Mucum nudged Ark in the ribs and grabbed his friend’s head with both hands to whisper in his ear. “I really like ’er, you know.”
Ark struggled to free himself. “Yes. I got that.”
“No, really, really,” slurred Mucum, his eyes nervously flickering back to Flo, whose smile now rose above the noise of the party. “Secret, right, between you and me, us being buds and all?”
“Of course.” Ark desperately tried to retreat, but Mucum’s pudgy fingers gripped even tighter.
“I’d like to kiss her, but I’ve never snogged anyone before!”
It was Ark’s turn to go red. It wasn’t as if he was an expert in that area, either. “Right. Great. Go for it.”
“Yer think so? Don’t tell anyone; they all think I’ve kissed loads of girls! Got a reputation to live up to, yer know.” Mucum let go of Ark, plucked up his courage, and slipped an arm around Flo. She snuggled in closer to him in response.
Ark looked around at his newfound friends. There was good food, lively music, and, above all, companionship here. But a thought darker than any mealworm kept gnawing away at him. Maw would not mine this earth gently. Their huge machines could rip the very roots from their harbor. Joe and his kin would become slave labor, if they even survived the assault on their home.
Ark slowly edged away from the party until he was lost in the shadows of the cavern. It was time to go. He thought about Mucum and the adventures they’d had so far. But Mucum was safe down here. If Ark could face a monster worm, surely he could find a way to the King? He was alone again, like always.
“Where be yow off to?” Joe sprang up out of the shadows like an elongated dream.
Ark nearly fell over with fright. “Oi be off to … explore.” Crazy. He was even starting to talk like them. “I mean, I’m off to explore.” The explanation sounded lame. He waited for Joe to grab hold of him.
“Good for yow!” The quizzical look left Joe’s huge, round eyes. “If yow keep going arf in that direction, yow’ll find the ore cars! Plenty to see, and glad yow loike our humble home. Yow’re part of it now!” He patted Ark on the back and loped off toward the music with a spring in his step.
Ark felt terrible. No one lied down here. It was a place of trust. But if he told the truth, Joe wouldn’t let him go, ever. “Thanks,” he whispered at the departing figure, “for everything.”
Ark quickly nipped into the room he’d slept in to retrieve his bag and plumbing belt. Keeping to the darkest corners, he headed away from the music and out toward the ore cars. All that crushed ore had to go somewhere. From down at the roots, that could only mean up. He spotted the train track and a few cars slowly trundling along with no driver in evidence. The train appeared to be heading toward a tunnel in the far side of the cavern.
Ark sprinted toward the last car and hopped onto the mineral express. No turning back now. Within seconds, he was enveloped in total darkness. The gloom soon faded as they arrived at a tipping station. Each car was balanced at either end on a huge axle. The cars ahead began to slowly tip over to the left, pulled by a giant magnet at the side, to spill their load into an overgrown box on the side of the track. This container was attached at each corner to a four-way hoist. When the box was full, the ropes went taut and the cargo began to lift. Box after box slid up in smooth transit and was swallowed by the blackness above. Although Ark strained his eyes, they couldn’t pierce the shadows.
Never mind. This was a free ride and saved him having to take the stairs, all five thousand of them. His legs had never been so grateful. The only problem was how to avoid being flattened by a few hundred tons of industrial ore. Ark scrambled over to the right-hand side of the car and held tightly on to the edge as it began to lean over. Soon, as he gripped tight, his legs were dangling in the air and his nose filled with dust. He desperately tried not to sneeze, in case there were any Rootshooters around. At the very last moment, and with a quick prayer to Diana, he closed his eyes and let go.
There was a bump and Ark felt a piece of rock scrape his shin, hard. He tried not to cry out as he dared to open his eyes. He had made it, perched on top of the mound of ore, inside the box as it slowly rose up to the ceiling. There was an awful screeching noise and the ceiling split in two, like a pair of giant hinged trapdoors, filling the cavern with the smells of … earth. As the box swayed slightly from side to side and slowly slipped from the safety of the cavern, Ark crawled to the edge and peered over.
