by Lian Tanner
She dragged herself upwards, closer and closer to that wonderful blue patch, until it was just a few inches above her. With one final heave she was outside, almost at the top of the monument, but round the back where no one could see her, just like Mister Smoke had said.
The first thing she did was look up at the sky, hoping to see tattered sails and a ship full of ferocious mountain folk.
But the sky was empty, apart from the sun and a few clouds, and Nat was scrambling out after her, right on the edge of a treacherous drop.
She grabbed his hand. ‘We in time?’ he whispered.
‘I think so. Sun’s still shining.’ Gwin unfastened the ropes from her brother’s ankle and looped one of them around a good solid stone. When she’d tested it to make sure it wouldn’t give way, she picked up the other and began to pull on it.
This bit was almost as nerve-racking as the climb. Far below, the other end of the rope was tied to a sack, and Petrel was set to help it along, making sure it didn’t bang against anything as it rose up the wall, then easing it gently through the stones while Gwin pulled just as gently from above.
It was more than likely, thought Gwin, that the precious contents of the sack wouldn’t arrive in one piece. Or that Petrel would miss her footing and crack her head, or be unable to wriggle through one of the tight bits. And they’d never get the sack around all those corners without her.
‘We should’ve brought it with us,’ she whispered to Nat. ‘Tied it to my ankle, maybe.’
‘We’d have broken something,’ he replied.
‘Can you hear her? Is she still coming?’
‘Yes. She’s about halfway. I can hear Poosk too. He says— He says he’s going to send a demon to eat the sun. If they don’t hand over the prisoners he’s going to darken the world forever.’
Gwin groaned. Hob, where are you? Hurry!
The waiting was almost unbearable and so was trying to keep that cautious pressure on the rope. Gwin wanted to haul on it, to jerk it upwards. She wasn’t sure what the lead-up to an eclipse was supposed to feel like, but the air around her was thick and sullen. Somewhere to the south a dog was howling like a broken-hearted child.
‘What if they believe Poosk?’ she whispered to Nat. ‘What if they hand Papa over before the eclipse?’
Nat shook his head. ‘They haven’t yet. Poosk’s still threatening them.’
At last the rope slackened and Gwin heard an urgent hiss. And there was Petrel, her face scraped and speckled with dirt, peering up at them from between the stones with the sack in her hands.
They pulled it out, and Petrel climbed after it with such a fiercely determined expression on her face that Gwin was suddenly glad to have the other girl on their side.
She opened the sack – and heaved a sigh of relief. Nothing was broken, nothing was spilled. Everything was exactly as it should be.
‘Once Sharkey’s got things connected up he’s gunna try and climb the rope,’ whispered Petrel. ‘And so’re Fin and Rain.’
‘They won’t fit through that last bit,’ said Nat. ‘They’ll get stuck.’
Petrel grinned unexpectedly. ‘That’s what I told ’em. But Sharkey said he wouldn’t be left behind, not for anything, and that he’d get out somehow, even if he had to pull the whole stinking monument down around his ears.’ She picked up the end of the cable and pointed upwards. ‘Let’s get into position.’
And the three children began to climb towards the top of the monument.
THE END OF THE WORLD . . .
Gant and his friends were holding firm, but only just. Dolph could see them trembling, even from where she stood.
‘Don’t believe him,’ she shouted. ‘There’s no such thing as demons. And nothing can eat the sun. He’s lying.’
‘You will see,’ cried Poosk. ‘The darkness is coming. Can you not feel it in the air?’
The trouble was, Dolph could feel it. Or at least, she could feel something. And she didn’t like it one bit.
‘If you give up your prisoners to the Devouts,’ she shouted to Gant, ‘you’re as good as dead. Bring ’em down here; shipfolk’ll take care of you.’
Gant looked from Dolph to Poosk and back to Dolph. From the expression on his face, he was wishing he’d never seen the prisoners, much less snatched them. Behind his back, his mates were whispering nonstop, and nodding towards Brother Poosk.
