by Lian Tanner
The tunnel was longer than she’d expected. She crawled on and on, groping ahead to make sure she wasn’t about to run into anything nasty. When at last she emerged from the hole, she sighed with relief, brushed the dirt and cobwebs from her face and helped the others to their feet, one by one.
Rain lit the lantern with shaking fingers. ‘We will not have to go back that way, will we? Scroll did not like it, and neither did I.’
‘Hope not,’ said Petrel, and she took the lantern and held it high.
The first thing she saw was a rusty iron door, buckled under the weight of the enormous stones that had fallen on top of it. There was a pool of dark water on one side, and an iron ladder hanging broken in midair on the other. Beyond the water, the end of a pipe gaped from a heap of debris. There were smashed iron wheels and crushed gauges, and bolts and clamps and cables, all of them cobwebbed and useless. Petrel thought she could feel a faint draught from somewhere overhead.
‘Is this it, Rain?’ she whispered. ‘Is this what you were talking about? The first to fall?’
Rain nodded, her eyes white and scared in the lantern light. ‘It was a building once – or so I was told.’ She turned around slowly. ‘They smashed it at the beginning of the Great Cleansing, then piled up the stones to make the monument.’
‘There’s part of the old wall,’ whispered Fin, pointing. ‘See? Where the stones are still square on top of each other?’
A shiver ran down Petrel’s spine. This was what the Devouts would have done to the Oyster, if she and her friends hadn’t stopped them. It was a level of hatred she didn’t understand, built on superstition and ignorance, and it made her even more afraid for the captain.
‘So we’re in the right place,’ she said. ‘Least, I hope we are. What do we do now?’
‘Waste of time trying to surprise Poosk twice,’ said Sharkey. ‘We’d just get ourselves caught.’
‘And we cannot use Fin again,’ said Rain.
Fin grimaced. ‘Unless I pretended you made me do it. If I told them you threatened me—’
‘No,’ said Petrel. ‘Poosk’d kill you.’
Since coming out of the tunnel, the Fetcher bratlings hadn’t said a word. But at Petrel’s bald statement, the boy straightened up and said, ‘He’ll kill Papa if we don’t get him away.’
‘What about your mama?’ asked Rain. ‘Are you not worried about her?’
‘She’s not our—’ The boy bit his lip and started again. ‘She’s not our mama. She’s only been travelling with us for a little while, but—’ His brow creased and he nodded in Fin’s direction. ‘But I think she knew him from somewhere. Her name’s Hilde.’
Fin’s face lost every scrap of colour, and he looked as if he might fall. Petrel grabbed his arm, still too busy thinking about the captain to make sense of her friend’s reaction. ‘Are you all right, Fin? What is it?’
‘I had—’ His voice was that of a stranger. ‘I had forgotten. But— Hilde. That was Mama’s name!’
THAT DREADFUL VOICE
The Initiate’s friends looked almost as stricken as he did. Gwin watched them, but said nothing. That awful paralysis still had her in its grip. Leave it to them, she thought. They won’t get everything wrong, the way I did. They won’t get us all killed.
‘That was your mam?’ whispered Petrel.
‘We must go back.’ Fin’s eyes glittered. ‘We must go back right now. We must get her away before Brother Poosk kills her.’
‘We can’t,’ said Sharkey. ‘You know we can’t, Fin. They’ll be waiting for us.’
Rain touched Fin’s arm. ‘You are hurt.’
‘It is nothing,’ said the Initiate, shrugging her off.
‘But you are bleeding—’
‘It is nothing!’ And before anyone realised what was happening, Fin had dropped to his hands and knees, and was crawling into the tunnel, back the way they had come.
Nat whispered in Gwin’s ear, ‘We should follow him. If he’s going after Hilde, we must go after Papa.’
Gwin didn’t move.
‘What’s the matter?’ hissed Nat. ‘Don’t you want—’
An exclamation from outside the Grand Monument interrupted him.
‘Here, Cull!’ It was Bartle, his voice hollowed out by its passage through the stone tunnel.
Fin’s boots, the only part of him Gwin could still see, stopped abruptly.
Bartle said, ‘Bring the torch over this way. See? There is the blood trail. I told you I got the boy a good whack.’
