Cycle of Life, the rise and fall of Tanya Vine

by Hannah Robinson

  Chapter 12

  Growing Pains

  Homestead’s guru Constance Nesbitt had been the driving force behind the rebel’s outstanding victory at Asher’s Farm, But lately, she had been filled with feelings of self doubt, and thought that she was reaching the end of her days as Homestead’s seer. When the village girls reached fifteen or so, they usually went to live with the wardogs in Burnt Wood for a while. Most times, but not always, the girls caught a virus or something from the dog people and came away, changed. They could usually see better, that sort of thing, and sometimes, the girls got more than they expected, but that’s another story.

  Tanya was fifteen, and had just told Ma Nesbitt that she had been running with the dogs since she was twelve, but that was only one of the reasons that Tanya was so different at such a tender age. Connie was shocked to say the least. She hadn’t seen that at all, so thought that she was losing her abilities.

  Kirsten came out of The Vine, bringing a faint aroma of garlic and herbs from the kitchen with her. “Morning Ma Nesbitt, and what would be your pleasure today?”

  Homestead’s guru sniffed. She and garlic didn’t get on too well. “Is that Pansy girl still here?”

  Kirsty nodded, “Yes Ma,” and thought to herself, “don’t know why though, she’s still useless.”

  “Then a little cider for myself, and a chat with miss Prayerbook if you please. I’ve got a little errand for her to run.”

  Before the battle at Asher’s field, Pansy Prayerbook had been a novice in the nameless one’s temple at Central, but afterwards, when the recriminations began, she had run away from the priestesses, and Connie Nesbitt had put her in Frankie Vine’s care. She managed to bring the guru’s mug of cider without spilling too much, and set it down on the table.

  “You wanted me, Mistress Nesbitt?”

  Connie frowned, “I’m not your mistress. Can you not remember, that to everyone here, I’m known as Ma. Now, I want you to go down to South Farm and deliver a message for me. Tell young Sali Vorden to get up here to see me now. Now, you understand?”

  “Yes Ma Nesbitt, Sali Vorden, now,” she repeated with big sigh. It was a long way for short legs to the farm house, and she hadn’t had her morning snack yet. She changed into her walking shoes, grabbed her shawl, and left the taverna heading for the East gate.

  “Pansy.” The call came again but louder, “Pansy, where are you going?”

  She stopped and looked round and waved to the caller. “Hi Tan, I’m going to South Farm. Got to fetch Sali. Ma Nesbitt wants her NOW.”

  “Thought she might send for her after our little chat this morning.” said Tanya Vine smugly. “Connie, I says, that Sali is the very girl to get you out of this spot of bother.”

  Pansy looked at her dubiously, but Tanya carried on regardless, “oh yes, listens to me a lot now she does, since Ashers Farm.”

  “Didn’t hear that, Tan. Heard that she watches you though.”

  “Yeah, well, same thing isn’t it.”

  Pansy shrugged her shoulders, “what bother’s she got then Tan?”

  “Hunting with dogs stuff,” she said vaguely, “but you’re too young to really understand.”

  Pansy was fourteen and only a year younger than Tanya and Sali, but she kept quiet.

  They reached the gate in the boundary fence and Tanya kept on walking with her new friend. “Going with you,” she said suddenly, “better than staying here being watched all the time.”

  “Good job we’re not going over there,” Pansy remarked as they walked along the bank of the swollen river. After three days of rain in the West, the ford leading to Burnt Wood was impassable.

  “Don’t think I’ll be going to the woods for a while anyway Pan.”

  “Why’s that Tan?”

  “Ma Nesbitt’s grounded me,” she laughed. “Come on, let’s go before she finds out that I’m missing.” And they started running.

  House of Sazgood

  After the battle of Asher’s field, Caren and Denny had locked themselves away in their static time machine, the Never Look Back, and Denny had laid on the medico for hours on end while the auto doctor examined her brain in minute detail. The alien ego that Denny carried with her was not the horror that she had expected, and she and Caren had eventually gone to live with Joan Tulip in Homestead, where big frocks were in fashion as the women and girls drew nearer to their days of deliverance, and then at last, the sound of crying babes was heard across the green.

  After the first few births, Connie gave up asking Queenie if it was a girl or a boy, for every child born in Homestead was a boy except the very first two, Gilda’s twins, who she named Truly and Ricci, after two of the miners, one of whom was the girls father.

  Then Joannie also gave birth to a daughter.

  Denny had been having long discussions with the previously unhappy Joan, explaining her complicated family tree, which had Joannie as the founder and Denny, being from the future, arriving in the 43rd generation. They’d also sat long hours with the female superdogs, trying to dredge up any information about their origins, but they couldn’t get any nearer to the truth, than that the first members of the dog clan had escaped from a bad place in the North, many generations ago, led to safety by the boss dog, Loner, and accompanied part of the way by the lanky chicken.

