Coldmaker(61)

‘Keep up!’

I had to grip the ladder tightly as I climbed down, worried the strength in my hands might give at any moment. The smell of the soil was almost too much for me to bear, and I tried not to look directly at the plants spilling out of the cave mouth until my feet were firmly set on the ledge.

The cave was bursting with life. Green plants flooded the insides, all different shapes and sizes, stretching up the walls and deep into the shadows. Berries of half a dozen colours winked out from the vines, juicy and plump. I recognized many of the fruits from the Market, but it was miraculous to see them still attached to the source. Huge figs melting off the branches. Vibrant apricots clustered tightly. A small Ahmanson tree sat near the cave mouth, offering yellow pods that dangled off each branch. And a Sever Ficus loomed above the mess, dazzling with its scarlet fruit. And there were persimmons, and limes, and even pomegranates, which looked as if they were nursing so many seeds in their bellies that the bulbs were about to drop.

‘What, in the Crier’s Eyes, is this place?’ I asked, almost too overwhelmed to press the words out of my mouth. ‘Do the Nobles who own this know you’re here?’

‘No Nobles allowed in Little Langria.’ Shilah gave a winsome smile, peering through a thicket of vines and leaves as she stowed the Stinger somewhere. ‘I told you, I make things.’

‘This is mad,’ I said, my head swimming with all the delicious odours.

‘No,’ Shilah said, practically bursting out from the bushes and jabbing a finger at my face. ‘This is the opposite of mad. This is what happens when you know what’s real.’

I was starting to feel faint, and I knew I should probably move away from the edge of the ledge, lest I fall backwards and exchange this paradise for the hungry waters below.

‘I—’ I took one step in, my tongue failing me as what she said registered. ‘I don’t— you made— no Nobles?’

Shilah put a hand on my lower back, and helped lead me to safety in the cave. The healthy brown soil gave slightly under my feet, squishing in between my toes, and it was cool, unlike the infinite sands I was used to. It felt like the Sun had never tasted this cave, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Shilah had used the Stinger on me while my back was turned, and this was death.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said, feeling the tears come to my eyes. If Shilah had built this, then the place was a miracle. Not a miracle like drinking the Draft, or finding the Shiver in the rubbish, but a true phenomenon that went against every law of nature that I understood.

Shilah grabbed a pail from the side of the cave. It was attached to a long rope, the end tied snugly on a cone of rock. She tossed the bucket over the edge of the cliff, letting it fall to the waters below, the rope instantly going taut. Giving a heave, the sleek muscles in her arms tensing, she brought the haul back up, boiling water sloshing over the rim.

Then she dived back into the cave, a few moments later coming out with a handful of Wisps. Dropping two of the Wisps into the pail, she then removed a small cup from a nook in the wall and began doling out little rations for each of the plants, the soil growing darker at her offerings.

‘It took me two years to make,’ Shilah said, giving an extra long drizzle over a plant with blue berries that I did not recognize. ‘But I did it. A fully Jadan Garden.’

‘You made this place?’ I asked, the truth sinking in as I slumped against the nearest wall, knees crumbling against my chest. What was an Inventor in the face of this miracle? What were trinkets held against a secret fountain of life? What did I know about anything, if this place could exist, right under the nose of Noblekind?

She nodded.

I swallowed hard, pushing away a single tear that threatened to run down my cheek. It was all so beautiful, and I wished Abb was here to see what I was seeing.

She came over to me and offered me a scoop of Cold water, which I drank down in one gulp. Then she slumped against the wall, our sides touching. Pulling up her sleeve, she once again showed me the Opened Eye mark she’d inked into her skin.

‘If all this is real, and you made it without Noble help,’ I said, gesturing to her lush garden. ‘Then that means …’

‘Correct,’ she said, a finger running around the Opened Eye. ‘We don’t have to be their slaves. The Crier looks down every night, and still He lets me keep this place. They use His name to make their lies seem real. But He loves us, Micah. The Drought was not His doing. I truly believe that. And I think He’s been trying to end our suffering ever since, but He can’t.’

I pulled my knees closer to my chest, trying to contain my tears. ‘So it’s all lies.’

Her hand went under her shirt and removed a piece of old parchment, folded many times.

I was still trying to process everything I was seeing. The Crier hadn’t punished Abb for the Frost. He hadn’t punished me for the bucket. He hadn’t punished Shilah for a whole Garden.

‘Is the Crier even real, do you think?’ I asked, throat choked up. ‘Or is everything about everything a lie? Did the Nobles just make the Crier up?’

‘I don’t know what’s real.’ Shilah unfolded the parchment, revealing it to be a map of the Khatdom; but it extended further than any map I’d ever seen. Up North, above the River Singe, above the Glasslands, above the City of David’s Fall, even past the Great Divide, was a small area marked with the Opened Eye.