by Lian Tanner
Duckling stared at him, remembering what she’d overheard in the Great Chamber. ‘His protectors will do him no good if I catch him alone.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘We’ll hide both of you. But where—’
‘There’s a privy back around the corner,’ said Pummel. ‘The stink should be enough to put the dogs off the scent. Could you climb down the hole, Otte, carrying the cat?’
Otte must’ve seen how Duckling glanced at the place where his leg should’ve been, because he reddened, grabbed his crutches and hauled himself upright. ‘My arms are strong. I can climb.’
But the floor was shaking now; Duckling could feel it, even through her boots. The pounding of hooves on the stairs was like the beating of a drum. The shouting of the grafs and grafines was so loud that she could make out the words.
‘Revenge death blood war hate revenge death blood—’
‘I don’t think you’ll have time,’ she whispered.
She wanted to panic, but she didn’t. The hunt was coming, and she had to keep her wits about her.
She ran to the window and looked out. Directly above her were the battlements. Below her – far below – was the pond that the privies spilled into.
If only they had a little more time. If only the hunt could be delayed—
She spun around. ‘Bring the cat here,’ she said to Pummel. ‘Right up to the window. Cat, can you rub yourself against the sill? Yes, like that! And I have to pull out a bit of your fur, all right? Don’t scratch me, I’m trying to save your life!’
The cat hissed as the fur came out, but kept her claws sheathed.
‘Now,’ said Duckling, ‘we’re going to sling you around Otte’s shoulders. Otte, are you sure you can carry her? She’s big.’
‘I am sure,’ said Otte, though he grunted as he took the weight, and leaned more heavily on his crutches.
Clatter clatter clatter came the hooves. Duckling couldn’t understand how those huge horses could climb such narrow stairs, but they were doing it.
‘Pummel!’ she cried. ‘Take Otte up on your back and be ready to run. Otte, you’ll have to hang onto your crutches.’ And she began to hum the shiny little tune.
A breeze whisked around her, picking up the dust and spiderwebs, and laying them at her feet.
No, that’s not what I want, she thought. Take it down the stairs!
But the breeze kept on circling her, licking her hands like a too-faithful dog, while the hunt came closer and closer.
‘Blood war hate revenge death blood war hate—’
Pummel crouched down, and Otte scrambled onto his back. ‘Oof!’ said Pummel, staggering under the double load. ‘What now, Duckling?’
She stopped humming for long enough to pick up the net and throw it to Otte. ‘Take that with you. Now close your eyes and be ready. And Pummel, you race back here when you’re done.’
She closed her own eyes and started humming again. How do I do this? How do I make witchery obey me?
She hummed the shiny tune. She whistled it through her teeth. She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes tighter and begged the breeze to stop circling her and go where she wanted it to go. She pushed with every part of herself, but nothing worked.
All right, she thought. If you’re going to behave like a dog, I’ll treat you like one.
She imagined herself pointing down the stairs towards the approaching hunt. Skitch ’em! she ordered.
There was a whoosh of air, followed by stillness.
‘DEATH!’ screamed the riders, no more than half a staircase away. ‘BLOOD! WAR! HA—’
The breeze hit them, laden with dust and cobwebs. The voices broke off into hacking coughs. The dogs yelped, the horses whinnied their distress and that awful pounding of hooves became a disordered thudding.
‘Go!’ hissed Duckling.
Pummel stumbled down the passage with Otte clinging to his back, and the cat clinging to Otte. Duckling spat on the tuft of fur and stuck it to the sill, as if it had been caught by the rough stone. She wrenched at her tunic and mussed her hair and scratched her face until it was red.
Then she ran halfway back along the passage and waited.
Pummel seemed to take forever. The distressed yelps were beginning to settle. The coughing grew less hoarse.
Come on, Pummel! Come on!
He raced back along the passage just in time. Duckling grabbed hold of him and rumpled his hair.
