by Lian Tanner
Sharkey, Rain, Fin and Petrel were staring at her, with no idea what she was talking about. But Gwin’s brother understood; she knew it even before he spoke.
‘Could it be?’ he whispered.
‘I think it – it must.’
The others caught on quickly. Sharkey’s fingers stopped moving and an awestruck silence fell over the little group.
Rain whispered, ‘How many plaits do you—?’
‘Seven.’
‘Oh.’ There was a world of disappointment in Rain’s voice.
Gwin added quickly, ‘But don’t you see? The middle one has three sets of beads. Which makes nine sets.’
Her hand rose to touch her hair. She didn’t really need to count the beads in each set – she had woven them for Mama so often, and then for herself. But her heart was beating so fast and there was such a lot resting on this that she was afraid of getting it wrong.
‘Four,’ she whispered, touching the first plait.
Sharkey turned the first wheel.
‘Seven.’
The second wheel.
‘Two.’
The third.
‘Five. Eight. One.’
The fourth, fifth and sixth wheels rolled into place. Everyone was holding their breath.
‘Three.’
Sharkey’s fingers trembled, but they didn’t pause in their task.
‘S-six.’ Gwin could hardly speak. What if I’ve changed the pattern without realising it? What if I lost some?
It was such a terrible thought that her hand stopped, halfway to the last plait.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Petrel.
‘I—’
Nat whispered, ‘You haven’t changed it. I would’ve known.’
Gwin swallowed. ‘F-four.’
Sharkey turned the final wheel. Nine numbers lined up, numbers that had been handed down through generations of Fetchers for this very moment.
Something clicked, and they all jumped. Something else clunked.
With a rush of ancient air, the door swung open.
INSIDE THE GRAND MONUMENT
Dolph had tried persuasion. She’d tried threats. She’d tried bribery, flattery and the promise of eternal friendship, plus a lifetime’s supply of ship’s biscuits. But nothing would move Gant to free either the captain or Missus Slink. They lay on the floor of the ox-cart with rocks dangling over their heads, just in case Dolph made the wrong move.
By the time dawn came creeping up from the east, she had backed off, to give herself room to think. The Devouts’d be here soon, crawling up the road with their hostages, and she needed to get the captain and Missus Slink to safety before then.
What would you do, Mam, if you were here?
A shout of warning from one of the bratlings caught her attention. A single Devout was hurrying down the road towards the ox-cart.
He was small and unimportant looking, and he appeared to be unarmed. But Dolph jumped to her feet all the same and trotted towards the cart, afraid that Gant and his mates might give in without a fight.
She needn’t have worried. The town bratlings had gained courage from their earlier foray, and now they surrounded their prisoner, with half a dozen rusty knives at the ready.
‘Come any closer and we’ll kill ’im,’ shouted Gant.
The Devout jerked to a halt, his face a picture of astonishment.
He doesn’t know what’s been happening at the Citadel, realised Dolph. He doesn’t know that things have changed.
But the Devout, it seemed, was a fast learner. His surprise turned to a smile and he took a careful step forward.
‘I said no closer!’ cried Gant.
‘Very wise. Very wise indeed,’ said the man. ‘I can see you have a good head on your shoulders. Why, you have completely got the better of Brother Cull there, and that is not an easy thing to do.’
Gant stared, as if he thought the Devout must be making fun of him. But there was total sincerity on the small man’s face. ‘Cull is one of our finest guards, and you and your friends have beaten him. I do not mind admitting that your prowess astonishes me.’
Gant preened a little. ‘We ’stonished ’im, too. He thought we was vermin, ’n not worth worryin’ about. But we’re not vermin, not us.’
‘No, indeed!’ The Devout sounded shocked. ‘I said Brother Cull was a fine guard, but that does not mean he was a man of sense and understanding, dear me, no.’ He took another small step forward, and lowered his voice confidingly. ‘I cannot approve of some of my brothers, I really cannot. The things they say. Anyone would think they were superior beings—’
‘They’re not,’ said Gant.
Dolph edged closer too. She didn’t like the way this was going. The Devout hadn’t introduced himself, but she’d heard all about Brother Poosk from Rain and Sharkey, and she was beginning to suspect that this might be him.
