Secret Guardians

by Lian Tanner

  Otte, still dangling over Rusty’s shoulder, raised his head. ‘They are friends with the slavers who tried to kill my chicken.’

  Rusty cracked his whip high above them, where it wouldn’t do any harm, and bellowed, ‘No talkin’ in the mines!’

  The visitors clapped again, though one of them turned to the guide and said, ‘I hope it is not true about the chicken.’

  ‘Ohno,’ replied the guide. ‘But the little lass has learned her part well, don’t you think? She is very convincing.’

  Duckling didn’t say a word. It was no use. The visitors had been told what to see, and they would go on seeing it no matter what happened.

  ‘That’s all for the historical re-enactment, Herroen and Frowen,’ said the guide, as he herded his charges away across the cavern. ‘Now we will show you the mechanical processors, after which it will be time for lunch. I hope you’ve all got an appetite.’

  As soon as the visitors had gone through the door on the other side of the cavern, the men and women who’d been chipping at the salt put down their picks, stretched and ambled towards the elevator, without so much as a glance at the captives.

  Boz and Rusty waited until the elevator cage had risen out of sight. Then they shoved the prisoners across the cavern in the opposite direction.

  Duckling didn’t see the door until they were right next to it. It was painted to look just like the rest of the walls, and the seams were cunningly hidden by a carving of a flock of birds.

  Boz pushed it open, and Pummel and Duckling stumbled through.

  They found themselves in a dark tunnel, with earth all around them. The ceiling of the tunnel was held up by props of wood. The air was dry. There were no chandeliers.

  ‘Keep goin’,’ growled Boz. ‘See that light at the end? That’s where you’re ’eaded. Come on, make it quick.’

  The light turned out to be a lantern hanging over a large hole in the ground. There were two steel ropes coming out of the hole, wound around a mechanical drum. Attached to one of the ropes was an enormous bucket.

  ‘Three for the snotty shaft,’ shouted Rusty.

  Two more men stepped out of the darkness, rolling their shoulders and scratching. Before Duckling had time to react, one of them picked her up and dropped her into the bucket. The other man did the same with Pummel and Otte. Then he pulled a lever on the mechanical drum, and they began to sink through the hole, swinging wildly.

  Deep beneath the earth, Sooli’s power whispered a welcome. It was so quiet that not even a mouse would have heard it. Not even a cockroach.

  But a Bayam must listen for such things – even if that Bayam is barely twelve winters old and did not take nearly enough notice of her training.

  ‘You are nearby,’ whispered her power. ‘You are coming here. We will be together again, as we should be.’

  And somewhere above Sooli’s head, the raashk and the Wind’s Blessing murmured their almost-silent answer. ‘We are nearby. We are coming to you. We will be together again, as we should be.’

  Sooli’s heart leaped with shock, which quickly turned to a furious sort of joy. She had been working on her escape ever since she had been brought to the salt mine, but for the last two and a half weeks she had also been thinking about how she might find the thief who had stolen her inheritance.

  Three days ago, thief had become murderer.

  And now he was coming to her.

  No, they were coming to her. She could feel them; the raashk and the Wind’s Blessing were carried by two people, not one.

  She sank back on her heels with her head bowed in gratitude. The winds had been kind to her. She would not let them down.

  ‘When I meet these killers,’ she said to the mine’s ghosts, in her own language, ‘I will be as subtle as a sea breeze. I will befriend them. I will discover their weaknesses. I will steal back the raashk and the Wind’s Blessing, just as they stole them from Great-Grandmother. The magic will be whole again, as it should be; as it has always been.

  ‘And when I escape from here, with all my people, I will leave the killers behind, to die in the darkness as they deserve.’

  ‘Wait!’ screamed Duckling.

  The bucket jerked to a halt, and one of the men peered down at the children from above. ‘What?’

  Duckling said, ‘Where are you sending us?’

  ‘You’ll find out when you get there,’ said the man.

  ‘How long are you going to keep us prisoner?’ asked Pummel.

