Swift by R. J. Anderson
‘There’s a patch here,’ she shouted, as they came up to a statue of two piskey-boys clutching each other. One of the women sobbed and reached towards it, but her companions pulled her back. Ivy sidled across the Claybane-coated floor, toes groping for dry rock. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘it’s safe on this side.’
At once all the females spread their wings and began ferrying the men and boys over the trap. The first few attempts had been awkward, and they’d lost one stout knocker when the two women who were carrying him let go a little too soon. But they were getting better at it now, and soon all of them were safe on the other side.
Still, it was slow progress, especially with more piskeys joining them at every door they passed. The journey up to the Earthenbore seemed impossibly long, and Ivy wished there could be a faster way – but since both the upper and lower entrances to the Great Shaft were blocked up with rubble and the shaft itself was full of choking fumes, she couldn’t think of one.
Fortunately, Ivy’s people knew how to work together. Soon two of the younger hunters had stationed themselves at the back of the group and cast a shielding charm to keep back the worst of the smoke, while others gathered rolled-up mats and blankets to drop over each patch of Claybane they passed, so that they’d know where the traps were when they returned. That showed more foresight and creativity than Ivy had expected, and she wasn’t surprised to find that the hunters who’d thought of it were also the ones who’d had recent contact with humans.
When they climbed the stairs to the second level, Cicely was waiting for them, with Flint behind her. Her face was dirty and there was a bloody scrape across her forehead, but her eyes were clear.
‘I want to help,’ she told Ivy. ‘What can I do?’
Ivy explained about the spell Gillian had dropped down the Great Shaft, and the need to get all the piskeys up to fresh air. ‘Can you collect everyone from this level?’ she asked. ‘Tell them to bring plenty of rugs to mark the patches of Claybane once you’ve found them – they can’t stop the traps working, but they’ll keep people from walking into them by accident. Then use the women to fly the men across – that’s what we’ve been doing.’
Cicely nodded. ‘I’ll tell Mica.’ And she dashed off so fast her feet scarcely touched the ground. Flint shouldered his thunder-axe and moved to the rear of Ivy’s group, his eyes meeting hers in a long searching look as he passed. But Ivy couldn’t pause to ask her father what was on his mind; the smoke was getting thicker every moment. ‘Come on,’ she said to the others. ‘We’ve got to hurry.’
They’d made it as far as Long Way, and Ivy was feeling out the dimensions of a particularly large patch of Claybane, when someone behind her gasped. She turned back to see that Nettle had stumbled, and Jenny and Hyacinth were helping the old woman up again – but the dark smear of mud across Nettle’s hand and cheek made plain that it was already too late.
‘Move aside, everyone,’ Ivy said. She hated to leave Nettle without company in her last moments, but she couldn’t risk any of the others getting caught in the Claybane’s spell. ‘You’ll have to go around her. Nettle, I’m sorry. We’ll come back for you when the air’s cleared.’
‘Aye,’ said Nettle in a tremulous voice, shuffling to the edge of the tunnel. ‘I’ll be well enough.’
They all glided past her, many with sorrowful looks and murmurs of sympathy, but Nettle didn’t move. She looked so small and drab that she might have been made of clay already. Ivy was about to call the rest of the crowd to move on when the old woman called out:
‘Eh then, young Flint, where are you off to?’
Startled, Ivy turned. Nettle was still standing to one side of the tunnel, looking back into the hazy darkness – and to Ivy’s astonishment, the Claybane didn’t seem to have affected her in the least.
‘Wait,’ Ivy told the others, and ran to join her. ‘Are you a faery?’ she asked Nettle in a low voice. ‘No piskey blood at all?’
‘Aye, but what of it?’ retorted the other woman. ‘Your father’s just decided to run off and play the hero – or the fool. What good’s he going to do going back into that mess?’
Alarm stabbed into Ivy. Surely Flint didn’t think he could destroy Gillian’s spell with nothing more than his thunder-axe? She ran a few steps into the darkness and made her skin glow as brightly as she could, calling his name. But the light only reflected off the thickening haze, and her father did not reply.
‘Ivy!’ Jenny shouted to her. ‘My mum’s fainting – we have to go!’
