Tunnels

30

One two, one two, one, one, one two.

As they jogged along, Will had settled into the easy rhythm he frequently used for the more strenuous bouts of digging back in Highfield. The tunnels were dry and silent; there wasn't the slightest sign that anything lived down here. And as their feet tramped over the sandy floors, not once did Will catch sight of any airborne dust or motes behind them in the beam of his light orb. It was as if their passage had gone completely unnoticed.

But it wasn't long before he began to spot the faintest scintillations before his eyes, smears of light that materialized and then, just as abruptly, vanished from his field of vision. He watched, fascinated, until it dawned on him that something was not quite right. At the same time a dull ache gripped his chest, and a clammy sweat broke out on his temples.

One two, one two, one… one… one two…

He slowed his pace, feeling the resistance as he drew breath. It was peculiar; he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong. At first he thought it was simply exhaustion, but no, it was more than that. It was as if the air, having lain undisturbed in these deep tunnels, maybe ever since prehistoric times, was behaving like a sluggish fluid.

One two, one…

Will came to an abrupt halt, loosening his collar and massaging his shoulders under the straps of his backpack. He had an almost irresistible urge to throw the weight off his back — it made him feel constricted and uneasy. And the walls of the passage bothered him — they were too close, they were smothering him. He backed away into the middle of the tunnel, where he leaned on his knees and took in several gulps of air. After a while, he felt a little better and forced himself to straighten up.

"What's wrong?" Cal asked, eyeing him worriedly through the glass slit of his mask.

"Nothing," Will replied as he fumbled in his pocket for the map. He didn't want to admit to any weakness, certainly not to his brother. "I… I just need to check our position."

He'd taken it upon himself to navigate their route through the many twists and turns, aware that a single mistake would lose them in this subterranean maze of such extraordinary complexity. He remembered how Tam had referred to it as the «Labyrinth» and likened it to pumice stone with innumerable interlocking pores worming randomly through it. At the time, Will hadn't thought much about his uncle's words, but he now knew precisely what he'd meant. The sheer scale of the area was daunting, and although they had been making good time as they were moving rapidly through the passages, Will figured they had a long way yet to go. They were helped considerably by a gentle downward gradient, but this in itself caused him some consternation; he was only too aware that every foot they descended now would have to be climbed again before they reached the surface.

He glanced from the map to the walls. They had a pinkish hue to them, probably due to the presence of iron deposits, which could explain why his compass was worse than useless down here. The needle dithered lazily around the dial, never settling in the same position long enough to give any sort of reading.

As Will looked around him, he reflected that the passages could have been formed by gas trapped under a solidified plug of some kind, as it tried to escape through the still-molten volcanic rock. Yes, that could be the reason there weren't any vertical tunnels. Or possibly they'd been formed by water exploiting lines of weakness in the millennia after the rock cooled. I wonder what Dad would make of this, he thought before he could stop himself, his face falling as he realized that he'd probably never see his father again. Not now.

And try as he might, he couldn't stop remembering that last glimpse of Chester as he'd rolled helplessly across the floor, straight back into the clutches of the Styx. Will had let him down yet again…

And Rebecca! There it was, incontrovertible, he'd seen it with his own eyes. She was a Styx. Despite the fact that he felt so weak, Will's blood boiled. He wanted to laugh out loud as he thought back to how worried he'd been about her.

But there was no time to reflect now — if he and Cal were going to get through this alive, he had to make sure they didn't stray off course. He took one last glance at the map and refolded it before they resumed their journey.

One two, one two, one, one, one two.

As their feet cruched in the fine red sand, Will longed for a change, a landmark, anything to break the monotony, to confirm that they were still on the right track. He began to despair that they were ever going to reach the end. For all he knew, they could be going around in circles.

He was thrilled when they eventually came across what looked like a small headstone, with a flat face and a rounded top, set against the passage wall. With Cal looking on, he crouched down to brush the sand from its surface.

A sweep of his hand revealed a symbol carved into the pink rock about halfway down the face. It was comprised of three diverging lines, which fanned out like rising rays or the prongs of a trident. Below were two rows of angular lettering. The symbols were unfamiliar and made no sense to him at all.

"What's this? Some kind of marker or milestone?" Will looked up at his brother, who shrugged his shoulders unhelpfully.

Several hours later, the going had become slow and laborious. They came to fork after fork in the tunnel, and Will had to consult the map even more frequently. They'd already taken one wrong turn; luckily they hadn't gone too far before Will realized his mistake and they had painstakingly retraced their steps and found their way back to the correct path again. Once there, they had flopped onto the sandy floor, stopping just long enough to catch their breath. Although he was trying to fight it, Will felt unusually tired, as if he were running on empty. And when they resumed their journey, he felt weaker than ever.

Whatever state he was in, though, Will didn't want Cal to suspect anything was wrong. He knew they must keep going; they must keep ahead of the Styx; they had to get out. He turned to his brother beside him.

"So what does Tam do in this Eternal City?" he said, breathing heavily. "He was very cagey when I asked him about it."

"He searches for coins and stuff like that, gold and silver," Cal said, then added, "most of it from graves."

" Graves?"

Cal nodded. "In the burial grounds."

"So people really lived there?"

"A long time ago. He thinks that several races occupied it, one after the other, each building on top of the last. He says there are fortunes just waiting to be found."

"But who were these people?"

"Tam told me the Bruteans were the first, centuries ago. I think he said they were Trojans. They constructed it as a stronghold or something, while the Topsoil London was built above.:

"So the two cities were connected?"

Cal 's mask nodded ponderously. "In the beginning. Later the entrances were blocked up, and the stones marking them were lost… The Eternal City was just forgotten," he said, puffing noisily through the air filter. He looked nervously back up the tunnel, as if he'd heard something.

Will immediately followed his glance, but all he could see was the shadowy form of Bartleby as he loped impatiently from one side of the tunnel to the other. It was clear that he wanted to go faster than the two boys, and from time to time he would speed past them but then stop to sniff at a crevice or the ground up ahead, often becoming visibly agitated and letting out a low whine.

"At least the Styx will never find us in this place," Will said confidently.

"Don't count on it. They'll be following us, all right," Cal said. "And then there's still the Division in front of us."

"The what?»

"The Styx Division. They're sort of a… well… border guard," Cal said, searching for the right words. "They patrol the old city."

"What for? I thought it was empty."

"There's talk that they're rebuilding whole areas and patching up the cavern walls. It's said that the whole Colony might be moved there, and there's rumors of work parties of condemned prisoners, toiling like slaves. It's only rumors, though — no one knows for sure."

"Tam never mentioned anything about more Styx," Will didn't attempt to hide the alarm in his voice. "Bloody brilliant," he said angrily, kicking a rock in his path.

"Well, maybe he didn't think it would be a problem. We didn't exactly leave the Colony quietly, did we? Don't get too worried, though; it's a huge area to cover and there'll only be a handful of patrols."

"Oh, great! That's a real comfort!" Will replied as he imagined what might be in store for them ahead.

They wandered on for several hours, eventually scrabbling down a steep incline, their feet slipping and sliding in the red sand until they finally reached a level area. Will knew that if he'd been reading the map correctly they should be approaching the end of the Labyrinth. But the tunnel narrowed before them and appeared to end in a blind alley.

Fearing the worst, Will raced ahead, stooping as the roof lowered. To his relief, he found that there was a small passage to one side. He waited until Cal caught up, and they looked apprehensively at each other as Bartleby sniffed the air. Will hesitated, looking repeatedly from Tam's map to the opening and back again. Then he met Cal 's eyes and smiled broadly as he edged into the narrow passageway. It was bathed in a subdued green light.

"Careful," Cal warned.

But Will was already at the corner. He became aware of a familiar sound: the patter of falling water. He moved his head until just one eye was peering around the edge. He was struck dumb by what he glimpsed, and inched slowly into the open, into the bottle-green glow, to get a better view. From Tam's description, and the pictures his imagination had conjured up, he was expecting something out of the ordinary. But nothing could have prepared him for the sight that met his eyes.

"The Eternal City," he whispered to himself as he began to move down a huge escarpment. As he looked up, his wide eyes scrutinizing the roof of the immense domed space, water splashed onto his upturned face and made him flinch.

"Underground rain?" he muttered, immediately realizing how ridiculous that sounded. He blinked as it dripped into his eyes, stinging them.

"It's seepage from above," Cal said, coming to a halt behind him.

But Will wasn't listening. He was finding it hard to come to terms with the titanic volume of the cavern, so massive that its farthest reaches were hidden by fog and the mists of distance. The drizzle continued to fall in slow, languorous swathes as they set off again down the escarpment.

It was almost too much to take in. Basaltic columns, like windowless skyscrapers, arced down from the mammoth span of the roof into the center of the city. Others speared upward from the outlying ground in mind-bending curves, encasing the city with gigantic undulating buttresses. It dwarfed any of the Colony's caverns with its scale, and brought to Will's mind the image of a gargantuan heart, its chambers crisscrossed by huge heartstringlike columns.

He pocketed the light orb and instinctively sought the source of the emerald green glow that gave the scene a dreamlike quality. It was as though he were looking at a lost city in the depths of an ocean. He couldn't be sure, but the light seemed to be coming from the very walls themselves — so subtly that at first he thought they were simply reflecting it.

He crossed over to the side of the escarpment and examined the cavern wall more closely. It was covered in a wild growth of tendrils, dark and glistening with moisture. It was algae of some kind, made up of many trailing shoots and thickly layered, like ivy on an old wall. As he held up the palm of his hand, he could feel the warmth radiating from it and, yes, he could see that there was indeed a dim glow coming from the edges of the curled leaves.

"Bioluminescence," he said aloud.

"Mmmmmph?" came the vague response from under Cal's canvas hood, which was twitching absurdly from side to side as he kept watch for the Styx Division.

As he continued down the incline, Will switched his attention back to the cavern, focusing on the most wondrous sight of all, the city itself. Even from this distance his eyes hungrily took in the archways, impossible terraces, and curving stone stairways sweeping up into stone balconies. Columns, Doric and Corinthian, sprang up to support dizzying galleries and walkways. His intense excitement was tinged with a sadness that Chester wasn't seeing all this with him as he should rightly have been. And as for Will's father, it would have blown his mind! It was just too much for him to absorb all at once. In every direction Will looked there were the most fantastic structures: collosseums and ancient domed cathedrals in beautifully crafted stone.

Then, as he came to the bottom of the escarpment, the smell hit him. It had been deceptively gentle at first, like old pond water, but with each step they'd descended, the more pungent it had become. It was rancid, catching in Will's throat like a mouthful of bile. He cupped a hand over his nose and mouth and looked at Cal in desperation.

"This is just gross!" he said, gagging on the stench. "No wonder you need to wear one of those things!"

"I know," Cal said flatly, his expression hidden by the breathing mask as he pointed to the gully by the foot of the escarpment. "Come over here."

"What for?" Will asked as he joined his brother. He was astonished to see him thrust his hands into the molasses-like slurry that lay stagnating there. Cal lifted out two handfuls of the black algae and rubbed it over his mask and his clothes. Then he grabbed Bartleby by the scruff of the neck. The cat let out a low howl and tried to get away, but Cal streaked him from head to tail. As the filth dripped over his naked skin, Bartleby arched his back and trembled, looking at his master balefully.

"But the stink is worse that ever now! What the heck are you doing?" Will demanded, thinking his brother had taken leave of his senses.

"The Division uses stalker dogs — bloodhounds — around here. Any whiff of Colony on us and we're as good as dead. This slime will help cover our scent," he said, scooping up fresh handfuls of the brackish vegetation. "Your turn." Will braced himself as Cal doused the fetid weed over his hair, chest, and shoulders and then down each of his legs.

"How can you smell anything over this?" Will asked irately, looking at the oily patches on his clothes. The reek was overpowering. "Those dogs must have some sense of smell!" It was all he could do to stop himself from being sick.

"Oh, they do," Cal said as he shook his hands to rid them of the tendrils, then wiped them on his jacket. "We need to get out of sight."

Crossing one by one, they passed swiftly over a stretch of boggy ground and into the city. They went under a tall stone arch with two malevolent gargoyle faces glaring down contemptuously at them, and then into an alley with high walls on either side. The dimensions of the buildings, the gaping windows, arches, and doorways, were huge, as if they'd been built for incredibly tall beings. At Cal 's suggestion, they slipped through one of these openings, at the base of a square tower.

Now out of the green light, Will needed his orb to study the map. As he pulled it out from under his coat, it illuminated the room, a stone chamber with a high ceiling and several inches of water on the floor. Bartleby scampered into one corner and, finding a heap of something rotten, he investigated it briefly before lifting a leg over it.

"Hey," Cal said abruptly. "Just look at the walls."

They saw skulls — row upon row of carved death's heads covered the walls, all with toothy grins and hollow, shadowy eyes. As Will moved the orb, the shadows shifted and the skulls appeared to be turning to face them.

"My dad would've loved this. I bet this was a—"

"It's grisly," Cal interrupted, shivering.

"These people were pretty spooky, weren't they?" Will said, unable to suppress a wide grin.

"The ancestors of the Styx."

"What?" Will looked at him questioningly.

"Their forebears. People believe a group escaped from this city at the time of the Plague."

"Where to?"

"Topsoil," Cal replied. "They formed some sort of secret society there. It's said that the Styx gave Sir Gabriel the idea for the Colony."

Will didn't have the chance to question Cal any further because suddenly Bartleby's ears pricked up and his unblinking eyes fixed on the doorway. Although neither of the boys had heard anything, Cal became agitated.

"Come on, quick, check the map, Will."

They left the chamber, cautiously picking their way through the ancient streets. It gave Will an opportunity to inspect the buildings at close range. Everywhere around them the stone was decorated with carvings and inscriptions. And he saw the decay; the masonry was crumbling and fractured. It cried out with abandonment and neglect. Yet the buildings still sat proudly in all their magnificence — they had an aura of immense power to them. Power, and something else — an ancient and decadent menace. Will was relieved that the city's inhabitants weren't still in residence.

As they jogged down lanes of ancient stone, their boots scattered the murky water on the ground and churned up the algae, leaving faintly glowing blotches in their wake like luminous stepping stones. Bartleby was agitated by the water and pranced through it with the precision of a performing pony, trying not to splash himself.

Crossing a narrow stone bridge, Will stopped briefly and looked over the eroded marble balustrade at the slow-moving river below. Slick and greasy, it snaked lazily through the city, crossed here and there with other small bridges, its waters lapping turgidly against the massive sections of masonry that formed its banks. On these, classical statues stood watch like water sentinels; old men with wavy hair and impossibly long beards, and women in flowing gowns, held out shells and orbs — or just the broken stumps of their arms — toward the water, as if offering up sacrifices to gods that no longer existed.

They came to a large square surrounded by towering buildings but held back from entering it, taking refuge behind a low parapet.

"What is that?" Will whispered. In the middle of the square was a raised platform supported by an array of thick columns. On top of the platform were human forms: chalky statues in twisted postures of frozen agony, some with their features obliterated and others with limbs missing. Rusting chains wound around the contorted figures and the posts next to them. It looked like a sculpture of some long-forgotten atrocity.

"The Prisoners' Platform. That's where they were punished."

"Gruesome statues," Will said, unable to take his eyes off it.

"They're not statues, they're real people. Tam said the bodies have been calcified."

"No!" Will said, staring even more intently at the figures and wishing he had time to document the scene.

"Shhhh," Cal warned. He grabbed Bartleby and pulled him to his chest. The cat kicked out, but Cal wouldn't let go.

Will looked at him inquiringly.

"Get down," Cal whispered. Ducking behind the parapet, he cupped his hand over the cat's eyes and clasped the animal even more tightly.

As he followed suit, Will caught sight of them. At the far end of the square, as silent as ghosts, four figures appeared to float on the surface of the waterlogged ground. They wore breathing masks over their mouths, and goggles with large, circular eyepieces, making them appear like nightmarish man-insects. Will could tell from their outlines that they were Styx. They wore leather skullcaps and long coats. Not the lustrous black ones Will had seen in the Colony; these were matte, and camouflaged with streaky green and gray blocks of dark and light hues.

With easy military efficiency, they were advancing in a line, as one controlled an immense dog straining on a leash. Vapor was blowing from the muzzle of the inconceivably large and ferocious animal — it was unlike any dog Will had ever seen before.

The boys cowered behind the parapet, acutely aware that they had nowhere to run if the Styx came their way. The hoarse panting and snorting of the dog was growing louder — Will and Cal looked at each other, both thinking that at any moment the Styx would appear from around the edge of the parapet. They angled their heads, straining to catch the least sound of the Styx approaching, but there was only the hushed gurgle of running water and the unbroken patter of cavern rain.

Will's and Cal's eyes met. All the signs were that the Styx had gone, but what should they do? Had the patrol moved on or was it lying in ambush for them? They waited and, after what seemed like an age, Will tapped his brother on the arm and pointed upward, indicating he was going to take a look.

Cal shook his head violently, his eyes flaring with alarm behind the half-fogged glass; they pleaded with Will to stay put. But Will ignored him and raised his head a fraction over the parapet. The Styx had vanished. He gave the thumbs-up, and Cal rose slowly to see for himself. Satisfied the patrol had moved on, Cal let go of Bartleby and he sprang away, shaking himself down and then glowering resentfully at both of them.

They skirted cautiously around the side of the square and chose a lane in the opposite direction from the one they assumed the Styx had taken. Will was feeling increasingly tired, and it was getting harder for him to catch his breath. His lungs were rattling like an asthmatic's, and a dull ache gripped his chest and rib cage. He summoned up all his energy, and they darted from shadow to shadow until the buildings ran out and the cavern wall was in front of them. They ran alongside it for several minutes until they came to a huge stone staircase cut into the rock.

"That was too close by half," Will panted, glancing behind them.

"You can say that again," Cal agreed, then peered at the staircase. "Is this the one?"

"I think so." Will shrugged. At that point, he didn’t much care; he just wanted to put as much distance between them and the Styx as possible.

The base of the stairs was badly damaged by a massive pillar that had crashed down and shattered it, and at first the boys were forced to clamber up several broken sections. Once they had reached the steps, it wasn't much better; they were slick with black weed, and the boys nearly lost their footing more than once.

