The Islands of Chaldea

by Diana Wynne Jones

  But the others were still singing. And Aunt Beck, instead of stopping at the end of the Hymn, simply went back to the beginning again.

  “I am the salmon leaping the fall …”

  I hurriedly joined in. We went through the whole Hymn twice more before we were somehow hauling ourselves into the sky again and no longer being drenched with sea spray. Almost without our realising it, we were up into dazzling sun. Out of the dazzle I could see a grey-blue misty hump. We were nearly at Logra, it seemed. And we were going higher and higher yet.

  “Right, everyone,” Rees said. “Stop now. Phew!” He sat down on the wickerwork with a crunch.

  And – I am fairly sure – we went on upwards. My ears felt strange.

  “Going deaf,” Aunt Beck announced. “Ears cracking.”

  “Not really,” Riannan said soothingly. “This happens on high mountains too. Your ears pop.”

  Now I could see a whole golden curve of landscape on the horizon. If I looked up, I could see a red slice of Blodred’s left wing, flapping us steadily onwards. Looking forward again, I could pick out a line of white foam where the barrier must be, although the barrier was of course invisible.

  “What do we do,” I said, “if the barrier turns out to be a dome over Logra and we can’t get through?”

  “Then we’ll land on top of it and wait for evening,” Rees said, “when the wind turns the other way. We’ll just have to hope it doesn’t blow us back to some part of Gallis where the priests can see us. We’d be in real trouble then.”

  “Would the priests really object to the balloon?” Ivar asked. “Gronn struck me as a very easy-going man.”

  Finn chuckled a little. “Then you don’t know priests, lad.”

  “The very least that would happen,” Rees said, “was that we would all be put in prison for years, while they decided exactly how unholy we’ve been.”

  To my surprise, this seemed to register with Aunt Beck. “Now he tells us!” she said.

  Rees looked a little rueful. “I wanted you all to come,” he said.

  “And we have,” I said. It surprises me now that even then I didn’t realise what little planning we had done and how we all seemed to think it was going to be easy once we got to Logra. Everyone was staring forward at the steadily growing curve of land. It was coming up fast, but I still couldn’t tell if the barrier covered it or not.

  Soon we were above the white line of surf. It was obvious the breakers were huge. The wind must have been really strong. There was a gap of calm sea, and then we were rushing across what ought to have been land. But it was a marshy mix of mud and water. I thought I saw submerged houses and then a straggling of tents where the people from the houses seemed to be camping out.

  “You know,” Rees said, “it looks as if the barrier has made the rivers back up into floods.”

  We had no time to consider this. A great wind suddenly sprang up. It hit me in the back like a hard hand and I know I yelped. Finn grabbed Green Greet to him by the tips of his one hand. Then we were riding with the wind, speeding over swollen rivers and lakes with trees standing out of them; then over inundated fields, winding roads, villages and a small town. I saw Blodred’s wing retreat to the top of the balloon. Shortly, she came sliding down a rope to Rees’s shoulder, a small lizard again. And still we hurtled on.

  Logra is enormous. It is by far the largest of the islands. We rushed across it, over field after field, village after town, for a good hour to judge by the steadily climbing sun, and the other coast of it was still not in sight. At first, I thought the place was even flatter than Bernica, but we drifted lower as we went and then I could see that there were plenty of hills and valleys, just lower than I was used to and all seeming splendidly fertile. Now we could see people on the roads, riding horses or walking. Most of them were looking up at us and pointing. Others ran out of houses to look and point too.

  “I wish I could have made us invisible,” Rees said uneasily.

  “We’re attracting a lot of notice,” Finn agreed.

  “I think we should go higher,” Rees said. “Everyone to the pumps again.”

  So we all crowded to the bellows, except Aunt Beck, and became too hot and breathless for a while to see if people were seeing us or not. When I did get a chance to look, we were high, high again and passing over some quite large towns.

  “I don’t think the barrier is a dome,” I said. “There must be thousands of people down there. Surely they would have run out of air after ten years.”

  “We must give thought to where we need to land,” Finn suggested.