  The dogs couldn’t remember that there had originally been fourteen of the escapees, specially bred and genetically altered in a laboratory at Rubi near Barcelona, to investigate the falling incidence of male births in the human population. It had been mankind’s last attempt to try and understand and reverse the effects of the alien’s final onslaught with biological weapons.

  As the days of ‘man’ came to a close, one of the assistants was assigned to dispose of the last batch of lab animals, but she opened all the cages and lab doors instead, and told them to make themselves scarce pronto. They all got out of the complex safely, but only seven of the ten superdogs survived the first year living in the wild, and they slowly migrated South.

  Denny lowered her voice, even though no dogs were nearby to overhear her. “It looks like the dogs were made to help to make boy children. They don’t like to talk about it much. Bit of a sore point for them. Being ‘made’ by humans.”

  “Their pride’s taken a bit of bashing with all these boys being born,” added Joan, “it was a real surprise when my little cherub arrived.”

  “What’s her name?” asked Caren, already knowing what the answer should be.

  “Thought I’d call her after her father, and also after you, Denny, seeing as how you’re kin, so she’ll be Toledo Sazgood.”

  Denny and Caren briefly made eye contact. “Lovely name,” purred Denny, “she’ll be sharp and never lose the edge, just like Sylvie’s sword.”

  Joannie frowned slightly, “you already knew, didn’t you?”

  The two girls nodded, “It’s in our prayer book, Jo,” said Caren, “and the house of Sazgood
is going to be a good one. Even Denny’s going to be alright, now that she’s got that Dark Angel thing sorted out. Aren’t you dearest.”

  Denny agreed, “yes, we’ve come to understand one another a little better, I’m not suicidal anymore, and she’s not murderous. We may be able to get on together.”

  During their stay in the Never, Denny had given the alien a little more freedom inside her mind, and she realised that all her fears of the advent of the Dark Angel were gone.

  The mental conversations between Denzil and alien gave a new meaning to the phrase ‘a quiet word’.

  “So do you have a name?” asked Denny.

  “Oh yes, but it’s unpronounceable in Spanglish.”

  “What would be nearest, then?

  “Something like... She who puts her foot up her enemies rear, I suppose, but you can call me Robin.”

  “Robin. Are you really called Arse Kicker, or do I detect something else?”

  “No secrets between us are there? My Warlord called me Muck Mover.”

  Denny considered this in silence for a short while. “You’re a janitor?”

  “Yes, I cleaned the royal midden on our strike ship, the Interloper.”

  “How long did you do that, and what about all that psycho war machine business Simon told us about?”

  “That bit’s easy. When it started going wrong for us down here, the Great Snakehead Herself ordered all minions to get geared up for battle, and I got the projector suit. As for how long did I clean the mids, well I started at the bottom on vermin clearance in the bilges, but quickly got promoted after, oh call it 160 years. That was probably about… 2,300 of your years ago, so I was in the mids for about 200 years Maybe?”

  It took Denny several seconds for the information to register properly.

  “This is incredible, how old are you?”

  “Well, my kind run wild for the first hundred years or so, till we mature, and then those of us who survive and become sentient are adopted into a lodge and trained for about another eighty, so I think that I’m about 3,500. In your terms of course. Lucky to still be here though. Should have died in that battle when I fell off the bridge, and a diet of nothing but goat’s blood in the temple nearly wrecked the bio suit. Then I thought I was going to the High Rock when you killed me. Shock of my life when I woke up again.”

  “You must be the oldest creature in the universe.”

  “Oh no! There’s the Collector. That’s even older than the universe itself.”

  “The Collector?”

  “Yes, you killed me with it’s physical part. It collects information in the great dark, and grows a little with each death. I should be with it now. Bet it’s not too happy at losing me.”

  Denny gave an involuntary shudder, and she felt the hairs in the nape of her neck rise, as she thought of the bio sword as a sentient being and a predator.

  “But I thought it was a surgical instrument. Hood said she got it from a hospital ship.”

  “Oh no, it would have been found in the prison ship, the Lady of Pain. Not a nice place to be sent to.”

  “What do I do about the… Collector?”

  “Bury it and forget about it. I don’t think it can be destroyed.”

  South Farm

  Pansy’s tongue did a quick circuit of her lips again in a fruitless search for more crumbs. “No mistress Vorden, she didn’t say why, just said to get Sali up to the village NOW. Right grumpy she was.”

  “Well perhaps it’s a good job you’ve both come today, cos Sali’s down by the far pond with Sasha Whalebone. They’ve got goat trouble at Dockside, and I’ve said they can borrow one of ours. Lady help them but they’re trying to catch Topper or Stomper.”

  Tanya’s eyes lit up, an adventure at last. “We’ll go and help then, shall we?”

  She stood as she spoke and the disappointment showed in Pansy’s eyes as she gazed longingly at the plate of honey cakes.

  “Yes please, I don’t think they’ll be doing much good without you.” Wandra smiled knowingly, “take another if you like young Pansy.”

  “Thanks mistress,” gasped the grateful girl, and she and Tanya grabbed another of Wandra’s sticky delights each before dashing off to join in the fun at far pond.

