Ayla shot a look at the wall.
“You’re not thinking of climbing that?” Toby’s mind raced – how would they get over the top without getting shredded?
Ayla snorted. “No. We get the things and –” she looked around again, lowering her voice until it was barely a whisper – “we take the pills now.”
“Now?” Toby swallowed. “Rahul’s waiting in Wren at the north side of the island. He won’t see us being dumped into the sea here.”
“It’ll be fine.” Ayla sounded confident. “No way your captain left you here without someone keeping an eye. Polly … or—”
“I haven’t seen her.” Toby pulled at a frayed edge on his trousers. “What really worries me is that we don’t know how they deal with their dead here. The original idea was to get the things out first, then ourselves. If we try and hide them in our pockets or something and then take the pills, who’ll stop them from stripping us before we get thrown over the cliff? We’ll be unconscious, helpless. If we do somehow manage to keep them hidden on our bodies, what if the rough salt knocks them out of our pockets and we lose them that way? It’s too risky.”
“It’s too risky to stay,” Ayla hissed. “We can tape them to us so they don’t float free in the salt. Hideaki can do it. He’ll be in charge of the dead.”
“How do you know?” Toby shook his head. “Hideaki deals with the sick and injured, the dead might go somewhere else. They could have a mortician.”
“Ashes.” Ayla clenched her fists.
“And you promised Hideaki you’d get him out. What if he betrays us when he realizes we’re leaving without him. Can you trust him not to do that?”
“Toby…” Ayla shook his elbows. “Stop thinking up problems. You and I should take our pills tonight, while we still can, while we have our tongues. It’s the best way, the only way.”
“It’s not,” Toby insisted. “You’ve already faced your worst fear. None of the other challenges will be a problem after this – what can they possibly do that would be worse than today?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured.
“Your plan is still good. We win the trials, we go to the festival, we hand the things to the captain, then we get out.”
“I don’t want to wait.” Ayla’s eyes pleaded.
Toby had never seen her like this. Everything in him rebelled against rejecting her plan. His own instinct was to get the hell out of Gozo and here she was, asking him to go. But it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t the plan.
“We have to wait,” he said sadly.
Ayla hung her head, then she shook him off and stepped backwards. “I’m going to tell them I need some pain relief from the infirmary. I’m going to see Hideaki.” She pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “I’m going to find out who deals with the dead.”
Toby slipped despondently into his cell. He wanted to check under his bed, to see if the inverter remained safe, but he didn’t dare. Nothing had been said, there had been no uproar. It hadn’t been found.
He lay staring at the ceiling, clenching his fists.
Then Ayla stood in his doorway, her shoulders hunched low. “They have a mortuary well away from the infirmary,” she said. “It leads directly out to the cliff edge. The silent attendants deal with the dead – it’s one of their ‘sacred mysteries’.” The breath burst out of her, as if she’d been punched. “They’ll find the things on us. We have to wait … or go over the wall.”
Toby sat and patted his mattress. He cut his eyes to the panel in his wall. Then, as Ayla collapsed beside him, he took his tine from his shirt sleeve and jammed it closed.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to risk anyone overhearing,” Toby whispered.
“There’s nothing more to say.” Ayla groaned. “This was my plan, and now I’ve got to see it through – stop acting like a whiny baby. End of.”
“What’s that, your mother’s voice?” Toby reached for her hand, but she didn’t let him take it.
“You think I should cry about this? How does that help?”
Toby dropped his hand.
Awkward silence stretched between them until Ayla snapped it. “I know what the next challenge is.”
Toby’s eyes widened. “How?” Then he nodded. “Hideaki.”
Ayla nodded. “He says it’s a maze.”
Toby quickly glanced down the corridor, even though he had already checked that everyone else was at lunch. “A test of intelligence then.” He found his eyes pinned to Cezar’s room. “Cezar will be our biggest problem.”
Ayla agreed. “I can take him out of the game.”
