The Eye of the North

by Sinead O'Hart

  “Mercy-whats?” said Thing as Sasha dragged him toward the back door by the scruff of the neck.

  “Go! Okay? I’ll see you both soon!” He looked away from Thing and found Sasha’s gaze instead. “Take care of yourself. I won’t be long! I promise you.” His eyes got bigger as he looked at her, almost like he wanted to see as much of her as he could.

  “I believe you,” she said, even though it sounded like she didn’t.

  A crash rang out in the front of the house—a crash that sounded a lot like a front door being kicked in. Thing glanced into the hallway and saw at least three huge men come trampling down it, each of them armed.

  Edgar rushed around the table and slammed the kitchen door closed, locking it with trembling fingers. His eyes were white all around, and his skin was pale.

  “Go!” he yelled at Sasha and Thing. “Now!”

  Sasha and Thing hurried down the corridor, and Sasha managed to get the back door open with three furious pulls. She and Thing burst through it into a crisp Parisian morning, so early that the sky was barely edged with light. Sasha took off down the narrow alley behind the house at a run, and as Thing did his best to catch up, a gunshot rang out, and then another.

  “Faster!” shouted Sasha.

  Thing didn’t need to be told twice.

  A strong hand grabbed Emmeline by the shoulder. Even through the thickness of her padded coat, she felt the fingers of this new abductor digging into her flesh. She stumbled backward, landing with a thump on her backside.

  “Let me go!” she growled, yanking herself away, but the hand’s grip didn’t slip.

  “What’s this? A gnome?” said a voice, its accent unfamiliar.

  “A gnome? Are you daft?” whispered Emmeline, still doing her best to wriggle out of the iron grip without wriggling herself all the way out of her coat.

  “Well—let’s see. Short, bad-tempered, deformed…I mean, you’ve got everything a gnome’s got. What makes you so different?”

  Emmeline swung her head around, her eyes bulging with temper, but the person holding her kept dodging out of sight. “Deformed? I beg your pardon! Let go of me this minute!”

  “Nah. Can’t do that. You’ll just have to come with me so we can examine you for gnominess and make sure you’re not a threat.”

  “Oh, really? And then what?”

  “Well—then I’d say we’ll probably eat you. Do you taste good, by any chance?”

  “Do I taste good? What?” said Emmeline. “Who are you?”

  “Might ask you the same thing,” replied the voice in a calmer and more serious tone. “What’s a kid like you doing on a death ship like this?”

  “So you’ve figured out I’m not a gnome, then?” Emmeline strained to see. All she could tell was that the person holding her was small and dark-haired and—probably, judging by the voice—male.

  “Always knew you weren’t a gnome, girl. Was just trying to be funny, you know. Ha, ha, here we are, it’s the cavalry! No? Am I making sense?”

  “Cavalry?” asked Emmeline, her mind filling with images of soldiers on horseback, their helmet plumes bobbing in the breeze.

  “Not important. Look, are you coming with me or what?”

  “Why would I do that?” Emmeline finally broke out of the grip on her shoulder, but before she could do anything else, the strange person had grabbed her by the arm. Emmeline sighed and gave up the fight. She turned to face her captor.

  “Greetings,” came a voice from the shadows. The hand holding her was attached to a long arm encased in a sealskin jacket, and the arm was attached to a short, stout body. Emmeline let her gaze travel downward a bit, and she looked as hard as she could, but she didn’t see any legs. She glanced back up at the person’s face and saw it was wide across the cheekbones, with narrow, dark eyes and a bright, gap-toothed grin.

  “Who—who are you?” asked Emmeline.

  “Name’s Igimaq,” he said. “Pleasure’s mine.”

  “I’ve gotta—whoop!—stop. Jus’ fer a minute. Whoop. Can’t catch—whoop!—my breath.”

  Sasha slowed her pace and turned, looking back the way they’d come. Her lips were pulled thin. Thing could read her worry all over her face, and he knew she was aching to see Edgar hurrying along behind them, alive and unharmed—but the alley was deserted.

  “We don’t have time to rest, Thing,” she said, but her sharp tone softened as soon as she glanced back at his face. She came to a halt and walked back toward him, frowning.

