Secret Guardians

by Lian Tanner

  He bit his lip. ‘We have always known that the councillors lie to us about important matters. People think the Margravine rules Neuhalt, but she has no power outside the Strong-hold.’ He hesitated. ‘I am not going to be Margrave, but if I was—’

  ‘Sshh!’ hissed Duckling. She looked around to make sure no one had heard him. ‘Don’t say things like that. You don’t know who might be listening.’

  Otte’s face grew stubborn. ‘I do not care who is listening.’

  A new voice said, ‘Who is listening to what?’ It was Sooli, crawling out from underneath her blanket.

  Duckling had promised Pummel that she wouldn’t lie, so she said, ‘That’s private.’ Then, because her mind was teeming with questions, she added, ‘How long have you been here? In the mine, I mean.’

  Sooli shrugged. ‘Three moons, almost. I can hardly remember the sunlight. Why?’

  ‘Has anyone ever escaped?’ asked Duckling.

  ‘Not since I came here,’ said Sooli. ‘We only leave when we ride the Black Wind.’

  ‘Ride the— you mean die? That’s no good to us, is it, Pummel? We want to get out alive, not dead. How about the guards? Have you tried bribing them?’

  Sooli rolled her eyes. ‘What would we bribe them with?’ She waved a hand at the rest of the children, who were stumbling to their feet, as ragged as beggars. ‘You have seen our great riches.’

  Duckling said, ‘Fair enough. Do you have any other plans?’

  She was watching Sooli closely, but saw nothing. No hitch of the breath. No blinking. None of the guilty signs that Grandpa had taught her.

  ‘What other plans could we have?’ asked Sooli. ‘The mine is so well guarded.’

  Did she answer the question? wondered Duckling. Or did she dodge it again?

  It was then that Pummel sat up and said, ‘Sooli, have you ever heard of something called the raashk?’

  They did not look like murderers. They did not sound like murderers.

  But they were; Sooli was convinced of it. Murderers and thieves. How else could they have gotten their hands on something as precious and powerful as the raashk, which was only ever handed down from one Bayam to the next? How else could they have come into possession of the Wind’s Blessing?

  She wanted to throw herself at them in grief-stricken rage. She wanted to scream, ‘You killed my great-grandmother, who I loved! You stole my inheritance. You stole the magic that should only be held by the Bayam.’

  But she was trying to be subtle and cunning and clever. So all she said was, ‘The raashk? Yes, I have heard of it. Why, do you have it?’

  Pummel nodded.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Someone gave it to me.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Sooli.

  ‘An old woman. An old Saaf woman. In the marketplace.’

  That is a lie, thought Sooli. She would never have given it to you. You killed her and stole it from her dead body.

  ‘But something’s gone wrong with it,’ continued Pummel. ‘I thought you might know what.’

  Ha, thought Sooli, in miserable triumph. Now you have truly betrayed yourself, If Great-Grandmother had given you the raashk, she would have taught you its secrets, and you would have no need to question me.

  She pretended to think for a moment. Then she said, ‘Will you show it to me?’

  As Pummel took the oh-so-familiar pouch from his boot, Sooli’s power whispered, ‘I see you. Come to me. We should be one, not three.’

  The raashk whispered the same words back, but its voice was weak, like a child who has been worked too hard without proper feeding.

  Sooli breathed deep and slow, the way her great-grandmother had taught her, and held out her hand.

  Pummel’s forehead creased. ‘I’m not sure if I should. You see, the old woman gave it to me, and—’

  ‘I cannot help you,’ said Sooli, ‘if you do not trust me. There are secrets here that you do not understand.’

  For a moment, she thought it would not work. But to her relief, Pummel untied the string at the top of the pouch and took out the raashk. He held it for a moment, then handed it to Sooli.

  All around them, the other children were gathering up their picks and buckets. Sooli heard Otte whisper to Duckling, ‘We must go to work.’

  ‘Wait,’ murmured Duckling.

