But the Axit have long watched them and the smokes that escape that mountain are not sufficient. For days to either side of the gathering the Black Rock pours smoke but in the months when the priests believe the clans are chasing seas the chimneys barely trickle.”
Quell smiled. “And yet there is a great pit melted through the thickness of the ice just a few miles from their mountain.”
Maya nodded. “And so every Axit child is told that if they are ever thrown into the pit it is their duty to discover the secrets of the iron and escape with that knowledge.”
“And what then?” Yaz asked. “They say thank you very much and throw you back in?”
Maya scowled but Yaz could tell that her question had hit the mark.
“Do you know how they get the iron out?” Yaz asked.
Maya nodded. “They put stars in two sigil pots and lower them on wires to rapidly melt two narrow holes all the way through the ice. The water pours out through the roof of the city cavern. They pour coal down one of the holes and clog it up. Then they call a coal-worm somehow and it follows the line of coal, melting a big wide hole, with all the water draining through the other narrow hole they made.
“The worm veers off before it falls through the ceiling but they can melt through the last bit themselves. And then they lower a cage for the iron loads and haul them up. When it’s all finished ice-workers at this end seal the hole so a new pit doesn’t start, and the flow of the ice squeezes the rest shut after a while. When the Pit of the Missing moves too far away from the city they start a new one here. They do that about every thirty years or so.”
Yaz and Quell looked at Maya in astonishment.
“You did not hear all that just eavesdropping for a few days!” Yaz said.
“And no elder would have laid all their secrets bare to someone so new, surely?” Quell frowned.
“I asked Petrick,” Maya said. “Made him feel awkward for not knowing. Then I spied on him during the sleep periods until he went and demanded that Arka give him the answers.” She shrugged. “You just have to know how people work. Petrick didn’t care about not knowing until it put him in the same basket as a girl still wet from her drop. Then he had to know. The next collection is in twenty-three days.”
Yaz’s mind plagued her with images of Petrick’s slow, inevitable fall from the bridge. He’d been the one to save her from Hetta when she was still dripping from the pools. She shook the thoughts away. “You’re thinking we should ride up in the cage?”
“I am.” Maya nodded.
“In twenty-three days? Theus will have taken all the caverns by then, unless Pome regains control of his hunter. And if that happens Pome will have all of the caverns and we won’t be much better off than we would with Theus. That new star of Pome’s has tainted him . . . as if he weren’t bad enough before.”
“We could hide in the city.” Even Maya sounded doubtful, and she could hide herself in shadow.
“There are things down there that would kill us quicker than Pome or Theus would,” Quell said.
“You have a better idea?” Maya asked, her expression growing fierce again.
Quell turned away, his hands in fists at his sides. He started to walk down the long slope toward the city cavern, kicking at the ground as he went. Yaz had never seen him like this, angry, unsure of himself.
She was on the point of starting to follow when he spun round and marched back, his face dark. “Yaz . . .” He faltered before her stare.
“What is it?”
He reached into his furs and brought out a small yellow star, no bigger than the nail on his little finger. Holding it seemed to pain him and he held it out to her, gesturing for her to take it.
Yaz lifted it from between Quell’s finger and thumb without touching