  “Not restin’. I jus’ can’t. I—whoop…” Thing’s feet stumbled, and slowed, and finally stopped. He leaned heavily against the wall beside them, desperately trying to get his lungs to behave and his heart to slow. He felt dizzy, and his shoulder ached under the weight of Emmeline’s satchel. They’d already had to dump the bag of food—it had been slowing them down. “I jus’—I jus’ need a minute. Whoop.”

  Sasha lifted Thing’s head gently and looked at him. “You sound like you’re drowning or something. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s jus’—jus’—runnin’ and things like that. Whoop. When I’m afraid sometimes. Under pressure. Breathin’ goes—whoop—funny. Always has done, I think.”

  Sasha sighed loudly through her nose and removed her hand from beneath Thing’s chin. Her head swiveled, checking out their surroundings. Everything seemed quiet in the still-early morning, but Thing knew the sound of his heaving lungs would carry. His throat ached with effort and he closed his eyes, willing his chest to open up and work.

  “Can you go on?” asked Sasha after a few minutes. Thing wondered for a second what she’d do if he said no. Wring me worthless neck and chuck me over the nearest wall, he told himself in a grim voice.

  “Yeah, I reckon,” he replied, coughing. Something inside him felt loose and rattly. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re sure?” She paced away from him, and he followed her with his gaze. Every nerve she had was on alert.

  “Sure as I’m gonna get. Whoop.”

  “Right.” She hurried back to him and bent to peer intently into his eyes. He tried to pay attention. “If you’re going to help me, you have to listen. We need to get to Monsieur Pichon, because he can get us to Greenland. Edgar and I were supposed to go together, but now…” She blinked and carried on. “That’s not important. What’s important is sticking with the plan. I’ve got an idea, but it’s a long shot.”

  “Long shots are better’n nothin’,” said Thing. “Who’s this Pichon fella?” He tasted the new name in his mouth like a lemon sherbet, mentally adding it to his collection.

  “A friend of the White Flower,” Sasha replied. “Our only hope right now.”

  “Let’s get movin’, then,” he said, pushing away from the wall. He adjusted the satchel, settling the strap more comfortably on his neck, rolled his shoulders, and nodded at Sasha. She shot him a quick grin, but her eyes remained dull. “How far is it to this only hope of ours?” he asked as they jogged away. He focused on keeping his breathing slow and even, timing it to his steps.

  “Oh, not too far. About two hundred miles. Give or take.”

  Thing opened his mouth, closed it again, and kept running.

  “Come on,” whispered Igimaq. “I’m just down here.” Emmeline looked out over the railing of Dr. Bauer’s boat, and sure enough, a small vessel, pointed at both ends and lying high in the water, was moored alongside it. “It’s not designed for passengers,” he explained. “So you’ll have to perch on the front. But don’t worry. We’re not off seal hunting or anything!” He grinned widely.

  Emmeline glanced up at the front of Dr. Bauer’s boat again. He still seemed distracted by the crowd, shouting and waving his arms about. Go! she told herself. What are you waiting for?

  “A good diversion, aren’t they?” murmured Igimaq, nodding at the yelling crowd. “Don’t worry, girl. I’ll get you away from here so quick and quiet you might not even notice it yourself.”

  “Diversion for what?” she asked.

  “
Wait and see,” he replied. “Any other kids aboard?”

  “No,” said Emmeline. “Just me.”

  “That settles it, then,” he said, grabbing the boat’s railing and hauling himself up. He moved quickly, but Emmeline felt a jerk in her stomach as she realized she hadn’t been seeing things in the dark earlier. Igimaq really had no legs. None at all.

  “What—what happened to your legs? Can I ask that, or is it rude?” she said as Igimaq balanced himself on top of the railing and extended a hand to steady Emmeline as she climbed.

  “Eaten by a rabid, savage narwhal on my first hunting trip,” said Igimaq in a deep, sonorous voice as Emmeline neared the top of the railing. She stepped out over the side, wobbling a bit. “Steady there—one leg at a time. No rush,” he said in his normal voice, which broke the spell of his story a little.