They climbed higher and higher up the stairway and, forgetting for the moment how ill he felt, Will stopped to take in the view from above. Through the haze, he caught sight of a building topped with a huge dome.

"That's the spitting image of St. Paul 's Cathedral in London," he puffed, getting his breath back as he peered at the magnificent domed roof in the distance. "I'd love to have a closer look," he added.

"You've got to be kidding," Cal replied sharply.

As they continued, the stairs eventually disappeared into a jagged arch in the rock wall. Will turned for a last glance at the emerald strangeness of the Eternal City, but as he did so he slipped from the edge of the step, tottering forward onto the one below. For a heartbeat he faced the sheer drop in front of him and cried out, thinking he was about to plunge down it. He clutched frantically at the black tendrils covering the wall. Handful after handful broke off, then he finally managed to get a grip and steady himself again.

"Hey, are you all right?" Cal said, now at his side. When Will didn't answer him, he became increasingly concerned. "What's the matter?"

"I… I just feel so dizzy," Will admitted in a wheezing voice. He was panting in small, shallow breaths — it was as if he were breathing through a clogged straw. He climbed a few steps but came to a standstill again as he broke out into a racking cough. He thought the coughing fit was never going to stop. Doubled over, Will hacked away and then spat. He clutched his forehead, soaked with rain and clammy with an unhealthily cold sweat, and knew there was no way he could hide it from his brother any longer.

"I need to rest," he said hoarsely, using Cal for support as the coughing subsided.

"Not now," Cal said urgently, "and not here," Grabbing Will's arm, he helped him through the archway and into the gloomy stairway beyond.

31

There is a point at which the body is spent, when the muscles and sinews have nothing left to give, when all that remains is a person's mettle, his sheer single-mindedness.

Will had reached that point. His body felt drained and worthless, but still he slogged on, driven by the responsibility he felt toward his brother and his duty to get him to safety. At the same time, gnawing away at him was the unbearable guilt that he'd let Chester down, let him fall into the Colonists' hands for a second time.

I'm useless, completely useless. The words ran in a loop through Will's mind, over and over again. But neither he nor his brother spoke as they climbed, grinding their way up the never-ending spiral staircase. At the very limits of his endurance, Will pushed himself on, step after painful step, flight after flight, his thighs burning as much as his lungs. Slipping and sliding on water-drenched stone treads and the stringy weeds that clung to them, he fought to suppress the dread realization that they still had far to go.

"I’d like to stop now," he heard Cal pant.

"Can't… don't think… I'd ever… get going… again," Will grunted in time with his plodding steps.

The excruciating hours crawled by, until he had lost track of how long they'd been climbing, and nothing in the world existed or mattered to him except the grueling notion that he had to take the next step, and the next, and so on… and just when Will thought he'd reached his limits and that he couldn't go any farther, he felt the faintest of breezes on his face. He knew instinctively it was untainted air. He stopped and sucked at the freshness, hoping to lift the leaden weight from his chest and relieve the interminable rattle in his lungs.

"Don't need it," he said, pointing at Cal 's mask. Cal removed it from his head and tucked it in his belt, the sweat running down his face in rivulets and his eyes rimmed with red.

"Phew," he exhaled. "Hot under that thing."

They resumed the climb, and it wasn't long before the steps ended and they entered a sequence of narrow passages. Every so often they were forced to scramble up rusted iron ladders, their hands turning orange as they tested each precarious rung.

Eventually they reached a steeply angled shaft no more than three feet wide. They hauled themselves up its pockmarked surface using the thick, knotted rope they discovered hanging there (Cal was certain his uncle Tam had rigged it up). Hand over hand they went, their feet finding purchase in the shallow cracks and fault lines as they climbed. The incline became steeper, and they had a heck of a job to scrabble over the remaining stretch of slime-covered stone, but despite losing their footing a few times, they finally reached the top, hauling themselves up into a circular chamber. Here there was a small vent in the floor. Leaning into it, Will could see the remnants of an iron grating, long since rusted away.

"What's down there?" Cal panted.

"Nothing, can't see a darn thing," Will said despondently, squatting down to rest on his haunches. He brushed the sweat from his face with a raw hand. "I suppose we do what Tam said. We climb down."

Cal looked behind and then to his brother, nodding. For several minutes neither of them made a move, immobilized with fatigue.

"Well, we can't stay here forever," Will sighed and swung his legs into the vent and, with his back pressed against one side and feet hard against the other, he began to see himself down.

"What about the cat?" Will shouted after he had gone a short distance. "Is Bartleby going to be able to cope with this?"

"Don't worry about him," Cal said with a smile. "Anything we can do—"

Will never heard the rest of Cal 's sentence. He slipped. The sides of the vent shot by, and he landed with a large splash — he was submerged in an icy coldness. He thrashed out with this arms, then his feet found the bottom, and he stood up and blew out a mouthful of freezing liquid. He found he was chest-deep in water, and after he'd wiped it out of his eyes and pushed back his hair, he looked around. He couldn't be certain, but there seemed to be a dim light in the distance.

He heard Cal 's frantic shouts from above. "Will! Will! Are you all right?"

"Just had a quick dip!" Will shouted, laughing weakly. "Stay there, I'm going to check something out." His exhaustion and discomfort were ignored for the moment as he stared at the faint glow, trying to make out the vaguest detail of what lay ahead.

Soaked to the skin, he clambered out of the pool and, stooping under the low roof, crept slowly toward the light. After a couple of hundred yards, he could clearly see the circular mouth of the tunnel and, with his heart racing, he sped toward it. Dropping more than three feet off a ledge he'd failed to notice, he landed roughly, finding himself under a jetty of some kind. Through a forest of heavy wooden stanchions, draped with weeds, he could see the dappled reflections of light on water.

Gravel crunched underfoot as he walked into the open. He felt the invigorating chill of the wind on his face. He breathed deeply, drawing the fresh air into his aching lungs. It was such sweetness. Slowly he took stock of the surroundings.

Night. Lights reflected off a river in front of him. It was a wide river. A two tiered pleasure boat chugged past — bright flashes of color pulsed from its two decks as indistinct dance music throbbed over the water. Then he saw the bridges on either side of him and, in the distance, the floodlit dome of St. Paul 's. The St. Paul 's he knew. A red double-decker bus crossed the bridge closest to him. This wasn't any old river. He sat down on the bank with surprise and relief.

It was the Thames.

He lay back on the bank and closed his eyes, listening to the droning hubbub of traffic. He tried to remember the names of the bridges, but he didn't really care — he'd gotten out, he'd escaped, and nothing else mattered. He'd made it. He was home. Back in his own world.

"The sky," Cal said with awe in his voice. "So that's what it's like." Will opened his eyes to see his brother craning his neck this way and that as he stared at the stray wisps of cloud caught in the amber radiation of the streetlights. Although Cal was sopping from his immersion in the pool, he was smiling broadly, but then he wrinkled up his nose. "Phew, what's that?" he asked loudly.

"What do you mean?" Will said.

"All those smells!"

Will propped himself up on one elbow and sniffed. "What smells?"

"Food… all sorts of food… and…" Cal grimaced. "sewage — lots of it — and chemicals…"

As Will sniffed the air, thinking again how fresh it was, it occurred to him that he hadn't once considered what they were going to do next. Where were they going to go? He'd been so intent on escaping, he hadn't given anything beyond it a second thought. He stood up and examined his sodden, filthy Colonists' clothes and those of his brother, and the unfeasibly large cat that was now nosing around the bank like a pig searching for truffles. A brisk winter wind was picking up, and he shivered violently, his teeth starting to chatter. It struck him that neither his brother nor Bartleby had experienced the relative extremes of Topsoil weather in their sheltered, subterranean lives. He had to get them moving. And quickly. But he didn't have any money on him — not a penny.

"We're going to have to walk home."

"Fine," Cal replied unquestioningly, his head back as he stared at the stars, losing himself in the canopy of the sky. "At last I've seen them," he whispered to himself.

A helicopter drifted across the horizon.

"Why's that one moving?" he asked.

Will felt too tired to explain. "They do that," he said flatly.

They set off, keeping close to the bank so as not to be noticed, and almost immediately came upon a set of steps leading up to the walkway above. It was next to a bridge. Will knew then where they were — it was Blackfriars Bridge.

A gate blocked the top of the steps, so they hastily clambered over the broad wall beside it to reach the walkway. Dripping water on the pavement and freezing in the night air, they looked around them. Will was seized by the dreadful thought that even here the Styx might have spies watching out for them. After seeing one of the Clarke brothers in the Colony, he felt that he couldn't trust anybody, and he regarded the few people in the immediate area with mounting suspicion. But nobody was close., with the exception of a young couple walking hand in hand. They strolled past, so involved with each other that they didn't seem to pay the boys or their huge cat the least bit of attention.

With Will taking the lead, they climbed the steps to the bridge itself. Arriving at the top, Will saw that the IMAX cinema was to their right. He immediately knew they didn't want to be on that side of the river. To him, London was a mosaic of place, each familiar to him from the museum visits with his father or school expeditions. The rest, the interconnecting areas, were a complete mystery to him. There was only one thing to do: trust in his sense of direction and try to head north.

As they turned left and quickly traversed the bridge, Will spotted a sign to King's Cross and knew instantly that they were heading the right way. Traffic passed them as they arrived at the end of the bridge, and Will paused to look at Cal and the cat under the glow of a streetlight. Talk about three suspicious-looking lost souls — they stuck out a mile. Although it was dark, Will was painfully aware that a pair of young boys soaked to the skin and wandering the streets of London at this late hour, with or without a giant cat, were likely to attract attention, and the last thing he needed now was to be picked up by the police. He made an attempt at concocting a story, rehearsing it in his mind, just in case it happened.

'ello, 'ello, 'ello, the pair of fictitious policemen said. What 'ave we 'ere, then?

Uh… just out walking the… the… Will's imagined response came to a faltering stop. No, that wouldn't do, he had to be better prepared than that. He started again: Good evening, officers. We're just taking the neighbor's pet for a walk.

The first policeman leaned in to peer curiously at Bartleby, his eyes narrowing as he grimaced in open distaste. Looks dangerous to me, son. Shouldn't it be on a leash?

What is it, exactly? the second imaginary policeman chimed in.

It's a…, Will began. What could he say? Ah yes… It's very rare… a very rare hybrid, a cross between a dog and a cat called a… a Dat, Will informed them helpfully.

Or is it a Cog, perhaps? the second policeman suggested drily, the glint in his eye telling Will he wasn't buying a word of it.

Whatever it is, it's bloody ugly, his partner said.

Shhh! You'll hurt his feelings. Suddenly, Will realized he was wasting his time with all of this. The reality was that the policemen would simply ask for their names and addresses, then radio in to double-check them. And they'd probably be found out even if they tried to give false ones. So that would be it. They'd be taken back to the station and held there. Will suspected he was probably wanted for abducting Chester, or something equally ridiculous, and would likely as not end up in a juvenile detention center. As for Cal, he would be a real conundrum — of course, there wouldn't be a record of him anywhere, no Topsoil identity whatsoever. No, they'd have to avoid the police at all costs.

Perversely, as he contemplated the future, there was a part of him that almost wanted them to be stopped. It would remove the dreadful burden that at the moment lay squarely on his shoulders; he glanced at the cowed figure of his brother. Cal was a stranger, a freak in this cold and inhospitable place, and Will had no idea how he was going to protect him.

But Will knew if he turned himself in to the authorities and tried to get them to investigate the Colony — that's if they believed a runaway teenager in the first place — he could be risking countless lives, his family's lives. Who knew how it would end? He shuddered at the thought of the Discovery, as Grandma Macaulay had called it, and tried to imagine her being led out into the daylight after her long subterranean life. He couldn't do that to her — couldn't even bear the thought of it. It was too big a decision for him to take alone, and he felt so terribly alone and isolated.

He pulled his damp jacket around himself and hustled Cal and Bartleby down into the underpass at the end of the bridge.

"It reeks of pee down here," his brother commeted. "Do all Topsoilers mark their territories?" He turned to Will inquiringly.

"Uh, no… not usually. But this is London."

As they emerged from the underpass and back onto the pavement, Cal seemed confused by the traffic, looking this way and that. Coming to the main road, they stopped at the curb. Will gripped his brother's sleeve with one hand and the cat's hairless scruff with the other. Crossing when there was a lull, they made it to the traffic island. He could see people peering curiously at them from passing cars, and a white van slowed down almost to a halt right beside them, the driver talking excitedly into his cell phone. To Will's relief, it sped off again. They crossed the remaining two lanes and, after a short distance, Will steered them into a dimly lit side street. His brother stood with one hand on the brick wall beside him — he looked completely disoriented, like a blind man in unfamiliar surroundings.

"Foul air!" he said vehemently.

"It's only car fumes," Will replied as he untied the thick string from his light orb and fashioned a slipknot leash for the cat, who didn't seem to mind one bit.

"It smells wrong. It must be against the laws," Cal said with complete conviction.

"Fraid not," Will answered as he led them down the street. He would have to stay off the main roads and keep to the backstreets as far as possible, even though it would make their journey even more difficult and circuitous.

And so the long march north began. On their way out of central London they only saw a single police car, but Will was able to usher them around a corner in the nick of time.

"Are they like Styx?" Cal asked.

"Not quite," Will replied.

With the cat on one side and Cal twitching nervously on the other, they trudged along. From time to time his brother would stop dead in his tracks, as if invisible doors were being slammed in his face.

"What is it?" Will asked on one of these occasions when his brother refused to move.

"It's like… anger… and fear," Cal said in a strained voice as he glanced nervously up at the windows over a storefront. "It's so strong. I don't like it."

"I can't see anything," Will said as he failed to make out what was troubling his brother. They were just ordinary windows, a sliver of light showing between the curtains in one of them. "It's nothing, you're imagining it."

"No, I'm not. I can smell it," Cal said emphatically, "and it's getting stronger. I want to go."

After several miles of tortuous ducking and diving, they came to the brow of a hill, at the bottom of which was a busy main road with six lanes of speeding traffic.

"I recognize this — it's not far now. Maybe a couple of miles, that's all," Will said with relief.

"I'm not going near it. I can't — not with that stench. It'll kill us," Cal said, backing away from Will.

"C'mon, don't be stupid," Will said. He was just too tired for any nonsense, and his frustration now turned to anger. "We're so close."

"No," Cal said, digging in his heels. "I'm staying right here!"

Will tried to pull the boy's arm, but he yanked it away. Will had been fighting his exhaustion for miles and was still struggling to breathe; he didn't need this. All of a sudden, it became too much for him. He thought he was actually going to break down and cry. It just wasn't fair. He pictured the house and his welcoming clean bed. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Even as he was walking, his body kept going loose, as if he were dropping through a hole into a place where everything was so comforting and warm. Then he would yank himself out of it, back to wakefulness, and urge himself on again.

"Fine!" Will spat. "Suit yourself!" He set off down the hill, tugging Bartleby by the leash.

As he reached the road, Will heard his brother's voice over the din of the traffic.

"Will!" he yelled. "Wait for me! I'm sorry!"

Cal came hurtling down the hill — Will could see that he was genuinely terrified. He kept jerking his head to look around him, as if he were about to be attacked by some imagined assassin.

They crossed the road at the lights, but Cal insisted on pressing his hand over his mouth until they were a good distance from it. "I can't take this," he said glumly. "I liked the idea of cars when I was in the Colony… but the brochures didn't say anything about the way they smell."

"Got a light?"

Startled by the voice, they whirled around. They'd stopped for a minute's rest and, as if he had appeared from nowhere, a man was standing very close behind them, a lopsided grin on his face. He wasn't terribly tall, but he was well dressed in a tightly fitting dark blue suit and a shirt and tie. He had long black hair, which he kept stroking back at the temples and tucking behind his ears, as if it was bothering him. "Left mine at home," he continued, his voice deep and rich.

"Don't smoke, sorry," Will replied, quickly edging away. There was something forced and sleazy in the man's smile, and alarm bells were ringing in Will's head.

"You boys all right? You look beat. I've got a place you can warm up. Not far from here," the man said ingratiatingly. "Bring your doggy, too, of course." He held out a hand toward Cal, and Will saw that the fingers were stained with nicotine and the fingernails were black with filth.

"Can we really?" Cal said, returning the man's smile.

"No… very kind of you, but…," Will interrupted, glaring at his brother but failing to get his attention. The man took a step toward Cal and addressed him, completely ignoring Will, as if he wasn't there.

"Something hot to eat, too?" he offered.

Cal was at the point of replying when Will spoke.

"Must go, our parents are waiting just around the corner. Come on, Cal," he said, a note of urgency creeping into his voice. Cal looked perplexedly at Will, who shook his head, frowning. Realizing that something wasn't quite right, Cal fell into step beside his brother.

"Shame. Maybe next time?" the man said, his eyes still locked on Cal. He made no move to follow them, but pulled a lighter from his jacket pocket and lit a cigarette. "Be seeing you!" he called after them.

"Don't you look back," Will hissed through his teeth as he walked rapidly away with Cal in tow. "Don't you dare look back."

An hour later they entered Highfield. Will avoided Main Street in case he was recognized, taking the back alleys and side roads until they turned onto Broadlands Avenue.

There it was. The house, completely dark, with a real estate agent's sign in the front yard. Will led them around the side and under the carport into the back garden. He kicked over a brick where the spare back-door key had always been hidden and muttered a muted prayer of thanks when he saw it was still there. He unlocked the door, and they took a few wary paces into the dark hallway.

"Colonists!" Cal said right away, recoiling as he continued to sniff the air. "They've been here… and not long ago."

"For heaven's sake." It merely smelled a little fusty and unoccupied to Will, but he couldn't be bothered to argue. Not wanting to alert the neighbors, he left the lights off and used his orb to check each room, while Cal remained in the hall, his senses working overtime.

"There's nothing… no one here at all. Satisfied?" Will said as he returned downstairs. With some consternation, his brother edged farther into the house with Bartleby at his heels, and Will shut and locked the door behind them. He shepherded them into the living room and, making sure the curtains were tightly closed, turned on the television. Then he went into the kitchen.