For a final moment Ivy wavered, torn between grief and duty. Then she wiped her eyes, took Nettle by the arm, and hurried to rejoin the others.
Minutes later, they had made it safely up the Hunter’s Stair and were turning into the Earthenbore when a tremor shook the tunnel behind them. Ivy looked back to see Cicely and Mica sprinting up the Narrows with their own crowd of piskeys in tow, the combined glow of their skins lighting up the tunnel like noonday – but they too stopped short as the rumbling grew louder.
‘What is that?’ Cicely shouted up to her, but Ivy shook her head.
‘Don’t stop!’ she called. ‘Keep coming!’
The women who could still fly seized the men at the front of the crowd and began carrying them along, not even waiting for Ivy to tell them where the Claybane ended and the solid ground began. Ivy ducked past them and ran along the Earthenbore. ‘We’re almost out!’ she yelled as she turned up a side tunnel. ‘Follow me!’
She dashed through a final patch of Claybane, then turned to snatch a rolled-up rug from Hew’s hands and fling it down. ‘Go!’ she commanded, and the piskeys flew, leaped, or scrambled across the walls to avoid the trap, then hurtled out the exit to freedom.
‘That’s the lot,’ Mica panted, dropping down from the roots he’d been using to swing himself along the ceiling. ‘Let’s—’
A billow of grey-green smoke blasted up the tunnel towards them. ‘Go!’ he shouted, shoving Ivy out onto the hillside. Clenching her jaw against the pain, Ivy seized his arm, pulling him after her, and the two of them tumbled into the heather – just as Gillian’s spell exploded out of all the exits of the Delve at once.
For a moment the whole hillside was covered in a blanket of foul smog, and all the piskeys pressed their faces to the ground. But soon the vapours dissipated, and when Ivy raised her head there was nothing left but a few wisps of smoke. The sky was the colour of tin, a gentle rain pattering on the leaves. And to the east the sun glowed softly through the clouds, like a promise that all would be well.
‘It’s all right,’ Ivy called down to the others, wincing as she climbed to her feet. ‘We’re safe now.’
eighteen
It took hours for the smoke in the Delve to clear. The piskeys made camp in the valley, hidden by the strongest glamours the women among them could cast – but it was a wet and uncomfortable spot, and when Ivy came up from her exploration of the upper tunnels and announced that the air was fit to breathe again, no one complained about having to leave it. Still, she caught Jenny looking wistfully over her shoulder as they all filed underground, and knew that it would be a long time before the women of the Delve forgot their brief time in the sunlight.
Nettle gathered a small group of the oldest and most magically talented piskeys to investigate the Claybane, and soon they’d worked up a spell to turn it to harmless dust. But that did nothing to free the ones who were already trapped. It was a grim business finding all the statues scattered around the Delve and carrying them down to the Market Cavern, and only the news that Gillian’s body had been found gave Ivy any confidence that the effort would not be wasted.
It was an even darker moment when the knockers clambered out of the rubble-strewn passage that had once led to Richard’s cell, carrying two bodies on stretchers. First came Flint, his hands crossed over his chest and his face peaceful as a sleeping child’s. Then a dripping form with a blanket draped over it, which only Nettle dared to lift as the carriers lowered the stretcher to the floo
‘Oh, little sister,’ she whispered, a tear sliding down her wizened cheek. ‘My poor Gillyflower. Who was the prisoner then, you or me?’
She’d called her Gillyflower before, Ivy remembered with a pang. She’d even mentioned that she’d had a sister by that name, right after Cicely disappeared. But Ivy had never thought to connect Nettle to Gillian until now.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ she asked, as she moved to Nettle’s side. ‘You must have known who she was, when I came to warn Betony and Gossan.’
Nettle wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘I couldn’t let her see me like this, all old and wrinkled and grey. I knew she’d never understand.’
‘Understand what?’ asked Ivy.
‘That I loved the Delve, and I didn’t want to leave it,’ Nettle said. ‘Oh, I was frightened at first, but I married a good knocker, and he was kind to me. And the Joan – the old Joan, before Betony – she treated me like a daughter, after my own mother died.’ She draped the blanket gently over Gillian’s bruised face. ‘I might’ve been born a faery, but I’m a piskey now. And what’s good enough for the others is good enough for me.’
