The Fire Children Page 4

  In fact, in that moment, Yulla would have been happy if she never saw her sister again.

  She stumbled a few times, skinning her knees on the rough-hewn tunnel floor, but she gritted her teeth against the sting, clambered back to her feet, and pushed on. After that, she held tight to the rope guides along the walls. The first several turns she took wildly, paying no attention to the signs that would have told her where she was. When she was too winded to keep running, she slowed her steps and paused.

  Her tears were down to a trickle despite the anger that boiled in her chest. Yulla still wanted to put fleas in Kell’s bed, or tar in her hair, but that desperate, scrabbling feeling of needing the ground to swallow her up had faded.

  Up ahead was another junction, according to the rope guide at her fingertips. She followed it, plotting what she’d say to Kell when they both got home. It would serve Kell right if she got in trouble for coming home without her.

  If Kell got in trouble for losing Yulla, though, Yulla might also get in trouble for running off in the first place.

  Her fingers skimmed along the rope until she felt the smooth surface of the wooden sign at the junction. She didn’t know how long she’d been running, or how many turns she’d taken. It had been a while since she’d even passed through a cellar with people in it. The sign should tell her which way would lead her home the fastest—going back the way she’d come might be the long way around, depending where she’d wound up.

  At first she thought she’d made a mistake: the wood’s surface was flat, no letters carved into it for Yulla to trace. She pulled it away from the tunnel wall and felt the other side: nothing. Letting it fall back into place, she realized the bottom edge was uneven, as though it had cracked along the grain.

  She bent down and spidered her fingers along until they bumped against another chunk of wood. Crowing with triumph, she felt for the letters that would tell her which way lay home. What she found instead was old and worn nearly smooth by the years. She said the letters aloud as she puzzled them out, making certain of their shape beneath her fingers before she released them into the air.

  “Seaglass,” she whispered, frowning. But there was no sea here; there hadn’t been for thousands and thousands of years.

  Could the Seaglass have been like the Sunglass, once upon a time? If this wasn’t someone’s old forgotten joke, she probably had to be near the Worship Hall. She didn’t think she’d come that far to the north of Kaladim, but with all the twists and turns she’d taken, she supposed it was possible.

  And if she was near the Worship Hall, how could she not take a peek? If she got caught, she could tell the priest she was lost, and they’d take her home. Yulla grinned; her skin crinkled where the tears had dried. Going to the Worship Hall rather than retracing her steps would mean she’d get home well past when Amma wanted them in for dinner. But if the priests did have to bring her back, Kell would get all the blame.

  Yulla put down the worn sign and set off toward the Seaglass, humming to herself.

  THE TUNNEL NARROWED as she walked; the floor grew more uneven. She lost count of how many times she stubbed her toes on loose stones. The passages around their cellar didn’t have any debris like this; during the last few days of preparations, she and Kell had moved freely between the houses—the only things they ever tripped over or bumped into were other people.

  Here, though, it seemed no one had come and cleared away the rocks that had fallen since the last Scorching Days had come. She moved more carefully, sliding her feet forward a little at a time. She gripped the rope guide tightly with one hand, her other thrust out before her for balance.

  She thought she’d been walk-shuffling for about a quarter of an hour when she came to the cave-in. Like she had every time her sandal had met resistance so far, she lifted her knee up high and tried stepping over the obstruction.

  Only this time, she didn’t find smooth ground on the other side. She didn’t even find the other side. Letting go of the rope guide, Yulla bent carefully and patted the air in front of her. Rocks. Everywhere she felt, in a pile nearly as tall as she was, were rocks far too big for her to move. She felt her way across the tunnel. The debris stretched the whole width.

  Frustrated, she straightened up. I’ll be in trouble if I go home alone. But surely if the Worship Hall were on the other side of this rockfall, someone would have come and cleared it by now? Aunt Mouse said the priests mostly kept to themselves during the Darktimes, but wouldn’t someone have heard the collapse and gone for help?