  In the West meadow, on the far side of the Gap road, Sali and Sasha weren’t enjoying themselves. Although Sali had lived on the farm for all of her fifteen years, getting the goats back to the paddock at the end of each day was the limit of her capabilities.

  She didn’t hate the stupid creatures, and they probably bore her no malice either, but they seemed to take a perverse pleasure in being contrary whenever she was present.

  With Tanya it was different. As well as being general help in her mum’s taverna, Tanya worked part of the time helping Sali with the goats, and as difficult as they were with Sali, they did what Tanya wanted before being asked. It was a strange situation, and one which even Ma Nesbitt could not understand.

  Topper’s jaws continued working with a steady rhythm as he chewed his dinner (grass again) and balefully regarded the stranger with the rope coming towards him.

  Was she mad, he wondered. Well she’d probably be more than mad soon when he dumped her on her backside again, she’d be bloody furious.

  “Sali. Sali Vorden,” came the cry from the direction of the farmhouse, and all eyes turned to the two figures running towards them.

  Topper casually ducked under the loop thrown by the frustrated Sasha, and trotted towards his beloved Tanya, who went down onto her knees, and grabbing him by his ears, kissed him firmly on his rough nose.

  “Hello Handsome. You’re still as beautiful as ever.”

  Sasha grimaced. Old Marlin, who looked after Dockside’s livestock knew a lot of tricks to keep the goats in line, but they usually involved a stick with lots of thorns, and she had never mentioned that kissing goats was good farmyard practice.

  “It’s not fair,” complained Sali as they walked back to the house, “we’ve been trying for ages to make him see sense, and now you just walk up and he goes all soppy on you.”

  “Well you can’t have told him what you wanted properly then, cos he’s very sensible, for a boy, that is, and he’s always happy to help, especially if it involves lady goats.”

  Sitting on the farmhouse veranda, the plate between them was empty, and Pansy ran her finger round the edge to salvage the last beads of honey.

  Dockside only had a small farm, and their only billy and two of his lady friends had vanished overnight, leaving them with just seven nannies.

  “They just disappeared,” said Sasha, waving her hands at the lazy wasp circling her head. “Gate was shut tight the night before, so we don’t know how they got out.”

  “Did you look up on the mount? They might have gone to join the wild ones,” Tanya suggested.

  “Yeh, but not for long though. Nobody likes to go near the old tower much.”

  Sali’s mother came out of the h
ouse carrying two bundles.

  “Here you are then girls. Sal and Tilly’s old cloaks and enough food to last you most of the way. But knowing you, it’ll all be gone tonight.”

  “Thankyou mistress Vorden,” the girls said in unison and hoisting the packs over their shoulders, they set off towards the gate in the high wall surrounding the farmyard.

  Tanya held her hand out towards the black and white goat. “Come on Topper, lets go and meet your new girlfriends,” and like an obedient puppy, Wandra’s prize billy goat followed at Tanya’s heels, still chewing his dinner.

  “Don’t forget, Tanya,” Wandra called as they neared the gate, “we expect you back here in three days.”

  They said their farewells at the fork in the path, where Sali headed North to her meeting with Homestead’s guru, and Tanya, Pansy and Sasha went East towards Dockside, taking Topper to his new harem.

  Stitch in time

  Denny sat cross legged, with her back to the South wall of the cottage that she, Caren and Joan called home, sewing a tear in the sleeve of her spare shirt, and soaking up the idle warmth of the morning sun. As her nimble fingers worked the needle, her thoughts were of Caren, somewhere out there, towards the high sierras to the West.

  Caren was one of the group which had volunteered to rebuild one of the abandoned vineyards as a way station at Algar springs, halfway between Homestead and the Nest.

  Since Denny had been adopted by the Hummingbirds when she was about seven, she and Caren had never been apart for more than a few hours, and now after thirteen years by each others side, they didn’t know when they would see each other again. They were more than just friends, more even than sisters. They were like two parts of the same unit, and as the bright needle made her second best green shirt whole again, a small teardrop collected in the corner of each eye, and she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps.

  “Caren? I thought you’d gone with the others.”

  Denny looked up in confusion at the sound of Ma Nesbitt’s voice.

  “Oh, it’s you, Denny.” Connie looked perplexed for the third time that day, and thought, “am I going simple?” Then said, “thought you was Caren for a minute there. Has anybody come by this way lately girl?”

  Denny replied quietly, “No, no one Ma.”

  “Where has that girl got to? Haven’t seen Tanya have you? She took Betty back to Val Tomson’s for me, but they’ve both gone missing again, already.”

  Denny paused in her sewing, “No Ma, nobody round this way since breakfast.”

  As Connie continued her search for the elusive girls, Denny frowned and thought, “what are you doing Robin?”

  “Wasn’t me, honest.”

  Connie’s search was soon over, as Sali and Betty came up to her cottage hand in hand.

  “Good morning to you Ma Nesbitt.” Sali forced herself to sound cheerful, although she had feared the worst since getting the summons from Pansy and Tanya.

