by Barbara Else
Hodie nodded thank you to the boy. Wide-eyed, O’sel stared at him. Then with a sudden grin he gestured, Hurry, be secret, come down, and disappeared back into his apartment.
Hodie peered over the railing. In the square below, teachers were gathering a group of children. Hodie watched as O’sel ran out and joined them. He knew exactly what to do.
Still at the breakfast table, Allana and Dardy murmured to each other, frowning. Lu’nedda blinked angrily at her reflection in a spoon. Hodie slipped past the table and winked at Murgott. The Corporal winked back. The squirrel hopped on Murgott’s knee.
Hodie crept down and out the side door of the palace. Not a soul spoke to him. Not even the teachers noticed one extra boy arrive.
The huddle of children made room and drew him in. “We bet you can escape,” they whispered, soft and sharp. “Watch O’sel. Then be quick!”
O’sel winked at the others, and dropped his pencil case. Pens rolled everywhere. The children pretended to gather them, kicking, scrambling, rolling them further. The teachers jumped out of the way and called instructions.
In the scuffling and noise, O’sel took Hodie aside and drew a quick sketch in a notebook. Hodie realised it was a map of the mountain city, how the tunnels and caverns linked up.
As the sketch grew beneath his pencil, O’sel whispered, “Do not believe Emperor. You are not safe. Gree’sle will make sure of that. Get away, soon as you can, with Lady Allana.” He drew arrows that led to three exits, and marked the lowest one with an asterisk. “This way is best – busy but nearest. Highest one is for royal wind-car – dangerous – guards at door.”
Hodie pointed to the middle exit, but O’sel shook his head.
“Very many guards. Secret wind-cars. Rumours say they are military wind-ships. If that is true, there are many weapons. Do not go to it. Yes?”
Hodie nodded thank you and gripped O’sel’s arm. “Where are the laboratories? Where is Queen Sibilla?”
O’sel glanced across the square at a large door. “Do not dare. You cannot help. Nobody wins against Prowdd’on. If you and Lady Allana escape, it is miracle. I do not know how you will survive when you are outside. But when you were baby, Dardy carried you and treasures Prowdd’on wants, on foot, over Stones of Beyond. A servant hero – that is precious and rare. You must have been saved for good reason.”
O’sel ripped the map from his notebook and squashed it into Hodie’s hand. The other children gathered up the last pencils, then lined up for the teachers as neatly and silently as dolls.
~
Hodie slipped back into Lu’nedda’s apartment. Good – his mother and Lu’nedda looked as if they hadn’t moved. Allana gave him half a smile, but Lu’nedda didn’t even notice. Murgott, still at the table, crumbled leftover toast for the squirrel. Dardy was back in the very small room, lying down. Hodie glanced in – his skin was grey, his breathing laboured. He’d had to tend the Ocean Toads for nearly two years – Toad poison was terrible stuff.
Sometimes if Hodie made his outside look calm and confident, his inside felt confident too. It didn’t work this time. But he winked at Murgott, who tapped the side of his nose and gave a slight nod. Then Hodie bowed to Lu’nedda, exactly the way Sibilla bowed.
“Many thanks for the magnificent breakfast, Princessa Lu’nedda.”
Lu’nedda sat up and dropped the spoon. “Oh, thank you for saying thank you.”
Hodie bowed to his mother. “Perhaps Dardy needs some air? Murgott could help him along.”
Lu’nedda threw her hands up. “You must lie low, for many reasons.”
But Hodie’s mother gave a small nod. “A gentle walk, maybe.”
“For goodness sake,” Lu’nedda said, “do what you like. I am going to see Father and see if he will keep promise.” She smiled with a smile that made her look as tough as Ogg’ward (even without the beanie). “I will say nothing about mysterious bag that rebels stole from under Gree’sle’s nose. If my father knows I have it now, it will be awkward.” She shook her ringlets. “Skinny Gree’sle is bad influence. He encourage my father to spend money on war and very bad experiments.” She thumped a fist into the other hand. “Money should go to schools, I think. Money should not go to bother neighbouring country. It should definitely not go to torment little girl. But I am not Empress yet. I must take care not to make Father so angry that he shut me away for all time in beautiful apartment.”
