by Maurice Gee
Nick picked up his pack. ‘Don’t worry about him. We can find Shady Home by ourselves.’
‘You will die,’ Limpy said. ‘The priests will get you.’
‘What priests? From the Temple?’
‘Yes.’
‘When was it built? We didn’t see it there a year ago.’
‘It has been there all my life. All my father’s. And his father’s. It was built in the seventh turn from the Mending.’
‘What’s the Mending?’
‘If you are Nick, and you Susan, then you know.’
And Susan did know. Everything began making sense to her. She felt the blood draining from her face. ‘Nick,’ she said, ‘I put the Halves together. That was the Mending.’
She saw Limpy nodding, and said to him, ‘How long ago?’
His answer came as no surprise to her. ‘Ancient times. In thirty days it is a hundred turns.’
She heard Nick arguing, but she did not argue. With the Shy you passed through time and space – five minutes or five years, a hundred years. Limpy had brought them into his own time. It made no difference to their going back, but here, now – she saw what it must mean.
‘Nick,’ she sobbed, ‘oh Nick.’ She leaned against him. Tears ran down her face. ‘They’re dead. Brand and Breeze and Jimmy. Jimmy’s dead.’
Chapter Two
The Priests of Ferris
When evening came they reached the edge of the forest. Exhausted from their scrambling on the hills, they made beds of fern and slept till dawn. Nick took food from the pack and handed it round. They drank from a creek, then Limpy scouted ahead and found the way safe. They pushed on till midday and reached the forest floor. Grub-weed might be found there, Limpy said. He went off with his knife and Nick and Susan sat on the roots of a tree, listening to the sounds of Wildwood. The wind made a soughing in the trees, the stream tinkled, birds chirped and fluttered in the undergrowth or made soft bell-notes higher up. But for Susan the magic was gone. Once before O had been grey to her, before Breeze had given her the Shy, and now it was grey again. She tried to tell herself death was natural, time had passed, nothing evil had happened to Jimmy and Brand and Breeze. They had simply grown old and died. But she could not make herself believe it.
‘He still doesn’t like us,’ Nick said.
‘Who?’
‘Limpy. I wonder what this stuff about priests is. He could be making it up to scare us.’ When she made no answer he patted her knee. ‘Cheer up. I’ll bet Jimmy had a ball before he died. I wonder if he named a mountain after me. Here, have a plum. I’ll tell you what, I’ll plant the stone. Then they’ll have plums the way we have Shy.’
But he could not lighten her mood. O was no longer her world and she wanted to be out of it, on Earth. It seemed dangerous, and the thought of the priests frightened her. Without her friends she was lost and afraid. She would go to Shady Home and talk to Verna – a new Verna, not the one she knew – then go home. There was nothing here she wanted to do any more.
Then, oddly, for a moment, she was happy, something comforted her, she could not tell what. An Earth sound. Then she had it: far off, the barking of dogs. It was a sound that meant home to her – the dogs on the hill with her father, Ben the huntaway turning the sheep.
‘Listen,’ Nick said.
‘Yes.’
But he was on his feet, staring round. And she remembered: dogs on O were the dogs of Otis Claw, the black man-killing hounds he had used for his sport in the underground throne-hall long ago. She remembered the sounds they made as they attacked. Claw was dead, but now, according to Limpy, the dogs had new masters, the priests.
Nick was struggling to get his pack on. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. If those dogs get our scent … ’
‘Maybe they’ve got Limpy’s.’
‘That’s his bad luck.’
‘We can’t just leave him.’
‘He knows his way round. Hurry, Susan. They’re getting close.’
The sound was a hunting cry – hungry, eager – and suddenly it increased, as if the pack had come round a hill. Shouts of men were mixed in it. Yet they could not tell its direction and their running seemed to take them closer to it. Then Limpy came bursting through the fern, running lopsidedly, and he gave a shout of rage when he saw them.
‘Where are you going? I was leading them away.’
‘Where are they?’
‘You’re running straight at them.’
‘How many?’
‘Too many. I couldn’t find grub-weed. They’ve got my scent. Now they’ll get yours.’
