Ian Irvine - Rebellion

“Of course,” said Benn, thrusting his knife out menacingly, though his arm shook. “Don’t worry about me, Sis.”

Glynnie’s face told a different story, but she said, “All right.” She hugged him impulsively.

They took off their coats and boots and packed them in the oilskin bags. “No, lad,” said Rix. “Keep yours on until I come back. You’ll need all the warmth you’ve got.”

He stepped in and Glynnie went with him. The water, though chilly, wasn’t as cold as might have been expected given the bitter winter outside. Lake Fumerous, which had filled the void created when the fourth of the volcanoes called the Vomits had blown itself to bits in ancient times, was warmed from beneath by subterranean furnaces.

“Take three slow, deep breaths,” said Rix, “then hang on tight. Don’t try to swim — you need to save your air. If it looks to be more than forty yards, I’ll bring us back. Ready?”

She nodded stiffly, trying not to worry Benn, whose knife was drooping. Standing there all alone, he made a small, forlorn figure. Rix swallowed his own misgivings. Had it been Glynnie he would have felt just as bad.

“Now!” he said.

He pulled Glynnie under, holding her against his side, and swam down the drainpipe, following the gentle slope of its top and counting his strokes. The buoyancy of the oilskin bag helped to counteract the weight of the gold in his money belt, though it tended to pull him sideways. The light faded. Was she all right? She held herself so rigidly that he could not tell. Twenty strokes; twenty-five. He must have gone twenty yards by now, surely.

Rix could swim fifty yards underwater, at a desperate pinch, but Glynnie could hardly hold her breath that long. Thirty strokes. Should he turn back? If he went any further he wouldn’t be able to — he’d run out of air on the way.

It wasn’t easy, swimming one-handed. Was that light up ahead? It was hard to tell in the turbid water; his eyes felt gritty. Go on, or turn back? He must be beyond the point of no return now.

Yes, it was light, the faintest glimmer. Rix kept going, fighting the urge to breathe in. Glynnie was making small, panicky motions of her hands but there was nothing he could do for her. The light grew; they passed through a waving fringe of algae and he swam up to the surface. He held her with one arm while she gasped down air, raised himself head and shoulders out of the water, then hastily sank to chin level.

“What’s the matter?” panted Glynnie.

“Guards, all along the shore.” He could hear their boots crunching on the ice along the waterline.

“What are we going to do?” Her green eyes went wide. “Benn — ”

“I haven’t forgotten him.”

He turned, turned again. At various points into the bay, huge timber mooring piles had been driven deep into the mud, though all were empty. The ships that had been moored there had either been sailed away, or wrecked in the tidal wave.

The nearest pile was thirty yards away. Rix fixed the location of the end of the drainpipe in mind as best he could in the featureless water, then swam with Glynnie to the pile, which extended six feet out of the water and had a copper cap on top.

“Hang onto the mooring ropes,” he said, and made sure she had a tight hold. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

He scanned the water for boats and other dangers. Several hundred yards further offshore, wind and currents had collected a mass of timber and floating debris into a loose, bobbing raft at least a hundred yards across. Dinghies were drawn up on the shore but he could not reach any without being spotted.

“Benn’s in trouble, I know it,” she wept. “I should have let you bring him first. I’m so stupid. I can’t do anything right.”

“He’ll be all right. I’m going back now.”

“What if you can’t find the end of the drainpipe?”

“I’ll find it.”

“If something’s happened — ”

Now Rix was worried too, but he couldn’t bear to listen. “I’ll be quick. Stay low. Don’t do anything to attract attention.”

He swam back thirty yards, dived and went down with powerful strokes of his left hand, his right flopping uselessly. The bottom was some fifteen feet down, but there were no waving streamers of algae and no sign of the drainpipe. Rix cursed and swam in a widening spiral until lack of air forced him to the surface. He trod water, gasping, eyeing the patrolling guards until he got his breath back, then dived again.

The drainpipe was not below him here, either. How could he be so far out? He swam another spiral, another. Ah, there it was, but he lacked the air to swim all the way back to Benn. Another breath and down he went, into the drainpipe and up. Despite his words to Glynnie, Rix was starting to panic. He’d told Benn that they’d be five minutes but fifteen must have passed by now, and in fifteen minutes anything could have happened.

He swam furiously until he approached the upper end of the drainpipe, then slowed and approached it carefully, just in case. Now he could make out a faint bluish light, coming from the glowstone. It was all right.

He eased his head through the surface and looked around. The air reeked of rotting fish and decaying bodies. He hadn’t noticed how bad it was before. The glowstone sat on a rock by the water’s edge, and Benn’s little pack was beside it. But Benn was not there.

Rix threw himself out of the water, grabbed the glowstone and held it high. “Benn?”

No answer. What had happened to the boy? Could a hyena shifter have survived the explosion and taken him? It seemed unlikely; there was no blood, no shredded clothing, no shifter stink. If one of the rank beasts had been here, the smell would linger…

Had Benn been captured by the enemy? The floor of the drain was bare stone here and showed no tracks, but surely they would have taken his pack, or tipped everything out to search it.

Had he gone back up the tunnel? Why would he? More likely, after a wait that must have seemed interminable to a small boy, Benn had tried to go down the drainpipe in a vain attempt to find his sister. He could not swim, and must have drowned if he had tried… though he might have held his breath and pulled himself along the rough stone on the bottom of the drainpipe. Could Rix have passed him, coming back? It was possible, because he had swum along the top. They would not have seen each other in the murky water.

Check the water, quick. If Benn had only gone in a minute or two ago, he could still be alive. Rix dived in and swam furiously along the bottom, sweeping his arms out to either side, feeling for anything lying there. Nothing. He reached the outlet without encountering anything other than broken rock and leathery weed, then felt around the exit for snags and projections. Nothing. Nor could he see the boy on the muddy lake bed immediately outside.

Though he was desperately low on air, he swam back along the roof of the drainpipe in case Benn had passed out and floated up. Nothing there either. Rix burst out of the water, gasping, lay on the stone for a minute while he got his breath back, then picked up the glowstone and checked up the drain again. There was no sign that anyone had ever been here.

Could Benn have reached the outlet? It was barely conceivable that he could hold his breath that long, but if he had, Rix would never find his body in the murky lake waters. Benn was a skinny lad, and if he had drowned, his body wouldn’t float.

Only one hope remained — that he had wandered up the drain, back the way they had come. What could have made him do such a thing, though? He was a sensible boy and would not have headed back into danger. Besides, he would never have left his sister.