Si glyph [https://i.imgur.com/mHhTdaF.png]

The scarred Snake raised the gun. The black muzzle pointed steadily at Simon’s chest. ‘Fighting talk, old man.’

Simon felt strangely calm. A moment ago he’d been terrified, yet facing certain death, the fear drained away. All that could be done had been done. He simply waited.

Scarface spat on the floor and handed the gun to his lieutenant. He cracked his knuckles, stretched, and jabbed his fist at Simon’s head. Simon flinched; he swiped the staff defensively, catching only air.

Only a feint, he realised. Scarface grinned. He was enjoying himself.

The next time, Simon saw his opponent shift his weight before the swing, and was ready. The staff cracked into Scarface’s elbow. He hissed in pain and charged.

Simon sidestepped and drove the head of the staff into his gut. Scarface stumbled backward, doubled over and gasping for breath. The two watching Snakes laughed and shoved him back toward Simon.

One of the Snake henchmen advanced on Simon’s left. He was as tall as Simon and much younger, with a jaw you could crack rocks with. That was bad. Fighting one of them, he might just about manage with a sizeable dose of luck. Two was out of the question. His only chance was to take this guy out before Scarface got his breath back.

Simon swept the staff through the air. It thumped into the young thug’s chest and rebounded. As he tried to follow up, the staff resisted; Scarface had hold of the flag.

The other man punched Simon in the face. Reeling from the impact, Simon stumbled and his bad leg buckled and folded, dropping him to the ground. He curled in a ball. The first kick hit his arm. The next bounced his skull off the stone floor. Vision faded to shades of grey. Time slowed.

A woman screamed.

With a rush of speeding air, blinding light filled the world from edge to edge. It flowed and fluttered like the wings of a thousand fiery birds, and where it passed, silence and stillness followed.

Simon’s head spun and purple splotches moved sluggishly across his vision. He lay on a cold stone floor and no one was hitting him. Carefully, he sat up. The three Snakes had gone, and so had the light — if there had been a light.

‘Are you hurt?’ Grace crouched beside him, her hand on his shoulder. His mother stood nearby, staring at nothing.

‘I told you to run.’ Irritation cut through the sick dizziness from the blow on the head. ‘Why didn’t you run? And—’ He blinked at the deserted side-aisle. His head and ears were full of fluff. ‘What happened?’

‘Don’t be so obtuse, Simon,’ his mother said. ‘Arakiel scared them off, but we had better move quickly.’

Grace helped him stand. Leaning on her, he limped down the side-aisle, past the locked door. Between the stone pillars, he glimpsed the main hall. Bodies carpeted the floor amid overturned chairs. Snakes stalked through the carnage, checking for survivors.

Another door appeared on their left. Grace opened it. Broad steps led downward to another door.

‘The crypt,’ Grace whispered.

With the door closed behind them, they crowded down the stair in darkness. At the bottom, Grace paused to fumble with something. Light gleamed in her hand; a small cold-lamp. She shook it again, and it flickered a little brighter.

They filed through the doorway into the crypt. It was dark, the cold-lamp little more than a pale wisp of light. Simon shut the door behind them and fumbled for a latch of some kind.

Very slowly, the lamp brightened. Cold-lamps didn’t last forever — the chemicals were exhausted by use, and this one was on its last legs. Still, the faintest light was much better than nothing.

The door did have a latch, rusted almost beyond use. He jammed the bar down as far as he could. It wouldn’t hold long, but it might buy them a little time.

‘I don’t know if there’s another way out,’ Grace said.

Simon took the cold-lamp from her. ‘There’s always a way out.’

A long low room stretched away from them, the far end lost in shadows. On either side stood tombs — simple plain stone coffins next to tasteless confections of cherubs and skulls, according to the fashion of the times. Many Numisma dead were buried here, though it seemed they weren’t visited much. Dust lay thick on the floor.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We may not have much time.’

They hurried along the row of tombs. The pale glow of the cold-lamp picked out carved angels and skeletons, the names of the honoured dead recorded in marble, gilt, and brass. At the end of the row was small sturdy door reinforced with iron bands. The tombs continued to the right.

From the latched door came a thump. Grace clutched Simon’s arm. ‘Someone’s trying to get in.’

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He tried the iron-banded door. It opened onto a small room lined with racks of dark dusty bottles. ‘In here.’

‘Are you sure? We’ll be trapped.’

Simon waved them in. ‘It’ll do. Hurry.’ The door had a keyhole, but no key, and no latch or bar on the inside. ‘Help me move this rack.’

Grace and he shifted the wine rack in front of the door.

‘Now what?’ she said. ‘We wait for them to batter it down and kill us all?’

‘No, you lean on it and keep quiet while I work.’

His mother obediently set her back to the barricade.

Grace stared at him. She was very pale. ‘Well. I suppose there are worse places to hide.’ She selected a dust-caked bottle from the racks and peered at the label. ‘What are you going to do?’

Simon peered at the floor. Stone, but that didn’t tell him much. The crypt might go down several levels, or there might just be foundations beneath. He crouched and cleared the dust with his hands and coat sleeve. ‘Get us out of here. I hope.’

‘You hope? Light of Heaven, Simon. They’re killing people up there. They’re killing my family.’ The bottle dropped from her hand and smashed, sending dark red wine flooding over the stone. She covered her face with her hands.

‘Grace…’

‘That was a rotten vintage.’ She turned to the wine racks. ‘We may as well drink something decent.’

