A darksome place
Josh Reynolds

‘This is a kindness.’
 	His eyes opened, as her voice rustled above him and around him, like leaves on the wind. Panicked, he flailed, searching. But she wasn’t there. 
 	For an instant, he thought it was over. That he’d made it. Then, like the splash of something far away, but drawing steadily closer, her voice echoed through the tunnel again.
 	‘This is a kindness.’
 	Her words reverberated through him and he knew that it would never be over. Could never be over until she had what she wanted. 
 	So Padmar Tooms rose, gasping. As he had every time before, and would, until she was satisfied. He could feel her touch all over him. All around him, and in him. He felt it deep in the meat of him, like a hook in his belly, pulling him up when he just wanted to fall and sink. The water lashed up against him, colder than cold, and hard. Stones made rough messes of his palms and face as he swayed from one side of the passage to the other, and the dark and the light went around and around until he couldn’t tell which side was up and which was down. 
 	Every time he fell, there she was. 
 	‘This is a kindness.’ That was what she’d said. That was what she always said, in a voice like falling rain and cracking ice. 
 	Tooms fell again, heavy and full. Her kindness moved in him, readying itself. His stomach clenched, his bowels knotting up, and he rolled onto his back in the water, hands pressed to his mouth. Trying to keep it all in. His head jerked back, struck the stones. 
 	Jostling the past loose from the present. 
 	Tooms stopped, and lifted a fist.
 	In the darkness somewhere ahead, something heavy moved through the water. The sound grew louder. As if whatever it was, was coming closer. 
 	Behind him, the other underjacks came to a halt. Five of them in all, counting him, the stories of their lives etched on scarred faces and darting glances. Not long stories, by any stretch. But familiar ones, to a man like Tooms. 
 	They traversed the narrow tunnel single file, walking carefully through the knee-deep water. There were paths to either side of the stream, but only a fool trusted those, unless he had no other choice. The soup was slippery and smelly, but it wouldn’t crumble unexpectedly beneath your feet. Tooms glanced at the man behind him. ‘Cover the lantern, Skam.’
 	Skam, a narrow-faced Aqshian with hair the colour of damp ashes, quickly hooded the lantern he held, casting the sewer tunnel into darkness. The Aqshian hefted the fyresteel hand-axe he held, his dark eyes narrowed above the handkerchief he wore about his mouth and nose. ‘Want me to look?’ he whispered, his voice muffled and hoarse. 
 	Tooms waved him to silence. No reason to cause a fuss, if they didn’t have to. That was rule number one for an underjack. Or it had been, in Tooms’ day. Things had changed, of late. Greywater Fastness wasn’t what it had been, but then, neither was Tooms. 
 	He was old now. Maybe the oldest underjack left in the city, if Agert were dead. He’d never been a soldier, but he’d fought in wars aplenty, down in the deep dark. He wore battered leathers, and waterproof boots. His knives hung within easy reach, and a heavy, iron-headed truncheon slapped reassuringly against his thigh. Swords were almost useless down here. No room to draw one, let alone swing it, in most passages. Only a fool carried a sword.
 	Proper underjacks knew that. Had known that. They’d known what it meant, to work down below. That it was an honour, not a punishment. Times had changed and not for the better. Once, men had fought for the right to patrol the soup. Now, that duty went to the last chancers and the no-hopers. Once, only the best had gone down into the depths, and people had cheered when they’d returned. But now, no one cared if they came back at all. 
 	Except this time. This time, Agert was gone. And if Agert was gone, something truly bad had happened. Even them above, who never set foot down here, knew that. Too many had disappeared of late. Too many had gone into the dark, never to be seen again.
 	The splashing continued, as whatever it was slid on by, on its way to wherever it wanted to go. In the dark, every sound was magnified. Every intake of breath, a roar. Every splash, a tidal wave. And beneath it all, the steady murmur of the water. 
 	When the sound of splashing faded, Tooms said, ‘The lantern.’ The lantern was duardin-made, and the oil would burn forever, if properly tended. Even the deepest shadows were no match for its glare. 
 	Light flared. Around Tooms, stone walls stretched into the dark, their lines broken by ornate archways and alcoves that shaped the water’s flow. The stones had been worn smooth by a century of water, and soft, green things grew across the walls – the only green in the city that he knew of. Buttresses held up the ceilings, their surfaces carved to resemble the stern face of what he assumed was some god or spirit of the duardin. As the light of the lantern swelled, they seemed to scowl.
 	Above, the streets were narrow trickles of stone and metal, winding their way through the city. But down here, the streets were rivers, and Tooms knew them all. Maybe he was the last man who did. That was why he was here. ‘Come on,’ he said. 