The fridge was completely bare except for a tub of margarine and an old tomato, which was green and shrunken. For a moment, Will stared uncomprehendingly at the bare shelves. To him this was unprecedented, confirming just how far things had gone. He sighed as he shut the door and spotted a scrap of lined paper taped to it. It was in Rebecca's precise hand; one of her shopping lists.

Rebecca! The fury suddenly rose in him. The thought of that imposter masquerading as his sister for all those years made him rigid with anger. She had changed everything. Now he couldn't even think back to the comfortable and predictable life he'd been leading before his father went missing, because she had been there, watching and spying. Her very presence tainted all his memories. Hers was the worst kind of betrayal — she was a Judas sent by the Styx.

"Evil!" he shouted, tearing off the list, crumpling it up, and slinging it to the floor.

AS it came to rest on the pristine linoleum that Rebecca had mopped week in and week out with mind-numbing regularity, Will looked at the stopped clock on the wall and sighed. He shuffled over to the sink and filled glasses with water for himself and Cal, and a bowl for Bartleby, then returned to the living room. Cal and the cat were already curled up asleep on the sofa. Cal with his head resting drowsily on his arm. He could see that they were both shivering, so he grabbed a couple of blankets from the beds upstairs and draped them over their slumbering forms. The house didn't have its central heating on and it was cold, but not that cold. He'd been right in thinking that they just weren’t used to these lower temperatures, and made a mental note to sort out some warm clothes for them in the morning.

Will drank the water quickly and climbed into his mother's chair, wrapping himself in her afghan. His eyes barely registered the death-defying snowboarding stunts on the television as he curled up, precisely as his mother had done for so many years, and fell into the deepest of sleeps.

32

Tam stood silent and defiant. He was determined not to show any sign of his trepidation as he and Mr. Jerome faced the long table, their hands clenched behind their backs as if standing at attention.

Behind the table of highly polished oak sat the Panoply. These were the most senior and powerful members of the Styx Council. At either end of the table sat a few high-ranking Colonists: representatives from the Board of the Governors, men that Mr. Jerome had known all his life, men that were his friends. He quaked with shame as he felt the disgrace wash over him, and he couldn't bring himself to look at them. He'd never thought it would come to this.

Tam was less intimidated; he'd been carpeted before and always managed to get off by the skin of his teeth. Although these allegations were serious, he knew his alibi had passed their scrutiny. Imago and his men had made sure of that. Tam watched as the Crawfly conferred with a fellow Styx and then leaned back to speak to the Styx child who stood half hidden behind the high back of his chair.l Now that was irregular. Their children were usually kept well out of sight and far away from the Colony; the newborn were never seen, while the older offspring, it was said, were closeted away with their with their masters in the rarefied atmosphere of the private schools. He'd never heard of them accompanying their elders in public, let alone being present at meetings such as these.

Tam's thoughts were interrupted as a scratchy outburst of intense debate ran back and forth through the Panoply. Whispers rippled from one end to the other as skinny hands communicated in a series of harsh gestures. Tam glanced quickly at Mr. Jerome, whose head hung low. He was quietly mumbling a prayer as sweat coursed from his temples. His face was puffy and his skin an unhealthy pink. All this was taking its toll on him.

The commotion abruptly ceased amid nods and staccato words of agreement, and the Styx settled back in their seats, a chilling silence descending over the room. Tam readied himself. A pronouncement was about to be delivered.

"Mr. Jerome," the Styx to the left of the Crawfly intoned. "After due consideration and a full and proper investigation" — he fixed his beady pupils on the quivering man — "we will allow you to step down."

Another Styx promptly took over. "It is felt that the injustices brought upon you from specific of your family members, past and present, are unjust and unfortunate. Your honesty is not in question, and your reputation has not been tarnished. Unless you would like to speak for the record, you are unconditionally discharged."

Mr. Jerome bowed dolefully and backed away from the table. Tam heard his boots scuffing on the flagstones but dared not turn to watch him leave. Instead his gaze flickered to the ceiling of the stone hall, then to the ancient wall hangings behind the Panoply, alighting on one depicting the Founding Fathers digging a perfectly round tunnel in the side of a verdant hill.

He knew that all eyes now rested on him.

Another Styx spoke. Tam immediately recognized the Crawfly's voice and was obliged to face his avowed enemy. He's loving every minute of this, Tam thought.

"Macaulay. You are a different kettle of fish. Though not yet proven, we believe that you did aid and abet your nephews, Seth and Caleb Jerome, in their foiled attempt to liberate the Topsoiler Chester Rawls and then to escape to the Eternal City," said the Crawfly with evident relish.

A second Styx continued. "The Panoply has recorded your plea of not guilty and your continuing protestations." With a single disapproving shake of his head he fell silent for a moment. "We have reviewed the evidence submitted in your defense, but at this time we are unable to reach a resolution. Accordingly we have decreed that the investigation will remain open, and that you are to be held on remand and your privileges revoked until further notice. Do you understand?"

Tam nodded somberly.

"We said, do you understand?" snapped the Styx child, stepping forward.

An evil grin flicked across Rebecca's face as her icy glare drilled into Tam. There was a stir of hushed astonishment from the Colonists that the minor child had dared to speak, but not the smallest indication from the Styx that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.

To say Tam was staggered would be a rank understatement. Was he really supposed to respond to this mere child? When he didn't answer right away, she repeated the question, her hard little voice as sharp as a whip crack.

"WE SAID, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

"I do, Tam muttered, "only too well."

Of course, it wasn't a final ruling by any means, but it meant he would live in limbo until they decided either that he was cleared or… well… the alternative was too horrifying to think about.

As a surly Colonist officer escorted him away, Tam couldn't help but notice the smarmy look of self-congratulation that passed between Rebecca and the Crawfly.

Will, I'll be blowed! Tam thought. It's his daughter!

Aroused from his sleep by the booming sound of the television, Will sat up in the armchair with a start. He automatically groped for the remote control and clicked down the volume a couple of notches; it was only when he looked around that he fully realized where he was and remembered how he'd gotten there. He was home, and in a room he knew so well. Although he was surrounded by uncertainty about what he was going to do next, for the first time in a long time he felt that he had a measure of control over his destiny, and it felt good.

He flexed his stiff limbs and took several deep breaths, coughing sharply. Despite the fact that he was ravenous, he felt a little better than he had the day before; the sleep had done him some good. He scratched, then tugged vaguely at his matted hair, its usual whiteness discolored with dirt. Clambering out of the chair, he stumbled over to the curtains and parted them a couple of inches to let the morning sun into the room. Real light. It was such a welcome sight that he pulled them wider.

"Too bright!" Cal screeched repeatedly, burying his face in a cushion. Bartleby, roused by Cal 's cries, flicked his eyes open. He immediately shied away from the glare, his long legs propelling him backward until he tumbled off the rear of the sofa. There he remained, hiding from the light and making noises somewhere between hisses and low meows.

"Oh, yikes, I'm sorry," Will stuttered, kicking himself as he hurriedly yanked the curtains shut again. "I completely forgot."

He helped his brother into a sitting position. He was moaning quietly behind the cushion, and Will could see that it was already soaked with tears. He wondered if Cal's and Bartleby's eyes would ever adjust to natural light. It was just one more problem Will had to contend with.

"That was so stupid of me," he said helplessly. "I'll… um… I'll find some sunglasses for you."

He began to search through a chest of drawers in his parents' room, only to find that it had been emptied. As he was checking the last drawer, he picked out a little bag of lavender languishing on the cheap Christmas gift wrap that his mother had used as a paper liner and held it up to catch the familiar scent. He closed his eyes as the smell conjured up a vivid picture of her. Wherever they'd sent her to recuperate, she'd be lording it over the other patients by now. He was willing to bet she'd commandeered the best chair in the television room and had cajoled someone into bringing her regular cups of tea. He smiled. In a way, she was probably happier now than she'd been for years. And maybe a little safer, too, if the Styx decided to pay a visit.

For no reason in particular, as he rummaged through a bedside cupboard, he thought of his real mother. He wondered where she was right at that very moment, if indeed she was still alive at all. The only person in the long history of the Colony ever to evade the Styx and survive. He set his jaw with a determined look as he caught his reflection in a mirror. Well, now there were going to be two more Jeromes with that distinction.

On a high shelf in his mother's closet he found what he was looking for, a pair of bendy plastic sunglasses she wore on the rare occasions she ventured out in the summer. He went back to Cal, who was squinting at the television in the darkened room, completely absorbed by the midmorning talk show on which the perma-tanned and obsequious host, oozing sincerity, was comforting the inconsolable mother of a teenage drug addict. Cal 's eyes were a little red and still wet with tears, but he said nothing and indeed did not shift his gaze once from the screen as Will placed the glasses on his head, looping an elastic band around the arms to hold them firmly in place.

"Better?" Will asked.

"Much better, yes," Cal said, adjusting them. "But I'm really hungry," he added, rubbing his stomach. "And I'm so cold." He rattled his teeth together dramatically.

"Showers first. That'll warm you up," Will said as he lifted his arm to sample the accumulated odor of many days' sweat. "And some clean clothes."

"Showers?" Cal peered at him blankly through the sunglass lenses.

Will managed to get the boiler fired up and went first, the hot water stinging his flesh with painful relief as the clouds of steam enveloped him in an ecstasy of forgetfulness. Then it was Cal 's turn. Will showed his fascinated brother how the shower worked and left him to it. From the closet in his bedroom he dug out clean sets of clothes for himself and Cal, although his brother's needed a little adjustment to make them fit.

"I'm a real Topsoiler now!" Cal announced, admiring the baggy jeans with rolled-up cuffs and the voluminous shirt with two sweaters on top of it.

"Yeah, very trendsetting," Will said with a laugh.

Bartleby was more problematic. It took much coaxing by Cal to even get the shivering animal as far as the bathroom door, and then they had to push him for the rear, like a recalcitrant donkey, to get him in. As if he knew what was in store in the steamy room, he leaped away and tried to hide under the sink.

"Come on, Bart, you stinker, into the bath!" Cal ordered, finally running out of patience, and the cat grudgingly crept into the bath and looked at them with the most hangdog of expressions. He let out a warbled, low whine when the water first trickled over his sagging skin, and, deciding he'd had enough, his paws scrabbled on the plastic of the tub as he tried to get out. But with Will holding him down they managed to finish the task, although all three of them were completely drenched by the end of the exercise.

Once out of the bath, Bartleby ricocheted around the bedrooms like a whirling dervish while Will took great pleasure in ransacking Rebecca's room. As he chucked all her incredibly neatly folded clothes onto the floor, he wondered how in the world he was going to find anything that was remotely suitable to dress a giant cat. But in the end some brown legwarmers were cut down to size for the animal's hind legs and an old purple sweater took care of his top half. Will found a pair of Bugs Bunny sunglasses in Rebecca's desk drawer, and these stayed in place on the cat's head once a yellow-and-black-stirped Tibetan hat was pulled firmly down.

Bartleby looked quite bizarre in his new outfit. Out on the landing, the two brothers stood back to admire their handiwork, promptly falling into hysterics.

"Who's a pretty boy, then?" Cal chuckled between outbursts of breathless laughter.

"Better-looking than most around here!" Will said.

"Don't you worry, Bart," Cal said soothingly, patting the peeved animal on the back. "Very… uh… striking," he managed to say before they both lapsed once again into uncontrolled laughter. Behind the pink-tinted lenses, the indignant Bartleby watched them sideways out of his large eyes.

Fortunately, Rebecca, much as Will cursed her, had left the freezer in the utility room well stocked. He read the microwave instructions and heated up three beef dinners complete with dumplings and green beans. They wolfed these down in the kitchen, Bartleby standing with both paws on the table, his tongue rasping against the plastic dish as he hungrily devoured every last scrap of the meat. Cal thought it was just about the best thing he'd ever tasted, but claimed he was still hungry, so Will retrieved another three meals from the freezer. This time, they had pork dinners with roasted potatoes. They washed this down with a bottle of Coke, which sent Cal into fits of rapture.

"So what happens next?" he said finally, tracing the rising bubbles on the side of his glass with a finger.

"What's the mad rush? We'll be all right for a while," Will replied. He hoped that they would be able to hole up there, even if for just a few days, to give him time to figure out their next move.

"The Styx know about this place — someone's already been here, and they'll be back. Don’t forget what Uncle Tam said. There's absolutely no way we can stay put."

"I suppose so," Will agreed reluctantly, "and we could be spotted by the real estate agents if they show people around." He gazed in an unfocused way at the net curtains over the kitchen sink and spoke decisively. "But I still have to get Chester out."

His brother looked aghast. "You don't mean go back? I can't go back, not now, Will. The Styx would do something terrible to me."

Cal was not alone in his fear of returning underground. Will could barely contain his terror at the prospect of facing the Styx again. He felt as though he had pushed his luck as far as it would go, and to imagine he could carry out some audacious rescue attempt was sheer lunacy.

On the other hand, what would they do if they remained Topsoil? Go on the run? When he really thought about it, it just wasn't realistic. Sooner or later they'd be apprehended by the police, and he and Cal would probably be separated and placed in foster care. Worse than that, he'd live the rest of his life under the shadow of Chester 's death and with the knowledge that he could have joined his father in one of the greatest adventures of the century.

"I don't want to die," Cal said in a faint voice. "Not like that." He pushed his glass away and looked pleadingly into Will's eyes.

This wasn't getting any easier. Will couldn't cope with much more pressure. He shook his head. "What am I supposed to do? I can't just leave him there. I can't. I won't."

Later, while Cal and Bartleby lounged in front of the television watching children's programs and eating potato chips, Will couldn't resist going into the cellar. Just as he'd expected, when he swung the shelves out, there wasn’t a trace of the tunnel — they had even gone to the trouble of painting the newly laid brickwork to blend in with the rest of the wall. He knew that behind it would be the usual backfill of stone and soil. They'd done the job thoroughly. No point in wasting any further time there.

Back in the kitchen, he balanced on a stool while he hunted through the jars on top of the cupboards. He found his mother's video money in a porcelain jar — there was about Ј20 in loose change.

He was in the hallway on his way to the living room when he began to see tiny dots of light dancing before his eyes, and all over his body pinpricks of heat broke out. Then, without any warning, his legs went out from under him. He dropped the jar, which glanced off the edge of the hall table and shattered, scattering the change all over the floor. It was as if he were in slow motion as he collapsed, a fierce pain burning through his head until everything turned black and he lost consciousness.

Cal and Bartleby came rushing out of the living room at the noise. "Will! What's the matter?" Cal cried, kneeling next to him.

Will slowly came around, his temples throbbing painfully. "I don't know," he said feebly. "Just felt awful, all of a sudden." He started to cough, and had to hold his breath in order to stop.

"You're burning up," Cal said, feeling his forehead.

"Freezing…" Will could barely talk as his teeth rattled together. He made an effort to get up, but didn't have the strength.

"Oh, no." Cal 's face was creased with concern. "It could be something from the Eternal City. Plague!"

Will was silent as his brother pulled him over to the bottom step of the staircase and propped his head on it. He grabbed the afghan and put it around him. After a while, Will directed Cal to the bathroom to get some aspirin. He swallowed them down with a sip of Coke and, after a brief rest, managed to get shakily to his feet with assistance from Cal.

Will's eyes were feverish and unfocused, and his voice trembled. "I really think we should get help," he said, mopping the sweat from his brow.

"Is there anywhere we can go?" Cal asked.

Will sniffed, swallowed, and nodded, his head feeling as though it were about to burst. "There's only one place I can think of."

"Get yerself out here!" the Second Officer bawled into the cell, his head pushed so far forward that the tendons in his bull-like neck stood proud, like knotted lengths of rope.

From the shadows came several sniffs as Chester did his best to control his terrified sobbing. Ever since he had been recaptured and brought back to the Hold, the Second Officer had been treating him brutally. The man had taken it upon himself to make Chester 's life a living nightmare, withholding his meals and waking him up if he happened to nod off on the ledge by emptying a bucket of ice-cold water over his head or by screaming threats through the inspection hatch. All this probably had something to do with the thick bandage wound around the Second Officer's head — Will's blow with the shovel had knocked him out cold — and, what was worse, when he came to, the Styx had spent the best part of a day interrogating him over the accusation that he had been negligent in his duties. So to say that the Second Officer was now very bitter and vindictive would be putting it mildly.

Chester, half starved and exhausted to the point of collapse, wasn't sure how much more of this treatment he could take. If life had been hard for him before the botched escape attempt, it was that much worse now.

"Don't make me come in there and get you!" the Second Officer was yelling. Before he'd finished, Chester shuffled barefoot into the wan light of the corridor. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he lifted his head. It was streaked gray with ingrained dirt, and his shirt was torn.

"Yes, sir," he mumbled subserviently.

"The Styx want to see you. They've got something to tell you," the Second Officer said, his voice distorted with malice, and then he began to chortle. "Something that'll fix you good and proper." He was still laughing as, unbidden, Chester started down the corridor toward the main door to the Hold, the soles of his feet rasping sluggishly across the gritty stones.

"Shift it!" the Second Officer snapped, thrusting his bunch of keys into the small of Chester 's back.

"Ow," Chester complained in a pitiful voice.

As they went through the main door, Chester had to cover his eyes altogether, he was now so unused to the light. He continued to shuffle along, heading on a course that would have taken him through to the front desk of the police station if the Second Officer hadn't stopped him.

"And where do you think you're off to? You don't think you're going home, do you?" The man started to guffaw and then became deadly serious again. "No, you go right, into the corridor, you do."

Chester, lowering his hands and trying to see through his scrunched-up eyes, made a slow quarter turn and then froze, rooted to the spot.

"The Dark Light?" he asked fearfully, not daring to turn his face toward the Second Officer.

"No, we're past all that now. This is where you get your comeuppance, you worthless little squit."

They passed through a series of corridors, the Second Officer chivying Chester along with further jabs and shoves, chuckling to himself all the way. He quieted down as they rounded a corner and came in sight of an open doorway. From this an intense light streamed out, illuminating the whitewashed wall opposite.

