Review: Under Ordshaw by Phil Williams (ARC)

Casaria smiled, another flash of perfect teeth. He leaned closer, lowering his voice, and said, “I need to insist
that however you feel about what you are about to see, you must not react. That’s something you’re trained in, isn’t it?”

“All right,” she said. “Whatever you’ve hidden in this rape tunnel, I won’t react.”

“What is it with you and that word?” Casaria replied. “Besides, a rapist coming down here would be doing society a favour. Now stand as still as you can. See up ahead? Where the tunnels join? Something will be along a minute. Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t freak out.”

He lifted the lantern to light the tunnel. Ten metres ahead of them, the tunnel split into two, right and left. Pax narrowed her eyes, trying to pick out any details in the shadows that weren’t just the lines of stacked brickwork. The place was empty, not a pipe or cable on the floor, walls or ceilings, only the occasional shells of old lights that might never have worked.

They waited in silence, Casaria’s breath seemingly non-existent and Pax instinctively slowing and lowering hers. They waited long enough for her to start running his words back through her mind, as she wondered what indescribable thing could possibly be down here. She thought of the weird and wonderful creatures in Apothel’s Miscellany. The creatures of nightmares with their bizarre rules. 

As she thought over some of them, Casaria whispered, almost inaudibly, “It’s coming. What you’re about to see senses things by touch. Vibrations. So if you don’t move, and don’t make a sound, it won’t know we’re here.” Pax screwed up her face. That sounded familiar.

“You’re kidding,” she replied, loudly enough for him to shoot her a warning look. She was surprised into quiet by his severity, and kept her eyes on the tunnel. A scratching noise came from somewhere up ahead. Something was moving there. As the scrapes got louder, Pax picked out the distinct sound of two separate taps, almost at the same time. A creature on four legs. She stared hard, willing her first conclusion to be wrong.

It couldn’t possibly be.

But it made sense. The book, the Roma boy being taken away before he could spread the secret. The
government agency, covering something up.

The noise became louder, the creature getting closer.

It took all of Pax’s willpower not to demand an answer from Casaria there and then, not to blurt out what she was afraid she was about to see. Its shadow came across the tunnel intersection first, lancing over the floor as the creature jerked into the light.

Then the claws.