The Poisons of Caux: The Hollow Bettle (Book I) (18 page)

eep beneath the Eath, beneath even the waters that lapped its shore, there was a masterful piece of ancient know-how. It was a tunnel, and it snaked its way to the foothills of the mountains, where it opened into a steep climb. But like the Mildew Sisters’ lodge above it, it was perilously in need of repair. Tiles, depicting lavish bettles of all shapes and colors, were cracked and missing in places. Damp was taking over.

It was only accessed by a small, rickety elevator, through which Ivy, Rowan, and Clothilde had made a swift escape, nearly taking a small battalion of Nightshade soldiers with them. As the heavy iron doors finally closed, Ivy’s stomach was filled with butterflies, and Clothilde had looked pale and annoyed. The thing seemed to take a full minute to grind into action—all the while the sentries were shouting at each other and prying at the door.

Finally, after an excruciatingly slow ride down, the accordion doors folded open, revealing a secondary set—emblazoned with a familiar seal that sent Ivy’s spirits soaring. The Royal Cauvian Rail.

It was an underground station.

A dull, flickery glow seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, accompanied by a low buzz. On the wide platform, the tiles were slick with puddles and resembled more a bathhouse than a once-fine train terminus. Yet even with the decay and neglect, the luxury of their surroundings was impossible to ignore.

Rowan, Ivy, and Clothilde were waiting in the dank terminal, excavated many years ago beneath the island. They stared into the darkness, the sound of dripping water insistent in their ears. In front of them, an empty set of tracks. While the group waited anxiously, a large square loosened from the arched ceiling and nearly hit Rowan on the head. The tile missed him, but the stream of water that followed it did not.

It was Ivy to first hear the train approach.

“It’s coming!” she shouted, leaving all thoughts of the elevator behind.

And at long last, the buzz of the light became a separate low rumbling and the travelers suddenly snapped into action. There were several enormous leather chests awaiting them—Clothilde had scavenged the contents of the cook’s larder—and it was a task to keep them dry. A whistle called to them
from the depths of the tunnel. And although it would be some time before even the single glowing headlamp would be clear—the architecture of the tunnel, and its distinctive slope, prevented light from shining until the train was almost upon them—everyone relaxed in an almost cheerful way.

Once the headlamp made itself known—it shone brilliantly on all three expectant faces and illuminated the dazzling colors of the tiles throughout the terminal—the roar and echo became intolerable. Clothilde’s dress was reduced to a white glare against the train’s advance. Ivy held her ears as it pulled in beside them and exhaled a sharp burst of steam.

In the quiet that followed, a single door opened outward. It was a small door, of wood, and meant for a polite single file of passengers.

Ivy could no longer help herself. She had little idea where the train was bound
(up
was all she knew), but it was enough to be leaving the Eath behind. Not even a clatter of ceiling tiles hitting the floor directly in her path—and a perilously wide stream of water to follow—could stop her. And that was because she knew, as anyone can tell you, there is but one way to really travel. And that is by train—simply the very best way to see anything and everything at all.

She ran to be the first aboard.

This train, the Skytop Glory, was unlike most in Caux. It was of a sort with cogwheels, and these produced the rumble that
everyone had heard. The cogs, combined with their mates on the tracks they sat on, enabled the train very specifically to mount slopes normally reserved for mountain goats or bettle boars. The cogwheels, like the inner workings of a clock, did not allow the train to slip.

And as soon as Clothilde had explained just this to her two travel companions, the train sputtered again to life—and they were off, reversing the path upon which it came.

They were traveling now beneath the Eath, a fact that made Rowan quite uncomfortable. He couldn’t help but picture all that water overhead and remember the crumbling state of the underground station. Even worse, once they had departed, the lights on board dimmed noticeably.

After some time, they felt the ascent begin. And just then the tunnel beneath the lakes ended, and the bright day flashed its blinding light through the windows. Both Ivy and Rowan were left blinking at the brilliant foothills of the immense Craggy Burls.

ell, thank goodness that’s over,” Clothilde said briskly as she smoothed her skirt in her plush seat.

The two assumed she had been referring to the excruciating wait for the train, but her next sentence would show them to be wrong.

“And not a minute too soon. Those Mildew Sisters. They are so immensely tedious.”

Ivy, for her part, couldn’t agree more but was annoyed that Rowan was staring raptly at Clothilde as she talked.

“They are bitter and unhappy and look to others for the promise of a better day. How does that make them any different from anyone in Caux? I hardly wanted to take you there. But it was a necessity. There was no other way to catch the train—and we’ve now done that successfully. Which, to my great satisfaction, means Poppy got the message through. So
my advice to you is to sit back and enjoy the ride—you are in for a spectacular view.”

“But where are you taking us? This can’t be the way to Templar,” Ivy blurted. She was greeted with a cold stare from Rowan, which she ignored.