‘We saw the cat and tried to catch her, right?’ She tore at one of his buttons until it hung by a thread, then took a step back and looked at him. ‘No, we need more. I’m going to have to hit you.’
‘What?’
‘Sorry!’ And she smacked Pummel’s cheek, so that his face was almost as red as hers.
‘Ow!’
‘That’s better.’
By then, the hunt was on the move again, and the noise was so great that Duckling had to shout in Pummel’s ear. ‘This is what happened. We tried to catch her – no, we tried to catch it, but it was too fierce and wild, and we couldn’t hold it. Right? I said, right?’
Pummel blinked. ‘Right.’
‘It got away from us, and sprang up onto the sill and out the window.’
‘What?’
Duckling pointed towards the window and made diving motions.
The horn blew, almost in their ears. As Duckling’s hands fell back to her sides, the hunt poured around the corner and into the passage.
The dogs came first, their noses to the floor, their tails spinning in excited circles. They ran past the children without stopping, following the cat’s scent.
Behind them came two of the horses, enormous wild-eyed creatures that galloped down the passage towards the children. Duckling and Pummel leaped out of the way just in time.
Another half-dozen horses followed.
It was like being caught in the worst of all possible storms. The children cowered against the wall with their hands over their ears and their eyes closed. Duckling could feel the heat of huge bodies galloping past, and the wet flick of manes and tails. The floor under her feet shook.
By the time she could breathe again, the horses were milling around the window at the far end of the passage. The dogs leaped at the sill in loud excitement.
‘Hold!’ bellowed one of the riders. ‘Hold back!’
The dogs quietened. The rider, Graf von Stoen, swung down from his horse and inspected the sill. When he saw the scrap of fur, his moustaches bristled.
He poked his head out the window. ‘I cannot see a body.’
One of the grafines said, ‘It will be lying at the bottom of the cess pond. Nothing could survive such a fall.’
Von Stoen scanned the walls of the passage. Then he swung up onto his horse and urged it back past Duckling and Pummel, and around the corner towards the privy.
Duckling’s mouth was dry. She kept expecting to hear a shout of triumph, as von Stoen discovered Otte and the cat. And then he would question Otte, and the boy would confess that the children had helped him—
How am I going to get out of this? wondered Duckling. How are we going to get out of it?
But when the graf returned, he was alone.
Duckling and Pummel weren’t out of trouble yet, however. Von Stoen rode his horse right up to them, so they had to stand on tiptoe to avoid being trodden on by those enormous hooves.
‘What happened?’ he growled.
It was one of Duckling’s best performances ever. She set her face in a combination of terror, awe and a desperate desire to help, and stammered, ‘W-we tried to catch it, Ser! We did catch it, just for a moment. But it was so fierce and wild, Ser! It fought us until we couldn’t hold it any longer. Then it ran towards the window, didn’t it, Pummel?’
Beside her, Pummel nodded stiffly – which Duckling hoped von Stoen would take for shock rather than guilt.
‘And then,’ she continued, ‘and then it jumped!’
The graf swore under his breath and turned away from the children. ‘The beast has che
ated us. It has jumped to its death.’
The others murmured their disappointment. At an unseen signal, the dogs fell in beside them and the horses trotted back along the passage and down the stairs.
Within half a minute the children were alone once more, with only a scrap of fur on the windowsill to show what had happened.
WHAT DID YOU DO?
Pummel wasn’t sure if he could speak. The whole thing had happened so quickly that his thoughts were only just catching up with him.
He turned to Duckling, and saw the same stunned expression in her eyes.
They stared at each other.
At last Pummel managed to whisper, ‘We did it. We saved the cat.’ He felt as if the horses had trampled all over him, the way they’d trampled the floorboards. But at the same time a grin was slowly working its way out from inside him. ‘You were brilliant, Duckling. “It was so fierce and wild, Ser! It fought us until we couldn’t hold it any longer!” I believed you, even though I knew it wasn’t true.’
Duckling grinned back at him. ‘We beat the hunt. I didn’t think we would.’
‘I was sure we wouldn’t.’
