A Tangle of Gold

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  Like she said, it was a road trip.

  Mischka was very keen on pink mallows. She only ate the kind they made in G.C., she said. Everything else was just sugar. She drove fast and well. If somebody cut in front of her, she seemed intrigued rather than annoyed. She tilted her head and braked. Mostly, she was silent, listening to the kind of J.E. electronica that Elliot had never much liked. There wasn’t any point to it, so far as he could tell. Now and then, she would switch off the music and chat.

  ‘You might be wondering how we’re going to send the Royals across once we get there,’ she said, their first afternoon on the road.

  Not so much. He’d been assuming there was a crack someplace near this Lake Swithburne.

  ‘No. No crack there. Well, who knows? There could be. But we have the technology to create and seal cracks now. Sleek little device it is. It’s in the trunk. I’ll use that to take them over.’

  Elliot was watching Nature Strip scenery through the window. The Moving Mountains were on the horizon. He was trying to catch them shift.

  He turned back and looked at her.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ he said. ‘You just switch this thing on, and it opens up a people-moving crack?’

  All that time he and Madeleine had tried to figure out how to do that, and the ‘device’ was right there in the trunk.

  ‘It was luck. The Hostile alliance had people all over Cello working with inventors, scientists and so on,’ Mischka said. ‘But nobody was getting anywhere. We thought your dad and uncle might have made a breakthrough: that’s why we had people in your town, trying to find out.’

  ‘Olivia Hattoway,’ Elliot recalled. ‘The Twicklehams.’

  ‘Right. Anyhow, then we got an unexpected break. Turned out there was an organisation we’d never known about. Not Hostile, not Elite, not Gangster. More powerful than all three. They know everything! They have control over the W.S.U. and the press! They got in touch and told us they had the technology we needed. See, they wanted to work with us to get the Royals to the World. Their only condition, they said, was that we had to leave Princess Ko.’

  Elliot watched a passing truck. Department of Illumination, it said on the side. It looked beat-up and dirty. So did its driver.

  Mischka laughed. ‘We agreed because we thought Princess Ko was an idiot.’

  ‘She’s not.’

  ‘Anyhow, the night they took the Royals across,’ Mischka continued, ‘I hear that was a fiasco. They got the two Princes over, fine, but there was a mix-up with the others. They were all supposed to be at a Convention Centre. Easy. Next thing, word came through that the Queen was at the Finance Department and Jupiter was sick at the hotel. Our people came through from the World in those places, ready to grab them. But no luck. Now they’re in a panic. Time’s running out. Next thing, we hear they’re getting on a train, so we came through there. We had people stationed all over the World that night, ready, and we had keys you could use to coordinate World and Cello locations.’

  ‘Keira made a computer program that could do that,’ Elliot said.

  Mischka tapped on the steering wheel. ‘She did?’

  ‘And you know she can see cracks and unseal them herself?’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘She trained her eyes. I mean, Princess Ko made her train her eyes and her vision got so refined she can do it now.’

  ‘How about that?’ Mischka reached to turn the music on again. ‘My clever girl.’

  4

  The next time Mischka pulled over was at the Green Spot Diner in a mountain town called Ralk. It had a fish tank in the window. The fish seemed listless.

  Mischka said she was meeting a contact in the kitchen.

  ‘Here?’

  She smiled. ‘Order what you like.’

  Elliot sat in the booth and ordered coffee and a stack of pancakes with bacon. He recalled vitamins, and added a side of fruit. The Cellian Herald was folded on the seat beside him.

  There was that T.I. Candle again—the guidebook author—writing another column. Elliot read it while he ate.

  Look, there’s not much to say, is there?

  Or perhaps too much.

  The Kingdom of Cello is in crisis. In all my days—and my days have been plentiful—I have never known such disarray. The Colours blaze and thunder. The death and wounded toll climbs steadily. Colours tear through shutters, and savage towns.

  People are leaving Cello! ‘What?!’ you cry, and I nod vigorously. Yes! I know! The horror! People don’t leave our Kingdom, they FLOCK TO OUR SHORES!