  She thought about how long it had been since she’d passed through anyone’s cellar, then, and wondered whether the sound would even have carried.

  I should go home. It could be dangerous here—if the ceiling was unstable, there could be another cave-in anytime. If no one had heard the first one, they probably wouldn’t hear another. Or her cries for help.

  But she’d come all this way, and she was still angry enough at Kell that staying to explore for a few extra minutes didn’t seem to matter much. They’d be getting worried by now. Let Kell stew for a bit longer. Let her bear the brunt of Amma and Abba’s worry, let her have to answer where did she run to? and What did you say to her? a few more times.

  Yulla dithered on the edge of the pile-up, knowing she should go home and face Amma’s anger, but wishing she’d at least find something to make the trouble she’d get into worthwhile.

  That’s when the breeze stirred against her cheek, and the murmur of voices sounded from somewhere past the collapse.

  Cautiously, she moved closer. She couldn’t make out the words, but one voice lilted up at the end, as if asking a question. Another answered in a lower pitch. The faint tinkling of bells reached her, and the sound of something heavy dragged across stone. The breeze gusted, then subsided.

  I’m light and I’m quick, thought Yulla, and if there are people over there, they can bring me home. The climb proved easier than she’d thought it would—no loose rocks shifted beneath her. There were plenty of handholds. Still, it was strange going in the dark. She had no idea how high she was when she found the top, but the crown of her head brushed the ceiling as she hoisted herself over. In the tunnels leading out of their cellar, Yulla could have stood on Abba’s shoulders with room to spare. That didn’t seem so high up above in the light—she’d jumped off of higher walls in the marketplace—but down here, not knowing what the ground was like beneath her, she was suddenly scared.

  Her heart thumped faster and her mouth filled with nervous spit. Her hands got clammy. “Stop it,” she whispered. “Just stop it.” Her voice bounced off the ceiling and back to her ears, doubling her chastisement. Yulla held on with her left hand and wiped her right on her pants, then held on with her right and wiped off her left. Sweat-slick hands were dangerous.

  The slope on this side was gentler, which was good because the rocks were looser. She did all right at first, testing her weight on each new surface as she climbed down, but not far from the bottom the rocks slid beneath her. They’d felt solid enough when she’d eased down on to them, but she’d misjudged. A flat rock tilted, slid, and went skittering down the slope. Yulla flailed for purchase, certain there’d been a handhold there a second before, but it was gone, tumbling away with the rest. She let out a sharp cry of dismay, then her teeth clicked together as she landed hard on her bottom, cutting off the sound. Direction lost meaning as she fell—down was all she could recognize, and that only by where the stones jabbed into her on the way.

  When her fall finally stopped, Yulla lay on the ground, breathing hard. Her whole backside hurt from all the jutting edges she’d caught on her way. Her palms were scraped. Blood trickled down the back of her leg from a cut. She could feel grit in her hair.

  Nothing was broken, as far as she could tell. She’d have a rainbow of bruises, but those would fade soon enough.

  Yulla picked herself up gingerly and side-shuffled to her right until her fingers brushed the tunnel wall. The rope guide on this side was still attache
d, its length taut where it disappeared back into the rocks. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, closing them around the rope. That way she could follow where it led without its coarse length brushing against her still-stinging palms.

  No more voices came from up ahead, but the breeze remained, carrying odd scents to her: cinnamon, she knew, and maybe sage, but they were overwhelmed by something else—metallic and earthy and... hot. Like clay being fired in a kiln.

  Yulla lifted her nose for a sniff. Up ahead (quick-there-and-gone), a light flickered.

  AT FIRST, SHE wasn’t even sure it was real. When they were little, Kell had shown her how closing her eyes and pressing the heels of her palms against her closed lids created starry patterns. They’d done it only briefly, until Amma happened upon them and declared they’d ruin their sight if they kept it up. She remembered the flashes that had come the longer she kept her palms pressed. Was that what she’d seen? Some reaction to the extended darkness?