Except what was he doing here? He was supposed to be off in the northwest somewhere, hunting Fin’s mam—
Dolph sucked in her breath. Poosk had been gone for a while. What if he’d caught Fin’s mam and was bringing her back to the Citadel for execution? What if that was her, kneeling in the cart with half a dozen ropes around her?
Dolph stared at the woman, trying to see past the grime and the bruises. Trying to see some resemblance to the tall white-haired boy who had become part of the Oyster’s crew.
Aye, it’s her, I reckon. Which means I need to get her away too.
She raised her voice, just a little. ‘Gant!’
The boy glanced over his shoulder at her.
Dolph nodded towards the Devout. ‘Don’t trust him. He’s famous for his clever tongue. Poosk’s his name and he can talk folk into tying themselves in knots—’
‘He won’t talk me into nothin’, Witch. You keep your nose out of this, if you don’t want your friends gettin’ squished.’ And with that, Gant turned back to the small man and said, ‘You Brother Poosk?’
The man shook his head ruefully. ‘Did I not say that you had a good head on your shoulders? And now I see that you are even sharper than I thought. I am Poosk, and I will make a confession, young sir—’
Gant’s chest swelled, and he glanced at his friends to make sure they had heard that respectful address. Dolph rolled her eyes. If she didn’t do something quick smart, Poosk’d have the town bratlings lying on their backs to have their tummies tickled, and still thinking they’d got the better of him.
‘When I first approached you,’ said Poosk, ‘I was going to order you to hand over your prisoners. But that will not do, will it? If I want Brother Cull back, I will have to negotiate with you. And I am not at all sure that I will get the better part of it.’
‘You won’t,’ cried one of the other bratlings. ‘We’ll make sure o’ that.’
Gant scowled at his mates. ‘I’m doin’ the talkin’, not you.’
‘We can talk if we want,’ said yet another bratling. ‘You ain’t boss of us, Gant.’
‘I am too.’
While this exchange was going on, Poosk stared at his boots, as if momentarily lost in his own thoughts. ‘It is just as well,’ he murmured, ‘that we are here rather than back up the road a-piece—’
Gant spun around, all sharp eyes and ears. ‘Why? Why’s it just as well?’
‘What?’ Poosk’s head jerked up. ‘Oh. I— I would rather not say, young sir.’
‘You’ve got to,’ said Gant. ‘We got your man ’ere. If you don’t tell us, we’ll kill ’im.’
‘But I cannot tell you. It is a matter of pride.’
Gant’s eyes shone. ‘I don’t care. You tell me, or else.’
Brother Poosk sighed as if the boy had got the better of him, and pointed back the way he had come. ‘The Grand Monument is just around that corner. It was the scene of our first great triumph, three hundred years ago. I would truly hate it to be the scene of my humiliation.’
Dolph murmured, ‘He’s playing with you, Gant. He’s got a reason for wanting you to go
further up the road.’
‘Maybe he ’as,’ said Gant, over his shoulder. ‘But ’e’s right, all the same. Grand Monument? Ha! We’ll go up there, and when the rest o’ the masters come up the road they’ll see us perched on their stupid monument, laughin’ at them.’
He waved generously at his friends. ‘We’ll get all your little brothers ’n sisters back. And maybe we’ll make the masters kiss our backsides while we’re at it.’
His friends snickered their approval. There was no persuading them out of it, though Dolph tried. They hoisted their human prisoners off the broken ox-cart and marched them up the road, with Missus Slink and the captain dragged along behind.
Brother Poosk scampered before them with his hands raised in protest. ‘No, please!’ he cried. ‘Will you not turn around? I would much rather stay where we were. Please, young sir, think of my wounded pride.’
Oh, you are so clever, thought Dolph. But I’m no town bratling, Brother Poosk. I’m Orca’s daughter, and you won’t fool me.
She almost missed the quiet Psst! from the roadside. But she glanced down just in time to see a tiny paw beckoning her from under a bush.
