Tunnels 04, Closer

some miracle his friend had shown up, springing him from the prison, fate had been cruel to him. His bid for freedom had been thwarted and he was recaptured by the Styx, only to be frogmarched straight back to the Hold again. All his hopes had been raised and then dashed -- it was almost worse than if he hadn't been presented with the opportunity to escape in the first place. Although this hadn't taken place very long ago, he'd somehow managed to put it out of his mind, until now.
    "Are you all right?" Drake asked, noticing how quiet the boy had become.
    "S'pose so," Chester answered. "Can we just get this over with and go home as quickly as possible?"
    "That's the plan," Drake said. "Next stop, the Fan Stations."

29

    With Mrs. Burrows out of the house, Eliza and her mother were moving the furniture and putting the sitting room back to how it had been before their unwelcome guest had arrived. With much heaving, struggling and grunting, Eliza had managed to drag the bed up the first of the stairs to the next floor, but there she'd given up, defeated by its weight. She just wasn't strong enough. And her mother couldn't be expected to help, especially not with her 'dodgy ticker' as she kept reminding Eliza. Eliza was becoming more and more incensed that her brother wasn't there to give her a hand.
    "You know where he's gone, don't you?" she growled as she squeezed past the bed, now stuck at the bottom of the stairs.
    Her mother frowned at her. "'e said 'e was poppin' out for a swift 'alf at the tavern."
    "Hah! That's hardly likely -- he never takes Colly with him when he goes to Tabards," Eliza said.
    The old lady trailed after her into the sitting room. "Tell me then -- where 'as 'e gone?" she demanded.
    "Bit obvious, isn't it? He's gone to say a fond farewell to his basket case. Didn't you notice he was still in uniform when he rushed out? When does he ever go to the tavern in uniform?"
    "Well, I'll be...!" the old lady said, as she considered it. "It's never-endin', this follies of 'is."
    "It's going to end soon enough," Eliza chortled unpleasantly, as she carried an occasional table to the corner of the room. Then, wiping the sweat from her forehead, she contemplated the sideboard. "I reckon we can manage that together, can't we? We only have to shift it a few feet along the wall, then I can put the rug back where it used to be."
    They took up position at either end of the sideboard. "Move it out from the wall first -- we don't want to scrape the wallpaper," Eliza said. "One, two, three..."
    The legs grated on the bare floorboards as they slid the sideboard out.
    There was a loud crash. Eliza assumed that one of the legs had broken off the rickety sideboard, as the old lady let out a piercing shriek. "Jesus, me foot! Somethin' fell on me foot!"
    Eliza rushed over to where her mother was hopping around. There was absolutely no damage to the sideboard, but then she spotted Will's gleaming spade where it lay on the floor. She stooped to pick it up, glancing at the maker's label on the shaft. "Looks Topsoil to me." She shook her head, her expression one of bafflement. "What the blazes was it doing there? Must have been wedged between the wall and the sideboard."
    "Ow! Me foot! Me foot!" the old lady continued to yelp, still hopping around with the pain.
    Eliza was more intent on the spade. "But how did it get there? Unless my halfwit brother wanted to hide it from us for some reason?"
    "I don't care 'ow it got there! Don't bother about that bloody shovel, what about my bleedin' foot!" the old lady shouted indignantly.
    "There's no need for that profanity," Eliza reprimanded her. "Anyway, it's not a shovel. It has a pointed end... see," she said, holding the blade up to show her mother. "This has a pointed end. It's a spade, for digging."
    "I don't bleedin' care what it's bleedin' well called, you silly cow," her mother grumbled, heading to the kitchen with a combination of hops and hobbles, swearing blindly as she went.

    * * * * *

    "That's where we're going. Up there," Drake whispered, as he and Chester tucked themselves into the side of the passage. "Main control room for the Fan Stations."
    Chester craned his neck, locating the zigzag flights of castiron steps bolted to the wall that resembled an old fire escape. Then he peered some fifty meters further up, to the very top of the cavern, which was filled with dense clouds. As he saw the constantly-moving waves of dusky gray smoke, it gave him the impression he was