Page 39 of Harmonic Pleasure (Mysterious Arts #6)

T he wee hours of the morning were definitely not Farran’s best time of day.

Of course, he’d done his best to plan. There had been a potion in the afternoon, so he got a good solid nap, and a different one at midnight to keep him up.

He’d arranged for a day off, since he’d likely be sleeping most of Monday, even if everything went absolutely smoothly.

And then, of course, the potion to make it unlikely they’d be noticed.

Bill and Frank had turned out to be cheerful and somewhat weather-worn men in their fifties.

They had that useful mix of competence and also having seen a fair number of things.

That Farran wanted to go down in the tunnels wasn’t terribly unusual.

That he was looking for something magical was more so, but still didn’t bother them.

They’d only wanted to know if the thing was dangerous.

Over their breakfast when they’d gone off shift at half-five on Sunday morning, Farran had explained quietly.

The item wasn’t dangerous as it was, but it might be if the wrong people interfered with it, and they knew of someone who might be looking for it.

He’d explained that he and Vega wanted to see if they could get more information about where the specific item might be.

It had taken a bit of back and forth chat, and several roughly drawn maps on the copies Farran had brought.

But by the time the plates had been cleared and Farran had paid the bill, they had a decent plan.

Now, here Vega was. She’d wrapped up for the night a hair early, and Farran and Bill had met her near the door at street level.

She was wearing entirely sensible clothes.

Brown trousers were tucked into calf-high boots with a good tread, a jacket over a blouse and her hair up under a scarf, with only a few wisps showing.

There had been a long and nerve-wracking climb down dozens of stairs until they came out a door onto a disused station platform.

All the signs were still in place, even posters and such, though those were peeling in places and faded.

There was a smell of damp, but not too much like the worrying sort of flood.

“Had a fair bit of water in here, January.” Bill was scanning the station. “Now, off this way. The track’s not on, but avoid it anyway. Good practice. Stay single file, follow me. There’s a bit of tunnel I think’s where you want.”

Vega cleared her throat. “Can we try something here? A little singing, nothing loud.”

“It’s a tunnel, luv. Echoes.” But then Bill shrugged. “No one to hear, though. Just the rats.”

Farran caught Vega wincing at that. Rats were, he assumed, not her usual sort of environment.

Nor his, other than that Thebes certainly had some, and mice, like any old estate that also farmed grain did.

He reached out to touch her arm, and she nodded just once.

Then she took a half step to the side, cleared her throat, and sang.

It wasn’t in English, whatever it was. And it wasn’t in Latin, either.

Farran knew that well enough to be sure.

It wasn’t even the same language she’d used before.

It had vowels like something out of Chaucer or the Pearl Poet, great rolling things that had depth and space like the tunnel beside them.

But if it had been Middle English, even Old English, he’d have made out a word here or there, and he couldn’t.

Maybe Vega would tell him if he asked. Or she’d sing it again for him, so he could listen.

Now, though, it was like the music made a space around them, and then flowed.

She moved her hands, as if trying to feel for it, the way Farran felt for the flow of magic in a piece.

The charms were anchored, everything else shifted around it and made a new pattern.

Only Vega was doing it with space in three dimensions.

She brought the chant to an end, a long held note that echoed down the tunnel a little.

“That way, yes.” Her voice was suddenly crisp and entirely different from the singing.

Bill looked impressed. “Didn’t know you meant like that, miss. Ma’am.” There was an instinctive sound of respect, even if Vega was— well, she looked about the age of Bill’s children, Farran suspected. “Frankie’s up this way, by the door.”

They went along the platform, to the end, then hopped off the platform to land on rocky ground, covered with gravel that shifted under their feet.

Bill had a charm lit lantern. He held it out and then nodded for Farran to set a charmlight in his.

They kept well to the left edge, away from the tracks, following the surprisingly sharp curve of the tunnel until there was a door.

Bill knocked on it once, then two more times in quick succession, and someone inside opened it.

Farran felt that sensible people might not be down in a tunnel with strangers at this time of night, but they were committed to this now.

He took a breath and then went in. Better him first than Vega.

Not that he’d be much use if something went wrong, he kept thinking that.

But needs must and people had expectations of the men in such outings. He’d do the necessary thing.

The room he found himself in was square, maybe eight feet on each side, and three of them made of brick.

Frankie nodded once. “This’d be Miss Beaumont?

” He didn’t stick out a hand, largely because his were more or less coated in soot.

Or possibly grease. “You’ve an idea where you want to be going, then? ”

“That was her singing,” Bill said, cheerfully. “Like a nightingale. This way, you said, miss?”

Vega nodded. “This way. A definite tug from...” She frowned. “It’s easy to lose track of the curve, isn’t it? Can I again, will it carry to be a problem?”

“Nah. Nothing near us, ‘cept some cellars, thirty, forty feet up,” Frankie said. “Please do.”

Vega nodded, and without any fuss, took another of those half-steps, settling into what Farran assumed was the best posture for this sort of singing.

It was the same chant, but this time, in a much smaller space, it sounded different.

There were harmonics implied. He knew enough music to understand what they were doing.