‘Can we get away?’
‘No chance.’
‘Can we walk in a creek? We’ve got to do something.’
The baying of the dogs swelled in volume and the harsh cries of men, and women too, took an eager note.
‘Take off your pack. Scatter the food. Scatter everything. That will delay them.’
Nick tore off the pack. He threw clothes, cheese, chicken legs, peanuts, in every direction. He hurled the pack away into the ferns. They turned and ran, heading downhill in the direction of a creek they had crossed in the morning. Limpy went along in a kind of scuttle, swinging his bad leg wide, but he kept ahead of Nick and Susan with no trouble, and called them on when they seemed to tire. The slope became steeper and they slid down between worn boulders, braking with their feet. The noise of the dogs faded away, but as they reached the creek a squealing and a yelping came through the trees.
‘They’ve found the pack,’ Limpy panted. ‘The priests will lose control. But then they’ll let the hunters go. They’ll be running free. Each priest has a tracker and a hunter.’ He set off up the creek, wading thigh-deep. ‘Our only chance is to find a place where dogs can’t climb.’
‘We’re going the wrong way,’ Nick said. ‘Our scent will flow down the creek.’
‘The hills are this way.’
‘Then let’s get out and run. This is slowing us down.’
It made him feel better when Limpy obeyed. They scrambled out on the far side of the creek and ran along the bank. Soon the water ran in noisy rapids, but even so the sound of the dogs came again.
‘They’ve got to the place where we went in.’
‘Ten minutes,’ Nick said, looking at his watch. ‘We’ve got about a kilometre on them.’
‘They’ll take a while to pick us up again,’ Limpy said.
But they could not keep their pace up. The creek came tumbling out of a gorge. They had to climb through water and haul themselves over slippery stones. Moss broke away in handfuls and slid under their feet. White water pressed on their thighs. Their only comfort was that dogs would find it hard here too.
They climbed for twenty minutes. The gorge levelled out. They stood listening at the head of the rapids but the noise of the water drowned everything. It tumbled out of sight round a bend, and down there somewhere dogs and priests were coming. Ahead, boulders the size of houses choked the gorge. They began to run between them, and climb along their sides. Several times they had to go back and start again. Then the creek turned, and a waterfall blocked the gorge.
It was like being caught in a bottle, Susan thought. But Limpy was scouting about. He ran, half swimming, through the pool at the base of the fall and disappeared in ferns by a shingle bank. ‘Here,’ he cried. A tiny stream trickled from a side gorge. It was so narrow they had to turn sideways to get in. It widened out a few steps on and gave them room to scramble three abreast. But as they climbed they heard the barking of dogs.
‘Why are they chasing us? Why?’ Susan cried.
‘Everything that moves they hunt. The whole of Wildwood is their enemy.’
The gorge had sides leaning in. It stretched on and on like a road. The afternoon sun shone down the length of it, lighting up the stream, bringing half an hour of warmth to plants growing in the rocks. It seemed wrong to Susan that she and Nick were running for their lives while the sun shone so cheerfully. This was the place for a picnic, not for d
eath. She felt she should turn and wait for the priests, try to talk reasonably with them. Then she remembered the Halfmen of a hundred years ago, just one of her years, and knew this hunt was real, these priests were the inheritors of Otis Claw’s world. Breeze had said there was no knowing which way men would go, they had their chance for good or evil – and they had chosen evil a second time.
She ran on, scrambling over rocks. The walls bent over, shutting out the sun. It seemed no time since she had been running from Odo Cling and his Bloodcat. A hundred years, and nothing had been gained. It made her cry out with rage.
‘Come on Sue, don’t get frightened now.’
‘I’m not frightened. I’m just so mad at them. We gave them a chance.’
‘We shouldn’t have bothered. Come on, Limpy’s getting ahead.’
But the boy had stopped and was staring back, and when they turned and looked where he was pointing they saw the first of the dogs loping up the gorge. It had them in sight and was running silently. A second came through the fern, and a third, and each gave a single bark, and set out after their leader in a bounding run. They went from sight, reappeared, in the rock-strewn gorge. Others came, and the whole pack was there, flickering, black against the stone. They seemed to flow like water.