 	‘What was that?’ one of the others – Huxyl, the Chamonian – whispered, his fingers tight about the haft of his own truncheon. Huxyl was short and dark, and wore a bit of obsidian, carved to look like a serpent, about his neck. He whispered to it, sometimes, when he thought no one was watching. 
 	‘Doesn’t matter.’ Tooms didn’t look back. 
 	‘I can still hear it,’ Huxyl said, clutching his amulet. 
 	‘Just echoes,’ Tooms said.
 	‘Sounds big,’ Huxyl insisted.
 	‘Troggoth, maybe.’ That was Guld. Big Guld, with hands like spades and a face that had been broken so many times that it no longer hung quite right. Guld had been born in Ghyran, but claimed to be from Azyr. He even tried to put on the accent. Tooms, who had been born in Azyr, found it irritating, but said nothing. Just like he said nothing about the sword Guld carried, even though the big man ought to have known better. Then, Guld wasn’t a proper underjack. None of them were. Not like Agert. Not like Tooms. 
 	‘I heard there were whole packs of them, down this deep,’ Huxyl added, nervously. ‘Think that’s what Agert was looking for?’
 	Guld spat. ‘Maybe. Not like troggoths to leave no sign though.’
 	‘Doesn’t matter,’ Tooms said, again. More firmly, this time. Curiosity got you dead in the deep dark. You started to wonder, and then you started to fear, and then the dark took you, because you were too busy searching the shadows instead of paying attention. ‘We keep moving. Cathedral Hill is a day’s walk from here. Let’s go.’
 	‘Never been this deep before,’ Huxyl muttered, as they started forward again, still walking in a loose single file. Tooms glanced back every so often, keeping them all in sight. You had to look in every direction at once, down here. ‘Smells strange.’ 
 	‘Clean, you mean,’ Guld said. ‘Ever known a troggoth to leave things smelling clean?’ 
 	Tooms sniffed the air. They were right. Where was the slightly acrid odour of human waste and ash, the hot tang of a city’s effluvia? It smelled like a forest. But Greywater Fastness was far from any forest. The blasted mire that surrounded the city was barren and flat, thanks to the cannons of the Ironweld, and the pyre-gangs who burned back the vegetation. And oh, the trees didn’t like that, did they? Nor what lived in them. 
 	A chill ran through him, at the thought. He wondered if they had anything to do with Agert’s disappearance. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. 
 	Underjacks had a job, and they did it. At least they had. These days, they didn’t seem to do much at all. They hid in the substations – the outposts that hugged the city’s great sluice-gates – and pretended to patrol, before tramping aboveground to waste their pay in brothels and dreamweed dens. 
 	And now Agert was dead. No. Not dead. Missing. And not just him. Poor folk from the rookeries, and canal-men. Hundreds, even. A drop in the bucket, in a city of teeming millions. Agert had seen that something was wrong, and now Tooms saw it too. Someone had to deal with the problem. That was what underjacks did. They dealt with problems no one else could deal with. 
 	‘We should have found some sign of them by now,’ Guld said, as if reading his mind. ‘It’s been almost three days. Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?’
 	‘I’m sure,’ Tooms said. Agert would have walked against the current, from the Old Fen Gate to Cathedral Hill. That had been his weekly route since before Tooms had first come down into the soup, and only a fool deviated from his route down here. 
 	‘How do you know?’ Guld pressed. Guld liked to push. Liked to argue and bully. Tooms knew his type. Knew, too, that he’d eventually crack, in the dark. ‘How do you know we’re going in the right direction?’
 	In reply, Tooms gestured to the water. Moving south, away from Cathedral Hill and the great cistern there, down towards the canals. ‘Because that’s where the water circulates from.’ Tooms turned and pointed upwards. ‘It pours down from the sluice-gates and fills the deep cisterns, before being circulated back through these tunnels and into the canals.’ He paused. ‘You’d know that if you were a proper underjack.’
 	Guld shook his head. ‘Water doesn’t always flow the right way, down here, these days.’ 
 	‘It’d be flowing right if you’d done your jobs,’ Tooms said, not looking at him. Underjacks were meant to maintain the tunnels, as well as keep them clear of vermin. That was why they patrolled, looking for signs of weakness in the city’s roots. ‘Instead of hiding in your substations, and pretending the rest of it didn’t exist.’
 	‘We guarded the Old Fen Gate, that’s our job. Agert had no right, taking Samon and the others out into the dark. That’s not procedure…’
 	Before Tooms could reply, someone changed the subject. ‘Have you noticed there’s no rats?’ A young voice. Thin. Dayla, another Ghyranite. ‘Usually, there’s rats.’ 