“Flipping fungus!” The familiar tree trunk on his left was not the reason why he nearly fell off in shock. He was horrified, then fascinated to see the ground itself, not thirty feet below him, spreading out from the roots like a soily brown scaffield. The Holly Woodsmen said that the earth was unclean. Nobody who left Arborium to climb down had ever returned to tell the tale. And yet this place didn’t look dangerous. The smell was loamy, deep, and pleasant.
An animal, nibbling on vegetation, looked up to see a brown face staring back.
Ark would have expected deformed creatures born of ancient pollution, not this little snub-nosed, wide-eyed beauty, taking fright and vanishing on lithe legs into the twilit forest. He was hungry for the view, enraptured by a marching army of skyscraping trunks vanishing into the distance. Between them, the land seemed lush and healthy. Rays of evening light filtered through from far above, like exploring fingers.
And there, tucked like a bird’s nest into the huge curl of a root, was a cottage, cobbled together from stone and moss. A single swirl of smoke curled from the leaning chimney. Any second now, the door would open. But it didn’t. Was this one of the houses of the mud-pirates? How could they live so far from the sky? If only curiosity could knock and gain entrance, but the box rose too quickly, stealing his view.
Gradually he was carried farther and farther away from the ground. The motion made him feel queasy. Was it only two days since he’d fled from the palace, slipping like a slug from the guards? The problem of what to do loomed large. As the box ascended, his homesickness began to abate. At a mile’s height, branches began to snake out horizontally from the trunk, and these were adorned with the familiar additions of ropeways, scaffolding, plumbing pipes, and the messy business of Dendran civilization, held together with the iron that was smelted from the pile of stuff beneath his backside. It was familiar, safe.
As the box climbed higher, it swayed perilously close to an empty branchway. Ark had no time to even think as he bent his legs and leapt. Twigs alive! he mouthed as he landed in a heap on solid wood once again. He rolled over and stood up, looking around to make sure he wasn’t observed. Feeling the wood beneath his feet again filled him with hope. And when he realized where he was, he felt that the Goddess was surely with him. The iron ore’s journey had taken him not just up but westward as the series of cogs and giant wheels thrust the crushed rocks and Ark’s container one step nearer the smelting districts. Home was only a half-hour walk. He wanted to kneel down and kiss the bark in gratitude.
As the dusk settled and shadows lengthened across the branchways, his sense of freedom vanished. Nothing had changed. His house was probably being watched. And what did he have to tell his mother? That he’d failed to get to the King? Maybe he should head straight to the castle. The clocking-off bells rang out through the forest, and the woodways would soon be filling up with tired Dendrans rushing to get home.
It was all right for them. Home meant the warm gas fire and a steaming plate of food. But that was no longer an option for him. He slipped onto a smaller branch line and headed away from the crowds.
Five minutes later, his head peered around the door of the kirk. The inner sanctum looked empty. He crept toward the side chapel. Candles flickered in clay recesses as the polished wooden floor caught their reflections. At the altar, a familiar figure was kneeling on the floor. The silence spread out, unbreakable.
Ark had no choice. “Ahem,” he coughed.
The figure remained, unmoving. “Come to pray, my Malikum?”
What good would that d
o now?
“I hear your doubt. Sit by me a while.” Warden Goodwoody raised her head and motioned Ark to a nearby pew. She sniffed the air. “That smell you bring with you … I think I remember it. When I was young and still sighted, I used to explore all sorts of forbidden places….” Her voice trailed off. “But speak to me, my Ark. They said you were dead. Then you weren’t, and now there is quite the commotion about you.”
Ark found himself trembling as he perched on the chair. “I did nearly die … a few times.” And what else had he done? Vanished into a cloak of dark and touched a mealworm. He didn’t know if it was his abilities or mere timing. He did know he was not the same boy who came to see the Warden for guidance two days ago. Too much had happened since then. It was ridiculous, but he felt older, more determined than ever.
“Yes, and I have a feeling the trees have been with you all this time. This is a place of wonders, but most Dendrans have forgotten that. Not you, though?”