‘There,’ Limpy said. ‘Climb.’ He pointed up. Halfway to the sky, a fissure showed in the rock. Narrow handholds angled down from it. Someone had cut them long ago but now they were smooth. Susan started to climb and found her hands and feet sliding out.
‘Don’t fall,’ Nick said. ‘If you fall we’re done for.’
She kept her body pressed against the rock and climbed like a crab, trying to think only of what she was doing – hand, foot, hand, foot. She watched her fingers and her bright-red sneakers. Two, three body-lengths off the ground – now she was out of reach of the dogs. But Limpy had said some of the priests carried cross-bows. They would shoot them down like wooden dolls in a fair. She kept on steadily, as fast as she dared, trying not to think of the drop below. Then she heard a hideous yelping, a scraping of claws on stone. The dogs were at the base of the rock, leaping frantically. She had an impression of a black sea writhing at her feet, and teeth, eyes, red mouths, flashing in it like fish. Nick was safe behind her, but Limpy, was he all right? She risked looking down, and saw him slash with his knife at a dog that had caught the edge of his cloak. The animal fell back howling, and Limpy pulled himself another step up. He put the knife in his belt. ‘Go on,’ he yelled.
They edged towards the fissure twenty metres up from the gorge floor. Susan came to it and heaved herself on to a lip of rock at the opening. She reached back and helped Nick. Limpy ignored her hand and pulled himself up beside her. He wiped dog saliva from his cloak. ‘How deep is this cave?’ They went into it, but it ran back only twenty steps and ended in a rough wall. They felt it with their palms, and felt their way back along the walls to the mouth. There was no way out. Again Susan felt she was caught in a bottle.
‘Someone lived here once,’ Nick said. He had his foot on stones, football-sized, making a rough fireplace on the floor. Dead ashes lay in it and animal bones were strewn about. ‘Men, not Woodlanders.’
‘Men hid here from the priests,’ Limpy said. He was at the cave mouth, looking down the gorge.
‘We can use these stones. Throw them down. We can hold out quite a while.’
‘Some will climb. Others will cover them with cross-bows,’ Limpy said. ‘Here they come.’
They went to his side and looked where he was pointing. Half a dozen figures were running up the gorge, leaping nimbly on the boulders. Each held a dog on a leash, and they ran as silently as dogs, accompanied only by a clicking sound. They seemed like skeletons, all dressed in white.
‘Your priests,’ Limpy said.
‘They are not mine.’ They were figures from a dream, they seemed to float along without the use of limbs.
‘They’re Priests of Ferris.’
‘Then,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell them to go away. I’ll tell them who I am,’
‘They won’t believe you.’
‘Why?’
‘It happens all the time. There’s always some crazy girl claiming she’s Susan Ferris come again.’
‘What happens to them?’
‘They are taken to the Temple.’ He gave a strange smile. ‘They are given a chance to prove it.’
‘How?’
Limpy shrugged and turned away. ‘Those are girls from the villages. But the ones who run are quarry for the dogs. The priests will not give us the chance to prove anything.’ He looked at the animals standing patiently at the foot of the wall. ‘They know. They can wait.’
‘I’m going to try anyway,’ Susan said.
‘She can show them her birthmark,’ Nick said.
‘They all have the Mark. They burn it on themselves,’ Limpy said.
The priests saw them standing in the cave mouth. They slowed and walked quietly to the dogs, which sank on their haunches.
‘So,’ the leader said. He was not even breathing heavily. He was a young man, Susan saw. They were all young, all seven; and two were women. She saw their shapes plainly, under the skin-tight leather of their suits. It was as shiny as vinyl, white and supple, encasing them, covering even their hands and feet. They looked naked standing there. Their faces too were white, the colour of bone.
‘At night,’ Limpy whispered, ‘they turn their suits inside out. Then they are dressed in black.’
‘But their faces …?’
‘White. Always white. They paint themselves. See their eyes. They never blink. It is part of the training.’
The seven pairs of eyes showed no feeling. They had the blankness of eyes in statues.