 	‘What?’ Tooms asked, looking at her. Vine-like tattoos marked her skin, and one of her eyes was the colour of milk. She wore a frayed uniform of ochre and grey, and carried a short-barrelled handgun, the stock cut down. Tooms had laughed, the first time he saw it. The only thing more useless than a sword down here was a handgun. 
 	‘No rats,’ she repeated. ‘No little grey squeakers, no big black creepers. Agert said…’ She trailed off, uncertainly.
 	Tooms frowned. There were always rats, down deep. Wherever men went, there were rats. When the rats left, it meant something was wrong. ‘What did he say?’
 	‘That he’d been seeing fewer of them. Like something was eating them. Like maybe whatever was taking people took the rats first.’
 	Tooms grinned mirthlessly. Guld and the others traded glances. They were scared. They were right to be. But when in doubt, it was best to keep moving. ‘Come on.’ 
 	‘Keep moving.’
 	‘Round and round, up and down. Whatever you do, keep moving.’ 
 	Agert’s voice, echoing in his head. 
 	‘Agert,’ Tooms moaned, dragging himself – being dragged – along the passage. Where was Agert? Had he found him? He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember anything. Hadn’t he been in the water? When had he gotten to his feet? 
 	‘This is a kindness.’
 	Her voice echoed in the spaces between the silences, drowning out Agert’s. Or maybe just in his head. His head hurt. Like it was full of broken stones, all pressing against one another. What was she talking about? What kindness? There was no kindness, here. Just the dark, and the water. 
 	He clutched his stomach, feeling as if he were about to split open. Soft things moved beneath his skin and he tried to laugh, only it came out as a high-pitched whine. He’d heard a dog whine like that once, just before the rats had got it. 
 	But there were no rats. No noise. It was quiet, but for the murmur of the water, leading him on. Leading him up and down, round and round. 
 	‘This is a kindness. Do you see? It will be better, this way.’
 	Tooms slipped. Fell. Water surged up to draw him down, like the arms of a lover. He forced himself back up – no, was drawn up, ripped up, torn loose and set adrift. Momentum carried him against the wall, and he felt softness under his battered hands. 
 	The walls around him were slick with it, climbing and creeping, floating on the water. Soft, soft. A vibrant patina of mould. Puffballs that had once been rats burst quietly at his touch, and hazy spores danced on the wet air, riding the currents upwards and downwards through the city’s depths. He felt them alight on him, and he shoved away from the wall, keening. Feeling the things inside him respond to their touch. 
 	Something wet on his face. Not water. His vision blurred, and bled. The air and the water were one, tied together by a storm of spores, circling him.
 	Round and round.
 	Anemone-like filaments waved lazily in the wet air. 
 	Glistening undulations the colour of sunset clumped and hugged the walls, spreading upwards and outwards. An extravagance of toadstools encrusted the dour faces of the duardin gods who stood sentry over the nearest archway. In the lantern light, it almost looked as if the toadstools were twitching. 
 	Tooms shook his head. It had never been this bad, in his day. You always got some mould down here, of course. That was only to be expected. A bit of black, creeping on the dampest stones, but nothing like this. Nothing like sour patches of mould, floating on the surface of the water, riding the currents until they bumped against something solid. 
 	‘Things shouldn’t be growing down here,’ Dayla said. ‘Not like this.’
 	‘It wasn’t here last time,’ Guld muttered, as he lifted one of the fungal caps with the blade of his sword. A rat’s carcass, half-gummed up in the mould, flopped down into the water, startling him, and he cursed. 
 	‘How do you know?’ Tooms said. He watched the rat sink. Its body was heavy with a thick encrustation, and from within its black hair, vibrant yellow filaments extended. His skin crawled at the thought. Had the rat been alive when the mould had taken root? 
 	Guld looked at him. ‘Agert would have reported it.’
 	‘Agert’s gone.’ Tooms’ words hung on the air for a moment. The fungus on the walls, soft and fleshy, seemed to pulse in time to the echo. He and Agert were two of the last. Two of the oldest, who’d seen the city grow past the Old Fen Gate. Seen troggoths crawl out of the canals, and worse things burrow up through the dark. 
 	He looked down at the water. It pulled at his legs, flowing past him, just like it always had. That meant they were going in the right direction. There were waterfalls in the deep places, spilling thunderously down into the great duardin-crafted cisterns. The cisterns were artificial lakes, filling high-vaulted chambers larger and more magnificent than any cathedral. There was a world down here, unseen by most and forgotten by the rest. Only underjacks like Tooms knew it. Or they had, once. 
 	Things were different now. Things had changed. Things were always changing. 
 	‘It goes on forever,’ Skam said, then, lifting the lantern. ‘Like the jungles of home.’ In the light, the fungus seemed to quiver and twist, as if trying to reach out. For a moment, Tooms had the impression that there was a face there, amid the sagging, flabby folds. Then it was gone, and he was left wondering why it had seemed so familiar. 