Although Chester 's movements were languid and his expression blank, inwardly his fears were raging. Frantically he debated with himself whether he should make a run for it and bolt down the corridor ahead. He didn't have the slightest idea where it led, or how far he'd get, but it would, at the very least, put off facing whatever was waiting for him in that room. For a while, anyway.

He slowed even further, his eyes hurting as he forced himself to look directly at the blaze of light flooding from the doorway. He was getting closer. He didn't know what was waiting inside — another of their exquisitely horrible tortures? Or maybe… maybe an executioner.

His whole body stiffened, every muscle wanting to do anything but carry him into that dazzling light.

"Nearly there," the officer said over Chester 's shoulder, and Chester knew that he had no alternative but to cooperate. There were going to be no miraculous reprieves, no timely escapes.

He was dragging his heels so much that he was barely moving at all when the Second Officer gave him such a hefty shove that he was knocked clean off his feet and sent flying through the doorway into the light. Skidding over the stone floor on his front, he came to a rest and lay there, a little stunned.

The light was all around him, and he was blinking rapidly in its harsh glare. He heard the door slam and, from a rustle of papers, he knew at once there was someone else in the room. He immediately imagined who it — or they — would be: two tall Styx, most likely looming behind a table, just as there'd been during the Dark Light sessions.

"Stand up," ordered a reedy, nasal voice.

Chester did so, and slowly raised his eyes to the source. He couldn’t have been more astonished by the sight that greeted him.

It was a single Styx, and he was wizened and small, his thinning gray hair pulled back at the temples and his face crisscrossed with so many lines and wrinkles that he looked like a bleached raisin. Hunched sharply over a tall desk with a slanted top, he resembled an ancient schoolmaster.

Chester was completely disarmed by this apparition with the sheer light all around it. This was not what he'd been expecting at all. He was beginning to feel relieved, telling himself that perhaps things were going to turn out better than he'd thought after all, when his eyes met those of the old Styx.

They were the coldest, darkest eyes Chester had ever seen. They were like two bottomless wells that drew him toward them and by some unnatural and unwholesome power pulled him down into their voids. Chester felt a chill descend over him as if the temperature had plummeted in the room, and he shivered violently.

The old Styx dropped his eyes to the desk, and Chester swayed unsteadily on his feet, as if he'd been abruptly released from something that had had him in its relentless grip. He let out his breath in a rush, unconscious until now that he'd been holding it in. Then the Styx began to read in a measured tone.

"You have been found guilty," he said, "under Order Forty-two, Edicts Eighteen, Twenty-four, Forty-two…"

The numbers went on, but it meant nothing to Chester until the Styx paused and, very matter-of-factly, said the word sentence. Chester really began to listen at this point.

"The prisoner will be taken from this place and conveyed by train to the Interior, and there be Banished, relinquished to the forces of nature… So be it," the old Styx finished, clapping his hands and holding them pressed hard together, as if he were wringing something out. Then he slowly raised his head from his papers and said, "May the Lord have mercy on your soul."

"What… what do you mean?" Chester asked, reeling under the Styx 's icy gaze and the implications of what he'd just heard.

Without needing to consult the papers before him, the Styx simply reiterated the punishment and then fell silent again. Chester grappled with the questions that were racing through his head, moving his lips but emitting no sound at all.

"Yes?" the old Styx asked, in such a way that suggested he'd been in this situation many times before and found it thoroughly tiresome to have to converse with the lowly prisoner before him.

"What… what does that mean?" Chester eventually got out.

The Styx stared at Chester for several seconds and, with total impassivity, said, "Banished. You will be escorted as far as the Miners' Station, many fathoms down, and then left to do as you will."

"Taken deeper into the earth?"

The Styx nodded. "We have no need for your kind in the Colony. You attempted to escape, and the Panoply takes a dim view of that. You are not worthy of service here." He clapped his hands together again. "Banished."

Chester suddenly felt the immense weight of all the millions of tons of dirt and rock above, as if they were pressing directly down on him, squeezing out his lifeblood. He staggered backward.

"But I've done nothing. I'm not guilty of anything," he cried., holding out his hands and pleading with the emotionless little man. He felt as if he were being buried alive and that he would never again see home, or the blue sky, or his family… everything he loved and yearned for. The hope he had clung to ever since he'd been captured and locked up in that dark room gushed out of him like air from a burst balloon.

He was doomed.

This hateful little man didn't give a hoot about him… Chester saw that in the Styx 's impassive face and in his frightful eyes — reptilian, inhuman eyes. And Chester knew that there was absolutely no point in trying to persuade him, or beg for his life. These people were savage and merciless, and they had arbitrarily condemned him to the most awful fate: an even deeper grave.

"But why?" Chester asked, tears wetting his face as he wept openly.

"Because it is the law," the old Styx answered. "Because I am sitting here, and you are standing there." He smiled without the remotest trace of any warmth.

"But—" Chester objected with a howl.

"Officer, take him back to the Hold," the old Styx said, gathering up his papers with his arthritic fingers, and Chester heard the door creak open behind him.

33

Will was thrown forward as a fist landed squarely in the middle of his back. Staggering drunkenly for a few steps, he rebounded off the handrail and turned slowly around to face his assailant.

"Speed?" he said, recognizing the school bully's scowling face.

"Where've you sprung from, Snowdrop? Thought you'd snuffed it. People said you were dead or something."

Will didn't reply. He was deep in the insulated cocoon of the unwell; he felt as though he were looking at the world from behind a frosted sheet of glass. It was all Will could do to stand there, his body quivering as Speed pushed his snarling face just inches in front of his. Out of the corner of his eye, Will glimpsed Bloggsy closing in on Cal a little farther down the sloping path.

They had been on their way to the subway station, and right now a fight was the last thing Will wanted.

"So where's Fat Boy?" Speed crooned, the moisture on his breath clouding in the cold air. "Bit different without your bodyguard, ain't it, dipstick?"

"Oi, Speed, check this out, it's Mini Me!" Bloggsy said, looking from Cal to Will and back again. "What's in the bag, gimp?"

At Will's insistence, Cal had been carrying their dirty Colonists' clothes in one of Dr. Burrows's old expedition duffel bags.

"Payback time," Speed shouted and simultaneously jabbed a fist in Will's stomach. Winded, Will slumped to his knees and then toppled over, curling up with his arms wrapped protectively around his head as he hit the ground.

"This is too easy," Speed crowed, and kicked Will in the back several times.

Bloggsy was making ludicrous whooping noises and crouching in a mock kung-fu-fighting stance as he prodded two fingers at Cal 's sunglasses. "Prepare to meet your maker," he said, his other arm drawn back and ready to throw a punch.

Everything happened too quickly for Will after that. There was a streak of purple and brown lightning as Bartleby landed smack in the middle of Bloggsy's shoulders. The impact knocked the boy away from Cal and sent him tumbling untidily down the slope, the cat still latched onto his back. As Bloggsy came to rest facedown on the ground, he was writhing and trying to use his elbows to beat off the flurry of pearl white canines and barbaric-looking claws, all the while letting out the most awful high-pitched cries and screaming for someone to help.

"No," Will shouted weakly. "Enough!"

"Stop it, Bart!" Cal yelled.

The cat, still on top of Bloggsy, spun his head around to look at Cal, who shouted another command.

"Sic 'im!" Cal pointed at Speed, who had remained standing over Will through all this, not believing what he was seeing. Speed's jaw dropped, and a look of sheer horror crept over his face. Bartleby fixed his eyes on the new quarry through the bizarre pink sunglasses, the Tibetan hat now slightly askew on his head. With a loud hiss, he bounded back up the slope toward the startled bully.

"Call it off! Call it off!" Speed shrieked as he started to run up the path as if his life depended on it — which it did. In the blink of an eye, the cat had caught up with him. Sometimes at his side, sometimes blocking his way, Bartleby circled around him like a playful whirlwind, attacking his ankles and slashing at his thighs though his school pants, lacerating his skin. The terrified boy stumbled and tottered in a spasmodic, comic dance as he frantically tried to escape, his feet sliding hopelessly on the pavement.

"I'm sorry, Will, I'm sorry! Just get it off me! Please!" Speed was gibbering, his pants reduced to tatters.

With a look from Will, Cal stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled. The cat stopped instantly and allowed Speed to run away. Not once did he turn to look back.

Will glanced past Cal to the bottom of the slope, where Bloggsy had picked himself up and was half running, half falling in his haste to make an escape.

"I think we've seen the last of them," Cal said with a laugh.

"Yes," Will agreed faintly as he slowly got to his feet. Wave upon wave of the fever ebbed through him, and he felt as if he was going to pass out again. He could quite happily have lain back down, opened his coat to the cold, and gone to sleep right there and then on the icy sidewalk. The only way Will could get down the remaining stretch of the slope was with Cal supporting him, but they eventually made it to the bottom and into the subway station.

"So even Topsoilers like to go underground," he said, looking at the dirty old station, long overdue for renovation. His manner was instantly transformed; he seemed genuinely at ease for the first time since they had emerged onto the banks of the Thames — relieved that there was a tunnel around him rather than open sky.

"Not really," Will said listlessly as he started to feed change into the ticket machine while Bartleby slavered over a lichenlike patch of freshly deposited chewing gum on the tiled floor. Will's shaking fingers fumbled with the coins, then he stopped and leaned against the machine. "It's no use," he gasped. Cal took the change from him and, as Will told him what to do, he finished paying for the tickets.

Down on the platform, it wasn't long before a train arrived. Once aboard, neither boy spoke. As the southbound train gained speed, Cal watched the cables rippling along the tunnel sides and played with his ticket. Licking his paws, Bartleby was propped on his haunches in the seat next to Cal. There weren't many people in the car, but Cal was aware that they were attracting some pretty curious glances.

Opposite Cal and Bartleby, Will was sitting slumped against the side of the car, soothed by the chill glass on his temple as his head lolled against the window. Between stops, he drifted in and out of a fitful sleep, and during a period of wakefulness saw that a pair of old women had taken the seats across the aisle from them. Snatches of their conversation drifted into his consciousness and mixed with the platform announcements like voices in a confused dream.

"Just look at him… disgraceful… feet all over the seats… MIND THE GAP… funny-looking child… LONDON UNDERGROUND APOLOGIZES…"

Will forced his eyes open and looked at the two women. He realized immediately that it was Bartleby who was the cause of their apparent distress. The one who was doing all the talking had purple-rinsed hair and wore translucent white-framed bifocals that rested crookedly on her poppy red nose.

"Shhh! They'll hear you," her companion whispered, eyeing Cal. She either had badly dyed hair or was wearing a wig that had seen better days. They both held identical shopping bags on their laps, as if they were some form of defense against the miscreants sitting opposite them.

"Nonsense! Bet they don't speak a word of English. Probably got here on the back of a truck. I mean, look at the state of their clothes. And that one — he don't look too bright to me. He's probably on drugs or something." Will felt their rheumy eyes linger on him.

"Send them all back, I say."

"Yes, yes," the old ladies said in unison, and with a mutual nod of agreement fell to discussing, in morbid detail, the ill health of a friend. Cal glowered furiously at them while they gabbled away, now apparently too preoccupied to pay further attention to anyone else. The train came to a stop, and as the old ladies were getting up from their seats Cal lifted the ear flap of Bartleby's Tibetan hat and whispered something into his ear. Bartleby suddenly reared up and hissed in their faces so forcefully that Will was shocked from is feverish stupor.

"Well, I never!" the red-nosed woman cried out, dropping her shopping bag. While she retrieved it, her companion bustled and pushed her from behind, trying to hurry her up.

In a flap, both women stuggled off the train, shrieking.

"Horrid urchins!" the red-nosed lady huffed from the platform. "You blasted animals!" she screamed through the doors as they slid shut.

The train moved out, and Bartleby kept his eyes fixed demonically on the flustered twosome as they stood on the platform, still puffing with indignation.

His curiosity getting the better of him, Will leaned over to his brother.

"Tell me… what did you say to Bartleby?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing much," Cal replied innocently, smiling proudly at his cat before he turned to look out the window again.

Will was dreading the last half-mile to the housing projects. He staggered along like a sleepwalker, resting whenever it became too much for him.

When they finally reached the apartment building, the elevator was out of order. Will peered into the grafitti-strafed grayness with quiet desperation. That was the last straw. He sighed and, steeling himself for the climb, stumbled toward the squalid stairwell. After a stop on each landing to allow him to catch his breath, they eventually reached the right floor and made their way through the obstacle course of discarded garbage bags.

There was no response when Cal rang the bell, so he had resorted to hammering on the door with his fist when Auntie Jean suddenly opened it. She clearly hadn't been up for long — she looked as tired and crumpled as the moth-eaten overcoat she'd evidently been asleep in.

"What is it?" she said indistinctly, rubbing the nape of her neck and yawning. "I didn't order nothing, and I don't buy nothing from salesmen."

"Auntie Jean, it's me… Will," he said; the blood drained from his head and the image of his aunt blanched, as if all the colors had been washed out of it.

"Will," she said vaguely, and cut another yawn short as it sank in. "Will!" She lifted her head and eyed him disbelievingly. "Thought you'd gone missing." She peered at Cal and Bartleby, adding, "Who's this?"

"Uh… cousin…," Will gasped as the floor began to tip and sway, and he was forced to take a step forward to steady himself against the doorjamb. He was aware of the cold sweat trickling from his scalp. "…south… from down south."

"Cousin? Didn't know you—"

"Dad's," Will said huskily.

She surveyed Cal and Bartleby with suspicion and not a little distaste. "Your 'orrid sister was 'ere, you know." She glanced past Will. "Is she wiv you?"

"She…," Will began to say in a shaky voice.

"Cos the little brat owes me money. Should've seen what she did to my—"

"She's not my sister, she's a vile… scheming… evil… she's a…" With that, Will keeled over in a dead faint before a very surprised Auntie Jean.

Cal stood at the window of the darkened room. He peered down at the streets below, with their dotted lines of amber lampposts and sweeping cones of car headlights. Then, with foreboding, he slowly raised his head and looked up at the moon, its shining silver spread out against the icy sky. Not for the first time he struggled to grasp, to comprehend, the vast space that yawned before him, the likes of which he'd never before seen in his life. He gripped the windowsill, barely able to control the mounting sense of dread. The soles of his feet clenched involuntarily and almost ached with vertigo.

On hearing his brother moan, Cal tore his eyes from the window and went to sit by the shivering form that was stretched out on the bed with just a sheet over it.

"How's 'e doing, then?" Cal heard Auntie Jean's anxious voice as she appeared in the doorway.

"He's a little better today. I think he's cooling down a bit," Cal said as he doused a washcloth in a bowl of water clunking with ice cubes and dabbed it to Will's forehead.

"Do you want to get someone in to see 'im?" Auntie Jean asked. "'E's been like this for a long time."

"No," Cal said firmly. "He said he didn't want that."

"Don't blame 'im, don't blame 'im at all. I've never 'ad no time for quacks — or them shrinks, neither, for that matter. Once your in their clutches, there's no telling what—" She stopped short as Bartleby, who had been curled up asleep in the corner, woke with a protracted yawn, then ambled over and started to lap at the water in the bowl.

"Stop that, you stupid cat!" Cal said, pushing him away.

"'E's just thirsty," Auntie Jean said, then assumed the most preposterous baby voice. "Poor puss, are you a liccle firsty?" She took hold of the astounded animal by the scruff of his neck and began to lead him toward the door. "You come with Mummy for a treat."

A lava flow moves portentously in the distance, its heat so fierce on Will's exposed skin that he can hardly bear it. Silhouetted by the vertical wall of streaming crimson behind him, Dr. Burrows frantically indicates something sprouting out of a massive slab of granite. He shouts excitedly, as he always does when he makes a discovery, but Will isn't able to catch the words due to the deafening white noise intercut with the cacophonous babble of many voices, as if someone is randomly scanning the airwaves on a damaged radio.

The scene shifts into close-up. Dr. Burrows is using a magnifying glass to examine a thin stalk with a bulbous tip that rises a foot and a half or so out of the solid rock. Will sees his father's lips moving, but can only understand brief snatches of what he is saying.

"… a plant… literally digests rock… silicon-based… reacts to stim-… observe…"

The image cuts to extreme close-up. Between two fingers, Dr. Burrows plucks the gray stalk from the rock. Will feels uneasy as he sees it writhe in his father's hand and shoot out two needlelike leaves that entwine around his fingers.

"…gripping me like iron… feisty little…," Dr. Burrows says, frowning.

There are no more words, they are replaced by laughter, but his father seems to be screaming as he tries to shake the thing off, its leaves piercing his hand and threading straight through the flesh of his pam and wrist and carrying on up his forearm, the skin bruising, bruising and bursting open and becoming smeared with blood as they twist, interweaving in a snakelike waltz. They cut tighter and tighter into his forearm, like two possessed wires. Will tries to reach out to his father, to help him as he battles hopelessly against this horrific attack, as he fights his own arm.

"No, no… Dad… Dad!"

"It's all right, Will, it's all right," came his brother's voice from a long way away.

The lava flow was gone. In its place was a shaded lamp, and he could feel the soothing coolness of the washcloth Cal was pressing against his forehead. He sat up with a start.

"It's Dad! What happened to Dad?" he cried, and looked around wildly, unsure of where he was.

"You're all right," Cal said. "You were dreaming."

Will slumped back against the pillows, realizing he was lying in bed in a narrow room.

"I saw him. It was all so clear and real," Will said, his voice breaking. He couldn't stem the flood of tears that suddenly filled his eyes. "It was Dad. He was in trouble."

"It was just a nightmare." Cal spoke softly, averting his eyes from his brother, who was now sobbing silently.

"We're at Auntie Jean's, aren't we?" Will said, pulling himself together as he saw the floral wallpaper.

"Yes, we've been here for nearly three days."

"Huh?" Will tried to sit up again, but it was too much for him; he rested his head back against the pillow once more. "I feel so weak."

"Don't worry, everything's fine. Your aunt's been great. Taken quite a shine to Bart, too."

Over the ensuing days, Cal nursed Will back to health with bowls of soup or baked beans on toast and seemingly endless cups of oversugared tea. Auntie Jean's sole contribution to his convalescence was to perch at the foot of his bed and burble on incessantly about the "old days", though Will was so exhausted he fell asleep before she could bore him senseless.