Ark nodded, then realized she couldn’t see his agreement. There was more hidden in the woods than he’d ever dreamed of. “The feather —”
“Is guiding you, yes. But you are not there yet. There is much to do. Perhaps too much.” Goodwoody sighed.
She was right and he was an ivy-strewn fool. The King was as inaccessible as ever. “How’s the roof?” he said, finally changing the subject.
“Oh, that!” The Warden smiled wryly. “The Woodsmen were most suspicious of my story, but I could have hardly climbed up there and made the hole myself.”
“Is my family all right?”
The Warden paused. “Your mother and father are fine. I managed to smuggle out some food that would have rotted in the kirk otherwise. But … I don’t know how to tell you this….”
“What?”
“Your young sister …”
Ark felt his heart suddenly lurch. “Is she ill? Did she fall? I shouldn’t have left!”
“No, my Ark. Your mother came to me a short while ago. She was in a bad way. The Councillor’s men have arrested your sister on charges of terrorism.” She shook her head. “The wood has gone mad.”
Ark jumped up. This was ten times worse than a mere mealworm. “They can’t have! How dare they?” He thumped his fist on the chair. “And it’s wrong!” He burst into tears. “I overheard a plot that will destroy the whole of Arborium. I ran and they tried to kill me and I tried to warn the King but couldn’t,” he sobbed. “The feather only helped me escape, though I kept hearing this voice. And then we were down in the roots, and I knew I had to get back, and —”
“A voice?” the Warden interrupted.
“Yes. It keeps saying my name.”
“It’s Her! It’s really Her!” A look of astonishment crossed Goodwoody’s face. “She’s calling you and your time is coming.”
“What do you mean?” The Warden was riddling again.
“Diana knows best. All shall be well, though the journey is fraught with danger.”
But at that moment, all Ark could think about was Shiv. He wiped away the tears with his sleeve and turned abruptly. “I have to go.”
The Warden heard the change in his tone. “Diana was also enraged once. The Wood-Book talks about how She laid low the temple of the honeylenders! Trust that which lies within you!”
“Whatever that is!” shouted Ark. The door slammed and he was gone.
“Goddess speed you!” Goodwoody called out to the empty chapel. Her knees ached on the hard floor and she felt the worm of doubt inside. Capturing a child, destroying Arborium! Were her prayers any good in the face of such evil? And the voice that Ark mentioned — could it really be?
Ark sprinted from the kirk. He knew where he was going, but beyond that, nothing. He’d taken on a mealworm. The Warden was right. Time to stop doubting himself. The anger flowed through his veins like molten iron.
23• A FRIEND IN NEED
Mucum never knew that a girl could have this effect on him. It was one thing bragging to your mates but another to have the real-life Flo snuggled up next to him, their bodies swaying to the rhythm of the music. He turned to look at her. Some hair on her head would be useful, but then his short crop was hardly different. In fact, apart from the height, skin color, and funny accent, they had plenty in common. And when she smiled at him, oh boy, his stomach flipped. If only he could pluck up the courage to kiss her! He was in serious danger of turning sloppy.
Mucum scanned the circle of faces around the fire. They were a good bunch, these Rootshooters. He looked again. Something missing. A face. Whose? It would come to him in a minute.
Joe came ambling back into the circle to sit down.
Mucum quickly moved away from his new girlfriend.
“Yow be fine, young boy!” Joe’s eyes hadn’t missed a thing. “It be good to see our Flo so ‘appy!”
Mucum squirmed under the gaze of his big eyes.
“Don’t think Oi didn’t see!” Joe tapped his nose, every inch the proud father.
Mucum cleared his throat and cast about for a new subject. His mind began to work again. “Where’s Ark?”
“Oh, don’t yow worry about him. He’s gone arf to explore, so he says!”
Mucum sat bolt upright, his head clearing in an instant. “No, he hasn’t! How could I have been so stupid?” He’d taken his eye off the root ball. “I have to leave. Sorry.”
His words fell into the crowd. The music faltered, stopped, as the other Rootshooters turned to stare at him.
Joe broke the silence. “What do yow mean?”