Dolph edged closer to the base of the monument. If I could get up there beside them, I reckon I could persuade Gant to hold out. And I’d best get up there anyway, because Poosk’ll have to make his move soon, before folk realise all this stuff about a demon is just empty threats. If I was in his shoes, I’d—
She never finished the thought. Because the impossible was happening. The air was growing colder. The birds stopped singing, as if it was dusk. The dogs howled one more time, then they too fell silent.
It was noon, and the sun was going out.
It was the most terrifying thing Dolph had ever experienced. As she stood there, shivering, the watching townsfolk fell to their knees, crying for mercy, and so did most of the Devouts, all the way back down the road. Dolph wanted to fall to her knees with them and beg Poosk for forgiveness. It was only the thought of her mam that stopped her. First Officer Orca had never begged for anything. The world could’ve splintered into a million pieces and she would’ve stood there, sharp as a knife, trying to see a way through it for her and her folk.
So that’s what Dolph did. With her breath hissing in and out, she reminded herself that her beliefs were built around ice and salt water. She didn’t give a toss for demons. She believed in a world that made sense, however strange that sense might sometimes be.
Which meant that Brother Poosk had nothing to do with what was happening.
She wasn’t the only one standing firm. There were a good number of shipfolk and Sunkers on their knees, but Adm’ral Deeps and First Officer Hump were lighting lanterns with shaky hands, and Albie and Krill and a few others were striding through the ranks, clapping folk on the shoulder and trying unsuccessfully to haul them to their feet.
As for the important Devouts – the ones right at the front who’d spoken with Poosk – they held burning torches, and although the torches shook even more violently than the lanterns, the faces above them were grim with expectation and hope.
They knew this was coming, thought Dolph. They’re relying on it to get hold of the cap’n, and to save themselves into the bargain.
Up on the monument, in the rapidly failing light, Gant and his mates crouched in terror with their hands over their heads.
‘Give up your prisoners,’ cried Brother Poosk, but the town bratlings merely wrapped their hands more tightly, as if that might hide them from both the Devouts and the sun-eating demon.
Poosk smirked and began to climb the monument, with half a dozen of his torch-carrying fellows close behind.
No! thought Dolph. And she leapt up the dark stones with reckless abandon.
Poosk saw her and tried to beat her. But Dolph had spent her life climbing the Oyster’s nets and jumping from one whalebone deck to another. She was as nimble as a swimming seal, and before Poosk was even halfway up the stones, she was standing in front of the prisoners with her knife in her hand.
Gant and his friends scrambled out of her way with a muffled whimper. But Poosk paused. Below him, the great throng was still crouched in darkness, with the townsfolk screaming, ‘Bring it back, master!’ ‘Bring back the sun!’ ‘Please, gracious sir, forgive us!’
The Devouts on the monument raised their torches so that Poosk looked like a man of flames and shadows. He held up his hands for silence and cried, ‘The sun will not come back until the invaders are beaten. Kill them!’
Dolph could see little of what happened next – it was getting too dark – but she could hear it. Scrambling feet, howls of desperation. The clash of blindly wielded weapons.
Somewhere Krill was bellowing, ‘Up and fight! Don’t let ’em catch you on the ground
. Up and fight!’
Poosk swung back to Dolph with the torchlight roiling around him. ‘Out of my way,’ he snarled.
Dolph laughed in his face. ‘You think I’m one of your village folk, too scared to breathe without permission?’ She jabbed at the air with her knife. ‘Come on. Who’s going to die first? You, or one of your men?’
From somewhere near her feet there was a rough cry, ‘I’m with you, shipmate.’
‘And I,’ said a more precise voice.
And there was Mister Smoke, with a tiny knife in his paw. And beside him, freed from her bonds and brandishing an equally tiny but very sharp screwdriver, was Missus Slink.
At the sight of the rats, Poosk and his men reeled back, but only for a moment. Dolph could see the anticipation of victory in their eyes, reflected along with the torchlight and the cudgels. Nothing would stop them now.