When Will finally felt strong enough to stand, he tested his legs by trying to walk up and down the length of the small bedroom. As he hobbled around with some difficulty, he noticed something lying discarded behind a box of old magazines.

He stooped down and picked up two objects. Shards of broken glass dropped to the floor. He recognized the pair of buckled silver frames right away. They were the ones Rebecca had kept on her bedside table. Looking at the photograph of his parents, and then the one of himself, he slumped back onto the bed, breathing heavily. He was distraught. He felt as though someone had stuck a knife into him and was very slowly twisting it. But what did he expect from her? Rebecca wasn't his sister, and never had been. He remained on the bed for some time, staring blankly at the wall.

A little later he got to his feet again and staggered down the hall into the kitchen. Dirty plates sat in the sink, and the garbage bin was overflowing with empty cans and torn microwave-ready food boxes. It was a scene of such carnage that he barely registered the plastic tops of the faucet, melted and brown, and the flame-blackened tiles behind them. He grimaced and turned back into the hall, where he heard Auntie Jean's gruff voice. Its tones were vaguely comforting, reminding him of the holidays when she would come to visit, chatting to his mother for hours on end.

He stood outside the door and listened as Auntie Jean's knitting needles rattled away furiously while she spoke.

"Dr. bloomin' Burrows… soon as I laid eyes on 'im, I warned my sister… I did, you know… you don't want to be getting 'itched to some overeducated layabout… I mean, I ask you, what good's a man who grubs around in 'oles in the ground when there's bills to pay?"

Will peered around the corner as Auntie Jean's needles stopped their metronomic clicking and she took a sip from a tumbler. The cat was looking adoringly at Auntie Jean, who looked back at him with an affectionate, almost loving, smile. Will had never seen this side of her before — he knew he should say something to announce his presence, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to break the moment.

"I tell you, it's nice to 'ave you 'ere. I mean, after my little Sophie passed on… she was a dog and I know you don't much like them… but at least she was there for me… that's more than you can say for any man I met."

She held up her knitting in front of her, a garishly colored pair of pants, which Bartleby sniffed curiously. "Nearly done. In just a mo' you can try 'em on for size, my lovely." She leaned over and tickled Bartleby under the chin. He lifted his head and, closing his eyes, began to purr with the amplitude of a small engine.

Will turned to make his way back to the bedroom and was resting against the wall in the hallway when there was a crash behind him. Cal was standing just inside the front door, two bags of dropped shopping spilling open in front of him. He had a scarf wrapped around his mouth and was wearing Mrs. Burrows's sunglasses. He looked like the Invisible Man.

"I can't take much more of this," he said, squatting down to retrieve the groceries. Bartleby padded out from the living room, followed by Auntie Jean, a cigarette perched on her lip. The cat was wearing his newly knitted pants and mohair cardigan, both a strident mix of blues and reds, topped off with a multicolored balaclava from which his scabby ears stuck comically. Bartleby looked like the survivor of an explosion in a Salvation Army shop.

Cal glanced at the outlandish creature before him, taking in the shocking display of colors, but didn't comment. He appeared to be in the depths of despondency. "This place is full of hate — you can smell it everywhere." He shook his head slowly.

"Oh, it is that, love," Auntie Jean said quietly. "Always 'as been."

"Topsoil isn't what I expected," Cal said. He thought for a moment. "And I can't go home… can I?"

Will stared back as he searched for something to say to console his brother, some form of words to quell the boy's anxiety, but he was unable to utter a word.

Auntie Jean cleared her throat, bringing the moment to an end.

"Suppose this means you're all going?"

As she stood there in her scruffy old coat, Will saw for the first time how very vulnerable and frail she seemed.

"I think we are," he admitted.

"Righto," she said hollowly. She put her hand on Bartleby's neck, tenderly caressing the loose flaps of his skin with her thumb. "You know you're all welcome 'ere — anytime you want." Her voice became choked, and she turned quickly away from them. "And do bring kitty back wiv you." She shuffled into the kitchen, where they could hear her trying to stifle her sobs as she rattled a bottle against glass.

Over the next few days, they planned and planned. Will felt himself growing stronger as he recovered from the illness, his lungs clearing and his breathing returning to normal. They went on shopping expeditions: an army surplus shop yielded gas masks, climbing rope, and a water bottle for each of them; they bought some olf flash camera units in a pawnshop; and, since it was the week after Guy Fawkes's night, several large boxes of remaindered fireworks for the local deli. Will wanted to make sure they were ready for any eventuality, and anything that gave off a bright light might come in useful. They stocked up on food, choosing lightweight but high-energy provisions so as not to weigh themselves down. After the kindness his aunt had shown them, Will felt bad that he was dipping into her grocery money to pay for it all, but he didn’t have any alternative.

They waited until lunchtime to leave Highfield. They donned their now-clean Colonists' clothes and said their good-byes to Auntie Jean, who gave Bartleby a tearful cuddle; then they took the bus into central London and walked the rest of the way to the river entrance.

34

Cal was still pressing a handkerchief to his face and muttering about the "foul gases" as they left Blackfriars Bridge and took the steps down to the Embankment. Everything looked so different in the daylight that for a moment Will had doubts they were even in the right place. With people bustling all around them on the walkway, it all seemed so fanciful to suppose that somewhere below them was an abandoned and primitive London, and that the three of them were going to go back down there.

But they were in the right place, and it was only a short walk to the entrance of that strange other world. They stood by the gate and peered down, watching the brown water lapping lazily below.

"Looks deep," Cal remarked. "Why's it like that?"

"Duh!" Will groaned, thumping his palm against his forehead. "The tide! I didn't think of the tide. We'll just have to wait for it to go out."

"How long will that be?"

Will shrugged, checking his watch. "I don't know. Could be hours."

There was no alternative but to kill time by pacing the backstreets around the Tate Modern and return to the bank every so often to check the water, trying not to attract too much attention in the process. By lunchtime they could see the gravel breaking through.

Will decided they couldn't hang around any longer. "OK, all systems go!" he announced.

They were in full view of many passersby on their lunch breaks, but hardly anyone took any notice of the motley-looking trio, eccentrically dressed and laden with backpacks, as they clambered over the wall and onto the stone steps. Then an old man in a woolly hat and matching scarf spotted them and began to shout, "Ruddy kids!" wagging his fist furiously at them. One or two people gathered around to see what the fuss was all about, but they quickly lost interest and moved on. This seemd to dampen the old man's outrage, and he, too, shuffled off, muttering loudly to himself.

At the bottom of the steps, the water splashed up around the boys' legs as they galloped with all their might along the partially submerged foreshore, only letting up when they were out of sight under the jetty. Without any hesitation, Cal and Barleby clambered into the mouth of the drainage tunnel.

Will paused for a moment before following. He took a last lingering look at the pale gray sky through the gaps in the planking and inhaled deeply, savoring his last breaths of fresh air.

Now that he'd recovered his strength, he felt like a completely different person — he was prepared for whatever lay ahead. As if the fever had purged him of any doubts or weaknesses, he was feeling the resigned assurance of the seasoned adventurer. But as he lowered his eyes to the slow-moving river, he experienced the deepest pang of loss and melancholy, aware that he might never see this place again. Of course, he didn't have to go through with it, he could stay here if he chose, but he knew it would never be the same as before. Too much had changed, things that could never be undone.

"Come on," he said, shaking himself from his thoughts and entering the tunnel, where Cal was waiting for him, impatient to get going. With a single glance, Will could read conflicting emotions in his brother's face: Although the anxiety was plain to see, there was also a hint of something else, a deep sense of relief brought about by the promise of an imminent return to the underworld. It was his home, after all.

Although the circumstances had forced his hand, Will reflected on what a terrible mistake it had been to bring Cal with him to the surface. Cal would need time to adjust to Topsoil life — and that was one luxury they didn't have. Like it or not, Will's destiny lay in rescuing Chester and finding his father. And Cal 's destiny was inextricably bound to his.

It irked Will that he'd lost so many days to the fever — he had no idea if he was too late to save Chester. Had he already been exiled to the Deeps or come to some unimaginable end at the hands of the Styx? Whatever the truth might be, he had to find out. He had to go on believing Chester was still alive; he had to go back. He could never live with that hanging over him.

They found the vertical shaft, and Will reluctantly lowered himself into the pool of freezing water below it. Cal climbed onto Will's shoulders so he could reach the shaft, then shimmied up it, trailing a rope behind him. When his brother was safely at the top, Will knotted the other end of the rope around Bartleby's chest, and Cal began to hoist him up. This proved to be completely unnecessary because, once in the vent, the animal used his sinewy legs to scrabble up with startling agility. Then the rope was dropped for Will, who hauled himself into the shadows above. Once there, Will jumped up and down to shake off the water and warm himself.

Then they slid down the convex ramp on the seats of their pants, landing with a thump on the ledge that marked the beginning of the rough stairs. Before proceeding, they carefully removed Bartleby's knitted clothes and left them on a high ledge — they couldn't afford to carry any dead weight now. Will didn't really have any idea what he was going to do once they were back in the Colony, but he knew he had to be completely practical… he had to be like Tam.

The boys put on their army surplus gas masks, looked at each other for a moment, nodded an acknowledgment, and with Cal leading the way they began the long descent.

The going was arduous at first, the stairs hazardous from the constantly seeping water and, farther down, the carpet of black algae. With Cal taking the lead, Will found he had very little recollection of their previous passage through, realizing that this must have been because the mysterious illness had already gotten a hold on him by then.

In what seemed like no time at all, they had arrived at the opening to the cavern wall of the Eternal City.

"What the heck is this? " Cal exclaimed the moment they walked out onto the top of the huge flight of steps, their eyes quickly sweeping down its dark course. Something was very wrong. Approximately a hundred feet below, the steps vanished from view.

"That's what I believe they call a real pea souper," Will said quietly, his glass eyepieces glinting with the pale green glow.

From their vantage point high above the city, they looked out on what appeared to be the undulating surface of a huge opaline lake. The thickest of fogs covered the entire scene, suffused by an eerie light, as if it were one immense radioactive cloud. It was very daunting to think that the vast extent of the huge city lay obscured beneath this opaque blanket. Will automatically scrabbled in his pockets for the compass.

"This is going to make life a little difficult," he remarked, frowning behind his mask.

"Why?" Cal retorted. His eyes crinkled behind his eyepieces as a broad smile spread across his face. "They won't be able to see us in all that, will they?"

But Will's demeanor remained grim. "True, but we won't see them, either."

Cal held Bartleby still while Will tied a rope leash around his neck. They couldn't risk him wandering off under these conditions.

"You'd better hold on to my backpack so you don't get lost. And whatever you do, don't let go of that cat," Will urged his brother as they took their first steps in the fog, descending slowly into it, like deep-sea divers sinking beneath the waves. Their visibility was immediately reduced to no more than a foot and a half — they couldn't even see their boots, making it necessary to feel for the edge of each step before venturing to the next.

Thankfully they reached the bottom of the stairway without incident, and at the start of the mud flats they repeated the black-weed ritual, wiping the stinking goo all over each other, this time to mask the Topsoil smells of London.

Traversing the edge of the marshland, they eventually bumped into the city wall and followed it around. If anything, the visibility was getting even worse, and it took them forever to find a way in.

"An archway," Will whispered, stopping so abruptly that his brother nearly fell over him. The ancient structure briefly solidified before them, and then the fog closed up, obscuring it again.

"Oh, good," Cal replied without an ounce of enthusiasm.

Once inside the city walls, they had to grope their way through the streets, practically walking on top of each other so that they wouldn't become separated in the impossible conditions. The fog was almost tangible, sucking and rolling like sheets in the wind, sometimes parting to allow them the briefest glimpse of a section of wall, a stretch of water-sodden ground, or the glistening cobbles underfoot. The squelch of their boots on the black algae and their labored breathing through their masks sounded unnervingly loud to them. The way the fog was twisting and playing with their senses made everything feel so intimate and yet, a the same time, so removed.

Cal grabbed Will's arm, and they stood stock-still. They were beginning to notice other noises all around them that weren't of their making. At first vague and indistinct, these sounds were growing louder. As they listened, Will could have sworn he caught a scratchy whispering, so close that he flinched. He pulled Cal back a couple of steps, convinced that they'd stumbled headlong into the Styx Division. However, Cal swore he hadn't heard anything at all, and after a while they nervously resumed their journey.

Then from the distance came the bloodcurdling baying of a dog — there was no question about it this time. Cal tightened his grip on Bartleby's leash as the cat raised his head high, his ears pricking up. Although neither boy said anything to the other, they were both thinking the same thing: The need for them to get through the city as rapidly as they could had become all the more pressing.

Creeping along, their hearts were pounding as Will referred to Tam's map and repeatedly checked his compass with his shaking hands in an attempt to fix their position. In truth, the visibility was so poor he had only the roughest idea where they were. For all he knew, they could be wandering in circles. They seemed to be making no headway at all, and Will was at his wits' end. What a great leader he was turning out to be!

He finally brought them to a halt, and they huddled down in the lee of a crumbling wall. In low whispers they debated what to do next.

"If we start running it won't matter if we come across a patrol. We can easily shake them off in this," Cal suggested quietly, his eyes darting left and right under the moisture-spotted lenses of his gas mask. "We just keep running."

"Yeah, right," Will replied. "So you really think you could outrun one of those dogs? I'd like to see that."

Cal humphed angrily in response.

Will went on. "Look, we don't have a clue where we are, and if we have to make a run for it, we'll probably hit a dead end or something…"

'But once we're in the Labyrinth, they'll never catch us," Cal insisted.

"Fine, but we've got to get there first, and for all we know it's still a long way off." Will couldn't believe his brother's absurd suggestion. It dawned on him that a couple of months ago he might have been the one advocating the crazy dash through the streets of the city. Somehow, he'd changed. Now he was the sober one, and Cal was the impulsive, headstrong youngster, chock-full of madcap confidence and willing to risk all.

The furious whispered exchange continued, growing more and more heated until Cal finally relented. It was to be the softly-softly approach; they would inch their way to the far edge of the city, keeping the sounds of their footsteps to a minimum and melting into the fog if anyone, or anything, came close.

As they stepped over hunks of rubble, Bartleby's head was jerking in all directions, scenting the air and the ground, when all of a sudden he stopped. Despite Cal 's best efforts to pull on the leash, the cat refused to move — he'd lowered his body as if he were hunting something, his wide head close to the ground and his skeletal tail sticking straight out behind him. His ears were pointing and twitching like radar dishes.

"Where are they," Cal whispered frantically. Will didn't answer but instead reached into the side pockets of Cal 's backpack and yanked out two large firecrackers. He also took out Auntie Jean's little plastic disposable lighter from an inner pocket in his jacket and held it ready in his hand.

"Come on, Bart," Cal was whispering into the cat's ear as he knelt beside him. "It's all right."

What little hair Bartleby had was bristling now. Cal managed to draw the cat around, and they tiptoed in the opposite direction as if walking on eggshells, Will at the rear with the firecrackers poised in his hands.

They followed a wall as it curved gently around, Cal feeling the coarse masonry with his free hand as if it were some incomprehensible form of Braille. Will was walking backward, checking behind them. Seeing nothing but the forbidding clouds, and coming to the conclusion that it was futile to try to place any reliance on sight in these conditions, he spun around only to blunder into a granite plinth. He recoiled as the leering face of a huge marble head reared out of the parting mist. Laughing at himself, he warily stepped around it and found his brother waiting only a few feet ahead.

They had gone about twenty paces when the fog mysteriously folded back to reveal a length of cobbled street before them. Will hastily wiped the moisture from his eyepieces and let his gaze ride with the retreating margins of the fog. Bit by bit the edges of the street and the facades of some of the nearest buildings came into view. Both boys felt an immense flood of relief as their immediate surroundings were tantalizingly revealed for the first time since they had entered the city.

Then their blood turned cold.

There, not thirty feet away, only too real and horribly clear, they saw them. A patrol of eight Styx were fanned out across the street. They stood motionless as predators, their round goggles watching the boys as they dumbly looked back.

They were like specters from some future nightmare in their gray-green striped long coats, strange skullcaps, and sinister breathing masks. One held a ferocious-looking stalker dog on a thick leather strap — it was straining against its collar, its tongue lolling obscenely out of the side of its monstrous maw. It sniffed sharply and immediately whipped its head in the boys' direction. The black pebbles of its beady eyes sized them up in an instant. With a deep, rumbling snarl it curled back its lips to reveal huge yellowing teeth dripping with saliva. Its leash slackened as it crouched down, preparing to pounce.

But nobody made a move. As if time itself had stopped, the two groups merely stood and stared at each other in horrible, mute anticipation.

Something snapped in Will's head. He screamed and spun Cal around, knocking him from his shocked inertia. Then they were running, flying back into the fog, their legs pumping frantically. They ran and ran, unable to tell how much ground they were covering through the shrouds of mist. Behind them came the savage barking of the stalker and the crackling shouts of the Styx.

Neither boy had a clue where they were heading. They didn't have time to think, their minds frozen with blind panic.

Then Will came to his senses. He yelled at Cal to keep going as he slowed to light the blue fuse on a huge Roman candle. Not really certain if he'd lit it, he quickly dropped it against a chunk of masonry, angling it in the direction of their pursuers.

He ran ahead several feet, then stopped again. He flicked the lighter, but this time the flame refused to come. Swearing, he struck it desperately again and again. Nothing, just sparks. He shook it just like he'd seen the Grays do so often at school when lighting their illicit cigarettes. He took a deep breath and once again spun the tiny wheel. Yes! The flame was small but enough to ignite the fuse of the firecracker, an air-bomb battery. But now the snarling and barking and voices were closing around him. He lost his nerve and simply slung the firecracker to the ground.

"Will, Will!" he heard up ahead. As he homed in on the shouts, he was furious that Cal was making so much noise, though he knew he would never have found him otherwise. Will was running at full tilt when he caught up with his brother and almost bowled him over. They were sprinting furiously as the first firework went off. It screamed out in all directions, its bright primary colors bleeding through the texture of the fog before it ended with two deafening thunderclaps.