  It came again, though, the first thing she’d seen—truly seen—since the flames had fled: a sliver-slash of brightness on the floor of the cavern ahead. It hurt to look at, so much that she threw her hands up to shield her eyes and was startled at the silhouettes of her own fingers. The light disappeared again, leaving its afterimage floating in the air before her. Yulla pressed forward carefully, narrowing her eyelids to slits in case it came again.

  Another twenty steps on, and the rope guide ended. The walls widened away from her, and she was at the entrance of the room where the light had come from. There she waited, hardly daring to breathe, straining as hard as she could to hear the murmur of conversation or the tinkle of bells once more.

  For a long time, nothing happened.

  She couldn’t hear anyone there with her in the dark. No one had spoken up asking her to identify herself. She’d woken at one point this morning and noticed that, even when the cellar was quiet and everyone slept, you could hear sounds that told you you weren’t alone: Aunt Mouse’s slow, deep, breaths; the whisper of sheets as Kell turned over in her bed; sometimes even the insistent grinding of Amma’s teeth as her daytime worries carried over into her dreams.

  Or there might be faint echoes travelling along the tunnels, as someone still awake stifled a laugh, or the tail end of a curse as someone got up to make water and barked their shin on a table in another house.

  In this cavern, though, all was silent. She might have been the only person left in the tunnels.

  She might have been the only person left in the world.

  Remembering her manners kept her from pursuing that bit of nonsense. “Hello?” she called out. “It’s Yulla, Zara’s daughter. Is anyone here?” Her voice came back to her, echoing but oddly muffled.

  No answer but the wind.

  The wind!

  The breeze still blew, warm against her exposed skin. She turned to face it, following it to its source with her arms outstretched. There didn’t seem to be any furniture down here. No couches and low tables like her own family had for comfort, nor the pews and benches she might have expected in a below-ground version of the Worship Hall. She did find a set of steps, though, leading up towards whatever building she was currently beneath.

  Her sense of direction was all jumbled. She thought she was somewhere in the northern part of Kaladim, but that was assuming she’d been headed toward the Worship Hall. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe one of the tunnels had curved slightly east or west—a light enough curve could feel like a straight line, especially when you couldn’t see. Still, she had to be on the outskirts somewhere, otherwise she’d had to have encountered other families. If she’d been heading west, say, she might have found Old Moll and his whole clan.

  Thinking of Old Moll summoned the memory of his miniature city. She tried to remember where everything had been, even with some of its houses unfinished. Her family’s house was in the southeastern part of town; the Worship Hall to the north. The market was dead center. She thought of other buildings: the school, the cobbler’s, Jaik’s butchery and the livestock penned up nearby.

  The easiest way...

  ... but it was forbidden.

  Yulla squinted up the stairway, though the darkness remained as thick as ever. If she could open the cellar door up there though, and see where she was...

  Just a quick peek. To see what street I’m on.

  No.

  She made herself back away. The temptation sang within her, urging her to make the climb, to turn the knob and press against the door, to see what it was like up above during the Darktimes. Had the flashes she’d seen come from the Fire Children? Were they in the house above her right now, burning the occupant’s offerings to taste what life was like on the world beneath their sky?

  She wanted to know. She wanted to know so badly, to glimpse Mother Sun’s children and run back to her family—even Kell—and tell them she’d seen them, seen the Fire Children, and describe what they looked like, here among their houses.

  They’d burn me alive. They wouldn’t know any better. It’s why we hide in the dark.

  She kept backing up, trying to encourage that tiny, reasonable voice before she gave in to her clamoring curiosity. It was so easy to imagine herself going up above to explore, tucking herself into the hiding spots that had always stumped Kell and her friends when they used to play hide-and-seek—Yulla was good at finding places where she could see the people looking for her, but they couldn’t see her. Did the Fire Children even know how to play hide-and-seek? Would human games interest them at all?

  Stop it stop it stop it.