“Really.” Clothilde’s voice was chilly. “We can hardly get to Templar by road or regular rail, can we? This is the only safe way. It’s a forgotten route on an ancient train that I’ve arranged at great personal expense. You two are enemies of the realm, and I—well, as special as I am, I hardly blend in around here, do I? And, ignoring the Outrider for the moment, were we to set out in any normal fashion, we’d have to pass by Rocamadour—something none of us is eager to do, are we?” Clothilde looked from Ivy to Rowan. “So. We’re going to Templar the easiest way we can—as the crow flies. Directly over the Craggy Burls to the other side.”

Rowan frowned. “Um, Clothilde, I’m sure you have a plan, but if we’re enemies of the realm, as you say, how are we going to move around the most heavily guarded city in Caux? The place is teeming with Nightshade sentries. Not to mention the king is there for the season … the king …
and the
queen.” He shivered. Rowan, having been stationed at Templar with Turner Taxus, knew it quite well. It was a fortress of a city, remarkable in that it was sturdy enough to survive impassively any of the Winds of Caux.

Clothilde made it clear she was done conversing by simply
ignoring his question. And Rowan, not wanting to appear as tedious as the Mildew Sisters, thought it best to let it go unanswered.

“I told you she was taking us to Templar,” Rowan whispered to Ivy, who scowled.

But it was only a moment later, as the sun cut a ray through a blanket of clouds, that she found her optimism getting the better of her. She leaned over and reminded the taster, “In Templar, Axle said to find his brother, Peps. He’ll know what to do.”

Rowan, for the moment, felt much better.

When the Skytop Glory thumped up and over a ridge, the world below opened up to them for the first time since leaving Underwood. And it was a magnificent vista. The earth laid out in patchwork, a view Rowan’s imagination had tried, but failed, to compose in his childhood dreams of mountains. The land rolled away from the Burls and met the sky in a gray mist somewhere far away, above the distant sea.

But what Rowan saw next—albeit a speck in the distance—made his heart heavy and his knees tremble. The old mountains hosted many inlets in their rocky foothills. On the other side of the ridge that met the Eath, surrounded by the poisoned barbs of hawthorns, was the place he dreaded most of all.

Rocamadour
.

It was the great vultures he saw first—straining against the wind but always managing to hold their position, flying as they always did, day after day, around the piercing black spire of the Library.

The Tasters’ Guild. His old seminary struck a fear in him like he’d never known before. The dark, remote, needle-like spire seethed from the black hamlet below.

“Ivy,” Rowan whispered hoarsely. His voiced seemed far away.

“Is that what I think it is?” she whispered.

Rowan nodded mutely. Ivy was particularly interested in seeing the infamous Guild from the relative safety of the distance. She pressed her face to the glass, but just as she did so, the train pitched into a tunnel.

As they clattered along in the darkness, the taster was thrown into a panic.

“What—what’s happening?” he cried, abandoning all attempts at sounding calm.

“A tunnel,” Clothilde called. “One of many. After all, we have a mountain to climb!”

The old train had some tricks left in it yet, and finally managed to produce for its passengers some decent light. Little reading lamps beside each chair flickered alive, thankfully, and the car was once again a hospitable and gratifying place to be.

“Rowan.” Ivy turned to her friend, hoping to bolster his courage. “The mountains! Haven’t you always wanted to climb the Burls?”

But with the lights, Ivy discovered that Rowan was no longer beside her. He had moved in the dark to Clothilde’s side, and from the looks of it, he was enjoying her current lecture. Alone, Ivy took advantage of her reading lamp and turned to Rowan’s
Field Guide
.

As she paged through the familiar text (the Craggy Burls, its lowlands and geology), she felt better. While in the past she might have found this very passage tedious and wordy, now it was a vehicle to bring her closer to Axle—and she was happy to read it. Happy, too, to be on her way to Templar.

On they rode, sometimes with a view and sometimes without, but steadily up the steep mountain. Leaving behind Rocamadour, they were soon gliding past enormous craggy rocks in massive, severe formations. Hoarfrost glazed the desolate landscape. Then ice and snow. Then an icefall—the water frozen in long, intricate gray threads. Hugging the worn book to her chest and catching only snippets of the conversation between the taster and Clothilde, Ivy swallowed frequently against her popping ears.

They passed the tree line—not a leaf or a needle would be seen from this point on. Then they passed the scrub line. Still, they traveled on. Crystals of frozen water sliced the sunlight into neat packages of color that danced on the train’s interior.

Then up, up, up, ears popping—and once again into a tunnel, this one the darkest, it seemed to the young girl. Now
there were twists and rises and finally, oddly, the Skytop Glory started going down. Slowly down into the mountain itself. And then, after a good long ride to satisfy the biggest train enthusiast, the journey ended abruptly on a thin platform.

“End of the line,” Clothilde called after the immense noise of the termination ceased. “Everybody out!”

Peering through the old glass after her eyes adjusted to the dark, Ivy blinked at what she saw.

They were to disembark on an impossibly old and particularly rickety trestle.