  The man started laughing. A moment later, the second man joined in. Then they were roaring and slapping their thighs as if they had just heard the funniest joke in Neuhalt; they were bending over and grabbing hold of each other to keep from falling.

  The first man recovered just enough to repeat Pummel’s words in a high, stupid voice. The second man hit the lever.

  ‘You’d better sit still,’ he shouted, as they began to sink again. His voice echoed in the shaft. ‘It’s an awful long way down if that bucket tips.’

  Duckling was shivering now, with fright and horror. So were Pummel and Otte. None of them spoke, but they edged closer to each other, trying not to tip the bucket.

  They seemed to go down forever. There were no lights, so they were in utter darkness with no idea what was around them or how big the hole was. Duckling remembered Grandpa’s stories of trolls and three-headed gnomes.

  What if they weren’t stories after all? What if they were true?

  She shrank back from the walls. ‘I think they’re sending us to the real mine,’ she whispered. ‘The one the visitors don’t see.’ Then she quickly added, for her own sake as much as anyone else’s, ‘But it’s all right. Grandpa and Arms-mistress Krieg are here somewhere.’

  Down, down, down they went, and the weight of the earth above them grew heavier and heavier. A couple of times they passed tunnels going off sideways into the rock. In those places there were tallow lanterns, and thin figures stared at the children as they passed.

  ‘Are you sure Arms-mistress Krieg will be down here?’ asked Otte in a small voice.

  ‘Of course she will,’ said Duckling. But her words bounced off the walls of the shaft and came back cracked and broken.

  At last a glow appeared below them. ‘We’re nearly there,’ whispered Pummel.

  A bell rang. And with a thump and a rattle, the bucket came to a halt.

  Duckling heard the sounds of hurrying feet, and a crowd of ragged children appeared. At least, she thought they were children. They were too small to be adults, but they were so hunched and old-looking that they might have been any age. Their faces were black with soot and white with salt, and they each carried a wooden bucket.

  One of the taller children stepped forward, her eyes gleaming in the lanternlight. ‘Out,’ she said. ‘Quickly.’ She had an accent, as if Neuhaltese wasn’t her mother tongue, and under the dirt, her skin was dark brown. ‘Unless you wish to drown in salt.’

  Duckling and Pummel scrambled over the side of the bucket, then helped Otte out. He clutched his bag of potions with one hand, and Pummel’s arm with the other. There was no sign of his mice.

  The ragged children emptied their small buckets into the big one until it was nearly overflowing. The bell rang again and the large bucket began to rise into the air.

  Duckling wanted to leap on top of the salt and rise with it, but she made herself stand still.

  Grandpa’s down here somewhere. All I have to do is find him and Krieg. Then we’ll get out.

  She was already making plans. Lord Rump usually had a few silver coins hidden in his boot. Maybe they’d be able to bribe someone. And if that didn’t work, they could go up with the salt bucket, take the men at the top by surprise and fight their way to freedom. With Arms-mistress Krieg on their side, they’d have a good chance.

  One of the ragged children said something in another language, and Duckling dragged her attention back to them. They were staring at Otte, nudging each other and pointing to the bag he carried. One of them t
ried to snatch it from him, but he held it tight.

  Pummel said, ‘Leave him alone. Do you understand me? Leave him alone!’

  The tall girl said, ‘What is in that bag? They think it is food.’

  At the word ‘food’, all the children edged forward again. Their eyes were bright and their faces were thin and hungry.

  ‘It’s not food,’ said Duckling. ‘It’s just potions. Herbs and stuff. Nothing you can eat.’

  But the children kept edging forward, until they were almost standing on Duckling’s bare feet. She could feel the heat of them, and see the desperation in their eyes. They were only small, but there were an awful lot of them.

  ‘Otte,’ she said quietly, ‘I think you’d better show them.’

  Otte opened the mouth of the bag and the children crowded forward to look. But when they tried to poke their fingers into his precious potions, he jerked it away again.

  Some of them muttered and narrowed their eyes. The first girl spoke to them in that other language, and they turned and walked away reluctantly, watching the newcomers over their shoulders.

