by Soyna Owley
‘Ready, Yaksha?’ Balsam asked.
Floyd nodded. He turned to Naveen. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Naveen shrugged and, to Floyd’s surprise, tears collected in his eyes. ‘The last time I was here, it was—’ he broke off. The tips of his dreadlocks budded small tea roses. He gently bumped the side of Floyd’s face with his clenched wrist. ‘Yaksha, good luck. Be as the bamboo—bend but don’t break.’
Floyd nodded, a lump in his throat, and followed Balsam to the rowboat. The giant door in the ship’s wall opened and they glided into the marshy water.
Thousands of bright purple crabs clambered over each other within the little hollows formed by the stilted tree roots. A low, sinister chuckle sounded. Floyd shivered. Balsam laughed.
‘A Durjipore Marsh Kookaburra. There she is. Territorial little blighter. Best to stay away.’
A red bird with eyes like flat river pebbles perched on a tree branch and chuckled. They rowed in and out of the low branches on which curtains of moss hung, moving further into the increasingly crowded trees as the water became shallow, and finally pulled up on a muddy bank. The spicy fragrance of ginger and cardamom, mixed with the heady smell of wet earth, was dizzying. Chutney jumped out and immediately began sniffing the ground.
Balsam pulled out a copper compass, green with age, and snapped the cover open. ‘We head two miles north and one and a half miles to the east.’
Balsam bowed to a tree in a thicket and chanted ‘Beej se banega paed. From a small seed comes a tree.’ With a small pocket knife he cut a branch off, slicing through the thick wood like it was a ripe papaya. A new branch shot out from the cut edge and in seconds it got covered over with bark, showing no sign that it had ever been damaged.
‘Nymph wood,’ Balsam explained, as Floyd’s eyes widened. ‘Cuts like butter, hardens like steel.’ He handed a staff to Floyd. ‘We’re going to need this further ahead.’
‘You mean I’m going to need this,’ Floyd said. He jumped as a shrill scream cut the silence. Orangutans taunted them from the trees above. Vermilion butterflies, the size of pigeons, floated in the air. Chutney barked and bounded ahead, chasing a blue dragonfly the size of a peacock feather.
Balsam put an arm around Floyd. ‘Yaksha, I know how you feel. You’d be a fool if you weren’t scared.’
‘I have no idea what I’m doing. What I’m looking for.’ Floyd quelled the rising thought. Soon he would be alone, with only a feather and a dog to protect him.
‘You must find your own way, Yaksha.’ Balsam cut off another branch and whittled it to a smooth staff as Floyd watched. A copse of bamboo stalks with large thorns snapped at them as they walked by. Balsam smoothed his hand over the stalks and made a clucking sound with his tongue. Immediately the thorns withdrew.
‘Easy for you to say. No one tells you all the time that you’re unlucky,’ Floyd cried out as Balsam plucked a cluster of green peppercorns from a curling vine and a few shiny leaves of sunny yellow turmeric.
‘Unlucky? Hardly. You’ve out-flown a Varengan, even procured its feather, survived a mentally unstable demon and bargained with two deadly spirits. Besides, how unlucky could you be if we need your help?’ They walked in silence until they reached a clearing where the tops of the trees stretched into a cone-like roof, blotting out the sun.
‘Ah, wonderful. Time for urraam, a rest well deserved,’ Balsam said, stretching.
‘What’s this place?’ Floyd wondered aloud, looking up at the strange leafy ceiling.
‘Mutchaan Number Seventeen. A rest stop for weary forest travellers.’ He pulled a dead branch from a tree. ‘I’m a little peckish. Let’s make a fire. Chutney, be a good dog and go get us some food. No, Yaksha, not those green branches. Collect the dead branches on the ground.’
Floyd picked up a deeply lined branch. ‘What kind of wood is this?’
‘Those are my ancestors,’ Balsam said with a smile. ‘The Ressuldars come here to die.’
Floyd dropped the wood as goosebumps covered his body. ‘These are Ressuldar corpses?’ He felt faint. He had never even seen a dead body, and now he had held one.