  Connie looked at the pair through weary eyes. “Took your time getting here girl. Been idling your time away again?”

  “No Ma, far from it.” Sali was indignant. “Came as soon as I got your message from Pan and Tan, then had to persuade Betty here to come home. Right handful she is.”

  “Tanya Vine, did you say? Little minx is supposed to be here, looking after Betty. She’ll have to be taken down a peg or two when she gets back.”

  Sal had dropped her friend in it again, and tried to limit the damage. “We couldn’t have managed without her, Ma. Goats were playing real mean with me and Sasha.”

  She went on to outline what had happened, and assured her that Tanya would be back from Dockside in three days.”

  Connie blustered some more, then got down to the business of the day. “You’re grown up now Sali Vorden, and it’s time for you to expand your mind. If such a thing is possible of course.” There was a hint of doubt in her voice. All her observations of Sali had led her to believe that she wouldn’t amount to much in life.

  Sali winced. She was going to the dogs.

  “You’re going to the dogs,” Ma informed her. “Sylvia’s coming over this afternoon, and she’ll take you to meet Flair and her boy, Sandal.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t interrupt girl. Sandals seven now, but that’s about the same body age as you, so I’m sure you’ll get on famously. Won’t you?”

  Sali looked down at her toes. “Yes Ma,” she whispered. She wasn’t Tanya Vine and couldn’t argue with Homestead’s guru.

  “Now take Betty back to Val’s place, and get yourself to the Vine, where Sylvia’s going to collect you. And no skulking off, like that Tanya. There’ll be thrashings all round soon if you do. I can see it coming.”

  Poor Betty was a constant reminder of the battle at Asher’s farm. Betty Tighe and her mother, Helena had fought side by side that dark day, and Helena was in the mass grave at the edge of the old farm. Betty had been brought back to Homestead on an ox cart, her head wrapped in dirty bandages, but she had never fully recovered. True, she could feed herself now, but only with her fingers, and there was an alarmingly vacant look permanently painted on her face.

  Connie watched the odd pair walk slowly away towards the North side cottages. “Well at least she’s got clothes on today,” she mused sadly. Seven Homesteaders had died at Asher’s farm, and several others bore scars as mementoes of that awful day, and it had all been at Connie’s insistence. She went inside the rundown shack that she called home, sat in a dark corner and cried softly to herself.

  Daybreak

  The cold night finally surrendered to the warming rays of the sun and the bright flames of the camp fire, where Tanya and Pansy watched enviously as Sasha finished the last of her nuts and biscuits. Wandra had been right, and the two girls had already eaten all their rations for the two day journey, and they had only had a mouthful of water each for breakfast.

  “Going to be a long day, girls,” gloated Sasha, “reckon you should have saved some of that bread or an apple or two, or perhaps you thought you could eat grass, like him,” and she indicated to where Topper was laid, his jaws rotating endlessly as he slowly turned grass into muscle and goat power.

  “What we gonna do Tan? I’ll just die if we don’t eat soon,” said Pansy sorrowfully.

  “We’ll be alright Pan, there’s bound to be some fruit in the old orchards down by the marsh. Last years oranges or apples maybe.”

  “Tell you what, girls,” interrupted Sasha, “when we get to the wetlands, I’ll show you how to catch yellow frogs. Not much meat on them, but about three big ones are usually enough to make a grand feast.”

  “Yeuch. That’s disgusting,” said Tanya with a horrified expression, and Pansy clamped a hand to her mouth and looked sideways at her friend.

  Sasha smiled and licked her lips, “Mmmm, delicious. And if we’re really lucky, we might find a snake as well,” then she started packing up ready to move again.

 
The curse of the black goat

  “You missed a bit Tanya Vine,” said Pansy accusingly through a mouthful of fishcake, and happy at last, “get back here in three days, she said.”

  “Yeh well, I wasn’t going to tell her that was I? Don’t want to go dashing back just to muck out the chickens and clean the fireplace, do we?”

  “But your mum’ll be frantic, worrying about you. Won’t she?”

  “Won’t miss us. Either of us. Too busy making big eyes at that Simon. Kirsty as well. They’ve both gone silly over him. Stupid cows.”

  “Tan, you shouldn’t say that about your kin. It’s not nice.”

  “It’s true though. No place for me there, now that he’s moved in. I’m only getting in the way all the time.” She sniffed, and wiped the back of her hand over her eyes.

  “That’s not true Tanya Vine. I’m sure they love you.” Pansy was getting anxious. Tanya was tough. She’d killed her first enemy trooper when only thirteen, and Pansy had never seen her cry before. She reached out and grasped her friend’s hand.

  “Not any more, they don’t, not now there’s a baby in the house. It’s 'Tanya do this, Tanya do that, and what you doing still here, you’re always in the way, can’t you see I’m busy.' Yeh, busy making babies all the time. Well I’m not going home to that.”

  “We’ll have to go back sometime Tan. Can’t stay here.”