‘You cannot escape the Priests of Ferris,’ the leader said. His voice made no rise or fall. That must be part of the training as well, Susan thought. Anger began to rise in her that these machine-like creatures, these walking skeletons, used her name.
‘You are not Priests of Ferris,’ she said loudly.
‘Do you challenge us? Then you challenge the High Priest. You challenge Susan.’
‘How can I challenge myself? I’m Susan Ferris.’
The eyes of the priest never blinked. But she could tell he was shocked. There was a shrinking in him, then a swelling of rage. His voice, though, remained the same flat voice. ‘Heresy. You speak heresy.’
‘Heresy,’ said his followers. ‘She has the evil tongue.’ They were like a class of children, speaking by rote.
‘What is the penalty?’ the leader said.
‘Death is the penalty,’ they answered flatly.
‘You can’t kill me for being myself,’ Susan cried.
‘You’re mad,’ Nick joined in. ‘You’re all mad. I’m Nicholas Quinn. I’ve known her all my life. I’m her cousin.’
‘You speak heresy too. You have uttered names only priests may speak. You must die now.’
‘They must die.’
‘Make the chant,’ the leader said.
The priests formed a circle. Each had bones on a leather rope hanging on his chest. They untied them and held them in the circle – bones of every length, some whole, some with broken ends. These had made the clicking as they ran. Now they clicked again as the priests beat them against each other and set up a wailing, like the wailing of cats.
‘The chant of death,’ Limpy said. ‘When it is finished … ’
‘Those things,’ Nick said. ‘They’re human bones.’
‘Yes,’ Limpy said. ‘Ferris bones. No novice is a priest until he has them. The ones that are broken most are the holiest.’
‘How do they get broken?’
‘They are the bones of heretics. Blasphemers. Unbelievers. Every novice, before he graduates, must sniff one out and take him for trial at the Temple.’
‘What sort of trial? What do they do?’ Nick was not sure he wanted to know. The hideous wailing, the broken bones – it could only be horrible.
Limpy s
aid, ‘In the teaching we learn how Susan flew from Deven’s Leap. The sinners are taken there, to the place of the Miracle.’
‘So the trial …?’
‘Yes.’ Limpy spread his arms like wings and gave a bitter smile. ‘It happened to my grandfather. A novice came and sniffed him out and rolled on the ground as though he was poisoned. Those could be his bones down there.’
‘They throw them off?’
Limpy smiled again. ‘If they are innocent they fly, like Susan. So far none have been innocent. And the priests wear their bones.’
Susan had listened, not in any surprise, with a sense that everything she heard she already knew. It was inescapable, a step-by-step unfolding with its start in things she’d done in the hope of saving O. And this was the end. She could not escape it, she saw the hideous logic in the story – but she could say no. She could refuse to have any part in it, from this moment on.
‘No,’ she cried, ‘they’re not my priests. They can’t use my name.’
She ran into the cave and seized a stone from the fireplace. She brought it back to the entrance. The dogs looked up, lolling their tongues. The priests clacked their bones and wailed on a rising note, working to a climax. She lifted the stone over her head and hurled it down at them. They had ignored her cry. They had reached the end of their chant and gone down on their haunches, thrusting their bones together in the circle, where they made a pyramid. The stone smashed into it, crushed it flat, sending chips of bone flying about. They flung themselves away from it, crying as though at something supernatural. Then they stood and turned, facing Susan, seven white skeletons with unblinking eyes.
‘You’re not mine,’ Susan cried. ‘I’m Susan Ferris. You can’t have my name. Your religion is finished. I’m finishing it now.’
The leader held the haft of a thigh bone in each hand. He raised them slowly and showed their newly-broken ends. For the first time there was feeling in his voice. He seemed to be grieving. ‘Blasphemer, you have broken my Ferris bones.’
‘They’re not Ferris bones. You can’t have my name.’
He seemed not to hear. ‘These were holy bones. I sniffed out a man who had dreamed of the Terrible One. He had dreamed of Jimmy Jaspers, sleeping by the side of a great white bear. There were no bones more holy than these.’