‘A Mutchaan is a resting place—for some people, a final one. Don’t be alarmed,’ Balsam said and smiled. ‘The cycle of life is eternal; they’ve merely passed into a different form. Like you and I will, some day. When I have a lazy moment, I enjoy thinking about what I might be in my next life. Perhaps something that swims. Death is full of promise for those who believe. Now, back to the practicalities at hand. Pay attention—you need to learn to make a fire.’
Balsam dug a square hole in the ground. He lined it with sticks and began whittling wood shavings off a branch.
‘Observe, Yaksha. It’s cold where you’re going, so if you don’t want to turn to a frozen lump, it’s important to make it this way.’ He glanced up when Floyd didn’t reply. ‘What’s the matter? You’re quieter than a dewdrop on a rose petal.’
‘I was just wondering about the question the Kishm asked me, you know—’
‘The purpose of your journey?’ Balsam shaved the branch.
‘I am doing this for Farook,’ said Floyd. ‘Why else? I don’t know what answer she could possibly want.’
‘Look within. It may be hidden because it’s something you don’t want to see. The reasons we do things are not always obvious.’ Balsam placed one log upon the other, making a pyramid in the firepit.
Floyd smiled at Balsam. ‘Not obvious? Is that supposed to help me?’ He passed Balsam a long twig.
‘Sometimes there’s no one to ask but your own heart.’ Balsam was silent for a moment and then looked at Floyd.
‘But how do I know I can do this?’ Floyd said, running his thumbs over his eyebrows. Balsam was answering his questions with questions. Why couldn’t someone just tell him what to do?
‘How does a pomegranate know when to ripen? A jasmine when to blossom?’ Balsam asked in turn. ‘The answer will reveal itself when you’re ready.’ There, Balsam was doing it again—talking in that irritating, unhelpful way and jawing on about fruits and flowers.
‘I’m the most ordinary boy in the world,’ Floyd said in a cracked whisper.
‘The extraordinary starts out ordinary,’ Balsam said. ‘That’s why the extraordinary is so simple, Yaksha.’
A crashing of branches startled them. Both of them turned, their knives drawn. Chutney bounded into the Mutchaan with a fat blue and yellow fish wriggling in his mouth. They laughed for a full minute before they set to work.
Balsam put a sugar cane stick through the fish and, squeezing lemon on it, turned it on the fire until it charred. They ate slowly, savouring its smoky sweetness.
They leaned back against the trunk of a tree. Floyd’s stomach ached with a sweet fullness as he watched Balsam prepare for his evening ritual. He sang a lilting wild song that Floyd understood, even though the language was foreign.
Balsam sang of moonlight in the forest and the sap flowing through a tree. He sang of the mother tree and her generations of saplings, and of earth secrets whispered by rustling leaves. He turned a deep green as large vines grew out from him in every direction, and soon all was quiet except for the chirping of crickets. Chutney slept, snoring softly, his back muscles gleaming in the firelight. Floyd pulled some soft vines from Balsam’s foliage over him. The Varengan feather warmed his chest, and he drifted into a sleep more peaceful than he could remember in a very long time.
A few hours later, he was being shaken awake. ‘Yaksha, it’s almost daylight.’
Floyd stretched and yawned. He felt like he had slept for a hundred years.
Balsam lifted him off the ground. ‘We have to get a move on—’
Floyd shook his sleep off as the reality of the impending day loomed before him. ‘I know. Then I’m on my own.’
Balsam grimaced. ‘Yaksha, you know I would come with you except that—’
‘You’d die. I know,’ Floyd said. He swallowed the unspoken words that had formed a thick knob in his throat. P
lease don’t leave me here.
Balsam patted Floyd’s back. ‘Time to listen. You must find the hanging cave. It’s a lift, about midway up the mountain. It takes you into the very bowels of Chandi Mountain. Once you’re in, find out what exactly is going on—how the Merrows are involved, what their plans are—then leave immediately with Chutney and report back to us. If anything goes wrong, you’ll have the Varengan feather to protect you. That lovely plume will keep the Merrows at bay. Just hold on to it carefully.’
Floyd shivered. ‘Have you been inside?’
