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

The approaches to the market were deserted — unusually so — and when they reached the hall it was obvious why.

They picked their way through a drift of rubbish: collapsed stalls, discarded clothes, food scraps, goods of all sorts trodden under foot, broken and abandoned. A few ragged people wandered among the wreckage, picking up odd items in search of anything edible or valuable. Better-dressed people were righting tables and sweeping up trash — traders, Simon guessed.

A man’s body lay in the middle of an aisle. No one glanced at it. All walked wide around it, as if trying to pretend it wasn’t there.

Simon stopped a thin young woman as she passed with her head down, scanning for treasure among the rubbish. ‘Excuse me. Can you tell me what happened here?’

‘Bastards,’ she muttered, as if to herself, and shrugged and walked away still muttering loudly. ‘Bastards took it all.’

He tried one of the stall-holders next: a stout red-faced man with watery eyes. Whatever he’d been selling now looked like tangled wool felted round scraps of wood.

‘A fight broke out. Stupid. Northers started it. Damn trouble-makers come here with nothing, think they can walk in and own the place. I’m ruined now. They complain about prices, how’ll they like it when there’s no food to buy, when all the honest traders move out. Heh? Tell me that?’

‘A shame,’ Simon said. ‘But I’m looking for my family. They would have been together: an older woman, a girl of sixteen, and a boy. Did you see them?’

The man squinted at him. ‘Not to remember. Sorry.’

Simon looked around, wondering who else he could ask. There was no reason to expect anyone to remember Nana and the children, but what else could he do? Where could they have gone?

‘Hey,’ the stall-holder said. ‘Your hand… There was a notice about you. Ain’t you the one that murdered that guy? Chopped his head clean off.’

Grace stepped up to the stall. ‘You’re mistaken. You have the wrong man.’

The stall-holder frowned at her. ‘By rights, I ought to turn him in. Light knows I could use the money.’

Simon’s hand shot out. He grasped the man’s neck, the stubby steel fingers digging deep into loose flesh. ‘I’m no murderer.’

The man nodded quickly. ‘N-no. Sorry. My mistake.’

‘My family were here today. I need to find them. Perhaps you could try a little harder to help?’ Simon squeezed. ‘Because I’ve had a very bad day, and I’m running out of patience.’

The stall-holder was turning purple. Simon relaxed his grip a fraction.

‘I didn’t see them. Honest, I didn’t. But the Grey Wardens were here. They took charge of a bunch of injured people. That’s all I know.’

Injured. Simon hadn’t thought of that possibility. ‘Where did they take them?’

Simon hammered on the doors of the Holywell Refuge until they were opened. Bodies lay on the floor of the entrance hall. He shoved past the Warden who’d opened the door and charged in, shouting: ‘Nana? Lorie! Sam!’

Ten or so men and women lay on pallets around the pool. A few more sat nearby. He couldn’t see Nana anywhere, or the children. A hard pain grew in his chest, a suffocating panic.

A Warden approached, saying soothing words he didn’t hear.

Simon shook him off. ‘Where are they?’ he shouted. ‘Where’s my family?’

On the far side of the hall, Nana and Lorie appeared. He pushed the Warden aside and stumbled toward them, flung his arms around them both. His legs felt like rubber. He blinked back tears. ‘Light be praised. You’re all right. I thought…’

‘Now, now.’ Nana patted his back. ‘Don’t take on, boy.’

Simon laughed in relief and released them. He beckoned to Grace and his mother. ‘You remember Grace vai Numisma. And this is my mother.’ He felt oddly nervous, introducing them. Two women as unlike as Nana, a down-to-earth norther who’d lived most of her life in Sark, and his aristocratic mother, who’d spent most of her life communing with angels, couldn’t easily be imagined.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

‘You must be Nana.’ His mother smiled. ‘Delighted to meet you. And my granddaughter, Lorie. How marvellous. We shall be very good friends.’

Nana gaped a bit, but recovered enough to shake hands. Only one thing was missing to complete the picture.

‘Where’s Sam?’ Simon asked.

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

‘Whoa.’ Sam’s voice echoed from the smooth walls. He stared up in awe at the vaulting ceiling, curving away into darkness. ‘I bet this is a hole left behind when the lava cooled, back when the volcano was active. Like a bubble in the rock.’

‘Really?’ Ellise stood close beside him. ‘You’re clever. I never thought of that.’

Sam flushed. ‘My dad’s an Earth Adept. He knows about rocks and stuff.’

The dark mouth of a tunnel loomed on the far side of the cavern. They picked their way round by a narrow path to where a tall dark-skinned girl waited for them.

She smiled. ‘Hey. Who’s the newcomer?’

‘This is Sam,’ Ellise said.

‘Welcome, Sam.’ The girl waved them into the tunnel.

They filed through one by one, Paet going first with the lamp. He had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling.

They stepped out into light and space and were immediately surrounded by a crowd of children, all laughing and chattering at once. They all wanted to hug Ellise and her friends. In between hugs, Ellise introduced Sam to a whirl of smiling faces who he certainly wouldn’t remember. Many of them hugged him too.