  Back, and back, and back, until she bumped against the far wall. Her hands reached out for something to anchor her, to keep her from plunging straight across to the stairs, darting up them and throwing wide the door.

  Her fingers closed over a lever.

  All the resisting she’d been doing against going up the stairway meant she had no reserve against this new discovery. She pushed on the lever. It didn’t budge. She grabbed at it with both hands and threw all her weight against it, until her feet nearly left the ground.

  Slowly, slowly, as though no one had thrown it in a hundred years, the lever inched downward. It let out a screeeech as it did, one that they’d surely heard in far-off cellars. The sound was old and sluggish and rusty, but the lever moved inexorably, down and down until it stopped with a clack.

  The ground rumbled beneath her feet, and when she reached out to steady herself on the wall, she felt the vibrations of a great machine working within. Wildly, she thought of the pulleys Abba and his friends had set up when they’d raised a new roof onto Jaik’s butchery last year.

  Anything else her spinning mind kicked up disappeared in the scraping of stone on stone above her. Yulla covered her head, afraid she’d started another cave-in. She dropped into a crouch and sent up a prayer to Mother Sun: Save me, spare me, I’ll never fight with Kell again, I’ll do all my chores, I won’t complain when Aunt Mouse serves beans, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll...

  It wasn’t Mother Sun who answered her.

  It wasn’t Sister Moon, either, though the light that bathed Yulla when she finally dared look up was nearly as gentle. A shaft of pale blue fell on her from high above, beaming down through thick, rune-carved glass.

  Mystified, Yulla rose to her feet and squinted into the brightness. It took her eyes a few minutes to adjust, but when they did she realized the cavern wasn’t as bare as she’d thought. Heaped against one wall, across from where she’d entered, were the rotted remains of benches. Tattered tapestries hung on the walls, which explained why the echoes had been so muffled when she’d called out earlier. They were similar to the ones in the Worship Hall, but instead of showing Mother Sun and the bounties of the desert—camels, palms, dates—Yulla saw blue waves stitched into the cloth, gulls and fish, and ships like the merchants spoke of when they brought their wares from the far-away sea.

  It made no sense. None at all, unless—

  A shadow flickered across the ca
vern. Yulla glanced up.

  A face peered down at her, distorted by the thick glass. Yulla recognized that wide slash of a mouth from the last night of the feast: not one of the Fire Children, but the witch-woman who’d smiled at her while her sisters argued.

  They stared at each other. Yulla willed her feet to move, to run, to get away, but her feet refused to obey. She stood there until the witch-woman turned away, maybe to say something to someone nearby, and Yulla got hold of her panic. The spell broken, she fled back into the tunnels, running as fast as she could for the cave-in. For home.

  THE BLUE LIGHT coming down through the Seaglass illuminated her path, making her long, thin shadow race ahead of her. Then came the rumble of machinery within the walls, and the light dimmed, dimmed... and was gone.

  Yulla thought she’d grown used to the dark over the last day, but those few minutes she’d spent in that strangely lit cellar—was it the witch-women’s crumbling tower of a house, or somewhere different?—seemed to have made her forget how to move in it. She staggered to a stop, trying desperately to see again. Anything—a shadow on a shadow, the tiniest hint of movement—anything would have been better than the uninterrupted black.

  She forced herself to get moving again, her arms flung out before her the way she’d walked that morning. She found the rope guide and clung to it. If anyone was following her, she couldn’t hear them over her panicked breath. Once or twice, she thought she heard a stealthy footfall, or the skitter-spray of pebbles kicked along the corridor, but when she paused and strained her ears, no further sounds came back to her.

  When she reached the rockfall, she didn’t hesitate. Up she went, scrabbling for handholds and footholds, squeezing through the opening at the top, scuttling down the other, steeper slope. Debris tumbled in her wake on both sides, but Yulla reached the ground unscathed. She whispered a prayer of thanks to Mother Sun, found the rope guide, and left the cave-in, the Seaglass, and the witch-women behind.