He remembered Lily telling him about the Cacophony, of the maddening echoes that haunted the outer caves. Back then, in that precious hour he had spent talking to her before the Director had returned from his audience with the Oracle, and everything had gone wrong, it had seemed harmless. But she had never warned him how loud it was.

We must try, Director. We cannot ignore them any longer. The people will not stand for it.

He held his lantern low. The flame was dim, but just enough to see the iron tracks, and to make sure that he didn't fall into any sudden drops. Lily had to have gone this way, along the rails. It was his only lead.

I'm not theirs! I'm not … I'm not …

The voices ebbed and flowed. Lily had said that the Cacophany was made up of sounds from the worlds above, fragments that forever echoed through the tunnels. Some voices were old and serious, some light and carefree. But all sounded lost among this sea of sound.

He was right. I should never have come. Never known, never known …

Sometimes, he thought he heard a voice he recognized. It was tantalizingly familiar. A distinguished voice—an older man with many cares on his shoulders.

You must consider, Director, that they are not the only ones to blame. We cannot let war break out in our streets.

Sometimes he walked; sometimes he tried to sleep. But the voices wouldn't let him rest for long. They were building, rising into a storm, reverberating off the endless stone around him until his head shook with it. Above it all, the old man's voice came again, loud and fearful.

Please listen, dear friends. We are not enemies. We are not—

There was a gasp. A shout. Cries and screams. But Laud struggled on. The air of the tunnels howled with the noise.

The stone! The stone! The stone!

Laud wanted to stop, to clasp his hands over his ears. But he couldn't, because there, ahead in the darkness, was the sound of Lily's voice. Tiny and alone, but still somehow audible in the maelstrom.

They'll never find me. They'll never come …

“I will, Lily,” Laud whispered, so softly that he could barely hear it. “I will.”

And he carried on, his own words blowing back at him, as he walked deeper into the storm.

I will … I will.

I fear, sir, that the mission has failed.

I will … I …

May the stars watch over us all.

 

P
ART
T
WO

T
RUTH

 

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

The Stone

“
M
ARK,
did we do the right thing?”

Mark looked over at Benedicta. This was the first time she had spoken for hours. They had both been quiet over the last few days once it had become clear that no matter how much they shouted, and raged, and pleaded, they weren't going to be able to follow Lily and Laud.

They had started the weary trek back to Agora three days ago. With the Rail Nexus destroyed, the carts no longer worked, and the journey that had taken mere hours on the way there had been a long slog through the silent darkness. Once their frustration had faded, there hadn't been much to talk about. Or rather, there had been, but by mutual consent, they had chosen not to. There was no point in wasting their energy worrying, when there were more miles of tunnel ahead. Even when that “morning” they had finally reached the Descent, Ben had only flashed him a tired smile as they had climbed aboard, activated the controls, and the machine had rattled into life, to hoist them back up to Agora.

Mark sat up, rubbing his back. He had been lying on the metal platform, trying to sleep. Ben was already standing, holding on to the rails around the platform, watching the sides of the rocky well as they slipped past.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “Did we really have a choice?”

They hadn't. That was what Mark kept telling himself. The tunnels had been impassable. They had stuck it out for two days, helping to clear the rubble. But although they had finally made it into the Rail Nexus, the tunnel where Tertius and Septima had been trapped was still too weak, too likely to collapse. They had been forced to slip food through the tiny hole in the rubble just to keep the young Naruvians alive. Mark had raged at the Conductor, insisting that there had to be another way; that they couldn't leave Laud and Lily in the outer caverns, all alone. And through it all, the Conductor had been begging them to return to Agora, saying that the Oracle could hear shouts and screams coming from the world above.

“You know that we'd have gone after them if we could have, no matter what the Conductor said,” Mark said, trying to sound reassuring. “But we weren't doing any good down there, not anymore. And Laud
will
find her.”

“I don't mean that,” Ben replied. She turned to face him. In the strange, soft light, her face looked washed out, paler than she really was. She bit her lip. “I trust Laud. Once he's set his mind to something, he'll finish it. No, I mean, should we have let Lily visit the Oracle?”

Mark wanted to answer immediately, to say that of course they should. That Lily would never have delayed for a second.

Except …

“You think we could have made her wait?” he asked.

Benedicta sighed, leaning back against the rail at the edge of the platform.

“Maybe we should have tried,” she said. “Maybe if we'd had time to talk to her, to prepare her, she wouldn't have run off, the Oracle wouldn't have gotten upset … those workers wouldn't have died, Mark.”

Mark frowned, remembering the Conductor berating them as they surveyed the wreckage of the Rail Nexus, shouting that Lily had poisoned the Canticle, and disrupted the Oracle's control. Without the Oracle to provide order and harmony, he said, the Canticle's echoes had spiraled out of control, until their wild resonance had shaken the caverns to their core—with fatal results.

At first, Mark hadn't believed the Conductor. Surely, he thought, Lily's confrontation with the Oracle couldn't have been responsible for all this death? But as they had picked their way across the devastation, Mark had heard a sound he had hoped to never hear again. Behind the ominous rumbling that continued in the rock overhead, he could just make out a familiar mocking, eerie whisper.

He should have recognized the Nightmare in the Oracle's throne room, where its dark suggestions had hung in the air. He should have felt it lurking in the Mausoleum as Lily greeted them. But he had been too swept up by all the other revelations, too happy seeing Lily again after so long, he hadn't understood the danger they were in.

Then again, apparently neither had Lily. The Conductor had explained that the Nightmare could hide within the Canticle, feeding on unguarded minds. Suddenly, the strange behavior of the Naruvians made sense—always flitting from one thought to another, never letting themselves feel true emotion, lest it overpower them. An unhappy way to live, but it had kept them safe. Until Lily had come.

After that, it had been hard to argue with the Conductor. And no matter how hard Mark and Ben had worked to clear the rubble, the Conductor had never wavered in his opinion. The Oracle wanted them to return to Agora, and the best thing they could possibly do now was to follow her wishes, before she lost control again.

“It isn't what I'd hoped for,” Mark admitted. “Slinking home and hoping for the best. That isn't what Lily would do. We've beaten the Nightmare before. Together, we could do it again…”

“But we aren't all together, are we?” Ben said softly, looking out at the rocky walls as they slipped slowly by. “I don't think we ever were, this time. We were all so desperate to rescue Lily, to bring the truth to light, we didn't really pay attention to her…”

Mark fiddled with his cuffs, noticing for the first time how badly frayed they were.

“We didn't have a choice, Ben,” he began. “Lily wasn't going to leave without finding out the truth, and we needed to bring her home as quickly as possible.” He sunk his head into his chest, trying to mask a growing feeling of guilt. “It's not just for our sake, you know that,” he said, hastily. “Agora needs her. It needs someone other than Crede to lead the ordinary people—to stop the fighting in the streets, to stand up to Snutworth. The Oracle was right about one thing: Lily knows how to light a fire, and make everyone see the world a different way.” Mark set his jaw, feeling so very tired. “We need her.”