It was like being reunited with a long-lost family of over-friendly strangers: pleasant, but a bit overwhelming.

Laughing, Kizzy fended off the mob. ‘Give the poor boy some air now. Save your questions for a minute, will ya?’ She put her arm round Sam and steered him out of the crush.

The cavern was another bubble, vast beyond belief, stretching away into endless darkness. Scattered gas-lamps made islands of light in the nooks and hollows between pillars of twisted rock.

It was warm down here, very warm, which perhaps explained why the children — boys and girls alike — wore only those thin green robes, little more than sacks. The humid air smelled of stale sweat and rotten eggs.

Sam perched on a lump of rock. The children — there were perhaps fifty of them, aged from younger than him to nearly adult teenagers — gathered round Kizzy, as if expecting an announcement.

A sandy-haired boy took the bread baskets from her. ‘We didn’t expect you back so soon. How was the market?’

Kizzy looked grave. ‘A fight broke out. It was pretty bad, so we split, and Sam came with us.’

The children nudged each other. The sandy boy stared at Kizzy, wide-eyed. ‘Is it the Burning Time already?’

‘I don’t know.’ Kizzy shook her head. ‘It may be, but the Master didn’t say it would be so soon. He would have warned us about the market.’

Ellise leaned forward. ‘But he did say it could start any day and we should be ready.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ said the sandy boy. ‘I’m sure Kizzy didn’t mean that he should have warned us. He’s always told us it was dangerous up above.’

A small dark girl removed her thumb from her mouth. ‘I’m scared.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Kizzy said. ‘We’re safe down here, whatever happens. The Master promised he’ll look after us, and he’ll tell us what to do. In the meantime, he’d want us to go on as normal and to make Sam welcome.’

Sam smiled awkwardly. ‘What’s the Burning Time?’

The sandy boy stared at him. ‘It’s the end. The end of the world.’

‘Oh,’ Sam said. Back in Sark, the priest in the little chapel had talked about the end of the world, when the righteous would be separated from the sinners for all eternity. The congregation seemed surprisingly keen for this to happen. Sam never understood why, but then he didn’t count himself as one of the righteous.

When he’d asked, Nana told him it wouldn’t happen for a long, long time, and Dad said it was nonsense. Sam was more inclined to his dad’s view, because after all, the world was very big and full of people and animals and interesting things, and why destroy all that just to teach the sinners a lesson? Most sinners weren’t all that bad, anyhow. Besides, any god with sense should have a better plan.

Kizzy had no more news, so the gathering broke up. The children got to their feet and wandered off in small groups.

Ellise took Sam’s hand and led him to a hollow in the cavern floor, where they were joined by the sandy boy and a few others. Blankets and sleeping pallets topped with a litter of shoes and bowls and rubbish suggested this was home for them. They sat in a circle.

‘You can stay with us,’ Ellise said. ‘This is Baily—’ Sandy boy grinned. ‘And Valla, and Twig.’

Sam smiled back at them. ‘Where’s the grown-ups?’

‘Kizzy’s grown,’ Ellise said.

‘Yeah, but like, parents? Family?’

Baily pulled a face. ‘All runaways and orphans here.’

‘No beating, no punishment,’ Ellise added. ‘We’re safe and we eat every day. It’s wonderful. We just do whatever we want. You’ll love it, Sam.’

Sam frowned. ‘Whatever you want?’ It sounded too good to be true. ‘What, always? You don’t have to… wash, or tidy up, or be quiet?’

Ellise giggled. ‘If you don’t wash, you’ll stink. And if Kizzy or Paet or someone tells you to do something, then you do it, because they’re sensible.’

‘And we try to follow the Master’s teachings,’ Baily said.

‘Of course,’ Ellise echoed. ‘But that’s more… guidelines, like being nice to each other.’

‘Why? Who’s the Master?’

Ellise laid her hand on Sam’s knee. Her eyes sparkled. ‘The Master’s wonderful. Everyone loves him. He teaches us and looks after us.’

‘He’s visiting tonight,’ Baily said.

‘Oh, good,’ Ellise said. ‘He may speak to you, since you’re new, Sam. You’re lucky. He doesn’t come every day.’

Sam looked round at their earnest, happy faces. They were so pleased with everything, he felt guilty at his own unease. He didn’t belong here. ‘But you know I can’t stay, Ellise. I’m not joining you. I have to go back to my family.’

‘Oh.’ She covered her mouth with her hands, and they all stared, as if he’d said something shocking. ‘But you can’t leave, Sam.’

‘It’s not safe,’ Baily said. ‘Fighting in the city is the first sign of the Burning Time. After that comes rains of fire, and earthquakes, and war, and everyone will fight like wild animals until everyone is dead.’

‘But none of that is happening,’ Sam said. ‘There was just a fight in the market. None of that will happen.’

‘It will,’ Ellise said seriously. ‘You must believe us, Sam. The Master says so, and he would never lie to us. This is the only place we’re safe.’

Sam stood. ‘Well, I don’t believe it, and I’m going.’

A hand fell on his shoulder. It was the big youth, Paet, and he wasn’t smiling. ‘I’m sorry, Sam. We can’t let you leave.’