She swallowed. Even with the rats on her side she couldn’t fight half a dozen grown men, not all at once. But she’d do her best, right up to the end.
She leapt at them.
They weren’t expecting that, and for the first minute or so they got in each other’s way, and cursed, and burnt themselves with their torches. Dolph screamed in their faces as she attacked them, and Mister Smoke and Missus Slink darted in and out like fireflies, stabbing at their ankles and slicing through their bootlaces.
Before long, one of them had tripped over his own feet and fallen right down the monument, cracking his head as he went. Another two lay groaning on the ground, and for a brief moment, Dolph let herself hope that she might get out of this alive; that she might even be able to save the captain and Fin’s mam.
But there were three men left, not counting Poosk, each of them warier than their fellows, and quicker too. One of them threw his torch at Dolph, and its flames scorched her as she jumped aside. Another tore off his robe and threw it over Mister Smoke and Missus Slink. Then he and his fellows rushed Dolph, all three of them at once, swinging their cudgels like ice axes.
They were hopeless odds, and Dolph knew it. But – Right up to the end, she thought, and she kept fighting, ducking under those terrible cudgels, dodging the torches and wielding her knife with such speed and ferocity that she managed to put another man out of the fight.
Somewhere beneath her feet the two rats were struggling to escape from the robe. Dolph wished she had time to bend down and rip it off them, but she didn’t have a spare quarter-second, couldn’t even brush the hair out of her eyes or listen for what was happening below.
And then, somehow, Poosk was behind her. Dolph was so focused on the fight that she’d almost forgotten him; a mistake her mam would never have made. Dolph realised it just in time. She managed to duck the vicious blow aimed at her head, but it caught her wrist.
Her fingers opened; her knife tumbled from her grasp. She dived after it, so desperate to retrieve it that she didn’t see Missus Slink – who had wriggled out from under the robe – until the very last minute.
Dolph twisted to miss the old rat, and lost her balance. As she fell, Poosk loomed over her, smiling gently even as his cudgel descended . . .
Somewhere high above them a monstrous voice cracked open the darkness.
‘I. AM. COE!’
Dolph was braced so hard against the coming blow that she thought for a moment it had fallen.
But it hadn’t. Poosk’s cudgel trembled in midair.
It’s another of his tricks, thought Dolph.
Except Poosk looked as stunned as she felt. He and his men were staring upwards so fixedly that Dolph took the risk of looking up too.
At the very top of the monument, flames were leaping towards the sky. Directly behind them stood a giant, at least twice the height of a man. He wore a long cloak and a hood, and he raised his arms and roared again. ‘I AM COE!’
Gwin couldn’t see much of the eclipse. The curtain fell across her face and the brightness of the flames made her feel as if she was in a world of her own. She wasn’t, of course, because Nat’s shoulders were steady under her bare feet, and Petrel was behind her somewhere, keeping out of sight. But if she fell, neither of them would be able to help her. If she fell, she’d tumble right into the fire.
I’ve done this before, she reminded herself. I’ve stood on Nat’s shoulders and on Papa’s too. I was always better at balancing than I was at leaping.
Except she’d never had to balance like this, with half a curtain draped over her and the other half burning at Nat’s feet. She’d never had to balance while her brother bellowed through a speaking trumpet that they’d made out of a sheet of tin. She’d never had to balance when there were so many lives at stake.
Hob’d better hurry up and get here, she thought. But in her heart she knew he wasn’t coming. Perhaps the pigeon had fallen prey to a hawk or an arrow, and never reached the mountains. Perhaps Hob didn’t believe her note. Perhaps the airship had only ever existed in her imagination.
Whatever the reason, she understood now that no one was going to save them. It was up to her and Nat and Petrel. And Sharkey, working away inside the Grand Monument.
She heard a muffled whisper from Nat. ‘Should I shout again, do you think? I can’t hear much under here. What are they doing?’
‘I can’t see,’ replied Gwin. ‘Petrel, can you see?’
‘No, but it sounds as if they’ve stopped fighting. I think they’re all looking up at you. Ain’t it dark! Spookiest thing I ever saw. Glad you told us about it beforehand.’
