Gullstruck Island

by Frances Hardinge

  ‘What makes you think the Lace would go tramping over the volcanoes in monsoon weather?’ Therrot’s tone of voice walked the tightrope between idle curiosity and disinterest.

  ‘Because their leader’s already here – we’re on the look out for her.’ The guard pulled out a rough pencil-drawn picture. Its lines were crude, but there was something in it of Arilou, her high cheekbones and serene pirate eyes. ‘Look at this – you seen her while you’ve been walking?’

  Therrot examined the picture, gave a snort and pushed it back into the guardsman’s hands.

  ‘How the hell am I supposed to know from a picture like that?’ He laughed. ‘Looks a bit like me.’

  ‘It’s no joking matter,’ snapped the guard. ‘She’s the one who ordered the murders of the Lost – so they wouldn’t be able to warn us when her armies approached.’

  Hathin could not suppress a flinch at these words. She twisted her hands together to stop them shaking. Fortunately the guards’ eyes were on Therrot, and they did not notice the flush creeping across her face.

  It was happening, just as Dance had predicted. The tales of a murderous Lace conspiracy which had infected Sweet-weather like a madness were spreading and had reached Mistleman’s Blunder. Seeing towers built to scan the horizons for her sister and herself had been bad enough. But it was only now that the enormity and absurdity of the situation overwhelmed her.

  Then, to her horror, ahead she saw Arilou starting to stir in Jaze’s arms as if rousing herself from sleep. Would she stay calm when she found herself carried by a stranger? And if she drew attention to herself, how long would it take for Prox to recognize the Lady Lost Arilou?

  Prox was folding his map, staring down the road as he did so. He was glancing for the first time at the little huddle of figures on the road . . . he was turning with a start as a young man came running from the direction of the jungle, a swoop of lichen and blood smearing his cheek, and headed straight to Prox.

  ‘. . . were searching the jungle, and . . . gunshot . . . men and a few women . . . Lace, I’m sure of it . . . some kind of treehouse.’ Hathin heard only fragments of his panted report.

  Suddenly Prox was bristling and terrier-like. In spite of her fear, Hathin stealthily moved a bit closer in order to hear more.

  ‘Lace?’ Prox pushed his fingers through his hair, his eyes alive with excitement. ‘A Lace hideout in the jungle. I think we’ve found her. Tell me –’ he grabbed the sleeve of the lichen-stained man – ‘did you see a girl? About thirteen years old? So high, with mix-blood skin and high cheekbones?’

  ‘No . . . I don’t think so. Just men and women full grown.’

  ‘Did you catch any of them?’

  ‘We didn’t get the chance – there were a good dozen of them, sir. At least. I mean . . . they were everywhere, sir. There was this whistling, and then the trees came alive with them . . . and then there was this creaking crash, and the tree-house came down on us, along with about two dozen wasps’ nests. Ten of us went into that forest. I’m the only one who’s come out again.’

  ‘What?’

  Prox’s exclamation coincided with another gunshot from the jungle. Out across the plain workmen could be seen running towards the jungle, axes and hammers in hand.

  ‘Stop!’ Prox’s voice had no chance of reaching the disappearing figures. ‘Will you all stop running into the jungle! Stop it! What is wrong with you all? Here –’ he turned to the young man beside him – ‘will you please run and tell those idiots to come back, before this town’s population is reduced to three!’

  Seeing the distressed and perplexed look in Prox’s bright brown eyes, Hathin suddenly felt sorry for him despite herself. Then, as Prox listened to a murmur in his ear, his brow creased and became pensive.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said after a moment or two. ‘We can’t go in after them, we’ll have to cut off their supplies. Someone’s been supplying them – someone local. Where are the nearest Lace villages?’ Pausing, listening. ‘Only ten miles down the coastal road?’ He unfolded his map once more and he studied the portion pointed out to him.

  ‘No,’ he murmured at last. ‘We can’t have a bolthole like that for them so close to the town. The risk is too great.’ Somebody put a pencil in his hand, and after a moment’s frowning he slashed four times at the map. ‘These villages will have to go. We’ll set up a camp here for the inhabitants. If they’re not penned, they’ll be into the jungles and long grass like snakes and we’ll have to burn them out.’ He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Trope!’ Therrot’s voice. ‘Grab your bucket; we’re going.’ Hathin ducked her head and hefted her bucket and pack on to her back. All thought of speaking with Prox had evaporated.