  Only, they do not. Not any more! Tours, tickets, flights are being cancelled. Cruise ships no longer stop at Cellian ports. Sales of my guidebook are diving like the herons of the G.C. Swamp when they spy a Spotted Wing-Gnat. Every Kingdom and Empire has issued travel advisory warnings, ranking Cello (Cello!) as high-alert danger!

  Bulldozers run day and night as shelters are constructed beneath towns. Bells ring so frequently that I feel that our Kingdom is a giant mechanical toy, marbles loose in its works!

  The Colour industry itself is in overdrive: there are persistent calls for volunteers at the Warning Towers. Conferences and training seminars are scrambling to tackle the issues. New Colour Monitors are being rushed through training. The market is flooded with shoddy shutters. Colour Benders are working such long shifts that they are endangering themselves with exhaustion. Meanwhile, all over the Kingdom, scientists have turned their attention to the problem of the Colours! Some provinces have declared martial law, all are in a State of Emergency.

  I could go on!

  Do you know, I will.

  I was travelling through the province of Golden Coast the other day, with a dear friend (Ruby). We saw Colour shelters, makeshift homes, tent cities! Fires blazed in the distance! Powerlines sagged under the weight of Colours. In supermarkets, children ran about, wild-eyed, while parents stockpiled water, flashlights, batteries. Riverways, pipes and drains had been infected or blocked by Colours. Animals had shouldered their way from the Colour-burdened swamps and were wandering streets, or turning up in cellars! Colours were eroding, rusting and excoriating public buildings! Babies couldn’t sleep! I couldn’t sleep! (And that’s unheard of.)

  To say that nerves were strung would be an understatement. I saw a woman shriek at the sight of sunlight on a slick of oil. A child’s toy wagon sped by and a group of men in suits clambered up a drainpipe, one by one. A sheet of cellophane caused a five-car collision. Leaves flutter—a flock of dewbirds pass—petals on the breeze—anything that hints at Colour brings on hysteria!

  In certain towns, desperation has given rise to preposterous defences against Colours: people chant, link arms, dig moats and fill these with bubbling teakwater. (Teenagers scoop it out at night and get into mischief.) They try to scare Colours away by playing the bagpipes. They sprinkle themselves with herbs, spices and vinegars. They pay vast sums of money to tricksters and charlatans who offer bottled syrups or pills which they claim will grant immunity.

  We arrived at the pleasure town of Bubbles yesterday, only to find fear and unease creeping down the streets ahead of us. Not just creeping, but sweeping and lashing and beating! People wept at windows. There came the awful howling of a grown man who, we were told, had seen his entire family slaughtered. Dogs were silent and watchful. Buildings had collapsed under the weight of heavy Colours. I saw numbers of people dead on the side of the road: others swayed, lost, on the verge of crumpling.

  It was by no means pleasant.

  And as if all the Colours were not enough, it seems violence is breaking out all over the Kingdom between Hostiles, Loyalists and the ruling Elite. Indeed, if people weren’t constantly distracted by rampaging Colours, civil war might possibly erupt!

  As an aside, the Cello Wind has not been heard for months.

  And speaking of the Cello Wind, our neighbour, the Kingdom of Aldhibah, watches Cello’s decline with silent interest. It has reinforced its borders—Colours have never been known to st
ray beyond Cello, but with these new strengthened Colours, none can be sure. It has also reinforced its military ranks. Indeed, if Aldhibah wished to invade and annex our Undisclosed Province—thus taking control of the Wind—now, I suspect the Aldhians are thinking, now would be just the time . . .

  Elliot closed the paper with his usual feeling that, if T.I. Candle walked through the door right now, he’d sock him in the nose.

  5

  As the road trip continued, as they stopped in fancy hotels and sat by fireplaces stacked with wood, reading menus with items like Pear and Gorgonzola Salad with Candied Walnut, and listening to murmured conversations about whether honey was good for your skin, Elliot felt that sash across his chest settle in again.

  It wasn’t a sash any more, actually, it was a sweater.