Murgott glanced up. “Many beautiful ladies would be happy in such a beautiful apartment.” By the time he’d finished, his colour was as red as a rose.
“Then many beautiful ladies need development of brain!” Lu’nedda strode into her room to get herself ready. “Allana? Mr Murgott? Do not try to get out of city,” she called though the half-open door. There was more tossing across the room of petticoats, hats, handbags, a ringlet brush.
Dardy came out of the very small room as slowly as an old man.
Hodie’s mother pulled Lu’nedda’s door to. “Mr Murgott, I am guessing there is a plan? It will be safer to talk while we move about the city. But I do not wish to leave Lu’nedda in danger.”
A wisp of the stale air brushed Hodie’s hand. It felt like sorrow now, still threaded through with bitter rage. He knew it came from levels far below. From the laboratory, he bet. They had to hurry.
He muttered to Murgott. “Bring your duffel bag.” Hodie still had his satchel, with the drawstring bag in it, under his cloak. “We have to move before somebody stops us.”
Murgott’s ex-pirate’s eyes bored into Hodie’s. “Let’s hope your brain’s figured out a better idea than mine, boy.”
“What’s your idea?” asked Hodie.
“None.” Murgott clapped his Um’Binnian hat on, and took Dardy’s arm. “One two, one two,” he counted. “That’s the way, one foot in front of the other, then switch ’em around. We call it walking. I bet you’d like a cold Fontanian ginger beer back on the veranda of the barracks. Smarten up, old friend, smarten up.”
As they started down the stairs, Dardy began to seem better with Murgott’s urging. The squirrel rode on Allana’s shoulder. They reached the street.
“Go that way.” Hodie pointed to a little alleyway. According to O’sel’s map, it joined the stairs to the main wind-garage without having to go the way they’d come through the main streets. “Wait for me on the second landing.”
“Where are you …” began his mother.
“Didn’t you know boys need to burn off energy? I’m going a steeper way.” Hodie raced around a corner to the square.
He hadn’t lied. He simply hadn’t said the steeper way was down to the Department of Science – if only he could get through the door O’sel had glanced at.
If even one of the things in the bag was some kind of treasure, Sibilla should have it. She’d told him not to let Prowdd’on have the bag, and Hodie wouldn’t. Dardy had said the little Queen might fail, and so she might. But whether she was a Queen or an ordinary girl, Hodie was going to try to get her out.
He looked around the square. It was empty. In the far corner, he found the door. A notice on it said Authorised Personnel only and showed the sign of a knife. It looked like a scalpel.
~
30
why all Um’Binnian magazines
are so very boring
Hodie opened the door enough to slip through, and started down a stairwell. Heat from the lower levels rose to meet him, a skein of smells, chemicals and animals, and what seemed to be ginger biscuits. Halfway down the first flight, footsteps pattered behind him … a squirrel that looked like a gathering of dust and sweepings. And soft footfall … Murgott in his Um’Binnian disguise, looking very determined and trying to tiptoe. Hodie grinned a serious grin, and Murgott grinned back.
Two flights down, the smell of animals and ginger had grown stronger. Hodie eased open the landing door and heard echoey voices
in one room. There was the chink of cups, and coffee-break talk.
“Have you seen latest Emperor Daily News? We will vanquish Fontania in days.”
“Prow-wow-wow,” sang a lady’s voice.
“Do shut up,” said somebody else.
“What do you think of Emperor’s latest hats? Do you know each one cost three hundred dollero?”
“Yes, and we are stuck with cheapest biscuits.”
The scientists. It sounded as if they hadn’t started work seriously yet. Maybe they had to wait for that until Madame-Professor Winterbee and Master-Professor Glimp arrived back. But Hodie bet that after the last lick of coffee from their scientific lips, these ones would at least be trying to look in the little Queen’s ears and up her nose.
Another scientist spoke now. “Already I count her toes. Five on each foot. Not very unusual. I expect her to be regal and kick me. And she did. Then she say sorry.”