 	Huxyl yelped. Tooms spun, reaching for his truncheon. The Chamonian splashed back from the wall, cursing. Shouting. ‘Look. Look!’
 	In the lantern light, something grinned. Skam stepped closer to the wall, and Tooms brushed aside a lump of mould with his truncheon. The skull of a man stared at them, with sockets full of feathery strands of yellowish mould. Crumbling bones, wrapped in rags that might once have been clothing, sank into the mould beneath it. The rest of the skeleton was missing, carried away by the current.
 	‘Like they sat down and died,’ Dayla said, her voice hoarse. She muttered something, in the heathen Ghyranite tongue. It sounded almost like a prayer. ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ she said, softly. ‘It’s not our place.’
 	‘She’s right, we should go back,’ Huxyl said. ‘Right now. We should report this.’
 	‘We don’t go back until we find them,’ Tooms said. ‘We press on.’
 	Guld shook his head. ‘This is stupid.’ He glanced at Dayla, and Tooms thought there was an understanding between them. As if they knew something he and the others didn’t. ‘We shouldn’t even be down here. Nothing good comes out of going this deep.’ 
 	Tooms looked at him. ‘Why are you complaining, boy? You volunteered.’ He swept his gaze from one to the other. The oldest was still a decade younger than him. Too young to remember how it had worked, or to know the secret knowledge – the routes through the darkness. Too young to know the things Tooms and Agert knew. ‘You all volunteered.’
 	‘I didn’t,’ Huxyl protested. 
 	‘You got volunteered, same thing,’ Tooms said. ‘While we’re down here, you follow my lead. You do as I say, or I’ll let the rats have you.’
 	‘Only there’s no rats,’ Dayla said, her voice almost a whisper.
 	‘There’s something,’ Skam said, quietly. He held the lantern up, washing the shadows from the nearest archway. ‘I can hear it. Listen.’
 	Tooms heard nothing. But Skam did. There was a look on his face Tooms didn’t like. As if he were half-asleep, and dreaming. ‘What does it sound like?’ Dayla asked, and there was something in her voice that caught Tooms’ attention. She glanced around, nervously, and Tooms wondered what she was thinking. Whatever it was, Guld seemed to share her misgivings. He gripped the hilt of his sword tight, his face pale. 
 	‘Singing.’ Skam took a step, and Tooms interposed his truncheon, stopping him from going any further. 
 	‘Best not to listen.’
 	Skam shook his head, as if suddenly awake. He nodded blearily, and Tooms gestured to Dayla. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, in a low voice. Dayla frowned. 
 	‘Nothing. Maybe.’
 	‘Maybe?’
 	‘Maybe something,’ she said, glancing at Guld, who shook his head.
 	‘Don’t look at him,’ Tooms said. ‘Look at me. What is it?’ 
 	‘Just… stories. Tales my gran used to tell.’ Dayla swallowed, and looked at the mould, as if expecting something to look back. She gestured, and Tooms leaned close. ‘I think it’s listening,’ she said, in a hushed voice. ‘We need to leave. We shouldn’t be here. This isn’t our place, not anymore.’
 	Tooms blinked and looked at the sagging folds of fungus, considering. Finally, he shook his head. They had a job to do. 
 	‘We keep going.’
 	‘This is a kindness.’
 	Whose voice was it? Hers, or Agert’s? Tooms couldn’t tell anymore. He knew only that he was up again. But he didn’t remember standing. 
 	He lurched forward on wooden legs, numbed by cold and pain. There was no light, but he wasn’t looking where he was going anyway. He was just following the water. His head hurt, and he felt loose at the ends, as if he were coming unravelled. 
 	Unravelled, just like the others. 
 	A kindness, Agert had said, but not in his own voice. In her voice, like the creak of branches in a strong wind, and the rush of water over smooth rocks. Had it even been Agert, or had it been her from the beginning? This place had been hers, once, and it would be again. Life was change, a cycle, a wheel turning forever – birth, death, decay, and new life in the ruins. Why should here – why should he – be any different?
 	He slumped against the wall and looked at his hands. Even in the dark, he could see that they were the colour of sunset, and that the flesh sagged. He had torn his palms on the walls, but there was no blood. His skin felt pliable, and rubbery. He itched all over, and had to fight the urge to scratch. 
 	Tooms coughed, and the air filled with dust. He watched as it danced above the water, briefly consolidating into what might have been a face, smiling sadly, before dispersing on the air. The cloud of dust stretched away, like a beckoning hand, and he lurched forward again, though he couldn’t feel his legs. 