"Keep going," Will hissed at Cal, who had crashed headfirst into a wall and was acting a little stunned. "Come on. This way!" he said, pulling his brother by the arm, not allowing him any time to dwell on his injury.

The fireworks continued, exploding fireballs of light high into the cavern or in low arcs that ended in the city itself, momentarily silhouetting the buildings like the scenery in a shadow play. Each iridescent streak culminated in a dazzling flash and a cannon-shot explosion, echoing and rumbling back and forth through the city like a raging storm.

Every so often, Will stopped to light another firecracker, picking out Roman candles, air bombs, or rockets, which he positioned on pieces of masonry or threw to the ground in the hope of confusing the patrol as to their position. The Styx, if they were still following, would be bearing the brunt of this onslaught, and Will hoped that at the very least the smell of the smoke might put the stalker off their scent.

As the last of the fireworks exploded in a cavalcade of light and sound, Will was praying he'd bought them enough time to reach the Labyrinth. They slowed to a jog to allow themselves to catch their breath, then stopped altogether to listen out for any sign of their pursuers, but there was nothing now. They appeared to have shaken them off. Will sat down on a wide step of a building that looked like it could have been a temple and took out his map and compass while Cal kept watch.

"I've no idea where we are," he admitted, tucking the map away. "It's hopeless!"

"We could be anywhere," Cal agreed.

Will stood up, looking left and right. "I say we carry on in the same direction."

Cal nodded. "But what if we end up right back where we started?"

"Doesn't matter. We've just got to keep moving," Will said as he set off.

Once again the silence crowded in on them, and the mysterious shapes and shadows appeared and softened as if the buildings were pulling in and out of focus in this invisible city. They'd made tortuously slow progress through a succession of streets when Cal came to a standstill.

"I think it's clearing a little, you know," he whispered.

"Well, that's something," Will replied.

Once again Bartleby stiffened and crouched down low, hissing as the margins of the fog rolled back before them. The boys froze, their eyes feverishly raking the milky air.

As if veils were being lifted to reveal it, there, not twenty feet away, a dark, shadowy form was hunched menacingly. They both heard a low, guttural growl.

"A stalker!" Cal gulped.

Their hearts stopped with awful realization. They could only watch as it rose up, its muscular forelegs tensing into life as it pawed the ground, then began to move, accelerating forward at a bewildering speed. There was absolutely nothing they could do. There was no point in running; it was too close. Like an infernal steam engine, the black hound was pounding toward them, condensation spewing from its flaring nostrils.

Will didn't have time to think. As he saw the dog spring, he dropped his backpack and shoved Cal out of the way.

The stalker soared through the air and slammed heavily against Will's chest. Its clublike paws knocked him flat on his back, his head thwacking the algae-covered ground with a hard slap. Half stunned, Will reached up and grasped the monster's throat with both hands. His fingers found its thick collar and hung on to it as he tried to hold the brute away from his face.

But the animal was just too powerful. Its jaws snapped at his mask, then caught on to it and bit down. Will heard the squeal of its fangs tightening on the rubber as the mask was crushed against his face, and then a pop as one of the eyepieces shattered. He smelled the putrid breath of the stalker, like warm, sour meat, as the animal continued to wrench and twist the mask, the straps behind Will's head stretched almost to the breaking point.

Praying the mask would stay in place, he tried with all his might to turn his head away. The stalker's jaws slid off the wet rubber, but Will's success was short-lived. The dog pulled back slightly, then immediately lunged again. Screaming, and still hanging on to its thick collar with all his might, Will was barely managing to keep it away from his face, his arms at the very limit of their strength. The collar was cutting into his fingers — he couldn't believe how heavy the beast was. Time after time, Will whipped his head away, only just evading the snapping teeth, like the jaws of a powerful trap clapping shut.

Then the animal contorted and twisted its body.

One of Will's hands lost its grip, and with nothing to hinder it the animal quickly sought out a more rewarding target. It caught hold of Will's forearm and bit down hard. Will cried out from the pain, his other hand involuntarily opening and letting go of the collar.

There was nothing to stop it now.

The animal instantly scrabbled over him and sank its incisors into his shoulder. Amid the growling and biting he heard the cloth of his jacket rip as the huge teeth, like twin rows of daggers, penetrated and tore into his flesh. Will wailed again as the animal shook its head, snarling loudly. He was helpless, a rag doll being shaken this way and that. With his free arm, he punched weakly at the animal's flanks and head, but it was no use.

Then suddenly the dog detached itself from his shoulder and reared up over him, its huge weight still pinning him down. As its frenzied eyes fixed on his, he could see its slathering jaws just inches from his face, strings of its drool dripping into his eyepieces. Will was aware that Cal was doing all he could to help; he was quickly lunging in to pummel and kick at the beast, then just as quickly pulling back. Each time he did this, the dog merely half turned to snarl at him, as if it knew Cal posed no threat. Its small, savage brain was fixed on only one thing; the kill that was completely and utterly at its mercy.

Will tried desperately to roll over, but the creature had him pinned to the floor. He knew he was no match for this unstoppable hellhound that seemed to be made from huge slabs of muscle as hard and unyielding as rock.

"Go!" he yelled at Cal. "Get away!"

Then, from out of nowhere, a fleshy bolt of gray catapulted a the stalker's head.

For one instant, it was as though Bartleby was suspended in midair, his back arched over and his claws extended like cutthroat razors just above the stalker's head. The next, he'd dropped, and there was a shocking frenzy of movement. They heard the wet slicing of flesh as Bartleby's teeth found their first mark. A dark fountain of blood was jetting over Will from a livid gash where the dog's ear had been. The beast let out a low-pitched yelp and immediately bucked and leaped off Will, Bartleby still clamped to its head and neck, blitzing it with bites and savage flesh-tearing slashes from his raking hind feet.

"Get up! Get up!" Cal was shouting as he helped Will to his feet with one hand and retrieved his backpack with the other.

The boys retreated to a safe distance, then stopped, compelled to stay and watch. They were rooted to the spot, transfixed by this brute battle between cat and dog as both writhed in mortal combat, their shapes melting together until they became an indistinguishable whirlwind of gray and red, punctuated by flashing teeth and claws.

"We can't stay here!" Will yelled. He could hear the shouts of the approaching patrol, which was quickly homing in on the fight.

"Bart, leave it! C'mere, boy!"

"The Styx." Will shook his brother. "We have to go!"

Cal reluctantly moved on, peering back to see if his cat was following through the mist. But there was no sign of Bartleby, only the distant hisses and yelps and screeches.

Shouts and footfalls were now echoing all around. The boys ran blindly, Cal grunting with the effort of carrying both packs, and Will trembling with shock, his whole arm throbbing dully with pain. He could feel the blood streaming down his side and was alarmed to find that it was running over the back of his hand in small rivulets and dripping from the ends of his fingertips.

Out of breath, the boys hastily agreed on a direction, hoping against hope it would take them out of the city and not straight back into the arms of the Styx. Once on the marshy perimeter, they would make their way around the edge of the City until they found the mouth of the Labyrinth. And if worse came to worst and they missed it completely, Will knew they would eventually comet to the stone staircase again and could quickly return Topsoil.

From the sounds they were hearing, the patrol seemed to be zeroing in on them. The boys were dashing at full speed, but then they blundered into a wall. Had they inadvertently strayed down a blind alley? The terrible thought struck both of them at the same time. They frantically felt along the wall until they found an archway, its sides crumbled away and the keystone missing at its apex.

"Thank God," Will whispered, glancing at Cal with relief. "That was close."

Cal merely nodded, panting heavily. They peered briefly behind them before passing through the ruined archway.

With lightning speed, strong hands grabbed them roughly from either side of the opening, yanking them off their feet.

35

Using his good arm, Will lashed out with all the strength he could summon, but his knuckles just grazed ineffectually off a canvas hood. Their captor cursed sharply as Will followed with another blow, but this time his fist was caught and trapped in the iron grip of a huge hand, forcing him back effortlessly until he was pinioned against the wall.

"That's enough!" the man hissed. "Shhh!"

Cal suddenly recognized the voice and began pushing in between Will and his hooded assailant. Will was completely baffled. What was his brother doing? Feebly he tried to lash out again, but the man held him fast.

"Uncle Tam!" Cal shouted joyously.

"Keep it down," Tam rebuked.

"Tam?" Will repeated, feeling all at once very stupid and very relieved.

"But… how… how did you know we'd be…? Cal stuttered.

"We've been keeping an eye out since the escape went off the rails," their uncle cut in.

"Yes, but how did you know it was us? Cal asked again.

"We just followed the light and the noise. Who else but you two would use those bloody fool pyrotechnics? They probably heard it Topsoil, let alone in the Colony."

"It was Will's idea," Cal replied. "It sort of worked."

"Sort of," Tam said, looking with concern at Will, who was steadying himself against the wall, the rubber of his mask scored with deep gouges and one of his eyepieces shattered and useless. "You all right, Will?"

"I think so," he mumbled, holding his blood-soaked shoulder. He felt a little woozy and detached, but couldn't tell if this was because of his wounds or because of the overwhelming sense of relief that Tam had found them.

"I knew you'd not be able to rest with Chester still here."

"What's happened to him? Is he all right?" Will asked, perking up at the mention of his friend's name.

"He's alive, at least for the time being — I'll tell you all about it later, but now, Imago, we'd better make ourselves scarce."

Imago's massive form slipped into sight with unexpected fleetness, his baggy mask twisting furtively this way and that, like a partially deflated balloon caught in the wind, as he scrutinized the murky shadows. He swung Will's pack over one shoulder as if it weighed nothing, and then he was off. It was all the boys could do to keep up with him. Their flight now turned into a nerve-racking game of follow the leader, with Imago's shadow piloting them through the miasma and unseen obstacles while Tam brought up the rear. But the boys were so very grateful to be back under Tam's wing that they almost forgot their predicament. They felt safe again.

Imago cupped a light orb in his hand, allowing just enough light to spill from it so they could negotiate the difficult terrain. They jogged through a series of flooded courtyards, then left the fog behind as they entered a circular building, racing at a staggering pace along corridors lined with statues and flaking murals. They slid in the mud on the cracked marble masonry until they found themselves hurtling up stairs of black granite. Climbing higher and higher, they were suddenly out in the open again. Traversing fractured stone walkways that had long sections of their balustrades missing, Will was able to look down from giddying heights and catch views of the city below between the meshing clouds. Some of these walkways were so narrow Will feared that if he hesitated for a second he might plunge to his death in the foggy soup that masked the sheer drops on either side. He kept going, putting his trust in Imago, who didn't waver for an instant, his unwieldy form driving relentlessly ahead, leaving little eddies of fog in its wake.

Eventually, after haring down several staircases, they entered a large room echoing with the sound of gurgling water. Imago came to a halt. He appeared to be listening for something.

"Where's Bartleby?" Tam whispered to Cal as they waited.

"He saved us from a stalker," Cal said despairingly, and hung his head. "He never came after us. I think he may be dead."

Tam put his arm around Cal and hugged him. "He was a prince among animals," he said. He patted Cal on the back consolingly before moving forward to confer with Imago in hushed tones.

"Think we should lie low for a while?"

"No, better to make a break for it." Imago's voice was calm and unhurried. "The Division knows the boys are still here somewhere, and the whole place'll be riddled with patrols in no time at all."

"We keep going, then," Tam concurred.

The four of them filed out of the room and traveled along a colonnade until Imago vaulted over a low wall and slid down a slimy bank into a deep gulley. As the boys followed him, the stagnant water came up to their thighs, and thick fronds of glutinous black weed hampered their movements. They waded laboriously through, lethargic bubbles rising up and clumping together on the surface. Even though they were wearing masks, the putrid stench of long-dead vegetation caught in their throats. The gulley became an underground channel, and they were plunged into darkness, their splashes echoing around them until, after what felt like an eternity, they emerged into the open again. Imago motioned for them to stop, then scuttled up the side of the channel, squelching off into the fog.

"This is a risky stretch," Tam warned them in a whisper. "It's open ground. Keep your wits about you and stay close."

Before long, Imago returned and beckoned to them. They clambered out of the water and with sodden boots and pants crossed the boggy ground, the city finally behind them. They went up a slope and then seemed to reach a plateau of sorts. Will's spirits leaped as he spotted the openings in the cavern wall ahead. They had reached a way back into the Labyrinth. They'd made it.

"Macaulay!" a harsh, thin voice called out.

They all stopped in their tracks and wheeled around. The fog was patchier here on the higher ground, and through the thinning wisps they saw a lone figure. It was a single Styx. He stood there, tall and arrogant, with his arms folded across his narrow chest.

"Well, well, well. Funny how rats always use the same runs…" he shouted.

"Crawfly," Tam replied coolly as he pushed Cal and Will toward Imago.

"…leaving their grease and stinking spoor on the sides. I knew I'd get you one day; it was just a matter of time." The Crawfly uncrossed his arms and then snapped them like whips. Will's heart missed a beat as he saw two shining blades appear in the Styx 's hands. Curved and about ten inches long, they looked like small scythes.

"You've been a thorn in my side for too long!" the Crawfly yelled.

Will glanced at Tam and was surprised to see he was already armed with a brutal-looking machete he seemed to have conjured from nowhere.

"It's time I righted a few wrongs," Tam said in a low, urgent voice to Imago and the boys. They could see the look of grim determination in his eyes. He turned in the direction of the Crawfly. "Get going, you lot, and I'll catch up to you," he called back to them as he began to advance.

But the saturnine figure with swathes of fog curling around it didn't give an inch. Brandishing the scythes with an expert flourish and crouching a little, the Styx had the appearance of something horribly unnatural.

"This isn't right. He's too bloody confident," Imago muttered. "We should make ourselves scarce." He drew the boys back protectively to one of the tunnel mouths of the Labyrinth as Tam closed in on the Crawfly.

"Oh, no… no…" Imago drew in his breath.

Will and Cal turned, searching for the source of his alarm. A mass of Styx had appeared through the mists and were spreading out in a wide arc. But the Crawfly held up one glinting scythe and they came to an abrupt halt a little distance behind him, swaying and fidgeting impatiently.

Tam stopped, pausing for a moment as if weighing the odds. He shook his head just once, then drew himself up defiantly. He tore off his hood and took a large breath, filling his lungs with the foul air.

In reply, the Crawfly yanked off his goggles and breathing apparatus, dropping them at his feet and kicking them aside. Tam and the Crawfly both stepped closer, then stopped. They faced each other like two opposing champions, and Will shuddered as he spotted the cold, sardonic smile on the thin face of the Styx.

The boys held their breath. It had grown so deathly quiet in that place, as if all the sound had been sucked from the world.

The Crawfly made the first move, his arms whipping over each other as he lunged forward. Tam jerked back to avoid the barrage of steel and, stepping to the side, brought up his machete in a defensive move. The two men's blades met and scraped off each other with a shrill metallic scream.

With incredible dexterity, the Crawfly spun around as if performing some ritual dance, darting toward Tam and back again, slashing and slashing with his twin blades. Tam retaliated with thrusts and parries, and the two opponents attacked and defended and attacked in turn. Each sally was so blisteringly fast, Cal and Will hardly dared blink. Even as they watched, there came another salvo of silver and gray, and the two men were suddenly so close they could have embraced, the razor-sharp edges of their weapons grinding coldly against each other. Almost as quickly, they fell back, breathing heavily. There was a lull while each man's eyes remained fixed on the other's, but Tam seemed to be listing slightly and clutching his side.

"This is bad," Imago said under his breath.

Will saw it, too. Between Tam's fingers and down his jacket seeped dark ribbons of liquid, which looked more like harmless black ink under the green light of the city. He was wounded and bleeding badly. He drew himself slowly up and, apparently recovering, in a flash had swung his machete at the Crawfly, who sidestepped effortlessly and swiped him across the face.

Tam flinched and staggered back, Imago and the boys saw the patch of blackness now spreading down his left cheek.

"Oh my God," Imago said quietly, holding on to the boys' collars so tightly that Will could feel his arms tensing as the fight resumed.

Tam attacked yet again, the Crawfly whirling backward and forward, this way and that, in his fluid and stylized dance. Tam's swipes and thrusts were decisive and skillful, but the Crawfly was too fast, the machete blade time and time again meeting with nothing but misty air. As Tam was twisting around to face his elusive opponent, he lost his footing. Trying to straighten up, his boots were slipping hopelessly. He was off balance, in a vulnerable position. The Crawfly couldn't miss this opportunity. He lunged at Tam's exposed flank.

But Tam was ready. He'd been waiting for this moment. He ducked forward and rose inside his opponent's guard, bringing up the machete in a flash, so smartly that Will missed the devastating slash to the Crawfly's throat.

The air between the two combatants filled with dark spume as the Crawfly reeled back. The Styx let both of his scythes tumble to the ground and gave out a bloody, hissing gurgle as he clutched his severed windpipe.

Like a matador delivering the killing blow, Tam stepped forward, using both his hands for the final thrust. The blade sank up to the hilt in the Crawfly's chest. He let out a bubbling hiss and grabbed Tam's shoulders to steady himself. He looked down with sheer disbelief at the rough wooden handle protruding from his sternum, then raised his head. For a moment they stood there absolutely motionless, like two statues in a tragic tableau, staring at each other in silent recognition.

Then Tam braced one foot against the Crawfly and wrenched out his machete. The Styx teetered on the spot, like a puppet suspended by unseen wires, his mouth shaping empty, breathless curses.

They watched as the mortally wounded man spluttered a last choking snarl at Tam and, tottering backward, collapsed to the ground in a lifeless heap. Excited whispers passed down the lines of Styx, who seemed paralyzed, unsure of what they should do next.

Tam wasted no time in such hesitation. Holding his injured side and grimacing with the pain, he sprinted back to join Imago and the boys. This in turn mobilized the Styx, who scuttled forward to form a ring around the body of their fallen comrade.

Tam was already leading Imago and the boys down a Labyrinth passage. But they had hardly gone any distance when he lurched to one side and sought out the wall for support. He was breathing hard and sweat was pouring off him. It streamed down his face, mingling with the blood from his lacerations and dripping from his bristly chin.