‘But where did they go from here?’ asked Cull.
‘Through this little crack in the stones, I would say. There is more blood around the edges.’
‘Too small for either of us to get through,’ said Cull. ‘I do not think Brother Poosk would fit either.’
Bartle laughed. ‘There are more ways of getting a periwinkle out of its shell than squeezing in after it. Go and tell Brother Poosk we have them.’
Fin backed silently out of the tunnel and stood up. None of the children said anything for several minutes. Then Petrel whispered, ‘They don’t know for sure that we’re here. If we can wait ’em out, they might go away.’
‘But we cannot wait them out,’ whispered Fin. ‘If they go, they will take – Mama.’ He sounded as if he barely knew how to say the word; as if he’d had no practice in it. ‘Or perhaps they will just – kill her.’
Silence.
Then, ‘How d’you get a periwinkle out of its shell?’ breathed Petrel.
‘With a knife,’ whispered Sharkey.
A longer silence, that was eventually broken by a quiet voice from outside. ‘Initiate? Can you hear me? I have your mama, Initiate. She is very keen to talk to you.’
Rain whispered, ‘Uncle Poosk!’ Wretched tried to tuck his head under Nat’s foot.
‘Amusing, is it not,’ said Poosk, ‘that we spent those days together, and I did not know who you were? But I know now, Initiate, and so does your mama. According to Citadel records it is nine years since she last held you in her arms. Such a long time, and she has missed you for every minute of it. I wonder if you have missed her—’
‘Don’t listen to him, Fin,’ whispered Sharkey. ‘He’ll turn you inside out, that’s what he’s good at.’
But it was impossible not to listen. To Gwin, that dreadful voice seemed to sour the air; it made the darkness beyond the lamp seem alive and ugly.
‘She thinks you do not care about her, Initiate, saving the Fetcher pups and leaving her to hang. Not that I wish her to hang. I would give her to you, right now, but I am tied by my vows – and, I confess, by my fondness for my own neck. I must take someone back to the Citadel or my superiors will hang me. I have the demon, of course, though the creature appears to be dead already. And I have the Fetcher. But Brother Thrawn will still ask questions if I do not return with your mama. Now, if I could offer him an entire Fetcher family, in place of your mama, that would be different—’
Fin’s eyes flickered towards Gwin and Nat.
Rain put her hand to her mouth. ‘No, Fin. You cannot!’
But Brother Poosk was still talking. ‘Your mama is right here with me, you know. Will you not do this one little thing for her? The Fetcher pups will not come to any serious harm; we Devouts do not hang children. A few months in the re-education camp, that is all, to teach them the error of their ways.’
In the uncertain light of the lamp, Gwin could see a pulse beating in Fin’s throat.
Sharkey whispered, ‘You can’t trust him, Fin. He’ll cheat you. And besides, we still have to get the cap’n back. We’ll get your ma at the same time.’
‘The captain is dead,’ Fin said bitterly. ‘You heard Brother Poosk.’
‘Course he’s not dead,’ said Petrel.
Fin rounded on her. ‘He is! You know he is. We have failed at everything we set out to do, and all that is left is – is Mama’s life. Why should we not hand over these two—’ he jerked his chin at Gwin and her brother, ‘—to save her?’
Beside Gwin, Nat said, ‘Your captain isn’t dead. He spoke to us.’
Four pairs of eyes fixed on Gwin’s brother. ‘He spoke to you?’ hissed Petrel. ‘And your sister still betrayed him?’
‘Yes.’ For the first time in two months, Nat fumbled for Gwin’s hand and held it tightly. ‘I would’ve done the same, if I’d thought it would save Papa.’
Petrel’s face darkened. ‘Then maybe we should give you to Poosk. Both of you. Right now!’
Sharkey shrugged uncomfortably. ‘We can’t, Petrel.’
‘You heard what he said. They’re traitors, both of ’em—’
‘What would you have done, Petrel?’ asked Rain. ‘Your papa’s name was Seal, was it not? What would you have done if it had been him?’
Petrel shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t’ve—’
‘Or your mama. Quill.’
‘I don’t know what I would’ve done, all right?’ said Petrel. ‘But I wouldn’t have given up the cap’n.’
