by Maurice Gee
It took them a while to persuade Limpy, but when he had agreed Verna sent out the messenger. She rolled the parchment and tied it with new cord. ‘There is something else in the box. You did not take it.’
They looked where she was pointing, in the corner. Nick thought it was a pebble, but Susan knew at once what it was. She picked it up reverently. ‘My stone-silk gloves.’ She rolled them out and smoothed them on the table. ‘I gave them to Brand. He’s given them back.’
‘He must have thought you would need them,’ Verna said.
Susan drew the gloves on. She felt them enclosing her hands, fitting like skin, and she shivered as she remembered her climb across the stone ceiling in Otis Claw’s throne-hall. Nick ran outside and brought in a stone. She held it in her hand, then turned the hand over. The stone remained where it was, fixed on the silk. Let go, Susan thought; and the stone fell. Quietly she peeled off the gloves and rolled them up. She put them in her pocket.
‘Thank you, Verna. I’ll look after them.’
‘Use them to pull the Temple down.’
‘Yes,’ Susan said. But the thought of Jimmy gave her more confidence than the gloves. If somehow Jimmy was alive, she would manage. If he was not … She would not let herself think about it.
They slept that night in Verna’s house. Susan dreamed of great white bears, and climbing, and falling, and a figure that would not come out of the shadows. Was it Jimmy? Or was it a priest, dressed all in black? In the morning they changed their clothes for Woodlander cloaks. They said goodbye to Verna and shouldered their blankets and packs of food and started out. Dawn was their guide. She would travel to Mount Nicholas with them.
They went south and east through the forest and climbed through the hills cutting Wildwood off from the Yellow Plains. At midday on the second day they filed through a pass and saw the plains burning white in the sun. Far north, beyond the dust and haze, lay Morninghall and Mount Morningstar. But they were going south, across the tundra to the frozen tip of the continent where a block of mountains stood against the sky. They saw a white gleaming in the cold air, and turned towards it, travelling along the side of the hills, then breaking down into a plateau above the plain. Rivers tumbled from it but they turned their backs on them and pressed on south. The land rose gradually, covered with spiky grass and trees lying close to the ground, smoothed into cobblestones by the wind. They made their evening camp in a hollow. Nick and Susan lay in their blankets watching the strange constellations and inventing names for them. Then Limpy told their real names, and Dawn pointed out a yellow star Woodlanders said was the sun of Earth. ‘Children sometimes call it Susan’s star.’
Limpy shivered. ‘The priests would say that was heresy.’
‘And they would kill these friends who come to help us,’ Dawn said. She pointed in the northern sky and they saw a flickering on the field of stars. Limpy cried out, but she said, ‘It is Birdfolk coming to our fire.’ She threw dry branches on it, making it flare. Soon they heard the beating of wings, and out beyond the light a voice cried sternly, ‘You are in our land. Say your names.’
Susan stood in the firelight. ‘We are Susan Ferris and Nicholas Quinn. And Dawn the Woodlander. And Limpy from Stonehaven.’ She grew aware of shapes wheeling round the hollow, round and round, a giant circle, closing in. Their wind lifted her hair and flapped her cloak. The fire flattened out and sent flames darting at her legs. Then the Birdfolk landed, with a leathery flap and a creaking of bones. They stood beyond the firelight, ten dark figures ranged about the hollow like stone angels. One of them came forward and colour seemed to burst from him – from wings and breast and legs. He was red and gold. A second followed – a Birdwoman, green and blue and silver.
‘Your messenger reached us,’ the Birdman said. ‘But it is past belief Susan should come. A hundred turns have passed.’
‘I am Susan. Only a year has gone by for me.’
‘Show me the Mark.’
Susan put her arm out and he looked hard at her birthmark. ‘It proves nothing,’ he said to the Birdwoman. ‘Human girls burn this mark on them.’
The Birdwoman came close and looked in Susan’s eyes. ‘If you are Susan, tell me the gift my ancestor gave you. Tell me her name.’
‘Her name was Brightfeather. She was the daughter of Redwing and Wanderer. She gave me a brush for my hair. And I lost it on the Lizard Path, when the Bloodcat chased us.’
‘What was the colour of the feather you chose?’
‘Red and blue. Brightfeather dried my clothes for me. She nearly lost one of my socks.’
