The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,166

a knife that we can use to pare away those layers, but one slip, go too deep, and who knows what injuries might be inflicted.” He frowned and quoted, “The wounds an honest tongue can open sometimes take a lifetime to heal.”

Yaz could imagine the old man saying all that. Part of her thought that he could have been talking about her and Thurin, seeing a time when they might spiral into each other, but, as she opened her mouth wondering if she dare say so, a cold thought ran through her. A darkness in each of us, afraid to show itself. It was almost as if Eular had been speaking directly to Theus rather than to Thurin, inviting him to reveal himself. And for a moment Yaz wasn’t sure quite how much Eular saw with his hollow sockets.

After a long silence Yaz opened her mouth to reply but a curious spattering sound turned her head. Not far behind her two thin threads of silver joined the distant ceiling to the floor. Where they touched the rock a constant shower of sparkling droplets danced into the air. “What is it?”

“Water!” Thurin grinned for the first time since the black ice. “The collection is coming!”

34

THE DRAIN SHAFT and the coal shaft have reached the ceiling. That’s the water melted by the heat pots, all draining out,” Thurin said.

Yaz made no reply. She just watched the twin streams falling, glittering in the starlight. For the first time she thought they might actually make it back to the surface. All of them. As many as dared try.

Erris and Kao hurried back to join them. Kao looking excited rather than scared for the first time since his rescue.

“How long will it take before the worm reaches us?” Erris asked.

“Soon? Will it be soon?” Kao sounded so eager to reach the surface. It hurt Yaz’s heart to know that he was too broken to live the life he wanted to have back. “How long?”

“In a short while they’ll be pouring coal into the coal shaft. The priests will make a column of coal this much around.” Thurin made a circle that both his hands couldn’t quite reach around.

“And the worm makes all its heat from eating this . . . coal? Enough to melt through miles of ice?” Yaz asked, still amazed by it.

“It’s a rock that burns,” Thurin said. “If we had a pile of it here we could make a fire so hot we’d have to leave the crater.”

“That stream’s quite small, there must be so much more coming than that . . .” Yaz pushed back from the crater wall, staring at the falling water. She left Kao and Erris behind her and joined Thurin by the narrow slot leading from the bottom of the crater down into the darkness of the city. “Lots more?”

“Both shafts will drain soon. When the worm starts following the coal and leaving the full-sized passage behind there’ll be a river of meltwater through the drain shaft. It takes an hour or more to drain, and it melts the drain wider so at the end it’s quite a deluge,” Thurin said.

“You couldn’t . . . you know . . . speed it up?” Yaz turned to face him. She didn’t know how long they had but maybe not long enough. “With your magic. So we could all get out of here quicker?”

“My ice-work’s good.” Thurin pursed his lips. “But not that good.”

* * *

IT WASN’T A noise that lifted Yaz’s head, turning her gaze from the work Erris had set her to, wiring boards together. It was the stopping of a noise. Just as on the one occasion in her life when the wind fell silent it was that pause in the world’s song that hauled her from the tent, now it was the cessation of the water’s patter. “It’s stopped!”

Thurin nodded beside her, his eyes still on his work. “They’ll finish filling the coal shaft soon. Then summon the worm to follow it.”

Yaz made a grim smile. “With any luck we can be out of here before—”

“Someone’s coming!” A shout rang out and Yaz stood sharply.

“Gods