‘The privy – that was so clever!’
‘So was the business with the fur,’ said Pummel. ‘I would never have thought of it. But you did. Together we saved her—’
‘I don’t know how you got her out of that net—’
‘I don’t know how you slowed the hunt—’
They both stopped. Duckling, still smiling, said, ‘How did you get the cat out of the net, Pummel? One moment you couldn’t, then you could. What did you do?’
Pummel didn’t want to lie, but he wasn’t at all sure he should tell her the truth either. So instead, he said, ‘How did you slow the hunt? What did you do?’
‘Twasn’t me,’ said Duckling, looking innocent. ‘Maybe one of the horses put a hoof through the stairs.’
Pummel stared at her. She’s lying. She doesn’t want to tell me. And I don’t want to tell her about the raashk.
‘We’d better get them out of the privy,’ he said. And he ran down the passage.
When he’d left Otte, the boy had been climbing down into that stinking hole, with his crutches slung over his arm and his face pinched with disgust. The cat had her eyes closed, but she looked disgusted too.
There was no sign of either of them now. The children bent over the privy, holding their noses. Still the reek made their eyes water.
‘Otte!’ called Duckling, in a strangled voice. ‘They’ve gone. You can come up.’
There was no sound from below. Pummel peered down the hole, but it was too dark to see anything.
‘He must’ve climbed down to the next floor,’ he said, trying not to open his mouth too wide.
They made their way slowly back to the passage. The leather pouch, tucked into the side of Pummel’s boot, felt warm and familiar.
He wondered what Duckling would say if he showed it to her. It’d be a relief to share it with someone. Especially Duckling, who was always a step ahead of everyone else, whereas Pummel was always a step behind, trying to work out what was right and what was wrong.
I’ll tell her, he decided.
He dug his fingers into the side of his boot and took out the leather pouch. ‘This—’ he began. Then he stopped, not knowing what else to say.
‘Yes?’ said Duckling.
‘This is—’ He held it out to her, but when she reached for it, he found himself pulling it back, as if he couldn’t bear for anyone else to touch it.
‘It’s called a raashk,’ he said. ‘I think.’ He undid the string at the neck of the pouch, and took out the tooth. ‘You look through the hole.’
‘Can I try?’
‘I suppose so.’ This time he made himself hand it over. ‘But be careful. I got a fright the first time.’
‘It’s big,’ said Duckling, inspecting the tooth from every side. ‘What sort of animal did it come from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where’d you get it?’
‘Someone gave it to me.’
‘Who?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘You mean you won’t tell me.’ Duckling held up a soothing hand. ‘It’s all right, I was just curious. So when you looked through it you could see how to undo the net?’
Pummel nodded. ‘It was really clear.’
‘Hmm,’ said Duckling. And she put her eye to the hole.
‘Isn’t it amazing?’ whispered Pummel.
‘Ah— yes,’ said Duckling. ‘Astonishing.’
‘What can you see?’
No answer.
She’s probably too stunned, thought Pummel. Like I was.
He waited patiently. At last Duckling took her eye from the hole, and blinked. ‘That’s – extraordinary,’ she said. ‘I wonder if we see the same thing, when we look through it. Here, Pummel, tell me what you see.’
And she gave him the tooth.
When Pummel put his eye to the hole, the passage unwound, and the floor and walls faded, leaving him standing in mid-air. One of the Strong-hold ghosts drifted past, nodding to him in a nervous fashion. Duckling looked half-formed, as if she was a ghost too.
‘Well?’ she said.
Pummel wasn’t sure he could put it into words. ‘It’s just—’ He waved his arm in a circle – and heard a muffled shriek.
‘What?’ he said, taking his eye from the raashk.
Duckling was goggling at him. ‘Your hand!’
Pummel inspected his hand. It was a bit dirty, but otherwise it seemed perfectly normal. ‘What about it?’
‘When you waved it around like that—’ Duckling swallowed. ‘It went right through the wall, Pummel. As if there was nothing there!’
