‘It was this way. Keep close.’
Noon followed Tor up the corridor, glad that he remembered the way – to her this was a place of sly confusion, of alien directions – until they emerged into the widened section of the corridor where the orbs had been stored in alcoves in the walls. Here, part of the ceiling had fallen, and they had to climb over the twisted pieces of metal to reach the storage area. Leaning on one piece as she slid down another, the metal felt oddly warm under her fingertips and not for the first time Noon thought of clambering about in the entrails of a giant beast. She was so busy frowning over this and trying her best not to come into contact with the walls that Tor was some distance ahead of her, and his cry of dismay made her jump. She half stumbled, half fell the rest of the way until she was by his side.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’
The golden orbs had been shaken loose from the alcove, and all of them had shattered. Noon could see a shining wetness on the textured floor, and some of the curved pieces still held remnants of the miraculous fluid, but almost all of it was lost. Tor dropped to his knees and held his hands over the floor, as though hoping to scoop the fluid up somehow.
‘No.’ His voice was flat, and his hands were shaking. ‘No, this cannot be.’
Noon could see how it had happened. Safe for hundreds of years, held in their delicate alcoves, until the enormous explosion just on the other side of the clearing – the same one that had brought down the ceiling – had shaken the orbs from their spaces and shattered them all across the floor.
‘No!’ Tor picked up one of the pieces and then threw it at the wall. ‘NO. This is all I have left, this is the last chance, I can’t . . .’
He hid his face in his hands, his shoulders starting to shake. The contrast between the man she’d met in the Shroom Flats, so tall and confident, and this beaten person, wearing borrowed clothes and with his hair half burned away, suddenly cut her so deeply she could barely breathe. She went to him and gathered him to her, smoothing a hand over his hair.
‘It will be all right,’ she said.
‘How?’ He pressed his face to her stomach, and she held him there. After a moment, his arms circled her waist. She thought of how close they had been in her dreams; not all of that had vanished when he had woken them both. ‘How can I do anything, like this? How can I live like this?’
‘You are so dramatic.’ Bending down and hesitating only slightly, she briefly pressed her lips to the top of his head. She felt some of the tension leave his body. ‘This won’t be the only chamber. It can’t be. Remember what we figured out about this stuff? The Behemoths must carry lots of it – enough so that when they crash, the places around it are infected. We just need to look. It’s worth looking, isn’t it?’
All was quiet for a moment as he took this in.
‘You are wiser than you look, witch.’ Tor stood up, and to her surprise he took her hand and kissed the palm of it, just as he had within her dream. His eyes looked wet, but when he nodded at her she saw some of his old determination in the set of his shoulders. ‘We will search for more. There is no need to despair yet.’
It took them hours. Narrow corridors led to cavernous spaces filled with shadowed, alien shapes; Noon could only guess at their function. They crawled through spaces where the walls were slick and yielding, climbed uneven sets of stairs, sought out each darkened corner. In one enormous chamber they found themselves walking on a suspended bridge, while below them something black and viscous shifted and moved. Noon knew that if Vintage had been with them, she would have insisted they explore further, but Tor took one look at it, grimacing slightly, and led them on. Noon was inclined to agree with him.
Eventually, they came to a long stretch of passageways where the strange lights had been damaged somehow, flickering and uncertain, until they died completely. For uncountable minutes they were in complete darkness, and Noon found herself wondering about the Jure’lia and whether they still existed somewhere in this giant corpse. Perhaps they were at the bottom of the evil liquid in the giant chamber; perhaps they had watched the trespassers with milky eyes, waiting for them to reach this place, where it was too dark and they were too lost to make it out alive . . .
‘Noon,’ came Tor’s voice, ‘you’re breathing very rapidly. It’s unnerving.’
She gave a strangled laugh. ‘This whole place is fucking unnerving. Do you even know the way back?’
‘Of course I do. I have an excellent sense of direction. Look, the lights are working again up ahead. Keep moving.’
Noon amused herself for the next few minutes by trying to decide whether she believed Tor’s bravado, and then they were in a low-ceilinged room. There were ragged black ropes hanging down, and a shallow pool in the centre. Something gold glittered there.
‘Look!’ Tor strode across the room, impatiently pushing the black ropes out of his way. There, in the shallow pool of what looked like water, were six of the orbs, entirely intact.
‘Wait, shouldn’t we figure out what that stuff is first? It could be dangerous.’
‘What? You mean it might burn my flesh off?’ Tor shot her a look before wading down into the pool, soaking himself to the knees. He paused for a moment, and then shrugged. ‘It’s just water. Here, I’ll hand them to you. Be careful.’
Noon packed them carefully, swaddling the orbs in rags and cushioning them against each other. Each one felt heavy and full in her hands, and when she tipped them gently back and forth, she heard the liquid sloshing inside.
‘Will it be enough?’
Tor took one of the bags from her and tied it carefully to his back. ‘How could I possibly know that?’ Then his voice softened. ‘I think it will have to be. I barely have the energy to walk back out of this place, let alone continue searching. A few moments’ rest, and we will hope that we can get out of here before nightfall.’
Noon looked closely at his face. His skin was grey, and there was sweat on his forehead now. He looked unwell.
‘You look like you need more than a short rest.’ After a moment, she reached into her pack and retrieved a short knife.
‘Noon—’
‘Do you think we’ll make it back out of here if you’re half dead on your feet? You’ll lead us into some dead end, or we’ll get outside and not be fast enough to avoid the spirits.’