Tunnels 02, Deeper

drumming still resounded deafeningly in the enclosed space around her.
    Out in the wider street where the more affluent Colonists' houses stood, Sarah stopped to order her thoughts. She felt dizzy as she tried to deal with what had just happened. She just couldn't believe that all those people, whom she'd never laid eyes on before, had recognized her and had bestowed such adulation upon her. After all, they were the inhabitants of the Rookeries -- they neither respected nor admired anyone beyond its confines. It wasn't their way. Before now, she hadn't had the slightest inkling that she was a figure of such renown.
    Remembering the sheet of paper still clutched in her hand, she opened it and began to scrutinize it. The paper itself was coarse, with frayed edges, but she didn't notice this as her eyes fell on her name at the top of the sheet, spelled out in ornate copperplate letters within a twisting banner, like a flag stirring in the wind.
    And there she was, her picture clear as day -- the artist had done a good job of capturing her likeness. Around her picture a stylized and wispy fog, or perhaps it was meant to be the darkness, formed an oval frame, and in the four corners of the sheet were the smaller roundels she hadn't had the time to look at before.
    They were just as accomplished as the main picture.
    One showed her leaning over her baby's crib, tears making her face shine. There was a shadowy figure in the background that she assumed was her husband, standing by just as he had done while their child was dying.
    The next roundel depicted her with both her sons, stealing out of her house, and another had her grappling valiantly with a Colonist in a semilit tunnel. The last depicted a huge phalanx of Styx, scythes drawn, hot on the heels of a running, skirted figure as it fled down the length of a tunnel. The artist had taken liberties here; it hadn't happened like that at all, but the meaning was clear. She instinctively crumpled up the sheet. It was strictly forbidden to portray the Styx in any way whatsoever -- only in the Rookeries would they dare do such a thing.
    She couldn't get over it. Her life... in five pictures!
    She was still shaking her head with utter disbelief as she caught the gentle creak of leather and looked up. She froze at the sight that met her.
    Stark white collars and long black coats that rippled with the illumination from the streetlamps. Styx. A large patrol of them -- perhaps as many as two dozen. They were watching her, unmoving and silent, in a casually arranged line on the opposite side of the street. The scene had something of an old photograph from the American Wild West about it -- a posse of long riders arranged around the sheriff before the start of a manhunt. But in this picture the sheriff was a teenage girl.
    Rebecca, in the center of the front row, took a single step forward. As she stood, proud and commanding in front of her men, the strongest sense of power emanated from her.
    Who is she really? Sarah thought, not for the first time.
    Rebecca flipped her hand vaguely in the air, the gesture telling the Styx at her flanks to remain where they were. As the chanting continued, muffled now by the boundaries of the Rookeries, she gave a faintly amused smile. She crossed her arms primly and looked askance at Sarah.
    "Quite the hero's welcome," she called over, tapping a foot on the cobblestones. "How does it feel to be such a big shot?" she added sourly.
    Sarah gave a nervous half shrug, conscious of all the dark pupils of the massed Styx upon her.
    "Well, I hope you made the most of it, because the Rookeries, and all the scum rotting inside, will be no more than a bad memory in a few days' time," Rebecca snarled. "Out with the old, as they say."
    Sarah wasn't sure how to react to this -- was it just an empty threat because Rebecca was angry that she'd dared to leave the Styx compound and venture into the Rookeries?
    A bell began to toll somewhere in the distance.
    "Enough of all this," the girl announced. "It's high time" -- she snapped her fingers and the Styx around her stirred into action -- "we were on our way. We've got a train to catch."

     

24

    "The place of Cross Staves," Drake said as he looked at the sign by the letterbox opening in the ground. Will estimated it had taken them ten hours of rapid walking, punctuated by frequent bouts of jogging, to reach the place where -- he had thought until now -- Cal had died. Both he and Chester were thoroughly exhausted