Duckling couldn’t believe what she’d seen. It was impossible. It was the sort of thing Grandpa could build a whole Scheme around, drawing in dozens of gullible people, then running away with their money before they realised it was a lie.
Except it wasn’t a lie. She’d seen it quite clearly. Pummel’s hand had passed through stone. And he hadn’t even noticed.
‘Through the wall?’ he said. ‘But how—?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Did I disappear?’
‘No. You looked as solid as ever. It was just your hand.’
Half a dozen emotions chased each other across Pummel’s face. ‘You try it,’ he said. ‘See if your hand’ll go through stone too.’ And he held out the tooth.
Suddenly, for no reason she could think of, Duckling felt bad about lying to him. She tried to shrug it off. Lying was a part of her life; she’d been taught to lie at the same time as she’d learned to walk. It was how you found out other people’s secrets without giving away your own.
But now—
Before she could think better of it she said, ‘It won’t work for me.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Pummel.
‘Because when I looked through it, I didn’t see anything.’
‘Nothing? But you said—’
‘Never mind what I said. All I saw was the passage. It didn’t look any different.’
‘No ghosts?’
‘You saw ghosts?’
Pummel looked uncertainly at her. ‘Are you going to tell me there’s no such thing?’
‘No,’ said Duckling. Then she added, experimentally, ‘Folk in the Spavey Isles are used to all sorts of oddities. We quite like ghosts.’
An expression of relief crossed Pummel’s face. ‘They’re all over the Strong-hold. I just can’t see them without the raashk.’
Ghosts, thought Duckling. He can see ghosts.
‘So,’ she said, trying to sort out what was important now from what might be important later, ‘is it just your hand? Could you walk right through the wall?’
‘I don’t know.’ Pummel looked sick at the thought.
Duckling didn’t blame him. What if he could walk through walls? Imagine the things he could do! Imagine the secrets he
could discover! Imagine Grandpa’s face when Duckling told him about—
She stopped herself. Much as she loved her grandpa, she had no illusions about him. He was a villain, and if he found out about this, there’d be no stopping him.
He’d never retire, and he’d never let Pummel go, either.
Oddly enough, it was that last thought that convinced her. Pummel was too honest to be happy with the sort of life Duckling had always led.
Which meant she’d better make sure Grandpa didn’t find out.
‘Try it,’ she said.
This time, Pummel raised the tooth warily, as if he was afraid it might bite him. He stood there for a moment with it pressed to his eye. Then he took a deep breath, strode towards the wall—
And vanished.
Duckling clapped both hands over her mouth, so no one would hear her shriek.
Pummel was gone.
He had walked through a stone wall.
A BOY WHO CAN WALK THROUGH WALLS
Pummel’s nose was bleeding and his head spun. His hands shook uncontrollably.
He thought he’d walked through the wall, but he wasn’t sure. He’d felt something brush his face and hands, like a fine cobweb, but he could still see Duckling, her eyes wide with shock, exactly where he’d left her.
He waved.
She didn’t wave back.
He lowered the raashk. Duckling vanished, and in her place was the stone wall.
The other side of the stone wall.
Pummel touched it to make sure it was solid. He pinched his nose to stop the bleeding, and stared around the little room, trying to convince himself that what he’d done wasn’t so strange. It wasn’t as if he’d suddenly found himself in the Spavey Isles, for example.
No, this was just a semi-deserted room near the top of the Strong-hold. There was an unglazed window, a door on the far side, and a table with a book on it. The whole thing was perfectly ordinary. It was just the way Pummel had arrived here that was a bit odd.
‘A bit odd?’ he mocked himself. ‘A bit odd?’
It was impossible, that’s what it was. It was more than impossible. It was downright dangerous, and far too big to keep to himself.
Pummel knew a lot more now than he had when he’d first arrived in the city. He knew about muggers, spies and assassins. He knew that not everyone was as honest as Ma had raised him to be. He knew that a boy who could walk through walls was a prize to be fought over—