  ‘Look at that!’ A snort of uncertain mirth from one of the guards. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  Arilou’s eyes were open, and filled with a happy, dove-grey light. She had stretched out one arm and was stiffly waving it up and down, as if in a stately somnambulist dance. She let her head tip back, and her mouth fell open into a broad smile. A second more and everybody would notice what Hathin could see quite clearly, the distinctive circular tooth-plaques that marked Arilou as a Lace.

  But in that second everyone’s attention was stolen by a miracle. It was a six-foot tall, scabby-toed miracle covered in dun-coloured feathers. The miracle came upon them so fast that Therrot had to yank Hathin out of its way, and then it was zigzagging wildly among the guards, its flanks huffing and jumping with each long, bouncing stride.

  It was an elephant bird, the bit slipped from its beak, a teenage boy clinging to its bristling wings and near to sliding off the back of its rump. He appeared to be cooing reassuringly to it while it rampaged mad-eyed and seemed to blame everybody for the reins tangling its legs.

  Once again, Jaze was quick to take advantage of the distraction. He set off briskly, Arilou in his arms. Hathin heaved a sigh of relief, which she had to swallow as the elephant bird made a desultory jab at her with its beak. She leaped away from it, and bumped into a man who had been standing quietly not far from Prox.

  ‘Sorry, sir – I didn’t notice you,’ she croaked, trying to keep her tone boyish. Utterly flustered, she stooped for the telescope she had knocked from his hand.

  ‘People seldom do; it’s all right.’ It was a lean, well-dressed middle-aged man, who spoke in Doorsy so smooth and musical that it almost reminded Hathin of Lace. ‘You’re not the only person who has been too distracted to look right under their nose.’ She stared up at him, and saw a narrow, pleasant face gazing over her head towards the mountains. He smiled, and unaccountably she felt the brass and glass of the telescope grow cold in her hands. ‘To think, there we were, all ready to scour the Coast of the Lace looking for her . . . And now we are told that she’s here! Fancy her coming here! That’s a quite beautiful piece of cheek.’ The stranger looked down and directed a radiant, delighted smile through Hathin and beyond her towards some private thought. And suddenly she felt skinless, fleshless, as if a wall of cold air had raced right through her without noticing her.

  The cold feeling would not leave her even when she fell into stride with Therrot and walked past the preoccupied Prox with her head bowed and her heart beating.

  ‘What the hell happened to Arilou back there?’ hissed Therrot once they were a little distant.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Hathin whispered back, ‘but I think she found herself. Only her body looked different in disguise, so she was swinging her arm around to make sure it was the right one.’

  ‘Brilliant timing,’ Therrot muttered. ‘If we’re going to survive this journey, you will have to teach her something of your gift for invisibility.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Hathin replied after a moment. ‘Not being noticed – it is a skill, something you can practise, get good at. And sometimes you can spot somebody else who’s doing it too. That man back there. That other Doorsy man.’

  ‘What other Doorsy man?’

  ‘Exactly. I didn’t see him either
at first. But he’s just standing there, putting out Mr Prox’s thoughts for him like a skivvy laying out his boots and shirt, and Mr Prox puts them on and doesn’t even notice where they came from. But I noticed him. He didn’t see me, but I saw him.’

  17

  Killer Kind

  Retrieving the bloodied, wasp-stung survivors of the battle in Mistleman’s Chandlery took Minchard Prox the better part of an hour. Calming them down enough that their reports made sense took more time, and a good deal of rum. The last man to be rescued from under the fallen treehouse had seen more of his attackers than the rest, and came round babbling about a ‘giant woman-man with a forest of braids’.

  Prox turned to suppress a grimace of exasperation only to find that Camber, the ever-pleasant and unfazable Camber, had gone absolutely white. With an expression of incredulity, he was mouthing a word under his breath.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dance,’ Camber repeated. ‘And she’s not a what, she’s a who. She’s supposed to be an ex-who. And this man has just described her.’ He shook his head as though trying to shake the thought out. ‘It’s Dance. There’s simply nobody else that it can be. And if she is alive, then the Lost Council lied . . .’