‘That is because you know him,’ said Rain. With one finger, she stroked Scroll’s sleeping head. ‘But you would have thought about it. We all would, if it was our papa.’
Gwin swallowed. She hadn’t expected any sort of understanding from these children. They’d seemed so self-sufficient, so determined and clever—
When Gwin was small, Mama used to say that her daughter was as strong-willed as Ariel herself and as stubborn as the blue ox. Gwin didn’t feel strong-willed, not anymore. But it must have been there inside her somewhere because she felt the paralysis shift a little.
She tried to stop it. She didn’t trust herself, not anymore. She didn’t want to be the one who got people killed.
But Nat’s hand was warm and alive in hers, and that old stubbornness was working away inside her, whether she liked it or not.
What if— she thought. What if the mechanical boy is as important as Petrel believes? What if there’s something big happening in West Norn?
What if Change is coming?
She didn’t say a word, but Nat heard her anyway. ‘What is it, Gwin?’
Before she could answer him, the whisper started up again. ‘I hope you will not take too long to decide, Initiate. Bartle has a knife at your mama’s throat, you see, a good sharp knife. And he is notorious for his clumsiness. His hand might slip, and once a throat is cut it cannot be uncut, however much we might regret it. So are you thinking hard, Initiate?’
Fin groaned. He was bent almost double with the need to do something and to do it quickly.
Gwin knew exactly how he felt. She leaned towards Nat and whispered, ‘The pigeon.’
It was hardly more than a breath of sound, but Nat heard it. She saw the realisation dawning on him. He turned to the others and said, ‘There are people in the mountains who might help us. We could send a message with the pigeon!’
No one moved. ‘The mountains?’ said Sharkey. ‘What good’s that? It’d take ’em too long to get here. We need help now.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘We could rush Poosk, maybe. He won’t be expecting it.’
‘We couldn’t squeeze out of that little crack in the rock quick enough,’ said Petrel. ‘They’d pick us off one by one, and cut Fin’s mam’s throat at the same time.’
Nat shook his head. ‘Poosk’s lying. Hilde isn’t with him.’
‘What are you talking about?’ snarled Fin. ‘You cannot know that.’
‘But he can,’ whispered Rain. ‘I told you, Fin, I have seen them before. He is the blind boy who can hear the world breathing.’
‘He’s blind?’ said Petrel, at the same time as Nat said, ‘Two people sound different from three. There are only two outside, Poosk and Bartle.’ He hesitated. ‘No, wait. There’s someone else. Someone very small—’
‘That’d be me, shipmate,’ said a voice at floor level.
‘Mister Smoke!’ cried Fin, and now all the bitterness was gone and the only thing left was a desperate hope. ‘Is Mama—’
‘She’s back where you left ’er, shipmate. It’s Poosk and Bartle outside, no one else.’
Fin looked as if he might collapse with relief. Petrel slipped her arm around him. ‘There, see? Things ain’t as bad as we thought.’
‘They’re bad enough, shipmate,’ said Mister Smoke. ‘I’d like it better if that door over there—’ his whiskers twitched in the direction of the rusty metal ‘—was standin’ open, and a little signpost directin’ us to where we’re s’posed to go. But the only signpost we’ve got is the Song.’ He peered up at Gwin. ‘’Ow about you sing it for us? Nice and quiet so that lot outside can’t hear.’
‘Now?’ said Fin. ‘But—’
‘Can you see any other course, shipmate? Your mam’s in mortal peril and so’s the cap’n. But they’re out there and you’re in ’ere, which don’t add up to much of a rescue in my opinion. We need to do somethin’ else, quick as we can.’
Rain said, ‘He is right, Fin. We cannot go at Uncle Poosk straight on. We should hear the Song.’
‘But we know what it says,’ protested Petrel. ‘That stuff about the tree’s dead and the root’s not. That’s why we’re here, to find the – the root thing.’ She gazed dismally at their surroundings. ‘Though it’s not jumping out at me.’
‘There is another verse,’ said Rain. ‘I could not remember it, but the Singer will know it.’ And she looked expectantly at Gwin—
—who was so shocked that the last scrap of paralysis melted away, and she said, ‘You mean – I really am the Singer?’