“He’s not exploring. He’s gone. Vamoosh! Run away!” Mucum shouted out the words, angry with himself. “And I should be with him.”
“Gone, yow say? But he told me …”
“He lied, Joe!”
The whole crowd sighed as Flo grabbed his arm. “Whoi would he do such a thing?”
Mucum felt backed into a corner. “Ark tried to explain. You wouldn’t listen. We ain’t miracles. Us two didn’t come here by some divine trickery. We were on the run.” He expected Joe to sweep his hand away like he did before, but the old man’s gaze stayed serious. “Our king, our country … your country. It’s in trouble. The whole place will be destroyed if the coup against the King is successful. If yer love the trees and yer home, you should listen up!”
A few of the miners began to mutter about matters up top being of no interest to them, but Joe raised his arm and they fell silent. “Young Mucum, tell us all.”
He did, right from the beginning when he bumped into a panicked Ark on the woodway that first afternoon that seemed so long ago. Could it really have been only two days ago? It was a story to beat all stories. The miners oohed and aahed with every event, shocked to hear of Dendrans who could fill their minds with treachery and lies. As Mucum described the encounter with the sewer rats, Flo’s heart almost burst with admiration.
“So, when you pulled us out of that water pipe, we were a pair of cowards, running from big men with swords,” Mucum finished, hanging his head down, unable to look at his friends.
It was Flo who leaned over and gently lifted his chin. “Yow see my kin ’ere? Warghh! I can promise yow that each of them thinks yow both be heroes! Am Oi right or not?”
Nobody spoke for a second, and Mucum knew he’d lost them.
“Am Oi right or not?” said Flo, and there was iron in her voice this time, unbending, willing a response.
“Yas!” said one of the Rootshooters. “Yas!” said another, and within seconds the whole crowd was shouting, then cheering.
Joe pointed a bony finger at the ceiling of the cavern high above and, one by one, his fellow miners fell silent. “Moi daughter is right. Old Joe ’ere has been a fuddy-buddy. What goes up” — and he lifted his eyes in the direction of his finger — “must come down. I still think yow were sent. Yowr Diana ain’t known for makin’ mistakes. Now, young Mucum, what do yow want from us?”
Mucum couldn’t believe it. “I need to find him, quick, and then, we have to get to the King
. The Harvest Festival is only a few days away and that’s when the squit’s gonna hit the fan, unless we do somefin’ about it.”
“Fine. First things first, let’s trace him out. Jacko, George, be off with yow!” Two of the taller Rootshooters sprinted away, their huge strides eating up distance as they vanished into the gloom. Not a minute later they came back, barely out of breath.
“He be going out with the ore, Maister Joe!” said Jacko.
“Straight through the trapdoor, Oi reckon!” said George.
“Warghh! Yowr boy be clever!” Joe answered with an approving nod. He thought for a second. “It be a good way to go, but slow. If yow want to catch up, best take the lift.”
Mucum found his bag plonked in his lap and Flo pulling on his hand and leading him toward one of the Xylem in the center of the cavern. Unlike the other hollow roots, this one went straight up to the roof like an arrow. Two double doors lay wide open and blackness beckoned beyond. Flo let go of his hand and worked a pulley at the side of the doorway. Slowly, a small open-sided compartment slid up into the space from below.
Joe was all business now, consulting his watch and some numbers carved into the wood frame. “A couple of minutes, yow got.”
Mucum didn’t like the look of the enclosed space. “You want me to get in that?”
“Yas!”
“But what is it?”
“The lift, dear one!” said Flo sadly. “Mighty quick it is, too. Yow don’t think we use the ladder all the time?”
“Coulda told us that this morning. It took us hours to get down ’ere. My legs are still achin’!”
“Oi love it when yow complain! ’Tis mighty sweet, Oi think!”
Mucum squirmed. Any more niceness and he would explode.
“Now, see that belt?” She pointed to a seat inside the compartment with some kind of leather harness strewn across it. “That needs be strapped up tight. Come arn!” She gently led him into the compartment, sat him down, and began to tie him in.
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