She stopped in her tracks. ‘Missus Slink? But I thought—’
‘Nah, it’s me, shipmate.’
‘Mister Smoke?’ Now Dolph was even more astonished. She bent over, pretending she had a stone in her boot. ‘Is Petrel here with you? Or Fin? Or Sharkey and Rain?’
‘They’re inside the monument, shipmate, along with the Singer and ’er brother. Poosk’s got ’em trapped, but that’s not so bad as it sounds, cos they’re lookin’ for somethin’ that might ’elp us, and with a bit of luck they’ll find it. I came out to check on the cap’n. And Fin’s mam and the Fetcher.’
‘She is Fin’s mam. I thought so.’ Dolph explained what was happening. ‘They’ve got the cap’n all tied up. Missus Slink too. They think they’ll be able to use ’em for bargaining—’
She glanced south, and shaded her eyes. Then she groaned out loud. ‘And here come the rest of ’em.’
Up the road from the Citadel came the Devouts, with Brother Thrawn still at the forefront in his wheeled chair, and the bratling hostages still keeping them safe.
Even from this distance, Dolph could see that some of the Devouts had an air of bewilderment about them, as if they couldn’t understand why they were no longer in the Citadel, living off other folk’s labour. But most of them stumped up the road with fury and contempt in every inch of their bodies.
‘They might be out of the Citadel, but they’re not beaten yet,’ murmured Dolph. ‘Mister Smoke, are you going back to the others?’
‘Aye, when I’ve checked on the cap’n,’ said the rat.
‘Then whatever they’re doing, whatever they’re looking for, you tell ’em to hurry up, you hear me? Because if the Devouts get hold of the cap’n and Missus Slink, they’ll be dead within minutes. And so will Fin’s mam and the Fetcher.’
Petrel hadn’t moved since the door swung open. None of them had. They stood there, shocked into stillness. All the urgency, all that desperate need to hurry, was forgotten. Even Nat, who could see nothing, was frozen to the spot, as if the echoes of a world three hundred years old were ringing in his ears.
After weeks of mud and squalor, after the hate-filled crevices of the Grand Monument, this was almost impossible to believe.
Petrel closed her mouth, which had fallen open, and took a single step forward, holding the lantern high. Metal gleamed at her, as bright as a sun-struck glacier. She saw rows of dials, banked up to the ceiling, with so many coloured wires running between them that she felt dizzy. There were steel ladders to the uppermost levels, and an enormous stack of what might have been batteries, only there were more of them than she could count. Above the batteries, huge black pipes ran in one direction, while small white pipes crossed them. The far wall was curtained from top to bottom with heavy cloth, and a red lever was set in the middle of the floor.
There was not a speck of dust anywhere.
Petrel was in the habit of measuring everything she saw against the Oyster. That was the world she knew best, and so far West Norn had come a very poor second. But this place – even her beloved ship couldn’t match it, mainly because the Oyster was rusty and tired, whereas this hidden room looked as if it had just been built five minutes ago.
In a daze, she tiptoed forward. A white coat hung on the back of a chair, as if whoever owned it would be back at any moment. Petrel wondered if it had once belonged to Serran Coe. Maybe he was the one who’d drawn the arrows and numbers on that big black board. Maybe it was his china cup resting on the edge of one of the control panels.
This is the world the cap’n came from, thought Petrel. This is the world that made him.
Gwin was the first to break the silence, whispering an awed description to her brother. She had names for hardly any of the things she saw, so it was the oddest description Petrel had ever heard, but at least it got things moving.
Sharkey said, ‘It’s like a giant engine room, only I can’t see any engines.’
‘Whatever it is,’ said Fin, in a voice that was very close to breaking, ‘what are we going to do with it?’
That brought the urgency back again. Only now it was worse than ever because they had found something important and must use it – if they could only work out how.
Sharkey ran across the floor, saying, ‘Bring the lantern, Petrel.’
She hurried to the curtain, which the Sunker boy was already pulling back. Behind it was a thick glass wall, and on the other side of the wall, something moved.
‘What is it?’ asked Rain, standing back a little.
