State of Sorrow (Untitled #1)(106)

A man in dusty white overalls was watching her. “How fond are you of that get-up?” He nodded at her outfit.

“Not at all.” Irris had told her to dress plainly and she had, in a pale grey tunic and trousers.

“It’s cold down there,” he said, looking at her bare arms.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll take her down,” he told the foreman. “I owe Yaris another cycle for last week. She can come with me, and I’ll bring her back up after.” The foreman considered it for a moment, and Sorrow could sense Irris getting ready to argue with him. But then he shrugged and walked away, leaving Sorrow, Irris, her soldiers and the miner, looking at each other.

“How long is a cycle?” Irris asked.

“Two and a quarter hours.”

Irris looked at Sorrow, who shrugged. She could manage that, she was sure.

“Excellent,” Sorrow said. “Ready when you are.”

“Us too?” the soldier Sorrow had nominated as leader said, his worry evident in his creased forehead.

“One of you at least ought to,” Sorrow said. Part of her wanted to force him to accompany her in revenge for barring her way earlier. She could tell, from the sweat on his upper lip, that the prospect of going underground frightened him. “Decide among yourselves.” She fought her inner meanness.

“I don’t mind. My father was a miner,” one of them announced.

“Then let’s go,” the miner said. “I’m on the clock.”

“What can I call you?” Sorrow said, falling into step with him as he walked away, the solider trailing after them.

“Mael,” he said.

Sorrow blinked. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen. Same as you.”

From both his appearance and his manner, Sorrow would have guessed he was at least ten years older. To cover her surprise, she continued talking. “So you were named for him?”

“Me and half the mine.” He paused. “They call me Braith. It’s my surname. You can use it too. Mind your head,” he warned her as they entered a tunnel.

The air was much cooler inside, and Sorrow regretted her bare arms. Braith led them down the tunnel, Sorrow turning sideways to counter the steepness of the incline, until they arrived at the bottom to a set of metal double doors. Sorrow was puzzled by what she would have sworn was birdsong coming from within, only to find, when Braith opened the door and urged her to enter, a shelf with a row of cages, each with a small yellow bird.

“Why do you have sun finches in here?” she asked.

“The air can be funny below. Sun finches are more sensitive to gases than we are. So we take birds down, and if they stop singing, or fall from their perches, we know it’s time to go.”

Sorrow didn’t know if he was joking or not, until he reached up and took one of the cages.

“You can carry it, once you’re kitted out.” He put the cage down and crossed to a cupboard, pulling out a firm hat and a coat, passing them to her. He gave another hat to the soldier, and slipped one on to his own head.

“It won’t save you if there’s a cave-in, but some of the ceilings are low and it’ll stop you getting a nasty bump,” he explained as Sorrow pulled the coat on and placed the hat on her head.

She paused and exchanged a worried glance with the soldier. “Is there likely to be a cave-in?”

“Miss, it’s not like the moonrise. It happens when it happens. If we knew, we wouldn’t go down, would we? Right, grab your bird and let’s get to the cage.” He nodded at a second pair of doors, set back in the wall.

“The cage?” Sorrow asked.

“You’ll see.”

In the darkness of the room his teeth glowed ghostly white, and Sorrow shivered, knowing full well it wasn’t because of the chill.





As Below, So Above

The cage was every bit as horrible as it sounded. Suspended on a thick chain, and operated by a team of four, it was designed to lower between thirty and fifty men at a time down to the underground reserves of the white stone mined for construction in Rhannon. Once, the stone had been closer to the surface, but demand sent the miners deeper into the bowels of Laethea for it, and it was there that Sorrow was to go to see them at work.

The cage wasn’t meant to transport so few people at a time, and it swung precariously when Sorrow entered, forcing her to cling to the bars and the poor bird to go wild in its own cage, flapping its wings until yellow feathers showered the floor. Braith entered and slammed the door shut, frightening the bird again. He gave Sorrow a look as if to tell her to control it, then nodded to the operators. They each took hold of a large bar attached to a wheel, and slowly began to push. As they did, the cage jerkily descended, and Sorrow heard the soldier who was accompanying them whimper above the twittering of the bird. She didn’t blame him. Even Braith looked uneasy, fiddling with the lamp he’d brought, his face watchful as they lowered.

Her treacherous mind turned to Luvian then, imagining him here. His pompadour hair flattened by the helmet, dust on his pristine suit. She could see the way his upper lip would curl, hear the sarcastic quip that would both amuse and infuriate her.

Or was that all part of the persona he’d worn to trick her? she reminded herself, stopping the smile in its tracks. For all she really knew of him, he was like the guard with her, born to a family of miners.