Андреа Хёст - The Pyramids of London

But Melly’s words made it impossible to see simply a hilly park. Beneath them were halls and pits lined with stone and people: the bones of those who had died, separated by type and neatly stacked. Freed by Arawn’s Tears of all the weight of flesh, bones could not anchor spirits in the living world, or hold them from the Grey Shores of Annwn.

A tight bubble had expanded in Eluned’s chest, and she gripped the handle of the carpet bag she carried. They had said their goodbyes at Caerlleon’s Black Pool, and she no longer felt like she was suffocating every moment of the day, but there were times when the thought that her parents no longer had hands to touch made her want to scream.

“Ar-rrooo!” Griff cried, pretending to be one of Arawn’s hounds and chasing Dama Chelwith’s two grandchildren, Redick and Falwen, toward the intersection of the three barrows.

“How does he have so much energy after all today’s walking?” Melly asked, then added in a lower voice. “Stupid thing for me to say. Sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Eleri said, putting her bags down and wriggling her fingers. “Definitely will come back with kites,” she added, critically surveying two girls as they launched a multi-jointed extravagance.

“Not during one of the windstorms.” Even in an ordinary breeze Nabah needed a firm grip on the trailing section of her sari as they followed the younger three toward the centre of the barrows. “Or you will be donating your kites to Danuin. Do they always offer to employ you, these workshops?”

“Caerlleon ones never did,” Eleri replied. “But they knew Mother and Father were teaching me.”

“You did not seem very much interested.”

“Neither of those are worth my time,” Eleri said. “Maintenance shops. School first, university, then a workshop of my own.”

“Why not a workshop now? Or work to put together the money for one?”

“Mother thought a wide view important. And I like lessons.”

Nabah gave Melly an oddly significant glance, but the taller girl simply looked over her head.

“We’ve all of summer break now, before we have to think of school,” Eluned put in, thoughts on a gate and a ruin and a forest. “Plus the last bit of term,” she added, unrepentant about expulsion.

“There are waiting lists for the better ones,” Nabah warned. “Tollesey only has vacancies in the upper forms if someone leaves.”

“Is that nearby? Do you both go there?”

“I’ve already finished,” Melly said. “And Nabah—” She hesitated. “Nabah might be leaving a vacancy there soon.”

“You’re finishing up? Have you decided not to be a doctor?” Eluned knew that children born in the families of the Daughters of Lakshmi didn’t have to go into medicine, but she was willing to bet that it would feel like deciding not to belong.

“A doctor, yes, of course.” Nabah’s voice held no shadow of doubt. “But the Raya…the Raya of Karnata has rescinded the ban on the Daughters.”

“I hadn’t heard that,” Eluned said, sharing a look of surprise with Eleri. When the Karnata Empire’s Raya had forbidden women from practicing medicine and ordered arrests, the Daughters of Lakshmi had fled their homeland, eventually asking for asylum from the Queen of Prytennia. That had been nearly two hundred years ago, and the Daughters had become part of everyday life in Prytennia, particularly in surgical matters where Thoth-den vampires could not always help, or with those who objected to vampire ‘taint’.

“Are you—are all the Daughters going to leave, then?” Eluned asked.

“It’s an individual choice.” Nabah shrugged, though there was a tiny crease between her brows. “I at least can speak the home tongue, although I am told my accent is terrible. This is no easy choice, but…Lakshmi is not here. Our practice might not depend on godly assistance, but Lakshmi is still more than a namesake for the Daughters. In Her name do we offer the riches of health, but our prayers have not brought Her here, so we cannot achieve individual allegiance, and our souls go to Arawn.”

Gods were very territorial. Most of them were not so completely bound by borders as Sulis—else Rome could not have conquered half the world with Jupiter’s lightning—but often travel led to one-sided devotion. Cernunnos was one of the gods who transcended borders. He protected forests all across Europe, and had even been known to answer petitioners in far-flung points around the world.

The two neat punctures by the base of Eluned’s thumb itched, and she tried to think soberly of the consequences of allegiance, but images of Hurlstone took her instead. Yesterday, after sleeping most of the day, she’d had no chance before sunset to do more than check on the mannequin. And she’d looked in again this morning, but only a glance because Eleri was keen to start their tour of workshops, and collect what she needed to create a new arm. It fascinated her how inconsistent the time of day appeared to be in the Otherworld.

Impatient to get back, Eluned stepped up her pace. They had nearly reached the central intersection of the three massive barrows. It made a fourth hill, higher and outlined by a narrow ditch that Griff, Redick and Falwen were currently jumping over in unison, chanting the titles of the Suleviae with every leap.

“The Shadow!”

“The Light!”

“The Song!”

Eluned herded everyone onward, helped along by the arrival of a girl walking a half-dozen dogs of all sizes, sending Griff zooming ahead once again.

“You never stay and listen to the Solstice Singing from your home?” Eluned asked as they passed Melly’s store. “You’re even closer than we are—it must be so loud.”

“It is! But you have to go. There’s nothing like it, and they’re so happy when you sing back. I can’t hardly believe you’ve never seen one of the triskelion.”

“We were too young the last time the Solstice Singing was in Caerlleon. And we never travelled to one.” Always bad timing, too busy, or the crowds would be too big—but perhaps really because their father shared Griff’s travel sickness. Eluned had never known that.

“What if Aunt sends us away for school?” Griff said, dropping back to join the conversation.

“Then we can come home for the Singing,” Eluned said firmly, then paused as a quiver ran up through her feet. “Is the ground…?”

“It’s the tunnel digger,” Nabah explained, clearly used to the odd vibration.

“For the underground rail?” Griff asked, then shifted from eager interest to suspicion. “I thought they weren’t scheduled to go south of the river until next year.”

“That’s so,” Melly said, with a wide grin. “The lines that they’re admitting to. But they’re digging south of the river all the same. Here, and in Skepsey, and in Twitting. People have felt it all over.”

“There are not yet the big cut and cover excavations, like at Paddington,” Nabah added. “And if you go where they’re using the digging automatons to tunnel under the Tamesas, the vibration is much stronger. These are smaller tunnels.”

“For the vampires to get about in the day,” Melly added.

“For the Parliament’s private escape route,” Nabah countered. “Or their secret postal engine. Routes to lay electricity lines. Or a tunnel to the centre of the Earth. Or it’s mole people robbing banks, or even the Dragon of the East, restless in her bounds. Officially, there’s no digging yet, south of the river.”

They enjoyed themselves making up more outlandish reasons, and Eluned could see that Griff thought he now knew how Dem Makepeace had reached their house before sunset, and was eager to confirm that theory. But it had been a long day of walking, and the bags full of parts and equipment felt three times as heavy during the final trudge past warehouse after concealing warehouse. And then there were all those stairs to Eleri’s new workroom, though surely they could put that off in favour of a visit to the kitchen, and some quality sitting-about.