 	He couldn’t feel anything. 
 	‘This is a kindness.’ 
 	Her voice beat at the air like sweet rain, singing a gentle song. He wanted to scream, but his voice was gone. Just like Agert was gone. Just like Skam and Guld and all the rest. 
 	Gone.
 	Tooms awoke. 
 	He did not otherwise stir, but instead scanned his surroundings. Just in case something had crept up. Skam was supposed to have woken him, but the Aqshian was nowhere in sight. Tooms rose slowly to his feet, drawing a knife. 
 	The lantern still burned, casting flickering shadows on the walls. They’d made camp in a wide alcove, set back from the water. They were close to the Cathedral Hill cistern, and the water was deep here, and the current was fast, running north. But he could hear distant splashing – and something else. Almost like – singing?
 	Quietly, he woke the others. Questions followed, but he ignored them, instead, searching for any sign of what might have happened. But the only thing he found was Skam’s axe, lying beside the lantern. As if he’d forgotten it. 
 	‘I knew it.’ Guld frowned and flexed his big hands. ‘I knew it.’ He looked at Dayla, who sat hunched and silent, cradling her handgun as if it were a talisman. Tooms watched them both for a moment. Then he turned away, straining to catch the sounds he’d heard earlier. But it was gone, lost to the water’s murmur. He let his hand trail through the water and ran it through his thinning hair, cooling him. The tunnels were humid at the best of times, and sweat had soaked through his clothes. 
 	It was quiet. Tooms had always preferred the quiet. That was why he’d taken a job down in the deep dark in the first place, despite the smell. Down under the streets, where the sky was stone, a man could think. Up there, with the smoke and noise, you were lucky if you could hear anything other than the city, humming its tune. 
 	Down here, all there was to hear was the water. The water flowed everywhere beneath the city, from one side to the other, round and round it went. And if you followed the water, it always led you right where you wanted to go. That was what Agert always said. 
 	He heard it then, a snatch of sound, soft, high and sweet. Like a woman, singing to a sleeping child. He strained to listen, despite himself. If he could hear it, he might know what had happened to Skam. Or Agert. 
 	Why had Agert come all this way? Had he heard the singing, and decided to investigate? Or had he found the mould? Or maybe both. The singing rose and fell, and he wondered that none of the others seemed to hear it. 
 	Maybe they did, and they were just pretending not to. 
 	‘What do we do now?’ Huxyl asked. ‘Should we go back?’
 	Tooms looked at him, water dripping from his face. Huxyl looked away. Tooms grunted and stared at the water. A scattering of gold and orange spores floated on its surface, riding the current. He saw patches on the walls that hadn’t been there when they’d made camp. Whatever it was, it was spreading. ‘Time to break camp.’
 	‘You mean to go after him?’ Dayla asked. She sounded frightened. 
 	‘I mean to go after them all. You don’t leave a man in the dark.’ Underjacks couldn’t count on anyone but other underjacks, down in the dark. You’d brawl with each other, even steal from each other – but you never left someone in the dark. Never that. 
 	Not unless there was no choice. 
 	He stepped down into the water. The current shoved against him, and tiny islands made of spores swirled about him. They formed strange shapes as he swept them from his path. Almost like faces. 
 	Out in the dark, the singing swelled and stretched into silence. The others fell silent. Tooms frowned and looked at them. 
 	‘On your feet.’
 	‘On your feet, friend.’ 
 	Tooms surfaced, water streaming from him. He’d fallen again, though he couldn’t remember when or how. Agert’s voice – or maybe Skam’s, or Guld’s – echoed through his head. Beneath the words, someone was singing. 
 	‘Up and down, round and round.’
 	‘No,’ he croaked, gripping the wall, trying to hold himself in place. ‘No, no farther.’ He could see his surroundings, though there was no light. Everything had a damp sheen to it, as if he were peering through wet glass. His throat felt raw and full, and there was a taste on his tongue that he could not name. 
 	He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t find the air to do so. He felt hollowed out and full all at the same time, and wondered if Agert and Dayla and the others had felt the same. As if he were coming apart at the seams. 
 	‘Not yet, just a bit farther,’ she said. ‘It is a kindness, really.’ 
 	‘No.’ He bent his head and leaned against the stones, feeling the rhythm of the city. The heartbeat of the beast. Life, but not as most knew it. A life of stone and steel, of pulsing smoke-stacks and clanging hammers. Greywater Fastness lived. 
 	‘It doesn’t,’ Agert said, only it didn’t sound like Agert. Her words, his voice. ‘But it will, in time.’
 	Tooms closed his eyes, trying to ignore the feather-light touch of spores as they choked the air of the passage. Great clouds rose from the water and drifted along, following him – or maybe leading him on. He couldn’t tell anymore. He didn’t know what he was doing or where he was, only that he had to get back. Back to the light. Back above. 