She sang it once through, the same words in a language she was confident about.

And then she sang it again, as if chasing some thread of magic through a larger bit of weaving.

This time, the silence was a little longer when the last note trailed off. It lasted until Vega cleared her throat. “That way. Can we go that way?”

The two older men conferred, speaking in a dialect that was nearly as incomprehensible as the singing had been.

This time, Farran was certain that they were, in fact, speaking English.

But between what he assumed were a range of specialised terms, a smattering of station names, several combinations that he thought weren’t actually stations, and more, it became increasingly baffling.

Finally, though, they nodded in unison. “There’s a door, bit past. Tunnel goes a bit. There’s some dunno. Spaces. Too deep to be proper cellars, but I suppose they might have been someone’s once. We can go to the opening with you, don’t wanna go further. Not our territory, right?”

“Will there be other people down here? Do you know?”

“Might. Might not. Some people get a mind to live down here. Don’t think anyone right now. But you know, men who had a Bad War and want somewhere no one can sneak up on them, to sleep, or keep their things.”

“The last was Johnny, though, three months ago. Just before the flood, anyway. You was worried, until it turned out he’d been put up in hospital for a bit.”

“And then someone found a sister, and she took him in. No, you’re right. Don’t think there’s been anyone since Johnny. Down here, needs someone who knows where things are. This way. None too much time. We’ll need to be heading out prompt, before they turn on the trains.”

“All right. Which way?” The thing of this was, it was like sorting things out at Thebes had been, when Vivian and Uncle Cadmus had needed to be brave and go forward.

The way to change something was to move.

Into the unknown, or at least the personally unknown.

But other people had been down here, maybe recently. And it needed doing.

Frankie led the way, down a narrow passage, through another door, and then across something that could generously be described as another tunnel.

It had a dirt floor, not cement or any sort of man-made brick, and the roof also looked suspiciously like dirt.

The sides were held up with some wood supports, every eight or ten feet.

And across from where they came out, just at the edge of the light, there was a dark opening on the other wall.

“There. Can give you...” Bill fumbled, then looked at a watch he pulled out of his pocket. “An hour. One of us will be by here, the other needs t’do some work.”

“Sixty minutes.” Farran pulled out his own watch. “Four.” They’d been down here even longer than he’d realised, if it were already three. “Best get moving then.”

“Yell if there’s something, blow your whistle.

That’ll carry. We know which direction you’re going, but if you make a turn, you leave a mark with chalk.

” Farran held up the stick he’d brought; there were three more in different places in his bag, and two more in the bag Vega was carrying.

And he patted the bag, reassuring himself that the set of potions was still where it ought to be.

“Thank you.” Vega made it like a regal blessing. “Come along, Farran.” She took a step across the tunnel to the dark gap. Farran immediately followed her, holding the lantern up to get the best distance out of the light that they could.

The first room was long. It might well have been someone’s cellar, ancient storage for food over the winter. Or wine, maybe. Farran saw shapes further back in the spaces to each side of the central walkway that might have been great urns for wine. “Still going the right way?”

Vega nodded. She hadn’t reached to touch him, but both of them needed a hand free for the lantern.

And if one of them slipped, better if both of them didn’t tumble.

“I’ll try again, that end. Maybe something a little different.

I can feel something, though. In my pocket, the talisman, as well as the singing. ”

That was, at least, a little reassuring. Farran kept wanting to crane his neck, to see what was tucked into the storage spaces— they must be storage spaces— along each side. “Do we think this was Roman?”

“Maybe. The arches look it, don’t they? And the bits of pottery.

Most of it long shattered, I suppose.” They seemed to be coming up to the end of whatever storage they’d been in.

Maybe it had been a stable, or for docks, when the land and water levels were vastly different.

Farran knew people could figure that sort of thing out, but he had not nearly as much idea as he ought about how they did that.

Vega stopped, and he immediately halted. “One more time?” he asked.

“Yes. Can you hold both lights?” She sounded almost distracted, handing the lantern to him.

Farran turned, so he was facing her at an angle, able to see both where they’d come from, and then the wall in front of them, with two darker hollows on either side.

“Something different, this time.” Vega definitely sounded as if she were focused on something else now.

This time, it definitely wasn’t anything like any language Farran had ever heard.

It had a rill to it, like Welsh did, an inherent musicality that suggested harmonies and echoes and counterpoint.

But it also had the spareness and beauty of early monastic chant, a mobility that wasn’t like anything modern.

He’d heard something somewhat similar when he’d visited Vivian’s family estates, but nothing that was quite like this.

Those were all designed for many people to sing, with harmonies and moving voice parts.

This was just Vega, her voice filling the room with waves of sound that seemed like they couldn’t just come from one body.

It wasn’t just the sound. As she went on, a pattern of theme and variation, coming back to the same line, then expanding, then returning, Farran realised that the air had changed.

Where it still had the damp smell of ground— nothing dangerous, just the eternal damp of England— it seemed warmer, more like a spring day after a few hours of sun.

Then there was a far stronger scent on the air, night-blooming flowers with a compelling fragrance, and beyond where the light was strongest, what seemed like a shimmering of stars.