  ‘What are your names?’ asked the first girl, switching back to Neuhaltese.

  ‘Pummel,’ said Pummel.

  ‘Duckling,’ said Duckling, trying not to think about how much rock there was above her head, and what would happen to her if it fell. We’ll be out of here soon, she reminded herself.

  ‘I am Otte,’ said the Heir of Neuhalt.

  ‘You are a boy?’

  Otte nodded.

  ‘Why are you dressed as a girl?’

  ‘It’s a disguise. We were hiding from our enemies,’ said Duckling.

  The girl said, ‘Duckling, Pummel and Otte. I will not forget.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Duckling.

  ‘Sooli.’

  ‘You’re a Saffy?’ said Pummel.

  The girl raised her head proudly. ‘I am not Saffy. None of my people are Saffy. That name is an insult. We are Saaf, and the true people of this land.’

  Duckling thought she was going to say something else, but the girl caught herself, and smiled instead. ‘I will be your friend,’ she said. ‘Anything you wish to ask, you come to me. I will tell you. I will help you.’

  Grandpa had a list of smiles tucked away inside his head, and he’d taught every one of them to Duckling. There was the really-glad-to-see-you smile, the please-don’t-hit-me smile, the you’ve-got-something-I-want smile, and the we-are-mortal-enemies-and-I-am-going-to-kill-you-as-soon-as-I-get-the-chance smile. There was a smile that covered up terror, another that hid embarrassment, and several that concealed sheer nastiness.

  Sooli’s smile was something else again. It was a mixture of really-glad-to-see-you and mortal-enemies, with a bit of you’ve-got-something-I-want thrown in. Which was strange, because Duckling had never met Sooli in her life.

  She made a mental note of it, and got back to the most important thing.

  ‘Where are the adults?’ she asked. ‘We’re looking for an old man, Lord Rump, who came down here a couple of days ago. He was disguised too, as an old woman called Dame Swagger. And there was a younger woman with him, name of Krieg. Where are they? Can you take us to them?’

  Sooli stared at her, the smile gone. ‘This part of the mine is for children,’ she said. ‘We do not see the adults. Your people have been taken somewhere else entirely, and you will never see them again.’

  The cat had found an earth hole. It was a very small earth hole, around the back of the big human building, and the chicken had no intention of going into it. She liked daylight, and she could not see a scrap of it inside the hole.

  The trouble was, the shiny was in there somewhere. She could feel it, deep under the ground. But the badmen were in there too. And for all she knew, there were dogs and sharpsticks and people who thought chickens were for eating, rather than for dust-bathing and earwig-crunching and all the other delights of the world.

  The cat went in, but that was the cat’s business.

  No, thought the chicken. No no no. And she turned away from the earth hole and set about looking for some lunch.

  But the shiny would not leave her alone. It tickled at her, like a mouse wriggling in her beak. And unlike a mouse, it could not be quietened by a quick bash against a rock.

  Shiny, she thought, creeping back towards the earth hole. She was not going in, no no no. She was just going to ask the hole some questions.

  She cocked her head to one side. Worms? she said. Crunchy beetles?

  The earth hole did not answer. The chicken fluffed her feathers and tried again. Earwigs? Mice?

  She liked mice. There had been plenty in the Stronghold, though Healerboy would not let her eat the white ones.

  Surely there would be mice in a place like this?

  She took a step closer to the hole – and realised that she could see into the darkness.

  That was odd. She had never been able to see in the darkness of the Strong-hold. There, she had gone to sleep at sunset and woken at sunrise, like any sensible chicken. Darkness was for finding a nice safe place (preferably high up so the rats could not gnaw at your feet), tucking your beak into your chest feathers, and going to sleep.

  She did not feel at all like sleeping now. If she could see in the earth hole, she would be able to find worms and crunchy beetles. She might even catch up with Wilygirl and Farmboy, and learn more about the shiny.

  And there would be mice.

  That was enough to decide her. Stepping delicately over the rocks, she headed into the earth hole after the cat.

