‘I’m not joking,’ said Leyr angrily. ‘It’s like everything is shifting around. Doors, walls–’
‘This palace,’ said Baskevyl very calmly, ‘has been standing for centuries. It’s about as solid as anything gets. It’s not fething-well shifting around in the dark. Have you been at the sacra, Leyr?’
‘Feth you. I’m telling you what I know. The plan of the whole undercroft is not stable. Every time it goes dark, things move.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Find me Bonin. Find me a scout who knows what he’s fething doing.’
‘Mach was leading the retinue out,’ said Neskon. He was standing just behind Leyr. His eyes were hard. ‘There’s no sign of him, or the sergeant major. Or the retinue. It was a lot of people, sir. A lot. Women, kids. With the dark and all, and just the one staircase, they should still be filing out. An evac would take half an hour at least. We should still be able to hear them.’
‘And we can’t even find the stairs,’ said Banda.
‘Are you going to tell them what we found?’ Blenner asked.
Baskevyl glared at him.
‘We found the Munitorum work crew,’ said Blenner, looking at Meryn’s squad. ‘What was left of them.’
‘What?’ said Meryn.
‘They were very dead,’ said Blenner. He palmed something from his coat pocket and swallowed it dry.
‘So this is an attack?’ Banda asked.
‘I don’t know what it is,’ said Baskevyl quietly. ‘We can’t find Shoggy, or Luna, or Dalin, or the girl. We can’t find anybody.’
‘Not just me, then,’ muttered Leyr.
Baskevyl glanced at him. ‘Well, as long as your professional reputation is intact, we’re all good,’ he growled.
‘Have you seen anybody at all?’ Osket asked Meryn.
‘Not a soul until you came along,’ said Meryn.
‘From the wrong direction…’ Blenner whispered.
‘Gol?’ asked Baskevyl.
Meryn shook his head.
‘All right,’ said Baskevyl. ‘We’ll try to finish the section search. At the very least, Gol’s team is down here somewhere. Then we’ll pull back. Meryn, take your squad, circle back and find the fething stairs. Got any pencil flares? Any chalk?’
‘I’ll find a way to mark the route,’ said Leyr.
‘Good. Do it.’
Baskevyl turned and led his team back the way they had come. Meryn glanced at Banda, Leyr, Neskon and Leclan.
‘You heard him,’ he said.
They turned around and moved back down the hallway. The lights were flickering again. Every three metres or so, Neskon paused and scorched a burn-mark on the wall with a quick burst of his flamer.
‘That’ll do the trick,’ said Leyr.
The air began to fill with the stink of burned paint and scorched brick dust. It mixed with the damp reek of burst drains, and caught in their throats. They reached a T-junction that none of them could remember being there before.
‘Right or left?’ asked Neskon.
Leyr paused.
‘Left,’ Meryn decided.
Banda held up her hand.
‘What was that?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘It sounded like sobbing,’ she said.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Leyr.
Meryn gestured at Neskon, who damped the ignition flame of his unit. The constant, chugging rasp of the flamer died away.
They listened.
‘That’s sobbing,’ said Banda. ‘Or giggling.’
‘A kid…’ said Leclan.
‘Gol’s brat,’ said Meryn. ‘Gotta be.’
‘Well, we should find her,’ said Neskon. ‘Everyone was looking for her.’
‘That way,’ said Leyr, indicating the left-hand tunnel.
They advanced. Neskon and Leyr took the lead, but Neskon kept his burner dead so they could hear. He roped the nozzle-gun over his shoulder, and drew his sidearm. Banda and Leclan followed them, and Meryn lurked in the rear. He kept glancing behind him.
‘Oh feth,’ Leyr murmured.
Up ahead, every few metres, there were burn patches on the whitewashed wall.
‘Somebody else had the same idea,’ said Neskon.
Leyr shook his head. He touched one of the marks. ‘Still warm,’ he said. ‘You did this.’
‘Feth I did,’ Neskon objected.
‘We’re following our own footsteps,’ said Leyr.
‘Shut the feth up,’ Meryn told him.
The lights dimmed suddenly and went off. The darkness lasted about three seconds, then the lamps began to glow again. They barely rose from nothing. There was no more light than an overcast dusk, sallow and yellow.
The Ghosts flipped on their stablights.
‘Door,’ said Leclan, and nodded ahead. There was an archway to their left. A small storage room.
Leclan and Leyr advanced, and came in either side of the door. Leclan had his sidearm out, Leyr had the butt of his lasrifle tight in his shoulder.
They swung in.
The room was a small stone vault. On one side, the wall was lined with old wooden racks that had once held wine casks. Several broken packing crates stood nearby. The stone floor was wet, with a couple of centimetres of rank standing water. Several steady drips were spilling from the bowed ceiling.
Yoncy sat on a crate in the far corner with her back to them. Her head was bowed and her shoulders were shaking.
‘Hey, Yoncy,’ said Leclan. He holstered his sidearm and hurried in, pulling his medicae satchel in front of him. Leyr followed.
Leclan knelt down by the young girl.
‘You all right? Yoncy? It’s me, Leclan. Are you hurt?’
Yoncy glanced at him, her head still down. She had been crying.
‘Papa Leclan,’ she whispered, and sniffed.
‘That’s right. Are you hurt? I’m just going to check you over, and then we’ll get you out of here.’
‘I was hiding,’ she said softly. ‘Because the woe machine is here.’
‘What did she say?’ asked Leyr, moving closer.
‘Something about a woe machine,’ replied Leclan. He was trying to turn Yoncy’s head towards him so he could check her pupil response with his penlight. ‘I think she’s in shock.’
‘Woe machine?’ said Neskon. He and Banda had followed the scout and the corpsman into the room. ‘Tell her there’s no fething woe machine here.’
Meryn stood in the doorway behind them.
‘It’s just a game she plays,’ he said. ‘Hide-and-seek. Stupid little freak.’
Banda glared at him. ‘Feth you, Flyn,’ she warned in a hard whisper. ‘She’s scared.’
Meryn shrugged. ‘We’re all fething scared, sweetie,’ he replied.
‘There’s no woe machine,’ Leclan told the girl gently. He opened her mouth and shone the penlight inside. ‘Have you seen anybody? Yonce? Did you see anybody when you were playing your game? When it went dark?’
Yoncy closed her mouth.
‘I saw Dal. And Papa Gol,’ she said.
‘Where were they?’ Meryn called across from the door.
‘They took a wrong turn,’ Yoncy whispered to Leclan conspiratorially. ‘I’m really hungry.’
‘What’s that mark on your neck here?’ Leclan asked, tilting her head gently to look.
Banda looked back at Meryn.
‘If Gol’s close,’ she said, ‘or Dalin… maybe try your link again?’
Meryn sighed, and adjusted his earpiece. The deep itching in his eardrums was back. It suddenly seemed to have got very cold.
‘Kolea? Dalin?’ he called. ‘Anyone read? Kolea?’
There was a sharp screech, a howl like grinding metal. Meryn started, and yanked the earpiece out, thinking it was the wail of feedback. But the noise continued even with the earpiece gone.
He looked back into the room. Something was happening to Leclan. He was standing with his back to them. His body and out-flung arms were vibrating violently. Meryn stared in utter incomprehension. What the feth was Leclan doing? He couldn’t see Yoncy. Just Leclan, shaking and juddering like some fething ecstatic worshipper.