  Camber rallied himself, and seemed to become aware that Prox was looking at him with some confusion and concern.

  ‘Mr Prox –’ Camber cleared his throat – ‘we have, I think, a very serious problem. If Dance is still alive and well . . . then so is the Reckoning.’

  A horrified hush spread through the group gathered at the roadside. Prox looked around him, as if trying to reassure himself that Lace armed with obsidian knives weren’t threatening that very moment to seethe out of the jungle.

  ‘Bring ink – I need to write letters to Port Suddenwind and every governor in Gullstruck. And fetch me every bird-back messenger you can. This is bigger than we thought.

  ‘If the Reckoning still exists and is involved in this conspiracy, then they have the traditional right to demand help from every living Lace. We must consider every single one of them to be a potential enemy . . . and we must strike before they do.’

  Only after the messages had been dispatched did Prox look down at the reports in his hand and remember a detail that had snagged his attention. He caught Camber’s eye, and the latter was by his side in a moment.

  Moving out of earshot of their companions, the two men strolled along the road towards the town, the little bells on Prox’s shoes uttering a silvery defiance, those on Camber’s feet clapper-less and silent.

  ‘I’ve received a letter from the governor of Sweetweather,’ Prox began without preamble. ‘His own account of the happenings there. There’s little more than we’ve discussed . . . except he makes mention of a woman who was visiting Sweetweather around the time of the Hollow Beasts massacre, a travelling dentist. Some say she seemed very friendly with the Lace, some say she was one of the leaders of the riot against them – the reports are a mess. But she had jewelled teeth. Not quite in the Lace style, but still . . . it might be worth finding out more about her. Just in case she’s part of the Lace conspiracy, helping pass messages between them as she moves from place to place.

  ‘I didn’t want to mention this too publicly. After all, we’ve already had one case of riot and massacre, and in all probability the poor woman has nothing to do with the conspiracy, but if you could make some quiet enquiries . . .’

  Camber took the reports from Prox’s outstretched hand. ‘Mr Prox, if she can be found, she will be found. I shall see to it.’

  ‘I’m glad I can count on . . .’ Prox trailed off, frowning. ‘Now, what in the world is he doing? Should he even be out of bed?’

  The crowd by the roadblock had all moved aside, out of wary respect, to allow space to a solitary figure. Amid the midnight blue of its skin and clothes were darker blots of dried blood, but it did not move with the hobbling hesitancy of the injured.

  Brendril stooped at the base of one of the towers. One blue fingertip traced the outline of a single small footprint in the rain-softened earth, and then the Ashwalker raised his head to stare down the eastern road.

  As the day wore on, the troop of disguised Lace was relieved to see the Obsidian Trail becoming busier. Some of the luckier trudgers had an elephant bird to take part of their burden, and there seemed to be a good number of bird-back messengers speeding this way and that, and so Hathin grew used to the rasping squelch of talons on the muddy road. It was a while before she realized that the same bird-steps had been sounding a little to her left for the last ten minutes.

  She looked up, and her ‘miracle’ was walking beside her, the teenage boy now comfortably settled on the elephant bird’s back. He had a round, open face and cacao-coloured eyes which were currently fixed upon the far distance with an expectant look, as if he’d missed something the horizon had said and was waiting for a repetition. He was, however, reining in his bird to keep pace with their gathering.

  ‘Where’s Dance?’ he asked in Lace.

  Jaze did not appear to hear him. Therrot’s tongue was pushed into his cheek.

  The boy did not seem particularly offended at being ignored. ‘You know, one of those guards back there cuffed me across the ear. It feels thick as a breadslice. Do you want to have a look?’

  ‘It doesn’t count, Tomki,’ Therrot growled under his breath. He gave the boy a look of exasperation, but one not devoid of affection. ‘He didn’t “wrong” you, Tomki. He cuffed you because you attacked him with an elephant bird.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t know that I did it on purpose.’ Tomki shrugged. ‘So . . . where are we meeting Dance?’

