‘Too many paths!’ I shouted at him. ‘Let me go, put me down, let me go!’
‘Oh, Bee,’ he said, and I knew him. The blind beggar from the marketplace. The one my father called Fool. Beloved, come to save me. I did not like how slowly he lowered me into the water, but he was right. It came to the bottom of my ribs and was cold enough to make me catch my breath.
I stepped back from him and nearly fell. He caught at the ragged shoulder of my shirt. I let him hold onto it. Blessed darkness wrapped me. ‘Where is Per?’ He was the first safe person who came to mind. Then, ‘Where is my father?’
‘You left Per at the mouth of the tunnel. We will reach there soon. I hope. It’s slow going. Wading against the water is work.’ Carefully he asked me, ‘Do you remember where we are and what happened?’
‘Some of it.’ I wished he would speak louder. My ears were full of a ringing. My father had probably gone ahead with the others. To catch the fleeing Whites. I wished he had not left me. I took a step, stumbled, splashed and stood upright.
‘I can still carry you if you wish.’
‘No. I’d rather walk. Don’t you understand? When you touch me, you make me see all the paths. All of them, at once!’
He was silent. Or was he? ‘Talk louder!’ I begged him.
‘I saw nothing when I carried you. No paths. Only the dark that we move through, Bee. Take my hand. Let me lead you.’ I felt his fingers brush my bare arm. I twitched away from him.
‘I can follow your voice.’
‘This way, Bee,’ he said with a sigh and began to walk away from me. Beneath the cold water the floor was flat but gritty under my feet. I held my arms above the water. It was hard to take a deep breath that way. I followed him for a few steps and then asked again, ‘Where is my father?’
‘Back there, Bee. You know there was a fire, and you know about the firepots we carried. There was an explosion, and the ceiling collapsed. Your father … it came down on him.’
I stopped walking. With chill water to my waist, with dark all round me, a different, colder sort of darkness was rising inside me. I found there was something beyond pain and fear. That something was filling me.
‘I know,’ he said hoarsely. But I knew he could not possibly know what I was feeling. He spoke on. ‘We must hurry. I carried you down a slope and the water got deeper. Now we are on the level, but the water is still rising. It’s the tide coming in. This tunnel may fill completely. We cannot tarry.’
‘My father is dead? How? How can he be dead and you be alive?’
‘Walk,’ he commanded me. He began to slosh forward again and I followed him. I heard him take a breath and then after something that sounded like a sob, he said thickly, ‘Fitz is dead.’ He tried to continue speaking but could not. Eventually, he said, ‘He and I both knew it might come down to a choice. You heard him say as much. I promised that I would choose you. It was his wish.’ In a choked voice he asked me, ‘Do you recall your dream of the scales?’
‘I have to go back to him!’
He was fast. Even in the dark, he caught my wrist and gripped it tight. I staggered from the light, and then he had me by the back of my shirt. ‘I can’t allow that. There is no time and there is no point. He was dead when we left him, Bee. I heard no breath from him; I felt no beat of his heart. Did you think I would leave him alive and trapped?’ His voice had started out tight and level, but it ended wild. His breathing was hoarse and echoed. ‘The last thing I can do for him is take you out of here. Now we go.’ He walked on, half-dragging me through the water. I kicked but could not fight him. I tried to twist out of his grip. ‘Don’t,’ he said, and it was a plea. ‘Bee, don’t make me force you. I don’t want to.’ His voice broke on the words. ‘It is as much as I can do to force myself to go on. I wish I could go back and be dead beside him. But I have to take you out of here! Why did Lant let you come back alone?’ He sounded grieved about that. As if I were a helpless little girl. Or it could be someone else’s fault.
‘He didn’t,’ I pointed out. ‘I told Per to stay and guard the door while I came back to warn you.’
‘What of Prilkop?’ he demanded suddenly.
‘I passed him on my way to warn you.’
‘How much farther to the door?’
‘We’re on the flat part. Then we come to a place where the floor slopes up. Then the long stairs. Then a small flat place and more stairs to the door. Did it … crush him?’
‘Bee,’ he said very softly.
‘He said he wouldn’t leave me again!’
He said nothing.
‘He can’t be dead!’ I wailed.
‘Bee. You know that he is.’
Did I? I felt for him, inside my mind. I lowered my walls and groped to where he had been. No Wolf Father. And the connection he had shared with me since he had touched my head … gone. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Yes.’
That was the most terrible word I had ever heard. I reached out and caught the sleeve of his shirt. I held to it and together we walked faster, as if we could run away from his death.
The floor had remained level but the water was getting deeper. We walked on through the blackness. Water sloshed around my chest. The floor began to slant upwards, but the water still became deeper.
‘Faster,’ he said, and I tried.
‘What’s going to become of me?’ I asked suddenly. It was a terrible, selfish question. My father was dead and I wanted to know what would happen to me?
‘I’ll take care of you. And the first thing I will do is get you out of here to the ship that will take us somewhere safe. And then I’ll get you home.’
‘Home,’ I said, but the word was hollow. What was home? ‘I want Per!’
‘We’re going to Per. Hurry.’ He halted, pulled his sleeve down over his hand, and then seized mine. He dragged me through the rising water, moving so quickly that my feet barely touched the floor. He stumbled when we came to the first shallow step, and we both fell in the water. But in a moment he was on his feet and we were climbing the steps, fleeing the water that seemed to be chasing us. The steps were unevenly spaced. I banged my ankles and tripped and hit my shins. He didn’t let go of my hand but dragged me relentlessly on. For a long time, we climbed steps, but the water got shallower very slowly.
‘Is that light?’ he asked suddenly.
I squinted. ‘Not daylight. It’s a lamp.’
‘I can see it.’ His voice trembled as if someone were shaking him. ‘Per? Lant?’
It was Lant. He came down the steps to us, holding the small lamp in one hand and his sword in the other. His face was a mask of light and shadow above it. ‘Bee? Fitz? Fool? Why were you so slow to follow? We feared the worst!’ He came sloshing toward us, talking as he came. ‘I feared you were trapped in the tunnel. Only a few more steps and you’ll be out of the water. Spark has not come back. She outran me. I came back in time to see Prilkop running away. I would have had to kill him to stop him. Per remains on guard at the door.’ His explanation rattled from his lips. Then, as his light reached us, ‘Where is Fitz?’