There didn’t seem to be much Ivy could say to that. She touched Nettle’s shoulder in silent sympathy, then backed away.
‘Ivy?’ whispered Cicely, creeping under her elbow. ‘Is Dad…is he really…gone?’
Yarrow had bandaged Ivy’s ribs and dosed her with willow bark, but the thought of Flint made her chest hurt all over again. He’d given his life for the mine he loved, sacrificing himself to destroy Gillian’s smoke-spell with one last, mighty blow of his thunder-axe. But the poison that was killing the piskeys of the Delve, weakening their magic and ageing them long before their time, was still there. Her father would be honoured as a hero, and yet he hadn’t really saved any of them in the end.
‘I’m afraid so,’ she said, leaning her head against her sister’s. ‘But Mum’s still alive, and maybe she’ll wake up soon.’ Yet even as she spoke the words, Ivy knew it was too much to hope for. If Gillian’s death hadn’t undone the Claybane, why should it undo any of the other spells she’d cast?
Mica came and stood on Ivy’s other side, watching in silence as the knockers carried their father’s body away. He hadn’t spoken to Ivy since she’d told him that she’d left the Delve to look for Cicely and find their mother; he hadn’t even reacted to the news Marigold was alive. For a time they’d worked together as a team, and he’d even seemed willing to listen; but now that the crisis that had united them was over, he’d gone back to his old stubborn ways again. Did he blame her for Flint’s death? Or was there some other grudge he was holding against her?
Ivy didn’t know, and she was too tired to think about it. So when Mica stalked away without even looking at her, Ivy let him go.
Gillian’s stretcher lay to one side of the tunnel. Yarrow was stooping over the body with bowl and knife in hand, ready to collect the blood which would set the trapped piskeys free. Cicely started forward, but Ivy held her back.
‘You don’t want to see this,’ she said. ‘Go and find Jenny in the Market Cavern. I’ll come in a minute.’
With obvious reluctance, Cicely obeyed. When she was gone, Ivy moved to the healer and watched as she worked, her heart leaden with sorrow. She’d never meant Gillian to die, especially not by her hand. But how could she explain that to Molly?
At last Yarrow straightened up, holding out the bowl. ‘There isn’t much,’ she said. ‘We’d better try it here first and make sure it works. Did you bring the Joan?’
Ivy walked to the tunnel entrance, and returned with the tiny statue of Betony. She bit open the cut on her forefinger and squeezed a drop onto the figure’s head, then held it out to the healer, who dipped a rag into the bowl and wiped Gillian’s blood across its feet. Ivy held her breath, waiting…
But though they waited for seconds and then minutes, not a single crack appeared. ‘I was afraid of that,’ said Yarrow heavily. ‘The spell needs the blood of the living, not the dead.’
Ivy nodded soberly. There was only one hope left for the piskeys now. But when Molly found out what had happened to her mother, would she be willing to help them?
In all the misery and confusion, with most of the piskeys still gathered in the Market Cavern, it wasn’t difficult for Ivy to steal away. Moving gingerly to spare her bandaged ribs, she hurried up the stairs and slipped through the twisting passages, up, out, into the afternoon light. Then she changed shape – it was easy now the effects of the iron had worn off, though she still felt bruised all over – and flapped away.
Like most piskeys Ivy had an excellent sense of direction, but in bird-form it was keener than ever. Soon she spotted Gillian’s workshop, and angled down to land before the door on her own piskey feet. It was probably too much to expect that Molly would still be waiting for her, but at least she could see her mother one last time.
Yet when Ivy tore aside the covering vines and pushed the door open, she found the building deserted. Gem and Feldspar’s statues still stood forlornly upon the shelf, but there was no sign of Marigold – or Richard. Nothing but an overturned container that had once held Claybane dust, and a scattering of broken pottery on the ground.
Troubled, Ivy took to the air again and wheeled eastward, towards Molly’s cottage. She landed in the yard, changed to human size and ran up the steps to hammer upon the door. ‘Molly! Are you all right? Are you there?’