  Yes, wait, thought Sooli. The raashk felt cool in her hand, when it should have been warm.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ Pummel asked anxiously. ‘Because if you can, we might be able to get out of here.’

  Sooli pulled a face. ‘These are very old secrets; I am not sure if I can remember them. And even if I could, the raashk by itself is not enough. To escape, we would also need the Wind’s Blessing.’ She looked straight at Duckling. ‘Do you have it?’

  The girl’s face was much harder to read than Pummel’s. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Though I didn’t know its name.’

  ‘Is it working properly?’

  ‘No,’ said Duckling.

  ‘Then you must give it to me,’ said Sooli.

  ‘Can you fix it right now?’ asked Duckling. ‘No? Then I’ll hang onto it until you can. You’d better give the raashk back to Pummel, too. Like he said, the old woman gave it to him.’

  Sooli wanted to refuse. Every part of her insisted that she must keep hold of the raashk; that the magic must be in the hands of the Bayam – and only the Bayam – as it had been for thousands of years. That the ghosts of her people were watching her; depending on her to set things right.

  But she could see the bright suspicion in Duckling’s eyes and could not afford to make it worse. Not yet. Not until that suspicion would work for her, instead of against her.

  Her power cried out in protest when she handed the raashk back to Pummel, and for a moment she thought that something terrible was going to happen. But she showed nothing on her face. She just stood up, saying, ‘It makes me sad that you do not trust me.’

  Then she picked up her bucket and walked away, thinking hard.

  The truth was, although she knew quite a lot about the Wind’s Blessing, her great-grandmother had not yet taught her the secrets of the raashk. Sooli knew what it could do, of course. She knew how amazing it was.

  She had not known that it could stop working. She had not known that its voice could grow so faint, and its warmth vanish, if it was in the wrong hands.

  But it made sense. The raashk belonged to the Bayam and no one else. It certainly did not belong to thieves and murderers. No wonder it had stopped!

  When it is mine, it will recover, she told herself. It will know it has come home to the Bayam, and it will regain its power.

  She took another one of those deep, slow breaths. It would not be easy to get the raashk and the Wind’s Blessing away from the two children; Duckling was too sharp for comfort.

  But Sooli could be sharp, too.

  I will sow distrust between them, she decided. I will tear them apart from each other, and then I will strike, when they do not expect it.

  The chicken wasn’t sure how she and the cat got down that terrible dark hole. It was something to do with shadows again, and a bucket so big that it could have held a hundred chickens.

  It meant squatting so close to one of the badmen that he could have reached out and touched her feathers. And although he didn’t see her, the chicken trembled with fear.

  But as they went down and down into the earth, her trembling began to change into something else. At first, she didn’t know what it was. It felt like fierceness, but that couldn’t be right. She was a chicken, and chickens were not at all fierce.

  She edged closer to the cat, who was tucked into her own piece of shadow, and tried to comfort herself with thoughts of earwigs.

  But the fierceness grew and grew until she wanted to fly at the badman with beak and claws.

  I am a chicken, she reminded herself. Chickens do not fight. Chickens squawk and run away.

  At last, with a loud rattle, the bucket came to a s
top. There was light on the walls, from one of those tiny suns, and the chicken blinked and hopped over the edge of the bucket before anyone could see her.

  There were more people here. Small people. Children. Healerboy was one of them, and so were Wilygirl and Farmboy, with that strangely familiar shiny. And there was another girl, even shinier!

  All of the children, including Veryshinygirl, carried buckets. None of them saw the chicken or the cat.

  The badman stood up in his big bucket. He waved his hand. He said something that the chicken didn’t understand.

  At least, she didn’t understand most of it. But there was one word that stood out from all the rest.

  ‘Saffy,’ said the badman.

  Saaf, thought the chicken.

  She looked at Veryshinygirl. And something inside her – something that had been hidden even from herself – broke open and filled her with a shaft of light.

  Pummel’s internal clock told him it was mid-morning. His arms were aching already, and his lips were dry and cracked. But when the bell rang he picked up his own bucket, then picked up another one, belonging to Spinner, whose foot Otte had bandaged yesterday.