 	They had to be told. They had to be warned. 
 	He stumbled on, shoulder dragging against the wall, leaving a smear of something that glistened in his wake. But he kept moving, following the current, hoping it would take him where he needed to go. Just like Agert always said. 
 	‘Follow the current.’ 
 	Huxyl was the next to disappear. Dayla followed soon after. 
 	The Chamonian had followed a sound around a corner, and vanished. Dayla had slipped and fallen. By the time they reached the spot, she’d gone. There one moment, gone the next. But her voice was still there, and Huxyl’s, calling to them from far away. Skam, too. All three of them singing, somewhere in the dark. 
 	Guld said he couldn’t hear it, but Tooms knew he was lying. He could see it, in the way Guld jumped at every sound, and muttered under his breath. He was saying prayers, but not to Sigmar, like a proper Azyrite. To another god, one whose name was all but forbidden in the city, and for good reason. 
 	Tooms said nothing, though. He was having a hard time focusing on anything but putting one foot in front of the other. Sweat stung his eyes. It was hot, down here. Hotter than it should have been, and the air was thick with gossamer spores, dancing on humid currents. 
 	The stones felt strangely soft beneath his feet, and the lantern flickered like it was struggling to stay lit. Overhead, the city went on about its business. There was a rhythm to it. Noises slipped one into the next, until it sounded as if all of the realm were in uproar. Greywater Fastness clanged and groaned throughout the day and into the night. It was a beast of iron and smoke, always hungry, always growling. And the deep dark was its belly.
 	Only now there was something in its belly – an infection. A tumour. It needed cutting out. Tooms knew that. Every underjack knew that. You found infection, and you cut it out. That was their duty. That was their honour. He glanced back at Guld. At least it had been, once. Tooms felt old and worn down, and wondered if Agert had felt the same. Things had changed, and the city wasn’t what it had been. Nothing was what it had been. 
 	‘What do we do?’ Guld whispered. ‘What do we do now? We can’t keep going.’
 	‘Follow the water,’ Tooms croaked. ‘Just keep following it.’ He held Skam’s lantern in one hand, illuminating floating spores and hummocks of fungus, rolling in the current. The walls were shaggy with the stuff, and the light caught on gleaming lengths of bone, picked clean by the mould that cocooned them. Not just one skeleton, but dozens – more, even, than that. Not just rats and men, but other things as well. Hundreds, perhaps, attached to the walls and rolling underfoot. As if they’d died, one after the next, all in a line. 
 	He could not say how long they had been walking through the forests of the dead – days? Hours? Only minutes, perhaps. He was tired, and the song made it hard to concentrate. 
 	‘They’re gone,’ Guld said, hoarsely, from behind him. ‘You understand? We’re alone, old man. Just you and me. We can’t keep going. We can’t.’
 	‘We will, or I’ll gut you here and now.’ Tooms turned and shoved the bigger man back against the wall. Puffballs burst around them, and Guld gasped as bones clattered down around him, freed from their mouldy prison. Tooms drew a knife and pressed the tip to Guld’s face, just below his eye. ‘We find them. We find Agert. That’s what underjacks do. You understand?’
 	‘Yes,’ Guld muttered.
 	Tooms let him slump, and turned. The water was still flowing, leading them on. Dayla and Huxyl couldn’t have gone far. Something told him that they were closer than he thought. ‘We’re close. The Cathedral Hill cistern is through the next archway. If Agert is down here, that’s where he’ll be.’
 	‘And the others?’
 	Tooms glanced at him. ‘We find Agert first. Then the others. Come on.’
 	The aperture that led to the viaduct wasn’t far. Two grim-faced duardin statues crouched to either side of the opening, their stout forms shrouded in mould. Clouds of water vapour emerged from the aperture, warm and damp. Tooms passed between the statues, without waiting to see if Guld followed him. 
 	The cistern-chamber was like some great cathedral, rising up and spreading out before him. Great sheets of water hammered down, pouring through culverts and grates, filling the air with condensation. The thunder of its fall blocked out Guld’s voice, as he shouted something. Tooms shook his head. 
 	Waters poured down, running to either side of a set of wide, semi-circular steps. The steps led up onto the stone causeway that crossed over the lake-like cistern and passed to the other side. Broken statues lined the causeway. Whether they had been duardin or human, Tooms couldn’t say and didn’t care. His attentions were elsewhere.
 	Shimmering fungal orbs of monstrous size floated in the waters of the cistern, or hung pendulous from the chamber ceiling. They spread across the walls and floor. A forest of human-like shapes stood silent around the cistern and along the causeway, their features hidden by the clouds of heat and vapour. 
