Hugh Cook - The women and the warlords

As he worked his way down the tunnel, it started to get steeper. He went cautiously through the dark, wary in case he encountered a drop-hole. He was reminded of the time when he had retreated through darkened tunnels exiting from a dragon's lair on the mountain of Maf; these memories of times past were unwelcome, and he suppressed them.

As the tunnel got steeper, it became drier. And warm. Then hot. Then Hearst saw a flicker of fire up ahead. He paused, unable to keep himself from recalling past encounters with dragons. Was it possible that his Collosnon enemies were holding such a monster in their dungeons? It was unlikely, but not impossible.

Hearst doubted that he could tackle a dragon with a bit of rope, a knife and an improvised chisel. Yet he crept forward. The flames grew brighter. He could see his own hands now; he could see the stone blocks the tunnel was made from. He saw a drop of his own sweat fall to make a small damp patch on the hot dry stone. It faded rapidly.

A little further, and Hearst found himself on the edge of a chasm, looking down into a pit of seething fire. There was no dragon to contend with: but this inferno was impassable. The chasm was a remnant of the fire dyke which had once moated the ancient stronghold of wizards, Castle Vaunting.

Hearst studied his surroundings carefully. He leaned out and peered to right and to left. There was no escape from this end of the tunnel. Still, if escape ultimately proved impossible, he had an easy way out…

So he thought for a moment. Then his old fear of heights claimed him, and he withdrew from the edge of the chasm, shuddering. If in the end he was forced to suicide to escape being sacrificed, then he would not jump into that pit. Instead, he would slash his carotids, allowing him to bleed to death swiftly without excessive pain.

But it was not yet time for that.

Hearst turned round and followed the tunnel upward. Soon it grew too dark for him to see, but his questing, testing fingertips found the hole marking the place where he had removed a block of stone from his cell wall. He paused, resting. Not for the first time, he wondered about the prisoner who had actually chipped away the mortar to loosen that stone, and who had secreted rope, knife and chisel under a loose flagstone. Had that prisoner been taken away and executed just before escaping? Or had the prisoner perhaps fallen ill, escape again being prevented by death?

What Hearst was trying to avoid was the thought that maybe there was no escape via this tunnel.

After a short rest, he continued on up the tunnel. Again it grew steeper. Finally it became vertical. He worked his way upward, bracing his back against one wall of the shaft and his knees against the opposite wall, using hand, hook, forearms and elbows in his struggle.

He was halted at length by a metal grating. He pushed it with his head. It refused to shift. Bracing himself with back and knees, jamming himself in the shaft so he could not slip and fall, he heaved upwards, using head, hand and forearm. Sweating and straining, he managed to lift the metal grate. He pushed it aside. It made a hideous sound as it scraped over stone.

Swiftly, Hearst hauled himself up and sat on the edge of the shaft. He snapped his fingers and listened for echoes. Something was deadening the sound. He was in a room of indeterminate size, possibly a room clad with soft furnishings.

Moving round in the dark, Hearst found bundles of linen. Then a clothes horse. Behind that, a fireplace. He raked through the ashes with his knife, uncovering a few-dying embers. He found a woodbox to one side of the fireplace, trimmed shavings from a log to use as kindling, and before long had a fire going.

By the firelight, he saw that he was in a laundry. He had guessed as much already. Some poor unfortunates must have the job of carting water up from the river; once dirty, it was tipped away down the shaft, riding the tunnel down to the fire chasm. In Garabatoon, faced with the threat of the Swarms, a lot of effort had gone into putting as many people and services as possible behind the protection of stone walls.

Hearst looked for the door leading out of the laundry. To his surprise, it was barred from the outside. He could not shift it. It was a massive, hulking door made out of baulks of timber. Even with an axe, he would have been some time smashing a way through it; without an axe, any such effort would be futile. The weakest point of a door is often its hinges, but in this case the hinges were on the far side.

The windows were narrow slits which would not even admit his head. Looking out, he saw a dark night sky and darker countryside. He hunted all through the laundry, but found only one way of escape – up the chimney. Heat fanned his face as he leaned over the fire. He peered up the dubious black shaft then withdrew, and sat down to think.

He was very comfortable there by the fire. The blue flames talked to the red and the gold, murmuring quietly. Occasional sparks ascended. Some were wafted on upwards, while others clung to the blackened walls of the chimney, glowed momentarily then died, adding their own weight to the thick coating of soot.

Hearst was tired; he was more than ready for sleep. Could he hide in the laundry and escape when the workers came? No. He would either be caught sleeping, or else he would die fighting his way out of castle. To survive, he had to escape from Castle Celadric tonight, and get away under cover of darkness. He got to his feet.

Hearst sorted out three hooded cloaks and donned all three. Once he escaped, he would discard them, since travelling the countryside covered in soot would draw unnecessary attention to him – to put it mildly. He drew dirty water from a tub which had not yet been emptied down the disposal chute. The fire hissed and spluttered when he threw on the water. The flames died, but he used more water to kill the fire entirely, not wanting any smoke in the chimney while he was climbing it.

Belatedly, he realized it might be a good idea to protect his hand – best to take good care of it, as he only had the one. Working in the dark, he tore cloth into strips and bandaged it. Then he started up the chimney, which was warm, though he had not had the fire burning for long; with three cloaks over his other clothing, he was soon uncomfortably hot.

He climbed past a junction where another chimney joined the one he was ascending. He forced his way on upward, and then, to his dismay, found that the chimney narrowed to a chokepoint too small for him to get through. Looking up, he saw a span of stars. His hand reached up, counted one, two, three bricks, then found an open space which he supposed was the roof. He made a tentative effort to chip away at the mortar holding the bricks, then abandoned it. Speed was essential. He might be half the night removing the bricks – and even then, having gained the roof, he might find no easy way to exit from it.

He decided to climb back to where the chimney branched. If he could not find an escape route, he could always return to attack the bricks barring him from the roof. He descended carefully, reached the junction, and followed the unexplored shaft.

He found it strangely clean – there seemed to be no soot in it at all. As it went down, it began to widen. Soon it was almost too wide for him to brace his back against one side and his knees against the other. Hearst found himself getting nervous, fearing a fall. If it got much wider, he would have to give up and climb back again.

Then he found a wooden ladder pegged into the side of the shaft. He accepted its assistance gratefully, and climbed down it. All around-him, the shaft opened out. He wondered what on earth could be below. He paused, linking his right arm through the ladder, and scraped the soot out of his nose. Now he could smell something curiously foul – a compound stench of wet and rot, of bad meat and maggots, of stinking potatoes, of sewage. He peered downwards into the darkness, but found himself unable to see anything.