Gwin swallowed. ‘If they’re looking up here then we should do the next bit.’
‘It’s not ready,’ said Petrel, ‘Sharkey said the cable’d hum when he got it all connected, but it’s not humming, not yet.’
Nat’s shoulders shifted slightly, as if he was trying to control his impatience. ‘We can’t just stand here. We have to say something more. Or do something. Otherwise that first shock’ll be wasted.’
‘Twasn’t wasted,’ said Petrel. ‘We had to stop ’em killing each other. And it worked—’
‘For the moment,’ said Nat. ‘But they’ll soon start again if nothing else happens. Maybe they’ll come after us as well. I think I should say something more.’
Gwin shifted her balance to compensate for her brother’s movements. ‘There’s nothing more to say. There’s just the bit about the light—’
‘Then I’ll say that.’
‘No!’ Gwin was just about jumping out of her skin with worry, but she knew they had to get the timing right. ‘Don’t you dare, Nat. We wait!’
Fin was pacing. He wanted so badly to help, but when it came to wires and switches and suchlike he was useless, so he strode up and down the underground room, wondering what was happening outside and trying very hard not to shout at Sharkey to hurry up.
Rain nibbled the nail of her little finger. She was useless too, but at least she could make up a song to go with whatever it was that Sharkey was doing.
‘Deep in the heart – of the first to fall,’ she sang, her voice trembling,
‘A boy worked hard to save them all—’
Sharkey knelt on the floor with a bundle of wires in his hands, mumbling to himself. ‘Wish I’d paid more attention when Adm’ral Deeps taught me this stuff. Red goes to red, aye, of course it does. And white to white. But is white the earth? Or is it black—’
He had not put his eye patch back on, and every now and again he rubbed at his bad eye as if he could make it see. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
Rain sang,
‘Wire to wire and switch to switch,
His fingers m-move without a hitch.’
‘I wish they did, Rain,’ murmured Sharkey, without looking up. ‘I truly wish they did. This one has to be the earth. So I should connect it like. . .this.’ He twisted two of the wires together. ‘And then like. . .this. Except that’s the way Sunkers do it – at least I think it is.’ He scrubbed at his bad eye again. ‘What if they did it different three hundred years ago? What if the colours mea
n different things? Then I’m done for—’
‘He trusts himself to d-do it right,
Red to red and white to white.’
Sharkey heaved a sigh. ‘Suppose I have to trust myself, don’t I.’ His hands sped up. He twisted more wires together in a pattern that Fin could not follow. One of his hands scrabbled for the switch he had found in the workshop. Sweat rolled down his face and he wiped it away with a damp sleeve.
Fin was almost screaming with impatience, and it must have showed, because Rain broke off from her singing and said, ‘You have to trust Petrel.’
‘I do,’ said Fin, standing still for the first time in what felt like hours. ‘I would trust her with my life. It is just taking so long.’ And he went back to his pacing.
At last Sharkey took a deep, shuddering breath and stood up. ‘I think— I think that should do it.’
He did not sound at all sure of himself, but by then Fin did not care. He ran across the room to the other boy and said, ‘Turn it on, then. Turn it on!’
Sharkey looked at him, then looked down at the switch. His finger moved. ‘There,’ he said quietly. ‘If that doesn’t work, nothing will.’
Dolph was inching away from the Devouts, as slow as a sea snail so as not to draw their attention.
She didn’t know who or what the monstrous figure at the top of the monument was, but it had come just in time and she was going to take full advantage of it. If she could get to her knife and then to the prisoners—
She eased her elbows a little further along the stone.
There was the robe, with Mister Smoke still struggling to get out from underneath it. Dolph raised the edge of the cloth and put her finger to her lips. Down below the monument all was silent, as if the whole world was in shock.
Mister Smoke crept out from under the robe, nodded at Dolph and made a beeline for the captain. Dolph picked up her knife, wondering where Missus Slink had got to and whether the giant figure had anything else up its sleeve.