Robin Hobb - Mad Ship

"Of course not," he lied, feeling ill. "I'm sure they'll turn up. They probably went walking in Trehaug together. No doubt they are wondering where everyone else has gone." He tried to put some of his own belief in his tale, but could not find it. She read the horror in his eyes. A sob caught in her throat. He could not face her. He headed down into the buried city. He did not promise her that he would bring her children back to her. He had already lied to her once.

Despite the fresh falls, he had moved with confidence through his city. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of it as he knew his own body. He diverted the diggers from one tunnel that he was certain was a loss, and moved them to another fall that they swiftly cleared. Bendir wanted him to go from site to site, carrying a lantern and map and passing out advice. He had flatly refused. "I'm working with those who are tunneling toward the Crowned Rooster Chamber. Once we reach there and rescue Malta, I'll work wherever else you put me. But that is my priority."

There had nearly been a confrontation, but Mother had reminded Bendir again that the trapped Satrap and his Companion were along that route as well. Bendir grudgingly nodded. Reyn picked up his supplies and set out. He carried water, chalk, line, candles and a tinderbox in a bag slung over his shoulder. Digging and prying tools clanked at his belt. He did not bother with a lantern. The other men might need light to work by, but not him.

As he hurried down the passage, he trailed the chalk along the wall just above the failed jidzin. Truly, the city was dying when he could not waken even a glow from it. Perhaps it was broken in too many pieces now to work anymore. He wondered mournfully if he had forever lost his chance to puzzle out how it had worked.

He came to the chamber where they had secured the Satrap. It had been one of the most beautiful chambers they had ever discovered, but the Satrap and his Companion had wallowed in it as if it were a sty. Cosgo truly seemed to have no idea of how to care for himself. Reyn understood the need for servants. His family had hired help who cooked, cleaned and sewed. But a servant to put the shoes on your feet? A servant to comb your hair for you? What sort of a man needed another man to do that for him?

Water was oozing slowly from beneath the door. Reyn tried to open it, but something heavy pressed against it from the other side. Probably a wall of earth and mud, he reflected grimly. Reyn pounded on the door and shouted, but got no response. He listened to the silence. He tried to feel sorry for how they had perished, but could only remember the look he had seen on the man's face as he looked down at Malta in his arms. Even the memory of it knotted the muscles in Reyn's shoulders. The mud and earth had given the Satrap a swifter death than Reyn would have worked on him, if he had ever looked at Malta like that again.

He marked the door to let the diggers know he regarded it as hopeless. Let them rescue the living in the next few days. Recovering bodies could wait. He set his chalk to the wall and walked on.

A dozen strides further and he stumbled over a body. He fell with an oath, then immediately groped his way back. Someone small, the body still warm. Alive. "Malta?" he dared to hope.

"No. It's Selden," replied a small miserable voice.

He gathered the trembling boy in close to him. His body was chilled. Reyn sat on the floor and pulled him into his lap. He chafed his arms and legs as he asked him, "Where is Malta? Close by?"

"I don't know." The boy's teeth began to chatter. Waves of shivering ran over him. "She went in. I was afraid. Then there was the quake. When she didn't come out, I made myself follow her." He peered up at Reyn in the darkness. "Are you Reyn?"

Bit by bit, Reyn pieced the story together. He gave the lad water, and lit a candle to give him courage. In the flickering light it cast, Selden looked like a little gray old man. His face was smeared with dirt, his clothes heavy with it. His hair was caked to his skull. He could not tell Reyn where he had wandered in his searching. Only that he had called and called for her, and not finding her, he had pressed on. In his heart Reyn cursed both Wilee, for showing Selden how to sneak into the city, and himself, for not seeing that the abandoned tunnels were better secured against adventurous small boys. Two parts of Selden's account struck more fear into Reyn than he could explain. Malta had come here, deliberately seeking the dragon. Why? But as ominous as that was, when Selden mentioned the music she had heard, Reyn bit his lip. How could she have heard it? She was Bingtown born. Few even of Rain Wild stock could hear those elusive notes. Those who could were kept out of the tunnels. That was why he had never told his mother or his brother that he could hear it. Those who heard the music eventually drowned in the memories. So said all who worked the city. Even his father. His father had heard the music and worked the city anyway, until the day they found him sitting in the dark, surrounded by small cubes of black stone. He had drowned in the memories of the city, losing all remembrance of his own life. When they found him, he was sitting in the darkness, stacking blocks like a great babe.

"Selden," he spoke softly. "I have to go on. I know the way to the chamber where the dragon is buried. I think Malta would have discovered the way there. Now." He took a breath. "You have to decide. You can wait here for the diggers. Perhaps Malta and I will be back before they get here. Or you can go on with me, to look for Malta. Do you understand why I can't take you back to the surface right now?"

The boy scratched the caked dirt on his face. "Because she might be dead before you got back to her." He sighed heavily. "That's the same reason I didn't go back out and look for help, back when I knew the way out. I was afraid help would be too late."

"You've a brave heart, Selden. That doesn't mean you should have let it lead you here, but it's a brave heart, none the less." He stood the boy on his feet, then stood up himself. He took Selden's hand. "Come on. Let's go find your sister."

The boy clutched the candle as if it held his life. He was game, but exhausted. For a short way, Reyn slowed his pace to the boy's. Then, despite Selden's objections, he boosted the boy to his back. Selden held the candle aloft and Reyn trailed his chalk along the wall. They pressed on against the darkness.

Even the wavering light of the candle was not kind. It showed Reyn all he had avoided knowing. His city was surrendering. The quakes of last night had pushed it beyond endurance. It would persist for a time as fragments of itself — disconnected wings and isolated chambers — but eventually all would crumble. The earth had swallowed it years ago. Now it would digest it. His dream of seeing the entire sprawling edifice unearthed and lit again with the light of day was a dream with no future.

He strode resolutely along, humming to himself. The boy on his shoulders was silent. Had he not held the candle so unwaveringly, Reyn would have believed him asleep. His humming masked the other sounds he did not want to hear. Distant groans of overstressed timbers, dripping and trickling water, and the faint, pale echoes of ancient voices talking and laughing in a by-gone day. He had long ago learned to guard against being too aware of them. Today, as he mourned the passing of his city, its memories pressed against him, seeking to burn themselves into his mind. "Remember us, remember us," they seemed to plead. If he had not had Malta to think of, he would have given in to them. Before Malta, the city had been his life. He would not have been able to contemplate surviving its death. But he did have Malta, he thought fiercely to himself. He did have her, and he would not surrender her, not to the city, not to the dragon. If all else he loved must perish, her he would preserve.