  “Yes. Suppose you’re right. Not going home though. Gonna move in with Sali Vorden. Her mum’ll have me, I think, cos I’m good on the farm.”

  “When we going back, Tan?”

  “Oh, a few days,” said Tanya vaguely, and feeling better now that she had let her feelings show at last. “We deserve a holiday by the sea, and if anyone asks us why we didn’t go back pronto, then we say it was like training camp again, only learning how to fight with boats an that.”

  “But I don’t know how to fight. I can blow a crumhorn, got a red ribbon for blowing a crumhorn, but can’t use a sword or bow or nothing.”

  Tanya winced slightly at the memory of Pansy and the other priestesses at the battle of Asher’s Farm, blowing those awful trumpets and conjuring up the red monster.

  “Well it’s quite simple and I’ll show you after supper, then you’ll be alright.”

  They looked up as a tall figure loomed over them.

  “Heard you’ve got my bracelet girl, so I’ve come to give you a reward for finding it.”

  The tavern went quiet at the village bully’s quiet words, and the two girls paused in their most important task of the day. Eating at last. Charlene Spratt was an impressive sight, heavily muscled as well as tall, seemingly dressed all in sharkskin and with a sharks tooth necklace to match, and spiral tattoos on both cheeks.

  Earlier, Sasha had managed to persuade the two hungry girls to try and catch frogs at the marshes edge, and when Tanya had fallen into the shallow water, much to the delight of her travelling companions, she had emerged clutching the serpentine bracelet in a handful of mud. They had found a snake, but not the live one that Sasha had meant.

  “Don’t do this Sharkey,” said Sami Twotrees quietly.

  The big woman whirled round, and Sami shrank back a little. “Keep out of it Simple Sam, or you’ll regret it,” she snarled, then turned her attention back to Tanya.

  Tanya spoke softly. “What have you got to trade for my silver bracelet then.”

  “Not trade girl,” answered Charlene leaning on the table, “but a reward. You can have this special whistle my old gran gave to me. You blow into it, and it plays any tune you want it to. Magic see,” and she showed them the poor thing she’d got from Jean Collier, when she’d passed by the previous month.

  “I got soaked, and muddy, getting your bracelet back. Thought it would have been worth more than that to you, what with it being silver. Only just managed to get dry.”

  Time seemed to stand still and all eyes were on the odd trio, Pansy still eating, Tanya sitting calmly and Charlene standing and wondering why she wasn’t already holding the bracelet that she’d heard about. “Silver bangle’s precious to me, so just hand it over,” she said ominously, and held out her hand.

  Tanya made a sad face and lifted her sleeve to show the gleaming snake coiled around her upper arm. “Oh what a pity, I got it wrong. The bracelet I found was only brass,” she said and then smiled brightly, “so I guess it’s not yours after all.”

  Made to look a fool by a mere kid, Charlene’s face became a mask of hatred, and she started to raise her fist as Tanya rose from the bench, a small dagger in each hand.

  Sami’s chair went flying backwards as she leapt to her feet, “Sharkey, don’t…” But she, and all the room were silenced as Pansy fell back in her chair making the most horrible gurgling noises, and her eyes rolling wildly. Then the voice that came from her lips was not of earthly origin.

  “Aaah. Touch not the goat queen. Blood, blood, the water is red with blood. Beware the black goat with the twisted horn, it brings your doom.”

  Charlene staggered back as though struck a mortal blow, “witch, bloody witch,” she gasped, then turned and ran from the inn, as the other customers looked on in horror.

  Sami came over to sit next to Tanya and frowned as she watched Pansy nonchalantly help herself to another fishcake. “What was that all about?” she asked Pansy.

  “What was what?” answered Pansy oblivious to everything but her need for food.

  “All that blood, blood business.”

  “Oh,” the hungry girl exclaimed, “been seeing the future again have I? Just something that happens when you’re temple trash,” and she looked angrily across the room at the others. She had overheard them talking about her earlier, and was determined to pay them back somehow.

  “Going to be trouble in the morning girls. Sharkey’s fishing boat is called the Black Goat, and it’s got a bent mast. I don’t think she’ll be able to get a crew tomorrow, so you’d better keep out of her way. I’ll go and let Dorian know what’s happened.”

  Five minutes later the inn had returned to something like normal, although they were still getting occasional odd looks from the other customers.

  Pansy declared that she couldn’t eat any more.

  “Good job too,” stated Tanya, “much more and you would have burst.” She lowered her voice, and whispered, “does that fortune telling stuff happen often, Pan?”

  Pansy smiled at her, “only when I want it to. Good, isn’t it? One of the things we had to learn in the temple school. You’d be surprised at the gifts the people brought us, just to hear one of us spout rubbish like that. Yokels. Got rid of her quick, didn’t it?”

  “So, none of that was true then. You just made it up?”

  “Yeh, bit spooky though, wasn’t it? Her boat being called the Black Goat.”

  Tanya was giving Pansy a look that said, is that the whole truth then.

