Just after midday the gate to the underground city banged open and Ren rushed to the edge of the roof to see a hurried mass streaming out of the tunnel, followed by thick black smoke that swirled upward and finally left the passageway clear. Those who escaped coughed and spat. Ren grabbed his blade, shimmying down a narrow pillar to street level and sprinting through the open doorway, pushing through the crowd, turning sideways, shoving others aside, pressing his way down the long staircase, Adin at his heels, shouting, “Ren, wait! Not so fast, Ren!” From the rooftop Ren had seen smoke coming from the edge of the Shroud Wall, from what he guessed was the Antechamber, smoke pouring upward from the Waset. If Tye were not coming out, if she were still inside the Priory and the inner district was on fire, Ren would have to go in.
It felt like ages since his escape through the Hollows with Oren Thrako at his back. He remembered the gates, the narrow passages—the goosenecks, Oren had called them—but the two of them had moved so quickly that Ren did not remember the way anymore. In the dark, with the acrid smell of smoke in his nostrils, he felt a moment of panic: which way was safety, and which way was a dead end?
He struggled against the tide of bodies, battered by the people fleeing the fire, pushed and pulled in a hundred directions. A man carrying a filthy child knocked into him with so much force that Ren’s teeth rattled. Three boys not much younger than Ren stumbled past him, screaming, their hair smoking, all of them going the same way, away from the trouble. Adin pushed him onward, elbowing the crowd aside. They passed into a wide sewer, the smell of refuse everywhere, so thick it made the boys gag. This was not the path Ren had taken to escape—he would remember this chamber, dimmer and dingier than the rest.
Adin uttered a long gagging sound, and the boy retched, splashing his most recent meal over his feet, last night’s bread. Ren tore a strip from his tunic and gave half to his friend. “Cover your mouth and nose with this,” he said, and tied his own face with the remaining half. Where are the passages, the goosenecks—the long, dark corridors that pass between the walls?
They searched for the door, for the path through to the next chamber, but they saw no gates save the one they had already entered. One by one people staggered past, tasting the air, pushing away the black smoke and the stink of human waste. Up ahead they found a long, wide stair that passed over a churning stream of black water and climbed up quickly. At the top, they staggered into a lightless chamber, stumbled into a wall, then inched through the darkness, following the murmurs of a distant crowd. They reached an archway and paused. Ren saw the sewer, the people running, covering their noses with one hand. The shouts of the crowd made it hard to think.
“Where are we?” Adin asked
“Lost.” Ren tore a clean strip of fabric from his tunic and pressed it to his mouth. “We’re lost.”
“I noticed,” Adin said, splashing filthy water on his face.
“We should go back.”
“No,” Adin said, grabbing Ren by the tunic as he eyed a sideways chamber. It was larger than the first, still choked with smoke but smelling less of sewage.
“Following your nose?” Ren asked.
“Better than following you.”
“Let’s hope.”
Ren came around a rocky outcropping and caught sight of the chamber’s full length, a long series of corridors packed shoulder to shoulder with the escaping masses. Behind him, Ren heard a scuffle. Adin had pulled a boy from the crowd.
Ren pushed him aside. “We have no time, Adin.”
“But—” Adin pointed at the boy. Ren came closer, the strange boy’s face settling into a familiar shape: It was Kollen Pisk, one of the older boys. Soot covered his gaunt features, but the long crooked nose, the black eyes, and beard were unmistakable. Adin had found one of the Priory boys.
“He’s just come from Tolemy’s house,” Adin said. “He can help us find it.”
The older boy laughed. “You two shits going back there?” He glanced from one skinny boy to the next. “Just the two of you? Good luck with that.”
“We’re lost,” Ren said.
“No kidding.”
“Will you help us, we need to find our way back. Were you the only one released?”
“You dumb prick. You think I was released?” Kollen raised a hand to his brow, wiping away sweat. “The guards fled. They saved their asses and left us to die. A few of us, the ones in the classrooms and in the refectory, escaped.”
Ren felt a stab of anguish. “When did you leave?”
“Just now.”
“Then there’s still time.”
“For what, crap-jaw? Time to get yourself killed?”
Ren smacked Kollen on the ear, but the older boy punched back.
“Kollen!” Ren said, putting his hand on his dagger and making sure the other boy saw. “Do it again and I’ll cut your throat. Now, tell us the way back.”
Kollen bit his lip. “King of Harkana, and you come all the way back here for the rest of us?” he asked. “For what? Oh I see. Your little girl is it? Tye?”
Ren flushed scarlet. “How do you know?”
“Everyone knows. After they took you to the sun, the guards stripped her down and searched her for weapons. They saw the truth.”
“What happened—where is she?”
“That’s the thing. No one knows where the guards took her, but I don’t think it was back to her family.” He leered.
Ren lunged at Kollen but stopped himself. The arrogant boy was his only hope for finding the Priory.
“You’re a damn fool, Hark-Wadi. You always were.”
“Maybe so, but that’s my business. Show us the way you came.”
The larger boy hesitated, looking over his shoulder, to the way the other two boys had come, but Kollen didn’t flee. He righted himself and grunted a bit, pinching his nose to stop the blood, brushing his hair from his eyes. The crowd pushed, the smoke swirled around him. The older boy looked toward the gate, toward the route that led to the surface. He wasn’t far; he could escape—Ren saw the thought flicker across his face—but he instead said, “Back there.” He pointed to the far side of a massive turret and began walking.
“Come on,” Ren said.
They followed the tall boy through the passage, Kollen telling how the priors had opened the gates when the fire started, how the boys had first been confused, then elated, then terrified when they saw the smoke and the flames. They had pushed for the door, toward fresh air, crushing one another in their urgency.
The older boy led them through a dim passage that curved to the west, behind the more well-worn routes through the underground city. Ren was thinking about Tye, hoping she was still in the Priory, that she was alive and unmolested. A sick feeling in his gut told him things had gone terribly wrong for the girl.