“She is young and frightened girl, not Queen with magic. But we keep examining.”
“And we examine extremely hard this afternoon, when Winterbee and Glimp come back and take charge!”
Hodie and Murgott gripped each other’s arms. Even if there was such a thing as magical ability, it would not be something that scientists could scrape off a tongue or find inside like a lump of liver. Probably, Prowdd’on would punish them for not finding anything. Maybe they’d make up false results so they wouldn’t have to tend the Ocean Toads.
There was the trickle of more tea and coffee being poured, and the scientists began testing each other on their equations. The footsteps of Murgott behind him, Hodie crept along the corridor past stacks of animal crates, past rooms full of even more cages. Something gave a soft quack. A softer yip, and purr replied as if the rabbits and birds and mice were giving signals.
The squirrel skittered ahead, peered in a room and flicked its tail. Hodie darted up and stopped in the doorway.
Sibilla lay on a big chair tilted back like a bed, her hands on the arms of the chair, and her hair a frizzy cloud. She wore pink-and-white striped pyjamas, and a pink hospital dressing gown. She still had her pendant, but her feet were bare. On her lap was a pile of magazines. Dozens of others lay scattered on the floor. Every open page showed a picture of the Emperor.
She looked up and saw Hodie. For a moment hope flashed across her eyes, then she looked horrified. “What are you doing? Please, leave the city.” Her voice cracked. Her arms didn’t move, but her fingers trembled. She half sat up, and another magazine slid splat to hit the floor.
Hodie kept an ear cocked in the direction of the staffroom. “If Prowdd’on can wangle promises into lies, you shouldn’t have to keep any promise to him. He isn’t going to let us go! We have to escape.” He beckoned Murgott hard, then hissed at Sibilla. “Come on! You’re brave, but this is stupid.”
“Mind your manners to Her Majesty,” growled Murgott in Hodie’s ear. “Your Majesty, hurry.”
A tear rolled down her cheek, but still only her fingers moved.
“We’re risking our lives for you. This is the only chance. I’ve sent the bird out, but …” Hodie rested a hand over the satchel beneath his cloak. “I have something else, in here. You know what it is. The drawstring bag that Prow’ddon’s after.”
The little Queen’s face changed at once. “With The Ties,” she whispered. “The Ties.”
Murgott gasped. “You’ve stolen them back? Good lad!”
“If you won’t come,” Hodie hissed to the Queen, “Prowdd’on might get hold of them.”
“Hodie, I’m strapped to the chair!”
He dashed to her side. “You should have said at once you couldn’t move!”
“I would expect a clever boy to notice.” Her voice cracked again.
Hodie wrestled at the buckles around her wrists, but Murgott strode in, opened his pocket-knife, slipped it under the straps, and simply slashed them.
~
31
one choice leads to some luck but . . .
The little Queen rubbed her face and eased her arms after the hours sitting tied up.
“Quick,” Hodie whispered.
“Hurry quietly,” Murgott added. He held a pair of small pink slippers in his hand, and the little Queen’s bag.
From the staffroom, Hodie heard the clattering of cups into a sink, and grumbles about whose turn it was to rinse the dishes.
But Sibilla tipped her head as if she was listening to something else, and a new look came into her eyes. She stepped to the door and across the corridor. She put her hands on a strong iron door, drew a breath and rolled it open. Hodie ran to see. Murgott was behind him, keeping guard.
The room was nearly all cage. Inside was the huddle of silver, the curve of a great beak, the movement of shallow breathing from a great feather-scaled chest. It was the dragon-eagle, brought down from the Zoo.
The creature raised its head and looked at Sibilla. Something began to ring in Hodie’s ears.
~ Your Majesty ~ a silver whisper said ~ Please go ~
Sibilla stretched a hand towards it.
~ My companion is dying ~ came the chime of silver ~ Find my companion. Only then can you and the King rescue me ~ The creature’s coronet of feathers was a dim flicker of silver and green ~ My wing is broken ~
“How … what shall I do?” Sibilla whispered.