  “Need to land,” Green Greet said.

  “I was hoping we could come down somewhere near whatsit. The capital city,” Rees said. “It’s nearly opposite the Pandy. What’s its name again?”

  “Haranded,” Riannan and Ogo said together.

  This made me realise that Ogo had hardly said a word for hours. I looked at him and I could see he was full of strange feelings.

  “Do you remember any of this?” I asked him.

  “Not really,” he said. “Just the colours. The towns are red and the fields are yellow and green. And there’s a smell coming up that I know.” He pulled his lips in hard against his teeth and I could see he was struggling not to cry. I knew better than to make him talk any more.

  I considered the smell. Logra smelt of hay and spices and smoke. Gallis had smelled of heather and incense, Bernica of damp farmyards. I remembered, like biting on a sore tooth, the scents of Skarr – stone, lichen, gorse and bracken – and I felt like crying too for a moment.

  Meanwhile, the others were arguing about how we were to recognise Haranded if we came to it.

  “It must be a big city,” Rees said. “We can damp down the fire when we see it – no problem there.”

  “It would be simpler to take the spell off the raft,” Riannan said.

  “But we have to be sure where we are,” Rees insisted.

  “Won’t there be large buildings?” Finn said.

  “Yes, fine large ones. It’ll be where the king lives,” Ivar said. “But we just went over a place with a golden dome. Have we overshot?”

  Here Ogo conquered his emotions and said, very definitely, “The king’s palace is on a hill in the middle of Haranded. It’s white. It has big towers with blue roofs.”

  Everyone relaxed a little at this. Rees said, “Warn me when you see it. We don’t want to land on its roof.”

  Nothing like that happened. We had time to eat our provisions, and Rees was beginning to watch our fuel anxiously and say he hoped we would have enough left to get us aloft again, when we began to discern the outline of a large city, over to our left and a good many miles off.

  “We’re going to miss it,” Ivar said. “We’re miles to the south of it.”

  The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Plug-Ugly reared up beside me out of nowhere and threw himself hard against me. I went down with a wallop into the bottom of the boat. Winds hit us from all quarters as I fell. I lay on my back with Plug-Ugly crouching on my stomach and saw the fire streaming just above me, roaring. I would have been burnt but for Plug-Ugly. Next second, the fire was streaming another way. I had jumbled sights of everyone throwing themselves flat and the balloon above us blatting this way, then that way. I could feel us lurching and spinning. The fire roared and bellied around in a stream, and I watched, feeling it inevitable, the flames bite into the great silken patchwork and set it burning over our heads.

  Rees howled out the words of a quenching spell. Riannan broke into song. The flames went out in gusts of beastly-smelling smoke, but the damage was done. With a third of the great balloon missing, we went down and sideways. I could feel us doing it. When I scrambled to my knees and looked over the side, I could see the ground rushing underneath us and ourselves no higher than a house. I was truly terrified.

  But the winds had left us by then. We slowed, and slowed more, and went down until we skimmed hedges. I saw a horseman duck as we sailed over
him. I saw the city that had seemed so far off now only a mile or so away. I saw Rees standing up, swinging the anchor on its rope, and Finn beside him, bleeding from one arm where Green Greet had frantically clung on to him.

  “That field there,” Finn said. “No one will get hurt there.”

  We missed the field. We came down in a road with a mighty grinding and a whoosh as the hot air left the silk and the burnt patchwork flopped down half across us.

  Next moment we were surrounded by people. “Kill them!” they yelled. “Kill them! They put that damned barrier up!”

  Logra people are taller than I was used to, and fairer, and they have a strange accent. A whole crowd of tall, skinny, ragged women were pulling at the balloon, shrieking. It took me a moment to gather that they were yelling, “It’s silk! It’s real silk! What a waste of good clothing!”

