Book of Fire by Michelle Kenney

Author:Michelle Kenney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Unus carried me through a winding damp tunnel with a gradual downward gradient for some time. Our only company had been the same shuffling and raking sound I’d heard previously; although whatever life inhabited these tunnels, it was certainly keen to avoid Unus.

The air was fetid again, and it took all my energy just to get enough oxygen. I comforted myself that if Unus had wanted to eat me he’d had plenty of opportunity by now, and I settled in for the ride. I didn’t allow myself to think about how far underground we were or whether August had made it this far; I just focused on the many ways I could make Aelia pay for making everything so hard.

As we rounded a final corner, a blast of filtered fresh air hit me and I filled my lungs greedily. I gazed curiously at the new cavern opening out before me. This large chamber had to be the domestic quarters of the Prolet world.

The first thing I noticed was the reflection of dancing flames creeping up the cave walls, courtesy of the large, sunken fire pit in the middle of the floor, which kept the large void at an ambient temperature. Looking skywards, I saw that the two-hundred-metre-high rock faces were punctured by small recesses, each connected by a spider’s web of rickety wooden staircases.

People and creatures mingled as before but were in far less of a hurry, with many stopping to sit and chat on the platforms joining the walkways. I squinted across the fire pit towards the back of the chamber, and could just make out a small, dark exit guarded by four foreboding satyrs.

‘Where does that lead?’ I asked curiously.

‘Old Roman tunnel ’neath us. Men dig,’ came Unus’s gruff response.

He reached around, and held up a helpful hand as I slid off his back. I smiled at him gratefully. He was turning out to be pretty civilized for a monster of fable and legend.

‘And where does Aelia live?’ I asked tentatively. He extended a huge hand and pointed to one of the small recesses right at the top of the cavern.

‘The top … of course,’ I muttered to myself, and thought I caught a glimpse of Unus’s huge eye closing and opening deliberately. Could a Cyclops wink?

As I walked across the cavern floor towards the rough wooden staircases, my mind jumped back to the high-tech floating walkways of the Pantheon medical unit. There were some major injustices in the Lifedomes, but at least the life around me was no less diverse than the last cavern. A small group of children ran in front of my path, chasing a round dog that sounded suspiciously like a pig. One of the children had the legs and tail of a young horse while two of the others had multiple appendages, like Tullius. Momentarily, I wondered if Pantheon was trying to breed a more efficient working underclass? Nothing would surprise me.

I hurried on, trying to dismiss images of August’s wan face. I just needed to know he was OK, that I hadn’t sealed his fate entirely.

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