Tunnels 01, Tunnels

beginning to doze off again when the road suddenly dipped down a steep incline and the carriage veered left. Then, as the road leveled out once more, the driver shouted "Whoa!" and the horses slowed to a trot.
    Will was wide awake now and stuck his head out the window to see what was going on. There was a huge metal gate blocking the way, and to the side of this a group of men huddled around a brazier as they warmed their hands. Standing apart from them in the middle of the road, a hooded figure held a lamp high and was waving it from side to side as a signal for the coachman to stop. As the carriage ground to a halt, to Will's horror he spotted the instantly recognizable figure of a Styx emerging from the shadows. Will quickly yanked the curtain shut and ducked back into the carriage. He looked questioningly at Cal.
    "It's the Skull Gate. It's the main portal to the Colony," Cal explained in a reassuring tone.
    "I thought we were already in the Colony."
    "No," Cal replied incredulously, "that was only the Quarter. It's sort of... like an outpost... our frontier town."
    So there's more beyond this?"
    "More? There's miles of it!"
    Will was speechless. He looked fearfully at the door as the clipped sound of boot heels on cobblestones drew nearer. Cal grabbed his arm. "Don't worry, they check everyone who goes through. Just say nothing. If there's a problem, I'll do all the talking."
    At that very moment, the door on Will's side was pulled open and the Styx shone a brass lamp into the interior. He played the beam across their faces, then took a step back and shone it up at the coachman, who handed him a piece of paper. He read it with a cursory glance. Apparently satisfied, he returned to the boys once more, directed the dazzling light straight into Will's eyes, and, with a contemptuous sneer, slammed the door shut. He handed the note back to the driver, signaled to the gateman, turned on his heel, and walked away.
    Hearing a loud clanking, Will warily lifted the hem of the curtain and peered out again. As the guard waved them on, the light from his lantern revealed that the gate was in fact a portcullis. Will watched as it rose jerkily into a structure that made him blink with astonishment. Carved from a lighter stone and jutting from the wall above the portcullis, it was an immense toothless skull.
    "That's pretty creepy," Will muttered under his breath.
    "It's meant to be. It's a warning," Cal replied indifferently as the coachman lashed his whip and the carriage lurched through the mouth of the fearsome apparition and into the cavern beyond.
    Leaning out the window, Will watched the portcullis shuddering down behind them again until the curve of the tunnel hid it from sight. As the horse picked up speed, the carriage turned a corner and raced down a steep incline into a giant tunnel hewn out of the dark red sandstone. It was completely devoid of buildings and houses. As the tunnel continued to descend, the air began to change -- it began to smell of smoke -- and for a moment the ever-present background hum grew in intensity until it rattled the very fabric of the carriage itself.
    They made a final sharp turn, and the humming lessened and the air grew cleaner again. Cal joined Will at the window as a massive space yawned before them. On either side of the road stood rows of buildings, a complex forest of brick ducts running over the cavern walls above them like bloated varicose veins. In the distance, dark stacks vented cold blue flames and streamed vertical plumes of smoke, which, largely undisturbed by air currents, rose to the roof of the cavern. Here the smoke accumulated, rippling slowly and resembling a gentle swell on the surface of an inverted brown ocean.
    "This is the Colony, Will," said Cal, his face next to Will's at the narrow window. "This is..."
    Will just stared in wonder, hardly daring to breathe.
    "...home."

     

23

    Around the same time that Will and Cal were arriving at the Jerome house, Rebecca was standing patiently beside a lady from Family Welfare on the thirteenth floor of MandelaHeights, a dreary, rund-down apartment building on the seamier side of Wandsworth. The social worker was ringing the bell of number 65 for the third time without getting a reply, while Rebecca looked around her at the dirty floor. With a low, remorseful moan, the wind was blowing through the broken windows of the stairwell and flapping the partially filled trash bags heaped in one corner.
    Rebecca shivered. It