‘Can’t quite see.’ Petrel shaded her eyes. ‘But it’s alive. It’s—’
Something rushed at the glass and she leapt backwards, half expecting the wall to shatter. But the glass was so thick that it didn’t even shake.
‘It’s water,’ said Sharkey. ‘It’s the sea. There must be a tunnel from the coast.’
The wave fell away, white-edged, then surged again. Sharkey ran back to the centre of the room and grasped the red lever.
‘Wait,’ cried Petrel. ‘We don’t know what it is.’
Sharkey pointed to the lettering. OFF. ON. ‘This is where your cap’n was supposed to come. And this was left here for him. It’s off right now, but I swear we’re meant to turn it on.’
‘But what will it do?’ asked Rain.
Sharkey nodded towards the glass wall. ‘My guess is it’ll set something moving, a turbine or something like that. But there’s only one way to find out.’ He looked at Petrel, as if asking permission.
Petrel chewed her thumbnail. Sharkey was right, it seemed very much like an engine room of some sort. Maybe the water moving back and forth fed the batteries, the same way the wind did on the Oyster. But what if they pulled the lever and it made a lot of noise starting up? Would the folk up above hear it, and if they did, would it make things worse for the captain or better? Would it save Fin’s mam and the Fetcher? Or would it bring their deaths closer?
And even if it was quiet, what could she and her friends do with it? They needed a lot more than an engine room if the prisoners were to be saved and the Devouts defeated.
It was then that Mister Smoke returned, scuttling into the lantern light so quick and quiet that he was peering up at Fin before Petrel realised he was there. ‘Your mam’s still alive, shipmate, and so’s the Fetcher. The cap’n’s no better and no worse than ’e was, and there’s no sign of Hob and the mountain folk. But the Devouts are comin’ up the road. All that stands between them and the prisoners is Dolph and a few town bratlings, so whatever you’re doin’, you’d best get a move on.’
‘But we don’t know—’ began Petrel.
‘You seen a workshop anywhere?’ continued the rat, who didn’t seem at all surprised or impressed by their extraordinary discovery. ‘Place like this should ’ave one. Over yonder, maybe.’ And he dashed off again, disappearing through
a doorway in the far corner.
Sharkey touched the lever again. Petrel caught Fin’s eye. They both gulped, knowing what was at stake. Fin nodded, meaning he was prepared to take the risk. Petrel looked at Gwin. She nodded too, though her eyes were so astonished they looked as if they might pop out of her head.
Petrel turned back to Sharkey and said, ‘Do it. Now.’
Sharkey’s hands tightened on the red lever. And with one swift motion, he shifted it from OFF to ON.
BARGAINS
By the time Dolph reached the foot of the Grand Monument, the town bratlings and their prisoners were perched a quarter of the way up it, looking down on Brother Poosk. They had all seen the approaching horde, and Gant was puffing out his chest, saying, ‘I’ll bargain with the number-one master, I will. And I’ll get the better of ’im. You wait ’n see.’
His mates snickered and tried to look as if they believed his boasts. But they were all terrified, even Gant – Dolph could see it in their faces.
She thought she heard a faint rumble of thunder, and wondered if there was a storm approaching. But the sound came once only, and she soon forgot about it.
She didn’t try to climb the immense pile of squared stones that loomed in front of her. She thought she could race up it fast enough, but Gant and his mates were so jumpy that she was afraid they might kill one of their prisoners by mistake, so she stopped just a little way past Brother Poosk, and waited to see what would happen next.
Poosk was waiting too, his pale eyes fixed on the prisoners. He ignored the approaching Devouts, even when the combined scuff of their feet slurred to a halt, and their leaders were close enough for a shouted message.
Dolph, however, watched them warily. She saw the moment when they recognised Poosk, and their confusion, and the heated arguments that took place over Brother Thrawn’s head. She saw Thrawn raise one hand an inch or two above the arm of his wheeled chair, and say something that silenced those around him.
She saw the army of shipfolk and Sunkers, too, keeping pace with the Devouts. There was no room for them on the road, so they strode on either side of it, trampling bushes and clumps of grass, and bending small trees out of the way, until the whole countryside looked like storm-tossed seaweed.