  “Oh, alright. I saw her on the boat earlier. She’s so big
I couldn’t forget her.”

  Two hours later it was nearly dark, and Tanya was getting frustrated with her pupil.

  “No, no, no. How many times have I got to tell you? Don’t wave it about, stick it in, hard.”

  “Die bush,” yelled Pansy, and the juniper bush behind the boat shed quivered in fright as Pansy prodded it with her brush again. Tanya wasn’t going to let her get anywhere near her precious collection of knives yet.

  “Well that’s a bit better, but you’ve got to be fast as well. Gotta leap in, stab, then jump out again, like this.” And Tanya was a blur of motion as she assassinated the poor bush. “Now you try,” she said to the weary Pansy.

  “Yaaah, ouch!!! It got me.” Pansy held up her hand to show Tanya the drop of blood on the back of her finger.

  She had tried her best, (and failed) so Tanya called off the lesson with a promise that they would start again in the morning, and they went back to Sami’s place to find a warm place to sleep.

  Dorian and Mona were with Sami, and obviously waiting for the girls return.

  Mona’s broad smile was conspicuous by it’s absence. “Our two heroes, back at last,” she said, “come and sit here with us, and we’ll talk about looking into the future, shall we?”

  “I’d rather not, mistress Verge,” said Pansy worriedly.

  “It’s not a request girl, so just tell me what made you curse one of our boats.”

  “She didn’t curse the boat, she was just trying to scare that bully away. Worked too,” retorted Tanya angrily.

  “Worked too well for my liking,” Mona replied, “now we’ve got a useless boat, because nobody’ll go near it since you said that you saw blood, blood,” and she rolled her eyes and waved her hands about to emphasise the words.

  “Not my fault if you’re all superstitious yokels here, it’s your fault for not sorting out bullies like that sharkskin woman.”

  The last vestiges of Mona’s good humour disappeared. “Not your place to answer back girl,” she snapped, “and I’ll tell you what we’ve decided. In the morning, you’re going to tell the crews that you’re a fake, because that’s what you are, and you,” she indicated towards Tanya, “are going to throw that bracelet into the sea from the deck of the Black Goat, as an offering to the sea gods.”

  “That’s not fair, no such thing as sea gods,” Tanya started to say, but was interrupted by the angry guru, “more than fair girl. It’s true that we owe you for bringing your goat from Homestead, so you’ll not get the punishment you deserve, and you should be grateful for that. Now, get yourselves to bed, and we’ll finish this in the morning.”

  As they left the room, Tanya paused in the doorway. She spoke softly, but an unseen menace seemed to fill the room with her words. “At the end, there were only four of us left standing on Asher’s field. Do you remember how many died there?” She paused a moment, then went on, “how many did scar face manage to kill, or did she run away like the rest of you, till it was all over?” She turned and followed Pansy up the stairs.

  “Oh no. Didn’t need reminding of that, did we?” exclaimed Sami, who had been one of the first to flee the battleground at the sight of the priestess’s monster. “I think that she just threatened us,” said Dorian, who hadn’t been far behind Sami in the mad stampede for safety. “And I’m not sure that we’re able to take that bracelet from her, even though she is only fifteen.”

  “Do we have to do this?” asked Sami worriedly.

  “That Pansy’s right Sam,” said Mona with a shake of her head. “Sailors have always been a superstitious lot, and this is the only way the Black Goat will sail again.”

  “But did you hear what she did in the battle?” insisted Dorian, “She was heroic.”

  “Hero or not,” muttered Mona, “she’ll be doing it, whether she likes it or not.”

  Shortly after midnight, Tanya shook Pansy awake, and put one hand over her friends mouth to keep her quiet.

  “It’s time,” she whispered, and they rolled carefully out of bed, still dressed in their travelling clothes.

  The dying rush lights outside Rainbow’s End tavern were the village’s only illumination in the moonless night, but the darkness hadn’t been any obstacle to Tanya for more than a year now, and she guided Pansy safely along the street and out of the village towards the West, and Homestead.

  Despite Tanya’s ability to see in the dark, they made slow progress, and as the Eastern sky began to pale with the promise of a new dawn, they were less than eight kilometres from the coast.

  “Gonna have to stop Tan, I’m so tired.”

  Tanya was a seasoned campaigner, having survived the battles of Homestead green and Asher’s Farm, and after the twenty nine stitches had been taken out of her left thigh, she had walked and walked, and then walked some more to build up the muscles again. She was in better condition than Pansy, who had led a more ‘stay at home’ kind of life with the priestesses in Central, until moving to Homestead after the last battle.

  “Just a bit further Pansy, then we’ll get off the road and rest. Don’t reckon that they’ve missed us yet,” she said confidently, but more in the hope of reassuring poor worried Pansy. A distant rumble of thunder made them both look to the North West, where the dark sky held the promise of yet another wet spring day.

  They started walking again, and as the first scattering of raindrops began to fall, Tanya found the place she had been looking for.