‘Told you so, shipmate, didn’t I?’ said Mister Smoke. ‘Thought I made it clear enough.’
‘But— but me?’
‘Why not you?’ said Nat.
‘Because—’ There were so many reasons that Gwin didn’t know where to start. But all she said was, ‘I’ll sing. But I want to send a message first.’
‘There’s no point,’ said Sharkey. ‘Like I said, it’d take too long—’
‘But maybe it won’t!’ Gwin squeezed her brother’s fingers. ‘Nat, remember what Hob told Papa? He said they’ve got great wonders hidden in the mountains, things not seen in West Norn for three hundred years. What if they’ve got a – a machine that makes their legs go faster? Or a – an airship!’
She wasn’t at all sure what an airship was, but the idea gripped her and would not let go.
‘They could save Papa!’ she said, imagining something like a fisherman’s boat flying through the air with its ragged sails flapping. ‘And Hilde and the captain. And – and get us out of here!’
The other children looked as doubtful as ever, but Mister Smoke said, ‘Right you are, shipmate. It’s always good to have a backup plan. And with any luck, Scroll’ll be able to get past Poosk before he knows what’s ’appenin’.’
Gwin dug into her pocket for cloth, stylus and ochre. Her fingers felt as unwieldy as tree trunks, but she spat on the ochre then rubbed the end of the stylus against it and wrote as neatly as she could:
BIG CHANGES! COME QUICKLY! GRAND MONUMENT COAST ROAD. GWIN FETCHER
Then, while Mister Smoke tied the scrap of cloth to the sleepy pigeon’s leg and led her out through the tunnel, Gwin began to sing, very quietly.
‘How tall the tree,
The first to fall,
How wise to flee
The worst of all—’
With every note she sang, hope seemed to trickle back into her.
‘But hear the song
The singer gives,
The trunk is gone,
The root still lives.’
‘Something hidden, like I said,’ whispered Rain. ‘What does the second verse say?’
‘How bright the sun
The first to fade,
The world undone,
The work unmade—’
‘That’s the Devouts,’ murmured Sharkey. ‘The Hungry Ghosts, smashing everything that had gone before.’
‘But hear the song
The singer gives,
The sun is gon
e,
The moon still lives.’
As the last note died away, there was silence. The air felt sullen and heavy. Gwin thought of Papa, out there in the darkness with a sentence of death hanging over him.
It’s all right, she told herself. Hob will come and save him.
‘The first to fade,’ murmured Rain. ‘It still sounds like the Grand Monument. But the rest of it— It is not really telling us anything new.’
Petrel’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. But Nat turned towards the low tunnel that had brought them there. ‘Smoke,’ he said.
‘He’s taken Scroll out,’ said Sharkey. ‘He’s not back yet.’
Nat shook his head. ‘I don’t mean him. Can’t you smell it? The damp leaves? The fire?’ His blind eyes travelled around the little cave. ‘I think Poosk has given up on persuasion. I think he intends to smoke us out.’
WITCH
Dolph was no longer at the back of the column. The way she saw it, there was no point shuffling along after the Devouts and hoping they’d give up. She wanted to be out in front, with her eyes peeled for opportunities. She wasn’t sure what those opportunities would look like, but she’d know them when she saw them.
Missus Slink accompanied her, along with a dozen of the bolder townsfolk. They were more or less toothless, most of them, and Dolph had assumed they were old men and women. But when she’d talked to them, she’d been horrified to discover that some of those haggard figures were younger than she was.
That might have explained their boldness. Or maybe it was the fact that they had full bellies for the first time in their lives, and that they’d seen the Devouts crawl out of the Citadel like wounded dogs. Whatever the reason, it worried Dolph.
‘Don’t you try anything stupid,’ she said. ‘Devouts’ll kill those bratlings if we get too close.’
‘Might be worth it,’ muttered one of the boys.
‘You shut your mouth, Gant,’ said the girl next to him. ‘My little sister’s there.’
‘And my brother,’ said another boy. ‘I seen ’im when they come out o’ the Citadel. Scared out of ’is wits ’e was, poor mite. We won’t do nothin’ stupid, Witch, don’t worry.’