The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,194

winding gear both came into view. The winding gear was another iron framework, taller than a man and filled with large many-toothed wheels. Five figures in the black hides of the priesthood stood to either side turning great handles though many more could fit beside them to help if the load were a heavier one.

It seemed impossible that they didn’t see her but apparently their labour wholly occupied them, and whatever method they used to gauge their progress told them the cage would not arrive for a little while yet.

The wind had her shivering already. The changes wrought on her down in the caverns of the Broken had left her shockingly vulnerable. She hunched about herself, willing more warmth from her star, and laboured around to complete her circle.

The long-expected sight of the regulator still startled her and halted her turn. He stood five yards off, hunched against the wind, the trailing strips of his cloak fluttering about him. The symbols burned across his face and scalp were familiar now, the script wall of the Missing had driven him from the undercity and left its mark upon him.

“Yaz. Welcome back. And you’ve brought my star, I see.”

The slight smile on the regulator’s lips was enough to ignite her anger. “You throw children into that hole to be your slaves!” A long-banked outrage burst from her mouth. “You use up their lives in the dark, and just for the iron that gives you power over my people!” Yaz found herself pointing in accusation.

Rather than show any shame the regulator threw back his head and laughed. “That’s rather melodramatic, young Ictha.” He fixed her with white-on-white eyes. “I hear it’s warm down there, and quite well lit. And most of them don’t get worked to death. The hunters take them!”

Yaz’s anger flared into rage, burning bright, fuelled by that same deep sense of injustice that had dogged her throughout her time in the pit and had underwritten so many of her actions over the past few days. Her hand reached for the dagger-fish knife at her hip and finding it gone she began to advance on the man with her bare hands, ready to brain him with the star. Kazik had tossed Jaysin into the pit just to carry a message, delivering a scared little boy into the clutches of a monster like Hetta. He’d thrown generations of Jaysins into that hole, tearing their young lives apart to add comfort to his own. A red haze filled Yaz’s vision as if she had brought a devil of her very own up from the black ice.

“Mine, I think.” The regulator pointed to the star in Yaz’s raised hand and without warning it jolted toward him.

“No!” Yaz managed to hold on though the initial yank nearly took her shoulder from its socket. Mustering what little remained of her strength she leaned back, hauling on the star with both hands as it strained toward the priest. A new noise was coming from the shaft now, a deep thrumming sound from the cable but rising swiftly in pitch, a sign that the cage had nearly arrived.

The regulator snarled and his face twisted with effort.

Yaz found her feet slipping. She added the muscle in her mind to the contest. A bright pain blossomed behind her forehead and she tasted blood behind gritted teeth but slowly she bent the star to her will. A slow horror crept over Kazik’s face. Disbelief at being bested by a mere girl barely woken to her talent. He redoubled his efforts, and Yaz fought him.

All thought of escape left her. She advanced again, the star raised and burning brighter and more crimson than the sun. “You’re a monster, old man, and I am going to end what you do here.”

A gentle voice spoke to her left, a man’s voice creaking with age. “Well, we can’t have that, can we, Regulator Kazik?”

The star blazing in Yaz’s hand went out. It didn’t merely dim. It turned a cold, smoky grey. Its song ceased. Its heartbeat stopped. And in an instant it became so heavy that she dropped it, crushing the ice where it landed.

Yaz turned uncertainly, trying to twist her neck to see but unable to do so without fainting from the pain. She couldn’t tell if the priest who came into view as she turned had been there all along, watching her struggles, or if he had somehow materialised out of the air. He stood thin and bent with age, robed in black hides and hooded against the wind, less tall than Kazik, frail with age.

“Hello, Yaz.” He pushed back his hood. “I told you you’d be an agent of change.”

Eular, his thin white hair streaming in the wind, regarded her with eyeless sockets and a sad smile. “You misunderstand the purpose of the pit though.” His smile was the same gentle one he had used back in the caverns, almost kindly. “It’s not iron we’re most interested in mining, or even the star-stones. It’s the Broken.”

“But . . . You?” Yaz stood dumbfounded.

“Did you bring ’Theus with you?” Eular asked.

“Theus? No! I destroyed him.” Yaz looked between Regulator Kazik and Eular, still unable to understand.

Eular nodded. “A pity. You know, the city once told me that very long ago one of the Missing predicted that Prometheus, our broken ’Theus, would be the greatest of their kind. The one who made the prediction was part of the faction that rejected technology and styled herself a witch, but she saw the future better than any of them. She said he would ‘bring the fire,’ whatever that means. But in the end they persuaded, or forced, him to ascend with the rest of them, and left the unwanted pieces behind.” The old man pressed his lips into a thin line. “Destroyed, you say?” He shook his head. “Ah well.”

Yaz could hear the rattle of the approaching cage, very close now. “I don’t understa—”

“Sleep,” Eular suggested.

The exhaustion that Yaz had held at bay so long overwhelmed her. A black sea drowned her. And the last voice that reached her as she sank to the ice was Eular’s, though his words weren’t aimed at her.

“Let’s take her home, Kazik.” A pause. “Oh, and have them drop the cage.”