  The men, who were equally ragged and even taller, were rocking at the boat where we sat, trying to tip us out, but the spell on the floater kept pulling us back upright and defeating them. Ivar had his sword drawn and was shouting, “Keep off! Keep back! First one to touch us gets his throat cut!” Green Greet was flapping and shrieking. Rees and Ogo both had their knives out and Plug-Ugly was rearing up, spitting. This made the people hesitate to touch us, but I knew it was only a matter of time before someone got brave enough to climb aboard. Then we would be swamped.

  What fools we’ve been! I thought. None of us had made any kind of plans about what we would do once we got here. It was as if we all had thought that just getting to Logra would be enough.

  Here, somebody seized hold of Aunt Beck where she sat in the front. I scrambled over, shouting, “Don’t you dare!” in a booming voice I didn’t know I had. The person let go hurriedly.

  It wasn’t because of my voice.

  Horsemen were galloping up, surrounding the crowd. They had swords out that were larger and wider than Ivar’s, and they were hitting people with the flat of them.

  One of them called out in a loud, official voice, “Get back! Leave the prisoners to us!” They all wore some sort of uniform – soldiers, I supposed.

  “Are we rescued?” Ivar said.

  “I doubt it,” Rees said, but Ivar sheathed his sword anyway.

  We were definitely prisoners. The soldiers wouldn’t speak to us, except to say, “None of you move.” Some of them cut the charred patchwork loose from the boat. Others brought up more horses – rather elderly, skinny horses that must have belonged to the ragged people, to judge by the yells of protest – and hitched a whole row of them to the boat. Then someone cracked a whip and we were towed off in a grim crowd of riders. We could only look at one another and shrug.

  Haranded was barely a mile away. There were no walls. Houses just grew larger and more frequent around us and became crooked streets with shops to either side. I liked the houses, nervous though I was. They were all built of brick with red roofs, in hundreds of fancy patterns. People were busy rolling aside shutters over the shops, then pausing to stare at us. I was surprised to see it was still early in the morning for these people. I felt as if we had lived through most of a day already.

  Presently, we came into a wide street leading uphill. It had statues on each side, mostly very big, of men and women in flowing robes.

  “What a very boastful road,” I whispered to Ogo. “Who are all the statues?”

  “Kings, queens, wizards – maybe some gods,” Ogo answered. “I think it was called Royal Avenue.”

  He must have been right because the street led straight up to the white walls of the palace, where there was a big gate. More men in uniform were waiting for us there. The leader of the horsemen said to the one with gold on his coat, “The spies from the flying machine, sir.”

  “Good,” said Gold-coat. And he said to one of his soldiers, “Go and tell the magistrate. He must be awake by now.”

  The soldier said, “Yessir,” and went off through the gate at a run.

  I realised, as we were towed through the gate into a square courtyard, that they must have been able to see us in the air for miles and had made ready for us.

  The gate clanged shut behind us and more lowly-looking people hurried out to take the horses away. They wanted to take Green Greet away too, but Finn shouted, “No, no, this is the Guardian of the West! He stays with me!” while Green Greet flew shrieking into the air, alarming them all. They left him alone then, and he sat on Finn’s shoulder again. Plug-Ugly was invisible. I realised that he had vanished as soon as the horsemen arrived. And of course no one saw Blodred, hiding up Rees’s sleeve. So all ten of us were together as we were made to climb out of the boat and march into the great white building ahead.

  Aunt Beck made quite a nuisance of herself. At first, she wouldn’t climb out of the boat and, when they tried pulling her, she shouted, “Take your hands off me! How dare you touch a Wise Woman of Skarr!”

  Everyone hastily let go of her and Gold-coat said, “Madam, if you don’t get out by yourself, I shall personally carry you!”

  While this was going on, I said despairingly to Rees, “What do we do now?”

  Rees was looking quite unreasonably calm, to my mind. “Something will happen,” he said. “Just be patient.”

  Meanwhile, Aunt Beck climbed out on to the flagstones with great dignity. Then we were marched off into the palace.

  Logra people were certainly not early risers. By the time we had clattered through some very unimpressive wooden corridors and been herded into a bare wooden room, the magistrate was only just arriving, still struggling into his white official robes and yawning as he sat on the only chair in the place. He was a shaggy, stupid-looking man, as unimpressive as the room. About the only impressive thing there was a giant picture painted on the plaster wall of a bull with large blue wings. As the magistrate fussily settled himself, I pointed at it and asked Ogo, “Whatever is that?”