 	Guld leaned close, shouting. ‘What are they?’
 	Tooms lifted his truncheon. ‘Let’s find out.’ He started forward, ignoring Guld’s shout of dismay. As he drew close to one of the shapes, he saw that it was rooted to the stone of the causeway, its form covered in a thick, fungous shag. The others were the same. They swayed in the damp air, and he felt something – a pulse, a current travelling between them. As if they were speaking.
 	‘Can you hear them?’
 	The voice was hoarse and raw. But familiar. 
 	‘Agert,’ Tooms said, as he turned. 
 	Agert smiled, and mould burst and tore as his face moved. He was only barely recognisable, his body hidden beneath a tabard of mould and his head half eaten away. But it was him, the same Agert who’d taught Tooms about the currents and the dark.
 	‘What happened to you, Agert? What is all of this?’
 	Agert nodded slowly, and made a hoarse, gasping sound, as if trying to speak again. But the only sound Tooms could hear was the soft pop of puffballs, and the roar of the water as it carried the spores away. Agert uprooted himself, and took an unsteady step. Then another, growing more sure with each. Behind him, Tooms saw others – shuffling, shambling fungal shapes, creeping towards him out of the clouds of water vapour. 
 	He hefted his truncheon, but they stumbled past him, heading away, into the dark of the tunnels. They crumbled as they walked, and he could see bone, in places. The fungus was eating them alive, devouring them bit by bit. But they sang as they stumbled, the same strange, sad song he’d heard in the tunnels. Sickened, he looked at Agert.
 	‘They… feel… nothing,’ Agert said, in a voice like breaking glass. ‘Kind. She’s… kind.’
 	‘Who?’ Tooms asked, not wanting to know the answer, but unable to stop himself.
 	Agert pointed. And Tooms saw her, then, and wondered how he’d missed her. His stomach lurched at the sight, and Guld made a strangled, animal moan. The… woman crouched over them all, a giantess made of spores and water and sound, filling the cathedral-like chamber with her presence. 
 	She cupped her hands and thrust them into the cistern. Shambling, fungal petitioners knelt in her palms, in their hundreds, as she lifted them from the mould-shrouded waters. She lifted them up with gentle, hideous strength and blew on them gently. The petitioners came apart in clouds of spores that swirled away, filling the upper reaches of the chamber. The mould clung to every stone and duct, growing, creeping, spreading. 
 	Vaguely, he thought he heard Guld screaming something that might have been a name, but he couldn’t look away from her. She loomed mountainous and impossible, filling his vision and his senses. She smiled at the shuffling things in her hands, and he felt his heart stutter in primal terror. 
 	He knew her name, but could not bring himself to say it. He tore his eyes away, unable to bear such awful majesty, and found himself face-to-face with Agert. Over his shoulder, Tooms saw Skam, and Huxyl and Dayla. They surrounded Guld, moving with awful slowness, their voices raised in that sad, strange song. As he watched, Guld’s blade dipped, and they closed in. 
 	‘It’s a kindness,’ Agert said, only it wasn’t Agert’s voice, now. It was a woman’s voice, issuing from Agert’s mossy lips. The words sliced into Tooms like knives. He shook his head, trying not to listen. Not to see. He backed away, but Agert followed. ‘You do not deserve pain, though you have caused much. It was not malice, but ignorance.’
 	‘Who are you?’ Tooms whispered. 
 	‘You know who I am. This place was mine, before it was his, and it will be mine again. In time. I am patient. Eventually, my song will be heard by all, and all will know me and join their voices to mine.’ Agert’s face sloughed away, and something new peered out of his skull, a new face – one of golden spores and water vapour. Her eyes caught him, held him, and she began to sing, and Tooms felt as if he were burning under his skin. 
 	For a moment, he saw things as Agert and the others must. The song folded him into itself, and he saw great shapes dancing in the light of phosphorescent mould. The fungal spheres were not simply spheres but shapes that were all things and none, silvery and bright. There were faces there, and he could hear them crying out, impatient and eager to be born. To see the light and taste the air. 
 	He knew what they were. Every underjack did. They were the reason men kept to the roads and never went into the forests. The reason that the pyre-gangs had been formed, to clean the land around the city walls. They were worse than any orruk or troggoth. Older than any city, they had ruled this realm once, and some thought they would again, though it was a fool who spoke of such heresies where the witch-takers might hear. 
 	And even as he recognised them, he knew at last what Guld had been trying to say. What Dayla had been afraid of. He knew her name now, though he could not say it. 