“Don’t!” Toby sometimes forgot how ruthless Ayla could be. “We only have to beat one other couple – there are still three more. If Cezar comes first, it won’t be a problem for us to come second.”
“Hideaki gave me some pointers. He doesn’t know the exact layout, but he said there are dangers. If we follow the sun sign with the short curved rays and avoid any route marked with barbed rays, we should avoid the most lethal traps.”
“Lethal traps?” Toby frowned. “They wouldn’t, would they?”
“What do you think?”
“I think these sun worshippers are sadists.”
Ayla closed her eyes. “Apparently we’ve got a day off tomorrow.”
“Thank the gods for that.” Toby leaned against the wall just as a rattling sounded from the wooden panel in his cell.
“Someone’s trying to listen!” Ayla hissed.
“Ashes.”
As angry voices sounded, Toby jolted to his feet, bent and pulled the broken tine from the hatch. He hid it quickly back in his sleeve and hurled himself back on his cot. He grabbed Ayla as he went down and half pinned her beneath him.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Shut up.” He tangled his legs in hers, grabbed her hands and twined their fingers. Then he pinned her arms above her head and kissed her. Her lips were hot and cracked.
Toby’s pulse pounded in his ears. Ayla bit his lip and now he tasted blood as well. She was going to hit him as soon as her hands were free. He pulled back, licked his lip and then, suddenly she was kissing him. This was nothing like the last embrace they had shared on the Phoenix. This was hungry and desperate and filled with yearning and fire.
Shaking, he touched his tongue against her lips and she opened her mouth. Their bodies pressed so closely together that he could feel her heart racing against his chest.
“What are you doing?” The light was blotted out of his doorway and Toby rested his forehead on Ayla’s with a groan.
An older brother barged into his cell, strode to the wall and tore open the panel. His shoulders jerked in surprise as the wood moved smoothly back into the wall. He spun around and glowered at Toby.
“What did you do?”
“Huh?” Toby looked up. “Isn’t this allowed? No one said.”
“What’s going on?” Mother Hesper swept into the doorway.
“The brother here wanted to watch us steaming up the cell,” Ayla snapped. “He got frustrated when the panel was stuck. It must’ve warped or stiffened in the heat.”
“Well?” Mother Hesper tilted her head at the brother.
“It seems fine now.” The brother bent and demonstrated. Mother Hesper pursed her lips.
“It’s an offence to tamper with the workings of the sanctuary. The panel is here for your own protection. Should something happen, or should you become ill, this is how we know to get you help.”
“Of course.” Toby smiled innocently. “As I said, I never touched it. My hands have been busy elsewhere.” Ayla rolled her eyes.
“Get out and join the others.” Mother Hesper stood aside to let them pass. “Your behaviour isn’t appropriate.”
“But it isn’t forbidden, either?” Toby checked as they slid past, his hand still wrapped around Ayla’s.
Mother Hesper glowered. “Consider it disallowed.”
Toby bowed his head. “We’ll join the
others then.”
The brother remained standing in Toby’s cell as they left. He swallowed, thinking of the inverter buried under his bed, but he had no choice but to climb the stairs and leave. As they opened the door Toby looked back – Mother Hesper was entering his cell.
NINETEEN
Toby jerked to wakefulness. It had been a long restless, night and it felt as if he had only just managed to fall asleep. Now he lay, unmoving, pointlessly pretending sleep as two uncles burst through his door. When they laid their hands on him, he started to fight.
He opened his mouth to yell and a cloth was shoved between his teeth, muffling his cries.
“Toby?” Ayla must have heard the scuffle. He pounded on the wall, trying to warn her, but his arms were tangled in his light blanket, then grabbed by strong hands and he was lifted out of bed.
Ayla began to bang on her own door, shouting for him, and Toby heard stirring from other cells as her yelling drew attention.
He was carried, fighting all the way, into the corridor where Mother Hesper waited, beside Father Dahon.