  Everything annoyed him. Once, Mischka stopped at a deftball stadium for a meeting. Two big guys in suits approached. They handed her a glass of wine. She asked about the game.

  ‘The second half was better,’ said one.

  ‘Oh, damn,’ said the other. ‘I shouldn’t have run away. I missed it.’

  ‘The first half was just . . . setting the scene.’

  ‘Making a statement of intent,’ Mischka suggested, and the two men nodded.

  Now, in the past, Elliot would have been ecstatic to be here, listening to talk about professional deftball, in a private box at the Henry Lawde Stadium, one of the best in the Kingdoms.

  But watching them, it came to him that they were speaking in code. Their handshakes, their phrases, the glass of wine, it was all part of the process and the game. They were getting off on it, he thought. They were the shadow figures, the key players behind the scenes. They were so tangled up in their words and their games, but did they even know what they were talking about?

  Elliot watched as the three sat down. One man set his spectacles on the table and they sat there on their haunches. The other man touched his ear. There was a tiny circle on the earlobe, Elliot noticed.

  It was insane, but that circle made Elliot want to punch a wall.

  He wondered if everybody felt this way and he’d just not noticed it before. This cranky, weary feeling. Things like brushing his teeth turned into an insurmountable chore. He accidentally slammed his hotel room door that night, and realised that he was cursing in the back of his mind. It was like a stranger was in there muttering furious words just beneath his own thoughts. An angry stranger, keeping pace with him, snarling right along with every movement that he made.

  *

  The morning of the meeting day was bright and blue.

  They set off early, but smoke tendrilled up out of the engine and a red flashing light appeared on the dashboard.

  ‘That doesn’t look right,’ Mischka said.

  She pulled the car over to the side of the highway. There were picnic tables and a water fountain. It was a good spot to break down.

  Mischka opened the bonnet, frowned down, looked over at Elliot and shrugged. Cute gesture.

  Elliot looked at the engine too but it was nothing like Farms machinery. He didn’t have a clue.

  ‘I’ll make a call,’ Mischka said. ‘I can get someone here within the hour, I expect.’

  While they waited, she and Elliot sat at a picnic table. Mischka seemed lost in thought then she suddenly smiled.

  ‘You guys on the R.Y.A.,’ she said, ‘all that work that the Hostiles did taking the Royals to the World, and next thing you’re bringing them all back. Even with a traitor amongst you!’

  Elliot tried to smile but truth was, he didn’t much feel like smiling today.

  ‘Of course, I was hearing a lot of this from prison,’ she said. ‘You know I was tricked myself? A man betrayed me, and I was arrested. Does that make you feel better about my betraying your dad?’

  ‘Not especially.’

  ‘Anyhow, still. We get the Royals over and they keep coming back like an ant infestation.’

  A mechanic’s truck approached down the highway. Mischka waved at it.

  ‘That was less than ten minutes. It was me who went to the World and stopped Chyba coming through, by the way. I was just out of prison. It was my first shot at using that crack technology. It’s wonderful. I can’t wait to show you how it works. All I had to do was go to the crackpoint and re-seal the crack. Someone on the other side was opening it, and I just kept right on closing it, until it stopped. I saw him, you know. Prince Chyba? Across the road.’

  She curled a loose hair around her finger. She liked to do that, Elliot had noticed. Then she’d look down in surprise at the ringlet that formed.

  Now she stood up, smiling at the mechanic’s truck.

  ‘This time, we’ll make sure the Royals stay away for good. Assuming they come to this meeting point. And don’t blame yourself.’ She turned to Elliot suddenly. ‘Don’t blame yourself if they don’t come. I’m not expecting anything today.’

  Elliot was a long way back in the conversation. ‘Who was it?’ he said. ‘Who was the traitor on the R.Y.A.?’

  Mischka looked at him vaguely.

  ‘Was it the security guards? The ones who were always there? Were they working for the Hostiles?’

  ‘Like I said, I was in prison at that time,’ Mischka said. ‘So, I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t those security guards. They’re Elite now, not Hostile. It was someone on the R.Y.A.’

  She stepped towards the open bonnet of the car. It took twenty minutes for the mechanic to fix, and they continued on their way.