  It went down steeply, and was not nearly as nice as daylight and dustbaths. In places it was hardly big enough to squeeze through, and the air stank of badmen. The chicken muttered crossly to herself.

  But after a while, the tiny hole opened up into a bigger one, with iron sticks running along the ground and small bubbles of sunshine on the walls. The cat was waiting for her there, and they went forward together, prowling around corners in a way that the chicken had never done in the Strong-hold.

  Her feathers trembled with excitement. Her toes made a clicking sound on the iron sticks. She could almost remember …

  No, it was gone, swept away by the sound of badmen approaching. The chicken crept into the shadows and made herself disappear.

  The cat looked at her approvingly. The badmen passed. The chicken and the cat kept going until they came to another hole. This one plunged down into the ground, and two badmen sat with their legs dangling over the edge, blowing smoke out of their noses and making nasty sounds.

  The cat pressed herself against the wall. The chicken found a shadow and made herself disappear again.

  A little bit of shiny lingered in the air around that hole. Wilygirl and Farmboy had gone down it, and so had Healerboy.

  I will go down too, thought the chicken. And she pressed further into the shadow, and waited.

  Duckling felt as if Sooli had punched her in the stomach. ‘What do you mean, we’ll never see them again? It’s Grandpa, I have to see him. And Arms-mistress Krieg, we need her too!’

  ‘I am sorry that your people are lost to you,’ said Sooli. ‘But you are not the only ones to be struck by disaster. Now come, we must get to work.’ And she picked up her bucket and walked away from the shaft.

  Duckling, Pummel and Otte didn’t move.

  ‘If they are not here,’ asked Otte, ‘where are they?’

  ‘I do not know,’ said Sooli, over her shoulder.

  ‘Then where do you think they are?’ asked Duckling.

  ‘You can ask me a handful of times and I will give you a handful of answers, every one of them the same. I do not know. But this I do know. If we do not work, we do not eat.’ And Sooli walked away.

  Duckling didn’t want to go. That narrow shaft, soaring up into the darkness, was her only connection with the outside world. If she left it, she might never find it again.

  But Pummel was squatting down so that Otte could climb on his back, and D
uckling didn’t want to lose them, either. She took one last look at the shaft, and walked away from it.

  The three children followed Sooli along a passage, with bare rock on either side. There were lanterns every now and again, and in their light Duckling saw figures carved into the rock, and poems, and cries for help. There were pictures so beautiful they made her eyes water, and others so horrible she had to look away.

  ‘There are ghosts here,’ whispered Pummel. ‘I can feel them.’

  Duckling didn’t care about ghosts. All her plans had rested on Grandpa and Krieg. How could she escape without them?

  Her foot kicked a rock. Her elbow bumped against one of the wooden props that held up the roof of the passage.

  ‘Are all those children Saffies?’ asked Pummel. ‘I mean, Saaf?’

  ‘Some are from Faroona and Nor,’ said Sooli. ‘And the Beastie Isles. But a good number are Saaf. The Monster hates my people. She—’

  ‘What monster?’ asked Duckling.

  ‘That is what we call the Margravine. She sends her slavers to snatch us from our homes and work us to death in her mines. She sends others to kill—’

  She broke off abruptly, and gave a small cough. ‘But you do not want to hear my complaints. You have your own troubles, or you would not be here.’

  They heard the salt face before they saw it. It sounded like fifty starving birds pecking at grain. Or fifty broken clocks all ticking out of time with each other.

  Or fifty children desperately hacking at the salt with picks, so they could eat.

  There were more lanterns here, and Duckling could see how red the children’s eyes were, and how their bones pressed against their skin. She could see that, if there had been any way of escape, these children would have gone weeks ago.

  Don’t think like that, she told herself. I’m one of the best escapers in the world. I’ll get us out somehow. Then we’ll find Grandpa and Krieg, and go as far away from here as we can.

  Sooli gave Duckling and Pummel a wooden bucket and a pick each, and showed them how to dig the salt crystals out of the wall. She looked uncertainly at Otte, but he held out his hand until she gave him a pick as well.