‘One time. When I was just an innocent chokra, a boy, Chandi was covered with grass as smooth and springy as a lotus leaf. My friends and I would play on its slopes and explore its insides. It was exquisite—tunnels veined with gold and sapphire so bright, I didn’t even need a torch. But then Chandi became mysteriously covered with ice a hundred years ago. The mangroves surrounding it became smaller. The hanging cave is still the only way inside, but otherwise Chandi, as I knew it, is totally changed. The entrance must surely be iced over.’
Balsam opened another scroll. ‘According to this map, the trail begins under the porcelain tree. It’s a frozen thimbleberry, the last one on the mountain. No one knows why it didn’t crumble away. Even its flowers are intact, like a frozen time capsule.’ Balsam wiped a pale green tear from his eye. ‘Oh, how sad these memories make me.’
Chutney whimpered and pushed his nose into the crook of Balsam’s knee. ‘Somewhere along the trail is a hidden entrance to the hanging cave,’ Balsam said, his breathing strenuous. ‘The pointer rock is the clue—it looks like a giant porcupine. The trick is to find it under all that ice. It has a prophecy of sorts carved on it. We never cared to interpret its message. It always just seemed like scratch marks on an old rock. But then we learned through our surveillance that it is of great significance to the Merrows and that they have been able to only decipher part of the prophecy. Of course, by then Chandi was iced over and it was too late to use this.’
Balsam pulled out a vial containing what looked like half a dozen blue ladybirds whizzing around in it. ‘These are Cipher beetles. They live on walnut trees in Bhutan.’
‘I need ladybirds?’ Floyd said, examining the tube. How strange!
‘If you throw them on any foreign script, they will translate it for you. By the way, Bhutan is very hostile to the Merrows, so they can’t procure these rare and costly creatures. Besides, something tells me the rock may only show itself to the one who is meant to see it. Use them well.’ Floyd put the vial in his cloak pocket and heard it clink against the tube Kusmati had given him.
Balsam and Floyd trudged away from the Mutchaan, through the forest and towards the large mountain. As the air around them cooled and became thinner, Balsam’s breath became laboured and his skin an unhealthy yellowish green.
Floyd pulled his cloak tighter around his body. They were now at the base of Chandi Mountain, its craggy surface forbidding, its flat peak hidden in thick clouds. Ahead of them, a narrow white path snaked up to the side of the mountain. The air was thinning and it was getting harder to breathe.
‘I must bid you namaste,’ Balsam gasped. He handed Floyd a lumpy silk bag and a wooden flask.
‘What’s this?’ Floyd said.
‘Provisions, food and weapons. You’ve got to eat, right?’ Balsam said, still gasping. ‘Yaksha, I need to leave … it’s much too cold. Your mission awaits. Time is of the quintessence. Keep the Varengan feather close.’
Balsam turned and walked away. Floyd watched his stooped, retreating back until it disappeared into the green of the forest. He caressed the Varengan feather under his sweater and turned to Chutney. ‘It’s just you and me, boy.’
15
The Second Task
Floyd’s feet were raw and his mouth parched. He had walked at least two miles and the air was getting thinner. At the turn of the path, a tall tree laden with squarish purple berries appeared. He touched a purple-red berry that cracked off its branch and shattered on the ice below. Every inch of this tree was frozen. He looked at the berries—they were the shape of thimbles. This must be a thimbleberry tree. His mouth watered at the thought of the thimbleberry tumblets the Ressuldars had offered him when he had first arrived. Pushing away thoughts of hunger and forcing himself to focus, he looked at the map. This is where he must fly a small distance, as per Balsam’s instructions. Then he would find the pointer rock.
‘Come on, Chutney.’
Chutney’s wings unfurled and Floyd climbed upon the dog’s back and put his arms around its great neck, nuzzling his warmth. They flew over the path until it forked in two trails, both hugging opposite sides of the mountain. The path was shrouded in low-lying trees and showed only in patches through the vegetation. He would have to make the journey by foot from here; he might miss the pointer rock if he flew.
‘Down, Chutney.’
Chutney descended smoothly through the trees and landed on the path. The dog seemed to understand him more by the minute. There was a forked trail in front of him. Which one should he take? One of them must lead to the hanging cave but the other could lead anywhere. In this cold, that could be a deadly mistake.