  ‘We’re not! We don’t know . . .’ Therrot brought himself up short, and met Jaze’s eye. It was an uneasy subject, and one that the trudging revengers had been avoiding raising. What was happening back in Mistleman’s Chandlery? Had Dance and the others escaped? ‘Dance has danced off on her own mission,’ Therrot continued after a pause. ‘And you’re not coming with us! This is revengers’ business – it’s far too dangerous . . .’ Therrot trailed off as Tomki’s eyes took on a delighted gleam.

  ‘You’ve done it now,’ sighed Jaze.

  ‘All Lace should help a revenger in any way they can, shouldn’t they?’ Tomki asked hopefully.

  ‘That’s up to the revenger in question,’ Jaze answered swiftly. ‘Hathin . . . this young man . . .’

  ‘. . . thinks he’s in love with Dance,’ Therrot finished curtly. ‘He saw her while she was . . . taking care of . . . something on the streets of Mistleman’s Blunder, and ever since that he’s been trying to get himself wronged so he can get the tattoo and join the Reckoning.’

  Hathin could only stare at Tomki, struggling to imagine this sunny-faced boy developing a passion for a brooding giantess more than twice his age. He caught her eye, grinned at her and shrugged.

  ‘He spills drinks on people who look like they might punch him,’ Therrot added in an undertone, ‘and I’ve known him spend six hours outside the roughest tavern in Blunder singing the same song over and over again in the hope that somebody would come out and stab him.’

  ‘He was really useful back with the road guards though, wasn’t he?’ ventured Hathin. ‘And . . . sometimes it might be handy to have someone around who hasn’t got the tattoo.’ No tooth plaques either, she noted, as Tomki’s smile broadened. ‘Not to mention that the elephant bird could come in useful.’

  ‘It’s your quest.’ Jaze and Therrot exchanged a resigned smile, but neither challenged her decision.

  The plan was for Hathin’s party to travel throughout each day, except for those hours when savage monsoon rain made walking impractical, and spend their nights in pre-arranged hideouts along their route, or in Lace villages friendly to their cause. On the first night of the journey they stopped at an old shack concealed beneath a cluster of giant ferns. It smelt of damp soil, and its walls were etched with pictograms from earlier revengers. However, Jaze would not let them enter until he had peered in and exa
mined the earth floor of the hut.

  ‘All right. It’s safe.’ He tapped a squiggle which had been cut into the floor with a knife. ‘Dance’s mark. She’s been here ahead of us, and this shack should be safe.’ There was a general easing of anxiety. Whatever had happened in Mistle-man’s Chandlery, it did not appear to have slowed Dance down.

  The same routine was followed each evening. After a long day’s walk, when Hathin was almost tottering with weariness, Jaze would make them wait outside some village or area of unprepossessing scrubland while he checked that all was safe. Then, after Arilou had been installed, the group would forage for food.

  Arilou seemed delighted to be reunited with herself. While the revengers took turns to scavenge through the forest, she stared straight ahead and stirred first one limb then another in wondering delight. Her usual stream of musical babble seemed louder than it had been for some time, and Hathin guessed that she was relishing the sound of her own voice as well.

  Each evening Hathin was given twine for bird-trapping. Nobody commented when she came back with only berries and mushrooms, but as they sat eating their stew later she found it hard to meet their eyes. By the third night her sense of failure was so painful that she could not sleep.

  What kind of revenger was she? If she couldn’t bring herself to tug a string and drop a hunk of wood on a wild turkey’s head, what good would she be faced by her enemies, with the entire universe waiting for her to right wrongs and make it whole again? She tried to imagine herself with her dagger in her hand, facing down . . . who? Lean and laughing Jimboly? The Ashwalker? Minchard Prox, with his bright bewildered eyes? Or . . . Or that other Doorsy man, the one whose features were already trying to creep from her memory?

  Whatever she had to become, she clearly had not become it yet. But she would. With this resolution she slipped out into the forest.

  Therrot roused himself an hour later to find Hathin on her knees in floods of tears, her knife-point poised over her cap, which lay on the floor before her.