For an awful moment no answer came. Then a soft voice said, ‘Ivy?’ Locks clicked, and latches rattled. The door flew open – and with a laugh like a sob, Ivy fell into her mother’s arms.
‘She woke up after I yelled at her and shook her a few more times,’ Molly said proudly, when Marigold had stopped embracing Ivy long enough to lead her inside. The sunlight lay in golden wedges on the carpet, the curtains danced on the breeze, and the sitting room looked as warm and bright as Molly herself. ‘I guess it was like when I got you out of the Claybane – being only half-faery I didn’t have enough power to break my mum’s spell right away, but it worked out in the end.’ She peered into Ivy’s bruised face. ‘You look awful. What happened?’
This was the moment Ivy had dreaded. ‘Molly,’ she said in a low voice, ‘your mum’s dead.’
Molly’s cheeks turned ashen. She backed up until her legs bumped the armchair, and then sat down hard. ‘How?’ she asked in a whisper. ‘How did she die?’
‘She fell down the Great Shaft,’ Ivy said. ‘She was trying to get away, and I was trying to stop her, and the railing broke.’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘I’m so sorry, Molly.’
For several seconds Molly didn’t move. Then she leaped up and ran from the room. Her door slammed, but even from the other end of the corridor Ivy could hear the human girl weeping. She stood there numbly, certain that she’d just ruined any chance that Molly would ever help the piskeys of the Delve, until she felt Marigold’s arm about her shoulders.
‘Come and sit down,’ her mother said. ‘Tell me everything.’
It took a long time for Ivy to explain all that had happened in the past twelve hours, and by the time she’d finished her throat was raw and her chest ached with unshed tears. ‘I couldn’t stop Dad from going down there,’ she said. ‘It was like he wanted to die, and it was such a waste – I never even got to tell him you were alive…’
Marigold touched the place above her heart where her wedding pendant had once rested, the lines around her mouth deepening with sorrow. ‘Oh, my love,’ she whispered, as though Flint could hear her. ‘We made so many mistakes, you and I.’
‘I made a lot of mistakes too,’ said Ivy. ‘When I talked to the man in the market and found out that someone had erased his memory the way you did mine, I thought…’ She faltered at her mother’s sharp intake of breath, and raised pleading eyes to hers. ‘I know. It wasn’t you selling the piskeys, it was Gillian. But…I was right about what you did to me, wasn’t I?’
Marigold closed her eyes. ‘I didn
‘What things?’ asked Ivy, but Marigold shook her head.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ she said. ‘But…when you realised what was happening, you wanted to come with me. I told you that the surface world wasn’t safe, that there were spriggans and faeries and all kinds of things up there, and that I didn’t even know if I would survive. But you said you’d follow me anyway. And I – I couldn’t let you do that.’ Tears glimmered in her lashes. ‘I’m sorry. Please forgive me.’
Ivy’s thoughts were full of turmoil, and she didn’t know what to say. But when Marigold reached out to her, she didn’t resist. They clung to each other for a long time, and when Ivy raised her head Molly was standing in front of them, her eyes swollen but no longer wet. How long had she been listening? Had she heard the whole story? Ivy was afraid to ask, but then Molly spoke:
‘I’m sorry about your dad,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry about what my mum did to yours, too.’ Her lips quivered, but she pressed them together and then went on in a rush, ‘If you think my blood can help the other piskeys, the way it helped you – then I’ll come.’
Gratitude warmed Ivy’s chest. Awkwardly she rose and hugged Molly as hard as her bandaged ribs would allow. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, knowing what she said and meaning it – that her debt to the human girl was greater than she could ever repay. ‘Thank you, Molly.’
Molly had never been to the Delve before, so Marigold couldn’t transport the two girls there by magic – and none of them knew how to drive Gillian’s car, either. But Molly had ridden Duchess back from the workshop that morning, and now that Dodger’s leg had healed there was no reason they couldn’t take him along as well. It seemed that Ivy would get a proper ride of her own after all, especially since they still had to pick up Gem and Feldspar on the way – though with all her aches and pains, she feared she wouldn’t get much pleasure out of it.