Tunnels

Uncle Tam made a face and sat down next to Will. With a conspiratorial wave of his hand, he indicated to the boys to come closer. He waited until Mr. Jerome's footsteps had receded into the distance before he spoke.

'The time has arrived,' Tam whispered, extracting a dented metal canister from inside his coat. He flipped off the cap from one end, and they watched as he slid out a tattered map and laid it over their cards on the tabletop, smoothing out the corners so that it lay flat. Then he turned to Will.

' Chester is to be Banished tomorrow evening,' he said.

'Oh, God.' Will sat up as if he'd been shocked with an electric current. 'That's too sudden, isn't it?'

'I only just found out — it's planned for six,' Tam said. 'There'll be quite a crowd. The Styx like to make a spectacle out of these things. They believe a sacrifice is good for the soul.'

He turned back to the map, humming softly as he searched the complex of grid lines, until finally his finger came to rest on a tiny dark square. Then he looked up at Will as if he'd just remembered something.

'You know, it's not a difficult thing… to get you out, alone. But Chester, too, that's a very different kettle of fish. It's taken a lot more thought, but' — he paused, and Will and Cal stared into his eyes — 'I think I might have cracked it. There's only one way you escape to the Topsoil now… and that's through the Eternal City.'

Will heard Cal gasp, but as much as he wanted to ask his uncle about this place, it didn't seem appropriate as Tam went on. He proceeded to talk Will through the escape plan, tracing the route on the map as the boys listened raptly, absorbing every detail. The tunnels had names like Watling Street, The Great North, and Bishopswood. Will interrupted his uncle only once, with a suggestion that, after some considerable thought, Tam incorporated into the plan. Although on the exterior he was composed and businesslike, Will felt excitement and fear building in the pit of his stomach.

'The problem with this,' Tam said with a sigh, 'is the unknowns, the variables, that I can't help you with. If you hit any snags when you're out there, you'll just have to play it by ear… do the best you can.' At this point, Will noticed that some of the sparkle had gone out of Tam's eyes — he didn't look his normal confident self.

Tam ran through the whole plan from beginning to end once again and, when he'd finished, he fished something out of his pocket and passed it over to Will. 'Here's a copy of the directions once you're outside the Colony. If they catch up with you, heaven forbid, eat the damn thing.'

Will unfolded it carefully. It was a piece of cloth the size of a handkerchief when completely opened. The surface was covered with a mass of infinitesimally small lines in brown ink, like an unruly maze, each representing a different tunnel. Although Will's route was clearly marked in a light red ink, Tam quickly took him through it.

Tam watched as Will refolded the cloth map and then spoke in a low voice. 'This has to go like clockwork. You'd put all your kin in the very worst danger if the Styx thought for one second I'd had a hand in this… and it wouldn't just end with me; Cal, your grandmother, and your father would all be in the firing line.' He grasped Will's forearm tightly across the table and squeezed it to emphasize the gravity of his warning. 'Another thing: When you're Topsoil, you and Chester are going to have to disappear. I haven't had time to arrange anything, so—'

'What about Sarah?' Will blurted as the idea occurred to him, although her name still felt a little odd on his lips. 'My real mother? Couldn't she help me?'

A suggestion of a smile dropped into place on Tam's face. 'I wondered when you'd think of that,' he said. The smile disappeared, and he spoke as if choosing his words carefully. 'If my sister is still alive — and nobody knows that for sure — she'll be well and truly hidden.' He glanced down at the palm of his hand as he rubbed it with the thumb from the other. 'One plus one can sometimes add up to zero.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, if by some miracle you did happen to find her, you might lead the Styx her way. Then both of you would end up feeding the worms.' He raised his head again and shook it just once as he fixed Will with a thoughtful stare. 'No, I'm sorry, but you're on your own. You're going to have to run hard and long, for all our sakes, not just yours. Mark my words, if the Styx get you in their clutches, they will make you spill your guts, sooner or later, and that would endanger us all,' he said ominously.

'Then we'd have to get out, too, wouldn't we, Uncle Tam?' Cal volunteered, his voice full of bravado.

'You've got to be kidding!' Tam turned sharply on him. 'We wouldn't stand a chance. We wouldn't even see them coming.'

'But…,' began Cal.

'Look, this isn't some game, Caleb. If you cross them once too often, you won't be around long enough to regret it. Before you know it, you'll be dancing Old Nick's Jig.' He paused. 'You know what that is?' Tam didn't wait for an answer. 'It's a lovely little number. Your arms are stitched behind your back' — he shifted uncomfortably in his seat — 'with copper thread, your eyelids are stripped off, and you're dropped in the darkest chamber you can imagine, full of Red Hots.'

'Red whats? ' Will asked.

Tam shuddered and, ignoring Will's question, went on. 'How long do you think you'd last? How many days of knocking into the wall in the pitch-black, dust burning into your ruined eyes, before you collapsed from exhaustion? Feeling the first bites on your skin as they start to feed? I wouldn't wish that on my worst…' He didn't finish the sentence.

The two boys swallowed hard, but then Tam's expression brightened up again. 'Enough of that,' he said. 'You've still got that light, haven't you?'

Still stunned by what he'd just heard, Will looked at him blankly. He pulled himself together and nodded.

'Good,' Tam said as he took out a small cloth bundle from his coat pocket and put it on the table in front of Will. 'And these might come in handy.'

Will touched the bundle tentatively.

'Well, go on, have a look.'

Will untied the corners. Inside, there were four knobbly brown-black stones the size of marbles.

'Node stones!' Cal said.

'Yes. They're rarer than slug's boots.' Tam smiled. 'They're described in the old books, but nobody 'cept me and my boys has ever seen one before, Imago found this lot.'

'What do they do?' Will asked, looking at the strange stones.

'Down here, it's not like you're going to beat a Colonist or, worse still, a Styx in a straight fight. The only weapons you have are light and flight,' Tam said. 'If you get in a tight corner, just crack one of these things open. Chuck it against something hard and keep your eyes shut — it'll give a burst of the brightest light you can imagine. I hope these are still good,' he said, weighing one in his hand. He looked at Will. 'So you think you're up to this?'

Will nodded.

'Right,' the big man said.

'Thanks, Uncle Tam. I can't tell you how…,' Will said falteringly.

'No need, my boy.' Tam ruffled his hair. He looked down at the table and didn't speak for a few seconds. It was totally unexpected; silence and Uncle Tam didn't go together. Will had never before seen him like this, this gregarious and massive man. He could only think that he was upset and trying to hide it. But when Tam raised his head, the broad smile was there and his voice rumbled as it always did.

'I saw all this coming… it was bound to happen sooner or later. The Macaulays are loyal, and we will fight for those we love and believe in, no matter what the price. You would've tried to do something to save Chester, and gone after your father, whether I'd helped you or not.'

Will nodded, feeling his eyes fill with tears.

'Thought as much!' Tam boomed. Like your mother… like Sarah… a Macaulay through and through!' He grabbed Will firmly by his shoulders. 'My head knows you have to go, but my heart says otherwise.' He squeezed Will and sighed. 'Pity is… we could have had some times down here, the three of us. Some high times indeed.'

* * * * *

Will, Cal, and Tam talked well into the early hours, and when he finally got to bed, Will hardly slept a wink.