"I'll hold them off," he panted, looking back at the tunnel opening. "It'll buy you some time."

"No, I'll do it," Imago said. "You're wounded."

"I'm finished anyway," Tam said quietly.

Imago looked down at the blood welling out of the gaping flap on Tam's chest, and their eyes met for a fraction of a second. As Imago handed him his machete, it was clear the decision had been made.

"Don't, Uncle Tam! Please come with us," Cal begged in a choked voice, knowing full well what this meant.

"Then we'd all lose, Cal," Tam said, smiling wanly and hugging him with one arm. He reached into his shirt and yanked something from around his neck and pressed it into Will's hand. It was a smooth pendant with a symbol carved into it.

"Take this," Tam said quickly. "It might come in useful where you're going." He let go of Cal and took a step away, but then grabbed hold of Will, his eyes never leaving the younger boy. "And watch out for Cal, won't you, Will?" Tam tightened his grip on him. "Promise me that."

Will felt so numb that before he could find any words, Tam had turned away from him.

Cal began to shout frantically.

"Uncle Tam… come… come with us…!"

"Get them away, Imago," Tam called as he strode back toward the mouth of the tunnel, and as he did so the full horror of the approaching Styx army hove into view.

Cal was still calling Tam's name and showing not the slightest intention of going anywhere when Imago grasped hold of his collar and bundled him forcefully before him in the tunnel. The distraught boy had absolutely no choice but to do what Imago wanted, and his shouts immediately gave way to great howls of anguish and uncontrollable sobbing. Will received similarly rough treatment, with Imago repeatedly slapping him on the back to drive him forward. Imago only let up for the briefest moment as they rounded a sharp bend and he seemed to hesitate. The three of them, Will, Cal, and Imago, turned to catch a last glimpse of the big man, his outline dark against the green of the city as he held the two machetes in readiness at his sides.

Then Imago pushed them on again, and Tam was forever lost from view. But burned onto their retinas was that final scene, that final picture of Tam standing proud and defiant in the face of the approaching tide. A single figure before a bristling field of drawn scythes.

Even as they fled they could hear his urgent, shouted curses and the clash of blades, which grew fainter with every twist and turn of the tunnel.

36

They ran, and Will held his arm tightly to his side, his shoulder throbbing painfully with each stride. He had no idea how many miles they'd traveled when, at the end of a long gallery, Imago finally slowed the pace to allow them to catch their breath. The width of the tunnels meant they could have walked side by side, but instead they chose to remain in single file — it gave them some solitude, some privacy. Even though they hadn't exchanged a single word since they'd left Tam behind in the Eternal City, each knew only too well what the others were thinking in the wretched silence that hung like a pall over them. As they plodded mechanically along in their mournful little column, Will thought how much like a funeral procession it felt.

He just couldn't believe that Tam was really dead — the one person in the Colony who was so much larger than life, who had accepted him back into the family without a moment's hesitation. Will tried to get his thoughts into some sort of order and deal with the sense of loss and the hollowness that overwhelmed him, but he wasn't helped by Cal 's frequent bouts of muffled weeping.

They took innumerable turns down lefts and rights, every new stretch of tunnel as identical and unremarkable as the last. Imago didn't once refer to a map but seemed to know precisely where they were going, muttering to himself under his mask every so often, as if endlessly reciting a poem, or even a prayer. Several times Will noticed that he would shake a dull metal sphere the size of an orange as they turned yet another corner, but he had no idea why Imago was doing this.

It came as some surprise when Imago drew them to a halt by what appeared to be a small fissure in the ground and looked warily up and down the tunnel on either side of them. Then he started to agitate the metal sphere with vigor around the mouth of the fissure.

"What's that for?" Will asked him.

"It masks our scent," Imago answered brusquely and, tucking the sphere away, he unslung Will's backpack and dropped it into the gap. Then he lowered himself to his knees and squeezed headfirst into the opening. It was a tight fit, to say the least.

For about twenty feet the fissure descended almost vertically, then it began to level off, narrowing even further into a tight crawl space. Progress was slow as Will and Cal followed behind, the sounds of Imago's grunting and wriggling reaching them from up ahead as he desperately struggled through, pushing Will's backpack before him. Will was just wondering what they would do if Imago got stuck when they reached the end and were able to stand again.

At first, Will couldn’t make out much through his ruined mask, with one of its eyepieces shattered and the other fogged with condensation. It was only when Imago pulled off his mask and told the boys to remove theirs that Will saw where they were.

It was a chamber, little more than thirty feet across and almost perfectly bell-shaped, with rough walls the texture of Carborundum. A number of small grayish stalactites hung down in the middle of the chamber, directly over a circle of dusty metal, which was set into the center of the floor. As they shuffled around the edges of the chamber, their boots scattered clusters of smooth spheres, which were dirty yellow in color and varied from the size of peas to large marbles.

"Cave pearls," Will muttered, recalling the pictures he'd seen of them in one of his father's textbooks. Despite the way he felt, he immediately cast his eye around for any sign of running water, which would have been necessary for their formation. But the floor and walls appeared to be as dry and arid as the rest of the Labyrinth. And the only way in or out that Will could see was the crawl space they'd just come through.

Imago had been watching him, and answered his unuttered question.

"Don't worry… we'll be safe here, Will, for a while," he said, his broad face smiling, reassuringly. "We call this place the Cauldron."

As Cal stumbled wearily to the far side of the chamber and slid down against the wall with his head slumped forward onto his chest, Imago spoke to Will again.

"I should take a look at that arm."

"It's nothing, really," Will replied. Not only did he wasn’t to be left alone, he was also too terrified to discover just how severe his injuries might be.

"Come on," Imago said firmly, waving him over. "It could get infected. I need to dress it."

Gritting his teeth, Will took a deep breath and, stiffly and awkwardly, removed his jacket and let it slide to the ground. The material of his shirt was firmly stuck to the wounds, and Imago had to work it free little by little, starting at the collar and gently peeling it back. Will watched queasily, wincing as several of the damp scabs were pulled off and he saw fresh blood well out and run down his already stained arm.

"You got off lightly," Imago said. Will glanced at Imago's unsmiling face, wondering if he really meant what he was saying, as he nodded and went on. "You should count yourself lucky. Stalkers usually go for more vulnerable body parts."

Will's forearm had some livid welts, and two semicircles of puncture wounds on both sides, but there was little or no bleeding from these now. He inspected the redness on his chest and abdomen, then felt his ribs, which only hurt if he inhaled deeply. No real damage there either. But his shoulder was a different matter altogether. The animal's teeth had sunk deeper there, and the flesh had been badly mauled by the shaking of the stalker's head. In places it was so raw and torn it looked like it could have been inflicted by a shotgun blast.

"Eyshh!" Will exhaled loudly, turning his head away quickly as rivulets of blood seeped down his arm. "It looks awful." Now that he'd actually seen it, he tensed up and couldn't stop himself from trembling, realizing just how much his injuries were hurting him. For a moment all his strength deserted him, and he felt so very weak and vulnerable.

"Don't worry, it looks worse than it is," Imago said reassuringly as he poured a clear liquid from a silver flask over a piece of cloth. "But this is going to sting," he warned Will, then set about cleaning the wounds. When he'd finished, he pushed the flap of his coat open and reached inside to unbutton one of the many pouches on his belt. He pulled out a bag of what looked like pipe tobacco and proceeded to sprinkle it liberally over Will's wounds, concentrating on the lacerations to his shoulder. The small, dry fibers stuck to the lesions, absorbing the blood. "This might hurt a little, but I'm nearly done," Imago said as he packed more of the material on top, patting it down so that it formed a thick mat.

"What's that?" Will asked, daring to look at his shoulder again.

"Shredded rhizomes."

"Shredded what? " Will said with alarm. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"I'm the son of an apothecary. I was taught to dress a wound when I was not much older than you are."

Will relaxed again.

"You don't need to worry, Will… it's been a while since I lost a patient," Imago said, looking askance at him.

"Huh?" A little slow on the uptake, Will stared at him with alarm.

"Only joking," Imago said, ruffling Will's hair and chuckling. But despite Imago's attempt to lighten the mood, Will could read the intense sadness in the man's eyes as he continued to tend to Will's shoulder. "There's an antiseptic in this poultice. It'll stop the bleeding and deaden the nerves," Imago said as he reached into another pouch and pulled out a gray roll of material, which he began to unwind. He bound this expertly around Will's shoulder and arm and, tying the ends securely in a bow, stood back to admire his handiwork.

"How's that feel?"

"Better," Will lied. "Thanks."

"You'll need to change the dressing every once in a while — you should take some of this with you."

"What do you mean, with me? Where are we going?" Will asked, but Imago shook his head.

"All in good time. You've lost a lot of blood and need to get some fluids in you. And we should all try to eat something." Imago glanced across at the slumped form of Cal. "Come on. Get yourself over here, boy."

Cal obediently heaved himself to his feet and wandered over as Imago sat his bulk down, his legs stretched out in front of him, and began to produce numerous dull metal canisters from his leather satchel. He unscrewed the lid of the first one and proffered it at Will, who regarded the sloppy gray slabs of fungi with unconcealed revulsion. "I hope you don't mind," Will said, "but we brought our own."

Imago didn't seem to mind at all. He simply resealed his canister and waited expectantly as Will unloaded the food from his backpack. Imago fell upon it with evident relish, sucking noisily on slices of honey-roasted ham, which he held delicately in his dirty fingers. As if trying to make the experience last forever, he rolled the meat noisily around in his mouth with his tongue before chewing it. And when he did finally swallow, he half closed his eyes and let out huge, blissful sighs.

In contrast, Cal hardly touched a thing, picking unenthusiastically — before withdrawing again to the other side of the chamber. Will didn't have much of an appetite, either, particularly after witnessing Imago's performance. He pulled out a can of Coke and had just started sipping it when he suddenly thought about the jade green pendant that Tam had given him. He found it in his jacket and took it out to examine its dull surface. It was still smeared with Tam's blood, which had congealed within the three indentations carved into one of its faces. He stared at it and ran his thumb across it lightly. He was certain he'd seen the same three-pronged symbol somewhere before. Then he remembered. It had been on the milestone in the Labyrinth.

While Imago was working his way through a bar of plain chocolate, savoring each mouthful, Cal spoke from the other side of the chamber, his voice flat and listless.

"I want to go home. I don't care anymore."

Imago choked, spitting out a hail of half-chewed chocolate globs. He spun his head around to face Cal, his horsetail braid whipping into the air. "And what about the Styx?"

"I'll talk to them, I'll make them listen to me," Cal replied feebly.

"They'll listen, all right, while they're cutting out your liver or hacking you limb from limb!" Imago rebuked him. "You little idiot, d'you think Tam gave his life just so you could chuck yours away?"

"I… no…" Cal was blinking with fright as Imago continued to shout.

Still holding the pendant tightly, Will pressed it to his forehead, covering his face with his hand. He just wanted everyone to shut up; he didn't need any of this. He wanted it all to stop, if only for a moment.

"You selfish, stupid… what are you going to do, get your father or Granny Macaulay to hide you… and risk their lives, too? This is going to be bad enough as it is!" Imago was yelling.

"I just thought—"

"No, you didn't!" Imago cut him off. "You can never go back, d'you understand? Get that into your thick head!" Casting the rest of the chocolate bar aside, he strode to the opposite side of the chamber.

"But I…" Cal started to say.

"Get some sleep!" Imago growled, his face rigid with anger. He wrapped his coat tightly around him and, using his satchel as a pillow, he lay down on his side with his face to the wall.

There they remained for the better part of the next day, alternately eating and sleeping with hardly a word passing between them. After all the horror and excitement of the past twenty-four hours, Will welcomed the opportunity to recuperate, and spent much of the time in a heavy, dreamless sleep. He was eventually woken by Imago's voice, and lethargically opened one eye to see what was going on.

"Come over here and give me a hand, will you, Cal?"

Cal quickly jumped up and joined Imago, who was kneeling by the center of the chamber.

"It weighs a ton." Imago grinned.

As they slid aside the metal circle in the ground, it was patently obvious Imago could have managed by himself and that this was his way of patching things up with Cal. Will opened his other eye and flexed his arm. His shoulder was stiff, but his injuries didn't hurt nearly as much as they had.

Cal and Imago were now lying full-length on the ground, peering down into the circular opening as Imago played his light into it. Will crawled over to see what they were looking at. There was a well a good three feet across and then a murky darkness below it.

"I can see something shining," Cal said.

"Yes, railway tracks," Imago replied.

"The Miners' Train," Will realized as he saw the two parallel lines of polished iron glinting in the pitch-blackness.

They pulled back from the hole and sat around it, waiting eagerly for Imago to speak.

"I'm going to be blunt, because we don’t have much time," he said. "You have two choices. Either we lie low up here for a while and then I get you Topsoil again, or—"

"No, not there," said Cal right away.

"I'm not saying it's going to be easy to get you there," Imago admitted. "Not with three of us."

"No way! I couldn't take it!" Cal raised his voice until he was almost shouting.

"Don't be so hasty," Imago warned. "If we did make it Topsoil, at least you could try to lose yourselves somewhere the Styx can't find you. Maybe."

"No," repeated Cal with absolute conviction.

Imago was now looking directly at Will. "You should be aware…" He clammed up, as if what he was about to say was so terrible that he didn't quite know how to put it. "Tam thinks" — he quickly corrected himself with a grimace — "thought that the Styx girl who passed herself off as your Topsoiler sister" — he coughed uneasily and wiped his mouth — "is the Crawfly's daughter. So Tam just killed her father back there in the City."

"Rebecca's father?" Will asked in a nonplussed voice.

"Oh, great," Cal croaked.

"Why's that important? What does—" Will managed, before Imago cut him short.

"The Styx don't leave be. They will pursue you, anywhere you go. Anyone who gives you shelter — Topsoil, in the Colony, or even in the Deeps — is in danger, too. You know they have people all over the surface." Imago scratched his belly and frowned. "But if Tam was right, it means that as bad as your situation was before, it's worse now. You're in the very greatest danger. You are marked now."

Will tried to absorb what he'd just been told, shaking his head at the unfairness, the injustice of it all.

"So you're saying that if I go Topsoil, I'm on the run. And if I went to Auntie Jean's, then…"

"She's dead." Imago shifted uneasily where he sat on the dusty rock floor. "That's the way it is."

"But what are you going to do, Imago?" Will asked, finding it impossible to grasp the situation he was in.

"I can't go back to the Colony, that's for sure. But don't you worry 'bout me; it's you two that need sorting out."

"But what should I do?" Will asked, glancing over at Cal, who was staring at the opening in the floor, and then back to Imago, who just shrugged unhelpfully, leaving Will feeling even worse. He was at a total loss. It was as though he were playing a game where you were only told the rules after you made a mistake. "Well, I suppose there's nothing Topsoil for me, anyway. Not now," he mumbled, bowing his head. "And my dad's down here… somewhere."

Imago pulled over his satchel and rummaged inside it, fishing out something wrapped in an old piece of burlap, which he passed to Will.

"What's this?" Will muttered, folding back the cloth. With so many thoughts racing through his head, he was in a state of confusion, and it took him several seconds to appreciate just what he'd been given.

It was a flattened and solid glob of paper, which easily fit into his fist. With torn and irregular edges, it had evidently been immersed in water and then left to dry, the pieces clumped together in a crude papier-mвchй. He glanced inquiringly at Imago, who offered no comment, so he began to pick away at the outer layers, much as one might peel the desiccated leaves from an ancient onion. As he scratched at their furred edges with a fingernail, it didn't take him long to separate the pieces of paper. Then he laid them out to inspect them more closely under his light.

"No! I don't believe it! This is my dad's writing!" Will said with surprise and delight as he recognized Dr. Burrows's characteristic scrawl on a number of the fragments. They were mud-stained and the blue ink had run, making very little of it legible, but he was still able to decipher some of what was written.

"'I will resume, " Will recited from one fragment, quickly moving on to the others and scrutinizing each of them in turn. "No, this piece is too smudged," he mumbled. "Nothing here, either," he continued, and "I don't know… some odd words… doesn't make any sense… but… ah, this says 'Day 15 !" He continued to scour several more fragments until he stopped with a jerk. "This piece," he exclaimed excitedly, holding the particular scrap up to the light, "mentions me!" He glanced across at Imago, a slight waver in his voice. "'If my son, Will, had, it says!" With a puzzled expression, he flicked it over to check the reverse side but found it was blank. "But what did Dad mean? What didn't I do? What was I meant to do?" Will again looked to Imago for help.

"Search me," the man said.

Will's face lit up. "Whatever he was saying, he's still thinking about me. He hasn't forgotten me. Maybe he always hoped that somehow or other I'd try to follow after him, to find him." He was nodding vigorously as the notion built to a crescendo in his head. "Yes, that's it… that must be it!"

Something else occurred to him at that moment, deflecting his thoughts. "Imago, this has to be from my dad's journal. Where did you get it?" Will was immediately imagining the worst. "Is he all right?"

Imago rubbed his chin comtemplatively. "Don't know. Like Tam told you, he took a one-way on the Miners' Train." Sticking a thumb in the direction of the hole in the floor, he went on. "Your father's down there somewhere, in the Deeps. Probably."

"Yes, but where did you get this?" Will demanded impatiently, closing his hand over the scraps of paper and holding them up in his palm.

"'Bout a week after your dad arrived in the Colony, he was wandering around on the outskirts of the Rookeries and was attacked." Imago's voice became slightly incredulous at this point. "If the story's to be believed, he was stopping people and asking them things. Round these parts they don't take kindly to anyone, least of all Topsoilers, nosing about, and he got a good kicking. By all accounts, he just lay there, didn't even try to put up a fight. Probably saved his life."

"Dad," Will said with tears welling in his eyes as he pictured the scene. "Poor old Dad."

"Well, it can't have been too bad. He walked away from it." Imago rubbed his hands together, and his tone changed, becoming more businesslike. "But that's neither here nor there. You need to tell me what you want to do. We can't stick around here forever." He looked pointedly at each boy in turn. "Will? Cal?"