~ Courage first ~ said the dragon-eagle ~ Magic later ~
The great eye looked right at Hodie ~ Release the wind ~
The eye closed and the great head lowered.
Hodie’s ears rang with a silvery echo. His whole being seemed to shiver.
Murgott pulled him and the Queen back into the corridor, and rolled the door shut. Ears still ringing, Hodie hauled Sibilla into a gap between stacks of cages. She fumbled into the pink slippers. Murgott wriggled under his cloak to shuck off his jacket. He helped the little Queen into it over her dressing gown – it was masses too big, but he rolled the cuffs up, stuffed her hair down into the jacket collar and fastened the buttons at her neck. “Hope to blazes that’ll hold it,” he muttered, and slung her bag over her shoulder.
They sidled for the stairwell. In another room, Hodie saw the scruffy squirrel patting the locks of cage after cage. The doors fell open. A guinea pig scuttled out and off down to the staffroom. A rabbit followed.
There was a yell. The bustle of scientists rushed about. Crockery smashed, and there were scientific curses. The guinea pig hurtled out and disappeared along the corridor. A scientist chased after it and bumped into Murgott.
Murgott pointed to an open door across the hall. “It went that way!”
The scientist ran in. Murgott slammed the door and turned a lock. Scientists came scrambling from the staffroom on hands and knees after rabbits, frogs, mice, pink salamanders.
Hodie, the Queen and Murgott started to run. Whiffs of heat filled the corridor. But Hodie knew that now there was a chance they might escape. Release the wind, the silver voice had said. Of course. Hodie knew about wind. But they’d have to climb as high as possible. They must jam open all the doors between the levels of the cavern city.
They made it to the door into the square without being stopped. Hodie would have to loosen a nut so the door would jam open. He thrust a hand into his satchel and into the bag. The spindly spanner fitted into his palm.
They rushed up to the next level and the next. With the spanner Hodie managed to jam the doors open each time. Heat from the lower levels rose and rose behind them, almost unbearable. Up they climbed from the square, up three more levels. Everywhere, the people they passed were puffing and fanning themselves. Most of the women and girls wore silly shoes, and nobody questioned the little Queen’s pink slippers. The effort of climbing turned Murgott’s face purple. Sibilla’s face was patchy red. Hodie’s lungs hurt. The heat pushed and shoved behind them. At last they saw Allana a
nd Dardy waiting outside the door to the main wind-garage.
“Is that the …?” Allana immediately gritted her jaw as if she was a mother with a sulky daughter, then hugged Queen Sibilla to her side and threw her own light cloak over Sibilla’s head. Sibilla stuck her chin out and slumped her shoulders. Any passers-by quickly looked in another direction because sulkiness is extremely unattractive.
Hodie used the spanner on the bolts of the wind-garage door so it couldn’t be opened without tools from either side. “Now, up,” he gasped. “Further up.” His idea – the dragon-eagle’s idea – might not work, but Hodie trusted the map O’sel had drawn.
“There’s a faster way,” Allana gasped. “The Emperor has a special lift pulled by ogres …”
“We have to do it this way,” Hodie puffed back.
Up they climbed, up. Dardy stumbled, pale as paper. Murgott half-carried him. The stairs narrowed. Sirens began to shriek, along with an announcement from loudspeakers: “Fontanians on loose! Catch all Fontanians!”
Luckily they were above the crowds by now. They kept climbing in the rising heat – squirrel too – and finally came to the top level. No sirens blared here, so that was more luck. Hodie slipped the spanner back into the bag safe within his satchel.
There were two doors. One, marked with a small sunburst, was for the Emperor’s lift. The other showed a huge sunburst. In front of it sat two guards at a little table. One hummed the latest hit. The other was cleaning his thumbnail with his bayonet. Hodie’s heart began to fall.
Panting with exertion, Sibilla nodded to the guards. “Thank you,” she said, though the guards had done nothing. “Let us in, by royal command.”
The guards scrambled to their feet, slightly puzzled.
“Fontanians?” said the one with half-clean fingernails.
“Of course not, we’re Um’binnian,” said Lady Allana. “You can tell. Look at our footwear.”