‘Pick two, but don’t get too comfortable.’ He knelt and began to scribe the sigil. ‘We’re going down.’

Sa glyph [https://i.imgur.com/plK5EWM.png]

They had definitely travelled down. And along, perhaps over a mile through tunnels twisting and curved. But mostly down.

Sam stopped. The three older teenagers walked ahead, taking the lamp with them. Their tall, distorted shadows stalked along the tunnel wall.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ellise asked.

‘Nothing. I just... Maybe I should go back.’

‘Back?’

‘My grandma and my sister were in the market. What if something’s happened to them?’ Sam frowned. When the fighting broke out, Ellise had grabbed his hand and told him to run, and he had. Now he wondered if he should’ve gone looking for Nana and Lorie instead. ‘Besides, they don’t know where I am. They’ll worry.’

‘Well, you can’t go back now,’ Ellise said. ‘We’re nearly home anyway. Stay a while and go back when things have quieted down. That’s sensible, isn’t it? They would want you to be safe.’

It did sound logical. He couldn’t go back alone, anyhow — he didn’t know the way and they only had one lamp. ‘Yeah. I s’pose you’re right.’

In the gathering darkness, she took his hand and they ran to catch up with the others.

L glyph [https://i.imgur.com/2vwU4yB.png]

From the market, they had travelled down. Down one level, then straight, up some steps and along, and then a long way down a steep and winding stair. The straggling line of refugees from the riot bunched into small groups, with the fit helping the injured.

Nana had her arm around the woman who Lorie had rescued. Ahead of them, the little girl trudged beside a slight young sothron woman who clutched her stomach as she walked. Bringing up the rear, Lorie plodded down the steps after them. Her legs ached. She only realised she’d reached the end of the stair when she stepped down and jarred her heel on the floor.

‘Are you all right?’ Nana asked.

Lorie blinked. She’d been walking in a daze, not looking at her surroundings at all. ‘Yes. I’m fine.’

The corridor they stood in was wide and clean and somehow it felt old, though she had no idea what gave that impression. A low flight of steps led to open double doors. Two Wardens emerged and approached to assist the wounded.

Following Nana, Lorie climbed the steps. Beyond the black stone threshold was a high-ceilinged hall. In the centre, a low wall surrounded a pool of steaming water. A statue of a robed woman stood in the pool, tipping an urn from which more water poured.

As Lorie crossed the threshold, her palms tingled. A sharp chill ran over her.

‘Where’s Sam?’ Nana said suddenly.

The odd feeling had already passed. Lorie shook it off and scanned the room. The injured folk sat or lay on the floor before the pool. Wardens moved quietly among them, maskless now, revealing human faces — some of them women, which was a slight surprise.

Sam wasn’t there, of course. ‘I don’t know. I think he ran off to see a friend, in the market.’

‘A friend?’ Nana sighed. ‘I hope he’s safe.’

’You know Sam. He always lands on his feet.’

‘Yes, I expect so.’ Nana shook herself. ‘Right, let’s see if we can help at all.’

Si glyph [https://i.imgur.com/mHhTdaF.png]

Grace lifted the cold-lamp. The light reflected from the walls of their bubble, smooth as the inside of an eggshell. ‘This is certainly an odd experience.’

Simon coughed. ‘If you don’t mind…’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ She re-directed the light to where he was about to draw his sigil. ‘Is it much further?’

‘This is the last.’ A good thing too. Shifting rock was slow, and the more mass to shift the slower it was. On the other hand, a smaller air pocket meant less time before the air grew foul and suffocated them.

‘How are we going to…?’

He finished drawing the sigil. ‘There’s a sizeable tunnel beneath us. I’ll try to form a ramp.’

Grace nodded understanding. She put her arm round Simon’s mother, who had been quietly humming and smiling to herself all the way down.

Simon concentrated through the fog of fatigue and stale air. One more effort, he reminded himself. He released the summoning.

Earth answered. All the complex hugeness of Athanor shouldered its way into his awareness, from the deep slumbering heat of the volcano’s roots to the scurrying human infestation at the surface. This was the hard part — not to shape the rock, but to find himself in relation to the mountain, and not to carelessly snuff out the air bubble in which they stood. He had managed so far. One last small step to safety…

Slowly, stone flowed. Their bubble of stale warm air eased downward to join the greater space. The floor under his hand fell away and cascaded into a ramp.

The trance left him abruptly. He sagged shaking against the wall, gasping at the sudden influx of fresher air.

‘Are you all right?’ Grace asked.

He blinked away a wave of dizziness. It was only tiredness; it would pass. ‘Yes. I’m fine.’

They descended into the new tunnel, which was straight and square-cut, clearly man-made.

‘Which way?’ Grace whispered.

Simon glanced left and right. He didn’t know where the tunnel led, but it was certain to connect to the undercity eventually. To the right, it sloped down, and that seemed better. He didn’t want to find himself unexpectedly above ground. ‘Right.’

‘I’m scared,’ Grace said.

‘We’re safe down here.’

‘Thugs with guns just slaughtered my family. They’re dead, Simon. They’re all dead. Nowhere is safe.’

Tentatively, he reached out and grasped her shoulders. She was shivering, and he wanted to reassure her, but all the things he might say seemed trite and meaningless. ‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I know, but we have to keep going.’

He took his mother’s arm, and by the flickering light of the dying cold-lamp, they walked down into the earth.