Floyd looked at the map Balsam had given him but his snowy surroundings bore little resemblance to the images on the paper. All of a sudden, Chutney barked, the sound reverberating like gunshots in the lifeless silence. Chutney was barking at a nearby rock. A white praying mantis, its body like a sculpture of tiny icicles and eyes like drops of blood, stood with its legs clasped. It was the size of his foot. The incongruity of something moving in this indolent landscape struck him. How had this mantis survived in this bone-chilling cold? The mantis stretched out a limb and pointed towards the path on the left. Then it reassumed its ghoulish praying stance.
‘Thanks,’ Floyd said, feeling slightly foolish. He was taking advice from an insect, perhaps to his doom, although, strangely enough, something about it seemed right.
He walked up the narrow left path that snaked along the side of the mountain. He wobbled as a pebble gave way under his shoe and silently fell into the abyss below. One wrong step and he, too, would be falling endlessly. Steadying himself against the mountain wall, he went on, his silent ascent interrupted only by the gravel crunching under his feet. They came to a hairpin bend, turned, and the path widened abruptly. He was now standing on a giant shelf of rock with a cluster of spindly trees growing out of the cracks in the mountain wall. Sticks, fallen branches and dried bark were strewn about the ground. A small stream had frozen, but a trickle of water oozed down the mountain.
Thousands of feet below, the land of Durjipore stretched out. The river that the Charpoy had travelled meandered through the forest like a silver ribbon and spilled into the open sea. The air was thin and cold, and smelled of pine and fresh earth. How huge the world was, and how far away from home he was. Farook, I’m coming. I’m closer. He craned his neck but was unable to sight the Charpoy. He turned away, his head swimming. How he hated heights. Chutney pawed the ground and tossed his head.
‘Why so restless, boy?’ Floyd patted his dog’s head.
His muscles taut, he slowly lowered himself and sat down on the gravel. Chutney huddled next to him, nuzzling his cold, wet nose in the crook of his knee, and whimpered again. Now what? Wherever that pointer rock was, it would be impossible to spot it under the snow.
His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He swigged water from the wooden flask, savouring its cool sweetness. His stomach rumbled. He opened the bag Balsam had given him.
Inside, against the rich green silk, were all of his favourite foods. Fresh ripe mangosteen and coconut cashew fudge flavoured with coarsely ground cardamom, just like Ma made on special occasions. Curried pineapple and sticky rice cakes neatly wrapped in a banana leaf. Even a few dozen tamarind tuckers. At the bottom of the pile of goodies was a packet of dog biscuits for Chutney, a compass, a silver whistle and a small, sheathed curved dagger. Chutney wagged his tail and wolfed the bi
scuits down.
He placed a piece of coconut fudge into his mouth and almost sobbed. Just like Ma’s. He allowed it to melt, the spicy cardamom warming him. He ate a few spoons of the rice and pineapple curry, rolling it around in his mouth before swallowing. Much better.
Chutney pressed against him, shivering. The cold was now unbearable and it would be evening soon. A fire would be nice now. Floyd started gathering twigs and thin shards of dry wood. He tried to remember the technique Balsam had used. He dug a small hole with a short stick and put twigs across it in the shape of a pyramid. He rubbed some sticks against one another—nothing happened. He tried again. This time the sticks sizzled and burst into flames. He added some more wood and soon the fire was sputtering. He stretched his arms out and warmed his palms. Chutney stared into the fire. Floyd stroked his neck. He unwrapped a tamarind tucker and popped it into his mouth, savouring its tangy sweetness. It was getting unbearably warm. Sweat began trickling down his back.
How very odd that such a small fire could generate so much heat. But, then again, this was a magical Durjipore with different rules. He started to peel his cloak off when a scream punctured the silence. Chutney snarled, his wings unfurling. Floyd gasped and clutched at the rocky wall of mountain behind him. He was looking directly into the unblinking gaze of a giant bird with bright orange feathers and deep purple plumage on its head. In the firelight, it looked even more terrifying.
It had come for him! Just as Balsam and Ela had predicted. The Varengan hovered, only a few feet away from him, silent as death, its huge body giving off waves of heat. Floyd stayed stiff on the edge of the cliff. How long had the Varengan been floating there, watching him? And he had thought that the heat was from the fire!
The colossal bird moved closer to him, blocking all light, the fire casting demonic shadows under its eyes.