‘ Soft! I did but dream. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! ’
Nobody in the Delve talked like that. Not even the oldest piskeys used such formal language, and the droll- teller himself had never spoken with such tortured passion. Ivy clutched the railing and leaned out over it, dreading what she might see. She’d never believed in ghosts, but…
‘ The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh… ’ Then the speaker faltered and began to moan, ‘Light! Light! ’ with increasing desperation, like a feverish child begging for water. It was the most pitiful thing Ivy had ever heard.
Might it be a human, who had wandered in through one of the old adits and got lost in the depths of the mine? Ivy would have been relieved to think so, for in that case it would be easy to play will-o’-the-wisp and lead him up to the surface again. But in her heart she knew better. The words might be strange and garbled, but the voice was all too familiar.
It was the spriggan.
She’d never suspected that his cell was so close to the Great Shaft. All she’d heard was that he was being held somewhere far away from the piskeys’ living quarters, and that only the Joan and Jack were allowed to see him. But she’d also been told that the spriggan wasn’t talking…and he was definitely talking now.
‘ What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by: Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I… ’
He’d calmed down now, at least enough to stop wailing for light and start talking to himself again. Richard? Was that his name? It sounded weirdly human. Ivy hadn’t thought of spriggans as having names before; to her they were all just spriggans, as snakes were snakes.
But if he had a name, then he had a personality. If he could talk about feeling pain and guilt and fear, there was a chance that he might be willing to talk about other things, as well. Like what he’d done with Keeve…
Or what had happened to Ivy’s mother.
Did Ivy dare? Could she climb down into the dark recesses of the shaft, find the tunnel where the spriggan was being held prisoner, and walk right up to his door? If she offered him a glimpse of the light he craved, would he tell her what she wanted so badly to know?
Mind, if anyone found out she had gone near the spriggan, Ivy would be in big trouble. But he could hardly hurt her while locked up in his cell. And if she didn’t take her chance with him now, she might spend the rest of her life wondering what would have happened if she had…
‘ I am I,’ the spriggan repeated, then muttered, ‘Whatever that means.’ And with that he let out a laugh — but it dissolved into coughing, and ended in a breath like a sob.
Ivy inhaled slowly, summoning strength and courage. Then she swung her leg over the railing, and lowered herself into the darkness.
She had never climbed this part of the Great Shaft before, much less backwards. Every new foothold had to be carefully tested, lest it crumble away and send her plummeting into the fathomless sump below. After several minutes of spidering her way down the rock, Ivy’s curls were plastered to her forehead with sweat. Yet she thought of her mother, and kept on.
She swung her left leg sideways, toes groping for another ledge. But her foot dangled into empty air, and no matter how far she stretched she could find no place to stand. Had she reached the lower tunnel already? Digging her fingers into the rock, Ivy eased herself downwards, then arched her back, swung her hips, and let go.
The adjoining tunnel was deeper than she’d anticipated, and for a heart-stopping instant Ivy feared she’d made her last mistake. But then her bare feet smacked stone, and she landed with only a slight stagger. Sighing relief, Ivy straightened up -
And found herself face to face with the spriggan.
At first she was too stunned to speak. Not only because she’d never expected his cell to open straight onto the Great Shaft, but because he was so utterly different from the monster she’d imagined. Pale as a dead thing, yes, and woefully thin — he could never have passed for a piskey. Nor was he pleasant to look at, not with one eye swollen half-shut and a split lip distorting his mouth into a sneer. But apart from that there was nothing gruesome about him, and he was young. Older than Ivy to be sure, more a man than a boy — but he couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than Mica.
Yet he was still a spriggan, and that made him dangerous. Even crouched against the wall with one arm cradled to his chest, he had a menacing air about him, a lithe tension that could explode at any moment into violence. Ivy dimmed her glow and backed towards the shaft, though she knew it was too late: he’d heard her land, seen her skin shining in the darkness, and at any moment…
‘ Is there a murderer here? ’ he whispered, pushing himself to his feet. He lurched forward — but then came a rattling noise, and he jerked to a halt mid-step.
So that was why the Joan hadn’t been worried about him escaping, even with an open shaft mere paces away. While he was still unconscious, Mica and Mattock had clapped an iron manacle around his ankle and chained him to the floor. He couldn’t go more than a stride in any direction, so Ivy was well out of reach — and if she remembered the legends right, the iron would keep him from using magic, too. Only those with knocker blood could endure the touch of iron.
‘You tell me,’ she said, bolder now. She could see him well enough with her night vision, but to him she’d be nothing more than a ghostly shape — a tantalising hint of the light he yearned for. ‘Are you a murderer?’
The spriggan let out a shuddering breath. His head drooped, and he muttered, ‘ No. Yes. I am: Then fly… ’
If only she could. ‘I’m not here to play riddle-games,’ said Ivy. Had he lost his wits? ‘Did you or did you not kill Keeve?’
A long pause, while the spriggan watched her sidelong out of one grey eye. ‘ I am a villain,’ he said at last, then added quickly as Ivy tensed: ‘ Yet I lie. I am not. ’
‘Stop talking nonsense and tell me the truth, then!’
The spriggan leaned against the wall, his distorted mouth closing tight. He did not reply.
Had she been too harsh with him? Would he refuse to say any more? Ivy took a step forward — though not too close, since she had no desire to feel those fingers around her neck. Then she said gently, ‘You want light, don’t you?’
His breath caught, just the briefest hitch, but it was as good as an answer. ‘I’ll give it to you,’ Ivy said, ‘if you answer some questions for me.’
She waited, but the spriggan didn’t respond. Did he not believe her? Or was he too slurry-brained to understand?
Ivy increased her glow a little, hoping to tempt him. ‘See?’ she said. ‘I’ll give you more, if you’ll tell me what you did with Keeve. And even more than that, if you can tell me what happened to my mother. She was beautiful, with light brown hair, and her wings…’
What had Marigold’s wings been like? She couldn’t remember. Ivy cleared her throat and went on, ‘Anyway, she disappeared five years ago. Did you spriggans take her? Is she still alive?’
The prisoner raised his head to hers, lips parting as though to speak. But then his chin dropped and he looked away.
Ivy threw up her hands. ‘This is useless.’ The stench that hung around him was making her queasy, and she was tired of looking at those hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. The spriggan was either delirious or mad or both, and she wished that she had never come. ‘I give up. You can stay here and rot for all I care.’ Defiantly flaring brighter so he’d never forget what he’d missed, she turned and strode away.
‘ Ivy.’
Startled, she looked back to find the spriggan stretching out his one good hand. ‘Don’t go,’ he said, and now his voice sounded ordinary, the formal cadences lost. ‘I didn’t know… I couldn’t be sure it was you, until now.’
Was he trying to make her pity him? If so, it wasn’t going to work. And she wasn’t going to ask again how he knew her name, either — he’d probably just overheard it, back at the Lighting. Ivy tapped her foot. ‘Well?’
‘I didn’t kill Keeve.’ He rubbed his temple, as though concentrating were an effort. ‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘But you were there, the night he disappeared,’ Ivy said. ‘Who else could have taken him?’
‘I have no idea. But it wasn’t me.’
‘Why didn’t you say that to the Joan, then?’ Ivy asked. ‘Did you think she wouldn’t believe you?’
‘I had to give her some reason to keep me alive,’ he said. ‘Until I could talk to you.’