The Birdwoman laughed and said to her mate, ‘Only Susan would know that.’
‘Yes. You are Susan. Welcome to our land again. Welcome, Nick. And your friends. I am Yellowclaw.’
‘And I am Silverwing,’ the Birdwoman said. ‘We come from Morninghall. And our friends are from other Halls of our land. We fly the borders, on patrol, to keep out priests. But tell us why you have come back.’
‘We’re looking for Jimmy Jaspers. He left a letter for us saying he’d be at Mount Nicholas.’
‘Jimmy Jaspers? The one the priests call the Terrible One? He came to us, many turns ago. A hundred turns. He told us what you had done. And he forged a weapon in our workshops – an axe. He wore your feather at his throat. Red and blue.’
‘I gave it to him. It belonged on O.’
‘It was well given. But surely he is dead now. No one lives so long.’
Susan told them about the letter. They nodded their heads wisely. Wonders were not unknown on O. And she told them she meant to destroy the Temple.
‘Yes, it is evil. Priests come over the passes and shoot us from the sky with their cross-bows. And we cannot follow when they run back to their land. The Prohibition holds. We cannot fly west or south of the mountains, we tumble from the sky. So the Temple goes on.’
‘I’m going to stop the Temple. That’s why I’m back. To see this High Priest. But first we’ve got to get to Mount Nicholas.’
‘We’ll take you as far as we can. The messenger told us to bring nests. Remember Susan, how Wanderer carried you in a nest?’
She remembered, and warm in her blankets, by the fire, with Birdfolk sleeping like tall statues, she remembered the flight; and half awake, half sleeping, imagined she was making it again, but this time to Mount Nicholas, far away in the south, where Jimmy was waiting.
In the morning they saw the Birdfolk properly. There were ten of them, eight giant warriors, standing three metres tall, and two Birdwomen. In the dawn sunlight their colours gleamed. Silverwing was the most beautiful, Susan thought. She looked as if she had been cast in some shining metal, then studded with sapphires and greenstone and lapis lazuli.
When they had eaten and put their gear in their packs they climbed into the down-lined nests Yellowclaw and the warrior birds had brought. They were used for carrying young before they could fly and were more like shopping bags than anything else, Susan thought. She made herself comfortable, with only her head peering out, and watched while the others climbed into theirs – Nick with a grin, Limpy nervously. The Birdman carrying Nick would need to be strong. He had grown a lot, and looked twice as heavy as Limpy. Dawn, light as an elf, would be no trouble.
The unladen Birdfolk sprang into the air and beat their way up easily, leaving the four with the nests labouring and creaking. But they won height gradually and set their heads at the distant south. Behind, the plains lay in a haze, like a yellow puddle, and the western hills and the tongue of forest beyond made strips of dark brown and dark green, and the sea stretched endlessly, silver and white. The land rose ahead, climbing in easy steps, with creeks wandering down, marked as though in snail-slime, and waterfalls brushed-in, and hollow lakes and black thorn groves. Far ahead the tip of the continent gleamed like a cloud.
The Birdfolk took turns carrying, and for two days they flew south. They beat into a wind off the mountains. At night Nick and Susan slept by the fire, and the Birdfolk came close, fluffin
g out their feathers. They huddled shoulder to shoulder like love-birds on a perch.
‘Tomorrow you will see Mount Nicholas,’ Silverwing said.
‘But we must stop before we get so far,’ Yellowclaw said. ‘We will set you down at the pass. Then you must go down, and climb the glacier on the other side. But through the pass it is Varg country.’
‘Jimmy said not to be scared of them.’
‘No man has ever made friends with a Varg,’ Yellowclaw said.
‘Don’t frighten them,’ Silverwing said. ‘The Terrible One wasn’t an ordinary man.’
Yellowclaw sighed and shook his head. He seemed to enjoy looking on the dark side. ‘It is the Prohibition,’ Silverwing whispered. ‘He is our mightiest flyer. He flies higher even than Wanderer flew, and sees the lands beyond our borders. But he can never fly there. It makes him melancholy.’