  The Faroonish boy limped along beside him without a word. On Pummel’s other side, Duckling was piggybacking Otte. His torn skirt draped over her arms, and she elbowed it out of the way and said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t fill your bucket right to the top. Look, you’re spilling it everywhere.’

  ‘I must do my share,’ said Otte, and he smiled down at Spinner. After a while, Spinner smiled back.

  As they approached the shaft, Duckling murmured to Pummel, ‘See that guard? His name’s Perkin. He seems a bit friendlier than Rusty and Boz. I’m going to see if I can find out where Grandpa and Arms-mistress Krieg are. Can you take Otte back?’

  Pummel nodded, and they shuffled forward with the rest of the children, pushing their buckets along the ground with their feet, to save their arms. A boy in front of them stumbled against a girl, and she hissed at him, ‘Watch yourself, cockroach!’

  He hissed back, ‘Shut up, piece of dung!’

  Pummel checked to make sure the guard wasn’t listening, then stepped between the two children, saying, ‘Have you ever seen cows defending themselves against a pack of dogs?’

  The children stared at him, startled out of their argument.

  Pummel said, ‘One cow by itself’d get torn to pieces. Even two or three would be in trouble. So they stick together. They back up into a circle with their horns facing outwards, and they stay really close to each other, so the dogs can’t get past. It’s like a wall of spears.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘The guards are the dogs. We’re the cows. If we fight each other, they’ll win.’

  ‘They’ll win anyway,’ said the girl.

  ‘Maybe they will,’ said Pummel. ‘But if we stick together we’ve got more of a chance.’

  He could see that the other children didn’t believe him. But at least the insults had stopped.

  We have to take them with us when we escape, he thought. We can’t leave them behind.

  When it was their turn to empty their buckets, some of Duckling’s salt spilled onto Perkin’s trousers. ‘Sorry, Herro,’ she said politely. ‘I didn’t mean to make you all mucky.’

  ‘Watch what you’re doin’, girlie,’ growled Perkin.

  Otte tipped the salt out of his bucket, and scrambled from Duckling’s back to Pummel’s. Pummel walked away, with Spinner by his side. But Duckling stayed, pretending to pick a stone out from between her toes.

  When he was out of earshot, Pummel stopped, and Otte said, ‘Do you want to wait for her?’

  ‘Do you mind?’ asked Pummel.

  Otte slid to the ground, his potion jars clinking loudly, and grabbed hold of Pummel’s sleeve to stop himself falling over. When he had caught his balance, he said to Spinner, ‘We will go back together. We have two good legs between us.’

  Spinner looked uncertain. Pummel said, ‘No, wait for me. I won’t be long.’

  ‘Nothing is going to happen to me,’ said Otte. And he put his arm across Spinner’s shoulders, saying, ‘When we get to the salt face I will look at your wound again. It should be cleaned and rebandaged every day.’

  The two younger boys were much the same height, and with Spinner limping and Otte hopping, they lurched away down the tunnel, carrying their empty buckets. Pummel almost went after them. But he wanted to know what Duckling could find out from the guard, so in the end he stayed where he was, watching them talk.

  A hand grasped his shoulder. ‘Why is she smiling at him like that?’ whispered Sooli.

  ‘She’s trying to get news of Arms-mistress Krieg and Lord Rump,’ said Pummel.

  Sooli shook her head. ‘The guards are our enemies. She should not smile at him. She should not have anything to do with him.’

  Pummel had been feeling guilty about Sooli all morning. She’d looked so hurt when she gave the raashk back to him, and he wished he could just hand it over with a clear conscience.

  But it had been stolen from him once already, and he’d promised himself that he would never let that happen again. The old woman had entrusted him with it, and he had a duty to protect it, even if it wasn’t working.

  Not that Sooli would try to steal it, of course.

  Back at the shaft, Duckling was laughing at something Perkin had said.

  ‘Why is she befriending such a brute?’ whispered Sooli. ‘Are you sure she can be trusted, your friend?’