  Gold-coat answered me, sounding shocked. “That is the image of the Great Guardian of Logra. Show respect, young woman.”

  “I need to go to the toilet,” Aunt Beck announced.

  “Show them where,” the magistrate said wearily. “Show them all.”

  So we were led off again. Riannan, Aunt Beck and I were shown to a fairly well-appointed whitewashed place with a privy in it. I must say it was very welcome. I imagine the others felt the same. At any rate, Finn, Ivar, Ogo and Rees were herded back into the room looking a good deal more cheerful.

  “Now,” the magistrate said, “can we begin, please?” He had been given a steaming cup of something while we were gone and he sipped at it, glowering at us over the top of it. “I must say you are a very motley lot of spies.”

  “We are not spies,” Ivar said, glowering back.

  “Then why are you here?” said the magistrate. “And you address me as Your Honour.”

  Rees took hold of Ivar’s arm to shut him up. “Because,” he said, “er – Your Honour – I had the notion that the barrier could be crossed from the air and we wished to prove it. As you see, we did prove it.”

  “A very inadequate story,” the magistrate said. “Of course you came to spy. What puzzles me is why there are seven of you from all over the place.”

  Gold-coat said, pointing at Aunt Beck, “This one claims to be a Wise Woman of Skarr, Your Honour.”

  The magistrate looked at Aunt Beck, with her hair half undone because of the winds. “Well, I’ve heard they’re all wild, mad females. She could be. It makes no difference to my decision. They’re all foreigners. Lock them all up until the Regent has time to deal with them.”

  “Regent?” said Aunt Beck. “What Regent is this? I thought you had a king.”

  “The Regent is the king’s brother, who rules because of the king’s illness,” the magistrate said. “And you address me as Your Honour.”

  “Then you address me as Wisdom,” Aunt Beck said.

  “No I don’t,” said the magistrate. “You’re a spy. Lock them all up.”

  “But I’m a Prince of Ska
rr,” Ivar protested. “I shouldn’t be locked up.”

  “Nor should my sister be,” Rees said. “She’s a starred singer of Gallis.”

  “Address me as Your Honour!” the magistrate almost screamed.

  “And I am a holy monk from Bernica,” Finn added. “To lock me up is ungodly.”

  “Say Your Honour!” the magistrate yelled.

  Ogo, rather hesitantly, stepped forward and said, “Your Honour, I am a citizen of Logra. I was born here and—”

  The magistrate looked at him scornfully. “Oh yes? You come here wearing barbaric Skarr clothing and tell me that! You’re obviously one of the great tall savages they breed there.”

  Ogo’s face was pink. He was, I saw, taller than anyone else in the room. He must have been growing madly lately. He started to speak again and the magistrate cut in with, “Now you’re going to bleat at me that you’re really a prince, like that boy there.” He pointed to Ivar.

  Ivar said, “But I am!”

  Ogo began, “Well—”

  “Oh, take them away!” the magistrate howled. “Lock them up with the other prisoners until the Regent has time to deal with them.” He dumped his cup on the side of his chair and waved both arms with his hands flopping. The cup keeled over and crashed to the floor. “Now look what you’ve made me do!” he said.

  I found it hard not to laugh, in spite of the trouble we were in. Riannan was laughing, with one hand over her mouth. But Ivar was seething. Ogo was breathing heavily and looked to be near tears. As the soldiers shoved us out of the room, Ivar took his feelings out on Ogo by saying, “Don’t worry. We all know you’re the Ogre from Logra.”

  Rees expressed his feelings by saying, “What a very low grade of official. Can’t they afford anyone better? If that man was a priest in Gallis, he’d be serving in Synon.”

  “Or in Gorse End,” Riannan agreed.

  “Are those very low places?” I asked. “I do hope so.”

  Aunt Beck startled me by saying, “He should be mucking out cattle.”