  “This is it girl,” she exclaimed smiling, “just up here and we can have a nice long rest out of the rain,” and she pointed to where a narrow track ran up the hill towards the ruins of the old watch tower, originally built by Dorian Deerward’s family and abandoned after the earthquake and plague nearly two hundred years ago, right after the valley wars.

  “Oh no Tan, we can’t go up there. Sasha told me it’s haunted by old man Deerward. He catches strangers in his fishing net and sends them mad. Makes horrible faces at them he does, and moans an’ all that.”

  “Well, we’ll be moaning a lot worse if them Dockside peasants get their hands on us, and I’m not giving up my bracelet for nobody. It’s mine. Sasha and Sami said so.”

  At Tanya’s insistence, Pansy pressed on up the narrow path, which wasn’t as bad as she had feared, and they emerged onto the small plateau, a mere two hundred metres above the road below.

  The haunted tower

  An hour later, they were still sat in the doorway of the tower’s ruins, watching the incessant rain sweep across the hilltop.

  “I’m hungry Tan.”

  “You’re always hungry Pansy Prayerbook, must be something wrong with you.”

  “Can’t help it. I’m at that growing up fast age. Your mum said you was the same.”

  “Yeh well, perhaps I was, but I learnt how to control it.”

  Pansy looked uncomfortable. “I’ve got to go Tan. Can’t control it any longer, got to take a pee.”

  “Well, go
on then, no one’s looking.”

  Pansy looked round disconsolately, “can’t do it here. Need a proper loo, or a bush, and it’s raining.”

  Tanya gave a theatrical sigh. “Come on then. I’ll go inside with you.”

  They stood up and retreated into the darkness of the towers forbidding interior.

  “I’ll wait for you here then,” said Tanya waving at an inner doorway, “I’ve been here before, and you’ll be quite safe.”

  There was the rustle of clothing, then a soft ‘pitter patter’ as Pansy found relief from her pressing problem. A flash of lightning penetrated the tower’s gloom, and Pansy gasped as she briefly saw the room she was in.

  “Tanya,” she yelled. “Look.”

  Tanya looked. The room appeared to her in shades of grey, but showed her nothing special. “I’m looking, but it’s only an empty room with a puddle of pee in one corner,” she said, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  “No,” Pansy insisted, “it’s not just any room, and this can’t be just any old watchtower. What do you see on the back wall?”

  “Well, there’s pictures carved into the stones, but can’t really tell what they are without a light, and there’s a broken washbasin thing with water coming out of the spout and running across the floor. And that’s about it. What do you think’s here then? Old man Deerward?” and she laughed at Pansy’s discomfort.

  Pansy didn’t laugh. She was getting excited. “That wall’s the same as in the temple bath house, and it should have a special door in it, and you’ve got the key.”

  “What are you on about Pansy Prayerbook? There ain’t no door here, and I don’t have any key either.”

  “You do Tanya. It’s that snake bracelet you found. You put it’s tail into the water spout, and the door opens, like magic, except it’s not. You turn the snake to the right place, and the holes in it’s tail make the water go somewhere else. It’s all weights and things.”

  “Fat lot of good it’ll be now then, it’s not been opened for two hundred years.”

  “No. It’ll work. We learnt all about it at the temple school, and Rocket Rosie told us that Chubby Yates had made these doors to last till the end of time. Just try it and see.”

  Tanya had been intrigued by the strange design of her bracelet, which she suspected was really made of gold, and now did as instructed, placing the snake into Pansy’s hand and guiding her to the spout.

  “I can’t get it in,” whispered Pansy urgently.

  “No Pan, turn it round, you’re holding the wrong end.”

  Pansy inserted the right end of the snake and turned it gently, listening.

  “There, you hear it Tan?”

  Tanya confessed that she could hear nothing different, but Pansy was adamant that it was working and the door would soon be open.

  “Well this is fun,” said Tanya several minutes later, as they stood in front of the still closed door. “Makes me wish I’d been born a templar as well.”

  “Nobody’s born to the temple,” said Pansy, “you get… given, I suppose you’d call it, when you’re about seven or eight.”

  Tanya thought about this new information for a long moment before replying. “So your mum just gave you away then? Cheerio Pan, have a nice new life with these strange women doing strange things, and all that?”

  Pansy shook her head. “Excuse me, Tanya Vine, but you can’t say that others are strange when Homesteaders have some very weird ways. And I wasn’t actually given away by my mother.”

  “She sold you then?”

  “Haven’t got a mum. Haven’t got anybody.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Rose said they found me on the beach near La Via after a bad storm. Said I was about five or so.”

  Tanya put her arm round Pansy’s shoulders in silence, for once, lost for words.

  The moment didn’t last long. “What’s that?” said Tanya as she jumped to her feet.

  There was a deep groan from below and they felt the floor vibrate beneath them.

  “Shit. It’s Old man Deerward, Tan. He’s coming for us,” whispered Pansy, her voice trembling with fear. “We’d better go. Please Tan,” she added.