She signalled to someone behind him and Hideaki stepped into view. “Sorry,” he mouthed and Toby strained back, but could go nowhere. There was a sting in his neck and Toby felt as if he had been plunged underwater. His limbs were weighed down and his head grew too heavy for his neck. He tried to lift his chin, but it had been glued to his chest. His head lolled. Everything went dark.
“Toby, the paddles are slowing.” The canopies outside the bridge shook with the volume of the captain’s roar. “We’re running out of power. Get down to the boiler room.”
“Where’s Harry? We swapped shifts.” Using the mast like a fireman’s pole, Toby slid from the crow’s nest. His feet stung when they hit the deck – he had misjudged the final jump.
“You know Harry.” The captain frowned. “I assume he’s sloped off for a nap. You deal with the power, I’ll deal with him.”
Toby nodded and sped across the deck to the hatch. As he ran he ducked under canopies that clattered in a sudden gust of wind. Poisonous spray hit his face. His cheeks burned but he wiped them quickly, opened the hatch and threw himself down the ladder. Again his feet hurt when they hit the ground and he frowned. He had been running around the Phoenix barefoot for years, he had calluses on his calluses – his feet never hurt. He wondered briefly if he should speak to Uma. Then he realized that the Phoenix was moving up and down more sharply than ever. Their forward momentum had almost halted.
“Harry!” he shouted and he hit the passageway to the boiler room at a dead sprint. “What’s going on?”
Toby heard the paddle grind to a halt as he slammed through the door. Polly was waiting for him, hopping from foot to foot on her perch above the attemperator.
“Pretty Polly,” she shrieked. She was frustrated as hell, but using parrot speak, so Harry had to be around somewhere.
“Harry, where are you?”
“Toby, thank the gods! I’m up here.”
Toby looked up. Harry was hanging from the ladder that led to the blowers. His teeth and the whites of his eyes were all that Toby could see. It was as if Harry had been dunked in soot. “I think there’s a blockage.”
And that was when Toby felt it: the whole boiler was shuddering.
“Harry, get down from there, she’s going to blow!”
Harry’s eyes widened and he tried to start down the ladder. “I’m stuck!” he yelled. “I can’t get down.”
“What’re you stuck on?” Toby moved as if to run forwards, but Polly flew into his face, forcing him back towards the door.
“My shirt’s caught.” Harry was struggling. The boiler started to make a high-pitched squealing noise.
“Ashes,” Toby whispered. “Take it off, Harry, now.”
Harry squirmed, trying to get out of his shirt and Polly screamed into Toby’s face, no longer caring that Harry heard her. “Get out, get out, get out!” Her claws slashed at his forehead.
Pale with shock, Toby stumbled into the passageway, blood pouring into his eyes, trying to fend her off. “Polly, stop!”
But Polly didn’t stop, not until he had reached the end of the passageway and gone through the buffer door.
“Harry…” Toby tried to go back and Polly flew at him once more, screeching.
“There isn’t time,” she squawked, her wings a flurry of colour and dusty feathers.
There was a moment of breathless inhalation as the air seemed to be sucked into the passageway then a snapping of tension. The ship rattled like a can. There was a blast of heat, a roar louder than thunder and Toby grunted as if he’d been hit in the solar plexus.
“The door’s holding,” he gasped, cold with shock. On the other side, half of the ship was missing. The heart of the Phoenix had been ripped out and he knew it was his fault. If he hadn’t swapped watch with Harry…
“Harry,” he whispered. If the explosion hadn’t killed him instantly, his friend had already been dragged into the salt.
He looked down as his feet began to burn. The blast door was no longer holding back the corrosive sea and water was sloshing around his ankles. Banging on the other side told him that junk had flooded in. They were sinking.
The Phoenix was going down.
Toby ran for the ladder. The captain would know what had happened and emergency protocols would already be in motion, but some of the crew were sleeping off a night shift. He had to wake them.
The Phoenix creaked and the whole ship tilted sideways. Toby gripped the rungs just ahead and found himself hanging at a right angle to the ladder.