They were both silent for a while, until Will spoke up.

" Chester!" He couldn't believe that with everything else that had been going on, he'd completely forgotten about his friend. "Whatever you say, I've got to go back for him," he said resolutely. "I owe it to him."

" Chester will be all right," Imago said.

"How can you know that?" Will immediately shot back at him.

Imago simply smiled.

"So where is he?" Will asked. "Is he really all right?"

"Trust me," Imago said cryptically.

Will looked into his eyes and saw the man was in earnest. He felt a huge sense of relief, as if a crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He told himself that if anyone could save his friend, then it would be Imago. He drew a long breath and lifted his head. "Well, in that case, the Deeps it is."

"And I'm going with you," Cal put in quickly.

"You're both absolutely sure about this?" Imago asked, looking hard at Will. "It's like hell down there. You'd be better off Topsoil; at least you'd know the lay of the land."

Will shook his head. "My dad is all I have left."

"Well, if that's what you want." Imago's voice was low and somber.

"There's nothing for us Topsoil, not now," Will replied with a glance at his brother.

"Okeydokey, it'd decided, then," Imago said, checking his watch. "Now try to get some shut-eye. You're going to need all your strength."

But none of them could sleep, and Imago and Cal ended up talking about Tam. Imago was regaling the younger boy with stories of his uncle's exploits, even chuckling at times, and Cal couldn't help but join in with him. Imago was clearly drawing comfort from reminiscing about the stunts he, Tam, and his sister had pulled in their youth, when they had run rings around the Styx.

"Tam and Sarah were as bad as each other, I can tell you. Pair of wildcats." Imago smiled sadly.

"Tell Will about the cane toads," Cal said, egging him on.

"Oh dear God, yes…" Imago laughed, recalling the incident. "It was your mother's idea, you know. We caught a barrel load of the things over in the Rookeries — the sickos there raise them in their basements." Imago raised his eyebrows. "Sarah and Tam took the toads to a church and let them out just before the service got underway. You should have seen it… a hundred of the slimy little beggars hopping all over the place… people jumping and shrieking, and you could hardly hear the preacher for all the croaking… burup, burup, burup." The rotund man rocked with silent laughter, then his brow furrowed and he was unable to continue.

With all the talk about his real mother, Will had been trying his hardest to listen, but he was too tired and preoccupied. The seriousness of his situation was still foremost in his mind, and his thoughts were heavy with apprehension about what he'd just committed himself to. A journey into the unknown. Was he really up to it? Was he doing the right thing, for himself and his brother?

He broke from his introspection as he heard Cal suddenly interrupt Imago, who had just started on another tale. "Do you think Tam might have made it?" Cal asked. "You know… escaped?"

Imago looked away from him quickly and began drawing absently in the dust with his finger, clearly at a loss for words. And in the silence that ensued, intense sorrow flooded Cal 's face again.

"I can't believe he's gone. He was everything to me."

"He fought them all his life," Imago said, his voice distant and strained. "He was no saint, that's for sure, but he gave us something — hope — and that made it bearable for us." He paused, his eyes fixed on some distant point beyond Cal 's head. "With the Crawfly dead there'll be purges… and a crackdown the likes of which hasn't been seen for years." He picked up a cave pearl and examined it. "But I wouldn't go back to the Colony even if I could. I suppose we're all homeless now," Imago said as he flicked the pearl into the air with his thumb and, with absolute precision, it fell into the dead center of the well.

37

"Please!" Chester whimpered inside the clammy hood, which stuck to his face and neck with his cold sweat. After they had dragged him from his cell and down the corridor to the front of the police station, they had pushed something over his head and bound his wrists. Then they'd left him standing there, enveloped in stifling darkness, with muffled sounds coming from all around.

"Please!" Chester shouted in sheer desperation.

"Shut up, will you!" snapped a gruff voice just inches behind his ear.

"What's happening?" Chester begged.

"You're going on a little journey, my son, a little journey," said the same voice.

"But I haven't done anything! Please!"

He heard boots grinding on a stone floor as he was pushed from behind. He stumbled and fell to his knees, unable to rise up again with his hands tied behind his back.

"Get up!"

He was hauled to his feet and stood swaying, his legs like jelly. He'd known that this moment was looming, that his days were numbered, but he'd had no way of finding out what it would be like when it did come. Nobody would speak to him in the Hold, not that he made much of an effort to ask them, so petrified was he of provoking any further retribution from the Second Officer and his fellow wardens.

So Chester had lived as a condemned man who could only guess at the form of his eventual demise. He'd clung on to every precious second he had left, trying not to let them go, and dying a little inside as one after another they slipped away. Now the only thing he could find solace from was the knowledge that he had a train journey before him — so at least he had some time left. But then what? What were the Deeps like? What would happen to him there?

"Move it!"

He shambled forward a few paces, unsure of his footing and unable to see a thing. He bumped into something hard, and the sound around him seemed to change. Echoes. Shouts, but from a distance, from a larger space.

Suddenly, there came the clamor of many voices.

Oh, no!

He knew without a shred of doubt exactly where he was — he was outside the police station. And what he was hearing was the baying of a large crowd. If he'd been frightened before, it was worse now. A crowd. The jeering and catcalls grew louder, and he felt himself being lifted under each arm and hoisted along. He was on the main street; he could feel the irregular surface of the cobbles when his feet were allowed to touch the ground.

"I haven't done anything! I want to go home!"

He was panting hard, struggling with his own saliva and tears, it sucked into his mouth with every inhalation.

"Help me! Someone!" His voice was so anguished and distorted that it was almost unrecognizable to him.

Still the crazed shouts came from all around.

"TOPSOIL FILTH!"

"STRING 'IM UP!"

One repeated shout with many voices took form. It went over and over again.

"FILTH! FILTH! FILTH!"

They were shouting at him — so many people were shouting at him! His stomach churned with the stark realization. He couldn't see them, and that made it worse. He was so terrified he thought he was going to be sick.

"FILTH! FILTH! FILTH!"

"Please… please stop… help me! Please… please help me… please." He was hyperventilating and crying at the same time — he couldn't help it.

"FILTH! FILTH! FILTH!"

I'm going to die! I'm going to die! I'm going to die!

The single thought pulsed through his head, a counterpoint to the repeated chant of the crowd. They were so close to him now — close enough that he could smell their collective stench and the foul reek of their collective hatred.

"FILTH! FILTH! FILTH!"

HE felt as if he were in the bottom of a well, with a vortex of noises and shouts and vicious laughter swirling around him. He couldn't take it anymore. He had to do something. He had to escape!

In blind terror he tried to break free, struggling and twisting his body, convulsing against his captors. But the huge hands only gripped him even more savagely, and the rabble's cries and laughter reached fever pitch at this new spectacle. Exhausted and realizing it was futile, he moaned, "No… no… no… no…"

A sickly, intimate voice came to him from so close that he felt the speaker's lips brush his ear. "C'mon now, Chester, pull yourself together! You don't want to disappoint all these good ladies and gentlemen, do you?" Chester realized it was the Second Officer. He must have been relishing every second of this.

"Let them have a look at you!" said someone else. "Let them see you for what you are!"

Chester felt numb… bereft… I can't believe this. I can't believe this.

For a moment it was as if all the jeering and chanting and catcalls had stopped. As if he were in the eye of the storm, as if time itself had stopped. Then hands took hold of his ankles and legs, guiding them onto a step of some kind.

What now? He was heaved onto a bench and shoved hard against its back, in a sitting position.

"Take him away!" someone barked. The crowd cheered, and there were rapturous yelps and wolf whistles.

Whatever he had been put on lurched forward. He thought he heard the plunging of horses' hooves. A carriage? Yes, a carriage!

"Don't make me go! This isn't right!" he implored them.

He began to gibber, his words making no sense.

"You're going to get exactly what you deserve, my boy!" said a voice to his right, in an almost confidential tone. It was the Second Officer again.

"And it's too good for you," came another he didn’t recognize from his left.

Chester was now shaking uncontrollably.

This is it, then! Oh God! Oh God! This is it!

He thought of his home, and the memories of watching television on so many Saturday mornings popped into his head. Happy and cherished moments of normality with his mother in the kitchen cooking breakfast, the smell of food in the air, and his father calling from upstairs to see if it was ready yet. It was like another time, another century.

I will never, ever see them again. They're gone… it's all gone… finished… forever!

His head sank to his chest. He went limp as the stone-cold realization that it was all over spread through his whole body.

I am FINISHED.

From the soles of his feet to the top of his head he was filled with a crushing hopelessness. As if he'd been paralyzed, his breath slowly left his lips, pulling with it an involuntary animal sound, a half whine, half moan. An awful, dread-filled sound of resignation, of abandonment.

For what seemed like an eternity, he didn’t breathe at all, his mouth gaping, closing, opening, like that of a stranded fish. His empty lungs burned from the lack of air until finally his whole body jerked. He sucked in a painful breath through the clogged wave of the hood. Forcing his head up, he let go a final cry of utter and final despair.

"WWWWWWIIIIIILLLLLL!"

Will was surprised to find he'd dozed off again. He awoke, disoriented and with no idea how long he'd actually been asleep, as a dull, far-off vibration roused him. He couldn't pinpoint what it was, and in any case the cold, hard reality of the choice to go into the Deeps came flooding back to him. It was as if he'd awoken into a nightmare.

He was Imago crouching by the well, inclining his head toward the sound, listening. Then they all heard it plainly; the distant rumbling grew louder with every second until it began to reverberate around the chamber. At Imago's direction, Will and Cal shimmied over to the opening in the floor and readied themselves. As they both sat with their legs dangling from the edge, beside them Imago was leaning his head and shoulders into the well, hanging down as far as he could.

"Slows around the corner!" they heard him shout, and the noise grew more and more intense, until the whole chamber was vibrating around them. "Here she comes. Bang on time!" He pulled himself out, still watching the tracks below as he kneeled between the boys.

"You're sure this is what you want?" he asked them.

The boys looked at each other and nodded.

"We're sure," Will said. "But Chester…?"

"I told you, don't worry 'bout him," Imago said with a dismissive smile.

The chamber was shaking now with the sound of the approaching train, as if a thousand drums were beating in their heads.

"Do exactly as I say — this has to be timed to perfection — so when I say jump, you jump!" Imago told them.

The chamber filled with the acrid taint of sulfur. Then, as the roar of the engine reached a crescendo, a jet of soot shot up through the opening like a black geyser. It caught Imago square in the face, spraying him with smut and making him squint. They all coughed as the thick, pungent smoke flooded the Cauldron, engulfing them.

"READY… READY…," Imago screamed, pitching the backpacks into the darkness below them. " CAL, JUMP!"

For a split second Cal hesitated, and Imago suddenly pushed him. He dropped into the well, howling with surprise.

"GO, WILL!" Imago screamed again, and Will tipped himself off the edge.

The sides flashed past, and then he was out and tumbling into a vortex of noise, smoke, and darkness, his arms and legs flailing. His breath was knocked from him as he landed with a jarring crunch, and a pure white light burst around him, one he couldn't even begin to understand. Points of illumination seemed to be leaping over him like errant stars and, for the briefest of moments, he really wondered if he'd died.

He lay still, listening to the percussive beat of the engine somewhere up ahead and the juddering rhythm of the wheels as the train picked up speed. He felt the wind on his face and watched the long wisps of smoke pass above him. No, this wasn't some industrial heaven; he was alive!

He resolved not to move for a moment while he mentally checked himself over, making sure he didn't have any broken bones to add to his already burgeoning list of injuries. Incredibly, other than a few additional grazes, everything seemed to be intact and in working order.

He lay there. If this wasn't death, what was the bright, fluxing light he still saw all around him, like a miniature aurora? He pulled himself up onto one elbow.

Countless light orbs the size of large marbles were rolling around the gritty floor of the car, colliding and rebounding off one another in random paths. Some became trapped in the runnels in the floor and would dim slightly as they touched, until they became unseated and scampered off on their ways again, flaring into brilliance once more.

Then Will looked behind him and found the remains of the crate and the straw packing. It all became clear. His fall had been broken by a box of light orbs, which had smashed open when he landed on it. Thanking his luck, he felt like cheering, but instead helped himself to several handfuls of the lights, stuffing them into his pockets.

He got to his feet, bracing himself against the motion of the train. Although foul-smelling smoke streamed thickly around him, the loose orbs lit up the car to such effect that he was able to see it in detail. It was massive. It must have been nearly a hundred feet long and half that in width, much larger and more substantial than any train he'd ever seen Topsoil. It was constructed from slablike plates of iron, crudely welded together. The side panels were battered and rusted away, and their tops worn and buckled, as if the car had seen eons of hard use.

He dropped down again and, his knees grinding in the grit on the floor, the movement of the car buffeting him around, he went in search of Cal. He came across several other crates made from the same thin wood as the one he'd landed on, and then, near the front of the car, he spotted Cal 's boot propped up on another line of boxes.

" Cal, Cal!" he shouted, crawling frantically toward him. In the midst of a mass of splintered wood, his brother was lying still, too still. His jacket was splattered with a wet darkness, and Will could see there was something wrong with his face.

Fearing the worst, Will shouted even louder. Not wanting to knock against Cal in case he was badly hurt, he clambered rapidly across the top of the crates alongside him. Dreading what he was about to see, he slowly held a light orb up to Cal 's head. It didn't look good. His face and hair were slick with a red pulp.

Will reached out gingerly and was touching the watery redness on his brother's face when he noticed the broken green forms scattered around him. And there were seeds stuck to Cal 's forehead. Will drew back his hand and tasted his fingers. It was watermelon! At Cal 's side was another damaged crate. As Will shoved it away to make more room, tangerines, pears, and apples spilled out. His brother had evidently had a soft landing, smashing into crates of fruit.

"Thank goodness," Will repeated as he shook Cal gently by the shoulders, trying to stir his limp form. But his head flopped lifelessly from side to side. Not knowing what else to do, Will took his brother's wrist to check his pulse.

"Get off me, will you!" Cal yanked his arm away from Will as he sluggishly opened his eyes and moaned self-pityingly. "My head hurts," he complained, rubbing his forehead tenderly. He brought up his other arm and glanced bemusedly at the banana in his hand. Then he caught the fragrant smell of the lush fruit all around him and look uncomprehendingly at Will.

"What happened?" he shouted over the din of the train.

"Lucky duck, you fell in the restaurant car!" Will chuckled.

"Huh?"

"Doesn't matter. Try to sit up," Will suggested.

"In a minute." Cal was groggy but otherwise appeared to be unharmed, except for a few cuts and bruises and a liberal dousing of melon juice, so Will crawled back over the crates and began to investigate. He knew he should be retrieving their backpacks from the cars in front of them, but there was no hurry. Imago had said it would be a long trip and, anyway, his curiosity was getting the better of him.

"I'm going to…" he shouted over at Cal.

"What?" Cal cupped a hand to his ear.

"Explore," Will motioned.

"OK!" Cal yelled back.

Will scrambled through the weird sea of light orbs at the rear of the car and pulled himself up on the end panel. He peered down at the coupling in between the cars and the polished sheen of the well-used rails shooting hypnotically underneath. Then he looked across to the next car, only a few feet away and, without stopping to think, hoisted himself over the edge. With the motion of the train it was awkward, but he managed to reach across and straddle both end panels, then had no option but to jump.

He dropped into the next car and rolled uncontrollably over the floor until he came to rest against a pile of canvas sacks. There was nothing much of note here except for some more crates halfway down, so he crawled to the back of the section and got to his feet again. He tried to see to the very end of the train, but the combination of smoke and darkness made this impossible.

"How many are there?" Will shouted to himself as he went to clamber over the end wall. As he repeated the process over successive cars, he finally got the hang of it and found he could hop over and steady himself before he went tumbling. He was consumed with a burning curiosity to find the end of the train but at the same time wary about what he might come across there. He'd been warned by Imago that it was more than likely there'd be a Colonist in the guard's carriage, so he had to play it carefully.

He'd dropped over the edge of the fourth car and was just crawling across a loose tarpaulin when something stirred beside him.

"What the—" Terrified he'd been caught, Will drove his heel into the shadows as hard as he could. Off balance, the kick wasn't as effective as he'd hoped, but he definitely struck something under the tarpaulin. He readied himself to strike again.

"Leave me alone!" a voice complained weakly, and the tarpaulin flew back to reveal a hunched form in the corner. Will immediately held up his light orb.

"Hey!" the voice squeaked, trying to shield its face from the illumination.

He blinked at Will, tearstains etched through the film of grime and coal smut on his cheeks. There was a pause and a gasp of recognition, and his face split into the broadest grin imaginable. It was a tired face, and had lost much of its healthy chubbiness, but it was unmistakable.

"Hi, Chester," Will said, slumping down next to his old friend.

"Will?" Chester cried, not quite believing what he was seeing; then, at the top of his lungs, he cried out again. "Will!"

"Didn’t think I'd let you go by yourself, did you?" Will shouted back. Will realized now what Imago had had in mind. He knew Chester was to be Banished, sent to the Deeps on this very train. The sly old rogue had known all along.

It was impossible to talk with all the noise from the speeding engine up ahead, but Will was content just to be reunited with Chester. Will grinned the widest of grins, luxuriating in a wave of relief that his friend was safe. He leaned back against the end panel of the car and shut his eyes, filled with the most intense feeling of elation that, finally, from the throes of the nightmarish situation he'd found himself in, something good had emerged, something had turned out right. Chester was safe! That meant the world to him.

And to top it all, he was being borne toward his father, on the greatest adventure of his life, on a journey into undiscovered lands. In his mind, Dr. Burrows was the only part of his past life he could cling to. Will was determined that he would find him, wherever he was. And then everything would be all right again. They'd all be all right: he, Chester, and Cal, all together, with his father. This notion shone in his thoughts like the brightest of beacons.

All of a sudden, the future didn't seem so daunting.

Will opened his eyes and leaned toward Chester 's ear: "No school tomorrow, then!" he shouted.

They both burst into helpless laughter, which was drowned out by the train as it continued to gather speed, spewing dark smoke behind it, carrying them away from the Colony, away from Highfield, and away from everything they knew, accelerating into the very heart of the earth.