Foundation

Smart. Things like that got no right to be as smart as a man.”

“Ain’t just that it’s smart, neither,” Jarrik grumbled. “It’s got the luck of a devil. Tyndale shot at it, an’ did nothin’ but miss.”

“It scares me. What’s it want?” There was real fear in Melak’s voice, something Mags was not accustomed to hearing. “Why won’t it go away?”

“It wants somethin’ here, I guess,” Jarrik replied. “Somethin’, or someone. Either way, Pa ain’t letting it on the property. He swears he’s keepin’ it off.”

“But how?” Melak almost wailed the words. “Ye can’t shoot it, ye can’t fence it out, and ye can’t stop it! We don’ know what it wants! What if it wants to get in here and kill one of us?”

“Why would it—” Jarrik stopped.

“You know why,” Melak said flatly. “You know why. It’s more’n half a spirit, too! It could even be—”

“Don’t say it!” Jarrik retorted harshly. “Don’t even think it. Let Pa handle it. Let Pa handle it, and leave well enough alone!”

Standing there in the dark, listening them talk about something they feared so much they wouldn’t even put a name to it, Mags shivered. When had this—monster, or whatever it was—turned up and started besieging the mine? Days ago?

Now a horde of little things began to make sense. The sluices had been left without a Pieters supervising them, and half the older boys were not at the mine for the past couple of days. The girls had scarcely been seen out-of-doors, and had quickly scuttled back to the Big House when they did come out. The cooks had been less attentive at the giving out of the food, and a fair amount of cabbage and scraps had been joining the broth in the bowls rather than being husbanded in the pot.

At least half of the workmen hadn’t been visible over the last three days either.

Maybe that was what had emboldened Davey in the matter of snitching sparklies.

He slipped back to his seam before the brothers noticed that there wasn’t any tapping coming from his. And as he carefully pried stones out of the wall, he shivered and wondered.

Most of the time the kiddies were too tired to do anything but sleep when they piled into the sleep-hole. But that didn’t keep them from knowing stories about all kinds of horrible things. The Pieters boys had their own store of tales that they told out, pretending to tell them to each other, but really doing it to scare the kiddies working the seams. Most of the stories were about awful things down here in the mines. There were the ghosts of anyone that had died down here, and Mags knew of some few. These ghosts went about looking for someone who was the exact age they had been when they died—and when they found him, they would tear him apart trying to figure out a way into his body.

There were the Knockers, twisted-up little dwarfs no taller than your knee, but monstrous strong. They would wait until everyone was preoccupied and then just snatch a kiddie, grabbing him in his seam before he could utter a sound, bashing his head in with his own hammer, then dragging off the body to eat.

There were the Whisps, ghost-lights that would lead you into dangerous parts of the mine, then drop a rockfall on you. They’d do it by putting you to sleep, then getting you to walk in your sleep to where they were going to kill you.

There were the Horrors, that got into your head and made you crazy, like the night-shift cripples. When the Horrors got you, all you saw was black things coming at you, all claws and red eyes, and you’d drive your head against the wall of the shaft to try and get them out, or you’d make a cave-in yourself to try and stop them, or if they managed to bring you above the ground, you’d throw yourself down the well to be rid of them.

But every one of those was a monster in the mine. What about out of it? What was roaming about out there that was so scary the Pieters boys wouldn’t name it, wouldn’t describe it, and didn’t have any bragging ideas on how to get rid of it?

Suddenly, he didn’t want to leave at the end of the shift.

And it wasn’t just because the sluice water would be so cursed cold.

No, he was afraid that whatever it was, it would be up there, Some sort of devil. Mags didn’t believe in gods, but he believed, most fervently, in devils.

And if a devil had come here, there was likely only one person it had come for. Well, two, maybe, except the boys were saying that Cole Pieters was driving the thing off himself, so it hadn’t come for Master Cole.

All right, then. It had to be coming for Mags. Because Mags was Bad Blood. It would grab him and drink his blood to make itself stronger. And then it would carry him away to torment him forever.

No, he did not want to leave the mine now.

But of course, he had no choice.

Chapter 3

They heard the commotion before they emerged from the mine, but it didn’t sound like monsters were invading Master Cole’s property. It sounded more like the day some fool from the local highborn had come nosing about, or at least trying to. He’d brought an armsman with him, but it didn’t do him any good. There was two of them, and a half dozen of Cole Pieters’ sons, and if they didn’t know how to use swords, they didn’t need to, as anyone around would know they were damned good with their crossbows. Master Cole had run the man off then, and no mistaking it. He hadn’t come back either.

Cole had been hollering about his rights then, and he was doing so now. His voice echoed harshly down the mine shaft. “I know my rights! Ye can’t just swan in here and make off with whoever ye choose! These are my workers, homeless criminals every one, signed for and turned over to me to use as I need until their time runs out!”

Criminals? Now Mags knew that was a lie, and a big fat one, too. None of them were criminals, not even he. No one had been signed over by gaolers. Everyone here was here through no fault of their own ...