He had to get through the hatch. He used the ladder like monkey bars to drag himself to the handle, but the water was already at his waist. If he opened the hatch, would he flood the ship even faster?
Gripped with indecision, his survival instincts took over – if he didn’t open the hatch, he was going to drown. His waist was tingling as the salt soaked through his clothes and began to burn. He hammered on the handle, but it didn’t turn. The explosion had warped the opening enough to make the hatch stick. Hysterical laughter burst from his chest – he was going to drown inside a closed passageway of the Phoenix.
Screeching, Polly flew at the hatch, but there was nothing she could do. Toby was floating now in the orange water, his mouth pressed against the bubble of air trapped behind the closed hatch cover.
He gasped and tasted salt that seared his tongue and scalded his throat.
His eyes flew open.
Toby was floating. Literally. He had sagged on to his knees and the stinging salt had reached his waist. The burning of his cheeks told him that his face had just received a dunking.
He jerked upright and tried to wipe his skin clean, but his hands were trapped behind him. He shook his head, which felt as if he’d spent a whole night drinking Peel’s hooch. He was dizzy and sick and felt his mind was filled with fog.
Where was he?
The important thing was to get the hell out of the salt. It was difficult to get to his feet without using his hands or arms, but not impossible. When he was standing, the water only reached his knees. He tried to wade out of it and was jerked to a stop by the pressure of metal on his wrists.
They had found the inverter in his cell. It was the only explanation. And he had been chained out here to die. He cleared his throat – it was so dry that it felt thick and coated with felt. How long had he been imprisoned there, unconscious, while the tide crept up his feet, his ankles, his legs, his waist?
He shook his head. It didn’t matter. What mattered was, how high would the tide get? Would he drown or be eaten alive by the acid currents that swirled around his feet?
“Toby?” The voice was barely more than a whisper.
Toby turned, but for a moment he was so dizzy that he couldn’t see. Then the fog left his vision. Yes, he was chained to a metal stake, but he was not alone.
Summer’s hands were secured in front of her and she was gripping the post they were chained to as though
the rising tide might tear her from it and drag her away.
The ends of her hair were wet. So she had woken before Toby and risen to her feet. On Toby’s other side Moira, Cezar and Lenka remained sagged downwards, chins resting on their chests. Cezar’s breathing was coming in rasps but Lenka’s face was closest to the salt, her fine blond hair flying upwards in the breeze from the sea, as if repelled by it.
Chains looped from each wrist to join a central rusting ring, long corroded by the salt air.
“We’ve got to wake them.” Summer’s face was pale and terrified. “They’ll drown.”
Toby blinked hard to clear the film from his eyes and nodded. He backed to the stake and stretched his arms behind him as far as he could. He could just reach Lenka with the tips of his fingers.
He looked at Summer. “Can you get to Cezar?”
She shook her head and her knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip.
“All right.” Toby managed to scrabble a tenuous hold on Lenka’s collar and pulled her closer to him. The salt sucked back, trying to haul her into the tide. “Lenka!” His shout was loud enough to rouse the gulls that sat on the nearby cliff.
They lifted into the air with raucous squawks and Toby’s attention fell on an opening in the wall beneath their perch – a passageway that stretched back into the darkness.
He swallowed hard. “It’s the maze.”
“What?” Summer’s gaze followed Toby’s.
“The next challenge,” Toby muttered. “It was meant to be a maze. I thought we’d be doing it together, but the others must be doing it alone. I guess they have to find us before it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
Toby tried to gesture at the sea, but his tied hands prevented him. He tilted his head instead.
Summer gulped and then her blue eyes narrowed. “How do you know it’s a maze?”
“Ayla told me.” Toby wanted to clear the salt from his stinging cheeks and eyes. He settled for rubbing his cheeks on his shoulders. His eyes still ached. “Lenka! Come on, wake up.” He shook her collar and she groaned, her head lolling.
Phoenix Burning Page 17