  “Were they really eaten by a narwhal?” Emmeline asked once she’d gotten her breath back and felt like she had a grip on the railing. Igimaq peered at her with a steely gaze for a few seconds before his grin broke out again.

  “Nothing so interesting,” he finally said. “Born this way. That’s all. Boring old story, eh? But the truth.”

  “It’s not boring,” said Emmeline.

  “You’re terribly kind,” said Igimaq. “Now, if we’re quite ready, let’s get ourselves off this sinking bucket and into a proper boat.” Igimaq looped his grappling hook—which, Emmeline now saw, was made of bone—around the railing of the ship and lowered himself down to his little boat. He spent a few seconds making it steady before Emmeline heard his whisper from far below.

  “Come on!”

  So she clambered down the rope, trying not to think of losing her grip, and, before she knew it she felt the leather and wood of Igimaq’s boat beneath her feet, and his strong hands on her arms, helping her to get comfortable. With a quick jerk on his rope, Igimaq’s grappling hook came tumbling down from on high, and he wrapped it up with deft fingers.

  “Just one more thing,” he muttered before making ready to pull away. From somewhere in the body of his small boat, he drew out something that looked like a bundle of candles with very long wicks, all tied together. Next, from a pocket, he produced a lighter made of some sort of pale, pearly material, the carving on its front visible even in the strange half-light. He flicked it open, and a flame, bright and jaunty in the cold and darkness, illuminated his face.

  Without really understanding what he was doing, she watched him light the wicks, but when she saw him brace himself to throw the lit candles, she realized—too late—what was happening.

  “Dynamite? No!” she said in a strangled voice. “There are loads of people on that ship!”

  “Wouldn’t worry,” said Igimaq, dipping his paddle into the water. “There’s not enough to do any huge damage. They’ll have plenty of time to get off, and they’ll be safe, probably—just boatless.” Before Emmeline had a chance to do anything else, their little craft was cutting through the water, leaving Dr. Bauer’s ship in its wake.

  “What’s this place?” whispered Thing, doing his best to resist the urge to hide behind Sasha. It looked like an abandoned train station, with a ceiling high enough to fit a whole forest—not that Thing thought anything could grow there—and lots of windows, most of them broken, far above their heads. All around were piles of rubbish, discarded engines, car parts, pools of black oil, and spatterings of bird droppings.

  “Shh. Don’t worry. We have friends here.”

  “Here? You sure?”

  Before Sasha could answer, a skinny man who seemed held together by hair oil and the clothes he was wearing shambled out from behind a wrecked vehicle a few feet from them.

  “The sun is warm,” said Sasha to the man very clearly.

  “But there is ice on the breeze,” he replied in the same strange, slow tone. They nodded at one another, satisfied. “This way,” he said, raising a filthy hand and beckoning them forward. He turned and walked away, into the depths of the room.

  “Look—are you certain about this, yeah?” said Thing, reaching out to steady Sasha as she stumbled across the trash-laden floor. Thing himself had no trouble—his feet naturally found the best and most secure route, as they always did.

  “Just trust me. All right?” She grabbed his hand and threw him a grateful look as, together, they followed the strange man into the dark.

  Emmeline was perched on the nose of Igimaq’s boat, and her eyes were fixed on Dr. Bauer’s ship, which had not—to her immense relief—exploded. Not so far, at least. She wasn’t entirely sure yet whether Igimaq was telling the truth about the dynamite.

  One thing had started to become clear, however.

  “So, you didn’t come just to rescue me,” she said, already knowing the answer.

  “How could I? Didn’t even know you were on board. I saw you, though, as I made my way over. ‘That’s a kid, Igimaq,’ I told myself. ‘And kids have no business with any of this stuff.’ So the plan had to change. Get you off, get you safe, then do the dynamite thing.”

  “How on earth did you see me?” asked Emmeline. “I was hiding!”

  Igimaq grinned. “You grow up as a no-legged hunter in a place where the sun doesn’t set properly for months at a time, and you get good at seeing things long, long before they can get close enough to hurt you,” he said. “I have eyes that can see the wind before she blows, and that can tell where the seal’s going to swim before he even makes the decision himself.”