They slept, and rose, and went on their way towards the pass. The Birdfolk flew heavily through mist, with feathers damp, but in mid-morning the sky cleared, and the pass lay ahead, a V in hills where snow lay thin on the tops, like frosted glass. Across a valley clogged with bush was Mount Nicholas, a knuckle of ice, a giant fist clenched against the sky. It was squat rather than tall; and ugly, strong. It disappointed Nick at first, and then it pleased him. It was not a shape he would forget. A glacier ran from its eastern flank and curved into the bush, as sharp in its line as a scimitar.
One of the leading Birdfolk stumbled in its flight and managed to turn and glide down to the hillside above the pass. He lay spread like a fallen glider while the others tended him. The carrier Birdfolk landed.
‘We have reached the barrier,’ Yellowclaw said. ‘We can go no further.’ He looked through the V at Mount Nicholas. ‘How long must our punishment last? If I could see the land beyond, and fly south, south … ’ He gave an angry flap of his wings and turned away.
‘The Prohibition is in our minds,’ Silverwing said. ‘There is no barrier, yet we cannot fly. It is carved in stone on the wall of every Hall – “Unless ye be as Humble as the Worm …” It is our pride that locks us in our land.’
‘If I knew how then I would do it. I would be humble,’ Yellowclaw groaned.
Silverwing laughed at him. ‘You,’ she said. ‘Pride in your strength drips from your feathers. Stop complaining now. Say goodbye to these groundlings who go where we may not.’ She turned to Nick and Susan, Dawn and Limpy. ‘There is a creek in the pass. Follow it down. Soon it will meet the river where the glacier melts. We cannot see any further than that. But I think the Vargs will find you before you have travelled far.’
‘No man –’ Yellowclaw began.
‘Hush!’ She turned back to Susan. ‘Trust your friend, Jimmy Jaspers. I have heard a Woodlander’s tale that he walked with a Varg.’
‘He did,’ Dawn said. ‘We’re not afraid.’
They ate a last meal with the Birdfolk. Then Susan said to Silverwing, ‘I would like to take a feather. That way you can travel with us.’ Silverwing plucked one from her wing without a word. Yellowclaw gave Nick a feather, and other Birdfolk gave them to Dawn and Limpy. Then the four shouldered their packs and said goodbye and started down the hillside to the creek. Susan turned before she had gone far and looked at the Birdfolk. They stood without moving, tall and lonely; like Easter Island statues, she thought. And she thought how sad they were, creatures so brave and strong and beautiful, yet trapped inside a wall by ancient crimes. She raised her hand in farewell; then went over the hill and out of sight. Later she saw them far away, floating like eagles in the sky.
Dawn took the lead going down the pass. The snowgrass and thorn trees gave way to bush. As they went lower it grew with a tropical lushness and the air seemed warmer.
‘It’s like a jungle,’ Nick said, twisting through creepers and giant leaves. ‘I can’t see bears living in this.’
But the river was ice cold. They stopped on a shingle fan where the stream from the pass flowed in and looked across the braided water at the bush, grey and misty, on the other side. Mount Nicholas took up the sky. Nick found himself grinning with pleasure as he looked at it. He felt sorry for Susan. Jimmy had promised to name a waterfall after her, but it could never be as impressive as this.
‘We’ll go up the river to the glacier,’ Dawn said. She led them on the shingle bank at the side of the river. Several times they crossed creeks flowing down from the hills. Nick stopped to listen.
‘Plenty of birds. No animals,’ he said.
‘I can smell Varg,’ Dawn said. ‘They’re not far away.’ She gave a curious smile, a little nod, as though she heard something the others could not hear. A moment later she stopped and smiled again. ‘One is in the forest. He is keeping pace with us. Two are coming behind. And the fourth is on the other bank. If you look you will see him in the trees.’
They stared across the river and saw a movement in the bush; something white or blue. It vanished as they looked.
‘They will kill us,’ Limpy said.
‘Perhaps. I don’t know. I know they are hungry. Their minds are full of thoughts of meat.’ She gave a troubled smile. ‘There’s another one ahead. Something hurts her.’
‘Can you see into their minds?’ Susan said.
‘I catch their thoughts. I don’t know whether I see or hear.’
‘What do they look like?’
Dawn stopped again. ‘There,’ she said. ‘See.’
One of the Varg trailing them had come out of the bush and was ambling up the shallows, with water splashing about its legs. It stopped when it saw them and returned their look indifferently, then lowered its head and drank from the river. Sunlight sent blue ripples up its neck, along its back.
