R. Anderson - Swift

Ivy pushed back her chair. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ she said. ‘Don’t wait up for me.’

By the time Ivy left the cavern, it was so late that most piskeys were in bed, and the others were on their way there. But Flint had given up regular hours a long time ago, so there was no telling where he might be.

Most likely he was working in the depths of the mine, but by now he’d tunnelled so far that Ivy hardly knew where to begin looking for him — a problem that became clear the instant she climbed down the ladder to the diggings. If the other knockers had been working, she could have asked one of them to point her in the right direction. But without being familiar with the labyrinth of tunnels that the piskey miners used, she could wander half the night before she heard the telltale crack and rumble of her father’s thunder-axe.

She called his name as loudly as she dared, but there was no answer. If her father had been any less capable, Ivy might have been worried about him. But Flint was a true knocker, able to sense every strength and weakness of the surrounding granite, and he never caused a rockfall unless he meant to. He was safe enough, and he’d come home when he was ready. But who knew how much longer that would be?

Frustrated, Ivy climbed up the ladder and shut the trap-door behind her. What was she going to do now? It was no use going home to bed in this state: she’d be tossing and turning for hours.

At last she decided to take a walk around the Delve. Perhaps she’d bump into her father, or at least hear him working, along the way — and even if she didn’t, at least it should make her tired enough to steal a few minutes’ rest before he came in.

Over the next hour Ivy made two long winding circuits of the tunnels, climbing every ramp and staircase she found. But by the time she’d finished she felt no closer to sleep than before.

There was only one place she could think of that she hadn’t visited already. Ivy walked the length of the adjoining tunnel and braced her hands on the iron railing at the edge of the Great Shaft, gazing up at the faint glimmer of moonlight high above. Should she climb to the top? The effort would certainly tire her out, but ‘ Bind up my wounds,’ rasped a voice from the darkness.

Ivy jumped back, clapping both hands over her mouth to stifle a cry. ‘Who’s there?’ she tried to ask, but her lips could barely form the words. The sound hadn’t come from the tunnel behind her — it was floating up from the depths of the shaft, from the old human workings where no piskey had reason to be.

‘ Soft! I did but dream. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! ’

Nobody in the Delve talked like that. Not even the oldest piskeys used such formal language, and the droll-teller himself had never spoken with such tortured passion. Ivy clutched the railing and leaned out over it, dreading what she might see. She’d never believed in ghosts, but…

‘ The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh… ’ Then the speaker faltered and began to moan, ‘Light! Light! ’ with increasing desperation, like a feverish child begging for water. It was the most pitiful thing Ivy had ever heard.

Might it be a human, who had wandered in through one of the old adits and got lost in the depths of the mine? Ivy would have been relieved to think so, for in that case it would be easy to play will-o’-the-wisp and lead him up to the surface again. But in her heart she knew better. The words might be strange and garbled, but the voice was all too familiar.

It was the spriggan.

She’d never suspected that his cell was so close to the Great Shaft. All she’d heard was that he was being held somewhere far away from the piskeys’ living quarters, and that only the Joan and Jack were allowed to see him. But she’d also been told that the spriggan wasn’t talking…and he was definitely talking now.

‘ What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by: Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I… ’

He’d calmed down now, at least enough to stop wailing for light and start talking to himself again. Richard? Was that his name? It sounded weirdly human. Ivy hadn’t thought of spriggans as having names before; to her they were all just spriggans, as snakes were snakes.

But if he had a name, then he had a personality. If he could talk about feeling pain and guilt and fear, there was a chance that he might be willing to talk about other things, as well. Like what he’d done with Keeve…

Or what had happened to Ivy’s mother.

Did Ivy dare? Could she climb down into the dark recesses of the shaft, find the tunnel where the spriggan was being held prisoner, and walk right up to his door? If she offered him a glimpse of the light he craved, would he tell her what she wanted so badly to know?

Mind, if anyone found out she had gone near the spriggan, Ivy would be in big trouble. But he could hardly hurt her while locked up in his cell. And if she didn’t take her chance with him now, she might spend the rest of her life wondering what would have happened if she had…

‘ I am I,’ the spriggan repeated, then muttered, ‘Whatever that means.’ And with that he let out a laugh — but it dissolved into coughing, and ended in a breath like a sob.

Ivy inhaled slowly, summoning strength and courage. Then she swung her leg over the railing, and lowered herself into the darkness.

She had never climbed this part of the Great Shaft before, much less backwards. Every new foothold had to be carefully tested, lest it crumble away and send her plummeting into the fathomless sump below. After several minutes of spidering her way down the rock, Ivy’s curls were plastered to her forehead with sweat. Yet she thought of her mother, and kept on.

She swung her left leg sideways, toes groping for another ledge. But her foot dangled into empty air, and no matter how far she stretched she could find no place to stand. Had she reached the lower tunnel already? Digging her fingers into the rock, Ivy eased herself downwards, then arched her back, swung her hips, and let go.

The adjoining tunnel was deeper than she’d anticipated, and for a heart-stopping instant Ivy feared she’d made her last mistake. But then her bare feet smacked stone, and she landed with only a slight stagger. Sighing relief, Ivy straightened up -

And found herself face to face with the spriggan.

At first she was too stunned to speak. Not only because she’d never expected his cell to open straight onto the Great Shaft, but because he was so utterly different from the monster she’d imagined. Pale as a dead thing, yes, and woefully thin — he could never have passed for a piskey. Nor was he pleasant to look at, not with one eye swollen half-shut and a split lip distorting his mouth into a sneer. But apart from that there was nothing gruesome about him, and he was young. Older than Ivy to be sure, more a man than a boy — but he couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than Mica.

Yet he was still a spriggan, and that made him dangerous. Even crouched against the wall with one arm cradled to his chest, he had a menacing air about him, a lithe tension that could explode at any moment into violence. Ivy dimmed her glow and backed towards the shaft, though she knew it was too late: he’d heard her land, seen her skin shining in the darkness, and at any moment…

‘ Is there a murderer here? ’ he whispered, pushing himself to his feet. He lurched forward — but then came a rattling noise, and he jerked to a halt mid-step.

So that was why the Joan hadn’t been worried about him escaping, even with an open shaft mere paces away. While he was still unconscious, Mica and Mattock had clapped an iron manacle around his ankle and chained him to the floor. He couldn’t go more than a stride in any direction, so Ivy was well out of reach — and if she remembered the legends right, the iron would keep him from using magic, too. Only those with knocker blood could endure the touch of iron.