  A distant yell drew Emmeline’s attention back to Dr. Bauer’s boat. A bright yellow flame had started to lick its way up the side of it, not far above the waterline.

  “What’s happening?” asked Igimaq, focusing on the water in front of them.

  “The dynamite must have set something on fire,” replied Emmeline, squinting as she tried to see. “The boat’s burning.”

  “Good,” said Igimaq, grinning wider.

  Before Emmeline could answer, someone tossed the still-fizzling dynamite overboard, and it vanished into the dark water. At the same time there was a loud, metallic groan as the side of Dr. Bauer’s ship began to open up. Something mechanical-sounding started to stir deep within it, something with a lot of gears and cogs and other moving parts. Something that might have ground me up if I were still hiding on the deck, she thought with a shudder of horror.

  Then the water beside the ship erupted as a huge wheel, its spokes at least as long as five Emmelines placed end to end, emerged from inside the hull. All the way around the wheel’s rim Emmeline saw metal teeth, pointed and curved, flashing cruelly in the light of the torches being held by the people on the shore. More mechanical groaning and gear shifting echoed across the surface of the water as the wheel settled itself into position, and finally, with a loud click sharp enough to make Emmeline jump, it started to rotate, slowly at first but rapidly picking up speed. The metallic teeth, Emmeline saw, were doing a great job at churning up the water. Then another gush of white sea foam from the ship’s far side drew Emmeline’s eye, and she realized a second wheel had begun to spin there, its speed slightly offset from that of the first.

  “That’s new,” muttered Igimaq, bending to the task of paddling. “We’re not far enough away for my liking. Hold on, little stowaway.” Emmeline braced herself as the small kayak picked up speed. Dr. Bauer’s boat was moving closer and closer to shore, powered by the wheels’ spinning, and Emmeline could just barely hear the sound of people shouting and screaming. A distant, muffled boom told her the dynamite had finally exploded, deep underwater, and the shock wave spread across the surface of the sea.

  Then, like a giant creature hauling itself up out of the deep, the boat rolled out of the waves. Its wheels bit into the ice as its shining hull, water running off it, crashed and rumbled its way up onto dry land. Emmeline saw that the front of the boat was covered in a metal plate that came to a sharp and horrible point near the prow, like a huge knife, and something inside her shrank away from the sight of it. The crowd scattered, dropping thei
r flaming torches as they went. The engines driving the huge wheels groaned and squealed as the boat gained purchase and balance on the ground, and then it was off, rolling into the night like a monstrous insect, clanking as it went.

  “So that’s what silence sounds like,” said Igimaq, making Emmeline turn back to face him. “Have you frozen solid, or are you still alive in there?”

  “Did you see that?” she gasped, her mind still full and her eyes straining to follow the boat as it vanished into the distance.

  “Didn’t need to,” sniffed Igimaq, paddling hard. “My nightmares’re bad enough, thank you very much.”

  “Where’s he going?” Emmeline pulled her collar up, but the cold got in anyway.

  “Never you mind about that,” said Igimaq, and it was like a screen had been pulled down over his eyes. The warmth faded from his voice. Emmeline tried to get him to catch her eye, but he refused.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked. Igimaq met her gaze for a split second and tried to grin, but it was a weak thing and didn’t live long.

  “I’ll—um. I thought I’d bring you home to the wife. She usually knows what to do when things go a little bit belly-up. Get some grub into you at least. Just sit tight and everything’ll be okay.”

  Emmeline took a deep breath and buried her face in her folded arms, and tried to pretend that everything around her was a dream. Just a dream, and nothing more.

  “What do you need?” asked the man. Sasha and Thing had followed him between two towering piles of rubbish and down a short corridor into a surprisingly pleasant office, lit with a gas lamp and warmed by a roaring fire. Thing slipped away to stand beside it, feeling the marrow melting in his bones.

  “Transport,” answered Sasha. Her voice was just as clipped and official as the man’s. “A colleague will be along after us, and he’ll need the same.” Thing looked at Sasha as she spoke, but her face betrayed nothing. I hope Edgar’s all right, he thought. And Madame, too.