The Knappler's Burden by S.D. Birkbeck

Author:S.D. Birkbeck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure, fantasy, crystals, underground, tunnels, king, queen, priests, nobility, London, Norfolk, castle, palace, energy, power, mines, beasts, birds, fracking
ISBN: 9781785382659
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2015
Published: 2015-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Into The City

The next morning there was much shouting from upstairs. Scoria Gulp wasn’t taking the news well that her husband’s next trip to London was going to be an extended one.

“And what about my leg?”

“I’ve gotta be going.”

“Starve I will. You’ll have me starve, Biffen Gulp.”

“There. Bread. Water. Now quit complaining.

“Bread and water? Is that all? Bread and Water?”

“I told you, Master Lentle needs me. There’s trouble about.”

“And there’s plenty of trouble about here.” Downstairs waiting at the door, Smillock winced as he heard a jug of water crash against the wall.

The trip into London was all about staying out of sight. They hugged the coast line for about four miles walking a narrow coastal path and stretches of sandy beach where their feet crunched the abandoned shells of razor crabs. They were spotted by a pair of circling peregrines and ignored by a seal slipping in and out of a high-tide lagoon. Heading inland, some low rolling fields brought them to a remote train station. Lentle and Smillock hung back while Biffen bought tickets from a machine.

On the train they sat together hiding behind sheets of newspaper, legs swinging freely like those of impatient school children. Once again, Londoners had a line of small robed men walk among their number but unlike the party under the leadership of Sir Umbrage, this one walked without interference. Biffen may have been grumpy and prone to see fault in almost everything but he knew his Upoverland. He knew what buttons to push, what streets to cross, what people to avoid and how to look like a Londoner interested in his own destination and letting others tend to theirs. Lentle, of course, had seen it all before. He had accompanied two Upwatchers to the apartment with the green star and, besides, this was a hurly burly, single-mined world that held no interest for him he was happy to keep the place off limits to the inhabitants of the world beneath out feet. Let them have their vastness, their spaces, their torrid weather patterns, their fast lives, their unhappy search for better lives. If he could close the iIluminole, Lentle Cudge would.

Smillock, however, found himself mesmerised. In a city full of people looking ahead, he walked about with head turned up. He saw stone buildings built solid and with purpose. He saw arches built when arches were in fashion and straight lines added when straight lines were in fashion. He saw domes of glass and the tops of shrubs poking out from rooftop gardens. He saw windows rimmed with lead and windows made from stained glass. On these buildings he saw carved the names of families that had started with nothing and gone on to rule the world. He saw statues of men of learning holding books and kings looking over new subjects.

Further up, he saw something more wondrous. The sky was blue with blobs of clouds. He had never seen something so vast and never-ending. The dome of Goneunderland was always grey and jagged.

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