‘Huge,’ Nick whispered. It was as large as a rhinoceros, but there was no mistaking its bear shape. It seemed a forest and an ice creature both, with its sleek fur and grizzly head. ‘Will it attack?’
‘No,’ Dawn said. ‘They’re herding us.’ She pointed at the Varg across the river, standing on boulders, and the blue/white gleam of the one in the bush.
‘Where to?’
‘I think towards the leader up ahead.’
‘Jimmy said not to be scared of them,’ Susan said.
‘Jimmy’s not here,’ Nick said.
They started off again, on pebble beds, and when they rounded the next bend saw the wall of the glacier. It rose as high as a ten-storey building, with a broad melt-lake at its foot. The river escaped in channels through the valley. Along both sides trees stood in black lines.
‘There,’ Dawn said.
A Varg was outlined against the trees. Dawn led them towards the creature. It had blue unblinking eyes, and they saw a wound on its shoulder with blood leaking into the fur. Something, a force, seemed to come from the animal, buffeting them like a wind. It made them shrink and cringe and walk more slowly.
‘She is angry,’ Dawn whispered.
Susan remembered Jimmy’s letter and tried to make a picture of herself in her mind, but she found she was simply saying her name over and over. Yet the Varg swung its head, fixed her for a moment with its eyes. There was no friendliness, no interest there, she felt she was looking into empty holes, and knew that she, and all of them, were in deadly danger.
Dawn stopped. ‘Wait here. Be still. It’s me she wants to talk with.’ She approached the Varg and stood several paces off, staring in its eyes. She was no taller than one of the creature’s legs, yet watching, Susan felt she was its equal, and the Varg knew it. She struggled to see, struggled to hear, what was passing between them, and glimpsed a jumble of pictures: sea, forest, priests, dogs. The Varg turned its head at her and gave a growl. ‘Don’t, Susan,’ Dawn said. ‘You will make her angry.’ After a moment she walked to the animal’s side and looked at the wound. Blood was dribbling from it, making a track through the fur on the Varg’s leg.
Dawn turned to the others. ‘Wait here. Don’t move. I won’t be long.’ She turned and ran down the river bank, past the Varg standing there
, and vanished in the trees.
‘They’ll kill us now,’ Limpy whispered.
‘I don’t think so. Not yet. I’m hungry, anyway. I’m going to eat.’ Nick opened his pack and took out the dried goat’s meat the Birdfolk had given them. He was trying to keep their courage up. ‘I wonder if she’d like some.’ He walked up to the Varg and held out meat, but the animal only growled. Then it lay down and closed its eyes.
‘It’s losing a lot of blood, I think it’s dying.’ He bent and looked at the wound, but a growl, a bark of anger, came from one of the Varg down the river.
‘Come away, Nick.’
He came back and sat with them. They ate, and drank water from the river. Shadows from the trees crept on the shingle and the face of Mount Nicholas turned pink. Nick looked at the Varg behind them. There were four, only twenty metres away, in a quarter circle, lying with their heads on their paws, like sheep dogs holding sheep. ‘You couldn’t get away from these things.’
The river was in shadow when Dawn came back. She ran over the shingle and the Varg lifted their heads. ‘Susan,’ she said, panting, ‘come and help me.’ They went to the Varg and knelt beside her. ‘She’s very sick.’ The wound was bleeding steadily.
‘What happened?’
‘She was catching salmon at the river bar. Priests of Ferris came in a boat. They’re frightened of the Varg and hunt from the sea. They shot at her with cross-bows. One of the bolts struck her in the shoulder. She swam to the forest and escaped. Another Varg tore the bolt out with its teeth. But unless we stop the bleeding she will die.’
She opened her pouch and took out some yellow fruit and a bundle of leaves.
‘I know these,’ Susan said. ‘Breeze used them for my rope burns when Odo Cling tied me up.’
‘I hope I have enough. There are not many growng this far south.’ Dawn split the fruit and laid the leaves inside. She left them for a moment, then opened them and took leaf skeletons out. ‘Give me the halves one by one.’ She squeezed juice in the wound.
The Varg opened her eyes and lifted her head. She gave a grunt of pain as Dawn smeared juice on her fingers and worked it in the cut. ‘If I go deep enough the artery will heal.’