 	They are beautiful, aren’t they, she whispered, in a voice like rustling leaves. And strong. So strong. Stronger than flesh, stronger than stone and steel. And they are kind, my children. So kind. They let you hear the song. They let you join it. Her voice became harsh. Sharp, like branches cracking in the cold. It is a kindness that you do not deserve.
 	He felt a different sort of heat now, and crushing, grinding pain. Smoke filled his lungs, and his flesh blistered. You burned them. Chopped them and beat them. For what? A grove of stone and iron? Is this what he teaches you, your God-King? 
 	Tooms wanted to scream, but had no tongue. He wanted to beg forgiveness, to flee, but could do neither. Her eyes filled his vision, burning like the green suns of Ghyran, boiling into him, searing away all his courage and hope. Leaving him hollow and withered. 
 	Stone does not live. Iron does not live. It is cruel. 
 	He saw Greywater Fastness, a jumble of hard angles, and choking smog. Narrow streets, filled with huddled forms, and clattering machinery. Home, but distorted to grotesque proportions that he barely recognised. A darksome blotch – a tumour of stone. Was this how they saw it? 
 	But we are kind… so kind. And you will thank us, when the rains fall, and the streets sprout, and you all, at last, hear the song he has denied you. 
 	The city changed. It twisted and thrashed and was no longer a beast of stone and iron, but a great, heaving mound of fleshy, fungal growth. And within its runnels, hundreds of thousands of shaggy, unmoving shapes the colour of the dawn. 
 	We will sing the song together–
 	‘No!’ Tooms’ truncheon sank into what was left of Agert’s head, ripping the top away with a sound like tearing paper. The body sagged, deflating like a puffball, filling the air with spores. He tried to hold his breath as he turned. 
 	Panic seized him, as mould-covered shapes closed in on all sides. Soft, flabby hands reached for him, and he drove the truncheon down, splitting Dayla’s skull. It came apart in swirling clouds and he staggered past her crumpling shape, blind. 
 	He heard Huxyl and Skam as they clawed at him, but he ignored their voices – no, not their voices. Her voice. Her voice, issuing from a hundred mouths. Singing now, as the soft fungal bulges along the walls and floor sang, and he reached up to clutch his head. 
 	He’d dropped his truncheon somewhere, but he still held the lantern. And it still burned. Maybe– 
 	Tooms stopped. Turned. She was looking down at him now, her face vast, her expression strange and sad. A hand, massive, shaped from a cloud of spores, reached for him, as if to scoop him up. Her eyes burned like a summer wildfire, and her words were like the crash of distant waves. He could hear, but could not understand now. He had torn himself from the song, and her words were not meant for him, or any mortal. Yet she spoke nonetheless, like a mother attempting to reassure a frightened child. 
 	‘Don’t you see, it is a kindness we do you,’ a hundred mouths murmured, in her voice. ‘We only want to help you – we only wish you to hear what we hear…’
 	Tooms slammed the lantern down, splattering burning oil across the patches of fungus. Even in the damp air, it couldn’t help but catch. Duardin oil could burn, even on water. And it spread greedily, leaping and prowling through the forest of swaying bodies. The singing became shrill – a keening wail. Not of pain, but of disappointment. 
 	As the fires roared up, Tooms ran into the dark, leaving the others behind. 
 	He fled from the goddess and her terrible garden. 
 	But the sound of her voice followed him. 
 	Her voice took root in Tooms, as he stumbled. 
 	‘A single seed was all it took. A single spore. Just a tiny thing. And look. See. Is this not better? Is this not preferable to the noise and the smoke and the noose?’
 	Not far now. That was what the water said. A good thing, because his legs weren’t working at all. He fell against the wall, and tried to pull himself along, but his fingers broke off one by one, leaving yellowish smears on the stones. 
 	‘Don’t look back,’ Agert’s voice said. ‘Just follow the current.’
 	He tried to draw in the breath to speak, but nothing happened. Not even a whisper of a groan escaped him. His leg gave way, cracking like a rotten log, spilling him down into the water. There was no pain, only a sense of vertigo as he fell. 
 	He was unravelling. Coming apart, but still following the water. Not towards Cathedral Hill now, he knew, but back towards the Old Fen Gate. He wasn’t going to make it. He’d go missing, just like Agert. Just like the others. And then someone would come looking. He wondered what they would find. 
 	‘A single seed. A single spore,’ she crooned as she lowered him gently into the water. He had not heard her come, but here she was, smaller now, and beautiful, rather than monstrous. ‘One tiny thing. That is all it takes. Fire is nothing. Stone is nothing. Life persists.’ She leaned forward and kissed him upon the brow. 
 	Something in his skull gave. All of his fears and worries, all of his pain, were caught in the current and carried away. The water closed over him and the song rose, drowning out everything else. 
 	Tooms closed his eyes and let it.