  It was the last question Pummel had expected, and he didn’t know how to answer.

  But Sooli nodded, as if he had spoken. ‘You are loyal, that is good. And you are trustworthy, I think.’

  ‘It’s not her fault,’ said Pummel. ‘It’s the way she was raised. And she isn’t going to tell lies anymore. She promised.’

  ‘I hope you are right,’ Sooli murmured. ‘Life in this place is hard enough. We must be able to trust each other.’ And she walked away.

  ‘What did she want?’ asked Duckling, a moment or two later.

  ‘She wanted to know what you were talking to Perkin about.’

  ‘Did you tell her?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pummel. ‘Was there any reason not to?’

  ‘No,’ said Duckling, and she set off down the tunnel towards the salt face.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Pummel, hurrying after her.

  ‘That any news’d cost me a silver gloat. I’ve been trying to work out what else I could offer him. All we’ve got is information. Would he want to know about the Harshman, do you think? No, of course he wouldn’t. It has to be valuable information, something he can make coin out of. And we haven’t got anything valuable except …’

  ‘Except what?’ asked Pummel.

  Duckling looked away. ‘Nothing. I wouldn’t use it. Not ever.’

  Pummel wracked his brains, trying to work out what she was talking about. ‘You mean Otte?’ he said at last. ‘How he’s really the— you wouldn’t!’

  ‘That’s what I said. I wouldn’t, Pummel. Not for any reason.’

  ‘What about Lord Rump?’ asked Pummel. ‘Would he use it?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Duckling, though she didn’t sound at all sure. Her face grew sad. ‘Poor Grandpa. I hope he’s not suffering too much.’

  Lord Rump was not suffering very much at all. Years ago, when he was a half-starved boy picking pockets on the streets of Lawe, he had learned the importance of always keeping a few coins hidden somewhere on his person.

  In those days, the coins had been copper miseries. Now they were silver gloats.

  As a result, after five days in the mine, he was still fairly comfortable. In exchange for silver, the guards were willing to bring him steak instead of slop, and in exchange for a share of the steak, two men from the Beastie Isles did his work for him.

  He was not happy, of course. He was still wearing the floral dress, which had been quite all right when he was Dame Swagger, but was completely unsuitable now he
was Lord Rump again. What’s more, he had not had a glass of wine for days, and despite his magnificent talents of persuasion he had not yet managed to bribe his way to freedom.

  Nor had he found another way out of the salt mine, though he had searched the tunnels as best he could.

  Arms-mistress Krieg had not found a way out either. In fact, she hardly seemed to be trying. She had befriended a group of Saffies and spent most of her time working beside them, or accompanying them to the darkest reaches of the mine to take part in some strange ritual.

  She had not asked for Rump’s help, and he had not offered it. If she wanted to die down here, that was her business.

  Rump removed his boot and unscrewed the false heel. Thanks to the greed of the guards, he had only two gloats and a single useless misery left.

  ‘The devil of it,’ he muttered, taking out one of the gloats and screwing the heel back into place. Then he pulled his boot on, stamped twice to make sure he wasn’t leaking coins, and went to get his supper.

  The guard, whose name was Snout, welcomed him with a broken-toothed grin. ‘Price of steak’s gone up.’

  Rump managed to look as if he wasn’t the least bit surprised, though inwardly he was seething. The greed of some people, he thought.

  But what he said was, ‘A fine gentleman like yourself never comes cheap, Herro Snout.’ And he handed over the gloat.

  ‘That won’t buy you much,’ said Snout.

  ‘Then I shall have to bestir myself and think of something else to sell,’ said Rump. ‘Perhaps I could sing for my supper. Or tell you stories that will curl your hair.’

  The guard laughed. ‘If you want steak, old man, your stories’d better be silver-plated. Coin’s the only thing that counts with Snout.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Lord Rump. ‘Now, could I trouble you for my repast?’

  ‘Fancy words for a fancy man,’ sneered Snout as he handed over a plate with a slab of steak and three large potatoes. ‘Bet you won’t sound so important after a couple of days of slop.’