  6

  They walked beyond the trees and down the path to the lake.

  It was crisp and brisk and the sky was very high. Bright snow ran beside them, curving up and over bumps.

  They turned a corner and there it was, Lake Swithburne. Frozen silver and blue, blinking in the sun.

  It was almost silent. Across the lake, a couple of people were skating. An ice-fishing tent stood in the centre. Sounds carried strangely: the skates seemed to cut right by them.

  Mischka smiled. A pair of binoculars hung from a strap around her neck. Under her arm was a tan leather satchel with buckles. That must contain the crack technology, Elliot guessed.

  ‘See that?’ Mischka pointed to a tree, just around the curve. As far as Elliot could tell, someone had hung a whole bunch of closed black umbrellas from its branches.

  ‘Wouldn’t want to be here after dark.’ Mischka widened her eyes at him.

  He looked again. ‘Those are vampire bats?’

  ‘You’ve never seen them?’

  He shook his head.

  She laughed. ‘Don’t worry. Safe by day. Come. I’ll buy you a coffee. We still have time.’

  There was a small kiosk in the opposite direction to the vampire bats.

  They got their coffees to go, and stood under the blue sky, watching the skaters. The ice-fishing tent flapped in the breeze.

  A swooping filled the air. A flock of dragons crossed by high, wheeling and rising, scales catching the light, and disappeared.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Elliot said. Mischka nodded.

  Way across the lake, the figure of a girl appeared. She was wearing a backpack and carrying skates over her shoulder. The girl held a hand to her forehead, then lifted an arm and waved across at them.

  Mischka raised her binoculars.

  ‘That’s Princess Jupiter,’ she said. She moved the binoculars around. ‘Nobody else.’ She grinned at Elliot. ‘But you got one. You got us a Royal. Well done, Elliot, you got one.’

  Mischka stepped away from Elliot.

  ‘I’ll wait by the kiosk,’ she said. ‘She’s expecting a teenage boy. You won’t be threatening to her. Just say hey. I’ll do the rest.’

  Elliot scratched the back of his neck.

  There was a silence.

  The other skaters were heading off the lake. They crossed paths with the girl who’d just waved. He heard them chatting briefly. The others took off their skates. The girl sat down. Elliot watched her pull off her boots and pull
on the skates. He watched her lean forward, presumably to lace them.

  He looked across at Mischka. She was still sipping from her coffee cup. She looked happy. She took the satchel out from underneath her arm and unbuckled the straps.

  He looked back at the girl. She seemed small.

  ‘Hang on,’ he called to Mischka. ‘You’re going to send Princess Jupiter across to the World all on her own?’

  Mischka smiled at him.

  ‘I don’t think we should do it,’ Elliot called. ‘Okay to send a whole family together, but just one girl? That doesn’t seem fair.’

  The girl had her skates on now. She was stepping onto the ice. She was slipping a little, holding out both hands.

  Mischka was watching her.

  She’d found her skating feet now. She’d straightened up. She was skating slow and graceful towards them.

  Mischka tipped the last of her coffee onto the snow. She stood smiling. The sun caught her sunglasses. It glanced off the buckle of the satchel.

  It came to Elliot right then.

  A flock of truths.

  They’d already tried sending the Royals to the World. They keep coming back like an ant infestation. It hadn’t worked. Why try again?

  He looked back at Mischka.

  She was opening her satchel.

  We have learned to use Greys and Purples as weapons, Chime had said. Some amongst us even carry them in concentrated forms.

  Elliot turned back to the girl on the lake.

  She was wearing a woollen hat and a blue scarf. Her coat flew behind her.

  He took a step.

  That flock of truths was all on his shoulders now, digging with claws.

  He had to warn Princess Jupiter.

  If he warned her, he knew exactly what would happen. He looked at Mischka again and she smiled at him. She would turn that satchel onto him.

  Greys or Purples, whatever she had there. They would attack him.

  He stood silent.

  I can’t do it again, he whispered to himself. I can’t do it. The tearing off of the mask, the knives, the razor blades.