Page 82 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
My light finally stutters through its final moments and dies in my hands.
“No, no, no.” I tap the glass furiously, but no last gasp of an ember flares to relieve the total blackness around me.
There is another shriek of birdsong. I snap toward it, and there, through a crack in the wall some way ahead, is a light as faint and faraway as a dream.
I wedge myself into the small gap, every part of my body scraping against the coal. I wriggle along with one hand outstretched until I reach the end of the crevice and pull myself out.
I come face-to-face with a Davy lamp set atop a small crate.
I snatch it up, grateful to whatever sorry soul left it there, and fiddle with the knob. The flame burns higher, revealing a birdcage that sits at eye level, its bars rusted and damp. Within it is the skeleton of a canary. Patches of flesh and yellow feathers cling to odd bones, and I’m certain it’s dead, until it cocks its little head and looks right at me.
I yelp and fall back against the cave wall, and it’s only then that I see where I am.
It’s not a natural cave. The walls are black and purposeful, propped up by beams of wood, iron and steel, and along them run ropes to guide a path through well-navigated shafts. Crates and tools lie abandoned in piles, with helmets and clothes nearby. Tracks, half hidden by dirt, run just past me.
It’s a mine.
Mines face pressure from every side. The earth doesn’t want to be cut into. It fights to fill the chasms we create, and the tunnel floors rise every year, like a body trying to close a gaping wound. To make this mine—perhaps every mine—tunnels have been cut into Gwlad Y Tylwyth Teg itself. Support beams have been forced into Eu gwlad’s ground and iron tools have split its skin. I think I know, now, why Neirin’s land is rotting. It’s the very earth trying to reject the mine’s poison from its bloodstream.
The canary chirps again and I glance down. It hops from foot to foot.
You gonna let me out, then?It’s an old man’s gruff, smoke-bothered voice, and it feels like it’s being piped straight into my mind.
“Is that you?” I ask the bird aloud.
Clearly. Let me out.
I kneel down again and try not to grimace at the sight of the rotten canary.
“Have you seen a girl with red hair lately?”
The bird shakes its remaining feathers.Let me out and I’ll tell you.
“I could just leave you.” I brace myself to stand.
Fine! Fine, yeah, I saw her. She headed in deep, said she’d let me out when she comes back. I’m guessing she’s dead.
“She isn’t,” I snap, then nod to the cart tracks running away from us. “What’s down there?”
How am I meant to know?It cocks its head.I’ve been in this cage.
“What are you doing here?”
Christ, you’re from long ago.The canary’s little face takes on anexpression of absolute irritation.Miners bring us down to look for bad air. Must have started after your time. We fly on, and if we go quiet, the humans go no further. I flew through a crack in the wall one day, woke up in a new cage. No one came to let me out.
“If I let you out, will you fly ahead and tell me if there’s danger?”
It rolls its head, looks at me as if I’m dim.Lady, that’s all I’m good for.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I say, and unlatch the door.
It opens with a slow creak. The bird rustles, staring its freedom right in the eye. It hesitates, but only for a moment, then shoots from the cage like a firework and races for the tunnel.
I take my Davy lamp and follow.
The shaft is narrow and square, with the kind of precise, jagged walls that come from being blown out with dynamite. Shining black veins run through it, another branch of the dark artery. I step along the tracks carefully, bouncing from plank to plank. Faint wall-mounted lamps line my path and relief fills my lungs. The chirp of the canary guides me, but my mind is never far from Dad.
He lived in this for us.