  “Not yet Pansy Prayerbook,” said Tanya confidently, “I think your magic door’s opening.”

  In the gloom, she had seen the fall of dust from the wall, and then part of it shuddered and an opening appeared, just as Pansy had predicted. The light improved as the door opened and there was an ominous rustle of wings from within the revealed chamber.

  “Lady, it stinks,” Pansy complained as the sharp aroma of pigeon droppings crept out to greet them. “It’s full of bird poo, I’ll let you go in while I mind the door shall I?”

  “You’re a big softy, Pan. Afraid of pigeons are you?” She waited but got no response. “Alright, I’ll do it,” and treading carefully, keeping away from the piles of droppings against the walls, she entered the hidden room beyond the massive door.

  Tanya saw that except for the pigeon mess, the room was almost empty, but she came out backwards dragging behind her the only thing she found there. The filthy box was narrow but about a metre long, and judging by the weight, didn’t have much in it.

  “Your turn, priestess Pansy. I’ve done my bit, so you can open it,” and squatted down while Pansy grimaced and fiddled with the box’s stiff clasps.

  “Oooh, this is disgusting, my fingers keep slipping.” She was about to give up when the last catch finally surrendered, and together they lifted the lid with a creak of rusty hinges. “Wow,” breathed Pansy and started to reach forward into the box.

  Tanya stopped her. “Not yet Pan,” she warned her friend, “we’re covered in bird stuff. Better wash it off first. Don’t want to make it dirty do we?”

  Pansy removed Tanya’s snake bracelet from the spout, and the water started to flow into the basin and onto the floor again. They quickly washed the worst of the mess from their hands and Tanya slid the bracelet back onto her left arm.

  “Wow,” repeated Pansy as she lifted the small bright horn from its cradle. “It’s beautiful Tan,” and she caressed the curves of the instrument tenderly. “I’m going outside for a better look,” and she stood up ready to leave. “Coming Tan?”

  “In a minute, there’s something not quite right. This box is too big and heavy just for one little trumpet.” She poked and prodded around the interior of the box, and at last there was a satisfying click as the false bottom came loose.

  “Wow,” said Tanya, in an echo of Pansy’s earlier astonishment, and she lifted out the silver chain mail vest. “It’s beautiful Pan.”

  The box then gave up the last of it’s secret store as Pansy reached into it and stood up again holding a sword. It was the twin to Sylvia’s Toledo Espada Special, and had been ‘lost’ after the valley wars.

  “We’re rich Pan. Beryl or Sylvia would give us anything we wanted for this sword.”

  They left the gloom of the tower and went out into the brightening day w
here Pansy could resist no longer and raised the horn to her lips.

  “Not too loud,” Tanya warned, and Pansy nodded briefly before breathing gently into the horn, and across the hilltop, a dozen wet faces turned in the direction of the tower.

  “Well, I’m no expert on music, but I didn’t actually hear anything,” said Tanya helpfully.

  “Ain’t blown it yet. Got to warm it up first,” Pansy answered in musician mode.

  She took a deep breath and blew again, but this time the horn produced a low muffled note, and Pansy lowered the instrument and turned it over in her hands.

  She frowned at it, “That’s strange, it shouldn’t be able to get as low as that,” and started to lift the horn again, but thought better of it and instead helped Tanya as she struggled into the silver mail.

  “Yes!” Tanya declared, “now I’m a proper warrior. Let them try to get my bracelet now. We’re invincible Pansy Prayerbook, we’re Pan an’ Tan, the deadly enemies of tattooed faces everywhere,” and laughing, she raised the sword high above her head.

  Pansy caught Tan’s enthusiasm, and blew one clear note on the horn as they headed West once more along the hilltop.

  Even though she was spurred on by the sound of the horn, Sharkey Spratt was just too late to see the two girls disappear over the crest of the hill, and she advanced slowly towards the tower. She had spotted the pair by the tower at daybreak, through the telescope she had won from Kerry’s mum playing jacks up with a marked deck.

  The dozen wild goats arrived as well, in answer to the summons from Pansy’s horn, and Sharkey looked aghast at the biggest, blackest goat she had ever seen, leading his herd steadily towards her. It’s horns were no twistier than any other goats, but in her terror at seeing another facet of Pansy’s prophecy, Sharkey turned and ran for the safety of the tower. The goats broke into a trot to keep up with her, and milled about the dark doorway.

  Sharkey screamed as her nemesis entered the room where the secret door still stood open. “Get away from me,” she wailed, and waved her arms at the confused animal. “Leave me alone, you evil beast.”

  “Baaa,” said the goat, and Sharkey tripped over the open box discarded by the girls, and falling in the open doorway, screamed again as the counterweight finally lost enough water and gave up the struggle for equilibrium, letting the heavy door slowly close and squeeze the life from her.

  Her crushed body lay trapped by the stone slab, and the water from the cracked basin turned red with her blood as it ran across the floor and out of the tower.

  “Baaa,” repeated the goat, and returned to his wives and their eternal quest for lunch.